Thank you, @DKThomp for doing the unpleasant work of documenting (a fraction) of Alex Berenson many many (I can only conclude deliberately) wildly misleading and flat-out-false claims.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ …
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The decision to deny oxygen to deliberate misinformation by amplifying it, and going out and debunking it depends, I think now the character and nature of the attempt, and on this case, I think this is right. He is so obviously wrong so often, while wrapping himself in scientism.
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Watching Berenson slide from crankish skeptic to full-on conspiracy theorist has been interesting. There were a couple weeks last March--eons ago--when he was actually doing a good job puncturing some of the claims being made while pushing a cockeyed view.
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This also happened with marijuana. He actually is a pretty good reporter/skeptic -- but then he pushes his own theories, has an ego the size of the moon, and things get really nasty very quickly.
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But you often can't really know someone's intention though if it's not explicit, right? Then why not just label stuff like this "(extremely, utterly) false" without having to estimate whatever someone's motive might be. That should be enough to persuade people to unfollow?
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Usually, yes, but having watched a bunch of his stuff (he can clearly be a reasonable reporter/skeptic) evolve, I don't know what else to conclude.
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"intra-science debates" - can you define this term more explicitly? This sounds a lot like gatekeeping to many people.
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Science is necessarily some level of gate-keeping (you want antibiotics that work or a snake-oil sellers giving you a menthol vapor for a bacterial infection?). The gate has to be not too narrow and the process transparent, though.
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I think early success bred hubris and he think he understands "complicated datasets" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/does-the-king-of-the-covid-19-contrarians-have-a-case … but in fact makes clumsy errors. Trying to point out the errors usually leads to a snarky reply from him or his Harpies.pic.twitter.com/3xuDPjxKGn
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it's not all that hard.
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The line is a little easier to tell when on one side you have experienced, knowledgeable professionals forced to put their careers on the line to defend the science vs. smug grifters fanning the flames of "alt-science" because no legit outlet will hire them anymore
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