Fury at Reclaim leader Lawrence Fox after he burns LGBTQ+ flags in his garden in Pride month httpsThere://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12210047/Laurence-Fox-burns-LGBT-bunting-garden-Pride-Month-disgusting.html
I'm beginning to wonder if some of these right wing populists aren't very nice people at all.
The whole “Pride Month” in the US, has blown up in quite spectacular fashion, with a number of riots, and large corporates trying to distance themselves from the extremists on both sides.
It’s turned from a celebration of gay rights into a movement that, to its opponents, appears to be aimed specifically at children, prompting a backlash from more socially conservative parents.
Because the Republican Party, unable to offer any solutions to America’s problems, has deliberately ramped up culture wars and lies about Pride Month.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who proposed the legislation in California, that proposes to remove children from their parents, into the care of the State, if the parents disagree with the gender transition process of pre-pubescent children.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who decided that sex shows in front of primary school children were now somehow okay, so long as the performers were in drag.
I don't doubt that the GOP are exaggerating and weaponising this shit for votes, in the Kultur Wars, I equally have no doubt that the Dem Woke Left is tolerating or even promoting this perverse stuff, because they have been hijacked by the extreme trans lobby
Do you believe that (a) this happened without the parents consent? or (b) that this is a common occurance?
Because in a country of 350 million people you'll get a lot of little videos.
Genuinely: if you believe the first video is a common experience in the US, then you are retarded.
This isn't woke vs unwoke, it is taking an incredibly uncommon experience and claiming it is the norm. It is like me showing a picture of a school shooter and claiming that is the regular experience of kids in the US.
You used to call me retarded for claiming that Woke education was taking over American schools in multiple ways. Your basis for saying this was "it's not happening at my kids schools"
You deny that the urban decay I have seen in multiple trips across the USA in recent months exists, because you are doing a small roadtrip across New Hampshire, one of the richest states in the union, and "it all looks fine"
And so on, and so forth
Whataboutary.
Answer the questions.
Do you believe that (a) this happened without the parents consent? or (b) that this is a common occurance?
(a) Very doubtful, (b) it's hard to say. Who compiles the list? Do you have a personal list of questionable drag shows in Wisconsin?
My point is that you a tendency to be very blinkered on these and other issues
You have become obsesseed with fighting a strawman, that transexuals and wokists are taking over.
They are not. And when they pop up, politicians pass laws to bash them down.
I'm really not "obsessed"! I find this trans debate excruciatingly boring, generally, and it saddens me that it has become so salient. Both sides are entrenched and people are getting hurt because of an agenda driven by creeps and weirdos. Ten years ago this debate was all so calm and sensible - and liberal
I'd rather talk about independence for the Isle of Sheppey
As a trans person yourself I am surprised that you find the debate so dull.
Any sign of a private deal between Nad and Rishi to hang on for a peerage when parliament is dissolved?
Starmer was on the radio this morning saying he will not distribute honours when he is PM. I think that includes Rishi's resignation list.
Oh do fuck off Keir. You nominated Tom Watson to the Lords. You are in no position to throw stones over honours lists.
You’ve mentioned Watson’s nomination before, a few times. If one accepts Watson was an egregious error, he’s still only one case. The majority of Johnson’s honours list was outrageous. Should we not take the number offences into account?
Everything that is now known about Tom Watson, was known by SKS at the time of his nomination. The Labour leader has already lost the moral high ground that he wishes to occupy.
Everything that is now known about Shaun Bailey, Ben Mallet, Charlotte Owen, Priti Patel and Rosemary Bate-Williams was known by Johnson at the time of his nomination. As per my earlier post, I’m talking about the numbers here.
Starmer's a lucky general. I bet the Tories wont mention Dale Vince anymore.
As the Tories slam Labour for being in the “pocket” of Just Stop Oil,
@BylineTimes reports that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt protested with XR against new gas drilling plans in his seat last Jan. He hasn’t told us if he still opposes the fossil fuel development
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
When do you think you might truly get over being mocked and derided for energetically promoting the lab leak theory for unsavoury hard right political reasons rather than in a genuine thirst for the truth?
Because it seems to be getting worse if anything. Still very very raw.
No, I'm still on it because we are now very very close to the point where I will be totally vindicated. Lab Leak. If it can be proven (and this is a recent, strong allegation from multiple sources) that the first three people to get Cov-Sars-2 were the three scientists fucking about with it at the lab, via Gain of Function, then that is the smoking gun. Case closed. It came from the lab
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
He often slogs it for a quick 15 or so but it's difficult to believe Broad got a century against Pakistan.
The only time Broad got a test century the opposition captain and half the bowling team ended up in prison for spot fixing.
While this is true, I don't believe there is anything suspect about his score. When he was coming into the team, Jon Agnew firmly believed he would be a bowling allrounder. Indeed until he was hit (and I think the death of Philip Hughes) he was a decent bat. Since then he has become a bit more of a tailender. He still averages 18 in tests, which is decent for a number 10.
Speaking of AI, I saw e1 of the new Black Mirror season. Perhaps not as amazing and mindblowing as previous seasons (it is a comedy, say Brooker) but nevertheless quite a head f**k and right up @Leon's strasse.
Yeah - I quite enjoyed it too. Some interesting ideas he played with that felt very of-the-moment despite probably being written 2yrs ago (or more). Going to pick off an episode an evening this week I think. Cheer myself right up...
LOL yes I watched all the other series during lockdown; perhaps not the best strategy! But wasn't it amazing. Some of those themes have stayed with me since then.
He often slogs it for a quick 15 or so but it's difficult to believe Broad got a century against Pakistan.
The only time Broad got a test century the opposition captain and half the bowling team ended up in prison for spot fixing.
While this is true, I don't believe there is anything suspect about his score. When he was coming into the team, Jon Agnew firmly believed he would be a bowling allrounder. Indeed until he was hit (and I think the death of Philip Hughes) he was a decent bat. Since then he has become a bit more of a tailender. He still averages 18 in tests, which is decent for a number 10.
I know.
You can see the deterioration in his batting the moment he took one in the breadbasket against India a few years ago.
@politicshome 💥 A new row has erupted in the Conservative party over Rishi Sunak's decision to skip the potential vote on the Privileges Committee's conclusion that Boris Johnson misled parliament over partygate
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
I'm beginning to wonder if some of these right wing populists aren't very nice people at all.
The whole “Pride Month” in the US, has blown up in quite spectacular fashion, with a number of riots, and large corporates trying to distance themselves from the extremists on both sides.
It’s turned from a celebration of gay rights into a movement that, to its opponents, appears to be aimed specifically at children, prompting a backlash from more socially conservative parents.
Because the Republican Party, unable to offer any solutions to America’s problems, has deliberately ramped up culture wars and lies about Pride Month.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who proposed the legislation in California, that proposes to remove children from their parents, into the care of the State, if the parents disagree with the gender transition process of pre-pubescent children.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who decided that sex shows in front of primary school children were now somehow okay, so long as the performers were in drag.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
@lizziedearden Breaking: The Met Police has launched a new investigation into alleged breaches of Covid laws at Downing Street, Chequers, inside parliament and at CCHQ
It said "a number of other events" have been referred since original Partygate probe
@jamesjohnson252 Partygate contagion now extending beyond Boris Johnson and to the wider Conservative Party.
