Trust in Science Recovers Slightly, But Remains Below Pre-Pandemic Levels 168
Public trust in scientists is showing signs of recovery, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, though levels remain below pre-pandemic highs. The October 2024 study, which surveyed 9,593 U.S. adults, reveals that 76% of Americans have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in scientists' commitment to public interests -- a modest increase from 73% in 2023, but still short of the 87% recorded in early 2020.
The survey -- whose results were released Thursday [PDF] -- also highlights persistent partisan differences, with 88% of Democrats expressing trust in scientists compared to 66% of Republicans. However, Republican trust increased by 5% points since 2023, marking the first uptick since the pandemic's onset. On scientists' policy engagement, Americans remain divided: 51% support scientists' active participation in policy debates concerning scientific matters, while 48% prefer they maintain focus on research and empirical findings.
The survey -- whose results were released Thursday [PDF] -- also highlights persistent partisan differences, with 88% of Democrats expressing trust in scientists compared to 66% of Republicans. However, Republican trust increased by 5% points since 2023, marking the first uptick since the pandemic's onset. On scientists' policy engagement, Americans remain divided: 51% support scientists' active participation in policy debates concerning scientific matters, while 48% prefer they maintain focus on research and empirical findings.
Demographics (Score:3)
May be correlated with the largest pre-internet generation, Boomers, leaving the workforce and aging.
I trust science. Pseudo-scientists, not so much. (Score:3)
I have always trusted science - with the natural proviso that as it is never "settled", it can be wrong.
I do not trust twisters and con men who exploit people's belief in science to swindle them. You all know who they are.
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Perhaps I should add that in a culture that values money and celebrity above all else, and in which many people have ceased to believe that there is such a thing as objective truth, science has an uphill course to run.
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I do not trust twisters and con men who exploit people's belief in science to swindle them. You all know who they are.
Heh "You all know....". There's a minority of Slashdot users who would have pretty much the opposite answer to the rest of us in regards to the question of "who they are".
Dichotomy (Score:3)
I don't understand the dichotomy in this sentence. Research is an integral part of science. "Empirical findings" is largely observed and measured evidence, which again what science is about.
So, what was the alternative to science that people were implying or were asked about?
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This just shows that regular people have no clue how Science works or what it does.
The problem is... (Score:2)
...people have been lied to for years by advertisers, corporations and government. Some claim to use science to support the lies.
Critical thinkers check, cross check, use multiple sources and lots of common sense.
Others simply reject everything except that one crazy guy screaming nonsense
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I'll add one caveat to your comment which I wholeheartedly support: while some people are willfully ignorant, others simply don't have time to inform themselves to the degree necessary if you're going to separate real science from increasingly sophisticated quacks and fraudsters. And unlike scientists, they're masters of social media. It's how they make their money.
It's not science (Score:2)
It's trust in general, science-based knowledge is just one victim.
And while it's good not to mindlessly trust scientists, if you don't trust science itself you've essentially failed to leverage your brain's potential. At it's core, science is the scientific method, and if you don't believe that reality is best understood by testing theories and accepting the best working theory is the one that best fits the evidence... You're irrational and in an ideal world would be sent back to elementary school until y
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Not about trust in science but trust in scientists (Score:2)
This is a very different thing. Trust in science means trusting a methodology based on observation, experiments and logic over faith, tradition and feelings. Trust in scientists means trusting people who are (supposedly!) practitioners of science.
It is possible, maybe even common to trust science but not scientists, for example if you think that scientists don't do science properly, for example because you think that scientists are more interested in grant money and will readily commit fraud for it.
But it i
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"But many doctors recommend against getting vaccinated, should I trust them?"
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"Trust your doctor"
"But many doctors recommend against getting vaccinated, should I trust them?"
My mother died (from covid and pneumonia) between Christmas and New Years last year, after having been on a vent for five days. Her doc advised against her getting the covid vaccine several weeks before she got sick. The doc's perspective was that the risks for her given other health issues outweighed the upsides, especially having been previously covid positive along with having 3-4 prior jabs.
