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From ... in Philosophy —

The Deadly Rise of Scientism

The Deadly Rise of Scientism

One of the greatest challenges each society faces is deciding what constitutes "truth." Whoever holds that power wields enormous influence and steers the direction of the society for better or for worse. For centuries, "truth" was delegated to the ruling institutions of the time, and hence truth was simply the narrative which conformed to their interests. Then, during the enlightenment period a new idea emerged — that truth could be determined empirically through experimentation and data.

This in turn gave birth to the scientific revolution, and while not perfect (as vested interests would still try to make their "narrative" be truth irrespective of what the scientific data showed), scientific inquiry began shaping the direction of Western Culture, and in a rocky fashion gradually moved society forward, giving us many of the benefits we take for granted today. Sadly however, the tendency of ruling interests to want to monopolize the truth never went away and we've watched a curious phenomenon emerge where science, riding on the social credit earned by the success of its revolutionary discoveries, has gradually transformed into something not that different from a state religion. Given that science was originally meant to be a way to move beyond truth being monopolized by the dogmatic institutions which ran society, it is quite tragic that science has become one as well. As a result, science has more and more become the practice of "trusting scientific experts" and not being allowed to question their interpretations of the data — or even see it. This is very different from what science was originally intended to be — the collective endeavor of scientists around the world to put forth ideas and have the ones that stand up to scrutiny become the generally accepted standard. In turn, we continually see "experts" put forth ideas which are clearly wrong and hurt a great number of people but help the corporate sponsor who paid the expert off. In the past, this behavior would be called out, but since those same corporate sponsors also own the media, these "experts" are shielded from scrutiny, and science has simply become every public voice echoing the expert's pronouncements. This was best illustrated by Fauci's infamous defense against a Congressional inquiry for his complicity in creating COVID-19, the disastrous policies he had inflicted upon America throughout the pandemic, and the fact he continually lied about his conduct — frequently doing so in an audacious manner that self-evident to anyone who looked at the publicly available footage of Fauci. To defend himself, Fauci argued he was "the science," so criticizing anything he had done was unacceptable as it equated to an attack on science itself. "It's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science . That's dangerous. To me, that's more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I'm not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever." Note: Another important thing to consider about Fauci's interview was him using the term "antiscience" to attack and dismiss his critics (which will be further discussed below).

Superficial Rhetoric

One of the saddest discoveries genuine intellectuals make once they enter academia (which is supposed to be their "home") is that much of the "prestigious knowledge" their institutions produce is actually just simple or nonsensical concepts cloaked in elaborate rhetoric [language] that makes their points appear to be something much more impressive. For example, the "postmodernist" discourse is pervasive throughout academia and frequently the standard you are expected to measure up to. Yet, in 1996, a programmer from Monash University realized that if he used an existing engine designed to generate random text from recursive grammars , he could generate postmodern essays which appeared to be authentic. In essence, this meant that complete nonsense (as the text was random) could be passed off as authoritative and credible simply because it matched the expected appearance of this hard to understand writing. Likewise, in 1996, a deliberately nonsensical paper (which proposed that gravity was a social construct) written in the post-modernist style was accepted for publication by a well-known academic journal — after which its authors admitted what they had done in order to illustrate that the academic process was promoting the publication of nonsensical ideas that conformed to the existing narrative. Note: The postmodern generator's products can be viewed here (a new one will be generated each time you click the link). Later, another generator was made that attempted to replicate the linguistic structures used throughout the new age field (e.g., to sell products) and I lost count of how many people I knew who thought the essays were authentic (and often remarked how touched they were by "my" writing). In turn, I feel much of what we are now witnessing with ChatGPT's automatically generated text is just a more sophisticated version of those engines, as once you look beyond the surface, there's a surprising lack of meaning to its essays. While these examples seem a bit absurd, they are in fact highly applicable to the current state of political discourse. For example, in many fields, impressive sounding rhetoric is used to describe relatively simple concepts (e.g., in medicine, many diagnoses are simply the symptoms said back in Latin), which results in an aura of prestige and inaccessibility being imparted to those within the field when they are observed by the general public. Note: This is analogous to how "experts" always claims the public is not qualified to assess the data even when what the data shows is clear and unambiguous. Likewise, public relations discovered years ago that one of the most effective ways to control the public was by using focus groups to identify short phrases (e.g., "safe and effective") that effectively emotionally manipulated the audience and then spamming that phrase on every single news network (which is possible due to the fact that six companies own almost all of the media in the United States ). This brief montage provides one of the clearest illustrations I have seen of this widespread practice: Note: This is also analogous to how politicians, oficials and CEOs typically evade whatever question is asked to them and instead continually repeat the scripted phrases their PR firm crafted for them.

