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We need scientific dissidents
- MrYellowP 3y agoScientific dissidents exist. The problem is that we live in a world where we're being manipulated into believing that there isn't, or that the dissidents are bad guys. Conspiracy theorists.
- jononomo 3y agoThere is no scientific movement that is more "cancelled" than the Intelligent Design movement. I am of the opninion that they have the far better argument, but they have absolutely been silenced.
- Sparkle-san 3y agoNobody is stopping them from testing their hypothesis and putting forward the evidence.
- jononomo 3y agoThat is why the movement is slowly but surely winning over adherents.
- defrost 3y agoWhere is the best example of that argument? Surely they have published their own books, mounted their own websites? The only real argument I've seen from Intelligent Design has been along the lines of "We can't explain complex stuff, therefore there must have been a designer".
- jononomo 3y ago"Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson is an eye-opening and surprising read. I recommend it. You can also read "Signature in the Cell" and "Darwin's Doubt" by Meyer. The argument is the "argument from design" -- just like you would be able to recognize the existence of a paper-airplane-designer if you noticed a piece of paper folded into the shape of a paper airplane, so we can recognize the results of intelligence throughout the natural world. The question of the origin of life is alone enough to establish the existence of God.
- whatshisface 3y agoDoes someone have this article in a format that will work on Firefox with uBlock Origin?
- Blahah 3y agohttps://archive.is/6vnq0 https://archive.is/6vnq0
- brigandish 3y agoDisable js and css and it works fine.
- pella 3y agohttps://archive.li/6vnq0 https://archive.li/6vnq0
- poorbutdebtfree 3y agoThere was plenty of dissent but it was censored on pretty much every platform.
- version_five 3y agoYeah we need open venues for discussion more than ever would be a better take. Concentration of power in media and online means only allowed views get through. Dissent is irrelevant because it has almost nowhere to go, and gets branded as "denialist" or whatever by the mob anyway.
- threeseed 3y ago> Concentration of power in media and online means only allowed views get through Never in history has it been easier for someone to create their own media publication, present alternative views and make it available to anyone in the world. But rather than do that what those people prefer to do is rant, rave and demand that other publications carry those views. Concentration of power in media and online is because the majority of people simply don't want to listen to the type of views that are typically censored. And since the media is a business the owners understandably listen to those people. You can demand the right to free speech. You can't demand everyone has to listen.
- HardlyCurious 3y agoDid you hear about Parler? AWS cancelled their service for violating their terms of service. This was allegedly because Jan 6th was planned on the platform, but it turns out Jan 6th was mostly planned on Facebook. Also apple pulled their app from the marketplace when they were trending. 'build your own platform' is a lie. You cant do that without relying on other services today.
- threeseed 3y agoAlmost all of the people who were involved in Jan 6 have gone to jail. It was a serious crime. And you can't expect companies to be wilfully complicit in criminal acts by allowing services like Parlor which you admit partly facilitated the Jan 6 event. That said you can run internet services without AWS or Apple. Build a web app and host it on your own infrastructure.
- coding123 3y agoThis is the wrong take. There was science on both sides. The side that "wins" has the political backing. More news organizations need to back of the politics and debate the science.
- krapp 3y agoIs "there was science on both sides" the new "there are very fine people on both sides?"
- zer8k 3y agoIt's not conspiracy to note many actual qualified scientists were barred from making any claims contrary to the official stance. As we witnessed in late 2021, 2022 these same scientists went from pariahs to the tip of the spear when the government let up it's censorship program. There are cases being heard right now against major social media companies on their collusion with government officials to push a narrative. Unfortunately, these scientists could only be heard on legitimate conspiracy platforms, thereby undermining their credibility further with the public despite the USG promoting it's own flavor of misinformation via the 4th branch. For all of 2020 "science" was "agreeing with the dominant viewpoint" rather than "questioning everything, gathering evidence, and presenting contrary views". You'd have to have had your head in the sand the last few years to miss how quickly the narrative opened up. It was dizzying. It would appear once the media found a new darling (the Ukraine war) the silencing of dissent in science slowly let up as well.
- AlbertCory 3y agoToo bad they had to do the ritual, cliche mention of Thomas Kuhn. Totally unnecessary. Steven Colbert covered himself with slime there, and so did a lot of "scientists."
- passwordoops 3y agoWhat's the problem with how the author brought up Kuhn? Just because others might invoke him improperly makes Kuhn taboo now?
- AlbertCory 3y ago"taboo" is your word.
- passwordoops 3y agoFantastic engagement, this is really worth everyone's while. Now instead of snark, can you please explain what is so offensive about someone mentioning Kuhn?
- AlbertCory 3y ago[flagged]
- Vecr 3y agoWhy do you think mentioning Thomas Kuhn is "ritual" and "cliche" at all? I don't think I've ever heard that name before, and even after searching the text of the article for it I don't understand the issue. You write quite rationally on risk so I know you can explain the context of your statements if you want to, why did you not do so this time?
- AlbertCory 3y agoWhat do you expect me to say? Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ calls his book "one of the most cited academic books of all time." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008716514576 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008716514576 Maybe you're not tired of reading his name and don't consider it lazy writing. I do though.
- iamthepieman 3y agoUseless if censored. Censored people have to resort to the same channels and tactics that crackpots do if they truly believe in their discoveries and that just exacerbates the problem. But censorship of unpopular opinion has always been going on. I don't believe there's a technical/service solution to this. The solution is a societal and political one and those are harder to come by than the next big technical innovation. Edit - spelling
- passwordoops 3y agoI hate to say I agree. I'm almost feeling motivated enough to teach high school so I can make David Deutsch mandatory reading. At least Chapter 1 of Beginning of Infinity
- iamthepieman 3y agoYour comment says a lot with few words. I agree, it starts with or at least includes education. You know how hard this is? It's not school, it's parents. Let your kids disagree with you, be respectful of people you obviously disagree with in their presence. Read them opinions or books that make you uncomfortable and then explain why. School can help, but the environment at home can so easily override that.
- kevin_b_er 3y agoWhat if they are crackpots?
