It's worth also remembering that "fact checkers" by definition are never primary sources. A primary source is always the highest quality evidence for any proposition.
Secondary sources are the next best thing but are never as good as primary sources by definition.
Every layer of media is a layer of potential noise between the reader and the primary sources. Even All Facts Matter to my mind offers its best value by pointing my readers to the sources, so they can do their own study and form their own opinions.
In the end, it matters less who says a thing and more what thing is being said.
I've made this point several times. I don't care that it's Snopes, I care why they chose to fact-check this topic. I've raised a concern about this widespread "mRNA in lettuce", and have commented in several people's Substacks with respect to this same issue, and yet in many cases no comment is made. I don't really expect someone to make a comment, but then what happens when fact-checkers jump onto this unfounded claim and then make a mockery of the people who spout it? Now this creates a whole new mess, because people will react to the fact-checkers and draw from that instead.
There's already an issue of many people not reading the studies they write about, so why not have people who offer corrections in good-faith do so rather than those in opposition who will do whatever they can to remove credibility?
This is why I am developing the habit in my articles of posing the question "what does the data say?"
It's the best way I can think of to cut through the "source" bullshit and focus on the meat of a matter.
I picked apart a fact-check from FactCheck.org on some of Dr. Li-Meng Yan's research articles on SARS-CoV-2, particularly her conclusions supporting a lab-leak/lab-release hypothesis. Their "FactCheck" was a series of appeal to authority fallacies without any examination of Dr. Li's data--a true "fact free" fact check!
Fact checkers in a different timeline would be peer reviewers and second eyes. Instead, the job of fact-checkers has become its own form of authority- it is because they say it is. It makes "fact-checking" a double-edged sword. On one hand people have always checked each other for their facts and evidence. But now in recent years the term is conflated with the profession of fact-checking which instead focuses on mischaracterization more than finding facts.
An interesting take. I never wrote about "vaccines in food".
It appears that two trends are underway:
1) mRNA animal vaccines
2) plants modified to deliver immunogenic substances to us (VLPs or whatever)
They are separate stories, but both are equally disturbing in that we are eating something containing materials that we did not really consent to receiving in "food".
I am not surprised that many people did not get the story exactly right. The fact checkers, as always, want the general public to look the other way.
But to your second point, the issue is that the argument is being conflated. As I stated, it's one thing to say that they are trying to use plants to make vaccines. This has already been attempted, although not much appear to have come out of this research. It's another to say that the plants are producing mRNA vaccines. That's something far more specific, and then runs into an issue of proof of concept. What's happening is that people are making claims that mRNA vaccines will be placed into produce, but then drawing from research that doesn't show this model, as in the case above where the company shown is making VLPs, or when the edible vaccine review is posted which shows a transgenic vegetable and not an mRNA vaccine-related product.
People can't flip-flop on the argument they are making. This leaves room for places like Snopes to come in and "fact-check" people.
Or when the clinical trials for the COVID vaccines listed hundreds of adverse reactions to look out for. People immediately took it to mean that these adverse reactions are related directly to the vaccines. Instead, maybe the list was extensive because they wouldn't know what to look out for, so just list everything and say, "hey, just watch out for these. We don't know which ones will happen, so just look out. 🤷♂️"
That ended up becoming a Kafka trap. If no adverse reaction to look out for were listed, then people would complain that they didn't look for anything. They make a list of things without knowing exactly what to look out for, and now people are saying they somehow knew that all of these adverse reactions will occur.
May 11, 2023·edited May 12, 2023Liked by Modern Discontent
There are ginormous, great considerations in this article regarding the need to be accurate and stick to facts. However, I would argue that we should all do this much more for the sake of the people, rather than the moribund media.
1)Media are afraid of SubStack because they know that for decision makers, SubStack will eventually supplant them.
2) Reporters in media are mostly reading scripts about science with no understanding. They have been reduced to reading what are essentially corporate and government agency press releases. (This is also one reason why, for example, Snopes, IMHO, does low quality fact checking on science matters. In the life of weedom there is some experience with media, which fuels a belief that most (but not all), of so called science reporters lack high school level of current understanding).
3) The greatest work will be to make science accessible to more people, make sane prognostications of future developments, and avoid extravagant or excessive claims.
