Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online • Hacker News Board

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#931

Post by bigodbiel » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 6:25 AM UTC

data_acquired wrote: post #192

Notable blurb from the report itself --- "However, whilst this approach [content removal] may be effective and essential for illegal content (eg hate speech, terrorist content, child sexual abuse material) there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of this approach for scientific misinformation, and approaches to addressing the amplification of misinformation may be more effective. In addition, demonstrati…

Personally the CDC’s greatest sin was their narrative push against natural immunity. And sadly it was repeated as infinitum by the media. One paper with an incredibly misleading title and another so problematic that one can only wonder how it got even published. But the media and “science communicators” didn’t think twice in praising them and compounding on those same lies.

More recently another paper on covid and childhood diabetes (cause now they’ve gotta push the jabs on the young ones) has been causing the same level of scrutiny.

This isn’t science anymore.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#932

Post by bigodbiel » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 6:29 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #33

toolz wrote: post #12

So many "misinformation censorship" proponents seem to have quickly forgotten just how much literally everyone in public health has spread misinformation this pandemic. It's unavoidable being wrong and often the cost of making claims without unimpeachable evidence is higher than the cost of being wrong. Name me a public health official who regularly made recommendations this pandemic and I'll show you misinformation.…

There is a difference between "malice" and "intentional misinformation". Authority figures are not accurately representing risks and rewards of different actions and have deliberately shaped their messaging to achieve outcomes. Direct from the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473 "CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. Take everyday pr…

It’s malice when the CDC again and again lied that natural immunity to covid was inferior to naive vaccine immunity, even cherry picking data to prove their point. Only recently after dozens and dozens of papers having had refuted their narrative has the CDC changed its official position on natural immunity, not that it ever got media attention.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#933

Post by immibis » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 6:58 AM UTC

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #915

immibis wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. So you cannot censor me saying the keyword to declare a read-only variable in C++ is `final`

You shouldn't be. Are you anxious to censor Brainfuck for example? [1] When you censor, you make the case for an argument to become weaker not stronger. You are hiding the knowledge to show another way in which something is invalid. The end result invariably will be that you make what initially could be science, to become propaganda. The natural selection of paradigms do not require censorship anyway. Reality will re…

The C++ keyword to make a variable read-only is "final". Don't listen to the lying antifa "const" propagandists.

How was your reaction to the above comment?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#934

Post by immibis » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

walleeee wrote: post #895

immibis wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's anti-scientific information that's being censored.

Science as I know and love it offers no basis for labeling anything "pro-" or "anti-scientific", although "unscientific" seems like fair game

Anti-scientific would be actively opposed to the discovery of truth through the scientific process.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#935

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 7:53 AM UTC

JamisonM wrote: post #929

s1artibartfast wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I guess we can quibble about the definition of "nuance" but the idea that vaccine science and hospital capacity management is very direct doesn't hold much water with me, maybe others disagree, IDK? This is what I am getting at. If we claim these decisions are science based, communicate the science! e.g. if X% more people are vaccinated, we will have Y more hospital beds, and Z more elected procedures. make an hones…

> if X% more people are vaccinated, we will have Y more hospital beds, and Z more elected procedures.. But the problem there is you are not asking for nuance, you are asking for.. lies? The answer is that more vaccination means more hospital beds and elective procedures but no one could credibly argue any specific numbers - it was just not possible to make that calculation without enormous error bars, you can only ma…

Then give an estimate with error bars.

Alternatively, if you haven't done the math, or it doesn't actually support a robust position, say :"This is not a scientific argument, be we are really hoping this helps. no promises"

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#936

Post by rob_c » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 7:56 AM UTC

1270018080 wrote: post #129

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you protect science from idiots? Is science going to stop working if some people think that bacon cures cancer?

No, but science won't have the opportunity to work when people are passing up vaccines for invermectin.

And wearing a mask in the same confined space with no air circulation for about 20min is pointless but still enforced by idiotic govt policies...

