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Cont: Corona Virus Conspiracy Theories Part IV

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Petra said:
I think you overestimate massively alleged objectivity of scientists. I have spoken with scientists who show great hostility to challenges to their beliefs and simply do not respond to argument. Scientists are humans like everyone else ...
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Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide
"Peer review has been defined as a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. It functions to encourage authors to meet the accepted high standards of their discipline and to control the dissemination of research data to ensure that unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations or personal views are not published without prior expert review. Despite its wide-spread use by most journals, the peer review process has also been widely criticised due to the slowness of the process to publish new findings"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ar...of a,trusted form of scientific communication.

1) I suggest you may not be an expert in immunology
2) I suggest that after two years of Covid, peer review has had enough time to sort out issues caused by "slowness of the process".
 
Petra said:
My apologies. What Sam says in the video is that there is a spike in 2017 [it's at the beginning of the year] in Portugal higher than April 2020, not a higher spike in April 2017.
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When I was investigating possible reasons for a spike in April 2017 I looked at the influenza data. 2016-2017 was a bad flu season in Portugal, it had the highest numbers in Europe. This sort of cherry picking is typical disinformationist behaviour.
 
Pixel42 said:
They certainly don't respond to unscientific argument.
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And nor do they respond to scientific argument. I've put forward very clear significant facts and they simply do not respond or they respond with fallacious argument. One scientist responded that the person I was quoting believed something ridiculous (unrelated). I didn't agree that what they believed was ridiculous but in any case it was unrelated.

They are also, as you say, only human, and can get sufficiently attached to pet theories that they resist evidence against them. Fortunately the scientific method is self correcting against such behaviour.C

That's what you'd hope but I don't think it's true.

And yet some of them recently vindicated that work by finding the mechanism. Apparently it's due to the animals recognising when their owners smell has dropped to the level it usually is when they return home.
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It seems that dogs though can tell regardless of time of day and their knowing doesn't depend on normal routine. Interestingly, I have a friend whose dog used to be able to tell when her husband's father was coming over - not either of her owners, just her husband's father who really loved her and always brought her treats. He came very randomly.

I guess the secret is understanding when we are in that good position and when we're not, and need to trust the consensus rather than the outliers.
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Well, the first thing to do is look at the argument which I don't see anyone doing here. All anyone does is argue at a general level or point to refutation of the people I put forward without actually addressing the science argued about at all.
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Pixel42 said:
When I was investigating possible reasons for a spike in April 2017 I looked at the influenza data. 2016-2017 was a bad flu season in Portugal, it had the highest numbers in Europe. This sort of cherry picking is typical disinformationist behaviour.
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A bad flu season? But doesn't that tell you something? Hellloooo?

A bad flu season has higher mortality than covid and yet the world isn't turned upside down by it. It's not cherry-picking, it's saying there was HIGHER MORTALITY whatever the cause. For goodness sake. Higher mortality and the world wasn't turned upside down.
 
Petra said:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/27/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/

There are a number of other citations if you want them but why not start with that.
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You are re-referencing the debunked article.

FYI, you wondered why their open letter to debunk the debunk was not answered, but that in and of itself is evidence of absolutely nothing.

Whatever you think about no reply to Off Guardian's open letter, it does not take away from the fact that they are woefully ignorant, or deceptive in their ramblings. Example, their first question in that letter relates to almost every other complaint, and reads:

"That is to say, if there is no evidence for purification (as we outline in our OffGuardian article), how is it possible to claim that the RNA obtained is a viral genome?"

The straight forward answer is that scientific work has progressed to improve the techniques for doing just that.

The not-so-straight-forward answer is in the science itself, and takes schooling well beyond the education you have demonstrated so far. Still, here is just SOME of that science, which explains how this is confidently done, and you have the opportunity to examine for yourself how little Off Guardian understands regarding the testing methods. A publication from 2013:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3708773/

From Abstract "Background" section -

(quote)
due to the relatively low abundance of viral RNA in relation to host RNA, RNA viruses have proved relatively difficult to sequence using NGS technologies.
(unquote)

From Abstract "Conclusions" section -

(quote)
The approaches reported clearly facilitate successful full genome lyssavirus sequencing and can be universally applied to discovering and obtaining consensus genome sequences of RNA viruses from a variety of sources.
(unquote)

When you understand how this paper directly answers the Off Guardian's open letter question I referenced, get back to me.
 