Clear Rhetoric

Decades ago, a professor at an Ivy League University (at a time when those appointments were held to a higher standard) shared an anecdote I've never forgotten: "If you actually understand a subject, you should be able to explain it to a truck driver. Most academics don't fully understand their subject, so they cloak it in fancy rhetoric no one without their training can understand." In turn, I've tried to replicate that wisdom in the writing here, and I know from the feedback I receive that for the most part (excluding the particularly complex medical topics) I've succeeded in concisely conveying the concepts covered here in a manner that makes them possible to be understood by those without specialized medical training. This I would argue is both a testament to the "non-experts" ability to understand the core scientific issues of our era once they are presented clearly, and how harmful it is to the public discourse that so many topics are cloaked behind an impenetrable rhetorical shield which creates the illusion only the experts are fit to discuss them.

Censoring Debate

When I was much younger, I participated in a variety of debate activities. From that, I gained an appreciation for the fact it is relatively easy to argue almost any viewpoint (especially once you invoke the nonsensical postmodernist constructs) and that if you had a relatively clear presence of mind, you could normally cut through whatever rhetoric [language] the other party was using to obfuscate their point and illustrate the actual absurdity of it. However, at the same time, I was struck by the fact most debaters did not do that and would instead try to "win" by invoking their own set of nonsensical academic constructs and that in many cases within the weird world of academia, it seemed to be an unspoken rule that you did not directly call out the hogwash for what it was. In turn, when I watched "debates" happen in the public sphere, as the years have gone by, the "experts" who debate each other became less and less willing to cut to the heart of the matter and instead danced around the point by using a myriad of sculpted language which sounded good but didn't expose anything of importance. Conversely however, "non-experts" whose social status was not dependent upon conforming to these unspoken rules held no such hesitation, and thus would rapidly expose the absurdity of whatever point was being expressed. To illustrate, I recently completed a series about previous vaccine disasters and the media's willingness to openly discuss them (whereas now in contrast, even though the COVID-19 vaccine has been significantly more devastating than any of those previous disastrous vaccines , there has been complete censorship of the topic on almost every single network). In that series , I presented a variety of news clips from that era where journalists directly questioned the vaccine promoters, and in each instance, it became very clear to everyone watching it that something was amiss and the "experts" were lying (e.g., consider watching the NBC and 60 Minutes news segments shared in this article ). Likewise, at that time, parties who were skeptical of vaccination were allowed to engage experts who would come on in support of vaccines. Consider for example the debate on one of the most popular talk shows in America between these two doctors (one in support of vaccination and one critical of it) in front of a live audience, and how clearly the audience sided with the doctor who effectively critiqued the vaccination pusher: Note: While I do not have the entire video of this debate, I do have the transcript of it (which can be read here ). From reading it, it becomes remarkably clear that the doctor advocating for vaccination had an indefensible position, that the pro-vaccine camp lied with impunity, and everyone in the audience could see through it once the other side was allowed to point out his lies. One of the things I find the most noteworthy about each of these clips was that the news anchors and talk show hosts were not hostile towards vaccines — rather they tried to present things in a fair manner and allow both sides to be heard. However, since the facts so clearly argued against the existing vaccination program, it became very clear to the audiences that something was amiss, and each of these programs significantly decreased the public's willingness to vaccinate even though the "experts" told them to. Given that each televised debate caused the public to lose confidence in the vaccines, there were essentially three options for the pro-vaccine camp: Pivot to a more reasonable position (e.g., spacing vaccines out, not mandating them, supporting those with vaccine injuries or taking the most unjustified vaccines off the market). Have individuals who were good at debating defend the vaccine (as most of the "experts" weren't). Refuse to ever debate again. As you might suspect, they chose the third option (e.g., I've read numerous scientific publications specifically saying it is not appropriate to debate vaccine skeptics publicly), but simultaneously as much as possible tried to pretend they were still publicly defending that position. This was accomplished through having a complicit media which created safe spaces for the "experts" where they could repeat their nonsensical script without being challenged (e.g., no one should question what I am saying because "I represent science"). Note: I suspect due to more and more corporate advertising dollars fiowing in, particularly after Clinton legalized direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising in 1997 (a predatory practice that is illegal in most of the world), which allowed the pharmaceutical industry to become the largest television advertiser and hence financially blackmail the networks into giving them favorable coverage.

