An example that proves this quote: “…. half of social sciences these days seems to consist of deliberately impenetrable jargon to occlude and obscure meaning (if, indeed, there is any meaning at all) so it seems to be seen as some sort of feature rather than a bug. but “oh, that’s unparsable and/or incomprehensible to me; it must be profound” is a truly dangerous basis for intellectual belief ..."
A year or so ago, I emailed a contact at the Alabama’s Governor’s office and asked him: “If anyone in the Governor's office can provide data on the "cycle thresholds" used to determine "positive cases" in the PCR tests?”
Mr contact in the governor’s office forwarded my question to the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) and sent me the reply he received to my simple question on the PCR cycle thresholds.
The response was written by Dr. Karen Landers, the main spokesperson for the ADPH. Can anyone discern my answer from this scientific gobbledy-gook and obfuscation? My “answer:” …
“Real Time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays for COVID 19 are approved for use under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. A variety of testing assays, such as Thermo Fisher TaqPath, GeneXpert Xpert® Xpress, and Hologic Aptima SARS-CoV-2, are used and reporting of results vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
“A RT-PCR assay can help determine a desired target based on specific genetic material (such as for COVID-19) present in a sample. During the assay, the genetic material from the sample is amplified exponentially over a specific number of cycles and the amplification is monitored by changes in an associated fluorescent signal. There is also a background level established for each assay to help distinguish if from the fluorescent signal.
“The intensity of the fluorescence increases as the number of cycles increases throughout the assay. The point where the number of cycles required for the fluorescent intensity to cross above the background level is known as the cycle threshold (CT). There is a correlation between the CT value and the amount of genetic material present in a specimen. The more genetic material present, the lower the CT value. The less genetic material present, the higher the CT value. Reporting for a positive assay is pre-determined by performance studies to indicate the value for a cutoff for the CT.
“RT-PCR tests that have received EUA from the FDA for COVID-19 as of October 23, 2020, are qualitative tests. This means that the test reflects the presence or absence of the viral genetic material but not the actual CT value. These platforms have predetermined CT values that are not reported. The manufacturer regards them as proprietary information which they do not disclose.
“So, there is no CT value to be used to determine how infectious a person is or when the person can be released from isolation or quarantine.
“The results for a RT PCR assay can be affected by factors other than the amount of virus in the specimen. Collection and storage of the specimen can affect results as well as when the specimen was collected in relation to when the person became ill.
“The steps used to process the genetic material, the specific genetic target being measured, and the amount and type of the patient sample used varies among RT-PCR tests.Therefore, the CT values will differ between the assays that generate them.
“In addition, not all COVID-19 tests report results using CT values. Some manufactures such as Hologic, whose COVID-19 assay has been widely used, report their results in relative light units (RLUs). However, the reporting from the instrument is negative or positive based on pre-determined RLU values. A method of synchronizing CT values across manufacturers is not available. “
… Basically, nobody knows the CT number of the PCR tests used to determine “positive cases.” Our trusted public health agencies know the answer ... they are just not willing to give it to the public they supposedly serve.
Actually, reading the above, I am not even sure that the public health officials know what number of CT are being used as they are ‘proprietary’ and ‘not disclosed by the manufacturer’. So basically, the test results were being ‘read’ by people who didn’t understand what was going on and weren’t forceful enough to say, ‘give me the data or your product will be decertified for use in our jurisdiction’. That explains a lot.
I think you nailed it, with the possible addition of "The folks above me (in state gov or DC) said we have to accept this, so I guess I have to, but I don't want to admit that I don't know anything about how it is supposed to work." I suspect it was made very clear that asking for the product data was asking for an end to your career.
During a public health emergency you would expect the public health officials to show more honor and sense of duty to the public. Even under duress you would expect them to find methods of resistance, obstruction, non-compliance, feigned incompetence, etc. to get the word out.
Well... depends a bit on what you mean by "expect". I would definitely want them to, yes, and consider it a failure when they do not. However, given the types of people in those roles, I would pretty much expect them to do exactly what they did, which is what all career government bureaucrats do. :)
Yea, I am in part glad that the COVID business shook a lot of people's blind faith in their institutional leaders, and in part bothered that it didn't do it a a whole lot more. Not just government but business, religious and social groups all had their leaders bow down and reply "Whatever you say!" to the government. Yet people seem to be ignoring that behavior, as though that was the only difficult decision those leaders ever will have to make.
If I were to choose a new church, for instance, a good answer to "So, how did you respond to the COVID mandates?" would be a key consideration.
Possibly, but I suspect the modal examples are just amazingly incompetent, and do whatever their bosses say. Those bosses are probably effectively in the pocket of the pharma companies, however, and so yea, they are probably entirely indifferent to whether or not some act makes public health better or worse, and act in ways that make it worse.
Everyone in every "important" organization intuitively knows what "The Current Thing" is and that they can't go against that authorized narrative. Nobody wants to be cast out of the herd.
My conclusion: "The home of the brave" doesn't have enough brave citizens.
The argument that the "Science" and "Health" Establishment really want to promote poor health is that these same institutions benefit from more people having poor health.
For example, if these non-vaccines really do increase the incidence of cancer, the health establishment is going to make even more money on cancer drugs and treatments. Right now, I see a flurry of Shingles Vaccine commercials. The damn Covid vaccine probably caused shingles.
Before Covid, the State Health Agencies seemed to exist only to promote the flu vaccine. They've been pushing those shots hard for decades - but the flu is still around and just as bad as ever.
If the flu went away or was cured, what would the army of people who work at these agencies do?
I completely agree with you and understand your frustration. As a pathologist, I searched extensively to find the data supporting the high cycle threshold deemed "positive". I found nothing, nothing.
Watch Kary Mullis when he is discussing the PCR and its application to diagnostics. His face is a mixture of sadness, disgust, and a little bit of anger. In short, DO NOT USE IT FOR DIAGNOSIS! Simple. It is too easy to game the results with increased CTs.
As much as that appears to be obfuscation, I actually think it is a pretty straightforward answer and that much of information is important to understanding the answer. Basically, they don’t know the technical details of the tests and the entire FDA process is designed so that nobody really knows. This answer actually helps to explain why all of these health departments were left hanging when people started questioning the methodology of the Covid tests.
I worked in the Defense Industry for a spell and PCR was a fine tool for Bioagent detection and is much cheaper, smaller, and easier to operate than a Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS).
