8 ms·

Turning Joe Rogan down was the right thing to do

44 points by Anon84 3y ago

Gnarl 3y ago
Erhm, and the "letter to the editor" and response comments on published science papers... they should all be scrapped now? Debate is what moves science along. What about that, does the distinguished Vox author not understand??
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  Not debate with people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Debate moves science along, but it's debate between people with many years (or even decades) of scientific training. This debate mainly occurs in print, and is based on rigorous analysis of data. The "spectators" are also experts, and basically everyone involved agrees that the debate will be adjudicated by the data in the end. The kind of debate that would occur on Joe Rogan's podcast would be very different. First of all, one of the participants would have no scientific training at all. Second, it would basically come down to who could score the better rhetorical points in the moment, in the eyes of a lay audience. This sort of debate has nothing to do with how science advances. There's huge value in explaining scientific knowledge to the public, so that it's not some complete mystery to them, particularly when it directly affects their lives. However, that's very different from hosting a "debate" between a scientist and an anti-vaxxer. This reminds me of the "teach the controversy" mantra that creationists in the US were heavily pushing a decade or two ago. The argument there was that children should be presented with evolution and creationism on equal footing, and should then decide for themselves which they find more convincing.
locustous 3y ago
People want questions they have answered instead of ignored. It's like a tone deaf corporation ignoring customer complaints while speaking platitudes about how much they care and how right they are.
version_five 3y ago
I agree that a debate between a scientist and politician is silly and doesn't lead to a good faith discussion, and that the "come and defend your position" argument is disingenuous in that context. From what I can see though, Hotez is advocating political positions and using "science" as a cover. Even if he has experience in the scientific part of it, if he wants to get into the politics, he needs to engage with it, he can't just hide and say "science!". Regardless, the debate would be stupid. The issue is not the science, it's the government overreach. It would be stupid to hear RFK debate the effectiveness of vaccines, and stupid to hear Hotez pontificate about why forced vaccination or lockdowns are ok. I'd personally rather see a debate about the politics between two qualified people that doesn't sink to invoking "science" as relevant.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  The problem is that the science became political when certain portions started advocating for things that weren't backed by science and had no fundamental groundwork of support. The six-foot rule literally came out of thin air.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    Not really though, the 6-foot rule was based on probability of transmission at various distances for airborne/droplet viruses. Perhaps it's too conservative, but all of this is probability-based. It's mostly been validated as we did studies and metastudies throughout the pandemic -- likely could have been reduced to 3 feet as we learned more but a "6-foot rule" tends to result in maybe 4 or 5 feet distances so the initial guidance seems okay: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - troyvit 3y ago
    I think it's more accurate to say it came out of air slightly thickened by a virus that nobody really understood. All of us are sitting back three years later pontificating on how science overstepped its boundaries, politics used it as a club, and/or screwballs rose to prominence with (sometimes) baseless conspiracy theories[1]. Here in 2023 we're acting like people engaged in these acts mainly with negative intent. I think rather we were a society that was a afraid and didn't know what to do. We made a ton of mistakes and a bunch of silly decisions. A lot of them killed people. Some of them might have changed an election. Many of them also saved lives. [1] Like the lab leak theory. To me that concept has legs.
onychomys 3y ago
The thing that Rogan/Musk/etc don't seem to realize is that scientists have debates literally every day, it's just that we do it in print, very slowly. There's just no way you could possibly sit around and think about what the data presented mean in real time.
- revelio 3y ago
  Hotez doesn't do that. He has a long track record of saying things, on video, that contradict prior things he's said, also on video. The reason he won't debate anyone is that he'd immediately be hung by his own words. Here's a video showing Hotez in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj6-QDVYbv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj6-QDVYbv8
  - ahahahahah 3y ago
    Is that honestly your strongest evidence? I'll save everyone the time, it's nothing spliced in with a bunch of super annoying unrelated clips, sound effects, and visual clutter.
- dekhn 3y ago
  Rogan and Musk could write a scientific paper expressing their beliefs- even funding scientists to carry out experiments possibly supporting their positions. I think it would be quite interesting to see a Rogan, Musk, et al paper.
  - equalsione 3y ago
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65981876 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65981876 This Elon Musk?
    - dekhn 3y ago
      Yep. I think it would expose just how weak his thinking is, if he were to write a scientific paper (even an opinion paper). But musk doesn't play in the science publication sphere. To him, that sphere is basically just a corrupt system for perpetuating power structures and it's easier for him to talk shit on twitter,.
adultSwim 3y ago
Platforming "controversial" guests is a great way to get clicks but can be quite dangerous. See hosts setting up debates with neo-nazi Nick Fuentes.
- adultsubhuman 3y ago
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EliRivers 3y ago
Debates are contests of speaking ability and skill in convincing. It's possible and expected for a skilled debater to win with a proposition that's clearly untrue. Debates are just absolutely the wrong tool for truth-discovery.
- nabla9 3y ago
  Adversarial collaboration is the way to solve disputes scientifically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration
  - b0sk 3y ago
    Not against gish-galloping. This is not a "scientific" dispute where there's 95% agreement and they disagree on the 5%. This is homeopathy cures cancer vs an oncologist.
  - rhinoceraptor 3y ago
    That's not what a debate is. A debate is a contrived conversation format where presenting evidence and countering the evidence of your opponent isn't really possible in real time.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  Scientists frequently engage in scientific debate with each other.