Peter Hotez

Over the last decade, Peter Hotez has worked to position himself as the public face of the pro-vaccine movement, something I believe was ultimately done so he could secure over 100 million dollars in funding to develop dubious vaccines that (except for a recent COVID one) never went anywhere. Note: Hotez's grift is something frequently seen throughout academia , although it exceedingly rare for the grifters to be anywhere near as successful as Hotez. A key part of Hotez's grift has been to brand himself as the public face of science ( he even wrote a 2020 paper about becoming a national vaccine spokesman ) so that he'll constantly be brought on television to defend the narrative (e.g., by attacking anyone who questions it) and secure funding for his grifts "research". What's fascinating about Hotez is the profound lack of self awareness he demonstrates in his public presentations (i.e. to put it generously, he's always a mess) and the degree to which he says clearly false statements or continually contradicts his past statements (e.g., from existing footage its possible to make videos of Hotez debating himself). Yet despite this, Hotez always gets called to speak in front of the media as an "expert" where he is showered with adoration by each news host and never asked a single critical question which might expose how full of it he was. Note: I hold no guilt in attacking Hotez because every person I know who directly knows him has nothing positive to say about his character. Conversely, Hotez is notorious for hiding from his critics, never placing himself in a public venue where he can be questioned and only responding to criticisms once he is in a safe space where he can say whatever he wants to say without being challenged. Note: Hotez also notorious for immediately blocking anyone who criticizes him (even if they don't even comment on his Tweets), which in turn requires you to use an external service like Nitter to be able to view Hotez's deluge of self-congratulatory postings . Recently, a Texas citizen was able to break Hotez's embargo by (non-confrontationally) sneaking in a question to him immediately after Hotez received a glowing introduction by the Rabbi: "I'm sorry but I have to interrupt. Dr. Hotez, I know about the children who have died from the Pfizer vaccine and it's your job to not deny that. It's not a hate crime to question science, you understand that. I will leave now." She was immediately ejected from the synagogue and shortly after banned for life from both her synagogue but also the neighboring cemetery (where her family members were buried) with the explicit threat of law enforcement being called if she violated the ban. Remarkably, while Hotez refuses to so much as speak to his critics, he loves to throw very nasty allegations at people who challenge the narrative. Typically, he does this with impunity, but this summer, something remarkable happened after he attacked Rogan: Shortly after, Bill Ackman jumped in, offering to contribute an additional $150,000.00 to get Hotez to debate RFK Jr. Realizing this was a golden opportunity to red-pill a lot of people (which it ultimately was), we made some calls, and in less than two days, the pot was over 2.62 million dollars . The story quickly made national headlines as it illustrated: Hotez was so afraid of exposing himself to criticism, no amount of money could change that. Even though Hotez constantly talks in the media about his moral superiority because of his devotion to charitable endeavors (e.g., his vaccines which went nowhere), when he had an actual opportunity to do something that could help people in need, he wasn't willing to. In turn, rather than respond to the debate challenge, the next day, Hotez had a friendly MSNBC host introduce him by regurgitating pharmaceutical talking points, who then gave Hotez almost two minutes to share his talking points, after which the host praised Hotez and doubled down on everything Hotez had said. Note: I think this three minute segment is an excellent example of the nauseating propaganda you see throughout the pharmaceutical owned networks now. I learned of it after Hotez shared the segment on his Twitter. Since that time, Hotez has made a number of remarkable statements about those events. For instance, really think through what's being said by Hotez this recent interview : "Clayton: You famously declined to debate Robert F Kennedy Jr. on Joe Rogan's show. Was that an easy decision for you? Hotez: Yeah, that was never in the cards. I've known Bobby Kennedy for a number of years and I've had a number of conversations with him over the years. They didn't get anywhere. He's just too dug in, doesn't want to listen to the science. So I knew it wouldn't be productive, but I also thought it could harm the field because it would give people the wrong message about how science works. I mean, science is not something that's achieved through public debate. Science is achieved through writing scientific papers by serious scientists that submit articles for peer review, and then they get modified or rejected and grants that get modified, rejected, or you present in front of scientific conferences in front of your peers for critical feedback. And it's a very successful approach. You don't debate science like you'd debate enlightenment, philosophy or politics." Note: The largest problem with this argument is that our scientific system is suffering a systemic failure of erroneous (e.g., fraudulent) research fiooding the scientific literature, a sustained inability to develop paradigm shifting ideas that improve society, and a complete inability to reject erroneous scientific dogmas (e.g., consider what happened throughout COVID-19). All of this is a direct consequence of debate not being allowed into science, and as a result, we spend more and more to simply re-validate the existing scientific narratives.

