But do people like Dan Wilson really have any impact on the average Joe? Is engaging with them just a waste of time & energy...?
The error these big-government/big-pharma cheerleaders make is mixing science with idealism, ideology & politics etc.; where imposing a centralised, authoritarian/corporate world-view is more important than facts or being consistent... In their minds, I'm sure they feel they are on the side of good - like any True Believer of the past supporting murderous regimes; only becoming aware of their folly when it's too late...
On the flip side - the so-called 'resistance' also projects similar negative attributes & cognitive dissonance. My own method of trying to stay objective is to not strongly identify with any group or mindset, & always be open to new perspectives. The trouble is, such a stance is unpopular & not very marketable...
Yes, his actions have an impact. There is a lot of research into the influence, and we know the Nudge units (BIT) invest heavily in YouTube influencers, and that's where the experts on the topic are working and dishing out cash.
"On the flip side - the so-called 'resistance' also projects similar negative attributes & cognitive dissonance. My own method of trying to stay objective is to not strongly identify with any group or mindset, & always be open to new perspectives. The trouble is, such a stance is unpopular & not very marketable."
I'm right there with you! I've taken numerous unpopular stances with the "resistance", which is part of the reason I include a warning in this article. My work on the DMED (hundreds of hours) has been met with conflict and deceit, including even among those I would have hoped I could trust. It's been sad, but I'm not going to steer myself according to how many people abandoned reading my articles over it.
Even if Matthew doesn't win the immediate adversary, I bet he's scoring a lot of points with the spectators. And I often feel it's a waste debating the virus-denying , "it's 5-g activating the self-replicating routers/hydras" that's put out by friends of Alex Jones, but hopefully we'll rescue 5% of those people and it will have been worth it. Why the powers that be promote Alex Jones and David Icke is beyond me, but it seems to be important to the nudge meisters to run multi faceted scams. Matthew is battling the top tier, it seems.
I thought your lumping virus-deniers into a bucket with self-replicating hydras is playing right into the enemy's hands. As far as I can tell the no virus people have a strong case. The 5-g / hydra people don't seem to have much of a case at all.
FWIW the virus deniers' case is as follows:
1. Despite over one hundred formal experiements (which are not difficult to conduct, and should produce definitive results), some of which were conducted over decades with thousands of participants, contagion has never been shown to occur for any viral disease.
2. We are told that we can only become infected by being exposed to very large numbers of virus particles over a protracted time period. And yet no scientist has ever been able to find even a single virus particle in any sample taken directly from a diseased patient. We are told that viruses cannot survive long enough to be detected, and at the same time that huge numbers of particles survive for long periods and infect us wth disease. Which is it?
3. Because particles cannot be found in samples taken from diseased patients, virologists culture the tissue (or snot) sample taken from a diseased patient in special cell lines. In general cells which are supposedly prone to infection by the virus will not work for this procedure which is odd. Instead scientists typically use a diseased monkey's kidney cell line, and inject the sample along with various chemicals into those cells. This process is termed isolating the virus (although it is obviously nothing of the sort), and if the monkey kidney cells die after a few days that is said to be proof that there is a virus present which must be the cause of the cells dying, and the small particles observed when examining the dead cell culture under an electron microscope are said to be viruses. The problems with this thinking are threefold:
(a) attributing the cell death to a virus is begging the question. The virus was never independently shown to exist in the first place so attributing an effect to it and calling that proof of its existence is a clear logical fallacy.
(b) when the same process (injecting samples into diseased monkey kidney cells) is performed with samples which definitvely cannot contain any virus, exactly the same results are observed: cell death and visible-under-electron-microscope small sub-cellular particles identical to viruses. Thus it is clear that what is claimed to be "proof of virus" is in fact not proof of virus at all since the "proof" is observed when no virus is present.
(c) All modern viral experiments are conducted without proper controls. Either no control is used, or the "control" is modified such that it is not identical in all respects save the independent variable from the active arm. For example the chemicals added in the control arm will be different from those in the active arm - perhaps 1% antibiotic solution in the control arm vs 2% antibiotic in the active arm (antibiotics are known to cause cell deatrh). This invalidates such experiments.
4. Benchmark studies or tests are never conducted. If we send a sample from a diseased patient to a laboratory, the laboratory should be able to test the sample and tell us which virus it contains without first being told which virus to look for. This type of testing is never done. The virus "deniers" (your word) suggest that it is not done because it cannot be done. I rather suspect they are correct.
5. Virology experiments are nearly always corrupt in the sense that they are funded by people who have an obvious agenda, and the scientists accepting the funding know what result is desired. Add to this that the documented methodologies for experiements nearly always include "fudge factors" which allow the experiemnters to amplify signals (including signals which don't exist) in the results data in order to show the expected result - and you get what you pay for.