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    It's fine if done in good faith. Debating somebody like Kennedy is a losing proposition. He will bury you with a ton of nonsense that "feels right". Refuting every point takes way more time than you have in a debate.
  - athenot 3y ago
    Productive scientific debating is usually done in writing, or over long periods of time, not in entertainment-driven TV shows. It's unfortunate both are called "debating" but mean something very different.
aero-deck 3y ago
Cowardice.
- moate 3y ago
  Prudence. (See we can all make "pithy" one word comment in order to undermine attacks on our stance, but it's not really like, useful. I think this comment is actually cowardly as you seem to either be baiting someone else into counter-attacking what they perceive to be your stance and thus allowing yourself a chance to refute their assumptions prior to making your own claim, OR you're actually just afraid of wading into an actual debate and you're just throwing out a nothing virtue-signal. Either way, HN generally expects better)
jasmer 3y ago
[dead]
Solvency 3y ago
Give me a break. If what Robert F Kennedy said about the history of vaccines was wrong, someone can and should be able to refute it on the podcast in a conversation. The reality is, the things he said in the first hour of his episode were factual: Older vaccines with mercury WERE dangerous. Pharma/government WERE complicit in hiding and misrepresenting (and even lying) about said dangers. Vaccine manufacturers ARE federally protected against any and all civil action against them, yet there products are essentially mandatory for around 72 million children a year. There is a history that is worth discussing and examining here, even if society refuses to discuss the present for fear of being labeled "anti-vax". Vaccines can be a societally good thing, and corporations can also be profiteering machines. Two things can be relatively true at once.
- LatteLazy 3y ago
  >In spite of the scientific consensus that fears about its safety are unsubstantiated,[6][7][8][9] its use as a vaccine preservative has been called into question by anti-vaccination groups. A statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service in 1999 prompted the removal of thimerosal from many vaccines[1][10] It remains in use as a preservative for annual flu vaccines.[11] >Concerns based on extrapolations from methylmercury caused thiomersal to be removed from U.S. childhood vaccines, starting in 1999. Later it was reported that ethylmercury is eliminated from the body and the brain significantly faster than methylmercury, so the late-1990s risk assessments turned out to be overly conservative.[23] So the older vaccines were never dangerous... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal Edit: Also, the reason (some) vaccine makers get immunity (from some claims against them) is because the products are priced in the 1-10USD range, but the liabilities were in the 1-10 Mil-USD. No one could get liability insurance, so suppliers were exiting the market. So now the federal government (who also license the whole process and approve the vaccines) accept liability for faults not caused by improper handling etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
AbrahamParangi 3y ago
If there is one type of person you should: 1) Never debate 2) Never listen to 3) Never, ever trust unless you're the one paying them It is a trial lawyer. They do not follow the rules as you know them. They play to win. They're one step above mercenaries or pirates. Their entire job is to be convincing without necessarily being right. That's what they're paid to do.
- keernan 3y ago
  I was a civil trial lawyer for 45+ years (retired now). I couldn't disagree with your statement more. 1. In 99% of civil trials there was an opportunity for both lawyers to settle, but they decided their client would do better at trial. In every one of those trials, one of the lawyers was horribly wrong. That's the life of every trial lawyer. 2. The job of a trial lawyer is not "to be convincing without necessarily being right." The job of a trial lawyer is knowing which cases to try and which cases to settle. 3. Top trial lawyers know in advance when they have a winning case and when they have a losing case. And they don't try a losing case. They settle. Because the bottom line is: you try a losing case against me? I promise you the outcome. You are going to lose. Nobody tries a losing case against a top trial lawyer and wins. After I got my feet wet with several hundred non-jury small claims property damage cases, I then tried just under 75 jury trials and chancery cases. There is only one case that I lost (interesting story for another day). Not because I was Perry Mason. But because I was very good at knowing which cases to try and which to settle.
- vintermann 3y ago
  There are a lot more lawyers than that guy in politics though. I don't get what the fuss is about. Proper politicians believe lots of untenable things too. The difference is that they won't usually be confronted on it, if they are the journalist will be blacklisted as someone who clearly wants the other team to win. That is, if they're open about it at all. You can bet a lot of mainstream politicians, and maybe even more policemen, spies and government officials, believe in staring-at-goats level stuff. They just don't believe in the necessity or desirability of convincing the public of any of it. I expect that in the unlikely event RFK Jr. wins, maybe if Biden is unable to continue and they can't unify around anyone else - then RFK Jr. will quietly stop talking about fringe stuff like this, and the press will dutifully not bring it up anymore. He's from a political dynasty, he'll do the transfer to mainstream candidate just fine.
suzzer99 3y ago
Literally all RFK Jr. has to do is throw endless nonsense against the wall, doesn’t have to be consistent with itself, doesn’t have to come from real sources, and just trip up the PhD on one single issue. Then he can spike the football and claim victory. It’s an impossible setup. https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-know-your-covid-cribsheet/ https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-kno... Refute all 30 of these, NOW, and if you can’t then clearly you don’t know anything and RFK Jr. wins. When you’re done we got 30 more and basically an endless supply. Doesn’t matter if you prove 99 of them wrong. If you can’t prove one wrong during a live debate we claim victory. We don’t care if you show that our arguments are inconsistent with each other, and totally impugn one of our sources. We still expect you to refute endless nonsense from that same source. Because we’re debating in bad faith. You don’t ever get to grill JFK Jr., because he’s not the scientist, you are. It’s not a debate it’s an interrogation. Joe Rogan berated a primatologist for telling him that no, there is not a race of 6’ tall chimps who walk upright and sleep on the ground. These are not serious people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CvmS6uw7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CvmS6uw7E