The difference is Public Health Admins and Military Ops have different goals. On a mission, the warfighter is not looking to jack up the readings so high that they get a discouraging reading. The PCR process is intended only to increase the number what's presumed to be a too-small-to-detect number of organisms so that it rises above the threshold for detection.
Whereas, Public Health intends to use The Science to exert control and, as noted elsewhere in this comments section, Pretend That They Are Really, seriously Really Smart. Smarter Than You, For Sure.
The tool's not the real problem. It's who does the measuring, and who presents the results.
Seems like the “answer” you got was a cut/paste from a supplier’s website. I doubt the respondent even understood what was sent you. This same sort of thinking is why Scott Harris, MD, MPH, director of ADPH, is still hawking COVID-19 vaccines. Wish he was a Ladapo.
That agency has 2,800 employees! They should all be fired and the agency dissolved, which would produce a profound improvement in "public health" in Alabama ... and save the tax-payers millions of dollars.
I expect lobbyists for BC/BS and UAB may bristle at that suggestion, but they were and are useless as far as COVID was/is concerned. A thorough review of their budget may be quite revealing.
Our rulers basically concluded they could not allow any of their false narratives to be exposed or debunked as false. The reason they can't allow this to happen is they want to remain in control and expand their control. The reason they want to protect and expand their control is they are not finished rolling out the rest of their unfinished agendas! That's the terrifying conclusion: They are not done with us!
Yes. Half is stating the result that you wish to see, and it's importance to society. The other half is justifying that result using the aforementioned impenetrable jargon.
I disagree. It's the results that matter to them, as in the ends justify the means. The justifications are all indecipherable crap-arguments. They are crap-arguments because they make no sense, and their only purpose is to beat you into submission. You are just supposed to accept their results - minus any dabate!
"We need to dismantle Capitalism and the nuclear family! They are bad!"
"Why?"
"It's obvious because ..." their mouths open, followed by a stream of intellectual and psychological vomit. Intellectually it's pretty repugnant.
I am familiar with this one as well but couldn't think of the authors' names. Thank you!
Soooo... my BS's in Physics. You know Political Science. Maybe together we submit a paper. Here are a few Title Ideas:
- Policy Implications of Quantum Fluctuations in the Differing COVID Policies in the US, Mauritania, and Zaire
- Free Abelian Sets and Choice: When Antifa Comes to Your City
- How to use Maxwell's Demon as a Means to Evaluate Asylum Claims
I think you're the Text Guy but you can count on me to come up with a couple or three Completely Unrelated but Very Mathy And Wholly Convincing Equations, slap on a few axis labels with units like 'Barn-Parsecs,' and Bulk It Up with Some Multi-Colored Graphs.
I see academic collaboration in our future, and a guaranteed publication future. As a tweak to your proposed titles, we need to work in quantum fluctuations affect access to trans-affirming surgery. Plus Maxwell's "Demon" is too harsh. That should be Maxwell's marginalized entity. Remember the math riddle: If it takes a cow and her calf a day and a half to walk a mile and a half, how long does it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick the seeds out of dill pickle?
Like I used to tell my Officer Candidates, when you don't know the answer, loudly and confidently proclaim, "Twenty three." That is the answer for everything.
This. "This means that the test reflects the presence or absence of the viral genetic material but not the actual CT value. These platforms have predetermined CT values that are not reported. The manufacturer regards them as proprietary information which they do not disclose."
What the absolute f*ck? I worked as the systems engineer on a desktop PCR analyzer back in the 90s. (That technology was never marketed, due to issues obtaining the IP from none other than Kary Mullis, but that's another story.) That anyone could state that the number of cycles is "proprietary" and not be laughed out of the room strikes me as amazing. What am I missing? In order to "reflect the presence or absence" amplification must occur. The amount of amplification is, as far as I knew, based directly upon the CT value. Please make it make sense.
I live on a small, rocky island, and there are many low spots in the roads near tidal marshes. They put these scare meters next to the road to measure the rise in water levels (good luck 6th graders!) and now, whenever the roads are flooded because the moon and the wind and the weather line up just right, it's absolute proof that the entire island will be underwater if we don't stop using plastic straws.
There is a distinct overlap between people who live in beautiful coastal communities and people who say they think those areas are sinking into the sea and it's your fault.
I live on the water. My house is 25’ above sea level. My neighbour, rabid greenie has a house about 8’ above sea level. In about 2007 our local rag ran a front page story showing what will be the new parameters of our city by 2012!! Apparently we had reached a ‘tipping point’ where nothing can now stop a 20’ sea level rise within five years. He asked me what I was planning on doing. He said there is no way to stop this. 20’ in 5 years. I said ‘well, I should be okay. But, you? You’re toast. I guess you’re selling your home.’ He wasn’t. I said ‘how can you not? Your house will be flooded in two years. It will be worthless. And you believe this nonsense.’ He said he was going to wait until the water had risen about halfway to his house. I told him no one would buy it then. He said he would wait. He has a PhD. He is actually quite smart. He knew what he was saying was completely illogical. So…he didn’t really believe it. 17 years later, as far as I can see zero change in sea levels.
Because they believe themselves expert in a very narrow field they are prone (forced?) to believe others are expert in their very narrow field. To do otherwise would collapse the entire house of cards. To paraphrase Shakespeare, kill all the experts first; then the lawyers.
That is a really good point. They know they aren’t experts, can’t face it. So they have to believe others as being expert to keep their ego game intact. All the people I know who might actually be experts all will say ‘I have barely scratched the surface. Don’t call me an expert.’
Alan Greenspan basically made his career on cryptic, Delphic writings and sayings. That didn’t turn out too well, but he was gone by then. As Steve Eisman said, “he’s basically a smart guy who’s been wrong about everything”.
has any of Stephen Hawking's papers proven right so far?
I am wary of everyone who needs mathematical formula to prove they are right, just like the actress (I think it is Julia Roberts) puzzled by all what is going on, in the memes.
A booklet about statistics published half a century ago proved that you can prove anything with statistics.
The statistics proving anything comment is correct. All you have to do is pick and choose which data set you use as well as any of a number of other variables. You can even make numbers up. There are so many statistical manipulations one can do with numbers it makes the head spin. I watched that sort of thing happen in the medical research department I worked in. I was to told to chill when I objected because if the numbers weren’t crunched “ just so” then no one would get any grant money. Their justification. I finally left that field and it’s only gotten worse as we can see, today.
