COVID-19 SCIENCE

Has science lost the plot?

By Dr Juergen Ude | February 14th 2021 All sciences related to pandemics are soft sciences. This includes virology, epidemiology, treatment, cause of death ascertainment, decision science, vaccination, mitigation, and of course data science.

Hard sciences have traditionally been natural or physical sciences such as chemistry, physics, biology and physics and soft sciences psychology, sociology etc. But some categories, especially biology, are problematic relative to the core difference between soft science and hard science.

The core difference is that scientific investigations for hard science results in relatively concrete conclusions based on strictly measurable criteria. For soft sciences, these criteria are difficult to establish and conclusions are unreliable because there are too many interacting factors, many unknown.

Throughout the pandemic health authorities and leaders treated facts as absolute, reflected in the covid-19 propaganda statements. It was a fact that the virus is deadly and kills young and old and healthy. It was a fact that models were correct. It was a fact that South Korea’s (short-lived) success was due to its testing program. It was a fact that Australia would reach Italy’s deaths numbers. It was fact that the Virus started in the Wuhan Wet Market.

None were absolute facts. There is no concrete certainty in soft science. Everything depends on some other unknown factor.

The scientific process is not questioned. What is questioned is how certain scientists involved in the pandemic are so certain when the sciences are soft science, which has no certainty.

To treat soft science on the same level as hard science is treating possibility as certainty. Treating possibility as certainty is distorting reality. No pandemic can be managed without causing unnecessary damage by distorting reality. Humanity suffers.