Weaponizing Language

Years ago, I heard a theory be proposed which argued that the general populace has a great deal of difficulty comprehending concepts which required putting multiple premises together (in other words the complex and nuanced topics) and instead required ideas to be presented to them as "simplistic truths" (e.g., emotionally charged soundbites). In turn, you will notice that almost all forms of modern propaganda seek to associate a word with everything its promoters need (e.g., that they are good while their political opponents are bad), after which that word is plastered everywhere it is needed. For example, after 9/11, Bush was able to successfully label anyone who disagreed with the horrendous policies he pushed for "unpatriotic." For example, on September 20, 2001 , he stated the following in an address to a joint session of Congress: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Note: This line was met with applause by our legislators. Before long, few were willing to criticize any of Bush's horrendous policies as they were afraid of being "unpatriotic." Similarly, throughout Trump's presidency, the media was able to successfully label anyone who supported him as a "Nazi" and this (nonsensical) label became so powerful it both silenced many of his supporters and drummed up a widespread hatred towards him which made many feel it was justified to use any means necessary to stop Trump or his supporters. Note: There are many other examples of labels losing any bearing with reality as a result of them being weaponized against a group's political opponents (e.g., consider what has happened with the word "racist"). One of the most important things to understand about this tactic is that it requires the other side to be unable to challenge the absurdity of the label (e.g., how on earth does me not wanting to squander the national budget through bombing thousands of innocent civilians in the Middle East make me "unpatriotic?"). For this reason, the media will always give the individuals weaponizing the current label a supportive forum to repeat it over and over so that the masses will unthinkingly associate it with the sponsor's agenda. Note: During Trump's 2016 campaign, the American media in coordination attempted to make their sculpted term "fake news" be applied to any independent voice which criticized the existing narrative. Once the campaign had gained a suficient degree of momentum (hence making it harder to stop), Trump suddenly started using his megaphone to associate it over and over with CNN rather than the independent media (e.g., "the fake news is the enemy of the people"). This resulted in the campaign backfiring and it decreasing rather than increasing public trust in the mainstream media, making it one of the only examples I know of where someone was able to undermine a major linguistic weaponization campaign (as Trump did not did not need to be compliant to be given an audience on the mass media and hence was in a unique position to speak out).

Antiscience

Taking a cue from the propagandists, Peter Hotez also searched for a label to silence all of his critics. He (possibly with the help of a PR firm) settled on "antiscience," and as he only presents himself to sympathetic audiences who won't question him, was able to keep upping the ante with it, before long claiming "antiscience" represented an existential danger to our Democracy, was the greatest killing force in the world, and hence called for governments around the world to be weaponized against anyone promoting "antiscience." For a while we ignored these antics because of how ridiculous they were, but eventually realized after this WHO sponsored tweet that it had gone too far (this is the type of thing that leads to dark places) and something needed to be done about it: Note: Beyond this being full of factual inaccuracies, there is no possible way Hotez could have made this on his own (which suggests it was instead made by a pharmaceutically funded PR firm). Since the media had strategically shielded Hotez from having anyone call out his lies, I realized the only option to nip this in the bud would be to do something which blew Hotez's credibility with the public. I then had a flash of inspiration, recalling something I'd seen a few years before and sent this clip to Pierre Kory. By the grace of God, it went viral (I believe it has been seen over 10 million times now) and completely knocked the wind of Hotez's sails. Note: This comical exchange represents one of the few times Hotez has been in front of an audience who did not unconditionally support everything he said, which again illustrates why it is so critical for vaccine advocates to never expose themselves to even the lightest form of public debate. About six months later, after hearing yet another antiscience tirade from Hotez, another thought occurred to me — how is he actually defining antiscience? After looking for a while, I couldn't find an answer. This prompted me to write a thoughtful article about the meaning of "antiscience" and Hotez's habitual tendency to fling nasty accusations at anyone who disagreed with him and then claim to be a victim the moment anyone called out this behavior. Robert Malone kindly agreed to publish the article on June 14, and by some odd coincidence, three days later, Peter Hotez decided to pick a fight with Joe Rogan.

What Is "Antiscience?"