- iamthepieman 3y agoWell, that's why I said it exacerbates the problem. In a bipolar societal environment, you're either right or a crackpot. We need a finer grained filter than that. There are really well spoken proponents of ESP (extra sensory perception) and even "studies" that prove it exists. But they are not reproducible and there's no company/government/commune producing extraordinary results that point back to it.
- User23 3y ago[flagged]
- HardlyCurious 3y agoYou are bunching dark matter 'deniers' in with anti vaxxers? Really? Also there really isn't much of an anti vaxxers movement if you separate people opposed to vaccine mandates vs people who think vaccines are unsafe. Separating those camps isn't often preferred for politically convenient reasons, but they believe very different things. Personal choice and body autonomy should be something we all support. The covid vaccine works, those who get it are protected. Unprotected individuals aren't undoing the protection vaccines provide to the people who get vaccinated.
- empyrrhicist 3y ago"Anti-vaxxers" generally refers to people claiming vacccines cause autism/magnetism(?) etc. Most people support bodily autonomy (though most also think that choosing not to get vaccinated should come with additional responsibilities/restrictions so those who partake don't fuck everyone else over). For my 2c on the comparison, anti vaxxers do more harm, but dark matter deniers are annoying as hell, because (IMHO) they debate with straw men. There's no church of LCDM, its just the current best set of theories until something else comes along. Alternate theories are routinely considered, attempts are being made to falsify or constrain LCDM all the time, and precisely nobody who actually knows anything claims we have any sort of comprehensive understanding of what's going on. Seeing a bunch of armchair skeptics bash the theories as if they were mindless dogma is annoying AF.
- Infinity315 3y ago> Unprotected individuals aren't undoing the protection vaccines provide to the people who get vaccinated. This was never the main argument pro-mandate people had. The argument for mandates was that herd immunity would be compromised if a sufficient number of people chose to not to vaccinate thus risking the population which would not be able to get vaccinated such as the immunocompromised. > Personal choice and body autonomy should be something we all support. I think this is true up to a point, where that point is is what should be argued. I think if a disease were sufficiently deadly and had a long incubation period such that it would allow itself to spread rapidly, we'd all argue that vaccine mandates should be enforced. For example, consider the following hypothetical. Suppose a reliable vaccine existed for virus X with similar side-effects to current COVID vaccines. Virus X has 95% mortality for children and is as infectious as COVID, i.e. very infectious. In this scenario, would you still be opposed to vaccine mandates? Even if it had a 100% mortality rate for children and/or were even more infectious?
- karaterobot 3y ago> “The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that.” I miss Jon Stewart.
- finite_depth 3y ago[flagged]
- dotnet00 3y agoBy crackpot you mean tabloids which are then amplified by journalists as low hanging fruit for driving rage induced engagement.
- hotdogscout 3y ago"Crackpot" in your situation is factually correct. I took the vaccine knowing the risks, I don't know why someone should be humiliated as a "crackpot" for voicing those concerns.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago"voicing concerns" ... a variant on "just asking questions". The problem is voicing concerns in a way that deliberately sidesteps the efforts and explanations of the, if you like, mainstream scientific community regarding why those concerns are misplaced, wrong or simply exaggerated. You voice concerns, concerns are addressed in various way, someone else or you revoices the concerns. Now, of course, you can argue that your concerns have not been addressed. But that requires a new "voicing", one that takes into consideration the way that others sought to address your concerns. If you simply restate your concerns, you're not behaving in good faith, and after some point, "being humiliated as a crackpot" starts to look appropriate. It is true, for example, that an asteroid could hit earth at any time, and quite easily wipe out most life on the planet. That is an absolutely true statement. It is probably even worth doing a little bit to try to reduce or mitigate the risks associated. But continuing to insist that everyone needs to rearrange their way of thinking about life, the universe and everything based on this true statement, that this is the only way to think about asteroids and the risks of collision, that everyone who points out the demonstrable interval between planetary-scale asteroid collisions is hiding the truth - that's all pretty problematic.
- api 3y agoIt's harder to be a dissident than ever because everything has been politically weaponized and the public discourse is absolutely saturated with bad faith argument.
- monero-xmr 3y agoI have a lot of opinions but I have to post them anonymously or my life’s work will be destroyed. I’m hopeful that once I retire and move all my income-generating assets to a trust that I can advocate more for my opinions. People in my city have had their retail businesses destroyed for donating to Republicans. It’s just a very dangerous world to say anything so you have to be very careful.
- gochi 3y agoWhy do you think they should be free of consequences for their actions?
- monero-xmr 3y agoIn a world where there are only 2 political parties, and supporting the wrong one is life-destroying, the only way to win is not to play. It is unfortunate.
- xqcgrek2 3y agoA lot of people are in this situation.
- stonogo 3y agoAre we talking about the same country? Supporting a specific party is "life-destroying"? Tell me, is it the one in control of the House or the one in control of the Senate?
- xqcgrek2 3y agoIt is definitely life-destroying if one is wedded to a specific industry or academia. Certainly career ending for some jobs.
- shadowban1111 3y agoDirect evidence, mountains of it, of government coercion of media and tech, we have the emails, they are public records, and people sre still trapped in their bubble of propaganda (or are paid shills). The experimental gene therapy that was all but mandated, clear coercion, clear violations of informed consent, clear emails of fauci lying under oath concerning government funding gain of function research -- and it just goes on and on, the evidence is voluminous, and yet there are still people here ignorant (at best its ignorance) of all this evidence and still peddle petty lies that what happened didn't actually happen. Completey, 100%, disgusting, immortal, unethical, outrageous behavior. And ill be the one silenced. HN commentators... look in the mirror and own up to the truth.
- lasc4r 3y agoExperimental gene therapy huh? Go back to 4chan friend.
