Mar 30, 2021 06:26 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 30, 2021 09:48 PM by C C.)
Professor asks his neighbors to poop to fight gentrification
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gamj/p...rification
EXCERPT: A biology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia is asking his neighbors to give him samples of their poop to help fight "gentrification and irresponsible development.”
Social media users posted the flyers, which were distributed over the weekend in a West Philadelphia neighborhood where developers are trying to build an apartment complex on what is now a pleasantly vacant lot. The flyer uses the tragic death of actor Chadwick Boseman at 43 from colon cancer last year to make its case and says that “irresponsible” construction projects “may increase germs associated with colorectal cancer.” The alarming flyer asks recipients to contribute a stool sample to assist in a research project and to “fight gentrification.”
"To fight gentrification, we are collaborating with biomedical researchers to investigate if the development would adversely affect the neighbors' microbiota and increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer," one page of the letter reads. "For the research purpose, could you please donate your fecal sample (a fingernail size)? All equipment needed for you to collect the fecal sample by yourself at your convenience will be provided by us."
The flyer makes numerous dubious claims, for example that mere stress from a nearby construction project could cause cancer... (MORE - details)
What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-th...ioannidis/
INTRO (excerpts): John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Since then, Prof. Ioannidis has been publishing dubious studies that minimize the dangers of the coronavirus, shown up in the media to decry “lockdowns,” and, most recently, “punched down”, attacking a graduate student for having criticized him. What happened? Did Prof. Ioannidis change, or was he always like this and I just didn’t see it? Either way, he’s a cautionary tale of how even science watchdogs can fall prey to hubris.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for months now, but have hesitated. Up until yesterday, that hesitation has always led to my abandoning the post and choosing a different topic. The reason for my hesitation is that the topic of this post happens to be a scientist whom, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I had long admired and whom, as a result of his publications, statements, and activities during the pandemic, I no longer do. I am, of course, referring to John Ioannidis, who first made a splash over 15 years ago, when he published what remains his most famous article, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”, leading me (and others) to point out how cranks and quacks have misused and abused Ioannidis’ work to “prove” that science is so unreliable that their quackery or antivaccine pseudoscience should be taken seriously. As you’ve probably already guessed, it was all nonsense. Over the years, Prof. Ioannidis’ work has inspired posts by nearly all of the bloggers who’ve been regulars here at SBM...
Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t always agree with Ioannidis; for instance, I think he did exaggerate how often research is “wrong” and, in addition, took major issue with his argument that the NIH is so conservative that only the very “safest” projects are funded and that the “brave maverick scientists” who see “bolts out of the blue” to make great leaps in science tend not to be NIH funded. I’ll return to this particular paper at the end of the post, because now, in retrospect, I see it as a harbinger of Ioannidis’ activities during the COVID-19 pandemic that I missed at the time. Had I been more attuned now to what I had noticed then, it might have led me to be less surprised by Ioannidis’ behavior, in which he’s consistently downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19 and, in doing so, engaged in the same sort of scientific sloppiness that he had become known for skewering in other investigators...
[...] as of yesterday, the estimated toll in the US alone from COVID-19 is over 560,000 dead from close to 31 million cases; worldwide it’s nearly 2.8 million deaths out of 128 million cases, with all of those numbers almost certainly being significant undercounts of the true toll. ... So why have I, after having procrastinated so much over writing this post, finally pulled the trigger and written it? It came in the context of a recent Twitter discussion about “silencing” of academics who advocate contrarian views about the pandemic and a new paper by Prof. Ioannidis published on Friday. An example of one thread that I saw last week follows... (MORE - details)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gamj/p...rification
EXCERPT: A biology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia is asking his neighbors to give him samples of their poop to help fight "gentrification and irresponsible development.”
Social media users posted the flyers, which were distributed over the weekend in a West Philadelphia neighborhood where developers are trying to build an apartment complex on what is now a pleasantly vacant lot. The flyer uses the tragic death of actor Chadwick Boseman at 43 from colon cancer last year to make its case and says that “irresponsible” construction projects “may increase germs associated with colorectal cancer.” The alarming flyer asks recipients to contribute a stool sample to assist in a research project and to “fight gentrification.”
"To fight gentrification, we are collaborating with biomedical researchers to investigate if the development would adversely affect the neighbors' microbiota and increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer," one page of the letter reads. "For the research purpose, could you please donate your fecal sample (a fingernail size)? All equipment needed for you to collect the fecal sample by yourself at your convenience will be provided by us."
The flyer makes numerous dubious claims, for example that mere stress from a nearby construction project could cause cancer... (MORE - details)
What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-th...ioannidis/
INTRO (excerpts): John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Since then, Prof. Ioannidis has been publishing dubious studies that minimize the dangers of the coronavirus, shown up in the media to decry “lockdowns,” and, most recently, “punched down”, attacking a graduate student for having criticized him. What happened? Did Prof. Ioannidis change, or was he always like this and I just didn’t see it? Either way, he’s a cautionary tale of how even science watchdogs can fall prey to hubris.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for months now, but have hesitated. Up until yesterday, that hesitation has always led to my abandoning the post and choosing a different topic. The reason for my hesitation is that the topic of this post happens to be a scientist whom, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I had long admired and whom, as a result of his publications, statements, and activities during the pandemic, I no longer do. I am, of course, referring to John Ioannidis, who first made a splash over 15 years ago, when he published what remains his most famous article, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”, leading me (and others) to point out how cranks and quacks have misused and abused Ioannidis’ work to “prove” that science is so unreliable that their quackery or antivaccine pseudoscience should be taken seriously. As you’ve probably already guessed, it was all nonsense. Over the years, Prof. Ioannidis’ work has inspired posts by nearly all of the bloggers who’ve been regulars here at SBM...
Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t always agree with Ioannidis; for instance, I think he did exaggerate how often research is “wrong” and, in addition, took major issue with his argument that the NIH is so conservative that only the very “safest” projects are funded and that the “brave maverick scientists” who see “bolts out of the blue” to make great leaps in science tend not to be NIH funded. I’ll return to this particular paper at the end of the post, because now, in retrospect, I see it as a harbinger of Ioannidis’ activities during the COVID-19 pandemic that I missed at the time. Had I been more attuned now to what I had noticed then, it might have led me to be less surprised by Ioannidis’ behavior, in which he’s consistently downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19 and, in doing so, engaged in the same sort of scientific sloppiness that he had become known for skewering in other investigators...
[...] as of yesterday, the estimated toll in the US alone from COVID-19 is over 560,000 dead from close to 31 million cases; worldwide it’s nearly 2.8 million deaths out of 128 million cases, with all of those numbers almost certainly being significant undercounts of the true toll. ... So why have I, after having procrastinated so much over writing this post, finally pulled the trigger and written it? It came in the context of a recent Twitter discussion about “silencing” of academics who advocate contrarian views about the pandemic and a new paper by Prof. Ioannidis published on Friday. An example of one thread that I saw last week follows... (MORE - details)