4) Plus..... we must grow and market the nerd power effectively.
Oh, that's definitely true and I hope that goes without saying. I try to be as accurate as possible, and in cases where I'm not I try to offer corrections. I would hope that people see the information that I put out and can learn from it. Far too often people seem to want to move towards being told what to think on a topic or subject more than utilizing their own tools and critical thinking.
I try to stay away from terms that are more absolute. I will refer to a study as "suggesting, inferring, supposes, etc" rather than outright stating that a study is absolute.
You're definitely right on science reported. I've noticed that many reports tend to relegate the actual discussion of a study to "experts" in the field. It's rare to find the actual voice of a journalist in their analysis, and instead they are just jumping between experts that are telling them what they should think of a study rather than having the journalist break down the study for themselves. And if people think that independent journalists aren't doing this, that's also not true. I've found that many smaller outlets use the same approach of reporting on science that the mainstream do. I would argue that a lot of this is due to having to meet some article quota, so they just pick apart what is reported in other journals. They also may run under the fallacy that if other people have reported on a study then that means that they also did the work to break it down (which is absolutely false).
I try my best, and I try to make it known that a lot of what I say is with uncertainty because I am learning while I am releasing this information.
All 4 really good points- if I did anything to the list I'd probably just add to it because all of those points are exactly why we are having all of these issues.
Science has been gatekept for far too long, and with COVID science has become more open but people don't know how to do worth with the information they are provided. I found it strange when people say that a preprint is not "peer-reviewed". I mean, aren't we inherently the peers, so shouldn't we be able to parse the information to some degree? What exactly do they think editors or peers actually do? They're certainly not replicating the studies themselves, so they're likely just checking for egregious errors which are things we can do ourselves.
If anything, your numbering may be reverse for the course of events people deal with, aside from maybe 1. But consider that people are too busy, they are constantly bombarded with information to the point that they can't make sense of it all, so they fall back on authorities to tell them what they should think of this information, which in reality is just telling them how to feel.
Ya ya, and super point about the “gate keepers”. We could bag the gate keepers and freely publish everything with a comment section, where the comments which address the methods and the math float to the top. ;-) All research that is funded with public money belongs to the taxpayers.
It is pleasant to see that some preprints offer comments sections. This happened with one weird study trying to work backwards and say that a sequence in the spike was a sequence found in one of Moderna's patents for this other sequence. That whole study was ridiculous, and many people in the comments section were arguing against the finding, although they likely did so from a pro-vaccine position which sort of doesn't help argue against bad science.
Apologies if I missed it, could exogenous plasmids effect animals microbiome? Could microRNAs or expressed uRNAs be bodily absorbed?. MicroRNAs have epigenetic effects. I believe plants provide beneficial uRNAs when we eat them..
I haven't looked into that so I wouldn't know. As you stated, I do believe microRNAs may possibly influence the expression of certain proteins by halting the translation, but I haven't looked too deeply into that topic in order to figure out what it all means. I wouldn't doubt that there's a lot more going on than just plants=nutrients.
Great advice, but there are diminishing returns to more careful thinking and communication. Because more, well-funded eyes are on the skeptics, they (the skeptics) have to put in far more effort into the endeavor, and for far less reward.
What percentage of today's non-skeptic population would realistically convert to careful skepticism? (Keep in mind many non-skeptics, by definition, are not interested in pursuing empirical or logical reasoning.) Even in the best case scenario--complete logical coherence by skeptics--I can't imagine it's in the double digits. Then realize that many of those converts will have been loosely wed to careful analysis in the first place, so they'll only provide the "skeptic movement" with greater numbers rather than more conscientious thought.
I share your frustrations and champion your efforts, but I'm not sure much can be done in the short term with the cards we've been dealt. That's independent of the fact you're doing good and necessary work. Don't get too discouraged with the Substack crowd.
(A tangent: A definite contributor to sloppy science/communication is information overload. It's hard to see how a scientist would practically keep abreast of Covid stuff let alone a layperson. Ioannidis makes the case that more information- and intelligence-rich societies will be at a relative disadvantage:
It's true there are diminished returns. I've noticed that spending hours or days working on a post may not get the same attention as if I just posted the abstract of a study and just pontificated on that. My general problem is that everything going on with COVID should have taught people to be more critical thinkers of the information they are presented.