Barnard Castle + Partygate still come up in focus groups. Lockdown-breaking could end up being the defining political story of this parliament.
Not sure how this does any good. The political damage is done. The cost of the investigation will be orders of magnitude greater than any fines. And it will just be FPN again.
The application of the law isn't about doing or avoiding political damage. It's not about turning a profit for the state.
That is not to take a view on the public interest or otherwise on a prosecution here, but the reasons you imply are not the right ones.
How many other covid offences are being investigated from 2020?
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
Better still, how and why would you have such a debate on the show of someone who has spent the last week or two peddling antivaxx propaganda ?
@politicshome 💥 A new row has erupted in the Conservative party over Rishi Sunak's decision to skip the potential vote on the Privileges Committee's conclusion that Boris Johnson misled parliament over partygate
I want my Prime Minister to try to influence people - specifically those MPs, journalists and voters who are still defending Johnson - and to lead from the front in restoring standards in public life, which declined so precipitously under Johnson https://twitter.com/GavinBarwell/status/1670748378488004608
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
When do you think you might truly get over being mocked and derided for energetically promoting the lab leak theory for unsavoury hard right political reasons rather than in a genuine thirst for the truth?
Because it seems to be getting worse if anything. Still very very raw.
No, I'm still on it because we are now very very close to the point where I will be totally vindicated. Lab Leak. If it can be proven (and this is a recent, strong allegation from multiple sources) that the first three people to get Cov-Sars-2 were the three scientists fucking about with it at the lab, via Gain of Function, then that is the smoking gun. Case closed. It came from the lab
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
What implications are those? China is a wild west in terms of regulation, thats surely why Daszak used them. GOF is rightly banned (I believe in the states, and almost certainly in the UK).
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
When do you think you might truly get over being mocked and derided for energetically promoting the lab leak theory for unsavoury hard right political reasons rather than in a genuine thirst for the truth?
Because it seems to be getting worse if anything. Still very very raw.
No, I'm still on it because we are now very very close to the point where I will be totally vindicated. Lab Leak. If it can be proven (and this is a recent, strong allegation from multiple sources) that the first three people to get Cov-Sars-2 were the three scientists fucking about with it at the lab, via Gain of Function, then that is the smoking gun. Case closed. It came from the lab
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
Do you still gloat about what.three.words or Russian going nuclear last autumn? You absolutely shit your pants over the latter.
Personally you should worry why so many Russian trolls use the same material as you.
In another era you would be called a useful idiot.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
But we had the same debate about lab leak
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
If someone makes a decision for themselves that they don’t want a vaccine, then we should respect that decision. When we talk about “antivaxxers”, we don’t generally mean individuals making those sorts of decisions. We mean people who are actively spreading lies, lies that mislead people and are damaging to public health.
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
I must admit, with my belief in the inevitability of the next Carrington event and all the other ways we could get cut off from 'online' I make a point of having a physical copy of anything I like - books, films, music. I still have/use online copies as well as they are convenient but physically owning something still means something to me.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
It depends what the argument they are making is - if they are just saying "there are risks with the vaccine" then obviously the response should be "all medical interventions come with a risk, and you have to weigh those risks against the benefits to you as an individual and the population as a whole, and you should have that conversation with your doctor".
If the argument is, as many on Rogan's show have been allowed to say, "covid wasn't that bad / real, the vaccines don't help / actively hurt you, the vaccine is a way that the establishment are using to keep tabs on you with microchips / are secretly poisoning you"... then no, that isn't reasonable and bugger em.
The most dangerous of these grifters will slip between the two. They will blur the lines between "there are risks" and "the vaccine kills people" and "that means the cure is worse than the disease" etc, etc.
I'm beginning to wonder if some of these right wing populists aren't very nice people at all.
The whole “Pride Month” in the US, has blown up in quite spectacular fashion, with a number of riots, and large corporates trying to distance themselves from the extremists on both sides.
It’s turned from a celebration of gay rights into a movement that, to its opponents, appears to be aimed specifically at children, prompting a backlash from more socially conservative parents.
Because the Republican Party, unable to offer any solutions to America’s problems, has deliberately ramped up culture wars and lies about Pride Month.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who proposed the legislation in California, that proposes to remove children from their parents, into the care of the State, if the parents disagree with the gender transition process of pre-pubescent children.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who decided that sex shows in front of primary school children were now somehow okay, so long as the performers were in drag.
The entire raison d'etre of libsoftiktok is to take either fake or out of context videos and put the worst spin on them and claim it is evidence of children viewing sex shows.
Pride was not originally a "celebration of gay rights" it was always a protest against oppression and heteronormativity, and has always had shouts of "what about straight pride month" or "why do they need a whole month" from people who (whilst not saying it out loud) probably don't like gay people that much.
This is all clearly a manufactured outrage created in a post same-sex marriage, post Roe environment where the GOP keep trying to find wedge culture issues to divide people and keep the most violent members of their base riled up to do random acts of terror. Trump in the 2016 primary got on stage with a pride flag and made the argument that protecting LGBT+ people was important because only those evil Muslims want to hurt the gays, whilst the US is all for freedom. If he did that now he'd be called a groomer. (He also noted at a recent rally that people clapped more when he mentioned trans people than they did for tax cuts or other things, and that 5 years ago people didn't care and had never heard about the trans issue).
If you like tiktok so much as a source, maybe you should look up this lawyer who has started doing a weekly round up of individuals arrested for child sex abuse and noting their occupation / relation to their victim (lots of pastors, priests and even police - no drag queens):
The groomer rhetoric is projection - US conservatives love grooming, and are more than happy for adults to marry 14 year olds and consummate the marriage, or carry their rapists baby to term, or give fathers the ultimate power over the family (considering that the vast majority of child sexual abuse happens within the family and not outside of it). Indeed you need only look at examples like the Duggar's where one of the sons was sexually abusing his sisters and they and the church covered it up and blamed the girls for being too enticing to him. The inability for conservatives to really confront where most child sexual abuse happens - the conservative bastions of the family and the church - forces them to create fake enemies who must really be the perpetrators for them to blame. And it always happens to be people they hate anyway; what a surprise!
The LibsOfTikTok account is publishing nothing original, simply re-publishing what these people themselves post, but for a different audience.
Accounts like LibsOfTikTok (on all sides of the political debate) are essentially brain cancer. They're uninformative, damaging and extremist. I try to keep away from them.
It’s also really important that we can see what others are saying, especially to relatively small audiences on social media.
This account originally spent most of its time reporting what teachers were saying to children, with a very large contrast to what the parents of these same children were expecting.
It's bullshit. I mean, the other week you came out with a claim that Budweiser's parent company's share price had 'crashed'. Which it had not, by any objective measure. Where did you get that misinformation from, except from such horseshit channels?
And that's the problem you need to be careful of - and that goes for me as much as it does you, or anyone else.
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
Yes - persuasion has to be the better approach, otherwise it makes things worse.
I had few issues with making either vaccination or proof of recovery from covid a condition of entry (as seen in Australia) back awhile, but now, with estimates of exposure around 97%, its not an issue.
Fury at Reclaim leader Lawrence Fox after he burns LGBTQ+ flags in his garden in Pride month httpsThere://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12210047/Laurence-Fox-burns-LGBT-bunting-garden-Pride-Month-disgusting.html
I'm beginning to wonder if some of these right wing populists aren't very nice people at all.
