They Finally Just Out and Said It....

JustSomeBloke said:

Scientific research generally works very well, until money and/or politics gets involved. If you want to understand what can go wrong, reading this book would be a good start:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-How-Medicine-Broken/dp/000749808X

‘Bad Science’ hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science, becoming a 400,000 copy bestseller. Now Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess.

Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most. Doctors and patient groups have stood by too, and failed to protect us. Instead, they take money and favours, in a world so fractured that medics and nurses are now educated by the drugs industry.

The result: patients are harmed in huge numbers.

Ben Goldacre is Britain’s finest writer on the science behind medicine, and ‘Bad Pharma’ is the book that finally prompted Parliament to ask why all trial results aren’t made publicly available – this edition has been updated with the latest news from the select committee hearings. Let the witty and indefatigable Goldacre show you how medicine went wrong, and what you can do to mend it.

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LOL, you mean Ben "get vaccinated" Goldacre? This guy?



He studies vaccines at Oxford and is totally pro-vaccination. So do you trust him or not?

anna ~ grace said:

I suggest you try it, Sparagmos. Turn off the media (all media), for a week. See how you feel. Nothing left, right, or center. Just tune it out.

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I have unplugged many times when on vacation. And I never watch the news, I don’t have T.V.

You’re ignoring my comments about scholarship.

Sparagmos said:

I have unplugged many times when on vacation. And I never watch the news, I don’t have T.V.

You’re ignoring my comments about scholarship.

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I’m choosing to zone in on what’s relevant. No news media. No newspapers, magazines, news websites, blogs, feeds, etc. Try it. Go media blind. One week.

anna ~ grace said:

I’m choosing to zone in on what’s relevant. No news media. No newspapers, magazines, news websites, blogs, feeds, etc. Try it. Go media blind. One week.

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I told you I have done that. Are you not reading my posts?

Sparagmos said:

I told you I have done that. Are you not reading my posts?

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*shakes head* Take care, Sparagmos. Decades ago, I am sure many Germans considered Der Stürmer to be the auto mechanics of information in their age.

“With pleasure, I say that the Stürmer, more than any other daily or weekly newspaper, has made clear to the people in simple ways the danger of Jewry. Without Julius Streicher and his Stürmer, the importance of a solution to the Jewish question would not be seen to be as critical as it actually is by many citizens. It is therefore to be hoped that those who want to learn the unvarnished truth about the Jewish question will read the Stürmer.”

- SS-Gruppenführer Albert Forster

bekkilyn said:

Because scientists all agree with one another on everything? Is it also the job of scientists to crush any opinions or views that differ from theirs regardless of how wise or ridiculous? And who decides whether or not a given scientist, especially one under employment of say, big pharma, or perhaps a major tobacco, or some corporation like Exxon, and the like, are going to be presenting the rest of us with good science or with the "science" that they are told to give us by their employers? I just don't know if that 20-year-old YouTube intern has been trained to make these sorts of decisions on behalf of the other people who aren't even given a choice.

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It's the fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of how science works that leads a person to feel that "scientists disagreeing" is essentially as comparable two youtube videos that present opposing sides.

bekkilyn said:

Because scientists all agree with one another on everything?

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No, but there is usually a consensus of experts.

We rely on experts all the time as a useful division of labor. Experts are the ones who have devoted a great deal of their energy to 'doing the research', whatever field it might be in. A layperson just is not in a position to do any research. This is not like shopping for shoes or a car that has to fit your style and personality. Either a particular vaccine is safe and effective, or it isn't.

Is it also the job of scientists to crush any opinions or views that differ from theirs regardless of how wise or ridiculous?

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For the most part, no. They don't do that.

And who decides whether or not a given scientist, especially one under employment of say, big pharma, or perhaps a major tobacco, or some corporation like Exxon, and the like

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That's why you shouldn't listen to an expert, but the consensus of experts. Big Oil can buy off a few scientists, but not the 98% of them that agree climate change is real and largely due to mankind.

Ana the Ist said:

Thoughts?

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That you are conflating the message of experts with the medium by which you hear it.

If Dr. Fauci is on CNN or FOX, his message is in line with the consensus of experts.

Nobody is urging that you only watch CNN and only read the NY Times.

They're not even suggesting you shouldn't do your own research.

The notion of doing your own research is not a bad idea in itself, DiResta said, as it's important to maintain a healthy level of skepticism about information being fed to you. But in today's media environment fueled by clicks and engagement, it's all too easy to come across misleading data that confirms biases.

