Ed Corona Virus Conspiracy Theories....

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arthwollipot said:
Here's the thing about open minds. A lot of people think it means something that it doesn't mean.

People who practice a skeptical mindset are always open to the possibility that they might be wrong. Always. It's a fundamental part of skeptical philosophy - to self-reflect and examine our own biases, and to change our opinions when given sufficient reason to do so. It's absolutely baseline 101. If you are interested in skepticism, this is the first thing you need to know.

People who say to skeptics "you should have an open mind" almost never do this. They never consider the possibility that they might be wrong. Maybe they have what they believe to be a good reason to think they might be right. Maybe they're just stubborn. But whatever the reason, the idea that they might be wrong is never seriously considered.

And here's where it gets tricky. Most of the things that people say "you should have an open mind" to skeptics about are things that have already been seriously considered and rejected, usually a long time ago. This looks like dismissal. This looks like the skeptic is not open to the possibility that they are wrong. But that's not what's happening. Almost everything that people challenge skeptics with are things that we (collectively as skeptics) have been open minded about, seriously considered, and rejected on the basis of logic and plausibility. And the ones that aren't are the ones that are just patently ridiculous or are clearly the product of mental illness.

We don't need to seriously consider the possibility of ESP, because ESP has been seriously studied for decades and no-one has come up with anything substantial. So skeptics don't need to "keep an open mind" about ESP. We've already done that and the hypothesis was rejected.

We see the same thing with creationism. "But what if you're wrong?" Yeah, we've considered the idea that we may be wrong about creationism, decades ago, and the overwhelming evidence in favour of evolution and the complete lack of evidence in favour of creationism is sufficient to draw a conclusion that we can be pretty sure is reliable.

For homeopathy in particular it's even worse. Not only is there no good evidence that it works, there's plenty of good evidence that it doesn't work, and furthermore there is a lack of any plausible mechanism for how it might work. Any proposed mechanism would require the laws of chemistry and physics as we know them to be fundamentally incorrect, and we are pretty sure that they aren't. We've considered it. We've looked into it, we've studied it, and we've determined that it is not real. We could continue to do so (and there are indeed some who do) but for the rest of us, there's really no need to rehash old ground. It's been done before.

If this looks to you like we're not being open-minded, then all I can say is that it isn't that. It isn't that at all. It's us having already been open-minded, having already studied and examined, and having drawn a conclusion based on logic, reason, and evidence.
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Good post, Arth!

It is quite annoying when every new alt med/anti-vax/ID/wooster/CT-er/whatever eejit idea supporter comes along and acts like they are the first and only person to have made whatever discovery and that we, who've been through this class of nonsense, seen it all debunked, disproved and all over and over, are expected to take them seriously, because we should be "open minded"...

And all because they lack the ability to look it up and think critically...

That recent thread about "evidence" against evolution being a very good case in point.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
OK, so a paper from Nature - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5 - from which I find: "While ADE has been well documented in vitro for a number of viruses, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)33,34, Ebola35,36, influenza37 and flaviviruses38, the relevance of in vitro ADE for human coronaviruses remains less clear."

And: "No definitive role for ADE in human coronavirus diseases has been established."

And: "Should it occur, ERD caused by human vaccines will first be observed in larger phase II and/or phase III efficacy trials that have sufficient infection events for statistical comparisons between the immunized and placebo control study arms. Safety profiles of COVID-19 vaccines should be closely monitored in real time during human efficacy trials, especially for vaccine modalities that may have a higher theoretical potential to cause immunopathology (such as inactivated whole-virus formulations or viral vectors)64,65." Which hasn't happened yet...

And: "Preclinical data suggest a low risk of ADE for potently neutralizing mAbs at doses substantially above the threshold for neutralization, which protected mice and Syrian hamsters against SARS-CoV-2 challenge without enhancement of infection or disease81,82."

And: "ADE has been observed in SARS, MERS and other human respiratory virus infections including RSV and measles, which suggests a real risk of ADE for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and antibody-based interventions. However, clinical data has not yet fully established a role for ADE in human COVID-19 pathology. Steps to reduce the risks of ADE from immunotherapies include the induction or delivery of high doses of potent neutralizing antibodies, rather than lower concentrations of non-neutralizing antibodies that would be more likely to cause ADE."

Not looking good at all for this latest bit of scare-mongering from the Supplement Shills...
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So, still no thoughts on this one, "Caroline"? A paper found very easily by searching for ADE...Very easily...First page...
 
abaddon said:
There is a fundamental error in his numbers.

See if you can spot it. Bet you can't.
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It took me a few seconds to Google it but yes, I can see it.

I guess when it's inconvenient that "figures don't lie" some people just lie about the figures.
 
Caroline13 said:
Too FEW Irons in the Fire or Out of The Frying Pan

Read it Skeptics, maybe it will sink in.


https://www.anhinternational.org/news/too-few-irons-in-the-fire-or-out-of-the-frying-pan/
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Until you demonstrate some capacity to grasp the basics of the scientific method, I won't click your links. What would be the point of reading more baseless assertions and confusion of anecdote with evidence? Why don't you just keep your seat at the kid's table? COVID-19 is serious and your "work" just isn't good enough for you to participate in a serious conversation about this.
 