- learntoread 3y ago[dead]
- finite_depth 3y agoMost vaccines do not wholly prevent the disease they vaccinate against. A few - like the rabies vaccine - do, mostly because they're slow-moving diseases that the body has plenty of time to mount a defense against, but many do not. In fact, the namesake of vaccines - the use of cowpox to vaccinate against smallpox - didn't confer immunity, just resistance. Is the covid vaccine effective at reducing the chance of contracting, and the severity of cases of, covid? Yes. And that is what vaccines typically do. As for stopping its spread: the original vaccine came very close to herd immunity against Alpha, yes. What it didn't stop (but did mitigate) was Delta, which evaded some of the proteins it targeted and which was so much more contagious that even substantial protection wasn't enough for R << 1. As for the word "vaccine": a vaccine is a deliberate exposure of the body to an infectious agent or a component of such in order to sensitize the immune system against it. The covid vaccine, which exposes the body to a protein that is a component of covid (an infectious agent) qualifies. The delivery method is novel, but the principle - using a component of an infectious agent to sensitize the immune system - is the same.
- kneebonian 3y ago[flagged]
- passwordoops 3y ago>No we don't, and questioning settled science is usually a racist dog whistle. Yeah, just like McClintock was known for her wildly racist views. Along with Watson and Crick - that whole "DNA is important" was just a ruse to get the redliners out. And who could forget Einstein? Only tools know the Theory of Relatively has anything to do with physics. And anyone who uses the term "settled science" doesn't understand what science is
- kneebonian 3y ago[flagged]
- brigandish 3y agoIs this satire or just Poe's law at work?
- passwordoops 3y agoI've met people IRL with these views... "Science Fundamentalists" who replace their lost religious dogma with Science and who have no concept that everything we know right now is the best possible explanation with the data we have available, and that it could fall apart with a single new data set or proof. The "racist dog whistle" is new though, so I hope you're right about the satire
- tamimio 3y agoSupport that but not that easy, when big platforms are censoring actual scientists while amplifying others who align with some narrative, it gets tricky. Just a couple weeks ago about the whole LK99 thing, a barista on Twitter was leading the discussion..
- skepticATX 3y agoI'm not sure that a serious discussion of this topic is even possible, but I will attempt it: isn't the consensus still that the virus has a zoonotic origin? That is mostly a rhetorical question, because unless I have missed something, it is. Why do so many folks want to pretend that this has been proven incorrect? Perhaps I have a selective memory but I seem to remember that most of the pushback against the lab origin theory from people like Fauci was primarily intended to combat racial and ethnic tensions that were growing at the time. Especially when it came to the notion that the virus was purposely released. I do not recall any reputable scientist completely discounting the lab origin theory; the public statements merely reflected the consensus at the time, which still seems to mostly be the consensus today. So what exactly is the problem here?
- conception 3y agoFor those interested they found SARS in a bat cave (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 )but it took five years of hunting. Something similar will probably happen with Covid here in the future. Like 9/11 conspiracies, it’s more comforting to think someone is in charge and in control when terrible things happen then that terrible things can happen from random and weak sources.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- goatlover 3y agoA lab leak would mean there was a lack of proper control.
- finite_depth 3y agoI really don't see how anyone can look at how covid proceeded and come to the conclusion that we need less trust in experts. "Thinking for yourself" was an excellent way to die of covid and to produce much longer, much higher peaks in your region of residence than you would otherwise have had. Places with populations that shut up and listened suppressed covid nearly entirely until the rise of the much-more-contagious Delta and Omicron, neither of which would have realistically arisen at all if the whole world had applied suppression of that magnitude. New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea, and China remained open for business throughout most of the pandemic precisely because they had strong institutions and because they successfully enforced expert consensus. Even within the US, the map of covid deaths is practically an electoral map, which is itself practically a map of trust in institutions. San Francisco had a death rate of 134 per 100k. King County (Seattle), 158. And less you think it's an urban/rural thing, rural Vermont sits in the 150s. Meanwhile, almost nowhere in the South or Great Plains is below 400 per 100k, and almost everywhere that is is a blue island amidst a sea of red. Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and St. Louis are all visible clear as day on a map of death rates. Even if we assume that expert consensus got covid's origins wrong - a fact that is far from demonstrated - I will happily take a temporary error in a relatively unimportant fact about the virus' origins over hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and years of shutdowns that could have been avoided with better coordination any day. Experts are sometimes wrong, but from an outside-view, probabilistic standpoint, a person betting against expert consensus is almost always going to lose, especially if they are not themselves an expert.
- toomim 3y agoThe experts began by saying "Don't wear masks." The CDC and the Surgeon General told all Americans to stop wearing masks. I was one of the few people who thought for myself, read the studies, saw that all evidence in Korea and China pointed to this being an airborn pathogen, and learned how the electrostatic field in melt-blown fabric attracted covid particulates to it and filtered them from the air. I was one of the few people wearing masks, staying safe, back in February when everyone looked at me crazy for wearing masks, because I was going against what the experts said. I don't see how you can go through that period where the experts are telling you the opposite of the truth, and then continue to believe them.
- mountainofdeath 3y agoIndeed this is the case. The timing was unfortunate in that the pandemic hit during the absolute lowest point in trust of public institutions and bad faith actors stepped into the void to take advantage of that. In terms of covid specifically, experts did what they typically do for high mortality diseases e.g. ebola, SARS where the mortality is high and the only course of action is to seal an area and let it burn through the population but at least contain it. That turned out to be the direct opposite course of action needed.
- _delirium 3y agoIt’s a bit more than them starting with a random default playbook for serious disease outbreaks. They started with the playbook for this specific virus family! “Covid” is a synonym for SARS-CoV-2. It’s not that surprising that experts would start with the set of procedures that had successfully contained and eliminated SARS-CoV-1. It didn’t work in the case of v2, but I have trouble seeing why it’s a bad starting point to start with what actually worked in practice to stop v1. It’s sort of interesting to me that the partisan politics on this have flipped from the early days though. Early on, Bill DeBlasio (at the time, NYC’s left-ish mayor) was against cancelling anything or imposing any travel restrictions, even telling people it was racist to avoid Chinese New Year or St Patrick’s Day celebrations, and xenophobic to ask for restrictions on travel. The NY conservative media were very critical of his decisions to let those events move forward and called for travel bans and event cancellations to stop the virus. Fast-forward a bit and they had each adopted the other side’s positions.
