There Is A Snake At No 10, Complains Top Scientist

[Peter Pedant]

Prof Neil Ferguson has been called on to resign
He met and kissed a married lover against the govt's 'no bonking' rule that he was forerunner in supporting, along with his career, his computer models and pleas for a much larger department
Knives were out for him anyway
The Daily Telegraph tracked his movements, every flick of the hips they say - with relish ! They have got their scalp !

SO the prof has gone amidst Tory MPs insisting the non socialising rules are so strict that they wonder how babies get made

and what do Abers think?

does a computer modeller who established his reputation during the BSE crisis and getting it wrong ( 100 deaths and not 100 000) - have to keep his trousers on? Is there really a snake in the grass ( grass = tell tale geddit?) at No 10? (*) The nation wonders....

(*) frigidus, O pueri, fugite hinc, latet anguis in herba. "You boys ..... run away from here, a cold snake hides in the grass." - a classics quote just like Boris - in case AB ers expect it - Horrid Horace by the way)

[Peter Pedant]

// Do you have a link, PP?//
er to Horrid Horace?

Literally "a snake hides in the grass" (Virgil, Eclogue III, v. 93).

eek virgil - well spotted
I thought it was a bit easy to translate - horrid horace being horrendously hard to er hallucinate ..... ( translate)

no - it was leading at 07 00 this am on radio 4 and was second or third at midnight previously - and on the 1030 pm round up BBC nooz - banner headlines in the Teleg I think

if you are short of moolah - I can give you thruppence for a copy

[NickorWan]

Nobody going to mention her day job?

Alright I will :)

Better the thought that she was visiting for a bonk, than to persuade him to keep the planet shutdown.

[Peter Pedant]

// As for BSE, again one was dealing with unknowns. If the methodology used seemed right at the time ...... Merely understand how inaccurate such predictions of the unknown can be.//

NJ takes the view that modelling if it wrong by half a body - invalidates not only the model - and the idea of modelling giving information on which to decide things

and that alone, if his frenz are in govt - explains the mess we are in at present, led as we are by classicists, lawyers and er adulterers

and for those who understand modelling but are not enamoured of it - the swedish Ro must be much less than the British Ro ( chine 2.9 but they are now talking of UK 3 to 4)or else they would have 30 000 dead innit

or to put it mathematically
population density must be a confounding variable in the estimation of Ro ?

[Theland]

Expert science - the new religion, and scientists the high priests.

[Peter Pedant]

// Not even vaguely surprised, baser instincts take over even in the midst of a pandemic./// -- I know of someone in an Occ Health who has committed similar indiscretions.//

we have had quite a lot of the - caesar's wife must be above suspicion - but is it OK if it covered up?
Mac - super mac - mac the knife - got shipwrecked over sex cases such as profumo. He lost office as British People believed that his prostatism was due to disgusting and unacceptable satyriasis ( old men doing it a lot with much younger women )
In fact Mrs Mac ( Dorothy) was frenz with Bob Boothby who liked younger men like the Krays much better. Dorothy was heard to say one time - "I am a one man woman and I stay faithful to Bob!"

thanks to everyone for their calm and reasoned comments - amongst the nest of vipers and disorderly house that is - No 10 - the residence of Our Leader !

[Peter Pedant]

er just to finish off....
Bob Boothby's later little Friend - Leslie Collier who was a sneak thief who would burgle the men he had er entertained the week previously , ended his worthless life by being poisoned by an anaesthetist in a dentists chair. This led to a famous manslaughter case of the doctor who was acquitted I think

[Spicerack]

Forget BSE, pp. That would count as a practical bulls-eye for this ***.
Avian Flu- Ferguson's prediction=200,000,000 deaths worldwide.
Actual number of deaths worldwide=282.
I've done the maths for you (although you'd better check it, the 11 plus was the last exam I passed)
71,000,000% wrong. Can anybody in the history of the world ever have been so spectacularly wrong?

[Mamyalynne]

He didn't really have much choice, he had to go.People don't respect being told what to do and how to behave by those who bend the rules to suit themselves.

[youngmafbog]

What I want to know is: Will he be fined?

Or is that only for us plebs?

Seems to me he doenst believe his own advice and looking at the roads this morning a number of others must think so too. Hardly surprising.

[Spicerack]

Amazing, isn't it. All around the world, the one's shouting the loudest for lockdowns don't seem to actually believe in them.

[tomus42]

His history of predicting these things isn't particularly brilliant according to the numbers, some of which quoted above. It makes you wonder why he was so heavily involved in the first place.

Perhaps there aren't that many Professors of biological mathematics around.

