5 ms·

Your comments are merely ad hominem attacks, and have no place in rational discourse. There is no priesthood of "subject matter experts" who are the only ones c

Your comments are merely ad hominem attacks, and have no place in rational discourse. There is no priesthood of "subject matter experts" who are the only ones capable of studying and interpreting mortality data from the CDC website. There is a very clear anomaly here, that all non-COVID causes of death have reduced at the same time and by the same amount as COVID deaths have increased in 2020 (as compared with all previous years in available history). This is indeed a very interesting observation that requires explanation, rather than suppression by "experts."

threatofrain 6y ago
Ad hominem is simply a judgment made on credibility. One does the same thing when you look for a doctor. It’s not that an unofficial doctor has no merit, but rather that they have negative credibility. Just how valuable is it to be a credible person, especially if you want to make an impact in the world, such as by being a doctor or researcher?
roywiggins 6y ago
The headline was making an appeal to authority ("Johns Hopkins published a study..."). I was responding to that. Johns Hopkins didn't publish a study, a Johns Hopkins student newspaper published some slides. It's not an ad hominem to try to deflate an appeal to authority by pointing out that the authority is not all it's cracked up to be, and that the extent of the supposed study is some charts.
- evanelias 6y ago
  Just to add to this, it was the general-purpose undergraduate newspaper (the News-Letter), posting an interview with the author of this "study". The News-Letter is not a scientific or economic journal, and the staff don't validate or endorse the academic accuracy of this type of content. Additionally, the Applied Economics master’s degree program is an adult extension program located on a satellite campus. Its student admission requirements [1] are substantially less rigorous than a traditional master's program at one of JHU's main schools. I agree the headline here is completely misleading, as it attempts to tie the content to other schools/divisions of JHU that have a much more solid academic reputation. [1] https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/ms-applied-economics/admission-application-requirements/ https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/ms-applied-econo...

threatofrain 6y ago

Ad hominem is simply a judgment made on credibility. One does the same thing when you look for a doctor. It’s not that an unofficial doctor has no merit, but rather that they have negative credibility. Just how valuable is it to be a credible person, especially if you want to make an impact in the world, such as by being a doctor or researcher?

roywiggins 6y ago

The headline was making an appeal to authority ("Johns Hopkins published a study..."). I was responding to that. Johns Hopkins didn't publish a study, a Johns Hopkins student newspaper published some slides. It's not an ad hominem to try to deflate an appeal to authority by pointing out that the authority is not all it's cracked up to be, and that the extent of the supposed study is some charts.

evanelias 6y ago
Just to add to this, it was the general-purpose undergraduate newspaper (the News-Letter), posting an interview with the author of this "study". The News-Letter is not a scientific or economic journal, and the staff don't validate or endorse the academic accuracy of this type of content. Additionally, the Applied Economics master’s degree program is an adult extension program located on a satellite campus. Its student admission requirements [1] are substantially less rigorous than a traditional master's program at one of JHU's main schools. I agree the headline here is completely misleading, as it attempts to tie the content to other schools/divisions of JHU that have a much more solid academic reputation. [1] https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/ms-applied-economics/admission-application-requirements/ https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/ms-applied-econo...