We had a long talk about it before she decided not to get the shot, and both agreed the doc's recommendation was
Obligatory Futurama (Score:4, Funny)
Fry: In my time we had a way of moving things long distances without hovering! ... let me think. It was really famous -- Ruth Gordon had one. The wheel!
Hermes: Impossible!
Fry: It was called
Leela: Never heard of it
Professor Farnsworth: Show us this "The Wheel"!
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Oh good grief, that's what I get for having two Slashdot tabs open. Sorry guys...
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"Science" vs "Scientists" (Score:2)
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Science is the scientific method.
False. If that were true, we would just call the scientific method "science".
A method alone accomplishes nothing. It has to be employed. As we do not have AGI, it has to be employed by people. We call those people scientists.
Science is the entire system of science. It is the people, the method, the journals and the peer review that goes with them. It is the politics and economics around the science which determine what is studied. It is the dissemination of the knowledge gained.
Trying to reduce science to a
Completely incorrect conclusion (Score:2)
trust? It won't be coming back (Score:2)
It's about your information being processed by various intermediaries. Whoever's hands it passes through, will tweak it a bit or a lot. Trust and the Internet are a moving target. 15 years ago, true automated dis-information processes and campaigns were the fodder of science fiction. Today... umm... several years ago... I forget what it's technically called: the cabal of giant tech companies, your Apple/Google/MS/Amazon, etc began transforming information via filtering agents...W
What a dumb question... (Score:2)
76% of Americans have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in scientists' commitment to public interests
That's completely irrelevant. The question in and of itself implies to the respondent that all scientists (in fact, all science) should be actively working toward the "interests of the public".
First, the job of a scientist is to answer questions using research, experiments, and analysis. A person could spend their entire life documenting the mating dance of a particular subset of sparrows, provide nothing to the public interest, and still be an absolutely perfect scientist.
Second, the "interests of the publ
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Well, science does tend to tell... (Score:2)
Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:4, Informative)
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It has been conclusively demonstrated that, when we talk, we release a large number of tiny saliva droplets containing substances from our mouths, including germs. For someone with COVID-19 or another respiratory illness, this means they could spread the virus to others, which is why this rule makes perfect sense.
Yup. Could have been 5 feet. Or could have been 7 feet. There is no "exact" number, but the concept remains the same. Sometimes you just have to pick one and run with it. In the end whiners will whine no matter what number you choose.
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Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:4, Insightful)
you don't need to go to Trump rallies to know what he's going to say. Blah blah blah I was robbed, blah blah blah she's a dog, blah blah blah immigrants are evil, blah blah blah my daughter is hot
This lack of insight and understanding is exactly why Democrats lost presidency, popular vote, senate, congress, and governors to Trump. Please change nothing in your approach, because I am perfectly fine with this state of things.
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Oh please, like there arent plenty of modern conservatives who wouldnt describe a Democratic rally as something similiar. Maybe instead of "immigrants are evil" there'd be something like "Baby Killing" or something to do with trans people.
The Democrats do need to get their shit together on a few things but on this they arent any different than Republicans. Ever since Trump came on the scene Americans of both parties have been at each others throats.
Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:5, Insightful)
But let's ask this question. If someone is sick, are you standing a foot away from them as the talk and spew their spit on you, or do you keep your distance?
But yeah, the guy who spent decades getting his medical degree, doing hardcore research, and treating thousands of people, did all that just to annoy people like you with a guess when trying to prevent you from dying. How horrible.
Perhaps you'd rather have JFK, Jr in charge who believes homeopathy and crystals will cure you and has contributed to the deaths of untold persons because he doesn't believe vaccines, any vaccine, protect you.
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Americans, in general don't speak to people a foot away from someone else. This is something from Asian culture, I think.
If anyone, pandemic or otherwise tried to speak to me stand a foot away, I'd move back and let them know they're violating my personal space.
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Americans, in general don't speak to people a foot away from someone else. This is something from Asian culture, I think.
Not sure it's from Asia. It seems to me Asians are fond of masks.
