Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

She's got a pretty narrow definition of "research" and she is, in fact, wrong.

I mean, most of the "research" that gets done, papered and presented these days is studies of studies. Basically reading through other people's research and drawing conclusions across multiple sets of data. And I don't think any reasonable person would deny that is "research". Unless, of course, the researcher is cherry-picking the studies he reviews in order to confirm his original conclusion, not that anyone would actually do that........

(a few recent papers have been withdrawn because they did exactly that)

Now maybe googling stuff isn't the best way to do research, because Google has a nasty habit of only showing you the stuff it thinks you want to see, which is an excellent way to generate confirmation bias. But it's still research when you dive into the work that other people have done. It's not an original study, but that's still research. It's a different kind of research, with a different objective: scientists conduct research to get at the nature of the Universe. The rest of us conduct a rather different kind of research to find out what those scientists had to say, and what they had to say about each other. We don't have to conduct peer-reviewed studies because someone else already did.

And that's still research.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It's TikTok, Dave, I think you understood her intent and who it was targeted at. You know, the people drinking their piss to avoid Covid because they "researched" it.

extremecoasterdad said:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/31/lockdowns-had-litt...9-deaths-/

Speaking of "I did research." You do know that the Washington Times is a right leaning opinion puff piece, right? They don't do real journalism, and as far as science reporting goes, this is pretty bad. For giggles, I looked at the study, which is one of those meta pieces that Dave was talking about.

There are several problems here, but starting with the meta study itself:

• First off, this isn't something in a peer reviewed science journal, it's a self-published bit by economists.
• The data sets and studies all followed the US and Europe, which hardly had what anyone would call "lockdowns." Excluding the rest of the world where actual lockdowns occurred would be useful. The data includes places that had at least one government mandate that "directly restricts peoples' possibilities." So if they closed bars but had no mask requirements, that counts. It doesn't account for self-imposed restrictions by businesses.
• The lack of non-western data is obviously an enormous flaw, but even worse is that control groups are obviously synthetic, since there weren't any places that did nothing. Well, that's not true, but as we've discussed countless times, the locale matters. The Dakotas had an awful lot of dead people and did little to mitigate. But they excluded studies with any synthetic control groups, so what exactly are we comparing to?
• The study does not consider the duration of the restrictions, which as far as I'm concerned makes this completely meaningless, especially if you intend to make conclusions about the economic impact.

But the reporting, even from the "lamestream media," is pretty problematic as well.

• When a new pathogen arrives on the scene, you don't know what effect it's going to have because you don't know how it spreads. To even imply that "lockdowns don't work" and apply that to every future thing we encounter is completely incorrect. This isn't the same as HIV or Ebola.
• None of the reporting actually digs into the details of the meta-study. Good science reporting has to ask questions, not be spoon-fed the conclusion of the authors, especially if they're economists who aren't bound by the usual rigors of scientific research.

On the plus side, in the world of actual science, it turns out that omicron causes a fairly similar immune response from T-cells, if not the antibodies, which is why the vaccines still work even if the infection efficacy is lower.

I bet if you presented that in a tik tok it would be more enjoyable.

My choreo game is pretty weak.

RideMan said:

She's got a pretty narrow definition of "research" and she is, in fact, wrong.

Sorry Dave, I couldn’t disagree with you more. And, in fact, you are wrong.

Early in my career, I supported myself with a very competitive, prestigious NIH training grant. I had spent several years in the lab and thousands of hours doing experiments generating data to support my hypothesis as the basis of the grant. It went through several revisions and more years of work, as did my papers that were published in peer-reviewed journals.

That is hardly the same as Karen doing a google search on her lunch break, and calling it research.

”I mean, most of the "research" that gets done, papered and presented these days is studies of studies. Basically reading through other people's research and drawing conclusions across multiple sets of data. And I don't think any reasonable person would deny that is ‘research’.”

There is a specific process to incorporate findings across multiple studies. It’s called meta-analysis. It requires a strict statistical analysis that includes sample size and power of each of the individual studies. A meta-analysis can provide very useful information when studies contradict each other.

“And that's still research.”

By your definition, everyone reading this thread could add to their CVs that they’ve conducted research.

Wait, I can’t?

*deletes line item from resume*

I searched it on Google. Then I searched it again. Therefore, I re-searched it.

Look out for goat flu!

ApolloAndy said:

I searched it on Google. Then I searched it again. Therefore, I re-searched it.

And I looked at it while sitting on a dock. Therefore it was pier reviewed.

