I'm not against masks or anything but I'm really failing to make the connection here.

It's been a week and opening has been very limited: most are still operating under social distancing modes (20% capacity, health checks at the door, etc). I wouldn't put stock in any of these numbers.

Here's a story by Jeannine Nicole (3873 words):

I am a Covid ICU nurse in New York City, and yesterday, like many other days lately, I couldn’t fix my patient. [...] He was only 23 years old.

Work on the frontline is rough. :(

Please don't strut about risking spreading covid-19 further.

Alarming video shows how quickly coronavirus can spread at a restaurant (Yaron Steinbuch, New York Post, May 2020)

This was Southend beach in the UK today, it barely made the news today and now that the government has absolved responsibility the lockdown is crumbling.

Stay alert! If anyone tries to get more than 2m away from you, chase them to a crowded beach!

they should get their vitamin d by more socially distanced means

These doctors say the shutdown or worse than the disease. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doctors-raise-alarm-about-health-effects-of-continued-coronavirus-shutdown

is* not or

"To gather signatures for the letter, Gold and Barke partnered with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a doctors' group that advocates for less government interference in the relationship between doctors and patients, and notably has taken part in legal challenges against the Affordable Care Act and advocated to allow doctors to use hydroxychloroquine on themselves and their patients."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doctors-raise-alarm-about-health-effects-of-continued-coronavirus-shutdown

"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a conservative non-profit association founded in 1943. The group was reported to have about 5,000 members in 2014. The association advocates a range of scientifically discredited hypotheses, including the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons

If a group of doctors who think HIV doesn't cause AIDS say we should end the shutdown, I say that's an excellent reason to keep it going. Thanks @Hanover.

Couple of more snippets about these wingnuts.

"AAPS is generally recognized as politically conservative or ultra-conservative, and its positions are unorthodox and at wide variance with federal health policy.

... It opposed the Social Security Act of 1965 which established Medicare and Medicaid and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid...

AAPS opposes mandated evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines, opposes abortion and over-the-counter access to emergency contraception and opposes electronic medical records."

:lol:

I watched Trump's advocating of using hydroxychloroquine yesterday with dismay. 'What harm can it do?' this imbecile says. Apart from known gastrointestinal side-effects there are other diseases such as Lupus whose sufferers depend on the drug, and it can effect those who like Trump are obese (okay Pelosi said that). If Trump's advocation causes a run on supplies how many of those in genuine need will lose their supply?
And then, to top it all, I read today that Trump's family trust holdings include a fund whose largest holding is Sanofi, the maker of Plaquenil, the branded version of hydroxychloroquine. This alone should justify impeachment to my mind. Can the US really vote for this appalling human being again?

If a group of doctors who think HIV doesn't cause AIDS say we should end the shutdown, I say that's an excellent reason to keep it going. Thanks Hanover. — Baden

Ad hom.

Ad hom. — Hanover

A health organisation that believes that HIV doesn't cause AIDS and is demonstrably politically partisan is a less reliable provider of health news. I'm even more suspicious because it's a health organisation advising on economic matters!

Lol! It's a matter of credibility not logical argumentation. Any doctor who advises that HIV doesn't cause AIDS should not be considered a reliable font of medical advice. But I suppose when we ban people here for pseudoscience we're ad homming them? (Of course because a discredited authority says something is true, it doesn't mean the opposite is necessarily true. That was a humorous rhetorical flourish on my part).

I'm pretty sure @Hanover knows quoting an organization who are known to spread psuedoscience to advance their political objectives disqualifies them from being considered neutral sources of medical advice in the political shutdown debate.

Stay alert! If anyone tries to get more than 2m away from you, chase them to a crowded beach!

It's ok, they were following their common sense. The new policy of the government.

So if they die, it's their fault because they didn't use their common sense.

Lol! It's a matter of credibility not logical argumentation. Any doctor who advises that HIV doesn't cause AIDS should not be considered a reliable font of medical advice. But I suppose when we ban people here for pseudoscience we're ad homming them? (Of course because a discredited authority says something is true, it doesn't mean the opposite is necessarily true. That was a humorous rhetorical flourish on my part). — Baden

You wouldn't ban someone for holding to a pseudo-scientific belief they didn't advance here though. If I believed that HIV did not cause AIDS but I did believe that we needed to more diligently quarantine to protect ourselves from the coronavirus, would you discount my beliefs about the coronavirus? The world does not become flat because Hitler said it's round.