Yea, I've been there too. I left a position doing research for a non-profit after I was told just to "Make the numbers look right" in a report, along with "You know what we want to say, just start writing the report now and finish the analysis when you have time."
Basically researchers are one step up from examining chicken entrails to tell the future, that step up being that some don't lie instead of everyone.
A good description of researchers. And yes, there are some honest ones out there but that honesty used to be the norm. I fear it’s more about chicken entrails now, than not.
Are you certain that all of the chicken entrailers were wrong?
If so , may I see your data and calculations?
There was a native lady in a news article a few months ago who described a method for predicting the weather. If you killed a deer and it was quite fat, you were in for a hard winter. I wasn't able to find out how that worked for chickens, however.
It seems to me that statistics is about probability, and probability is about how to bet under conditions of partial knowledge, when you don't actually know. Ultimately, there is a subjective element to it that allows you to change the numbers according to what conditions of partial knowledge you assume.
"It seems to me that statistics is about probability, and probability is about how to bet under conditions of partial knowledge, when you don't actually know."
On my first day of Stats, the professor stated at the beginning: "Statistics is the collection, manipulation, organization, and presentation of numerical data."
Even in the collection - for example, which data should be ignored - is susceptible to, generously, _interpretation_.
Climate 'data' is a good example. They come up with ways to justify ignoring the data that does not support their desired result -- the removal of the Arctic weather stations from the data set, for instance.
Or that most of the weather stations are in the Northern Hemisphere, in mostly non-arid regions that are largely populated so have high density development including pavement and structures that puts most thermomostats in the system in what I like to think of as a Heat Oasis.
There is some truth to this. However, statistics are mostly used in a manipulative manner to make things appear to be fact. Take the global warming stuff for instance. If you look at an overall graph of the planet’s history regarding CO2 levels and temps you see one picture. Mostly showing we need more CO2 for hapoy plant growth and that higher CO2 levels are often associated with COLDER temps vs warmer ones. Plus, the planet fluctuates from one extreme to another quite ofte, over time. I’m sure She understands that but so far, we clearly do not. If you cut out a part of that overall graph - one that shows only a small view and seems to support your effort to panic people - you get a picture that is correct but inflated and mis-used. It does not represent the full, numerical data set. Only a piece of it. And that is only one way to fool people with those numbers. Statistics also are used to show what happened in a study. 100 people are looked at. They are all given an orange and blue ball. They measure how often an orange ball is played with vs the blue ball. If 54 people choose the orange ball and 46 people choose the blue one, you could say people prefer orange over blue. What if the orange ball bounces better than the blue one? Or fits most people’s hands better. Those parameters aren’t mentioned in the study but could be relevant. And is 54% vs 46% really statistically significant? These kinds of games are played out all the time in an effort to fool a public who does not understand statistics, data sets, pieces of data vs an entire data set over time, relevancy, significance, etc. Some folks do. Most don’t.
I agree, and I think that's what I was getting at in the above comment. There is reality, which is objective, and there are our respective mental models, or understandings, of that reality. We "know" some facts about the reality, and from those facts we try to extrapolate the full model. Changing the set of facts we supposedly know changes the assumptions on how to bet, and what model we project to explain the reality. In a formal study, we get to choose our assumed fact set. So if we look at only a small portion of an historical graph, or consider only certain of a set of factors that might be relevant to which ball a set of people use to play with, we change the conditions of the bets we make to extrapolate that data into an explanatory model. The math itself might be fine, but it is that ability to cherry-pick the operative assumptions that makes it so easy for a study to lie with statistics.
Yes to this. It’s good to talk this out for clarification, though. Most people don’t realize just how badly their minds are being messed with. All some journalist or news article has to do is toss some numbers or bogus statistics out there and people nod their heads and say, “well, that must be so, then.” I’m afraid numbers are our last bastion of both truth and manipulation with the later now the norm.
It certainly seems he was right about various predictions relating, for instance, to black holes and about Hawking radiation. Some things it seems he was probably wrong about.
The point is that his predictions are falsifiable - he published his thinking openly, including the mathematics used in deriving his conclusions etc. Now the theories are being tested. That is how science works. What point were you trying to make?
"has any of Stephen Hawking's papers proven right so far?"
There's a saying attributed to, of all people, Climate Apacolypist Michael Man : "Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages." Science seeks _explanations_ for what we observe.
But, that said, Hawking rivals even Einstein for his contributions to theoretical physics but in a field where we can't just drop a Neutron Star into an Erlenmeyer Flask and count the x-rays as they fly out into the lab. But his predictions have been shown to be impressively, if anti-intuitively, consistent with observation.
But, if that's what you mean by Proof, yeah, Hawking's record is confidently accepted as an explanation for reality doing what it does.
Oh no. If you are correct that might mean that a man isn’t a woman after all. That having a gas stove isn’t going to destroy the world. That having millions of illegal immigrants might not bring equality and Justice for all. Could this really mean that Joe Biden is really demented and that we are on the Titanic.
(man + woman + L +G +T +B +Q + bonus hole + chestfeeder) - (white patriarchy + toxic masculinity + xyzism) = paradise. (I may have not got this quite right but I think they may teach it in math at school these days)
At the beginning of Covid, my non-degreed self had only a vague understanding of relative vs absolute value in stats.
Understanding something as simple as that leads to mind-blowing awareness of statistical manipulation. I can totally understand the conclusions of this study.
Due to my interest in health rabbit-holes, I've read many studies. I understand some of what I read, but usually not all of it. I know this.
I have read more than one, though, where the conclusions drawn seemed to have little connection to the actual data.
This was a very common tactic in 2020-2021 in mainstream news ( probably still is but I don’t read maintsteam news any longer). An article would copy and paste the last lines of the conclusion in a study and base the article on that. I don't think the reporters ever read the studies. I read quite a few of the methods and results sections and scratched my head how the conclusions were drawn or even how some of these papers were approved.
In “Day After Tomorrow” there’s a scene where Dennis Quaid is crawling from Philly to NYC in a blizzard as the temperature drops 10 degrees F per second. Al Gore though that movie was truth.
And remember “Contact”? Jodie Foster plays Ellie Arroway, a briiliant astronomer, maybe the smartest woman in the whole world. Mathematics and science are every bit as
natural to Ellie as knitting a scarf or whipping up a perfect souffle. Ellie's on a one-woman mission to find intelligent life somewhere out in the cosmos. It sure ain't in this movie. Here's how she quantifies her excitement:
"You know, there are four hundred billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, and just one of out of a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life; there would be literally millions of civilizations out there."
