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The editor at The Lancet Richard Horton was extremely vocal in his views over Covid and skewed quite political. He wasn’t arguing from specific research, just

The editor at The Lancet Richard Horton was extremely vocal in his views over Covid and skewed quite political. He wasn’t arguing from specific research, just using his platform for ask for more of what he wanted. If anything, he should have been publicising what the actual science said. Now when I see the name The Lancet, I just see how science can also be politicised and operate at the whims of big business. Covid times destroyed trust in so many institutions.

ramraj07 4y ago
What did he say that was against actual science? Do you have any citations?
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  I didn’t say he was anti-science, but I don’t believe he should be saying stuff like this as the editor of a prestigious scientific journal: “ Horton’s The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop it Happening Again (2020) has managed to stand out for its sharp polemic (Knight 2020). Horton denounces Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) as a crime against humanity and accuses Boris Johnson of misconduct in public office.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7383067/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7383067/ Note his book was written in 2020 so before he even had much science, let alone formed a scientifically rigorous view. Is it right that science at the highest levels is so politicised?
  - doesnotexist 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - weberer 4y ago
      He never advocated injecting bleach.
      - doesnotexist 4y ago
        "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing, And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."
        Akronymus 4y ago
        That reads as "I don't know if this is viable, so let me ask the experts" to me. Rather than advocacy.
        doesnotexist 4y ago
        Another reading might be inhaling bleach
        Akronymus 4y ago
        To me, that reading requires assuming bad faith.
      - roenxi 4y ago
        Nobody ever advocated injecting bleach. Blowing up one off-the-cuff remark is all fun and games in politics, but it was never a policy. The policy was lockdowns, restrictions and Operation Warp Speed. The man did enough that was actually objectionable, people shouldn't feel a need to make up silly stuff.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      Top medical journal editor, eh? Why not ask the man himself what he thinks about that? "We know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong." -- Richard Horton "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." -- Richard Horton When a man who runs a scientific journal estimates that maybe half of what he publishes "may simply be untrue", it seems reasonable to conclude that maybe that journal isn't (or shouldn't be) a top journal. You could also ask how he allowed that situation to develop, because that would be a worse track record than even the dodgiest of newspapers. In case you think he's really far out on that self-judgement: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine." -- Marcia Angell By the way, Horton's justification for why leaving the WHO would be bad was nothing to do with science. He said: "President Trump’s decision to defund WHO is simply this—a crime against humanity. Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity." Betraying global solidarity is not a part of the scientific process, it's a political concept.
      - doesnotexist 4y ago
        Turns out you can be critical of a system, see it’s imperfections and not throw the baby out with the bath water. A pandemic by definition is a global problem.
  - danaris 4y ago
    "No, no, the science backs him; he's actually totally right, I just think that prominent people shouldn't say things that are politically controversial. What? Yeah, I know that it's only controversial because one of the two major political parties has decided its primary platform will be to deny reality, so what?"
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    Still trying to understand what was wrong.
derstander 4y ago
> Covid times destroyed trust in so many institutions. I don’t dispute the negative impact of the pandemic on trust in many institutions. And I won’t speak to the broader world, but Americans’ trust in our institutions has been taking a beaten since long before the pandemic. Pew Research Center has written about trust in government over time. We seem to be asymptotically approaching some lower bound rather than seeing a sharp drop. [1] I remember reading about declining trust of Americans in our institutions more broadly but without digging through my notebooks I’m not certain precisely where. My guesses would be either Watt’s “Mortal Republic”, Lukianoff’s “The Coddling of the American Mind”, or maybe Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”. Someone with better recall than I have would probably know. I think the pandemic is more of a “straw that broke the camel’s back” rather than a fundamental driver of mistrust. I mostly bring this up because I don’t think focusing on the side effects of public policy with regard to the pandemic will solve the broader and more deep-seated issues about our trust in our institutions. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust...
- kcplate 4y ago
  The pandemic (in terms of public health institutions) and recent apparent scandals demonstrating an apparent political bend in the justice system have really accelerated the distrust IMO. Strangely, I think a small segment has grown more and more trusting of government because of the pandemic and some of the institutional scandals. Those now trusting the government seem to have risen to the level of being apologists…almost zealots…and that is really odd to me being on the other side of that coin.

