To be pro-vax has no upfront cost. To be antivax has a huge upfront cost. It comes with ostracization and belittlement. After paying that, there is nowhere to go except further in the rabbit hole. — khaled

I see, yes that is a good point.

I think there is such a convergence concerning childhood vaccination , despite your naysayers. — Joshs

The JCVI in the UK have just advised against rolling out childhood vaccination, so I don't know where you're getting your 'consensus' from.

No, there are already plenty of polls out there — Joshs

Well then cite one. I've not seen any.

suss out contrarian opinions and see how the medical mainstream responds to them. — Joshs

That's not what you did. You found an article written by a science journalist which disagreed with three professors in epidemiology and the entire UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Why? Because it supported a view you already had - come on, you know this stuff, why have you suddenly become an absolutists about narratives on this one topic. You know about confirmation bias, you know how we build our representations to reflect our expectations and interact with the world to construct our beliefs (or belief/world constructs). I can't think why I'm having to go through all this as if you were a freshman.

I didnt say the dominant paradigm is more useful than all the alternatives , only that it has to be respected for convincing its many adherents that it is the most useful approach. In that sense it has earned its stripes — Joshs

How does this 'convincing' take place? The trial of disinterested peer testing? C'mon, you're not into that crap are you?

The reason we’re dealing with so many climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers is that they don’t believe there is a legitimate consensus. That is, they either dispute the numbers of experts who are on board , or impugn their motives. — Joshs

Really, not anything to do with social roles and membership tokens for their social group then, we'll throw all that sociological understanding out of the window and go back to a fourty year out-of-date model of the hyper-individual rational actor crunching the numbers?

Kuhn did indeed set pen to paper , and what did he say? He said that choice of paradigms was essentially an aesthetic choice. There’s merit in aesthetics. — Joshs

Indeed, so we can drop all the bullshit about weighing up articles and polling the numbers of experts. You know as well as I do that people adopt beliefs as interactive parts of the social narrative and change them only when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

For God's sake at least put the bare minimum effort into following a line of argument. It's only a few posts up.

They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing. — khaled

In what way do you think pro-vaccers avoid this situation? Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong.

It's a good analysis of entrenched positions, but I don't see how it applies only to one side here, and if anything the pro-vaccers have a hell of a lot more to lose in admitting it if they ever felt they might actually have been wrong.

Perhaps that’s something to discuss with your doctor. — Xtrix

How would my doctor know about those risks? I can see why they might keep themselves abreast of the latest medical data (though there's absolutely nothing requiring them to, it's entirely their own choice if they do or don't), but how would they know anything about the wider societal harms I'm considering?

The fact remains: vaccines are safe and effective. There are extremely rare cases when they’re not— just as there are extremely rare cases where places crash. — Xtrix

OK, so give me the numbers then. If this fact is relevant to my decision then the numbers have to be relevant to me. It's pointless me taking a vaccine because it's a good risk benefit balnce for someone else. I'm aware that they're on average safer than catching the virus (in terms of harm to others), but I'm not average, so the average relative risk is useless to me.

this isn’t solely about you. As I’ll repeatedly remind everyone. — Xtrix

Yep. That's why I said...

Let's ignore any selfish aims for now. My relative risk of causing harm to others by getting a vaccine compared to not getting one. — Isaac

...so limit your risk analysis entirely to harm to others.

Potential harms of the virus - catching it and dying, catching it and getting long-term effects, catching it and passing it on to someone vulnerable, catching it and needing a hospital bed that someone else needed, prolonging economic chaos and all the associated harms by slowing down the speed at which is becomes endemic... and more.

Potential harms of taking the vaccines - short term reactions, needing a hospital bed because of short term reactions that someone else needed, long-term consequences, prolonging economic chaos and all the associated harms by slowing down the speed at which is becomes endemic, further embedding the control that corporations have over government policy by complicity, contributing to the avoidance of more important factors as causes (like community healthcare, economic equality and threat vigilance)...and more.

If it's all about risk profiles, then help me make my choice. What are my numbers? Let's ignore any selfish aims for now. My relative risk of causing harm to others by getting a vaccine compared to not getting one. Not the average relative risk (I know for a fact I'm not average), Not the public policy conclusion (that's based on the average risk and public policy is a blunt tool aimed at the masses). My relative risk.

Because if you can't produce figures for my risk then my decision is not risk based is it?

