Talking science

[Hans Blaster]

If there was truth in the way of science on the covid issues, where is it? Both sides claim it. I think the truth is that there seems to be something at work internationally here that is not about science.

This isn't the conspiracy board. This is the science board.

This thread is *specifically* about the kinds of anti-science argument you are making. We don't need it here.

 

[drtime]

This isn't the conspiracy board. This is the science board.

This thread is *specifically* about the kinds of anti-science argument you are making. We don't need it here.

It is not a conspiracy that good men of science interpret the data differently. They do.

 

[SkyWriting]

So even the table you present below un commented is an attempt to abuse stats for political purposes. What point were you trying to make?
The west is depressingly similar in outcome regardless of policy other than vaccination.

Do you want propaganda or not?
I'm confused as to your request.

 

[jayem]

There is bad science. Like cold fusion, homeopathy, and the MMR/autism link. Just as there's bad religion. The People's Temple, the Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate cults, and Church of Scientology come to mind. But there's good science also. Good science has one enormous advantage over religion. It doesn't claim to be infallible. Good science recognizes that knowledge is tentative. And it will correct itself when evidence clearly demonstrates that earlier concepts and explanations are erroneous. Religions, OTOH, will never (or at least, hardly ever) admit that their scriptures, doctrines and dogmas are mistaken.

 

[mindlight]

Personally, I think so.

As long as what is being studied can remain controversial, I think you can hire a scientist to give an expert opinion on a subject in your favor.

Ain't nothing new.

Judges 17:7 And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there.
8 And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehemjudah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed.
9 And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehemjudah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place.
10 And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in.
11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons.
12 And Micah consecrated the Levite; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.
13 Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

There is variance by country and system here. In the USA it appears scientists are for hire. Tobacco and oil companies have used them to spread false narratives. Arguably this has also been done with misinformation spread during this pandemic. Germany has a considerably lower death rate than the USA during this pandemic and the commitment to honest science and the facts of the matter may have been a part of that. It is the politicization and monetarization of science that is the problem here.

 

[mindlight]

One problem is the lack of honesty by scientists and medics in the limitations of what they don’t know.

In the U.K. sage epidemiology modelling has been woeful. Actual results have always been way inside the lowest bounds. No realistic error bounds were given, which should have said errors of +-80% on occasions.

These models have wrongly used to shut down society.
The modellers have tried to discredit all policy that isn’t the harshest possible. By failing to admit where guesses are guesses and allowing leaders to lead, these scientists have brought science into disrepute.

Indeed we are now at the point where militant health unions use pseudoscience for pure political control.

sad.

The whole world got shut down by covid. Looking for local reasons why harsh lockdowns were imposed and then generalizing from them relating to the scientific enterprise does not work. The scientific consensus was very clear about just how harmful covid was and how transmissible. The lockdowns are a response to the evidence, not misguided zealots in the scientific community overreacting.

 

[mindlight]

As for the OP, I don't know what do here. It used to be that certain institutions had credibility and policed their representatives in ways to maintain that credibility, but the acceptance of "authorities" is definitely on a steep decline. Some of it is from legitimate scandals others from outside attacks.

The tobacco industry sponsored false research to avoid connecting their product with its addictive and deadly reality.

The fossil fuel industry spent decades (and billions) building counter narratives to the reality of CO2 driven climate change.

This is the heart of the thread. But why did science begin to lose that credibility? Was it because it extended its scope beyond what the scientific method could demonstrate thereby making itself vulnerable to alternate theories? Is it because prestigious scientific institutes were planted with leadership that had more to do with political or ideological credentials than scientific expertise? Is it because the scientific enterprise has simply grown so large that it no longer possesses its former coherence? Is it because scientists in their search for extra funding have found sponsors that have agendas rather than any commitment to truth?

Social media companies just don't care about the truth of any postings, only their ability to keep their uses "engaged" and using the product. Their algorithms exploit the psychological weaknesses of humanity for profit at the cost of comprehension or truth.

We also have a massive disinformation problem that will be hard to fix. Some spread disinformation because it amuses them, others because it profits them. Then the social media algorithms just make it all worse.

Scientific reality barely has a chance in this environment.

The science itself and the reputation of scientists are surely different things. Social Media companies tell stories and allow the telling of stories, they make money from people doing that regardless of their validity. In such a world of images and repatterning, reputations can be made and lost for no good reason. But the actual hard science should not be a matter of dispute, the facts should still be clear. It may well be that funding, politics, scale, and scope have all become reasons for some to question what is paraded as hard science and facts.

 

[mindlight]

Hire a doctor or scientist or lawyer to say anything you like. All will use and claim science.

In Germany, this is not possible in the legal culture to the same extent as in the USA. The hard facts and methods are vetted considerably and false claims are punished with a loss of position or licensing. Claims can be tested and ultimately false ones exposed. With covid, you have a tiny minority of well-qualified scientists with outlier views but their influence is disproportionate and out of synch with their actual credibility. Why this should be the case is at the heart of this thread.

 

[mindlight]

If there was truth in the way of science on the covid issues, where is it? Both sides claim it. I think the truth is that there seems to be something at work internationally here that is not about science.

You seem to be confusing the political discussion with the hard science. Basically, covid is real and killing people and there are scientists whose nuanced doubts about measures taken against that are being quoted by people for political reasons. To make this discussion real you would have to focus it on a disputed claim like for example the R rate of a particular variant of the virus or the Infection fatality rate and then see how scientists are using the evidence in these cases, how selective they are of the facts they quote, whether or not they give a balanced view.

 

[mindlight]

There is bad science. Like cold fusion, homeopathy, and the MMR/autism link. Just as there's bad religion. The People's Temple, the Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate cults, and Church of Scientology come to mind. But there's good science also. Good science has one enormous advantage over religion. It doesn't claim to be infallible. Good science recognizes that knowledge is tentative. And it will correct itself when evidence clearly demonstrates that earlier concepts and explanations are erroneous. Religions, OTOH, will never (or at least, hardly ever) admit that their scriptures, doctrines and dogmas are mistaken.

The theological and scientific methods address different kinds of approaches to reality. The historical approach is another kind of approach also. True science and true theology are vetted in different ways. A lot of atheist scientists look for scientific patterns in how religions and religious claims can be moderated and thereby show they do not understand the nature of what they are studying. Part of the loss of science's reputation has to do with how different groups of people prioritize their primary method for understanding reality. Science can seem ridiculous to a person who thinks only theologically and vice versa. In practice, these should be complementary methodologies where the most appropriate method is used in each situation.

Different religions have different levels of credibility regarding the authenticity of their texts. The Christian scriptures have survived an exhaustive critique intact while the Quran has yet to be examined to the same degree. I would recommend the book Reinventing Jesus as an overview of how the textual evidence discussion has affirmed rather than diminished Christian scriptural credibility. It is possible that a great many atheists and subscribers to alternate religions and ideologies have not realized that this debate is really over in many devoted Christian's minds and that the doubts they continue to express for so-called scientific reasons are completely out of date or have been debunked or represent unreasonable approaches to the evidence and how it is filtered. This dissonance between the reality on the ground in churches and many in the scientific community would massively undermine science and scientific experts as a source of truth in Christian, theologically minded communities. This skepticism is both warranted and unwarranted in my view. In situations where the evidence is clear, it is unwarranted as with covid. In situations where the "scientific evidence" and theories are far more speculative e.g., abiogenesis skepticism is warranted.

 

[Hans Blaster]

If there was truth in the way of science on the covid issues, where is it? Both sides claim it. I think the truth is that there seems to be something at work internationally here that is not about science.

Your claim that scientists can produce evidence on "either side" for money is contrary to the ethos of science, and anti-science. I would not tolerate such behavior from my colleagues, nor they from me.

 

[drtime]

In Germany, this is not possible in the legal culture to the same extent as in the USA. The hard facts and methods are vetted considerably and false claims are punished with a loss of position or licensing. Claims can be tested and ultimately false ones exposed. With covid, you have a tiny minority of well-qualified scientists with outlier views but their influence is disproportionate and out of synch with their actual credibility. Why this should be the case is at the heart of this thread.

The people claiming that the other claims are false might be the false ones. The vetters are probably stooges for one side to a large degree. Why would I disbelieve actual virologists and doctors and health professionals just because someone on a payroll paid for by who knows who wants to play nazi?

 

[drtime]

You seem to be confusing the political discussion with the hard science. Basically, covid is real and killing people and there are scientists whose nuanced doubts about measures taken against that are being quoted by people for political reasons.

The vaccines are killing people that is known. The ones supposedly dying of covid might have died from being shot or hit by a car for all we know.

To make this discussion real you would have to focus it on a disputed claim like for example the R rate of a particular variant of the virus or the Infection fatality rate and then see how scientists are using the evidence in these cases, how selective they are of the facts they quote, whether or not they give a balanced view.

To make any decision we need trust. The covid agenda has lost that forever and totally for many many people.

