1/ A 🧵on #logicalfallacies and thinking errors anti-vaxxers commit when using #VAERS
2/ Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) – VARES does not establish a cause/effect relationship between vaccines and adverse events. vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide…
3/a Countless counterfeit fallacy (taking the existence of a large number of examples as evidence that at least some of those examples are true) – Just because there are many reports, doesn’t mean any of them are true. There are millions of reports of alien abductions,
3/b Elvis sightings, and the queen shape shifting into a reptilian. Zero of these are true. Expert analyses show that only ~3% of reports to VAERS are likely related to vaccines sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
4/ False cause (correlation ≠ causation) – Spurious correlations occur all the time, and we have just as much reason to believe C19 vaccines are killing 1000s of ppl as we have to believe that ppl commit suicide because we invest in science tylervigen.com/spurious-corre…
5/a Cherry-picking (selectively choosing bits of information from a whole dataset) and confirmation bias (only seeking information that confirms our prior beliefs) – VAERS dumpster divers selectively choose information that suits their ends and ignore information that doesn’t.
5/b For example, the CDC has confirmed 9 deaths plausibly caused by the J&J vaccine, yet AVers ignore the CDC acknowledging this & claim (w/o evidence) that the CDC is just covering up more cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
6/ Base rate neglect (making assumptions about probability from limited information) – People die all the time whether they’re vaccinated or not. No increase in the background rate of deaths has been found. thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
7/ Fallacy of the single cause (assuming there is a single cause for a complex and multifaceted event) – Attempting to explain 1000s of deaths, where the deceased passed away from a multitude of causes, doesn't make any sense psynso.com/fallacy-single…
8/a Observer bias (the difference between the true value and the value observed ) – If more people are cognizant of VAERS & more people have reason to report to VAERS, more reports will appear in VAERS. After #Wakefield’s fraudulent study,ebm.bmj.com/content/23/1/23
8/b reports of autism to VAERS increased by ~70% per month journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
9/ Data mining (looking at data to find specific patterns, rather than looking at data to see what patterns are there) – Data mining is a good way to form a hypothesis, but not to confirm one. That’s why every death reported to VAERS is investigated. proquest.com/docview/219916…
10/ Fallacy of composition (assuming that if something is true for some of its parts, that thing is true of the whole) – It may be true that C19 vaccines have caused deaths. But it doesn’t follow that all reported deaths are from C19 vaccines.
11/ Begging the question (an argument’s premises assume the conclusion) – "Reported to VAERS" ≠ "caused by a vaccine". Many reports to VAERS are clearly unrelated to vaccines and see 👇👇👇 docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
12/ Appeal to authority (claiming something is true BECAUSE an authority says it’s true) – Being on a govt site doesn't make VAERS reports true. Like @davidicke citing CIA reports as evidence, most AVers don't trust govt sites until they say something that aligns w/ their beliefs
13/ Circular reasoning (assuming the conclusion is true, therefore the premises are true) – The claim that💉 are causing deaths because VAERS reports exist lacks an evidentiary foundation for the CAUSE of death. Reports of deaths are only evidence that deaths have been reported
14/ Argument from ignorance (drawing conclusions from a lack of evidence) – “I don’t know another explanation for why these death reports exist, therefore they must be deaths from vaccines.”
15/ Affirming the consequent (inferring antecedent’s truth from consequent’s truth) – “If VAERS reports are true then 💉 are killing ppl. VAERS reports are true, therefore 💉 are killing ppl.” VAERS reports can be true (car crash after vaccination) & be unrelated to the vaccine
16/ Secundum quid (mistaking what’s true generally for what’s true universally) – It’s true that ppl report AEs to VAERS & some of those reports confirm vaccine-caused AEs. However that doesn’t mean every report establishes a true cause/effect relationship vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
17/ False dichotomy (wrongly presenting only 2 choices when more options exist) - “Either reports to VAERS are true, or reports to VAERS are false” is a fallacious argument. Some are true, some are false. Some establish cause/effect relationships, some don’t.
18/ Genetic fallacy (asserting something is true (or false) based on its origin rather than content) - VAERS is a govt website that collects data from a plurality of sources. The sources are irrelevant and alone cannot determine cause and effect
19/ Texas sharpshooter fallacy (cherry-picking similarities while ignoring differences to get results you want) - A cardinal rule of statistics is that you can’t find your hypothesis in your results. Before conducting statistical analyses, you must have a hypothesis to test.
20/ Conjunction fallacy (judging 2 events together to be more probable than 1 of them alone) - Every report in VAERS isn’t vaccine related (see 3/b above), & statistics states that A (VAERS reports) & B (those reports being true) together cannot be more probable than A or B alone
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