ramraj07 4y ago

What did he say that was against actual science? Do you have any citations?

benjaminwootton 4y ago
I didn’t say he was anti-science, but I don’t believe he should be saying stuff like this as the editor of a prestigious scientific journal: “ Horton’s The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop it Happening Again (2020) has managed to stand out for its sharp polemic (Knight 2020). Horton denounces Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) as a crime against humanity and accuses Boris Johnson of misconduct in public office.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7383067/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7383067/ Note his book was written in 2020 so before he even had much science, let alone formed a scientifically rigorous view. Is it right that science at the highest levels is so politicised?
- doesnotexist 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - weberer 4y ago
    He never advocated injecting bleach.
    - doesnotexist 4y ago
      "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing, And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."
      - Akronymus 4y ago
        That reads as "I don't know if this is viable, so let me ask the experts" to me. Rather than advocacy.
        doesnotexist 4y ago
        Another reading might be inhaling bleach
        Akronymus 4y ago
        To me, that reading requires assuming bad faith.
    - roenxi 4y ago
      Nobody ever advocated injecting bleach. Blowing up one off-the-cuff remark is all fun and games in politics, but it was never a policy. The policy was lockdowns, restrictions and Operation Warp Speed. The man did enough that was actually objectionable, people shouldn't feel a need to make up silly stuff.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    Top medical journal editor, eh? Why not ask the man himself what he thinks about that? "We know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong." -- Richard Horton "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." -- Richard Horton When a man who runs a scientific journal estimates that maybe half of what he publishes "may simply be untrue", it seems reasonable to conclude that maybe that journal isn't (or shouldn't be) a top journal. You could also ask how he allowed that situation to develop, because that would be a worse track record than even the dodgiest of newspapers. In case you think he's really far out on that self-judgement: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine." -- Marcia Angell By the way, Horton's justification for why leaving the WHO would be bad was nothing to do with science. He said: "President Trump’s decision to defund WHO is simply this—a crime against humanity. Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity." Betraying global solidarity is not a part of the scientific process, it's a political concept.
    - doesnotexist 4y ago
      Turns out you can be critical of a system, see it’s imperfections and not throw the baby out with the bath water. A pandemic by definition is a global problem.
- danaris 4y ago
  "No, no, the science backs him; he's actually totally right, I just think that prominent people shouldn't say things that are politically controversial. What? Yeah, I know that it's only controversial because one of the two major political parties has decided its primary platform will be to deny reality, so what?"
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Still trying to understand what was wrong.

derstander 4y ago

> Covid times destroyed trust in so many institutions. I don’t dispute the negative impact of the pandemic on trust in many institutions. And I won’t speak to the broader world, but Americans’ trust in our institutions has been taking a beaten since long before the pandemic. Pew Research Center has written about trust in government over time. We seem to be asymptotically approaching some lower bound rather than seeing a sharp drop. [1] I remember reading about declining trust of Americans in our institutions more broadly but without digging through my notebooks I’m not certain precisely where. My guesses would be either Watt’s “Mortal Republic”, Lukianoff’s “The Coddling of the American Mind”, or maybe Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”. Someone with better recall than I have would probably know. I think the pandemic is more of a “straw that broke the camel’s back” rather than a fundamental driver of mistrust. I mostly bring this up because I don’t think focusing on the side effects of public policy with regard to the pandemic will solve the broader and more deep-seated issues about our trust in our institutions. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust...

kcplate 4y ago
The pandemic (in terms of public health institutions) and recent apparent scandals demonstrating an apparent political bend in the justice system have really accelerated the distrust IMO. Strangely, I think a small segment has grown more and more trusting of government because of the pandemic and some of the institutional scandals. Those now trusting the government seem to have risen to the level of being apologists…almost zealots…and that is really odd to me being on the other side of that coin.