Talk about Jungian… I just came across this op-ed today. An hour or so ago, in fact.
They used to have a good puzzle-page, didn’t finish it, so haven’t seen if they still do.
Lymphoma seem to be connected to viral infections.
Seems to me that science is a tool that is the best way we’ve found as a species to minimize bias in determining what is true and what is not true. Idealization and bias come from the human beings using the tool, not from the tool itself. That’s one reason why peer review is helpful - it helps correct the bias of individuals.
The Epoch Times has been consistently very biased when it comes to its content related to science, politics, and a number of other matters. Considering the source of the publication, that isn’t terribly surprising.
One thing I learned a looooong time ago is that they’re all biased. Other countries have their leftist newspapers, rightist papers, anarchist papers, etc., and they make their biases known. So you know where they’re coming from, and just like setting the white-balance on a camera, you can filter their stories accordingly and get to the truth.
It’s only here in the USofA that all our “news” sources claim to be unbiased. 
As far as the ET column, it’s easy to check. Find the listed articles in Science, Nature, the NEJM, etc., and see if the articles actually exist, or if the author just made it up.
I get the feeling those articles actually do exist. And if so, yeah, what’s it to “science” rags to go politicising things? So in that sense, the author’s spot-on, and makes the point beautifully.
Way back when I was into shortwave, I’d catch The Beeb and listen to their news reports. They just presented the facts, dryly, that it’s as if they were reading the weather report or stock results. No commentary, no tsk-tsking, nothing like that. I’d almost nod off, but then it became kinda refreshing. And I had no idea why.
And when I tuned into the local “my 9” news, and the talking heads would “editorialise” things and make faces and roll their eyes, etc., that’s when I saw the difference. They were quite openly putting their spin on the stories, and I realised I didn’t want that. I just wanted the news, not their opinions.
So if “science” journals turn political, how can I trust them or what they’re reporting?
Exactly!
Science is just a tool to get at the truth. A tool used by people that are not infallible.
Was quite amusing to read the reference article. The cognitive dissonance of someone who works for the Discovery Institute lamenting the damaging effects of Ideology in Science is sublime.
OK, let’s be clear here. I didn’t say that there are any completely un-biased news sources. After all, the decision to try to be un-biased incorporates a value-judgment, just as the decision to be biased also incorporates a value judgment.
But let’s also be accurate in our comparisons. Have the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post created companies under other names that use fake media personalities and fake organizations to promote its content elsewhere? Have any of those newspapers written news stories as if they are opinion op-editorials, heavily praising one particular party’s candidates and promoting false conspiracy stories intended to smear candidates of a competing party? Have any of those newspapers had a regular column promoting pseudo-science as if it was scientifically proven, like using meditation to develop “supernormal abilities,” or cancer detection inventions that are allegedly exponentially faster, less expensive, and more accurate than real methods? Were any of those newspapers’ parent companies banned from Facebook for creating more than 600 fake online personalities posing as USA citizens but in fact based in Asia, for the purpose of spreading false conspiracy theories supporting a particular USA president and discouraging support for a competing politician?
No, they haven’t, and they weren’t. But the Epoch Times did, and it was.
The way I look at it, if Hitler rose from the dead and told me it’s raining out, and I poke my head out the window and sure enough get drenched, then he’s right.
I don’t have to believe other things that he tells me, but if he says one thing, and it’s verifiable, then in that one case he’s spot on.
It might be his “opinion”, too, that it’s raining out, but if it’s news to me, then great, I can use that tidbit of knowledge and scoot out and close my car windows.
The alternative, of course, is to dismiss anything’n’everything he says, and come out tomorrow to a car with a drenched interior.
No dog in this fight. Never read the thing but if it is as NH says, why would you be there in the first place? It’s like the old saying about voting, “I don’t vote, it only encourages them”. Or ” a broken clock is right twice a day”.
I certainly agree with the premise that if there is a verifiable fact it doesn’t matter who said it. It is all about the fact. Nothing in that convoluted stretch of an article would rise to the point of fact in support of the premise. The author blasts a science magazine for publishing an editorial. (e.g. Hitler) Attacks opinion while offering nothing of factual evidence as to misplaced science.
He even goes on to argue that doctors should be allowed to practice opinion rather than science! Verifiable fact that guns are a cause of death. Doctors who acknowledge that fact are being politicized anti-second amendment. Insanity.
One of the saddest things I’ve ever read:
EXCERPT
It is sad. Everything is fake or fraud. The country has been handicapped by a barrage of lies and conspiracy crap. It is like a cult. We all need debriefing.
I’m rather amused now, because there are diatribes about Goggle and Facebroke and other “news sources” that choose which stories you see based on your preferences/history, letting people feed upon themselves to build a biased and increasingly insular worldview, and that’s “unhealthy”.
Ie, if you’re red or blue, all the stories spoon-fed to you are from similar red/blue biases. If you’re pro-Truden or pro-Bimp, you’ll get more stories about them (or against the other), so that colors your news sources to a rather limited worldview. Our guys good! Their guys bad!
Hell, the feds are trying to break up those companies in the interest of “fairness”.
And now because some paper is put out by people who go and do Chinese yoga or meditate or whatever, you get poopooed for even looking at their newspapers.
Oh, but increasingly politicised “science” mags are unbiased. Uh-huh.
I get the feeling that people not only don’t know what they want, but are of the mindset that they’ll demand one scrambled egg and one fried egg for breakfast. Then when they get it, you’ll get a dirty look.
“What??? They both cooked to perfection!”
“You scrambled the wrong egg…”
That last one is funny. I think we know the real truth from the fake truth though. If you don’t believe it, just ask me. I’ve been wrong once.
Just like I think it was Bill Cooper who said, “Read everything, but believe nothing, not until you check it out for yourself.”.
Set your dehumidifier to 60 percent.
EXCERPT
common mask protocol violations:
pic is a link
Reminds me of this:
I don’t believe anyone in this thread has criticized anyone else for looking at a newspaper, or criticized the newspaper itself, because the newspaper is put out by people who do yoga, or meditate.
This is what we’ve really said: in response to members posting links to articles from specific news sources, some of us have pointed out that some news sources are more biased than others, and we’ve recently given examples to demonstrate why we are skeptical of the information published by one particular newspaper. Above, I gave numerous examples showing that one particular newspaper is very biased and has published a relatively large amount of false information compared to other newspapers.
Companies in the USA don’t get broken up because they are “unfair.” They get broken up very rarely in the USA in the last several decades, but when they get broken up it is because the market power controlled by the company at issue creates a situation in which the market can’t work right - resulting in a loss for society due to problems like prices that are too high, and output that is too low to clear the markets efficiently. That kind of market power also creates barriers to entry into the market, which can also result in a loss for consumers and the society as a whole.
I Asked Dr. Fauci
EXCERPT
This pandemic has confirmed my belief that Homo sapiens is the craziest and most irrational life form on planet Earth.