Feb 27, 2021 07:37 AM
Vitamin D COVID-19 Trial is a Real Mess
https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/02/26/vit...mess-15369
EXCERPTS: . . . the problem with people badly wanting something to be true is that when evidence potentially pertinent to their cause comes along, they’ll often seize on it as confirmation of their bias, neglecting to look more critically at the data or to listen to those more qualified to do critique it.
This couldn’t be truer than with a recent non peer-reviewed Lancet preprint that appears to show near miraculous effects of a vitamin D3 metabolite (calcifediol) on Spanish hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The research prompted British Member of Parliament and keen vitamin D advocate, David Davis, to declare on Twitter that the vitamin slashes COVID-19 deaths and should be therefore given in high doses to all vulnerable groups with immediate effect.
Alas, the study has more holes than Swiss cheese. Like this politician, I’m sure we would all rejoice if something as simple and cost-effective as vitamin D could help turn around the fortunes of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Also, like him, most of us are not crack statisticians nor experts in the intricacies of scientific study design (I am not, but know enough to not be dangerous and realize my limitations). The moral of this story: If you aren’t well-equipped enough to interrogate a scientific paper you should defer to people that can, rather than prematurely spouting off embarrassing nonsense on Twitter.
And it turns out there’s A WORLD of things not right with this study, most of them still unfolding in a robust discussion on PubPeer as I write. [...] The Bottom line? The saga of this miracle vitamin D paper is ongoing but the study seems likely to be irredeemably flawed to the point where it has no use... (MORE - details)
Can cult studies offer help with QAnon? The science is thin. (Bogus methods or not, technocracy will exploit the new territory, anyway, to create new professions -- "make-work" job security -- and advancing its authority over slash control of non-conformist population groups)
https://undark.org/2021/02/24/cult-studies-qanon/
EXCERPT: . . . “It is not hyperbole labeling MAGA as a cult,” the progressive activist Travis Akers wrote on Twitter in late January, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, and adding that hard-line Trump supporters “are sick and need help.”
Television journalist Katie Couric asked “how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump?” [...] in a Reddit group where anguished relatives of QAnon adherents gather for support, or to swap various anti-cult strategies, there are many references to ... experts’ work.
“I’m inundated, daily, with families freaking out,” said Pat Ryan, a cult mediation expert in Philadelphia. Daniel Shaw, a psychoanalyst in the New York City area who often works with ex-group members, also described an uptick in interest. “I’ve been receiving many, many inquiries from terrified family members about a loved one who is completely lost — mentally, emotionally — in the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories,” Shaw said.
Hassan, Ryan, and Shaw are part of the small field of cult experts who focus on the experiences of people who join intense ideological movements. Some are trained psychologists and social workers; others are independent scholars and uncredentialed professionals. Many identify as former cult members themselves. But for families hoping to “deprogram” a QAnon-obsessed loved one, it’s unclear how much evidence there is behind the methods of these practitioners...
[...] Many scholars of new religious movements are also skeptical of the idea that disinformation and conspiracy theories should be understood as somehow hijacking people’s minds. Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American minority religions at Northeastern University, said she has heard people describe outlets like Fox News as brainwashing. “People who are watching it are adults who are making choices to consume that media,” said Goodwin. Similarly, she said, “the people who mounted an armed insurrection to take over the Capitol are adults that made choices.” An idea like deprogramming, she added, “makes it sound like, okay, well they’ve had their agency and their faculties taken from them.”
She sees no evidence that’s the case, even if, she said, that narrative can be comforting. “They make shitty choices,” she said. “People you love are going to make shitty choices.”
[...] Some families have gravitated toward cult specialists in the hopes that they can, indeed, help rescue a loved one from the tangled communities that grow around online conspiracy theories — and there are such specialists who say they can offer useful guidance, even if they can’t stage a full extraction. ... Whether such methods are reliably effective is difficult to ascertain, and, practitioners acknowledge, there is little research on outcomes. “You can be simplistic, and lucky, and get the person out,” said Langone, the ICSA head, stressing that people’s reasons for joining and leaving groups are often highly individualized. “There are not good statistics on the effectiveness of exit counseling,” Langone said... (MORE - details)
https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/02/26/vit...mess-15369
EXCERPTS: . . . the problem with people badly wanting something to be true is that when evidence potentially pertinent to their cause comes along, they’ll often seize on it as confirmation of their bias, neglecting to look more critically at the data or to listen to those more qualified to do critique it.