Maybe the middle east? [mit.edu]
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Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, it worked [usf.edu] to slow the spread, just like wearing a mask.
The six foot rule was set at a time that people were being told wearing a mask was counter-productive. Whether 6 feet is far enough was never determined scientifically - it was pulled out of thin air. And there is plenty of scientific evidence now that it wasn't far enough.
There are two problems science has. One is that what the public hears is "interesting" science that makes good clickbait. This means ignoring a lot of good science with ambiguous results or simply removing the ambiguity to make the story more interesting. The second problem is that real science is a moving target. What is "true" today evolves with new research and sometimes contradicts previous established science.
In addition to the built in problems there are some more venal problems. Fake research. Research that supports financial interests. Careerism. Funding sources. etc. And then there is the use of "scientific" in the same way "all natural" is used. As a branding to make information appear reliable.The CDC did a lot of that during COVID with predictable results on the credibility of science in general and information from the CDC in particular.
"Trust in science" is the headline here, but the actual survey seems to be trust in scientists "commitment to public interest". Which are really different questions. Because if all the drug research being funded is by drug companies, for instance, it doesn't really matter whether scientists doing the research are committed to the public interest. The only research being funded has been screened to serve the drug companies interests. And the drug company's screen probably is not just the public interest.
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The real rules are hard. "Stay home and don't go outside, and stay far away from everyone else if you do have to go outside!" Not good enough, people will complain that they have to go to the store. Well then, let's just wait several years to get the experimental evidence of how far apart you should stand so that finally we can all go to the store safely during a pandemic. No, no no. Just come up with a reasonable number. Done!
The biggest snag here I think is that the health community didn't realize t
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You mean RFK Jr, and yes, he's a moron. But he's going to be a moron doing the job that a scientist should do. Ass kissing counts for more in the next administration than expertise.
True, he believes there's an epidemic of chronic disease, hurray, he's right there. But also almost all health experts believe that too! The problem isn't that he might be able to get soft drinks out of school, but that he also wants to get vaccines out of schools...
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Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:5, Insightful)
What I trust RFK on is not forcing me to do things I don't want to. I want my freedom ...
Being able to spread a disease isn't a freedom, it's being an anti-social dick intent on causing harm to others. It's no different than if you decided to drive your car on the wrong side of the road because the government can't tell me how to drive.
Participating in society comes with rules. If you want to live in a lawless society, there's always Somalia.
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I want my freedom ...
Ask Typhoid Mary how that worked out. If you are a threat to others, you are going to be dealt with. One way or the other.
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you can't make them take vaccines
Children have a right to be healthy. There is extremely strong evidence that childhood vaccines are a critical factor in ensuring children are healthy. Many parents would get their children vaccinated if they were not required, but many would not. Children have a right to be healthy and so therefore we must require some vaccines for children. I am fine with adults having more choices when it comes to vaccines, but I am also fine with some careers (such as medical or military) requiring vaccines as a conditi
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Found the idiot.
MagaSpin & double-standard (Score:2)
Fauci later admitted he misspoke about the 6 feet spacing thing. What he meant as that there were no actual tests for Covid itself, but tests on other viruses were extrapolated to produce the 6 ft. suggestion. Nor did he ever claim there was a direct study on Covid itself.
When you have to act quick, you often have to take educated guesses. This happens in people-to-people wars all the time when timing is more important than intel accuracy, but somehow wars against viruses are expected to be triple-checked.
6-foot rule [Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv w...] (Score:5, Informative)
Keep Fauci's off TV with their fake sciences like the 6ft rule which he admitted "came out of no where"
Not sure what you mean here. The 6-foot distancing rule originated when it was first believed that COVID-19 was spread by droplets exhaled ("respiratory droplets") propagatred by coughing or sneezing ("ballisti" transport"). These droplets are too large to remain suspended in the air, so they fall out at a characteristic distance of ~6 feet. That's where the rule came from. No, it didn't "come out of nowhere," and it wasn't "fake science."