This is a pretty compelling case.
It becomes more compelling when one examines the counterarguments / debunks which fail to address the core arguments presented above, and consistently attempt to obfuscate the points being made with confusing terminology and appeals to authority / masses / ridicule etc. When refutation after refutation after refutation fails to address the argument and fails to produce a single study or experiment which contradicts the virus "deniers" aregument this in itself is indicative of a big problem with "The Science"TM.
The 5G / hydra stuff however is, as you note, totally different. It relies on very dubious subjective, observational evidence (and leap-of-faith induction) which could very easily have been faked and doesn't constitute proof of anything even if it weren't.
#1 is bullshit. Even the Chinese in the last weeks of 2019 when they saw the CT scans of glassy lungs , took samples, cultured them, sequenced them and released the genome to the world. From which sharp eyes noted a region very similar to prions, and later when the vaccines reproduced that region, we had people documented in VAERS dying of mad cow symptoms within 30 days of vaccination.
If viruses don't exist, how did Israel kill about 10% of the Iranian legislature in early 2020 with sarscov2? (From unz.com)
If viruses don't exist how did the CIA take out a massive proportion of Chinese swine back about 15 years ago? (From Yoichi Shimatsu)
If viruses don't exist then why the massive die off of Boomers in the nineties due to the insistence of Jonas Salk in growing polio vaccine in monkey kidney cells contaminated with known carcinogen Simian Virus 40? (Book: The Virus and the Vaccine. On siv40 , polio
)
The ultimate proof, dear Horace, would be for you to eat a rabid bat or skunk, and then survive for seven weeks. For Science. Do that instead of deceiving yourself and others with your dextrous little fingers and your glib rhetoric, which I think you actually believe, as opposed to the leaders of the no virus movement who have made a career of it.
So, since I've called him a bullshitter, can I explain specifically where the error is?
Yes. It's in the line "And yet no scientist has ever been able to find even a single virus particle in any sample taken directly from a diseased patient."
Scientists might now have the horsepower to find a particle in a cell. But back in the 1890s what they did was filter out the big stuff (including bacteria) and prove there was some little bitty stuff that would reproduce in other living cells, and they repeated that until they had enough nasty stuff in the ostensibly clear solution that would consistently cause what we now call the effects of tobacco mosaic virus.
So is that a perfect mathematical proof? No. Mathematical proofs require super precise definitions, among other things. I don't think they quite play by those rules in the biological sciences.
But it's what nurses do day-in-day-out when they culture sputum to detect between gram negative and gram positive bacteria. And it's what you can do yourself when you find a seed in your yard. Plant it in your terrarium and watch it grow. Don't get wrapped up in the fact you have to use dirt. (A trick of the virus deniers is to complain about contamination in the culturing process, which I don't think Horace did here.)
Quick take aways:
• Long winded, erudite sounding, glib guys are frequently bullshitters
• Bullshit for benefit is a scam. For no apparent benefit indicates a cultist.
• Science isn't math.
• Biologists grow things and treat that as evidence.
You have to have domain knowledge to catch these bullshitters. Pure "logic" just makes more bullshit. IMHO
The core of your argument seems to be that you believe scientists
"proved that there was some little bitty stuff that would reproduce in other living cells, and they repeated that until they had enough nasty stuff in the ostensibly clear solution that would consistently cause what we now call the effects of tobacco mosaic virus."
The no-virus theorists do not believe they did this. Their claim is that there is no experiment or paper which shows any such thing. I have not been able to find a paper which proves them wrong, and - more importantly - no debunker has been able to find such a paper either.
The key question for you is ****which paper do you believe proved what you state here?****
The no-virus claim is that the scientists
(a) were (and still are) unable to find any disease particle causing the disease
(b) concluded therefore that there were particles which must just be too small to see (instead of considering the possibility that the disease was not caused by particles at all).
(c) after filtering out larger particles which they could see, mixed what was left (which must contain the magic invisible particles which we already know are there cos stuff) with some poisin and injected the mixture into some pre-diseased cells which later died. On the rare occasions which they injected the poisin into the same cells without the virus they found that the cells died in exactly the same way.
"So is that a perfect mathematical proof? No." Not only is it not a perfect mathematical proof, it's not any kind of proof at all.
You are correct that biology is not mathematics and is not subject to the same kind of rigorous, formal proof. That is what the scientific method is for - to govern experiments in fields where abstract proofs are not possible. And the scientific method absolutely 100% requires a control. If the active arm of an experiment does not show a different result from the control arm, then you have demonstrated precisely nothing at all.
You yourself offered this quick takeaway "Bullshit for benefit is a scam." That describes viruses perfectly. Rockefeller sponsored bullshit, from which they have extracted an unimaginable quantity of dollars over many decades.
