Nature supports Joe Biden for US president
nature.comReading that article left me worried. It's not very factual, it has many errorneous statements, and, honestly, it looks like propaganda.
Seems to me like Nature is not worried about losing credability.
> it has many errorneous statements
Do you have any examples?
For an organization who one would think care deeply about science, I'd say statements like this is problematic.
"With the nation’s death toll now exceeding 215,000, the coronavirus has killed more people in the United States than anywhere else."
It's problematic because it's not very clear how this number has been calculated. CDC themselves say this about their own number:
"For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death."
Also, from the same page:
"When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death – or when it is listed as a “probable” or “presumed” cause — the death is coded as U07.1. This can include cases with or without laboratory confirmation."
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
So, 94% had other additional conditions (including heart disease, diabetes, and sepsis). And even then, not all cases had been confirmed/
It seems to me like 215,000 (probably/presumably) died _with_ COVID-19, but not necessarily from it.
In some countries in Europe, including the UK and some Scandinavian countries (I haven't been able to find the method for US), the number of deaths are counted in the following way:
"Deaths = the statistics on fatalities include deaths recorded within 30 days of the detection of COVID-19 infection in the individual. However, COVID-19 is not necessarily the cause of death."
https://www.sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Status-of-the-epide...
I believe this number was previously 90 days, but in my opinion, it's not a very scientific way to calculate the severity of COVID-19.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying nobody dies from COVID-19. Even numbers from Europe shows this clearly: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
But when Nature is using the number 215,000 in the way they did, it does not look very credible. Take a look at the whole statement:
"With the nation’s death toll now exceeding 215,000, the coronavirus has killed more people in the United States than anywhere else. Even adjusting for population size, the country has fared spectacularly badly. Despite having vast scientific and monetary resources at his disposal, Trump failed catastrophically when it mattered most."
To me that looks more like it's driven by Orange Man Bad, than by science.
Covid-19: At least two thirds of 225 000 excess deaths in US were due to virus (from march to july)
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3948
> it has many errorneous statements
You used the word "many", do you have any more examples?
This article seems to better explain the BMJ reference, at least it has more details: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/1-in-3-excess-deat...
"Healthcare disruption and emotional crises may have led to around a third of the 225,530 “excess deaths” in the United States between March 1 and August 1, 2020, a new study suggests."
Is it likely that 215,000 died from coronavirus, like Nature said? I'd like to see the math behind that.
I think you answered your own question ;-)
Maybe you'll find it interesting, I don't know, but it looks like some numbers show that the average age of people who died with COVID-19, in England and Wales (I've heard similar numbers for Scotland and Denmark), are higher than the average life expectancy in those countries: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8821113/The-avera...
Does this suggest that getting COVID-19 increase your risk of getting older than average? Well, both yes and no, I guess. The numbers says so, but logic does not. My point is, a topic like COVID-19 death toll has become so hot that it's almost impossible to find credible information on what's up and down. We need to have more talks, more science, more data, more reason, openly, about what is going on. And we need them from reliable sources. Nature is cutting themselves out of this loop when they post something so one-sided as this article.
+1. Had they limited themselves to the critique of Trump, it would be fine. But they actually take the step forward and bathe Biden in glory.
He may be a good guy, all I know is he isn't Trump, and says some of the right things, ahead of an election. This could translate to absolutely anything.
Biden has been a politician for decades. It's not hard to figure out what Biden is.
It's very different once you get the top job. And Nature, as a scientific publication, shouldn't be in the business of predicting that.
Politicians don't suddenly change when they're elected president (it's not like the powers of the president would really permit that, either).
Nature, as a scientific publication, is probably one of the best at predicting that, given it's run by scientists, who have deep history in analyzing how policy decisions affect science.
This is tragic. Science must always be free of politics.
If only certain (Republican) politicians would learn to keep their ignorant opinions out of science then maybe that would happen. When one party goes to war against facts and science then every scientist has a moral duty to push back.
Green new deal is absent of nuclear energy and does not include anything about base load mitigation. Instead there will be magical battery storage.
The affordable care act included chiropractor and acupuncture.
California is under a strict lockdown that has been admitted in their documents that it will never return to green and the WHO is returning to their previously held statement that lockdowns hurt the poor disproportionately and do not provide ultimate success.
Masks do not work, then work, then only special types of cloth (two layer gaiters no, two layer cloths, yes).
HCQ with zinc does work in early treatments until endorsed by a party leader, opposition locks out doctors (trained medical professionals) from using the drug in certain states with no scientific backing.
Science in the political realm is non existent if it interferes with the scoring of political points.
It is not Republicans / Democrats are anti science, it is the political positions each side is beholden to that drives these narratives and then are used to make the opposing side look dumb.
Only one party goes to war with facts? Take a look at the left's adoption critical theory, which denies that the cause of human behavior can be anything other than social construct.
