The Weinstein Brothers: Nobel-Prize Level Scientists or Self-Aggrandizing Woosters?

Shermer is very impressed with himself for helping get Heather and Bret to "the top of the charts".

The comments are brutal though, many of them saying he is abandonded skepticism and promoted a couple of pseudoscientific cranks.

Link
 

Attachments

  • Shermer Top of the Charts.jpg
    Shermer Top of the Charts.jpg
    45.4 KB · Views: 9
Sam Harris talks a little more about Bret Weinstein on his most recent podcast (an AMA). Someone asks him to have Bret on his podcast so he explains why he doesn't want to do that, and goes again into a little bit of the irresponsibility of what Weinstein is doing. He also mentions his (negative) opinion of Joe Rogan's recent interview of Bret Weinstein. Not much new here, but he's pretty spot on on this topic.
 
Roboramma said:
Sam Harris talks a little more about Bret Weinstein on his most recent podcast (an AMA). Someone asks him to have Bret on his podcast so he explains why he doesn't want to do that, and goes again into a little bit of the irresponsibility of what Weinstein is doing. He also mentions his (negative) opinion of Joe Rogan's recent interview of Bret Weinstein. Not much new here, but he's pretty spot on on this topic.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Listening now. I haven’t got to the specific question yet but I thought it worth remarking on something that annoys me about Sam Harris (despite the fact that I generally like him and think he’s far more sensible than the IDW clowns he was associated with): he is talking about how political thought has become like a religion, particularly on the left when they are attacking people as Nazis. The he says, “this is made even more difficult by the fact that we actually do have Nazis…” ya think? And then he goes on with even more incredulous wonder “…and there seem to be people on the right who now also want authoritarianism.” Like, when was that not a thing?
 
Okay, listened to it now and I completely agree with his points about how easy it is to start fires than to put them out and that is what Bret and his “partner in crime” Heather Heying are doing. I am glad he didn’t pull any punches and explained that debating them would be like debating a 9/11 Truther. I find his point about the low quality control of the information is an important disincentive when it comes to debating these issues (frankly I find something similar with the “lab leak hypothesis”) where there are demands to look into bad research and answer questions on obscure minutiae and how not knowing about facts that are likely to be trivial and meaningless only makes the person arguing against them look ill-informed. Bret and Heather have been baffling their audiences with BS and when I listened to some of the Rogan podcast I got the impression that it was almost like a 3-hour informercial for manure.
 
One thing I remember listening to during B&H's podcast with Rogan was that Bret said he had messed up teeth, probably caused by orthodontic treatment.

He said that there is a maverick orthodontist who essentially opposes the entire Orthodontic Industrial Complex (okay, Bret didn't use those terms, but that gives an idea of how he talked about it).

He said a radical theory came from someone called John Mew, and his son, Michael Mew, who seem to believe that malocclusion (where the teeth don't meet properly) is a product of environment, such as diet, bottle feeding, sucking on dummies etc.. as why else would evolution have made humans with crooked jaws (or something like that - Bret really doesn't seem to get the fact that evolution doesn't design perfect beings, or the fact that natural selection only selects for those are adapted enough to win out in the offspring lottery in the long term - there's always an appeal to nature or a teleological fallacy hanging over Bret's evolutionary claims).

Bret suggests that Mew's theories were ignored by the mainstream, presumably because of the "DISC" and also because there is no money to be made by John Mew's theories of how to improve your "jaw posture" by "mewing".

This is the kind of idea where I tend to do a variant of a Bayesian analysis:

1.) Is it accepted by mainstream scientists? No.
2.) Is it being pushed by Bret Weinstein? Yes.

In that case, it is almost certainly ********.

Anyway, when I went to look into it, I find this...

John Mew

Mewing has become popular among the manosphere through YouTube videos and Michael Mew's promotion of it on the incel site Sluthate.
Click to expand...

:jaw-dropp
 
angrysoba said:
One thing I remember listening to during B&H's podcast with Rogan was that Bret said he had messed up teeth, probably caused by orthodontic treatment.



He said that there is a maverick orthodontist who essentially opposes the entire Orthodontic Industrial Complex (okay, Bret didn't use those terms, but that gives an idea of how he talked about it).