[ProfessorMaisie]

Professor Ferguson wasn't part of the Government's strategy until fairly late on (March this year?). Prior to that, other scientists were behind the Government's policy for dealing with the pandemic ('herd immunity').
A report on the pandemic, released by Professor Ferguson, was seized upon by the press - it contained some very frightening numbers and made great headlines. This changed Government policy almost overnight (we'll have a better idea if this was 'a good thing' in years to come).
However, if we follow this new strategy and then find that the virus has not been eliminated, vaccines are not effective, the economy has been destroyed, more people are dying from other things because resources have been redirected to fight the virus... and even then the people have to come out of hiding and take their chances anyway - 'herd immunity' will look like a much better idea. If that nightmare scenario happens and Professor Ferguson's figures don't bear scrutiny (again) his career should be over.

I wouldn't bet on the outcome either way, I'm content to do what I'm told by the Experts and the Authorities, and hope for the best. I hope I'll be generous and forgive any bad guesses on either side, but I won't forget how big a contribution the journalists made (not by exposing the Professor's hypocrisy and his affair, something far worse than that - their endless scaremongering).

[Peter Pedant]

.//Expert science - the new religion, and scientists the high priests. // my fren' theelie

Not a new idea I'm afraid
I think Dickens said - 'a lot of it has been said before'

this is a xmas spoof spoofing the people who said that it seemed uncontrolled....from... 20 y ago
BMJ. 2002 Dec 21; 325(7378): 1496–1498.
EBM: unmasking the ugly truth
Clinicians for the Restoration of Autonomous Practice (CRAP) Writing Group

[Peter Pedant]

// other scientists were behind the Government's policy for dealing with the pandemic ('herd immunity').//

this idea is shot by the way
the +ve rate started off in those tested and were likely to have the disease at 10% and has recently fallen to 8% as the criteria widened

and since we need 60% - the idea was correctly abandoned at a late-ish time

we are where we are: putting up a lot of ventilators seemed a sensible idea

[Peter Pedant]

'' What I want to know is: Will he be fined?''//

no - some humourless cad has already referred him to the police who have declined to take it further

[Peter Pedant]

// Perhaps there aren't that many Professors of biological mathematics around.//

yes - no - they are usually called epidemiologists

decent number about,
all wanting and needing 1)Air time on the beeb
2)large computer, 3)large department of workers 4)pay rise. 5) ears of the minister

usually to be found camping out in the corridors of RIchmond House ( Health ministry ) and now working from home

[ProfessorMaisie]

Peter Pedant - 'we are where we are: putting up a lot of ventilators seemed a sensible idea'

So far, the ventilators have hardly been used - the vast facilties housing them are nigh on empty.
Yes, 'seemed a sensible idea' at the time', as did 'herd immunity'. We are learning as we go on.

[Peter Pedant]

well ITUs did start as ventilation units ( 1962)
and I thought they would be able to ventilate their way out of trouble

and it WAS a great shock to find amongst the first cohort - they seemed to be dying anyway - which kinda does happen in a viral myocarditis - but this was flogged to us as a respiratory problem

One thing that comes out of your anonymous musings Maiz

if you have a model that says X will DIEEEEE! if you go on as we are
and so you dont - you change behaviour ( like lockdown) and remeasure - - and this time Y have DIIIIEEEEED !

you seem to be saying the model is invalidated
and i dont - I maintain change the inputs then the outputs are changed ....

( so Nielies predictions of 100 000 deaths in BSE was changed by our butchering all the cows in England -and it didnt disprove his model: the inputs changed and so then did the outputs)

[it depends really if you take a model as a set of equations AND the inputs - which I dont. eqns only]

[Peter Pedant]

// What I want to know is: Will he be fined?//
the prockophile professor that is !

no - they decided not to apparently, before asking the question.
[Whaaaaat?] that is what he papers are saying
so so the porno(*) professor is let off and the one in Scortland ( bornie no more) gets a warning and a police record

such is justice in the four kingdoms

(*) if mods and other mary whitehouses wish to substitute another /p/ word with with kissy-wissy or amatory overtones - perfunctory, permissive and pemitted, ;prolonged or prolix - then go ahead

[ProfessorMaisie]

Instead of making a few little tweaks to keep Professor Ferguson's models afloat - even the one that's been most discredited to date - why don't you give some insight regarding the major issue. I'll set it out for you again -

'A report on the pandemic, released by Professor Ferguson, was seized upon by the press - it contained some very frightening numbers and made great headlines. This changed Government policy almost overnight (we'll have a better idea if this was 'a good thing' in years to come).
However, if we follow this new strategy and then find that the virus has not been eliminated, vaccines are not effective, the economy has been destroyed, more people are dying from other things because resources have been redirected to fight the virus... and even then the people have to come out of hiding and take their chances anyway - 'herd immunity' will look like a much better idea. If that nightmare scenario happens and Professor Ferguson's figures don't bear scrutiny (again) his career should be over'.

Any idea how things might work out, Peter Pedant? Is the 'nightmare scenario' a non-starter, too?
I wouldn't like to bet on any eventuality (nor am I qualified to do so - but you claim to be).