When Donald Trump showed reluctance to bring cruise ship passengers ashore in March, his reason was because it would increase his country’s infected numbers. Many (including myself) suspected he was more concerned about appearance than people. Last week, everyone’s suspicions were confirmed when Trump explicitly expressed his reluctance to have more tests because it made the U.S. look bad.
TRUMP: “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing we would have very few cases.” pic.twitter.com/tEX1uXQbmp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020
This unwillingness to collect data – this case data that is necessary in order to track and treat COVID cases – is an extreme form of cherry picking called slothful induction. This is one of the techniques of science denial in our FLICC taxonomy, and involves ignoring relevant evidence before coming to a conclusion. Believing a problem doesn’t exist by not measuring it is object permanence for adults.
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