Consider how many people mock "the science", but still can't figure out how to read science or to analyze science. Can this person be able to separate "the science" from science? Because of this people rely on heuristics and other tangential information, so someone who appears "trusted" in this community can say whatever they want, and rather than look at the studies they post they just go along with whatever the person says.
I made this post more as a concern that I'm seeing people, and many people who should know better by way of their education and profession, just posting something and not digging a little deeper, or misinterpreting a study. One clear example was when I saw several people posting about anti-spike antibodies from eggs and suggesting that the egg shortage (3 years since the start of this pandemic) are because of this benefit. Hardly anyone stopped to think, "well, if there are antibodies in the eggs...maybe the hens were vaccinated?" And that's exactly what happened! So the same crowd who doesn't want spike in their food supply are praising eggs for their anti-spike antibodies...which came from vaccinated hens...
I think examples like these frustrate me the most because it signals that people aren't actually making sense of the information they are provided. If someone just says something they just take their word without spending time to actually consider the information.
To information overload I think that also plays a big part. When 10 people post about a study how do you know which one to look through? Someone can't look through all 10 and then make a judgement.
I've used the term "infodemic" in the past, in which people are inundated with information and that may increase anxieties and paranoia. It actually came about during the first SARS response:
"What exactly do I mean by the "infodemic"? A few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, have affected national and international economies, politics and even security in ways that are utterly disproportionate with the root realities. It is a phenomenon we have seen with greater frequency in recent years—not only in our reaction to SARS, for example, but also in our response to terrorism and even to relatively minor occurrences such as shark sightings."
— David Rothkopf, The Washington Post, 11 May 2003
May 13, 2023·edited May 13, 2023Liked by Modern Discontent
"My general problem is that everything going on with COVID should have taught people to be more critical thinkers of the information they are presented."
You're just seeing human nature for what it is, my friend! These people are simply falling to the level of their pre-COVID training. I wish they knew better, but they're scarcely given the tools to succeed in their upbringing and education. What good is it to have an excellent grasp of, say, biochemistry atop a perverse set of priorities? The latter saps virtually all potential from the former. So we see educated skeptics whose skepticism isn't integrated with a desire towards some selfless end. What's going to motivate them to action, which comes at personal cost? Certainly not technical know-how.
I've been meaning to read your med education series to explore these ideas. Philosophy of medicine and science have been left to rot while everyone and their dog is encouraged to enter increasingly complex STEM fields. It's all backwards.
Yupp, I've certainly learned that there's a difference between being educated and being intelligent. I won't say I'm either, but I'm at least trying to learn to do more than to take studies at their word. It's interesting to see that many of the PhD/MD people on both sides lack an ability to read studies. I'd argue that this is one of the biggest issues we have in medicine where there's a reliance on the results more than how the results came about.
I should return to that section. I'd like to go through them but similar to all posts I go down too many rabbit holes and I get bogged down in the information. I'm still looking through things as simple as angiosperms (flowers) and pollinators, and even all of that information is dense and complex.
I've noticed some of the chatter here on Substack concerning modRNA vaccines for livestock. Questions immediately come to mind such as how would these ideas apply to cooked meat. Personally, I normally avoid CAFO products in particular and industrially-farmed and GMOs in general, and I no longer eat rare meat (I miss it, omnivore that I am). I understand that for many, the choices are more limited and that if I lose income -- a distinct possibility -- I may be in the same boat. I do what I can, and don't do what I can't and don't worry much about it.
With regard to some of what I have been reading on this topic -- though it might be a misapplication -- the term "magical thinking" comes to mind.
While I agree whole-heartedly with your point, I am overly tired of one side having to be ultra-careful about everything whilst the other just says whatever and gets away with it (even as the "settled science" unsettles itself). I can see many valid points that the anti-vax crowd has, but then in the MSM those points are never addressed ... instead the MSM picks the most egregious examples literally saying "look, those anti-vaxxers are psychotic" and I would not disagree with them on that account. It's all very tiresome.
All of this is true, but in order to get our point across we shouldn't have to rely on disingenuous tactics. Many people on the side of skepticism have argued that they are better at reading science, that they are doing science. This, I would argue, makes us more hypocritical if one says they are reading science but then misreporting on the actual science. We need people spending time doing the work of breaking down papers rather than just talking about the act of reading papers or thinking more critically. It sometimes feels like the performative aspect is more important than the actual science.
