Yes, the basic literal meaning of the word “late” is that something should have happened earlier. But not all actual uses of it have exactly that meaning, and I think Scott’s use of it at the start of his post is an example.
(I agree with GWS’s reading of Scott’s opening sentence, and also with his examples of the sort of thing Scott might have written if he had actually intended to tell us that he ought to have written a post about ivermectin much sooner and that he hadn’t because he was scared.)
I did not disagree that Scott thought there was an “early promising phase”. What I was asking was where Scott said, as you implied he did, that “the meta-analysis we have points in the direction of ivermectin working” was the state of evidence two months ago. I take your reply as confirming that he did not say that, as I suspected he probably hadn’t.
He does say that rationalists did no better than anyone else. That doesn’t mean that he, personally, believed that there was good evidence that ivermectin is substantially helpful against Covid-19. (Both because “rationalists didn’t do better” and “no individual rationalist did better” are entirely different propositions, and because I was questioning your account of what he said at that point, not your account of what he thought. Though I don’t think much of your account of what he thought either.) Maybe he did believe that, maybe not; I don’t know; but he does not appear to have said that he believed that, and you said that he did. I don’t think you should do that.
(Another thing I don’t think you should do: quote what I wrote with a bunch of important words removed from it, so that it looks as if I said “Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big blog post about it is X” when in fact what I did was to say that you were claiming that and I think you were wrong.)
Yes, the basic literal meaning of the word “late” is that something should have happened earlier. But not all actual uses of it have exactly that meaning, and I think Scott’s use of it at the start of his post is an example.
(I agree with GWS’s reading of Scott’s opening sentence, and also with his examples of the sort of thing Scott might have written if he had actually intended to tell us that he ought to have written a post about ivermectin much sooner and that he hadn’t because he was scared.)
I did not disagree that Scott thought there was an “early promising phase”. What I was asking was where Scott said, as you implied he did, that “the meta-analysis we have points in the direction of ivermectin working” was the state of evidence two months ago. I take your reply as confirming that he did not say that, as I suspected he probably hadn’t.
He does say that rationalists did no better than anyone else. That doesn’t mean that he, personally, believed that there was good evidence that ivermectin is substantially helpful against Covid-19. (Both because “rationalists didn’t do better” and “no individual rationalist did better” are entirely different propositions, and because I was questioning your account of what he said at that point, not your account of what he thought. Though I don’t think much of your account of what he thought either.) Maybe he did believe that, maybe not; I don’t know; but he does not appear to have said that he believed that, and you said that he did. I don’t think you should do that.
(Another thing I don’t think you should do: quote what I wrote with a bunch of important words removed from it, so that it looks as if I said “Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big blog post about it is X” when in fact what I did was to say that you were claiming that and I think you were wrong.)