What is Science?

[katerinah1947]

What language is this written in?

Hi,

I re read this. Science types do that. This is Sales and Marketing Language.

LOVE,

 

[justlookinla]

Science is a method, not an entity.

The entity cannot be blindly and fully trusted.

People are wrong, not the scientific method. Stop tilting at windmills. Try to educate yourself on the subject you are trying to debate.

Right, the people may be dishonest or incompetent. It's not the scientific method's fault.

 

[Kylie]

Science cannot be blindly and fully trusted because science has shown itself to be wrong here and there.

So you have a problem with a system designed to identify and remove mistakes?

And yet on the other hand, you have religion so mired in dogma and so blind to the real world that it took the Catholic church until the 1990s to admit that Galileo was right.

 

[Kylie]

Your answer is irrelevant. Physics journals publish (sometimes) replications or failed replications. And here I thought we were talking about biology. Or are you arguing that evolution is something studied by physicists?

No, I am arguing that you can't make an observation about PSYCHOLOGY and then assume that all science is the same. That's like saying nobody likes horror movies because my daughter doesn't like them.

As you can see in this article the ten-fold increase in retractions are concentrated heavily in "biologically-oriented fields." That's nice to know.

Ah yes.

Firstly, the article is written by Sean Carroll, a cosmologist and physics professor, not a biologist (or, may I quote you, "are you arguing that evolution is something studied by physicists?")

Secondly he says that there is, "tremendous pressure within medical sciences when it comes to any results that might turn out to be medically useful." Certainly something which could account for this.

Thirdly, there is NOTHING in that article to support your claim that the rate of retractions is ten times greater than in other areas.

Fourthly, Carroll is quoting the work of Carl Zimmer, a popular science writer and blogger. He has received a B.A., but it is in English. I'd prefer to hear from an actual biologist.

Finally, the Zimmer quote refers to an article he published in the New York Times: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/l...ory-in-tomorrows-new-york-times/#.Vmt5wnYrLDc Many of the comments there suggest possible causes for this, such as the large number of papers being submitted. If there are many papers submitted, then even a large number of retractions will only make up a small percentage.

Of course, I love the spin you put on it. If a creation scientist published a paper, and it got retracted, that would be proof that creation science is not much of a science. However, when evolutionary biologists have papers retracted, that's proof that science is doing what it should do – finding errors and correcting them.

First of all, let's start by showing what part of creation is in any way scientific. After all, if it is to be submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal, then it must actually BE scientific, yes?

Hypocritical much?

Not really.

The problem, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is misuse and misunderstanding of p-values. Some people (not evolutionary biologists, unfortunately) have started taking notice of the problem. As you can see in this article:



So how is evolutionary science doing? I don't know, so I went looking at found a study that involved evolution at this link, which suggests that dinosaurs evolved rapidly. Now comes the problem of backtracking. I found a source for the article at nature.com, from which I backtracked to the PNAS website. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be any closer to the p-value! Now downloading the appendix pdf to see what information that contains. Nope -- nothing useful there. So basically, we have an evolutionary paper that's probably complete garbage posted in the news section of Google and links to it don't provide any information at all to determine how reliable the information is.

But all of this is meant to reassure me that "science works" in some unexplained way. Give me a break.

Do you want to convince me of one of your evolutionary findings? Show me a p-value less than 0.00000005

Yeah, I doubt you're going to get anywhere near enough material from the fossil record to conduct that many tests to ensure the level of accuracy you demand.

However, if it's thoroughness you want, have a look at this. http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/

If you have any questions, I'm not the person to ask (being a musician rather than an evolutionary biologist). I suggest you speak to Dr Lenski directly. You can contact him via Twiter: https://twitter.com/relenski

 

[Kylie]

This is a myth, of course. Science can theoretically determine whether a theory is wrong.

Which is exactly what I said. So how do you figure that it is a myth?

However, there is the problem of holistic underdetermination. If you run an experiment and don't get the right result, then clearly something is wrong but what is it? Is it a badly designed experiment? Is one of the instruments not working right? Is the underlying theory wrong? Is one of the alternate hypotheses wrong? You can't know.

Yeah, if only you could use a different method to get the data you want. Or use different equipment so as to remove any potentially faulty equipment. Or get someone else to do the experiment.

Anyway, you seem to under the impression that a scientist only performs the experiment once. They don't. They do it many times. ANd if the scientist does it a hundred times and gets 99 results between the values of 4.9 and 5.1 and one result of 87, then it is kind of obvious that the outlying result is an anomaly which shouldn't be considered.