This couldn’t be truer than with a recent non peer-reviewed Lancet preprint that appears to show near miraculous effects of a vitamin D3 metabolite (calcifediol) on Spanish hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The research prompted British Member of Parliament and keen vitamin D advocate, David Davis, to declare on Twitter that the vitamin slashes COVID-19 deaths and should be therefore given in high doses to all vulnerable groups with immediate effect.
Alas, the study has more holes than Swiss cheese. Like this politician, I’m sure we would all rejoice if something as simple and cost-effective as vitamin D could help turn around the fortunes of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Also, like him, most of us are not crack statisticians nor experts in the intricacies of scientific study design (I am not, but know enough to not be dangerous and realize my limitations). The moral of this story: If you aren’t well-equipped enough to interrogate a scientific paper you should defer to people that can, rather than prematurely spouting off embarrassing nonsense on Twitter.
And it turns out there’s A WORLD of things not right with this study, most of them still unfolding in a robust discussion on PubPeer as I write. [...] The Bottom line? The saga of this miracle vitamin D paper is ongoing but the study seems likely to be irredeemably flawed to the point where it has no use... (MORE - details)
Can cult studies offer help with QAnon? The science is thin. (Bogus methods or not, technocracy will exploit the new territory, anyway, to create new professions -- "make-work" job security -- and advancing its authority over slash control of non-conformist population groups)
https://undark.org/2021/02/24/cult-studies-qanon/
EXCERPT: . . . “It is not hyperbole labeling MAGA as a cult,” the progressive activist Travis Akers wrote on Twitter in late January, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, and adding that hard-line Trump supporters “are sick and need help.”
Television journalist Katie Couric asked “how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump?” [...] in a Reddit group where anguished relatives of QAnon adherents gather for support, or to swap various anti-cult strategies, there are many references to ... experts’ work.
“I’m inundated, daily, with families freaking out,” said Pat Ryan, a cult mediation expert in Philadelphia. Daniel Shaw, a psychoanalyst in the New York City area who often works with ex-group members, also described an uptick in interest. “I’ve been receiving many, many inquiries from terrified family members about a loved one who is completely lost — mentally, emotionally — in the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories,” Shaw said.
Hassan, Ryan, and Shaw are part of the small field of cult experts who focus on the experiences of people who join intense ideological movements. Some are trained psychologists and social workers; others are independent scholars and uncredentialed professionals. Many identify as former cult members themselves. But for families hoping to “deprogram” a QAnon-obsessed loved one, it’s unclear how much evidence there is behind the methods of these practitioners...
[...] Many scholars of new religious movements are also skeptical of the idea that disinformation and conspiracy theories should be understood as somehow hijacking people’s minds. Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American minority religions at Northeastern University, said she has heard people describe outlets like Fox News as brainwashing. “People who are watching it are adults who are making choices to consume that media,” said Goodwin. Similarly, she said, “the people who mounted an armed insurrection to take over the Capitol are adults that made choices.” An idea like deprogramming, she added, “makes it sound like, okay, well they’ve had their agency and their faculties taken from them.”
She sees no evidence that’s the case, even if, she said, that narrative can be comforting. “They make shitty choices,” she said. “People you love are going to make shitty choices.”
[...] Some families have gravitated toward cult specialists in the hopes that they can, indeed, help rescue a loved one from the tangled communities that grow around online conspiracy theories — and there are such specialists who say they can offer useful guidance, even if they can’t stage a full extraction. ... Whether such methods are reliably effective is difficult to ascertain, and, practitioners acknowledge, there is little research on outcomes. “You can be simplistic, and lucky, and get the person out,” said Langone, the ICSA head, stressing that people’s reasons for joining and leaving groups are often highly individualized. “There are not good statistics on the effectiveness of exit counseling,” Langone said... (MORE - details)