In that case I would definitely try a cigar instead. Much more refined habit, for a more dignified sort of person - and they taste a whole lot better. :-)
Great article, the section where you wrote, The clear goal of such shenanigans is to generate the false appearance of consensus, reminded me of the book COLLECTIVE ILLUSIONS by Todd Rose.
Todd Rose believes that as human beings we continually act against our own best interests out of our brains’ misunderstanding of what we think others believe. A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. It’s why we’ll blindly espouse a viewpoint we don’t necessarily believe in so that we blend in with the group. We trap ourselves in prisons of our own making, with brains that are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than true to who we are.
Their has been a collective illusion of the pandemic response.
I think there has been a definite inference that there was a consensus around the COVID response, I personally know many Doctors who did not agree with lockdowns, forced vaccinations etc but the initial illusion around we are all in this together and there is one solution were very strong.
It brings up the point that this collective illusion has been engineered, steered in that direction and the hubris amongst public health officials, and the shutting down of other opinions, helped maintain it.
This is exactly why 'they' won't succeed. Many, if not all of these so-called scientists are simply actors/influencers and do not stand on solid foundation. And by the way, I have always maintained that a PhD is merely a few years-long 'program' that involves trying to provide evidence of an hypothesis under the guidance of someone who probably already has fixed ideas of what any conclusions might be. It takes years and years of experience to become an expert in anything, in my opinion. :) This is a homestarrunner article and I can't wait to step into the new matrix cube. lol
And by the way, I have always maintained that a PhD is merely a few years-long 'program' that involves trying to provide evidence of an hypothesis under the guidance of someone who probably already has fixed ideas of what any conclusions might be.
Absolutely. PhD programs produce “professional researchers”, not scientists. Most groundbreaking work now has to be done outside the academic structure.
And we haven't seen that much recently of the Australian nudge unit (Kyle Sheldrick, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, David Vaux, Danielle Anderson, Ed Holmes, Susan Oliver...) but you can guarantee they will be brought out when required.
You'll note as well that Daniel is working for Eurofins who have a major conflict of interest.
The more light shone on these people the better, and we are even starting to see meme magic from people fed up with being sent to the twitter gulags because these people refuse to debate the science.....
When Lordy, I had no idear how MANY ignoble info farmers were nestin' gag-gift RUBBER chickens in their coops! Tryin' to imagine how many fool Americans just bought up these rotten ersatz eggs-- an' they're bespoke eggs too with their own identities, now so clear to see in what'cha wrote. Bouncy brown eggs for the hip bipoc gang, tiger mom & academic invented-pedigree 1000 year old just-ducky eggs for the asian egghead community, sophisticated low-cal "lite" egg beaters in a convenient container for "now-enlightened" former anti-vaxxer moms, and much more...
Perhaps to some it smells like what the "real" cluckers produce, but this poop's not even enough to even compost (given it's already made vegetables of half the country and ruined many a good crop...)
As to the unethical faux farmers of rubber chickens and, improbably, mechanical mockingbirds, I DO hope THEIR chickens'll come home to roost -- and sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, much gratitude to you, Matthew Crawford for this egg-cellent expose!, and to all the real cluckers among us that have been crowin' tirelessly to wake up the sleepyheads!
Extremely skeptical of the former antivaxxer moms. Before I got permabanned I interacted with a couple on Twitter and they reek of a 23 year old boy LARPing as a mom
I will have to dive into some more of these. No Dorito? She’s just a crummy adjunct law professor vax “expert” but I have interacted with her and she seems SERIOUSLY unwell or maybe she’s just run of the mill stupid. Hard to tell with vax shills but they definitely attract some 85IQ narcissists
As an antivaxxer mom in DFW with lots of antivaxxer mom friends I could do a little digging into this person I mean she seems really dedicated to the cause she put little red dots on her body and apparently made “multiple Facebook polls”
I’ll ask around see if anyone ever met her or if she exists or maybe she just contained her totally real antivaxxer slacktivism to red dots and occasional Facebook polls
Very, very piquant, especially the concept of "performative science." Not least because "performative" is the kind of adverb that those who actually do performative science love to use.
I must admit I have a small soft-spot for debunk the funk. He may be the un-funkiest human alive, but his willingness to dialogue is positive, and some of his videos on the crasser anti-vaccine stuff out there have been reasonable. (DtF is the True Believer type, the classic fan of Big Scientism who comes out of the New Atheist culture I suspect.)
The bootlicking subtype of influencer is also very apparent in the critical race theory area. Lysenkoist quasi-science is a Venn circle that crosses Big Science and corporate-social-governance style ideology. These people are experts in the social construction of consensus through affective online communication. That the dynamic "works both ways" is a KEY point. Antivaxxers have their constructed orthodoxies, grifty innuendo-spouting celebrities and personality cults too. The difference is that one side is reconciled to and integrated within hegemonic power structures. The other side is reacting against those power structures.
