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The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe Hardcover – October 13, 2020
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The human cost of the emergency response to COVID-19 has far outweighed the benefits. That’s the sobering verdict of a trio of scholars—a biologist, a statistician, and a philosopher— in this comprehensive assessment of the worst panic-induced disaster in history.
As the media fanned the flames of panic, government officials and a new elite of scientific experts ignored the established protocols for mitigating a dangerous disease. Instead, they shut down the world economy, closed every school, confined citizens to their homes, and threatened to enforce a regime of extreme social distancing indefinitely.
And the American public—amazingly enough—complied without protest. Modestly but relentlessly focused on what we know and don’t know about the coronavirus, Douglas Axe, William M. Briggs, and Jay W. Richards demonstrate in this eye-opening study what real experts can contribute when a pandemic strikes.
In the early spring of 2020, the panic of government officials, the hysteria of the media, and the hubris of suddenly powerful scientists produced a worldwide calamity. The Price of Panic is the essential book for understanding what happened and how to avoid repeating our deadly mistakes.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRegnery
- Publication dateOctober 13, 2020
- Dimensions6 x 1 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101684511410
- ISBN-13978-1684511419
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- Publisher : Regnery (October 13, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1684511410
- ISBN-13 : 978-1684511419
- Item Weight : 1.12 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #693,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #342 in Communicable Diseases (Books)
- #611 in Economic Policy & Development (Books)
- #848 in United States National Government
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About the authors

Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., O.P., is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, Executive Editor of The Stream, Assistant Research Professor in the Busch School of Business and Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America.
Richards is author or editor of a dozen books including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013) and Indivisible (2012). He is also the author of Money, Greed, and God, winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award; co-author of The Privileged Planet with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez; and co-author with Jonathan Witt of The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom that J.R.R. Tolkien Got and the West Forgot. His most recent books are The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in the Age of Smart Machines; Eat, Fast, Feast; and The Price of Panic
Richards’ articles and essays have been published in The Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Post, Barron’s, Washington Post, Forbes, Fox News, National Review Online, The Hill, Investor’s Business Daily, Washington Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Huffington Post, The Federalist, The American Spectator, The Daily Caller, The Imaginative Conservative and many other publications. His topics range from culture, economics, and public policy to natural science, technology, and the environment.
He is also creator and executive producer of several documentaries, including three that have appeared widely on PBS—The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Birth of Freedom, and The Privileged Planet.
Richards’ work has been covered in The New York Times (front page news, science news, and editorial), The Washington Post (news and editorial), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Nature, Science, Astronomy, Physics Today, Reuters, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Enterprise, Congressional Quarterly Researcher, World, National Catholic Register, Catholic World Report, and American Spectator.
An experienced public speaker, Richards has appeared on several hundred radio and television programs, including Larry King Live (CNN), CBS Evening News, BBC, Huckabee, Dayside, Fox and Friends, Studio B with Shepard Smith (Fox News), Bloomberg TV, Glenn Beck TV, Yahoo Finance, Life Today, PBS, CBN, and TBN, The Michael Medved Show, The Mitch Albom Show, The Thom Hartmann Program, The Dennis Prager Show, Linda Chavez, The Mark Davis Show, The Bible Answer Man, Janet Parshall’s America, Al Kresta, Teresa Tomeo, Drew Mariani, Cardinal Dolan, and many others.
He has lectured at conferences as diverse as the Western Economic Association, South by Southwest, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Evangelical Theological Society; on dozens of college and university campuses around the world; at think tanks, including the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Acton Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education, the New America Foundation and the Heritage Foundation; at numerous public policy meetings, such as the Heritage Resource Bank, the Council for National Policy, and the Atlas Freedom Forum; in Christian forums such as Legatus, Knights of Malta, and Catholic Professionals; and on several occasions to members of the U.S. Congress and U.S. congressional staff.
In January 2008, his debate with the late Christopher Hitchens at Stanford University, moderated by Ben Stein and Michael Cromartie, was broadcast live to several hundred North American churches.
Richards has a Ph.D., with honors, in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He also has an M.Div. (Master of Divinity), a Th.M. (Master of Theology), and a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion. He lives with his family in the Washington, DC Metro area.

Douglas Axe (@DougAxe) is the Maxwell Professor of Molecular Biology at Biola University. His love of the life sciences grew from a love of engineering and the physical sciences. In writing his first book, Undeniable—How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, he developed an appreciation for the power of simple, commonsensical reasoning as a way of connecting with readers. His second book, coauthored with Jay Richards and William Briggs, continues that emphasis: The Price of Panic—How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe.

William M. Briggs. the Statistician to the Stars!, is a writer, philosopher and itinerant scientist, who lives far from Experts. He earned his PhD from Cornell University (before it became fully woke) in statistics. He studies the philosophy of science, the use and misuses of uncertainty, the corruption of science, and the uselessness of most predictions. He began life as a cryptologist for the Air Force, slipped into weather and climate forecasting, and matured into an epistemologist. He maintains an active and lively blog at wmbriggs.com.
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—Ronald Coase
This is a world famous economist. He would know.
Why good motive so dangerous? Only want to help!