The whole “Pride Month” in the US, has blown up in quite spectacular fashion, with a number of riots, and large corporates trying to distance themselves from the extremists on both sides.
It’s turned from a celebration of gay rights into a movement that, to its opponents, appears to be aimed specifically at children, prompting a backlash from more socially conservative parents.
Because the Republican Party, unable to offer any solutions to America’s problems, has deliberately ramped up culture wars and lies about Pride Month.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who proposed the legislation in California, that proposes to remove children from their parents, into the care of the State, if the parents disagree with the gender transition process of pre-pubescent children.
It wasn’t the Republican Party who decided that sex shows in front of primary school children were now somehow okay, so long as the performers were in drag.
I don't doubt that the GOP are exaggerating and weaponising this shit for votes, in the Kultur Wars, I equally have no doubt that the Dem Woke Left is tolerating or even promoting this perverse stuff, because they have been hijacked by the extreme trans lobby
Do you believe that (a) this happened without the parents consent? or (b) that this is a common occurance?
Because in a country of 350 million people you'll get a lot of little videos.
Genuinely: if you believe the first video is a common experience in the US, then you are retarded.
This isn't woke vs unwoke, it is taking an incredibly uncommon experience and claiming it is the norm. It is like me showing a picture of a school shooter and claiming that is the regular experience of kids in the US.
You used to call me retarded for claiming that Woke education was taking over American schools in multiple ways. Your basis for saying this was "it's not happening at my kids schools"
You deny that the urban decay I have seen in multiple trips across the USA in recent months exists, because you are doing a small roadtrip across New Hampshire, one of the richest states in the union, and "it all looks fine"
And so on, and so forth
Whataboutary.
Answer the questions.
Do you believe that (a) this happened without the parents consent? or (b) that this is a common occurance?
(a) Very doubtful, (b) it's hard to say. Who compiles the list? Do you have a personal list of questionable drag shows in Wisconsin?
My point is that you a tendency to be very blinkered on these and other issues
You have become obsesseed with fighting a strawman, that transexuals and wokists are taking over.
They are not. And when they pop up, politicians pass laws to bash them down.
I'm really not "obsessed"! I find this trans debate excruciatingly boring, generally, and it saddens me that it has become so salient. Both sides are entrenched and people are getting hurt because of an agenda driven by creeps and weirdos. Ten years ago this debate was all so calm and sensible - and liberal
I'd rather talk about independence for the Isle of Sheppey
It has all gone wrong for Sheppey. Leysdown's once-sandy beaches are full of stones and discarded shells from French fishing boats. Sheerness has lost its tourist attraction now they lopped the masts off that bomb ship. The Gazette should commission a series on what's gone wrong with once prosperous British seaside towns.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
When do you think you might truly get over being mocked and derided for energetically promoting the lab leak theory for unsavoury hard right political reasons rather than in a genuine thirst for the truth?
Because it seems to be getting worse if anything. Still very very raw.
No, I'm still on it because we are now very very close to the point where I will be totally vindicated. Lab Leak. If it can be proven (and this is a recent, strong allegation from multiple sources) that the first three people to get Cov-Sars-2 were the three scientists fucking about with it at the lab, via Gain of Function, then that is the smoking gun. Case closed. It came from the lab
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
Do you still gloat about what.three.words or Russian going nuclear last autumn? You absolutely shit your pants over the latter.
Personally you should worry why so many Russian trolls use the same material as you.
In another era you would be called a useful idiot.
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
If someone makes a decision for themselves that they don’t want a vaccine, then we should respect that decision. When we talk about “antivaxxers”, we don’t generally mean individuals making those sorts of decisions. We mean people who are actively spreading lies, lies that mislead people and are damaging to public health.
Are we truly respecting that decision if we restrict people's liberty in significant ways as a result of it?
Might this kind of coercive policy not encourage the very paranoia and conspiracy mongering that we are concerned about?
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
But we had the same debate about lab leak
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
But we had the same debate about lab leak
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
"Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them". We do, or at least we try to. Sometimes though people just don't want to listen. Randoms from the internet are a much more trusted source than scientists.
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
When do you think you might truly get over being mocked and derided for energetically promoting the lab leak theory for unsavoury hard right political reasons rather than in a genuine thirst for the truth?
Because it seems to be getting worse if anything. Still very very raw.
No, I'm still on it because we are now very very close to the point where I will be totally vindicated. Lab Leak. If it can be proven (and this is a recent, strong allegation from multiple sources) that the first three people to get Cov-Sars-2 were the three scientists fucking about with it at the lab, via Gain of Function, then that is the smoking gun. Case closed. It came from the lab
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
Do you still gloat about what.three.words or Russian going nuclear last autumn? You absolutely shit your pants over the latter.
Personally you should worry why so many Russian trolls use the same material as you.
In another era you would be called a useful idiot.
The Necklace really irks you, doesn't it?
Nah, I just find your attempts to pose as a polymath tiresome, it used to be funny now it is as funny as papercut on the todger.
I made a shitload of money on Truss being dire when you were saying Starmer should be scared.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
But we had the same debate about lab leak
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
All too often, science relies on nuance. The public are really bad with nuances.
Science also often relies on probabilities / risks; again, the public are really poor at evaluating probabilities and risks (though I'd expect PB to be far better than average on the former).
These are really hard issues to convey to the public. If a charlatan says: "Can you guarantee, on your child's life, that this vaccine is safe?" then the public generally want to hear a "Yes". They generally don't want to hear: "It's safer than getting the disease," even if that's true. Then a charlatan replies: "So it's unsafe."
Basically: you cannot debate with an intelligent malign actor. And Rogan et al are malign actors. They're not interested in the public good; they're interested in their own filthy lucre.
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
If someone makes a decision for themselves that they don’t want a vaccine, then we should respect that decision. When we talk about “antivaxxers”, we don’t generally mean individuals making those sorts of decisions. We mean people who are actively spreading lies, lies that mislead people and are damaging to public health.
Are we truly respecting that decision if we restrict people's liberty in significant ways as a result of it?
Might this kind of coercive policy not encourage the very paranoia and conspiracy mongering that we are concerned about?
We are halfway through 2023. At no point has anyone required I be vaccinated for COVID-19 or even asked about it. (I have; multiple jabs.) So, whose liberty is being restricted that you are so concerned about?
We did have various restrictions in place while the pandemic was raging. There is a balance to be found between restrictions for the public good and liberty. I’m sure the discussion around that balance will continue. However, the antivaxxers’ predictions of (a) a police state and (b) everyone dying or becoming infertile look even more ludicrous today than they did at the time.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Maybe the bit in bold was hyperbolic, but it was based on an account I read from a pop scientist (Maybe Nye the Science Guy?) in why he thinks science communication is difficult.
It's also difficult because most science education is "how can we explain the most simple version of our current understanding of this subject to the person in front of us now", which leads to essentially teaching people models that change as they get deeper into the subject. I always remember this the most with chemistry - that our understanding of electrons and stuff gets taught quite simply at a young age (it's like a planet orbiting the sun) to more complex understandings (they have specific patterns of movement) to quantum physics which is *whooooosh* over most peoples' heads. It's why arguments like "it's basic biology there are only men and women" are so stuck in peoples' minds - they never studied biology to a degree that they need to know all the caveats to that, or how as a species our sexual dimorphism is relatively minimal compared to many other organisms, or that there are indeed fish that change sex and lionesses that represent with traits typically associated with male lions etc etc.