In that article , I attempted to define antiscience. Since I could not find a definition from Hotez, I went with Wikipedia's which stated: " Antiscience is a set of attitudes that involve a rejection of science and the scientific method . People holding antiscientific views do not accept science as an objective method that can generate universal knowledge. Antiscience commonly manifests through rejection of scientific ideas such as climate change and evolution . It also includes pseudoscience , methods that claim to be scientific but reject the scientific method. Antiscience leads to belief in conspiracy theories and alternative medicine ." Note: Since I wrote the original article, an extra sentence was added which stated "lack of trust in science has been linked to the promotion of political extremism and distrust in medical treatments," which as you might imagine, referenced Hotez's work (which asserts but doesn't actually demonstrate that link). Fortunately, Wikipedia was willing to acknowledge the inherent issues with this label: "Elyse Amend and Darin Barney [in 2015] argue that while antiscience can be a descriptive label, it is often used as a rhetorical one, being effectively used to discredit ones' political opponents and thus charges of antiscience are not necessarily warranted." Note: One of the central themes I found throughout researching the lengthy philosophical debate on "antiscience" was that there were huge political implications over exactly where a society chose to draw the line as to what constituted "antiscience." I thus patiently waited for Peter Hotez's book " The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science " to come out as I hoped it would at last explicitly define his nebulous slander (especially given that the June 14th article had effectively publicly challenged him to do so). Let's look at what Hotez said: "Anti-science has historical roots that go back more than one hundred years, to when Joseph Stalin first understood its value to an authoritarian regime like Communist Russia. Discrediting science and attacking scientists is a central theme for autocrats seeking to hold power and acquire geopolitical dominance. This is a deeply troubling and profoundly sad American tragedy but one that must be unveiled in order to prevent further loss of life and to restore science as an essential component of the American fabric. Anti-science is a broader term that includes efforts to undermine the mainstream views of vaccinology as well as research conclusions in other areas, such as climate science and global warming. In biomedicine, anti-science targets multiple fields, including evolutionary biology, stem cell biology, gene editing and gene therapy, vaccinology, and virology. A prominent example features unfounded claims about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Disinformation and conspiracy theories represent major tactics of groups and individuals committed to anti-science agendas. They undermine confidence in mainstream scientific thought and practices but also in the scientists themselves. Anti-science leaders and groups employ threats and bullying tactics against prominent US scientists. Increasingly and especially in the United States, anti-science has become an important but dangerous political movement. It increasingly attracts those who harbor extremist views. In 2021, I defined it as follows: 'Anti-science is the rejection of mainstream scientific views and methods or their replacement with unproven or deliberately misleading theories, often for nefarious and political gains. It targets prominent scientists and attempts to discredit them.'" In other words, it meant exactly what it appeared to from his usage — "anyone who disagrees with me or the narrative is bad." Note: A more detailed review of the lies within Hotez's book and the sinister agenda he is promoting can be found here . I thus believe that were Hotez to ever publicly debate someone who was not on his side, the moment he started spewing antiscience slanders to support his position, he would immediately be called asked to explain exactly what he meant (which would thus torpedo his argument).

Debating the Orthodoxy

Because of how effectively the media vanquished the idea "experts" should be called upon to defend their positions, the public gradually stopped demanding they be afforded the same public forums we saw throughout the 1970's, 80's and 90's when concerns were raised about vaccination. This changed when Steve Kirsch , a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist realized it was essential to reinstate that standard and began to relentlessly pursue getting that debate. Once every party he contacted predictable refused to defend their actions (e.g., FDA and CDC officials ignoring innumerable COVID vaccine safety signals ) Kirsch pivoted to a new strategy — offer them increasing sums of money to debate him and then widely publicize their continued unwillingness to debate. Since money talks, Kirsch's offers made it clear to much of the public the excuses they gave (e.g., "it's not worth their time to debate misinformation") were a bunch of hot air and their actual reason for refusing to engage in a debate was because it represented an existential risk to them. In short, Kirsch at last found a way to undo the climate the media had worked for decades to create where members of the orthodoxy could spout their lies and nonsense with impunity, and in turn, more and more articles have begun to appear which attempt to justify why it is not appropriate for "science" to engage in a debate with an unorthodox viewpoint. Note: Things did not always used to be this way. Not too long ago , doctors at hospitals would frequently debate medical controversies and confiicting policies their hospitals were considering for adoption.