I'm not sure that what we clumsily call the "belief" that there are "external objects" is up to us, no matter how much physicists futz with the definition of "object". Ditto for space, time, who knows what else. — Srap Tasmaner

Actually there's been some very interesting work by Susan Hespos on exactly what else. She's been trying to work out what laws of physics babies take to be innate and what they don't. Long story short, it's all about what fits in what... anyway, yes, I agree some models are probably out of reach. My objection to naïve realism is the spilling over into dogmatism about mattters over which there's insufficient ground for it.

What interests me about this is not that we might be able to generate a contradiction or a paradox by constructing some peculiar class, something you'd only think of when doing this kind of analysis; what interests me is that even if we agree that the whole idea of a class turns out to be kind of useless, since there aren't any objects for them to be classes of, we can keep talking in terms of classes, and apparently keep making sense. Whether we could give up classes -- I doubt that can be made sense of, but maybe there's a sort of Funes-the-Memorius way of individualizing absolutely everything. At any rate, it looks like no matter how we undermine them, classes will still hang around cheerfully offering their services. ("Won't be needing you today, or ever -- you're not real, you're just a manner of speaking." "I'll just wait over here, then, shall I? In case you change your mind.") — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed, I think there's all sorts of mental furniture we can't function without, mainly because the mental furniture came first and the function after. Rather like if we set up a double pendulum paint drip, it may be chaotic, but it's nit going to paint the Mona Lisa. Our brains are set up to function a certain way, and that way requires objects, classes...it's just efficiency. If each exchange with our environment is with a new unique entity we're going to be constantly surprised, and surprise is the enemy of Bayesian inference.

Narratives (there, I used that word again, sorry) are likewise indispensable surprise reduction bits of mental furniture.

But there's a difference between accepting the class, and accepting the instantiation. We can accept that we will have classes without reifying what any of them currently happen to be.

You're still classifying, but refusing to name the classes you're using. Making them anonymous is pointless, and a maybe little disingenuous. (You can kind of kid yourself that you're keeping the model you're using at arm's length.) On the one hand, it's as if it's only the name, not the classifying, that we're worried about; on the other, the name plays a role, and we ought to look at that. — Srap Tasmaner

I see what you mean, but doesn't the distinction between objects and causes subsume this. I can still name the class 'causes of my representations' within my model, but I've distinguished it still from the naive realist's class 'objects of reality'.

It's not punishment, it is making sure that you face the consequences of your own behavior. — T Clark

If someone has to 'make sure' of it, it wasn't a consequence was it, prior to the making sure?

The consequences of our actions are usually considered to be those things which result from them without someone having to intervene to make it so.

Why yeah, it doesn't include tarot reading or the position of Saturn in Virgo, if that's what you have in mind. — Olivier5

Why not? We're talking about 'data' here, not conclusions. Presumably scientists are willing to accept data on tarot reading and astrology, that's how they know it's bunkum. Are you suggesting they dismissed it out of hand because they refused to even accept the data?

There is no force in the world that can convince you to accept some data that you want to reject. — Olivier5

So all this 'consensus of experts' we've been hearing about are only dealing with the data they've previously decided they're willing to accept?

A language community in part imposes its language on the world. We talk in terms of balls and stuff that is not balls. Like Anscombe's shopping list, we use the words to pick out things in the world, or we use it to to list the things we have. Both are equally legitimate, and each relies on the other. — Banno

Yes, I think that's right. But as I said to Srap above (in other words), there's more to consider than either the shopping list or the grocery basket. They're just two results. They're not the process of making either.

My inclination here too is to say that my brain's model of the world, and I'm guessing everyone's, pretty clearly treats apples as objects, paradigmatic objects, if apples aren't objects then nothing is. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, that's the way I see it. That why I opened my contribution here with an argument against idealism. We all assume there are external objects. Unless there is a serious group of language users who genuinely don't do that, then there's absolutely no need for any philosophical talk about how all reality is 'in our minds' It's a pointless and daft diversion.

It's a matter of accepting that the models in our heads are how we understand the world and knowing that they're models doesn't change that. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't agree with this. Knowing they're models can change things massively. It's having a huge impact on the science of perception, understanding of schizophrenia, right through to political sciences and questions about the formation of beliefs. Maybe too academic... At a personal level, there's things like the real psychological changes that a realisation of the social construction of emotions can yield. It's been used therapeutically with some success. I think it's quite possible to alter your world view for the better by realising that 'its all models'. Which I guess is what you're getting at with...