Craig4 said:
Until you demonstrate some capacity to grasp the basics of the scientific method, I won't click your links. What would be the point of reading more baseless assertions and confusion of anecdote with evidence? Why don't you just keep your seat at the kid's table? COVID-19 is serious and your "work" just isn't good enough for you to participate in a serious conversation about this.
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I did click on it, it's about a known (albeit rare) issue with some vaccines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement

Needless to say it is a concern that was considered and addressed during the development of the Covid 19 vaccines.
 
abaddon said:
There is a fundamental error in his numbers.

See if you can spot it. Bet you can't.
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There is almost as much of a fundamental error in believing that a mediocre common-cold virus caused a plague of Biblical proportions as there is in believing that an angel hovering over the Virgin Mary caused her to give birth to the Son of God who died for our sins, and yet billions of people believe these things.

Can you spot any errors?
 
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Please quote any virologist or any other expert, or any poster here other than you, describing the current pandemic as "a plague of Biblical proportions".

In many ways we've been extremely lucky, in that Covid 19 has a relatively low fatality rate. It's the high R which has necessitated the extreme measures. It could have been a great deal worse.
 
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Tom Palven said:
There is almost as much of a fundamental error in believing that a mediocre common-cold virus caused a plague of Biblical proportions as there is in believing that an angel hovering over the Virgin Mary caused her to give birth to the Son of God who died for our sins, and yet billions of people believe these things.

Can you spot any errors?
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Yes. Obviously. Got anything worthwhile to say?
 
Tom Palven said:
Can you spot any errors?
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You mean like believing that a massive, world-wide scientific consensus is equivalent to a religious belief?

Which is it, Tom - are tens of millions of professionals all over the globe complicit in the hoax, or are they all just too stupid and incompetent to tell the difference between pathogens, whereas you easily can?

The fact that you've been evading this morbid flaw in your argument since it was first presented to you tells us all that you know it's a huge problem, and that either answer will make you look ridiculous. And the fact that you ignore the issue and continue presenting arguments that you know are fallacious, simply because they imply a reality that makes you feel special and therefore you want them to be true, is, ironically, exactly what the religious faithful do.
 
Tom Palven said:
Another look at the Excess Deaths facts:
https://internationalman.com/articles/figures-dont-lie/
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"Figures don't lie".

1. And yet he lies about the figures.
2. The article isn't dated.
3. He doesn't show his work. Readers are expected to take his word.
4. He references a "researcher" but no link to the research.
5. The commentary consists of hyperbolic blather.
6. He's hawking investment advice.
7. He has no relevant qualifications.

Why should we take the word of this random, agenda-driven blowhard over virtually every national and local health agency in the world?
 
Pixel42 said:
Please quote any virologist or any other expert, or any poster here other than you, describing the current pandemic as "a plague of Biblical proportions".

In many ways we've been extremely lucky, in that Covid 19 has a relatively low fatality rate. It's the high R which has necessitated the extreme measures. It could have been a great deal worse.
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That's what has struck me from nearly the start - this weird attitude that if it isn't the Super-Flu from The Stand, it can't be serious.
 
Tom Palven said:
There is almost as much of a fundamental error in believing that a mediocre common-cold virus caused a plague of Biblical proportions as there is in believing that an angel hovering over the Virgin Mary caused her to give birth to the Son of God who died for our sins, and yet billions of people believe these things.

Can you spot any errors?
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You mean beyond the ignorantly foolish contention that Covid-19 is "a mediocre common-cold virus" and the hyperbolically foolish contention that it's a "plague of Biblical proportions," whatever that might actually mean?

I remember as a kid being amused by nursery-rhyme observations such as "if it weren't false it would be true," or "if she hasn't moved she'll be living there still," but it's not at all funny in an adult debate.
 
Tom Palven said:
There is almost as much of a fundamental error in believing that a mediocre common-cold virus caused a plague of Biblical proportions as there is in believing that an angel hovering over the Virgin Mary caused her to give birth to the Son of God who died for our sins, and yet billions of people believe these things.

Can you spot any errors?
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May I take it that you admit that you are unable to spot the glaring error?

What a surprise.

And why should anyone care what some magic book says about anything? We already know it is utter crap.
 
Tom Palven said:
There is almost as much of a fundamental error in believing that a mediocre common-cold virus caused a plague of Biblical proportions as there is in believing that an angel hovering over the Virgin Mary caused her to give birth to the Son of God who died for our sins, and yet billions of people believe these things.

Can you spot any errors?
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And there are logical errors. You have to account for all the excess deaths somehow. Pretending they are not there is no way explanatory.

I could help you understand, but you don't want to, so that would be a wasted effort. You have your little religion of one and that is all you want.

Go ahead. I reserve the right to burst out laughing at your pronouncements.
 
A mediocre cold virus that has killed more than 2.6 million worldwide, left millions upon millions with lingering symptoms and left millions more with permanent pulmonary and neurological issues?

What an utterly daft assertion.
 
Tom Palven said:
You explain to me how Christianity became so popular and I think it will go a long way toward explaining belief in the Covid Plague, or Pandemic, whatever.
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**** analogy remains **** analogy. Quelle surprise.
 
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