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their conscience. —
C. S. Lewis
Moral arrogance is oppressive. Human free-will gives dignity. Therefore, more authority removes personal choice, the more destructive.
Why? Ignorance is infinite. Knowledge is scarce.
If ignorance so vast, what should be required?
“Highlighting unintended consequences is perhaps the greatest gift economics has given to humanity.’’
Why so rare to assume unintended results?
“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one,” wrote French economist Frédéric Bastiat.
Only one?
“The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”
He explains: “Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.” Alas, the good economist has limited use in politics. Politicians tend to focus on the visible—the seen—since the unseen does little to help their prospects for reelection.’’
Bastiat still almost unknown. Not because proven wrong, but, because painfully correct!
What happened?
“The World Health Organization (WHO) favored a single, untested, apocalyptic model from Imperial College London. The United States government took its cues from the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. We now know these models were so wrong they were like shots in the dark. After a few months, even the press admitted as much. But by then vast damage had been done.’’
Models now known as painfully, sadly, completely wrong! Change decisions? Nope!
“As we’ll see, that’s not true. Whether we compare countries or U.S. states, the virus seemed indifferent to government-mandated lockdowns. Not only did the models exaggerate the danger, but our response to that danger, both voluntary and coerced, exacted great pain for little or no gain. That may sound baffling. How could a nationwide shutdown not stop or at least greatly slow a contagious virus? But as we’ll see, there is no evidence it did.’’
Evidence not same as conclusions. Observation must always be interpreted. Honestly. Sincerely. Carefully. Who does that?
Models are not data. Spreadsheets are not facts. Computers are not wise.
“But what of those experts? They treated predictive models—which are at best complex conjectures about future events—as if they were data. And then, when the models flopped, they began to massage the data. To get past this catastrophe we will need to forgive, but we should never forget. We should do whatever we can to dismantle such experts’ unchecked power over public policy.’’
Forgive. Never forget.
“These experts, however, could never have done so much damage without a gullible, self-righteous, and weaponized media that spread their projections far and wide. The press carpet-bombed the world with stories about impending shortages of hospital beds, ventilators, and emergency room capacity. They served up apocalyptic clickbait by the hour and the ton.’’
Social media important?
“In 2009, Twitter claimed 23.5 million users.8 By 2020, the platform had 330 million monthly and 145 million daily users. Instagram started in 2010, just after the swine flu pandemic. It quickly garnered 30 million users. By 2020, it had 1 billion monthly and 500 million daily users. Facebook had 350 million global users by the end of 2009, and by 2020 this had leapt to 1.69 billion. YouTube grew to more than 2 billion monthly users and 1 billion hours of content viewed daily by 2020.”
Yep, it’s overwhelming!
Fascinating example . . .
“History shows that you will rarely lose your job making predictions if you’re wrong in the right direction. On the other hand, you may well lose it if you’re right in the wrong direction. Neither rulers nor subjects welcome the bearer of bad, but true, news. (Especially if it’s bad news for power-grabbing elites.)
“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
“So complained the Prophet Elijah to God, when he was fleeing for his life from power-couple Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah predicted a drought: “Now Elijah said ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’ ”
Well . . . can prepare. Right?
“However right he was, no one wanted to hear what Elijah had to say. No one thanked him when the prophesied drought came to pass. Being wrong in the right direction, though, often reaps reward. Early pandemic models indicated that only prompt and massive state action could save us. The models were wrong—way off—but they were wrong in the right direction.’’
What’s the preferred way?
“They gave politicians justification for taking over almost every aspect of citizens’ lives. They gave the press clickbait galore. We’re not assuming malice here. We assume that many of these folks were moved by concern and even love for others. The issue is one of incentives and human nature, not bad intentions.’’
Authors even handed, but clear and persuasive.
Careful is good. Well . . . Who should be careful?
“Here’s where the precautionary principle gets twisted from “Don’t play God” to “trust me—I’m a god.” By sleight of hand, the experts become oracles: to doubt their advice is to take foolish risks. The experts become gods, and any mere mortal who questions them is therefore playing god. Only in this light could lockdowns cease to be risks that carry a burden of proof. Instead, the skeptics who doubt them must bear that burden. This inverted precautionary principle gives the experts license to imagine the worst-case scenario and then to agitate the government and the public to safeguard against this worst case. The mere chance that a disaster might happen is enough to justify any and all recommendations from the divine experts.’’
The loss of biblical trust replaced with trust in spreadsheets.
Writing tastes like good solid meal. Not hard to chew. But, may require some to adjust to new flavors. Some sweet, some spicy, some tart, some smooth, some crunchy — all nutritious!
Numerous charts and graphs. Persuasive and convincing.
Not an angry rant, nevertheless, a clear analytical presentation of multiple arguments. Confident without arrogance.
Hundreds and hundreds of notes with references (linked)
Tremendous scholarship!
Detailed index (linked)
Recommended!
(See also - “ Models.Behaving.Badly.: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life’’ by Emanuel Derman; “Escape from Democracy: The Role of Experts and the Public in Economic Policy” by David M. Levy, Sandra J. Pearl; “The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work” by Mats Alvesson; “The Tyranny of Metrics” by Jerry Z. Muller; “How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century” by Frank Furedi)
On the positive side, so were professional sports. Then when churches opened, greeting time was cancelled as well and still is at churches. That’s one change I can live with.
