16 Comments
Apr 13, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Another diligent and brilliant piece Maryanne. These thugs in lab coats, the highest form of intellectual snobbery, are destroying the fundamental freedoms of curiosity, exploration and investigation. They bind their minds to power, and unwittingly destroy their own reputations along with the work of so many good people, just because their earlier career boldness has decayed into lazy arsed throne sitting.

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Apr 13, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Wonderful! Brilliant. So clear and obvious.

DWL, Princeton

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Apr 14, 2023·edited Apr 14, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Scientific consensus is a contradiction of terms!

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founding
Apr 14, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Great post! Just became a founding subscriber. The same “consensus” was manufactured regarding climate alarmism: many, many good scientists smeared, funding cut, etc. That was my first eye-opening to “scientism.”

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Apr 13, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

I suppose the consensus is that consensus is not part of science, or are there dissenting views about this? While it is certainly correct that consensus tends to suffer the same outcomes as "groupthink", it is better to refute it by showing that science is imperfect, and that nature far too complicated for the human mind to understand without oversimplifying. This has been the historical record. That being said, I think it may be better to say that there are some areas of science which are "widely accepted" and others which are "widely accepted as being refuted by the scientific evidence" and others that remain in the realm of conjectural. This being said, it is worth footnoting that even what is widely accepted or widely rejected is also widely recognized as being subject to future modification based on further research data.

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Apr 14, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

A thoughtful annd important article. But I don’t agree completely. Science generally progresses by a new consensus being formed and strengthened. There’s always politics involved.

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Good one! :) In my experience, people fall back on ad hominems when they have no counter-evidence. My statement that NDT looked less smart than he is was obviously my opinion, and people are free to disagree and present their evidence why. But that wasn't the main point, which is this: Domain-specific knowledge is necessary for sound reasoning and complex problem solving, and that is well supported by the evidence, which I supplied. I'll be happy to supply more if you'd like, but first let's hear your critique of the evidence I supplied, along with supporting evidence for your critique. I'm not sure what "complex language" you're talking about (seemed pretty simple to me, and if you read the articles, they were defined there), but if you want to be more specific, I'll be happy to repeat the definitions. It's interesting you are accusing me of not having any support for my ideas when, in fact, I supplied it, while you provided zero evidence for yours.

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Yes, Robert Malone is a very credible person, and we should all listen to him instead of well, anybody who disagrees with him because he's got ALL the evidence on his side, for sure! (Link #1) As for the concept of scientific consensus, it tends to get hijacked and misused by politics. This is unfortunate, because then people reject the scientific PROCESS, and then what exactly do they base their decisions ON? Anything BUT scientific evidence. Is that better? People like NDT, though brilliant, need to stay in their lane of expertise when debating. I heard him say why he relies on "scientific consensus" for all things Covid, because that's not his area of expertise, and he trusts the scientific method. That's fine, but it doesn't make for a good debate. When it comes to something new like Covid, the consensus will evolve quickly, which is a good thing, because it means data is still being collected and the scientists are not stuck in old data. But people who don't understand the scientific method think that's a bad thing. For people who are still open to the scientific method as the most reliable source of information, and want to know more about the notion of "consensus," the 2nd link is helpful. We all need to better understand the scientific method, and how consensus evolves over time. Nobody gets all upset about changes in the consensus of physicists (space and time are elementary; oh, wait, maybe not!) But when it comes to the scientific areas that impact recommendations for human behavior (e.g., masking, vaccines, climate change), people are more resistant because it's human nature not to want to be told what to do. It's ironic that people who didn't want to put a "new" vaccine into their body were more than willing to put a "new" monoclonal antibody into their body once infected (invented in 2020). (mRNA had been studied since the 1960's, and monoclonal antibodies since the 1970's, so even there, mRNA was more well researched). So many mistakes were made during Covid because of our nation's "pre-existing condition" of polarization, fear of the unknown (it was new, remember?), along with Big Pharma's history of frequently distorting information for profit. If things don't change, we will be even less prepared for the next (inevitable) pandemic. God forbid it's more deadly next time.

https://www.businessinsider.com/experts-fact-check-vaccine-claims-by-robert-malone-rogan-podcast-2022-2

https://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/the-scientific-consensus

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deletedApr 13, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD
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