The theories we work through consciously, we get a bit more say in, including how we theorize the models in our heads. — Srap Tasmaner

...but the thing is, which theories we work through consciously is not a fixed parameter. We can learn to work through models consciously that were previously managed sub-consciously. The way we do this is by changing our concepts about how these models work, about the veracity of the results they produce. I think there's a strong effect on the way we think about our beliefs between "the table is real" and "the table isn't real". I don't think it's such a large step from "the table is real because it seems that way to me and mine and that's what 'real' is" to "foreigners are bad because it seems that way to me and mine and that's what 'bad' is". Calling thing to be exactly just how they seem to us to be has dangers which I don't think are worth the resolution of little philosophical muddle.

I do get the problem. Tables are our reality, if we say they're not what they seem to be we're just going to replace them with some atomic entity which will be no less a model and so no real improvement in ontology. But the process is the value, not the result. I'd rather err on the side of being too aware of the fallibility of the 'way things seem' than err on the side of overconfidence in it.

But you have to link up distrust with "as few people as possible" in some specific way. Is it because the vaccine might actually be poison and you want as few people as possible to be poisoned? Is it because the seller is making money per dose, and you want them to make as little money as possible? — Srap Tasmaner

Both. The chance of harm from the vaccine and the fact the money made out of this response is all going to these companies who then have a massive incentive (and and even bigger capability) to push even more for such solutions next time. I mean, am I really having to actually explain why we might want to avoid giving taxpayer's money, and massive public acclaim, to criminal enterprises with very strong influence over government policy?

What difference could other thoughts about pharmaceutical companies make here? There's no room for "You need the vaccine, but ..." and no need for "You don't need the vaccine, plus ..." — Srap Tasmaner

It's here...

to counter the (otherwise reasonable) all-in-it-together argument which might have everyone taking the vaccine to show solidarity with the group who actually need to. — Isaac

Yes, my interest is in consensus of epidemiological advice to policy makers. — Joshs

Then why have you cited an article written by a psychiatrist and science-journalism hack as evidence against one written by three epidemiologists with professorial posts at some the top US universities? You say you're interested in what epidemiologists say, I give you the responses of eight epidemiologists and you respond with some science blog entry.

I want to hitch my wagon to the most popular starting assumptions. — Joshs

And how are you going about finding out what they are? Are you conducting a poll?

The most popular starting assumption ( dominant paradigm) earns its stripes by offering a particularly useful way of interpreting empirical phenomena. — Joshs

Oh come on! In any other area would you be arguing that the dominant paradigm earned it's position by being more useful than the others? This whole line of response is bullshit, you've favoured some interne blog over the actual experts cited and now you're giving me some crap about the dominant paradigms in science being all there entirely as a result of some merit-based approach as if Kuhn had never set pen to paper.

What about the second? "It's the view that something exists regardless of what we say about ___." What on earth do we fill in the blank with? — Srap Tasmaner

"...the cause of our representation of that something". Processes and objects are two different things, we can conceive of objects as being representations caused by hidden factors. We don't need to assign object status to those causes any more than gravity is an object, or my preferring vanilla is. There's a cause of my modelling the table as a table, reaching for the word "table", feeling inclined to put my cup on it...etc, I'm not giving that cause the status of an object, like a billiard ball in classical physics, I haven't gone that far yet, I've only gone so far as to say there's a cause, external to me.

I think that's a misunderstanding of what "X" -- as a name or a label -- is doing in the first place. Isaac and I went around and around about this before: it's no use saying "tables are only part of my model" as a way of saying "tables aren't real"; that's a category mistake. The whole point of modelling is that within the model, tables quite specifically count as real. Real is theory-relative. — Srap Tasmaner

I have a lot of sympathy for the linguistic problem here (as I hope we established last time), but it cuts both ways. So often in these conversations (mostly with @Banno, it seems) the use of common terms such as 'real' and, in the previous thread, 'pain', are cloistered for use in philosophy of language where they are used to manage these communal practices like talking about pain, and discussing tables. All very well and good, but the model I described (a few posts up) is nonetheless as good a fit for how things are as we've yet found. So what words are left to me to use when I want to talk about it? If the representations are 'real' because that's the way "table" is used normally, then what am I to use when I want to study the way those representations can be manipulated by altering the way the brain responds to exterior stimuli. If "table" is real by definition, then what are the hidden external causes relative to it? They can't just be more stuff that's also real, that doesn't say anything about their unique relation as the cause of the representation outside of the Markov Blanket (afterall, we just determined that only things inside the Markov Blanket are 'real').

