Study Highlights Blinding Moral Bias Against Questioning Lockdowns

 Study Highlights Blinding Moral Bias Against Questioning Lockdowns

https://www.aier.org/article/study-highlights-blinding-moral-bias-against-questioning-lockdowns/

Excerpt: If you’ve read my work, I often compare the manner in which skeptics of the prevailing narratives surrounding Covid-19 are treated to something akin to the Salem Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisition. Those who try to make a good faith and well-reasoned argument questioning the efficacy of lockdowns or the overall manner in which Covid has been handled are immediately condemned. It’s as if they spoke out against the church, not made a contribution to an important discussion. Oxford Professor Sunetra Gupta shares her experience with such attacks in her article here. (...) Clearly, none of this is productive at all. The entire idea of the scientific method and a free democratic society, in general, is rigorous debate, not orthodoxy. (...) A press release from the University of Otago in New Zealand puts it more eloquently, “A collaborative study led by the University of Otago has shown that COVID-19 containment and elimination efforts have become moralised. As a result, people are more likely to accept collateral damage from these efforts, such as social shaming, lost lives and illnesses, and police abuse of power. This moralisation was so strong that people reacted negatively even when COVID-19 restrictions were merely questioned.” (...) Rather than treating the Covid-19 pandemic like any other policy concern such as building a road, where the tradeoffs and expenses are weighed with a steady hand, many people have opted to treat it like a religion. This is problematic because policy decisions have real-life consequences and they ought to be made with proper discussion, not dogma and fervor to cleanse. [Once we admit emotions to the equation, reason leaves the blackboard and flies out the window. Ron P.]