Whenever I see anyone describing those countering medical disinformation as “tribal,” those spreading misinformation as “thinking for themselves” or “encouraging thought,” and the process of countering disinformation as “debate,” I know I’m not dealing with a serious argument. 1/
Indeed, whether he realizes it or not, John’s portrayal of the situation with respect to #COVID19 disinformation is EXACTLY the same portrayal of vaccine advocates I’ve seen from antivaxxers going back to when I first noticed that there were antivaxxers. 2/
Antivaxxers love to portray themselves as iconoclasts, as “thinking for themselves,” all while portraying science advocates as close-minded and tribal and their efforts as “fostering thought and debate.” So do quacks. So do climate science deniers. 3/
Indeed, whether John realizes it or not, accusing critics of “tribalism” while portraying your side as thinking for itself and the discussion as “debate” is practically a sine qua non of science denial. (I hope he doesn’t realize it.) 4/
And, yes, sometimes the line between misinformation and scientific debate isn’t always clear. This was particularly true early in the #COVID19 #pandemic. More than a year in, though? Not so much. Not anymore. 5/
Indeed, one way to recognize cranks is that they are still pushing the same messages undermining public health now that they were a year ago. Scientists change their minds when evidence demands it and admit previous errors. Cranks do not. 6/6

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More from @gorskon

4 Apr
What most pundits, scientists, and doctors don't realize is that this is not a new alliance. Rather, it's the fruition of an effort by antivaxxers to court the far right. It started by portraying school vaccine mandates as an unacceptable government assault on "freedom." 1/
Contrary to the view of many who always thought that the antivax movement was all hippy dippy crunchy lefties, antivax beliefs have always been roughly equally prevalent on the right and the left. Even @iamsambee got this wrong years ago. 2/ respectfulinsolence.com/2014/06/04/the…
Indeed, there has long been a strong right-wing conspiratorial wing of the antivaccine movement, dating back at least to the John Birch Society. Anyone ever hear of General Bert Stubblebine III’s Natural Solutions Foundation? 3/
Read 24 tweets
4 Apr
Colbeck was, alas, my state senator. He was ahead of the curve among @MIGOP to become Trumpy. It overjoys me to see his conspiracy theory nonsense coming back to bite him. 1/
Here's the actual letter. It was a joy to read. 2/ scribd.com/document/50142…
Read 4 tweets
2 Apr
I’ve asked this very question of ##COVID19 minimizers/deniers advocating just letting the virus run rampant to achieve “natural herd immunity.” Why don’t you seek out COVID patients and spend an hour in a closed room with one of them without PPE? 1/
Here’s a perfect example from June. Antivaxxer @delbigtree urged his @HighWireTalk audience to “catch this cold” in order to achieve herd immunity faster and protect the vulnerable. 2/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-le…
As an aside, I can’t help but point out that, while urging his audience to “catch” #COVID19, @delbigtree engaged in some of the most egregious victim shaming I’ve ever seen, blaming people with serious comorbidities for having brought them on themselves by living bad lives. 3/
Read 10 tweets
2 Apr
Lovely. @comcast is completely out now. No Internet, cable, or phone. “Routine system maintenance”? If it’s “routine,” then why couldn’t you have given, say, 24 hours notice so that I could plan? If it’s not routine, if it’s an outage, why call it “routine”? Highly irritating.
So, @comcastcares, so much for my getting much work done tonight. (There’s only so much that I can do using my phone’s Internet access.) thanks for nothing!🤬
The weird thing is, even though @comcast Internet goes out all too often around my part of the Detroit area, it’s very rare for the TV to go out too. Total outages are quite rare. So WTF is going on? I guess I might as well go to bed and hope I have Internet in the morning.
Read 5 tweets
1 Apr
It's particularly amusing that the best he can come up with is just an ad hominem about only *one* of my sources. He can't refute any of the information in my post. 1/
I'm half-tempted to remove the one citation that Magness keeps harping on, not because it's not a good citation (it's well sourced), but because removing it would take away his one pathetic talking point and he wouldn't be able to refute anything else in the post. 2/
Seriously, one notes that Mr. Magness does not deny that @aier is funded by the Koch brothers and other right wing climate science denying astroturf organizations. The reason? Because he can't. 3/
Read 4 tweets
15 Mar
Overheard in the hospital, a woman from kitchen staff speaking with a doctor, both Black. Somehow the topic of #CovidVaccine came up. The doctor asked the woman if she’d gotten the vaccine yet. She said no and that she wasn’t going to. 1/
The doc asked why. She said she was healed by His blood. The doc politely but urgently suggested that she “really should get the vaccine” because #COVID19 is “killing people out there.” 2/
Her response was that when He wants you to come home, there’s nothing you can do about it. I suppose, from a Christian point of view, that’s true, but I also learned years ago, when I was still a devoted Catholic, that God helps those who help themselves. 3/
Read 7 tweets

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