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9 Nov, 8 tweets, 2 min read
The 300-year history of vaccines as app updates:
~1720

v0.1 (beta): Inoculation

Features:
• Grants immunity
• Usually doesn't kill you

Known bugs:
• Mild disease symptoms
• You're still contagious and can start an outbreak

Supported platforms:
• Smallpox
1796

v1.0: Vaccination! Using new cowpox-based technology

Fixed:
• Doesn't kill you or start outbreaks
• Milder symptoms

Bugs:
• Immunity is temporary (booster shot upgrade packs required)

Supported:
• *Still* only smallpox
1885

v2.0: Attenuated/inactivated vaccines. Sorry this one took so long, folks! Had to discover microbiology first. Big shout-out to our lead dev, Pasteur.

Features:
• Rabies support! More diseases coming soon

Bugs:
• Can cause disease if attenuation/inactivation goes wrong
1896, v2.1: Typhoid & cholera support
1897, v2.2: Plague
1932, v2.3: Diphtheria
1926, v2.4: Pertussis (whooping cough)
1927, v2.5: Tetanus, tuberculosis
1945, v2.6: Influenza
1953, v2.7: Yellow fever
1955, v2.8: Polio
1963, v2.9: Measles
1967, v2.10: Mumps
1969, v2.11: Rubella
…
1981

v3.0: Subunit vaccines! Next-gen technology uses only a part of the pathogen.

Features:
• Cannot replicate in the body or cause disease

Supported:
• Hepatitis B
• HPV, meningococcal, pneumococcal, and others coming soon
2020

v4.0: RNA vaccines. Our most advanced vaccine technology yet, featuring personalized and locally-sourced biologics: your own cells produce the antigen!

Supported:
• COVID-19 (private beta)
• Many more sure to come in the future.
A much more serious and informative version of this at @rootsofprogress: rootsofprogress.org/immunization-f…

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More from @jasoncrawford

Jason Crawford Profile picture
24 Oct
Everyone knows that correlation is not causation.

Many people don't know that in scientific jargon, “predict” and “explain” are *also* not causation. They are forms of correlation.

These terms can cause extreme miscommunication.
(Technically, “association” might be a better term than “correlation”, which can have a narrower technical meaning in statistics. But since I'm writing this for non-experts, I'm going to use the term “correlation” in the colloquial, wider sense.)
In lay usage, “X predicts Y” implies that X comes *before* Y. Predictions are about the future.

In statistics, there is no time implication at all. It is just a type of correlation.
Read 8 tweets
Jason Crawford Profile picture
24 Oct
This is a pretty bald-faced admission from a @washingtonpost editor: “journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power.” cjr.org/public_editor/…
I mean, @elonmusk decides he doesn't need a PR department, and this guy's reaction is: “this is about power. We need to take some back.” Literally—that is a quote from the piece.
“All I know is that there is only one way the press maintains its power in society: By metaphorically putting the heads of powerful people on pikes.”

Wow.
Read 5 tweets
Jason Crawford Profile picture
24 Oct
🤔
This is from theatlantic.com/family/archive…

Yes, I suppose if you cherry-pick your starting point, and assume that a change of any size is significant, you can interpret a flat line as a “trend”.
I didn't go find my own data, by the way, I literally just clicked the link in the article.
Read 10 tweets
Jason Crawford Profile picture
23 Oct
Lately both Facebook and Twitter have been blocking, restricting, or banning content & accounts in what seems to be an arbitrary or at least haphazard way.

You may feel powerless to do anything about this—but you're not. There is something you can do:
Subscribe directly to your favorite accounts, by email or RSS.

Twitter and Facebook are centralized, but web, email, and RSS are decentralized. If you subscribe directly, they can always reach you. You can't get banned from email.
If you like my content and want to keep getting it, subscribe by email here:
rootsofprogress.org/subscribe

I don't expect to be banned by either network anytime soon—but on principle, I own my domain and host my own site in order to control my content and audience.
Read 6 tweets
Jason Crawford Profile picture
25 Sep
Industrial civilization needs an owner's manual.
People are suggesting books on economics and philosophy, which is good. But I literally meant the basics. Where does energy come from, and why? How do we make steel? Cement? Textiles? What is needed to grow enough food to feed the planet? How do vaccines work? Computers? Etc…
People who can't answer these questions even at a very basic level still express very strong opinions on things like nuclear power, gas cars, plastic bags, etc.

We need *industrial literacy.* And people should start to feel at least *slightly* embarrassed if they don't have it.
Read 7 tweets
Jason Crawford Profile picture
23 Sep
This. Arguably the greatest achievement of the American republic was the end to both unreplaceable tyrants-for-life, and bloody wars of succession among pretenders to the throne. I can't think of anything more important in politics than preserving the peaceful transfer of power.
“The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him.” theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
“If you are a voter, think about voting in person after all. More than half a million postal votes were rejected in this year’s primaries, even without Trump trying to suppress them. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls.
Read 7 tweets

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