COVID reminds us that there is a reason we have science - because reality is neither easy nor tidy, neither are people, and if we want to be more than mere monkeys gaping at the approaching storm, we need a torch to aid our way out of ignorance and into enlightenment.
Expertise matters: a response to a COVID critic on Facebook
No-one can be an expert in all things, and the average Facebook user lacks the education and experience to be an expert on such complicated subjects as epidemiology or infectious diseases.
Not all opinions are created equal. Opinions that are informed by facts, data, logic, and science are better than opinions that are not. And opinions that are based on fantasy, misinformation, wishful thinking, and ignorance are the least of all.
Hari Seldon on scientific truth
Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty - Foundation, Isaac Asimov
I put "he/him" in my Twitter profile, and I love it when "conservatives" claim it's against science. That is incorrect. Sex is not binary at the genetic or physiological levels. Gender is defined culturally, and many cultures do not have strict binary genders.
If reporting facts and data without injecting false balance or pretending that there is some midpoint between true and false or between reality and fantasy is activism, then we need more activist journalists, not fewer.
