7 ms·

Certain drugs now, specifically hydroxycholorquin, ivermectin, and the vaccines, now have teams. One negative effect of this is that researchers are highly disi

by gfodor 5y ago

Certain drugs now, specifically hydroxycholorquin, ivermectin, and the vaccines, now have teams. One negative effect of this is that researchers are highly disincentivized from researching them once they have been picked up by a team, given the consequences of publishing results one team or the other doesn't like. The net effect is not just the manifested stuff like that in the article, but more importantly a chilling effect where only researchers who have an axe to grind take on the subject, resulting in bias and a feedback loop where distrust grows and polarization around the drug's efficacy continues. It'd be fascinating if it wasn't so depressing.

zarkov99 5y ago
Its so f*ing dumb. The greatest killer in this pandemic has been our idiotic conformance to one of the two equally imbecilic but diametrically opposed narrative tribes. What a shameful state for such a great nation to find it self in.
- nuerow 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - angelzen 5y ago
    A candid quote from a virologist in a recent Nature covid paper: "We’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure this stuff out." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02795-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02795-x
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > A candid quote from a virologist in a recent Nature covid paper: "We’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure this stuff out." I really don't know what you were trying to say. The article you linked was about how those who have previously recovered from COVID-19 have a stronger immune response after being vaccinated than those who have never been infected.
      - angelzen 5y ago
        It is not a partisan point in favor of one course of action or another. Though not surprising that it is read as one. We have barely started to understand long term implications of covid infection, mRNA / classic vaccines or various treatments. For example, we are almost a year after mass vaccination campaigns started. We still don't know if/how many boosters are required for optimal vaccine performance. Nobody can cite 5-year effectiveness number for mRNA vaccines, which are by far the most popular vaccines in the West. This should raise red flags to any critically thinking person. By necessity, we are operating in "faith" mode. And that's ok. Often times faith is a good enough action guide.
        gfodor 5y ago
        We are operating on faith mode, but authoritarians are treating the situation increasingly as though we aren't. If you have to take a drug that still be proven to hurt specific subpopulations (as any drug could fairly be expected to in eg phase 4 trials) to get a job or go to the store, something is very wrong.
        nuerow 5y ago
        > We have barely started to understand long term implications of covid infection (...) I fail to see the point of your remark, as it reads like a non-sequitur. I mean, the discussion was about the difference between those who listen to public health experts and the anti-intellectual covid denialists/anti-masks/anti-vaxers. Where do epistomological arguments lend any credence to anti-intellectual militants that try to counter science and public health safeguards with conspiracy theories?
        angelzen 5y ago
        What is the 5 year effectiveness of the Pfizer covid vaccine? Please break it down by infection / symptomatic disease / hospitalization / death, then by age group, then compare it with a sizable unvaccinated control group.
        5y ago
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      Relevance? Also, are there other procedures to be employed on a _novel_ virus pandemic? Doesn't the "novel" part literally mean "it's new to us and needs figuring out" ?
      - gfodor 5y ago
        One big problem is that that the CDC and other authorities failed miserably at reminding the public that their guidance was often based on weak, but directional evidence. The net result given other dynamics was people taking it to be gospel or bullshit, and when reversals occurred it was memory holed by the former and taken as vindication by the latter.
    - geofft 5y ago
      I am guessing you're trying to say that "flying by the seat of our pants" is somehow bad. (Maybe you're not and that sentence is just too short for me to understand what you mean, in which case I apologize.) But to expand this analogy, if you're in a plane in conditions nobody has seen before, where the pilots are desperately trying to save as many people as they can before they run out of fuel - do you want the pilot who is open to the reality of the situation and constantly learning new things, or the pilot who confidently follows the nearest checklist without asking if it even works? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
      - angelzen 5y ago
