a rescue operation for canceled people. But I feel like the argument that she was canceled still feels true enough. Right? It's still true enough. Anyway that was funny.

So Ivor Cummins. Do you all know Ivor Cummins? You've probably seen him on Twitter. And I guess you could call him a skeptic of the scientific consensus about a number of coronavirus things. Now apparently we are on each other's radar and he sent me an article from an expert, a doctor, who is arguing against some of the mainstream assumptions about coronavirus. Mainstream meaning mainstream expert science medical people. And Ivor and a number of his followers are pestering me online that the two of us should argue it out, get online and argue it out. What do you think of that? Is that a good idea? Do you think that it would be productive for Ivor Cummins and me specifically to have a conversation on some kind of a podcast?

No it would be the worst idea in the world. It would be a terrible idea. Terrible idea. Now it might give you some entertainment but it would be worse than useless. I mean here, let me take you through it. Worst idea ever. Let's say there are scientists in this world and there are non-scientists. Now let's say that you wanted to get toward truth and you wanted the non-scientists — people like me, you wanted people like me and Ivor Cummins, non-scientists — you would like people like us to be as informed as the scientists. What's a good way to do that? Well a good way to do that is have a conversation, right? To communicate.

So what happens if let's say a scientist is talking to another scientist? Does that help me understand science? Well I'm not in the room. I'm not there. It's just two scientists talking to each other. So that didn't help me because when I hear about it I'll probably hear about it from a journalist, right? I won't even hear from the scientist. I'll hear it filtered through a journalist. So two scientists having a private conversation, that doesn't help me. Right? It doesn't help me at all.

How about if they have a public conversation? And then what am I going to do? Pick the winner? What skill do I have to know which of two experts is the right one? If I could pick the right expert I would be an expert. And if experts are experts why are they disagreeing? How the hell would I know which one is right if they don't know who's right and they're experts? How am I supposed to know? It's ridiculous. So this would be useless in terms of getting me to understand. It's very useful that scientists talk to each other but it doesn't help me understand.

Suppose a scientist talks to a non-scientist. That's good, right? Because the scientist gives you all this good information and now you're informed. No, no. Because it would just be one scientist let's say telling me stuff. I don't know if it's true because is that one scientist this one or this other one? Because they disagree. Could a scientist convince me that the scientist was right? Probably. In fact almost every time. And what would happen if the next scientist came in five minutes later and told me that the first scientist was wrong? Would I believe the second scientist? Yeah, yeah I would. Whoever goes last, if they know more than you do, sounds very convincing. So whoever talks to me last probably will change my mind. Same with you. Whoever talks last sounds right. So is that useful? Because it's just whoever talked last has nothing to do with science. So that's useless.

Suppose — and then this is just another combination of a scientist and a non-scientist but how about two non-scientists having a conversation? I'm a non-scientist. Ivor Cummins is a non-scientist. I understand I think he has an engineering or biochem degree or