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  NGT also does not like debates as he explains in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0B7ILBquRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0B7ILBquRo
- fnimick 3y ago
  You just described how right-wing "debate" works. There's a reason the most popular examples are Ben Shapiro going to a college campus and using rhetorical tricks to dunk on students who are prepared for an honest discussion, not intellectual subterfuge.
  - thebooktocome 3y ago
    This is also why Shapiro has cultivated the fine art of speaking in such a rapid-fire, grating tone. He wants listening carefully to him to be as uncomfortable as possible.
- deleted 3y ago
Neil44 3y ago
"According to an article on Vice..." She hasn't even listened to the podcast in question.
Graffur 3y ago
The public have been lied to repeatedly about covid-related subjects. The "experts" got exposed. I salute Joe Rogan for keeping the conversation alive.
- lilsoso 3y ago
  As an example, yesterday NYT published an op-ed flipping the narrative on the origin of Covid: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/opinion/covid-lab-leak-origins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/opinion/covid-lab-leak-or.... This is something you couldn't previously discuss (flagged as misinformation on platforms). Rogan was shunned for discussing it and now it's becoming acceptable.
  - Graffur 3y ago
    Upvoted you since you're starting going grey. People still try to silence the discussion on this for some reason.
  - kgwxd 3y ago
    Jon Stewart didn't get shunned for talking about it at the time. One might think it's just because he's lefty, but that's only partially true. It's specifically because he wasn't also giggling at the phrase like Kung-Flu, or attempting to give medical advice to anyone for anything, or entertaining countless conspiracy theories. He was also able to question mandates, and big pharma, and Fauci, and Biden because he has as a huge history of arguing in good-faith and doing proper interviews. Joe has a history of smoking weed, looking stonedily at his guests like they just made the most mind-blowing convincing arguments he's ever heard, no matter what they just said, then babbling endlessly without adding anything new to the discussion. I still watch both shows.
    - lilsoso 3y ago
      I think you've missed the point, and I've been downvoted for venturing to make it, nevertheless let's try the same point in a different light: ideas that were first widely broadcast (ie, before Jon Stewart) by perhaps a dangerous, irreverent, clown which were previously considered disinformation have now been accepted, at least in op-eds, by not only the WSJ ("wrong team") but now the "paper of record", the NYT ("correct team"). What happened?
kevinventullo 3y ago
Since I was a child, I have never been a fan of the debate format for determining truth. There’s a reason it’s a competitive pursuit in high school and college where people can excel regardless of which position they’re defending. It’s because debates don’t prove who’s right, they prove who’s better at debating.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  Debates aren't really about determining the truth. Or, for that matter, about winning. Debates are ideally ways to expose ideas, where they work and where they break, so that the audience can make better decisions. Debates are about the audience.
  - wellpast 3y ago
    100%. For COVID and other topics there is an unfortunately common mindset of "the public isn't smart enough to sort out truth and make up their own mind" which is patently incorrect and dangerous, really, because the people that tend to espouse this are either the experts that want to be deferred to or people willing to defer to experts out of fear or laziness or inability to contend with ambiguity.
lilsoso 3y ago
Bill Ackmann: "I was, however, mistaken in encouraging a debate between @RobertKennedyJr and @PeterHotez as based on my further research Hotez does not appear to be a credible advocate for vaccine policy in light of the repeated inaccuracies of his public statements during the crisis and potential conflicts he may have. ... We can find better experts than Hotez who can help advance the discussion and address any of RFK’s potentially mistaken claims or reasoning. And it should be a discussion rather than a debate. The goal should not be to determine who won or lost, but rather to advance knowledge and understanding. Let’s not censor, dismiss, or run from responding to those who challenge authority, conventional wisdom or even our current scientific understanding, as doing so only serves to destroy confidence in our system, our government and our nation." (abridged quote) https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1670996561789157377 https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1670996561789157377
IceHegel 3y ago
For all those criticizing the debate format as unsuitable for truth discovery, I would remind them that no form of information is immune from manipulation. Recall the highly cited The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  This paper has held up very well in the last three years, despite what many here on HN appear to believe.
  - IceHegel 3y ago
    I, uh, respectfully disagree. 1. There is still no direct Ancestor. Despite extensive sampling and analysis of wildlife, no direct ancestor or intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2 has been found. The closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13, found in bats, but the two viruses are still genetically distinct. 2. The furin cleavage site, which allows the virus to efficiently infect human cells, is not found in most close relatives of SARS-CoV-2. Some virologists mentioned this was a sign of lab manipulation as early as 2021. Natural origin needs to show a jump path. 3. Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected, is over 1,000 kilometers away from the region where the closest bat coronaviruses were found. The market where the first cluster of cases was identified did not sell bats.
    - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