        I merely expect said pilots to not pretend 'we are flying according to time tested FAA rules and regulations'.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    you're just writing nice frames that reveal your bias. a lot of people who questioned health authorities throughout this have been vindicated on various things, including the threat of COVID itself. similarly, the "good" tribe you highlight in a) has members who post things on the internet about "what is to be done" about the unvaccinated that would make your skin crawl. the reality is that there are many perspectives on many issues, and by bucketing things the way you have, you are re-enforcing bad mental models.
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > you're just writing nice frames that reveal your bias. a lot of people who questioned health authorities throughout this have been vindicated on various things, including the threat of COVID itself. I feel you're being disingenuous. I mean, where exactly do you see any "vindication" regarding the real threat of covid19 when in 2020 it was already the third leading cause of death in the US and it already overtook the 1918 flu as the deadliest pandemic[¹] ? This assertion is even more ridiculous given that those criticising the initial covid19 response tried to downplay it as nothing more than a harmless mild flu, and now we're seeing in the US alone over 700 thousand deaths. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/covid-19-is-now-the-deadliest-pandemic-in-us-history https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/covid-19-...
      - gfodor 5y ago
        The vindication I am referring to is the vindication of the people who were saying COVID-19 was dangerous in December of 2019. This group of people were told to calm down by the authorities and media. I know it's hard to remember, but it's important to not forget. If you recall, Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to go for a photoop in crowded SF Chinatown when the administration was calling for flights from China to be restricted, and Bill DeBlasio (of NYC mandate fame) was encouraging people to go out to the theater even after COVID was in the US. Here's one media article trying to frame tech people who were worried as overreacting: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fears-contagion-how-infection-spreads https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fe.... I believe this article has been quietly edited to undermine the claim that it was so, so wrong, but unfortunately I can't dig it up on the internet archive.
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    Let's rephrase your category b and see it it sticks: b) the tribe that reacts to any criticism of public health experts with hostility and threats of violence, pushes an anti-intellectual agenda, pushes pseudo-treatments that are at best not known to work or at worst a health hazard, and tries to fill in the gap between their beliefs and reality with conspiracy theories? Yep, fits like a glove and with that shows it is unwise to try to frame one of the sides of a polarised discussion. If you truly want to engage in a debate on such subjects the first thing to do is to leave your bias at the door, otherwise you'll only add fuel to the fire. Whether Ivermectin works or not is something which can be found out through the scientific (with a small 's') process, is it not up to 'The Science' to decide this upfront. If it does work this would be a good thing given the relative safety and low price of the preparation. If it does not work, well, that's too bad, hopefully something else will be found which does work while having the same advantages - safety and low price - as Ivermectin has.
    - mr_overalls 5y ago
      > the tribe that reacts to any criticism of public health experts with hostility and threats of violence. . . The thing with playing syntactic games like this is that your altered sentence. . . isn't actually true. The two sides in relation to COVID research and official guidelines actually do behave differently.
      - hagbard_c 5y ago
        It is as true as the parent version in the sense that neither are absolutely true and both contain a core of truth. Also, there are more than "two sides", it is actually part of the problem that people keep on insisting that everyone who is not "with my side" is "on the other side". The SARS2-related rhetoric has largely been turned into a live role playing version of Twitter with two camps shouting at each other.
  - chrismcb 5y ago
    Which side is which? Neither side has really followed the science. And it's not like the scientist concur. The CDC and who offered contradictory advice. In addition research isn't being done, some isn't even allowed. How is that science?
- tstrimple 5y ago
  You can try to "both sides" this, but it's explicitly one side opposing vaccines. One side pushing snake oil cures. One side saying the pandemic is a non-issue which only kills 1-3% of people as hundreds of thousands of their neighbors die painful deaths. Enlightened centrism is as bad as partisan ignorance here.
  - drnonsense42 5y ago
    [flagged]
  - gorwell 5y ago
    One side is blindly downplaying, the other is blindly catastrophizing as you have done here: "kills 1-3% of people as hundreds of thousands of their neighbors die painful deaths". It's clear what tribe you are in, just as it's clear what tribe they are in.
    - bananabreakfast 5y ago
      Dude. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from this. What are you talking about? Do you think these people just didn't exist?
      - throw10920 5y ago