OK, here's what I get: "one out of a million" of four hundred billion leaves you with 400,000. So before you even get to the second "one out of a million" you are out of millions to get one out of. This is not even close, and would probably get you a summer in remedial math at even a crappy public high school.
My favorite scene from the Contact novel itself, not in the movie, is where Ellie and former circus roustabout and strongman Palmer Joss - who found God after being struck by lightning - were arguing about who the greater conviction their 'beliefs' - Elle in science or Joss in faith.
So Elle takes them into the Natural History Museum at Smithsonian Institute in DC (I'm not big on Government Anything but this is an absolutely fantastic museum, if you can visit) to the Foucault Pendulum Exhibit (no longer in that location, sadly:https://www.si.edu/spotlight/foucault-pendulum) so they can put their faiths to the test.
Elle pulls the pendulum back to her face, releases it, and stands confidently in place as this massive, 30-ft pendulum swings back to within an eyelash of her nose, but coming up short because of, well, non-conservative forces.
She then challenges Joss to do the same, only after release to step forward a foot and pray to God that the pendulum would not cause him $1000s in Dental Repair. He did not take the bet.
No offense (and I love the Foucault* pendulum), but nowhere does any God I know of claim if you do something of your own free will that will kill you, then the God will save you. There is even a scripture in the Bible describing this exact type of scenario, with the devil prodding Jesus to jump off a cliff so God could save him. Kinda intellectually lazy on Sagan's part.
*If the poor guy only knew what would become of that last name....
Nothing could be more cringeworthy than Daryl Hanna trying to play an astrophysicist in the 80's movie "Roxanne". She could barely pull off playing a mermaid in "Splash".
I thought she was pretty awesome, though, as a One-eyed Sociopath Assassin and Cool Sword Afficianado Elle "California Mountain Snake" Driver in the the Kill Bill movie(s).
In her not-defense, that math was elementary and should be obvious for anyone who's graduated high school, let alone people on the set of a non-parody science movie. I like Jodie, but let's be real: the vast majority of people do not intuitively understand math beyond adding and subtracting small numbers (and perhaps some basic geometry).
To give another example of this: back in my days as a sandwich artist at a chain that shall not be named, I had a coworker who would regularly charge people paying cash by an extra dollar, which would then proceed into her pocket. Her 'mistake' was very rarely caught by customers.
(I'm kidding, internet being what it is I figure I best mention that.)
My mother-in-law is among other things a retired math-teacher for the lower grades which of course means she's got a degree in math because in her day /all/ teachers had degrees in their subjects, and this was way before the academic inflation of degrees started.
Anyway, she's fond of remarking that /knowing/ math - how to and what operations to perform - and understanding /what/ you are actually doing are two separate things: most of us get by knowing how because we don't really need to do more than that in our daily lives. To teach it you must of course have both.
But "sci fi" is notoriously bad with numbers, even without any math attached. There's a Dr WHO episode where he hides Earth by moving it 150 000 miles. Sigh. They couldn't even look up it up, lazy writers.
Then there's Star Wars with its Kessel Run in 12 parsecs (and you can see Sir Alec Guiness rolling his eyes in the movie!).
Star Trek, too many to mention.
Babylon 5 did it right though: when asked about the speed of ships, the writer just remarked they move at P. P for Plot.
In my limited experience of people in the lest say creative fields of work, they are quite lazy, cognitively speaking - not stupid, just lazy.
I recognized the quadratic equation format below the calculusy looking stuff. I didn't get past that in college because... Oh look! A squirrel!! That equation scares the hell out of people who are afraid of algebra. That was another fun article, Gato! Thanks!! Just please never, ever put any Neil DeGrasse Tyson anywhere - he's an idiot.
My last algebra class was over 20 years ago. I like algebra so I periodically do some of those for fun. I don't want to forget! Not touching algebra word problems though. Eeeeeeeeeek!!
An example that proves this quote: “…. half of social sciences these days seems to consist of deliberately impenetrable jargon to occlude and obscure meaning (if, indeed, there is any meaning at all) so it seems to be seen as some sort of feature rather than a bug. but “oh, that’s unparsable and/or incomprehensible to me; it must be profound” is a truly dangerous basis for intellectual belief ..."
A year or so ago, I emailed a contact at the Alabama’s Governor’s office and asked him: “If anyone in the Governor's office can provide data on the "cycle thresholds" used to determine "positive cases" in the PCR tests?”
Mr contact in the governor’s office forwarded my question to the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) and sent me the reply he received to my simple question on the PCR cycle thresholds.
The response was written by Dr. Karen Landers, the main spokesperson for the ADPH. Can anyone discern my answer from this scientific gobbledy-gook and obfuscation? My “answer:” …
“Real Time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays for COVID 19 are approved for use under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. A variety of testing assays, such as Thermo Fisher TaqPath, GeneXpert Xpert® Xpress, and Hologic Aptima SARS-CoV-2, are used and reporting of results vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
“A RT-PCR assay can help determine a desired target based on specific genetic material (such as for COVID-19) present in a sample. During the assay, the genetic material from the sample is amplified exponentially over a specific number of cycles and the amplification is monitored by changes in an associated fluorescent signal. There is also a background level established for each assay to help distinguish if from the fluorescent signal.
“The intensity of the fluorescence increases as the number of cycles increases throughout the assay. The point where the number of cycles required for the fluorescent intensity to cross above the background level is known as the cycle threshold (CT). There is a correlation between the CT value and the amount of genetic material present in a specimen. The more genetic material present, the lower the CT value. The less genetic material present, the higher the CT value. Reporting for a positive assay is pre-determined by performance studies to indicate the value for a cutoff for the CT.
“RT-PCR tests that have received EUA from the FDA for COVID-19 as of October 23, 2020, are qualitative tests. This means that the test reflects the presence or absence of the viral genetic material but not the actual CT value. These platforms have predetermined CT values that are not reported. The manufacturer regards them as proprietary information which they do not disclose.
“So, there is no CT value to be used to determine how infectious a person is or when the person can be released from isolation or quarantine.
“The results for a RT PCR assay can be affected by factors other than the amount of virus in the specimen. Collection and storage of the specimen can affect results as well as when the specimen was collected in relation to when the person became ill.
“The steps used to process the genetic material, the specific genetic target being measured, and the amount and type of the patient sample used varies among RT-PCR tests.Therefore, the CT values will differ between the assays that generate them.
