Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

OhioStater said:

due to our size

It was my understanding that size didn’t matter, it was how you used it.

Doesn't matter if it is a small school, if the kids be dry humping it will end up just like the big dry humping schools.

Jeff said:

If that's a "downfall," you fundamentally misunderstand what the scientific method is.

Maybe he just made a bad word choice? I mean, it is unfortunate that the scientific method in the real world (with the lack of funding for research in general and the low priority in society) takes a long time to verify things. It would be so much easier if we could just find the answers instantaneously. Hence the prevalence of ridiculous online pseudo-science and non-science garbage.

I've always thought of scientific answers as a moving target - and not because the truth isn't concrete, but because our knowledge, abilities and understanding aren't.

There were things in the past that were determined using the scientific method to the best of our ability at the time that were understood as concrete truth that we'd laugh at now. It seems naive to me to believe the same won't be true for some things when the future looks back at us.

Scientific fact is simply the best answer and understanding of the truth that we have right now. Sometimes it's enough. Sometimes it isn't.

In a world that looks for defined answers using a method that is meant to determine them, the idea that our ability to do so will be fluid to whatever degree seems to break people.

The idea that the changing info on the whole Coronavirus thing seems like a failure is because most people seems to think science just does its thing and gives us the answer - the end. But what we're seeing is that fluidity and moving target in play. We're pinning it down to the best of our ability and that's gonna change as we continue to understand more.

Your post reminded me of that Star Trek scene where Dr. McCoy was right about euthanizing his dad, then suddenly he was very wrong.

Science irony!

Not to get all academic, but I think there's some misunderstanding of terminology. A scientific law is something we can observe and predict reliably, but not explain why it happens. The law of the conservation of energy is something that we can observe, that energy can not be created or destroyed. There are a lot of theories then about why that is. A fact is more of a measurable and observable thing, like empirical evidence. Water is wet at room temperature, and that's a fact. I am awake at 7:12 pm Eastern.

I think for the purpose of us laypeople, something is a fact when there is a general consensus among experts. That's why climate change deniers are morons. The consensus of experts is pretty clear about it, and there is overwhelming evidence that it's real and caused by humans.

The pandemic has a lot of unanswered questions, but there's a fair amount of empirical evidence about what works in terms of limiting its spread (masks, social distancing, outdoor vs. indoor, time of exposure, etc.), which is helpful in guiding our behavior. We don't know how long the body will maintain an immune response after infection or vaccination (especially the latter, duh). We don't know if there are other factors that could cause it to burn out naturally.

Unfortunately, in a world where people want to believe in absolutes, pick a side, and **** everyone else's well-being, ambiguity is wholly unsatisfying. I think even if there was a relative confidence score given with every bit of information, some people would still rather believe whatever stupid thing comes out of Trump's mouth than what experts say. (inser Fauci facepalm)

I've never viewed the scientific method as a search for any absolute truth. In fact, going down that route is, from my perspective, a perversion of the goal of science.

This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. Religious beliefs simply stop and don't evolve; in fact to question them is to be a heretic. Someone who understands science understands exactly what you posted Gonch; that what we know today is in fact likely become much clearer or, in some cases, completely wrong in the years to come.

When I started teaching in Psychology 15 years ago, it was accepted that it was only during REM sleep that we dream. That was it...it was in the books. But that didn't mean sleep scientists didn't keep working to try and disprove this understanding of dreams and sleep. Sure enough, we now understand that not only do we dream during the non-REM stages, but those dreams are fundamentally different from one another.

This is science 101.

You never, ever, ever say that "this proves"...in any scientific paper. Or even an undergraduate research paper. When I was in college, that was an automatic fail in some classes. What we know "shows support for..."....but never proves a damn thing.

Lord Gonchar said:

In a world that looks for defined answers using a method that is meant to determine them, the idea that our ability to do so will be fluid to whatever degree seems to break people.

This is what I am speaking to. The scientific method never has been, or will be, about the search for absolute truth. It's about broadening and bettering our understanding of the world around us to the best of our abilities.

I do agree, though, that we live in a world that desires absolute truths. This is what happens when no one is taught critical thinking skills, and/or when they are taught the scientific method incorrectly. No one can stand doses of ambiguity, so thy start believing in **** like vaccines causing autism and whatever the hell this "Q" cult thing is going around.