I'm not sure what your point is Pete. The article above never made reference to antibiotics or hormones in livestock. That's a known, but the argument here is related to claims made with respect to mRNA vaccines. If people wanted to make an argument about what gets pumped into livestock in general then they can, but this argument relates specifically to vaccination, and more specifically mRNA vaccines in livestock.
One cool comfort: The proteins, e.g. enzymes, and most large molecules in the food get destroyed by the digestive system. Our guts are an amazing barrier to many nefarious plots involving biologicals. Even large molecule antibiotics like neomycin and vancomycin are poorly absorbed, and they're waaaaay smaller than those dastardly viral components.
I think that happened the first time you mentioned GMO and my first thought was that those are not mRNA based technologies…
“This, by no ways, is an mRNA vaccine, and rather I would argue is more akin to a GMO product as the plants in such reviews are transgenic by way of the antigen insertion…”
When I went back I saw were you clarified that, although, at that point you had veered a little off mRNA and then I figured if they could, they would , so I’m sure their is millions is millions in funding being distributed. That would be a consideration since other medications are already being passed…
…again, I’m not sure about something like mosquito used to spread disease/cures… is not yet based on the bioweapons technology of mRNA, but that I’m sure it is being generously funded
The worse the spike protein (p120, furin cleavage, HIV genomes) the better the medication delivery system technology by increasing the possibility of invading the host cell…
…the more the possibilities of breakthrough mutations and subsequent novel animal transfer
I couldn't give a rats ass about what any fact checkers think or write. The fact checkers will tell you there is no possibility graphene oxide or the incredibly dangerous graphene hydroxide are in "mRNA" shots but I have seen enough evidence to know that it's true. Are we supposed to shut up about that because fact checkers and countless controlled opposition shills here on substack and elsewhere will say it isn't true? I'm not putting braces on my brain or a gag in my mouth for any of these people. I have seen evidence that there isn't even any Nitrogen, Phosphorous, or Magnesium in some samples of that soup. That means there was never anything organic in them. You can be a slave to meeting the approval of those people but it only undermines your own credibility. Who is fact checking the "fact checkers"? What I see the fact checkers doing over and over is regurgitating whatever big pharma and the companies that made these products specifically say in their official literature. Yeah, that stuff really came down from God didn't it?
Gee, it's almost like you didn't read anything that I wrote!
I ask you, then, how exactly you shape your perspective and worldview if you just avoid everything that appears as some form of opposition. Do you just search out information that fits your own biases, do you look for people who tell you what to think rather than spending time thinking for yourself?
I looked at the Snopes article because I find it necessary to see the ideas that fact-checkers are using to claim that ideas are incorrect, or should I just not look and not figure out what exactly is going on? Oh boy, it's coming from a fact-checker, that means I should not look at it and figure out what the hell they're saying! I'm good being stuck in my own insular community where they tell me what I want to hear!
I find it strange that this isn't the first time I've seen someone outright dismissing someone who bothered to see other perspectives. Do you seriously believe I am trying to gain approval from these people? Do you think me wanting to suggest that people do their due diligence in making sure their arguments are sound is somehow helping out fact-checkers? We're in a sad state of affairs if we can't even be damned to check if the arguments being put forth are of merit.
So sure, I suppose me wanting to see what's out there, me trying to corroborate information, me trying to spend time doing actual work reading papers and seeing what they say is me losing credibility.
It's worth also remembering that "fact checkers" by definition are never primary sources. A primary source is always the highest quality evidence for any proposition.
Secondary sources are the next best thing but are never as good as primary sources by definition.
Every layer of media is a layer of potential noise between the reader and the primary sources. Even All Facts Matter to my mind offers its best value by pointing my readers to the sources, so they can do their own study and form their own opinions.
In the end, it matters less who says a thing and more what thing is being said.
I've made this point several times. I don't care that it's Snopes, I care why they chose to fact-check this topic. I've raised a concern about this widespread "mRNA in lettuce", and have commented in several people's Substacks with respect to this same issue, and yet in many cases no comment is made. I don't really expect someone to make a comment, but then what happens when fact-checkers jump onto this unfounded claim and then make a mockery of the people who spout it? Now this creates a whole new mess, because people will react to the fact-checkers and draw from that instead.
