Senate Has Cancel Culture Gone Too Far?

I think there's a really important distinction to be drawn between sources that are inherently not peer reviewed, and preprints. This may be a large enough issue to turn into an actually interesting discussion on the interface between scientific research and the public, but for purposes of this, I do think that there's a case to be made about preprints being useful on a developing topic. That is, of course, provided that they're given the appropriate weight

There's a school of thought that is very much committed to not doing that, though, and overhyping preprints (or, for that matter individual studies that may be outliers) because they say the 'right' thing rather than from any scientific basis. There's a very big difference between an awareness of the developing edges of a field vs cherry picking things to avoid having to reassess one's views.

 

True, I'm not going to automatically dismiss it - but often times it seems more about getting investment money.
Theranos was an especially egregious case, although not a scientist promoting it there, but a shyster Silicon Valley type that didn't seem a traditional fraudster, but rather someone who felt that they could produce the results with enough time and money, and they just made a little white lie about already having developed the process already - hiding behind legal threats, "proprietary" information, and NDAs.

 

In the case of Theranos, I thought, that was just claims being made in media and to officials rather than any actual preprints.

 

One of the earliest complaints against them was in a medical journal that their supposed processes had not been published and peer-reviewed. Their counter was always that their top-secret, revolutionary process was proprietary and could not be revealed, and that everyone should just trust them that the thing that sounded too good to be true was real. Not surprisingly, when they finally allowed it to be tested by a third-party, it failed.
But like she said - "This is what happens when you work to change things, first they think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world."

There's some good news with the Theranos scam - the Walton family, the Cox family, Rupert Murdoch, and Betsy DeVos lost hundreds of millions of dollars investing in it.

 

Yeah, that's very different, though, from the discussions of the medical papers that are pre-prints and will be going through peer review but have just been released publicly to allow them to be responded to quicker. I think there's a value in preprints (when looked at by people that understand what they are) that isn't present in the "trade secrets so we only release what we want" sort of thing.

 

Theranos is more thematically similar, but yes - the issue wasn't pre-prints, but rather that they didn't submit anything.

Pons and Fleischmann, however, did do a pre-print - a month after they did a press conference where they announced they had submitted the paper. It's that one-two punch that really throws up a warning sign.

I do acknowledge the value of pre-prints, however - I've had a couple co-written papers published decades ago (on subject matters rather dull to the general public and not likely to ever generate controversy. )

 

So the problem here is that you have to go with the preponderance of evidence. You can find someone with a PhD in any field who will go against the grain. That doesn’t mean you should seek them out and rely upon them to fit your biases. The most reliable thing to do is to go with what the majority of scientists and doctors are saying at any time. Now that can change, but until it does, go with the prevailing view/s on scientific matters.

 

All right. Lets go with that. Nothing more here.

 

Its far from the only evidence but this isn’t the thread for it and no, there isn’t anything else on this topic to discuss. Don’t we have a cancellation we can rap about? Seems like the cancelling has been slowing down lately. Cmon, so slow out there!

 

It appears Niki Manaj is working her way into the Cancellation penalty box. She's always had some interesting takes on things and tends to generate controversy quite often.

 

Trying to skirt around, talking about covid again. So transparent.

 

So that's what he's on about. He didn't manage to meet the "bring up an example yourself" challenge (unsurprisingly) so no idea what he was going off on this time.

 

Changed subject as per request to Niki Minaj since she is a candidate for some canceling. This thread isn’t about anything other than cancel culture. Do you have a take on Niki? Anyone else that’s under the cancel microscope right now? Seems slow for the cancellers now. Might have a rebound or more activity this fall.

 

With Norm MacDonald's death, Conan O'Brien revealed that the same NBC executive that got Norm fired from SNL - because of Norm's endless jokes at the expense of the executive's good friend, OJ Simpson - also tried to have Norm banned from ever appearing on Conan after an initial appearance. Conan sent back a polite refusal, and the guy didn't press the issue. Conan went on to have Norm on a number of times while he had the NBC show.

 

Harrelson? Woody? . Nope, I dropped Covid from this thread a few posts back. Bad call on my part. Old news. Niki M. is the only current "possible" cancellation victim in the radar right now. Didnt say she was cancelled, just that some people irked over her comments/tweets on various things. Just slow on the cancel front. Lets give the NFL a few weeks, Im sure a player or coach will do "sumtin" to cause a ruckus.

 

I heard the Nicki Minaj story. It's nuts.

Thank you, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your server.

 

I continue to not understand at all how "canceled" is used in this thread.

As it regards Niki Minaj, I've seen people (rightly) bewildered/upset that she confused an STD with the side effect of a medical treatment. People laughing or being shocked about such a comment isn't the same thing as asking for someone to face repercussions of any kind. It is literally just laughing at something dumb on the internet.

 

It's literally just Mike attempting to simultaneously troll while at the same time continue spouting his COVID nonsense in unrelated threads after being banned from the Pandemic thread.

 

You haven't explained what she has done or what other people are doing that actually makes it related to this thread; ergo you haven't actually brought up an example yourself.

It's like you don't grasp how a thread for discussing a topic is supposed to actually work.

 

You guys are giving him too much credit, he doesn't have the basic awareness or thought process to link talking about Minaj with talking about COVID, that's beyond his ability. It's literally one step away, but that's still too far.