“In addition, not all COVID-19 tests report results using CT values. Some manufactures such as Hologic, whose COVID-19 assay has been widely used, report their results in relative light units (RLUs). However, the reporting from the instrument is negative or positive based on pre-determined RLU values. A method of synchronizing CT values across manufacturers is not available. “
… Basically, nobody knows the CT number of the PCR tests used to determine “positive cases.” Our trusted public health agencies know the answer ... they are just not willing to give it to the public they supposedly serve.
Actually, reading the above, I am not even sure that the public health officials know what number of CT are being used as they are ‘proprietary’ and ‘not disclosed by the manufacturer’. So basically, the test results were being ‘read’ by people who didn’t understand what was going on and weren’t forceful enough to say, ‘give me the data or your product will be decertified for use in our jurisdiction’. That explains a lot.
I think you nailed it, with the possible addition of "The folks above me (in state gov or DC) said we have to accept this, so I guess I have to, but I don't want to admit that I don't know anything about how it is supposed to work." I suspect it was made very clear that asking for the product data was asking for an end to your career.
During a public health emergency you would expect the public health officials to show more honor and sense of duty to the public. Even under duress you would expect them to find methods of resistance, obstruction, non-compliance, feigned incompetence, etc. to get the word out.
Well... depends a bit on what you mean by "expect". I would definitely want them to, yes, and consider it a failure when they do not. However, given the types of people in those roles, I would pretty much expect them to do exactly what they did, which is what all career government bureaucrats do. :)
Agree. The two biggest lies: “We’re from the government and we are here to help you.” AND “We’re glad you’re here.”
Yea, I am in part glad that the COVID business shook a lot of people's blind faith in their institutional leaders, and in part bothered that it didn't do it a a whole lot more. Not just government but business, religious and social groups all had their leaders bow down and reply "Whatever you say!" to the government. Yet people seem to be ignoring that behavior, as though that was the only difficult decision those leaders ever will have to make.
If I were to choose a new church, for instance, a good answer to "So, how did you respond to the COVID mandates?" would be a key consideration.
A cynic might conclude that the real goal of the public health agencies is to worsen "public health."
Possibly, but I suspect the modal examples are just amazingly incompetent, and do whatever their bosses say. Those bosses are probably effectively in the pocket of the pharma companies, however, and so yea, they are probably entirely indifferent to whether or not some act makes public health better or worse, and act in ways that make it worse.
Everyone in every "important" organization intuitively knows what "The Current Thing" is and that they can't go against that authorized narrative. Nobody wants to be cast out of the herd.
My conclusion: "The home of the brave" doesn't have enough brave citizens.
The argument that the "Science" and "Health" Establishment really want to promote poor health is that these same institutions benefit from more people having poor health.
For example, if these non-vaccines really do increase the incidence of cancer, the health establishment is going to make even more money on cancer drugs and treatments. Right now, I see a flurry of Shingles Vaccine commercials. The damn Covid vaccine probably caused shingles.
Before Covid, the State Health Agencies seemed to exist only to promote the flu vaccine. They've been pushing those shots hard for decades - but the flu is still around and just as bad as ever.
If the flu went away or was cured, what would the army of people who work at these agencies do?
That is certainly the goal of “Big Pharma”
Cynic? Or maybe just a realist...
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
I don't have access to that. What is it?
“In God we trust. All others, bring data!”
W. Edwards Deming
Great point. Thanks.
I might have gotten some valuable info from my question after all.
Not one. It's like Kamala herself wrote that.
She would have included a venn diagram
Well, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
I completely agree with you and understand your frustration. As a pathologist, I searched extensively to find the data supporting the high cycle threshold deemed "positive". I found nothing, nothing.
Watch Kary Mullis when he is discussing the PCR and its application to diagnostics. His face is a mixture of sadness, disgust, and a little bit of anger. In short, DO NOT USE IT FOR DIAGNOSIS! Simple. It is too easy to game the results with increased CTs.
In other words, "We don't know, and they won't tell us!"
And "we don't want to know" ... which is an example of my New Normal Maxim: "Never investigate that which you don't want to confirm."
As much as that appears to be obfuscation, I actually think it is a pretty straightforward answer and that much of information is important to understanding the answer. Basically, they don’t know the technical details of the tests and the entire FDA process is designed so that nobody really knows. This answer actually helps to explain why all of these health departments were left hanging when people started questioning the methodology of the Covid tests.
"RT-PCR"
I worked in the Defense Industry for a spell and PCR was a fine tool for Bioagent detection and is much cheaper, smaller, and easier to operate than a Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS).
The difference is Public Health Admins and Military Ops have different goals. On a mission, the warfighter is not looking to jack up the readings so high that they get a discouraging reading. The PCR process is intended only to increase the number what's presumed to be a too-small-to-detect number of organisms so that it rises above the threshold for detection.
Whereas, Public Health intends to use The Science to exert control and, as noted elsewhere in this comments section, Pretend That They Are Really, seriously Really Smart. Smarter Than You, For Sure.
The tool's not the real problem. It's who does the measuring, and who presents the results.
Well, that was a very long round about way for her to say “we have no clue.”
Obfuscation is a noun. 😂
Dr. Karen is ill-equipped to provide the correct answer...which is "How the hell do I know?"
Ha!
I think she knows though.
That is some serious PhD-level bullshit.
Seems like the “answer” you got was a cut/paste from a supplier’s website. I doubt the respondent even understood what was sent you. This same sort of thinking is why Scott Harris, MD, MPH, director of ADPH, is still hawking COVID-19 vaccines. Wish he was a Ladapo.
That agency has 2,800 employees! They should all be fired and the agency dissolved, which would produce a profound improvement in "public health" in Alabama ... and save the tax-payers millions of dollars.
I expect lobbyists for BC/BS and UAB may bristle at that suggestion, but they were and are useless as far as COVID was/is concerned. A thorough review of their budget may be quite revealing.
Our rulers basically concluded they could not allow any of their false narratives to be exposed or debunked as false. The reason they can't allow this to happen is they want to remain in control and expand their control. The reason they want to protect and expand their control is they are not finished rolling out the rest of their unfinished agendas! That's the terrifying conclusion: They are not done with us!
Only half of social sciences consists of impenetrable jargon?
Yes. Half is stating the result that you wish to see, and it's importance to society. The other half is justifying that result using the aforementioned impenetrable jargon.
