Lies, Damned Lies, and Vaccine Statistics • Hacker News Board

Re: Lies, Damned Lies, and Vaccine Statistics

#61

Post by azth » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 11:20 AM UTC

chewz wrote: post #6

My theory - pandemic is mostly a religious event. Mind that much of world religions is mostly anti-epidemic advice presented as God's commands (with some world creation myth and some moral advice on top). So people are prone to react with religious fervor in response to each epidemics. And since the main purpose of religion is dividing people on Us vs Them (Us - clean and moral, Them - stained and evil) this is exact…

> And since the main purpose of religion is dividing people on Us vs Them

Wow, that's so misguided. No, it's not the main purpose of religion.

Re: Lies, Damned Lies, and Vaccine Statistics

#62

Post by aikinai » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 11:47 AM UTC

hereforphone wrote: post #31

yadaeno wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The religion in this case is US partisanship, which somehow the vaccine seems to be getting sucked into.

Agree on the US partisanship, disagree on the religious angle (except to agree that religion could potentially be used, on a small scale (e.g. local churches), to disparage the vaccine). On another note, I enjoy open debate regardless of the subject, and I appreciate that there are arguments against the vaccine (though I am vaccinated myself).

Not sure if you’re a native English speaker, so commenting explicitly just to help out. “Religious” does not only refer to supernatural beliefs, at least in American English. US partisanship has escalated to a level where it can be easily referred to as “religious.”

Many clearly prioritize it over their official “religion” as you can see with Christians bending over backwards to support Trump even when it puts them in direct opposition to the teachings of Christianity.

Re: Lies, Damned Lies, and Vaccine Statistics

#63

Post by frumiousirc » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

exo-pla-net wrote: post #41

frumiousirc wrote: post #26

There is a slippery joint conditional probability here. The article talks mostly of: Pd1 = Prob(death GIVEN infected AND vaccinated) vs Pd2 = Prob(death GIVEN infected AND NOT vaccinated) Which makes it easy to lose site of: Pi1 = Prob(infected GIVEN vaccinated) which is very very small compared to its opposite: Pi2 = Prob(infected GIVEN NOT vaccinated) Because Pi1 is so much smaller than Pi2 there are several conseq…

To clarify what you're concluding: It's a given that you do not want to contract COVID-19. Vaccination and wearing a mask will help. You also do not want to give COVID-19 to others. Again, vaccination and wearing a mask will help. So this article is just pedantry over a statistical quirk.

I think that is a correct summary.