My email to Muge Cevik: "Do you want to see the record-level data showing you got it wrong?"
For some reason, today's scientists NEVER want to see ANY data showing they got it wrong. We are really going to have to redefine the word "scientist." I provide a list.
Executive summary
Scientists never seem to be interested in any data that shows the opposite of what they write.
Maybe it is time to redefine the term scientist as “someone using scientific methods possessing an unfailing belief in the correctness of their work with a demonstrated unwillingness to consider any credible data that clearly shows that they might have got it completely wrong.”
I have other possible definitions in this article. You’ll love the list I’ve assembled.
The BMJ editorial
I read this
which concludes:
“The risks of remaining unvaccinated are clear and far outweigh the unknown benefits of re-vaccinating the general population. Rapid scale-up of vaccination coverage globally remains the most urgent public health priority.”
The first sentence is nonsensical. How can clear risks outweigh the weight of something that is unknown?!?!
The second sentence about scaling up the COVID shots being the most urgent priority I have an even bigger problem with.
So I wrote this email.
I’m just documenting that we DID let these people know that the most reliable data we have disagrees with what they are saying.
But they they just hate it when the data doesn’t support what they claim.
Our friend Jake Scott is first author on this paper. Muge has an h-index of 42 which is very respectable.
Honest scientists would respond and explore the best dataset to see what it reveals.
Sadly, I am still looking for an honest scientist among those advocating for the COVID shots. Please let me know in the comments if you know of one.
Alternative definitions of scientists
Here are a few aphoristic versions in different tones — choose the one that best fits your intent, or I can refine further:
1. Mencken-style (biting and sardonic):
A scientist is a man who worships evidence—provided it confirms his funding proposal.
2. Twain-style (dry wit, worldly observation):
A scientist is one who doubts everything, except his own conclusions.
3. Philosophical (stoic clarity):
Science begins in humility and ends in pride. The true scientist stops before the second step.
4. Modern satirical definition:
Scientist, n. — A person trained to seek the truth until finding it becomes professionally inconvenient.
5. Political-tinged realism:
A scientist is a bureaucrat armed with a hypothesis and a grant, defending both as if they were holy scripture.
Scientist (n.)
A modern priest of certainty; ordained by peer review, funded by industry, and excommunicating heretics in the name of progress.
Scientist (n.)
One who begins with curiosity and ends with consensus.
See also: bureaucrat, pharmacologist, grant recipient.
Scientist (n.)
A professional skeptic toward everyone’s data but his own.
Scientist (n.)
A person employed to prove what has already been decided.
Scientist (n.)
A once-noble seeker of truth, now a certified defender of it.
Scientist (n.)
An alchemist with better funding and worse imagination.
Mr. Kirsch must be continually applauded for pounding away at the blocks of wood masquerading as "Scientists". A thankless task that can only cost him time and money. But for our grandchildren we must persevere and attack these blockheads who have changed the scientific method from experiments with verification, to a process which is about consensus guided by commercial interests and status mining.
Both of us went to MIT and at this point "reputation mining" at top universities is more lucrative than Bitcoin mining. The Universities keep adding more undergraduates and administrators, to the point where local universities like Stanford and UC Berkeley now have over 5000 administrators; and for what?
I don't know how we can fix this except perhaps through some kind of public humiliation. I think that is the only thing that will get them back down. They relentlessly use their appeal to authority to ignore and block competing points of view.
Perhaps the evolution of AI will bring some sense, because the AI tech, if is not corrupted by sneaky pre-programmed biases, should find the raw data very alarming.
I can see this taking the rest of Mr. Kirsch's life, and i wish him a long and healthy existence, because this could take a while.
Consensus Science: The continually funded scientist reads what other scientists in his field are saying, then modifies his data and paper to align with everyone else.