        "Hundreds of thousands" according to an organization (the CDC) that has strong incentives to inflate the numbers, sourced from a disparate collection of doctors and hospitals that also have incentives to inflate the numbers, using squishy metrics for whether the death was caused by COVID or not. Nobody sane thinks that a lot of people haven't died from COVID - but it should be common sense that you should be careful when an organization or individual has an incentive to alter data. As to GP's main point, separately from whether the official numbers are correct, there are ways that you can take the same data and "spin" it - the "blindly catastrophizing" mentioned. For instance, using "six hundred thousand" - the official number of all-time deaths - instead of the number of yearly deaths. You can also tactfully omit contextual information - for instance, COVID was the third leading cause of death in the US for 2020[1], making up only about 11% of the total, and close to half of the next leading cause, cancer (345k vs. 598k). [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - gfodor 5y ago
      Also don't forget, many of the people you mention were the OG COVID deniers, when claims that it was dangerous were being painted as being rooted in xenophobia. Easy to forget because it was at the tail end of the Before Times. Edit: Also, saying Trump suggested "injecting bleach" is a sign someone has been subjected to propaganda. You will not find that statement, and when it is pointed out, the person will backtrack claiming they obviously didn't mean it literally, but that must have been what he meant when he used the term "disinfectant."
    - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
      Most of the issues you highlighted are done from an abundance of caution and cause no harm, like pushing masking outdoors. Meanwhile, the other side pushes an agenda that actively encourages more infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. The pushing of vaccinating children is misunderstood. Yes, children generally do very well with COVID. But the vaccine is effective at slowing the spread. When children are vaccinated, it doesn't just protect them, but protects all the adults they interact with. > pushed policies which forced infected elderly people back into nursing homes where they subsequently infected others [citation needed] as I haven't heard of this. > keeps on treating SARS2 as if it is possible to get rid of the disease by vaccinating the entire population while it has become clear that a) vaccinated people can still catch the disease and spread it to others and b) it will be around for a long time, just like influenza is still with us. The claim that "vaccinated people can still catch the disease and spread it to others" is misleading because it carries the implication that the vaccine does nothing. It's akin to claiming we don't need seat belts in cars because you can still die in a car crash. A literal interpretation of the sentence is technically correct, but it's still a fact that vaccines significantly reduce the likelihood of symptoms, hospitalization, and death, and also shorten the duration in which you are contagious. > it will be around for a long time, just like influenza is still with us. Nobody has claimed otherwise. The problem is that your last two arguments are somehow being used as reasons to not vaccinate, which I don't understand. It essentially boils down to "The vaccine isn't 100% effective, so why bother?". The goal is not to eliminate hospitalizations and death, but to significantly reduce them, which the vaccines do.
- drnonsense42 5y ago
  Gee, wonder who could possibly be downvoting you and what their “beliefs” are /s
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Probably both tribes, which are strongly attached to one or the other narrative, and thus both wrong according to the parent comment. I'm personally pretty attached to the "traditional" narrative, but I gave that comment an upvote because I tend to agree that lacking nuance and self sorting into tribes has been among our most deadly failures this whole time.
    - drnonsense42 5y ago
      Except the Alex Jones tribe isn’t on HN. I’m leaning towards the tye-dye-hair-babies-cause-global-warming tribe.
      - sanderjd 5y ago
        They 100% are. I see comments from those (you?) folks all the time.
        drnonsense42 5y ago
        Thankfully, they actually are not. Then again, I know there's a broad group of delusional liberal that thinks any republican is a neo-nazi. Maybe you have those glasses on when you see posts outside of your bubble?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- im3w1l 5y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Trump has said to take the vaccine but his "followers" don't trust him. Meanwhile minorities who are supposed to be in the other tribe are also taking the vaccine in lesser numbers. Because they don't trust the Democrat authorities. A better fitting narrative is class. The bottom half of society is distrustful of the top half.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    It's always been about class. But the race narrative is easier for the CNNs/Fox News to sell. When it's about class, people start talking too much about people who have money, and the execs don't like that.
- geofft 5y ago