Data for Me but Not for Ye

One of the depressing trends we've watched occur for the last few decades has been for the following collective social beliefs to be established. • Step 1 — There are lots of problems with our world. Better science and better data is the solution to those issues. • Step 2 — Data is our salvation, we must do everything we can to collect it, and our society's decisions should be based around it. • Step 3 — Data actually is too complicated for anyone except the experts to analyze. • Step 4 — Those who collect data (e.g., private corporations or the government) should have the right to keep the data private regardless of how much the interpretations of that data influences our lives. Justifications for this include "the need to protect privacy," "the need to protect the financial investment a private company made in obtaining that ‘proprietary' data" and the need to ensure the data is analyzed by "experts" who can understand the data. • Step 5 — Any data collected from a non-approved source should be disregarded if it conflicts with the existing narrative. Amazingly, this strategy has worked. Nonetheless, many attempts were made to oppose it. For example, many people don't know this, but the reason the vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) exists was because in 1986, it was well known within the vaccine safety community that it was impossible for parents to report severe vaccine injuries (as doctors, vaccine manufactures and the government refused to document those). That in turn made it possible to argue there was "no data" those injuries occurred, and hence dismiss parents whenever they shared the injury their child had experienced. To solve this problem, the activists forced a provision into the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act which stipulated that a database the public could directly report vaccine injuries to needed to exist, and that the data in it must be made available to the public. Once this database was created, enough of the public learned of it for reports to start trickling into it, and vaccine safety advocates were at last able to identify a variety of specific injuries that were linked to various vaccines. Conversely, as VAERS broke their monopoly on vaccine injury data, the entire medical establishment did all that they could to undermine VAERS (e.g., by not ever telling doctors it existed, by not staffing it with enough personnel to could process the reports it received and by claiming the data from VAERS was junk only a moron would try to infer anything from). Because of this, until COVID, relatively few people were aware of VAERS existence or its utility (which led to approximately only 1% of vaccine injuries being reported to it). For example, listen to this response Peter Hotez gave to a surprise question he received at what he believed was a "safe" venue (and hence answered it): Succinctly, Hotez states that if someone were to raise concerns about the data in VAERS to a doctor, they should be reminded that much better monitoring systems exist and that we should "trust" those ones, rather than any of the "junk" that comes out of VAERS. Simultaneously, he neglects to mention that the public is never given access to those databases — rather they are told to trust what experts deduce from them, which not surprisingly always points towards vaccines being "safe and effective." Note: During COVID, through a lengthy FOIA request, we were eventually able to gain access to one of the "more reliable" databases Hotez referenced. That database showed the COVID vaccines were extremely dangerous and that the "expert" report which had previously been made to the public about that database was deceitfully crafted in a manner which concealed those red fiags. Likewise, in 2014, a CDC whistleblower revealed that after the CDC conducted a study to disprove the link between vaccines and autism, once the data showed the opposite (that vaccines caused autism) the CDC reworked the study to cover that link up and (illegally) disposed of the original raw data which showed that link. Since it has become so difficult to access critical vaccine safety data, throughout COVID, we've instead been forced to rely upon lawsuits and whistleblowers to obtain it or to utilize public databases which indirectly show the societal impacts of the vaccines. If you take a step back, this is completely absurd, especially given that millions of people had their core civil liberties taken away by vaccination mandates which were predicated on flawed interpretations of data we were expected to "trust" but never allowed to verify. Nonetheless, given how widespread the harm from the vaccines was, more and more of that data was leaked. Recently, this culminated with a New Zealand whistleblower forfeiting his career and risking his personal freedom (presently he faces a 7 year prison sentence) to leak (anonymized) record level data. This data provided a compelling case the COVID vaccine was harming people, and to my knowledge represents the first time record level data for a vaccine became available to the public. Note: Record level data is the "gold-standard" of data that allows one to clearly determine if there is or is not a correlation between an intervention (e.g., a vaccine) and a change in the human body (e.g., death). When I learned about this imminent release, my first thought was "I wonder how the vaccine zealots will respond to this." In turn, my best guess was that they'd reuse the existing playbook (ridicule it, refuse to debate it, and insist it was the wrong data source to use for determining causation). This in turn ended up being exactly what happened. For example, when David Gorski (a well-known ardent defender of the prevailing narrative who actively disparages Kirsch but steadfastly refuses to debate him) learned of the data, he chose to "address" it by publishing a piece on his blog . Since Gorski consistently follows the Hotez playbook, the content of that article should be easy enough to guess; he made a variety of child-like attacks against Kirsch and the NZ whistleblower (e.g., they aren't "experts" qualified to evaluate the data) and simultaneously insisted that the data was not sufficient for anything to determined from it. What I found remarkable about Gorski's piece was that it repeatedly implied a very simple question. If this dataset in Gorski's eyes was not sufficient to assess the harm of the vaccines (as it only included 40% of the vaccine records rather than all of them, hence raising the possibility there was some element of bias in the sample and likewise did not contain an unvaccinated control group for the vaccine death rate to be compared to), who bears the burden of responsibility for this? Gorski and Hotez (and many others) have asserted the burden of responsibility is on individual presenting the (incomplete) data and stating it suggests a red flag is present since more data is needed to be certain this indeed in the case. However, the far more reasonable argument would be: if the available data shows a red flag is there, the parties possessing the complete data set (e.g., New Zealand's government) have an obligation to provide that data to the public, and doing anything else is a tacit admission the complete dataset would prove the existence of that red flag. In short, were any of these defenders of the orthodoxy to debate a skeptical audience in public, one of the first rebuttals to their arguments would be "that's nice, but if you feel that the existing data isn't good enough to assess if the COVID vaccines are unsafe, why aren't you advocating for releasing the raw data which would settle this question?" However, since the corporate owned media has granted them their own perpetual safe spaces, simple questions like this never can be raised.

