Some New Science on Virus Transmission on Airplanes

[cyan]

Originally Posted by mountaindweller

Our guidance doesn't state actual HEPA micron size but states that system removes bacteria and virus clusters with an efficiency of greater than 99.99% and all cabin air is exchanged every 3-5 minutes.

As a commercial pilot, you have no doubt heard the claim that the cockpit crew can reduce the percentage of fresh air in order to save fuel. Curiously, this appears to be false on Boeing aircraft, but technically possible on Airbus according to this pilot's blog:
https://askthepilot.com/questionansw...n-air-quality/

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Singularity

On principle I abhor arguments from authority as it's innately caustic to the observer's critical thinking process [besides, your manner is to just discount the speaker's credentials anyway, citing SoandSo to be superlative or whatever]. I don't understand how someone can cite having studied philosophy yet not glean this most fundamental and profoundly important phenomenon. Indeed I can, as most philosophy people think in terms of words, not pictures, relying on other peoples' conceptualizations and not their own. So let me be the master and draw a picture of a 2D object and convert it to 4 dimensions...with this you can draw your own conclusions. This is thousands of years old.

Create set "A" (large circle)
Withing "A" create "a" (small sub-set of set "A")
Into "A" add R & K

R & K are measures of chaos in system "A"
R & K are determined by people in "a"
In fact, the requirement to be an "a" is understanding R & K

And because those in "a" understand R & K, there is less chaos/more order around "a".

When an external force deranges "A" then the R & K increases. When that R & K increase causes death, disability, economic turmoil, people in "A" turn to people in "a"

But a paradox:
-Those in "A" don't understand R & K, or else they would be "a" people
-And, information about R & K inappropriately leaking out of "a" will increase R & K, making the work of "a" more complicated

So it's a numbers game. There's simply a lot more "A" people than "a" people.

So when "A" people go around talking like they are "a" people...there simply is not enough "a" people to untie all the knots (increased R & K) in the system tied by such actors.

So imagine, if you will, premeditatio malorum-style, what things look like when:
1) An "A" goes around giving bad information after talking/reading about "a" information but not fundamentally understanding it
2) Such an "A" person cannot be convinced that they are giving bad information
3) Such an "A" person goes on to say "gosh even the "a" people don't have this figured out [eroding trust in "a"] and the govt is doing everything wrong, making things worse! The "a" people are being uncivil to me!"
Indeed, what would this look like? Wouldn't R and K in the population increase from the behavior of such an "A"?

Fact is, everyone is some amount of "A" and some amount of "a" and it's critical for everyone to know who they are and how to behave.

Fact is, there's always a balance between "A" and "a" in the system. "a" is never fully extinguished, as it's "a" people who lead things in the first place.

But plotted below is a 2D representation. In 3 dimensions it's a toroid where, for visual modelling purposes, the "a" folks are at the core...a tiny core. Adding the dimension of time and the visual model is an ouroboros where the toroid perpetually involutes around "a".

This math (pattern) can be used to describe any practically any feedback system...practically anything in visualizeable pattern nature.

But in this case the "A" who thinks he's an "a" is serving against the common good, cannot be convinced this is so, withstanding his behavior that increases R & K, while squashing information from "a" who literally knows better. Is such an "A" being civilized? Sure. Increasing pathology in society? You-betcha.

So the question is: how to deal with these "A" wanna be "a" actors who draw a little circle around them everywhere they go. That is all.

Sure, but this is an elaborate manipulation of an actually simple situation. The real question, the heart of the matter, is -- how do we know that "A" has "wrong information"? Or that "a" has true information?

How do we know who knows what?

The problem with all of this, and with all of these posts, is that it is simply assumed that True Information is obvious to some privileged people ("a"). And other people ("A") are simply ignorant.

As I've said -- this is a profoundly anti-scientific point of view. It is an arrogant point of view -- and science on the contrary is profoundly modest. In fact, truth is complicated, and fiendishly non-obvious. Any real scientist worth his salt, any real philosopher knows this.

So it is worth nothing at all, to describe all of the consequences of the interaction between "a" and "A", if you have to assume that "A" is deluded, and "a" has a monopoly on truth. This is an assumption too far; this is an assumption that no one has the right to make. If you believe something to be true, present evidence for it, FFS. Question your own beliefs; subject them to skepticism and stress test them -- that is a core part of the scientific method, and of all good thinking. Honor the person who disagrees with you, for giving you an additional stress test to these beliefs. Once you have done that, then you will be able to argue for those beliefs based on facts and logic, and you will not be tempted to argumentum ad hominem. You will be much more persuasive.

