Professor Brandli: Qualifications do not prevent one from writing nonsense 

Dec 04, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – A person by the name of Andre Brandli has stated his qualifications and listed his academic status as a professor. He submitted his scholarly status in a letter responding to the Attorney-General on the question of the voter turnout.

One important lesson must be learned by people. Educational qualifications do not prevent people from doing three things – writing nonsense on things for which they are not qualified, pronouncing on things based on beliefs rather than research findings, susceptibility to racist thoughts.

Let us offer some examples. The first one is about a truly fantastic book. It is the best book I have read on philosophy – German philosopher, Martin Heidegger’s fantastic journey into an existentialist explanation of the nature of existence. The book’s title is “Being and Time.”

How such a learned mine could have found positive ingredients in the politics and policies of Adolph Hitler? This was a man who saw right in front of his eyes how his university colleagues were denied their right to life simply because they were Jews.

He fell in love with a Jewish philosophy student who had to run for her life. The story of Martin Heidegger’s flirtation with Nazi Germany will remain a mystery in psychology because Heidegger is not alive to explain this aspect of his life.

Next is James Watson. He won the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the structure of the DNA. Watson’s discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA has an everlasting legacy.

Humans can descend to levels of racist thinking or irrational beliefs. Watson believes that African people have a deeper and larger sex drive because of melanin. In India, there are ethnic groups darker than the folks from the African continent.

There is not one shred of evidence supporting Watson’s theory. No research has been done in that subject area. In fact both casual and studied observation of the different races of people suggest the opposite, that is, sexual practice is more prevalent among races where is there is no melanin in the skin. The feeling worldwide is that Watson is a racist. I believe he is.

Next is the chemical harm in marijuana. Humans tend to cling to beliefs long induced by tradition and culture. When tradition and culture take over your mind, education may not override it.

There has been no scientific research from the top scientists and top laboratories of the world that marijuana is a destructive substance. To date, the research shows the opposite, especially in the area of medicine.

Yet humans accept the research findings that sugar generates unlimited calories in your body and that tobacco contains carcinogens. Humans see what they want to see and it was not easy and it will not be easy in the long future to change that trait.

The point of this long digression before we come to Professor Brandli is that education does not prevent very qualified humans from speaking and writing nonsense on events that they know nothing about.

We must not be deterred in confronting the aridity and banality in people’s pronouncement because they are educated. The Attorney-General replied to Professor’s Brandli’s contention that in the 2020 election, almost 98 percent of the electorate voted.

The AG replied with statistics from GECOM which should have put the matter to rest.  Using GECOM data, the turnout was just under 71 percent. The highly qualified professor (trained in biology – but what happens to those train in statistics?), has persisted with his 98 percent nonsense.

The AG because of his governmental position cannot use harsh words to describe the unacceptable miscalculations of Mr. Brandli. The problem in Mr. Brandli’s contention may be methodology.

Brandli persists with the 98 percent conjecture because he uses data from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). Based on that data base, he makes his conclusion.

But how does IDEA get its statistics? Their statistics is not pulled from the skies. IDEA cannot attribute statistics to GECOM that GECOM has not given it. In 2020, the electoral roll had 660, 998 electors. In the election of March of that year 468,184 persons voted.

If 98 percent of a list of 660,998 persons voted then, actual ballots were 647, 778. If voting numbers were 468, 184, then where are the missing 179, 594 ballots? If Brandli cannot see that he is writing nonsense, then people are going to tell him to stick to science in the laboratory.

This is exactly what I am telling him now and I don’t care what academic positions he held at what universities. If his submission is based on a mediocre understanding of statistics, then he should stick to molecular biology or maybe Brandli has a political agenda.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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