Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Do we have a foolproof system of testing set to VERIFY the claims of the 95% vaccine braggarts? Why should we believe them?
I think we can trust their statistics for the tests so far; but no-one is likely to claim the figure will always be so in the light of experience. It may be higher, it may be lower, but I can excuse their enthusiasm!
The real braggart would be someone who refuses to accept the number can ever be modified - science and medicine depend on biology, not mathematics, and biological things don't act like numbers.
Remember decades ago the "success" of cold fusion Durdle? I just wonder if these vaccines might fit that scenario? It's just too unbelievable to me the rapidity and "success" rate two companies claim. Two miracles? Seriously? Tom mentioned "the Cutter" incident a link to which he kindly provided me. How do we know these vaccines aren't the same? Sigh. Thank you for your reply! :)
Cold fusion using muon catalysis seemed to work, the problem is that muons can't be stored - they have a life span measured in nanoseconds. The "powers-that-be" (read "those with vested interest in traditional energy") shut Alvarez down and he was murdered soon thereafter.
Thank you for your helpful reply R. What would the value of cold fusion be if it were possible? I expect there is hot fusion now? I know I'm completely ignorant about fusion in the first place. What does knowing how do? What is the purpose and does the method matter? Now my questions might not even make any sense to you R because i am flying blind here. I'm drawn to science..quantum physics particularly...but I have zero background so I've nothing to fall back on. It is endlessly fascinating and wondrously exciting. If I'd had the brain I would have liked to have been a quantum physicist. My son does and entertained that thought at the age of 12 when Carl Sagan came out with COSMOS. We bought the book and watched the series and he wanted to go in that direction. Also scifi is based on it so as a huge fan of scifi I'm hooked. Thank you for your reply m'dear! What is your lockdown like exactly? Curfews and what else? Oh and I get goosebumps when quantum entanglement is addressed. If that isn't MAGIC I don't know what is! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at November 20, 2020 2:37 AM MST
How about the Fibonacci Sequence---the sequence can be observed in nature, such as in the array of sunflower seeds and other plants, and the shape of galaxies and hurricanes.
I thought a team from Japan said they had achieved it a few years ago but no one could replicate it? So isn't it more than HYPOTHESIZED?
I know. My point is the TIME within which all of this was effected. IT ISN'T ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS OR COULD. Maybe I worry unnecessarily. Maybe it's swell and fine. Maybe we should FASTRACK all future vaccines. That's a question I shall ask. Thank you for your reply tom.
It is hard to take the claims too seriously, and I think here the manufacturers have let their enthusiasm run away a bit too much. Still, we will live in hope.
It is unfortunately a vast experiment, and it cannot help that; but science does work on uncertainty. It asks, does A x B = C or something else, or does A x B = C only if D is this and E follows that rule?
In the case of finding vaccines for new diseases, a very high success rate in trials with say, 10 000 people cannot guarantee similar success rates in populations of 10 000 000. The chances of it being effective for most of those millions are high, but I would be surprised if as high as the trial rates. That is not a criticism but scientific reality - the natural sciences, hence medicine, have to work with wide tolerances because organisms do not work to tight tolerances.
I do not accuse the vaccine manufacturers of lying. I do not believe they are, but they are under tremendous pressure to succeed so I can understand their being over-optimistic. So I can believe their trials so far have at least met expectations, but as well as incautious over-optimism the scientists also have to report their findings to a public desperate for answers, via non-scientific channels of all manner of deliberate or accidental biases and often, seriously low levels of technical understanding.
If anything they are under greater pressure than the team who though they had discovered "cold fusion". That was pure research that the team could not have followed up properly, and it did not do anything beyond prove very embarrassing.
+++
Unfortunately, I think most of who are not professional scientists probably rely on the science we were taught at school, augmented by TV documentaries of variable quality; but that does not necessarily teach scientific method. Certainly in my own school-days, science was taught by set "experiments" that demonstrated basic rules, and in some fields such as Physics at that level, those rules are definite Laws so the "experiment" always works as expected from simple instructions. Whilst the less-exact field of biology was concerned with how organisms work at simple levels in their ideal conditions, not with trying also to understand very deeply, the complexities of their part in Nature.
Nor do I recall any attempt to inculcate the concepts of variability, uncertainty and statistical analysis; not in school-level Science. In any case what basic statistics we may have learnt in Maths was part of Maths, not related to the science syllabus. Its examples were more likely to be finding the mean birth-month in the class, or the wettest / driest days of the year, and only to learn the arithmetic involved.
Consequently, bombarded as we all are with science and engineering from all directions but mainly beyond our own education, it is too easy to think all science is as exact as the Ohm's Law or the reaction between sulphuric acid and copper we saw for ourselves at school. It is not, but led by journalists and politicians of whom few understand Science and Statistics, we nurture that belief then wonder at or even sneer at scientists who make mistakes.
Worse, some fall prey to those who wilfully turn their own ignorance and fear of science, against science, for dark political or other dubious ends, often and very ironically, via carefully-mounted Internet campaigns.
There are some scientists who do lie, sadly, usually under pressure to do so, but they are in a minority. A lie though, is not the same as an error or misjudgement even if used to cover that; but we are also conditioned to think even a genuine error or misjudgement is a wilful, or at least wilfully negligent, act.
There is an old saying, from the craft trades, that "He - or she - who never made a mistake, never made anything"; and it has never been proven wrong even by those who wish to prove it wrong.
All this shows that Science is NOT wrong; but scientists individually, such as those for whom I worked, are only human. So beyond the very few actually fraudulent claims, they sometimes can and do make mistakes or rush too early into print. Nor are scientists sooth-sayers - they try to predict but within bounds of possibility that may be very wide. It shows that Science proceeds by question-test-answer, and if the answer proves wrong or unrepeatable, ask why that is and look again.
