If they really want to stop misinformation, the scientific literature says that they should agree to public discussions

By avoiding all public discussions with scientific peers who disagree with them, the narrative promoters are actually helping the "misinformation spreaders"!

Executive summary

Who is to blame for the spread of misinformation?

According to science, the answer is the mainstream medical community.

Why? Because they always (with the lone exception noted below) decline to respond to public challenges to defend their positions.

Elon Musk summed it up succinctly:

Introduction

A paper published in 2019, shows that one of the best ways to combat misinformation is to show up at the public debate table.

So the excuse that they use that “real scientists only respond to well thought out papers and videos” is simply gaslighting you.

For example:

The real reason they don’t debate us is because they know the data doesn’t support their position. There is simply way too much data he cannot explain and it’s all consistent with the signal in the VAERS data on the excess deaths. More on that in an upcoming post.

The paper

Effective strategies for rebutting science denialism in public discussions

The most important conclusion was this

“However, with regard to the effectiveness of messages in conventional contexts, not turning up at the discussion at all seems to result in the worst effect.”

Here’s are some other quotes from the paper

1. “All the experiments revealed that not responding to science deniers has a negative effect on attitudes towards behaviours favoured by science (for example, vaccination) and intentions to perform these behaviours.”

2. “We found no evidence that … rebutting science denialism in public discussions backfires.”

3. “Altogether, the results do not support the backfire hypothesis in attempts to rebut science denial in public discussions. Instead, the results suggest that both topic and technique rebuttal as single strategies or as a combined strategy can reduce the impact of a science denier. Moreover, it is especially beneficial to use rebuttal strategies among audiences whose prior beliefs or ideology render them particularly vulnerable to science deniers.”

4. “In the light of these findings we recommend that advocates for science train in topic and technique rebuttal. Both strategies were equally effective in mitigating the influence of science deniers in public debates.”

5. “We find no evidence of backfire effects when using conventional methods of topic rebuttal (presenting the facts) in the present experiments. Moreover, there was no evidence that the effectiveness of this strategy was reduced by political ideology (Experiments 4 and 6) or prior beliefs (Experiments 2–4 and 6). In fact, audiences that were most vulnerable to messages of denial (individuals with low vaccine confidence and US conservatives) benefitted the most from topic and technique rebuttal. Thus, an advocate for science does not need to back off from audiences that are assumed to be difficult to convince: being present and rebutting science denial still makes a positive difference.”

6. The studies were all consistent that rebuttal produced better outcomes.

The lone exception: the proof that REAL scientists are not afraid of public debate

I’ll publish the link to this after I get permission. Suffice it to say, you will not be disappointed.

Also, coincidentally, it was Professor Bridle himself who emailed me the link to the paper cited in this article! He walks the talk!

Summary

The real reason they aren’t showing up at the public debate table is because they can’t win on the facts in an honest debate.

I just wanted to make sure you knew that.