Back in 2021 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Susan Michie, Professor of Health Psychology, Director for the Centre of Behavioural Change at UCL, and prominent member of the UK government’s Scientific Pandemic Insights group on Behaviour (SPI-B), was asked whether the fact that she was a card-carrying member of the British Communist Party had any bearing upon her obvious enthusiasm for ‘population-wide cultural shifts’ as a means of addressing the crisis. Indeed, one might reasonably question the ideological leanings of anyone who saw nothing wrong with a future in which the public wearing of facemasks would become a cultural norm. Michie’s response to accusations of potential political bias was both predictable and robust:

My politics are not anything to do with my scientific advice…The important thing is that when one gives scientific advice one does so using the expertise one has, not going beyond the expertise and being transparent about what expertise we provide. And I think that the kind of articles you refer to are a really disturbing kind of McCarthyite witch hunt thing, which I don’t think should have any place in a liberal, tolerant society.

This denial of any politicking seems to me to be rather defensive and implausible given that her professional objective is to use her scientific expertise to assist the implementation of policy. It is inconceivable to me that, in so doing, she would be able to avoid the cognitive biases that may determine her preferred mapping of science to policy. As a behavioural scientist, she, above all, should understand the ubiquity of such cognitive biases. Quite apart from which, such an ability to keep personal political leanings out of the equation would mark her out as being the first prominent behaviourist able to do so since the dawn of her discipline. The fact is that scientists in general, and behavioural scientists in particular, have a long history of political interest, often claiming that their science lies at the heart of their political convictions. More often than not, the science is invoked to support a particular view of how the future of mankind can best be assured. As a case in point, one might take a closer look at three scientists that are often held up as early pioneers of behavioural science: Ivan Pavlov, Konrad Lorenz, and B.F. Skinner.

Pavlov was a Russian but he was not a communist. In fact, he loathed communism with a passion, so much so that he begged Lenin to allow him to leave the country. However, Lenin had other ideas. He shared Pavlov’s political ideology of scientism (i.e. the belief that science was the most important force for social progress) and so Pavlov, with his experiments into conditioned reflexes, was just too important an asset to let go. Pavlov was indeed a political animal who could see how scientific behavioural insights might help with social engineering, but that didn’t mean he shared Lenin’s politics. Following an eye-opening trip to America, Pavlov returned to say this to Lenin:

For the kind of social experiment that you are making, I would not sacrifice a frog’s hind legs!

Meanwhile, over in Germany, scientism was brewing up quite a different picture of what was best for mankind, and the emerging politics was not short of a scientist or two willing to throw their weight behind the ideology du jour. For example, as soon he had the chance, the Austrian ethologist, Konrad Lorenz, eagerly signed up for the Nazi Party. In so doing, Lorenz had no qualms about forming a link between his scientific work and his political allegiances. In his application letter he wrote:

I’m able to say that my whole scientific work is devoted to the ideas of the National Socialists.

So when he was not leading his family of geese around the fields, flapping his arms and honking with encouragement, everyone’s favourite avuncular Nazi could be found supporting the pursuit of racial hygiene in his capacity as a member of the Office for Race Policy. In 1942, he participated in a study of 877 offspring of mixed German-Polish marriages to determine their potential for assimilation into German culture. Those who were not considered fit for assimilation met an alternative fate.

Naturally enough, following Germany’s defeat Konrad went a bit quiet about his political activities and he denied ever having been a Nazi — a strategy that was so successful that he was ultimately awarded the Nobel Prize. Of course, plenty of things were written about his past but he dismissed it all as a really disturbing kind of witch hunt thing, which he didn’t think should have any place in a liberal, tolerant society.

Thankfully, the story of the early development of behavioural science in America was not nearly as disturbing. But even there, the leading lights were shining the torch of scientism. In particular, the psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner (B. F. to his friends) founded the experimental analysis of behaviour in which operant conditioning was a key factor. He was also a political writer with some highly developed views on how insights into behavioural control could be put to good use to help mankind avoid self-destruction. Skinner favoured the use of positive reinforcement as a means of control, but that didn’t stop him writing:

If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

Many of his critics accused him of being totalitarian in his views but, of course, he denied this. No doubt he would just see himself as engaging in ‘paternalistic liberalism’, a description of behavioural control much preferred by Simon Ruda, co-founder of the UK government’s Nudge Unit.

It is precisely because we live in an era of paternalistic liberalism, in which governments see fit to adopt expertly supplied, surreptitious techniques of behavioural control, that we should worry about the political instincts of the experts concerned. As a member of the SPI-B during the pandemic, Professor Michie had a lot to say about the importance of ‘population-wide cultural shift’, but objected strongly to the idea that her communism might colour her views. She has also expressed the view that climate change poses a much greater existential threat than any future pandemic could, and so has been very active in using her behavioural insights expertise to socially engineer the sort of cultural shifts deemed necessary for the achievement of Net Zero. Once again, any suggestion that the anti-capitalist sentiment that lies at the heart of much of climate activism provides a good fit for someone with Professor Michie’s ideological leanings would be given short shrift by her. She would tell you that she is just providing scientific advice on how to achieve the necessary behavioural changes, and the fact that the changes concerned are music to her communistic ears is nobody’s business but her own. And it doesn’t help to hear that her colleagues never discuss politics, but somehow she knows they all share her views regarding inequalities within society. Nobody is fooled by these protests of political disinterest, and nobody should be complacent regarding the potential consequences.

Since her days on the SPI-B, Professor Michie has gone up in the world, having been appointed Chair of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. This matters a great deal because the WHO is in the process of getting the World’s governments to sign up to the 2023 amendment of the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR). The amendment redefines and extends what constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) and significantly strengthens and widens the scope of authority of the World Health Organisation’s Director General (DG) during such emergencies. Of greatest concern is that the amendments will give the DG powers to set up Emergency Committees (ECs) that have the authority “to issue legally binding instructions to states” regarding “medical and/or non-medical countermeasures to address a PHEIC”. This will transform the WHO into a global health emergency legislator with the power to sanction any nation that fails to implement its mandated emergency measures, whether they be in the midst of a pandemic or a supposedly climate-related health emergency. You’ve got to ask yourself if such powers should be granted to a DG who is receiving advice from a Technical Advisory Group headed up by a card-carrying communist. And what does that say regarding the political leanings of the WHO as a whole?

There are many, I’m sure, who would be asking right now just what is wrong with communism anyway, and would dismiss my concerns, accusing me of looking for reds under the beds. Maybe I am wrong to be concerned, and perhaps Professor Michie can be taken at her word when she claims pure scientific objectivity within her role, despite a long history of behaviourists failing in that regard. All I will say is this: If the population-wide cultural shifts demanded to achieve Net Zero are anything to go by, then I’m inclined to side with Pavlov and say to Michie that, for the kind of social experiment that she is making, I would not sacrifice a frog’s hind legs!

76 Comments

  1. Not just a Commie, but a full-blown “Stalin did nothing wrong” Tankie. Try to imagine someone with similar views about the Nazis occupying any position of authority in the west – it’s impossible, isn’t it. See also Seumas (sic) Milne.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Chris,

    Thanks for that. I do not have a great deal of information regarding the strength or extremities of Michie’s political beliefs, but I do understand that her student colleagues at Oxford dubbed her ‘Stalin’s Nanny’, so I assume she was a bit out there!

    Anyway, out of respect for the wide-ranging political views shared by the Cliscep faithful, I shall refrain from taking a view on the rights and wrongs of communism. On the other hand, there is every reason to take a view on the rights and wrongs of a scientific advisor having a strong political allegiance and occupying such politically influential positions, particularly when they implausibly deny that they would ever overstep their remit. And, as you point out, it is difficult to see the folk at the WHO appointing an individual with far-right political views to lead one of their technical advisory groups.

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  5. Maybe we are not so far from a touch of communism now that the government (a Conservative govt!!) has seen fit to mandate how many of certain types of vehicles manufacturers have to sell over the next 11 years and are on the point of imposing similar measures on boiler suppliers.

    What’s next – glowing reports of record production at tractor factories? Medals and commendations for “worker of the month”, etc?

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Mike H,

    When you put it like that, I struggle to see the clear distinction between communism and ‘choice architecture’.

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  7. John,

    I’m somewhat conflicted by your article, but it has made me think, so I thank you for it.

