6 ms·
Who on that list is a "renown epidemiologist"?
by DanBC 6y ago
Who on that list is a "renown epidemiologist"?
- timr 6y agoSunetra Gupta is a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and a long-time researcher into public health policy: https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, with a long history of research into epidemiological models: https://www.dfhcc.harvard.edu/insider/member-detail/member/martin-kulldorff-phd/ https://www.dfhcc.harvard.edu/insider/member-detail/member/m... All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology.
- ceejayoz 6y agoGupta: "I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on the way out in [the United Kingdom]", in May 2020. Renowned people can still be full of shit. > All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology. s/are/were
- timr 6y ago> Renowned people can still be full of shit. And this tone is certainly rational and charitable.
- ceejayoz 6y agoShe was demonstrably full of shit here. A claim that renowned people can't be full of shit would be the irrational one, I'd think.
- timr 6y agoYour opinion is your own. I could easily cite half a dozen occasions where Anthony Fauci has made equally incorrect pronouncements. People make mistakes. Your tone is unnecessary.
- just_steve_h 6y ago…or at least could be wrong.
- sjg007 6y agoThere are plenty of dumb "smart" people. Most of those tend to be professors for some reason.
- evan_ 6y agoFrom the Wikipedia link you posted: > She is one of the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-discredited paper[15] which advocated a focused response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on levels of individual risk.[16][17] The World Health Organization, as well as other numerous academic and public-health bodies, have stated that the strategy proposed by the Declaration is dangerous, unethical, and lacks a sound scientific basis. Cool!
- timr 6y agoAppeal to authority is a logical fallacy.
- mattkrause 6y agoMore like “defeasible”. It’s not deductively valid in the same way that modus tollens is, but it is a often a good heuristic: the authority wouldn’t be recognized as such if they weren’t often correct in their area of expertise. Thus, it’s fine to find an appeal “rationally compelling” as long as you bear in mind that the authority is also not infallible.
- timr 6y agoThe reputation of an authority is not a rebuttal to an argument. It's simply a lazy way of of avoiding the argument by substituting the burden of proof to the identity of the authority.
- mattkrause 6y agoNot in a formal, deductive way but it’s not obviously wrong to initially give an authority a bit of credence. In this particular case, you brought up Bhattacharya‘s credentials. If another plausible expert disagrees with him, we’re at worst back to where we started; the fact that there’s a consensus he’s wrong, rather than just two dueling authorities, pushes back even harder.
- evan_ 6y ago
- angry-tempest 6y ago> All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology. That was true as of January 2020, it is no longer true now. I don't know about Gupta, but both Bhattacharya and Kulldorff (and Ioannidis) are being hated by most of their colleagues at the moment. I would even conjecture - in 10 years, if you are a recent PhD/fellow from one of those labs, you will have a very tough time in the job market.
- selimthegrim 6y agoBhattacharya (and Ioannidis while we are talking about Stanford faculty) have gotten a lot of pushback and by no means represent any sort of consensus.
- Capira 6y agoWell, just like Fauci has gotten a lot of pushback and by no means represents any sort of consensus.