Q&A: Scientific Consensus Regarding Corona
Scientific Consensus Regarding Corona
Question
Hello Rabbi,
How can one determine what the consensus is today? Right now it’s very common to mock and slam any scientist who thinks differently. Dr. Price was acquitted in a defamation suit brought against her by 4 members of the Public Emergency Council for the Corona Crisis, after she called them “corona deniers”; the judge wrote that she acted by virtue of her role in protecting the public. I even saw you call Yoram Lass a “corona denier.” Recently the Public Emergency Council tried to launch a bus ad campaign with the Dan company (“Regarding corona vaccines for children — only the parents decide”), and even this pathetic little campaign, after heavy pressure, Dan refused to publish (https://twitter.com/Nadav_Eyal/status/1462529593114566659).
2 questions:
1. If we have decided that we need to diminish and silence anyone who might harm the success of the struggle against corona, how can we know that the scientific consensus really is what we think it is? Perhaps it is completely different, but we managed to silence the scientists who think otherwise, out of fear that they would be harmed? When Georg Cantor proposed a mathematical idea that his colleagues saw as illegitimate, it apparently cost him his sanity. Perhaps the majority opposes what is considered the consensus, and stays silent?
2. If, Heaven forbid, the truth is that the harms of the corona vaccines outweigh their benefits, and they need to be taken off the market, as is occasionally done with vaccines, then in the situation that has been created can we be sure that courageous scientists will arise and write studies that clarify the matter? And if such studies are written, will they be properly accepted and heard in the atmosphere that has been created?
With thanks, and hoping the discussion doesn’t deteriorate too quickly
Answer
1. Whoever mocks and jeers should be asked that. I support the freedom to express any opinion and to treat seriously any reasoned opinion. Unreasoned or foolish opinions, even if they come from scientists, may be mocked, but not silenced. And the public can choose. Obviously there is freedom to publish any advertisement so long as the information is exposed to the public. Here, however, the situation is not simple, because publishing false information is problematic, and I’m not sure it is right to allow that. The question is who gets to determine that some piece of information is false. I don’t know.
Yoram Lass has been talking nonsense since the beginning of the corona pandemic, and every time he is disproven anew (on simple facts. He is probably actually lying, or didn’t check). You can look for clips of Lior Schleien making fun of him. He earned that attitude toward his statements with his own two hands.
2. I hope so.
Discussion on Answer
1. As I recall, the Rabbi dismissed with a wave of the hand and with contempt the opinion of those who disagreed with the medical establishment’s position. Glad to see that the position now is “to treat every reasoned position with respect.”
And if Lior Schleien, who makes his living from mockery, ridiculed Professor Lass — what then can the lowliest people say….
2. Hard to believe that will happen — there is a long-standing, powerful dictatorship that forcefully silences anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the medical establishment and the pharma companies.
And while we’re at it, I highly recommend reading the excellent book Turtles All the Way Down, which deals very thoroughly with vaccine safety (it was written even before corona).
1. I didn’t dismiss those who disagree with the medical establishment. At most I dismissed some of their stupid arguments. But I definitely do have general trust in science and in the way it operates. Even if there are errors in the short term, they are corrected over the longer term, and it works much better than any other way I know — certainly better than conspiracy methods, which are usually really stupid. In any case, if I caused you joy — then that was my reward.
2. To ridicule the idiot and liar Lass, you don’t even need to make a living from mockery. He does the job himself.
Thanks for the quick response and for the joy 😊
You wrote: “I have general trust in science and in the way it operates.”
In the book I recommended, he calls this naive faith “the myth of pure science.”
Let’s focus on corona — do you really think that the scientists and doctors involved in developing the corona vaccines are acting with total self-sacrifice and complete clean hands solely for the sake of Heaven, and that they have only one goal — to bring healing to humanity, which is in danger?
Is there no chance that here and there financial considerations creep in, Heaven forbid? After all, the vaccine is produced by a business corporation whose goal is to profit, and marketed by a medical establishment that has been doing this for decades and whose obvious interest is that there should be no doubt cast on the product.
And if the answer to my question regarding the purity of intention of the representatives of Pfizer and Big Pharma is yes — why is it that when we come to the side that opposes the medical establishment, the myth suddenly evaporates in a cloud of smoke and they, by default, become delusional, and their opinions become stupid??
I haven’t found anywhere that you address substantively the reasoned opinions of experts from the Public Emergency Council for the Corona Crisis, for example.
Maybe the massive media and establishment backing (even Lior Schleien says so…) dulls judgment and critical thinking a bit?
Alex, I understand that you have full faith in the myth of the pure book. So what if he writes that?
I claim that you are lumping the entire world of science under one heading. Since it is decentralized and contains different actors, I do not accept your conspiratorial thesis. Pfizer certainly has a financial interest, but there are regulatory bodies whose role is to make sure that this does not harm the quality of the treatment/product, and there are many independent labs and academics who examine them. There are always dissenting voices, and that is part of scientific pluralism, and still the scientific world as a whole works very well. The best there is. Certainly better than a few esoteric voices criticizing it. That doesn’t mean they are never right, but usually they are not right.
I never wrote anywhere that all vaccine opponents are delusional. I said that there are very many delusional people among them (the great majority, in my estimation). I do not reject an argument just because it is against the scientific position, but I certainly regard it with great skepticism. I’ll reject it only when I think it is not logical. Many arguments I’ve seen from vaccine opponents are not logical, and are even just stubborn and fact-denying. That doesn’t mean they all are, and every argument should be heard and examined on its own merits.
In any case, in my impression it is clear that the vaccines are beneficial and opposition to them is stupid. The arguments I’ve seen there are not logical and make a mountain out of a molehill. There are always risks of one kind or another. Pointing to them does not mean anything.
It seems to me that if there is someone here whose critical thinking is being dulled by public discourse and who is becoming one-sided and tendentious, it is not me. But as stated, perhaps I am biased about that too.
The easiest thing is to pick straw men with no talent for defending the position and then ridicule it.
I’d like to see, just once, someone from the people of the “new” “science” or from the wiseguys of the nuisance of ignorance agree to a debate against Prof. Eyal Shahar, Prof. Qimron, or Dr. Rafael Tzioni.
Brainwashing 101