Jeff Hester | COVID and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: A Washington University Business Prof makes a fool of herself. @jeffhester6874 | Uploaded May 2020 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
This is a debunking of a video titled, "Why you haven't caught COVID-19." It is a virtual talk given by Prof. Anne Marie Knott to the faculty and staff of the Olin School of Business at Washington University. The video had been viewed 112,000 times before I posted. A short time after my own post, that video was made private.
I was not born yesterday, so I did take the trouble of downloading a copy of that video before I posted. YOU CAN FIND A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL VIDEO HERE: youtu.be/h0MsxKlIjbA
(Here is the original URL: youtu.be/sTFOsQfDFi8)
Something that I did not mention in my rebuttal: The last line of the last slide read, "Urge your Senators, Rep, Governor, Mayor to reopen."
I have since spoken with the Dean's Office at the Olin School of Business at Washington University and they confirmed that the video was, indeed, posted by Professor Knott.
__________________
COVID and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Dissecting the train wreck that happens when a business professor driven by motivated reasoning, wishful thinking and profound ignorance decides that she knows more about epidemiology and immunology than a whole world full of epidemiologists and immunologists.
There is nothing subtle here. Normally I would just laugh and shake my head at such a gross misinterpretation and misrepresentation of facts and truly astounding degree of ignorance of even the most basic principles of epidemiology. This is the stuff of the tinfoil hat crowd.
I wouldn't have bothered to debunk this thing, were it not for the fact that she has something over 112,000 views as I write. She is using the banner of a prestigious university to spread a message that is as laughably absurd as it is profoundly dangerous.
For those who know a bit about epidemiology, her basic claim is that the whole world fails to recognize that really COVID-19 has a reproduction number of 0.5 instead of 2.4, that 82% of the population was immune from the get go, that mitigations have changed absolutely nothing, and that we should just all go back to our normal lives because nothing will happen.
And how could that be? Well, after a cover slide caveat that "I am not an epidemiologist," she goes on to claim that all of the epidemiologists in the world just don't understand the numbers as well as she does, and that somehow all of the immunologists in the world failed to recognize that 80% of the population couldn't get it.
No. I am not exaggerating. Yes. Really. It is that bad.
The truly frightening thing is that people who don't know any better are listening to her and imagining that she knows what she is talking about. If people hear this and believe it, they are going to do things that will put themselves and others in the ICU and the morgue.
This was apparently given as some kind of town hall event. How could it possibly be that any group of reasonable academicians in any field could listen to this atrocity and not be offended?
A stupidly bad talk that demonstrates the speaker's ignorance is one thing. A stupidly bad talk that tells people it is safe to ignore precautions during a global pandemic is quite another. Knott's talk is beyond irresponsible. It is also an embarrassment to Professor Knott, to the Olin School of Business, and to Washington University. If this video is an any way representative of Washington University's standards for honesty and integrity, they have a very, very serious problem.
This is a debunking of a video titled, "Why you haven't caught COVID-19." It is a virtual talk given by Prof. Anne Marie Knott to the faculty and staff of the Olin School of Business at Washington University. The video had been viewed 112,000 times before I posted. A short time after my own post, that video was made private.
I was not born yesterday, so I did take the trouble of downloading a copy of that video before I posted. YOU CAN FIND A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL VIDEO HERE: youtu.be/h0MsxKlIjbA
(Here is the original URL: youtu.be/sTFOsQfDFi8)
Something that I did not mention in my rebuttal: The last line of the last slide read, "Urge your Senators, Rep, Governor, Mayor to reopen."
I have since spoken with the Dean's Office at the Olin School of Business at Washington University and they confirmed that the video was, indeed, posted by Professor Knott.
__________________
COVID and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Dissecting the train wreck that happens when a business professor driven by motivated reasoning, wishful thinking and profound ignorance decides that she knows more about epidemiology and immunology than a whole world full of epidemiologists and immunologists.
There is nothing subtle here. Normally I would just laugh and shake my head at such a gross misinterpretation and misrepresentation of facts and truly astounding degree of ignorance of even the most basic principles of epidemiology. This is the stuff of the tinfoil hat crowd.
I wouldn't have bothered to debunk this thing, were it not for the fact that she has something over 112,000 views as I write. She is using the banner of a prestigious university to spread a message that is as laughably absurd as it is profoundly dangerous.
For those who know a bit about epidemiology, her basic claim is that the whole world fails to recognize that really COVID-19 has a reproduction number of 0.5 instead of 2.4, that 82% of the population was immune from the get go, that mitigations have changed absolutely nothing, and that we should just all go back to our normal lives because nothing will happen.
And how could that be? Well, after a cover slide caveat that "I am not an epidemiologist," she goes on to claim that all of the epidemiologists in the world just don't understand the numbers as well as she does, and that somehow all of the immunologists in the world failed to recognize that 80% of the population couldn't get it.
No. I am not exaggerating. Yes. Really. It is that bad.
The truly frightening thing is that people who don't know any better are listening to her and imagining that she knows what she is talking about. If people hear this and believe it, they are going to do things that will put themselves and others in the ICU and the morgue.
This was apparently given as some kind of town hall event. How could it possibly be that any group of reasonable academicians in any field could listen to this atrocity and not be offended?
A stupidly bad talk that demonstrates the speaker's ignorance is one thing. A stupidly bad talk that tells people it is safe to ignore precautions during a global pandemic is quite another. Knott's talk is beyond irresponsible. It is also an embarrassment to Professor Knott, to the Olin School of Business, and to Washington University. If this video is an any way representative of Washington University's standards for honesty and integrity, they have a very, very serious problem.