Science is a method, and scientific understanding is typically a model. And people believe their understanding of the model is reality - whereas a scientist would say "this is our collective / my individual best understanding of the current model of reality", which most people think is just weasel words or uncertainty. The "just a theory" crowd ignoring that a true, bona fide "Theory" with a capital T is the word used for things we consider basically essential to our understanding of current models, even if there are a few areas within the Theory that could still be ironed out.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Fundamentally, though, Hitchens, @Leon and Greta Thunberg are in the same boat.
They are all actively seeking evidence that their point of view is correct. So Hitchens sees that Sunday Bloody Sunday is hard to get on DVD and yells "censorship!", when the reality is that DVDs are simply not getting made in anything like the quantity they were because an increasing proportion of the population don't own DVD players any more.
And @Leon sees an incredibly unusual occurrence (a small child at a highly sexualised drag show) and assumes that this is happening to more than a tiny, tiny fraction of kids. (And for those who do see such a thing, one has to reckon it's going to be with the consent of the parents. What with them having taken the kids to the show after all.)
For dear old Greta, it is seeing climate emergency in everything, even as the world continues to make the most extraordinary strides to a renewable future every single day.
If England can crawl to a lead of ~280 that's defensible. That's game on
I already think its game on. Depends on how many they get tonight and if we can prise a few wickets. And also the weather overnight. A nice damp start and then some grey skies, with the ball hooping would be great.
This may be one of the classic tests where every innings is lower than the one before.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
I adored Gould’s “Wonderful Life”, a classic of the field, although also a cautionary tale as it turned out that he was more wrong than right on that topic (the Cambrian explosion).
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
If someone makes a decision for themselves that they don’t want a vaccine, then we should respect that decision. When we talk about “antivaxxers”, we don’t generally mean individuals making those sorts of decisions. We mean people who are actively spreading lies, lies that mislead people and are damaging to public health.
Are we truly respecting that decision if we restrict people's liberty in significant ways as a result of it?
Might this kind of coercive policy not encourage the very paranoia and conspiracy mongering that we are concerned about?
Yes, because vaccinations require a certain percentage of population to get them to be effective, especially to protect those who cannot get vaccinated for actual medical reasons.
Choices come with consequences. I never learnt to drive a car, that is my choice. I could choose today to try and drive a car, and the consequence would be either me getting in a crash or potentially getting pulled over by the cops and fined for driving without a license. Because I would be putting people in the way of significant harm if I didn't know how to drive a car and chose to.
If you chose not to vaccinate yourself, fine. But for society as a whole to protect the vast majority of people, we need the vast majority of people to be vaccinated. So don't expect people to be happy with you for your choice. If you're asking for freedom from the consequences of your actions that isn't freedom for everyone else!
Given the weather forecast for tomorrow, that England are still batting now shows how dumb the first innings declaration was.
There will be at least 60 overs (if required) tomorrow - the weather forecast is not really that bad. Time is not the problem. Runs are!
The declaration was a gamble that England could take a couple of wickets before the close. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean it wasn't a value bet that didn't come off...
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
If the world's foremost experts in criminology concluded that the swift use of the death penalty reduced the level of violent crime, decreased the risk of being murdered, and that this vastly outweighed the small risk of miscarriages of justice, would you defer to their view?
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Fundamentally, though, Hitchens, @Leon and Greta Thunberg are in the same boat.
They are all actively seeking evidence that their point of view is correct. So Hitchens sees that Sunday Bloody Sunday is hard to get on DVD and yells "censorship!", when the reality is that DVDs are simply not getting made in anything like the quantity they were because an increasing proportion of the population don't own DVD players any more.
And @Leon sees an incredibly unusual occurrence (a small child at a highly sexualised drag show) and assumes that this is happening to more than a tiny, tiny fraction of kids. (And for those who do see such a thing, one has to reckon it's going to be with the consent of the parents. What with them having taken the kids to the show after all.)
For dear old Greta, it is seeing climate emergency in everything, even as the world continues to make the most extraordinary strides to a renewable future every single day.
Here's how you remain (relatively) impartial.
You ask yourself to think of a testable hypothesis that would disprove your assumption.
So, for Hitchens, you'd think of ten movies from the same period that you didn't have an attachment to, and see if they were also difficult to get hold of physically. And if they were, you might think that there was something more to it that censorship.
For @Leon, you could see if there's a poll of parents about whether their kids had seen a sexualised trans show. (I'm happy to pay for a YouGov survey if we really want to see how common it is that kids see such shows.)
For Greta, she could simply look at the extent to which clean energy is being installed on a truly momentous scale across the globe.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
All too often, science relies on nuance. The public are really bad with nuances.
Science also often relies on probabilities / risks; again, the public are really poor at evaluating probabilities and risks (though I'd expect PB to be far better than average on the former).
lly: you cannot debate with an intelligent malign actor. And Rogan et al are malign actors. They're not interested in the public good; they're interested in their own filthy lucre.
Do you ever watch Rogan? He really is not a malign actor. He is massively popular because he clearly has an open mind, and because he is rich and popular enough to ignore the Woke attempts to silence him (I see people on here want him silenced even now)
He is great on a number of subjects, from fame to music to aliens to football to economics to Trumpism (he is anti-Trump, btw) - and he's great because he gets real experts or eye witnesses in, and he makes them relax, and he lets them talk freely in a way no one else quite does, til in the end they are spilling stuff they would do on no other show
Hi present position on the UFO flap is that it is elaborate USG psy-ops. What makes that important is that he has interviewed ALL the major characters in that story and he's reached this conclusion
Check him out. At he's best he is compelling. I find the Ultimate Fighting stuff less compelling, to be fair
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Maybe the bit in bold was hyperbolic, but it was based on an account I read from a pop scientist (Maybe Nye the Science Guy?) in why he thinks science communication is difficult.
It's also difficult because most science education is "how can we explain the most simple version of our current understanding of this subject to the person in front of us now", which leads to essentially teaching people models that change as they get deeper into the subject. I always remember this the most with chemistry - that our understanding of electrons and stuff gets taught quite simply at a young age (it's like a planet orbiting the sun) to more complex understandings (they have specific patterns of movement) to quantum physics which is *whooooosh* over most peoples' heads. It's why arguments like "it's basic biology there are only men and women" are so stuck in peoples' minds - they never studied biology to a degree that they need to know all the caveats to that, or how as a species our sexual dimorphism is relatively minimal compared to many other organisms, or that there are indeed fish that change sex and lionesses that represent with traits typically associated with male lions etc etc.
Science is a method, and scientific understanding is typically a model. And people believe their understanding of the model is reality - whereas a scientist would say "this is our collective / my individual best understanding of the current model of reality", which most people think is just weasel words or uncertainty. The "just a theory" crowd ignoring that a true, bona fide "Theory" with a capital T is the word used for things we consider basically essential to our understanding of current models, even if there are a few areas within the Theory that could still be ironed out.
Agree with this, and especially about chemistry. I have long decried how we teach chemistry (we teach historically, so start with planets and solar systems before saying, nah - that's rubbish its more like this). I start my lectures on atomic/molecular structure by explaining why we believe what we do about how atoms work (all the classic exps basically).
