26th September 2020
Epidemiology can’t be even remotely called a science. My Tweets over 6 months.
I started with a reasonably neutral position regarding epidemiology a few months ago but by now I can’t think of one good word to say about this “discipline”. Some of my Tweets over the months, below:
FARR'S LAW:
"every epidemiologist … ignores the most basic rule in epidemiology called Farr’s Law (dating to 1840 and before any public health organizations), that says epidemics peak and decline on their own."
https://t.co/IBEce2VDN9— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) April 10, 2020
Johan Giesecke is smashing up @neil_ferguson.
I'm entirely persuaded by Giesecke and have found Neil Ferguson's approach and models unconvincing.
There will be books written on this when this is all over. Epidemiology will never be the same again.https://t.co/X40Hlb7e7D pic.twitter.com/K5y77tA95h
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) April 30, 2020
The "mad scientist" is not a creation of the movies but a grim ongoing reality.
Eugenics and psychiatry have always supported totalitarian dictatorships. "Climate science" followed suit. And today epidemiology.
Science without ethics is pure evil.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) April 30, 2020
Angus Tegnell is blowing up a huge hole in the discipline of epidemiology.
Never has the pretense of knowledge of an entire discipline been so badly exposed.
Good, informed judgement and respect for liberty are ever more important.#NobelforTegnell
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 4, 2020
This pandemic should lead to the rewriting of all textbooks in epidemiology, and should lead to a law (like they have in Sweden) that governments must require court orders for each individual, to restrain them at home for quarantine or lockdown. … 2
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 5, 2020
Perhaps in no other discipline are models so badly divorced from reality as in epidemiology.
Epidemiologists tell us that herd immunity requires 60% to get infected but similar pandemics rarely infect more than 25%.
This 60% is cooked up from assumed values in an equation!
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 28, 2020
We need to STOP modelling!
Even while reading otherwise good papers, I sense the complete failure of epidemiology.
They keep giving names to concepts, then assume numerical values for them, but don't pay attention either to biology or history.https://t.co/TEseF0o0Is
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 29, 2020
Just because a mathematical representation can be made about something doesn't make it scientific!
Science is about understanding reality. Unless the maths first "predicts" reality with accuracy, it is just another form of astrology.
Epidemiology = climate science = quackery.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 29, 2020
I've uploaded an extract from a webinar discussion between Michael Levitt and an Imperial College academic.
The Imperial College is clearly off by a factor of 10 because they don't think widely and broadly. Bad epidemiology.https://t.co/07blsq3xfM
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 31, 2020
At least one country's epidemiologists are smelling the coffee.
As I wrote some time ago, ALL TEXTBOOKS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY NEED TO BE ENTIRELY RE-WRITTEN. This is surely the crappiest "science" on earth.https://t.co/xRM0FnM3HI pic.twitter.com/EUuegXOaz9
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 31, 2020
Or rather, let me say that epidemiology competes with climate "science" for this title. Fierce competition between the two.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) May 31, 2020
@neil_ferguson has done a great favour to mankind. He has proved to billions of people why mathematical modelling is not reality. Primitive disciplines like economics, climate science and epidemiology will now hopefully learn some humility. And people will run from "experts".
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 4, 2020
These characters (I derogatively refer to alleged scientists who call themselves "epidemiologists") are the bane of mankind. Cooked up cost benefit tests that fit their political goals. Perverse to call epidemiology a science. pic.twitter.com/h3Oikvkjkr
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 7, 2020
Stop misleading journalists. This is the most bogus "discipline" that violates all principles of science and reason. We've seen enough of it and are sick of it. Shut down all epidemiology departments.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 14, 2020
Phenomenal insights on this thread on 7 March, even as I had written about the common sense approach to this pandemic on 6 March – an approach I still stand by: https://t.co/2U8EIWfau4
Epidemiology and science are polar opposites. https://t.co/9XIophxDFQ
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 14, 2020
LOCKDOWN EPIDEMIOLOGISTS MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH AND MAIMING OF MILLIONS OF CHILDREN
There is no more dangerous "discipline" than epidemiology. These people have no common sense, no sense at all.https://t.co/cSDB6Ixg0C
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 15, 2020
We can also retire the theory that epidemiologists know *anything* useful about the growth of pandemics, or when they begin or end.
The "science" of epidemiology has caused unprecedented damage not just to economies but to Western civilisation itself. The Enlightenment is dead.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) June 30, 2020
Here's how the "science" of epidemiology works: Since exposure to germs builds immunity, let's shut down schools.
Having this harmless coronavirus at a young age is equivalent to being vaccinated not just against this strain but others – but, of course, our "experts" know better
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 1, 2020
WHAT'S WRONG WITH EPIDEMIOLOGISTS?
Why are epidemiological predictions ALWAYS wrong – and all of them gross over-estimations?
Why can't epidemiologists change their pessimistic predictions when data come in?
Does epidemiology attract the psychologically unsound, like a magnet?
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 5, 2020
I am really busy with other things, otherwise I should write the only sensible textbook on epidemiology – something that's never been written before.
These guys operate a primitive "discipline" and fool the world with their pretence of knowledge. Shoddy gibberish. GIGO.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 12, 2020
It looks like the wicked problem of epidemiology is not the identification of a pandemic but identifying its end.
– As well as the challenge of addressing the perverse incentives faced by its "leading" scientists.
We need to find a way to delink the science from politics.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 18, 2020
From what I have read and understood, epidemiology is the only "scientific" discipline which has made absolutely no progress over the past 5,000 years.
Its models, in particular, are no better than the incantations of ancient Egyptian priests looking at the sky.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 18, 2020
Science is about accurate predictions based on a precise understanding of the underlying process.
These predictions can be deductive (Einstein's special theory) or inductive (Darwin's theory of evolution).
Epidemiology fails as a science because its predictions are false.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) July 18, 2020
Epidemiology is the greatest scam of all time – even bigger than the climate change scam.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) August 15, 2020
Epidemiology is a scandal. It is an even greater scandal that anyone in policy circles relied on its oracular mumbo-jumbo.
These guys are no better (and fact much worse) than witch doctors. https://t.co/Bk1DwPqh8t
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) September 6, 2020
Epidemiology seems to be a unique "scientific" discipline in which the typical (i.e. mathematically inclined) proponents seem to be selected through a psychometric test that only picks those without *any* sense of proportion or perspective and with no capacity for judgement.
— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) September 26, 2020