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

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Yes, you're doing a good job of laying out why one's stance on some issue can be inertial, robust to perturbation. And it's useful to note that "trust" is a spectrum. I don't trust Reason, especially not Gillespie. But that doesn't mean I don't read it and, however, negligibly, fold what I read into my world view. Further, to be clear, I don't think anyone believes it's possible to persuade you out of trusting Reason/Gillespie. That's not the point of calling his assertion bullsh¡t. The purpose of calling bullsh¡t is to highlight biases.

If Gillespie had said things like "building on 30 years of hard work", "safety testing and other government mandates with *real but perhaps limited* utility in this case", etc., then nobody would be calling it bullsh¡t. Such hedging qualifiers are hallmarks of credibility. Gillespie, like many ideologues, tend to gloss over or avoid such hedges entirely. And, hence, those of us who look for them as hallmarks for credibility notice their absence and call bullsh¡t.

Even with hedging qualifiers like that, of course, we're all biased. So any opinion we render will be a smattering of facts and imaginary conjecture. But the careful among us will make some attempt to say which parts are well-accepted fact and which parts are our own imaginary unicorns.

To be clear about Gillespie and his playing fast and loose with the facts, this episode is worth noting:

https://newrepublic.com/article/80140/nick-gillespie-responds-and-his-point-i-have-no-idea

Again, my purpose is not to persuade you into changing your mind. My purpose is to help you understand why *I* (or anyone else) would call Gillespie's rhetoric bullsh¡t.

On 5/7/21 11:07 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Glen,
> 
> I like the letterstoayounglibrarian's 5W's: *Who?* Who wrote this? , *What? *What kind of resource is this? , *When?* How up-to-date is the information? , *Where? *Country of origin? , *Why? *What's the purpose of the source? There are so many conspiracy theories out there and it's sometimes difficult to distinguish BS from valid points and applying the 5W's will certainly help.
> 
> It's of course not the "all and everything". There are many other tools for the job too for example asking whether there is a good explanation for a point. Sometimes I'll accept a point even if I don't have a clue where it comes from provided I can independently apply my mind and conclude that there is a good explanation for what is asserted.
> 
> But I think we are digressing a bit. I'm still interested in whether the statement  "/But of course the article puts up the mRNA vaccines as evidence of how, because the agencies got out of the way (is implied), _BioNTech and Moderna had vaccines in a few days_.  That is deliberate BS, and I doubt the writer is such an idiot that he doesn’t know it."  /is a good argument against Reason.com's article? Even if Reason.com fails on all the 5W's, at least be fair and don't accuse them of something they did not say or implied.
> 
> For me that is important. You don't necessarily trust Reason.com as a good source of information, that's not the point. I trust them and if evidence is provided that they write "deliberate BS" then I'll change my mind. 

-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