  The point of science is to determine what is true. The entire idea of scientific research relies on the premise that objective truth exists, that causes cause effects, that if a process works a certain way today that it works that way tomorrow. The natural result is that you get two diametrically opposed narratives - truth and falsehood. And it is certainly not the case that simply because the two narratives are opposed that they are of equal merit. Your job is to pick the truth. The truth is not where it is because of anyone's political beliefs. The truth is where it is because it is true. Your political beliefs can (and should) change to follow the truth. Or you can compromise between truth and falsehood, and end up at falsehood. I am certainly not claiming that either "tribe" has been perfect at sticking with truth - but it's clear that the truth is not in the middle. Where both "tribes" have erred and killed, it has been when they were not extreme enough in the pursuit of truth and instead incentivized by political expedience.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Broadly speaking, a wide variety of people have proven themselves incapable of evolving in light of the evolution of scientific evidence. Morons in California masking children outside in 90 degree weather are just as guilty of this as those who claim the vaccines are poison. The fact that we have now put ourselves in a position where we have to defer to idiotic bureaucrats in government to point us at what we should do and who we should be angry at for disobeying implies bad times are ahead.
    - geofft 5y ago
      I don't think I agree with you about the scientific evidence of those two positions. Masking children outside in 90-degree weather (especially with cloth masks instead of medical ones) may be ineffective, but it is harmless, modulo speculation about children's need to recognize faces etc. It doesn't impact breathing capacity or anything, and it certainly doesn't put you at more risk of getting the virus. Claims that the vaccines are poison are not only actively wrong but actively dangerous. Adopting this position, i.e., refusing to get the vaccine, puts you at risk. I understand a whole lot of people are offended by people wearing masks outside. That's fine! It's a free country, you can be offended by whatever you want. But the claim that it is contraindicated by science just as much as the anti-vax position is ludicrous.
in_cahoots 5y ago
As an ex-scientist, I’m sad to say this is true of most research. It starts in grad school- your research is most likely going to advance an agenda set by your professor. Then when you apply for a post-doc your network consists of collaborators who think like your professor and are more familiar with your work. Same thing with applying for a tenure-track position. In my sub-field I could tell what line of thought a paper was going to advance just by reading the list of schools that the authors came from. The idea of the pioneering research who establishes a reputation through novel work and rigorous experiments is mostly a myth. You advance when your peers like your work, which creates all the wrong incentives.
- im3w1l 5y ago
  I'm sure you are right, but it would seem to me that those agendas are usually so much insider baseball that it doesn't really harm the public.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    Usually isn't much good if you let something like thalidomide slip through.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      The less than stellar public policies that have come to us as a result of circle jerks within the fields of sociology and criminal justice (and others) are probably better examples.
      - shadilay 5y ago
        Better but less obvious.
- gadders 5y ago
  That's the thing when people say "Trust the science." Yes, the scientific method is absolutely the best way to advance human knowledge. However, like any process mediated by humans its administration is fallible.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
belter 5y ago
Not as depressing, as this thread being currently flagged on HN...
SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
You speak of "teams" in a way that implies there are two sides equally unbased, equally mindlessly driven just by team mentality. In this misguided rhetoric, you equate all the scientists driven by data at one side, with the snake oil salesmen driven by whatever on the other; as if both sides were equally wrong for defending their position. The thing is, when we didn't know if those drugs worked or not, all scientists were jumping at the chance of studding them, after all, there is a lot of clout to be have by finding a cure, there were no teams. But after the results came out and certain drugs have shown to not have a significant effect, then the serious scientists moved own (or wanted to move on), but formation of the "team snake oil" to go against the data means that scientists have to keep repeating themselves debunking things that we already know don't work.
- pandaman 5y ago
  As they used to say in the USSR: "Our brave scouts thwarted cowardly enemy spies". If you were on the other team then your designation of "data driven scientists" and "snake oil salesmen" had been opposite and you would be as sure in your point of view as you are now.

