[MolsonExport]

We all forgot about the many times when Doug raised barns. In Perth, no less.

Pointing out the limitations of a particular political orientation/creed, given a set of circumstances, is not at all inappropriate. There are a limited set of circumstances when a libertarian-orientation might be optimal (although it is hard to imagine when given the complexity of modern society), but a pandemic is certainly not one of them. Government intervention is rather like raising barns, but at a societal level. Many if not most ordinary people simply do not have the means (resources) or knowledge necessary to cope with pandemic, without assistance from various levels of government.

Likewise, the issues facing the world today (be they economic, climate, and social) require an appreciation for getting to the truth. The scientific method offers, by far, the very best pathway to the truth. A pathway that may approach the truth, even if never getting there 100% of the time, given the skepticism that is built into the scientific method, and the fact that the truth is not always absolute, but often bound by circumstances, constraints, and contexts. Just as in medical trials on the effectiveness of one or another intervention, which requires blocking on subject factors as well as environmental factors, and even then, does not give an absolutely certain outcome, but one that is expressed in probabilistic terms.