Dr Strange
I make no bones about it, I’m a huge fan of superhero movies. In cultural terms it’s probably like being enthusiastic about a Big Mac rather than a Bistecca alla Fiorentina. If we define consensus as ‘more popular’, then a Big Mac would definitely be the consensus option.
I grew up reading the Thor, Hulk and Dr Strange comics. I was super-stoked when they announced they were making a Dr Strange movie. How, I wondered, were they going to put into a movie a character who lived in a world that looked like a bad trip, enabled more by magic than mushrooms?
Old Bendystick Crumblesnatch does a great job, despite his somewhat dodgy US accent.
The second movie was a huge disappointment, though. It was shockingly bad - despite all the technical special effects wizardry (which was impressive). If you’ve got a spare 6 hours (yes, really, 6 hours) look up Mauler on YouTube to see his hilarious review of the 2nd movie.
Consensus is a funny old thing.
The Cambridge dictionary gives the best definition :
a generally accepted opinion or decision among a group of people:
- The general consensus in the office is that he can't do his job.
- Could we reach a consensus on this matter? Let's take a vote.
Other definitions from other dictionaries imply, or state, unanimity as being important, but I think it’s better understood as a majority viewpoint.
In a piece today, Justin Hart posted a clip showing Neil deGrasse Tyson being interviewed by Del Bigtree. I was somewhat shocked (in technical parlance, gobsmacked) to hear what NDGT had to say.
The entire basis of NDGT’s argument in this clip was to ignore everything except consensus.
In this it would seem that NDGT has gone tripping, just like Dr Strange.
Did NDGT not get the memo when he trained as a scientist?
He’s an astrophysicist, for fuck’s sake. What did he think Einstein was doing when he published his work on General Relativity? Following the consensus?
New theories come about precisely because they are NOT the consensus!
And where did this so-called “consensus” get us on covid?
Lockdowns - didn’t work
Masks - as effective as a knitted condom
Asymptomatic transmission - not significant
Fomite transmission - not significant
The ‘vaccines’ - one of the crappiest concoctions ever devised by mankind
Plastic screens - now you’re just taking the piss
The point that NDGT ignores (deliberately?) is that the “consensus” on covid was a manufactured consensus.
And even if it wasn’t manufactured, then it’s wrong to just blindly accept a consensus. How many times has a medical consensus been shown to be a load of utter bollocks? Carbohydrates? Here, have your pre-diabetic insulin resistance. Anti-depressants? They won’t make you feel any better, but they’ll do wonders for my bank account. Difficulty controlling your kid? Drug the little bastard.
It’s very depressing for me, as a scientist, to see NDGT say these things. It’s an utter perversion of everything I love about science. The joy of science is not in the normal, the accepted, but in finding out stuff that gives us something new.
The consensus may be correct when it comes to any issue (Big Macs are in fact one of life’s greatest pleasures, although when it comes to cinema, I always preferred rom coms until Crowder ruined them for me with his “porn for women” argument). But in one’s persuasive argument, the fact that something is the consensus is irrelevant unless it is a convention upon which people have simply agreed in order to get stuff done more efficiently. 2 and 2 isn’t 4 because it’s the mathematical consensus, but the order of operations is a convention. All the Covid lunacy is, as Tyson’s argument suggests, a convention. It is like leaving addition and subtraction for last or using the metric system. Only he and those bullied or groomed or incentivized into “consensus” on this are actually dealing with a problem that even Big Mac scarfing* deplorables like me recognize is more along the lines of 2+2– more complex, yes, but provable without making up new rules.
*I haven’t actually had a Big Mac— a childhood afterschool staple!— in many years, but now for the sake of honesty I will probably have to martyr myself and go get one. If Proust thought his madeleines were good, he should have experienced the McDonalds drive-thru, silly chap.
As a career scientist and fan of cutting edge science, especially in physics and astronomy, I've always thought of NDGT and his British equivalent, Professor Brian's Cock, as attention-hungry media whores rather than proper scientists although both did earn their credentials before going over to the dark side. Along with their gatekeeping, consensus-plugging,, Media-friendly style, the fact that they willingly pronounce opinions on subjects about which they have only school-level knowledge demonstrates that they are merely vain, useful idiots wheeled out to give a a dusting of 'The Science' to any message the Media wants to put out.