Monday, April 6, 2020

Our troubled epistemic times

An article which encapsulates our troubled epistemic times. From Nope: Oliver Darcy Tells Trump CNN Has ‘Accurately Reported’ on the Wuhan Virus, but Receipts Tell Different Story by Sister Toldjah.

President Trump tweets about CNNs bad reporting. One of their star reporters attempts to refute.



An anonymous twitter account then compiles a series of CNN tweets which demonstrate CNN tweets that convey news which is now considered demonstrably wrong. Some pretty recent.









But it is important to note that all this demonstrates is that CNN is being lax, rabidly partisan, biased, and almost certainly wrong in their reporting about Covid-19. Their claim to have accurately reported on Covid-19 is undermined by their asymmetric bias (their editorial stance is that whatever Trump says must be wrong) and their inclination to rewrite history (when Trump closed of flights with China, per CNN at the time it was ignorant xenophobia, now, per CNN he did not close of flights early enough).

And that is all true enough. CNN has done an extremely poor job of reporting because of their toxic mix of bias, arrogance, ignorance, and innumeracy.

HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

None of our data is consistent, complete or accurate. We are still using widely variant definitions of what constitutes a death from Covid-19. None of our models are yet known to be reliable. Different countries, looking at the same global mess of data, are arriving at diametrically different policy approaches. Covid-19 seems to manifest in different countries in different fashions for reasons yet not known. HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

“The flu is far deadlier than the coronavirus” CNN March 7 - This might end up being true. Ball park, 50,000 people die from pneumonia each year. If Covid-19 ends up taking 10,000 per year (once we get clarity of cause of death definitions and reasonably accurate data collection). CNNs statement would be true that the flu is far deadlier than Covid-19. But if all causes mortality is up by 10,000 due to Covid-19, then we still have a material problem. If, however, all causes mortality numbers don't change and Covid-19 simply becomes a different proximate cause (as pneumonia often is) for already near-death people, then perhaps it is all moot. HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

“The risk is low. The risk, however, for the flu is through the roof!” CNN, February 15 We were already having a bad flu year. I am not certain that it is was outside the bounds of normal year-on-year vairance, i.e. "through the roof". But the risk of Covid-19 might be low. Testing in Iceland supports that proposition. The Princess Cruise ship experience supports that proposition. South Korea, so far, seems to support that proposition. Italy does not. Spain does not. HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

“The flu is more deadly” CNN, January 31 Perhaps. Flu has a commonly accepted mortality rate of approximately 0.1%. Pneumonia more like 0.9%. This statement is possibly true in a limited fashion. If we interpret it as "The flu in the past has killed more people" then it is definitely true. If we interpret it as "The flu in the future will still be more deadly than Covid-19, but Covid-19 will add to our all-causes mortality rate" that is also likely to be true. However, if we interpret this to mean that "In the future we are going to find that the flu has a higher mortality rate (rather than absolute number of deaths) than Covid-19", that currently seems improbable. HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

"I would certainly agree with Sanjay that this is a low-risk situation in the United States.” - Dr Wm Schaffner
CNN, January 31
In the absence of any reliable data on January 31 as to the true dimensions of Covid-19, (tranmissability rates, actual infections volumes, single-cause mortality rates, etc.) this could only have been an opinion at that time and therefore can be neither correct or incorrect. Probably an unwise opinion even then, but certainly one for which plausible arguments could have been mustered. HOWEVER, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

Sister Toldjah is correct - CNN is a bad source of unbiased, reasoned, reasonably accurate information presented in a useful context. A really bad source.

But their guilt is not about being wrong. Their guilt is overconfidence without evidence that they are right. Because the evidence still does not exist one way or another and smart, well-intentioned people across the world are reading the same tea-leaves and arriving at different conclusions.

Guilty of overconfidence certainly. Hypocritical bias as well. When CNN criticizes opinions held by others when they themselves still hold those very same opinions or held them strongly up till a week or two ago, then CNN can be dismissed as hypocritical bigots.

But that's a lot of epistemic nuance.

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