Jun 25, 2023 02:42 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 25, 2023 02:58 PM by C C.)
The deadly legacy of a stem cell charlatan
https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1367
Paolo Macchiarini misled the world over his breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, but why did most of the institutions that supported him bear no responsibility for hosting a rogue stem cell surgeon? It’s time for them to launch full and independent investigations, argue John Rasko and Carl Power.
Joe Rogan wants a “debate” on vaccine science. Don’t give it to him.
https://www.vox.com/2023/6/22/23768539/r...ers-better
INTRO: Last week, Joe Rogan aired a conversation on his podcast with longtime vaccine misinformation spreader and current not-inconsequential Joe Biden primary challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. According to an article in Vice, the three-hour episode was “an orgy of unchecked vaccine misinformation, some conspiracy-mongering about 5G technology and wifi, and, of course, Rogan once again praising ivermectin, an ineffective faux COVID treatment.”
On Twitter, Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, criticized the conversation. In response, Rogan invited Hotez to debate vaccines with Kennedy on his show. Hotez declined, instead offering Rogan a one-on-one conversation. Rogan insisted on a debate, and Elon Musk popped into his replies with a jab at Hotez, implying Hotez was afraid of the debate, afraid of being proven wrong. On Sunday, two people, evidently spurred into action by the kerfuffle online, harassed Hotez at his Houston home.
Still, Hotez refused to debate RFK. Good.
“Hotez made the right choice,” wrote epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina and physician Kristen Panthagani Tuesday in an issue of Jetelina’s newsletter.
It’s tempting to engage in debates with people who disagree on matters of fact, said Jetelina — but what results can look more like a UFC match than a forum for learning, and can actually result in further entrenching polarized perspectives.
Here’s why debates are actually a bad forum for discussing contentious scientific issues — and what works better... (MORE - details)
The Rise and Fall of the Mpemba Effect
https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/06/th...ba-effect/
EXCERPTS: . . . When Mpemba followed up on what he had found [Mpemba effect], his physics teachers told him it was nonsense. Local street ice cream vendors, on the other hand, turned out to be very familiar with what Mpemba had observed.
A few years after Mpemba’s discovery, prominent British physics professor and diplomat Denis Osborne visited Mpemba’s school for a guest presentation. During the Q&A session after the presentation, young Mpemba again brought up his discovery, and again he was derided by his teachers and fellow students.
But the distinguished diplomat had become intrigued, and he carried out experiments..
[...] The article by Mpemba and Osborne describes in detail how the young, innocent Mpemba was misunderstood and scoffed at when recounting his discovery. None of his teachers took him seriously. Naturally, this engages the reader’s sympathy for Mpemba. The picture painted is of an enthusiastic and incorruptible youngster colliding with a narrow-minded establishment. ... Osborne’s experiments and the article reporting the outcomes of these experiments are a heart-warming happy end fit for a Hollywood movie—one that puts the Cinderella story in a twentieth-century academic context.
[...] On a number of counts the article by Mpemba and Osborne gets it wrong. The derision Mpemba experienced was based on sound scientific intuition. The Mpemba Effect is an assault on the insight and understanding that one acquires over many years of studying physics.
[...] The way in which the Mpemba Effect is written about has changed in the decade following the publication of the Brownridge article. Articles in which exotic mechanisms are postulated to explain the Mpemba Effect no longer abound.
[...] In 2016, a long article by Henry Burridge and Paul Linden of Cambridge University appeared in Nature: Scientific Reports (Burridge and Linden 2016). The article gives a thorough overview of the confusion and the lack of reproduction of results that have characterized the discussion on the subject since 1969... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1367
Paolo Macchiarini misled the world over his breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, but why did most of the institutions that supported him bear no responsibility for hosting a rogue stem cell surgeon? It’s time for them to launch full and independent investigations, argue John Rasko and Carl Power.
Joe Rogan wants a “debate” on vaccine science. Don’t give it to him.
https://www.vox.com/2023/6/22/23768539/r...ers-better
INTRO: Last week, Joe Rogan aired a conversation on his podcast with longtime vaccine misinformation spreader and current not-inconsequential Joe Biden primary challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. According to an article in Vice, the three-hour episode was “an orgy of unchecked vaccine misinformation, some conspiracy-mongering about 5G technology and wifi, and, of course, Rogan once again praising ivermectin, an ineffective faux COVID treatment.”
On Twitter, Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, criticized the conversation. In response, Rogan invited Hotez to debate vaccines with Kennedy on his show. Hotez declined, instead offering Rogan a one-on-one conversation. Rogan insisted on a debate, and Elon Musk popped into his replies with a jab at Hotez, implying Hotez was afraid of the debate, afraid of being proven wrong. On Sunday, two people, evidently spurred into action by the kerfuffle online, harassed Hotez at his Houston home.
Still, Hotez refused to debate RFK. Good.
“Hotez made the right choice,” wrote epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina and physician Kristen Panthagani Tuesday in an issue of Jetelina’s newsletter.
It’s tempting to engage in debates with people who disagree on matters of fact, said Jetelina — but what results can look more like a UFC match than a forum for learning, and can actually result in further entrenching polarized perspectives.
Here’s why debates are actually a bad forum for discussing contentious scientific issues — and what works better... (MORE - details)
The Rise and Fall of the Mpemba Effect
https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/06/th...ba-effect/
EXCERPTS: . . . When Mpemba followed up on what he had found [Mpemba effect], his physics teachers told him it was nonsense. Local street ice cream vendors, on the other hand, turned out to be very familiar with what Mpemba had observed.
A few years after Mpemba’s discovery, prominent British physics professor and diplomat Denis Osborne visited Mpemba’s school for a guest presentation. During the Q&A session after the presentation, young Mpemba again brought up his discovery, and again he was derided by his teachers and fellow students.
But the distinguished diplomat had become intrigued, and he carried out experiments..
[...] The article by Mpemba and Osborne describes in detail how the young, innocent Mpemba was misunderstood and scoffed at when recounting his discovery. None of his teachers took him seriously. Naturally, this engages the reader’s sympathy for Mpemba. The picture painted is of an enthusiastic and incorruptible youngster colliding with a narrow-minded establishment. ... Osborne’s experiments and the article reporting the outcomes of these experiments are a heart-warming happy end fit for a Hollywood movie—one that puts the Cinderella story in a twentieth-century academic context.
[...] On a number of counts the article by Mpemba and Osborne gets it wrong. The derision Mpemba experienced was based on sound scientific intuition. The Mpemba Effect is an assault on the insight and understanding that one acquires over many years of studying physics.
[...] The way in which the Mpemba Effect is written about has changed in the decade following the publication of the Brownridge article. Articles in which exotic mechanisms are postulated to explain the Mpemba Effect no longer abound.
[...] In 2016, a long article by Henry Burridge and Paul Linden of Cambridge University appeared in Nature: Scientific Reports (Burridge and Linden 2016). The article gives a thorough overview of the confusion and the lack of reproduction of results that have characterized the discussion on the subject since 1969... (MORE - missing details)