[wildmusings]

The "experts" have destroyed their own credibility. Do you remember the mass protests in every major and minor city a few weeks ago, where the "experts" responded by encouraging the protests, because "racism is a deadly pandemic too" or some equivocating nonsense like that? Doctors and nurses were participating in these mass protests. People were packed shoulder to shoulder for multiple city blocks. This was right after all of the "experts" forcefully condemned tiny anti-lockdown protests. Even the NYT was forced to confront the stunning hypocrisy https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-corona... . The vast majority of news outlets are still pretending that the protests had nothing to do with the spike in cases.

It also damages their credibility when they cross the line from "here are the epidemiological facts" to "here are the appropriate tradeoffs between economic stability and acute illness prevention". The latter is not a question that an epidemiologist is any more qualified to speak to than anyone else. Those are political decisions.

They do the same for global warming. The nature and extent of anthropogenic climate change is a question for scientists. But they have all also latched onto the conclusion that global wealth redistribution is the only solution. Again, they are laundering their scientific expertise into political authority. I more or less think that the scientific process moves us to toward better understanding, but the collective political opinions of scientists should not be mistaken for science.

When the experts are abusing their status to pursue political ends, then it's no surprise that the people they seek to politically vanquish put up a resistance by attacking that expertise.

[lwkl]

In my opinion this has nothing to do with science and with experts being right or wrong.

It‘s people deciding stopping the spread of COVID-19 isn‘t as important as protesting for their civil rights.

You can‘t dismiss the science just because people have different priorities and decide to act against it because of that.

I also wouldn‘t say it‘s hypocrisy at least not by the protestors and scientist.

Maybe it’s hypocrisy by the media because they didn‘t state that they agree or disagree with protests because they think another issue is more or less important than the pandemic.

[wildmusings]

People died alone and couldn’t have funerals because epidemiologists said it was too dangerous. A week later, those same epidemiologists were cheering on mass demonstrations.

It’s pretty clear that these “experts” are abusing their status as supposedly objective scientists to advance a political movement. Why should anyone trust anything they say?

[IAmEveryone]

You’re disproving your point by noting the Times speaking against this, showing that it was never more than a ridiculous minority opinion.

Additionally, enough time has now passed to assess the danger of these protests. Considering they mostly happened in the large cities of the north, there is absolutely no evidence that they had any major effect in the resurgence of the virus, which is mostly spreading in the south and west. Even there, rural areas are often hit harder than cities.

[gnusty_gnurc]

Their issue is that they're making moral claims without clearly defining their relation to science. Mixing morality and science doesn't have a good track record.

And it's obvious that these claims damage their credibility when people had loved ones die alone - it's suddenly fine for there to be crowds of thousands when gatherings were previously limited to <100.

[spaced-out]

There's hypocrisy all over the US political spectrum, sure. How about instead of focusing on that we all do our part to get this virus under control for the good of everyone?

Other countries have done so, there's no reason the US can't also.