There's already an issue of many people not reading the studies they write about, so why not have people who offer corrections in good-faith do so rather than those in opposition who will do whatever they can to remove credibility?
This is why I am developing the habit in my articles of posing the question "what does the data say?"
It's the best way I can think of to cut through the "source" bullshit and focus on the meat of a matter.
I picked apart a fact-check from FactCheck.org on some of Dr. Li-Meng Yan's research articles on SARS-CoV-2, particularly her conclusions supporting a lab-leak/lab-release hypothesis. Their "FactCheck" was a series of appeal to authority fallacies without any examination of Dr. Li's data--a true "fact free" fact check!
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/speech-or-silence-factcheckorg-flunkshtml
Fact checks are not a problem if they get the facts right. The problem is they don't--and very often it looks as if they don't even try.
Fact checkers in a different timeline would be peer reviewers and second eyes. Instead, the job of fact-checkers has become its own form of authority- it is because they say it is. It makes "fact-checking" a double-edged sword. On one hand people have always checked each other for their facts and evidence. But now in recent years the term is conflated with the profession of fact-checking which instead focuses on mischaracterization more than finding facts.
An interesting take. I never wrote about "vaccines in food".
It appears that two trends are underway:
1) mRNA animal vaccines
2) plants modified to deliver immunogenic substances to us (VLPs or whatever)
They are separate stories, but both are equally disturbing in that we are eating something containing materials that we did not really consent to receiving in "food".
I am not surprised that many people did not get the story exactly right. The fact checkers, as always, want the general public to look the other way.
But to your second point, the issue is that the argument is being conflated. As I stated, it's one thing to say that they are trying to use plants to make vaccines. This has already been attempted, although not much appear to have come out of this research. It's another to say that the plants are producing mRNA vaccines. That's something far more specific, and then runs into an issue of proof of concept. What's happening is that people are making claims that mRNA vaccines will be placed into produce, but then drawing from research that doesn't show this model, as in the case above where the company shown is making VLPs, or when the edible vaccine review is posted which shows a transgenic vegetable and not an mRNA vaccine-related product.
People can't flip-flop on the argument they are making. This leaves room for places like Snopes to come in and "fact-check" people.
It’s the same argument I have when people try to use patents as proof that X is being done. Patents prove an idea nothing more
Or when the clinical trials for the COVID vaccines listed hundreds of adverse reactions to look out for. People immediately took it to mean that these adverse reactions are related directly to the vaccines. Instead, maybe the list was extensive because they wouldn't know what to look out for, so just list everything and say, "hey, just watch out for these. We don't know which ones will happen, so just look out. 🤷♂️"
That ended up becoming a Kafka trap. If no adverse reaction to look out for were listed, then people would complain that they didn't look for anything. They make a list of things without knowing exactly what to look out for, and now people are saying they somehow knew that all of these adverse reactions will occur.
It doesn't work like that.
Edible vaccines have been available for livestock and poultry for a long time, as well as for humans (oral polio, anyone?). Those wanting to dig into this should focus on big ag money (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.858043/full).
Personally the use of mosquitoes (“thousands of flying syringes”) seems much more ominous, and one Snopes et al can’t deny with gusto.
There are ginormous, great considerations in this article regarding the need to be accurate and stick to facts. However, I would argue that we should all do this much more for the sake of the people, rather than the moribund media.
1)Media are afraid of SubStack because they know that for decision makers, SubStack will eventually supplant them.
2) Reporters in media are mostly reading scripts about science with no understanding. They have been reduced to reading what are essentially corporate and government agency press releases. (This is also one reason why, for example, Snopes, IMHO, does low quality fact checking on science matters. In the life of weedom there is some experience with media, which fuels a belief that most (but not all), of so called science reporters lack high school level of current understanding).
3) The greatest work will be to make science accessible to more people, make sane prognostications of future developments, and avoid extravagant or excessive claims.
4) Plus..... we must grow and market the nerd power effectively.
