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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – Editors accused of damaging scientific integrity The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has been accused of damaging scientific integrity after retracting a paper which suggested that Covid vaccines may have been to blame for some excess deaths during the pandemic.
In 2024, a group in the Netherlands published a paper in BMJ Public Health, warning that some pandemic deaths may have been caused by the indirect effects of containment measures and vaccination programmes, and calling for further investigation.
The work was peer reviewed for nine months, and accepted as accurate by the BMJ, the UK’s leading medical journal. However, it was retracted this week after a slew of complaints and an investigation by the Princess Máxima Centre in Utrecht, where three of the four authors worked.
The investigation found no evidence of malicious intent, fabrication or falsification of data, but still labelled the work as misleading and selective because it “did not reflect scientific consensus”, and had disproportionately focused on the negative effects of vaccination.
– Sarah Knapton (£)
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If there’s consensus, it’s not sciemce.
Indeed, challenging the concensus is how science advances. If the authors of the paper are mistaken, then prove it. Then and only then should the paper be withdrawn. These people have abandoned the scientific method.
Eagerly awaiting the withdrawal of other papers that do not reflect the scientific consensus. “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies”, for example.
Covid came from the lab in Wuhan – the establishment denied this, and viciously attacked anyone who told the truth.
There were effective Early Treatments for Covid – the establishment denied this, and viciously attacked anyone who told the truth.
The lockdowns were medically useless, countries that did NOT lockdown had a LOWER Covid death rate than we did – the establishment denied this, and viciously attacked anyone who told the truth.
And the injections (which were not vaccines by the traditional definition of that word), did not prevent people contracting Covid, passing on Covid, or dying of Covid, indeed the injections maimed and killed some people – the establishment denied this, and viciously attacked anyone who told the truth.
The only good that came out of this is that now we know just how dishonest, and utterly vicious (malevolent) the establishment, the international establishment, is.
but still labelled the work as misleading and selective because it “did not reflect scientific consensus”, and had disproportionately focused on the negative effects of vaccination.
There is some argument to be made that some dude in his pajamas living in him mother’s basement posting on X can be dismissed as not fitting into the scientific consensus. However, one purpose, perhaps the primary purpose, of a scientific journal is to challenge the scientific consensus. It is kind of like Perry rejecting a comment here because it does not fit in with the general opinion on Samizdata. Or it is that, but on steroids. What’s the point of reading if it is just an echo chamber?
It seems that Covid and its subsequent coverup has almost completely broken science. Though, in fairness, the old system of scientific journals was probably on its way out anyway. Perhaps this is a wise move on the part of the BMJ since soon enough only old codgers who aren’t doing science anymore will still be reading it. What is the saying? Science does not advance one discovery at a time but one funeral at a time.
In truth science as conducted now by humans is going away. AI is really going to take it all over. For sure the AI need a bit of credibility publishing a few papers, but before long those journals won’t matter any more. If you doubt that look at recent AI discoveries in math. And when the robots come (and they are coming fast) even applied science will get taken over. To be clear, I don’t think scientists will be going away, in fact there might be more of them. But it is headed the way of computer programming. Today’s computer programmers mostly don’t write code, they supervise AI’s writing code. This doesn’t mean less computer programmers, it just means exponentially more and better software. That’s the future for science too.
“The Science is settled.“.
‘What, like the stoichiometry of hydrogen combustion in an excess of oxygen: 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O?‘
“Precisely!“.
‘So the science doesn’t need any more funding then.’.
Well said, Fraser. AI is a tool; most scientists are still figuring out how to use the tool, even as it advances every week (day?)
One thing about the science that AI will be doing: it’s not the science of 100 years ago. By that I mean, advancing scientific thought, coming up with new models, not better parameters for existing models. New elements to the models. Things not obvious. Things that require a creative insight.
