site banner
Skylab  Beware of he who would deny you access to information...  3yr ago (doyourownresearch.substack.com)   854 thread views

Alexandros Marinos' penultimate conclusion of his strong criticism of Scott Alexander's Ivermectin blog.

doyourownresearch.substack.com

This might be one of the most remarkable paragraphs in his whole piece. Scott understands that there is immense social pressure to find ivermectin does not work. If we’re being strict about it, any evidence that emerged after this Tweet should be considered tainted, given that this is a pretty direct threat to the career of any perceptive scientist who saw it:

[FDA tweet: "Hold your horses, y'all. Ivermectin may be trending but it still isn't authorized or approved to treat Covid-19]

Can you name another time a US regulator took such a public stance against a drug that was being actively investigated at the time? I sure haven’t heard of any such case. The FDA even doubled down a few months ago...

And yet, Scott—knowing all this and much more—does not use this information to temper his analysis."

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This definitely falls into the Culture War category; please repost in the Culture War thread!

That said, there's a few things you should probably fix before doing that; for example:

We did have an argument, but as civilized persons, we don't believe in mandates.

This breaks the rule against enforcing ideological conformity; please don't do that.

Also it's not culture war. It's medical science.

Link is in the title. I should acknowledge my bias that I am a staunch pureblood antivaxxer(unexperimentally jabbed person who strongly disagreees with MRNA mandates.) I have taken Ivermectin for Covid. My significant other is fully up to date on jabs, having gotten the mouse jab just earlier today. We did have an argument, but as civilized persons, we don't believe in mandates.

That said, all things being equal, I trust doctors providing treatment on the ground more than corporate funded RCT's. Also, I tend to believe the opposite of whatever current centralized power is pushing as a message and that has served me well as a truth seeking mechanic in the past 3 years. So I agree with Alexandros and personally believe that Scott Alexander's blog on Ivermectin was sloppy at best, and cowardly at worst.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats