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Michael Levitt is not listed in Wikipedia. Looking at talk pages it seems that someone with agenda added him on wikipedia, then asked him to be added to rationa

by NoPie 5y ago

Michael Levitt is not listed in Wikipedia. Looking at talk pages it seems that someone with agenda added him on wikipedia, then asked him to be added to rationalwiki too. Wikipedia removed him because “citations needed”. Clearly someone with an agenda. The explanation that Great Barrington is pseudoscientific or against non-pharmaceutical interventions against covid is laughable. In fact, it is only about more discriminative approach depending on individual risk level.

eesmith 5y ago
> Michael Levitt is not listed in Wikipedia. To clarify for others, who might be as confused as I was. Levitt is listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levitt . He isn't at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease . It looks like the chronology was opposite what you described. Levitt was added to RationalWiki's list in 4 September 2020 - https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&oldid=2222508 https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&old... . From what I can tell, the earliest attempt to add Levitt to the Wikipedia list was 24 February 2021 - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&oldid=1008625732 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&old... . RationalWiki's list also includes Marie Curie, Alexis Carrel, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Ernst Boris Chain, Wolfgang Pauli, Hideki Yukawa, Eugene Wigner [citation needed], John Eccles, Julian Schwinger, and many more. Evolution-denialism is psueodscience even in 1971 when Chain wrote "Social Responsibility and the Scientist in Modern Western Society." His paper includes the same invalid arguments that are still used by modern evolution denialists. This makes it easy for me to conclude RationalWiki simply has a lower threshold for inclusion than Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration never uses the term "pseudoscientific" but does mention the following from critics: > The World Health Organization (WHO) and numerous academic and public-health bodies have stated that the proposed strategy is dangerous and lacks a sound scientific basis. > Tedros said that trying to achieve herd immunity by letting the virus spread unchecked would be "scientifically and ethically problematic", > not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and would face a higher risk of ending up in hospital, or worse in an intensive care unit. > the declaration was "dangerously flawed", "scientifically weak", and "ethically really difficult".[ ... "Focused Protection" was operationally impractical and would "inevitably" cause the deaths of "a very large number of people" > "ridiculous", "total nonsense" and "very dangerous", saying that it would lead to a large number of avoidable deaths. > it doesn't make much sense", saying the declaration's premise was neither "accurate" nor "scientific".[ > The John Snow Memorandum ... states that the herd immunity idea is "a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence". Given the current spike in US cases, the critics appear to have been correct.
- NoPie 5y ago
  The comment in the rational wiki supporting inclusion of Levitt says that wikipedia includes him. It is not correct now as wikipedia has removed him. GBD was never about letting the virus spread unchecked but to be more targeted. This approach was never really tested so the critics are not proven correct.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    I see. The current entry started 9 August 2021‎. It's been going back and forth. The 1 September 2020‎ entrying adding him was almost immediately reverted. The 4 September 2020‎ entry re-adding him was reverted 23 September 2020‎. > never about letting the virus spread unchecked Meaning you disagree with Tedros' characterization but agree with the other critics? RationalWiki's entry > This approach was never really tested so the critics are not proven correct. Some things are unethical to test. We don't have double blind tests that parachutes work. https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 The RationalWiki entry for the GBD says the same thing a different way: "reasonable-sounding calls to "just give it a try" ignore that you don't need to try things which you know won't work and which have foreseeable negative consequences that are impossible (or at the very least, extremely difficult) to reverse"
    - NoPie 5y ago
      Except it turned out that doing nothing was comparable to lockdowns and herd immunity could not be reached even with vaccines. GBD might not have helped but it wouldn't have hurt and potentially could have helped things a lot. Instead we tried to reduce infection by lockdowns which didn't work and killed a lot of elderly and risk groups.

by NoPie 5y ago

eesmith 5y ago

> Michael Levitt is not listed in Wikipedia. To clarify for others, who might be as confused as I was. Levitt is listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levitt . He isn't at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease . It looks like the chronology was opposite what you described. Levitt was added to RationalWiki's list in 4 September 2020 - https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&oldid=2222508 https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&old... . From what I can tell, the earliest attempt to add Levitt to the Wikipedia list was 24 February 2021 - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&oldid=1008625732 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nobel_disease&old... . RationalWiki's list also includes Marie Curie, Alexis Carrel, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Ernst Boris Chain, Wolfgang Pauli, Hideki Yukawa, Eugene Wigner [citation needed], John Eccles, Julian Schwinger, and many more. Evolution-denialism is psueodscience even in 1971 when Chain wrote "Social Responsibility and the Scientist in Modern Western Society." His paper includes the same invalid arguments that are still used by modern evolution denialists. This makes it easy for me to conclude RationalWiki simply has a lower threshold for inclusion than Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration never uses the term "pseudoscientific" but does mention the following from critics: > The World Health Organization (WHO) and numerous academic and public-health bodies have stated that the proposed strategy is dangerous and lacks a sound scientific basis. > Tedros said that trying to achieve herd immunity by letting the virus spread unchecked would be "scientifically and ethically problematic", > not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and would face a higher risk of ending up in hospital, or worse in an intensive care unit. > the declaration was "dangerously flawed", "scientifically weak", and "ethically really difficult".[ ... "Focused Protection" was operationally impractical and would "inevitably" cause the deaths of "a very large number of people" > "ridiculous", "total nonsense" and "very dangerous", saying that it would lead to a large number of avoidable deaths. > it doesn't make much sense", saying the declaration's premise was neither "accurate" nor "scientific".[ > The John Snow Memorandum ... states that the herd immunity idea is "a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence". Given the current spike in US cases, the critics appear to have been correct.

NoPie 5y ago
The comment in the rational wiki supporting inclusion of Levitt says that wikipedia includes him. It is not correct now as wikipedia has removed him. GBD was never about letting the virus spread unchecked but to be more targeted. This approach was never really tested so the critics are not proven correct.
- eesmith 5y ago
  I see. The current entry started 9 August 2021‎. It's been going back and forth. The 1 September 2020‎ entrying adding him was almost immediately reverted. The 4 September 2020‎ entry re-adding him was reverted 23 September 2020‎. > never about letting the virus spread unchecked Meaning you disagree with Tedros' characterization but agree with the other critics? RationalWiki's entry > This approach was never really tested so the critics are not proven correct. Some things are unethical to test. We don't have double blind tests that parachutes work. https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 The RationalWiki entry for the GBD says the same thing a different way: "reasonable-sounding calls to "just give it a try" ignore that you don't need to try things which you know won't work and which have foreseeable negative consequences that are impossible (or at the very least, extremely difficult) to reverse"
  - NoPie 5y ago
    Except it turned out that doing nothing was comparable to lockdowns and herd immunity could not be reached even with vaccines. GBD might not have helped but it wouldn't have hurt and potentially could have helped things a lot. Instead we tried to reduce infection by lockdowns which didn't work and killed a lot of elderly and risk groups.