I had not heard of Rasmussen so I read the Substack by Paul Thacker. Apparently I have missed nothing - good grief what a nutjob she is. What I wonder is (assuming her 'followers' are real and not bots) why do people listen to someone who is supposed to be a professional yet tweets in language fit for the "bro" world? But of course I have my answer: she is like this because she has been set up to be like this (from Mr. Thacker's article):
But by March, her personal PR agent Annie Scranton posted a video of her appearing on MSNBC. At this point, Rasmussen pivoted when prompted by a long lead in by the host.
“People in this country aren’t panicking,” the MSNBC host said. “They’re not taking this seriously, because the President and others have been saying it’s not a big deal and continuing to point to the flu. Does it concern you that huge swaths of our population are blowing this off and not taking the necessary precautions and, thus, putting entire communities at risk?”
“Yes, it concerns me greatly,” Rasmussen answered, deviating from her previous concern about the flu. “We need to have the public on board."
This is her debut on behalf of the scamdemic. Everyone who is interviewed in formal set ups like this already know what the questions will be. Whatever her reasons are, she has decided to take her 30 shekels and begin her new persona, and she has likely been assured that the media is going to help her out.
I missed this article. I remember Steve saying something brief about DtF in an email, bit I think I was slammed that day, so I never really encountered Dan until now.
I happened upon a substack that only meant to amplify Kurt Vonnegut and in the comment section I had to share Vonnegut's most important career advice that I read at a time I needed to read it. And its appropo because it talks about specialists in an unkind way. Given the nature of the ever growing complexity I don't think stigmatizing all specialists this way is fair but..since I have the quote ready to go..and I think its great career advice...I'll paste it in here...as I believe it bears repeating: I had it earmarked now just need to not butcher it typing. From chapter 22.
"Paul, your father tells me you're real smart." Paul had nodded uncomfortably.
"That's good, Paul, but that isn't enough."
"No, Sir"
"Don't be bluffed."
"No, sir, I won't"
"Everybody's shaking in his boots, so don't be bluffed."
"No Sir"
"Nobody's so damn well educated that you can't learn 90% of what he knows in six weeks.. The other 10% is decoration."
"Yes Sir"
"Show me a specialist, and I'll show you a man who's so scared he's dug a hole for himself to hid in."
"Yes, sir."
"Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind."
"yes sir."
"Want to be rich, Paul?"
"Yes sire---I guess so. Yes sir."
"All right. I got rich, and I told you 90% of what I know about it. The rest is decoration. All right?"
"Yes, sir" (Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano, Chapter 22, page 229 in my paperback version)
This is part of the reason why the quality of The Science PhDs has been in dramatic decline, aside from Big Tech, Big Finance, and Big Government Intelligence soaking up top-of-the-line talent with enormous salaries and powers.
The system of science will break, and out of the chaos will emerge a natural order that will work something like this: many more generalists with far superior math, communication, and coding skills. Once in a while, one among them will get excited and pursue a mission in science. They reach Dan's point, which is perhaps ten years beyond high school (?) in a couple of years while plowing into their own project. Three years later they'll make some kind of breakthrough, and it will be something the world really needs instead of whatever the NIH is throwing money at. And it won't matter that they knew nothing more than basic biology and tidbits from books when they were 37 years old.
When Kurt Vonnegut who is a great writer speaks about specialists in an unkind way that is for a reason...
You see I speak about specialists or the "Experts" also in a very unkind way because I see them as specialized Idiots that may know something but, and that is the problem, they have been educated by a system that is set up to mislead people or "keep them in the Box" as I say.
They are very good in what they do within the parameters of their education... a prison they build themselves.
However in nature there are no Laws... only the Law of possibilities.
And if you are a creative Person you will find ways...
Experts never give you options... they only tell you what is not possible... and they are all wrong.
I am with Kurt Vonnegut.
I think the "Experts" are a bunch of specialized Idiots with their heads up their arses.
But do people like Dan Wilson really have any impact on the average Joe? Is engaging with them just a waste of time & energy...?
The error these big-government/big-pharma cheerleaders make is mixing science with idealism, ideology & politics etc.; where imposing a centralised, authoritarian/corporate world-view is more important than facts or being consistent... In their minds, I'm sure they feel they are on the side of good - like any True Believer of the past supporting murderous regimes; only becoming aware of their folly when it's too late...
On the flip side - the so-called 'resistance' also projects similar negative attributes & cognitive dissonance. My own method of trying to stay objective is to not strongly identify with any group or mindset, & always be open to new perspectives. The trouble is, such a stance is unpopular & not very marketable...
Yes, his actions have an impact. There is a lot of research into the influence, and we know the Nudge units (BIT) invest heavily in YouTube influencers, and that's where the experts on the topic are working and dishing out cash.