Another week in Ohio, and another 5000+ drop in the case count. That's about as close to vertical as it gets.

Headed towards Game Over right on Valentine's Day.

Coincidence?

Obviously the ideal opportunity for dry humping.

I’m watching the 7-day average here in Ohio, and while we are not quite to the low point we reached between the Delta and Omigodicron surges, we’re really close. The question is, does the case rate continue to drop back to the levels we saw last Summer when it looked like we were almost done with this thing, or does it bounce again?

Of course our health officials and politicians seem to prefer to watch the 21-day average which I think has too slow of a response time, especially when things are changing rapidly. I wonder if they have even seen the peak yet. (Actually they have, but the daily numbers are falling so fast that the 21-day average is way higher than the daily numbers and doesn’t reflect the way the case rate has crashed)

Ohio’s 7-day average case rate peaked on January 8 at about 24,600 cases/day. 29 days later that average is down to 3,411 cases/day and is still dropping rapidly.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jeff said:

It's TikTok, Dave, I think you understood her intent and who it was targeted at. You know, the people drinking their piss to avoid Covid because they "researched" it.

extremecoasterdad said:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/31/lockdowns-had-litt...9-deaths-/

Speaking of "I did research." You do know that the Washington Times is a right leaning opinion puff piece, right? They don't do real journalism, and as far as science reporting goes, this is pretty bad. For giggles, I looked at the study, which is one of those meta pieces that Dave was talking about.

There are several problems here, but starting with the meta study itself:

• First off, this isn't something in a peer reviewed science journal, it's a self-published bit by economists.
• The data sets and studies all followed the US and Europe, which hardly had what anyone would call "lockdowns." Excluding the rest of the world where actual lockdowns occurred would be useful. The data includes places that had at least one government mandate that "directly restricts peoples' possibilities." So if they closed bars but had no mask requirements, that counts. It doesn't account for self-imposed restrictions by businesses.
• The lack of non-western data is obviously an enormous flaw, but even worse is that control groups are obviously synthetic, since there weren't any places that did nothing. Well, that's not true, but as we've discussed countless times, the locale matters. The Dakotas had an awful lot of dead people and did little to mitigate. But they excluded studies with any synthetic control groups, so what exactly are we comparing to?
• The study does not consider the duration of the restrictions, which as far as I'm concerned makes this completely meaningless, especially if you intend to make conclusions about the economic impact.

But the reporting, even from the "lamestream media," is pretty problematic as well.

• When a new pathogen arrives on the scene, you don't know what effect it's going to have because you don't know how it spreads. To even imply that "lockdowns don't work" and apply that to every future thing we encounter is completely incorrect. This isn't the same as HIV or Ebola.
• None of the reporting actually digs into the details of the meta-study. Good science reporting has to ask questions, not be spoon-fed the conclusion of the authors, especially if they're economists who aren't bound by the usual rigors of scientific research.

On the plus side, in the world of actual science, it turns out that omicron causes a fairly similar immune response from T-cells, if not the antibodies, which is why the vaccines still work even if the infection efficacy is lower.

I do, in fact, know that it's not real journalism. Problem is, there's way too may people that trust this type of information. You can find the same kind of garbage in every single legacy media company. They don't want you to trust what you see and what is rational. Their belief is only trust them. You proved my point without actually realizing it. Kind of like this piece: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/35951/20220204/pantyhose-covi...-virus.htm

extremecoasterdad said:

But the reporting, even from the "lamestream media," is pretty problematic as well.

I literally won't even consider considering anything you have to say as legitimate or fact based when you use that phrase.

Ah yes. The old “I just put this out there to see if you would fall for it even though it completely supports the half baked bs I’ve been posting all along” defense. He’s got you right where he wants you, Jeff.

I love it even we're "just having a conversation." 🙄

extremecoasterdad said:

You can find the same kind of garbage in every single legacy media company. They don't want you to trust what you see and what is rational. Their belief is only trust them. You proved my point without actually realizing it. Kind of like this piece: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/35951/20220204/pantyhose-covi...-virus.htm

Wait, you're trying to make a point about legacy media and then linking to something from an outfit called "The Science Times" which so far as I can see is just a clickbait factory with no listed editor, publisher, or any of the other markers of what one might call "mainstream" media.

Critical thinking is hard.

OK... I think it's time to close this one. With this many replies, it's not that useful anyway. There are a few newer topics that at least are more relevant at this point. It was a fun run.