Rational CoViD-19 Discussion Thread: Science vs. Politics

[babe]

It's rational to deny the evidence from the Henry Ford study, because it's bad evidence.

This says it better than I ever could.

Henry Ford Hospital hydroxychloroquine trial: Not good evidence that the drug works for COVID-19

Recently, Henry Ford Hospital published a study of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 that showed a benefit. It doesn't, really.

respectfulinsolence.com

You are not a scientist. A lot of officials like Fauci are neither scientists nor doctors, really, when they talk out of their asses and give no supporting evidence, or make up crap.

I have seen some fairly respected journals doing unscientific crap on HCQ.

The Ford study was well done, with a large sample of patients well-documented. Go read the report before you pull crap outta your *** or offa the politically censored webz.

HCQ is not the only effective antiviral we could use.

And if we installed air disinfecting units like uv light or electrostatic filters/ozone generators in the AC ductworks, we could dispense with most mask wearing in business settings and hotels, because social distancing would be sufficient precaution

Crazy Cloward-Piven politics meant to wreck our economy. Fauci is a tool for that crap..

 

[babe]

So here is a letter from the Ford system----

Hydroxychloroquine: An Open Letter to Our Community and Beyond

www.henryford.com

While the study is not the highest level of investigation, it is observational research with the complete patient files for a very large number of patients, comparing patients treated with a variety of procedures, unselected for any variables except forf HCQ, andseparately for Azithromycin and also separately for Zinc, a common cold remedy sold in almost every grocery store. Azithromycin and Zinc also improved the results, but not as much as HCQ.

It is reasonable to use any safe, well-studied resource, as these three all are, to treat patients when the anti-viral effects show any benefit.

And, I may say, we have quite a few such antivirals on our pharmacy shelves.

 

[One Brow]

You are not a scientist.

Neither are you. However, rather than asking you to rely on my expertise, I linked to an actual scientist who read the study and identified the many flaws in it.

A lot of officials like Fauci are neither scientists nor doctors, really,

That's why I offered a link to someone who, like Fauci, actually is both a doctor and a scientist.

The Ford study was well done, with a large sample of patients well-documented.

Thank you for affirming that that don't understand what it means for a study to be wel-done.

And if we installed air disinfecting units like uv light or electrostatic filters/ozone generators in the AC ductworks, we could dispense with most mask wearing in business settings and hotels, because social distancing would be sufficient precaution

*chortle*

 

[babe]

Neither are you. However, rather than asking you to rely on my expertise, I linked to an actual scientist who read the study and identified the many flaws in it.

The fact that I worked as a scientist my whole working life, and never had anyone successfully overturn any bit of my work for any reason is, apparently, something you are unqualified to assess or characterize.

My sad experience working for people who were the top of their fields, and more or less making a nuisance of myself for proving some of their previous work done wrong, and seeing how they wrote their research proposals and how they secured their funds, and used them, gives me little assurance that we should endow "Science" with any sort of priestly role as major lights of society or governance.



That's why I offered a link to someone who, like Fauci, actually is both a doctor and a scientist.

While there is a valuable function for having more than one side on any point of science, the Government has a known bias in public policy in favor of too much authority and too much regulation and too much trust in the cliques who most obsequiously seek to hang their career stars on the system.



Thank you for affirming that that don't understand what it means for a study to be wel-done.

No thanks deserved here for your being such a stupid uncomprehending faithful believer in a false political narrative and wishing to justify it with wrong-headed authoritarian beliefs that are contrary to real science.l



*chortle*

gag.

you should be ashamed to indulge in such stupidity.

 

[One Brow]

The fact that I worked as a scientist my whole working life, and never had anyone successfully overturn any bit of my work for any reason is, apparently, something you are unqualified to assess or characterize.

My sad experience working for people who were the top of their fields, and more or less making a nuisance of myself for proving some of their previous work done wrong, and seeing how they wrote their research proposals and how they secured their funds, and used them, gives me little assurance that we should endow "Science" with any sort of priestly role as major lights of society or governance.