      > Despite extensive sampling and analysis of wildlife There has not been extensive sampling of wildlife, nor of farmed wild animals. It seems that China closed down wild animal farms across the country very quickly after it discovered the outbreak, and there are no published studies of these farms that I'm aware of. > The closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13 RaTG13 is no longer the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2. A closer virus, BANAL-52, has since been discovered by a French team in Laos. It turns out that if you start looking, you start finding wild viruses that are closer to SARS-CoV-2 than anything previously known. This in itself already disproves any lab-engineering scenario, unless you start invoking actual cloak-and-dagger conspiracies (e.g., between the French researchers who discovered BANAL-52 and the Wuhan Institute of Virology). > The furin cleavage site, which allows the virus to efficiently infect human cells, is not found in most close relatives of SARS-CoV-2. Furin cleavage sites are not rare in coronaviruses, and it's known that they can develop (e.g., through recombination with coronaviruses that have them). There's basically zero chance that the specific furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 could have been inserted by researchers, because it's caused by an out-of-frame insertion. > Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected, is over 1,000 kilometers away from the region where the closest bat coronaviruses were found. The market where the first cluster of cases was identified did not sell bats. Change the word "Wuhan" to "Guangzhou," and you've just perfectly described the origin of the original SARS outbreak in 2002. Guangzhou is also 1000 km from where the bats live, and the virus wasn't brought to Guangzhou by bats. It was brought there by the wild animal trade (in fact, the same sorts of animals were sold in the Wuhan market as in the Guangzhou markets). The Wuhan market outbreak is a carbon copy of the original SARS outbreak.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> Hotez appeared [italics mine] to offer a conversation with Rogan as an alternative to a debate with RFK. Jetelina thought it was a good alternative. “More of an educational kind of approach, question and answer,” she said, “may be helpful for a large audience like that.” With a Q&A, the focus is more on learning and less on winning. Is Hotez actually willing to go on by himself? People equating Joe Rogan to Jerry Springer probably never listened to him. He gives the guest time to talk (maybe more time than they really need) and doesn't reach for a soundbite. By the way, I got the sample of RFK's book about Fauci, and couldn't get past the first chapter. He definitely writes like a nutcase.
- fsagx 3y ago
  > Is Hotez actually willing to go on by himself? He's been on before. He offered in a tweet to go on again, just not in a debate format.
kgwxd 3y ago
While I do greatly prefer the long-form discussion shows over the short edited segments on network tv, what I'd really love to see become popular, in general, but especially in politics, is super-long-form, unedited discussion in text, like a days-long email thread style. Everyone gets time to express their points and counterpoints as clearly as possible with fewer emotional overtones. It's far too easy for bad-faith actors to pummel good-faith actors with charisma, bullying, gottchas, etc. that are hard to recover from on the spot even if you have a better chunk of time than you'd get in a drive-by argument. These two people could do this right now and easily publish anywhere, then Joe could discuss it on his show if he wanted to bring attention to it and even bring them on to discuss the discussion live. But I'm willing to bet one of them would never agree to that format. Or they'd agree and derail the conversation completely as soon it started to become clear they're convincingly getting called out.
scohesc 3y ago
If you're going to fight the supposed massive tidal wave of "misinformation", you'd think that scientists or advocates for scientists would be champing at the bit to debate someone like RFK, even if RFK is coming into it with bad faith arguments. Vox misses the point entirely by saying there's a proper place, time, etc. for engagement when it comes to serious issues if the goal is to limit or slow the spread of misinformation. Does the writer think the people watching/listening to Joe Rogan actively seek out these structured engagements that they suggest? The people consuming JRE to watch RFK talk about vaccines obviously don't care about them. They're boring and don't accomplish anything in changing opinions of anybody who's already entrenched in their views and won't even consider watching/attending the engagements anyways. Regardless of the money for charity that's being put up as an incentive, and regardless of who they'd be countering in a debate - I think it's foolish for Hotez to decline or not suggest someone else who might be interested in debating. It's mind-boggling how scientists and journalists put themselves on some sort of intellectual pedestal and believe that debating with "crazy people" won't help the public sphere and it's somehow above them. Of course it would help. If you even convince ONE person that maybe the 5G radio waves aren't messing with the blood-brain barrier allowing whatever they believe to happen, you've succeeded.
- kgwxd 3y ago
  > Does the writer think the people watching/listening to Joe Rogan actively seek out these structured engagements that they suggest? The solution is to have the structured engagement first, then go on JRE to discuss that discussion.
blastonico 3y ago
Exactly! One shouldn't question the Big Pharma ever. Those companies do what they do for love. Our job is pressuring the government to pay whatever it takes to get vaccines and stuff, made with love.
joeythedolphin 3y ago
The science is so great that it is too dangerous to have a person defend it. Haha!
noodles_nomore 3y ago
Refusing a good faith debate with an audience of millions of people is silly. Insisting that a good faith debate has to be done in real time is silly. The only salvation for this rotten society is a return to literacy.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Insisting that a good faith debate has to be done in real time is silly. A live show has less risk of sections being edited. Why is it silly?
  - kgwxd 3y ago
    Because it still doesn't provide enough time to verify or refute any claims being made, especially when one sides strategy is to make a barrage of claims to trip up the other for as long as possible. If most people saw the use of that tactic as a clear sign of weak arguments and question dodging, it wouldn't be such a silly thing because it would server to expose that. But it turns out that kind of thing is a form of entertainment for many people and they like to watch their guy "win" against the other. That's a problem on both sides, but objectively a far more dangerous problem with the topics the right decides to utilize the tactic with.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      I had completely misunderstood your point and agree with you.
      - kgwxd 3y ago
        I'm not OP so I can only say I think that was the point they were trying to make.
drewcoo 3y ago
> a debate about a scientific issue implies there is scientific disagreement about that issue And a single talking head in the media telling us the science implies there is complete consensus about that issue. These both seem problematic, but Karen "no both sides" Landman seems to only see her own side.

