> Any questions?
I'm not timr, but I share a lot of his concerns, so I'll try to answer. I think your model of how he is thinking is probably wrong. Some people (including me) care tremendously about the truth of an argument, independent of whether making that argument leads to a desirable social outcome. His "agenda" is likely a strong philosophical belief that it's more important to base policy on a solid scientific foundation than to reach an apparently preferred conclusion, because this is more likely to reliably reach a long term positive result. At least, that's what it feels like internally for me.
Despite your claims, the situation is not simple. Take this paper for instance. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that it is irredeemably flawed. That is, while boosters are probably a good idea for most people, I don't think it will be the case that greater than 1% of the doubly vaccinated but unboosted population will die of Covid in the next year. I think there are methodological problems with their approach that make their specific conclusions mostly meaningless. Unfortunately, despite these flaws, this is probably a higher quality study than most that are being relied upon to make policy.
For context, understand that I've been laid out in bed for most of the last week recovering from my recent Covid booster. I still believe that for me, taking a Covid booster probably was a better choice than not taking one. I don't currently believe that it produces the best health outcomes for a 14 year old boy, but I'm open to the possibility that it's best for society as a whole to put young males at slightly greater risk for the benefit of the rest of society. Please consider that you might be overconfident in how obvious the answers are.
I'm not timr, but I share a lot of his concerns, so I'll try to answer. I think your model of how he is thinking is probably wrong. Some people (including me) care tremendously about the truth of an argument, independent of whether making that argument leads to a desirable social outcome. His "agenda" is likely a strong philosophical belief that it's more important to base policy on a solid scientific foundation than to reach an apparently preferred conclusion, because this is more likely to reliably reach a long term positive result. At least, that's what it feels like internally for me.
Despite your claims, the situation is not simple. Take this paper for instance. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that it is irredeemably flawed. That is, while boosters are probably a good idea for most people, I don't think it will be the case that greater than 1% of the doubly vaccinated but unboosted population will die of Covid in the next year. I think there are methodological problems with their approach that make their specific conclusions mostly meaningless. Unfortunately, despite these flaws, this is probably a higher quality study than most that are being relied upon to make policy.
For context, understand that I've been laid out in bed for most of the last week recovering from my recent Covid booster. I still believe that for me, taking a Covid booster probably was a better choice than not taking one. I don't currently believe that it produces the best health outcomes for a 14 year old boy, but I'm open to the possibility that it's best for society as a whole to put young males at slightly greater risk for the benefit of the rest of society. Please consider that you might be overconfident in how obvious the answers are.