He said a radical theory came from someone called John Mew, and his son, Michael Mew, who seem to believe that malocclusion (where the teeth don't meet properly) is a product of environment, such as diet, bottle feeding, sucking on dummies etc.. as why else would evolution have made humans with crooked jaws (or something like that - Bret really doesn't seem to get the fact that evolution doesn't design perfect beings, or the fact that natural selection only selects for those are adapted enough to win out in the offspring lottery in the long term - there's always an appeal to nature or a teleological fallacy hanging over Bret's evolutionary claims).



Bret suggests that Mew's theories were ignored by the mainstream, presumably because of the "DISC" and also because there is no money to be made by John Mew's theories of how to improve your "jaw posture" by "mewing".



This is the kind of idea where I tend to do a variant of a Bayesian analysis:



1.) Is it accepted by mainstream scientists? No.

2.) Is it being pushed by Bret Weinstein? Yes.



In that case, it is almost certainly ********.



Anyway, when I went to look into it, I find this...



John Mew







:jaw-dropp
Click to expand...
Do you know the approximate time of this orthodontic discussion. I sure don't want to listen to the whole thing.
 
whoanellie said:
Do you know the approximate time of this orthodontic discussion. I sure don't want to listen to the whole thing.
Click to expand...

It starts about 51:00 or just after on Spotify. I think it is after they were talking about gluten intolerance.

I think I listened to a lot more of this then I expected, on 1.25 or 1.5 speed.

The thing is, I find a lot of the stuff they talk about to be potentially interesting, but given their track record with things they have said in the past and things that I keep seeing appearing from their book, I almost instinctively think that what Bret and Heather are attracted to is woo. They just happen to be very persuasive to a lot of people who would think Alex Jones is a complete crackpot. (Rogan and the two of them are looking at pictures of people who have had their jaws improved by "mewing" which also includes eating beef jerky and chewing gum, apparently).

Here's another example. B&H argue that you should eat food associated with your ethnicity. Yes, that's right. They say, if you are of Italian heritage then eat Italian food; if you are of Japanese heritage eat Japanese food. Why? Well, [spoiler: here's where the pseudo-evolutionary mumbo jumbo kicks in] the heritage you are from has adapted to the culinary traditions in the genes. I wonder if the Italian food should contain tomatoes or not, given that tomatoes only came into the cuisine with the "discovery" of America. Irish people presumably have to go back to pre-potato times if they want to eat from their evolutionary heritage.

Link
 
angrysoba said:
Here's another example. B&H argue that you should eat food associated with your ethnicity. Yes, that's right. They say, if you are of Italian heritage then eat Italian food; if you are of Japanese heritage eat Japanese food. Why? Well, [spoiler: here's where the pseudo-evolutionary mumbo jumbo kicks in] the heritage you are from has adapted to the culinary traditions in the genes. I wonder if the Italian food should contain tomatoes or not, given that tomatoes only came into the cuisine with the "discovery" of America. Irish people presumably have to go back to pre-potato times if they want to eat from their evolutionary heritage.

Link
Click to expand...

Bugger! Which bit of my heritage? The Scandiwegian Viking bit? The Angles and Saxons? The Scots? The Irish (this is where it gets complicated as there was Irish colonisation of Scotland back in Very Long Ago Times; some Scots were transplanted to Ulster; some of them came over to NE England post-Famine and gave rise to me)? The Hugenot French bit? The other bits I have no clue about?

Says he drinking some nominally Mexican beer brewed somewhere in the UK by a Belgian company.
 
angrysoba said:
It starts about 51:00 or just after on Spotify. I think it is after they were talking about gluten intolerance.

I think I listened to a lot more of this then I expected, on 1.25 or 1.5 speed.

The thing is, I find a lot of the stuff they talk about to be potentially interesting, but given their track record with things they have said in the past and things that I keep seeing appearing from their book, I almost instinctively think that what Bret and Heather are attracted to is woo. They just happen to be very persuasive to a lot of people who would think Alex Jones is a complete crackpot. (Rogan and the two of them are looking at pictures of people who have had their jaws improved by "mewing" which also includes eating beef jerky and chewing gum, apparently).