- jack_pp 3y agoEarly on it made sense and we were told the lock-down would be a couple of weeks. Those couple of weeks stretched for years and that's why there was a switch when it was obvious lock-downs didn't work but were still imposed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
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- toomim 3y agoCan someone explain why this article is being flagged?
- xqcgrek2 3y agoIronic, isn't it.
- dang 3y agoUsually when the [flagged] marker appears, it's a combination of users who feel that the story is offtopic for HN (perhaps because it has already led to a lot of repetition and flamewars), and users who disagree with the article for ideological or political reasons.
- mdp2021 3y agoHow can we instead defend the legitimacy of a submission?
- mauvia 3y agoUsers with high karma get access to a "vouch" button.
- mdp2021 3y agoYou had me find an old post of Sam Altman as I searched information about "vouch": https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/two-hn-announcements/ https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/two-hn-announcements/
- mdp2021 3y agoOk, I notice the '[vouch]' button now. Also, I found info about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html I must have been confused as I thought you should vouch against "flagged", not to revert "dead".
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- keikun17 3y agoIs it just me or the is article not loading? The page loads fine along with the title but nothing below the top fold.
- defrost 3y agoNot just you, I assumed content was blanked due to detecting uBlockOrigin ad blocking. The top comment archive.is link works.
- ta988 3y agoAnd the top link with the archive link is a cloudflare loop for me.
- david_van_loon 3y agoIt is also a Cloudflare loop for me. I stopped attempting to exit the loop for fear of getting blocked.
- ta988 3y agoIt works with google DNS
- thedailymail 3y agoI think there was an article recently about the Archive site refusing connections that go through the cloudflare 1.1.1.1 DNS.
- 6510 3y agoon the lunatic bin that is sci.physics on usenet there one time was a cooperative effort making a list of topics (in any field) forbidden to research. I much regret not saving a copy. It was insanely long. I want to say most of it was wrong but who am I to judge? One could say it was all wrong, it was the whole point of the exercise. The discussion pretended everything was astrology. What is there to fear from researching the relationship between peoples personality and the position of the stars at their birth? Does it enrage you? What if they find something? Would you deny it foaming from the mouth? Based on what?
- jackmott42 3y agoAstrology I would mostly be sad at the money and effort wasted. Also I would expect the research would be bad and claim positive results that were wrong but popular media would spread it and the world would become a little dumber. Which does have consequences, it isn't harmless.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago> What is there to fear from researching the relationship between peoples personality and the position of the stars at their birth That's not the core belief of astrology. There very likely are correlations between personality and the season (or even month) of their birth, which for a given hemisphere will correlate strongly to stellar positions. Regular science would not be surprised to discover that (and maybe already has). Astrology goes way beyond that, because it is fundamentally predicated on the idea that there is a causal link between stellar arrangement and personality, despite no mechanism being proposed, and despite the problem that the correlations in real life appear exceedingly weak (especially when considering northern/southern hemisphere issues.
- bratgpttamer 3y agoThere are volumes written on these topics (many of them a long time ago), but they bring up a lot of existential questions about - in this case in particular - free will, which quickly spreads to the more philosophical theologians and lawyers. Scientists of the simpler sort (or who have a position to lose) tend to dismiss the implications of these big, controversial questions and put their heads down in the equations.
- the-mitr 3y agoin case of cosmology Halton Arp's Seeing Red might be of interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp https://archive.org/details/halton-arp-seeing-red-red-shift-cosmology-and-academic-science https://archive.org/details/halton-arp-seeing-red-red-shift-...
- throwoutway 3y agoIt's a little unclear to me what happened in Halton's case? Was he disregarded by his peers?
- dmbche 3y agoOff wikipedia: "Arp never wavered from his stand against the Big Bang, and until shortly before his death in 2013, he continued to publish articles[14][15] stating his contrary view in both popular and scientific literature, frequently collaborating with Geoffrey Burbidge (until Burbidge's death in 2010) and Margaret Burbidge.[16] He explained his reasons for believing that the Big Bang theory is wrong, citing his research into quasars or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Instead, Arp supported the redshift quantization theory as an explanation of the redshifts of galaxies.[17]"
- DoreenMichele 3y agoIn the case of Covid, people were scared. If you know anything about social psychology, taking control of information etc. in this fashion is typical behavior when people feel intensely threatened as a group.
- sneak 3y agoThis seems to be overlooked. Scared people make poor decisions. Every country on Earth, even supposedly "good" ones, lied, dissembled, covered up, or otherwise failed to govern fairly and transparently during this crisis. Every one! Even in places world renowned for lack of corruption and correct functioning, systems were put in place to hide the scale and scope of the disaster. There is a lesson here.
- eastbound 3y ago> failed to govern fairly and transparently during this crisis. Every one! Isn’t that a sign of coordination in conspiracy rather than “scared people make bad decisions”? Every country didn’t take erratically bad decisions. It was not random. It was coordinated. Coordinated towards the bad.
- 77pt77 3y agoGroups of humans are stupid in very predictable and reproducible ways. No need for conspiracy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mdp2021 3y ago> scared Doing the opposite of what one should be doing under threat: remaining lucid and further sobering up. Ref.: > When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout ~~~ Walt Disney (through Donald Duck) and > Come on, guys. Nobody wants this. We're supposed to be fucking professionals! ~~~ Quentin Tarantino (through Mr. Pink)
- feldrim 3y agoCame here for scientific comments, found US politics -again.
- NullPrefix 3y agoUS politics is global politics. Some government policy might start wars, other policy might end wars. Wars that are overseas, somewhere close to you
- xereeto 3y agoUS domestic culture war bullshit is decidedly not global politics.
- lodovic 3y agoI'm afraid it is - For example, the gender debate leads to other countries introducing draconian laws against the LGBT communities. Some days it's all they talk about on Russian TV. Same for the race debate, it seems some politicians don't know which society they are fighting for. There were people in Sweden demanding government action because of the George Floyd incident. US domestic culture wars do spread globally because of the dominance of US media.
- tbrownaw 3y agoWell yes, politics is why there's one party line with the alternatives all buried (and yes there are occasional stories showing that this scales down to internal department politics), and the US is big and influential and cares about all the big hotbutton issues.