"On the flip side - the so-called 'resistance' also projects similar negative attributes & cognitive dissonance. My own method of trying to stay objective is to not strongly identify with any group or mindset, & always be open to new perspectives. The trouble is, such a stance is unpopular & not very marketable."
I'm right there with you! I've taken numerous unpopular stances with the "resistance", which is part of the reason I include a warning in this article. My work on the DMED (hundreds of hours) has been met with conflict and deceit, including even among those I would have hoped I could trust. It's been sad, but I'm not going to steer myself according to how many people abandoned reading my articles over it.
Even if Matthew doesn't win the immediate adversary, I bet he's scoring a lot of points with the spectators. And I often feel it's a waste debating the virus-denying , "it's 5-g activating the self-replicating routers/hydras" that's put out by friends of Alex Jones, but hopefully we'll rescue 5% of those people and it will have been worth it. Why the powers that be promote Alex Jones and David Icke is beyond me, but it seems to be important to the nudge meisters to run multi faceted scams. Matthew is battling the top tier, it seems.
I thought your lumping virus-deniers into a bucket with self-replicating hydras is playing right into the enemy's hands. As far as I can tell the no virus people have a strong case. The 5-g / hydra people don't seem to have much of a case at all.
FWIW the virus deniers' case is as follows:
1. Despite over one hundred formal experiements (which are not difficult to conduct, and should produce definitive results), some of which were conducted over decades with thousands of participants, contagion has never been shown to occur for any viral disease.
2. We are told that we can only become infected by being exposed to very large numbers of virus particles over a protracted time period. And yet no scientist has ever been able to find even a single virus particle in any sample taken directly from a diseased patient. We are told that viruses cannot survive long enough to be detected, and at the same time that huge numbers of particles survive for long periods and infect us wth disease. Which is it?
3. Because particles cannot be found in samples taken from diseased patients, virologists culture the tissue (or snot) sample taken from a diseased patient in special cell lines. In general cells which are supposedly prone to infection by the virus will not work for this procedure which is odd. Instead scientists typically use a diseased monkey's kidney cell line, and inject the sample along with various chemicals into those cells. This process is termed isolating the virus (although it is obviously nothing of the sort), and if the monkey kidney cells die after a few days that is said to be proof that there is a virus present which must be the cause of the cells dying, and the small particles observed when examining the dead cell culture under an electron microscope are said to be viruses. The problems with this thinking are threefold:
(a) attributing the cell death to a virus is begging the question. The virus was never independently shown to exist in the first place so attributing an effect to it and calling that proof of its existence is a clear logical fallacy.
(b) when the same process (injecting samples into diseased monkey kidney cells) is performed with samples which definitvely cannot contain any virus, exactly the same results are observed: cell death and visible-under-electron-microscope small sub-cellular particles identical to viruses. Thus it is clear that what is claimed to be "proof of virus" is in fact not proof of virus at all since the "proof" is observed when no virus is present.
(c) All modern viral experiments are conducted without proper controls. Either no control is used, or the "control" is modified such that it is not identical in all respects save the independent variable from the active arm. For example the chemicals added in the control arm will be different from those in the active arm - perhaps 1% antibiotic solution in the control arm vs 2% antibiotic in the active arm (antibiotics are known to cause cell deatrh). This invalidates such experiments.
4. Benchmark studies or tests are never conducted. If we send a sample from a diseased patient to a laboratory, the laboratory should be able to test the sample and tell us which virus it contains without first being told which virus to look for. This type of testing is never done. The virus "deniers" (your word) suggest that it is not done because it cannot be done. I rather suspect they are correct.
5. Virology experiments are nearly always corrupt in the sense that they are funded by people who have an obvious agenda, and the scientists accepting the funding know what result is desired. Add to this that the documented methodologies for experiements nearly always include "fudge factors" which allow the experiemnters to amplify signals (including signals which don't exist) in the results data in order to show the expected result - and you get what you pay for.
This is a pretty compelling case.
It becomes more compelling when one examines the counterarguments / debunks which fail to address the core arguments presented above, and consistently attempt to obfuscate the points being made with confusing terminology and appeals to authority / masses / ridicule etc. When refutation after refutation after refutation fails to address the argument and fails to produce a single study or experiment which contradicts the virus "deniers" aregument this in itself is indicative of a big problem with "The Science"TM.
The 5G / hydra stuff however is, as you note, totally different. It relies on very dubious subjective, observational evidence (and leap-of-faith induction) which could very easily have been faked and doesn't constitute proof of anything even if it weren't.
#1 is bullshit. Even the Chinese in the last weeks of 2019 when they saw the CT scans of glassy lungs , took samples, cultured them, sequenced them and released the genome to the world. From which sharp eyes noted a region very similar to prions, and later when the vaccines reproduced that region, we had people documented in VAERS dying of mad cow symptoms within 30 days of vaccination.