And that’s not just Einstein thinking big thoughts, it should be every scientist. But like all other higher education, science education isn’t what it used to be. STEM track students arrive at colleges not knowing any calculus, maybe not even enough algebra or geometry. The bar for a PhD used to be making a demonstrable (to your thesis committee!) scientific advance or contribution. Not just gathering more data, doing a hard experiment, but increasing our understanding of things. Keep in mind that there are probably 2-3x more people in college and university than should be there: most just don’t have the aptitude. I hope a reckoning is coming that will re-jigger things to at least two tracks: what college used to be about (the mind, knowledge of humanity, true science) and tracks that are a ticket to a job. In this regard, I suspect that about half of the professional scientists out there should not be trusted to do the science they are alleged to be capable of. That needs re-jiggering too. Maybe AI will help?
It’s going to be interesting to see how AI will become the research assistant, the postdoc, for our best scientists. That certainly has exciting possibilities.
Now if we can just make some breakthroughs before all the AI companies crater! Speaking of which that would be a great post for this community to weigh in on: AI is already “too big to fail”, so how much farther will we go with it before we are forced to scale back, recognizing its limitations and the limited returns on investment? FWIW, I think there are at least two distinct returns: the monthly subscription that any schmo can get and the licenses that a large institutions buy (USG R&D labs, Wall Street, Hospitals (to do medicine, not to game the patients!)).
That’s because ALL countries with a high rate of exponential growth (resulting in a high death rate) implemented lockdowns (but by then it was too late); while few countries (or US States) with a low rate of exponential growth did.
I have been saying this for 6 years. People just refuse to look at reality; and refuse to look at the only way a lockdown can be realistically prevented. Which is why i think that the anti-lockdown outrage is just posturing: people just like to have something to whinge about.
But i agree with the rest of what Paul wrote.
Except that whether the “injections” were “vaccines” is a matter of definition, and therefore of no interest to me.
@GregWA
It’s going to be interesting to see how AI will become the research assistant, the postdoc, for our best scientists. That certainly has exciting possibilities.
I think that is wishful thinking TBH. We will soon be at the point that humans can barely understand the results AI is producing, and not long after than we won’t even be able to understand the questions it is asking. No, the role of humans in a future AI[*] economy is as an interface between humans and the AI. So doctors will have a role because people want to talk to people not machines, but most of the actual medicine and medical analysis will be done by machines; people who want software will talk to other people with expertise in the field who will instruct the AI what to build (FWIW, this is becoming more and more true already); AI will be able to perform music better than the best musicians, but people will still want to go see musicians playing in concert (FWIW, this is true already — there has been a huge growth in live performances since the widespread distribution of MP3s); people will talk to architects telling them what they want their building to look like, but the design will be done almost entirely by AI; and scientists will decide what areas we want to know more about but AIs will do the actual research work, and take time to explain it back to those same scientists.
To give an example of the most recent spectacle. ChatGPT solved the Unit Distance on a Plane problem. This is a mathematical theory that every PhD mathematician has thought about at least a little if not a lot, since it was proposed by Erdős in 1940s. ChatGPT was posed the problem and solved it quickly with about $20,000 of computer time. And so it will continue: all the questions humans have posed will quickly be solved by one or other AIs, and what then? I guess we will have to propose new problems, and perhaps even ask AI to come up with questions we haven’t even thought of. One is reminded that the answer to the question of life the universe and everything is 42, but nobody yet is quite sure what the question is.
[*] When I say AI here it is important to understand that I mean all three layers of AI: generative, agentic and embodied. The use of AI embodied in robots, something that is going to hit us all just as hard as ChatGPT did in 2023, is going to be even more transformative than the first two types of AI. You shouldn’t take investing advice from some random dude on the internet, but I have a significant part of my investment in the almost inevitable winner here, TSLA. Someone might say that it is down recently after recent earnings calls, and if they said that they’d be both right and also entirely missing the point.