- vore 3y agoAs they say, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.
- stavros 3y agoIs this because America isn't obeying the mask rules? I don't get this analogy.
- lamontcg 3y agoWonder what the overlap is between the lab leak people and the people that were shitting on expert opinion that the LK99 authors looked kinda like amateurs.
- carabiner 3y agoWhat?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwme_123 3y agoIn the case of Covid, unlike handwashing in Vienna, the disinformation was organized. China didn't want to admit the leak occured at their lab, and the US (and Fauci in particular) didn't want to admit they funded precisely that lab for research that could be dual use.
- keiferski 3y agoI think one cause of this inability to tolerate dissent is how scientists and capital-S Science have functionally (and inadequately) replaced religion/ethics/philosophy for a sizable portion of society. Many otherwise intelligent people think that religion/philosophy is purely subjective, merely a word game, or not something "serious" people study. Of course, they do this without understanding that this position is itself a philosophical position, the result of centuries of intellectual development. The result: science, which is supposed to be a neutral process that encourages dissent, becomes a political game, where scientists are treated as the ultimate authority on non-scientific questions.
- nonethewiser 3y agoComplete with "believers" and "non-believers." Which has no place in the actual scientific process.
- mnky9800n 3y agoEven priests! When's the last time Neil Degrassi Tyson did any science? No he just preaches the good word for speaking fees that would embarrass you.
- 77pt77 3y agoDid he ever do anything worth mentioning? He sounds like a bureaucrat that just climbed the hierarchical ladder.
- apienx 3y agoI couldn't find any "influential" papers by him. Here's a fascinating read about Neil's scientific output. The graph at the bottom is quite informative. https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/09/neil-degrasse-tyson-not-much-of-an-astrophysicist/ https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/09/neil-degrasse-tyson-not...
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- ggm 3y agoNobody much cares about insider vs outsider science with just theoretical consequences. It's the intersection with society and government action which motivates people. Sometimes yes, outsider science "matters" because what it's doing is confronting decisions of consequence. In classic left-vs-right politics, it's almost always about something other than the science part. Nobody pushing bleach into their veins was dissident scientist as I see it.
- BSEdlMMldESB 3y agoAh, yes. the tragedy of modern academia, turned into yet even more tools of imperilistic control out of USA (but culturally, as English as the new Latin) against the world through physics spiraling out of the real world version of the events around the manhattan project; but backed by deep mind researchers out of the British academies (the same ones handing out completion certificates) that academia pushes away the kind of novel creative thinkers that it needs. that the role of preservation of knowledge has completely overtaken the role of creation of, that somehow 'industry' (research conglomerates) together with 'academia' (rent-collecting bureaucrats of old knowledge) have failed us all? or maybe it's just millennial (the burnt out generation) find ourselves hopeless and without real vision for any future in the time when we should be taking on the leadership roles of all these institutions?
- metalspot 3y agoacademia started as a branch of the church and retains the same institutional structure to this day. the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
- BSEdlMMldESB 3y agothe church started as the government and this is sometimes very confusing.
- metalspot 3y ago> very confusing or very clarifying when you realize that the same institutions will do the same things no matter what name you put on them.
- bsder 3y agoThe problem is that too many in the US define "scientific dissident" as "Willing to extol my positions even in the face of a mountain of contrary evidence." Which would be fine, except for the fact that these people can do great harm. For example, measles was declared gone from the US in 2000. And now it's back because "anti-vax" is considered a valid "scientific dissent" (and note this is not just MAGAs--the Marin dippy-hippies are just as bad). Even in spite of the fact that the people involved in the anti-vax movement were exposed as charlatans. The scientfic community learned the hard way from anti-vax that if you don't stomp the ever living shit out of the charlantans hard, fast and immediately, you will wind up stuck with the aftermath. So, now they immediately circle the wagons and start attacking any time something gives off even a whiff of heading into the wingnuts.
- oneshtein 3y ago> "anti-vax" is considered a valid "scientific dissent" Anti-vaxers are against science in general. First, it's part of Russian disinformation campaign: > This week, we also heard that Ukrainian authorities are too stupid to deal with the measles outbreak in their country. The epidemic allegedly threatens not only the lives of children in Ukraine, but also the country’s visa-free regime with the EU. Thus, the disinformers helpfully suggest using Russian-made vaccines. The European and American vaccines, especially those available in Georgia, were reported as unreliable, since they might be manufactured in the infamous Lugar lab (the very same one that brought you the toxic mosquitos). But Georgians, according to pro-Kremlin sources, have even bigger things to worry about, as the UN and its partner organisation are deliberately spreading HIV in the country and planning for Georgian genocide. See https://euvsdisinfo.eu/fatal-distraction https://euvsdisinfo.eu/fatal-distraction (2019). However, this disinformation succeed because science is opaque, so general population cannot verify claims, any claims. General public MUST BELIEVE to an authority. We need to make science more accessible to general public, for example, by utilizing AI to explain complex topics in simple enough terms and charts. However, it should not be like «hey, you, stupid, eat this, because you cannot understand what we are doing anyway». It should be accessible form of the same content, not a separate content. Something like: «Hey, AI, I cannot understand this paragraph, formula, or chart, so rewrite it to make it accessible for me (and translate it to my native language)».
- olalonde 3y agoThe problem is when we fully defer to scientists on things that are beyond their area of expertise. For instance, while an epidemiologist can provide valuable guidance on measures that could reduce the spread of a virus, they might not be equipped to assess the broader implications of these measures on aspects like the economy, child development, or mental health. Similarly, a climate scientist can project temperature changes for the coming century, but determining the comprehensive impact of these changes on human societies or conducting a cost-benefit analysis of various measures to mitigate it might be outside their domain.
- drapado 3y agoFortunately, expertise is not limited to a single concrete topic. There are experts in climate change from a socio-economic perspective, which are able to do science in such complex environments :)
- olalonde 3y agoIf such experts existed, centrally planned economies would work wonderfully. Unfortunately, they don't. For sufficiently complex problems, the knowledge is diffuse across a wide range of individuals and there is no one expert we can turn to. That's why debate, and tolerating dissent, is important.
