Is Anybody Else Exhausted?

It seems that everywhere I turn, I read or hear so much misinformation. We can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere. It’s like chicken droppings in the chicken coop! You can’t move without stepping in it! Has our world gone totally nuts? There are so many conspiracy theories out there and, oh my goodness, those conspiracy theories cover everything from Covid19, to Global Warming, to Presidential Elections. One of the misinformation pieces I’ve seen more times than almost any other is the 28th Amendment. Our US Constitution presently has 27 Amendments. The 27th Amendment was actually part of the package of 12 amendments offered when our Constitution was written. It was passed by Congress in 1789 but did not get passed by two thirds of the states until 1992; over 202 years later. This Amendment is known as the Congressional Compensation Amendment and it prevents Congress from giving itself a raise until after an election is held. So if Congress passes a budget bill that includes a raise for itself, the raise cannot go into effect until after the next election. Now, what about the 28th Amendment? If another Amendment is passed by both houses of Congress and is ratified by 2/3 of the states, that will be the 28th Amendment. The so called Congressional Reform Act has never been introduced into either house of Congress and therefore only exists in the continuous misinformation cycles that have hit the internet for the last 10 years!

All of these misinformation campaigns are exhausting! Masks are not harmful to your health! The preponderance of research, the overwhelming majority of the research, tells us they are safe, unless you are talking about Halloween masks when the eye holes aren’t aligned with your eyes, then those masks might be dangerous. Another one I keep hearing and reading about is that global warming is caused by increased solar activity. Well astronomers who carefully study our Sun tell us that solar activity is actually down over the last numerous solar activity cycles. A solar cycle lasts 11 years. During those 11 years solar activity goes from its highest activity to it lowest activity and the back to the highest. That cycle takes 11 years. When you look at the data from the last 120 years, you see that the last 2 sun cycles have lower sun activity than the previous 8 cycles. If solar activity was causing global warming, I’d think there would be higher activity during these last 2 cycles. People spout off about things that don’t make sense to me. My background is science. I expect the data to support an argument, but in all of this noise I’m hearing these days, I’m just not seeing the data!

I’ve decided to stop correcting people. It’s wearing me out. I’m going to let them wallow in their own thought process. I’m too tired to fight it anymore. Go ahead, believe what you want. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll keep looking at the data and the statistical analysis of the data to inform me as to what’s real, what’s most likely true, and what’s fake or most likely false. One observation does not prove a point. A few events don’t create a trend. Careful analysis of well designed studies, supported by statistically significant data, repeatable and tested for reliability and validity. You see, it’s not just about having a bunch of data to prove a point. Is that data reliable? How was it collected? How accurate were the measurements? If you repeat the study, do you get reasonably similar data? And how valid is the data? Is the data you are collecting really related to the outcomes you are looking at? It’s not easy being scientific. It’s a whole lot easier to make a few observations and make a conclusion. But, I can’t help myself. I have to look at the research and come to my own conclusions. I’m going to continue to do that and let everyone else believe what they want. I just don’t have the energy to keep correcting the misinformation!