Oh, that's definitely true and I hope that goes without saying. I try to be as accurate as possible, and in cases where I'm not I try to offer corrections. I would hope that people see the information that I put out and can learn from it. Far too often people seem to want to move towards being told what to think on a topic or subject more than utilizing their own tools and critical thinking.
I try to stay away from terms that are more absolute. I will refer to a study as "suggesting, inferring, supposes, etc" rather than outright stating that a study is absolute.
You're definitely right on science reported. I've noticed that many reports tend to relegate the actual discussion of a study to "experts" in the field. It's rare to find the actual voice of a journalist in their analysis, and instead they are just jumping between experts that are telling them what they should think of a study rather than having the journalist break down the study for themselves. And if people think that independent journalists aren't doing this, that's also not true. I've found that many smaller outlets use the same approach of reporting on science that the mainstream do. I would argue that a lot of this is due to having to meet some article quota, so they just pick apart what is reported in other journals. They also may run under the fallacy that if other people have reported on a study then that means that they also did the work to break it down (which is absolutely false).
I can tell that you dig down hard on the topics, which is why I hang around. :-D
It's a day for lists- Why do people lean so much on "experts??
1: They were told "Science is hard" so they don't even try.
2: They lack confidence in their own common sense
3 The fear porn and manipulation gets blown at them at too high a rate.
4: They're so busy working to pay excessive taxes and keep head above water that they don't have time to read and analyze.
I try my best, and I try to make it known that a lot of what I say is with uncertainty because I am learning while I am releasing this information.
All 4 really good points- if I did anything to the list I'd probably just add to it because all of those points are exactly why we are having all of these issues.
Science has been gatekept for far too long, and with COVID science has become more open but people don't know how to do worth with the information they are provided. I found it strange when people say that a preprint is not "peer-reviewed". I mean, aren't we inherently the peers, so shouldn't we be able to parse the information to some degree? What exactly do they think editors or peers actually do? They're certainly not replicating the studies themselves, so they're likely just checking for egregious errors which are things we can do ourselves.
If anything, your numbering may be reverse for the course of events people deal with, aside from maybe 1. But consider that people are too busy, they are constantly bombarded with information to the point that they can't make sense of it all, so they fall back on authorities to tell them what they should think of this information, which in reality is just telling them how to feel.
Ya ya, and super point about the “gate keepers”. We could bag the gate keepers and freely publish everything with a comment section, where the comments which address the methods and the math float to the top. ;-) All research that is funded with public money belongs to the taxpayers.
It is pleasant to see that some preprints offer comments sections. This happened with one weird study trying to work backwards and say that a sequence in the spike was a sequence found in one of Moderna's patents for this other sequence. That whole study was ridiculous, and many people in the comments section were arguing against the finding, although they likely did so from a pro-vaccine position which sort of doesn't help argue against bad science.
good points ... dealing with masters of deception.
Apologies if I missed it, could exogenous plasmids effect animals microbiome? Could microRNAs or expressed uRNAs be bodily absorbed?. MicroRNAs have epigenetic effects. I believe plants provide beneficial uRNAs when we eat them..
I haven't looked into that so I wouldn't know. As you stated, I do believe microRNAs may possibly influence the expression of certain proteins by halting the translation, but I haven't looked too deeply into that topic in order to figure out what it all means. I wouldn't doubt that there's a lot more going on than just plants=nutrients.
Great advice, but there are diminishing returns to more careful thinking and communication. Because more, well-funded eyes are on the skeptics, they (the skeptics) have to put in far more effort into the endeavor, and for far less reward.
What percentage of today's non-skeptic population would realistically convert to careful skepticism? (Keep in mind many non-skeptics, by definition, are not interested in pursuing empirical or logical reasoning.) Even in the best case scenario--complete logical coherence by skeptics--I can't imagine it's in the double digits. Then realize that many of those converts will have been loosely wed to careful analysis in the first place, so they'll only provide the "skeptic movement" with greater numbers rather than more conscientious thought.
I share your frustrations and champion your efforts, but I'm not sure much can be done in the short term with the cards we've been dealt. That's independent of the fact you're doing good and necessary work. Don't get too discouraged with the Substack crowd.