The justifications are what really matters.
I disagree. It's the results that matter to them, as in the ends justify the means. The justifications are all indecipherable crap-arguments. They are crap-arguments because they make no sense, and their only purpose is to beat you into submission. You are just supposed to accept their results - minus any dabate!
"We need to dismantle Capitalism and the nuclear family! They are bad!"
"Why?"
"It's obvious because ..." their mouths open, followed by a stream of intellectual and psychological vomit. Intellectually it's pretty repugnant.
"It's the results that matter to them"
For very specific values of 'results,' yerp.
"You are just supposed to accept their results"
Yeah,... No.
Yes, the results that they want. I think we agree, just different terminology.
I should've added this comment in this thread:
*Sokal has entered the chat*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
😂😂😂 Hey PG, how about this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
As a Poly-Sci guy that reads it on the outside for fun, I received no end of enjoyment from this.
I am familiar with this one as well but couldn't think of the authors' names. Thank you!
Soooo... my BS's in Physics. You know Political Science. Maybe together we submit a paper. Here are a few Title Ideas:
- Policy Implications of Quantum Fluctuations in the Differing COVID Policies in the US, Mauritania, and Zaire
- Free Abelian Sets and Choice: When Antifa Comes to Your City
- How to use Maxwell's Demon as a Means to Evaluate Asylum Claims
I think you're the Text Guy but you can count on me to come up with a couple or three Completely Unrelated but Very Mathy And Wholly Convincing Equations, slap on a few axis labels with units like 'Barn-Parsecs,' and Bulk It Up with Some Multi-Colored Graphs.
https://youtu.be/WCHrYoH1D94?si=ZCpWbFJAXdF8FCjX
Cha. Ching.
I see academic collaboration in our future, and a guaranteed publication future. As a tweak to your proposed titles, we need to work in quantum fluctuations affect access to trans-affirming surgery. Plus Maxwell's "Demon" is too harsh. That should be Maxwell's marginalized entity. Remember the math riddle: If it takes a cow and her calf a day and a half to walk a mile and a half, how long does it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick the seeds out of dill pickle?
*slips Biz Card through ether* I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.
I hadn't even thought of the implications of Quantum Fluctuations on the 2SLBGTEIEIO+community. *massages temples* I mean, it's so blatantly obvious.
And you're right about that Demon thing. That's way too harsh for a social science journal.
"...how long does it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick the seeds out of dill pickle?"
https://youtu.be/2Yec9xYJxpE?si=v7Pvcftj-14dxqU1&t=127
Like I used to tell my Officer Candidates, when you don't know the answer, loudly and confidently proclaim, "Twenty three." That is the answer for everything.
I'm surprised you got an answer at all.
Read my next Substack article for another "answer" I got from the Alabama Department of Public Health.
This time I asked the agency: How many of your own employees have died from Covid in the last four years?
This. "This means that the test reflects the presence or absence of the viral genetic material but not the actual CT value. These platforms have predetermined CT values that are not reported. The manufacturer regards them as proprietary information which they do not disclose."
What the absolute f*ck? I worked as the systems engineer on a desktop PCR analyzer back in the 90s. (That technology was never marketed, due to issues obtaining the IP from none other than Kary Mullis, but that's another story.) That anyone could state that the number of cycles is "proprietary" and not be laughed out of the room strikes me as amazing. What am I missing? In order to "reflect the presence or absence" amplification must occur. The amount of amplification is, as far as I knew, based directly upon the CT value. Please make it make sense.
Now picture an owl with a Tootsie pop: Uh Whuuhun...Uh Tooowhoo...Uh Thraaheee. The answer is Three.
I live on a small, rocky island, and there are many low spots in the roads near tidal marshes. They put these scare meters next to the road to measure the rise in water levels (good luck 6th graders!) and now, whenever the roads are flooded because the moon and the wind and the weather line up just right, it's absolute proof that the entire island will be underwater if we don't stop using plastic straws.
I think you live near me. Lol
There is a distinct overlap between people who live in beautiful coastal communities and people who say they think those areas are sinking into the sea and it's your fault.
I live on the water. My house is 25’ above sea level. My neighbour, rabid greenie has a house about 8’ above sea level. In about 2007 our local rag ran a front page story showing what will be the new parameters of our city by 2012!! Apparently we had reached a ‘tipping point’ where nothing can now stop a 20’ sea level rise within five years. He asked me what I was planning on doing. He said there is no way to stop this. 20’ in 5 years. I said ‘well, I should be okay. But, you? You’re toast. I guess you’re selling your home.’ He wasn’t. I said ‘how can you not? Your house will be flooded in two years. It will be worthless. And you believe this nonsense.’ He said he was going to wait until the water had risen about halfway to his house. I told him no one would buy it then. He said he would wait. He has a PhD. He is actually quite smart. He knew what he was saying was completely illogical. So…he didn’t really believe it. 17 years later, as far as I can see zero change in sea levels.
I will buy his house as an offset to his carbon usage. Tell him my offer stands.
🤣
Ha!
Because they believe themselves expert in a very narrow field they are prone (forced?) to believe others are expert in their very narrow field. To do otherwise would collapse the entire house of cards. To paraphrase Shakespeare, kill all the experts first; then the lawyers.
That is a really good point. They know they aren’t experts, can’t face it. So they have to believe others as being expert to keep their ego game intact. All the people I know who might actually be experts all will say ‘I have barely scratched the surface. Don’t call me an expert.’
Humility seems a lost virtue among our elite class.
"There is a distinct overlap..."
What an interesting observation.
Alan Greenspan basically made his career on cryptic, Delphic writings and sayings. That didn’t turn out too well, but he was gone by then. As Steve Eisman said, “he’s basically a smart guy who’s been wrong about everything”.
has any of Stephen Hawking's papers proven right so far?
I am wary of everyone who needs mathematical formula to prove they are right, just like the actress (I think it is Julia Roberts) puzzled by all what is going on, in the memes.
A booklet about statistics published half a century ago proved that you can prove anything with statistics.
The statistics proving anything comment is correct. All you have to do is pick and choose which data set you use as well as any of a number of other variables. You can even make numbers up. There are so many statistical manipulations one can do with numbers it makes the head spin. I watched that sort of thing happen in the medical research department I worked in. I was to told to chill when I objected because if the numbers weren’t crunched “ just so” then no one would get any grant money. Their justification. I finally left that field and it’s only gotten worse as we can see, today.
