Official Website for Amitabha Palmer
Recently a “bombshell” article appeared in the BMJ in which an investigative journalist reports a whistleblowers account of problems with the original Pfizer trial (linked below). As usual, Orac over at Respectful Insolence has done an excellent job evaluating and contextualizing the whistleblower’s claims. Rather that repeat Orac’s labor I want to contemplate the logical […]
Read More The Pfizer whistleblower: What Does it mean?When this pandemic eventually ends, the anti-vaccine movement will claim that it wasn’t because of vaccines. If the anti-vaccine movement is anything, they are consistent. Historically, they have always tried to point to some other variable besides vaccines to explain away a disease’s decline. The favorite explanation is that many communicable diseases declined precipitously because […]
Read More Predicting Anti-Vaccine Explanations for the Eventual End of the PandemicSOCRATES: I walked to the mall yesterday with Rory, son of Bill Gates, to make my prayers to the God of Christmas. As this was my first celebration of his festival, I wished also to see how the ceremony would be conducted. Along the way we encountered Apple, daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow. On our way […]
Read More The Lost Socratic Dialogue on VaccinesWARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE, RACIST, ANTI-SEMITIC, AND GENERALLY UPSETTING CONTENT. IF YOU’RE HAVING A BAD DAY, YOU MAY WANT TO COME BACK ANOTHER TIME. I have created this post so others may see the content on Parler without having to create an account. The longstanding cry of the Right is that they are […]
Read More Incubator for Political Violence and Hate: Inside ParlerIn this post I cover moral arguments vaccine skeptics make for non-medical exemptions. Skip to Part 3 if you’re just interested in the argument. In Part 1, I briefly make some general comments on the norms and practices for engaging vaccine skeptics and hesitants. In Part 2, quickly outline the strongest possible interpretation of medical […]
Read More Vaccine Skeptics are Pro-Vaccine: Moral Arguments Part 2This article is written for those who have friends or family that have been mislead by anti-vaccine propaganda but aren’t yet fully indoctrinated. Those who dogmatically oppose vaccines will not change their minds so spend your time elsewhere. There are, however, many fence-sitters that can be reached through intermittent, careful, patient, and kind interactions. Changing […]
Read More Vaccine Skeptics are Pro-Vaccine: Moral ArgumentsWelcome to Part 2 of my mini-series on better reasoning (Lesson 1). In today’s lesson we’re going to learn how to prove that you are right every single time–even when you’re not! You will learn about two important concepts: confirmation bias and counter-exampling. Confirmation bias is our brain’s tendency to see only confirming evidence for […]
Read More How to Ensure You Are Always RightThe internet is a fantastic place. You can find some of the most intelligent ideas and some of the most fantastically stupid ideas. Lately, the internet has been providing more of the latter. My response hasn’t been what I’d like it to be. For over ten years I’ve been studying conspiracism, science denialism, and political […]
Read More The Skeptic and The FoolI’m proud to announce that I have been blocked by a far-left facebook page for my skepticism about the current rampant conspiracism surrounding the Iowa caucus. All I really said was that it’s much easier to explain it with incompetence and poor planning instead of some long-winded conspiracy. Are we really supposed to believe that […]
Read More Conspiracism Right And Left: The Iowa Caucus DebacleWhat is It? Selective sharing involves sharing and promoting independent research to frame an issue in a way that is congenial to the propagandist. Drawing on independent research avoids people’s natural suspicions of interest-group funded or produced research (see: biased production). It also makes it harder to detect as propaganda. For a full set of […]
Read More Selective Sharing
Wrestling with Philosophy 