Blog

Previously:

MY MUSINGS ON THE CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)

CORONAVIRUS #1: THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY

Dumb

OH MY GOD!!!

The contrived crisis is melting away, and so soon, with only a fraction of the hoped-for deaths, because no number of deaths is enough if it makes someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome feel like it will tarnish and harm President Donald J. Trump (the next President of the US, too).

I give you the daily New Cases bar charts for USA, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the UK. The top six countries with the most cases and most deaths, globally. This presumes that a Democrat leftie with Trump Derangement Syndrome can actually read and understand them, and the general notion of Bell-shaped curves. I know that’s asking a lot.

Dumber

Stephan Guyenet, PhD, of course. I took him to task in the last post. There, for hyping the hype and panicking the panicked. Plus, for showing his Trump Derangement Syndrome hand by touting an op-ed piece by Joe Biden (LOLLOLLOLLOL). I see such motivations coming miles away. I can smell it.

At the outset, he was all about exponential explosions with positive feedback (not understanding that all viral epidemics always follow a bell-like curve, no exceptions), because that’s the biggest bang for the buck in terms of the greatest hysteria and fear (and hopefully blame for Trump). There was no computer model of more and more death and mayhem that didn’t fire off his reward centers like a Big Mac dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles.

Sadly, that didn’t come to pass, so time to change the goal posts to how many MORE LIVES!!! could have been saved had Trump issued a “nationwide lockdown.”

The Tweet: https://twitter.com/whsource/status/1249827508473610240

Surprise, surprise. The earlier in the epidemic a country locked down, the fewer people have died.

The US never implemented a nationwide lockdown.

https://twitter.com/whsource/status/1249827508473610240

Let’s excuse this PhD’s utter lack of knowledge of civics and Constitutional limits on the federal (nationwide) government, for now. “Nationwide lockdown.” Hahahaha.

It’s all based on this silly little bit of abject garbage tweet by some Blue Checkmark named John Burn-Murdoch. (What, is he hyphenating in his husband’s last name? OK, cheap shot.)

After two other tweets of charts with an R-Squared of 0.02!!! he hits the Mother Load with a chart with an R-Squared of 0.15!!! He writes:

But lockdown timing exhibits a much stronger relationship.

Countries that locked down earlier in their outbreaks subsequently had much lower daily death tolls than those that locked down later (accounting for when outbreaks began)

Lockdowns, and their timings, matter. Who knew?

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1249821596199596034

Now, before I get back to the persnickety Guyenet, PhD, let’s look at what R-Squared means.

R-squared (R2) is a statistical measure that represents the proportion of the variance for a dependent variable that’s explained by an independent variable or variables in a regression model. Whereas correlation explains the strength of the relationship between an independent and dependent variable, R-squared explains to what extent the variance of one variable explains the variance of the second variable. So, if the R2 of a model is 0.50, then approximately half of the observed variation can be explained by the model’s inputs.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/r-squared.asp

Let’s bottom line that.

It depends on your research work but more then 50%, R2 value with low RMES value is acceptable to scientific research community, Results with low R2 value of 25% to 30% are valid because it represent your findings.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/what_is_the_acceptable_r-squared_value

So, first he gives two worthless charts, both with R2 values of 2% and then calls one with 15% a “much stronger relationship.” Well, relatively speaking, I guess crap is inversely stronger than two helpings of abject crap. Or, crap is just crap.

Stephan Guyenet: “Surprise surprise.”

See how Trump Derangement Syndrome takes you from once being careful, reserved, conservative, and honest to dumber?

Of course I had to reply in a couple of tweets.

Every day it’s going to get tougher and tougher for you to find stuff to confirm your Trump Derangement Syndrome-induced bias and lay claim to your faux moral superiority. Virtually every country is now over the hump at a fraction of deaths the “models” predicted.

Hyped fear & hysteria have peaked too. I see it even here in the irrationally fearful Thailand. People are exhausted of the bullshit promoted by “morally superior” elites like you. Soon, the media will move onto economic panic, which of course was created by this abject bullshit.

Too much dumb and dumber, too little time.