[FRIAM] FW: Covid-Lancet-PART-2 (002).doc

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For the Frank's among us, it's important to note that this paper is unrelated to hydroxychlorquine and its applicability to COVID-19. That's a troll baiting the reader into some rhetoric about postmodernism and the relationship between [in]formal methods.

But regardless of the trip down the rabbithole w.r.t. Popper and fallacious reasoning, I think he lands on the *correct* conclusion:

"A better approach may be a clear pathophysiological method where we would rely on basic science and look for mechanisms of the diseases and the mechanisms of action of the agents. The method that we need should be the method that corresponds more to the subject of the investigation that belongs somewhere in between pure science, medical science and social science. We need to know the mechanisms of actions, cause-effect relations, and the patients

in all their sophistication. And before all, we need morally fully justified methods, and we, certainly, need Reason."

I say *correct* because I *AM* a mechanistic simulant and I regularly, religiously, antagonize my phenomenal modeler colleagues (which is why I love the Gisin and 't Hooft points about the ontological status of real numbers, even if I don't really grok it).

As for dialogue with Pavlovic on a forum like FriAM, it would be fantastic to have him here. In particular, questioning his questionable assertions on [in]formal logics would be a lot of fun if he's got a thick skin. And it's always helpful to get more criticism of clinical trial methodology. It's too easy to strawman work being done authentically and earnestly. It's quite another thing to be constructive and design better trials.


So there, Nick. Is that what you're looking for? Or are you actually concerned with some super-specialized medical advice some few doctors might give their patients?


On 5/6/21 11:40 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> Yes, of course, and, thank you.  I wait with 'bated breath.  
> 
> n
> 
> Nick Thompson
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Thursday, May 6, 2021 11:49 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Covid-Lancet-PART-2 (002).doc
> 
> Not hearing back is not the equivalent of being ignored. I got as far as the 1st few paragraphs, then checking Pavlovic's credentials. I decided I'd read it. Then completely forgot about it. We have to check our American tendencies. "I want it all! I want it NOW!" 8^D I'll respond after I've read it, *if* and only if I have something that might be interesting to say.
> 
> On 5/6/21 10:32 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>> Dear Phellow Phriammers,
>>
>>  
>>
>> I have noted that most of what I have written here of late has been 
>> ignored, and that’s ok, actually.  Usually, it is the possibility that you MIGHT read what I write that keeps me writing and, behaviorist to the last, writing is what I need to do in order to think.
>>
>>  
>>
>> But this situation is different.  I really don’t know what to think about Pavlovic’s <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dragan-Pavlovic-4> paper.  There may have been some trouble with the cloud version, so I have attached it to this message.
>>
>>  
>>
>> So, this is a case where I really need some help.  I realize that you 
>> are all engaged in this excellent correspondence about UBI, which has revealed all sorts of “-ists” that I never thought were alive and well in the world, let alone in this group.  I would not interfere with that for a second.  But, could a few of you take a look at his paper <https://1drv.ms/w/s!AptIKbsAd7gjllccpq9yXXQ4hb2N?e=HCzjaV>  (very short, a commentary, actually).  I think he is actually a candidate for this group.  He is an MD, Phd, anaesthesiologist, retired in Paris, who has participated in hundreds of scientific papers,  who is passionate ( I worry, perhaps sometimes a bit too passionate) about dozens of different things and suspicious of everything. He wants, for instance, to dig a gigantic tunnel to bring large ships directly from the danube to the Mediterranean.
>>
>>  
>>
>> I, of course, live in a bubble, but I don’t like to have that fact 
>> thrust in my face as powerfully as when he reveals to me that the two HAAA=VUD papers denouncing Chloquoroquine were retracted a year ago, and I never found out.  I can’t get any sense of whether there has been any attempt to revive them or to redo the original clinical study that suggested HCQ’s efficacy against CoVid.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Any little bit of help you could give me would be great.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* thompnickson2 at gmail.com <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 5, 2021 9:48 PM
>> *To:* 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
>> <friam at redfish.com>
>> *Cc:* 'Prof David West' <profwest at fastmail.fm>
>> *Subject:* Covid-Lancet-PART-2 (002).doc
>>
>>  
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>>  
>>
>> I attach a paper 
>> <https://1drv.ms/w/s!AptIKbsAd7gjllccpq9yXXQ4hb2N?e=HCzjaV> written by an internet acquaintance I made some years back, Dragan Pavlovic.  I am sending it along for two reasons.  First, it reveals (to me, at least) that the two negative studies on Hydroxychloroquine use in SARS-CoVid-19 treatment were based on unverified data and were withdrawn by their authors almost immediately.  (Have the rest of you known this for the last year and not told me?  I cannot believe, after we pilloried poor Dave for advocating for it, that he has not gloated about it. ) Second, Pavlovic raises the intension/extension distinction in the context of the interpretation of scientific results and also questions Randomized Control Trials as the "Gold Standard" for discovery. Thus, I think he is a kindred spirit, being a bit of a grumpy contrarian like many of us here.  I have promised to forward any comments you make to him, so be polite but speak truth.


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