Fraser, I took your response as inspiration to ask Grok about scientific breakthroughs by AI. All it can come up with, for any flavor or AI, is the AI is better at running models, looking through large (!) amounts of information, solving complex problems, whether in math, materials modeling, whatever. But it could not point to any breakthrough in how we think about chemistry, physics, biology, etc. Don’t get me wrong, giving 10M scientists the best research assistant that ever lived is going to change everything…but people will still make the fundamental breakthroughs.
I would like to see biology advance to the point that every drug will be identified based on its mechanism of action and all effects on the human body will be known before the drug is administered. Can AI do that? Ever? Compare to now where combinatorial methods are used to test a million compounds, the most favorable 1000 advance to further study, with a final few advancing to animal studies, then human trials (unless its an mRNA poison…but that’s another story). Even after that, once found to be effective with acceptable side effects, the mechanism for the compound’s (drug’s) action is not known. I’m simplifying a lot. That scenario is old, there is now better insight that drives a more mechanistic exploration of possibilities, but in the end it’s the same…it’s largely unknown what the side effects are or how the drug works in detail.
And unfortunately, there is no one, no scientists, no regulators, no investors, no industries, that have a stake in doing anything but the Big Pharma death dance that’s been going on for a long time. It will be awful to watch AI get squandered because of politics. But why should it be different…our screwed up politics already have us wasting resources, lives, and life itself!
Ok, that was a dark ending!
“Science is the belief in the fallibility of experts.”
– some moron named Richard Feynman.
“countries that did NOT lockdown had a LOWER Covid death rate than we did “
Only four countries (out of some 200) had “no” lockdowns…
The countries most clearly documented as having no mandatory nationwide COVID lockdowns in 2020 or 2021 are:
Sweden, Taiwan, Uruguay, and Iceland.
They had PARTIAL lockdowns. E.g.. Sweden: Closed borders, ban on mass gatherings (theaters, sport events). And: they recommended (and practiced) voluntary lockdowns, i.e. People feeling vulnerable and wishing to avoid work or crowded commutes COULD stay home. Which is the least that can be demanded from an individual rights perspective.
So there were no countries with NO lockdowns, there were partial and voluntary lockdowns (contrasted to mandatory lockdowns). That is – some measures were mandatory (border closing, no mass meetings) and some voluntary.
As to results: results were mixed.
Taiwan and Iceland had among the lowest excess mortality in the world, Uruguay performed moderately well early but worsened in 2021, and Sweden had significantly higher mortality than its Nordic peers, though not the worst in Europe.
So, Paul, your claims above are at best partially true.
The main takeaway, in my opinion is this: there was a bad pandemic, and the major damage was done by the illness and epidemic. Concentrating on the lockdowns is missing the main issue.
@GregWA
I’m going to assume from your response that you are a professional scientist, which I am not — I’m an engineer. But, if you will indulge me, let me share a few thoughts.
AI is better at running models, looking through large (!) amounts of information, solving complex problems, whether in math, materials modeling, whatever. But it could not point to any breakthrough in how we think about chemistry, physics, biology, etc.
AI in its modern form has been out in public for just over two and a half years. At this stage Einstein was learning his multiplication tables. The modern architecture of AI is called the mixture of experts where a group of highly specialized AIs work together to produce an answer, and so the AI experts that specialize in these sciences you mention are still pooping in their diapers. AI is already plowing through math solving age old problems as if they were middle school math. So let’s regroup on your thoughts on this five years from now. I’d be surprised if AI has not solved all the Millennium Prize Problems by then.
As to the specific skills it brings to bear which you have accurately reflected here, are not those the very skills that are used to make these breakthroughs? I’m curious, what mechanism do you think that humans use to make breakthroughs that AI is not capable of?