 

[justlookinla]

So you have a problem with a system designed to identify and remove mistakes?

And yet on the other hand, you have religion so mired in dogma and so blind to the real world that it took the Catholic church until the 1990s to admit that Galileo was right.

Well, there's the religion of science/Darwinism and then there's the religion of the Catholic church.

 

[katerinah1947]

Well, there's the religion of science/Darwinism and then there's the religion of the Catholic church.

Hi,

Sorry to inform you, but any continual usage of calling Science a Religion is wrong.

Science is a medicine used for Religion. It corrects what is wrong, when and where it is found to be wrong.

If that offends you, consider that it is God who said to use science and since God is Good, then what He tells us to do is good.

God said fill the earth. It is filled more now than it was. God said to subdue the earth. Science, even when not called that earlier, is what allowed the earth to be subdued, more now than it was.

Science also allowed us to fill the earth more now than it was.

Science even cures an ailing church once in a while. It is even used there.

Science rather than being a religion, is a command by God to do, in Christian Religions. That command takes place in Genesis 1:28.

Later, God though Paul told us to use what we learn from science, but as it is in the Laws of Government. That command by God through Paul, is in Romans 13:1-5.

In it's purest forms, following science is following God.

In it's purest form, following goverment laws is following God.

In it's purest form, doing science is following God.

Science is not a Religion, it is a Command of Religion.


Science results from religion.


It is not a religion.

It is the result of religion.

LOVE,

 

[Zosimus]

No, I am arguing that you can't make an observation about PSYCHOLOGY and then assume that all science is the same. That's like saying nobody likes horror movies because my daughter doesn't like them.

Let me get this straight. We look at psychology, do a little MATH, and then point out that the same math applies to all fields of science. Then your response is that since your daughter doesn't like horror movies, math is not universal?!

Firstly, the article is written by Sean Carroll, a cosmologist and physics professor, not a biologist (or, may I quote you, "are you arguing that evolution is something studied by physicists?")

Well, if we're going to play the argument from authority logical fallacy game, then since you're a musician you cannot have an opinion on math and your whole argument is happily invalidated.

Secondly he says that there is, "tremendous pressure within medical sciences when it comes to any results that might turn out to be medically useful." Certainly something which could account for this.

Whereas in other areas of science the "publish or perish" mantra is completely unknown. Yeah, right.

Thirdly, there is NOTHING in that article to support your claim that the rate of retractions is ten times greater than in other areas.

Since that's not what I claimed, I don't see why this statement is relevant.

Yeah, I doubt you're going to get anywhere near enough material from the fossil record to conduct that many tests to ensure the level of accuracy you demand.

Well, excuse me if until science in general and biology specifically stops producing false positives that I take it all with a grain of salt.

If you have any questions, I'm not the person to ask (being a musician rather than an evolutionary biologist). I suggest you speak to Dr Lenski directly. You can contact him via Twiter: https://twitter.com/relenski

Richard Lenski is an evolutionary biologist. Since his degree is not in mathematics, by your own standard, he is no authority on any of this and doesn't deserve a say in the matter.

 

[Zosimus]

Which is exactly what I said. So how do you figure that it is a myth?

Because of the problem of holistic underdetermination, obviously.

Yeah, if only you could use a different method to get the data you want. Or use different equipment so as to remove any potentially faulty equipment. Or get someone else to do the experiment.

Oh well, thank God the musician has resolved one of the most enduring problems of scientific epistemology. "Just use a different methodology." Why the heck didn't anyone think of that before? I guess everyone in science is an idiot.

Anyway, you seem to under the impression that a scientist only performs the experiment once. They don't. They do it many times. ANd if the scientist does it a hundred times and gets 99 results between the values of 4.9 and 5.1 and one result of 87, then it is kind of obvious that the outlying result is an anomaly which shouldn't be considered.

This very simplistic thinking is completely wrong. If you find a large number of experiments that cluster around 4.9 and 5.0 and a few outliers in the 0.87 range, that's a certain sign of p-hacking. So rather than thinking that the 0.87 is an anomaly that shouldn't be considered, we should be thinking that this result was so far out that even p-hacking wasn't able to make it appear significant.

You see, there's a test for p-hacking that came out in 2012. If the effect is real then the number of p-values between 0 and 0.025 should be greater than the number of p-values between 0.025 and 0.05 whereas if the number of p-values between 0.025 and 0.05 is substantially higher, then that's good reason to suspect p-hacking, so in your example, it's pretty clear that:

A) No real effect exists, and
B) The researchers are committing fraud.

