As we head into the weekend, a quick note that Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth remains one of the most ridiculous dunderheads in science writing, a journalism adjacent field of writing that many reporters refer to with derision as “scicomm.” Earlier this week, a reader sent me this post on Blue Sky, with Helmuth promoting an article falsely claiming there was evidence to support six-feet social distancing during COVID.
There isn’t. Former NIH Director Francis Collins and Tony Fauci have both testified to Congress that this evidence doesn’t exist.
Helmuth shoehorns this narrative into Scientific American by ignoring Tony Fauci’s congressional testimony that six feet social distancing was “an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data” and then insisting it’s actually just a political fight between Fauci and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman long known for making outlandish statements that often stretch the fabric of reality.
Just like Laura Helmuth.
Hellbound and Down 