Lockdown Sceptics has an interesting analysis of Professor Neil Ferguson’s reply to a reader.
I was interested to see Professor Neil Ferguson’s reply to one of your readers. I was surprised he had replied, but no less surprised that anyone had bothered to write to him.
Now, I think it’s a bit unfair to write to someone and then publish that person’s reply, especially if it hadn’t been made clear the reply would be published. However, it has been, and I suppose anyone in public life would have to be naïve to believe that anything they say is immune to being disseminated more widely.
I thought it would be interesting therefore to analyse the reply.
Ferguson comes across as supercilious and evasive, not dissimilar to some orthodox climate scientists in his attitude towards sceptics. To my mind it is worth noting how unprofessional Ferguson's response was and what this may imply more generally.The interesting question is to ask how many people of this type are needed to provide the scientific steamroller used to protect dodgy political narratives. Possibly not a large number as such people are certainly capable of screwing up internal debates. Globally their numbers may be remarkably small.
4 comments:
He certainly seems to lack empathy, or a sense of responsibility. After all, his model, plus the 3 others that agree with his in some undisclosed way, have been used as a way of terrifying the population. And they bore no similarity with the course of the epidemic. If only we could get him to read about the scientific method
"not dissimilar to some orthodox climate scientists in his attitude towards sceptics"
LOLZ, exactly.
They were right to bring up his past failures in order to question his judgement, but after his initial sneering response they should have gone further. "If you're so smart, Mr. Professor, how come you lost your job due to breaking your own lockdown rules to commit adultery with some random scrubber off the internet?"
Graeme - his is an odd career because he seems to have ended up in a field for which he has no formal training. As if a forceful character was enough.
Mark - it's similar to watching children behave in the same predictable way when they reach certain stages in their development.
Sam - it raises an interesting question too - how much self-knowledge is needed to qualify as smart? More than Ferguson possesses apparently.
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