by gfodor 5y ago

zarkov99 5y ago

Its so f*ing dumb. The greatest killer in this pandemic has been our idiotic conformance to one of the two equally imbecilic but diametrically opposed narrative tribes. What a shameful state for such a great nation to find it self in.

nuerow 5y ago
[flagged]
- angelzen 5y ago
  A candid quote from a virologist in a recent Nature covid paper: "We’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure this stuff out." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02795-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02795-x
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > A candid quote from a virologist in a recent Nature covid paper: "We’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure this stuff out." I really don't know what you were trying to say. The article you linked was about how those who have previously recovered from COVID-19 have a stronger immune response after being vaccinated than those who have never been infected.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      It is not a partisan point in favor of one course of action or another. Though not surprising that it is read as one. We have barely started to understand long term implications of covid infection, mRNA / classic vaccines or various treatments. For example, we are almost a year after mass vaccination campaigns started. We still don't know if/how many boosters are required for optimal vaccine performance. Nobody can cite 5-year effectiveness number for mRNA vaccines, which are by far the most popular vaccines in the West. This should raise red flags to any critically thinking person. By necessity, we are operating in "faith" mode. And that's ok. Often times faith is a good enough action guide.
      - gfodor 5y ago
        We are operating on faith mode, but authoritarians are treating the situation increasingly as though we aren't. If you have to take a drug that still be proven to hurt specific subpopulations (as any drug could fairly be expected to in eg phase 4 trials) to get a job or go to the store, something is very wrong.
      - nuerow 5y ago
        > We have barely started to understand long term implications of covid infection (...) I fail to see the point of your remark, as it reads like a non-sequitur. I mean, the discussion was about the difference between those who listen to public health experts and the anti-intellectual covid denialists/anti-masks/anti-vaxers. Where do epistomological arguments lend any credence to anti-intellectual militants that try to counter science and public health safeguards with conspiracy theories?
        angelzen 5y ago
        What is the 5 year effectiveness of the Pfizer covid vaccine? Please break it down by infection / symptomatic disease / hospitalization / death, then by age group, then compare it with a sizable unvaccinated control group.
        5y ago
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Relevance? Also, are there other procedures to be employed on a _novel_ virus pandemic? Doesn't the "novel" part literally mean "it's new to us and needs figuring out" ?
    - gfodor 5y ago
      One big problem is that that the CDC and other authorities failed miserably at reminding the public that their guidance was often based on weak, but directional evidence. The net result given other dynamics was people taking it to be gospel or bullshit, and when reversals occurred it was memory holed by the former and taken as vindication by the latter.
  - geofft 5y ago
    I am guessing you're trying to say that "flying by the seat of our pants" is somehow bad. (Maybe you're not and that sentence is just too short for me to understand what you mean, in which case I apologize.) But to expand this analogy, if you're in a plane in conditions nobody has seen before, where the pilots are desperately trying to save as many people as they can before they run out of fuel - do you want the pilot who is open to the reality of the situation and constantly learning new things, or the pilot who confidently follows the nearest checklist without asking if it even works? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
    - angelzen 5y ago
      I merely expect said pilots to not pretend 'we are flying according to time tested FAA rules and regulations'.
- gfodor 5y ago
  you're just writing nice frames that reveal your bias. a lot of people who questioned health authorities throughout this have been vindicated on various things, including the threat of COVID itself. similarly, the "good" tribe you highlight in a) has members who post things on the internet about "what is to be done" about the unvaccinated that would make your skin crawl. the reality is that there are many perspectives on many issues, and by bucketing things the way you have, you are re-enforcing bad mental models.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > you're just writing nice frames that reveal your bias. a lot of people who questioned health authorities throughout this have been vindicated on various things, including the threat of COVID itself. I feel you're being disingenuous. I mean, where exactly do you see any "vindication" regarding the real threat of covid19 when in 2020 it was already the third leading cause of death in the US and it already overtook the 1918 flu as the deadliest pandemic[¹] ? This assertion is even more ridiculous given that those criticising the initial covid19 response tried to downplay it as nothing more than a harmless mild flu, and now we're seeing in the US alone over 700 thousand deaths. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/covid-19-is-now-the-deadliest-pandemic-in-us-history https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/covid-19-...
    - gfodor 5y ago