Here's another example. B&H argue that you should eat food associated with your ethnicity. Yes, that's right. They say, if you are of Italian heritage then eat Italian food; if you are of Japanese heritage eat Japanese food. Why? Well, [spoiler: here's where the pseudo-evolutionary mumbo jumbo kicks in] the heritage you are from has adapted to the culinary traditions in the genes. I wonder if the Italian food should contain tomatoes or not, given that tomatoes only came into the cuisine with the "discovery" of America. Irish people presumably have to go back to pre-potato times if they want to eat from their evolutionary heritage.

Link
Click to expand...

Thanks. The Weinsteins are the gift that keeps on giving.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
Bugger! Which bit of my heritage? The Scandiwegian Viking bit? The Angles and Saxons? The Scots? The Irish (this is where it gets complicated as there was Irish colonisation of Scotland back in Very Long Ago Times; some Scots were transplanted to Ulster; some of them came over to NE England post-Famine and gave rise to me)? The Hugenot French bit? The other bits I have no clue about?

Says he drinking some nominally Mexican beer brewed somewhere in the UK by a Belgian company.
Click to expand...

Yep. It is exactly the type of theory that probably sounds good when it first crosses your mind and then quickly begins to sound either full-of-holes or leads to very sinister places. In fact, the "leads to very sinister places" problem is what I have thought about Bret Weinstein's views on evolution ever since he left Richard Dawkins open-mouthed in horror when they had that discussion.

whoanellie said:
Thanks. The Weinsteins are the gift that keeps on giving.
Click to expand...

This is why I think Sam Harris's direct call out of the Weinsteins and Rogan is so important. Harris is one of the few who could probably make the so-called IDW crowd think again (and frankly the IDW is intellectual the way that the DPRK is a democratic people's republic. I mean what kind of "intellectual" club would have Dave Rubin as a member?).

Bret and Heather have got to have been rocked by that broadside. No doubt they will have to address it, so this soap opera is going to go on.

ETA: I thought at first you said they were the "grift" that keeps on giving. That would certainly be true.
 
Last edited:
angrysoba said:
Thanks. Listening now. I haven’t got to the specific question yet but I thought it worth remarking on something that annoys me about Sam Harris (despite the fact that I generally like him and think he’s far more sensible than the IDW clowns he was associated with): he is talking about how political thought has become like a religion, particularly on the left when they are attacking people as Nazis. The he says, “this is made even more difficult by the fact that we actually do have Nazis…” ya think? And then he goes on with even more incredulous wonder “…and there seem to be people on the right who now also want authoritarianism.” Like, when was that not a thing?
Click to expand...

I seem to remember some time back that he stated that he no longer wants to be associated with the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web".

Yeah, here is confirmation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web#Associated_individuals
Sam Harris, in November 2020, as a result of some unidentified members of the group propagating President Trump's claims that the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen through massive voter fraud, said he was turning in his "imaginary membership card to this imaginary organization", because some members of the group were sounding "fairly bonkers."[27]
Click to expand...
 
Are these two Weistein brothers related to the other two famous Weinstein brothers?

Between the two set of brothers, the Wine Stone surname seems to have been stained, like wine in a white towel.
 
angrysoba said:
Thanks. Listening now. I haven’t got to the specific question yet but I thought it worth remarking on something that annoys me about Sam Harris (despite the fact that I generally like him and think he’s far more sensible than the IDW clowns he was associated with): he is talking about how political thought has become like a religion, particularly on the left when they are attacking people as Nazis. The he says, “this is made even more difficult by the fact that we actually do have Nazis…” ya think? And then he goes on with even more incredulous wonder “…and there seem to be people on the right who now also want authoritarianism.” Like, when was that not a thing?
Click to expand...

but the radical left DOES call anyone to their right as nazis.

which is exactly the same thing the radical right does. Anyone to their left is a communist.

It's incredible how many times I have been called both a nazi or a fascist (despite nazis being a small subset of fascists. Some 1930s fascists were pro racial integration for example) on an argument, while the same argument got me called a communist by the other group.


Of course, many on the right say Nazis and Fascists were actually left wingers.

They fail to recognize that left-right is not about authoritarianism or the level of State intervention on the economy. They should research a little about Horseshoe Theory (although BOTH the extreme left and extreme right completely reject Horseshoe Political Theory when you point it out to them).

