Most of the reaction here has been of the headless chicken variety.

I haven't seen too much rationality around this issue in general.

Says more about the national psyche than the actual level of risk.

It was very effective. Until a vaccine for Ebola is available, the old method of quarantine will work quite well.

The returning nurse can thank Dr. Spencer for the imposition of quarantine by his running around all over New York City and Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who broke a voluntary 21-day quarantine in New Jersey.

I seriously doubt that the New York and New Jersey Public Health Departments are sufficiently funded and staffed to trace the possible contacts of hundreds of medical professionals returning from working on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Until a vaccine is available, world governments should use quarantine to prevent a localized epidemic from becoming a pandemic.

As for the criticism of discontinuing commercial air traffic to and from West Africa, two words: Berlin Airlift.

No work, no visitors, no school.

She might get stranded at an airport terminal and not be able to shower on schedule.

Just sayin'.

Wut?

The authority is often named as "science", sometimes "experts"...

Anyone who has given the power structure involved in healthcare passing consideration, realizes it is much about institutionalizing social hierarchies around 'authority'.

It doesn't take much inspection to reveal that many of posts are trust/faith-based statements founded on what amounts to belief that persons and institutions granted authority achieved it/earned it rightly and exercise it properly.

Clearly, the response to Ebola brings forward structures from different aspects of society with superficially similar objectives (health and welfare for all) but around competing lines of authority.

It seems to me that, a significant part of the gear-grinding noise emerges from the struggle between authority.

backed primarily by self-promotion and personal ambition. Huge difference.

there's been very little in the way of referencing anything other than the 'authority' says... whether it's MDs, CDC administration, or NIH.

People assume they are citing science, but they are citing authorities.

During early HIV days, there were also fear based speculation merchants and others making use of the best science as it developed. We managed that starting with zero knowledge, did not even know if it was a virus at first. We had a very simple set of sayings back then....
Knowledge = Life
Silence = Death

None of the bullshit flying around about ebola is new. It's all retreaded idiot fear which never saved a single life. I'm not going to pretend for you that knowledge and speculation are equals. They are not.

I'm writing about people who write things like "CDC says" "Fauci says". Those are actually appeals to authority. And I am not trying to say that an appeal to authority is inherently bad. Sometimes authorities know what they are talking about.

I'll go with what the majority of experts in the field say. They didn't just make all this shit up with the latest outbreak.

as in formal reviews, reports of findings etc. You know what's actually in the consensus understanding.

If a person adopts the notion "most scientistis concur" without knowing anything about what the consensus understanding actually is, then a person is mostly making an appeal to authority rather than an appeal to the evidence.

Much of dogma that traps prevents advancing understanding is/was supported by consensus among the experts.

Here is an example...
Recognition that chromosomes contained large amounts of DNA happened fairly early. Recognition that chromosomes were related to genetics happened fairly early. But acceptance that DNA was the stuff of inheritance was blocked by a faulty belief that DNA formed squarish shaped molecules made up of 4 nucleotides...no where near enough variation was possible in that model to account for the information associated with inheritance...so people concurring with that view spent decades trying to figure out how proteins were the stuff of inheritance, including Linus Pauling a famous and very capable researcher.

Maybe you'll get the point I was making.

Or not.

'it's science', or because a speaker/writer who made a statement is 'a scientist'.

I think I understand it. I think I know it has weaknesses. Science is chock o block full of stuff that's poorly developed and mostly still understood, or poorly interpreted because it can't break out of dogmatic points of view.

It's also regularly peppered with bad designs, mistakes and outright fraud.

understood in terms of transmission.

I've worked in public health as a ear to the phone and boots on the shop floor epidemiologist.

But it seems most folks are completely missing my point in favor of rushing to defend against what they see as an attack on science and medicine

That response suggests there is an emotional reaction to being critical of science...that's something more to be expected from true believers in fundamentalist religion, than people who understand and practice science.

But I'm not attacking science or medicine, I'm saying that much of what people are doing is merely appealing to authority because information came out of an institution or an expert.

If you aren't appealing TO THE EVIDENCE, which might be directly empirical, or which might be drawn from theoretical considerations built from evidence it's just an appeal to authority.

Sometimes authority is right, sometimes it isn't. You CANNOT tell the difference unless you consider the information in evidence.

WORK FOR US SOME DAY!"

cruel and exploitive to use their fear to get votes, who would do such a thing?

This article seems to be real news.
It is getting so hard to tell the difference any more.


Sarcasm thingy for the humor impaired.

satire died the moment Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

I don't know any dogs or cats who are scared.

-- Mal

This article is satire. Of course, like so much of what Borowitz writes, it has an element of truth to it.

There is an adrenaline rush to it I think.

The most medically ignorant search out scare articles to reinforce their ignorance. I suppose reading Medicalese at the CDC and NIH sites is just too hard, so they go to places written at about a seventh grade level like Natural News.

They won't listen to those of us who work or have worked in the field and can translate the Medicalese for them. They'd rather scare themselves even more stupid.

And that explains Christie and Cuomo and everybody else who is allowing stupid people to make bad law.