And P.S. -- name-dropping is not indeed the same as a reference. I used to hate this when my students did this, so forgive me that this is a pet peeve. Mentioning a name without building up the logic of the relevance of the reference, is worse than useless -- it's a pose. You have, for example, dropped Hegel's name 3 or 4 times in these discussions. WTF? I have been biting my tongue about this, but have you even read Hegel? I see no evidence for it. You may think you are baffling the ignorant, but you once again assume way too much about your audience. It happens that I studied Hegel (and Kant, and Heidegger), in the German language, in the best German Philosophy faculty, on an academic fellowship, once upon a time. And I bet I'm not the only one reading this thread, who has actually read Hegel, and maybe even passed oral exams on his work -- we have some amazingly erudite people in CF. You have no right to put that name in your mouth, and sneer at the people on here whom you assume know nothing about this. This is all a pseudo-intellectual pose, as an attempt to avoid any actual argument (if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with ********), which you are not up to (actual argument being dismissed as "sophism" -- dismiss it like this, in order to avoid doing it). I won't let you get away with it.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sure, but this is an elaborate manipulation of an actually simple situation. The real question, the heart of the matter, is -- how do we know that "A" has "wrong information"? Or that "a" has true information?

How do we know who knows what?

They teach that in science school. You think in terms of probabilities based on laws of nature, not in theological terms like "truth." Information is simply information in a system that has to be accounted for, it's not right or wrong. What is "wrong" is misrepresenting the context that the information is provided in. Lawyers do this as a matter of routine "to win over hearts and minds" with double-speak; science folks have to work with information in situ.

The problem with all of this, and with all of these posts, is that it is simply assumed that True Information is obvious to some privileged people ("a"). And other people ("A") are simply ignorant.

Off course this is correct. You can't know what you've not seen. Ignorance is not a pejorative.

The problem with many of these posts is that people provide elaborate conjectures that are wrong for ~14 reasons. As I've repetitively said (and am writing again) is that it's a numbers-game arduous process untangling such conjectures, where the holder of the ~14x wrong conjecture doesn't synthesize new information into their perspective, then spins a new complicated yarn. Folks who know better, and are smarter, leave....leaving the 14x-erroneous web spinner to provide further misnformation.

But most importantly, I'd say that ~90% of people can learn practically anything. The capacity of people to learn anything is enormous, and it's fun helping them see things. Now, how I provide studies on the subject at hand results in someone saying "how is that relevant" is like something a lawyer says to a judge, not something a science person says. --->

As I've said -- this is a profoundly anti-scientific point of view. It is an arrogant point of view -- and science on the contrary is profoundly modest. In fact, truth is complicated, and fiendishly non-obvious.

You know, there are some fields where people have to study like 30,000 hours before they're allowed to work on there own where, along the way, they develop cognitive lens algorithms to make fiendishly non-intuitive things manageable. But its imprudent to point to complicated things and assume that others are not much better versed in such matters, and illegitimate to expect people to regurgitate some % of 50,000 hours education and experience to get the "A" to silence themselves. Frankly, you learn in all that education/experience that there are "A" folks who will never get it, and they cause tremendous problems.

Any real scientist worth his salt, any real philosopher knows this.

Indeed, solipsism is the worst of things....that only one's internal sense of the definition of something is the correct one, and all others must obey.

So it is worth nothing at all, to describe all of the consequences of the interaction between "a" and "A", if you have to assume that "A" is deluded, and "a" has a monopoly on truth.

"A" is not deluded at all. From their reference frame, they are correct; same with "a". As I stated, everyone is some "A", some "a". What is striking is that you can point to a man who's done a bad thing and he justifies it with poetry or a joke, saying, "well, other people do it." When this is so, "A" vs "a" status is out the window, law of the jungle presides. "I like civilized how I like it, when I like it, where I like it."

This is an assumption too far; this is an assumption that no one has the right to make. If you believe something to be true, present evidence for it, FFS. Question your own beliefs; subject them to skepticism and stress test them -- that is a core part of the scientific method, and of all good thinking.

You might consider re-reading your responses to my posts way up thread while chanting this mantra.