OR JUST ABANDON the concept of left-right and use at LEAST the 2 axis political spectrum model.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
Bugger! Which bit of my heritage? The Scandiwegian Viking bit? The Angles and Saxons? The Scots? The Irish (this is where it gets complicated as there was Irish colonisation of Scotland back in Very Long Ago Times; some Scots were transplanted to Ulster; some of them came over to NE England post-Famine and gave rise to me)? The Hugenot French bit? The other bits I have no clue about?

Says he drinking some nominally Mexican beer brewed somewhere in the UK by a Belgian company.
Click to expand...

I'm essentially a kind of Alpine-Irish hybrid. What use is all that delicious meltable cheese without potatoes to stir it into?
 
angrysoba said:
This is why I think Sam Harris's direct call out of the Weinsteins and Rogan is so important. Harris is one of the few who could probably make the so-called IDW crowd think again (and frankly the IDW is intellectual the way that the DPRK is a democratic people's republic. I mean what kind of "intellectual" club would have Dave Rubin as a member?).

Bret and Heather have got to have been rocked by that broadside. No doubt they will have to address it, so this soap opera is going to go on.
Click to expand...

I just listened last night. (It's the last 20 minutes or so of the "free" first half-hour of the latest AMA episode of Making Sense podcast)

Not only did he correctly call out how Bret is completely framing everything in conspiratorial terms, he pretty accurately slammed how giving them a platform is hopeless, in that they can always overwhelm you with details and minutia that you can't address in a live format. Moreover, he said that he just advised Rogan to "unring that bell" regarding the horrible Ivermectin / Weinstein interview. I doubt that Rogan will do so, given that he literally put this stuff into his body while sick with Covid, but it's a much better direction from Sam than I've seen vs. his regular IDW interactions. Honestly, maybe this can be a bit of a wake up call (pun) for him with his nazi blinders and "the left" etc.
 
carlitos said:
Not only did he correctly call out how Bret is completely framing everything in conspiratorial terms, he pretty accurately slammed how giving them a platform is hopeless, in that they can always overwhelm you with details and minutia that you can't address in a live format.
Click to expand...

I listened to the whole thing too. It sounds like the old Gish Gallop problem that makes it impossible to "debate" creationists in a live format where they keep raising new talking points faster than you can knock them down.
 
Two New Mexico men have died of Ivermectin toxicity

State health leaders say more people are taking Ivermectin to treat COVID-19. In some cases, it's been deadly.

The New Mexico Department of Health said two people in New Mexico have died from Ivermectin toxicity. Not much is known about either patient -- but one of them was battling a severe case of COVID-19.

"It's a serious issue, we need to watch it,” said Dr. David Scrase, NMDOH acting secretary.
Click to expand...

https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/2-new-mexicans-have-died-of-ivermectin-toxicity-state-health-officials-say/6246168/
 
Eric's been a bit sidelined by Bret's antics recently. He's tried to show off his hot takes on Twitter that mere mortals look at and gasp... "WTF?!?!" but here is a video that is a little bit on the cruel side that makes me feel a bit sorry for him. It is basically the whole Geometric Unity saga in a nutshell but also the way in which he went in and out of Joe Rogan's graces. It gives the impression that Rogan once tried to be, or look, impressed with Eric's galaxy-brain but then became annoyed or irritated by him.

For me, as much as I find Eric irritating, I think this is almost like inviting over the crazy person who has enjoyed believing he is Napoleon and then mercilessly revealing that he is not.

The stuff with the guitar is probably the most cringey bit...

ETA:...except of course for "PullthatupJamie.com"...

 
Last edited:
angrysoba said:
Eric's been a bit sidelined by Bret's antics recently. He's tried to show off his hot takes on Twitter that mere mortals look at and gasp... "WTF?!?!" but here is a video that is a little bit on the cruel side that makes me feel a bit sorry for him. It is basically the whole Geometric Unity saga in a nutshell but also the way in which he went in and out of Joe Rogan's graces. It gives the impression that Rogan once tried to be, or look, impressed with Eric's galaxy-brain but then became annoyed or irritated by him.

For me, as much as I find Eric irritating, I think this is almost like inviting over the crazy person who has enjoyed believing he is Napoleon and then mercilessly revealing that he is not.

The stuff with the guitar is probably the most cringey bit...

ETA:...except of course for "PullthatupJamie.com"...

Click to expand...
Thank you for posting this. He does a great job of highlighting the issues with Eric's ideas and his approach. The lunch lady comment at the end was classic.
 
