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MIT Researchers Find That ‘Skeptics’ Value Data Literacy and Scientific Rigour

by Noah Carl
12 May 2021 11:15 AM

Throughout the pandemic, governments have claimed to be following “the science”. But of course, many aspects of “the science” were never settled. 

The WHO, as well as the UK Government, initially told us not to wear face masks. They then decided that face masks were essential. Countries like Australia and New Zealand introduced border controls in early February. Meanwhile, UK scientists were advising against port-of-entry screening. Researchers predicted there would be 96,000 deaths in Sweden by July. But as it turned out, there were fewer than 6,000. 

Of course, many people have been sceptical of “the science” (by which I mean the officially endorsed science) from the very beginning. And of course, they’ve formed communities online with other like-minded persons. (Lockdown Sceptics would be one example of such a community.) 

In an unpublished paper, researchers from MIT sought to understand how the users of these communities obtain, analyse, share and curate information. Surprisingly (to them), they found that users place a premium on data literacy and scientific rigour. 

The researchers used a mixed methods design. First, they analysed a large sample of pandemic-related tweets sent between January and July 2020. Second, they employed ethnographic methods to study users on “anti-mask” Facebook groups. (Note that they use “anti-mask” as a “synecdoche for a broad spectrum of beliefs: that the pandemic is exaggerated, schools should be reopening, etc.”)

In their analysis of Twitter data, the researchers found that sceptics “share the second-highest number of charts across the top six communities”, and that they are “the most prolific producers of area/line charts”, while sharing “the fewest number of photos”. They also found that such individuals “often create polished counter-visualizations that would not be out of place in scientific papers”.  

In their study of “anti-mask” Facebook groups, the researchers found that users “value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over “expert interpretations”, and that “their approach to the pandemic is grounded in more scientific rigour, not less”. 

“Most fundamentally,” the researchers write, “the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution”. They note:

While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review, and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist.

According to the researchers, “anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries”, and data literacy is a “quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created”.

Based on these descriptions, one might assume the paper was written by a cadre of undercover sceptics. But the researchers make clear they are “not promoting these views”. Overall, it’s a fascinating study which is worth reading in full. 

Tags: Lockdown ScepticsMasksThe Science

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34 Comments
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steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago

“users “value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over “expert” interpretations””

ie skeptics (in the broadest sense) value the data over political interpretations of it

This makes sense because the actual data supports our positions.

82
0
chris c
chris c
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

Precisely! The Annointed vs. The Wisdom Of The Crowds

1
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

The WHO, as well as the UK Government, initially told us not to wear face masks. They then decided that face masks were essential.

Then they told us that 2 masks are better than one.

36
0
Lucan Grey
Lucan Grey
4 years ago

Are people tweeting up the petition?

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/581316?reveal_response=yes#response-threshold

The response from the government is unscientific. The Fomite Hypothesis has been disproved already so if they are actually listening to the science why are they still pushing the “regular hand washing” line?

The response to the petition is pitiful. Unless it gets more traction then we are going nowhere.

Last edited 4 years ago by Lucan Grey
18
0
jsampson45
jsampson45
4 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

Petitions and government consultations are mug’s games.

5
-3
Lucan Grey
Lucan Grey
4 years ago
Reply to  jsampson45

It’s all we have to even remotely have a chance of shifting the narrative. If we don’t engage collectively, then we get rolled over.

Last edited 4 years ago by Lucan Grey
18
0
IanC
IanC
4 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

Agreed. Just signed.

1
0
LePib
LePib
4 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

BBC say you should wash your hands for 20 seconds before and after sex now. Nothing like a bit of handwashing to get the pulse racing. Similarly, when smoking is now so frowned upon what else would we do whilst basking in post-coitus afterglow than indulge in some thorough digit scrubbing? .

7
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LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago
Reply to  LePib

It’s not necessarily your hands that need washing before sex…

11
0
IanC
IanC
4 years ago
Reply to  LePib

I put this out there yesterday but seems even more appropriate today…

Hugs in Merthyr.jpg
2
0
mm99
mm99
4 years ago

Only very occasionally do your enemies give you such an honest window into what they’re thinking.