Honor the person who disagrees with you, for giving you an additional stress test to these beliefs. Once you have done that, then you will be able to argue for those beliefs based on facts and logic, and you will not be tempted to argumentum ad hominem. You will be much more persuasive.

What I suggest that you do not appreciate is this:
-You offer conjecture ABCDEF
-Someone else says "I think it's actually ABCuEF"
-Your response, "No, it's actually ABCDEFGH"
-Someone else says "If you want to get more technical, it's ABcuEFlAH...I only dumbed it down earlier because C is easier to understand, and besides the other stuff is incorrect.
........Fast forward through several exchanges and those more wiser at are at wit's ends with you. They've tried every reasonable...to the common man....use of language, science, statistics, maths....and you don't get it.

Now, sarcasm means tearing of the flesh, right? It's a continuation of dialog by other means. Neurochemically it causes a change in thinking...it's bioadaptive. No guarantee that it'll help a person change their thinking.....but frankly some people "get off" on being argumentative....like dopamine-hit argumentative....and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out in context that lawyer-people tend to be up there in this regard. While indeed real-world science debates can get heated (I mean in an actual office, not internet)...those discussions are highly nuanced points of view grappling. The subject matter here routinely is so mundane that it's maddening people can't accept some basic fundamentals, instead insisting on non-ordinary uses of terminology, focusing attention on details deemed irrelevant while excluding details known to be critical by those more learned.

And P.S. -- name-dropping is not indeed the same as a reference. I used to hate this when my students did this, so forgive me that this is a pet peeve. Mentioning a name without building up the logic of the relevance of the reference, is worse than useless -- it's a pose. You have, for example, dropped Hegel's name 3 or 4 times in these discussions. WTF? I have been biting my tongue about this, but have you even read Hegel? I see no evidence for it. You may think you are baffling the ignorant, but you once again assume way too much about your audience. It happens that I studied Hegel (and Kant, and Heidegger), in the German language, in the best German Philosophy faculty, on an academic fellowship, once upon a time. And I bet I'm not the only one reading this thread, who has actually read Hegel, and maybe even passed oral exams on his work -- we have some amazingly erudite people in CF. You have no right to put that name in your mouth, and sneer at the people on here whom you assume know nothing about this. This is all a pseudo-intellectual pose, as an attempt to avoid any actual argument (if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with ********), which you are not up to (actual argument being dismissed as "sophism" -- dismiss it like this, in order to avoid doing it). I won't let you get away with it.

Does it not strike one as odd that I posted information on science of infections in an airplane....and things have been brought it to this? Talk about baffling with BS! Certainly I brought up Hegel....can you not connect the dots between my posts on the metrics and getting here and Hegel? You're not the master, while knowledge of ethology, neurobiology, etc, helps one understand why someone will drag a discussion away from a subject they don't have familiarity with to one they do. They're trying to help, even if the entire exercise is, in the net, disastrous.

[Arthur Garfield]

That HEPA filter article posted gave me a chuckle.

When clicked one can read the full title-

"Will HEPA Filters Stop COVID-19 Spread? Probably Not But They Can't Hurt."

https://www.engineering.com/Designer...Cant-Hurt.aspx

This is why the actual science delineates "droplets" and "particles"

the "weak attraction" mentioned has to do with "charged particles" as in why an ionizing system may be partially effective and why,in a HEPA filter, it's entirely incidental nm sized particles adhere in a HEPA.
In my home we used an ionizing air filter. We've subjectively concluded it didn't do very much.Perhaps because charged particles really want to be in a relaxed state,generally a Gaussian charge distribution centered at zero.
We went to a large scale HEPA air filter now.

Ballyhoo'd airline industry spin is just that-any industry "study" I've read goes fuzzy with actual numbers,methodologies & claim wording.

If I did choose to fly I'd use any & all methods(mask,gloves & goggles)to mitigate the "luck of the draw" flying IMHO.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Arthur Garfield

....Ballyhoo'd airline industry spin is just that-any industry "study" I've read goes fuzzy with actual numbers,methodologies & claim wording...

Agreed, the point I was trying to make above.