Does Eric Weinstein have a new lead? I think he suspects that Pfizer's new anti-viral drug is really Ivermectin in disguise. Could he have blown the lid off Big Pharma's plans? Apparently the internet gatekeepers are trying to stop him finding out by persuading him that Zero Hedge might not be a reputable news source...
 

Attachments

  • eric weinstein zero hedge.jpg
    eric weinstein zero hedge.jpg
    37.4 KB · Views: 17
angrysoba said:
Does Eric Weinstein have a new lead? I think he suspects that Pfizer's new anti-viral drug is really Ivermectin in disguise. Could he have blown the lid off Big Pharma's plans? Apparently the internet gatekeepers are trying to stop him finding out by persuading him that Zero Hedge might not be a reputable news source...
Click to expand...

Now Eric plays the "I never said it was aliens, but it's aliens" routine...
 

Attachments

  • Eric says he never said pfizermectin.jpg
    Eric says he never said pfizermectin.jpg
    31.5 KB · Views: 11
  • Eric says he never said pfizermectin 2.jpg
    Eric says he never said pfizermectin 2.jpg
    35.9 KB · Views: 23
wrong mode of action

Pfizer's compound, Molnupiravir, is not even a protease inhibitor. It interferes with replication of viral RNA.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Pfizer's compound, Molnupiravir, is not even a protease inhibitor. It interferes with replication of viral RNA.
Click to expand...

I think that Molnupiravir is the Merck drug, and Pfizer have produced a different one. Although in conspiracyland, maybe all drugs are identical but just in different labels sold by evil Big Pharma. ;)
 
There's something the phase 3 trial didn't address:

Is Molnupiravir safe for de-worming horses?
 
angrysoba said:
Eric's been a bit sidelined by Bret's antics recently. He's tried to show off his hot takes on Twitter that mere mortals look at and gasp... "WTF?!?!" but here is a video that is a little bit on the cruel side that makes me feel a bit sorry for him. It is basically the whole Geometric Unity saga in a nutshell but also the way in which he went in and out of Joe Rogan's graces. It gives the impression that Rogan once tried to be, or look, impressed with Eric's galaxy-brain but then became annoyed or irritated by him.

For me, as much as I find Eric irritating, I think this is almost like inviting over the crazy person who has enjoyed believing he is Napoleon and then mercilessly revealing that he is not.

The stuff with the guitar is probably the most cringey bit...

ETA:...except of course for "PullthatupJamie.com"...

Click to expand...
That vid is spot on regarding Eric weinstein.
 
angrysoba said:
Now Eric plays the "I never said it was aliens, but it's aliens" routine...
Click to expand...

Jesus. That makes me cringe.

Rather than positing a conspiracy to hide the efficacy of ivermectin in treating Covid from us sheeple, maybe the simple fact that it isn't effective is the reason that "powerful non-biologists" are telling people it's not effective?

No, that couldn't be it.
 
Pfizer's new compound PF-07321332

angrysoba said:
I think that Molnupiravir is the Merck drug, and Pfizer have produced a different one. Although in conspiracyland, maybe all drugs are identical but just in different labels sold by evil Big Pharma. ;)
Click to expand...
I don't know how I got my wires crossed, but thank you for that correction. Here is something from Pfizer on their protease inhibitor. The structure is nothing like Ivermectin. Pfizer's new compound is a reversible, covalent inhibitor. Chemical and Engineering News.
 
Last edited:
I'm beginning to wonder if Eric Weinstein is going full Infowars.

Maybe he has just enough of a reputation as a serious thinker for people to think he is not a full-blown conspiracy theorist at this point, but I think he is also a victim of the term he coined which is "audience capture". He knows what his fans want....
 

Attachments

  • Eric on Infowars.jpg
    Eric on Infowars.jpg
    20.6 KB · Views: 13
  • Eric on Infowars 2.jpg
    Eric on Infowars 2.jpg
    25.2 KB · Views: 9
angrysoba said:
I'm beginning to wonder if Eric Weinstein is going full Infowars.

Maybe he has just enough of a reputation as a serious thinker for people to think he is not a full-blown conspiracy theorist at this point, but I think he is also a victim of the term he coined which is "audience capture". He knows what his fans want....
Click to expand...

It's probably my own quirk, but the one that bugs me the most is his anti-immigration stance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom