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Medicine Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

WTF happened to John Ioannidis revisited: The Carl Sagan effect

I have been critical about John Ioannidis over a number of his statements about the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he’s done it again, producing a poor-quality paper whose unwritten assumptions suggest that the Carl Sagan effect, in which scientists are penalized professionally by their peers for becoming popular science communicators, still holds considerable sway in science and medicine.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Tom Chivers and “reasonable” apologia for science denial

Tom Chivers takes Lee McIntyre to task over his book How to Talk to a Science Denier. In the process he shows himself to be a crappy Bayesian and a “reasonable” apologist for science denial.

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Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 5: But it won the Nobel Prize!

Ivermectin continues to be the new hydroxychloroquine, an unproven repurposed drug promoted to treat COVID-19. Now the advocates are pointing to the history of the drug’s developers being awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, as though that has anything to do with its effectiveness against COVID-19.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Biology Medicine Science

No, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do NOT “hack the software of life”

Antivaxxers and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists were always going to spin conspiracies about COVID-19 vaccines. Unfortunately, some scientists have made it so much easier for them by having likened mRNA vaccines to “hacking the software of life” and being unclear on what gene therapy is.

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Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

A blast from the early pandemic past: Healight to treat COVID-19

In April, I wrote about Healight, a device intended to treat COVID-19 by shining UV light directly into the lungs of patients on a ventilator. Its creators have finally published a clinical study. Unfortunately, it is…underwhelming.