I would like to see biology advance to the point that every drug will be identified based on its mechanism of action and all effects on the human body will be known before the drug is administered. Can AI do that? Ever? Compare to now where combinatorial methods are used to test a million compounds, the most favorable 1000 advance to further study, with a final few advancing to animal studies,
Sure that is true, and in a sense drug testing is a special case because of the human risks involved. But I’d say a few things about this. First of all, we are on the propinquity of a revolution in robotics that will make the revolution in AI look small. AI will have hands and feet and consequently be able to do the very experimentation you talk of here. It does not need to “do it all in its head”, rather it can experiment in the physical world the same way scientists do today. Except that it can do it without error, without sleep all while massively multitasking at a cost much lower than the cost of that grad student in lab conditions that would make a sweatshop owner blush.
Also, it is worth considering that the procedures we use are designed for human scientists. We need to reconsider regulatory regimes to deal with these new realities. Let me give an obvious example of this — the one place where embodied AI is commonplace, is in full self driving vehicles. I am not suggesting we actually do what I imagine here, but allow me a hypothetical if you will. Imagine all vehicles on the road were replaced by full self driving AIs. They are at least an order of magnitude safer than a human driver, and several orders of magnitude safer than the morons who drive recklessly and drunk who cause most of the serious accidents. In my scenario we would reduce road traffic fatalities but at least 30,000 people per year. I am not suggesting they would eliminate all accidents, just the large majority of them. Nonetheless, despite this self evident fact, full self driving cars of not generally allowed in most places out of safety concerns. This is an issue of the legislation and the regulations not keeping up with the technology.
unless its an mRNA poison…but that’s another story
A brief aside here. One consequence of the Covid debacle is that mRNA therapeutics have a a terrible reputation among some people, and don’t get me started on the people who reject vaccination because of Covid — vaccination being the medical intervention that has saved more lives than any other, save perhaps public health sanitation. mRNA treatment has amazing possibilities for treating a wide range of diseases. Of course it needs proper testing and proper adverse effect monitoring, but there is a great danger of throwing a beautiful baby burgeoning with life saving possibilities, out with the bathwater.
@Jacob
Concentrating on the lockdowns is missing the main issue.
Lockdowns were among the greatest widespread violations of our civil rights in modern history. It is not possible that they can be anything except the main issue.
Jacob – what you present as facts are false.
Starting with your claim that only four countries did not have a lockdown – your claim is false.
Most of the things you say about this general subject is false.
You do not seem to care that people who died of Covid could have been saved by Early Treatments (which they could have been).
And you also do not care about the people either injured or killed by the injections – which were not vaccines.
I will not say “have a nice day” – as I strongly hope you do not have a nice day Sir.
We must remember the honest medical doctors and honest medical scientists who told the truth about Covid – and were horribly persecuted.
Thankfully there are some decent people in the world.
Fraser, I had a detailed response for you, then bumped the wrong button and its gone! The most maddening thing about computers is they don’t remember every single keystroke, no matter what (except for the NSA bot that’s been installed…but it ain’t helpful!).
Anyway, what I wrote: thank you for another thoughtful response. And yes, I’m a pro scientist, having worked for about 35 years now in the US DOE labs and risen through the ranks.
The skills I listed are certainly part of what’s required for real breakthroughs, but not all I think? I think what’s missing from the skills I listed is intuition, but intuition deeply informed by study, “chance favors the prepared”.
I ended what I wrote with an ask: who would you recommend reading on the subject of “how do important breakthroughs, in science and other arts, occur?” Popper? Asimov? Feynmann?
I tend to not want to read a philosopher on such things…too academic, too detached from the practice of science.
p.s., my greatest evidence for the status of AI is the “I’m not a robot” button I have to click on this website to prove I’m a human! I love how low that bar is! Seems like a club I don’t really want to be a member of (h/t Grouch Marx).
@GregWA, thanks and I’m bummed you lost the more detailed response, I’m sure it would have been interesting reading. It’d be cool if you could ping the NSA and say — “hey I know you are snooping, would you mind playing back to me what I said” 😉
The one thing I’d add is that I think it is important that we think hard about what magic words like “intuition” mean. I assume if you are a scientist you believe in materialism and that our brain is the source of our thoughts not some mystical external force. And so this “intuition” — which undoubtedly exists — is a mechanism of some kind? So what is it and what excludes an AI from having it?
