For the record, I am a molecular biologist and professor of genetics. I was a researcher at USDA for 4 years before I went into academics. I also advise 30 pre-meds each year. Yet, I am the one out of my depths... you mind telling me what you do sir?
Practicing medicine proves you scored high enough on your Step exam to match in a residency, so it's one way to know how well you did in med school. I realize that MDs do research, but there's less money there and is typically a backup plan for those not matching on match day. This guy appears to be a bit different... I think. No way to tell if he would have matched, but he did go to Harvard Med, meaning he probably destroyed his Step exam. So he probably just wanted to do research and not practice.
A Master's in Health Services is a policy degree, not a science degree. MD is not a science degree, more of a "human mechanic" degree, lots of memorization and reading case studies, not setting up experiments. A BA in Chem at Harvard is no joke, but requires very little biology. For example, viruses aren't necessarily covered with any depth.
The dude is clearly very bright and well published, but nothing on his resume suggests he is an expert on the biology of viruses.
The "science" papers you're referring to are policy papers. The JAMA article you refer to is titled: "Complication Rates on Weekends and Weekdays in U.S. Hospitals." What branch of biology or chemistry does that belong to?
Literally all of the guy's papers look at things like drug prices and patient outcomes. He knows stats, but he does not know the biology of the disease itself. This is policy not actually virology.
As for economics beings a science? No, as you correctly stated, that is a social science. There's a reason Biology majors with low GPAs switch to Psychology and Econ. degrees. Those fields lack depth of understanding.
This pair is ideally suited to analyze the current numbers as reported by hospitals, but they have no clue about the virus itself. Any attempt by these two to speculate about how the disease will manifest is not based on biology, rather based on historical trends. It's a thought provoking opinion piece worth following up on with actual science, but should not be used as evidence of why we need to lift the "shelter in place" orders.
Feel free to fire back a few more WRONG WRONG WRONGs if it makes you feel better. Why are you reading my posts if you've ignored me?
I haven't ignored you.
I am a Ph.D. in Microbiology/Immunology, with graduate research in the chemoprevention of cancer and post-doctoral research at MUSC in cancer immunotherapy using a Lymphoma model. Have served as a professor of microbiology and am now in a regulatory role.
It's your lack of understanding about the interdisciplinary nature of the sciences that interests me, given your background. I suppose it's a just a difference of background that allows me to see how these guys are ideally suited to engage in this kind of work. It does not strike me as odd in the least. I obtained a degree in classical microbiology, doing cancer-based research, with a PI whose graduate work was in physics (studying the sedimentation rates of virus particles). He, by the way, taught courses in cancer genetics and virology (among other things) and was well-schooled in botany as well. By your line of thinking, he had a degree in physics, so he should only ever weigh in on physics-related issues. That's more of a modern view, I suppose. Most people don't come out of grad schools as well-rounded as they used to.
In our research, we collaborated with botanists, zoologists, food scientists and many other disciplines. I guess it just depends on the kind of degree you have. I see the overall body of work of each of these guys, and what they are doing makes perfect sense to me. They are obviously broadly trained and well-versed in numerous fields. One need not have a degree in a particular field to be proficient in their understanding of it. My degree is in classical microbiology, but most of the strongest microbiologists I have worked with have had degrees in chemistry or biochemistry.
I once had the opportunity to meet Bruce Glick. He was studying poultry science when he quite by chance stumbled upon the role of the bursa of Fabricius in antibody production. This was a key step in the discovery of B cells. From poultry science to immunology. The history of science is practically littered with people who made monumental contributions to science outside of their narrow field of training.
Basic principles of virology can be applied to most any virus. There are numerous well-established mathematical models out there for viral spread, and viruses themselves are quite simple structures. An individual certainly does not need to have a Ph.D. in virology or microbiology to understand viruses or viral spread (incidentally, if you have an MD from Stanford or Harvard, you understand viruses). Now, if they were weighing in on how to treat the virus, that would be somewhat of a different story. But the opinions they offered on viral spread are well within their areas of expertise. You don't even necessarily need an MD or a science degree of any kind to do this kind of work.
Consider Dr. Anthony Fauci. His undergraduate degree is in the classics. He then earned an MD but no Ph.D. in any "science" field. By your estimation, he should absolutely not be the director of the NIH or NIAID. Those organizations exist primarily for research purposes and he does not have a research degree. He's a leader in the fields of immunoloy and virology, with no degrees in either field or a Ph.D. of any kind. How does that happen? He leads the largest research organization in the country without having a research degree of his own.
All you've done is look at the titles of these guys' degrees and decreed them unqualified. That's overly simplistic and shallow thinking. If you think they're wrong, or potentially wrong, then you need to be able to offer a critique of what they actually said. It's like talking to college freshman and they're convinced that an opinion they came across is right just b/c the person who penned it had "Ph.D." after his/her name.
Again, I guess this all just stems from a difference in background. I'm very multidisciplinary and have mostly associated with multidisciplinary folks. One question we never ask each other is "what's your Ph.D. in?" Nobody cares about that.