I do a fair bit of science comms, talking about my work at chilli festivals. Its tricky finding the right level. Some will have no science knowledge at all, and some will be professors of biochemistry who ask a tricky but thought provoking question, The media don't help, especially institutions such as the BBC, who frequently have rather under educated reporters reporting on science, and also feel a need to have false balance on display.
Urgh. Yes, me too. My fear isn't small spaces per se but of being trapped in one. Avoid the tube and lifts. Medical scans an issue. Need sedation for those. Don't go into anywhere locked where the lock isn't an obvious and easy manual one. Bit of a pain really. Started in mid life. Did not have this phobia till about 15 or 20 years ago. That said, it's getting slightly better now. Maybe it'll be gone by deathbed time. Maybe by then I'll be fine with getting confined in a small space. Hope so.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
The one that always sticks in my mind is 'The Median Isn't the Message' - his essay about being diagnosed with a rare incurable cancer with an average life expectancy of 8 months after discovery. He turned his scientific mind to it and realised that 'median' does not mean expected and set out to find out who lived the longest and why.
At the time of his death he had become the longest surviving person with that form of cancer having lasted 20 years from first diagnosis. Whilst the story has a sad and inevitable end, it was so amazingly inspiring that I return to it every few years and it gives me hope that a cancer diagnosis really isn't the death sentence it used to be.
Given the weather forecast for tomorrow, that England are still batting now shows how dumb the first innings declaration was.
There will be at least 60 overs (if required) tomorrow - the weather forecast is not really that bad. Time is not the problem. Runs are!
The declaration was a gamble that England could take a couple of wickets before the close. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean it wasn't a value bet that didn't come off...
The forecast doesn't look great to me. It really doesn't suggest much faith in the bowling attack if you're having to declare before the close to give the quicks some overs in slightly more favourable conditions.
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
If the world's foremost experts in criminology concluded that the swift use of the death penalty reduced the level of violent crime, decreased the risk of being murdered, and that this vastly outweighed the small risk of miscarriages of justice, would you defer to their view?
If they showed their working, it would be up for debate. However politicians and parliament are in charge, as they were for covid decisions too.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
If the world's foremost experts in criminology concluded that the swift use of the death penalty reduced the level of violent crime, decreased the risk of being murdered, and that this vastly outweighed the small risk of miscarriages of justice, would you defer to their view?
I absolutely would. If the cost-benefit of the death penalty was clearly and unambiguously positive, then I'd say "sure I want safeguards, but let's do it."
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
All too often, science relies on nuance. The public are really bad with nuances.
Science also often relies on probabilities / risks; again, the public are really poor at evaluating probabilities and risks (though I'd expect PB to be far better than average on the former).
These are really hard issues to convey to the public. If a charlatan says: "Can you guarantee, on your child's life, that this vaccine is safe?" then the public generally want to hear a "Yes". They generally don't want to hear: "It's safer than getting the disease," even if that's true. Then a charlatan replies: "So it's unsafe."
Basically: you cannot debate with an intelligent malign actor. And Rogan et al are malign actors. They're not interested in the public good; they're interested in their own filthy lucre.
Even if you remove the grift factor, it's still hard to have those sorts of conversations effectively. Utlimately, science means being a bit bloodless, willing to let your cherished beliefs die if the data don't match them. It doesn't always happen well even in scienceland (bad theories die one professorial funeral at a time and all that), but most scientists are aware of the ground rules and the need to make an effort in that direction.
There was that Hannah Fry documentary Unvaccinated (still on iplayer) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019g27 where she lived with and walked with and tried to persuade some vaccine refusers and didn't really get anywhere. And that was with well-meaning amateurs.
Trying to debate with a professional antivaxxer is too much like wrestling with a pig (including who enjoys the process).
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
The one that always sticks in my mind is 'The Median Isn't the Message' - his essay about being diagnosed with a rare incurable cancer with an average life expectancy of 8 months after discovery. He turned his scientific mind to it and realised that 'median' does not mean expected and set out to find out who lived the longest and why.
At the time of his death he had become the longest surviving person with that form of cancer having lasted 20 years from first diagnosis. Whilst the story has a sad and inevitable end, it was so amazingly inspiring that I return to it every few years and it gives me hope that a cancer diagnosis really isn't the death sentence it used to be.
And also why doctors don't like to say how long they think you have left... You cannot win either way!
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Yes, and the players more than media are the problem. I use a pc with dvd drive to watch my films now. My first dvd player cost £200 and now they are so cheap it is not worth making them. VCRs died over a decade back.
ETA and when was the last laptop sold with a dvd drive as standard?
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Of course this is a classic example of why one's politics should not be the defining characteristic by which we are judged. I disagree with his marxist views whilst recognising how and why they developed. But I don't find they in any way interfere with his scientific writings and was surprised to find out about his politics after many years of reading his works both for academic and pleasure purposes.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Why do you say he was a Marxist? Not come across that.
when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
Being vaccinated has a non-zero chance of ending with a fatal adverse event. Is the correct response to somebody who is concerned about this, "Shut up and stop being stupid," or, "That's your right even if the risk is tiny"?
If someone makes a decision for themselves that they don’t want a vaccine, then we should respect that decision. When we talk about “antivaxxers”, we don’t generally mean individuals making those sorts of decisions. We mean people who are actively spreading lies, lies that mislead people and are damaging to public health.
Are we truly respecting that decision if we restrict people's liberty in significant ways as a result of it?
Might this kind of coercive policy not encourage the very paranoia and conspiracy mongering that we are concerned about?
We are halfway through 2023. At no point has anyone required I be vaccinated for COVID-19 or even asked about it. (I have; multiple jabs.) So, whose liberty is being restricted that you are so concerned about?
We did have various restrictions in place while the pandemic was raging. There is a balance to be found between restrictions for the public good and liberty. I’m sure the discussion around that balance will continue. However, the antivaxxers’ predictions of (a) a police state and (b) everyone dying or becoming infertile look even more ludicrous today than they did at the time.
I went for an outpatients appointment at an Irish hospital today (everything's fine). The appointment letter requested that I wear a mask while in the hospital. So I did.
I saw one other mask in the entire hospital (a "surgical" mask on a nurse leaving an ICU ward). I considered taking my mask off, but I left it on, because I'm recovering from a cold, so seemed like a good idea to wear it for that reason.
My guess is that they've changed the hospital policy wrt masks, but haven't updated the appointment letter template.
As you say it's a long way from the dystopian future predicted by some during the pandemic. We did a whole bunch of unusual things as temporary expedients in exceptional circumstances. And now we don't need to, so the vast majority of people don't.
Starmer's a lucky general. I bet the Tories wont mention Dale Vince anymore.
As the Tories slam Labour for being in the “pocket” of Just Stop Oil,
@BylineTimes reports that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt protested with XR against new gas drilling plans in his seat last Jan. He hasn’t told us if he still opposes the fossil fuel development
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Why do you say he was a Marxist? Not come across that.
He himself often said that those were the views he closest agreed with.
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Fundamentally, though, Hitchens, @Leon and Greta Thunberg are in the same boat.
They are all actively seeking evidence that their point of view is correct. So Hitchens sees that Sunday Bloody Sunday is hard to get on DVD and yells "censorship!", when the reality is that DVDs are simply not getting made in anything like the quantity they were because an increasing proportion of the population don't own DVD players any more.
