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@kino I am neither anti-vaxer nor pro-vaxer when it comes to covid. Being new technology I feel its reasonable for people to be cautious, but at the same time there are no significant risks that have popped up.
That said I think the general issue with it is quite clear. If you are the only one vaccinated out of a crowd you are safer than if you werent vaccinated at all, but you are at higher risk than if the entire crowd is vaccinated. So the issue in their minds, and a valid one, is that your choice is increasing their risk.
@kino Vaccines increase protection, but they dont make you immune. Others who arent vaccinated have significantly high viral loads and thus are more capable of spreading the disease. So by others not being vaccinated it increases the risk of everyone, including those vaccinated.
at this point, the only real remaining argument for vaccination (within the context of COVID) is that vaccinated individuals may exhibit lesser symptoms if infected, ergo having a greater chance of recovery, and furthermore reducing hospitalization rates.
so, contemporaneously, it really just seems like vaccines are only for the benefit of the vaccinated and don't really do anything insofar as stopping spread. if you're vaccinated then you're better off, but if someone chooses to refuse vaccination they are only detrimenting themselves and not risking the safety of others. at most one could argue they are being irresponsible since their infections will be more severe and may require greater attention and hospitalization.
@kino Looking at just Delta varient is what we would call cherry picking the data. Putting aside if the viral load is the same on delta itself, which is debatable, the fact remains that on the original virus there is no debate that it significantly lowers viral load and therefore having the crowd vaccinated does, in fact, provide greater protection.
that's like defending the functionality of a program because "it worked great on windows 95. if you're going to focus on later operating systems then you're cherry-picking the data!"
@kino Who said anything about ignoring delta varient... vaccination of a crowd protects everyone even if it only protects partially, its still protection, full stop.
That said it is true it isnt as effective agaisnt variants as we hoped, we didnt have these variants when the vaccine was created. As a result we will have to create vaccines for the variants. But if antivaxers arent playing along then we cant expect that to work either.
As for your analogy, its more like saying "Someone got a virus once even though they were using a virus scanner, therefore no one should use virus scanners"
in either case, playing along or otherwise, the result is just going to be a variant vaccine treadmill which is always behind
@kino Not necessarily. That depends. The vaccine treadmill only occurs when you cant read herd immunity quickly enough. Variants arise most strongly when you have high vaccination rates that are short of herd immunity enough that R0 is still high.
So anti-vaxxers not playing along, if they are a significant portion of the population (and they are) will absolutely create that treadmill. We can only see success if people get on board, and they arent/wont.
variants arise most strongly when you have high vaccination rates of drugs that don't actually do what traditional vaccines do and instead render an entire population as a giant petri dish
in many respects the countries that did nothing are better off than the countries which are still going through draconian measures to try and fix things
The replication crisis is **mostly** limited to psychology. It can be seen on a much smaller scale in other discipline but not nearly as prolific. Still its important to make sure if you sell something as fact that it has been replicated across many studies.
That same page reiterates what I said, that the majority of the replication crisis has been observed in psychology. Has a whole section devoted to it..
Not pathetic at all. That is the system working in that case. Remember they didnt ask scientists if they failed to replicate peer-review conclusions, only if they failed to replicate at all. Thats the process we expect, someone does an experiment, someone else replicates, then someone else, and then they all compare notes to see if something is valid or not. Then they draw conclusions. This is how it **should** go down.
The issue with the replication crisis, and where it is very much real, is when something that has become established (that is it has been publised, peer reviewed, and replicated) fails replication.
You will always have some people who manipulate the data to sell their agenda. Thats why its important you understand how statistics work so you can spot it when they do.
Agreed the political environment causes people to spew propaganda for their agenda from all sides.
Not really the case here. We had 4 years of trump trying to do everything in his power to legitimize one side, now we have Biden doing the same from the other. Both political sides try to legitimize the propaganda on their side and are equally guilty of said propaganda.
Supporting the vaccine, given the effective history of vaccines in the past, very much should have been the favored side at the time. Things have become a bit more nuanced now, but generally still makes sense to favor vaccines over anti-vaccines.
The world doesnt always need to be split down the middle on every issue.
