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It sounds like both you and your mother have both adopted an epistemology that incorporates the perceived amount of censorship, lies, and coercion performed by
by tshaddox 5y ago
It sounds like both you and your mother have both adopted an epistemology that incorporates the perceived amount of censorship, lies, and coercion performed by proponents of some claim into your discernment of the truth value of that claim. Namely, you both seem to have adopted some level of doubt about pro-vaccine claims because you both perceive that proponents of pro-vaccine claims participate in censorship, lies and coercion, or that those proponents of these claims do not engage in reasonable arguments with their critics.
There are two problems with this type of epistemology. The first is that, like all claims, attributes of the people making the claims are not relevant to the truth value of the claim ("fallacy of irrelevance"). The second is more important and more unique to this particular epistemology: the actions you perceive to be conducted by perceived proponents of some claim will vary heavily based on your own behavior. For instance, how do you know that pro-vaccine people "can't win arguments" and instead "stop them because the other side is too stupid"? Or that there is "massive censorship" favoring the pro-vaccine viewpoint? Surely that is just based on your own "media diet." Surely that perception depends heavily on where you spend your time on Twitter, YouTube, cable news, etc. Would you perceive something differently if it were the case that the vast majority of medical and public health experts who are pro-vaccine in fact have engaged in numerous reasonable arguments with critics and have nonetheless come to the same conclusion? Is there ever a point in which litigation of existing criticisms can end so that we can move on to new criticisms?
- matheusmoreira 5y agoIt's unreasonable to ignore these abuses. If the pro-vaccine argument is so persuasive, why must they perpetrate censorship and coercion? Vaccines are widely recommended because they offer enormous benefits. However, they are not without risk or contraindications. People who claim otherwise are spreading misinformation. People are right to be worried about the COVID-19 vaccines. Without proper studies, their risks and benefits are unknown. We're discovering this information by observing what's happening to the humans who took the vaccines after the fact. This is less than ideal, to put it mildly. COVID-19 happens to be a potent enough disease that the potential benefit of these vaccines outweighs the risks. We must still be careful though. It's possible that we'll find that the benefits outweigh the risks only for certain age groups, for example.
- librish 5y agoAre you not ignoring the unknown long term risks of having had Covid here? Those are equally unknown.
- chana_masala 5y agoThat's whataboutism
- commoner 5y agoNo, because both of those unknown factors affect the cost-benefit analysis of taking the vaccine.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoNo, I'm not. > COVID-19 happens to be a potent enough disease that the potential benefit of these vaccines outweighs the risks. I'm saying it's entirely reasonable to be concerned about the safety of these vaccines.
- colecut 5y agoFor instance, how do you know that pro-vaccine people "can't win arguments" and instead "stop them because the other side is too stupid"? Or that there is "massive censorship" favoring the pro-vaccine viewpoint? Did you notice the article that you are commenting on?
- talaketu 5y agoYou over-fit the "fallacy of irrelevance". This is my feeling about the Monty Hall problem: The fact that Monty is now offering me the option to take make chances and switch to the other door, after I have chosen this one, when he knows which door actually has the prize, does seem relevant to which door has the prize.
- chakkepolja 5y agoYou use big words like epistemsodhjapHwo but don't really counter his fundamental thesis that if doctor had said "shut up and take it", he would be more sceptical. That's healthy scepticism.
- tshaddox 5y agoI don’t disagree with that part of his comment.
- raxxorrax 5y agoYour epistemology argument about special media diets directly contradicts what we read in this article.