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by James Corbett
\nThe Corbett Report<\/p>\n
So you know how anyone who points out any problems with the rush to inject everyone on the planet with an experimental form of gene therapy is portrayed as a stupid, scientifically illiterate, COVID denying, grandma killing anti-vaxxer by the dinosaur media?<\/p>\n
And you know how any of your attempts to articulate these problems to your (former) friends will get you labeled as an anti-science loony and castigated from society?<\/p>\n
Well, imagine if a team of researchers from a prestigious scientific institution infiltrated the COVID skeptic community to expose their scientific ignorance . . . and instead ended up discovering that the skeptics by and large care more about science\u2014and are more knowledgeable about the scientific process\u2014than their critics?<\/p>\n
Guess what? You can stop imagining, because that\u2019s exactly what just happened.<\/p>\n
In this case, the researchers are from MIT, and their paper, \u201cViral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online<\/a>,\u201d was published with little fanfare this past January.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to see why this paper was overlooked. If one merely skims through the paper\u2019s abstract, it seems relatively innocuous. The researchers aim, we are informed, is to better understand how COVID skeptics use data visualizations to spread \u201c[c]ontroversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic\u201d on social media. To do this, they used \u201ca quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, so uninteresting. It\u2019s the researchers\u00a0conclusions<\/i>\u00a0about these visualizations where the real fireworks go off.<\/p>\n The first clue comes in the abstract, where the paper\u2019s authors note \u201can epistemological gap For example, we are told that \u201canti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries,\u201d that \u201ctheir approach to the pandemic is grounded in a [sic]\u00a0more<\/i>\u00a0scientific rigor, not less,\u201d and that \u201canti-mask users in particular were predisposed to digging through the scientific literature and highlighting the uncertainty in academic publications that media organizations elide.\u201d<\/p>\n The study even admits that, \u201ccalling for increased media literacy can often backfire: the instruction to \u2018question more\u2019 can lead to a weaponization of critical thinking and increased distrust of media and government institutions.\u201d (Yet more bonus points for those who recall\u00a0Forbes<\/i>\u2018 infamous\u00a0Don\u2019t Do Your Own Research!<\/a>\u00a0pronouncement from last year.)<\/p>\n And, in one particularly remarkable passage, the researchers outright admit that the COVID skeptics are not only scientifically literate, but in fact pioneering new ways of incorporating data visualizations into their critiques of the scientific establishment:<\/p>\n \u201cArguing that anti-maskers simply need more scientific literacy is to characterize their approach as uninformed and inexplicably extreme. This study shows the opposite: users in these communities are deeply invested in forms of critique and knowledge production that they recognize as markers of scientific expertise. If anything, anti-mask science has extended the traditional tools of data analysis by taking up the theoretical mantle of recent critical studies of visualization.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n None of this is at all surprising to anyone who has spent the last year in the reality-based community, where the tricks and sleights-of-hand of the PCR test-driven casedemic have been exposed on a regular basis. But to find MIT researchers writing this up in a mainstream academic paper is rather remarkable. Reading these excerpts, you would be forgiven for thinking that establishment science had finally gained some self-awareness and realized how laughable it has become.<\/p>\n . . . But you would be wrong. No, somehow the paper manages to take these remarkable findings and shoehorn them back into a pat establishment-friendly narrative: These COVID skeptics\u2019 critiques of the mainstream consensus are completely wrong and we need to figure out how to get them to accept our pronouncements with less resistance in the future.<\/p>\n Even so, the paper is worth reading (especially the passage toward the end of the introduction where they echo my\u00a0Science Says<\/a>\u00a0podcast with an acknowledgement that \u201cthere is no such thing as dispassionate or objective data analysis,\u201d but rather \u201cstories shaped by cultural logics, animated by personal experience, and entrenched by collective action\u201d). Also worth reading is the accompanying\u00a0article from MIT News<\/a>, which gives more insights into how the research team used \u201cDeep Lurking\u201d to infiltrate COVID skeptic communities and how they were amazed to find that skeptics\u2019 arguments are not only scientifically literate but \u201creally quite nuanced.\u201d<\/p>\n So is it possible we\u2019re going to see a more open and constructive debate between the establishment consensus crowd and the skeptics as a result of these realizations? Of course not.<\/p>\n In case there was any question as to whether COVID skeptics will be treated fairly in mainstream debates going forward, we could look to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO)\u2019s\u00a0statement of April 30<\/a>\u00a0for an answer. The CPSO, Ontario\u2019s physician licensing body, are evidently so concerned about doctors daring to speak out on social media about the shoddy science underpinning the scamdemic narrative that they decided to put their foot down:<\/p>\n \u201cThe College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and\/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In response, a group of physicians from across Canada signed a\u00a0declaration of their own<\/a>\u00a0denouncing the CPSO and their inherently anti-scientific statement. In a section of their declaration specifically accusing the CPSO of denying the scientific method itself, they write:<\/p>\n \u201cThe CPSO is ordering physicians to put aside the scientific method and to not debate the processes and conclusions of science.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe physicians know and continue to believe that throughout history, opposing views, vigorous debate and openness to new ideas have been the bedrock of scientific progress. Any major advance in science has been arrived at by practitioners vigorously questioning \u201cofficial\u201d narratives and following a different path in the pursuit of truth.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n They then go on to decry the censorship of scientific debate, noting that it constitutes a violation of doctors\u2019 pledge to provide evidence-based medicine for their patients and that it violates the principle of informed consent, which, they note, is not just a \u201csacred duty\u201d of physicians but also a legal obligation under the Nuremberg Code.<\/p>\n The declaration has so far been\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0by 448 physicians and co-signed by over 11,000 concerned citizens from across Canada, but CPSO has yet to retract their order.<\/p>\n This is the state we have arrived at in the ongoing Orwellian nightmare of the COVID scam. Even mainstream researchers can no longer pretend that the skeptics are scientifically illiterate dunces, but it doesn\u2019t matter. Any and all dissenting voices are being squelched out at the organizational level. The establishment is closing ranks to defend its narrative.<\/p>\n This is not surprising to those of us who have followed the unfolding of\u00a0COVID-911<\/a>\u00a0and who know that\u2014far from a seat-of-the-pants response to an out-of-the-blue and ultra-deadly pandemic\u2014the events of the past year have been a long-planned series of actions designed to lead us through a\u00a0biosecurity state<\/a>\u00a0into a\u00a0Great Reset<\/a>, and, ultimately,\u00a0the end of humanity<\/a>. Unfortunately, there are still relatively few of us who understand what is happening and many, many people whose ignorance about science, medicine, politics and economics has been effectively weaponized against us. These zombies will be the ones to lead us into the coming nightmare by clamouring for vaccine passports and forced \u201cvaccinations\u201d and all the other pre-planned \u201csolutions\u201d to this\u00a0pre-planned crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nthat leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data.\u201d (Bonus points if you recognize this point as the central conceit of my\u00a0Same Facts, Opposite Conclusions<\/a>\u00a0episode of #PropagandaWatch from last November.) But buried further down in the article are a raft of observations that cause problems for those trying to assert that \u201canti-maskers\u201d and \u201canti-vaxxers\u201d are scientifically illiterate.<\/p>\n