And @Leon sees an incredibly unusual occurrence (a small child at a highly sexualised drag show) and assumes that this is happening to more than a tiny, tiny fraction of kids. (And for those who do see such a thing, one has to reckon it's going to be with the consent of the parents. What with them having taken the kids to the show after all.)
For dear old Greta, it is seeing climate emergency in everything, even as the world continues to make the most extraordinary strides to a renewable future every single day.
Here's how you remain (relatively) impartial.
You ask yourself to think of a testable hypothesis that would disprove your assumption.
So, for Hitchens, you'd think of ten movies from the same period that you didn't have an attachment to, and see if they were also difficult to get hold of physically. And if they were, you might think that there was something more to it that censorship.
For @Leon, you could see if there's a poll of parents about whether their kids had seen a sexualised trans show. (I'm happy to pay for a YouGov survey if we really want to see how common it is that kids see such shows.)
For Greta, she could simply look at the extent to which clean energy is being installed on a truly momentous scale across the globe.
So we have proven that your initial claim that these dodgy drag shows are incredibly rare is in, fact, based on nothing but your supposition. Your priors. It's a guess. You don't know and have no evidence (either way). Tsk
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
All too often, science relies on nuance. The public are really bad with nuances.
Science also often relies on probabilities / risks; again, the public are really poor at evaluating probabilities and risks (though I'd expect PB to be far better than average on the former).
These are really hard issues to convey to the public. If a charlatan says: "Can you guarantee, on your child's life, that this vaccine is safe?" then the public generally want to hear a "Yes". They generally don't want to hear: "It's safer than getting the disease," even if that's true. Then a charlatan replies: "So it's unsafe."
Basically: you cannot debate with an intelligent malign actor. And Rogan et al are malign actors. They're not interested in the public good; they're interested in their own filthy lucre.
There is a defeatism here. We see in politics that a certain playbook of malignity has galloped rather successfully through democratic politics, popping up here and there, over the last 30 years - a Berlusconi here, a Trump there, a Netanyahu, Putin, Bill Clinton, Boris, Duda - the list goes on. The social science of political lying has kicked on, even if the underpinning populism is old, with new techniques and formal advanced.
In a very real way science vs conspiracy is in the same bind.
We need proper, social science based, counter playbooks. Finnish debunking was hailed a couple of years ago, but I didn't really get to read about the building blocks of that. I don't think physical scientists are the central actors in such development, but they do need to be across the art of debunking and adapt it to the limitations, in this respect, of how peer reviewed science works.
But they are one flank of a wider battle, not the whole war.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Of course this is a classic example of why one's politics should not be the defining characteristic by which we are judged. I disagree with his marxist views whilst recognising how and why they developed. But I don't find they in any way interfere with his scientific writings and was surprised to find out about his politics after many years of reading his works both for academic and pleasure purposes.
His work on punctuated equilibriums also looks to be absolutely spot on.
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
I must admit, with my belief in the inevitability of the next Carrington event and all the other ways we could get cut off from 'online' I make a point of having a physical copy of anything I like - books, films, music. I still have/use online copies as well as they are convenient but physically owning something still means something to me.
@Richard_Tyndall If God had not meant us to own physical copies, he would not given us bookshelves
Urgh. Yes, me too. My fear isn't small spaces per se but of being trapped in one. Avoid the tube and lifts. Medical scans an issue. Need sedation for those. Don't go into anywhere locked where the lock isn't an obvious and easy manual one. Bit of a pain really. Started in mid life. Did not have this phobia till about 15 or 20 years ago. That said, it's getting slightly better now. Maybe it'll be gone by deathbed time. Maybe by then I'll be fine with getting confined in a small space. Hope so.
For me, since I was a kid - the Blue John mines in Derbyshire; couldn't get more than a few feet beyond the entrance.
Couldn't watch The Descent, which was a daft horror movie, but pretty good at inducing claustrophobia. Weird, but tough to suppress.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
One of the issues with scientists debating with non-scientists was illustrated on PB yesterday with your good self. Scientists talk a different language to non-scientists. Scientists tend to be more reserved and cagey about things, less definite, less certain. Non-scientists are prone to be more certain about things.
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
But we had the same debate about lab leak
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
It's gone from 'lol' to 'hmm maybe' but it's far from proven. And anybody pushing it from the start (merely because of the coincidence of Wuhan having a lab) wouldn't be vindicated if it turns out correct because they'll have been right for the wrong reasons.
Similar to doing a £100 bet on tails for a coin toss and taking odds of 1/2 when it should be evens. That's a bad bet. Even if it comes up tails and you win the £50 it was a bad bet.
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
If the world's foremost experts in criminology concluded that the swift use of the death penalty reduced the level of violent crime, decreased the risk of being murdered, and that this vastly outweighed the small risk of miscarriages of justice, would you defer to their view?
Well, they haven't, so it's a bit of a silly question.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
"If only Gould could think as clearly as he writes" - Richard Dawkins. Wonderful Life was about as wrong as it is possible to be. And his punctuated equilibrium and spandrels stuff was just wrong too. He decided he would be Einstein to Darwin's Newton.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
The one that always sticks in my mind is 'The Median Isn't the Message' - his essay about being diagnosed with a rare incurable cancer with an average life expectancy of 8 months after discovery. He turned his scientific mind to it and realised that 'median' does not mean expected and set out to find out who lived the longest and why.
At the time of his death he had become the longest surviving person with that form of cancer having lasted 20 years from first diagnosis. Whilst the story has a sad and inevitable end, it was so amazingly inspiring that I return to it every few years and it gives me hope that a cancer diagnosis really isn't the death sentence it used to be.
A nice essay, and compare and contrast to Steve Jobs' approach!
Peter Hitchens in his column yesterday claimed that it's almost impossible to get hold of the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.
Only one copy on Amazon, and that is of the BFI blu-ray for £30.
If it's BFI, I think you can go view it in one of their places. I keep meaning to do it myself.
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Fundamentally, though, Hitchens, @Leon and Greta Thunberg are in the same boat.
They are all actively seeking evidence that their point of view is correct. So Hitchens sees that Sunday Bloody Sunday is hard to get on DVD and yells "censorship!", when the reality is that DVDs are simply not getting made in anything like the quantity they were because an increasing proportion of the population don't own DVD players any more.
And @Leon sees an incredibly unusual occurrence (a small child at a highly sexualised drag show) and assumes that this is happening to more than a tiny, tiny fraction of kids. (And for those who do see such a thing, one has to reckon it's going to be with the consent of the parents. What with them having taken the kids to the show after all.)
For dear old Greta, it is seeing climate emergency in everything, even as the world continues to make the most extraordinary strides to a renewable future every single day.
Here's how you remain (relatively) impartial.
You ask yourself to think of a testable hypothesis that would disprove your assumption.
So, for Hitchens, you'd think of ten movies from the same period that you didn't have an attachment to, and see if they were also difficult to get hold of physically. And if they were, you might think that there was something more to it that censorship.
For @Leon, you could see if there's a poll of parents about whether their kids had seen a sexualised trans show. (I'm happy to pay for a YouGov survey if we really want to see how common it is that kids see such shows.)
For Greta, she could simply look at the extent to which clean energy is being installed on a truly momentous scale across the globe.
So we have proven that your initial claim that these dodgy drag shows are incredibly rare is in, fact, based on nothing but your supposition. Your priors. It's a guess. You don't know and have no evidence (either way). Tsk
It's a little early for you to be sozzled, isn't it?