It's quite problematic that in practically every industry people can legally provide "true but misleading" data. It sugar-coats the world such that people can't make informed decisions, and worse yet, when people finally discover that the numbers are all sugar-coated, folks claim conspiracies run the world, everything is a lie, etc. If actual numbers were posted in the short-term industries would take a hit, economic slowdown, but with time...folks would be more comfortable seeing the warts of life.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Singularity

They teach that in science school. You think in terms of probabilities based on laws of nature, not in theological terms like "truth."Information is simply information in a system that has to be accounted for, it's not right or wrong. What is "wrong" is misrepresenting the context that the information is provided in. Lawyers do this as a matter of routine "to win over hearts and minds" with double-speak; science folks have to work with information in situ.Off course this is correct. You can't know what you've not seen. Ignorance is not a pejorative.

You clearly do not understand the first thing about what lawyers do (it has almost nothing to do with juries), and I am doubtful about your understanding of what scientists do, other than perhaps in some post-modernist social science faculties. Law and science (at least, hard science) share a rigorous approach to logic, and methodology for getting at truth. Yes, truth -- deductive and inductive truth (we can safely leave coherence and correspondence to philosophers) -- scientists (at least in the hard sciences) and lawyers deal with basic, objective things and do not consider truth to be "theological". "Double speak" will get you slaughtered in either field.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . The problem with many of these posts is that people provide elaborate conjectures that are wrong for ~14 reasons. . .

Wait a minute, you just said "there is no wrong."

But obviously there is wrong, just like there is such a thing as scientific truth. And you are constantly attacking this or that point of view for being "wrong". However, you refuse to engage the arguments and demonstrate exactly what is wrong. You merely assume that you have perfect knowledge of what is right, and simply slag off, in one way or another, the person who said the thing you consider to be "wrong". Never any sign of any curiosity, any self-doubt, or even good will, in any of this. This is an extreme example of solipsism, and is profoundly anti-scientific.

Originally Posted by Singularity

As I've repetitively said (and am writing again) is that it's a numbers-game arduous process untangling such conjectures, where the holder of the ~14x wrong conjecture doesn't synthesize new information into their perspective, then spins a new complicated yarn. Folks who know better, and are smarter, leave....leaving the 14x-erroneous web spinner to provide further misnformation.

So here it is again, the heart of the matter -- "folks know better, and are smarter" on the one hand, and "erroneous web-spinner" and "misinformation", on the other hand. This is breathtaking solipsism -- on what basis do you assume that you "know better", and are "smarter"? On what basis do you think you know that this thing is "misinformation", rather than what you yourself believe? No real scientist, at least not one in any hard science, would ever bring such thoughts into any discussion. As I've said -- science is profoundly modest; this kind of arrogance is profoundly anti-scientific. If a proposition is wrong, a real scientist patiently demonstrates, with facts and logic, why that is so, leaving the person (and his profession, race, religion, parentage, whatever) out of it; science doesn't recognize just claiming to "know better" and be "smarter". If you lack confidence in bringing actual facts and actual logic to an actual argument, because logical discussion seems like "sophism" to you, then leave it to others better equipped.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . But most importantly, I'd say that ~90% of people can learn practically anything. The capacity of people to learn anything is enormous, and it's fun helping them see things. Now, how I provide studies on the subject at hand results in someone saying "how is that relevant" is like something a lawyer says to a judge, not something a science person says.

Absolutely false. Relevance is a thing, a fundamentally important thing, in science, just like in the law, and for exactly the same reasons. If you are trying to decide whether really only 44 people have been proven to have been infected in airliners, then arguments are more or less valuable depending on their relevance.

And when you go off on tangents about people's cognitive dysfunctions, the purpose of that is obviously not to "have fun helping people to see things", but to discredit someone, as being cognitively dysfunctional, as a way of avoiding the actual argument. This is fundamentally nasty. Stick to the matter at hand, and leave the people out of it -- basic rule of civilized discussion.

Originally Posted by Singularity

--->You know, there are some fields where people have to study like 30,000 hours before they're allowed to work on there own where, along the way, they develop cognitive lens algorithms to make fiendishly non-intuitive things manageable. But its imprudent to point to complicated things and assume that others are not much better versed in such matters, and illegitimate to expect people to regurgitate some % of 50,000 hours education and experience to get the "A" to silence themselves. Frankly, you learn in all that education/experience that there are "A" folks who will never get it, and they cause tremendous problems.
Indeed, solipsism is the worst of things....that only one's internal sense of the definition of something is the correct one, and all others must obey.

Well said, the underlined part. This is exactly what I object to in these last couple of posts of yours, especially this one. This post in fact is a museum of solipsism -- "all that education" "'A' folks who will never get it". Breathtaking arrogance.

