The Biden Administration

[writingprof]

The genius experts at the CDC are deciding how to allocate the new vaccines. That is not a scientific decision, and the experts have no business making it.

So, if vaccine allocation is not a job for public health science experts, for whom is it a job?

Is this a serious question?  It's a job for the people, via our elected representatives, whom we may fire if they screw it up.  Move to fracking China if you don't get this.

[jimbogumbo]

The genius experts at the CDC are deciding how to allocate the new vaccines. That is not a scientific decision, and the experts have no business making it.

So, if vaccine allocation is not a job for public health science experts, for whom is it a job?

Is this a serious question?  It's a job for the people, via our elected representatives, whom we may fire if they screw it up.  Move to fracking China if you don't get this.

I'm really confused. It is an advisory panel. The states do make the decision, not the CDC.

[dismalist]

I'm really confused. It is an advisory panel. The states do make the decision, not the CDC.

The genius experts at the CDC are deciding how to allocate the new vaccines. That is not a scientific decision, and the experts have no business making it.

So, if vaccine allocation is not a job for public health science experts, for whom is it a job?

Is this a serious question?  It's a job for the people, via our elected representatives, whom we may fire if they screw it up.  Move to fracking China if you don't get this.

I'm really confused. It is an advisory panel. The states do make the decision, not the CDC.

Yup, the point is that a so-called scientific advisory council makes recommendations about so-called social justice.

Even if the advisory council had held themselves to maximize lives saved or some such, that would still not be science, but rather, personal preferences, or politics.

Experts are nothing more than an input, one of many, into our own decision processes.

[Parasaurolophus]

Even if the advisory council had held themselves to maximize lives saved or some such, that would still not be science, but rather, personal preferences, or politics.

Ethics is not a matter of personal preference or politics.

It can overlap with these, but it's a distinct thing.

[dismalist]

Even if the advisory council had held themselves to maximize lives saved or some such, that would still not be science, but rather, personal preferences, or politics.

Ethics is not a matter of personal preference or politics.

It can overlap with these, but it's a distinct thing.

Whatever. And it ain't science.

[Parasaurolophus]

Even if the advisory council had held themselves to maximize lives saved or some such, that would still not be science, but rather, personal preferences, or politics.

Ethics is not a matter of personal preference or politics.

It can overlap with these, but it's a distinct thing.

Whatever. And it ain't science.

It's not. That doesn't mean it's wishy-washy, 'subjective', 'relative', or a matter of personal preference or politics.

[mamselle]

More bumps on the road to transition....

   https://www.axios.com/pentagon-biden-transition-briefings-123a9658-4af1-4632-a6e6-770117784d60.html

January 5, 6, and 20 are significant dates in my mind at this point.

M.

[ciao_yall]

I'm really confused. It is an advisory panel. The states do make the decision, not the CDC.

The genius experts at the CDC are deciding how to allocate the new vaccines. That is not a scientific decision, and the experts have no business making it.

So, if vaccine allocation is not a job for public health science experts, for whom is it a job?

Is this a serious question?  It's a job for the people, via our elected representatives, whom we may fire if they screw it up.  Move to fracking China if you don't get this.

I'm really confused. It is an advisory panel. The states do make the decision, not the CDC.

Yup, the point is that a so-called scientific advisory council makes recommendations about so-called social justice.

Even if the advisory council had held themselves to maximize lives saved or some such, that would still not be science, but rather, personal preferences, or politics.

Experts are nothing more than an input, one of many, into our own decision processes.

I thought the point was that we elect representatives and pay our taxes to have experts in public policy determine things like vaccine allocation.

The representatives choose experts who generally support the general public policy ideas of the voters. Maximize... Lives saved? Emphasize high-risk or high-exposure populations?

Is that politics? Well, how else does "science" work? Because at the end of the day, you have to have a goal, and you use policy experts to determine the best way to achieve those goals.

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

If that were to happen, the public would call and pressure their elected representatives to either influence policy or replace the "experts" with people who supported the public will.

[dismalist]

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

That's the point: If they decide differently, it's still politics.