    On the one hand I think a person’s politics (whatever they are) shouldn’t, in principle, be held against them. As an example, I worked for many years in a company where it’s probably fair to say that most (but not all) of the board and senior management were Conservatives, whereas I, and my immediate boss, were both Labour Party activists at the time. Our politics were widely known, but made no difference, as (I like to think) we were good at our jobs.

    On the other hand, I see two issues here that support your thesis. First, the nature of the work being carried out by an individual does matter. If the individual’s job involves (as you put it) using their scientific expertise to assist the implementation of policy, then it is difficult to see how their political views can be kept out of the equation. But then that begs the question of what political views would be acceptable for someone performing that function?

    Second, as commenters on your article have pointed out, having a far-left political outlook seems to be no obstacle to moving smoothly upwards through the echelons of public service to (possibly worryingly) unelected supra-national bodies seeking huge global powers, while having a far-right political outlook would prevent anyone getting on the first rung of that ladder. Why the difference? It would matter less were it not for the fact that we live in an age when supranational bodies are seeking (and gaining) more powers, and when democracy seems to count for less and less. But that leads in to another discussion altogether.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Mark,

    Yes, your concerns are appropriate. There is a naïve view (a narrative, if you will) that a clear distinction can be made between political decision-making on the one hand and the scientific advice that supports such decisions on the other, and that the scientist, having restricted themselves to the decision-supporting role, cannot be held responsible for the decision actually taken. In practice, the demarcation is not that clear cut, and a politically motivated scientist can do a lot to sway the decision whilst claiming objective impartiality. This will not always be a serious risk but, when the nature of the decision-supporting science is all about behavioural control, I think it is more than possible that such biasing may be the result. I should also add that left-wing political views are not the only ones that a scientist can bring to the table, as my historical examples demonstrate. However, given the political landscape within modern academia, a left-wing biasing in the scientific support role now seems more likely than not.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “There are many, I’m sure”, who would be asking right now just what is wrong with communism anyway”

    What, as a “religion” that replaced deity with “the State” and whose adherents managed to kill around 200,000,000 of their own citizens in about 50 years of the twentieth century as speedbumps on the Highway to the Glorious Socialist Workers’ Paradise – more than all the deity-following religions managed in a millennium?

    Isn’t that sufficient?

    Aside from which its leading acolytes seem to have an interesting tendency to be amongst the richest members of society, the egregious Michie creature being a millionaire several times over…

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Catweazle,

    The many I had in mind were the communists themselves 🙂

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  12. You know I would be much more concerned if advice was provided and heeded from an out and out rabid capitalist (as I’m sure happens frequently). Also I would be most surprised if those receiving advice from Prof. Michie did not take special care to bear in mind her politics and balance that advice with that from others.

    Given her ability to garner even more prestigious positions in the international area, I would believe her opinions are likely to have both value and utility and are considered valuable by many. 

    I would not worry John, the days of Soviets under beds are long gone (I hope).

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  13. Alan,

    Also I would be most surprised if those receiving advice from Prof. Michie did not take special care to bear in mind her politics and balance that advice with that from others.

    According to Michie, no one needs to bear in mind her politics at all because they have no bearing on her advice — which is purely scientific. In fact, I suspect that Michie’s acceptance on technical advisory groups comes with an acceptance of that claim, otherwise no one would want her. And so I actually would be surprised if those receiving her advice were taking special care to bear in mind her politics.

    That said, the point I am making in this article is that any politicking will not be perceived as such because it can easily be packaged and presented as politically impartial science. For example, her advice that we should strive for ZeroCOVID, and thereby implement the same interventions employed by the Chinese government, was presented as a scientifically argued recommendation for suppressing a virus.

    Given her ability to garner even more prestigious positions in the international area, I would believe her opinions are likely to have both value and utility and are considered valuable by many.

    The thing is that Michie had the brass neck to refer in her interview to ‘not going beyond the expertise’. And yet when she advocated ZeroCOVID she was making an epidemiological proposal without having any qualifications in that domain whatsoever — nada, zilch, zippo. In fact, those that did have the required expertise dismissed her ideas as ‘dangerous nonsense’. So no, I don’t think her advancement is down to her opinions having ‘value and utility’.

    I would not worry John, the days of Soviets under beds are long gone (I hope).

    So where do you think all the communists went? If I may quote from Peter Hitchens:

    In the last century, old Communism failed. Its claim to end poverty and create a more equal and prosperous society proved utterly false. Its methods – KGB torture and surveillance, Gulag concentration camps and that great concrete confession of failure, the Berlin Wall – were so grotesque that they were indefensible. But its supporters did not give up. They found new causes – sex equality, global warming and now, perhaps most potent of all, the claim that the health of the people is the highest law, justifying an assault on freedom unprecedented in our time.

    I don’t think you have to agree with everything Hitchens says to be wary about a communist being a leading technical advisor to an organisation that is setting itself up as a global health emergency legislator.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I for one am extremely pleased that someone with influence argued the zeroCovid point of view. Not that I believe her views, if fully adopted, would have been beneficial, but because they must have acted as a counterpoint to those I heard after coming out of hospital that Covid was no more serious than a bad cold and that lockdown measures were unnecessary (= utter rubbish and I believe highly dangerous). Even the wearing of face masks was ridiculed, despite the constant warning that this measure gave everybody to be constantly wary of personal contact. We in Britain thus steered a middle course.

    Just because more severe measures were being adopted in communist China does not mean that Prof. Michie’s advocacy of zeroCovid was communist-inspired.

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  15. I for one am extremely pleased that someone with influence argued the zeroCovid point of view.

    Alan, I don’t want to get into arguments over whether or not Covid was taken seriously enough. The reason why I mentioned ZeroCovid was because it was promoted by Michie as a plausible objective when, in reality, it would have entailed a state-imposed change to our cultural norms (which currently protect individual freedoms in the face of collective responsibilities) and yet would have achieved little more than giving more dangerous strains the opportunity to gain dominance. I don’t know whether it was rejected because it was bad science or because it was politically unacceptable, but I do think it was both of these things.

    Just because more severe measures were being adopted in communist China does not mean that Prof. Michie’s advocacy of zeroCovid was communist-inspired.

    As indeed Michie would argue. She would just invite us to accept that it is a coincidence that the outcome of her scientific proposals would look so similar to a communistic shift in society. But as David Rennie, Peking bureau chief of The Economist, said of the Chinese approach at the time:

    It’s very hard to know where Covid containment starts and a Communist police state with an obsession with control kicks in.

    However, to argue that Michie’s preference for China’s approach was entirely devoid of political bias would be difficult to do given that she tweeted the following to explain the merits of Chinese-style virus control:

    China has a socialist, collective system (whatever criticisms people may have) not an individualistic, consumer-oriented, profit-driven society badly damaged by 20 years of failed neoliberal economic policies. #LearntLessons.

    And let us not forget that she is a psychologist. To be offering any opinion on ZeroCovid in her role as technical advisor is to grossly overstep her remit and to stray outside of her field of expertise.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Michie and her fellow ‘nudge’ merchants at Sage used fear-mongering propaganda to promote damaging and unnecessary lockdowns and to push the extremist and unscientific Covid Zero agenda. The central plank of this fear-based propaganda was to instil in the public consciousness the idea that Covid-19 was a far deadlier disease than it ever actually was:

    https://twitter.com/kevinnbass/status/1775308211530117577

    When will Michie and others be held accountable for their lies?

    Liked by 2 people

  17. There’s a danger in going down the covid rabbit hole here. In that respect, I steer a course between Alan and Jaime. I accept that the early version of covid was very dangerous, killing many people and damaging others – though the young and healthy weren’t much at risk from it. Alan knows it was dangerous – it made him very ill. Later mutations, on the other hand, were clearly much less dangerous (though that’s not to say that some people didn’t suffer from them). In my own case, though by then in my late 50s, I suffered no ill effects whatsoever when I finally caught covid (late in the day), and knew I had it only because I tested positive (having taken the precaution of taking a test before visiting a vulnerable elderly relative).

