Is transparency over-rated?

[Borg Refinery]

No



There is nothing scientific about "political science"

If you say so, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science#:~:text=Overview,political%20behavior%20and%20public%20policies">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politic ... 20policies">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science#:~:text=Overview,political%20behavior%20and%20public%20policies.



I don't see what's 'not scientific' about that, maybe you mean it isn't in practice? But in theory of course it should be..

[BeElBeeBub]

I think it's trust in our government that is important.



Transparency is part of that



Our government has taken the view that it must project an aura of complete control at all times.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's meant they seem incapable of admitting mistakes or uncertainty.



If they were handling things well but for the odd hiccup that approach might work.



But if you keep making obvious mistakes and then continue to try to deny they happened or retcon the past to march the present it rapidly starts to look bad and trust evaporates.



Transparency - "here are the figures presented in a clear way, good or bad" along with a comprehensive communications and education campaign so the public can understand things goes a long way to build trust in the government.



If the population trusts the government they will probably be forgiving of mistakes because it can be seen that the decisions made were with good intentions - because we all saw the same data and had the reasoning explained at the time.



The more the government tries to bulky thorough with "no, we never made a mistake, all talk of such things are just political opportunism by those who want us to fail! - look a bear!" the less the population trust the gov, the less forgiving they become of every mistake (even understandable ones) and the harder it is to get them to do what just be done if we have to.



Say, infections start to rise as a result of this lockdown lifting, how effective do you think government messages that we are locking down again will be?

[johnofgwent]

Imho politics is supposed to be a science,

No



There is nothing scientific about "political science"

[Borg Refinery]

Not a medical degree no, but an IT one, and I have enough maths skills and knowledge to be able to follow and figure out the limitations in what I'm being told.  I would argue to a higher degree than a lot of the journalists asking questions in those press briefings.

That's admirable, certain you're right, but I was specifically referring to the detailed scientific papers.



We are reliant on scientists' peer review to tell us what's what tbh. There is no easy way around that.. And even the peer reviews require someone to eventually help us understand them by breaking them down or giving supplementary explanations.



I guess that may be where communication breaks down. Even with a medical degree, if it's outside that particular field of expertise it might be a bit difficult to FULLY understand those papers yourself.

[Javert]

Do you have a degree in a scientific subject or at least a very comprehensive understanding?



The biorxiv C19 studies are very hard to follow without detailed explanations helping you to understand them. There's no shame in admitting that - I would have thought JoG is the only person here who can accurately understand the whole thing..

Not a medical degree no, but an IT one, and I have enough maths skills and knowledge to be able to follow and figure out the limitations in what I'm being told.  I would argue to a higher degree than a lot of the journalists asking questions in those press briefings.

[Borg Refinery]

What they don't mention is that the weekend briefings were consistently drawing by far the largest TV audience at that time of day.  



All this is the reason why I listen more to the science programs that I mentioned like a broken record here rather than relying on press briefings or evening news bulletins or, worst of all, newspapers (especially tabloids).

The last R4 interview you linked to was alright, but it was just telling us more of what we know - the govt ignires scientists, interviewer oushes scientist to get political, his analytical mind goes "oh no, must be absolutely pristine in the details of my response" and gives the expected (and only possible) vague answer he can without getting political.



It's important those interviews go ahead, but that particular one didn't add anything new.

To understand what we know and what we don't know we have to look into the detailed papers behind, and as JOG points out, look at the level of expected uncertainty within and the assumptions underlying the calculations.

Do you have a degree in a scientific subject or at least a very comprehensive understanding?



The biorxiv C19 studies are very hard to follow without detailed explanations helping you to understand them. There's no shame in admitting that - I would have thought JoG is the only person here who can accurately understand the whole thing..

However, I would say that the information is out there a lot and it's being refined all the time.  With a very new virus that's only been around a few months, any available date will be subject to large margins of error which will take months, or even possibly years, to refine.

People don't understand this and get frustrated by it.

[Javert]

You couldn't make this up.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-weekend-briefings-scrapped-low-ratings-a9544406.html%3Famp">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indepe ... html%3famp">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-weekend-briefings-scrapped-low-ratings-a9544406.html%3famp



Ratings now dictate briefings, I see.



However, true science is always incomplete and being revised to some degree, but there's dangerously incomplete versus "as complete as possible with the sum of current and historical knowledge" science, which is of course what JoG is referring to.



