241–250 of 329 posts
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> What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo? Sure, and I rather suspect there are all sorts of venues that scientists could use to communicate scientific reasons challenging the status quo, ones in which there'd be a process of discourse with other domain experts capable of independently evaluating claims. YouTube is significant mass media. But the idea that it's a crucial early stage link in the…
What you are implicitly proposing is that whenever there is disagreement within the scientific community, that disagreement should be kept behind closed doors and hidden from the public until some Institution (CDC/WHO/etc) decides on a Consensus of Truth, and that this Consensus of Truth is the only narrative that can be communicated to the public. This raises a lot of questions. For instance, what happens when the C…
masks have been similar in general outside of a few fringe idiots speaking out of turn. they know and knew that well fitted n95 masks were effective in slowing the spread and should be used in the hospital settings. the advice was not to buy masks. they didn't know the efficacy of general cloth masks at the time and weather or not having them on would be a net detriment because it might cause people to touch their face more often while adjusting the masks and cause contaminated hands to come in contact with the face more often. the data showed that those fears were not fruitful and thus the recommendation changed.
there is also the disastrous TB paper that took the conclusion from a miner's lung paper as gospel and misinterpreted the results of that and then every subsequent paper used that erroneous data in their papers. (mining paper said that the nose was very good at blocking out everything down to 5 microns and aerosolized particles could be 100 microns or smaller but since the nose was effective at blocking particles larger than 5 microns you needed to worry about masks that block the small stuff. well the TB paper used the 5 micron aerosol particles as TB only infects you if you get the particles deep in your lungs. The problem is that aerosol particles greater than 5 microns can infect you with other diseases if the receptors for those are not deep in the lungs. in the end 5 micron was chosen as a magical aerosol particle threshold when the actual threshold is 100 microns and one scientist finally got the WHO et al to understand this after doing much research and advocacy)
in the end science is messy even when done with rigor.
Here's my confusion - why do they think there's a conspiracy against them because Ivermectin is off patent when COVID is on the verge of being beat in the west because of widespread vaccination?
Eric Weinstein is a clown, like, literally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein#Physics
This seems to say his proposed "Theory of everything" is lacking in several regards and not a good candidate for scientific or academic research. I don't see how that makes him a clown. He's interested in physics, educated in it, and made some effort to contribute that doesn't seem to have panned out. That strikes me as laudable behavior and not like a "clown". Perhaps you'll say he is a clown because he really belie…
* Eight years passed until Weinstein released a draft paper of Geometric Unity on April 1, 2021. The paper qualifies that the author "is not a physicist" but an "entertainer"*
By his own admission definitely more clown than physicist.
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Ivermectin is not a newly-discovered drug. There were hundereds of millions of courses administered world wide (it even got a Nobel prize). It has been used for decades. [1] The only unknown right now is the long term effect of ivermectin in patients with covid. It seems to me that it's the same unknown as with the vaccines. You don't have a clinical trial for effects of the vaccines after 5 years, do you? Why don't…
> There were hundereds of millions of courses administered world wide Except that the doses involved are way lower than what's being speculated about (on flimsy evidence) as a possible COVID-19 treatment. And this drug has severe side effects at such higher doses. There's no way in hell that this stuff is ever going to be safer than mRNA vaccines, let alone more effective.
Merck announced a $3000/dose drug with billions in preorders just a few days ago. They aren’t interested in seeing if $3 ivermectin, which they also make, works.
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Right, the video in question is literally the reporting I trust. The video itself appears (to me) to be between qualified people talking about medical information is a careful way like adults. Maybe you should watch it? Just the first 15 mins?
The bits I watched were just full on conspiracy type comments about how even the manufacturer is only saying the drug doesn't work due to various conspiracy reasons. I recommend people to watch it to see how much of a crank bret is and how its clearly dangerous conspiracy nonsense being spouted
I recommend people to watch it too.
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This seems to say his proposed "Theory of everything" is lacking in several regards and not a good candidate for scientific or academic research. I don't see how that makes him a clown. He's interested in physics, educated in it, and made some effort to contribute that doesn't seem to have panned out. That strikes me as laudable behavior and not like a "clown". Perhaps you'll say he is a clown because he really belie…
The same could be said in praise of every crank. Presumably if he's a crank about physics, he could also be one about Covid.