    All that said, regardless of the damaging or non-dangerous nature of the different covid mutations, I think the idea of zero covid is, and always was, bonkers, as is the idea of perpetual mask-wearing. Of course, the scientific advice was for a long time that mask-wearing was a waste of time, until the ground shifted and all over the world scientists were suddenly announcing that mask-wearing was very important. As a nudge (ironically enough) I can see that a focus on mask-wearing might have helped to remind people to keep their distance and to be aware of the risks, but in itself I suspect that mask-wearing was a waste of time, inasmuch as most people wore non-clinical and badly-fitting masks that didn’t prevent the passage of the virus.

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  21. As I’ve said, I do not wish to get into the argument as to whether the Covid risk justified the interventions, since that would be taking me off topic. This article is about whether Michie’s ostensibly scientific advice can be taken at face value, particularly given the track record of politicking within behavioural science. It is true, however, that the government’s attempts at behavioural control did play upon fear, and this has been subsequently condemned by psychologists:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/28/grossly-unethical-downing-street-nudge-unit-accused-scaring/#:~:text=The%20Government's%20%E2%80%9Cgrossly%20unethical%E2%80%9D%20uses,an%20investigation%20into%20scare%20adverts

    You will also note that Simon Ruda, a co-founder of the BIT, also concedes that the tactic was an error with unforeseen consequences, although he blames the government and media rather than the nudge unit itself. See the link provided in my article.

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  22. John,

    As I’ve said, I do not wish to get into the argument as to whether the Covid risk justified the interventions, since that would be taking me off topic. This article is about whether Michie’s ostensibly scientific advice can be taken at face value, particularly given the track record of politicking within behavioural science.

    I’m not sure you can meaningfully separate the two. In order for us to accept that Michie’s advice was impartial and based upon science, not politics, we need to know if the risk was deliberately and knowingly exaggerated. The latest FOI revelations concerning the RKI suggest that outside influences intervened in the scientific assessment of the risk:

    Back in 2020, as I watched with dismay as many of my old German friends lost their minds under the pressure of daily propaganda, I posited the theory that the Robert Koch Institute—Germany’s official infectious disease institute—had been hijacked by political interests.

    My hunch was that IF unbiased scientific assessments were being conducted at the Robert Koch Institute, these were being distorted or ignored by the German government.

    Now comes the news that the German independent magazine, Multipolar, has successfully sued the Robert Koch Institute to release the minutes of its Covid Crisis deliberations in 2020. Though heavily redacted, the documents reveal that pressure was indeed exerted on the Institute’s scientists to go along with public policies not supported by scientific research. For example, the Institute expressed the opinion that masking and lockdowns were of doubtful value.

    Of special note was the following revelation:

    As Multipolar has already reported based on the previously secret papers, the tightening of the risk assessment from “moderate” to “high” announced by the RKI in March 2020 – based on all lockdown measures and court rulings on them – was, contrary to what has previously been claimed, not based on a professional assessment of the institute, but on the political instructions of an external actor – whose name is blacked out in the minutes.

    https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/fraud-revealed-in-german-covid-response

    In the UK, I have always been highly suspicious of how, within just one week – from March 16th to March 23rd – we went from Johnson announcing precautionary voluntary measures/government guidance to a full scale compulsory, legally enforceable lockdown which went beyond even the ‘scientific’ advice published by Pants Down Ferguson from Imperial on March 16th. That remains as inexplicable now as it was back then. But it seems obvious that something changed, rapidly, behind the scenes, and it seems to me that it was unlikely that it was the science which changed.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. Jaime,

    My main concern is that the science is so contentious, and perceptions of risk are so subjective, that one could argue that the interventions were inappropriate for the level of risk, with or without consideration of political biasing. So I’d like to focus upon the issue of biasing, irrespective of whether it did or did not result in the endorsement of the wrong measures. The fact is that it did take place and it shouldn’t have. Also, those who claim it didn’t happen, such as Michie, are not telling the truth.

    The example you just provided is very germane to my topic and I thank you for introducing it into the debate. One could also take an example closer to home, in the shape of the infamous SPI-B report of March 2020, which complained that the public ‘did not feel sufficiently personally threatened’:

    https://appgpandemic.org/news/covid-restrictions-fear

    What did they mean by ‘sufficiently’? Sufficient for what purposes? Sufficient to achieve the behaviour desired by their client, the government? Sufficient to address the levels of health risk as they perceived them? If so, how would a bunch of psychologists have the expertise to form that judgement? Or did they mean sufficient to achieve a population-wide cultural shift, for whatever purpose, whether it be political or otherwise? Whatever the case, it seems unethical and inappropriate that such scare tactics were used and I don’t care whether it could be argued that the ends justified the means – not that it could.

    Liked by 3 people

  24. There are a couple of additional comments I’d like to make in view of the testimonies given to the Pandemic Response and Recovery All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), (see my link in the previous comment).

    Firstly, it is clear that the conclusion drawn at the APPG meeting was that the behavioural scientists themselves were to blame for a deliberate escalation of the perception of risk. The statements made by the SPI-B in their paper Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures were particularly damning. Consequently, Simon Ruda’s protestations of innocence are quite unconvincing.

    Secondly, the meeting appeared to strongly hold to the view that the resulting perception of risk was scientifically unsupportable. As I say, I hesitate to invite further debate on that issue simply because the science itself was so flaky. Even so, that now seems to be the general opinion and I acknowledge that. What I will say is that risk management measures always come with a cost, and so the decision to use them is never entirely made simply on the basis of having to reduce a risk. For example, in the case of Covid-19, we have to take into account the mental health legacy resulting from the campaign of fear. The cost of this, I believe, has been devastating and has yet to fully materialise. This quote from a retired police officer given at the APPG meeting says it all:

    I’ve done raids on criminal houses, I’ve carried firearms, I’ve gone through front doors at 4am, I’ve policed riots. I’m not saying I’m a tough nut, but not much throws me… for a long time I was frightened of everything: the world, the air, other people, physical objects, anything that could transmit the virus basically. Looking back, I can’t believe it was me. I think I became agoraphobic. I’m awfully angry about the fear now. I feel cheated. Ultimately I am angry at Parliament, not just the Government, because there was no real opposition to anything.  I’m angry at the media too and feel betrayed, they only publish one side of the argument. It was despicable that the Government tried to frighten us. Any other walk of life, you’d be arrested.

    The final thing to be said is that the very same tactics are being employed by the same individuals in pursuance of Net Zero. Why is there no APPG enquiry into that?

    Liked by 2 people

  25. I have just misposted a comment to another thread that should have been posted here. It went to the “BBC refuse to correct error” thread. Would anyone more adept than I copy my post, delete it there and repost it here. I would be most grateful.

    Like

  26. Alan,

    I don’t know how to do that, but if you would like to repost your comment here, I can clear up any signs of you having made the error, and then we can take it from there.

    Like

  27. Alan’s comment:

    “In this discussion we seem to be ignoring the important question of whether the fear attendant upon exposure to the Coronovirus was valid or not. And so if measures supporting or increasing this fear were justified. We also seem to have forgotten (or are ignoring) that before the development of vaccines there was seemingly nothing to prevent viral spread other than distancing from anyone who might be contaminated. We also learned from the experience of other countries that experienced Covid earlier than we did. In particular I recall the experience of Italy, reports from which suggested the complete overwhelming of their health system and the virus being out of control. Hence the early messaging in the U.K. of “Save the NHS”.

    So my selected memory easily accepts attempts to spread and enhance fear. For me this was perfectly legitimate. And this was before I became infected. The clearing out of patients from hospitals back to care homes caused infections to spread there. My granddaughter worked in such a home and almost certainly carried the infection home so contaminating me. This ultimately led to me supporting lockdown and any measures necessary to improve its efficiency. I maintain this bias.“

    And my reply:

    “Alan,

    I suppose we remember the terrible covid years based on our own experiences, and your experience was certainly profoundly unpleasant, inclining you (perfectly understandably) to the view that covid was very dangerous and the extreme measures introduced to deal with it were justified.

    And you may be right, so far as the initial version of covid was concerned. I was duly “nudged” by the daily tsunami of covid reporting in the media and I accepted the first lockdown, as well as becoming fairly paranoid about the whole situation (I wasn’t concerned so much for myself, as a pretty fit then 50-something, but I was concerned for family members who might be more at risk than I was).