Whatever shit they do, you don't want to step to that level. It is not true that you will loose otherwise, on the contrary, you will become a republican otherwise.
Democrats are also anti-science. It’s just due to scientists used to understanding they should stay out of politics.
The thinking behind their stance is well laid out in a previous editorial:
> The principle that the state will respect scholarly independence is one of the foundations underpinning modern research, and its erosion carries grave risks for standards of quality and integrity in research and policymaking. When politicians break that covenant, they endanger the health of people, the environment and societies.
This is why Nature’s news correspondents will redouble their efforts to watch and report on what is happening in politics and research worldwide. It is why authors of our expert commentaries will continue to assess and critique developments; and why the journal is looking to publish more primary research in political science.
Will they assess and critique developments if they are beneficial to Joe Biden political message and campaign? Will the public trust it?
The purpose of their stance is clear, but from this point on anything nature publish will have to be taken in the context of a political objective to get Joe Biden votes, with the side effect of benefiting scholarly independence once he is elected. That carries grave risks that people trust in the science decrease because the motives behind publications will be questioned based on political alignment rather than scientific evidence.
Ah, "political science". Doesn't get more natural than that.
That's not a very clever stance. The overwhelming leftism of academia is a matter that academics have themselves studied. It's not a secret. What this position boils down to is:
"Having successfully got rid of most conservative academics, we're going to push left wing narratives. The priorities of the people paying for it shouldn't matter. Anyone who isn't as leftist as us is from now on 'anti-science'."
I've been reading more papers from Nature, Science and The Lancet this year, due to COVID. They are politicised trash. The editor of the Lancet routinely goes on major anti-Trump rants on Twitter, so it was no surprise when he published the Surgisphere paper which took about 24 hours before an actual journalist (at the Guardian no less) noticed it was completely fake. Other papers push ideological positions using all the tricks of bad science.
The fact that academics consider these outlets respectable is very telling. They publish soo many bad papers.
Science magazine published a blog post where they pondered suppressing papers that had anti-lockdown conclusions or data because it might encourage people to be less afraid. Other scientists have reported their papers indeed being rejected for that given reason - not the quality of the science but the fact that it wouldn't support social policies popular on the left.
Social science is famously poor quality.
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with...
It's very sad that the natural sciences are so publicly hitching their reputation to it.
Great scientists clearly disagree with you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%E2%80%93Einstein_Manif...
Even if those politics are anti-science?
Especially so. Don't drop down to their level.
Unfortunately that does not work. When one group plays by the rules, and the other doesn't - the one that doesn't will constantly win.
See current election year Supreme Court nomination.
Yes, just like religion...
I get why you think so.
but I think you're wrong.
Silence is admirable for a while, but the extremity of anti-science policy's from the Trump administration requires defense of science.
Like a theory needs to be criticized and reviewed and attempted to be proven false or incorrect, so must Policy. Who better than to argue this than the experts in the given field.
This is a hilariously naive way of seeing things. Science is never neutral and never can be, and pretending it is neutral is just saying you're fine with the current status quo.
Trump actively harms science and scientists and universities, so why should the scientific community system quiet?
Because it is incredibly divisive and cheapens the journal. I'm not interested in what my doctor thinks of Biden, I just want to get rid of the damn foot fungus.
What if you wanted your doctor to assist you in abortion? That's an American political matter.
> Because it is incredibly divisive and cheapens the journal.
Pretending this is a normal election, or that Trump is normal candidate, cheapens everyone who has a platform and does not use it.
Nature doesn't deal with getting rid of foot fungi either. You're thinking of New England Journal of Medicine.
(FWIW, I think it would be amusing if Biden reached out to https://www.heavenmagazine.nl in order to get a Confucian mandate of heaven.)
analogy: a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
loose analogy: clarifies like a fish without a bicycle
I did find https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201468 but note that although it shows up on the web under nature.com, it's been published in The Journal of Antibiotics, not the flagship. Nature itself carries articles more on the lines of https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42065-5 .
> I'm not interested in what my doctor thinks of Biden, I just want to get rid of the damn foot fungus.
You are free to ignore what your doctor thinks of Biden, but if the other partly has or plans to enact laws which will impede your treatment, it is not outside of the responsibility of your doctor to inform you about that. I would expect my doctor to at least to be informed about it.
Certainly, it only is an aspect of policies, and of course, you are free to decide differently, as your decision may weigh things differently.
But I think, the main point is, you don't want to be bothered. That is understandable, but the solution is to ignore it.
Remember this Nature?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Most_Published_Research_Fi...
So much about "truth".
People don't have a problem with science. They have a problem with scientists.
They also say how Trump is bad because of the Paris agreement for environment. Did you know that the Paris agreement has no legal bindings? It's just a PR move by politicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Lack_of_bindin...
OpEds != Articles.
(even true of news, where unlike scientific journals, the difference between editorial and article isn't as blatant. This editorial has neither Abstract up front nor References in closing.)