26
0
SweetBabyCheeses
SweetBabyCheeses
4 years ago
Reply to  mm99

👌

1
0
A Heretic
A Heretic
4 years ago

and in this week’s edition of “No shit, Sherlock”

34
0
mmacg
mmacg
4 years ago

“Surprisingly (to them)”

to them. Exactly correct. I read the paper earlier this morning. Underlying the whole thing was an alarming arrogance that anyone should question the “experts”.

  1. Most of us who have dissented from the prevailing lockdown orthodoxy and have refused to live in fear are educated (not necessarily university degreed), literate and numerate persons well capable of reading and understanding scientific papers.
  2. Our bread and butter does not depend on giving Government the message it wants to hear.

“science is a process”. Absolutely correct. Science is the process, using the scientific method, by which humans improve and increase their knowledge of the natural world.

Note the phrase “improve and increase”. Much of what we know from science is uncertain. We may believe something is likely to be correct, but we may not be certain why t is or whether it is. Much of science is about improving rather than increasing knowledge.

The Laws of science, Laws of Motion, Thermodynamics, these we are certain about.
The Theories that have not yet been elevated to Laws, these we are confident in, but not certain.
Hypotheses: these are subject to experimentation and research.
At one end, we may have high confidence in a Hypothesis, it may be elevated to a Theory. One the other hand, the results of experimentation may be uncertain or contradictory requiring much more experiment or research to improve or discard the Hypothesis.

Applying the above definitions to Lockdown proposals, I would rank the two alternate Lockdown recommendations from the various disagreeing scientists as follows:

Scientific opponents of mandatory longterm lockdowns:
to the extent that this position was based on 100 years of research and evaluations of responses to the 1918, 1957 and 1968 pandemics, this would be a Hypothesis with middling high confidence.

Scientific proponents of mandatory Longterm lockdowns:
this position was initially developed in the mid-2000s. Based almost entirely on computer modelling, there was no real world experimental or observational data testing the Hypothesis. In the absence of experimental or observational data confirming the Hypothesis, this must be considered t o have low confidence.

A yer and more into the pandemic, the evidence of multiple scientific papers is clear, the Lockdown Hypothesis is incorrect, it does not deliver the expected results, it should be discarded, just as the phlogiston hypothesis was.

56
0
mm99
mm99
4 years ago
Reply to  mmacg

I’m filled with disdain for the authors.

11
-2
mmacg
mmacg
4 years ago
Reply to  mm99

I am not. I am quite sure they are honest researchers, simply unconciously trapped in and or indoctrinated by their educational formation.

I pity them, I hope they will soon realise how they have been duped.

16
0
mm99
mm99
4 years ago
Reply to  mmacg

They see your rationality as a problem to be solved, but OK.

11
0
CovidiousAlbion
CovidiousAlbion
4 years ago
Reply to  mmacg

“Laws of Motion, Thermodynamics, these we are certain about.”

Are we?

Is doubt of Special Relativity no longer tenable? How about Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Thermodynamics?

6
0
mmacg
mmacg
4 years ago
Reply to  CovidiousAlbion

At the extremes of our knowledge, you are correct.
However, within the actual range of practical applications, any engineer who would not observe the laws motion or thermodynamics would be certainly doomed to failure.

At the same time, policies based on Hypotheses unsupported by experimental or observatioal data are also unlikely to be successful.

6
0
MTF
MTF
4 years ago

Fascinating and thought provoking paper. For me the key quote is:  “Put differently, there is no such thing as dispassionate or objective data analysis. Instead, there are stories: stories shaped by cultural logics, animated by personal experience, and entrenched by collective action”.

12
0
mm99
mm99
4 years ago

This study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council, both of which are funded by Bill Gates and all the other usual suspects.

21
-2
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago

Aka: sceptics looked at the actual data, made an intellectual and intelligent assessment rather than a hysterical emotional one, and came to a scientific judgment and not a political one. Shame on them.

