Please stop saying you "researched it."I shouldn't go on Facebook. My bad. But I did, and this just chapped my hide so much. I saw this quote posted by my former 5th grade best friend as an attack on people who don't think the "correct" things, who question the official narrative.
You didn't research anything, and it's highly probable that you don't even know how to do so.
Did you compile a literature review and write abstracts on each article? Or better yet, did you collect a random sample of sources and perform independent probability statistics on the reported results? No?
Did you at least take each article, one by one and look into the source (that would be the author, publisher and funder), then critique the writing for logical fallacies, cognitive distortions and plain inaccuracies.
Did you ask yourself why this source might publish these particular results? Did you follow the trail of references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them?
No? Then you didn't [expletive] research anything. You read or watched a video, most likely with little to no objectivity. You came across something in your algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with your implicit biases, and subconsciously applied your emotional filters and called it proof.
Scary.
~Linda Gamble Spadaro
So condescending. So smarmy. Such a good example of the need for Oxford commas.
So what Ms. Spadaro is saying (if this is actually something she wrote, because I didn't exhaustively do more research than look her up online to make sure she was a real person, and there is someone with that name who is a therapist, but I don't know if she wrote the above) is that you are not allowed to question the "experts" unless you are a trained researcher and are willing to put hours and hours into exhaustive searching, reading, and tracing of each and every aspect of each and every source for each and every article. The way she calls it, if you have the gall to question "settled science," you must be an ignorant, slack-jawed yokel hanging onto your guns and beer and Bible, because you couldn't possibly posses the brain power to challenge The Experts, who are all vastly smarter than you and are never wrong, you monstrous anti-vaxxer.
Do you remember those guys who did the experiment to see how many fake articles they could get published in some top social sciences journals? They got all but one of their papers accepted into a number of journals, and the only reason they got caught was because a newspaper journalist finally got suspicious and exposed the hoax. But many of those articles were, by then, published in supposedly rigorously peer-reviewed journals. The articles got published because they fit the narrative of the editors, not because they were vigorously source-checked and researched--or even logical! They fit the narrative each of the journals was intent to propagandize, and that was all the research the editors needed.
What makes medical journals all that different?
Why do so many people now mistrust the MSM as biased? Answer: because when you follow the money, you realize that enough money can buy all the experts and studies and policies you need to support your agenda. And if that agenda is about money, power, and control, people who question the "experts" with any degree of credibility find themselves with no platform to speak and possibly with ruined reputations; some are even surprised to find that they have committed suicide, sometimes very inventively, like with two gunshots to the back of the head.
Nope. No reason to look behind the curtain.
I'm not saying a lack of vigorous research is acceptable. Researching sources is always a must. You need to know who is making definitive statements or funding research and what the biases may be. But that is also very difficult because sometimes the funding comes through front corporations or foundations, which obscures the ultimate source of funding, and thus, the true motives behind the results of the studies. Sad but true. There is still real science being investigated out there, but so much of it is Scientism, which requires just as much faith as any other religion. Believers in Scientism will crucify you for questioning their prophets, their Neil DeGrasse Tysons and Bill Nyes. Their Anthony Faucis and Deborah Birxes.
It's difficult not to have implicit biases. As humans, we are very biased based on our experiences, education, and perceptions, and it's a lie to say we're not. As a true scientist, you might be able to set aside your biases by stating a hypothesis and then truly following the facts to either prove or disprove that hypothesis, and I admire people who are able to not become personally invested in a specific outcome; but I don't know how often the scientific method is strictly followed on the most hot-button topics, the most politically charged areas of science. How many times have we been told Drug X or Product Y has been rigorously tested by a company and passed by the FDA only to find that it's actually really bad and is killing people and must be pulled from the market--but only after the company has made a profit? So let us not be throwing around accusations of "implicit biases" with quite so much high-handedness, Ms. Spadaro.
Also, how often have we been told that the "science is settled" only to have contradicting evidence brought forth that puts into question our most cherished theories? Answer: always. Tesla thought Einstein was an idiot and that the theory of relativity is complete and utter bunk. He also thought that all the theoretical mathematicians were following mathematical fantasies that had no bearing on reality. Tesla was a genius, and we hail Einstein as a genius. Which one was right?
