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Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

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Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#351

Post by jonnycomputer »

realjhol wrote: post #348
zzzeek wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be surprised no more, there's an apparent garbage shute for lots of "journalists" and pundits where something unspoken about modern times bothers them enough that they just flip into being total nutjobs, riding on their previous respectability to keep eyes on them. Silver is part of a long tradition including Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, heck even the Dilbert guy of people who used to make sense, saw "something" tha…

There is absolutely nothing about Greenwald, Taibbi, or Adams that is in any way unintelligible or irrational.

Greenwald and Adams are cranks, imo. Don't know about Taibbi.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#352

Post by rossdavidh »

robot_no_421 wrote: post #125
rossdavidh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essence of science is not trusting an expert, but requiring evidence and repeatability. Scientists aren't more trustworthy than those other groups for no reason, it's because they work in a field where work can be double-checked. As the repeatability crisis has shown, many believe their work will not be double-checked, and once they believe that, they become less and less worthy of that trust.

Right, that's why my first sentence was "everyone should be skeptical of every source".... But if I'm forced to trust someone (and most of us are on a daily basis), I'd rather trust the guys whose whole job revolves around the principle of "we require evidence and repeatable results before we believe you" than pretty much every other profession. Completely separate from my above point, I'd also say that I do believe…

This all makes sense to me, and I partially agree.

However, people whose whole job revolves around "you must provide evidence of something that gets published in a journal, on a regular basis, even if it is never of enough interest for anyone else to try to replicate it", with an extra helping of "if it's confirming people's biases enough to get you speaking gigs or a best-selling book, you get a pay raise", then you might over time start to attract a slightly different crowd.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#353

Post by rossdavidh »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #249
kmontrose wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This, is damning evidence regardless of any of that. Nothing remotely like this was being presented by mainstream newsmedia, perhaps because nothing remotely like it was being presented to them by the scientists they talked to. There was no version of a lab origin theory that was being presented as worthy of consideration. You have to acknowledge this is incredibly weak logic. “A thing is possible, therefore it hap…

You are blatantly missing the point. The point: Scientist says in private "A thing is possible" but in public "A thing is not all possible!" Not the point: "A thing is possible, therefore it happened"

Yes, this is absolutely the point.

Note that all of this is deeply problematic, EVEN IF the truth is that the virus was a normally evolved bat coronavirus that got to Wuhan through some method that did not involve a lab in any way. The dichotomy between what they were saying in public, and what they were saying to each other in private, severely undercuts the idea that they are who the public should be trusting for advice on this topic.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#354

Post by pandeiro »

sn9 wrote: post #159
ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

Ezra Klein interviewed Zeynep Tufeckci about basically this because she's had an unusually good track record for a non-specialist on lots of topics, and it really comes down to being statistically literate and putting in the work: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/podcasts/ezra-klein-podca...

The die hard masking advocate is your example? Wow

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#355

Post by COGlory »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #346
COGlory wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the review. There are many cases of this: > It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. And only 3 potential cases of this: > It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence You're saying animal -> human transmission of a human virus is equivalent to animal -> human transmission of a new virus. Those are two *extremely* different things. The palm civet SARS spike prot…

> You're saying animal -> human transmission of a human virus is equivalent to animal -> human transmission of a new virus. You're making up an entirely arbitrary distinction. > The palm civet SARS spike protein RBD did not gain the ability to bind human ACE2 many times. You have no idea if this is the case. Most of these small outbreaks were not analyzed in detail (or even known about until well after the fact). The…

No, they're two very different things, because one involves an adaptation. Once adapted, the rules of the game for cross-species transmission events are completely different.

Or do you maintain that a combination cross-species transmission and adaptation to the new host is as common as cross-species transmission of already-adapted viruses?

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#356

Post by realjhol »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #351
realjhol wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely nothing about Greenwald, Taibbi, or Adams that is in any way unintelligible or irrational.

Greenwald and Adams are cranks, imo. Don't know about Taibbi.

What do you even mean by that?

Their ideas are perfectly coherent and consistent within their own framing. Just because you look at the world through a different frame, doesn't mean that these people are saying things that are unreasonable

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#357

Post by ljosifov »

ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

True that - and we are back to the CP Snow "Two Cultures" pamphlet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures). Looks to me that still STEM people learn much more of humanities, then humanities learn of STEM. To say "I'm illiterate" is shameful (in places that still have illiterate people - thankfully not many and ever less) in a way that in many - even developed - countries to say "I'm innumerate" is not. Shows up frequently (recently in the UK, on the belated subject of teaching maths), quite literate public figures publicly proclaim "I'm rubbish at maths" as if it's a badge of honor, not something to be ashamed of and worked on to be remediated.

The quality of online learning materials is mind boggling, never been better. For humanities maybe teaching logic and logical thinking (modus ponens, modus tollens, quantifiers like "none, some, at least one, at most one, all") in the context of public discussion, argument, public debate maybe more effective and receptive. It's fair to acknowledge that maths with abstract symbols and all that is too hard for most people and there maybe better way of teaching. Ditto data, distributions and statistics - that is I think a new can of worms (and we still struggle with the old one).

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#358

Post by jonnycomputer »

realjhol wrote: post #356
jonnycomputer wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenwald and Adams are cranks, imo. Don't know about Taibbi.

What do you even mean by that? Their ideas are perfectly coherent and consistent within their own framing. Just because you look at the world through a different frame, doesn't mean that these people are saying things that are unreasonable

They consistently disregard evidence that contradicts their core beliefs.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#359

Post by krainboltgreene »

_ywdj wrote: post #297
krainboltgreene wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not "stoic" or much into any other "ism", and don't particularly align with many other people in "STEM" fields. The practices I've discovered came after many years of experiencing debilitating emotional and physical pain, which is now mostly resolved, though not completely, hence the ongoing work. That it's common for people to be influenced more by cognitive biases and other emotional patterns than logic is not…

You should take an half an hour out of your time to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSvKNNtkUSU

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#360

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

COGlory wrote: post #355
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're saying animal -> human transmission of a human virus is equivalent to animal -> human transmission of a new virus. You're making up an entirely arbitrary distinction. > The palm civet SARS spike protein RBD did not gain the ability to bind human ACE2 many times. You have no idea if this is the case. Most of these small outbreaks were not analyzed in detail (or even known about until well after the fact). The…

No, they're two very different things, because one involves an adaptation. Once adapted, the rules of the game for cross-species transmission events are completely different. Or do you maintain that a combination cross-species transmission and adaptation to the new host is as common as cross-species transmission of already-adapted viruses?

I see that you're trying to imply that SARS-CoV-2 was pre-adapted to humans, while SARS wasn't, so this is going in a conspiracy-theory direction.

I guess the Wuhan Institute of Virology also produced a special deer-adapted version which they released into the wilds of North America, and a mink-adapted version they released on farms in Denmark, and a hamster-adapted version, and a cat-adapted version, and on and on. Both SARS and SARS-CoV-2 have shown an ability to infect a range of different species.

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