Aug 30, 2021
Our friends Jeff Eaton and Kristin Rawls from the Christian
Rightcast return to help us wrap up our Bret & Heather coverage, at
least for now. Daniel takes us through the horrors of the
'Better Skeptics Project', Bret and Heather's escalating (yet
crumbling) project of puffing Ivermectin as a Covid treatment,
their spat with Yuri Deigin and Quillette, etc.
Content Warnings
Show Notes:
Christian Rightcast https://rightcast.substack.com/
CHristian Rightcast on Twitter https://twitter.com/crightcast?lang=en
Kristin's Twitter https://twitter.com/kristinrawls
Jeff's Twitter https://twitter.com/eaton
Thread by Ben Collins on the origins of the Ivermectin craze:
https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1431040456364810242
Decoding the Gurus,
Special Episode: Welcome to Weinstein World with special guest
David Pizarro
Yuri Deigin,
Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function
Research
- Furin Cleavage Site
- Similarities to RaTG13
Dark Horse Episode 93: School of
Rocks
"No such thing as a biologist" -- 40:50ish
Claire Berlinksi and Yuri Deigin,
Looking for COVID-19 ‘Miracle Drugs’? We Already Have Them. They’re
Called Vaccines
Sam Harris with Eric Topol, Making Sense Podcast #256, A
Contagion of Bad Ideas
Rebel Wisdom YouTube
Rebel Wisdom, Better Skeptics for
the Dark Horse
Rebel Wisdom, Ivermectin, For and
Against, with Tess Lawrie, Graham Walker, and Gideo
Meyerson-Katz
Rebel Wisdom, Eric Weinstein:
Vaccines, Ivermectin, & Dark Horse
Rebel Wisdom, Yuri Deigin Responds
to Bret Weinstein on Vaccines, Ivermectin, and Quillette
Rebel Wisdom, Vaccines and Dark
Horse, an Investigation
Rebel Wisdom, Ivermectin, the
Backstory of the FLCCC. Eric Osgood
David Fuller,
Ivermectin -- For and Against, Briefing Document
David Fuller,
On Bret Weinstein, Alternative Media, Ivermectin and
Vaccine-Related Controversies
Megyn Kelly, Bret Weinstein on
Tech Censorship, The Value of Conversation, and COVID
Treatments
- Kirsch and Malone and the Other Side Starts around 17:20
The Better Skeptics
Project
Alexandros Marinos Twitter
Alexandros Marinos [thread about Fuller and Better
Skeptics]https://mobile.twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1422301544737738762?s=19
Alexandros Marinos
thread about the Sam Harris/Eric Topol Making Sense
Better Skeptics, [Launching the 10K Ground Truth
Challenge]https://www.betterskeptics.com/launching-the-10k-ground-truth-challenge/
- We think it is worthwhile to take full accounting of the
quality of the statements uttered in these podcasts. This is almost
11 hours worth of live speech, so it would be unbelievable if the
number of false statements is zero. Should some false statements be
identified, it will be for the world to see how the interested
parties react. We want to compose high-quality fact-checking from
average-quality ingredients: normal people, with our own biases and
internal contradictions.
- A detailed description of the challenge process and rules is
available here.
In a nutshell: Anyone who identifies what they believe is a false
statement will be required to submit their claim to us via public
Twitter message with a specified hashtag. Three referees will
evaluate each submission across two rounds, and all submissions
scoring 9 or above will be awarded the $100 prize.
Ground
Truth Challenge: The Rules
We've chosen and transcribed four recent podcasts featuring Bret
Weinstein which discussed COVID-19 vaccines and/or Ivermectin.
These are:
- Covid, Ivermectin, and the Crime of the Century. June 1, 2021.
Video -
Transcript
- How to Save the World in Three Easy Steps. June 11, 2021.
Video -
Transcript
- Joe Rogan Experience #1671 - Bret Weinstein & Dr. Pierre Kory.
June 22, 2021. Video
-
Transcript
- Bret and Heather 87th DarkHorse Podcast Livestream: We Must
Drive this Virus to Extinction. July 12, 2021. Video -
Transcript
Ground
Truth Challenge: Results!
- So what of the outcome? In the end, only 3 challenges
succeeded. Of these, two provided effective counter-arguments, not
entirely refuting the target quote but providing sufficient
counter-evidence to warrant narrowing or rephrasing it. The third
is a straightforward factual error that was no longer true at the
time of the podcast (see table below).