- agoose77 3y agoHuh? These experts absolutely exist - look e.g. at iSAGE during the pandemic in the UK. They combined epidemiology with sociology to provide a more comprehensive view of the situation. It's just that you ultimately have to listen to people saying "do X, which is expensive". Governments don't on the whole tend to love that.
- __loam 3y agoDissent is important, within reason. Things like claiming a medication we know is ineffective can cure Covid in the face of 99% of the medical establishment telling you you're a moron is not within reason, for example.
- ConorSheehan1 3y agoGreat article but I have a critique: It's odd to put the introduction of hand washing at hospitals in 1800s Vienna and doubt over mask effectiveness against the spread of covid19 in the same category. They seem like opposites to me. Sure they're both going against the scientific consensus of the time but there are some key differences. In both cases, people don't want to change their behavior, but questioning masks is on the side of doing nothing. There are no downsides to wearing a mask. When there's a new disease and we're not sure how to slow it's progress, but we have something that might help with no downside i.e. mask wearing, might as well try it right? And in retrospect it's pretty clear it was effective. During the pandemic, I'd rather see scientists coming up with new more effective measures than squabbling over whether the existing measures are effective.
- mypastself 3y agoI don’t know. It can be difficult to breathe for some people, it can be itchy, hot, build up bacteria, fog up glasses… you also have to carry enough of them wherever you go. So it’s not exactly doing nothing.
- alfnor 3y ago"Babies are on average interacting with fewer people (and seeing fewer faces because of masking) than they did before the pandemic." https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/pandemic-challenges-may-affect-babies-possibly-in-long-lasting-ways-202201132668 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/pandemic-challenges-may-...
- skrebbel 3y ago> There are no downsides to wearing a mask. I’ll never understand why people keep repeating this. I know multiple people who seriously struggled with the mask. Ranging from basic stuff such as “it fogs up my glasses so I can’t see well and it gives me a headache” all the way to “I get a panic attack if I wear one for longer than 5 minutes”. These people all pretty much stayed in the house for as long as the mask mandates lasted. That’s a long time to look at the same four walls!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- doktrin 3y agoThe idea isn’t unreasonable, but your idea of a scientific dissident is probably not mine. In this very comment section we have folks promoting literally any disagreement as valid dissent, up to and including social media DIY researchers, as a valuable voice in this space. I disagree with the bar for validity not only being lowered but removed entirely.
- Georgelemental 3y agoWhat do you mean by "valid"?
- doktrin 3y agoWhat kind of answer are you expecting? Your low effort comment deserves what it gets.
- Georgelemental 3y agoIf I knew what answer to expect, I wouldn't have asked the question. I genuinely don't know what you want to communicate with that word.
- jjallen 3y agoCan we change the title of this article to "We need scientists"? Clearly this guy was a scientist and changed the world for the better. He was a dissident at the time because we didn't know about "germs". Now we do. We really need people to be more open-minded about using science as a general approach to life (especially where it matters like in health).
- MrPatan 3y agoNo. The whole point is that they're telling you stuff you disagree with or don't like to hear, but we shouldn't censor them, not that they're wearing a lab coat.
- mcny 3y agoNo, that is not science. Setting aside your political beliefs, looking at the data, and coming to a conclusion based on evidence is science. There is no need for dissenters or a devil's advocate. The grandparent is correct. We need scientists. This is what I think of when I hear the word science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper... Not idiots who can't be arsed to wear a mask at the movies.
- didibus 3y agoThe thing is, policy and policymaking and the responsibility of policymakers all bring about different dimensions from pure scientific inquiry. For example, it's probably best that we learn later that it actually was a lab leak from China. Because during a global pandemic, making China an enemy, when you're trying to all collaborate on dealing with the problem, maybe is not good policy. Similarly, masks might be a toss up, but you make a decision on policy and you commit on the gamble. Causing unnecessary panic also doesn't help. We saw that a lot of people kind of lost it, conspiracy theories exploded, now some of those theories might be legitimate, the scientific method could evaluate them one by one, it would take time, but in the meantime, people might act irrationally and cause more harm from a hypothesis. So maybe you try and not bring it up. As not to cause more concern that isn't productive. And I think true censorship is terrible here, but something that's more a toning down of certain theories that are not really doing any good and causing panic, doubts, distrust, etc. Keep the information available if someone searches for it, but maybe don't let it get promoted and fed to more people, until a more appropriate time comes, and it's now had time to develop more evidence, etc. This whole area around policymaking is much more of an imperfect art, it's not science, it's more similar to a betting market, it makes bets, as leadership, and hopes that it leads people into the right outcome. But I agree, there's a fine line, you also don't want to swallow alternate hypothesis that might end up proving to be the truth. It's a difficult balance to be honest.
- MrPatan 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease make your substantive points within the site guidelines and especially please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- MrPatan 3y agoFair enough. Can't delete or edit this one anymore, ah well.