If viruses don't exist, how did Israel kill about 10% of the Iranian legislature in early 2020 with sarscov2? (From unz.com)
If viruses don't exist how did the CIA take out a massive proportion of Chinese swine back about 15 years ago? (From Yoichi Shimatsu)
If viruses don't exist then why the massive die off of Boomers in the nineties due to the insistence of Jonas Salk in growing polio vaccine in monkey kidney cells contaminated with known carcinogen Simian Virus 40? (Book: The Virus and the Vaccine. On siv40 , polio
)
The ultimate proof, dear Horace, would be for you to eat a rabid bat or skunk, and then survive for seven weeks. For Science. Do that instead of deceiving yourself and others with your dextrous little fingers and your glib rhetoric, which I think you actually believe, as opposed to the leaders of the no virus movement who have made a career of it.
So, since I've called him a bullshitter, can I explain specifically where the error is?
Yes. It's in the line "And yet no scientist has ever been able to find even a single virus particle in any sample taken directly from a diseased patient."
Scientists might now have the horsepower to find a particle in a cell. But back in the 1890s what they did was filter out the big stuff (including bacteria) and prove there was some little bitty stuff that would reproduce in other living cells, and they repeated that until they had enough nasty stuff in the ostensibly clear solution that would consistently cause what we now call the effects of tobacco mosaic virus.
So is that a perfect mathematical proof? No. Mathematical proofs require super precise definitions, among other things. I don't think they quite play by those rules in the biological sciences.
But it's what nurses do day-in-day-out when they culture sputum to detect between gram negative and gram positive bacteria. And it's what you can do yourself when you find a seed in your yard. Plant it in your terrarium and watch it grow. Don't get wrapped up in the fact you have to use dirt. (A trick of the virus deniers is to complain about contamination in the culturing process, which I don't think Horace did here.)
Quick take aways:
• Long winded, erudite sounding, glib guys are frequently bullshitters
• Bullshit for benefit is a scam. For no apparent benefit indicates a cultist.
• Science isn't math.
• Biologists grow things and treat that as evidence.
You have to have domain knowledge to catch these bullshitters. Pure "logic" just makes more bullshit. IMHO
The core of your argument seems to be that you believe scientists
"proved that there was some little bitty stuff that would reproduce in other living cells, and they repeated that until they had enough nasty stuff in the ostensibly clear solution that would consistently cause what we now call the effects of tobacco mosaic virus."
The no-virus theorists do not believe they did this. Their claim is that there is no experiment or paper which shows any such thing. I have not been able to find a paper which proves them wrong, and - more importantly - no debunker has been able to find such a paper either.
The key question for you is ****which paper do you believe proved what you state here?****
The no-virus claim is that the scientists
(a) were (and still are) unable to find any disease particle causing the disease
(b) concluded therefore that there were particles which must just be too small to see (instead of considering the possibility that the disease was not caused by particles at all).
(c) after filtering out larger particles which they could see, mixed what was left (which must contain the magic invisible particles which we already know are there cos stuff) with some poisin and injected the mixture into some pre-diseased cells which later died. On the rare occasions which they injected the poisin into the same cells without the virus they found that the cells died in exactly the same way.
"So is that a perfect mathematical proof? No." Not only is it not a perfect mathematical proof, it's not any kind of proof at all.
You are correct that biology is not mathematics and is not subject to the same kind of rigorous, formal proof. That is what the scientific method is for - to govern experiments in fields where abstract proofs are not possible. And the scientific method absolutely 100% requires a control. If the active arm of an experiment does not show a different result from the control arm, then you have demonstrated precisely nothing at all.
You yourself offered this quick takeaway "Bullshit for benefit is a scam." That describes viruses perfectly. Rockefeller sponsored bullshit, from which they have extracted an unimaginable quantity of dollars over many decades.
This is a masterpiece!!! 🙌
Humbled.
I always appreciate compliments from a great researcher.
There are only great stuff coming from you.
The only thing I have against you, is that you write more than I have time to read...
i agree
Love u both
I need a cigarette after this. And I don’t even smoke.
Use Dan's fro as an ashtray, k?
exactly!
In that case I would definitely try a cigar instead. Much more refined habit, for a more dignified sort of person - and they taste a whole lot better. :-)
Great article, the section where you wrote, The clear goal of such shenanigans is to generate the false appearance of consensus, reminded me of the book COLLECTIVE ILLUSIONS by Todd Rose.
Todd Rose believes that as human beings we continually act against our own best interests out of our brains’ misunderstanding of what we think others believe. A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. It’s why we’ll blindly espouse a viewpoint we don’t necessarily believe in so that we blend in with the group. We trap ourselves in prisons of our own making, with brains that are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than true to who we are.