So, you didn't work as a scientist (by your own admission, despite the first paragraph), but you were more than happy to take advantage of their patients in notion of "disproving" their work (by finding measurement errors?). OK. However, since we agree that science should have no priestly role, how about we tone down the silly reliance on the poorly conducted Ford study, and look at the actual science.

While there is a valuable function for having more than one side on any point of science, the Government has a known bias in public policy in favor of too much authority and too much regulation and too much trust in the cliques who most obsequiously seek to hang their career stars on the system.

Since I quoted someone who does not work for the government, moot.

No thanks deserved here for your being such a stupid uncomprehending faithful believer in a false political narrative and wishing to justify it with wrong-headed authoritarian beliefs that are contrary to real science.

There is nothing political in the statement that using HCQ for Covid19 is quackery, any more than there is in saying vaccines work or or homeopathy is just over-priced water.

 

[babe]

So, you didn't work as a scientist (by your own admission, despite the first paragraph), but you were more than happy to take advantage of their patients in notion of "disproving" their work (by finding measurement errors?). OK. However, since we agree that science should have no priestly role, how about we tone down the silly reliance on the poorly conducted Ford study, and look at the actual science.

You should be ashamed to assert you even understand English at this point. Your obvious intent is to support political talking points rather than understand or even think, and you are so inaccurate in dealing with what I actually say I am fully justified in seeing that your English comprehension is doubtful. the alternative hypothesis might have to be that you are deliberately disingenuous or a habitual liar.

I studied under, and worked for several scientists of national or international note. A few projects involved continuing research projects left by graduated Ph.D candidates and previous publications in peer-reviewed journals. We had to cancel some projects when I showed that the work done in those projects had been deliberately falsified or suffering from fundamental errors that invalidated the results. The grants obtained from those research proposals were not returned with explanations, but diverted to new, entirely different projects. These scientists were members of political clubs like the CFR, and pushers of climate "science" and environmental "science", and several in the biomedical or biochemical fields doing medical research.

I found the hubris involved in the highest levels of science pretty unhappy facts.



Since I quoted someone who does not work for the government, moot.

There is hardly anyone you can find on Google or in the mainstream press who does not in some fundamental way derive their status or funds from government today. Some may be funded by private grants from corporations or public charities or private foundations, but these are also heavily influenced by societal factors that involve political bias or a need to produce results that are "relevant" to some cause. Politics is so much the real intent in all this, it might be said there is not real research at all that is not so prejudiced or purposed.



There is nothing political in the statement that using HCQ for Covid19 is quackery, any more than there is in saying vaccines work or or homeopathy is just over-priced water.

My above two comments actually amount to a charge that science today is quackery.

The Ford study was well-done. There was no false or overstated purpose to promote a result. It was based on medical records, which were searched I believe for key words from a database. Words like "hydroxychloroquine" or HCQ drew up the records of patients who had received the prescription, and the correlation was made by result categories. The same was done for some other things actually used in treatment. Nobody culled through the records making some kind of deliberate selection of results.

The authors discussed the inadequacies of real-time medical results(short-term tracking) and possible deficiencies in comparison with more regorous and better-designed studies which take years to complete, but as an on-the-ground method for helping to make immediate decisions in current treatment protocols, it's the best we can do.

There really can't be much doubt about the political swamp at the FDC or CDC with career "scientists" having their positions given according to political considerations, whose connections with corporations and political parties are relevant to their biases, having chosen to poison the well deliberately to cast excessive reliance on impossible standards having much-touted "news" results. These bureaucrats are hacks, not rational or responsible people.

There is no serious research done on any off-patent or natural substances today. Well who knows, there might be a few stray articles in lower-rank journals I don't see.

So no scientist can just dismiss without evidence or cause, any touted "cure" as quackery, any more than hucksters can substantiate their claims. We don't know what we don't know. But I rarely buy stuff like that, unless it's obviously no serious danger and, say, could be considered "good food" or something like that. Beets are a current rage, but I have liked beets and grown them all my life.

 

[One Brow]

You should be ashamed to assert you even understand English at this point. Your obvious intent is to support political talking points rather than understand or even think, and you are so inaccurate in dealing with what I actually say I am fully justified in seeing that your English comprehension is doubtful. the alternative hypothesis might have to be that you are deliberately disingenuous or a habitual liar.