I don't object to a natural language approach, but cognitive scientists are language users too, we want to talk (and talk to ordinary folk too sometimes), we can't be struck mute by an insistence that only matters of folk psychology can have common words attached to them.

Last ditch argument that I'll probably regret, but... When I say "Tables aren't real they're only representations caused by an external reality", do you have trouble understanding what I'm saying? I mean I talk this way to colleagues, friends...strangers in the pub sometimes too. In all it seems to bring to mind pretty much the exact relation to our external stimuli that I intended the expression to bring to mind - "Oh, so we just make up that it's a table, but what really causes that idea is something we can't know..." or something like that. People don't seem to be confused by the use. So, in a Wittgensteinean sense, I'm left wondering who's doing the philosophical muddle-making here and who's doing the banishing of it. 'Real' does seem to have a perfectly ordinary use which can be quite easily seconded to describe exactly the kind of active inference relationship to our external world that I'm looking to use it for.

see if you agree — Srap Tasmaner

Would it surprise you if I didn't?

I presented an argument that your distrust of pharmaceutical companies is a reason for no one to get vaccinated, and is inconsistent with a belief that some people should. You tried to manage this inconsistency in your first response by resenting the fact that some people should trust vaccine vendors. — Srap Tasmaner

Here's where it goes wrong, and hopefully in a simple way. I was trying to argue that distrust of pharmaceuticals is a reason for as few people as possible to get vaccinated. In other words, to counter the (otherwise reasonable) all-in-it-together argument which might have everyone taking the vaccine to show solidarity with the group who actually need to.

I don't see why distrust of the pharmaceuticals need be an all or nothing factor, it's just one of many to weigh. In common with any sort of distrust, we don't just abandon all relations. I don't fully trust my fellow pub patrons, I wouldn't tell them all my pin number. I might though, ask one to look after my drink while I pop out and trust him not to poison it. Trust is not a binomial thing.

So were faced with an awful situation. There's this crisis where millions are dying and one crucial part of the solution is a vaccine. But the only people who can make vaccines are these awful, criminal profiteers (I'm exaggerating only a bit). What do we do? If we say we can't trust the awful, criminal profiteers and tell them where they can stick their vaccine, a lot of people will die whilst we all become immune naturally. But does rejecting that option mean we have to march it in on a litter to fanfare, ticker-tape parades and cheering crowds, one for everyone...have one for the baby... No, I don't think so. I think we can, as I said, begrudgingly accept that we have little choice for those who really need it, but that's as far as we'll go and as soon as this thing's over...

I don't trust the pharmaceutical industry (with good reason, it's not a random dislike), but they're currently the only source of medicine. Sometimes we need medicine. It seems obvious (to me) that in such a situation we take the medicine (what choice do we have?) but only at utmost need, as little as possible and without fanfare.

If he said the things it is claimed that he said, then there should be documentary evidence, no? — Janus

Yes, but in question is the veracity of those things, the interpretation of them, the contextual meaning. The literal transcript is irrelevant.

If ten people say that the truck involved in the accident was at fault and two say the car was at fault, who would you believe? — Janus

Depends on the two and the ten. If the two were nearby and the ten far away, I'd err on believing the two. We're not blinded to the sources of data in scientific studies. Nor are we blinded to the methodology, so we needn't act as if we have no other factors than popularity on which to make our choice.

It's called scientific consensus, the basis of peer review. — Janus

It really isn't. I've been peer reviewed and done peer review. It's a process of checking for methodological errors, occasionally conceptual confusions, suitability for the journal in question, and conflicts of interest. It's carried out by a handful of people, usually the same faces. It's totally unrelated to the popularity of some given study after it's been published, or the popularity of any given field or method of investigation.

The 'scientific consensus' is...

a) usually unmeasurable, what you're getting is the media narrative of it, not some sort of poll.

b) a feature of the popularity of certain starting assumptions and methodological fashions

c) heavily influenced by funding bodies, journal biases, corporate employment and sponsorship, and plain old social dynamics.

d) largely unrelated to veracity. We do not all check each other's work, there's no mass error checking going on, no forum at which conflicting ideas are thrashed out and a vote taken. It just doesn't work like that, not at these timescales.