Their has been a collective illusion of the pandemic response.
I think there has been a definite inference that there was a consensus around the COVID response, I personally know many Doctors who did not agree with lockdowns, forced vaccinations etc but the initial illusion around we are all in this together and there is one solution were very strong.
It brings up the point that this collective illusion has been engineered, steered in that direction and the hubris amongst public health officials, and the shutting down of other opinions, helped maintain it.
Mimetic thinking abounds.
You mean... like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrTk6DsEJ2Q
very good
That Z Dog belongs here too. He’s such an asswipe.
I have a 2/3 article on him. Maybe I'll go finish it soon, but I have a few fish to fry at the moment.
Are those empirically caught fish, or is this an imagined fish frying problem?
This is exactly why 'they' won't succeed. Many, if not all of these so-called scientists are simply actors/influencers and do not stand on solid foundation. And by the way, I have always maintained that a PhD is merely a few years-long 'program' that involves trying to provide evidence of an hypothesis under the guidance of someone who probably already has fixed ideas of what any conclusions might be. It takes years and years of experience to become an expert in anything, in my opinion. :) This is a homestarrunner article and I can't wait to step into the new matrix cube. lol
And by the way, I have always maintained that a PhD is merely a few years-long 'program' that involves trying to provide evidence of an hypothesis under the guidance of someone who probably already has fixed ideas of what any conclusions might be.
Absolutely. PhD programs produce “professional researchers”, not scientists. Most groundbreaking work now has to be done outside the academic structure.
Great stuff Mathew, don't forget the UK branch. of whom Daniel Wilson is a firm friend..
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/whats-going-on-in-swaledale
And we haven't seen that much recently of the Australian nudge unit (Kyle Sheldrick, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, David Vaux, Danielle Anderson, Ed Holmes, Susan Oliver...) but you can guarantee they will be brought out when required.
You'll note as well that Daniel is working for Eurofins who have a major conflict of interest.
https://t.me/arkmedic/5399
The more light shone on these people the better, and we are even starting to see meme magic from people fed up with being sent to the twitter gulags because these people refuse to debate the science.....
https://rumble.com/c/c-1921421 ◀◀
What you called Aussie was my Superfriends, mostly.
When Lordy, I had no idear how MANY ignoble info farmers were nestin' gag-gift RUBBER chickens in their coops! Tryin' to imagine how many fool Americans just bought up these rotten ersatz eggs-- an' they're bespoke eggs too with their own identities, now so clear to see in what'cha wrote. Bouncy brown eggs for the hip bipoc gang, tiger mom & academic invented-pedigree 1000 year old just-ducky eggs for the asian egghead community, sophisticated low-cal "lite" egg beaters in a convenient container for "now-enlightened" former anti-vaxxer moms, and much more...
Perhaps to some it smells like what the "real" cluckers produce, but this poop's not even enough to even compost (given it's already made vegetables of half the country and ruined many a good crop...)
As to the unethical faux farmers of rubber chickens and, improbably, mechanical mockingbirds, I DO hope THEIR chickens'll come home to roost -- and sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, much gratitude to you, Matthew Crawford for this egg-cellent expose!, and to all the real cluckers among us that have been crowin' tirelessly to wake up the sleepyheads!
Phenomenal and so comprehensive. A good lesson/ demonstration on how to use critically THINKING! Thanks. Definitely will reread this one. 👏🙏👍
We are in the age of bullshit. Digging out of it is full-time job.
Fecal Dingleberry made me lol
Gorski has been a favorite of mine for a while now. What a pathetic shitweasel. Did you know he LARPs as a mom sometime to try to be less repulsive? https://www.ageofautism.com/2011/05/dr-david-gorskis-unique-brand-of-moronism.html
Extremely skeptical of the former antivaxxer moms. Before I got permabanned I interacted with a couple on Twitter and they reek of a 23 year old boy LARPing as a mom
I will have to dive into some more of these. No Dorito? She’s just a crummy adjunct law professor vax “expert” but I have interacted with her and she seems SERIOUSLY unwell or maybe she’s just run of the mill stupid. Hard to tell with vax shills but they definitely attract some 85IQ narcissists
As an antivaxxer mom in DFW with lots of antivaxxer mom friends I could do a little digging into this person I mean she seems really dedicated to the cause she put little red dots on her body and apparently made “multiple Facebook polls”
https://www.heatherbrookesimpson.com/
I’ll ask around see if anyone ever met her or if she exists or maybe she just contained her totally real antivaxxer slacktivism to red dots and occasional Facebook polls
Funny very funny.
Very, very piquant, especially the concept of "performative science." Not least because "performative" is the kind of adverb that those who actually do performative science love to use.