- jimmySixDOF 3y agoMy comment yesterday on a thread [1] about "Dreams of new physics fade with latest muon magnetism result" and how the same story was headlined elsewhere [2] with opposite conclusions: >It's curious timing that I have stumbled on this story (spun both ways), a Sean Carroll 4hr rebuttal that there is a problem of physics caused by not opening up to new ideas two weeks ago, and Sabine Hossenfelder on YouTube with an episode this week pouring cold water on 'new physics'. I very loosely keep tabs on a thin sliver of popsci so seems like some wider coordinated theorist - experimentalist friction given my sample size. Maybe it's 5 year budget allocation time and I never noticed before but just seems odd. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090864 [2] BBC News - Scientists at Fermilab close in on fifth force of nature https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66407099 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66407099
- dav_Oz 3y ago>a Sean Carroll 4hr rebuttal that there is a problem of physics by not opening up to new ideas Indeed he likes to indulge in his solos (that's what they are for) but after almost 4 hours of reviewing the status quo[0]; he goes on to accurately describe the problem of actually choosing the set of possible ideas/theories to follow through. Which basically boils down to who gets the funding (and by extension: tenure) and who not. As a part of that system (he sat on a committee) he seems to be aware of the flaws. Because of the incentive to be "effective" with the funds "popular ideas" (what resonates with the community) with a "high probability" of succeeding get chosen, a negative feedback loop if you will. Interestingly, he sees that problem quite divorced from today's state of physics itself which is too successful (it's hard to come up with new ideas and with today's instruments (energy levels) very little "new" to find) in describing the physical reality. My personal take: The "effective"/"pragmatist" mostly American wrap up of two obscure subjects from the Old Continent has hit a wall. With String Theory - once also obscure - being comfortable in the platonic realms (Witten winning the Fields Medal) it's time to wrap it up and be more heterogeneous again let the small science do its brewing. Yes, at first it will open up the most feared floodgates of crackpottery but after awhile it will subdue and finally slip into obscurity, most will jump the boat to whatever hype is the new hype and the one's left will hopefully have very weird ideas with high rigor devoid of most incentives to cheat/conform for a career; 99,9..% will fail of course but at least they will have a fun ride instead of clinging fiercely onto their careers. [0]https://youtu.be/MTM-8memDHs?t=14354 https://youtu.be/MTM-8memDHs?t=14354
- agentgumshoe 3y agoGee if only we hadn't just spent the COVID years telling everyone not to dissent on The Science.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoThe downvotes are interesting here, it's amazing the cognitive dissidence that was created by the mass belief of being on 'the righteous side' of an issue: agreeing that dissidence in science is needed, but not if it's covid related, even though the same distrusted actors are involved.
- spookthesunset 3y agocrazy, aint it? Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
- frankreyes 3y agoI believe that flat earthers are the balancing force of that lack of science dissident. Science has become a 9-to-5 job for most and they now have the wrong incentives for that pure "pursuit of Truth".
- lusus_naturae 3y agoEveryone has the same incentives, their personalities and cultures give a different shade to them but the incentive of accumulating resources and self-propagation remain constant across people. No one objects to "the truth" per se, it's how we use reality or the perception of it to organize and conduct ourselves that matters to people. All this dissident stuff is giving me "what's the truth about gay genes and racial IQ differences" vibes.
- matt123456789 3y ago| sed 's/scientific //g'
- Blackstrat 3y agoRecognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. These days both seem in short supply. The dissidents are routinely "cancelled", e.g., during the COVID era. Big Science has been corrupted by government money worldwide. And as soon as one hears "scientific consensus" you know you're listening to a political statement not a scientific one. And that applies to climate change. Science is never conclusive. There's always the possibility of a different answer. The history of science illustrates that clearly. When the answer is "final", science is no longer the ongoing motivation.
- euix 3y agoThe entire Covid years and the way government and society responded was the most cynical thing I have ever witnessed in my life and it completely altered my worldview and the way I see government, society and people in general. Some reckoning on this is in the future is small catharsis.
- spookthesunset 3y agoSame here. I don’t think we’ll see any reckoning until all the people involved are long dead…
- RandomLensman 3y agoSeriously: why? We had things like conscription before but the Covid response was the one that altered your view?
- shwaj 3y agoMaybe the person wasn’t alive during conscription. They lived through Covid.
- tbrownaw 3y agoWe've had government suppression of dissent before - that "fire in a crowded theater" case was about anti-war advocacy - but it's been a while since anything really big and the Internet makes it much easier to watch happen in real time.
- tehjoker 3y agoah another covid origins article to distract ppl from mitigating an ongoing pandemic
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- epgui 3y agoAs a scientist, this is such a dumb take. The incentive structures in science encourage novelty, and there's no shortage of scientists who would love to see their career take off. Unfortunately, reality does not make the greatest dissident.
- trhr 3y agoLike everyone else, scientists are so convinced of what they know that they won't listen to other opinions. The problem is that scientists think their knowledge is truth because it comes from "the scientific method." They fail to internalize that the whole point of that method is that no knowledge is sacred and everything should be doubted to the degree at which evidence exists to the contrary. A crackpot conspiracy theory with a single anecdotal source of data is sufficient to create doubt in the soundest of theories. Just not much.
- olddustytrail 3y agoWhen someone who refers to their monitor as "the CPU", and can't tell the difference between a programming language and an operating system, starts telling you how you should be doing your job because you've got it all wrong... How much do you listen to their opinion? (Unless of course that matches your manager to a T).
- trhr 3y agoYou smile and say, "I appreciate your input. I value it and consider it a good starting point. I am not certain it alone provides the level of support necessary for me to consider a different path, but I would consider both additional data and reducing the amount of evidence I require with a good reason."
- olddustytrail 3y agoI appreciate your input. I value it and consider it a good starting point. I am not certain it alone provides the level of support necessary for me to consider a different path, but I would consider both additional data and reducing the amount of evidence I require with a good reason. Edit: oops, wait! I forgot to smile.
- wesapien 3y agoThere are dissidents but power corrupted the scientific community. There's no price to being wrong for powerful people. Recent relevant take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Ve8PnHHT4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Ve8PnHHT4
- vGPU 3y agoThe problem being that scientific dissidents are always attacked with “the science is settled”, “trust the science”, “conspiracy theorist”, etc. See: ongoing statin controversy. Pretty much every drug related to diabetes. The discovery of the Benadryl-dementia link. Etc. The science is never settled. That’s the whole point of science: it’s constantly evolving.
- Loquebantur 3y agoIf you were right, scientific knowledge would be inexistent and scientific opinion meaningless. To come to an agreement among experts just like among anyone else one has to adhere to some obvious(?) rules. Everybody having their own opinion without sound arguments validated by others leads to a useless cacophony.
- akira2501 3y agoThe problem is that "scientific dissident" is a meaningless term. You _must_ be a dissident to be a scientist. If you already believe you know everything, then there's no need to engage in the process of experimentation, recording, and ultimately discovery. As Feynman put it, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." "The science is settled" is a marketing term put forward by administrations that wish to manipulate the will of it's citizens. It's an inappropriate idea from an inappropriate place with inappropriate ends.