I suppose character assassination is easier than demonstrating real scientific credentials, when you don't have any.

I studied under, and worked for several scientists of national or international note. A few projects involved continuing research projects left by graduated Ph.D candidates and previous publications in peer-reviewed journals. We had to cancel some projects when I showed that the work done in those projects had been deliberately falsified or suffering from fundamental errors that invalidated the results. The grants obtained from those research proposals were not returned with explanations, but diverted to new, entirely different projects. These scientists were members of political clubs like the CFR, and pushers of climate "science" and environmental "science", and several in the biomedical or biochemical fields doing medical research.

All pretty standard stuff, none of which makes you a scientist.

I found the hubris involved in the highest levels of science pretty unhappy facts.

You share that with the author of Respectful Insolence.

There is hardly anyone you can find on Google or in the mainstream press who does not in some fundamental way derive their status or funds from government today. Some may be funded by private grants from corporations or public charities or private foundations, but these are also heavily influenced by societal factors that involve political bias or a need to produce results that are "relevant" to some cause. Politics is so much the real intent in all this, it might be said there is not real research at all that is not so prejudiced or purposed.

Government funding for science is distributed by senior scientists, not politicians, in a manner those scientists believe will best serve the increase in knowledge. The process is not perfect, and I'm sure these senior scientists have their own version of politics going on, but the "real intent" of the funding is for science.

My above two comments actually amount to a charge that science today is quackery.

That's why scientists confirm each other's results.

The Ford study was well-done.

If you read the post to which I linked, and explain why the concerns of the author are wrong, I'll read it carefully. What you just did was say we can't trust teh scientific process, and then say we can trust the process in the Ford study.

There is no serious research done on any off-patent or natural substances today. Well who knows, there might be a few stray articles in lower-rank journals I don't see.

Which substances do you feel will hold any promise, and why?

So no scientist can just dismiss without evidence or cause, any touted "cure" as quackery, any more than hucksters can substantiate their claims. We don't know what we don't know.

Perhaps rattleskin snake oil really does cure arthritis, and we just didn't ask the people from the Ford study to look into it.

 

[babe]

I suppose character assassination is easier than demonstrating real scientific credentials, when you don't have any.

Character Assassination is what the Clintons made everyday politics. Before then, there was a sort of gentlemen's honor or code about pretending to respect people who differ in opinion or purpose. I prefer to see my own rhetoric as a call to repentance, a challenge to settled attitudes, if not simply the truth.



All pretty standard stuff, none of which makes you a scientist.

your definition of a "scientist" requires a scientist to be a compliant hack.



You share that with the author of Respectful Insolence.



Government funding for science is distributed by senior scientists, not politicians, in a manner those scientists believe will best serve the increase in knowledge. The process is not perfect, and I'm sure these senior scientists have their own version of politics going on, but the "real intent" of the funding is for science.

You confidently presume that our system produces senior experts who didn't get there by being pliable useful tools for interested parties. Few, and far between, in reality. Astonishing when you see someone with that kind of integrity.



That's why scientists confirm each other's results.

If they can get funding without strings attached.



If you read the post to which I linked, and explain why the concerns of the author are wrong, I'll read it carefully. What you just did was say we can't trust teh scientific process, and then say we can trust the process in the Ford study.



Which substances do you feel will hold any promise, and why?

I don't think there are any magic potions for anything, just a lot of natural substances with marginal uses, and hopefully, tolerable extraneous effects. You are asking a simple chemical molecule to have extraordinary effects on complex biochemistry and pathologies. It might be thought that nutritional factors can cause disease, or alleviate them, but there is always the higher organizational order of life and inherent limitations. Some of the more interesting things we have come across are the stem cell therapies that in effect restore in some way a more youthful regime in some tissues....



Perhaps rattleskin snake oil really does cure arthritis, and we just didn't ask the people from the Ford study to look into it.

So, basically, you are a sort of human who, instead of asking questions, prefers the claims of authority on all subjects, and are perfectly content with the assurance it seems to give you.