Petra said:
And nor do they respond to scientific argument. I've put forward very clear significant facts and they simply do not respond or they respond with fallacious argument. One scientist responded that the person I was quoting believed something ridiculous (unrelated). I didn't agree that what they believed was ridiculous but in any case it was unrelated.
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The fact is that a lot of scientists have lost patience with conspiracy theorists, and tend to dismiss them. Yes there is a small risk that they will throw out the occasional baby with the bathwater, but it's completely understandable. As we both agree, they're only human.

Well, the first thing to do is look at the argument which I don't see anyone doing here.
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Then you're not looking very hard. Even Bubba's links are usually looked at and demolished by at least one poster, though the patience sometimes wears very thin.
 
Petra said:
A bad flu season? But doesn't that tell you something? Hellloooo?
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It tells me that by implementing mitigation measures Portugal was able to keep the deaths from Covid 19 in that particular early month of the pandemic below those seen at the very peak of a very bad flu epidemic (unlike Spain, where its earlier arrival gave them insufficient time to react likewise). It doesn't tell me what the numbers of Covid 19 deaths would have been absent those measures, either that month or during subsequent ones.

ETA: you only need to look at the peaks in that mortality graph during 2020 and 2021 to see that Portugal's Covid 19 deaths have far exceeded those of that brief, very bad, flu epidemic. And that's despite all the mitigation measures.
 
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Petra said:
A bad flu season? But doesn't that tell you something? Hellloooo?

A bad flu season has higher mortality than covid and yet the world isn't turned upside down by it. It's not cherry-picking, it's saying there was HIGHER MORTALITY whatever the cause. For goodness sake. Higher mortality and the world wasn't turned upside down.
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Parroting demonstrable lies like this, only destroys any credibility you may have been graciously assumed to have.
 
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EaglePuncher said:
Well, that should make you think (for yourself) :rolleyes:
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Your presumption is that those not responding don't respond because it's beneath their dignity but when you've made the effort to respond but then cannot sustain your argument in response to the response to your response that's a different matter.

The thing is you must consult what is being put forward and what is said in criticism to determine the reason for a response not being made and no one is doing that here.
 
MBDK said:
Parroting demonstrable lies like this, only destroys any credibility you may have been graciously assumed to have.
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But where's the lie? I don't understand. You seem to think that quoting mortality figures where bad flu plays a role is somehow deceptive. I don't see why that is. If it were me quoting the higher mortality I'd go out of my way to point out it was probably due to a bad flu season to make the point that at one time mortality due to a respiratory illness was high - but the world wasn't turned upside down because of it - while for another respiratory illness it was.
 
Petra said:
But where's the lie? I don't understand. You seem to think that quoting mortality figures where bad flu plays a role is somehow deceptive. I don't see why that is. If it were me quoting the higher mortality I'd go out of my way to point out it was probably due to a bad flu season to make the point that at one time mortality due to a respiratory illness was high - but the world wasn't turned upside down because of it - while for another respiratory illness it was.
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1. The links you have posted claim that all of virology is a lie. For you now to admit that flu can kill people means there is a contradiction to be resolved here. Which of these claims is untrue? Do viruses exist or not?
2. Do please explain again why a bad flu season a few years ago means that Covid-19 does not exist.
3. Do you accept the accuracy of the figures you are using, and, as a consequence, the authorities compiling them?
4. If you do, then why exclude the figures for later in 2020/2021, which clearly show spikes far higher than in previous years?
5. You have claimed that the spikes in April correspond to 'aggressive drug trials' in Spain and Portugal. Perhaps I missed it, but did you provide any details of what those drug trials were, what the results were, and whether these drugs were trialled in any other countries?
 