In other words, your idea about scientific answers as a moving target is more or less exactly what the scientific method is about. The most dangerous thing in science is thinking you have it all figured out. Saying that, though, doesn't mean that we throw our hands in the air and admit we "know nothing"...we just learn through experience that 1) some ideas lose all credibility (the world is flat! vaccines cause autism!) 2) some ideas have so much evidence that they become realities (the earth goes around the sun), and 3) there are some things we don't understand at all (what happens when we die?)

Nothing happens, obviously.

Indiana Jones said: "If it's truth you're interested in, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."

Jeff said:

I think for the purpose of us laypeople, something is a fact when there is a general consensus among experts. That's why climate change deniers are morons. The consensus of experts is pretty clear about it, and there is overwhelming evidence that it's real and caused by humans.

This was kind of exactly my point. Things that seem obviously, undeniable and proven to the best of our abilities sometimes seem laughably quaint down the road.

And it's not the specifics in this case - I'm not questioning climate change, I'm looking at the scenario or the process.

OhioStater said:

This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. Religious beliefs simply stop and don't evolve; in fact to question them is to be a heretic. Someone who understands science understands exactly what you posted Gonch; that what we know today is in fact likely become much clearer or, in some cases, completely wrong in the years to come.

expert : science :: God : religion

(or maybe I just need to put the bong away 😉)

No, you just need to pass it....

OhioStater said:

Religious beliefs simply stop and don't evolve; in fact to question them is to be a heretic.

I know this is way off topic, but I couldn't just let this one sit because I think it's a gross miscategorization. It may be true of some religious systems and traditions, but it is certainly not universally true. The very watch words of the Reformed Theological Tradition are "The church reformed and always reforming." Ideas like liberation theology and feminist theology have only very recently (given the long history of religion and Chritianity in particular) come on the scene and have had dramatic influence on many aspects of belief and practice in their short times.

Andy; fair point, but aren't those reforms more to do with how a church operates/practices rather than its belief system?

I say this as someone completely naive to the study of theology, but you are correct that all religions are 1) not created equally, and 2) should not all be lumped into the same box.

Here is where my mind was;

I was raised in a fairly conservative Lutheran home; taught the basics: 1) there is a heaven and a hell, 2) god created the world "in seven days", 3) you have to believe x, y, and z to get into heaven.

In other words...this:

And that's it. There is no room for debate or questioning. There is no pursuit of greater understanding or knowledge.

Are there examples of churches where the beliefs actually evolve? I mean, I would hope so, and from your post it certainly sounds that way.

I grew up going to Catholic church so that's pretty much how it was for me too. With the addition of "If you have an impure thought ever in your life, you go to hell unless you confess it to a priest" which is why I haven't set foot in a church outside of a wedding or funeral in almost 20 years.

For what it's worth, new cases are continuing to drop.

The number of new cases yesterday was 1/2 what it was at the peak in mid-July and as of today no states are at a red risk level (>25 cases per 100k - 7 day moving average) and I just read new cases have dropped 18% in Arizona and 25% in Florida. Also, even with so many more cases over the summer, the daily deaths counts during the summer peak still never reached more than around half of what they were in the spring.

So, the corn is saved! Everyone go back to normal.

No. Seriously though, that's good movement in the right direction. Now let's see what putting the kids back in school does to those numbers.

Ohio in general is doing really well (meaning, moving in the right direction). Even Cuyahoga County went from "red" to "orange".

Speaking of which...

BrettV said:

I grew up going to Catholic church so that's pretty much how it was for me too. With the addition of "If you have an impure thought ever in your life, you go to hell unless you confess it to a priest" which is why I haven't set foot in a church outside of a wedding or funeral in almost 20 years.

Does that mean you haven't had an impure thought in 20 years?

OhioStater said:

Andy; fair point, but aren't those reforms more to do with how a church operates/practices rather than its belief system?

Like any system of beliefs, truth seeking, philosophy or whatever, there are different opinions on what is essential and what is flexible. But in our church (Presbyterian Church USA) the only requirement for membership (i.e. leadership and voting) is belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior (without definitions of those terms). There is no such requirement for participation, partnership, worship, fellowship or anything else we do. Everything beyond the Lordship of Jesus is open to debate: what "Lordship" means, the role of scripture, the trinity, the organization of the church, even the literal veracity of Christ's rising from the dead and whether it matters whether or not if he did or didn't. More broadly, liberation theology reframes scripture through the lens of the poor and oppressed and reinterprets Jesus' mission through the lens of "God's preferential option for the poor" and feminist theology reinterprets scripture through the lens of the importance of female figures and leaders and emphasizes that focusing on contributions by women are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. Both of these ideas have had profound influence on the way many people in the Presbyterian denomination understand God, scripture, and the role of the church in the world.