I would say that anyone who does rely on him for advice would be well advised to find out if the claims about his claims are true. — Janus

How would anyone go about doing that without simply getting into a second level of some scientists saying one thing, some saying another and having to decide who to trust? That route doesn't seem to get us anywhere.

I believe that if the majority of experts believe a certain thing then that is most likely, although obviously not guaranteed, out of the suite of opinions out there, to be correct. — Janus

Why?

The anti-realists failure to commit amounts to a failure to understand how language functions; "the ball" is the ball. — Banno

Yes, but I don't think that means there's no issue. It's just that the anti-realist is wrong about where. That you (and sufficient others in your language community) use "ball" that way doesn't answer any dispute about the ball. Of course, there rarely are disputes about balls, we have a remarkable agreement on the matter, but "I'm just angry, I can't help it" does depend entirely on the reality of 'angry'. Is it, like 'ball', just the same justified commitment to 'reaching out to the world', or is it a fabrication, eliciting agreement only from co-conspirators to act as a ready excuse for poor behaviour?

We use words for all sorts of reasons, not all of then reach out into the already existing world. Some build it.

It helps to think about this in terms of Markov blankets. A little diagram...

External cause > sensory receiver > sensation > representation.

The representation is what we use. The external cause is outside our Markov blanket, we cannot access it directly. We must accept that the origin of our representations is our immediate sensory data (and often other internal data streams), not the theorised external causes (that's the anti-realist bit). But we also must accept that we, regardless, act on those representations as if they had a less proximate cause than just our internal sensory data. So the question seems moot.

What's not moot is the question of fidelity. How faithful to the external causes is any given representation?

Evan if all we see is the way things seem to be to us, there may still be the way things are. — Banno

Yes, definitely.

a realist says the ball has a mass of 1kg; the anti-realist might say that saying that it has a mass of 1kg is useful, or fits their perceptions, but will not commit to it being true. — Banno

Yes, but the entire scenario - ball, cause of mass, gravity etc - contains a mix of socially constructed representations and immutable external causes. The realist and the anti-realists aren't arguing about the truth of that state of affairs (the mix), they're arguing about which elements are the social construct and which are the immutable external causes. Or at least they should be. That they often aren't is rather the point I'm lamenting.

That X is invariant... — 180 Proof

X seems invariant. It might later turn out not to be.

I just wonder what you're supposed to say to someone who replies "no" to this. Whether it be by saying:

Tell that to a corpse. Or to a quadriplegic. Or to an overheating planet. Or ... — 180 Proof


Or "go stand in front of a train" etc. — khaled

I can't think of anything either. It seems a dead end.

Of course, there do seem to be causes of our representations for which no amount of re-thinking seems to be able to alter them much, but there also seem to be representations which seemed concrete at the time only to later turn out to be almost entirely malleable constructs without much by way of immutable external cause. It's not like we've finished the project of sorting one from t'other, so the certainty seems often misplaced.

If the claims made in that article about the claims Ionaddis made early on about the likely number of deaths due to covid and his dismissal of the idea that covid was anything more than a bad flu are true, then I don't think he's a reliable source of good insight. — Janus

Yes, seems self evidently true. So the question is whether the claims are true. We have two choices - we analyse the claims ourselves, or we trust someone else to have done so for us. I assume you haven't analysed them yourself, so that leaves trust - hence the question about expertise and trustworthiness. The article is written in an extremely confrontational style and includes dozens of attempts to merely cast shade and insinuate among it's scattering of actual cited arguments. That alone mkaes me far less likely to trust it as a source, but each to their own.

If you're interested, heres a response in the BMJ (a considerably more reputable journal that 'sciencebasedmedicine.org, but as I say, each to their own).

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/22/an-open-plea-for-dignity-and-respect-in-science/

what would be the point of those not traveling to such regions taking them? — Janus

Exactly.

Indeed the very idea that there's a way things actually are is just a way things seem to us to be. — Isaac

Tell that to a corpse. Or to a quadriplegic. Or to an overheating planet. Or ... — 180 Proof

But all of those things (and states) are still unarguabley some way things seem to us to be. We have no other source of things to say other than our beliefs about the way things are. As @khaled is arguing, that doesn't have any bearing on our ability to alter that which seems to us to be the causes of our representations. Accepting that it seems to us that the planet is overheating may or may not mean we can make it not overheat by thinking about it differently (clue - we can't). It simply has no bearing on the matter. They are two different questions. One addresses the role social construction has in forming our representations, the other in sorting those representations into those which are caused by what we deem to be immutable external causes and those which are less concrete.

