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Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad team up to lecture social media about “obsessive criticism”

Formerly respectable academics John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad published a complaint about “obsessive criticism” on social media. Hilarity ensued, and many irony meters were reduced to sparking, smoking, sputtering ruin.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

A quack is launching his own AI chatbot in 2024

Crank, quack, and antivaxxer Mike Adams is unhappy with current AI systems. So he’s developing his own “natural health” large language model-based AI chatbot for 2024. Hilarity will ensue, for sure, but is he at the vanguard of a dangerous trend?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Pseudoscience

Two-thirds of the Great Barrington Declaration aren’t even hiding that they are antivax anymore

Two of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration appeared on a panel with antivaxxer Steve Kirsch, who thinks COVID vaccines have killed 500K. And they keep denying that they are antivax!

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

“CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory, resurrected by “new school” antivaxxers

In 2014, Andrew Wakefield unveiled Brian Hooker’s “CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory featuring William Thompson, a CDC scientist who claimed that a vaccine-autism link was being covered up. Now, Steve Kirsch and other COVID-19 antivaxxers are resurrecting it.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Did Anthony Fauci have a “conflict of interest” because his wife is Chief of Bioethics at NIH?

While Orac was off last week, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk resurrected an antivax conspiracy theory that Anthony Fauci’s wife was “supposed to make sure” that he “behaves ethically.”