Currently, doctors disagree on the severity and fatality of covid 19. When faced with opposing teams of equally credible medical doctors, which side do you listen to? In 99% of cases, people will listen to the side that supports their opinion, whether or not that opinion is backed by a personal dive into the rigorously satisfactory research Ms. Spadaro demands.
Are we naive enough to think we haven't evolved beyond the playground fights of "My dad can beat up your dad!" when it comes to vaunting the experts that agree with our biases?
We, as a species, are intelligent, but we're not as intelligent as we think we are. Questioning the narrative is good, even if it ends up justifying the narrative. My logic says something like this: if a group of people who don't know that there are two biological sexes tells me that I must believe everything they say about X, Y, or Z, then you better believe I am going to question their conclusions, especially if what I can see with my eyes is different than what they are telling me. If they are quoting studies as their facts, then yes, I'm going to look at sources and funding. And I also want to know if the studies actually say what is being reported, because it very often happens that a sensational headline is picked out of a study, but the information within the study doesn't actually support the headline at all. Sometimes, the study actually says the opposite of what the headline is claiming.
We should question the experts if only as a thought exercise alone. We might end up coming to the same conclusion as the experts in the end, but to force yourself to question everything you've ever been taught is the only way to prevent a descent into mindless complacency.
I'm so sick and tired of the smugly self-righteous, who bask in the knowledge that all their thinking is being done for them by their approved experts, and that all who disagree with them are stupid conspiracy theorists who don't have the brains to shut up and toe the line.
Of course vaccines are perfectly safe for everyone--despite the fact that no vaccines have never been rigorously tested against a placebo in a long-term, double-blind study. Not even once, and certainly not for pregnant women or infants. Sure, check out the ingredients listed on a vaccine insert, and then read the part that says it has not been tested and found safe for pregnant women and children, even though medical experts will get on television and sigh with parental exasperation, "Everyone needs the vaccine, especially the most vulnerable among us: pregnant women and children." And pharmaceutical companies are legally immune from prosecution for vaccine damage or death because why?
Of course Covid 19 is a serious, highly fatal illness--despite the obvious inflation of numbers of deaths attributed to the virus of people who have not been tested or have tested negative, and when doctors and coroners are being instructed to list covid as the cause of death on all death certificates, regardless of actual cause of death. And despite the fact that we have gone through numerous global outbreaks of far more deadly diseases without ever shutting down the world. And let's not forget the perverse financial incentive for hospitals for every covid patient they can list, with even more money coming in every time you put someone on a ventilator. Also, the death rate for this year is still not above average, although covid does seem to be a miraculous cure for fatal flu and pneumonia, since no one is dying of those illnesses these days!
Of course the various versions of covid tests are reliable and necessary, even when they've been shown to exhibit up to 80% false positives, and even when the inventor of the test has stated unequivocally that his test was never intended to and should never be used to determine the presence of an infectious disease. Even when a paw-paw fruit and a goat in Tanzania have tested positive for covid, how dare you question the efficacy of the test?
Of course Bill Gates is the savior of the world, even if he doesn't have a medical degree, and despite the fact that his generous philanthropic donations to vaccination programs have been more than doubly returned to him in vaccine revenue, raking in more money than Microsoft ever did for him. Or that thousands of children in India and Africa have been killed or permanently damaged by those vaccines. Or that thousands of women in Africa found themselves sterilized after having his vaccines. Of course he only has the health and well-being of the people of the world at heart when his new covid vaccination will be mandatory and his coffers will happen to swell some more. Or that he funds directly or indirectly just about every single foundation, NGO, and governmental body involved in vaccine research and that are pushing for more and more vaccines. Of course his interests are purely altruistic, even though his father was an outspoken eugenicist who worked with Margaret Sanger to establish Planned Parenthood, and who, himself, has let slip more than once (I have seen the unredacted videos) that vaccinations can be used as a way to reduce population and thus reduce carbon emissions and save the world.
Of course Bill Gates' patents are entirely above suspicion.
Of course Building 7 fell down because of a couple fires and not because it was an obvious free fall suspiciously similar to a controlled demolition.
But I'm just a slack-jawed yokel who shouldn't have the right to say anything or ask any questions. I also don't use Google as my browser, preferring something a little less censored for my algorithmic recommendations. Pardon my overreach, Ms. Spadaro. I don't believe the right things. I don't have the correct implicit biases. Scary indeed!
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