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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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I don't really see the objection to the original study? Sure if they claimed to be testing all homeless then they're lying, and probably some popular media outlets reported on it that way and were lying, but it's pretty normal to restrict your sample in various ways to reduce noise or just study a specific thing in depth. You just have to be upfront with what question you're actually answering, this seems like a good question to answer still.

High subject mortality is definitely a source of potential bias, if you have a reason to think that the dropouts are different from the continuers in an important way; but again, that's a caveat you should be putting in the results section and discussing the implications of, not a failure of the methodology or an invalidation of the findings.

As usual, I find it helpful to refer back to Debunked and Well-refuted. Yes, lots of science is done poorly, but lots of it is done well, or still gather relevant data that you can learn true things from despite the flaws. It's fun and easy to nitpick flaws in any paper because practical restrictions prevent anything from being perfect, and it's hugely useful to do that preferentially to the papers that don't support your positions, but it's a dangerous game to play.

Yes, lots of science is done poorly, but lots of it is done well, or still gather relevant data that you can learn true things from despite the flaws.

We agree that some science is done well, meaning that it illuminates new technology that actually works.

We agree that some science is done... "poorly", meaning that the technology it purports to reveal does not actually exist.

The current norm is that all claims of new technology propagated through "official" channels are treated as true unless arbitrary standards of proof can be met to discount them. This norm is asinine, and examples overflow of claims of "new" "technology" propagating for decades, perhaps even for centuries without the slightest shred of actual function, even in the teeth of explicit and overwhelming disproof.

This junk science has massively reshaped our entire civilization, and much of it serves as the foundation of our social order. The people who produce it divert vast amounts of resources to themselves from the rest of us, use them to secure completely unjustified amounts of power over the rest of us, and suffer zero accountability for this behavior.

It is imperative that they be stripped of their resources and positions, permanently excluded from all influence over our society, and the changes they made be rolled back.

The current norm is that all claims of new technology propagated through "official" channels are treated as true unless arbitrary standards of proof can be met to discount them. This norm is asinine,

Sure, but we're not talking about popular media summaries or government agencies or w/e, we're talking about critiquing the original publication directly here.