Recent Failures Of Science and Experts And Mathemtatical Models Have Done Nothing To Diminish Humanists' Faith That They Are Experts On Just About Everything

A lot of us are complaining about failures of science and models and experts/expertise with respect to the Wuhan virus. I haven't been mad that science and scientists got things so wrong...if they even did... I'm more angry about the way they and the press misrepresented their degree of uncertainty, emphasized worst cases ergo fanning the flames of hysteria, and misused their positions to make highly politicized, bullshit claims (most famously, about protests--endorsing leftist protests and condemning conservative ones).

   Anyway: look: these are largely actual scientists, and they were addressing an empirical question, and they still got things way, way wrong.*

   You'd think there might be a cautionary tale in there for people who are (a) not scientists, and (b) are addressing a much messier set of questions, and (c) are making pronouncements outside their areas of expertise...wouldn'tcha? 

But noooo…. Almost all the humanists at my institution signed open letters about the recent racial turbulence...almost all of them revealing utter ignorance of the easily-available evidence, and compete obliviousness to the unlikely nature of the progressive view of the matter. It was basically progressive dogma right down the line--no effort to maintain institutional neutrality, nor to keep their claims modest, nor to even stick to the subject at hand. They just let loose with both left barrels, proclaiming extreme versions of the leftist view to be, basically, beyond any doubt.