The antidote to solipcism is awareness beyond the borders of one's own self, modesty, and respect. This is built into the scientific method, the genius of which is the escape from subjectivity.

Also, very telling that there is an impulse to "get someone to silence themselves." That is just weird. That is an ugly and unscientific impulse and has no place in civilized discussion. Certainly not allowed by the forum rules here.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . .

You might consider re-reading your responses to my posts way up thread while chanting this mantra.
What I suggest that you do not appreciate is this:
-You offer conjecture ABCDEF
-Someone else says "I think it's actually ABCuEF"
-Your response, "No, it's actually ABCDEFGH"
-Someone else says "If you want to get more technical, it's ABcuEFlAH...I only dumbed it down earlier because C is easier to understand, and besides the other stuff is incorrect.
........Fast forward through several exchanges and those more wiser at are at wit's ends with you. They've tried every reasonable...to the common man....use of language, science, statistics, maths....and you don't get it.

What a load of utter, condescending, arrogant nonsense. 75% of my posts on the pandemic have been criticism of oversimplification, jumping to conclusions, unwarranted certainty, unwarranted criticism of divergent points of view, and spreading of false information about things like, for example, the pandemic measures in Sweden. Where science is concerned, I have been exceedingly modest, have made almost no claims about anything scientific, but have rather challenged what seem to me to be premature, insufficiently worked out, or politicized propositions. The other 25% of my posts have been about policy-making, which is not a scientific discipline (and is in fact a discipline where I have direct professional knowledge and experience). The pandemic discussions are dominated by two gangs, who see the pandemic, policy around the pandemic, and the science behind the pandemic in polarized, politicized terms. I am jumped on by one gang or the other, for deviating from one party line, or the other. My whole fight here is against this way of thinking, in favor of critical thinking, in favor of thoughtful and nuanced policy which considers public health as a whole and not just pandemic deaths. I have done a lot of homework and I stand by my arguments, many of which have been modified or retracted when faced with better information or a better argument. We do not have a single real epidemiologist on here, so I don't think I am significantly less well qualified than anyone on here to have an opinion on these matters.

Originally Posted by Singularity

Now, sarcasm means tearing of the flesh, right? It's a continuation of dialog by other means. Neurochemically it causes a change in thinking...it's bioadaptive. No guarantee that it'll help a person change their thinking...

So insulting people is an attempt to "help a person change their thinking"? Of a piece with all the rest of it.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . While indeed real-world science debates can get heated (I mean in an actual office, not internet)...those discussions are highly nuanced points of view grappling. The subject matter . . here routinely is so mundane that it's maddening people can't accept some basic fundamentals, instead insisting on non-ordinary uses of terminology, focusing attention on details deemed irrelevant while excluding details known to be critical by those more learned.
Does it not strike one as odd that I posted information on science of infections in an airplane....and things have been brought it to this?

Not at all odd! It's high time someone called you out on this. You did a lot more than "post information on the science of infections on an airplane", you made a scurrilous attack on a simple statement of fact by the ATA guy, without presenting any contradictory facts at all, and then an extensive and scurrilous personal attack on me and my cognitive ability and my profession, when I questioned you on it. Never once addressing the actual fact in question. It's absolutely right to be having this discussion.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . Certainly I brought up Hegel....can you not connect the dots between my posts on the metrics and getting here and Hegel? You're not the master, while knowledge of ethology, neurobiology, etc, helps one understand why someone will drag a discussion away from a subject they don't have familiarity with to one they do. They're trying to help, even if the entire exercise is, in the net, disastrous.

Getting back to basics, what are we really talking about?

1. Someone posted a statement by a medical advisor to the ATA, which claimed that only 44 (or whatever) infections have ever been traced to air travel.

2. You launched into a diatribe about how this is obviously wrong, and furthermore that the statement is propaganda, intended to perpetuate ignorance by playing on ignorance.

3. I responded that no evidence has been presented that the asserted facts are wrong, and that there is no basis for assuming the dishonesty and evil intentions of the author of the statement.

4. Whereupon, rather than addressing the arguments (which are exceedingly modest arguments, by the way -- in case the point is too subtle, I am not claiming that the ATA guy's data is correct), you start an elaborate ad hominem attack on my cognitive ability and profession.