Antiscience or Scientism?

The term "antiscience" has had a great deal of trouble "sticking" in the public's mind both because it's an awkward term and because it represents a fictional concept most people don't really relate to (as only members of the scientific orthodoxy tend to be upset by the society refusing to blindly follow their pronouncements). Conversely however, another much more well-known term exists, which I would argue is due to it being a real concept many have direct experience with. " Scientism " is a way of describing science being transformed into a religious institution which cannot be questioned and must be viewed as the sole arbiter of truth (e.g., if you saw seven different healthy people die shortly after a vaccine, because that association has not been proven in science's peer-reviewed literature, your observation is false and hence must be discounted). Note: The above picture was put up by protesters in DC two years ago . Since science is supposed to be a self-correcting institution which depends upon bad hypotheses being thrown out, the rise of scientism represents a profound tragedy for our society as it disables that critical corrective mechanism. Once science is transformed into scientism, entrenched scientific dogmas persist indefinitely while new ideas which challenge them are never permitted to see the light of day. In turn, countless observers have noticed it has become far rarer for paradigm shifting ideas (e.g., the discovery of DNA) to emerge. Consider for instance what was discovered by this 2023 study published by Nature: In short, we are spending far more on science for far far less. Note: This is an unfortunate scenario which often is seen in an industry which receives large financial subsidies, as those subsidies incentivize the industry to focus on retaining those subsidies rather than creating economically competitive innovations (e.g., many believe the government giving unconditional student loans to everyone made higher education much more expensive but simultaneously much poorer in quality). In the case of research, since the typical scientist's career depends upon grants or industry employment, they cannot afford to publish anything which challenges the narrative as doing so blacklists them from those funding sources.