My claim is that very, very few children will see a sexualised drag show of the one you shared the video from. And for those who did see it, the vast majority will have done so with the parents consent.
I'm happy to do a YouGov survey and to pay for it, if you like.
You know, gathering evidence rather than anecdote.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Of course this is a classic example of why one's politics should not be the defining characteristic by which we are judged. I disagree with his marxist views whilst recognising how and why they developed. But I don't find they in any way interfere with his scientific writings and was surprised to find out about his politics after many years of reading his works both for academic and pleasure purposes.
He sometimes takes positions where one has to suspect his politics are at play, and not in a good way
Nonetheless, I agree he is (was) a fine writer, and capable of illuminating insights. The spandrels analogy was a superb way of simply explaining a rather complex evolutionary truth
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Of course this is a classic example of why one's politics should not be the defining characteristic by which we are judged. I disagree with his marxist views whilst recognising how and why they developed. But I don't find they in any way interfere with his scientific writings and was surprised to find out about his politics after many years of reading his works both for academic and pleasure purposes.
His work on punctuated equilibriums also looks to be absolutely spot on.
Agreed. I was fortunate to be studying Geology at Uni when this was still the big debate and I buy into the concept pretty much completely.
Mordaunt stressing the House’s right not to be misled and not to be abused while carrying out their duties. A strong anti-Johnson wrapping up after a rather technical speech.
Starmer's a lucky general. I bet the Tories wont mention Dale Vince anymore.
As the Tories slam Labour for being in the “pocket” of Just Stop Oil,
@BylineTimes reports that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt protested with XR against new gas drilling plans in his seat last Jan. He hasn’t told us if he still opposes the fossil fuel development
“Protested with”, or “Turned up to a protest in his contituency, to speak to those involved”?
One can also support natural gas drilling in the North Sea, while being concerned about the impact fracking of tight gas would have on local residents.
Elon Musk now telling Peter Hotez to debate RFK jr on vaccines.
First of all, I am generally pro vaccine. I have been vaccinated against pretty much everything, as have my kids. Second, I think there is tremendous promise in synthetic mRNA. It is like medicine going from analog to digital. That said, the world obviously went crazy with excess vaccination against “Covid-19”. I have that in quotes, because the RNA sequences changed so much that I called it the virus of Theseus. So many people I know had serious side effects from the vaccines, including myself. Failure to acknowledge that is a lie. As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive!? Just go on Rogan and do the debate.
Joining me today to debate the efficacy of Covid vaccines is one of the world's foremost experts in epidemiology - hello Professor - and to put the other side of the argument we have a vibrant right wing internet personality Hugo Revolving-Bow-Tie. We'll start with you, Hugo ...
If the world's foremost experts in criminology concluded that the swift use of the death penalty reduced the level of violent crime, decreased the risk of being murdered, and that this vastly outweighed the small risk of miscarriages of justice, would you defer to their view?
"If the scientific method showed something to be true that the scientific method currently shows not to be true, would you be happy with the scientific method" is such a pointless argument, I do not see what possible value it could add to any discussion... Like, yes, if we lived in a reality where the sky was green, would I say the sky wasn't blue? Yes - but what is the value of that statement? Or are you then going to say "Lol, he would say the sky wasn't blue in this hypothetical reality I made up, despite the fact we live in a reality where the sky is blue - see how these people are just relativists?"
Comments
As the Tories slam Labour for being in the “pocket” of Just Stop Oil,
@BylineTimes reports that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt protested with XR against new gas drilling plans in his seat last Jan. He hasn’t told us if he still opposes the fossil fuel development
https://twitter.com/josiahmortimer/status/1670787939519873029
Then I shall expect major grovelling from the slow learner likes of your good self
The greater implications for science are grave and serious, but let's get my gloating in first, eh?
You can see the deterioration in his batting the moment he took one in the breadbasket against India a few years ago.
I've probably jinxed it
💥 A new row has erupted in the Conservative party over Rishi Sunak's decision to skip the potential vote on the Privileges Committee's conclusion that Boris Johnson misled parliament over partygate
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1670803456724959235
Hitchens has struck on a sticky point: the disappearance of physical media makes it more and more difficult to access things except via online, which in turns requires greater and greater familiarisation with technology. Older people who don't understand apps and the various streaming options will be left behind.
Modest proposal: the British Library to take copies of every TV program and film and make them available in their site on production of a reading card and a free slot. May sound stupid, but these things are invaluable.
Titanic tourist sub goes missing sparking search
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65953872
https://news.sky.com/story/commercial-submarine-goes-missing-near-titanic-wreck-in-atlantic-ocean-12905471
How do I discuss what I do with a non-scientist? I have to use a lay-person approach. You discuss the work in language an intelligent but non-expert person would be able to follow. And that is not the same as a discussion among scientists.
Its impossible (or nearly so) to debate anti-vaxxers. Does vaccination carry risks? Yes, clearly and demonstrably so. People did die after covid vaccination and probably directly from it. So an anti-vaxxer might conclude that you should not take the vaccine. Yet vaccination suffers from the lockdown problem. After the event people have started to say that it didn't work, or wasn't necessary. And that, demonstrably, is not true. We have enough population data to show this now. We also have the huge shift in health burden associated with a fully open country after vaccination with what went before.
But how do you have that conversation with people who will not understand statistics and how the data works?
2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense
3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show
4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
@BNHWalker
New post: There is reason to think Uxbridge and South Ruislip might not be a done deal for Labour"
https://twitter.com/BNHWalker/status/1670722091467915264
https://twitter.com/GavinBarwell/status/1670748378488004608
Personally you should worry why so many Russian trolls use the same material as you.
In another era you would be called a useful idiot.
There you were, all the pompous scientists, calmly and condescendingly saying "but all these pandemics spring from zoonosis, they come from nature, this is how it happens, go back in history, you don't understand the maths of how it jumps from stoats to seagulls to Sandra Yang in the wet market"
Then there's me saying, "Yeah, whatever, the only city that this engineered-to-be-dangerous new bat coronavirus emerged in the world is the same city where they have the only lab in the world engineering new bat coronaviruses, it came from the lab. It's bleedin' obvious"
And, weirdly, I - the layman - turned out to be right, perhaps because I am able to take a wider view than a mere scientist with a specialism
Antivaxxery needs to be addressed and debated. Debate them
And in this case, I'd be cheering on the scientists, people like you, as I am sure they are right in the main. Running away from debate only makes it worse and calling antivaxxery a "baseless conspiracy theory" is pointless too, as that's EXACTLY the words used about lab leak in the Lancet Letter
Or 20. Get 20!
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
If the argument is, as many on Rogan's show have been allowed to say, "covid wasn't that bad / real, the vaccines don't help / actively hurt you, the vaccine is a way that the establishment are using to keep tabs on you with microchips / are secretly poisoning you"... then no, that isn't reasonable and bugger em.
The most dangerous of these grifters will slip between the two. They will blur the lines between "there are risks" and "the vaccine kills people" and "that means the cure is worse than the disease" etc, etc.
And that's the problem you need to be careful of - and that goes for me as much as it does you, or anyone else.
I had few issues with making either vaccination or proof of recovery from covid a condition of entry (as seen in Australia) back awhile, but now, with estimates of exposure around 97%, its not an issue.
Might this kind of coercive policy not encourage the very paranoia and conspiracy mongering that we are concerned about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
I made a shitload of money on Truss being dire when you were saying Starmer should be scared.