    My problem was with the continuing insistence of huge swathes of the establishment – scientists, doctors, academics, politicians, media, internet companies, etc – to the effect that even when it was becoming apparent that later mutations were less harmful, all the old restrictions should remain in place or (if they had been relaxed) be reintroduced every time autumn and winter returned. I finally lost patience when the South African variant emerged, and South African medics with direct experience of it were advising that it was good news – lots of infections, but very little serious illness. Despite that, their advice was traduced (if memory serves) and many members of the establishment were desperate to lock us all down again, even though by then the harms caused by lockdown were becoming very apparent. Boris might be a clown, but he resisted those final lockdown calls, and I think he was right to do do so. Whatever I may think about him otherwise, I am grateful to him for that.

    I differ from some lockdown critics by accepting that governments and advisers panicked when covid first appeared – it was new, dangerous, and seemingly terrifying. And they made me panic too, but until we knew more, I accept that panic may not have been an entirely inappropriate response. However, once covid mutated and became less deadly, and once it became apparent that many of the measures in place were frankly stupid (e.g. wearing a mask in pubs and restaurants to go to the toilet but taking them off when you sat down again) or highly damaging (lockdowns) the insistence of the establishment to carry on destroying lives and livelihoods became incomprehensible and unacceptable to me.“

    I will delete those two comments from the other (incorrect) thread.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. Alan, Mark,

    With all due respect, this is precisely the sort of discussion I do not want on this thread.

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  30. That’s quite okay, Mark. It’s just that I feel that, whilst Alan’s perspective is perfectly valid, it doesn’t bear upon the question of whether politically motivate scientific advice was being provided. And even though I concede that the behavioural scientists were seeking to heighten the perspective of risk, I don’t even think one has to take a position on whether the resulting measures were valid, or that they correlated with valid perceptions such as those held by the likes of Alan. It is the ethics of their actions that concern me more, and I think that was the concern of the APPG. As I said, the science was flaky and perspectives on risk are both subjective and subjectively valid, and so such discussions are likely to take us down a rabbit hole.

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  31. John thank you for your offer, but as you will have seen, Mark has removed my misplaced comment (and his response). Thank you Mark for transferring the misplaced items where they belong – here.

    Response to Mark. 

    I was really confining my remarks to the early stages of Covid, mostly before any vaccines. Based upon European experience plus the early experience in the U.K. the fear response, in my mind was entirely justified. I knew of two families where every member in the households died. I recall being deathly afraid for my wife and granddaughter.

    Subsequent variants seemed to be milder in their effects, but still causing deaths. But what if a new variant appeared that became as virulent as the early variant, or God forbid even worse. Surely there is an argument to be made for keeping up the lockdown. If such a newly severe variant had appeared, bringing back a necessary lockdown after abandoning it, would have been much more difficult. There also had been significant resistance to taking the vaccines. A case for continued vigilance brought about by continued fear is, in my book, also justified. But I recognize this is a more difficult position to defend.

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  32. Alan,

    Thank you for your clarification, but may I now respectfully request that we draw a line under the debate on the rights and wrongs of lockdown. It is very interesting, but I feel it is in danger of diverting this thread onto a highly contentious subject matter that I am keen to avoid here. You say you maintain your bias and I respect that you should do so.

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  33. Wish I had read your comment before posting my latest effort. However, I do see that increasing the fear of Covid and support for the lockdown (at least until the population could obtain some protection via vaccination) are valid propositions and if it were felt necessary to enhance these aspects by increasing fear, then involving those capable of achieving those aims could be justified.

    I know that I’m on a very weak and spindly limb here, but I used to be very much in favour of any measure that combated the early variant of the disease.

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  34. You want to focus upon the appropriateness of advice that instilled greater degrees of fear: which came from a source that may be politically contaminated. I don’t have any information relevant to this question but, as you might suspect, I have opinions.

    Firstly, I would strongly suspect that advice would have been sought from different sources, almost certainly from those with different political leanings.

    Secondly, Professor Michie’s politics are well known. Anyone receiving same, surely would consider if her advice might be influenced by those politics.

    Finally, if Professor Michie wished to be consulted in future, she would be expected to couch her advice in terms that would ensure that it would be evaluated as being free of political bias. Her success at doing this would seem to have been very successful.

    on the basis of these opinions I believe the advice to up the fear factor would have been proffered without political bias or this bias would have been identified so that this could have taken into account. Without such I doubt if any academic advice would continue to be sought. Thus my view is that Prof. Michie’s views were appropriately sought and evaluated (or rather I hope they would have been). But to repeat these are my highly biased opinions.

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  35. I am of course very sorely tempted to air my own biased opinions but I won’t do that out of respect for the author of this post and the commenters. I will just reiterate though John’s point that the available facts and evidence now point very strongly to the conclusion that the risks (even with the original Wuhan ancestral variant) were greatly exaggerated for political reasons. This exaggeration of risks appears to have been a coordinated operation across many different countries but in this country, Communist Michie and her Sage colleagues were instrumental in the calculated and deliberate amplification of population-wide fear re. Covid and were guilty of cynically promoting non pharmaceutical interventions such as mask wearing and social distancing, not only as emergency response measures, but as the preferred long term ‘new normal’ – again for what would appear to be primarily political/ideological reasons. In that respect, they were clearly complicit in an attempt to socially engineer human behaviour permanently and they have done a huge amount of damage to the national psyche in the process, not to mention the huge collateral physical harms from promoting a demonstrably unsafe, unnecessary and ineffective ‘vaccine’, and I detest them with every fibre of my being for being co-conspirators in that criminal and immoral enterprise.

    Liked by 2 people

  36. Looked up Participants in SAGE and related groups and was surprised to find how very large they are, from across the U.K. , mostly from universities but with an ample sprinkling from government and elsewhere. The group under fire here, SPI-B, is listed on a gov. site as being composed of 48 members in 2021, all but 4 named with their affiliations given. They look a very academic heavyweight group with IMHO an ability to withstand political pressure from whatever direction.

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  37. Alan,

    Whilst political interference from outside parties may be an issue, it isn’t the theme of my article. Behavioural scientists such as Susan Michie seem keen to portray themselves as being objectively scientific in such a way that their personal politics are immaterial, and I have attempted to explain above why I find such protestations unconvincing. It may just be convenient that Michie’s scientific advice happens to be precisely what you might expect a communist to give, but I suspect that there is more than just coincidence going on here.

    There is a sub-branch of behavioural science that goes by the name behaviouralism, another name for which is political science. The reality is that, whilst behavioural science is a branch of psychology, it seems to attract a type who are interested in applying their psychological insights into explaining, predicting and, in the case of those in the nudge units, influencing political behaviour. It’s not the strictly apolitical discipline that Michie likes to portray it as. And so yes, the personal politics of these people does matter. And when I hear one of their rank describing his colleagues as ‘weirdos’ and ‘ultra-lefties’, with a constitutional left/right bias of 15:1, I start to seriously question whether there can be any potentially alternatively-biased expertise upon which the government could call.

    Going back to the question of how much removal of personal liberty could be justified, given the health risks concerned, I think we have to also take into account the methods being employed and whether they constitute a threat to our traditional standards of democracy. Laura Dodsworth’s testimony at the APPG:

    What ethical framework are Government behavioural scientists adhering to? We need to see the full documentation of their Covid-19 campaigns, to understand the objectives, the methods and the ethical considerations. There is an enormous amount of public money being spent in this area with no proper accountability. The unintended consequences are yet to become clear and an inquiry is urgent if we are to understand the impact and avoid such an approach on mental health and people’s behaviour in the future. It’s clear that Government deployment of behavioural science merits wider scrutiny beyond Covid-19.

    And the Co-chair of the APPG, Graham Stringer, said this:

    It is time for a thorough inquiry into how and why such unethical policies were so strongly pursued and why those on SPI-B, with professional expertise and understanding of ethics and the potential effects of deploying such behavioural-science ‘nudge’ techniques, acted in a seemingly irresponsible way.

    Until we have such an investigation we will not know the extent to which political views held by the members of the SPI-B were influential in their decision-making.

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  38. John,

    I am going round in circles here, both in my own mind and in my comments.

    I absolutely take on board the point you make, and have a great deal of sympathy with it. However, I return to my basic query – if a card-carrying Communist party member’s politics make it difficult for them to separate their politics from their job (and in this context, unlike my previous line of work, I accept that her political views may be of relevance), why would anyone with other political views be able to separate their politics from their work? What political views would render them acceptable/appropriate to hold such a position?