Problem is, both positions are convinced that they’re “actually” talking about the way things are, not just what they seem to be. No realist will say “it seems to me realism is the case”. — khaled

Yeah, that's rather the problem I was trying to highlight, but from the other side of the coin. The anti-realist says "things are only as they seem to us to be", but that 'things are only as they seem to us to be' is itself a way things seem to them to be. We just don't seem to get anywhere using that line of thought.

What progresses us is accepting that we usually have reasons why things seem to us to be some way or another and that we can discuss those reasons. Hence the science. Science generally gives us reasons to believe something is the case that might well be novel, or unintuitive and so may be worth discussing. I suppose it's plausible that 'deep' thought might do the same. But superficial intuitions are rarely going to give anything more than a kind of Gallup poll of how people see things. Of interest to the social scientist, maybe, but not really to any individual wanting to improve their reasoning.

it is telling that you must use the plural - "we" not "I", "Us" not "me". — Banno

Exactly. It's a pre-requisite for the use of 'talk about'. There must be someone else to talk to.

When cognitive science can explain the social aspects of how things are, , it'll have reached maturity. — Banno

We're trying... It's been my research field for the past 20 years at least (the social construction of beliefs). I'm not sure we managed maturity though - as in 'beyond adolescence', maybe - as in whiskey, no.

A cognitive scientists makes use of other folk's brains. — Banno

Ha! That might well have gone on the office door.

I'd hazard a guess that for any who think there's not an external cause of our representation, the argument rests not on some way things seem to them to be, but rather on the above meta argument (that everything is ultimately some way things seem to us to be) — Isaac

Oh, and here it is...

What I'm saying is that you never see outside of the mind-created world within which all the objects of perception exist. — Wayfarer

An ant-realist may in contrast hold — Banno

Come now, we all know ants aren't real...

It's self-evident that all we have that can be talked about is the way things seem to us, it is both phenomenologically and biologically, from that 'pool' of beliefs that we draw the things we are to say. So if we're to talk about the difference between the way things seem to us and the way things 'actually are', we must first allow for the fact that 'the way things actually are' is still some way things seem to us. Indeed the very idea that there's a way things actually are is just a way things seem to us to be.

I think a lot of the talk about realism and anti-realism gets stuck on this, but unhelpfully so. There's little point in getting hung up on that problem because it cannot be surmounted. The solution is to accept that state of affairs and move on. We're talking about the way things seem to us to be.

For some of us, things seem to be such that there's an external cause of our internal representations, something we cannot alter in real time (we can, of course, alter it after the perception, interact with it's construction - @Joshs). I'd hazard a guess that for any who think there's not an external cause of our representation, the argument rests not on some way things seem to them to be, but rather on the above meta argument (that everything is ultimately some way things seem to us to be) and we should discard discussion of that meta argument as unhelpful.

So the issue really is in what things seem to have an external cause and why they seem that way.

This is where I think modern cognitive science can help.

maybe YouTube's move is for the better. — jorndoe

So again. Why the hell are you re-posting it all here?

You might want to look at this critique of Ionaddis — Janus

Yeah. An oncologist and journalist with no training at all in epidemiology criticises just about the most cited epidemiologist in the world and you side with the oncologist?

Weren't you only just lecturing us about picking sides because you prefer the message?

If you want the battle to be won, without your help (and the risk that helping entails), you have to hope that almost none of the other soldiers behave as rationally as you. (And you won't post your argument on the soldiers private chat.) — Srap Tasmaner

I can't see the risk you're seeing. If we boil my claim down to "people who have good* reason to believe they don't really* need the vaccine ought not to take it", then it seems that everyone could follow that principle. Most would take the vaccine because most people are either overweight, old, unhealthy, useless at hygiene, or live/work in crowded places. In terms of outcome, if everyone followed that maxim (and the other necessary healthcare measures), we'd probably be fine.

* 'Good' here meaning evidence-based and 'really' meaning to reduce risk below an acceptable threshold.

The only issue was whether they'd feel enthusiastic enough about doing so if they knew others weren't.