It was later realized that this is not the full story, and smaller droplets that do remain suspended in the air ("aerosolized" particles) transmit COVID-19, so the 6-foot rule wasn't enough.
That's the way science works; it gets updated as we learn more.
If you look at sites dating to 2020, this is explained. For example https://www.pennmedicine.org/u... [pennmedicine.org] , or https://www.who.int/news-room/... [who.int]
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That of course is a strawman, COVID can travel a distance, but the probability of transmission drops as distance increases. Ideally each person would stay in a separate room without cross-ventilation.
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Re:Dont let idiot doctors on tv with political vie (Score:4, Insightful)
They asked you to do something super easy to help slow/stop the spread until they could figure something out.
Actually they initially told people not to wear masks. They claimed they would do more harm than good. Their was NO science to support that or any common sense to it. It was propaganda designed to protect the mask supply for hospitals. Essentially they lied to get the behavior they wanted.
The reality was people should have been wearing masks while understanding they would not provide complete protection. They should have understood that simply being in the room with someone, no matter the distance, could spread the disease. They should have known that not having symptoms didn't mean you were disease free and couldn't spread it. People over 65 should have understood that if they were healthy, they were at no more risk than anyone else. But none of those things would get people to behave the way the CDC thought they should. Or at least the CDC didn't think they would.
The debate here is largely between "authoritarians" who look to authority to tell them how to act and people who treat "authorities" as one piece of information for them to make their own decisions. As the CDC destroyed its own credibility and that second group stopped giving much weight to its opinions, the"authorities" turned to coercion to achieve their goals. And then it became political and identity laden. Any rational discussion was drowned out by the media megaphones..
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Right there, you're the one not paying attention. They just told you that the distancing was not based on science, which it wasn't.
It was based on science. The original belief about how COVID-19 was transmited suggested that it was spread by direct contact and by large droplets. Large droplets spread by ballistic transport-- they are not suspended in air-- and drop out of the air in a distance of under 2 meters.
That turned out to be naïve; it was also spread by small droplets, which are suspended in the air. But that was the best knowledge of the time.
You're referring to what some would call common sense, and calling it science. Mask mandates also were based on "a feeling".
No. Mask mandates were based on learning that in fact COVID-19 was spread by exh
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Even if this is true (I don't know -- please give your source(s)), how did they fare medically?
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And also, of course, assign zero economic value to the lives of the elderly.
Well, this is Florida we're talking about... they have a ready supply of drop-in replacements.
FL spin, consider all of medical (Score:2)
And it's not just Covid stats that should be considered, but all medical care, because flooded hospitals cannot treat other ailments besides just Covid. A good analysis would consider all three:
1. The danger from the primary microbe
2. Economic impact.
3. Other medical services skipped or delayed due to tied up medical resources.
My blue city managed it a logical way in my opinion. They studied their hospitals to see that max load of Covid pa
No Maybe About It (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe conservatives are okay with sacrificing some to the Money Gods?
The "conservatives" will happily sacrifice plenty of others if they think it will benefit them.
Heck, they sold out their own children and grandchildren for the mere promise of cheaper gas and eggs.
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"Heck, they sold out their own children and grandchildren for the mere promise of cheaper gas and eggs."
And the irony is that they will get more *expensive* gas and eggs. Punitive tariffs do ugly things to the inflation rate.
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How inflation works [Re:No Maybe About It] (Score:4, Interesting)
And the irony is that they will get more *expensive* gas and eggs. Punitive tariffs do ugly things to the inflation rate.
Eggs are imported??
No, but the people who raise hens have to buy things. When the price of things they buy increases, they need to raise the prices of the things that they sell.
Price increases in some goods gets passed along to result in price increases in other goods.
Lojik! (Score:4, Insightful)
DonGOP's defense against mainstream economist warnings that tariffs make prices higher is: "most economists were wrong before (about some things), so I'm right!"
The fallacy here is that one person being wrong doesn't automatically make the other right (with exceptions). They could very well both be wrong or have bad judgement.