    Or is it that we should do without such people altogether? Do they add anything? Do they benefit society? Or are they a danger to society?

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  39. Mark,

    why would anyone with other political views be able to separate their politics from their work?

    I don’t expect they would. And as Alan pointed out, we would be possibly worse off if a far-right individual were to be giving the advice. However, I think this is a hypothetical problem given the current political leanings within academia.

    What political views would render them acceptable/appropriate to hold such a position?

    Any or none, depending upon which way you look at it. All I am saying is that when such people hold such positions one should not take their claims of being scientifically objective at face value, particularly when the discipline concerned is behavioural science.

    Or is it that we should do without such people altogether?

    That’s a very good question.

    Liked by 1 person

  40. John. Just finished skim reading the last SPI-B report (2022) dealing with outcomes relating to the removal of lockdown measures. Unless Prof. Michie has been exceedingly clever and devious I cannot discern any communistic political influence. In fact the only contentious issue for me related to Covid infected people believing they were only suffering from influenza and returning to work and what might be done to prevent this.

    I would be grateful if someone could look through the relevant published reports of SPI-B and SAGE and point out areas where they believe political influence has been wielded. For I don’t recognize any. Michie has been accused of lying but so far and again I haven’t been able to discern any.

    The reason for my interest is that I find it almost inconceivable that an avowed Communist has been so successful internationally on various committees, and I wonder why. The only explanation that could make sense to me is if she doesn’t use her influence and reputation to pursue political goals. But I know nothing!

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  41. Alan,

    I didn’t actually say that Michie was telling lies, I said she was not telling the truth. For all of the reasons I have given, it is simply implausible to me that her advice is scientifically objective and fundamentally apolitical. Hence, to say that it is so cannot (in my opinion) be telling the truth. There is a surprising lack of self-awareness in her position, and I believe it suits her to remain self-unaware. Beyond that, I cannot say anymore.

    It doesn’t surprise me that you couldn’t find anything overtly communistic in the 2022 report but may I ask what exactly were you looking for? I’m sure you would agree that nothing would be stamped ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’. I’m sure a great deal of the detailed proposal wouldn’t reek of masterplan. However, when it comes to Michie in particular, the argument being made (and the one I go along with) is that her calls for ‘population-wide cultural change’ are implicitly communistic, particularly when you consider that they entail Chinese-style state controls to achieve zero-Covid, together with a commitment to a similar approach to any future pandemic. Yes, it is presented as a scientifically supported proposal, but there are alternative, equally scientific approaches that she could have proposed but didn’t. The bias can be found in her preference for particular scientific solutions. Does that prove she was motivated by her communism? Not exactly, but it is telling that her proposals are identical to those made by the Morning Star:

    “Covid-19: time for a People’s Plan”

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/covid-19-time-people%E2%80%99s-plan

    Whereas early October saw millions of Chinese people travelling safely around their country to enjoy the Golden Week holiday, two months later, millions here face tough choices and Christmas without their families… What is needed is a zero-Covid policy as the aforementioned countries have pursued

    And let us not forget that whilst Michie is offering advice on matters such as zero-Covid she is completely overstepping her remit in her capacity as a behavioural scientist and pontificating upon matters for which she is completely unqualified. So when she told Unherd that she would never do either of these things, was she telling the truth? Clearly not.

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  42. I believe an overarching question relating to Covid is whether deliberately changing people’s behaviour so that they would be less likely to contract a serious illness is an ethical pursuit for a government? Or would it be more ethical for legislation to be enacted to achieve the same ends? Cuba, apparently Professor Michie’s favourite country pursued the imposed legal route – shutting down the whole country, whereas the good Professor apparently argued that changing people’s behaviour was her preferred path. One reason for my pursuing this question is my fear that there very real possibility that either by design or by accident we may face meeting designer disease that would put Covid to shame. Many of the objections to SAGE advice would need to be swept aside.

    Also are we sure that we will not face a new variant of Covid that is even more virulent and infectious than anything previously met? What will our government do in this eventuality?

    Liked by 1 person

  43. It’s worth noting that behavioural psychology relies exclusively upon the fight/flight response to stimuli that all animals have. A third response which is uniquely human – that of negotiation – is of no use to behavioural psychology or to its anticipated outcomes. In fact, it could be said the behavioural psychology exists as an apparatus to evade any requirement to negotiate with the object to which it’s being applied.

    As such, behavioural psychology uses stimuli to excite a state of fear or anger in its object. Thereafter, the object becomes compliant with whatever course of action is prescribed to alleviate the state. Such presented stimuli can include viruses, climates or foreign countries (among other things).

    These examples, of course, would remain largely unnoticed by the object (ie, the public) were it not for the practitioners of behavioural psychology painting them as fear-inducing.

    It should be no surprise that Michie is so enamoured with behavioural psychology – or that her knowledge of its dark arts is being drawn upon by recent governments. After all, politically she aligns herself with a doctrine which has always viewed negotiation – and its political cousin, debate – as a human obstacle to that doctrine’s desired end. 

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  44. Alan,

    People have objected to nudge tactics because they constitute a covert strategy. When people are confronted with proposed laws these can be challenged democratically. Using behavioural nudges such as raising the level of fear, rather than introducing legislation, does not give the public that opportunity. Or, at least, it skews any debate that may then be had in regard of proposed legislation. One could argue that Michie’s preference for behavioural techniques to change culture is a recognition that the ballot box would not achieve the change in society that she would like to see. Not at the moment, at least.

    That said, I concede that there may arise a level of threat in the future that is so great that any discussion regarding the protection of democratic process would be rendered somewhat academic. Was that the case with Covid though? I really don’t think so.

    Liked by 3 people

  45. P.S. It might be a good idea to move away from Covid and consider these issues in relationship to Net Zero, since I think the same questions are relevant.

    Liked by 2 people

  46. PeterS,

    I do not believe that behavioural psychology does rely solely upon fight/flight stimuli but I take your point regarding the avoidance of negotiation.

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  47. O.K. I’ll not disturb the uniform stance of almost all here regarding Prof. Michie and her assumed inability to offer dangerous and communist inspired advice. Looking back through this thread I find not a word of support for my views, nary a like. 

    I find it difficult to accept that there is no support whatever for my view that Prof Michie, even if she had given biased advice would be most unlikely to have been a danger. She is one out of forty eight participants (many with equivalent expertise and influence), she is also a known communist and almost certainly her views would have been examined carefully by the group’s chair and co-chair. Yet she was appointed, presumably because she is an internationally recognised expert in her field of behaviour modification and that expertise is both recognized and valued. There is no evidence that her expertise has been used without moderation by others. There is also no evidence, for or against, that her communistic viewpoint has swayed opinion in any direction.

    Personally as someone who contracted Covid early I certainly was in favour of almost any measure used to prevent spread. It’s all very well today saying that many measures were an over-reaction, but then we didn’t know just how bad it could have been. Knowledge of the devastation caused in other countries, especially Italy, fed this fear and trepidation. So we the fearful may have been wrong, but next time….?

    I see no point in continuing to bash my head against a brick wall so in this matter I leave you to your devices.

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  48. John, as I have said a number of times over the years, Zero Covid was entry level Net Zero. Whether it was planned to be so, or whether it was opportunistically exploited by the same people promoting both science-free ideologies, is something we might debate until the cows come home. But Michie, in 2021, at the height of the pandemic scare, revealed her equally dubious desire to socially engineer behaviour change in response to an imaginary ‘climate crisis’ which she revealingly ranks above pandemics in terms of importance:

    “What I do hope is that this brings countries together more and there’s a more global way of looking at travel. Because actually, there’s an existential crisis around the corner, which is much greater than pandemics. And that’s the climate crisis. And air travel is one of the big contributors to global warming, and the kind of problems we’ve already been seeing.

    https://unherd.com/2021/06/susan-michie-dont-rule-out-more-delays/

    For Michie obviously, climate lockdowns, restrictions upon travel, energy rationing and smart electricity networks are as equally valid, and supposedly justified by The Settled Science of Global Warming as are pandemic lockdowns, travel restrictions, mass vaccination and compulsory mask wearing in response to a ‘crisis’ defined by the Settled Science of Immunology and Public Health. I’ll say it now; she’s an academic fraud, first and foremost, regardless of the fact that she’s also a paid up Commie.