 

[justlookinla]

Hi,

Sorry to inform you, but any continual usage of calling Science a Religion is wrong.

Religion in the sense it shapes one's worldview. The 'science' of Darwinism shapes one's worldview.

Science is a medicine used for Religion. It corrects what is wrong, when and where it is found to be wrong.

Sometimes science corrects a wrong with a new wrong.

If that offends you, consider that it is God who said to use science and since God is Good, then what He tells us to do is good.

God said to trust Him, not science.

God said fill the earth. It is filled more now than it was. God said to subdue the earth. Science, even when not called that earlier, is what allowed the earth to be subdued, more now than it was.

Science also allowed us to fill the earth more now than it was.

Science even cures an ailing church once in a while. It is even used there.

Science rather than being a religion, is a command by God to do, in Christian Religions. That command takes place in Genesis 1:28.

Later, God though Paul told us to use what we learn from science, but as it is in the Laws of Government. That command by God through Paul, is in Romans 13:1-5.

In it's purest forms, following science is following God.

In it's purest form, following goverment laws is following God.

In it's purest form, doing science is following God.

Science is not a Religion, it is a Command of Religion.


Science results from religion.


It is not a religion.

It is the result of religion.

LOVE,

We must place our trust in God, not science.

 

[katerinah1947]

Science is a method, not an entity.

People are wrong, not the scientific method. Stop tilting at windmills. Try to educate yourself on the subject you are trying to debate.

Hi,

You are so right on science being a method. Also consider this. Music and Science are related as both use math in some form.

I have often wondered why in 1969, many of my co-workers were musicians and did and impromptu session one day, during work, and then went back to work.

I wondered how I ccould talk so clearly to a retired OSU Band Director.

Then with the clear possibility of a realtionship that exists between artists and physicists in that they work with the same things really, the real world, and what comes next, it is that relationship between what are called Narcissists technically and Philosophical Logic that might make sense now.

There are a huge number is synomyms for the technical term of Narcissism which is a form of another technical set of words, Personality Disoreder marked by no remorse in all of them. Arrogant is a common word for that.

In my work, our resident extreme Narcissist used logic all the time, but a Philosophical form of that. Yes, he was stunningly shallow in his thinking, and that does not naturally correlate with high IQ's which this and all forms of Personality Disorder have in common that I have run across.

The relationship between logic and Narcissm is that they use their high IQ in plotting planning and manipulating to accomplish their goals, and that requires a form of logic. Thus they are attracted to other logical thinkers.

Scientists, and there are some Narcissists in science but the enforced honesty in science eventually gets rid of them and almost everything they say and publish, or have published. Scientists use a form of practical logic, which has only a vague or loose connection to the Philosophical concept of logic.

In conversations with our resident Narcissist, before he was removed, always when the next step was needed by him, to know something, he side stepped, and side stepped and side stepped.

That Narcissist, was capable, and many times I told him that, when he could not deny it. He was totally capable of high science, and high performance. He just did not want that. He wanted something else.

In recovery forums, to recover from the effects of Narcissism done to and individual, it seems to be they all want one person to be their Psychological slave. That doesn't sound like a goal, but that is what is there.

When I had to out, to prove, that a person had Personality Disorder one day, I started with another feature of them. They don't want to be understood.

So, in a casual conversation I eventually said that to the person in question. "Let me take a guess. You don't want to be understood."

I was assured that I was wrong, and I dropped the issue.

Weeks passed. Two precisely. Another conversation is taking place, and the person is dodging an issue. It is seeing her actions from the perspective of people she is saying treat her and her group of like minded individuals poorly, and really quite horrible, supposedly abusively in a verbal sense.

I being an intermediary for years, with her group, and the people she was interfacing with, knew both sides of the issue.

I tried to help her, by telling her how the other people felt. She sidestepped. I tried again. She sidestepped. I tried again.......and then it became obvious to me; "Oh my. You really don't want to be understood." Answer, and the first time in more than twenty years that she has ever done this:

Audience hat on. This will be dramatic. And she is an actress, with many shows she has performed in.

Yelling: Not by you. The phone is slammed down.

The scene is over. She is a person with Personality Disorder, but to not leave it there. Later, in what I now had to do, to mitigate all of her past created dramas, I learend more and more and totally was corroborated by the mental health folks in being corect on her.