Unfortunately "bad science" cuts both ways when it comes to miscommunication.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#937

Post by rrrhys » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

Jansen312 wrote: post #861

jazzyk wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What to do when you have two very different opinions coming from experts: - Anthony "I am The Science" Fauci or - Dr Malone (mRNA inventor)? Who to believe? Difficult to say, but these days, sadly, the first (and prudent) thing to do is to follow the money . While credentials matter, the first thing I check when I read a paper/publication is who funded the work.

I trust Malone way more. Fauzi has vested interest in continuing COVID measures. Check out his pay (higher than western leaders in the world). Check also his stock holdings. Still Fauzi has way more credibility than the entire WHO which has been a laughing stock for the past 2 years.

Why are you intentionally spelling his name wrong? It certainly doesn't add credibility to your argument.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#938

Post by mrtedbear » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 11:56 AM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #851

mrtedbear wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, critics of the model were claiming the model was buggy because multiple runs would produce different results. My comment above explains why that is not evidence for the model being buggy. Report 9 talks about parameters being modeled as probability distributions, i.e. its a stochastic model. I doubt they would draw conclusions from a single run, as the code is drawing a single sample from a probability d…

Your comment above is wrong. Sorry, let me try to explain again. Let's put the whole fact that random bugs != stochastic modelling to one side. I don't quite understand why this is so hard to understand but, let's shelve it for a moment. ICL likes to claim their model is stochastic. Unfortunately that's just one of many things they said that turned out to be untrue. The Ferguson model isn't stochastic. They claim it…

I took a look at point 3. and that extract from the code check is correct. Assuming they did one realisation I was curious why. It would be unlikely to be an oversight.

Luckily they published their reasoning on the number of realisations in the supplementary materials of a prior paper cited in report 9 (citation 5): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04795#MOESM28

"Numbers of realisations & computational resources: It is essential to undertake sufficient realisation to ensure ensemble behaviour of a stochastic is well characterised for any one set of parameter values. For our past work which examined extinction probabilities, this necessitates very large numbers of model realizations being generated. In the current work, only the timing of the initial introduction of virus into a country is potentially highly variable – once case incidence reaches a few hundred cases per day, dynamics are much closer to deterministic."

So looks like they did consider the issue, and the number of realisations needed is dependent on the variable of interest in the model. The code check appears to back their justification up, "Small variations (mostly under 5%) in the numbers were observed between Report 9 and our runs."

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#939

Post by sebastianconcpt » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #933

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be. Are you anxious to censor Brainfuck for example? [1] When you censor, you make the case for an argument to become weaker not stronger. You are hiding the knowledge to show another way in which something is invalid. The end result invariably will be that you make what initially could be science, to become propaganda. The natural selection of paradigms do not require censorship anyway. Reality will re…

The C++ keyword to make a variable read-only is "final". Don't listen to the lying antifa "const" propagandists. How was your reaction to the above comment?

Hehe I'm quite neutral actually as I'm more of a dynamic language kind of guy. I'm a lot more into Bret Victor's The Humane Representation of Thought https://vimeo.com/115154289 and really far away of ideas like "The Compiler is Your Friend".

I care more about concepts that are meaningful for humans and I find frivolous the machine needed technicalities to get them working.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#940

Post by tekknik » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #875

raxxorrax wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have had a higher vaccine compliance if the dialogue would never have been about mandates. Just give a health recommendation. You wouldn't have reached everyone, but the science also said that you do not need to. In some countries we will see mandates without any perspective. For the third dosage? The fourth? The opposition is correct when it says you only get your freedom back if you boot out those respons…

I think that many people have a low opinion of the general public, but I think they are more intelligent than people give them credit for. If you want to someone to take an action, tell them specifically what they have to gain, dont just provide some general platitude that it is good for you. If you want someone to get boosted, say you have X% reduced chance of death and Y% hospitalization. Make an honest calculation…

This was done for COVID, and was received as fearmongering. You have “experts” saying you “will die” if you get COVID, yet stories are passing around the entire time of unvaccinated people alive after getting COVID with no long term issues and never having seen a hospital.

So you have one group of people literally scared to death and that’s why they take the vaccine, and another group seeing other data that makes them say “I’ll take my chances”