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  49. Jaime,

    I’ll say it now; she’s an academic fraud, first and foremost…

    I don’t think I would wish to endorse such a strongly worded accusation, but I have said more than once that she needs to heed her own advice a little more carefully. To the Unherd interviewer she said:

    The important thing is that when one gives scientific advice one does so using the expertise one has, not going beyond the expertise and being transparent about what expertise we provide

    If only that were how it is with Michie. Having first gained a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Experimental Psychology, she went on to obtain a Masters in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Psychology at Oxford. Since graduating she has specialised in using her psychology insights by applying behavioural science to address health issues. As such, she cut her teeth by using behavioural science to help people stop smoking. Of course, this did not make her a cancer expert. Nowadays she can be seen during pandemics using the same qualifications to encourage adherence to various non-medical interventions such as social distancing, mask-wearing and lockdowns. Of course, that does not make her an expert in virology, immunology or epidemiology. So she may be the one to consult if one wants to know how best to implement ZeroCovid, but she shouldn’t be the one saying that ZeroCovid is the way to go. In that sense she is not ‘using the expertise one has’, and she definitely is ‘going beyond the expertise’. And, to the extent that she has never made it clear that she has no expert authority in claiming the importance of ZeroCovid, you could argue that she is not being transparent. If that makes her a scientific fraud, then I guess I must concede the point.

    Moving on to Net Zero, she can be seen once again using her psychology background, specifically her behavioural science, to advise on how the required behavioural changes may be effected. But she is no better qualified than I to say whether or not Net Zero is the correct policy; she is just happy to assume it is. But in that respect she seems to be falling in line with just about everyone else in her profession.

    Liked by 2 people

  50. But John, even if Michie’s right and Net Zero is the correct policy (it isn’t but let it pass), her view is irrelevant because, as I’ve just said in a post on the Net Zero policy thread, practical considerations mean the policy cannot ever be implemented.

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  51. Indeed Robin. But you have to be concerned with just how much damage a successful advocacy of a doomed project can do before the reality takes over.

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  52. No doubt that can be true John but, as I said in my recent post on the Net Zero thread, I believe the project’s demise could happen well before we could experience the acutely damaging ‘crash and burn’ that some believe must happen before Net Zero’s is abandoned. I suggest you go to the thread, look at my comment and see if you agree with me.

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  53. Alan,

    I haven’t supported you on this thread because I have serious concerns about the whole concept of behavioural science and because I think that, as John put it so well, behavioural scientists have no business in any event in pushing for policies in areas that are beyond their own expertise.

    Democracy is being side-stepped in far too many ways, and behavioural science represents just one more example of this regrettable trend.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Mark thank you for your response. The problem as I see it was that in the early days of Covid in the U.K. (before vaccines) there was nothing to prevent the disease from spreading except severe lockdown measures. Without those effectively working the early onset could have been much worse, as they were in Italy. So the government decided to introduce measures to enhance the effectiveness of the lockdown and called upon experts for advice. SPI-B was set up (or expanded, I have been unable to determine which) specifically to offer advice to SAGE (who would make decisions and take them to government ministers). It was the action of government that would have increased any fear factor.

    I make two conclusions

    A) Even if Professor Michie’s advice and contribution had been highly influenced by her communistic leanings, she was a small part of SPI-B and her advice must have been diluted by passing through the main body of that unit and then by the membership of the overarching SAGE body – Not to mention by the government, and in part and much too late, by Parliament.

    B) She offered information about altering opinions, not directly about Covid (which as John has stated she was not in a position to offer informed advice upon). In this, she is one of the world’s experts. Most of the criticism of Prof. Michie I judge to be ill-informed. There are times when deliberate attempts to change the public’s opinion are to be welcomed, especially when they are conducted through a democratic government. We are constantly being so nudged – think of road safety propaganda, exhortations to be vaccinated, to vote and so on almost infinitely. I am certain that such efforts are made more effective by “nudging” and these efforts are directed or made more effective by people like Prof. Michie. Her monstering here appears to be based entirely upon her appreciation of some aspects of communism, not the Chinese variant, nor the now defunct Russian variety, but that of Cuba – Certain aspects of which are admirable. In our country people are allowed to have, even extreme, political views. I have seen not an iota of evidence here that her advice about public Covid perception had been influenced by her political views – just speculation that of course it must have been.

    I am perfectly aware that such “nudging” can be dangerous and not to the citizens’ best interests. But when conducted by a democratic government and under the scrutiny of an active opposition I see little to worry about. Specifically when applied to making lockdown measures more effective, they would have had my full support. The more fearful the public,  before effective vaccines had been rolled out, the better IMHO.

    Liked by 1 person

  55. Alan,

    Thank you for your detailed and considered reply. Part of my problem with it is this part of your comment:

    “But when conducted by a democratic government and under the scrutiny of an active opposition I see little to worry about.”

    On the big issues, the opposition in Parliament has been AWOL. Whether it be emergency covid legislation, or the CCA and its subsequent net zero amendment, scrutiny has been so cursory that the best word I can think of to describe it is “derisory”.

    Liked by 1 person

  56. John,

    Since graduating she has specialised in using her psychology insights by applying behavioural science to address health issues.

    She was also employed by SPI-B during the pandemic and thus charged with the responsibility of using her expertise in psychology specifically in relation to encouraging public compliance with policies allegedly supported by the best scientific advice. I used the phrase ‘academic fraud’ advisedly in relation to her advocacy of masks, not only as an emergency measure, but as a desirable ‘permanent’ behavioural change, even during outbreaks of seasonal ‘flu. There is no way, given her experience and employment, she could possibly have not known that the medical advice up to and a few months into the pandemic, was not to use masks to control the infection and spread of an airborne respiratory virus. She must have known that the gold standard Cochrane Review offered no robust scientific evidence in support of using surgical or high filtration masks as either source control or infection prevention. yet she publicly advocated for this highly disruptive, very visible and ultimately psychologically and physically harmful intervention long term. No doubt she was also instrumental in government and media messaging which sought to shame those who were not wearing masks and to praise the responsibility of those who were. In my book, that makes her an academic fraud.

    Liked by 1 person

  57. Mark

    I don’t believe you need to worry too much. Almost certainly any potentially contentious issues (like measures to be taken regarding Covid) would have been examined by parliamentary groups consisting of members from both the government and its opposition. In any case any government must act in the expectation that anything contentious could potentially be used by the opposition against them and so act to prevent this from happening. Lockdown was highly contentious and so any additional measures (like deliberately using nudge measures) would have been treated so very carefully.

    Our democracy works by avoiding giving the opposition any free rides.

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  58. Jaime,

    Yes, the mask-wearing fiasco was hardly science’s finest hour. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow it all closely enough to discern where cockup ended and kidology started. It all just seemed so unconvincing to me and I’m not sure anyone should be making long-term mask-wearing a flagship of their behavioural recommendations.

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  60. Have we forgotten that face masks were never intended to protect the wearer but to prevent virus-carrying droplets from the wearer from infecting others. I believe they were fairly efficient at this task. Well I believe this to be true and still carry a cloth face mask in my outside coat pocket, “just in case”. I also believe that seeing other people wearing face masks was a constant reminder to be careful and follow good practices.

    I really do not understand the resistance to wearing face masks. It demanded such a little effort and seeing others similarly attired conferred a feeling that everyone was “in it together”. In my neck of the woods people not wearing masks were shunned or shouted at.

    How much of this behaviour was deliberately encouraged by advice proffered by people like Prof. Michie? I wouldn’t like to guess, but I suspect very little. I suspect most fear would have been encouraged by those recovered from the disease (like me) telling tales of how bad the disease could be and stories on the media about the dire straits being encountered in other countries. I suppose the latter might have been deliberately enhanced by those following advice from people such as Prof. Michie. But would that have been a bad thing?