Yea, I've been there too. I left a position doing research for a non-profit after I was told just to "Make the numbers look right" in a report, along with "You know what we want to say, just start writing the report now and finish the analysis when you have time."
Basically researchers are one step up from examining chicken entrails to tell the future, that step up being that some don't lie instead of everyone.
A good description of researchers. And yes, there are some honest ones out there but that honesty used to be the norm. I fear it’s more about chicken entrails now, than not.
Are you certain that all of the chicken entrailers were wrong?
If so , may I see your data and calculations?
There was a native lady in a news article a few months ago who described a method for predicting the weather. If you killed a deer and it was quite fat, you were in for a hard winter. I wasn't able to find out how that worked for chickens, however.
It seems to me that statistics is about probability, and probability is about how to bet under conditions of partial knowledge, when you don't actually know. Ultimately, there is a subjective element to it that allows you to change the numbers according to what conditions of partial knowledge you assume.
"It seems to me that statistics is about probability, and probability is about how to bet under conditions of partial knowledge, when you don't actually know."
On my first day of Stats, the professor stated at the beginning: "Statistics is the collection, manipulation, organization, and presentation of numerical data."
Even in the collection - for example, which data should be ignored - is susceptible to, generously, _interpretation_.
Climate 'data' is a good example. They come up with ways to justify ignoring the data that does not support their desired result -- the removal of the Arctic weather stations from the data set, for instance.
Or that most of the weather stations are in the Northern Hemisphere, in mostly non-arid regions that are largely populated so have high density development including pavement and structures that puts most thermomostats in the system in what I like to think of as a Heat Oasis.
There is some truth to this. However, statistics are mostly used in a manipulative manner to make things appear to be fact. Take the global warming stuff for instance. If you look at an overall graph of the planet’s history regarding CO2 levels and temps you see one picture. Mostly showing we need more CO2 for hapoy plant growth and that higher CO2 levels are often associated with COLDER temps vs warmer ones. Plus, the planet fluctuates from one extreme to another quite ofte, over time. I’m sure She understands that but so far, we clearly do not. If you cut out a part of that overall graph - one that shows only a small view and seems to support your effort to panic people - you get a picture that is correct but inflated and mis-used. It does not represent the full, numerical data set. Only a piece of it. And that is only one way to fool people with those numbers. Statistics also are used to show what happened in a study. 100 people are looked at. They are all given an orange and blue ball. They measure how often an orange ball is played with vs the blue ball. If 54 people choose the orange ball and 46 people choose the blue one, you could say people prefer orange over blue. What if the orange ball bounces better than the blue one? Or fits most people’s hands better. Those parameters aren’t mentioned in the study but could be relevant. And is 54% vs 46% really statistically significant? These kinds of games are played out all the time in an effort to fool a public who does not understand statistics, data sets, pieces of data vs an entire data set over time, relevancy, significance, etc. Some folks do. Most don’t.
I agree, and I think that's what I was getting at in the above comment. There is reality, which is objective, and there are our respective mental models, or understandings, of that reality. We "know" some facts about the reality, and from those facts we try to extrapolate the full model. Changing the set of facts we supposedly know changes the assumptions on how to bet, and what model we project to explain the reality. In a formal study, we get to choose our assumed fact set. So if we look at only a small portion of an historical graph, or consider only certain of a set of factors that might be relevant to which ball a set of people use to play with, we change the conditions of the bets we make to extrapolate that data into an explanatory model. The math itself might be fine, but it is that ability to cherry-pick the operative assumptions that makes it so easy for a study to lie with statistics.
Yes to this. It’s good to talk this out for clarification, though. Most people don’t realize just how badly their minds are being messed with. All some journalist or news article has to do is toss some numbers or bogus statistics out there and people nod their heads and say, “well, that must be so, then.” I’m afraid numbers are our last bastion of both truth and manipulation with the later now the norm.
"When mathing lacks integrity"...
It certainly seems he was right about various predictions relating, for instance, to black holes and about Hawking radiation. Some things it seems he was probably wrong about.
The point is that his predictions are falsifiable - he published his thinking openly, including the mathematics used in deriving his conclusions etc. Now the theories are being tested. That is how science works. What point were you trying to make?
"has any of Stephen Hawking's papers proven right so far?"
There's a saying attributed to, of all people, Climate Apacolypist Michael Man : "Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages." Science seeks _explanations_ for what we observe.
But, that said, Hawking rivals even Einstein for his contributions to theoretical physics but in a field where we can't just drop a Neutron Star into an Erlenmeyer Flask and count the x-rays as they fly out into the lab. But his predictions have been shown to be impressively, if anti-intuitively, consistent with observation.
But, if that's what you mean by Proof, yeah, Hawking's record is confidently accepted as an explanation for reality doing what it does.
I doubt if a theoretical physicist uses statistics. It's a different kind of math.
Also, in science, being proven wrong is just as important as being proven right, in terms of teasing out truths the universe.
"Alan Greenspan basically made his career on cryptic, Delphic writings and sayings."
This is a great example of this same error.
Economics is another field where we're much worse off for not having many non-economists who understand the First Principles.
Quantitative Easing? Credit Default Swap? Dag, even Inflation is something most of us wouldn't be able to explain to even another adult.
This is so true and made me laugh out loud. Thank you!
Sometimes the weather vane points north so you must look south for the truth.
And of course one who shorted in '07 *must* be right about everything else, too...
Oh no. If you are correct that might mean that a man isn’t a woman after all. That having a gas stove isn’t going to destroy the world. That having millions of illegal immigrants might not bring equality and Justice for all. Could this really mean that Joe Biden is really demented and that we are on the Titanic.
Thanks, I needed a math lesson
(man + woman + L +G +T +B +Q + bonus hole + chestfeeder) - (white patriarchy + toxic masculinity + xyzism) = paradise. (I may have not got this quite right but I think they may teach it in math at school these days)
I've tried to solve for T a bunch of times and keeping Imaginary Numbers.
*wipes whiteboard, starts over*
I hope you can swim or have a small life boat because you know the Titanic did not!
At this point I think I’d rather join the band on deck.
the tuba might be a good idea. big enough. hope it floats
You could sound it to have the whales come rescue you and take you to Atlantis.
That's an uplifting ending.
*slides business card across covfefe table*
"Pi Guy - Deck Furniture Re-Arranger"
Maybe you can pass this along for me.