The comparison of the flu with covid isn't that wrong - but not for the reasons the "skeptics" think: if the flu was a new disease with no immunities in the population, it would be just as bad as Covid.
The only reason why people have the luxury of not taking SARS-COV-2 seriously is because we have so much better medical care then we did at the time of the Spanish Flu - and even then we had anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers.
 
Petra said:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/27/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/

There are a number of other citations if you want them but why not start with that.
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OK, thanks, I will.
The first claim is that PCR tests are useless, because...well, because the authors say so. The Kary Mullis link is to a rambling interview that provides no supporting evidence for the claim. The second link is paywalled, so I cannot check it.
First claim dismissed due to lack of evidence.
The next claim is that there is no valid gold standard. This claim is supported by selectively cherrypicking quotes from an article, sneeringly dismissing the rest of the article's content, cherrypicking another quote from another expert, and using as further evidence an email, that is referenced but not actually accessible.
Claim dismissed due to lack of evidence.
The third claim is about purified viruses, which has already been addressed, but here's another article showing why that claim is not true:
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid-rna-idUSL1N2LS27P

Claim dismissed, as being provably untrue.
At that point, I stopped. This is me being generous, by the way: my usual policy is to stop after the first provably false claim, but, as you're new here, I thought I'd cut you a little more slack.

So, that Off-Guardian article is more conspiracist, scientifically-illiterate bilge. Not impressive at all.
Now, it's over to you. Do you accept any of these points? Remember- confirmation bias will try to steer you to immediate rejection. Fight that tendency. Consider the evidence fully, then see if you need to revise your ideas.
 
Petra said:
Your presumption is that those not responding don't respond because it's beneath their dignity
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Nope, another lie. :boggled: They don't respond because they put a lot of work into their jobs, know that Cts are wrong and you HATE this fact. "How dare someone know more than the guys in those youtooob videos that I love so much!?"

Petra said:
but when you've made the effort to respond but then cannot sustain your argument in response to the response to your response that's a different matter.
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Why would I waste my time? I predicted that you would nuh-uh away everything shown to you and I was 100% right. Looks like thinking for myself paid off once again. (just not in the way you would have liked)

Petra said:
The thing is you must consult what is being put forward and what is said in criticism to determine the reason for a response not being made and no one is doing that here.
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The reason is pretty clear: People who have literally spent their lifes looking at viruses and pandemics. I trust their word a trillion times more than yours, a rando from the web, making the same bogus claims anti-vaxxers and Cts have made for decades.
 
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Today (yesterday) there was finally the great debate dealing with the question "are there viruses". It happenend in the ongoing "Corona Ausschuss" lead by strong critics of the orthodoxy. But that topic is something that still had to wait for a long time to be tackled here. What we see are Andrew Kaufman and Stefan Lanka arguing with Wolfgang Wodarg, step in at 3 (hours):50:

https://odysee.com/@Corona-Investigative-Committee:5/session-90-en-online:a

I am not convinced on any side of that topic, and respect all the participants, but it seemed to me that Wodarg was simply avoiding the arguments.
 
Petra said:
But where's the lie? I don't understand. You seem to think that quoting mortality figures where bad flu plays a role is somehow deceptive. I don't see why that is. If it were me quoting the higher mortality I'd go out of my way to point out it was probably due to a bad flu season to make the point that at one time mortality due to a respiratory illness was high - but the world wasn't turned upside down because of it - while for another respiratory illness it was.
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Quoting mortality figures is fine. Cherry picking, misinterpreting and misrepresenting them to suggest they support claims they simply do not support is not, whether it's done deliberately or out of ignorance.
 
Petra said:
Well, I can give links to her rebuttals of her detractors. Where will that get us?

How about you state in your own words what the false claims are. Can you manage that? Else, I'll just give you the links to her rebuttals of her detractors. And then you can give me the links to the rebuttals of her rebuttals ... if you can find them.
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Pretty much everything she said about PCR has been shown to be inaccurate, a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation or some other form of not being correct: this has been done to death in several threads on this forum alone, explained by many virologists and biochemists over and over.

Bailey isn't coming up with anything novel.
 
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