- __loam 3y agoI think there's a pretty big difference between "this is what our knowledge of medicine and most experts in the field are telling us to do now and it's the best answer we have so we're going to do it until the consensus in the medical community changes" and "the science is settled". Nobody was trying to manipulate the "will of the citizens". Everyone in the medical and public health field was trying to prevent mass casualties and complete collapse of the healthcare system to the best of their ability using the knowledge they had. Not being able to discredit random morons commenting on the situation with absolutely no expertise is an insane take.
- csours 3y ago"Truth is the First Casualty of War" - Quote Investigator ---- It's interesting to me that many of the same people who do not trust the vaccine, also do not want the FDA to complete their review process of medications. Those are opposites! The 'Expert' is well and truly dead. ---- We do NOT need scientific dissidents, we need everyone in a position of responsibility to be clear about the line between knowledge and belief. We need scientists to say "We don't know that". We need journalists who accept that answer and ask "How can we find out", instead of just finding a scientist who will answer an impossible question. We need a better informed and more skeptical public. We should not accept something as a final answer just because it's interesting or satisfying. We need to be prepared to be unsatisfied. For instance, we do not now and will never know how contagious the virus is to a naïve immune system. To know that we have to perform 'challenge trials'. It is unethical to perform a challenge trial without effective treatment, so we did not do any early in the pandemic. Now everyone is vaccinated or exposed, or must be considered to be exposed; so any evidence now would only answer questions about a post-pandemic world. ---- Writing a serious article about a "lab leak" without clarifying what exactly you mean is irresponsible to the point of professional negligence. Lab Leak means many things: 'It walked out of the lab on someone's shoe', 'Secret Research', 'Illegal Research', 'Malicious Research', 'Modified Virus', 'Man-Made Virus', etc... So a scientist says "I think it's likely that the virus came from the lab" - which do they mean? The audience is free to assume that the scientist supports their pet theory. If a lab in China was doing anything nefarious, what would you actually do about it? Consider that the human mind really loves conclusions. Consider that we look for motivations at a less-than-conscious level. When people say "conspiracy theory", I hear "motivation theory", as in, I think this group has a motivation to cause this disaster. So here's my motivation theory: Chinese officials are VERY sensitive to embarrassment. I think they are highly motivated to destroy any evidence that might embarrass them. That includes the 'liquidation' of the wet market where viral traces of Sars-Cov-2 have been found. It might also include any research related to Sars-Cov-2 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It's most likely that the virus was not modified by humans, but I do hold a place in my reasoning for the idea that it might have been. I'm reminded of the Oppenheimer movie - people don't like it when you have a complex view of a moral question, and the question of the lab leak is heavily moralized by many people. ---- It is clear to me that individual people can make masks work to prevent the spread of contagious disease; in much the same way as individual people can live off-grid. In both cases it's more work than most are willing to do, or it's in some way beyond our capabilities. I saw a woman wearing a mask, but with it pulled below her nose - the 2020 Karen/Ken classic look. But I saw this in 2022, WELL after masking orders were over. Entirely of her own volition, she was wearing a mask, but without any care for actual function. Was it misunderstanding? Was it moral signaling? Was it habit? People are hard to understand. ----
- entriesfull 3y agoThe only cure to these people in power suppressing free speech is by creating decentralized tools. All of these platforms have backdoors for governments to censor free speech. They knew well ahead that this virus was spreading and did absolutely nothing to mitigate it early on. Even if this wasn't a lab leak, they still allowed it to spread by not shutting down airports early on (yet they knew where it was coming from). People, please stop self censoring yourselves. These morons should be held accountable for the countless deaths they caused.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoSure, but is it too much to ask that the dissidents accept when they've lost on the merits instead of pivoting to an inane meta-argument about their theories being "silenced"?
- lazzlazzlazz 3y agoCommand dissidents to accept consensus (even if they disagree) is how you eliminate the possibility of dissidents. It's a contradiction.
- mike_hearn 3y agoTo decide if they did or did not lose on the merits you need open discussion, as otherwise the more aggressive side can simply assert that they won and then silence the dissidents when they point out it's not true. So, the "inane meta-argument" as you put it is in fact required to be resolved first before you can even get to the point of deciding who's right. Nothing inane about it. Without that, science can't be done at all.
- morelandjs 3y agoMy experience in physics was that dissidents were plentiful. It’s easier to poke holes in existing theories than it is to explain why a new theory explains all previous observations. I’m more worried about the reproducibility crisis than I am about scientific group think. Most scientists I knew, including those I disagreed with, were open minded people.
- cryptonector 3y agoIn order to have scientific dissidents we need to -as a society- reject dogma. I'm looking at all of you who "followed the science" dogmatically these past three years.
- ramraj07 3y agoI did not <follow the science> so to speak in that I believed the masking restrictions were not strict _enough_. But in this climate any criticism of these practices is co-opted by the anti-science people into shitting on all scientific practice and also for some reason invoking rants about wokeness, Bidens age and aliens. Simply put I feel afraid of saying anything about this for fear of getting clumped with people like Joe Rogan, RFK or any of these VCs who associate with this crowd now.
- cryptonector 3y agoYour reply is worse than dogmatic. It is an attempt to enforce conformity.
- Georgelemental 3y ago> I feel afraid of saying anything about this for fear of getting clumped with people like Joe Rogan, RFK or any of these VCs who associate with this crowd now. Who cares about the stereotypes and generalizations of intolerant idiots? Say what you believe, and associate with people who appreciate honesty.
- asynchronous 3y agoThose that turned off their brains and need to hear this message won’t, sadly.
- __loam 3y agoI mean, what exactly about the science are you disagreeing with? Do you think that Covid wasn't airborne? Or that putting a piece of cloth over your face doesn't slow down the spread of disease? Do you believe this pandemic wasn't ended by a set a vaccines? I'm really curious what your actual positions are here, and whether or not you're just an ass hole who thinks they're a "free thinker".
- RagnarD 3y ago"Scientific dissident" is just another way of saying "Actual scientist".
- worik 3y ago> The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that.” Totally. I remember the madness. The "litmus test" was very necessary because of the quantity of bullshit. A lot of not BS got wrongly labeled, we could have done better, but there were a lot of loud voices all insisting on being heard. Many of them were outright lies. Many