December 6, 2022
Dear editor;
I now read that Charles Coddington is dreaming of publishing his own newspaper. As fulfilling for him as that might be, I can only hope that his newspaper will be more enlightening than his recent contributions to The Voice have been.
With his usual lack of supporting documentation, he has claimed that the Covid vaccines are more deadly than Covid itself, and that we should point our collective fingers at Dr. Anthony Fauci for having been responsible for our resulting economic and social woes, and even depriving us of our rights… to infect ourselves and those around us? More recently, the Chas (as he likes to be called) has broadened his brush of distortion to paint a very negative picture of science and those who do the work of science. Not surprisingly, as a scientist myself, I take offense at such an unfounded and biased characterization, and since he is so fond of leaving us with “just a thought”, I’m taking the liberty of leaving several of my own.
Although the Chas chose to focus on the dictionary definition of “science” he seems to have ignored the definition of “technology”. These two are separate and distinct from each other. Whereas science pertains to the acquisition of demonstrable truth… facts, technology pertains to the application of those facts. Facts are inherently neither good nor bad, but admittedly the application of those facts has the potential for both good or bad consequences. Although so many of modern life’s comforts and conveniences have been made possible through the work of scientists the world over, the Chas has chosen to ignore those and turn our attention to the few and conjectured effects that he attributes to those same scientists.
His misguided accusations included those directed toward nuclear physicists, virologists, bacteriologists, botanists, geologists, and most absurdly of all… medical researchers! According to the Chas, these scientists are responsible for purchasing “wild animals” and conducting “cruel and purposeless” experiments on them… to satisfy their “personal curiosity.” I must admit that I’ve never thought of lab mice and rats as wild animals, but I suppose that’s a matter to be resolved using the Chas’ dictionary. But other than that, it’s clear to me that this man knows nothing about how and why medical research is conducted, and I question why he should even be writing about it. Unless house mice run freely in the dwelling of the Chas, I would guess that his method of control is far more cruel than the procedures employed in the typical animal lab. His suggesting that research experiments are conducted without purpose other than personal curiosity is naive at best, if not totally stupid! Over the years, medical science has provided us longer and more comfortable lives, and those advances have required extensive experimentation, testing, and analysis of data collected with animals. Thank the good Lord that those in charge didn’t decide to save the mice, the rats, and the guinea pigs, while sacrificing humans such as Charles Coddington.
Vince Smith, Big Rock, Ill.