      The vindication I am referring to is the vindication of the people who were saying COVID-19 was dangerous in December of 2019. This group of people were told to calm down by the authorities and media. I know it's hard to remember, but it's important to not forget. If you recall, Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to go for a photoop in crowded SF Chinatown when the administration was calling for flights from China to be restricted, and Bill DeBlasio (of NYC mandate fame) was encouraging people to go out to the theater even after COVID was in the US. Here's one media article trying to frame tech people who were worried as overreacting: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fears-contagion-how-infection-spreads https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fe.... I believe this article has been quietly edited to undermine the claim that it was so, so wrong, but unfortunately I can't dig it up on the internet archive.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  Let's rephrase your category b and see it it sticks: b) the tribe that reacts to any criticism of public health experts with hostility and threats of violence, pushes an anti-intellectual agenda, pushes pseudo-treatments that are at best not known to work or at worst a health hazard, and tries to fill in the gap between their beliefs and reality with conspiracy theories? Yep, fits like a glove and with that shows it is unwise to try to frame one of the sides of a polarised discussion. If you truly want to engage in a debate on such subjects the first thing to do is to leave your bias at the door, otherwise you'll only add fuel to the fire. Whether Ivermectin works or not is something which can be found out through the scientific (with a small 's') process, is it not up to 'The Science' to decide this upfront. If it does work this would be a good thing given the relative safety and low price of the preparation. If it does not work, well, that's too bad, hopefully something else will be found which does work while having the same advantages - safety and low price - as Ivermectin has.
  - mr_overalls 5y ago
    > the tribe that reacts to any criticism of public health experts with hostility and threats of violence. . . The thing with playing syntactic games like this is that your altered sentence. . . isn't actually true. The two sides in relation to COVID research and official guidelines actually do behave differently.
    - hagbard_c 5y ago
      It is as true as the parent version in the sense that neither are absolutely true and both contain a core of truth. Also, there are more than "two sides", it is actually part of the problem that people keep on insisting that everyone who is not "with my side" is "on the other side". The SARS2-related rhetoric has largely been turned into a live role playing version of Twitter with two camps shouting at each other.
- chrismcb 5y ago
  Which side is which? Neither side has really followed the science. And it's not like the scientist concur. The CDC and who offered contradictory advice. In addition research isn't being done, some isn't even allowed. How is that science?
tstrimple 5y ago
You can try to "both sides" this, but it's explicitly one side opposing vaccines. One side pushing snake oil cures. One side saying the pandemic is a non-issue which only kills 1-3% of people as hundreds of thousands of their neighbors die painful deaths. Enlightened centrism is as bad as partisan ignorance here.
- drnonsense42 5y ago
  [flagged]
- gorwell 5y ago
  One side is blindly downplaying, the other is blindly catastrophizing as you have done here: "kills 1-3% of people as hundreds of thousands of their neighbors die painful deaths". It's clear what tribe you are in, just as it's clear what tribe they are in.
  - bananabreakfast 5y ago
    Dude. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from this. What are you talking about? Do you think these people just didn't exist?
    - throw10920 5y ago
      "Hundreds of thousands" according to an organization (the CDC) that has strong incentives to inflate the numbers, sourced from a disparate collection of doctors and hospitals that also have incentives to inflate the numbers, using squishy metrics for whether the death was caused by COVID or not. Nobody sane thinks that a lot of people haven't died from COVID - but it should be common sense that you should be careful when an organization or individual has an incentive to alter data. As to GP's main point, separately from whether the official numbers are correct, there are ways that you can take the same data and "spin" it - the "blindly catastrophizing" mentioned. For instance, using "six hundred thousand" - the official number of all-time deaths - instead of the number of yearly deaths. You can also tactfully omit contextual information - for instance, COVID was the third leading cause of death in the US for 2020[1], making up only about 11% of the total, and close to half of the next leading cause, cancer (345k vs. 598k). [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
[flagged]
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Also don't forget, many of the people you mention were the OG COVID deniers, when claims that it was dangerous were being painted as being rooted in xenophobia. Easy to forget because it was at the tail end of the Before Times. Edit: Also, saying Trump suggested "injecting bleach" is a sign someone has been subjected to propaganda. You will not find that statement, and when it is pointed out, the person will backtrack claiming they obviously didn't mean it literally, but that must have been what he meant when he used the term "disinfectant."
