Wednesday 17 March 2021
The iron logic of the thing
Sometimes a blog post idea flits through the grey matter but the briefest consideration says nope – too obvious. Yet even the obvious has to be brought out for an airing every now and then because it still has some significance.
For example – suppose establishment scientist Sir Brian Boffin expects some kind of epidemic to hit the UK in the near future. We’ll assume it is a viral epidemic via a virus not previously encountered although the family to which this virus belongs is well known.
Sir Brian's job as a scientific bureaucrat is to advise the government about the likely impact of an epidemic. Being a bureaucrat there is no way Sir Brian will risk being too specific. More importantly there is no way on earth that he will risk underestimating the impact, particularly the number of deaths. It is important to put the thing crudely in this case. Nuanced won’t do.
1. Politically, partial responsibility for underestimated deaths will become Sir Brian's partial responsibility. Partial responsibility for the real deaths of real people.
2. Politically, partial responsibility for overestimated deaths is nothing. Sir Brian's partial responsibility for deaths which did not happen perhaps, for people who survived.
This leaves us with one question to which we already know the answer. Which option does an establishment bureaucrat such as Sir Brian go for? Naturally we end up with gross exaggeration. Within certain broad limits, the wilder the exaggeration, the safer the approach. Expecting establishment bureaucrats to opt for anything else is hopelessly naïve.
The iron logic of the thing drives it. Drives them. Drives us.
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5 comments:
There's another angle to this. Sir Brian's wild over-estimation is more readily accepted by politicians and the establishment, because they can then take the credit for defeating the menace and keeping deaths way below what the "science" predicted.
But unfortunately for Sir Brian, the politicians need to parade him around looking like a scientist ("Do you think we need three lecterns?") and actually name him. Then, when the public start to link his wild over-estimation to the knackered economy, lack of haircut, and granny dying alone in care, Sir Brian might start wishing for the good old days when he would have been a "backroom boy".
Anyone who bothers to look at the predictions on the weather from the Met Office will see similar, always at the top end,wind speed amount of rain, hot or cold, always with a margin that can be reduced overnight but rarely increased, only Michael Fish ever got it spectacularly wrong, in his understatement, they have made sure they are never put in that position again.
Naturally they want more millions for another computer so their modelling can be as good as Prof Niel 'horizontal' Ferguson's.
Not 'logic' as I understand it - which is that the relationship between 'inputs' and 'outputs' must be transparent, demonstrable and reversible.
All today's problems may be traced to bureaucrats - they think of humans and numbers on a spreadsheet, so actual deprivations or harms resulting from their (in)actions are just corrections and updates. Are they all emotionless psychopaths? Probably not, but many are.
Feeble-minded politicians, easily swayed and corrupted, coupled with mad medics and these faceless bureaucrats, have destroyed so much in the past 12 months. But responsibilities? Blame? Apologies? Forget it!
As numbers on a spreadsheet, not 'and'
Sam - yes, Boris seems to have persuaded Sir Brian to stand at that lectern instead of hiding in the advisory shadows. As you say, this could be a mistake.
Wiggia - we've mostly given up on the Met Office and now check all their forecasts against the online BBC version provided by MeteoGroup. This one seems to be less pessimistic and more reliable.
Ed - I agree, bureaucrats are the problem. They control the official information and the resources via which politicians have to act and the bureaucrats are there long after the politicians have moved on.
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