Logic is her tool. However it is not the logic science uses, it is merely mimicking that also.

I think that is why, there are so many people who are not truly logical, abusing logic by trying to apply that false logic to the logic used in science which is proven without even another person present.

Experiments tell a scientist if his or her form of logic is correct Silently.

Electrons affirm the logic of scientists, silently to scientists. All other things affirm the logic of scientists, silently.

Sometimes at work, intruments and equipment, was so silently affirming, that they could be called sentient falsely, but in the results when I am right, it is hard to see fields, or space, or electrons, or velcro like strong nuclear forces as not sentient, when they affirm my observations reliably consistently, and seeminly forever.

LOVE,

 

[katerinah1947]

Religion in the sense it shapes one's worldview. The 'science' of Darwinism shapes one's worldview.

Religion if it accurate, shapes not one's worldview, it removes superstition and ignorance, thus advancing manking. It is commanded of Chrisitians by God to do science. That is subdue the earth in Genesis 1:28. It is also needed to fill the earth, which is another part of the Blessing by God, which is also a Command of God to do.

Sometimes science corrects a wrong with a new wrong.

That does not happen in science. It happens in the minds and hearts of some of the people who are trying to understand what science is saying, but actually do not understand.
What does in mean that in a wire, electricity goes at the speed of light. (Although it is only half the speed of light, in a bare open wire, that is not important here. It is near the speed of light, when something called a ground wire is placed around the open wire. Then the speed of electricity is near the speed of light. And, oh yes a reflectomer measures that. It is a form of radar. A pulse is sent out, a reflection comes back, the distance is known, so the speed of travel is known.)
This does not happen in science, what you said, only in appearances does it happen to outsiders. Those not in science, and even some teachers who are supposed to teach science.

God said to trust Him, not science.

God said to do science and do obey what science is put into law.

We must place our trust in God, not science.

God told you in Genesis 1:28 to do science. If you trust not in your own understandings, as we are not suppposed to do with God, then accept science as He has told you to do, by following the governments laws on science, the science commanded by God to do in Genesis 1:28.

Genesis 1:28 is there. A Blessing by God is a Command. In Genesis 9:1, it is the second time God blessed us with fill the earth, spread.

At Babylon, they did not want to spread, instead they wanted to stay in one place rather than being scattered all over the earth.

God confused their language to get them to spread, as He told them to do, in Genesis 1:28, and then later to those coming off the Ark, in Genesis 9:1.

To follow God is to try and follow the Ten Commandments the best you can. It is also trying to do your best job at doing all that God Says.

We are to do science. Genesis 1:28.
We are to listen to science. Romans 13:1-5.

LOVE,

 

[Kylie]

Let me get this straight. We look at psychology, do a little MATH, and then point out that the same math applies to all fields of science. Then your response is that since your daughter doesn't like horror movies, math is not universal?!

Please, show me this alleged math you have used to determine that what applies to psychology also applies to all other branches of science.

Well, if we're going to play the argument from authority logical fallacy game, then since you're a musician you cannot have an opinion on math and your whole argument is happily invalidated.

You're the one using an invalid application of maths.

Whereas in other areas of science the "publish or perish" mantra is completely unknown. Yeah, right.

Yeah, all those astrophysicists and geologists are constantly under pressure to develop a product they can sell...

Since that's not what I claimed, I don't see why this statement is relevant.

So when you claimed there was a "ten-fold increase in retractions are concentrated heavily in 'biologically-oriented fields',", you meant something other than a ten-fold increase then? Look at your post 607.

Well, excuse me if until science in general and biology specifically stops producing false positives that I take it all with a grain of salt.

Yeah. Science is completely useless unless it is perfect all of the time...

Richard Lenski is an evolutionary biologist. Since his degree is not in mathematics, by your own standard, he is no authority on any of this and doesn't deserve a say in the matter.

Please.

First of all, your arguments stemmed from the fact that small sample sizes were used. Lenski's experiments have been going for literally decades. Hardly a small sample size. You also complained about the poorly designed protocols - Lenski's are anything but. Lax standards? Again, no.

You also claimed that it doesn't count because Lenski is an evolutionary biologist. Yet you specifically asked, "So how is evolutionary science doing?" Post 607. And I give you an example of an evolutionary biology study that shows it is doing very well, and you claim it doesn't count because it's evolutionary biology?

Honestly, I feel like you just don't want to agree, and jump onto any excuse to disagree.