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If one has watched Ferris Beuller's Day Off, see the bit where Ben Stein is the history teacher droning on about the Smoot-Hawley tariff act and how it worsened the effects of the Great Depression. Beuller? Beuller?
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My blue city managed it a logical way in my opinion. They studied their hospitals to see that max load of Covid patients they could take in before notably impacting ANY medical care, and set a threshold line. If Covid patients exceeded the threshold or it were forecasted to exceed soon, they re-active lock-down activities. It was actually staggered so that restriction level was based on hospital load.
That is how we did it here in Canada too. I suspect this was how most countries with more than a single brain cell did so. Sadly it still impacted medical care, because the ICUs were completely filled for pretty much the entire time lockdown or not. Fortunately the entire system did not collapse. It came disturbingly close.
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7th worst of the states in deaths per 1M population. Worst was Arizona, followed by West Virginia, New Mexico, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Michigan.
8th worst of the states in cases per 1M population. Worst was Rhode Island, followed by Alaska, North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and New York.
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Yeah but in nm it's all the drunk driving and aneurysms from excessively hot green chile on your breakfast burrito.
I miss NM.
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Well, I thnk it was a Texas politician who proclaimed like a moron, that it's ok if grandma died because she'd want you to keep your freedoms. Bodies were piling up, there weren't enough refrigerated trucks to put them all in in New York City, and people were worried about the economy?? Right, keep the body count high as an acceptable cost of making money...
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The question is far to simple I do not trust all science equally and do not trust scientist when they go out of their area of expertise.
For example I trust doctors to tell me that X will make me sick, however when they say what better for the nation that is out of their area of expertise and they have no business dictating what the country does with that information.
Also I trust actual sciences much more than I trust social science, because the can conduct simple reproducible experiments. However when you g
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They don't. Governors and mayors were in charge of those decisions, depending on state policy. GOP spins.
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The question is far to simple I do not trust all science equally and do not trust scientist when they go out of their area of expertise.
That is a very narrow view of whom you should trust. By that definition, in order for you to trust something you hear, it must have had a chain of experts talking with each other, each relying 100% on the previous person's prognosis. But, in reality, the most valuable folks are the ones that know a lot about a specific subject (not necessarily experts) and then much about the other subjects used in the chain that leads to a decision. The reason is that they can connect the dots in their head, something w
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the reason Florida "recovered" is because of an influx of people [cnn.com]. Not because of its covid policies which killed people.
Also also, Florida was deliberately not reporting [wusf.org] all the the deaths from covid despite being one of the worst hit states [bbc.com] in the nation. This was evidenced by the refrigerated trailers [nbcnews.com] sitting outside medical examiner offices and hospitals so many people were dying there was no room to store the bodies.
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Companies were going to lose money, period. People already were staying home and refusing to go out. There was panic out there in some areas. This wasn't caused by the government, because the government was slow to react. Getting masks and giving advice did encourage some people that they could safely go out and buy groceries (without forcing the uber-eats driver to get sick).
Nobody did mass shutdowns (Score:2)
Most of the hit we took was from supply chain disruptions from people in China getting sick. The rest of it was post COVID price gouging running up inflation and ill advised interest rate hikes that were explicitly designed to cause layoffs (which Fed Chair Powell admitted under oath to congress).
Thanks to solid leadership we got a "soft landing", e.
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Well, yes. It is economically a good thing to kill off all the elderly. It just makes you complete scum.
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Places such as Florida that didn't do mass shutdowns fared the best economically during and after the pandemic.
The highest death rates from COVID-19 were Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia, all deeply conservative states. That's probably because the health care system is poor in red states, though.
Florida has the advantage that for most of the year, people socialize outdoors, where the virus spreads slowly. Interestingly, while in the north the epidemic rates spiked in the winter, in Florida the rates spiked in the summer (when Floridians stay indoors, because it's so hot).
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Places such as Florida that didn't do mass shutdowns fared the best economically during and after the pandemic.
I live in Florida and if you think we didn't shut anything down you need to find a better source for your news. DeSantis took quite awhile to get the memo that red states were supposed to be ignoring all the Covid restrictions.
