MIT: Covid Skeptics Champion Science

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
May 22, 2021

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?

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?

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—and are more knowledgeable about the scientific process—than their critics?

Guess what? You can stop imagining, because that's exactly what just happened. 

In this case, the researchers are from MIT, and their paper, "Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online," was published with little fanfare this past January.

It's not hard to see why this paper was overlooked. If one merely skims through the paper's abstract, it seems relatively innocuous. The researchers aim, we are informed, is to better understand how COVID skeptics use data visualizations to spread "[c]ontroversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic" on social media. To do this, they used "a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook."

So far, so uninteresting. It's the researchers conclusions about these visualizations where the real fireworks go off.

The first clue comes in the abstract, where the paper's authors note "an epistemological gap
that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data." (Bonus points if you recognize this point as the central conceit of my Same Facts, Opposite Conclusions episode 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 "anti-maskers" and "anti-vaxxers" are scientifically illiterate.

For example, we are told that "anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries," that "their approach to the pandemic is grounded in a [sic] more scientific rigor, not less," and that "anti-mask users in particular were predisposed to digging through the scientific literature and highlighting the uncertainty in academic publications that media organizations elide."

The study even admits that, "calling for increased media literacy can often backfire: the instruction to 'question more' can lead to a weaponization of critical thinking and increased distrust of media and government institutions." (Yet more bonus points for those who recall Forbes' infamous Don't Do Your Own Research! pronouncement from last year.)

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:

"Arguing 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."

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.

. . . 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' 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.

Even so, the paper is worth reading (especially the passage toward the end of the introduction where they echo my Science Says podcast with an acknowledgement that "there is no such thing as dispassionate or objective data analysis," but rather "stories shaped by cultural logics, animated by personal experience, and entrenched by collective action"). Also worth reading is the accompanying article from MIT News, which gives more insights into how the research team used "Deep Lurking" to infiltrate COVID skeptic communities and how they were amazed to find that skeptics' arguments are not only scientifically literate but "really quite nuanced."

So is it possible we're 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.

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)'s statement of April 30 for an answer. The CPSO, Ontario’s 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:

"The 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."

In response, a group of physicians from across Canada signed a declaration of their own denouncing 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:

"The CPSO is ordering physicians to put aside the scientific method and to not debate the processes and conclusions of science.

"We 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 “official” narratives and following a different path in the pursuit of truth."

They then go on to decry the censorship of scientific debate, noting that it constitutes a violation of doctors' 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 "sacred duty" of physicians but also a legal obligation under the Nuremberg Code.

The declaration has so far been signed by 448 physicians and co-signed by over 11,000 concerned citizens from across Canada, but CPSO has yet to retract their order.

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't matter. Any and all dissenting voices are being squelched out at the organizational level. The establishment is closing ranks to defend its narrative.

This is not surprising to those of us who have followed the unfolding of COVID-911 and who know that—far from a seat-of-the-pants response to an out-of-the-blue and ultra-deadly pandemic—the events of the past year have been a long-planned series of actions designed to lead us through a biosecurity state into a Great Reset, and, ultimately, the end of humanity. 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 "vaccinations" and all the other pre-planned "solutions" to this pre-planned crisis.

Case in point: this reddit thread where a vaccinated hospital worker casually admits that many doctors and nurses at his hospital refused to take the "vaccines" because they "didn't trust them." The response of the mindless lemmings to this deeply unsettling news? "That sucks to hear :( But I'm glad you got the shot!!"

So, if you are reading these words, congratulations: You are not a zombie. You are—as MIT admits—scientifically literate enough to have seen through the smokescreen of lies and manipulations that have bamboozled the masses. Of course, the bad news is that means you are now firmly in the crosshairs of both the establishment and their zombie hordes.

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