When you present a claim as credible based on an authority, you implicitly make the claim that the authority is credible. If the authority is found not to be credible, you need to find another way to add credibility to the claim. Remember, you made no argument but simply presented a claim attached to a supposedly credible source.

The world does not become flat because Hitler said it's round. — Hanover

Yes, but nobody would present Hitler as an authority on this issue nor would it be resolved by appeal to the flat earth society.

If I believed that HIV did not cause AIDS but I did believe that we needed to more diligently quarantine to protect ourselves from the coronavirus, would you discount my beliefs about the coronavirus? — Hanover

You are not an authority on medicine, so nobody is going to present you as an authoritative source for that claim. But, say, you presented me with a claim by pseudoscientists that we should quarantine more diligently, I would discount that as evidence even if I believed that we should. Actually, I'm open to evidence in both directions as long as the source of evidence is credible.

So, it's pretty simple, the claim of these doctors carries no special authority on the issue of reopening because due to their propagation of pseudoscience they are not a credible source. That doesn't make the claim necessarily true or false, it's simply as irrelevant as a claim by flat earthers that the world isn't round. We need to look elsewhere for evidence.

Another simple way of putting this is that you were attempting an argument from authority, which can't work unless the authority is reliable.

"An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of defeasible argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. It is well known as a fallacy, though some consider that it is used in a cogent form when all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Pointing to the unreliability of the authority as per the above is not an ad hom. I should put this in resources as it keeps coming up despite the fact it should be obvious.

Yeah fuck it, I'll put this in an OP and stick it in resources.

Today I had the covid rash. Well last night I started feeling itchy around the waist, and didn't sleep too well. Today I had a patch about 20cm diameter of angry red skin with like a nettle rash mottling. Who knew it was even a thing? I cannot show you a picture because after lunch, it just subsided and is gone. This is one weird fucking illness. The other day, all my teeth ached for no reason.

Yesterday I was feeling a bit better and managed a half mile walk, and today is about the same. I seem to be recovering fingers crossed and apart from an occasional cough and a general weakness and headache, I feel almost human. Mrs un is a bit more pathetic than me still but even she has made it to the end of the road today. She has lost about 6kg, but I haven't because I have been eating. So if you want to come by and infect yourselves, you'd better get it together soon.

Yesterday I was feeling a bit better and managed a half mile walk, and today is about the same. I seem to be recovering fingers crossed and apart from an occasional cough and a general weakness and headache, I feel almost human. Mrs un is a bit more pathetic than me still but even she has made it to the end of the road today. She has lost about 6kg, but I haven't because I have been eating. So if you want to come by and infect yourselves, you'd better get it together soon. — unenlightened

I hope you get well soon.

Yes, get well soon both of you.

If a group of doctors who think HIV doesn't cause AIDS say we should end the shutdown, I say that's an excellent reason to keep it going. Thanks @Hanover.

Only one article by one doctor was skeptical of the idea that HIV caused AIDS. Though I think publishing the commentary is questionable, there is no evidence his views are held by the entire group. In order to prove a doctor is not credible you would have to show where he’s engaged in quackery instead of deeming him guilty by association. So it would be ad hominem.

And consider this paradox:

Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source

Only one article by one doctor was skeptical of the idea that HIV caused AIDS. — NOS4A2

Who says? Source?

And consider this paradox:

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. — NOS4A2

By your own logic, questioning Wikipedia's reliability is an ad hom. So, how do you escape the contradiction you've trapped yourself in?

Lastly, you quoted the only part of my posts that I already said was a humorous flourish. I've made clear that you can't prove the opposite of a claim by demonstrating the unreliability of the source.

Anyway, this is off topic, if you want to argue about sources, do it here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8368/ad-hom-vs-appeal-to-authority

I trying to make a joke about wikipedia. But wikipedia at least cites their information. Luckily I can click on the cited link and see where the information comes from. I did so and one can read the HIV article, which advocates against suppressing dissenting views. It was written and signed by one doctor.

We can continue to argue about the reliability of the source but it doesn't make what I said an ad hom either way because I'm not claiming the argument is false based on the source, I'm arguing that an appeal to authority can't legitimately be made using it because its unreliable. Look, just go read the OP I wrote. If you have something to say about it, say it there.

Agreed. I think her arguments are important and cause for concern, and it would do us well to focus on those instead of the reliability of those who agreed with her and signed her letter. The implications of a continued shutdown are dire, “including patients missing routine checkups that could detect things like heart problems or cancer, increases in substance and alcohol abuse, and increases in financial instability that could lead to "[p]overty and financial uncertainty," which "is closely linked to poor health.” I would also add that if an economy suffers, so to does the health system.