{"id":144657,"date":"2020-05-18T15:53:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T13:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2020\/05\/18\/the-lockdown-sceptics-want-a-culture-war-with-experts-as-the-enemy-peter-geoghegan-mary-fitzgerald\/"},"modified":"2020-05-18T15:53:08","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T13:53:08","slug":"the-lockdown-sceptics-want-a-culture-war-with-experts-as-the-enemy-peter-geoghegan-mary-fitzgerald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=144657","title":{"rendered":"The &#039;lockdown sceptics&#039; want a culture war, with experts as the enemy | Peter Geoghegan &amp; Mary Fitzgerald"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The dismissal of coronavirus expertise, the pitting of \u2018elites\u2019 against \u2018the people\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s Brexit all over again for the high-profile contrariansWithin days of Boris Johnson announcing lockdown restrictions in late March, Toby Young \u2013 self-appointed general secretary of the Free Speech Union \u2013 had his own take on the government\u2019s tripartite slogan. \u201cStay sceptical. End the lockdown. Save lives.\u201dScepticism has a long and venerable history. From Descartes\u2019s musings on metaphysics to Carl Sagan\u2019s \u201cfine art of baloney detection\u201d, sceptics are unafraid to ask unpopular questions. Even if it means being branded a heretic. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/may\/18\/lockdown-sceptics-coronavirus-brexit\" target=\"_blank\">The &#039;lockdown sceptics&#039; want a culture war, with experts as the enemy | Peter Geoghegan &amp; Mary Fitzgerald<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dismissal of coronavirus expertise, the pitting of \u2018elites\u2019 against \u2018the people\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s Brexit all over again for the high-profile contrariansWithin days of Boris Johnson announcing lockdown restrictions in late March, Toby Young \u2013 self-appointed general secretary of the Free Speech Union \u2013 had his own take on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}