    Now we have moved on to criticism of those giving advice upon encouraging adoption of Net Zero. As sceptics we only see the negatives in adopting Net Zero measures and thus are against any measures used to oppose such, like deliberately influencing the public using methods of behaviour modification. We have focussed here upon one particular specialist, Prof. Michie, arguing that her communist views will have influenced her advice. No evidence seems to have been presented to support this conclusion, other than (paraphrasing) “it’s obvious that her advice will have been so influenced”. What advice was proffered has not been identified, let alone exactly how it has been influenced by politics. Also ignored is that the advice must have been accepted and passed through a large body of experts within SPI-B and then the main body of SAGE. Even then it must have been adopted by government (and possibly Parliament) that was almost entirely supportive of measures to combat climate change (based upon MPs voting for the Climate Change Act). I find it almost inconceivable that any adverse communist influence would have survived such scrutiny. I also would wager that Prof. Michie would have been fully aware of this degree of scrutiny and would have been very careful in her advice.

    I have spent considerable time trying to establish exactly what advice was given by Prof. Michie but without success. Does anyone know?

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  61. Since this thread has raised the subject of ethicality, I thought I might say a few words regarding behavioural science’s track record in this regard.

    One of the founders of behavioural science who didn’t make it into my article was John B. Watson. The reason for his omission was because I couldn’t find anything to suggest that he was a particularly political animal, and so he wouldn’t have been a good example of what I was emphasising, i.e. that behavioural scientists generally love to get involved in politics. However, had my theme been that behavioural scientists generally don’t make good ethical choices in their research, John B. Watson would have made an excellent example. Firstly, there is his infamous Little Albert experiment in which, to prove his theories, he condition a phobia of rats in a previously emotionally stable child:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment

    Then there is the affair he had with someone half his age. He brought up the two resulting children in accordance with his behaviourist views. Both attempted suicide, with one of them succeeding.

    Others who would have made this list include Harry Harlow, who subjected monkeys to an experimental “pit of despair” and John Money who imposed sex change surgery on a child to test his social gender theory – a theory that is to this day the source of a great deal of transgender-inspired child abuse.

    If you’d like to read more about concerns regarding the practice of behavioural scientists, written by someone eminently qualified to do so, you might want to follow this link:

    https://thecritic.co.uk/bekind-and-staysafe-or-else/

    Not you though, Alan. You’d hate it.

    Liked by 2 people

  62. John

    I’m not really in favour of “nudging”, even if its use is recommended as being useful in getting the population to do things that organisations would prefer us to do and which a majority might consider favourably. However in instances where it has been used to encourage people to do things that would be of obvious benefit, I would not be critical after the event. If people changed habits in connection with nudging induced fear, was that truly a bad thing? In other words, techniques that probably ought not to be used, but when used with good intentions and with favourable outcomes possibly ought not be criticised, especially after the event. As to legislation against nudging, where would you start? How could you evaluate possible harm? Would nudges against over-eating Easter eggs be criticised/banned?

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  63. Alan,

    None amongst us are against nudges per se. They can be, and have been, used for many a good purpose. As I have said before, the problem is that such techniques do not come with a moral compass and, by their very nature, they operate covertly. Accountability is the issue, particularly when one considers that the whole idea is founded upon the assumption that the nudger knows best. A complex decision such as how much civil liberty to sacrifice in order to deal with a health threat should be made with full transparency. Employing nudging techniques as a central strategy for governance is not conducive to such transparency.

    In the case of Covid-19, the behavioural scientists have come under criticism because of the unintended consequences of their fear-based nudging. You may have been grateful at the time because you could see how it addressed a problem of critical importance, but there are many who have suffered long-term mental problems that might take quite a different view. A group of 60 clinical psychologists have signed an open letter criticising the ploy. There is an All Party Parliamentary Group that has been highly critical. The BIT itself has admitted it got it wrong.

    I agree that there is a danger that we are being wise after the event, and we should respect that decisions were being made under considerable uncertainty and a high perception of threat (the mask-wearing decision being a case in point). But that is all the more reason for ensuring that behaviour-changing tactics should be subject to the proper checks and balances. You seem very confident that that would have been the case, but there seems to be very little sharing of that confidence if the APPG testimonies are anything to go by.

    As for my assumption that Michie must be overstating her objectivity, that view is based upon the ubiquity of cognitive bias. As behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan has pointed out when speaking of Cass Sunstein, the father of nudging:

    Yet what Cass Sunstein seemingly fails to realise is that every human being is biased – including the nudgers themselves. The people who think they know what’s best for us are just as irrational as everyone else, and the combination of their blind spots and their unchecked power can be disastrous.

    I think the onus should on those that deny such bias to prove their point, rather than it be the other way around.

    Liked by 3 people

  64. John. Who do you trust to conduct appropriate checks and balances? In many cases identification of the nudge to those destined to be nudged would be highly counterproductive . So checks and balances, unless conducted in secret, would identify the fact that nudging was operating, so potentially voiding the effectiveness of the nudge. Catch 23 1/2?

    On the other hand, some identification of nudging would seemingly be innocuous, if not beneficial as would be the 80% lean vs 20% fat example in your The Critic recommended reading.

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  65. Alan,

    Who do you trust to conduct appropriate checks and balances?

    That’s a good question. The idea of governments having advisory behavioural science units is relatively new and I think it may be a case of an idea ahead of its time. It’s all very well to say we need to put in place checks and balances but the practicalities are bound to be a problem. I certainly don’t think the nudged themselves would have any role because, as you say, nudging only works when the nudged are unaware. Even so, I’m sure that people would want to know that there are, for example, advertising standards that keep marketing nudgers in check, even though they are aware that such things are going on. In practice it may come down to obtaining answers to the questions asked by Laura Dodsworth at the APPG:

    What ethical framework are Government behavioural scientists adhering to? We need to see the full documentation of their Covid-19 campaigns, to understand the objectives, the methods and the ethical considerations.

    Or maybe we should just consider disbanding them altogether and going back to the good old days when government benevolence and skulduggery were not so scientifically enhanced.

    Liked by 1 person

  66. It’s pretty tough witnessing what is happening in this country and across the world right now – lies upon lies, injustices, insanity, blatant corruption, even transparent evil, going largely unchallenged by ‘the system’. It’s generally an oasis of welcome sanity reading and commenting here on this website but I’m abandoning this thread now because it’s just becoming a source of extreme irritation and annoyance to me and, as you know, I’m not known for holding my tongue.

    The unchallenged statement that masks were ‘fairly efficient at the task’ of reducing ‘infectious droplets’ (source control), not only presumably from those showing symptoms but also from asymptomatic (healthy) people is one case in point. No robust scientific evidence exists to back up this statement.

    The oft repeated glib statement that it required “such a little effort” to wear a mask and that those not wearing them were “shunned or shouted at,” stated approvingly, I find very offensive. When you are aware of the FACTS and you are aware of the overtly political motivations behind the imposition of mask mandates, especially in the middle of summer when Covid had all but disappeared, it requires a superhuman effort to comply with such nonsense by willingly succumbing to what is in effect the imposition of a ‘nudged’ superstitious belief in the apotropaic efficacy of a sartorial item. I was not superhuman alas and thus I became the shunned and shouted at minority just for actually following the science. I found the whole mandatory ‘masking’ period very deeply traumatic for these reasons. I don’t want to revisit that angst now and I thought we had moved on, but some haven’t apparently.

    Here’s a summary of the actual science of masks:

    https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2023/02/face-masks-for-covid-an-obituary/

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  67. John – thanks for the “The Critic” link above, interesting article.

    Found this partial quote about the Nudge Unit apt –

    “Similarly, while the team views its work as “libertarian paternalism” – as if it were kindly old Santa Claus himself, chiding us to be good boys and girls with lumps of coal – the reality seems to be the inverse: authoritarian maternalism, which has hitherto been known as the Nanny State and recently reinvented as a sort of Hugbox Bolshevism. This is the ideology that tells you to be #bekind and #staysafe – or else! It is the ideology that will put an entire nation under crippling house arrest for its own good; it has turned the world into a safe space, by threat of force.”

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  68. TAKE OFF THAT MASK!

    Masks, like the spots and stripes of
    tigers or leopards lurking in undergrowth
    may be a cover up for sinister intent,
    for a Macbeth, say, who smiles and smiles,
    yet may, behind that smiling mask, be  
    a damned villain waiting for nightfall
    to carry out an undercover
    nefarious (or murderous) event.

    Just as likely though, wearing a mask
    may be concealment for a shrinking self
    the donning of a protective covering
    like the turtle and the whelk, or as in classic
    drama, putting on the mask of an Achilles,
    now there’s a way for an un-heroic actor
    to become a hero, just for one day.