44 points by Anon84 3y ago

Erhm, and the "letter to the editor" and response comments on published science papers... they should all be scrapped now? Debate is what moves science along. What about that, does the distinguished Vox author not understand??

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
Not debate with people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Debate moves science along, but it's debate between people with many years (or even decades) of scientific training. This debate mainly occurs in print, and is based on rigorous analysis of data. The "spectators" are also experts, and basically everyone involved agrees that the debate will be adjudicated by the data in the end. The kind of debate that would occur on Joe Rogan's podcast would be very different. First of all, one of the participants would have no scientific training at all. Second, it would basically come down to who could score the better rhetorical points in the moment, in the eyes of a lay audience. This sort of debate has nothing to do with how science advances. There's huge value in explaining scientific knowledge to the public, so that it's not some complete mystery to them, particularly when it directly affects their lives. However, that's very different from hosting a "debate" between a scientist and an anti-vaxxer. This reminds me of the "teach the controversy" mantra that creationists in the US were heavily pushing a decade or two ago. The argument there was that children should be presented with evolution and creationism on equal footing, and should then decide for themselves which they find more convincing.

locustous 3y ago

People want questions they have answered instead of ignored. It's like a tone deaf corporation ignoring customer complaints while speaking platitudes about how much they care and how right they are.

version_five 3y ago

I agree that a debate between a scientist and politician is silly and doesn't lead to a good faith discussion, and that the "come and defend your position" argument is disingenuous in that context. From what I can see though, Hotez is advocating political positions and using "science" as a cover. Even if he has experience in the scientific part of it, if he wants to get into the politics, he needs to engage with it, he can't just hide and say "science!". Regardless, the debate would be stupid. The issue is not the science, it's the government overreach. It would be stupid to hear RFK debate the effectiveness of vaccines, and stupid to hear Hotez pontificate about why forced vaccination or lockdowns are ok. I'd personally rather see a debate about the politics between two qualified people that doesn't sink to invoking "science" as relevant.

brodouevencode 3y ago
The problem is that the science became political when certain portions started advocating for things that weren't backed by science and had no fundamental groundwork of support. The six-foot rule literally came out of thin air.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  Not really though, the 6-foot rule was based on probability of transmission at various distances for airborne/droplet viruses. Perhaps it's too conservative, but all of this is probability-based. It's mostly been validated as we did studies and metastudies throughout the pandemic -- likely could have been reduced to 3 feet as we learned more but a "6-foot rule" tends to result in maybe 4 or 5 feet distances so the initial guidance seems okay: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- troyvit 3y ago
  I think it's more accurate to say it came out of air slightly thickened by a virus that nobody really understood. All of us are sitting back three years later pontificating on how science overstepped its boundaries, politics used it as a club, and/or screwballs rose to prominence with (sometimes) baseless conspiracy theories[1]. Here in 2023 we're acting like people engaged in these acts mainly with negative intent. I think rather we were a society that was a afraid and didn't know what to do. We made a ton of mistakes and a bunch of silly decisions. A lot of them killed people. Some of them might have changed an election. Many of them also saved lives. [1] Like the lab leak theory. To me that concept has legs.

onychomys 3y ago

The thing that Rogan/Musk/etc don't seem to realize is that scientists have debates literally every day, it's just that we do it in print, very slowly. There's just no way you could possibly sit around and think about what the data presented mean in real time.

revelio 3y ago
Hotez doesn't do that. He has a long track record of saying things, on video, that contradict prior things he's said, also on video. The reason he won't debate anyone is that he'd immediately be hung by his own words. Here's a video showing Hotez in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj6-QDVYbv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj6-QDVYbv8
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  Is that honestly your strongest evidence? I'll save everyone the time, it's nothing spliced in with a bunch of super annoying unrelated clips, sound effects, and visual clutter.
dekhn 3y ago
Rogan and Musk could write a scientific paper expressing their beliefs- even funding scientists to carry out experiments possibly supporting their positions. I think it would be quite interesting to see a Rogan, Musk, et al paper.
- equalsione 3y ago
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65981876 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65981876 This Elon Musk?
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Yep. I think it would expose just how weak his thinking is, if he were to write a scientific paper (even an opinion paper). But musk doesn't play in the science publication sphere. To him, that sphere is basically just a corrupt system for perpetuating power structures and it's easier for him to talk shit on twitter,.

adultSwim 3y ago

Platforming "controversial" guests is a great way to get clicks but can be quite dangerous. See hosts setting up debates with neo-nazi Nick Fuentes.

adultsubhuman 3y ago
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EliRivers 3y ago

Debates are contests of speaking ability and skill in convincing. It's possible and expected for a skilled debater to win with a proposition that's clearly untrue. Debates are just absolutely the wrong tool for truth-discovery.

nabla9 3y ago
Adversarial collaboration is the way to solve disputes scientifically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration
- b0sk 3y ago
  Not against gish-galloping. This is not a "scientific" dispute where there's 95% agreement and they disagree on the 5%. This is homeopathy cures cancer vs an oncologist.
- rhinoceraptor 3y ago
  That's not what a debate is. A debate is a contrived conversation format where presenting evidence and countering the evidence of your opponent isn't really possible in real time.
brodouevencode 3y ago
Scientists frequently engage in scientific debate with each other.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  It's fine if done in good faith. Debating somebody like Kennedy is a losing proposition. He will bury you with a ton of nonsense that "feels right". Refuting every point takes way more time than you have in a debate.
- athenot 3y ago
  Productive scientific debating is usually done in writing, or over long periods of time, not in entertainment-driven TV shows. It's unfortunate both are called "debating" but mean something very different.