"Nobody's going to the library and looking up authoritative sources to do their own research,"

To that point, seeing an altered stock photo on GETTR is not 'doing your own research'.

anna ~ grace said:

When I visit people, they often have the TV on. That’s basically the only time I watch it. But the glimpses here and there are enough to tell me that the news is no longer about helping people understand what is happening in the world. Maybe it never has been… Sometimes I pick up a scrap of newspaper we use as wrapping and scan it visually. Same thing.

It’s safer to let your senses tell you what is happening in the world, Sparagmos. Try it, maybe for a week? Put aside your normal sources for news (and any sources), just live, and see what happens.

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Been close to doing that sort of thing before, but good for you.

Ana the Ist said:

Stop thinking for yourself!

These four words are helping spread vaccine misinformation - CNN

CNN doesn't want you doing your own research....after all, they think you're too dumb to do your own research.

It's nice to see CNN outright admit this is what they think of their readers.

They aren't alone though....

Opinion | Don’t Go Down the Rabbit Hole

Stop thinking critically! That's just going to lead you to more lies. The NYT knows that their readers don't need to think critically....they can't do it right anyway.

Personally, I think both CNN and the NYT have nothing to worry about. Their audience doesn't do their own research and definitely stopped thinking critically years ago. On here, I've seen multiple posters reject any story that comes from a source even mildly right leaning....despite the facts being verifiable. It happened twice to me in one week.

Thoughts?

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of course, you're right... but then again so is CNN and NYT because to be perfectly honest "doing your own research" tends to produce some horrible conclusions full of anecdotes and clickbait to which this thread is guilty of itself. It seems today all you really can do is get a collection of biased reports and piece them together to get some sort of truth from it... which of course is just another biased truth thrown on the heap.

JustSomeBloke said:

And I don't know why anyone who is properly trained in scientific research would think that 'Scientific consensus is a thing'.

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Well, now you do.

Sparagmos said:

"Do your own research" implies dismissing the research of scientists in favor of your own scientific research. The problem with that is that non-scientists can’t do scientific research any more than a non-surgeon can perform brain surgery. Doing the research to find out what the consensus of the scientific community is, is another matter and is not difficult at all. One can start with their own doctor and then look at established, well respected scientific institutions and publications. Google makes that quite easy.

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I strongly disagree that "do your own research" implies that you are replacing the research of scientists with your own scientific research, or even that it implies scientific research at all in areas where scientific research wouldn't apply. Doing your own research is looking into the various data and seeing how it may or may not be applicable to one's own situation rather than just automatically believing what you are told simply because a supposed "expert" told you it was true, or even worse, an entertainer or politician. You go and find out for yourself. It doesn't mean you're necessarily doing all of the scientific research for yourself.

. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Every country and state has different COVID protocols. There is no one person deciding, that’s nonsensical.

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Many of them aren't letting *you* decide though based on what is medically sound for your own health and body. Not if you want to keep your livelihood and feed your family.

Wow, you really spend a lot of time thinking about transgenderism. You repeatedly bring it up in threads about other stuff. Why are you so fixated on it?

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For one, it's extraordinarily harmful to (actual) women in many ways, erasing sex-based rights that women have fought for for decades, perhaps even centuries in some cases, and if we're talking about scientific data, it skews that too because it falsely attributes various violent crimes committed by men to women, it places actual women in danger of getting raped and/or unwillingly impregnated by men pretending to women whether we are talking about locker rooms or women's prisons where they are now sending in men to reside with women and just passing out condoms as the "solution" to the resulting pregnancy problem. When we pretend that biology doesn't exist, it has a lot of very serious consequences on top of it simply promoting an outright lie. (And this is just icing on the cupcake.) It's not just the far right that is caught up in the midst of science denial. Maybe it's yet another result of having done my own research rather than just agreeing to the ideology I was being fed and supporting for so long in ignorance.

Sparagmos said:

. And from those "few glimpses" you drew a very specific conclusion: that "Beijing-think" is being used. Middle-school teachers expect more in-depth research from their students before drawing conclusions.

. My senses? Do you go to a doctor who never went to med school or studied medicine but uses her "senses?" Do you take your car to a mechanic who just uses his "senses?" You sound like you have no respect for scholarship or people who master a craft.