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  69. Masks: I have no rigorous science regarding Covid prevention using masks. I only have the words of a tired doctor who took pity on me in hospital where I had become so very bored. We discussed everything from cabbages to kings, and one night he explained why he wore a mask for most of his shifts. He first brought to my attention the rather novel view that masks acted as warnings to others that Covid may be about and to be sure to follow recommendations. Later he gave me the rather surprising news that masks were for the benefit of others by preventing the escape of virus-containing droplets and their retention on the inside of the mask. When you think about it, it must be true because the inside of masks do become wet with use. As it was argued to me, free floating viruses in the air would likely be dormant and will easily pass through the spaces between fibres in the mask but would be in a weaker form such that a body’s defences might have a better chance of destroying them. Outgoing breath containing viable virus-containing droplets would lose their droplets as it is forced to transit the small holes in the mask fabric. This explanation satisfied my interest at the time and I have never questioned it.

    When I look at the document suggested by Jaime I immediately find reasons to be sceptical, mostly related to the asymptomatic reaction of many who do contract Covid. This will screw up the numbers who are judged to have contracted the disease with or without the use of masks. In addition if participants had become infected previously without noticing symptoms this would also affect any results. I could be totally wrong but after my hospital conversations I have never questioned the limited efficacy of face masks.

    I’m sorry Jaime if I have disturbed your karma, it was not intended.

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  70. Alan,

    I have no rigorous science regarding Covid prevention using masks. I only have the words of a tired doctor who took pity on me in hospital where I had become so very bored . . . . . . This explanation satisfied my interest at the time and I have never questioned it . . . . . .

    When I look at the document suggested by Jaime I immediately find reasons to be sceptical . . . . . . .

    So you unreservedly accept the opinion of a tired doctor from 4 years ago but you immediately question a gold standard peer reviewed meta analysis of multiple studies on the efficacy of masks for controlling airborne respiratory viruses (SARS-CoV-2 is now accepted to be no different in that respect from other airborne respiratory viruses), carried out over many years and updated in several versions, which has NEVER found any robust scientific evidence to support the conclusion that masks of any type have a significant effect upon the transmission (source control) or protection from infection by airborne respiratory viruses. Indeed, in the latest version (Feb 2023), the quality of evidence leading to the conclusion that they have no significant benefits as public health control measures is upgraded to ‘moderate’.

    I find that rather startling Alan, but I gratefully accept your apology and I think we should probably leave it there.

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  71. Jaime. Yes I accepted the opinion and reasoning of a tired hospital doctor. Why shouldn’t I? He spoke of other issues knowledgeably. I note that international health bodies still recognize and recommend use of masks in areas of continued risk. John Hopkins still issue the same recommendations. That’s good enough for me.

    As to the “scientific” evidence, I still have my doubts, but don’t have the interest to argue further or conduct my own research. Personally I find the wearing of masks no problem. Upon seeing someone else wearing one conveys the message that that person is aware of the problem of disease transmission and probably has been careful elsewhere. This was an important message in towns like mine where some idiots, knowing that they had been infected, visited pubs and deliberately infected several dozen other people. Yes bastards like that did, and probably still, exist.

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  72. At the APPG meeting, Susan Dodsworth made the following claim:

    It’s clear that Government deployment of behavioural science merits wider scrutiny beyond Covid-19.

    I doubt that these wise words will be heeded, however. I say this because there has already been a marked discrepancy between the levels of concern shown for the potentially unethical application of behavioural techniques during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the total lack of concern shown for the very same techniques being employed in the support of Net Zero. When the SPI-B is caught saying that the public ‘did not feel sufficiently personally threatened’, there is an outcry. But when the IPCC said this in AR5, WG3, Chapter 2:

    One of the major determinants of popular support for climate policy is whether people have an underlying belief that climate change is dangerous. This concern can be influenced by both cultural factors and the methods of communication.

    no one batted an eyelid.

    It’s all the same thing. It is what the IPCC referred to as the ‘social amplification of risk’ and it is a very dirty tactic:

    https://cliscep.com/2022/12/21/the-social-amplification-of-risk/

    Can anyone explain why the IPCC has been allowed to get away with this? Why are the clinical psychologists not in uproar?

    Liked by 3 people

  73. GB News is certainly going all out with the ‘social amplification of risk’ re. British weather. You would think that they are being sarcastic, but I actually think they take themselves seriously when publishing this idiotic nonsense:

    Powerful winds with a “danger to life” warning will batter parts of the UK today and tomorrow, just days before temperatures as high as 20C will scorch Britain.

    The Met Office has issued two yellow wind warnings across the south coast, cautioning that strong gales and large coastal waves could result in disruption.

    The weather office stated that “there is a small chance that injuries or danger to life could result from large waves and beach material being thrown onto sea fronts, coastal roads and properties – or from flying debris elsewhere”.

    https://www.gbnews.com/weather/uk-weather-forecast-danger-to-life-wind-warning-heatwave-april-2024

    What I wouldn’t do right now to have some of those ‘scorching’ 20C temperatures come up this way for a few days . . . . . if I manage to survive the tempest that is!

    Liked by 3 people

  74. I suggest in my article that the appointment of a card-carrying communist to the position of Chair of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health is a good reason for doubting the soundness of the science behind any future WHO healthcare mandates. It turns out, however, that there is a much more obvious influence that trashes the WHO’s creditability. Evidence the fact that it recently held a ‘Traditional Medicine Global Summit’ that, amongst other things, endorsed homeopathy as a legitimate healthcare intervention:

    https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2023/08/17/default-calendar/the-first-who-traditional-medicine-global-summit

    In fact, the WHO has been pushing what it calls Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM) for ages:

    https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/92455/9789241506090_eng.pdf?sequence=1

    The WHO says ‘T&CM is an important and often underestimated part of health care’ and talks of its ‘proven quality, safety, and efficacy’. In truth it is almost entirely pseudoscientific junk. So why is the WHO pushing this nonsense? Maybe the following explains it:

    “The government of the People’s Republic of China kindly provided financial support for the development of the document.”

    Liked by 2 people

  75. A lot of people seem unhappy with the WHO’s proposed International Health Regulations power grab, due to be ratified later this month. The US Senate is unhappy:

    It comes as 49 Republican members of the US Senate wrote to Joe Biden to say it was “unacceptable” that the treaty would expand the WHO’s authority over member states during public health emergencies. They said the WHO’s “failure” during the Covid pandemic “did lasting harm to our country”, adding that they “strongly urge you to change course”, withdrawing support for the treaty negotiations and shifting the focus to WHO reforms.

    Suella Braverman is unhappy:

    We’ve got to be incredibly circumspect about the WHO proposing something like this because they have made mistakes in their responses, in their judgment and in their approach.

    Sir John Redwood is unhappy:

    I have no wish whatsoever to sign up to the treaty. I am happy for Britain to belong to a body to offer advice, but I do not wish us to be signed up to a body which has capabilities to direct us should a health crisis arise.

    Molly Kingsley, the founder of the campaign group UsForThem is unhappy:

    From lauding China’s inhumane lockdown response, to denying human to human transmission, to suppressing critical discussion as to the origins of the virus, the WHO’s performance during the pandemic was dismal.  Embarking on a process to supercharge its resources and influence following such a chaotic performance is a tone-deaf overreach.

    Danny Kruger, the chairman of the New Conservatives group of MPs is unhappy:

    There are now only weeks to go until the World Health Assembly is due to vote on these international pandemic accords. We absolutely mustn’t risk being bounced into following a ‘lockdown first’ precedent for managing the next pandemic. The UK should be leading calls for the WHO vote to be deferred to allow proper time for debate of measures which could shape UK public health policy for a generation.

    And I’m unhappy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/04/uk-sleepwalking-into-lockdown-first-pandemic-agreement/

    But I’m guessing Susan Michie is delighted.

    Liked by 3 people

  76. The latest draft version has deleted many of the more contentious issues, but others remain. I was given to understand anyway that the WHO had breached its own legal procedures by not having the final draft prepared in time for countries to vote on, so that in effect, the new international health regulations and proposed treaty would not be legal anyway, even if signed, and the WHO would be forced to defer voting for a year or two to give countries proper time to consider carefully the proposed changes. Who knows. The whole thing is a pig’s ear.

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