(A tangent: A definite contributor to sloppy science/communication is information overload. It's hard to see how a scientist would practically keep abreast of Covid stuff let alone a layperson. Ioannidis makes the case that more information- and intelligence-rich societies will be at a relative disadvantage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTc7SFJpJkc&ab_channel=RobinSieben)
It's true there are diminished returns. I've noticed that spending hours or days working on a post may not get the same attention as if I just posted the abstract of a study and just pontificated on that. My general problem is that everything going on with COVID should have taught people to be more critical thinkers of the information they are presented.
Consider how many people mock "the science", but still can't figure out how to read science or to analyze science. Can this person be able to separate "the science" from science? Because of this people rely on heuristics and other tangential information, so someone who appears "trusted" in this community can say whatever they want, and rather than look at the studies they post they just go along with whatever the person says.
I made this post more as a concern that I'm seeing people, and many people who should know better by way of their education and profession, just posting something and not digging a little deeper, or misinterpreting a study. One clear example was when I saw several people posting about anti-spike antibodies from eggs and suggesting that the egg shortage (3 years since the start of this pandemic) are because of this benefit. Hardly anyone stopped to think, "well, if there are antibodies in the eggs...maybe the hens were vaccinated?" And that's exactly what happened! So the same crowd who doesn't want spike in their food supply are praising eggs for their anti-spike antibodies...which came from vaccinated hens...
I think examples like these frustrate me the most because it signals that people aren't actually making sense of the information they are provided. If someone just says something they just take their word without spending time to actually consider the information.
To information overload I think that also plays a big part. When 10 people post about a study how do you know which one to look through? Someone can't look through all 10 and then make a judgement.
I've used the term "infodemic" in the past, in which people are inundated with information and that may increase anxieties and paranoia. It actually came about during the first SARS response:
"What exactly do I mean by the "infodemic"? A few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, have affected national and international economies, politics and even security in ways that are utterly disproportionate with the root realities. It is a phenomenon we have seen with greater frequency in recent years—not only in our reaction to SARS, for example, but also in our response to terrorism and even to relatively minor occurrences such as shark sightings."
— David Rothkopf, The Washington Post, 11 May 2003
"My general problem is that everything going on with COVID should have taught people to be more critical thinkers of the information they are presented."
You're just seeing human nature for what it is, my friend! These people are simply falling to the level of their pre-COVID training. I wish they knew better, but they're scarcely given the tools to succeed in their upbringing and education. What good is it to have an excellent grasp of, say, biochemistry atop a perverse set of priorities? The latter saps virtually all potential from the former. So we see educated skeptics whose skepticism isn't integrated with a desire towards some selfless end. What's going to motivate them to action, which comes at personal cost? Certainly not technical know-how.
I've been meaning to read your med education series to explore these ideas. Philosophy of medicine and science have been left to rot while everyone and their dog is encouraged to enter increasingly complex STEM fields. It's all backwards.
Yupp, I've certainly learned that there's a difference between being educated and being intelligent. I won't say I'm either, but I'm at least trying to learn to do more than to take studies at their word. It's interesting to see that many of the PhD/MD people on both sides lack an ability to read studies. I'd argue that this is one of the biggest issues we have in medicine where there's a reliance on the results more than how the results came about.
I should return to that section. I'd like to go through them but similar to all posts I go down too many rabbit holes and I get bogged down in the information. I'm still looking through things as simple as angiosperms (flowers) and pollinators, and even all of that information is dense and complex.
I've noticed some of the chatter here on Substack concerning modRNA vaccines for livestock. Questions immediately come to mind such as how would these ideas apply to cooked meat. Personally, I normally avoid CAFO products in particular and industrially-farmed and GMOs in general, and I no longer eat rare meat (I miss it, omnivore that I am). I understand that for many, the choices are more limited and that if I lose income -- a distinct possibility -- I may be in the same boat. I do what I can, and don't do what I can't and don't worry much about it.
With regard to some of what I have been reading on this topic -- though it might be a misapplication -- the term "magical thinking" comes to mind.
While I agree whole-heartedly with your point, I am overly tired of one side having to be ultra-careful about everything whilst the other just says whatever and gets away with it (even as the "settled science" unsettles itself). I can see many valid points that the anti-vax crowd has, but then in the MSM those points are never addressed ... instead the MSM picks the most egregious examples literally saying "look, those anti-vaxxers are psychotic" and I would not disagree with them on that account. It's all very tiresome.