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You've never known in your gut (used your senses) when someone was lying to you? Or been glad that you trusted your own intuition about someone else's intentions and thus avoided harm? Science and medicine can be great at what they do but they can't do everything and the individuals involved cannot always be trusted regardless of how many years of academia they've served. And personally, I'd rather go to a good mechanic who as well as knowing all of the technical stuff is able to also think outside of the box and has a good sense for things.

I think it's kinda funny that people get so put out by the concept of "staying in your lane".

No one is saying "stop thinking" and nobody is saying "stop reading". But WHATEVER reading you may be doing online, whatever research you are completing, you need to recognize it just isn't THAT good! You don't know enough about it and, you don't know how to distinguish between quality of source.

And then people get upset at the "audacity" of an internet poster saying they are "too stupid to figure it out".

Well, if you're gonna use the wrong tool to do hte job, then maybe yeah sure, you're "too stupid". But instead of getting offended, recognize you are also arguing with someone else who is "too stupid". Because I think there are very, VERY few experts on epidemiology and virology on Christian Forums.
We have COLLOQUIAL conversations about these issues; EVEN at the BEST of times (again, folks will get offended by this I think). But we do not have technical conversations.

rambot said:

It's the fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of how science works that leads a person to feel that "scientists disagreeing" is essentially as comparable two youtube videos that present opposing sides.

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Well we can't ignore that the big social media sites play right into whoever is deciding all of the information we are allowed to see and hear about certain subjects, and that's even though the vast majority of it is opinion (which is apparently also considered to be dangerous.)

rambot said:

No one is saying "stop thinking" and nobody is saying "stop reading".

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I'm honestly not sure that this statement is true even if I believe you are sincere in saying it.

bekkilyn said:

I'm honestly not sure that this statement is true even if I believe you are sincere in saying it.

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Well, I looked at the first article and it isn't even coming CLOSE to saying that and the second article is behind a paywall.

Regardless, I see a lot of people "charicaturizing" the message to say that. So in that sense you're right. The people doing "internet research" are very quick to feel that people are telling them to "stop thinking" when in reality the message is a bit more nuanced than that:
We (the communal public) don't know enough about the topic to do meaningful research about it.

bekkilyn said:

Well we can't ignore that the big social media sites play right into whoever is deciding all of the information we are allowed to see and hear about certain subjects, and that's even though the vast majority of it is opinion (which is apparently also considered to be dangerous.)

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I'm sorry but that feels like a lame excuse.
Everyone knows social media sucks for information like this. So you just shouldn't be listening to it; like, at all.

We CAN ignore social media but people don't. Its, like, the EASIEST thing in the universe to do and to suggest we can't ignore it is silly. Of COURSE we can.

BUT people DON'T. And THAT is part of the problem.

Even before this COVID nonsense social media was a cumbersome mental health drain that made nobody's life better.


Is it uncomfortable for you to think that you may not know as much about COVID as a virologists? Or as much about controlling epidemics as an epidemiologist?

rambot said:

Well, I looked at the first article and it isn't even coming CLOSE to saying that and the second article is behind a paywall.

Regardless, I see a lot of people "charicaturizing" the message to say that. So in that sense you're right. The people doing "internet research" are very quick to feel that people are telling them to "stop thinking" when in reality the message is a bit more nuanced than that:
We (the communal public) don't know enough about the topic to do meaningful research about it.

I'm sorry but that feels like a lame excuse.
Everyone knows social media sucks for information like this. So you just shouldn't be listening to it; like, at all.

We CAN ignore social media but people don't. Its, like, the EASIEST thing in the universe to do and to suggest we can't ignore it is silly. Of COURSE we can.

BUT people DON'T. And THAT is part of the problem.

Even before this COVID nonsense social media was a cumbersome mental health drain that made nobody's life better.

Is it uncomfortable for you to think that you may not know as much about COVID as a virologists? Or as much about controlling epidemics as an epidemiologist?

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It's actually more a question of whether or not we know as much about COVID as Pfizer or Moderna or Joe Biden, as some examples. It's not that people don't understand that a virologist or epidemiologist doesn't have more knowledge, but that people don't know that they can trust that there aren't also conflicts of interest regarding any information that is presented, so people end up doing the best they can with what they have. However, censoring people's *opinions* on various issues only continues to perpetrate the distrust. For people who are supposedly so medically competent, they seem to have no clue how to build trust with people.

bekkilyn said:

And personally, I'd rather go to a good mechanic who as well as knowing all of the technical stuff is able to also think outside of the box and has a good sense for things.

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I prefer to get my information from people who agree with me as well.