aero-deck 3y ago

Cowardice.

moate 3y ago
Prudence. (See we can all make "pithy" one word comment in order to undermine attacks on our stance, but it's not really like, useful. I think this comment is actually cowardly as you seem to either be baiting someone else into counter-attacking what they perceive to be your stance and thus allowing yourself a chance to refute their assumptions prior to making your own claim, OR you're actually just afraid of wading into an actual debate and you're just throwing out a nothing virtue-signal. Either way, HN generally expects better)

jasmer 3y ago

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Solvency 3y ago

Give me a break. If what Robert F Kennedy said about the history of vaccines was wrong, someone can and should be able to refute it on the podcast in a conversation. The reality is, the things he said in the first hour of his episode were factual: Older vaccines with mercury WERE dangerous. Pharma/government WERE complicit in hiding and misrepresenting (and even lying) about said dangers. Vaccine manufacturers ARE federally protected against any and all civil action against them, yet there products are essentially mandatory for around 72 million children a year. There is a history that is worth discussing and examining here, even if society refuses to discuss the present for fear of being labeled "anti-vax". Vaccines can be a societally good thing, and corporations can also be profiteering machines. Two things can be relatively true at once.

LatteLazy 3y ago
>In spite of the scientific consensus that fears about its safety are unsubstantiated,[6][7][8][9] its use as a vaccine preservative has been called into question by anti-vaccination groups. A statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service in 1999 prompted the removal of thimerosal from many vaccines[1][10] It remains in use as a preservative for annual flu vaccines.[11] >Concerns based on extrapolations from methylmercury caused thiomersal to be removed from U.S. childhood vaccines, starting in 1999. Later it was reported that ethylmercury is eliminated from the body and the brain significantly faster than methylmercury, so the late-1990s risk assessments turned out to be overly conservative.[23] So the older vaccines were never dangerous... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal Edit: Also, the reason (some) vaccine makers get immunity (from some claims against them) is because the products are priced in the 1-10USD range, but the liabilities were in the 1-10 Mil-USD. No one could get liability insurance, so suppliers were exiting the market. So now the federal government (who also license the whole process and approve the vaccines) accept liability for faults not caused by improper handling etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

AbrahamParangi 3y ago

If there is one type of person you should: 1) Never debate 2) Never listen to 3) Never, ever trust unless you're the one paying them It is a trial lawyer. They do not follow the rules as you know them. They play to win. They're one step above mercenaries or pirates. Their entire job is to be convincing without necessarily being right. That's what they're paid to do.

keernan 3y ago
I was a civil trial lawyer for 45+ years (retired now). I couldn't disagree with your statement more. 1. In 99% of civil trials there was an opportunity for both lawyers to settle, but they decided their client would do better at trial. In every one of those trials, one of the lawyers was horribly wrong. That's the life of every trial lawyer. 2. The job of a trial lawyer is not "to be convincing without necessarily being right." The job of a trial lawyer is knowing which cases to try and which cases to settle. 3. Top trial lawyers know in advance when they have a winning case and when they have a losing case. And they don't try a losing case. They settle. Because the bottom line is: you try a losing case against me? I promise you the outcome. You are going to lose. Nobody tries a losing case against a top trial lawyer and wins. After I got my feet wet with several hundred non-jury small claims property damage cases, I then tried just under 75 jury trials and chancery cases. There is only one case that I lost (interesting story for another day). Not because I was Perry Mason. But because I was very good at knowing which cases to try and which to settle.
vintermann 3y ago
There are a lot more lawyers than that guy in politics though. I don't get what the fuss is about. Proper politicians believe lots of untenable things too. The difference is that they won't usually be confronted on it, if they are the journalist will be blacklisted as someone who clearly wants the other team to win. That is, if they're open about it at all. You can bet a lot of mainstream politicians, and maybe even more policemen, spies and government officials, believe in staring-at-goats level stuff. They just don't believe in the necessity or desirability of convincing the public of any of it. I expect that in the unlikely event RFK Jr. wins, maybe if Biden is unable to continue and they can't unify around anyone else - then RFK Jr. will quietly stop talking about fringe stuff like this, and the press will dutifully not bring it up anymore. He's from a political dynasty, he'll do the transfer to mainstream candidate just fine.

suzzer99 3y ago

Literally all RFK Jr. has to do is throw endless nonsense against the wall, doesn’t have to be consistent with itself, doesn’t have to come from real sources, and just trip up the PhD on one single issue. Then he can spike the football and claim victory. It’s an impossible setup. https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-know-your-covid-cribsheet/ https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-kno... Refute all 30 of these, NOW, and if you can’t then clearly you don’t know anything and RFK Jr. wins. When you’re done we got 30 more and basically an endless supply. Doesn’t matter if you prove 99 of them wrong. If you can’t prove one wrong during a live debate we claim victory. We don’t care if you show that our arguments are inconsistent with each other, and totally impugn one of our sources. We still expect you to refute endless nonsense from that same source. Because we’re debating in bad faith. You don’t ever get to grill JFK Jr., because he’s not the scientist, you are. It’s not a debate it’s an interrogation. Joe Rogan berated a primatologist for telling him that no, there is not a race of 6’ tall chimps who walk upright and sleep on the ground. These are not serious people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CvmS6uw7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CvmS6uw7E

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
NGT also does not like debates as he explains in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0B7ILBquRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0B7ILBquRo
fnimick 3y ago
You just described how right-wing "debate" works. There's a reason the most popular examples are Ben Shapiro going to a college campus and using rhetorical tricks to dunk on students who are prepared for an honest discussion, not intellectual subterfuge.
- thebooktocome 3y ago
  This is also why Shapiro has cultivated the fine art of speaking in such a rapid-fire, grating tone. He wants listening carefully to him to be as uncomfortable as possible.
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Neil44 3y ago

"According to an article on Vice..." She hasn't even listened to the podcast in question.