The reason why this is an unproductive discussion is because the only thing these posts engage is the motives, professions, cognitive ability (!), and so forth, of the people making arguments. This is an intensely concentrated form of argumentum ad hominem, which is a classical logical fallacy and invalid mode of argumentation. This: "knowledge of ethology, neurobiology, etc, helps one understand why someone will drag a discussion away from a subject they don't have familiarity with to one they do . . " confirms it. This is a claim of special knowledge of people's motives, so a claim of a kind of a license to dismiss other people's points of view without engaging them. In fact it's a mode of argumentation we've seen on here before, where people think that, for example, just because they've heard of the Dunning-Krueger Effect, means that they are qualified to diagnose it in others, and cannot possibly be suffering from it themselves. This is simply a high-sounding way to call someone stupid. This is not only fallacious -- i.e., invalid as an argument -- it is fundamentally nasty.

You claim to have addressed the ATA guy's data, but as I wrote before, you have not. You posted links (which appear to be the result of 5 minutes of googling, rather than any profound scientific knowledge, the evidence of which we have not seen anywhere in these posts) which are not relevant, and which do not contradict what the ATA guy said. I myself, in the the first post of this thread, posted a link to a study which analyzed one flight as a super-spreader event. But HOW the virus can spread in an airplane does not prove whether the virus actually HAS spread in a widespread way in real life, which is the stat the ATA guy gave us. These are different questions. A real scientist, actually a first year student in any hard science, would know this, and would never use such a superficial bit of googling as an argument.

But argument is not the point. These posts are classical culture war work, the essential character of any public discussion in the U.S. these days. Persuasion of anyone with actual facts and actual logic is out the window -- the main thing is to sense whether something someone says complies with one party line or another. If the argument, or even the fact (since everyone has his own facts these days) does not comply with the party line, then full attack mode, using whatever is at hand -- denigrate the other speaker, his parentage, education, cognitive ability, profession, whatever, deride him as deluded, call him an "A", heap scorn -- and on the other hand attempt to claim some authority based on something or another -- somehow in our warped culture this is considered "discussion" -- generally a combination of argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad verecundiam without any possibility for people hearing each other or learning from each other. So for example in other discussions, even asking a question about whether this or that pandemic measure actually makes sense, is considered evil per se, disinformation, full attack mode. This leads to nowhere good, and I resist it, and argue against it. I do not want the kind of culture, where some people presume to make others "be silent", where personal attacks pass for discussion, where opinions are accepted as substitutes for facts.

As to Hegel -- I say again, you merely dropped the name, like many other names in the course of these discussions. There are no dots to connect. No connection whatsover made to the discussion, no evidence of the slightest knowledge of any of Hegel's actual thought. That's just a pose, and it's an "F" in my class. Yes, I taught that class.


What COULD you have said about the ATA guy's remarks? There are lots of civilized and reasonable things you could have said, against these statistics, e.g.:


1. "Considering how widely flu infections spread in airplanes, and COVID too if you consider the study linked to in Post 1 in this thread, it seems hard to believe that there could really have only been 44 infections traced to air travel -- we should check and see if there are different stats for this."


2. "Keep in mind that this statement is made by the Air Transport Association, who have a vested interest in showing that air travel is safe. We should be careful with this, and try to find other sources."


That would be the start of a civilized, respectful discussion. I would have answered like this:


1. "Indeed. I agree, and let's see if we can find other data. But still it's interesting, and makes us think -- what if it is really true?"


2. "Yes, that is certainly reason for extra caution. We definitely need to find other sources for this data. But it's probably unlikely that these numbers were just made up, so we can't assume that they are false, either."


and


3. "One data point which MIGHT support the proposition that air traffic, under real life conditions today with screening of passengers, masking, empty middle seats, scrubbing and other measures, is actually pretty safe, such that spreading the virus inside airplanes actually is more rare than might seem intuitively correct, is the fact that air crews seem to have much lower rates of infection, than the general population. Therefore, this stat MIGHT not be wrong. Other sources will help us understand it better."


Now THAT would be a civilized discussion.

[Yihang]

DH. I wish I could afford you as my lawyer. I'll design you a house for free.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Yihang

DH. I wish I could afford you as my lawyer. I'll design you a house for free.

I'm afraid you might have to pay by the word

[Yihang]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I'm afraid you might have to pay by the word

Knew I should have done the arch/law double degree.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Yihang

DH. I wish I could afford you as my lawyer. I'll design you a house for free.