The Deadly Rise of Scientism

While Hotez (and Fauci) claim the greatest danger we've seen in the last 4 years has been the rise of "antiscience" (a lack of blind trust in our scientific institutions) I believe the actual issue has been the rapid proliferation of scientism throughout our society. For instance, believing in the "magic" of science has become a common advertising theme the society has been conditioned to worship. To illustrate, consider one of the key marketing slogan's Pfizer used to sell their vaccine (e.g., see this commercial ): Yet, at the same time they said this, as whistleblowers revealed, Pfizer was knowingly conducting fraudulent clinical trials which in contrast to the widely parroted "safe and effective" line, had actually found the opposite but concealed it. In turn, once the vaccines hit the market, we saw the same wave of injuries and vaccine failures that had actually been detected in the trials. In short, "trusting the science" meant denying that was happening and not questioning the integrity Pfizer's trial. Note: This is similar to how Pfizer claimed their vaccine prevented COVID-19 transmission even though it was well known that had never been evaluated in the COVID vaccine trials . Since this was a contentious issue (as it had been used to justify forcing people who didn't want to vaccinate to vaccinate so others would "be protected"), a member of parliament eventually asked Pfizer why they did this, at which point, their spokesperson justified this lie by saying "we had to move at the speed of science." Likewise, it was later discovered that the pivotal study used to justify that the unvaccinated represented a danger to society was junk science and paid for by Pfizer . Throughout COVID-19, many honest academics and researchers observed that, much like after 9/11, a climate suddenly was created where it was simply not acceptable to question the prevailing narrative (e.g., see this article ). As a result, many patently absurd ideas were put forward such as: • The COVID-19 virus did not emerge from a lab, even though the lab where COVID-19 broke out had already published numerous papers on creating unnatural viruses that were very similar to COVID-19. Note: It was later revealed that Fauci (who, like Hotez, funded the research which synthetically created these deadly viruses) had bribed "experts" to publish a paper nonsensically declaring the COVID-19 virus was actually natural (when in reality, those experts believed it had been leaked from a lab ). • An epidemiologist who was known for making outlandish (and consistently false) predictions about the death rate from a new infectious disease absurdly claiming that COVID-19 would infect almost everyone and kill 0.9% of those infected . Note: It was later shown that the IFR was between 0.034% to 0.05% for those under 70. • Claiming that this 0.9% fatality rate meant millions would die unless draconian (and experimental) lockdown measures were implemented ( that were and still continue to be immensely devastating to the working class ). Note: It was later shown that the epidemiologist massively overestimated the risk of death (e.g., in many cases he predicted thousands of times more deaths than what actually came to pass). • Claiming there was no treatment for the virus, which in turn was used to justify the necessity of a variety of harsh public health interventions. • Claiming the vaccines were very safe, 95% effective, necessary to mandate as they prevented the spread of COVID and would soon end the pandemic. It goes without saying that had a scientific debate been permitted within the mass media for any of these points, they would have not have stood up to scrutiny. However, because scientism became the state religion, the few who dared to challenge faced persecution not that different from what heretics experienced in theocracies of the past, and before long, the scientific establishment's lies became entrenched dogmas the entire world was forced to suffer through (e.g., millions died).

Conclusion

Modern propaganda began to emerge at the time of the first World War. As it came into being, a fierce debate emerged over if it was acceptable to use it, as propaganda offered the promise of ensuring the proper functioning of an increasingly technologically complex society but simultaneously was antithetical to Democracy as it took away the ability of the populace to decide their governance. Eventually, the propagandists won out as it was believed Hitler (a master propagandist) could not be stopped unless equally effective propaganda was used by the Allies. Since that time, propaganda has gradually proliferated in our society, with much of it revolving around the idea we should "trust" whoever the currently anointed experts are. Governance in turn has become that expert class deciding what we should do and then commissioning a propaganda company public relations firm to ensure the public complies with their policy. Because of how effective this model is, I had largely given up on much of the Democratic process or many of the core issues I cared about ever improving. However, two major changes have upended the paradigm we've been stuck with for decades. The first was the creation of the internet and (due to its profitability) it becoming inseparably intertwined with every aspect of our lives. Because of this, an uncontrollable medium now exists which can allow compelling information to be freely distributed throughout society. The second was the unchecked greed of the ruling class (the propagandist form of government made it possible for them to keep taking more and more, so they did). This is important because while propaganda can make people believe truly remarkable things, once it diverges too far from reality (e.g., getting COVID repeatedly despite being vaccinated with a "95% effective" vaccine was a huge red-pill for many). Because of this, there is no longer a clear way to ensure the continued control of the masses, and as a result, those who have been in power for decades are now facing an existential threat to their power base. Note: All the above is discussed in more detail within this excellent article . If we want to reclaim our Democracy, it is critical we allow open and honest debate to occur. As the last few years have shown, we cannot have the "expert's" narrative be shielded from all scrutiny, and as the internet has shown, the monopoly they used to hold over the truth is rapidly fading away. Conversely, I believe if the experts wish to regain the credibility they have lost, they must earn it by publicly defending the merits of their positions, and I believe as time moves forward, the expert class will see realize this too. Lastly, I want to thank each of you for your support of my work here and on Substack over the last year (you make much of it possible). The world is shifting quite rapidly (e.g., people are moving from the mass media to the independent media in droves) and I am quite hopeful 2024 will mark the point when our voice grows loud enough that we can begin to correct the terrible course of scientific apparatus has taken. Postscript: Peter Hotez "responded" to this article after it went viral. Because of this, I wrote a follow up to this piece which illustrated the most objectionable content in Hotez's and showed how it is part of a much more nefarious PR campaign to prevent all dissent from the narrative being censored (e.g., when the WHO tried to push the next "emergency" vaccine on us). The follow up article can be read here .

A Note From Dr. Mercola About the Author

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