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    Most of the issues you highlighted are done from an abundance of caution and cause no harm, like pushing masking outdoors. Meanwhile, the other side pushes an agenda that actively encourages more infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. The pushing of vaccinating children is misunderstood. Yes, children generally do very well with COVID. But the vaccine is effective at slowing the spread. When children are vaccinated, it doesn't just protect them, but protects all the adults they interact with. > pushed policies which forced infected elderly people back into nursing homes where they subsequently infected others [citation needed] as I haven't heard of this. > keeps on treating SARS2 as if it is possible to get rid of the disease by vaccinating the entire population while it has become clear that a) vaccinated people can still catch the disease and spread it to others and b) it will be around for a long time, just like influenza is still with us. The claim that "vaccinated people can still catch the disease and spread it to others" is misleading because it carries the implication that the vaccine does nothing. It's akin to claiming we don't need seat belts in cars because you can still die in a car crash. A literal interpretation of the sentence is technically correct, but it's still a fact that vaccines significantly reduce the likelihood of symptoms, hospitalization, and death, and also shorten the duration in which you are contagious. > it will be around for a long time, just like influenza is still with us. Nobody has claimed otherwise. The problem is that your last two arguments are somehow being used as reasons to not vaccinate, which I don't understand. It essentially boils down to "The vaccine isn't 100% effective, so why bother?". The goal is not to eliminate hospitalizations and death, but to significantly reduce them, which the vaccines do.
drnonsense42 5y ago
Gee, wonder who could possibly be downvoting you and what their “beliefs” are /s
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Probably both tribes, which are strongly attached to one or the other narrative, and thus both wrong according to the parent comment. I'm personally pretty attached to the "traditional" narrative, but I gave that comment an upvote because I tend to agree that lacking nuance and self sorting into tribes has been among our most deadly failures this whole time.
  - drnonsense42 5y ago
    Except the Alex Jones tribe isn’t on HN. I’m leaning towards the tye-dye-hair-babies-cause-global-warming tribe.
    - sanderjd 5y ago
      They 100% are. I see comments from those (you?) folks all the time.
      - drnonsense42 5y ago
        Thankfully, they actually are not. Then again, I know there's a broad group of delusional liberal that thinks any republican is a neo-nazi. Maybe you have those glasses on when you see posts outside of your bubble?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
im3w1l 5y ago
It's more complicated than that. Trump has said to take the vaccine but his "followers" don't trust him. Meanwhile minorities who are supposed to be in the other tribe are also taking the vaccine in lesser numbers. Because they don't trust the Democrat authorities. A better fitting narrative is class. The bottom half of society is distrustful of the top half.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  It's always been about class. But the race narrative is easier for the CNNs/Fox News to sell. When it's about class, people start talking too much about people who have money, and the execs don't like that.
geofft 5y ago
The point of science is to determine what is true. The entire idea of scientific research relies on the premise that objective truth exists, that causes cause effects, that if a process works a certain way today that it works that way tomorrow. The natural result is that you get two diametrically opposed narratives - truth and falsehood. And it is certainly not the case that simply because the two narratives are opposed that they are of equal merit. Your job is to pick the truth. The truth is not where it is because of anyone's political beliefs. The truth is where it is because it is true. Your political beliefs can (and should) change to follow the truth. Or you can compromise between truth and falsehood, and end up at falsehood. I am certainly not claiming that either "tribe" has been perfect at sticking with truth - but it's clear that the truth is not in the middle. Where both "tribes" have erred and killed, it has been when they were not extreme enough in the pursuit of truth and instead incentivized by political expedience.
- gfodor 5y ago
  Broadly speaking, a wide variety of people have proven themselves incapable of evolving in light of the evolution of scientific evidence. Morons in California masking children outside in 90 degree weather are just as guilty of this as those who claim the vaccines are poison. The fact that we have now put ourselves in a position where we have to defer to idiotic bureaucrats in government to point us at what we should do and who we should be angry at for disobeying implies bad times are ahead.
  - geofft 5y ago
    I don't think I agree with you about the scientific evidence of those two positions. Masking children outside in 90-degree weather (especially with cloth masks instead of medical ones) may be ineffective, but it is harmless, modulo speculation about children's need to recognize faces etc. It doesn't impact breathing capacity or anything, and it certainly doesn't put you at more risk of getting the virus. Claims that the vaccines are poison are not only actively wrong but actively dangerous. Adopting this position, i.e., refusing to get the vaccine, puts you at risk. I understand a whole lot of people are offended by people wearing masks outside. That's fine! It's a free country, you can be offended by whatever you want. But the claim that it is contraindicated by science just as much as the anti-vax position is ludicrous.