Graffur 3y ago

The public have been lied to repeatedly about covid-related subjects. The "experts" got exposed. I salute Joe Rogan for keeping the conversation alive.

lilsoso 3y ago
As an example, yesterday NYT published an op-ed flipping the narrative on the origin of Covid: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/opinion/covid-lab-leak-origins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/opinion/covid-lab-leak-or.... This is something you couldn't previously discuss (flagged as misinformation on platforms). Rogan was shunned for discussing it and now it's becoming acceptable.
- Graffur 3y ago
  Upvoted you since you're starting going grey. People still try to silence the discussion on this for some reason.
- kgwxd 3y ago
  Jon Stewart didn't get shunned for talking about it at the time. One might think it's just because he's lefty, but that's only partially true. It's specifically because he wasn't also giggling at the phrase like Kung-Flu, or attempting to give medical advice to anyone for anything, or entertaining countless conspiracy theories. He was also able to question mandates, and big pharma, and Fauci, and Biden because he has as a huge history of arguing in good-faith and doing proper interviews. Joe has a history of smoking weed, looking stonedily at his guests like they just made the most mind-blowing convincing arguments he's ever heard, no matter what they just said, then babbling endlessly without adding anything new to the discussion. I still watch both shows.
  - lilsoso 3y ago
    I think you've missed the point, and I've been downvoted for venturing to make it, nevertheless let's try the same point in a different light: ideas that were first widely broadcast (ie, before Jon Stewart) by perhaps a dangerous, irreverent, clown which were previously considered disinformation have now been accepted, at least in op-eds, by not only the WSJ ("wrong team") but now the "paper of record", the NYT ("correct team"). What happened?

kevinventullo 3y ago

Since I was a child, I have never been a fan of the debate format for determining truth. There’s a reason it’s a competitive pursuit in high school and college where people can excel regardless of which position they’re defending. It’s because debates don’t prove who’s right, they prove who’s better at debating.

drewcoo 3y ago
Debates aren't really about determining the truth. Or, for that matter, about winning. Debates are ideally ways to expose ideas, where they work and where they break, so that the audience can make better decisions. Debates are about the audience.
- wellpast 3y ago
  100%. For COVID and other topics there is an unfortunately common mindset of "the public isn't smart enough to sort out truth and make up their own mind" which is patently incorrect and dangerous, really, because the people that tend to espouse this are either the experts that want to be deferred to or people willing to defer to experts out of fear or laziness or inability to contend with ambiguity.

lilsoso 3y ago

Bill Ackmann: "I was, however, mistaken in encouraging a debate between @RobertKennedyJr and @PeterHotez as based on my further research Hotez does not appear to be a credible advocate for vaccine policy in light of the repeated inaccuracies of his public statements during the crisis and potential conflicts he may have. ... We can find better experts than Hotez who can help advance the discussion and address any of RFK’s potentially mistaken claims or reasoning. And it should be a discussion rather than a debate. The goal should not be to determine who won or lost, but rather to advance knowledge and understanding. Let’s not censor, dismiss, or run from responding to those who challenge authority, conventional wisdom or even our current scientific understanding, as doing so only serves to destroy confidence in our system, our government and our nation." (abridged quote) https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1670996561789157377 https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1670996561789157377

