Controlled experiments show MDs dismissing evidence due to ideology | Hacker News Reader

Controlled experiments show MDs dismissing evidence due to ideology

arstechnica.com

32 pointscommoner7 comments

I think it may be worse than that - I think the evidence points to MD dismissing evidence due to group identity. For example, we see that democrats were more likely to be pro-vaccination than republicans, but it's also worth noting that when Democrats were not in power, it was they that were raising doubts about the vaccines when Trump was president:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/05/kamala-harris-trump...

The anti-vaxxine movement genesis is in San Marin county in San Fransisco - one of the bluest" spots in the nation. These positions flipped when the in group became the outgroup in power.

Ideology means that groups at least are making a (flawed) calculation based on subjective "facts." Group identity means that it's simply the reaction of lemmings chasing each other over the cliff.

*Marin County, not “San Marin”.

> “Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she wouldn’t take President Donald Trump’s word on the reliability of any coronavirus vaccine released before the election”

That aged like fine wine.

Much like Trump's reputation for probity and intellectual acuity.

> it was they that were raising doubts about the vaccines when Trump was president

From the article and the video of the interview which the article describes: Harris is discussing the fact that she doesn’t trust Trump, and that this mistrust extends to his claims towards the efficacy of the vaccine. This does not imply that she (or democrats) were raising doubts about the vaccine in general, in fact she follows her statement that she would trust a credible source on the matter.

I know of two people within my social circle who died of Covid after a vaccine was available, but having refused it. Both were men in their 40's (I'm approaching that myself) who had long, lingering deaths. One unconscious on a ventilator for months, and the other unable to do much of anything for a year or so while he waited on a lung transplant list for a donation that never came. The decision seemed quite simple to me before that, but after it seems like I'm living in a different world than some people.

The anti-vaxxine movement genesis is in San Marin county in San Fransisco

Marin county, not San Marin county, and it's just to the north of SF in the Bay Area. Marin County is basically rich people and rich hippies. It is an origin point on the anti-vaccination movement, going back to well before COVID (a 'movement' I strongly consider to be astroturfed:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30138075/).

San Francisco (like everywhere) procrastinated on responding to COVID but then reversed course and shut down pretty early. It was strongly anti-Trump, to be sure, but vaccines weren't available during the Trump administration and the doubts were primarily directed at the administration's claims and policies. When the topic of vaccines came up during the Presidential campaign, VP candidate Kamala Harris (also from the Bay Area) did not express skepticism about vaccines per se but said she would base her judgement on assessments by scientists rather than those coming from the administration itself.

Expressing doubt was understandable given Trump's many flippant or outright goofy statements on COVID & its treatment, from asserting that the disease would have petered out by Easter (of 2020) to ruminating on whether it might be treatable with ultraviolet lights and some sort of aerosolized disinfectant to 'do a cleanse' on the lungs. US public health messaging during CVOID was poor across the board, but that coming out of the incumbent administration was particularly bad and in my view opened the door to all kinds of quackery, eg: https://globalnews.ca/news/7229174/coronavirus-demon-sperm-d...

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