Never had I seen anything like this. People I knew were in an absolute panic. It was like death was waiting right outside the door if you dared step out.
This book has been written to deal with what happened. The bad news is that we did indeed panic and that panic cost us greatly. Now the moment I mention this, someone will say “Well, I guess those people who had family members who died shouldn’t have panicked then!” The reality is, any disease that comes across will kill some people. Flu season comes every year and kills some. We don’t shut down for that. We realize this happens.
Anything being said here then is not to diminish the loss of those who did die and their family members who are left behind, but it is a call to look soberly at the issue. Are we letting our fear drive us and are the experts leading us really aware of what they’re talking about?
Now I am not one to downplay experts, but this problem is multi-faceted. Someone who is a doctor is not an expert in every area of medicine. Doctors are also not normally experts in economics and what effect a lockdown will have on society. There is also the question of what happens to people like farmers and others who supply our food for businesses.
What were factors that caused the Coronavirus scare to be greater than others? Many possibilities are mentioned. One is that it was the Trump administration and some people could have wanted this to be on his head. Another is that social media was extremely active and panic spreads on social media.
What constantly amazed the authors of the book is that not only were Americans told to give up their freedoms, they did so willingly and easily. Not only that, they were willing often to snitch on their neighbors. Many people who were doing regular activities could often be arrested.
The authors look at where the virus started. They do not hold to any theories that the virus was intentionally engineered to be used as a sort of weapon. (Having said that, I don’t see any reason why an enemy nation might not try the same thing on us.) However, what happened next was a number of experts spoke on what would happen based on their models.
Not only were these models extremely off, but they had a history of being extremely off. Hundreds of thousands could be predicted to die from diseases that kill, well, hundreds. Despite that, we still listened to these experts and took advice that devastated our economy.
That’s the economy so that’s no big deal. Right? You can’t replace human lives with money. Right? No one is saying that, but people faced extreme financial hardship that resulted in mental health crises and in some cases, suicide. Not only that, some people with diseases that were serious did not go to the hospital to get treatment because they feared getting the virus and so they died from treatable, though serious, problems.
Let’s look at those numbers as well. The writers say that the numbers were being played with in that if someone died from a condition that might have possibly been Covid, it was listed as a Covid death. The doctors would rarely do an autopsy as that is timely and expensive. Some of these people might not have even had Covid. This would also help with funding for the hospitals.
We can also question if the lockdowns themselves worked. We could compare to nations like Sweden, Taiwan, and Japan that did not have lockdowns and did not see the mass death that was expected. Again, sometimes, reporters played with the numbers to make it sound worse than it was, but it was never consistent.
What about masks? Odds are, the masks we often get don’t really work and could actually be helping to spread the virus. Why? People could go out who have it thinking that they are safe and some people could take riskier behavior wearing one.
Why do we need to know all of this? Because there will be another pandemic and we don’t need to panic over that one most likely either. The cost to this has been too great and we don’t need to see a new normal. We need to return to normal.
Anyone who is scared of the Coronavirus needs to read this book. It is extensively researched and well-argued. If more people could read this, perhaps we could return to sanity.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
Top reviews from other countries
Pero no puedo. No encuentro, porque no hay, ninguna prueba de que las medidas hayan salvado vidas. Y los tres autores nos exponen, de una en una, las muchas maneras en que las medidas han matado: hospitales vaciados, tratamientos cancelados, suicidios, droga y un largo etcétera.
Este libro recuenta la historia de un pánico, una estampida mundial. Unas predicciones exageradas se difundieron por los medios de comunicación, los expertos más pesimistas declaraban que ellos sabían la verdad absoluta y los demás eran negacionistas. La gente, despavorida, empezó a reclamar medidas. Los políticos nos han dado lo que reclamábamos y de paso se han hecho con más poder y más poderes.
Reitero que me gustaría refutar todo lo que los autores dicen, pero no encuentro la manera de hacerlo sin mentir.
There is also a question of context : the covid story is I believe merely the latest chapter in a narrative that spans decades, starting maybe in the 1930s, with the first risk-assessments of workplace safety, or maybe the post-WW2 period, with the rise of consumer-safety campaigning. More accurate testing technology has enabled the detection of ever-tinier risk factors, whose management and elimination have consequently been legally mandated. In a rich society, perhaps some overkill in this pursuit of the zero-risk product/ environment can be tolerated and absorbed. But what happens when this pursuit attacks the economy as a whole, not to mention the social and intellectual capital of society ---- as Axe, Briggs and Richards suggest could be happening with covid? [This history --- up to about 1990 --- is well -presented in the late Aaron Wildavsky (et al.)'s 'But Is It True? A Citizen's Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues' (with the caveat that the particular environmental issues he discusses may appear dated to today's reader, eg. the hole in the ozone layer).]
Highly recommended.
They have shown how “experts” have inculcated fear and enabled the breakdown of society to bolster their own reputations with little or no expertise to support their allegations.





