Thread by @alexandrosM

Yes, every hypothesis should be treated with suspicion. That doesn't mean it should not be disseminated, explored, investigated etc.

Explaining the basics of science to @AviBittMD is tiresome.

This man is a DDoS agent of bad faith.

Seriously, this is the best use of your time?

https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1495152643857006597

Let's do this slowly for the people in the back: @BretWeinstein was commenting on a piece by Scott Alexander which picked through many ivm RCTs and did a meta-analysis to show there is a very weak signal. Then he threw the worms hypothesis on top to explain the signal.

This is a huge shift in epistemic standards. We're going from published, most peer reviewed, randomized controlled trials, many of which have been pored over by opposing groups, and trying to explain them away with a hypothesis that existed as a set of tweets. Epistemic whiplash.

I then expanded on my analysis of Scott Alexander's piece, finding that he had almost certainly a mathematical error in his meta-analysis, and the signal was much stronger than Scott claimed. doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/a-conflict-o…

I also explained that the worms hypothesis is interesting, should be investigated, but it is inappropriate to put it on the same level as studies that have had a huge amount of scrutiny already, when we don't even have a preprint to look at.

Avi, you're good at building hypotheses. Keep going.

When it comes to cherry picking to make some obscure gotcha point, maybe try harder. This was pitiful.

This is why I avoid engaging with you. It takes time to defuse your claims, and there's little payoff in the end.