What can happen if one uses your arguments
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Original Question
Dear Dr. Bo,
first of all please forgive me. I am a German which now tries for 45 years to get a grasp for the English language and has utterly failed so far. So if what I write does not make sense, please bear with me and just ask for explanation.
I am a member of a site which is the German equivalent of quora.com, where I try to answer some questions. My expertise is in Mathematics, having a German diploma dating back to the ninties (roughly equivalent to a Master). But I also oftentimes dabble into questions related to common misconsceptions about science and about conspiracy theories.
So I tried to answer a question about the Covid measures German government has taken and if politicians can be sued because of that (having oc overestimated the danger and caused great harm to peoples health and the economy). I answered no, citing i.E. the Prevention Paradox and stating some numbers regarding Covid deaths and such. But the questioner was not satisfied. Instead, he send me some links about politicians having profited from Covid measures, esp. by facilitating deals for way overpriced masks. I laughed, said that oc in every crisis some people will try to profit from it, that I do not like it but that it has nothing to do with the question if the measures where sensible or not. I accused the questioner of "moving the goalpost" and "scapegoating", linking to your appropriate entries. Then the weird thing happened. He said "I do not want to associate with such people", sending me back a list of members of the Republican Party, containing one Bob Bennett (who btw. died 2016).
So can you imagine, someone associates you with a long dead politician and takes that as validity for his claimes? I was totally baffled, again accused him of scapegoating. He only answered "Well, if you trust this Bo Bennett, fine with me. I can think for myself". My question what the issue of "trust" has to do with faulty logic remains unanswered so far.
Why do I tell you this story? Well, oc first to prove again the misquoted Einstein citation, but also to tell you that you have a namesake out there whos views you might or might not like, but who you might want to tell the world that you are not him (not that that has anything do to with the validity of the entries on your site, but again, people are dumb).
Many many thanks for your great work, I use your site very often, especially when confronting conspiracy theories and it has proven very helpful.
best regards, Christian
Comments on Question
So, Rolly, are you going to call Dr Mike Yeadon who served as the chief scientist and vice-president of Pfizer's allergy and respiratory research unit in Sandwich, Kent, where he oversaw the development of drugs for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) a conspiracy theorist?
He says he doesn't believe there ever was a covid virus ...
https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/pfizers-former-chief-scientist-mike
... and what about Michael Wallach who presents statistics which show that the April 2020 mortality spike in Europe and the US had more sinister causes than a novel virus?
Where's the false correlation? Is Michael Wallach making a false correlation or ... ?
https://theviraldelusion.substack.com/p/the-great-lie-and-the-data-that-shows
Answers
2
Rather than get into the various arguments about government actions and their propriety, I focus on what happened. First, look at countries with severe restrictions and those with few, if any, restrictions during the covid period. My review of this made me conclude that there was no significant difference in disease during that time. Still, there was a considerable difference in the standard of living, i.e., one was almost under house arrest, and the other was free to do things normally.
Whether the “lockdowns” came from corruption or good intentions gone awry, the lockdown treatment did more harm than good. A pre-covid book (2019) on why the lockdowns might have been well intended, yet still wrong, is “Range” by David J. Epstein. It is in Kindle. The book deals with the ancient issue of not seeing the forest for the trees and, conversely, not seeing the trees for the forest. It is the "range" of vision that is important.
The claim is false, since Dr Bo =/= Bob Bennett, and IIRC there's no connection between them. Also, Dr Bo doesn't have anything to do with the Republicans. This is just nonsense.
Even if it were true that there were some link between these people, the fact that "Bennett" made this website does not have any bearing on the claim that the other person committed a fallacy. This would be ad hominem (guilt by association).
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I appreciate the story. However, having a similar name to someone else is not something I see as a coincidence. True, my given name is Robert, but I have never went by "Bob." There are other Bo Bennett's out there, but I have never seen it as my responsibility to separate myself from the actions and behaviors of all the other Bo Bennett's. Especially, when the "sin" of the similarly named is simply being a member of one of two major political parties.