39
0
WorriedCitizen
WorriedCitizen
4 years ago

My take away quote from the Government response is; “ Even after people have had both doses of the vaccine, they may still carry and transmit COVID-19, spreading of the virus will then continue.”

Well if the above is true, how the fuck does a Covid Passport help? Answer, because it’s not for reducing transmission as claimed but social control as we all know. I hope those PCPs work out and these criminals end up behind bars.

Last edited 4 years ago by WorriedCitizen
29
0
ebygum
ebygum
4 years ago

So it comes as a surprise that people who question and research things know more than people who don’t! And we had to do a study on it?
Who’d a thunk!!

33
0
optocarol
optocarol
4 years ago
Reply to  ebygum

Seems like stating the blindingly obvious to me!

5
0
Data Soong
Data Soong
4 years ago

The authors are sadly very condescending; they are so arrogant of the superiority of their position, that even though they see all of the convincing evidence that skeptics have been presenting, they still dismiss it because it doesn’t jive with who they perceive as the “experts”. Now more than ever, we need citizen scientists who are willing to challenge the prevailing narratives of COVID, catastrophic climate change, and other politically-hijacked issues. Skeptics may end up being proven wrong on some aspects, but at least there will be open-mindedness on the issues, instead of just blindly believing who the media claim are the “experts.”

I am a meteorologist myself and see how the media takes the most extreme climate scientists (along with a bunch of politicians and journalists) and promote their extreme beliefs as mainstream. That’s why the meteorological community is one of the more skeptical scientific communities when it comes to catastrophic climate change. Search for surveys of the American Meteorological Society, compared with other professional scientific societies; meteorologists are much less convinced of catastrophic climate change. For example: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wcas/12/2/wcas-d-19-0003.1.xml

35
0
AfterAll
AfterAll
4 years ago
Reply to  Data Soong

Good for you! The damage that has already been done (biofuels for a start) and that will be done in future on the pretext of preventing climate change is absolutely horrendous, and the policies are headed for a fail even on their own terms.

Last edited 4 years ago by AfterAll
12
0
Woden
Woden
4 years ago
Reply to  Data Soong

Yet , I have never seen an accurate weather forecast, seaweed, pinecones and barometers are more accurate.

3
-2
Alethea
Alethea
4 years ago

Yes, WE ARE A MAGNIFICENT PEOPLE.

12
0
WeAllFallDown
WeAllFallDown
4 years ago

I pity these poor ingenues. I imagine there are theories and hypotheses that they are seeing for the first time, and will never unsee. It’s like people who have never investigated vaccines properly before having them who discover the hard way that vaccines “are safe and effective”. (Which has to say that they aren’t and never have been and can come with a trade-off of neurological damage, or now, clots). That it is never reported because there has been a concerted push to suppress that information, depriving the individual of an opportunity to make an informed choice. And that the press that we all thought was free, is in fact paid for by the people whose share portfolios are stuffed to the gills with “safe” pharma shares.

It’s a devastating awakening. To think that all your hard work has been exploited and your personal integrity sacrificed just to make a quick buck. Even sadder is when you watch a very decent and trustworthy scientist being trashed through social media, denigrated by respectable journalists, and all for having temerity to raise the alarm about an inadequate product.

How thoroughly depressing. We should expect increasing levels of attack on the circulation of valid and verifiable information, now. Like an online book burning.

But this is what we get for populating tertiary education with so many mediocre thinkers and misogynists.

Last edited 4 years ago by WeAllFallDown
16
0
Smelly Melly
Smelly Melly
4 years ago

In other words “sceptics” tend to be question and come to their own conclusions ie more intelligent than zealots.

9
0
JohnK
JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

And of course that is how real science developed in the first place, rather than just believing what the pope says, or whatever.

1
0
GCarty80
GCarty80
4 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

I think the more accurate description of medieval European “science” would be “just believing what Aristotle said”.

0
0
Crystal Decanter
Crystal Decanter
4 years ago

Scepticism is the root of scientific advancement shock horror

9
0

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