Practicing law was only a very brief episode in my long and varied (some might say mottled) career in different fields. I only practiced law for five (very happy) years, decades ago. So I couldn't help you with that.

I spent more time in other fields, mostly academia, now business. I spent decades teaching -- Philosophy, Law, and now business. I'm from an academic family; I'm the first lawyer in several generations. My parents, both step-parents, and siblings are all academics.

[Yihang]

As per Asian custom we respect our teachers.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

We have cultural drift to a state in which the confusion of fact and opinion is endemic certainly in the US and apparently in the EU/UK.

Some folks have cited sources and even provided links. I support that. I wish CF had footnotes the way Wikipedia does.

It is worth noting that not all sources are equal. Some are mills for misinformation. Doesn't matter as citing sources allows readers to make their own judgments.

"Everone knows" and "everyone believes" should be grounds for a time-out from CF. (<- opinion)

There is a substantial difference between the public discourse in the USA ( and to a lessor extent the U.K.) and the EU.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

There is a substantial difference between the public discourse in the USA ( and to a lessor extent the U.K.) and the EU.

Indeed. I would say even a STRIKING difference. The politicization, the aggressiveness, the sheer nastiness of public discourse in the U.S. is without parallel anywhere I know except, perhaps in Poland, which is in the middle of its own culture war.


Over here, the UK is considered bad in this regard, but the public discourse in the UK is a Platonic dialogue compared to what is going on in the States.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Singularity

I'm sorry but I cited metrics in post 120 that I used in my assessment in post 170 (coupled with professional experience). A post that in post 123 you didn't understand relevance of. I'm qualified/certified/and licensed to make such a superficial assessments specifically about infection disease on aircraft in the manner so described (where the assessment includes other conditions not apparent). Indeed, an ~opposing counsel has the whim of a goat fart's opportunity to bring redress so as to suggest the presence in the world of a ~better fact producer. But for goodness sake the thread title is "some new science on virus transmission on airplanes."

Now I cannot make folks do their homework that they deem irrelevant. I do feel that I have a good sense of the biopsychosocial/neuropsychiatric/evolutionary factors enouraging people to avoid doing research that challenges their belief systems, such that they simply won't do homework that's uncomfortable to them. But delving into that invariable violates the terms of service here, which a sophist can hide behind, as Machiavelli so described (i.e., how the trolls win).

Quite frankly the post-truth world started when the sophists started a run on things with their double-speak-in-lieu of wisdom ~2,300 years ago. Sophistry is no substitute for a working knowledge of science/maths (in the real world outside of a court room). Indeed, it's the order the the day in law where polymaths-for-hire can be selected to buttress the position of the sophist, but here I suggest we keep things to raw science, numbers. Those with expertise speak freely. If one doesn't understand how science/numbers are derived perhaps it's more appropriate to ask questions than re-write War and Peace as an obfuscative diversion.

Sadly most of the worlds population does not have either the education , wisdom , or more importantly the interest to digest fundamental science or maths or to understand expert opinion

Into that void steps all sorts of snake oil Salesmen pedalling all sorts of quick fixes , populist nonsense and pseudo science. Nothing new in that

What is new is the ease of amplification , In the past it was difficult to propagate such nonsense. Along came 24 hours news cycle , and most importantly the echo chamber of social media, where such groups are now only listening to themselves.

[valhalla360]

OK, off on a different tangent....

With vaccines starting to roll out, are they taking into account those who are already documented to have had the virus and recovered. I've come across numbers suggesting anywhere from 20-50% of the US population has already had the virus (25-30% seems to the most likely from my review of various articles and studies).

Now given their exposure, I would expect front line workers would likely have an even higher percentage and would be likely to have been tested with their employers seriously tracking their status (ie: the hospital presumably has a list of who has had it already).

I would expect that these people already have natural immunity for the most part. It may or may not be as effective as the vaccine but particularly in the first round with limited doses available, would it make sense to remove these people likely to obtain little if any benefit from the vaccine. Maybe later when it opens to the general public, they could have the option to take the vaccine but it seems a waste to vaccinate already immune individuals.

I've seen numbers suggesting there are 20mil health care workers in the US. If 5mil are already documented to have been infected and recovered, that would be 5mil doses in the first month that could be directed to individuals who are slightly lower on the list but still a high priority.