If that were not so, we would not be able to discuss it like this here.....
This post was edited by Durdle at November 20, 2020 2:08 AM MST
I find this answer to be significantly misleading---probably because my first degree is in theoretical physics.
This post was edited by tom jackson at November 19, 2020 11:11 AM MST
I was not criticising science, but speaking up for it; observing how science is often perceived by all those people who do not have degrees in Physics - or in any science. I don't - I never went to university, but all my work was related to science and engineering, latterly as a lab assistant.
And I think part of that is how science is or at least was, taught in schools - methods for doing set experiments rather than scientific method - so remembered by those who did not study science any further and know it largely only by the headline-grabbers like CERN and vaccine research. So they have the skewed idea that science can only ever be as definite as 2+2=4, so when it seems otherwise, fails to give the wanted instant 100% accurate answer, admits not yet knowing or simply makes a mistake, they are baffled and liable to lose trust in science and scientists generally.
That point about education was one I heard some while ago by a scientist speaking on the radio. It had not previously occurred to me but the more I thought about it, the more I realised what he meant and how it related to my and my contemporaries' experience. We were taught basic principles, i.e. immutable Laws like those of Ohm, Boyle or Snell, but not given an insight into the more philosophical aspects of research.
I have (more accurately now the past tense, "had") a problem with your statement that (for you) *It is hard to take the claims too seriously, and I think here the manufacturers have let their enthusiasm run away a bit too much---Still, we will live in hope.---It is unfortunately a vast experiment*
And if you had said "we", or "many people" instead of the pronoun "I" (before the word "think") I would have realized sooner that you were talking more generally about people who had a hard time accepting the claims about the vaccine and offering a possible explanation for that reason. (And I'm not saying you should have worded it differently---I just have my own first level of inference when interpreting what I read.)
The "science" taught in the schools 60 years ago in schools not unlike teaching someone to change a tire---it is not necessary to understand fluid dynamics or the various classes of levers to use a floor jack, nor does one need to calculate the torque necessary to loosen the lug nuts.
But anybody who is curious about an observed phenomenon and wants to learn more about it is already starting to employ the scientific method---and many things in nature follow patterns we know and trust and really don't need to understand.---For example, a person who parachutes as a hobby doesn't need to know whether gravity is a push or a pull in order for him to enjoy his jump.
Essentially, I was concerned you were advocating a certain lack of trust in the vaccine, rather than opining why many people may think the claims made for it are less than accurate.
You're good; I'm good.
This post was edited by tom jackson at November 19, 2020 4:50 PM MST
If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology. If it's rocks, it's geology. If it doesn't work, it's physics.
"Theoretical" physics should be lumped in with the humanities - it's philosophy. If it can't be demonstrated by repeatable observable experimentation, it's not science. If it can, then it's no longer theoretical, it's practical - the only physics that can be taken seriously.
Actually, philosophy is the queen of the sciences, so I find your whole comment to be as misleading as your interpretation of those bible verses we discussed recently---an observation I made to you at the time.
Science is defined as "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. The italics are mine. "Social science" is a contradiction in terms. My own degree is in theology but I did a double major, religion and philosophy. I spent as long studying phil as you did physics. Aristotle was a scientist, Plato and Aquinas were NOT.
This post was edited by Slartibartfast at November 20, 2020 2:23 AM MST
I've always found it interesting that many who reject / leave the Catholic faith given to them by God through their parents seem to be destined to wander in the wilderness for an extended period of time.
I guess rejecting the faith is the modern day equivalent of Moses hitting that rock twice---just to be sure water was available.
I have significant training in theology and philosophy where I learned that philosophy is the queen of the sciences.
And Aristotle would probably agree---while he was a scientist, he is most outstanding as a philosopher.
This post was edited by tom jackson at November 20, 2020 1:00 PM MST
Thank you for investing your time to analyze and share your thoughts Durdle. What concerns me is the time they spent. That's it. That's the bottom line. The "normal" and usual time between developing a vaccine, running PROPER FDA trials (all the stages..not just 2 or 3)usually takes YEARS. I was in a STAGE 3 trial of calcitonin 30 years ago. The purpose was to strenghen bones of those with osteoporosis. My part in that stage LASTED TWO YEARS. It 2-10 years on average typically with some taking as many a 14 years. You cannot fast track time. Something is going to be shorted or skipped or sped through. That is not advisable in my opinionBECAUSE there have been vaccines developed that were almost ready for market when people started having very bad reactions. So they were dumped and never released. I feel much safer when the PROTOCOLS are followed. I feel far more at risk WHEN THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWED. So I am not comfy with any of this. Now do I know everything? Of course not. Could those vaccines possibly be as effective and SAFE as we are being told. Sure. Anything is possible. I also believe in miracles. But less than a year? What parts of what stages were aborted? I'm just curious. I'd like to see the logs of the testing and compare them to the logs of tests of other vaccines. TIMELINE matters very bigly. Now am I a scientist? No. But I have a brain that I use. When something does not make sense to me I try to find out why. Why should I take the word of two pharmaceutical companies that ALLOWED an orange duck to change the normal protocols? I don't trust any of them. The fault could be entirely within me. I don't know. I just know what I don't like and I don't like the fast track. Sorry. I beat that dead horse. I hope my fears are totally absurd. I can't be anyone but me. I calls 'em as I sees 'em Durdle. What is going to happen next with the orange duck on a tear to destroy as much as he can? :(
Durdle 