Emily, thank you very much for your work and for refusing to back down when criticized by useless "precautionary principle" fanatics. I'm extremely happy to support you on Substack and hope that you won't have to silence your voice no matter how many critics complain about your work on Twitter. We need more people like you to speak up against the establishment and support mothers/families in doing the right thing for their children.
I hate to say it, but I’m mad about school closures so I will anyway: do you have a variable that represents the political strength of the teachers unions locally?
How/did that impact school closures?
From where I sit in Seattle that would seem like the single strongest predictor, better than race or income. But maybe I’m overgeneralizing based on my own experience here on the best coast.
Emily, what a classy way to handle that deranged hit piece put out against you on Tuesday.
Personally, if I had argued on Feb 3 2021 that "Biden’s Coronavirus Plan Will Not Prevent Death and Devastation" [1] and we needed a hard 6 week lockdown, only to see that advice ignored while cases plummet for 5 straight months, I would have strived to find out how I could be so completely wrong on a subject before commenting on it ever again.
Especially if 16 days later I had wrote "Teachers and Their Unions Are Demanding Truly Safe Schools Reopening — Not “Ignoring Science”[2] urging schools to remain remote indefinitely and cited Chicago as "doing it right", only to see the rest of the country get back to normal with no different outcome than the poor kids stuck at home on Zoom.
By ignoring the dozens of countries that went back to school spring 2020 without consequence, I would probably question how I ever earned my MPH in the first place and if I had a right to continue my post doc work. I would instead hang my head in shame and go back to volunteering for crisis hotlines as I clearly lacked the intellectual rigor to make even the slightest contribution to science.
But what do I know, I am a cis, white, wealthy, liberal, so according to them that should invalidate my voice.
Seriously though, it is really sad to know that people like this are the next generation of "public health experts" and that should be deeply concerning to all of us should they gain any foothold in policy.
Really great piece about how research becomes data today. Some would call it science, some would call it an art... the truth is it's both.
Much of today's science is correlation with theory and advanced statistical methodologies applied to 'prove' the theory is: statistically significant, affectually significant, and casually significant (one way correlation).
Is this truth? ... shoulder shrug. It's more an argument. Can science be argued? Apparently, not today... though that would make what 'they' call science, more like academic litigation.
A note about funding sources: if you've ever worked in academic research field, you would know that funding influence is real. It's not so much the funders want you to change research publicly, that would be grossly unethical, almost criminally fraudulent.
It's that funders give grants to researchers who they feel share their worldview, and the researcher who has hypotheses in a world that's literally built around confirmation bias.
So the researcher wants to prove a certain something going in and the funders usually want evidence for something (or the absence of something) for their own confirmation biases can be stoked.
Your always working/vetting for the next grant, or round of funding.
That being said, raise your hand if you think Federally funded research is free from influence, and can be 100% trusted?
Ever see 'Dopesick?' Remember Covid? Didn't the Federal Government just admit a 'coding error' in reporting of Pediatric covid mortality? All these errors seem to be going in one direction. Is that scientifically possible?
Emily, I'm curious if school closures correlate to more people leaving the workforce. I have been really wondering how much of the uncertainty of child care is linked to the "great resignation"
You mentioned having volunteers help with your data cleaning process. Is there a way those of us with technical backgrounds can get involved in efforts like this?
Emily this is terrific work! As I read the studies, I also wondered about all the students who never returned to school. Is there any value to adding enrollment rates from September 2019 to Sept. 2020 and Sept. 2021?
Emily, thank you very much for your work and for refusing to back down when criticized by useless "precautionary principle" fanatics. I'm extremely happy to support you on Substack and hope that you won't have to silence your voice no matter how many critics complain about your work on Twitter. We need more people like you to speak up against the establishment and support mothers/families in doing the right thing for their children.
I hate to say it, but I’m mad about school closures so I will anyway: do you have a variable that represents the political strength of the teachers unions locally?
How/did that impact school closures?
From where I sit in Seattle that would seem like the single strongest predictor, better than race or income. But maybe I’m overgeneralizing based on my own experience here on the best coast.
Emily, what a classy way to handle that deranged hit piece put out against you on Tuesday.
Personally, if I had argued on Feb 3 2021 that "Biden’s Coronavirus Plan Will Not Prevent Death and Devastation" [1] and we needed a hard 6 week lockdown, only to see that advice ignored while cases plummet for 5 straight months, I would have strived to find out how I could be so completely wrong on a subject before commenting on it ever again.
Especially if 16 days later I had wrote "Teachers and Their Unions Are Demanding Truly Safe Schools Reopening — Not “Ignoring Science”[2] urging schools to remain remote indefinitely and cited Chicago as "doing it right", only to see the rest of the country get back to normal with no different outcome than the poor kids stuck at home on Zoom.
By ignoring the dozens of countries that went back to school spring 2020 without consequence, I would probably question how I ever earned my MPH in the first place and if I had a right to continue my post doc work. I would instead hang my head in shame and go back to volunteering for crisis hotlines as I clearly lacked the intellectual rigor to make even the slightest contribution to science.
But what do I know, I am a cis, white, wealthy, liberal, so according to them that should invalidate my voice.
Seriously though, it is really sad to know that people like this are the next generation of "public health experts" and that should be deeply concerning to all of us should they gain any foothold in policy.
[1] https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-shutdown-biden/
[2] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/02/teachers-unions-schools-covid-reopening
Really great piece about how research becomes data today. Some would call it science, some would call it an art... the truth is it's both.
Much of today's science is correlation with theory and advanced statistical methodologies applied to 'prove' the theory is: statistically significant, affectually significant, and casually significant (one way correlation).
Is this truth? ... shoulder shrug. It's more an argument. Can science be argued? Apparently, not today... though that would make what 'they' call science, more like academic litigation.
A note about funding sources: if you've ever worked in academic research field, you would know that funding influence is real. It's not so much the funders want you to change research publicly, that would be grossly unethical, almost criminally fraudulent.
It's that funders give grants to researchers who they feel share their worldview, and the researcher who has hypotheses in a world that's literally built around confirmation bias.
So the researcher wants to prove a certain something going in and the funders usually want evidence for something (or the absence of something) for their own confirmation biases can be stoked.
Your always working/vetting for the next grant, or round of funding.
That being said, raise your hand if you think Federally funded research is free from influence, and can be 100% trusted?
Ever see 'Dopesick?' Remember Covid? Didn't the Federal Government just admit a 'coding error' in reporting of Pediatric covid mortality? All these errors seem to be going in one direction. Is that scientifically possible?
Emily, I'm curious if school closures correlate to more people leaving the workforce. I have been really wondering how much of the uncertainty of child care is linked to the "great resignation"
You mentioned having volunteers help with your data cleaning process. Is there a way those of us with technical backgrounds can get involved in efforts like this?
Question: were district test scores reduced compared to their pre pandemic scores, and how did you determine that?
Emily this is terrific work! As I read the studies, I also wondered about all the students who never returned to school. Is there any value to adding enrollment rates from September 2019 to Sept. 2020 and Sept. 2021?