I’d suggest to you that what we mean by “intuition” is “the ability to recognize patterns in data, patterns when the data is incomplete and fuzzy, but where we can project based on other patterns what that missing data is.” Our brains are excellent pattern matchers, but so are AI systems. As I mentioned they recently solved the unit distance problem that Paul Erdos proposed seventy years ago, something that brilliant mathematicians have been thinking about and seeking intuition on for a long time.
I don’t doubt that comparing electronic brains and wetware brains are each better at slightly different types of intuition. Fwiw I think human intuition may well have a small amount of randomness involved, a misfiring of a neuron that cascaded into a set of thinking that does not follow logically but produces a jump. I also think that our emotion hormones have an illogical impact on our rational thinking too. Errors like this are no doubt mostly benign, and of the rest the vast majority are negative, but surely there are some serendipitous outcomes. Of course this randomness has to happen in a brain that is, as you say, well prepared to interpret it.
But here is something I’d offer for your thinking — SpaceX is well on the way to deploying StarBrain — data centers in space. One of the challenges of any computer in space is the presence of cosmic rays that can flip bits at random, and they put a lot of shielding in for that very reason. But when it comes to an AI model the flipping of a bit is a lot less consequential than it is in a purely deterministic program, and who knows what random intuition that random bit flip might lead to.
Even Wikipedia, a site controlled by the left (very strongly controlled by the establishment left) does not pretend that only four countries did not have lockdowns.
As for the general situation.
This is not 2020 or 2021 – this is 2026.
Anyone who still (still – in 2026) pretends that the lockdowns were a good idea is not making an innocent error – they are lying.
Ditto someone who still, in 2026, pretends there were no effective Early Treatments for Covid (which there were – as brave doctors and medical scientists pointed out – and were persecuted for doing so). Or pretends that the injections were “safe and effective”.
“But President Trump still boasts about the injections” – I know, and this is a very bad thing to do (and he has been told the truth – by people who know him well and have told him to his face).
“Lockdowns were among the greatest widespread violations of our civil rights in modern history. It is not possible that they can be anything except the main issue.”
The first part is true. Lockdowns were a violation of human rights.
But in the context of the covid pandemic – the death of millions from the virus was the main issue.
And there was no such thing as NO lockdowns, there were stricter vs milder, shorter vs longer, voluntary vs mandatory lockdowns.
@Jacob
But in the context of the covid pandemic – the death of millions from the virus was the main issue.
Sorry I don’t agree. The lockdowns did nothing of any value. So, the choice was not lockdowns or deaths, it was lockdowns and deaths, or no lockdowns and the same deaths.
There are few things as murderous in history as a government unconstrained by civil rights.
Don’t even get me started on the mask debacle.
I have said what I have to say – there is no point in endless repeating the same points.
If other people choose to be despicable (make a voluntary choice to side with evil – knowing full well what they are doing) – then to Hell with them.
This is correct IFF you use the term “lockdown” very loosely.
If you use “lockdown” to denote exclusively a stay-at-home mandate (except for shopping, taking out the trash, and working at “essential” businesses), then there were quite a few countries with no lockdowns.
At least in the OECD, however, countries had no lockdowns precisely because they implemented what you call “partial lockdowns”* early on, so that a “full” lockdown was not necessary later on. This includes all Nordic and Baltic countries, and (i believe) Japan and South Korea in addition to Taiwan.
* mostly social distancing, plus telling people that they must act responsibly for their own good (instead of telling them to go out and have fun, as De Blasio did).
If people here really wanted to avoid lockdowns, they’d learn the lesson; but it seems that people here just enjoy posturing.
The Italians, and maybe others, learned the lesson: that is why in Italy there was a (full) lockdown only in the 1st wave.
Did Czechia get through the 1st wave with masks alone?