Re:Maybe next time (Score:5, Informative)
ChatGPT's reply since I'm too lazy to look it up and provide proper sources:
Have a nice day, and please don't vaccinate your children. Evolution will take care of your kin.
Re:Maybe next time (Score:5, Interesting)
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ChatGPT's reply since I'm too lazy to look it up and provide proper sources:
If you use Bing with Copilot, it will give you links to the sources.
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It was tested. That's what they were doing before the vaccine was released: testing it. I'm pretty sure your claims of myocarditis are exaggerated, and probably whole-cloth nonsense, but assuming they aren't, all medicines have risks. It's a numbers deal.
Yeah. You’re right. It is a numbers deal.
Sure would be nice if the numbers of people tested who got side effects from a vaccine were something that wasn’t classified. So we know who is exaggerating, and who is outright lying. For profit.
I feel life insurance fine print, is gong to start telling a story soon.
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Yeah. You’re right. It is a numbers deal. Sure would be nice if the numbers of people tested who got side effects from a vaccine were something that wasn’t classified.
The number of people who got rare side effects from the vaccines is not and was not "classified."
Popular overview of the statistics here: https://www.nebraskamed.com/CO... [nebraskamed.com]
A study discussed here: https://www.factcheck.org/2024... [factcheck.org]
Harvard health discussion here: https://www.health.harvard.edu... [harvard.edu]
So we know who is exaggerating, and who is outright lying.
Yep. TLDR answer, some of the vaccine deniers are exaggerating, and some are outright lying.
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That's about the return on the S&P in 2020, so you'd expect him to make some reasonable fraction of that just from asset appreciation. The article says indeed about half was from investments and half from his salary and benefits, so less than a 10% return on his "stock, bond, and money market portfolio" so kind of poop, but he's old so maybe he's invested conservatively. The article says there's no record of investment in individual stocks, and his investments are quite broad, not targetted at pandemic
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Some people want all civil servants to be dirt poor; unless they're legislators or presidents of their preferred party then they want them to be fabulously wealthy! After all, a super rich elitist president is proof that he can make all of us wealthy!! Which is not at all like those other super rich elitist presidents on the other side who were out of touch with all the poor people.
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You don't think that's quite a conflict of interest?
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In fact I do... but I don't have much say in the matter.
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We had a say. At the ballot box. Unfortunately the side who thinks corruption is ok as long as it's their guy got in more says.
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Forbes? You are referencing a right wingnut rag like Forbes as your evidence? Bet you used the Hydroxychloroquine, didn't you? I hope you didn't shove a fluorescent tube up your ass as the Bunko Artist in Chief suggested...hint, they don't go there, you slide it down your throat.
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No, it's perfectly fine. I don't think you read it though.
He's got a pretty good salary, but he did before the pandemic as well. For how old he is and still working as a senior administrator in the US, married to another still working senior administrator in the US, his family's net worth is pret
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Fauci says attacks on him are "attacks on science" [nypost.com]
He is right. You are not and clueless. Not a surprise, really.
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"Science" just means controlling the masses as deviously as possible
Found the flat-earther.
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Science can get things wrong. But how wrong? Often not wrong enough that the current understanding isn't still useful.
Newton's laws of motion and gravitation eventually were shown to be "wrong" for very small objects, very high velocities, and very strong gravitational fields. But they are still used today because they are "right enough" to be useful, without the added complexity of the better theories.
And what happens when science realizes it got something wrong? It fixes it, through further observations a
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Either party I'd also want to make sure what I'm being told actually works out in reality and would not blindly trust them without data.
The difference here being that when you drive home and your car breaks down you know the mechanic was dodgy. What do you do with science, get an advanced degree to double check all their findings?
The issue with science is it's not easy, which means most people are not equipped to question it. They think their "research" is taking a shit on the toilet while death scrolling Facebook until they find someone to agree the science is wrong and then they use that to back it up. "Fuck Fauci, I know I can cure COVID