I'll be the first to admit my mind isn't a methodical, scientific mind, not like someone like JoG's, am more of a creative type. But I do have enough of an understanding to get what they're telling us - and to read *some* journals with a bit of supplementary reading, managing to understand what's being said, if only just, and not with very complex studies.

What they don't mention is that the weekend briefings were consistently drawing by far the largest TV audience at that time of day.  



All this is the reason why I listen more to the science programs that I mentioned like a broken record here rather than relying on press briefings or evening news bulletins or, worst of all, newspapers (especially tabloids).  



To understand what we know and what we don't know we have to look into the detailed papers behind, and as JOG points out, look at the level of expected uncertainty within and the assumptions underlying the calculations.



We also have to keep in mind that many of the statements made by government ministers are what most laypeople would consider as blatant lies, with just enough plausible deniability to get out of a court case.



An example of this is where they claim in TV press conferences and interviews that their Covid-19 test is "extremely accurate and reliable", whilst a bit of cursory reviews of various statistical and clinical sources will tell you that even the later more accurate antigen test has a specificity of around 70%, which means that 30 out of 100 people who have coronavirus, will test negative.



Another one is how they announce the number of daily tests, which is a complete mess and designed to confuse anyone who tries to delve into the tables behind, but suffice to say that they have not been testing even 100k people a day let alone 200.



However, I would say that the information is out there a lot and it's being refined all the time.  With a very new virus that's only been around a few months, any available date will be subject to large margins of error which will take months, or even possibly years, to refine.

[Borg Refinery]

Do you think it has done us any favours? If the science was incomplete, should we have followed it so slavishly? At the beginning of the daily updates I was somewhat comforted by what seemed to be a certain scientific assurance from the No 10 supporting roles either side of the PM or whoever. Was it a false assurance? Has the lock down really achieved what they wanted? Are we really any better off? I understand that for the moment we have reduced, so say, the numbers but I can't see how we really know. Already there is fear, now that people are on the move, that there will be a second wave. Are we really any better equipped to deal with it should it happen?

You couldn't make this up.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-weekend-briefings-scrapped-low-ratings-a9544406.html%3Famp">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indepe ... html%3famp">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-weekend-briefings-scrapped-low-ratings-a9544406.html%3famp



Ratings now dictate briefings, I see.



However, true science is always incomplete and being revised to some degree, but there's dangerously incomplete versus "as complete as possible with the sum of current and historical knowledge" science, which is of course what JoG is referring to.



I'll be the first to admit my mind isn't a methodical, scientific mind, not like someone like JoG's, am more of a creative type. But I do have enough of an understanding to get what they're telling us - and to read *some* journals with a bit of supplementary reading, managing to understand what's being said, if only just, and not with very complex studies.

[Borg Refinery]

I think the problem is the information is incomplete



As someone trained in the ways of science I am well aware of the need to append "well, um ...." or the like to any summary of any experimental analysis. Indeed, I enjoy taking a research paper and ripping it apart to apply the worst case, not best case, stats on all its figures to see just how close to reality the conclusions are. And they rarely are.



The issue with Blair's dodgy dossier is he was handed it full of caveats and promptly removed them to deliver the soundbite he needed.



The problem with all the COVID figures is there are huge gaps. Not surprisingly really but the danger is politicians exploit this and people untrained in ripping their BS apart or so naive they actually believe it, are taken in.



Of course, this has to be balanced against the problem of hysteria if you say nothing.

 :hattip



"A little information is a dangerous thing.."



The problem is on all sides, people want accountability, are impatient and want instant answers. That suits politicians who want no accountability but will give misleading instant answers to feign accountability.



Just shove the scientists out the way and get them to agree with a few vvague and meaningless statements.



Imho politics is supposed to be a science, political scientists who write detailed journals are nothing-at-all like the kinds of 'politicians' we get at westminster. They are basically getting away with the equivalent of being a guy who's done a few youtube experiments passing himself off as an accredited biochemist..