Science also often relies on probabilities / risks; again, the public are really poor at evaluating probabilities and risks (though I'd expect PB to be far better than average on the former).
These are really hard issues to convey to the public. If a charlatan says: "Can you guarantee, on your child's life, that this vaccine is safe?" then the public generally want to hear a "Yes". They generally don't want to hear: "It's safer than getting the disease," even if that's true. Then a charlatan replies: "So it's unsafe."
Basically: you cannot debate with an intelligent malign actor. And Rogan et al are malign actors. They're not interested in the public good; they're interested in their own filthy lucre.
We did have various restrictions in place while the pandemic was raging. There is a balance to be found between restrictions for the public good and liberty. I’m sure the discussion around that balance will continue. However, the antivaxxers’ predictions of (a) a police state and (b) everyone dying or becoming infertile look even more ludicrous today than they did at the time.
It's also difficult because most science education is "how can we explain the most simple version of our current understanding of this subject to the person in front of us now", which leads to essentially teaching people models that change as they get deeper into the subject. I always remember this the most with chemistry - that our understanding of electrons and stuff gets taught quite simply at a young age (it's like a planet orbiting the sun) to more complex understandings (they have specific patterns of movement) to quantum physics which is *whooooosh* over most peoples' heads. It's why arguments like "it's basic biology there are only men and women" are so stuck in peoples' minds - they never studied biology to a degree that they need to know all the caveats to that, or how as a species our sexual dimorphism is relatively minimal compared to many other organisms, or that there are indeed fish that change sex and lionesses that represent with traits typically associated with male lions etc etc.
Science is a method, and scientific understanding is typically a model. And people believe their understanding of the model is reality - whereas a scientist would say "this is our collective / my individual best understanding of the current model of reality", which most people think is just weasel words or uncertainty. The "just a theory" crowd ignoring that a true, bona fide "Theory" with a capital T is the word used for things we consider basically essential to our understanding of current models, even if there are a few areas within the Theory that could still be ironed out.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
They are all actively seeking evidence that their point of view is correct. So Hitchens sees that Sunday Bloody Sunday is hard to get on DVD and yells "censorship!", when the reality is that DVDs are simply not getting made in anything like the quantity they were because an increasing proportion of the population don't own DVD players any more.
And @Leon sees an incredibly unusual occurrence (a small child at a highly sexualised drag show) and assumes that this is happening to more than a tiny, tiny fraction of kids. (And for those who do see such a thing, one has to reckon it's going to be with the consent of the parents. What with them having taken the kids to the show after all.)
For dear old Greta, it is seeing climate emergency in everything, even as the world continues to make the most extraordinary strides to a renewable future every single day.
This may be one of the classic tests where every innings is lower than the one before.
Choices come with consequences. I never learnt to drive a car, that is my choice. I could choose today to try and drive a car, and the consequence would be either me getting in a crash or potentially getting pulled over by the cops and fined for driving without a license. Because I would be putting people in the way of significant harm if I didn't know how to drive a car and chose to.
If you chose not to vaccinate yourself, fine. But for society as a whole to protect the vast majority of people, we need the vast majority of people to be vaccinated. So don't expect people to be happy with you for your choice. If you're asking for freedom from the consequences of your actions that isn't freedom for everyone else!
The declaration was a gamble that England could take a couple of wickets before the close. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean it wasn't a value bet that didn't come off...
You ask yourself to think of a testable hypothesis that would disprove your assumption.
So, for Hitchens, you'd think of ten movies from the same period that you didn't have an attachment to, and see if they were also difficult to get hold of physically. And if they were, you might think that there was something more to it that censorship.
For @Leon, you could see if there's a poll of parents about whether their kids had seen a sexualised trans show. (I'm happy to pay for a YouGov survey if we really want to see how common it is that kids see such shows.)
For Greta, she could simply look at the extent to which clean energy is being installed on a truly momentous scale across the globe.
He is great on a number of subjects, from fame to music to aliens to football to economics to Trumpism (he is anti-Trump, btw) - and he's great because he gets real experts or eye witnesses in, and he makes them relax, and he lets them talk freely in a way no one else quite does, til in the end they are spilling stuff they would do on no other show
Hi present position on the UFO flap is that it is elaborate USG psy-ops. What makes that important is that he has interviewed ALL the major characters in that story and he's reached this conclusion
Check him out. At he's best he is compelling. I find the Ultimate Fighting stuff less compelling, to be fair
I do a fair bit of science comms, talking about my work at chilli festivals. Its tricky finding the right level. Some will have no science knowledge at all, and some will be professors of biochemistry who ask a tricky but thought provoking question, The media don't help, especially institutions such as the BBC, who frequently have rather under educated reporters reporting on science, and also feel a need to have false balance on display.
At the time of his death he had become the longest surviving person with that form of cancer having lasted 20 years from first diagnosis. Whilst the story has a sad and inevitable end, it was so amazingly inspiring that I return to it every few years and it gives me hope that a cancer diagnosis really isn't the death sentence it used to be.
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
There was that Hannah Fry documentary Unvaccinated (still on iplayer) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019g27 where she lived with and walked with and tried to persuade some vaccine refusers and didn't really get anywhere. And that was with well-meaning amateurs.
Trying to debate with a professional antivaxxer is too much like wrestling with a pig (including who enjoys the process).
@benrileysmith
NEW: July 20 is now a triple by-election day (David Warburton seat vote to be scheduled for then)"
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1670793234958745607
PM sets out the formal procedural background to today’s motion.
ETA and when was the last laptop sold with a dvd drive as standard?
I saw one other mask in the entire hospital (a "surgical" mask on a nurse leaving an ICU ward). I considered taking my mask off, but I left it on, because I'm recovering from a cold, so seemed like a good idea to wear it for that reason.
My guess is that they've changed the hospital policy wrt masks, but haven't updated the appointment letter template.
As you say it's a long way from the dystopian future predicted by some during the pandemic. We did a whole bunch of unusual things as temporary expedients in exceptional circumstances. And now we don't need to, so the vast majority of people don't.
In a very real way science vs conspiracy is in the same bind.
We need proper, social science based, counter playbooks. Finnish debunking was hailed a couple of years ago, but I didn't really get to read about the building blocks of that. I don't think physical scientists are the central actors in such development, but they do need to be across the art of debunking and adapt it to the limitations, in this respect, of how peer reviewed science works.
But they are one flank of a wider battle, not the whole war.
If God had not meant us to own physical copies, he would not given us bookshelves
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/cat/billy-series-28102/
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/6095758
Couldn't watch The Descent, which was a daft horror movie, but pretty good at inducing claustrophobia. Weird, but tough to suppress.
Similar to doing a £100 bet on tails for a coin toss and taking odds of 1/2 when it should be evens. That's a bad bet. Even if it comes up tails and you win the £50 it was a bad bet.
My claim is that very, very few children will see a sexualised drag show of the one you shared the video from. And for those who did see it, the vast majority will have done so with the parents consent.
I'm happy to do a YouGov survey and to pay for it, if you like.
You know, gathering evidence rather than anecdote.
Nonetheless, I agree he is (was) a fine writer, and capable of illuminating insights. The spandrels analogy was a superb way of simply explaining a rather complex evolutionary truth
Then focuses on the impact of the covid lies on families of those who died.