- The material consisted of 11 hours of live, unscripted speech
put under extreme scrutiny, and with no prior warning to the
speakers. We therefore feel it's remarkable that so few challenges
ended up as successful - however, this was our first such
challenge, so we have no point of comparison.
Natural Selections Substack,
On Driving SARS-CoV-2 Extinct
- If we are interested in minimizing harm from SARS-CoV2, we need
to use prophylaxis to force extinction. Prophylaxis refers to
action taken before exposure to prevent an event. A condom is
prophylaxis against pregnancy. Doxycycline is prophylaxis against
malaria. Vaccines and repurposed drugs such as ivermectin have both
been presented as prophylaxis against Covid-19. In order to clear
our planet of SARS-CoV2, we need safe and effective prophylaxis
distributed so widely that it drives the virus to extinction.
- How we do this is up for debate, and of course there will be
disagreement along the way. Some people, including the authors of a
recently published Quillette
article, see one and only one way forward: vaccination of every
person with access to currently authorized vaccines. Other people,
including ourselves, believe that the current vaccines—which are
non-sterilizing, cannot quickly reach the entire world, and provide
only narrow, short-lived immunity—cannot accomplish the goal, not
even in principle. Any viable strategy for extinguishing SARS-CoV-2
in the near term must therefore include effective prophylaxis
beyond the current crop of authorized vaccines. For now that means
drugs taken to prevent infection for those who are unvaccinated and
who have not had a confirmed case of Covid (and therefore lack
natural immunity). It may also require prophylactic medicine for
vaccinated people as fading vaccine-induced immunity and new
variants evolving in response to the vaccination campaign render
the current vaccines ever less effective.
- This is a departure for us, running exactly counter to our
typical expectations. Ordinarily, we are enthusiastic about
vaccines and decidedly skeptical about pills. On this issue though,
with these vaccines, our position has flipped. There are several
reasons for this: the novel and non-sterilizing nature of the
vaccines being deployed, the potential for perverse incentives
involved in a vaccine only strategy, emerging concerns about
vaccine safety, and the logistical reality that vaccines alone
cannot, and will not, get the job done. In addition, the most
promising prophylactic medicine is also extremely well known, with
a four-decade long and unusually clean global safety record. This
reasoning is discussed in episode #87of our podcast.
Gideon M-K thread
on the Carvallo ivermectin study.
- "20/n Given that the graphical and written representations of
the primary outcome of the study appear to conflict, and the
results tables differ between the pre-registration and the
publication, it is worth asking whether this study even took place
at all"
Gideon M-K at his Medium,
Ivermectin Shows No Clear Benefit in the Treatment of
Covid-19
- The new study in question is called the Together Clinical Trials,
and it’s a truly amazing collaboration between a number of
universities and research groups to study the effects of repurposed
drugs on people with Covid-19 who attend hospitals as
outpatients.
- Basically, they look at people who are at moderate risk but are
experiencing relatively mild disease, randomize them to either get
one of several drugs or a placebo, and then see if those drugs have
any benefit in treating Covid-19. The
full protocol is a masterpiece of science—well worth reading if
you’re interested in trial design.
- This trial has
already demonstrated that hydroxychloroquine and
lopinavir/ritonavir are unlikely to be beneficial treatments for
people with Covid-19 in outpatient settings and, because of the
hype around ivermectin, had included the drug in a treatment arm to
see if it worked. The results from that part of the trial,
including over 1,300 patients, were released in summary form late
this afternoon.
- They showed
no benefit for ivermectin in the treatment of Covid-19. None
whatsoever.
Gideon M-K, Medium post
Is Ivermectin for Covid-19 Based on Fraudulent Research? Part
2
- Most research is OK — it has some virtues, some oversights,
some charms, some flaws. Some is excellent and transformative, some
is terrible and harmful. When I first became interested in
ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication being tested for Covid-19,
I expected a combo plate of the above — just like everything
else.
- Maybe, and this is a worst-case scenario, a few cheeky papers
that had been doctored or altered noticeably, something bad enough
to leave a clue.
- I did not expect what has happened, what is happening.
- I hesitate to put this into words, because it scares me, and
because I know the consequences of such statements. But there is no
sugar thick enough to coat this:
- Ivermectin literature contains a staggering volume of
scientific fraud. Not mistakes, or
oversights, or gilded lilies. Fraud.
- My sincere opinion is that at least a third of the evidence
supporting the use of ivermectin as a Covid-19 therapeutic is not
just ‘ based on shaky data’, but consists of studies that may never
have happened at all.
Dark Horse 94, Is It Later Than We
Think?
- Around 26:00, repudiating the Carvallo et al paper.