[patman post]

59537 more deaths than usual in the UK since the week ending 20 March

12,739 care home deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales

Only 300 Public Health England contact tracers early in the out break



To contain an infectious disease, testing must go hand-in-hand with contact tracing. But in the early days of the UK outbreak, PHE had fewer than 300 people doing contact tracing, and stopped tracing cases in the community on 12 March, focusing instead on specific places such as prisons. Minutes of a SAGE meeting on 18 February show that PHE only had the capacity to "cope with five new cases a week", and there was agreement that tracing should stop when the virus was widely spreading. "When there is sustained transmission in the UK, contact tracing will no longer be useful," said the minutes, which were made public last week.



https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632853-300-why-have-there-been-so-many-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-uk/">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... in-the-uk/">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632853-300-why-have-there-been-so-many-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-uk/



Hiding under the pillow because we don't want to hear the bad news, or blaming science for what politicians choose to tell and how they choose to tell us, seems defeatist.



The speed with which government reacted (admittedly once it had recovered from the shock of realising it had badly misjudged the situation) should be praised — though it's those who carried out the work who possibly deserve most praise...

[T00ts]

I think the problem is the information is incomplete



As someone trained in the ways of science I am well aware of the need to append "well, um ...." or the like to any summary of any experimental analysis. Indeed, I enjoy taking a research paper and ripping it apart to apply the worst case, not best case, stats on all its figures to see just how close to reality the conclusions are. And they rarely are.



The issue with Blair's dodgy dossier is he was handed it full of caveats and promptly removed them to deliver the soundbite he needed.



The problem with all the COVID figures is there are huge gaps. Not surprisingly really but the danger is politicians exploit this and people untrained in ripping their BS apart or so naive they actually believe it, are taken in.



Of course, this has to be balanced against the problem of hysteria if you say nothing.

Do you think it has done us any favours? If the science was incomplete, should we have followed it so slavishly? At the beginning of the daily updates I was somewhat comforted by what seemed to be a certain scientific assurance from the No 10 supporting roles either side of the PM or whoever. Was it a false assurance? Has the lock down really achieved what they wanted? Are we really any better off? I understand that for the moment we have reduced, so say, the numbers but I can't see how we really know. Already there is fear, now that people are on the move, that there will be a second wave. Are we really any better equipped to deal with it should it happen?

[johnofgwent]

When C19 first kicked off there was a lot of 'information' coming thick and fast into the public domain. Is there an argument that actually a little more restraint might have served us better? There was and still is a deluge of information some of which over time has proved either false or misjudged and perhaps if 'the science' were sure of their facts before 'advising' Government, hospitals might not have been emptied into care homes without testing patients, we would not have been fed wrong information on the drugs that did or didn't work,we would know how the virus was transmitted etc.



We pride ourselves on being able to question public figures for every scrap of information on any given situation but does it really give us more or actually create confusion? Are we falling into the trap of demanding every step in the process rather than waiting patiently for an eventual outcome/result that will show a clear way forward rather than have us all scurrying around like demented ants with half prepared /half proven theories? Has it really created more harm than good.

I think the problem is the information is incomplete



As someone trained in the ways of science I am well aware of the need to append "well, um ...." or the like to any summary of any experimental analysis. Indeed, I enjoy taking a research paper and ripping it apart to apply the worst case, not best case, stats on all its figures to see just how close to reality the conclusions are. And they rarely are.



The issue with Blair's dodgy dossier is he was handed it full of caveats and promptly removed them to deliver the soundbite he needed.



The problem with all the COVID figures is there are huge gaps. Not surprisingly really but the danger is politicians exploit this and people untrained in ripping their BS apart or so naive they actually believe it, are taken in.



Of course, this has to be balanced against the problem of hysteria if you say nothing.

[papasmurf]

What transparency? Since May 2010 reports have been hidden/buried and Freedom of Information requests circumvented.

[T00ts]

When C19 first kicked off there was a lot of 'information' coming thick and fast into the public domain. Is there an argument that actually a little more restraint might have served us better? There was and still is a deluge of information some of which over time has proved either false or misjudged and perhaps if 'the science' were sure of their facts before 'advising' Government, hospitals might not have been emptied into care homes without testing patients, we would not have been fed wrong information on the drugs that did or didn't work,we would know how the virus was transmitted etc.



We pride ourselves on being able to question public figures for every scrap of information on any given situation but does it really give us more or actually create confusion? Are we falling into the trap of demanding every step in the process rather than waiting patiently for an eventual outcome/result that will show a clear way forward rather than have us all scurrying around like demented ants with half prepared /half proven theories? Has it really created more harm than good.