All of this is true, but in order to get our point across we shouldn't have to rely on disingenuous tactics. Many people on the side of skepticism have argued that they are better at reading science, that they are doing science. This, I would argue, makes us more hypocritical if one says they are reading science but then misreporting on the actual science. We need people spending time doing the work of breaking down papers rather than just talking about the act of reading papers or thinking more critically. It sometimes feels like the performative aspect is more important than the actual science.
I veered away from microbiology and biochemistry…
…to the slightly easier and less Godly profession as a Podiatrist
Like antibiotics and steroids given to livestock don’t get into the foods...
I'm not sure what your point is Pete. The article above never made reference to antibiotics or hormones in livestock. That's a known, but the argument here is related to claims made with respect to mRNA vaccines. If people wanted to make an argument about what gets pumped into livestock in general then they can, but this argument relates specifically to vaccination, and more specifically mRNA vaccines in livestock.
Shoot…accidentally put a response above🤪
One cool comfort: The proteins, e.g. enzymes, and most large molecules in the food get destroyed by the digestive system. Our guts are an amazing barrier to many nefarious plots involving biologicals. Even large molecule antibiotics like neomycin and vancomycin are poorly absorbed, and they're waaaaay smaller than those dastardly viral components.
I apologize if my comment seemed negative or derogatory…your pieces are always worthy of reading
God…
…that’s my understanding
You know how people want to see a bit of themselves in the Creator.
One of my research colleagues said: "the Great Biochemist in the sky" :-D
...still a great article
I think that happened the first time you mentioned GMO and my first thought was that those are not mRNA based technologies…
“This, by no ways, is an mRNA vaccine, and rather I would argue is more akin to a GMO product as the plants in such reviews are transgenic by way of the antigen insertion…”
When I went back I saw were you clarified that, although, at that point you had veered a little off mRNA and then I figured if they could, they would , so I’m sure their is millions is millions in funding being distributed. That would be a consideration since other medications are already being passed…
…again, I’m not sure about something like mosquito used to spread disease/cures… is not yet based on the bioweapons technology of mRNA, but that I’m sure it is being generously funded
The worse the spike protein (p120, furin cleavage, HIV genomes) the better the medication delivery system technology by increasing the possibility of invading the host cell…
…the more the possibilities of breakthrough mutations and subsequent novel animal transfer
I couldn't give a rats ass about what any fact checkers think or write. The fact checkers will tell you there is no possibility graphene oxide or the incredibly dangerous graphene hydroxide are in "mRNA" shots but I have seen enough evidence to know that it's true. Are we supposed to shut up about that because fact checkers and countless controlled opposition shills here on substack and elsewhere will say it isn't true? I'm not putting braces on my brain or a gag in my mouth for any of these people. I have seen evidence that there isn't even any Nitrogen, Phosphorous, or Magnesium in some samples of that soup. That means there was never anything organic in them. You can be a slave to meeting the approval of those people but it only undermines your own credibility. Who is fact checking the "fact checkers"? What I see the fact checkers doing over and over is regurgitating whatever big pharma and the companies that made these products specifically say in their official literature. Yeah, that stuff really came down from God didn't it?
Gee, it's almost like you didn't read anything that I wrote!
I ask you, then, how exactly you shape your perspective and worldview if you just avoid everything that appears as some form of opposition. Do you just search out information that fits your own biases, do you look for people who tell you what to think rather than spending time thinking for yourself?
I looked at the Snopes article because I find it necessary to see the ideas that fact-checkers are using to claim that ideas are incorrect, or should I just not look and not figure out what exactly is going on? Oh boy, it's coming from a fact-checker, that means I should not look at it and figure out what the hell they're saying! I'm good being stuck in my own insular community where they tell me what I want to hear!
I find it strange that this isn't the first time I've seen someone outright dismissing someone who bothered to see other perspectives. Do you seriously believe I am trying to gain approval from these people? Do you think me wanting to suggest that people do their due diligence in making sure their arguments are sound is somehow helping out fact-checkers? We're in a sad state of affairs if we can't even be damned to check if the arguments being put forth are of merit.
So sure, I suppose me wanting to see what's out there, me trying to corroborate information, me trying to spend time doing actual work reading papers and seeing what they say is me losing credibility.