 

[Kylie]

Because of the problem of holistic underdetermination, obviously.

This only applies to systems where there is limited information.

Oh well, thank God the musician has resolved one of the most enduring problems of scientific epistemology. "Just use a different methodology." Why the heck didn't anyone think of that before? I guess everyone in science is an idiot.

No, they aren't idiots, because they thought of doing this long ago.

Since you didn't think of this as a solution to the problem you posed in post 608, what does that say?

This very simplistic thinking is completely wrong. If you find a large number of experiments that cluster around 4.9 and 5.0 and a few outliers in the 0.87 range, that's a certain sign of p-hacking. So rather than thinking that the 0.87 is an anomaly that shouldn't be considered, we should be thinking that this result was so far out that even p-hacking wasn't able to make it appear significant.

You see, there's a test for p-hacking that came out in 2012. If the effect is real then the number of p-values between 0 and 0.025 should be greater than the number of p-values between 0.025 and 0.05 whereas if the number of p-values between 0.025 and 0.05 is substantially higher, then that's good reason to suspect p-hacking, so in your example, it's pretty clear that:

A) No real effect exists, and
B) The researchers are committing fraud.

How about you go and start measuring the average height of 25 year old men in New York. You find your results a mostly clustered between the five foot five inches mark and the six foot five inches mark. You'll get some outliers such as a height of seven foot three or four foot nine.

But I guess that means that you're faking your data, you naughty boy or girl.

 

[Zosimus]

Please, show me this alleged math you have used to determine that what applies to psychology also applies to all other branches of science.

All right–let's start at the beginning. Let's assume that we have an evolutionary biologist who is studying some species of animal to determine why some of those animals with specific traits are surviving better than are those animals with other traits. We will also assume that he is going to approach this subject by examining some 20,000 genes to determine which, if any, of these genes are contributing to the improved success of the animal. We will also imagine that there are true relationships to be found. Let us say that 20 of those genes have a real, measurable impact on the survival of the species.

Since our evolutionary biologist is using a test that is 95 percent accurate (p=0.05), what will his results be? Well, of the 19,980 genes that have no effect whatsoever, he will still come up with 999 false positives. Of the 20 genes that have a real effect, he will come up with 19 true positives. This means that 98.13 percent of his findings are false positives. This is simple math of the type that anyone can do. Now, please explain to me why you think that this math scenario does not apply to biology studies?

You're the one using an invalid application of maths.

No, my math comes directly from Why Most Published Research Findings Are False wherein John Ioannidis does some simple math and concludes that "Most research findings are false for most research designs and for most fields." So don't attack the messenger.

So when you claimed there was a "ten-fold increase in retractions are concentrated heavily in 'biologically-oriented fields',", you meant something other than a ten-fold increase then? Look at your post 607.

No, I specifically linked you to the source for the claim. You then claimed that I said that biological fields have 10 times the retraction rate as do other fields. This is not what I said. I said that the total number science retractions is 10 times higher than it used to be and that most examples in the article come from biologically-related fields. Don't put words in my mouth.

Yeah. Science is completely useless unless it is perfect all of the time...

It's not a question of being perfect all the time. Most published research findings are false. In fact, non-randomized studies are wrong some 80 percent of the time. So don't post some [bless and do not curse] non-randomized study and expect me to get all excited about it.

First of all, your arguments stemmed from the fact that small sample sizes were used. Lenski's experiments have been going for literally decades. Hardly a small sample size. You also complained about the poorly designed protocols - Lenski's are anything but. Lax standards? Again, no.

No, my arguments do not stem from small sample sizes. It has to do entirely with a priori odds and the strength of the study. It also has to do with the potential for bias and procedures for eliminating said bias. Additionally, it is not correct that decades-long studies must necessary have large sample sizes. We could easily select two people with different diets and study them for decades to try to determine whether their diet affects their chance of having a stroke. Two people is a small sample size regardless the number of years studied.

You also claimed that it doesn't count because Lenski is an evolutionary biologist. Yet you specifically asked, "So how is evolutionary science doing?" Post 607. And I give you an example of an evolutionary biology study that shows it is doing very well, and you claim it doesn't count because it's evolutionary biology?

No, honey, you claimed that people cannot have an opinion outside of their field. Since the topic under discussion is statistics and Lenski isn't a mathematician, according to your own standards he shouldn't have an opinion.

 

[Zosimus]

This only applies to systems where there is limited information.

Are you implying that evolutionary biologists are omniscient and never have limited information?

