Throughout the pandemic politicians and officials have appealed to data and “the science.” But employing the definite article (“the”) misled us into believing that scientific opinion, like mathematics, is certain, unambiguous, and in monolithic agreement. Writing in Just the News, Michael Fumento documents ten ways that public health officials got “the science” seriously wrong.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.