At the beginning of Covid, my non-degreed self had only a vague understanding of relative vs absolute value in stats.
Understanding something as simple as that leads to mind-blowing awareness of statistical manipulation. I can totally understand the conclusions of this study.
Due to my interest in health rabbit-holes, I've read many studies. I understand some of what I read, but usually not all of it. I know this.
I have read more than one, though, where the conclusions drawn seemed to have little connection to the actual data.
Accident? I doubt it
"At the beginning of Covid, my non-degreed self had only a vague understanding of relative vs absolute value in stats."
"Due to my interest in health rabbit-holes, I've read many studies."
You're not wrong about the 'little connection to the actual data' part in the least.
And good on you for digging in and figuring things out. *high five*
-----
Former Nazi "Research Physician" and expat to the tiny island of San Lorenzo Julian Castle: “Self-taught, are you?"
Son of the Father of the Atomic Bomb Little Newt: "Isn't everybody?"
Castle: "Very good answer.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/18986-self-taught-are-you-julian-castle-asked-newt-isn-t-everybody-newt
Using the tern autodidact isn't too pretentious, I hope? 😉😉🙃🙃
Absolutely not.
In business if you know anything of value you are self taught. Because you can’t learn anything of value in business at school.
This was a very common tactic in 2020-2021 in mainstream news ( probably still is but I don’t read maintsteam news any longer). An article would copy and paste the last lines of the conclusion in a study and base the article on that. I don't think the reporters ever read the studies. I read quite a few of the methods and results sections and scratched my head how the conclusions were drawn or even how some of these papers were approved.
In “Day After Tomorrow” there’s a scene where Dennis Quaid is crawling from Philly to NYC in a blizzard as the temperature drops 10 degrees F per second. Al Gore though that movie was truth.
And remember “Contact”? Jodie Foster plays Ellie Arroway, a briiliant astronomer, maybe the smartest woman in the whole world. Mathematics and science are every bit as
natural to Ellie as knitting a scarf or whipping up a perfect souffle. Ellie's on a one-woman mission to find intelligent life somewhere out in the cosmos. It sure ain't in this movie. Here's how she quantifies her excitement:
"You know, there are four hundred billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, and just one of out of a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life; there would be literally millions of civilizations out there."
OK, here's what I get: "one out of a million" of four hundred billion leaves you with 400,000. So before you even get to the second "one out of a million" you are out of millions to get one out of. This is not even close, and would probably get you a summer in remedial math at even a crappy public high school.
My favorite scene from the Contact novel itself, not in the movie, is where Ellie and former circus roustabout and strongman Palmer Joss - who found God after being struck by lightning - were arguing about who the greater conviction their 'beliefs' - Elle in science or Joss in faith.
So Elle takes them into the Natural History Museum at Smithsonian Institute in DC (I'm not big on Government Anything but this is an absolutely fantastic museum, if you can visit) to the Foucault Pendulum Exhibit (no longer in that location, sadly:https://www.si.edu/spotlight/foucault-pendulum) so they can put their faiths to the test.
Elle pulls the pendulum back to her face, releases it, and stands confidently in place as this massive, 30-ft pendulum swings back to within an eyelash of her nose, but coming up short because of, well, non-conservative forces.
She then challenges Joss to do the same, only after release to step forward a foot and pray to God that the pendulum would not cause him $1000s in Dental Repair. He did not take the bet.
Advantage: Drag
No offense (and I love the Foucault* pendulum), but nowhere does any God I know of claim if you do something of your own free will that will kill you, then the God will save you. There is even a scripture in the Bible describing this exact type of scenario, with the devil prodding Jesus to jump off a cliff so God could save him. Kinda intellectually lazy on Sagan's part.
*If the poor guy only knew what would become of that last name....
Nothing could be more cringeworthy than Daryl Hanna trying to play an astrophysicist in the 80's movie "Roxanne". She could barely pull off playing a mermaid in "Splash".
I thought she was pretty awesome, though, as a One-eyed Sociopath Assassin and Cool Sword Afficianado Elle "California Mountain Snake" Driver in the the Kill Bill movie(s).
In her defence, Jodie Foster probably didn't write that line?
In her not-defense, that math was elementary and should be obvious for anyone who's graduated high school, let alone people on the set of a non-parody science movie. I like Jodie, but let's be real: the vast majority of people do not intuitively understand math beyond adding and subtracting small numbers (and perhaps some basic geometry).
To give another example of this: back in my days as a sandwich artist at a chain that shall not be named, I had a coworker who would regularly charge people paying cash by an extra dollar, which would then proceed into her pocket. Her 'mistake' was very rarely caught by customers.
Objection, your honour! Speculative anecdote!
(I'm kidding, internet being what it is I figure I best mention that.)
My mother-in-law is among other things a retired math-teacher for the lower grades which of course means she's got a degree in math because in her day /all/ teachers had degrees in their subjects, and this was way before the academic inflation of degrees started.
Anyway, she's fond of remarking that /knowing/ math - how to and what operations to perform - and understanding /what/ you are actually doing are two separate things: most of us get by knowing how because we don't really need to do more than that in our daily lives. To teach it you must of course have both.
But "sci fi" is notoriously bad with numbers, even without any math attached. There's a Dr WHO episode where he hides Earth by moving it 150 000 miles. Sigh. They couldn't even look up it up, lazy writers.
Then there's Star Wars with its Kessel Run in 12 parsecs (and you can see Sir Alec Guiness rolling his eyes in the movie!).
Star Trek, too many to mention.
Babylon 5 did it right though: when asked about the speed of ships, the writer just remarked they move at P. P for Plot.
In my limited experience of people in the lest say creative fields of work, they are quite lazy, cognitively speaking - not stupid, just lazy.
I guess they can't all be Kubrick or Bergman.
Problem solved you take out the limitation of our galaxy alone ;)
I recognized the quadratic equation format below the calculusy looking stuff. I didn't get past that in college because... Oh look! A squirrel!! That equation scares the hell out of people who are afraid of algebra. That was another fun article, Gato! Thanks!! Just please never, ever put any Neil DeGrasse Tyson anywhere - he's an idiot.
I was gratified to recognize the quadratic equation solution. It's been 56 years…
My last algebra class was over 20 years ago. I like algebra so I periodically do some of those for fun. I don't want to forget! Not touching algebra word problems though. Eeeeeeeeeek!!
Oooo, I loved word problems. You can solve at least half of them by remembering that "of" means "times" (I.e. multiply).