5 ms·
I have followed that thread, and the Alzeimer "story" with great interest over the couple years I've been aware of it - in no way was my comment above meant to
by _wqdq 4y ago
I have followed that thread, and the Alzeimer "story" with great interest over the couple years I've been aware of it - in no way was my comment above meant to be a reflection on the possibility of a "taint" or lack-of scientific rigor (to bring in another example - the lack of repeatability in, oh, nearly every(?) social psychology experiment, etc. etc.) in the scientific and medical-science fields. The rise in administration at academic levels at the expense of science, the growing discontent in scientific funding being tied to results rather than curiousity, all very important - and very important to keep a skeptical mind about it all! Absolutely, that, to me, is the core of the scientific excercise.
I only meant that, in this particular case of polio detection, the cause and origin of the case is fairly cut-and-dry (there are other articles that have been published about it that give additional information), and introducing skepticism of the manner I responded to initially is likely to do more harm than good. Disinformation often begins with a distortion of a grain of truth, and the effects of that public skepticism and, dare I say it, ignorance (ironically?) breeds the environment that causes the reemergence of, for example, polio, amongst a public that is just being "skeptical" of vaccines.
- lurquer 4y agoI hear you. In regard to Polio vaccines, there is some head-scratching to be done if you go down that rabbit-hole. It’s all ancient history now, but the numbers of polio cases was dropping even before the vaccine roll-out. I don’t know enough about it to comment beyond that. But, I do know human nature: polio outbreaks were terrifying to parents, and there would be every reason not to be a bit skeptical when a solution to the problem was found… that is, it wasn’t a time for clear thinking in the midst of the panic. It’s precisely times like that when people are prone to overlook things. For instance, imagine the chaos that could ensue if a disease that was overwhelmingly trivial and asymptomatic was advertised as possibly being 10 or 20 percent lethal? Heck, I bet folks would be so scared that they’d shut down entire countries, weld people into their apartments, gulp down horse de-wormer, mandate experimental drugs, etc. Of course, I exaggerate. I doubt something like that could happen in modern times. But, if it did, the skeptics back when it was going on and even after the panic had died down, would most likely be pilloried and accused of being unthinking idiots. Just saying.