 

[drtime]

Your claim that scientists can produce evidence on "either side" for money is contrary to the ethos of science, and anti-science. I would not tolerate such behavior from my colleagues, nor they from me.

I don't care if doctors who swore to protect now jab people and withhold life saving treatments. It is what it is. I don't care if some science puritans have some code somewhere they supposedly use. The fact is men of science use science for very different opinions.

 

[Mountainmike]

I AM a math modeller-that’s why I say the entire process was woeful.

Academic halfwits, who failed to get even close.
Professor lockdowns numbers were a bad joke.

Sweden proved that shutting down education and the economy was unnecessary. That Ferguson got it wrong, Proper controls showed the risk to teachers was way exaggerated in the U.K.

The failure to institute a feedback regime , to get test data from the off, proved they had little idea how to go about it.
Boris in the end rightly ignored them. The actual figures way under even the minimum bands.

It said it all that they used delta death rate with omicron spread despite South Africa evidence to actively mislead decision makers.

The virus may be dangerous, but killing the economy, shutting down education, and shutting down half of the health service unnecessarily are just as bad long term. Sweden didn’t shut down anything like as much , and didn’t suffer as a result.

The unions have not stopped misleading. Universities are planning to continue preventing visitors to graduating. These public sector nutters - including BMA- who abuse science and statistics for their own ends must be stopped.

The whole world got shut down by covid. Looking for local reasons why harsh lockdowns were imposed and then generalizing from them relating to the scientific enterprise does not work. The scientific consensus was very clear about just how harmful covid was and how transmissible. The lockdowns are a response to the evidence, not misguided zealots in the scientific community overreacting.

 

[SelfSim]

I AM a math modeller-that’s why I say the entire process was woeful.

Academic halfwits, who failed to get even close.
Professor lockdowns numbers were a bad joke.

Sweden proved that shutting down education and the economy was unnecessary. That Ferguson got it wrong, Proper controls showed the risk to teachers was way exaggerated in the U.K.

The failure to institute a feedback regime , to get test data from the off, proved they had little idea how to go about it.
Boris in the end rightly ignored them. The actual figures way under even the minimum bands.

It said it all that they used delta death rate with omicron spread despite South Africa evidence to actively mislead decision makers.

The virus may be dangerous, but killing the economy, shutting down education, and shutting down half of the health service unnecessarily are just as bad long term. Sweden didn’t shut down anything like as much , and didn’t suffer as a result.

The unions have not stopped misleading. Universities are planning to continue preventing visitors to graduating. These public sector nutters - including BMA- who abuse science and statistics for their own ends must be stopped.

I don't think I care for your tone here ..
A bunch of anti-intellectual (and actually incorrect) unsupported accusations as well.
Very cheap shots.

 

[Hans Blaster]

A thread about sorting through things that seem to be science, and it mostly just attracts cynical and nasty anti-science rhetoric. Sigh.

 

[Tanj]

At a time when mainstream science is increasingly rejected by people on the fringes of society, how can science promote facts and evidence, relating to matters of pressing concern, like covid19?

We can't, because you are addressing a symptom, and the issue wont go away until you address the cause, which is a dire lack of critical thinking skills.

 

[Mountainmike]

I don't think I care for your tone here ..
A bunch of anti-intellectual (and actually incorrect) unsupported accusations as well.
Very cheap shots.

What is anti intellectual about
1/ Stating that combining delta death rate with omicron spread is bad science when SA evidenced the death rate was lower

2/saying the actual figures were consistently under the lower error band confirming they had no grasp on error bars, repeated ad nauseam. They did not learn.

3/ because Sweden was able to compare teacher/ family case / death rates of open schools for young , against a control of closed older schools it proves that the unions egged on by project fear models got it completely wrong.

4/ creating Hotspot regional models and collecting enough data day 1 to calibrate them - starting with a symptom collector? When I contacted GPs to report I was told not to call. Pathetic.

5/ You can see in the minutes how PHE prevaricated over testing, tracking , monitoring , wasting months in mindless reporting, before handing it on, blaming the government for their own uselessness. They should have had a plan. They stole all the countries private sector PCR machines but refused the private sector expertise they actually needed. It was a farce.

In reality all the unions abused covid.

Meanwhile the supermarkets and supply chains stayed open, bravo.

GPs should be made to book appointments at supermarkets 2 weeks away , then told all the slots are booked, so see how they like being treated using their own regime. How many preventable cancers have they killed by hiding?

 

[SelfSim]

What is anti intellectual about ..

Academic halfwits,
...
Professor lockdowns numbers were a bad joke.
...
These public sector nutters - including BMA- who abuse science and statistics for their own ends must be stopped.