For example, the Nobel laureate Linus Pauling made outstanding contributions to chemistry in explaining the nature of the chemical bond. He also believed vitamin C could help cure or prevent cancer, for which there doesn't appear to be much evidence.
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> What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo? Sure, and I rather suspect there are all sorts of venues that scientists could use to communicate scientific reasons challenging the status quo, ones in which there'd be a process of discourse with other domain experts capable of independently evaluating claims. YouTube is significant mass media. But the idea that it's a crucial early stage link in the…
YouTube isn’t just mass-media though - it’s a general-purpose video hosting and sharing site. I’m not familiar with the current story nor the work of those involved, but academics and researchers can and do use YouTube to share information between themselves - *if* this was, say, a highly technical or academic video with a specialised intended audience and YouTube took that down then that’s different compared to a he…
You do realise that it often takes heterodoxy - i.e. going against the orthodoxy in a field - to achieve a breakthrough? You also realise that the people Brett Weinstein is talking to are anything but quacks?
Why, then, this cheap shot of implying that what they are discussing is quackery? What is to be gained by such behaviour? It is not as if the orthodox approach to the treatment of SARS2 has been set in stone, nor is it a spectacular success. If the treatment they discuss - mainly Ivermectin as prophylaxis, Ivermectin in combination with Fluvoxamine and some other preparations as treatment - work they should be used given the long experience with and low cost of these preparations. They indicate these preparations help against 'long-term covid', they claim to have proof of their efficacy. What is to be gained by ignoring what they have to say? I understand that Pfizer, Moderna, Curevac, Astra-Zeneca, J&J, Merck and a few others potentially stand to loose a great deal should the emergency use authorisation for their vaccines be withdrawn prematurely because of the proven efficacy of other preparations - this is what would happen if the rules were followed which state that EUA is only given where there are no alternatives. That is not a valid reason for not allowing them to present their claimed evidence.
What is to be gained by defending the continued suppression of this information? It is clear that the information will come out in any case, most likely soon - it will be published no matter the hurdles which are being thrown up. Should their proof hold it will be yet another blow against the trust people have in the institutions of government.
I say publish this information, without censorship, without interference. The mantra of "trust the science" can only hold when the scientific method is allowed to function. Censoring anything which goes against the orthodoxy is not science, it is authoritarianism. It is what allowed Trofim Lysenko to push his Lamarckian nonsense which eventually led to disastrous famines in the Soviet Union and Communist China [1]. Just like Lysenkoism was not science, authoritarian dogmatic orthodoxy is not science.
Publish and discuss, in the open, without fear of repercussions, without censorship.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of...
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Right. Well, in that case I disagree with your assertion that scientists who put out publications of average-in-that-field’s quality are “worse than useless”. Not how science works!
Yeahhhh, that's not what you said in your original comment at all. > if an individual is in question for taking non-standard stances in an academic field If you meant to say "low quality" then say that, but that is not what anyone takes to mean from "non-standard", as non-standard can equally mean exceptional if you are talking about quality.
But in this case I didn’t mean low-quality. It just turned out that’s how his work in that moment was judged by other experts in the field.
Which is exactly why I brought it up, as I literally explained in my comment above - his history of non-standard ideas doesn’t have a great track record. I think that’s relevant. (But for some reason I’m here explaining it again.)
Your point about less-than-useless (so harmful?) scientists is still absolutely ridiculous, as much scientific progress (and many scientific careers) comes from improving non-exceptional ideas in straightforward manners with expected results.
The makers of Ivermectin are against the use of Ivermectin for Covid. https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use... The dissenters are advocating things even the company that stands to profit from those things opposes. That’s how off the deep end this is.
Here's the flipside to your point: "Dr. Robert Malone is the inventor of mRNA Vaccine technology." - here he is discussing Ivermectin with Bret Weinstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_NNTVJzqtY Another video Bret had to re-upload and only a short amount of it, because YouTube removed the original and gave him a strike for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q01LUg97eto
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/25/bret-weinstei...