I must admit I have a small soft-spot for debunk the funk. He may be the un-funkiest human alive, but his willingness to dialogue is positive, and some of his videos on the crasser anti-vaccine stuff out there have been reasonable. (DtF is the True Believer type, the classic fan of Big Scientism who comes out of the New Atheist culture I suspect.)
The bootlicking subtype of influencer is also very apparent in the critical race theory area. Lysenkoist quasi-science is a Venn circle that crosses Big Science and corporate-social-governance style ideology. These people are experts in the social construction of consensus through affective online communication. That the dynamic "works both ways" is a KEY point. Antivaxxers have their constructed orthodoxies, grifty innuendo-spouting celebrities and personality cults too. The difference is that one side is reconciled to and integrated within hegemonic power structures. The other side is reacting against those power structures.
I had not heard of Rasmussen so I read the Substack by Paul Thacker. Apparently I have missed nothing - good grief what a nutjob she is. What I wonder is (assuming her 'followers' are real and not bots) why do people listen to someone who is supposed to be a professional yet tweets in language fit for the "bro" world? But of course I have my answer: she is like this because she has been set up to be like this (from Mr. Thacker's article):
But by March, her personal PR agent Annie Scranton posted a video of her appearing on MSNBC. At this point, Rasmussen pivoted when prompted by a long lead in by the host.
“People in this country aren’t panicking,” the MSNBC host said. “They’re not taking this seriously, because the President and others have been saying it’s not a big deal and continuing to point to the flu. Does it concern you that huge swaths of our population are blowing this off and not taking the necessary precautions and, thus, putting entire communities at risk?”
“Yes, it concerns me greatly,” Rasmussen answered, deviating from her previous concern about the flu. “We need to have the public on board."
This is her debut on behalf of the scamdemic. Everyone who is interviewed in formal set ups like this already know what the questions will be. Whatever her reasons are, she has decided to take her 30 shekels and begin her new persona, and she has likely been assured that the media is going to help her out.
Scott Gottlieb surely deserved a mention?
I'd like to add my personal (thankfully very, very brief) encounter with Debunk the Funk! https://metatron.substack.com/p/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-get-the
I missed this article. I remember Steve saying something brief about DtF in an email, bit I think I was slammed that day, so I never really encountered Dan until now.
I happened upon a substack that only meant to amplify Kurt Vonnegut and in the comment section I had to share Vonnegut's most important career advice that I read at a time I needed to read it. And its appropo because it talks about specialists in an unkind way. Given the nature of the ever growing complexity I don't think stigmatizing all specialists this way is fair but..since I have the quote ready to go..and I think its great career advice...I'll paste it in here...as I believe it bears repeating: I had it earmarked now just need to not butcher it typing. From chapter 22.
"Paul, your father tells me you're real smart." Paul had nodded uncomfortably.
"That's good, Paul, but that isn't enough."
"No, Sir"
"Don't be bluffed."
"No, sir, I won't"
"Everybody's shaking in his boots, so don't be bluffed."
"No Sir"
"Nobody's so damn well educated that you can't learn 90% of what he knows in six weeks.. The other 10% is decoration."
"Yes Sir"
"Show me a specialist, and I'll show you a man who's so scared he's dug a hole for himself to hid in."
"Yes, sir."
"Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind."
"yes sir."
"Want to be rich, Paul?"
"Yes sire---I guess so. Yes sir."
"All right. I got rich, and I told you 90% of what I know about it. The rest is decoration. All right?"
"Yes, sir" (Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano, Chapter 22, page 229 in my paperback version)
This is part of the reason why the quality of The Science PhDs has been in dramatic decline, aside from Big Tech, Big Finance, and Big Government Intelligence soaking up top-of-the-line talent with enormous salaries and powers.
The system of science will break, and out of the chaos will emerge a natural order that will work something like this: many more generalists with far superior math, communication, and coding skills. Once in a while, one among them will get excited and pursue a mission in science. They reach Dan's point, which is perhaps ten years beyond high school (?) in a couple of years while plowing into their own project. Three years later they'll make some kind of breakthrough, and it will be something the world really needs instead of whatever the NIH is throwing money at. And it won't matter that they knew nothing more than basic biology and tidbits from books when they were 37 years old.
When Kurt Vonnegut who is a great writer speaks about specialists in an unkind way that is for a reason...
You see I speak about specialists or the "Experts" also in a very unkind way because I see them as specialized Idiots that may know something but, and that is the problem, they have been educated by a system that is set up to mislead people or "keep them in the Box" as I say.
They are very good in what they do within the parameters of their education... a prison they build themselves.
However in nature there are no Laws... only the Law of possibilities.
And if you are a creative Person you will find ways...
Experts never give you options... they only tell you what is not possible... and they are all wrong.
I am with Kurt Vonnegut.
I think the "Experts" are a bunch of specialized Idiots with their heads up their arses.