Bret sees himself in a heroic struggle against demonetization and demonization, but what he's actually doing is building a powerful "just asking questions" brand of conspiratorial musing.
Excellent article! Not just government agencies but the Infectious Disease Society of America. The American College of Chest Physicians defers to the NIH. For at least 20 years, more and more research has revealed flaws in evidence for medical practice. Relying on best science has become complex and nuanced. Academics devote careers to this. COVID-19 has led to massive demonstration of these difficulties compressed in time. Bret and his devotees seem to believe they can understand evidence because they understand the vocabulary and many or most of the concepts, despite lack of context. Many adopt the attitude- if the establishment or government says A, then notA MUST be true. On some of his political musings, I agree with Bret, but on COVID and his pursuit of victimhood he's gone off the rails.
there's a lot of attention seeking going on here. Just enough truth to seduce people in. I do have a problem with him being demonitized however, what needs to happen is articles like this and then people can evaluate themselves. Quite good research for this article, well done!
I am (what is now called) a data scientist. I routinely write programs to glean actionable data from terabyte-sized databases. (Note that others work with petabytes ...)
I played around with publicly available Covid data and eventually gave up. It's too unreliable and inconsistent to admit of firm conclusions -- and this is what gives Weinstein (and others) room to play around in, and justifiably so.
The three biggest issues in Covid data are:
1. Deaths and hospitalizations "with" vs. "from" Covid.
2. The extraordinary sensitivity of the PCR test most often used to "find" Covid. Note that the fellow who won the Nobel Prize for developing PCR said that anyone who knows what he's doing could find anything in any sample.
3. The conflation of IFR and CFR. That is, while it's of some interest to track infections (those who have Covid antibodies), cases (those who are hospitalized because of a Covid infection) is the more important criterion. Cf. the flu, which has a very low IFR and a significantly higher CFR.
These issues are rarely mentioned (much less addressed) in journalistic coverage of Covid. While the scientific community is (mostly) aware of them, this knowledge rarely makes it into policy decisions or WHO or CDC guidelines.
"Rogan was incredulous at this neat summary of staggering malfeasance and manipulation." When Joe Rogan thinks your conspiracy theory is nuts it's time to reevaluate your life decisions.
I want to a small, liberal arts school in the '90s that was in some ways similar to Evergreen. My instructors were, on the whole outstanding, brilliant, experts in their fields. I would be reluctant, however, to recommend many of them to the wider public as thought leaders. Gifted academics are often unwilling or unable to accept that brilliance in their chosen field does not necessarily translate into other areas of expertise. I suspect that may be the case with Bret.
"the National Institutes of Health (NIH)... reports that there’s “insufficient data … to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19.”
Would that be the NIH run by Francis Collins, known to have been shilling for Fauci/ China, and smearing those who expressed suspicion along these lines?
Excellent article! Not just government agencies but the Infectious Disease Society of America. The American College of Chest Physicians defers to the NIH. For at least 20 years, more and more research has revealed flaws in evidence for medical practice. Relying on best science has become complex and nuanced. Academics devote careers to this. COVID-19 has led to massive demonstration of these difficulties compressed in time. Bret and his devotees seem to believe they can understand evidence because they understand the vocabulary and many or most of the concepts, despite lack of context. Many adopt the attitude- if the establishment or government says A, then notA MUST be true. On some of his political musings, I agree with Bret, but on COVID and his pursuit of victimhood he's gone off the rails.
there's a lot of attention seeking going on here. Just enough truth to seduce people in. I do have a problem with him being demonitized however, what needs to happen is articles like this and then people can evaluate themselves. Quite good research for this article, well done!
I am (what is now called) a data scientist. I routinely write programs to glean actionable data from terabyte-sized databases. (Note that others work with petabytes ...)
I played around with publicly available Covid data and eventually gave up. It's too unreliable and inconsistent to admit of firm conclusions -- and this is what gives Weinstein (and others) room to play around in, and justifiably so.
The three biggest issues in Covid data are:
1. Deaths and hospitalizations "with" vs. "from" Covid.
2. The extraordinary sensitivity of the PCR test most often used to "find" Covid. Note that the fellow who won the Nobel Prize for developing PCR said that anyone who knows what he's doing could find anything in any sample.
3. The conflation of IFR and CFR. That is, while it's of some interest to track infections (those who have Covid antibodies), cases (those who are hospitalized because of a Covid infection) is the more important criterion. Cf. the flu, which has a very low IFR and a significantly higher CFR.
These issues are rarely mentioned (much less addressed) in journalistic coverage of Covid. While the scientific community is (mostly) aware of them, this knowledge rarely makes it into policy decisions or WHO or CDC guidelines.
Great article
"Rogan was incredulous at this neat summary of staggering malfeasance and manipulation." When Joe Rogan thinks your conspiracy theory is nuts it's time to reevaluate your life decisions.
Great! Thank you for this article.
I want to a small, liberal arts school in the '90s that was in some ways similar to Evergreen. My instructors were, on the whole outstanding, brilliant, experts in their fields. I would be reluctant, however, to recommend many of them to the wider public as thought leaders. Gifted academics are often unwilling or unable to accept that brilliance in their chosen field does not necessarily translate into other areas of expertise. I suspect that may be the case with Bret.
"the National Institutes of Health (NIH)... reports that there’s “insufficient data … to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19.”
Would that be the NIH run by Francis Collins, known to have been shilling for Fauci/ China, and smearing those who expressed suspicion along these lines?
See e.g. https://www.newsweek.com/nih-director-dismissed-wuhan-lab-leak-1596765 .
Is there anything that he could do, which would at all dent his cred in the eyes of this Matt Johnson?
BTW, who is this Matt Johnson?
Why is there no bio info here on him?