But here's what I just don't understand about the argument you're making (and @Janus). If all the psychotics stopped taking their medicines there'd be a crisis in the mental health institutions. Should we all take anti-psychotics in solidarity, because some must? If all travellers refused the vaccination appropriate to their destination there'd be a massive increase in tropical diseases in returnees, must we all take such measures out of solidarity? If all diabetics stopped taking insulin hospitals would be overwhelmed, must we all take insulin?

It seems a completely normal way of doing things, that those people who need a medication take a medication and those people who don't, don't. As Martin Kulldorff, Professor at Harvard Medical School, put it

Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should.

So what am I missing? If some people need to take a vaccine because their life choices, or just luck of the draw, puts them in a higher risk category for hospitalisation and spread, then why must we all take it?

My default assumption is that epidemiologists in general are in a better position than you are to make policy recommendations. — Joshs

Probably, but policy recommendations are made by public health authorities. Epidemiologists advise them. As I said on the other thread, public policy is a tool to accomplish government objectives. It is not, as should not be treated as, a statement of scientific consensus.

The ability to Interpret research studies is only part of what is needed to make policy recommendations. — Joshs

Yes, I totally agree and I wouldn't want there to be any confusion between what I'm arguing here and what might be good public policy. As I've said before, I'm sure vaccination is a good and necessary public policy, I just don't think that translates to a moral requirement to adhere to it.

I want to know what sorts of consensus there may or may not be be concerning such questions as the value of universal vaccination. Partly this is because I don’t have the time to read every study , and partly because I appreciate that there are other considerations besides the conclusiveness and validity of study results , considerations which can allow for reasonable recommendations even in the absence of definitive conclusions. — Joshs

Yes, but why 'consensus'? You're an academic right? We don't all patiently check everybody else's work for errors. Especially not over the sorts of timescales involved here. Consensus is far more determined by the popularity of key starting assumptions than by the result of some mass error-checking exercise. I can definitely see the sense in trusting someone else to check through papers for you, we rarely have time to do so personally, but consensus adds little to nothing.

Maybe you could point me in the direction of links to statements by epidemiologists who recommend against policies advocating or requiring vaccination of young people. — Joshs

Sure.

This is Wesley Pegden questioning the ACIP presentation - https://medium.com/@wpegden/weighing-myocarditis-cases-acip-failed-to-balance-the-harms-vs-benefits-of-2nd-doses-d7d6b3df7cfb

And Here including Stefan Baral - https://medium.com/@wpegden/covid-19-vaccines-in-children-6cdff15b2415

Carl Henegan - https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/8/565

Pete Doshi - https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/13/covid-19-vaccines-for-children-hypothetical-benefits-to-adults-do-not-outweigh-risks-to-children/

Ruediger von Kries -

Given uncertainty over risks I cannot foresee for now that there will be a recommendation for general vaccinations" in children, he said, adding that while the vaccine was shown to be effective, "practically nothing" was yet known over any long-term adverse effects in adolescents.

Vinay Prasad - https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/91972

Ruchi Sinha -

Vaccine escape is inevitable and I think that it adds to the argument not to have a blanket rollout of the vaccine to children aged 12-15 because I think that will minimise that. We should offer it to vulnerable children. But I don’t think that currently, the way it stands, that vaccine rollout to all of them is the way forward.

Daniel Hungerford -

Decisions on which vaccines to purchase and which groups to target must be based on the highest quality analyses of vaccines in action, fully contextualised according to place and population and accounting for all relevant biases.

Aren’t the “peripheral’ claims, that vaccination reduces infection and most cases are in the unvaccinated, enough to support recommendations for vaccinating the young? — Joshs

I don't see how. To counter an argument that the spread of the virus isn't sufficiently slowed in young healthy people to justify vaccination, you'd need a study showing that the virus spreads quickly among unvaccinated young healthy people, no? What's been presented in the article are studies showing that the viral load is reduced in those who take the vaccine immediately after doing so, and that vaccination largely eliminates hospitalisation in those who were prone to it over the study period. I'd disagree with neither of those claims.

Since none of the studies stratify by cohort, nor measure the actual spread of the virus (but rather the viral load in whatever test medium is used), I don't really see how they address the claim.

A study that addresses the claim would be stratified by age and health, would measure viral load in both blood and airway mucosa and would contain follow-up data for at least six months (since any vaccine which needs repeating at that interval would be as good as useless). We'd then need to multiply the ORs from that study by the risk for catching the virus in the first place (again stratified, by behaviour here), to get the OR for transmitting the virus for young healthy unvaccinated people relative to young healthy vaccinated.