in_cahoots 5y ago

As an ex-scientist, I’m sad to say this is true of most research. It starts in grad school- your research is most likely going to advance an agenda set by your professor. Then when you apply for a post-doc your network consists of collaborators who think like your professor and are more familiar with your work. Same thing with applying for a tenure-track position. In my sub-field I could tell what line of thought a paper was going to advance just by reading the list of schools that the authors came from. The idea of the pioneering research who establishes a reputation through novel work and rigorous experiments is mostly a myth. You advance when your peers like your work, which creates all the wrong incentives.

im3w1l 5y ago
I'm sure you are right, but it would seem to me that those agendas are usually so much insider baseball that it doesn't really harm the public.
- shadilay 5y ago
  Usually isn't much good if you let something like thalidomide slip through.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The less than stellar public policies that have come to us as a result of circle jerks within the fields of sociology and criminal justice (and others) are probably better examples.
    - shadilay 5y ago
      Better but less obvious.
gadders 5y ago
That's the thing when people say "Trust the science." Yes, the scientific method is absolutely the best way to advance human knowledge. However, like any process mediated by humans its administration is fallible.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

belter 5y ago

Not as depressing, as this thread being currently flagged on HN...

SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago

You speak of "teams" in a way that implies there are two sides equally unbased, equally mindlessly driven just by team mentality. In this misguided rhetoric, you equate all the scientists driven by data at one side, with the snake oil salesmen driven by whatever on the other; as if both sides were equally wrong for defending their position. The thing is, when we didn't know if those drugs worked or not, all scientists were jumping at the chance of studding them, after all, there is a lot of clout to be have by finding a cure, there were no teams. But after the results came out and certain drugs have shown to not have a significant effect, then the serious scientists moved own (or wanted to move on), but formation of the "team snake oil" to go against the data means that scientists have to keep repeating themselves debunking things that we already know don't work.

pandaman 5y ago
As they used to say in the USSR: "Our brave scouts thwarted cowardly enemy spies". If you were on the other team then your designation of "data driven scientists" and "snake oil salesmen" had been opposite and you would be as sure in your point of view as you are now.