No, they aren't idiots, because they thought of doing this long ago.

So go ahead and tell me what the procedure is that eliminates all possibility that scientific studies could generate false results. I'm all ears!

How about you go and start measuring the average height of 25 year old men in New York. You find your results a mostly clustered between the five foot five inches mark and the six foot five inches mark. You'll get some outliers such as a height of seven foot three or four foot nine.

This has nothing to do with anything. We're talking about p-values and their tendency to cluster around p=0.05 in studies. There are peer-reviewed publications about p-hacking abundantly available on the Internet, and these publications include tests for p-hacking that anyone with an Excel spreadsheet can do. We read:

"The p-curve can, however, be used to identify p-hacking, by only considering significant findings [14]. If researchers p-hack and turn a truly nonsignificant result into a significant one, then the p-curve’s shape will be altered close to the perceived significance threshold (typically p = 0.05). Consequently, a p-hacked p-curve will have an overabundance of p-values just below 0.05 [12,40,41]. If researchers p-hack when there is no true effect, the p-curve will shift from being flat to left skewed (Fig. 2A). If, however, researchers p-hack when there is a true effect, the p-curve will be exponential with right skew but there will be an overrepresentation of p-values in the tail of the distribution just below 0.05 (Fig. 2B). Both p-hacking and selective publication bias predict a discontinuity in the p-curve around 0.05, but only p-hacking predicts an overabundance of p-values just below 0.05..."
----------------------
Accordingly, when you present me with multiple studies of an effect and all the p-values are at or just below 0.05, then I smell a rat. If a true relationship exists, at least one of those p-values should be more like 0.02 or even 0.001.

And this has nothing to do with whether the average height of 25-year-old men in New York clusters around an average.

 

[Loudmouth]

So go ahead and tell me what the procedure is that eliminates all possibility that scientific studies could generate false results. I'm all ears!

You keep harping on these studies which supposedly demonstrate vaccines and medicines that don't work. How did you determine that those studies were not generating false results?

 

[Zosimus]

You keep harping on these studies which supposedly demonstrate vaccines and medicines that don't work. How did you determine that those studies were not generating false results?

I think that you have it absolutely backward. I am not claiming that vaccines and medicines don't work and then trying to prove that this is true. The point of the exercise is not to prove that the null hypothesis is true. Even though H0 may be stated as the mean health of unvaccinated populations is exactly the same as that of vaccinated populations. Obviously, it's pretty unlikely that the mean health of both populations will be exactly the same. Therefore, it's not something for me to prove but rather something for you to disprove.

The point is that you need to provide sufficient reason for a disinterested observer to reject the null hypothesis. One of the most common methods in use is called null hypothesis significance testing. In short, if there is a clear, measurable, real effect, there should be a detectable and statistically significant difference between the mean health of the two populations in favor of greater health among the vaccinated population. In short:

If (vaccination improves health) then (mean health of vaccinated population) > (mean health of unvaccinated population).
~(mean health of unvaccinated population) > (mean health of unvaccinated population).
Therefore, ~(vaccination improves health) via modus tollens.

So until you get the math right, I will continue to conclude that there is no good reason to believe that vaccinations are worthwhile.

 

[Loudmouth]

The point is that you need to provide sufficient reason for a disinterested observer to reject the null hypothesis.

You have already shown that no evidence will ever change your mind. If a study supports the effectiveness of a vaccine, you ignore the study. If the same study with the same methodology supports that vaccines don't work, then you reference it as proof.

One of the most common methods in use is called null hypothesis significance testing. In short, if there is a clear, measurable, real effect, there should be a detectable and statistically significant difference between the mean health of the two populations in favor of greater health among the vaccinated population. In short:

If (vaccination improves health) then (mean health of vaccinated population) > (mean health of unvaccinated population).
~(mean health of unvaccinated population) > (mean health of unvaccinated population).
Therefore, ~(vaccination improves health) via modus tollens.

So until you get the math right, I will continue to conclude that there is no good reason to believe that vaccinations are worthwhile.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE IF A VIRUS CAUSES INFECTION???????

 

[Zosimus]

You have already shown that no evidence will ever change your mind. If a study supports the effectiveness of a vaccine, you ignore the study. If the same study with the same methodology supports that vaccines don't work, then you reference it as proof.

How can you know? You have referenced zero studies that support the idea that vaccines are effective.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE IF A VIRUS CAUSES INFECTION???????

There is no certain way to know, but Koch's Postulates provide a reasonable starting point.