IceHegel 3y ago

For all those criticizing the debate format as unsuitable for truth discovery, I would remind them that no form of information is immune from manipulation. Recall the highly cited The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
This paper has held up very well in the last three years, despite what many here on HN appear to believe.
- IceHegel 3y ago
  I, uh, respectfully disagree. 1. There is still no direct Ancestor. Despite extensive sampling and analysis of wildlife, no direct ancestor or intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2 has been found. The closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13, found in bats, but the two viruses are still genetically distinct. 2. The furin cleavage site, which allows the virus to efficiently infect human cells, is not found in most close relatives of SARS-CoV-2. Some virologists mentioned this was a sign of lab manipulation as early as 2021. Natural origin needs to show a jump path. 3. Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected, is over 1,000 kilometers away from the region where the closest bat coronaviruses were found. The market where the first cluster of cases was identified did not sell bats.
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    > Despite extensive sampling and analysis of wildlife There has not been extensive sampling of wildlife, nor of farmed wild animals. It seems that China closed down wild animal farms across the country very quickly after it discovered the outbreak, and there are no published studies of these farms that I'm aware of. > The closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13 RaTG13 is no longer the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2. A closer virus, BANAL-52, has since been discovered by a French team in Laos. It turns out that if you start looking, you start finding wild viruses that are closer to SARS-CoV-2 than anything previously known. This in itself already disproves any lab-engineering scenario, unless you start invoking actual cloak-and-dagger conspiracies (e.g., between the French researchers who discovered BANAL-52 and the Wuhan Institute of Virology). > The furin cleavage site, which allows the virus to efficiently infect human cells, is not found in most close relatives of SARS-CoV-2. Furin cleavage sites are not rare in coronaviruses, and it's known that they can develop (e.g., through recombination with coronaviruses that have them). There's basically zero chance that the specific furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 could have been inserted by researchers, because it's caused by an out-of-frame insertion. > Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected, is over 1,000 kilometers away from the region where the closest bat coronaviruses were found. The market where the first cluster of cases was identified did not sell bats. Change the word "Wuhan" to "Guangzhou," and you've just perfectly described the origin of the original SARS outbreak in 2002. Guangzhou is also 1000 km from where the bats live, and the virus wasn't brought to Guangzhou by bats. It was brought there by the wild animal trade (in fact, the same sorts of animals were sold in the Wuhan market as in the Guangzhou markets). The Wuhan market outbreak is a carbon copy of the original SARS outbreak.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> Hotez appeared [italics mine] to offer a conversation with Rogan as an alternative to a debate with RFK. Jetelina thought it was a good alternative. “More of an educational kind of approach, question and answer,” she said, “may be helpful for a large audience like that.” With a Q&A, the focus is more on learning and less on winning. Is Hotez actually willing to go on by himself? People equating Joe Rogan to Jerry Springer probably never listened to him. He gives the guest time to talk (maybe more time than they really need) and doesn't reach for a soundbite. By the way, I got the sample of RFK's book about Fauci, and couldn't get past the first chapter. He definitely writes like a nutcase.

fsagx 3y ago
> Is Hotez actually willing to go on by himself? He's been on before. He offered in a tweet to go on again, just not in a debate format.

kgwxd 3y ago

While I do greatly prefer the long-form discussion shows over the short edited segments on network tv, what I'd really love to see become popular, in general, but especially in politics, is super-long-form, unedited discussion in text, like a days-long email thread style. Everyone gets time to express their points and counterpoints as clearly as possible with fewer emotional overtones. It's far too easy for bad-faith actors to pummel good-faith actors with charisma, bullying, gottchas, etc. that are hard to recover from on the spot even if you have a better chunk of time than you'd get in a drive-by argument. These two people could do this right now and easily publish anywhere, then Joe could discuss it on his show if he wanted to bring attention to it and even bring them on to discuss the discussion live. But I'm willing to bet one of them would never agree to that format. Or they'd agree and derail the conversation completely as soon it started to become clear they're convincingly getting called out.

scohesc 3y ago

If you're going to fight the supposed massive tidal wave of "misinformation", you'd think that scientists or advocates for scientists would be champing at the bit to debate someone like RFK, even if RFK is coming into it with bad faith arguments. Vox misses the point entirely by saying there's a proper place, time, etc. for engagement when it comes to serious issues if the goal is to limit or slow the spread of misinformation. Does the writer think the people watching/listening to Joe Rogan actively seek out these structured engagements that they suggest? The people consuming JRE to watch RFK talk about vaccines obviously don't care about them. They're boring and don't accomplish anything in changing opinions of anybody who's already entrenched in their views and won't even consider watching/attending the engagements anyways. Regardless of the money for charity that's being put up as an incentive, and regardless of who they'd be countering in a debate - I think it's foolish for Hotez to decline or not suggest someone else who might be interested in debating. It's mind-boggling how scientists and journalists put themselves on some sort of intellectual pedestal and believe that debating with "crazy people" won't help the public sphere and it's somehow above them. Of course it would help. If you even convince ONE person that maybe the 5G radio waves aren't messing with the blood-brain barrier allowing whatever they believe to happen, you've succeeded.

kgwxd 3y ago
> Does the writer think the people watching/listening to Joe Rogan actively seek out these structured engagements that they suggest? The solution is to have the structured engagement first, then go on JRE to discuss that discussion.

blastonico 3y ago

Exactly! One shouldn't question the Big Pharma ever. Those companies do what they do for love. Our job is pressuring the government to pay whatever it takes to get vaccines and stuff, made with love.

joeythedolphin 3y ago

The science is so great that it is too dangerous to have a person defend it. Haha!

noodles_nomore 3y ago

Refusing a good faith debate with an audience of millions of people is silly. Insisting that a good faith debate has to be done in real time is silly. The only salvation for this rotten society is a return to literacy.

lostlogin 3y ago
> Insisting that a good faith debate has to be done in real time is silly. A live show has less risk of sections being edited. Why is it silly?
- kgwxd 3y ago
  Because it still doesn't provide enough time to verify or refute any claims being made, especially when one sides strategy is to make a barrage of claims to trip up the other for as long as possible. If most people saw the use of that tactic as a clear sign of weak arguments and question dodging, it wouldn't be such a silly thing because it would server to expose that. But it turns out that kind of thing is a form of entertainment for many people and they like to watch their guy "win" against the other. That's a problem on both sides, but objectively a far more dangerous problem with the topics the right decides to utilize the tactic with.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    I had completely misunderstood your point and agree with you.
    - kgwxd 3y ago
      I'm not OP so I can only say I think that was the point they were trying to make.

drewcoo 3y ago

> a debate about a scientific issue implies there is scientific disagreement about that issue And a single talking head in the media telling us the science implies there is complete consensus about that issue. These both seem problematic, but Karen "no both sides" Landman seems to only see her own side.