Publicity

Jenin Younes said in 2022: "I was in the room when the Great Barrington Declaration was signed. Naively, I believed that it would change things, and was shocked to see it immediately dismissed as dangerous, “fringe,” and the product of some Koch scheme- especially because I knew Jay, Martin and Sunetra and saw them to be the deeply good and humble people they are. Over two years we learned that this campaign to discredit the GBD’s ideas was actually the product of a concerted effort by very high ups in the federal government, including Dr. Fauci himself. Because they were unable to engage with and challenge the ideas, they launched a subversive smear and censorship campaign. I am looking forward to hearing firsthand from Dr. Fauci today, under oath, about what a federal judge last week deemed a potential conspiracy to violate the 1st Amendment by high level government officials, through coercion of third parties (social media companies)."

Chad West replied: "Might have worked out better had they not saddled it with the eyerollingly pretentious name of the "Great Barrington Declaration" "

"The Great Barrington Declaration" was indeed a very bad name. Besides sounding pretentious (like the leftist "Port Huron Statement"), it tells you zero about its subject matter.

Few scientists know how to name things well. They are intentionally taught to write badly. With thirty seconds of thought, I came up with "The Smart Covid Strategy (SCS)" and "The Save the Seniors Plan (SSP)".

Note that I say the name is bad while strongly agreeing with its contents. And its proponents have behaved heroically, though they couldn't have known at the time how much they'd be attacked for such common sense. On Twitter, alas, people don't read; they just cheer or boo.

I don't really blame Dr. Bhattacharya and the rest for choosing a bad name. As I said, they're scientists: selling ideas to the public wasn't their game--- though those partiular ones have been steadily learning how to do it. In particular, I have heard Dr. Bhattacharya speak publicly about how he once disdained Twitter and told his students not to waste their time on things like that but now realizes that it's necessary for the good citizen not only to come up with an idea, but to convince other citizens. (At the 2022 Stanford Academic Freedom conference)

(I do still blame scientists for bad writing in their science articles. Get rid of the passive voice. Don't try to sound like you're the Omniscient God carrying out your little study.) 

Do not disdain public relations-- our new name for "rhetoric". It can be misused, but it really just means "communicating". We all have too much info hitting us, so communicating well is more important than ever. Ideas first need to show they're worth listening to. This is something I'm constantly telling younger scholars in my field, economics. The title is an ad. If on reading your title, someone isn't convinced to stay and read further, it doesn't matter how many years you put into writing your article: you've lost. Unless you're Einstein or Samuelson, nobody's going to read you article just because of your glorious last name. Then, in scholarly writing, what matters next is your abstract, the one-paragraph summary. It's easy to get people to read titles, but now you face your first challenge, because to read a whole paragraph requires a real investment in time. It's a small investment in time-- perhaps two minutes-- but a real one, and a big hurdle. Most articles fail because of their title to achieve this hurdle. Your abstract is another ad: it has to convince the reader that it's worth looking at the rest of the article. You need to make interesting claims and give some hint that you can back up your claims, or at least that you are going to be entertaining. Only by succeeding at that can you get scholars to read your article.

    Lots of things in life are like that. You need to grab attention with your first few words. Then you need to make an "elevator pitch" and draw them in. Only then can you start your explanation or assertion in earnest.