You don't have any basis for your definitions and no careful thought in your reasons, and what that amounts to is buying lies wholesale.

Science will never be an authoritative establishment, will never be an assemblage of proven facts or concepts, and there will never be any way to differentiate a "real" scientist from a "fake" scientist, but those who try to make Science the kind of reality that can be societally sanctioned will always be unconscionable liars.

The wonders of scientific progress have and will always come from people who can challenge all those presumptions. In a free society, peer review and laboratory reproduction of reported results can give us a little hope for the method, but in a politically corrupt society where "Science" is being used to drive a preferred narrative or societal change agenda, valid questions and non-confirmatory results will simply be called hogwash and those who dare to exercise such indiscretions will lose their status, if any, as "real" scientists.

It's a hopeless quest if the government is paying for it,.

 

[One Brow]

So, basically, you are a sort of human who, instead of asking questions, prefers the claims of authority on all subjects, and are perfectly content with the assurance it seems to give you.

I know that sometimes I don't know enough to even understand what is a good question and what is not.

Science will never be an authoritative establishment, will never be an assemblage of proven facts or concepts, and there will never be any way to differentiate a "real" scientist from a "fake" scientist, but those who try to make Science the kind of reality that can be societally sanctioned will always be unconscionable liars.

I agree with the first and the last clauses. However, you can differentiate a lot of fake science fairly easily. Not all, but a lot of it.

The wonders of scientific progress have and will always come from people who can challenge all those presumptions.

Almost never, actually. Feel free to offer what you think are some examples.

 

[babe]

I know that sometimes I don't know enough to even understand what is a good question and what is not.



I agree with the first and the last clauses. However, you can differentiate a lot of fake science fairly easily. Not all, but a lot of it.



Almost never, actually. Feel free to offer what you think are some examples.

Admittedly, most scientists are more like dutiful ants hauling data and results back to their holes to feed the queen, and yet still have some appetite for original work...

Occasionally, there is a paper published in Nature or Science that requires rethinking the universe.

 

[One Brow]

Occasionally, there is a paper published in Nature or Science that requires rethinking the universe.

Of course. However, this doesn't happen because some one was spit-balling random ideas until they found one that stuck. This happens when there are problems with the existing models, that require new ways of being answered. Once in a while someone will take more complicated or numerous models and simplify or combine them.

 

[babe]

Of course. However, this doesn't happen because some one was spit-balling random ideas until they found one that stuck. This happens when there are problems with the existing models, that require new ways of being answered. Once in a while someone will take more complicated or numerous models and simplify or combine them.

Lessee.......

Spitballing I presume is what middle school scholars do to teachers who turn their backs to the class while scribbling Truth on the chalkboard. Usually there's a couple of goofballs earger to snicker at Truth while they make faces at their classmates.

That kind of "thinking" is, to me, about as laughable as communist dictators who have their goons in paddy wagons prowling the city streets at night, with "no-knock" orders to pick up dissidents who don't buy the State version of "Truth" in "Science".

"Laughable?" You say "laughable?". Well, yes. From a safe distance where one can be sure he's not going to be the next dissenter who doesn't believe the Statist educational offerings du jour. I mean, seriously, believable or worthy of actual belief.

In today's Science Establishment there's a helluva lot of "Political Science" that is dishonorable and downright incredible.

Like the fear-mongering about Covid virus pandemic requiring masks, disallowing HCQ and other "unproven" antiviral treatments that we haven't had time or well, hell, been allowed to try even though relatively safe from a reasonable standpoint with some rational prospect for having some value.

The latest news about "allowing" the use of recovered patients' plasma with tested antibody values is just incredible to me. The use of blood components in medicine has been going on for fifty years quite harmlessly. Removing the blood group determinants which preclude indiscriminate transfusions has been a standard medical precaution in using plasma practically my whole lifetime. A simple test for the presence of anti-Covid-19 is something that can absolute indicate the probable benefits of prescribing the use of recovered patient plasma for current patients.

Do we even need a government agency that imagines they have authority to restrict use of plasma for this treatment????