The Coronavirus Thread

[pErvinalia]

Everyone agrees with social distancing and hand washing.

Where's the scientific studies showing social distancing and hand washing work?

[Seabass]

Now, if you really think that s scientist earning a wage for their efforts is a bad thing, something that corrupts both them individually and scientific endeavour as a whole by forcing researchers to unduly prioritise pleasing their paymasters, then what's your alternative?

Youtube.

Who are you going to believe, epidemiologists and virologists who've been studying this stuff for years, or these two?

[Cunt]

Well, I find either of them easier to believe, and more reliable, than you. Why not tell me what they were wrong about, and how you are right?

Maybe instead of using the comedy guy, use the reporting guy.

Or fact-check the comedian. That's just another layer of comedy, really.

[Hermit]

Bad news for Scotty: virus expert has been collecting data half a year and masks work:

Signs of the virus were in such tiny particles, he worried it that nothing less than the most protective masks could stop it.

Soon, though, studies showed that even simple masks were able to reduce the amount of virus that gets out into the air, cutting the risk of transmission. Suddenly mask-wearing became an ordinary—if politically contentious--part of everyday life.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... rshed-year

How have they been shown?

Like this:

[Scot Dutchy]

Great Hermit another load of unconfirmed data. Just where do you get it from? It is all worthless. Just where is the scientific proof. Is this not more political than actual facts? This is the US of A FFS.
How do you account for European countries with strict lockdown and masks experiencing such a huge rise?

[JimC]

Great Hermit another load of unconfirmed data. Just where do you get it from? It is all worthless. Just where is the scientific proof. Is this not more political than actual facts? This is the US of A FFS.
How do you account for European countries with strict lockdown and masks experiencing such a huge rise?

Mainly because they never had what we in Australia would count as a "strict lockdown"...

[Seabass]

Well, I find either of them easier to believe, and more reliable, than you. Why not tell me what they were wrong about, and how you are right?

I'm not a scientist. Do you remember what you were saying about scientists earlier? Do you have dementia, Cnut?

[Hermit]

Now, if you really think that s scientist earning a wage for their efforts is a bad thing, something that corrupts both them individually and scientific endeavour as a whole by forcing researchers to unduly prioritise pleasing their paymasters, then what's your alternative?

Nah, it's just me pointing out how stupid it is to 'trust science', when scientists are every bit as open to corruption as politics, educators or bureaucrats.

Money can make any of those groups less 'noble', but for some reason, science is presented as if it is not subject to such.

I don't know anyone who claims that scientists cannot commit scientific fraud. It's not just money that can lead them astray. It can also be be the desire to become famous, ideological faith, fear of losing one's job (publish or perish). Anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial of the facts.

Here are three well known examples of fakery:

_1_

Piltdown Man. In 1912, Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man. In February 1912, Dawson contacted Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, stating he had found a section of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. That summer, Dawson and Smith Woodward purportedly discovered more bones and artefacts at the site, which they connected to the same individual. These finds included a jawbone, more skull fragments, a set of teeth, and primitive tools.

Piltdown Man turned out to be a hodgepodge consisting of a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan and chimpanzee fossil teeth. Someone had created the appearance of age by staining the bones with an iron solution and chromic acid. Microscopic examination revealed file-marks on the teeth, and it was deduced from this that someone had modified the teeth to a shape more suited to a human diet.

While some palaeoanthropologists recognised the fraud pretty much on first viewing, others fell for it. Piltdown Man acquired the scientific moniker of Eoanthropus dawsoni. His discovery was written up in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, and in 1938 a memorial stone commemorating it was erected in Barkham Manor, Piltdown. It was not until 1953, 41 years after the fraud was committed, that it was finally proven to be a fake.

_2_

Gregor Mendel was a Catholic Priest with a scientific bent. Between 1856 and 1863 he conducted some crossbreeding experiments with pea plants. The significance of the results was not recognised until the turn of the 20th century, so he died virtually unknown. But since other scientists twigged to what he had published Mendel is regarded as the Father of Genetics.

Unfortunately, with what is known now it is obvious that - given the small number of plants he used - Mendel's results fitted way too neatly to be statistically likely. The likelihood was in fact close to zero. it is almost certain that he faked the results to fit his theory (which turned out to be correct).

_3_

In 1998 the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, published Andrew Wakefield's study that claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The sample rate was pitifully small and nobody could replicate the results. Nevertheless, it took the journal an astoundingly long time (it finally retracted Wakefield's 1998 paper in 2010) to realise that the study was not only worthless, but that the results were also made up for a nefarious reason.