I know of no such study.

It depends what you take as your default assumption. Assume it probably works and you'll need a study to show it doesn't to change your mind. Assume it probably doesn't and you'll need a study showing it does. Given the atrocious history of the pharmaceutical industry, I'm in the latter camp.

Don’t forget another misconception that is being knocked down: — Joshs

Now that one has been mentioned. But I see no mention in the article of the issues raised (at least by me)

The studies don't address transmission, as I mentioned above. They don't address viral loads in the nasal mucosa, they don't address viral load in asymptomatic cases, they don't address behavioural changes in vaccinated people, they don't address different responses in the full range of cohorts. — Isaac

None of the actual studies cited in the article address transmission directly. I'm sure someone as astute as you will spot that the actual claim in the title is only directly addressed by the authors own comments with citations limited to support for peripheral claims (such as vaccination reduces infection, most cases are in the unvaccinated...). The actual premise in the argument (that a lack of measured infection means you won't transmit the virus to others as much) is only directly addressed by assertion.

I'm not saying the evidence to support that claim isn't out there, but the article is good example of why people oppose this stuff. It's little more than "believe me because I'm right".

this naïve profession of faith in the motives of a whole bunch of people you know nothing about. — Olivier5

I don't think it's a particularly naïve faith to assume that there aren't huge swathes of people so psychopathic that they're knowingly going to let millions die while they sit back and watch just because they don't like needles, to assume they at least have a narrative in which they're the heroes not the villains.

I mean, it's possible, but I can't for the life of me think why you'd start out from that assumption as a default position whilst at the same time assuming our doctors, governments and corporations have nothing but our best interests at heart. How did the world become thus divided, the psychopaths all in rural America and the saints all in biosciences?

Yep. And you stated

Such expressions of gloom are great precisely because they make one feel superior to the unwashed, 'non-intellectual' masses. — Olivier5

So I guess we both know how to use absolutes in a rhetorical fashion. Well done us, eh.

This is now making the rounds again, being propagated and re-posted who knows where... — jorndoe

...well, here now. Since you've not replied to anyone who actually raised it here all you've done is given it more airtime.

Still, made a nice little straw man for you to knock down.

Here comes the pat on the back...

Well done.

My money is on a very different idea than yours: a good number of COVID contratians are of the opinion that we're making too big a big fuss for a few thousands deaths, that the world is fundamentally Darwinian and tough luck if the weak die. I know that because they say so online, including here. — Olivier5

That's not a different idea than mine. I'm absolutely certain some of then think that way too. Are you really having so much trouble with the notion of heterogeneity?

there's the desertion paradox, that no soldier's individual contribution to the outcome of a battle is so great that he should risk injury or death, therefore every individual soldier has rational grounds for deserting, even if he wants the battle to be won. But of course if every soldier behaves that way then the battle will certainly be lost. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. This is the line of argument I have most sympathy with (though not quite enough to actually agree). If something ought to be done on average, but there's some opposition, then I can see an argument that we all ought to do that thing (even if we're not part of that average), just to show solidarity, encouragement, etc...

And I think I'd be swayed by it were there not a social component to my distrust of the pharmaceutical companies. I'm like it with software too. Passionately open-source, I hate it when organisations I work for use systems which are owned by large corporations. I was an absolute pain in the arse when everyone wanted to use Zoom (when Jitsi is better). I once was asked to file my report on a form which used Microsoft Excel macros. The department (government department, no less!) said that the macros were essential to their system. I asked them for a copy of the tender they were legally required to put out in which Microsoft bid to supply their spreadsheet software and provided the best price for the service...they provided me with a macro free version for my Libre Office.

The point is, there's a lot more to consider than just 'doing our bit' in this one matter, the rest of the world hasn't stood still while we sort out Covid and all the issues with corporate lobbying and the monumental failure of our healthcare systems, taken over by these, frankly, criminal enterprises (lest we forget, they illegally marketed suicide-inducing anti-depressant to children!). I'd need an absolutely watertight model showing no other option would work before I felt that putting my enthusiastic support behind this solution wasn't going to do more harm than good in the long run. A muted, resentful vaccination for those for whom it's absolutely necessary, no fanfare and no reward is, I think, an appropriate response to the blatant exploitation of this crisis by these profiteering hoodlums.