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There is so much of this, through many fields of science today. Incentives that corrupt and undermine the scientific method. And yet, many people will deny th

• JulianMorrison 4y ago
  A big part of the problem is things moving so fast that a lot of stuff doesn't have a long run. Covid and its vaccines being an example. In the end the reason to trust them was a mix of "if not this, then what?" and "it doesn't seem to be killing people".
  • fabian2k 4y ago
    We have a lot of really good evidence that the vaccines are preventing a lot of deaths.
    • ncmncm 4y ago
      It has been unfortunately necessary to downplay cases of debilitation and, even, death apparently traceable to vaccination. If vaccination saves the lives of a hundred times as many people as it harms, in the "trolley" sense, that should be good enough, but in popular imagination it is not. Rational treatment might enable identifying individuals particularly at risk and not vaccinating those, but that option is closed to us. Instead, a random, suspicious fraction of the population pays particular attention to negative outcomes and avoids vaccination, to its detriment, and most of those at risk for problems get vaccinated anyway.
      • ta8645 4y ago
        > It has been unfortunately necessary to downplay cases of debilitation I don't think it was necessary at all, and instead is very counterproductive. Many people know they're not being dealt with honestly by the government and media, resulting in more distrust and resistance to vaccination, than there otherwise would be.
        • ncmncm 4y ago
          The number of deaths would objectively be larger if people had access to accurate numbers, because even more would avoid vaccination and then die of the infection vaccinated against. It is a tragic calculus. "Trolley Problems" are very far from theoretical in public health management. We are forced by distrust to sub-optimal choices that themselves promote distrust. Managing risk of a better population would be easier, but you battle pandemic in the population you have, not the population you want.
          • jtbayly 4y ago
            You state confidently that deaths would be higher, but you gave no evidence for that. I believe you are wrong. The lies confirm to all that we should not trust you. Assuming you have any ability to recommend things that will actually save lives, in the long term proving yourself a liar will only lead to fewer people believing you and taking your advice. So tell the truth, build trust, and let people decide for themselves. That will save lives in the long run.
            • Dylan16807 4y ago
              Downplaying isn't lying, and categorizing people into those that tell the truth and those that don't tell the truth is a stupid way of assessing anything important.
              • jtbayly 4y ago
                Lying about the risks is lying, regardless of what ends you think will justify the means. But even if you disagree, let’s talk about your claim that categorizing into two groups is stupid. Think from the citizen’s perspective of the CDC. The question is, “Do I trust them enough to take health advice from them?” If they have lied to you too many times about things that are important enough, the answer is no way. I never implied all that this lying group said was lies. Obviously one lie wipes out thousands of truths. Trust is gone. Listening stops.
                • 4y ago
      • upwardbound 4y ago
        Could someone in this thread please cite the alluded to cases of disability or death caused by one of the COVID vaccines? It would be helpful if people can be specific. I'd like to understand (1) whether this really happened or is a myth (2) which vaccine and (3) what's the biological mechanism of damage.
        • pawsforthought 4y ago
          I can’t do as you ask, except to say that vaccine skeptics will point to any and every health problem in a vaccine recipient they know as having been caused by the vaccine. (I’ve found that) it’s very difficult to counter that anecdata.
        • ncmncm 4y ago
          Anytime you inject biochemically active stuff into billions of people, there will necessarily be some actual bad reactions mixed into a large number of events that would have happened regardless, or that anyway had nothing to do with the stuff injected. And, some people will get in car accidents on the way home from the clinic, that would not have happened if they didn't go. People who get in line are exposed to random pathogens others in line are distributing, and to any pathogens injected via insect bites in that place. People who do not get vaccinated are subject to similar risks, but are not counted. Playing up these numbers does nobody honest any good.
    • fithisux 4y ago
      We have excellent evidence that the amyloid hypothesis is valid. Otherwise you get no grant (enter the clothing shop). This is sarcasm of course.
• theduder99 4y ago
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• ncmncm 4y ago
  We cannot be confident that "science usually" overcomes faulty models. The best we can say is that science has often been seen to succeed at this, in well publicized cases. Many less visible fields might never overcome their biases. Usually a field cannot correct course until a whole generation trained on a false premise dies or retires. Economics is a field that has been particularly resistant to correction, but is far from alone. Geology and statistics are recovering from a similar handicap. As Max Planck is often quoted, "Science advances one funeral at a time." Often vindication is finally delivered only after all the opponents are dead, and the ultimate victor has retired from a career blighted by them. Probably much more often people are driven out of the field and never vindicated. Lynn Conway was driven out of computer architecture (where she invented out-of-order execution in the '60s, thus long delaying that advance) before finding success many years later in VLSI chip design methods.