Maggie's Farm

The medical examiner determined that Floyd's death was a homicide, and that heart disease and drug use were factors but not the “top line” causes.

Observation is necessary for science but not sufficient.


There are observational tests in evolutionary biology and in paleontology. More particularly, science works by matching theories to observations through a process of hypothetico-deduction.

As an example, given common descent, paleontologist Neil Shubin deduced that there should have once existed an intermediate species between fish and tetrapods. From other fossils, he further deduced this transition should have happened in the Devonian Period, about 380 million years ago or so. The proposed observation is that a fossil of a close relative of this transition might be found in strata of this age. Strata of this age is relatively rare on the Earth's surface, but includes Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. Shubin and his colleagues mounted expeditions to the Canadian Arctic. They found fossils of a previously unknown species, Tiktaalik, which exhibits characteristics of both fish and tetrapods.

Hypothesis, deduction, observation.

Of course, no one expects a twelve year old to make such a dramatic discovery. She could have proposed a simple hypothesis by deducing the discovery of particular types of fossils to the particular strata. Then her observations would be confirmatory of previous discoveries.

However, all her hard work should probably have been recognized. While science is more than observation, some scientists only observe, while other scientists only theorize. But it requires both to constitute science.

• The newsletter refers to recent deaths not overall deaths.
  
• If you follow the CDC link, 100% of the deaths are noted as either caused by COVID or COVID as a contributing cause.
  
• If you look at the referenced study, Caitlin Trottier et al., the results concern only much smaller numbers in more recent periods when the death rate for COVID was substantially reduced by either vaccination or previous exposure. They recommend hypoxemia testing for better diagnostics.

As the numbers hospitalized for COVID decrease, the signal will be increasingly clouded by statistical noise.

OneGuy: Think about this in the context that Zach cannot stand the idea that Covid deaths were fraud.

We're more than happy to consider the possibility, but the article misrepresents its own citations. There are multiple independent measures that support the claim that a million Americans died due to COVID, including the statistics of excess deaths. Any claim about fraud would have to explain why these independent measures reach the same conclusion.

OneGuy: He must sow disinformation because they intend to use pandemics again to seize power.

All we did was read the information provided in the original article. {See bullet points.}

Roger the Dodger: Keep growing your list of "Zach's" erudite accomplishments.

For the record, we never claim or rely upon any personal expertise. Instead, we support our positions with argument and evidence. On this particular blog post, all we did was read the original sources to discover what was actually said by those sources.

indyjonesouthere: Science mag finally admits so called "long covid" is nothing more than a long term adverse effect of the Covid vaxxes.

That is incorrect. If you read the actual article in ScienceInsider, "Cases {of post-vaccination Long Covid-like illness} seem very rare—far less common than Long Covid after infection." Even then, the evidence of the link is not certain. See Vogel & Couzin-Frankel, Rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness starts to gain acceptance, Science Insider 2023.

imdyjonesouthere: And they have only just begun the study.

But that wasn’t your claim. You claimed that “Science mag finally admits so called ‘long COVID’ is nothing more than a long term adverse effect of the Covid vaxxes.” But that’s not what the article says. Indeed, it says that Long COVID is almost always due to previous infection—not due to vaccination.

indyjonesouthere: And the studies WILL continue.

Of course, but that is no reason to misrepresent the article in order to use that misrepresentation to support your claim about what might or might not be discovered in the future.

indyjonesouthere: Nothing in the article is misrepresented.

What you said: Science mag finally admits so called "long covid" is nothing more than a long term adverse effect of the Covid vaxxes.

What Science Insider actually said: "Cases {of post-vaccination Long Covid-like illness} seem very rare—far less common than Long Covid after infection.”

Those statements are not in agreement. Perhaps you meant that the Science Insider article acknowledges that post-vaccination Long Covid-like illness does exist, though it is very rare.

That doesn’t address your misrepresentation. You said they said, “A,” but they said, “B.”

None of that is relevant to your misrepresentation of the Science Insider article. We would be happy to discuss the larger issue, but not if you won't even grant the obvious.

indyjonesouthere: Go read the header on the Voxday article.

We did already. Voxday misrepresents the original source Science Insider article in two ways:

• 1. Voxday falsely claims that Long Covid is nothing more than Long Vax (post-vaccination long covid-like illness). The article clearly states that the vast majority of Long Covid cases are due to previous infection, not the vaccine.
• 2. Voxday falsely claims the article "finally admits" this, even though the same authors in the same magazine had discussed the issue a year and a half ago.

Voxday links to an archive of Epoch Times, which repeats the false claim about the "long silence," but doesn't repeat the false claim that Long Covid is nothing more than Long Vax. It's a game of telephones, which is why it is always a good idea to check original sources.

indyjonesouthere: And the original source, Science Insider, finally is recognizing that Long Vax exists and it is NOT Long Covid. They never admitted to that before

You just made the same false claim again. The same authors in the same magazine had discussed so-called Long Vax a year and a half ago. At that time, NIH was investigating the issue, but rare events are difficult to study.

indyjonesouthere: They may have discussed it but did they accept it.

Gee whiz. The article from January 2022, which we linked above, is headlined: "In rare cases, coronavirus vaccines may cause Long Covid–like symptoms." There has been significant interest in the research community, but, again, rare events are difficult to study.

So, you grant your original comment on the matter misrepresented the contents of the Science Insider article. That wasn’t so hard, after all.

indyjonesouthere: Science mag finally admits so called "long covid" is nothing more than a long term adverse effect of the Covid vaxxes.

Not only does that misrepresent what the recent article actually states, but, it turns out, that the same Science Insider magazine and the same authors were discussing the subject a year and a half ago. So much for "finally admits."

None of that is relevant to your claim that the discussion of post-vaccination long covid-like illness is new to Science Insider. Common ground in discussions can be found by founding such discussion in facts. If you reject facts, then . . . Oh, yeah. That's right:

indyjonesouthere: And don't really care which side has more or less data.

indyjonesouthere: the science insider as FINALLY acknowledging Long covid/vax.

As noted above, that is also false. The same authors in the same magazine had written about so-called Long Vax a year and a half ago. The NIH was already investigating, but rare events can be difficult to study.

Just grant the obvious points so we can move on.

indyjonesouthere: If you read the Epoch Health piece you will see that the NIH did begin the study and then shut down and buried the study.

THE study? There have been a number of reports about Long Vax in medical journals. The one study you reference is still available as a preprint. It's still there. But rare events are difficult to study.

In any case, you haven't granted the obvious points. There has to be common ground based in evidence for any reasonable discussion.

indyjonesouthere: You and I will not recognize the same obvious points.

As already noted, you haven't been able or willing to address the false information you introduced at the beginning of the discussion. You copied a misrepresentation of the original article from Voxday. We showed you why it was a misrepresentation, but it doesn't appear you even read the original July 2023 article or the January 2022 article, which is the basis for the discussion.

indyjonesouthere: There may be no long covid - it may all be long vax.

Well, you can make stuff up, but that doesn't constitute evidence. People acquired Long Covid before the vaccine was even available. The evidence is that Long Vax is a very rare phenomenon.