[Hibush]

Speculation for Education Secretary nominees appears to feature the following:

• Lily Eskelsen García, former president of the National Education Association
• 
  Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers
• 
  Leslie T. Fenwick, dean emeritus of the Howard University School of Education and a professor of educational policy and leadership.
• 
  Miguel Cardona, education commissioner in Connecticut. Previously Asst. Superintendent in Meriden (CT)
• 
  Sharon Contreras, Guilford County (NC) Schools Superintendent; previously Syracuse (NY) superintendent
  

We'll see whether any are called Dr. in reports. (Garcia, MS; Weingarten, JD; Fenwick, PhD in Ed Policy; Cardona, Ed.D.; Contreras, 3xMS, "working on EdD")

They all seem to have focused on K-12 education. None appears to have a lot of experience with higher education policy. Perhaps Fenwick who was Dean of Education at Howard did some higher-ed things in her faculty role.

[ciao_yall]

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

That's the point: If they decide differently, it's still politics.

There are politics no matter what the decision is. Someone made a value decision and tries to influence policy, through use of influence and power, to get their way.

• Prioritize people with compromised health? Or cull the herd by letting the sick get sicker and die, while making sure the healthy remain hale and hearty?
• Prioritize the elderly? Or hey, they have lived long enough, prioritize anyone under 35.
• Prioritize parents because they have children to care for, and let the childless (or those whose kinds are adults) go because nobody relies on them for care?

[dismalist]

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

That's the point: If they decide differently, it's still politics.

There are politics no matter what the decision is. Someone made a value decision and tries to influence policy, through use of influence and power, to get their way.

• Prioritize people with compromised health? Or cull the herd by letting the sick get sicker and die, while making sure the healthy remain hale and hearty?
• Prioritize the elderly? Or hey, they have lived long enough, prioritize anyone under 35.
• Prioritize parents because they have children to care for, and let the childless (or those whose kinds are adults) go because nobody relies on them for care?

Yes, that's the point. These are not decisions for experts. There is no scientific truth to any of these decisions.

[mamselle]

Oh, fer Pete's sake.

There are people who train to be able to use their scientific expertise in policy involvement all over the place.

They are not politicians, they are trained to advise those who must make laws and vote on and implement them.

Try the OECD in Europe, the Center for International Development at Columbia, their parallels in Stanford, Tufts, MIT, Harvard, and Yale, and others I only know about vaguely because people I worked for knew of them of spoke with them in Texas, Indonesia, India, Africa, Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria...

This is not an "either-or" issue that's just suddenly come up.

There are people who have worked hard at integrating good science, good policy, and good advisement into their approaches to every consultation they do and every article they write.

Most serious scholars who work in government have at least three groups of skill sets on tap: they know the science, they know the governmental structures, and the know the key people and logistical groups and how they work (or don't work, sometimes) together.

Just because you can't seem to imagine someone doing that much work that carefully in that many spheres of influence--and doing it from a desire to see an ethically based, ecologically (in the largest sense) sustainable, peaceful policy evolution in places throughout the world where medicine, ecology, education, economic development, etc. are in flux or in need of clarification--doesn't mean those people don't or can't exist.

Your imagined cosmos is too small.

[ciao_yall]

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

That's the point: If they decide differently, it's still politics.

There are politics no matter what the decision is. Someone made a value decision and tries to influence policy, through use of influence and power, to get their way.

• Prioritize people with compromised health? Or cull the herd by letting the sick get sicker and die, while making sure the healthy remain hale and hearty?
• Prioritize the elderly? Or hey, they have lived long enough, prioritize anyone under 35.
• Prioritize parents because they have children to care for, and let the childless (or those whose kinds are adults) go because nobody relies on them for care?

Yes, that's the point. These are not decisions for experts. There is no scientific truth to any of these decisions.

So, we have 331 million people and, what, 8 million initial doses of the vaccine.

So who should get them first? And how should this be decided? By whom?

[dismalist]

There would be quite a public outcry if, let's say, the policy experts decided that only rich people were worth saving so vaccines were allocated on the basis of one's bank account. Line up by numbers of zeros...

That's the point: If they decide differently, it's still politics.

There are politics no matter what the decision is. Someone made a value decision and tries to influence policy, through use of influence and power, to get their way.

• Prioritize people with compromised health? Or cull the herd by letting the sick get sicker and die, while making sure the healthy remain hale and hearty?
• Prioritize the elderly? Or hey, they have lived long enough, prioritize anyone under 35.
• Prioritize parents because they have children to care for, and let the childless (or those whose kinds are adults) go because nobody relies on them for care?

Yes, that's the point. These are not decisions for experts. There is no scientific truth to any of these decisions.

So, we have 331 million people and, what, 8 million initial doses of the vaccine.

So who should get them first? And how should this be decided? By whom?

The original point is being forgotten: None of this is scientific.