I'd like to think (and I believe) that what we do is a reflection of what we believe and what we believe tells us what to do, but even if we divorce those two tasks, at least in my tradition there is lots of room for debate (and there has been lots of debate) about what many would consider the foundational ideas of Christianity like the interpretation of scripture and God's mission in the world. Our Book of Order (basically the guide for organizing and governing churches) explicitly states that "people of good faith will disagree and that does not imply a lack of faith in any party."

I honestly love this aspect of the Presbyterian tradition and don't think I could serve or worship in a context where questions were seen as a lack of faith and to be avoided.

OhioStater said:
...I was raised in a fairly conservative Lutheran home; taught the basics: 1) there is a heaven and a hell, 2) god created the world "in seven days", 3) you have to believe x, y, and z to get into heaven.
...
And that's it. There is no room for debate or questioning. There is no pursuit of greater understanding or knowledge.

In Northwest Ohio, perhaps?

See, I was raised in a fairly conservative Lutheran home and taught...some of that. But I also attended a fairly conservative University that was actually a part of the Lutheran Church until just before I started there. One of the things that I learned was that questioning the dogma you are taught as a child, and actually contemplating, studying, and perhaps even disagreeing with it is important to developing your own faith. That Northwest Ohio crack is a bit of a joke; one of the things that I always thought was interesting to watch was when a student, usually from somewhere in Northwest Ohio, had that lightning-bolt moment of discovering that everything that student "knew" about religion was simplistic and probably wrong...

You can almost apply a scientific model to theology, except it is more of a study model than an experimental one. But you have to be willing to let go of what you thought you believed.

As long as I am rattling along here, Lord Gonchar mentioned...

For what it's worth, new cases are continuing to drop.

The number of new cases yesterday was 1/2 what it was at the peak in mid-July and ... even with so many more cases over the summer, the daily deaths counts during the summer peak still never reached more than around half of what they were in the spring.
...Seriously though, that's good movement in the right direction. Now let's see what putting the kids back in school does to those numbers.

There is a lot we don't know about this virus, but from the stuff I have been learning, it sounds like the community is generating a certain level of long-term resistance (I don't want to call it immunity). Long term may not mean what we hope it means, but all we need is for it to be long enough to keep the virus from circling around and starting over. I find myself wondering if all the "curve flattening" we did early on was really the right response, since what that has really done is to stretch out the pandemic into a much longer event.

I also wonder if closing schools early on was the right move. Initially it looked like children were nearly unaffected by SARS-Co-v2 and now it looks like it might have been due to the prevalence of certain T-cells in the <16 population. I wonder how much of that was due to the prevalence of children in disease-infested schools...and I wonder if removing their daily exposure to that environment is leading to a loss of that T-cell protection, resulting in the increase in both prevalence and severity of COVID-19 in that age group.

Now that's Facebook science, based on some interesting articles. I cherry pick the articles I read not based on my viewpoint, but based on whether it looks like the contents of the story will be *interesting*.

My viewpoint is that no matter what we do, there is a certain level of evidence that this pandemic is actually burning itself out. The question is how long will that take, how serious will the consequences be, and will it happen before our resistance wears off.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Wouldn't you know it?

Defiance, Ohio.

It's about as Northwest-Ohioan as Northwest Ohio gets.

Escaping was the goal from about age 7 (see below.

And Andy, thanks for posting that. The thing is, I realized very early on that the version of religion I was being force-fed was just...well...wrong. That created a strange tension in my life as a tiny person; it was like living in a world where you are the only one around you who chose to take the red pill.

RideMan said:

I find myself wondering if all the "curve flattening" we did early on was really the right response, since what that has really done is to stretch out the pandemic into a much longer event.

I'm sort of curious what you envision is/was the alternative. If we let the virus circulate more earlier, we wouldn't have the treatments we have now, we wouldn't have understood that it was aerosolized, let alone that masks were an effective tool to combat it, and we wouldn't have protocols in place to insulate (at least to some degree) the high risk population from the low risk population, not to mention health care capacity. Even if I concede that we're all going to get it eventually (which I don't because that's still a scary body count), buying time has dramatically improved our response which has dramatically reduced the mortality rate.