211–220 of 257 posts
While we're on the subject, how many studies period are faked or flawed to the point of being useless? It seems to me that the scientific community's reaction to the replication crisis has been to ignore it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trust the science" is dumb, but "trust that the single-most reviewed medical studies of the past decade with 30k+ participants aren't outright bullshit" is enough for me. The risk for those studies is probably closer to what happened with Astrazeneca, where a very rare side effect got missed because 30k people weren't enough to detect it. I think skepticism is healthy to a degree, but ironically, the more adversaria…
> "Trust the science" is dumb, but "trust that the single-most reviewed medical studies of the past decade with 30k+ participants aren't outright bullshit" is enough for me. What does "aren't outright bullshit" translate into in quantitative (%) terms?
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"And that's when I believe people do have a somewhat best effort to maximize profits." Nope. I actually think that if you do scientific research as a company (profit) it may make you less bad/less likely to do fraud compared to academia (non-profit). Reason is that there are more ways to punish you, employees, board, investors, etc in a profit seeking vehicle, and as a profit seeking vehicle being caught must be part…
I have a simpler reason for the same belief. You can fake everything except a well designed A/B test. At FAANG scale, a statistically significant A/B test requirement will stop the worst fraud before it hits the user.
Seriously though, as a person who has built related systems at FAANG, yes this problem exists there. Your beautiful cathedral of an A/B testing framework is covered in knobs that are just perfect for p-hacking.
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Ah, but don’t worry folks, those vaccines which generated $40B in profits for Pfizer and Moderna, those are just A-ok. Trust the science, which in this case is perfect, unassailable and uncorruptible (unlike everything else the pharma industry does). Don’t question the faith.
"Trust the science" is dumb, but "trust that the single-most reviewed medical studies of the past decade with 30k+ participants aren't outright bullshit" is enough for me. The risk for those studies is probably closer to what happened with Astrazeneca, where a very rare side effect got missed because 30k people weren't enough to detect it. I think skepticism is healthy to a degree, but ironically, the more adversaria…
Even if all that were not intentional, it would certainly raise the question why this should be the only case of fabricating data for studies. Since the RNA-vaccines are obviously not as positively effective as claimed, what else is there that might be not talked about? And lastly why is the topic still that controversial when the safety and effectivity claims have not stood up to the real world test?
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Serving as editor of a major journal in any discipline can make one cynical. I read many years ago a quote from a mathematics editor that a large fraction of published proofs were faulty, and from a computer science editor that a large fraction of published theorems were false. (My foggy memory gives 1/2 and 1/3 for the fractions, but I don't remember which was which.)
Almost nobody has the throughput to check equations at all
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I mean I’m as vaccinated as anyone, but the originally reported 95% effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 with the monovalent vaccine just doesn’t seem realistic in hindsight. Who knows what complex set of incentives was at play. If you’re running a trial site and your business relies on continued contracts from Pfizer, are you reporting every cough, fever, or headache?
I don't think the claim was 95% against symptomatic covid, it was against hospitalization or death. The vaccine was tested against the original virus but Omicron was almost a different disease with much more immune escape. We're lucky the vaccine held up as well as it did. This is also why the alternative doctors that wanted everyone to catch covid to build up herd immunity were wrong, but nobody seems to bring them…
It's only as this very obviously failed to be the case that the metric was completely shifted to hospitalization/death. I'd also add this is about the time that the 'public messaging' swapped from talking about efficacy and other topics to outright vitriol and attacks on unvaccinated individuals, which is probably where the politicization of the topic began.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trust the science" is dumb, but "trust that the single-most reviewed medical studies of the past decade with 30k+ participants aren't outright bullshit" is enough for me. The risk for those studies is probably closer to what happened with Astrazeneca, where a very rare side effect got missed because 30k people weren't enough to detect it. I think skepticism is healthy to a degree, but ironically, the more adversaria…
Peer review is not a magic spell that reveals the truth. “Most-reviewed” is meaningless here if the underlying data was not collected or reported properly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean I’m as vaccinated as anyone, but the originally reported 95% effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 with the monovalent vaccine just doesn’t seem realistic in hindsight. Who knows what complex set of incentives was at play. If you’re running a trial site and your business relies on continued contracts from Pfizer, are you reporting every cough, fever, or headache?
I don't think the claim was 95% against symptomatic covid, it was against hospitalization or death. The vaccine was tested against the original virus but Omicron was almost a different disease with much more immune escape. We're lucky the vaccine held up as well as it did. This is also why the alternative doctors that wanted everyone to catch covid to build up herd immunity were wrong, but nobody seems to bring them…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trust the science" is dumb, but "trust that the single-most reviewed medical studies of the past decade with 30k+ participants aren't outright bullshit" is enough for me. The risk for those studies is probably closer to what happened with Astrazeneca, where a very rare side effect got missed because 30k people weren't enough to detect it. I think skepticism is healthy to a degree, but ironically, the more adversaria…
Peer review is not a magic spell that reveals the truth. “Most-reviewed” is meaningless here if the underlying data was not collected or reported properly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the claim was 95% against symptomatic covid, it was against hospitalization or death. The vaccine was tested against the original virus but Omicron was almost a different disease with much more immune escape. We're lucky the vaccine held up as well as it did. This is also why the alternative doctors that wanted everyone to catch covid to build up herd immunity were wrong, but nobody seems to bring them…
Whether the original study said so or not, that is absolutely how it was universally sold to the public. This [1] is a collection of various high profile individuals talking about the efficacy of the vaccines, why that means you won't carry the virus, you won't get sick, and and how that will completely stop the spread of COVID. It's only as this very obviously failed to be the case that the metric was completely shi…
Trust the politics, blame the science?