> generally still makes sense to favor vaccines over anti-vaccines.
There is a safety calculus involved. I am not anti-vax but I think that people have good reason to be hesitant (even if their specific reasoning is often not good.)
Yup mRNA vaccines are a relatively new technology. They do work similar to old vaccines though in the sense that they cause a marker protein to flood your blood stream without the actual virus. But the delivery of that protein is a new process yes.
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@freemo @Moon @Telvannichad @kino
science done right works rather well. it's just that "science" currently is so dominated by the interests of money that it's process doesn't work anymore. if you don't have the "right" results, your funding is cut etc.
it's really not a problem of science but of society.
Nothing is further from the truth. Science has not been bought by money, it has not failed. Nor does funding get "cut" in the manner you speak. Funding is secured **ahead** of the science and garunteed regardless of the outcome.
This trope is getting old and there is no reality to it of any kind.
@freemo i think how the whole funding thing plays out in reality depends on the discipline.. there is enough funding for all kinds of bullshit in computer science (just throw blockchains on it!) while in other disciplines like social ones the funds are almost exclusively from nation adjacent entities which by nature are more interested to have research which is more "in line" with their own interests. combined with the already science hostile environment of cancle culture it's rather problematic. natural science is a bit less suspiciable (idk if this is the right word) for this of course, as the research matter isn't as controversial directly. i'd venture that it has gotten harder to do research on e.g. fission reactors in the west though, even if it's still a relevant topic.
as i've said, not a problem of science, but of society imho. maybe i just see the whole topic too black and white :)
@bonifartius Go work in research scientist and see for yourself. The truth is in even the most political of research the old trope of "we do what we need to for funding" is non-existant.
You have to remember 99%+ of scientists in research are making 1/3 of what they could make just going to work for the commercial companies directly. These scientists were never in it for the money.
In fact when a commercial interest wants fake science for their buck all they do is exactly that, hire scientists directly and then the company themselves do the research and publish it. Of course most people would be skeptical of such research, and should be. But its not as nefarious as you describe.
@freemo
> Go work in research scientist and see for yourself.
i was in a research group in university. that was in CS and with a multi-year research grant where the premise was to do basic research, nothing controversial.
> You have to remember 99%+ of scientists in research are making 1/3 of what they could make just going to work for the commercial companies directly. These scientists were never in it for the money.
imho, problem of social science disciplines is that there is almost no place people can go outside of academical context which often _is_ heavily depending on funds from state adjacent sources.
people doing natural science have much more options regarding who pays them. so yes, those who are in academia there are by choice - and they have a bit more leeway on the topics they research as the people with the money want to keep them doing research.
i never was insinuating that the people directly are in for the money. just that if they want to continue doing what they love, they probably choose topics which are not overly controversial, even if it interests them. "don't bite the hand which feeds you". i think that there is a bit of pre-filtering regarding that those who choose to go into research are likely not the ones with overly controversial (not nut-job style, just not mainstream) ideas, because they know it would be very hard to secure funding.
guess i just am too romantic regarding how science should be done ;)
@bonifartius Which social science discipline do you think doesn't have good commercial opportunities? That said any discipline where there arent commercial opportunities in the first place is the very area where there is no financial interest in "buying off" the scientists.
@freemo
> Which social science discipline do you think doesn't have good commercial opportunities?
i can't quite think of one which has. maybe there are some places for people in advertising and politics? that's about the only place where they are commercially relevant i can think of. if you know more, i'd be interested about it ;) the people i know are either in academia or working in some job but not as researchers.
> That said any discipline where there arent commercial opportunities in the first place is the very area where there is no financial interest in "buying off" the scientists.
i'd say it's less about "buying off" in those disciplines but about political reasons.
like i've said, i don't think many scientists are really "in someones pocket" but that they may have to keep in mind that the funding is from people who might have an agenda, so they choose their research topics accordingly.
i'd really like to see science without politics. as i've previously written, i'm a bit too romantic in that regard ;)
@bonifartius
Also not true. The funding isnt that direct usually. Very rarely does a entity with a commercial interest **directly** fund a particular research paper.
@Moon @Telvannichad @kino