The reason was money. From the Wikipedia (again):

In a BMJ follow-up article on 11 January 2011, Deer stated that Wakefield had planned to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare provoked by his paper. He said that based upon documents he had obtained under Freedom of information legislation, Wakefield—in partnership with the father of one of the boys in the study—had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". The Washington Post reported that Deer said that Wakefield predicted he "could make more than $43 million a year from diagnostic kits" for the new condition, autistic enterocolitis. According to Deer's report in BMJ, the ventures, Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd and Carmel Healthcare Ltd—named after Wakefield's wife—failed after Wakefield's superiors at University College London's medical school gave him a two-page letter that said:

We remain concerned about a possible serious conflict of interest between your academic employment by UCL, and your involvement with Carmel ... This concern arose originally because the company's business plan appears to depend on premature, scientifically unjustified publication of results, which do not conform to the rigorous academic and scientific standards that are generally expected.

WebMD reported on Deer's BMJ report, saying that the $43 million predicted yearly profits would come from marketing kits for "diagnosing patients with autism" and that "the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation-driven testing of patients with AE [autistic enterocolitis, an unproven condition concocted by Wakefield] from both the UK and the US". According to WebMD, the BMJ article also claimed that Carmel Healthcare Ltd. would succeed in marketing products and developing a replacement vaccine if "public confidence in the MMR vaccine was damaged".

Now, it is one thing to say that scientists are exempt from committing fraud for money or any other reason, but you need to back that up with evidence. Simply impugning the honesty of scientists collectively on the grounds that their research keeps coming up with data that turn out to be evidence for global warming, and they are in paid jobs, is not evidence of dishonesty even though a number of them may be convinced of global warming and therefore want to find such data.

[Hermit]

Great Hermit another load of unconfirmed data. Just where do you get it from? It is all worthless. Just where is the scientific proof. Is this not more political than actual facts? This is the US of A FFS.

I presented the data as they were given. It is up to you to provide evidence proving them wrong. "more political than actual facts" and "This is the US of A FFS" come nowhere near being evidence.

How do you account for European countries with strict lockdown and masks experiencing such a huge rise?

Um, European countries are not relevant to the above the charts. The charts are meant to indicate that
1.) Kansas counties with a mask wearing mandate finished up levelling the spread of the coronavirus, while Kansas counties without a mask wearing mandate experienced a continued growth in the spread of the coronavirus.
2.) Salt Lake County, with a mask wearing mandate, finished up levelling the spread of the coronavirus, while the rest of Utah's counties experienced a continued growth in the spread of the coronavirus.
3.) The states in the US without mask wearing mandates tend to have a greater incidence of Covid-19 infections than those without.

It is really up to you to point out where the data are wrong. Your persistent handwaving does nothing of the sort.

[Hermit]

Excellent idea. Unvaccinated people should be isolated. It slows the spread of infections.

That is precisely what happens with schoolkids who get the measles. Even children who are discovered to have head lice are immediately taken out of the classroom and their parents or guardians are rung to get them home for delousing.

Isolation for the win.

[Hermit]

You are just like Trump, Cunt. This thread is not anout you.

With Trump not in charge anymore, I wonder what you will post about.

Biden. I am certain there will be plenty of justified complaints. He's a neoliberal, you know?

[Cunt]

Excellent idea. Unvaccinated people should be isolated.

I wonder if authoritarians would ever misuse that...

Everyone is unvaccinated for something-or-other. Should lock them all up, and only let the fully treated people in with you.

[Hermit]

Excellent idea. Unvaccinated people should be isolated.

I wonder if authoritarians would ever misuse that...

Hasn't happened in the case of the measles yet. Nor with head lice for that matter.

Why bother anyway if you can get away with fabricating evidence in order to get someone jailed, or shoot someone dead who is unarmed and asleep in bed?

[Scot Dutchy]

Um, European countries are not relevant to the above the charts. The charts are meant to indicate that
1.) Kansas counties with a mask wearing mandate finished up levelling the spread of the coronavirus, while Kansas counties without a mask wearing mandate experienced a continued growth in the spread of the coronavirus.
2.) Salt Lake County, with a mask wearing mandate, finished up levelling the spread of the coronavirus, while the rest of Utah's counties experienced a continued growth in the spread of the coronavirus.
3.) The states in the US without mask wearing mandates tend to have a greater incidence of Covid-19 infections than those without.

Still no proof. What types of masks are mandated and regulations using them? Or will any old rag do? Masks increase infection as wearers dont maintain social distancing.
It is NOT social distancing OR masks. That is the damn problem and why masks should be banned. We need to decrease paranoia not rack it up.

[pErvinalia]

Who says they don't socially distance? Where's your fairy data to back this up?