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Comment by _aleph2c_ | Hacker News Reader

Mallory Harris is critiquing Dr. Levit because he is not agreeing with the scientific consensus. She is also holding him accountable for re-interpretations of his twitter stream. If this is true, then anyone with any authority or rank should stop using twitter or say anything at all; there is always a chance that someone else can twist your words and use your authority to back their case.

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Successful public figures typically write with their particular audience in mind, and often hire others to help them do this effectively, and in a way their audience understands and does not misinterpret. There are entire career disciplines that focus almost exclusively on this skill.

Public figures need to be sensitive to motivated reasoning https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/motivated-reasonin... by the general public when they post. Looking at:

https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/130176837049748275...

What if he had ended this tweet with "But: I will take any FDA approved vaccine." ?

Except - he was at exactly 280 characters, so he couldn't have added this without removing other text, or doing a multi-tweet message.

https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-abstract/69/4/345/55470... says "We show that doubling the permissible length of a tweet led to less uncivil, more polite, and more constructive discussions online."

Maybe the character limits inherent in platforms like twitter cause many of the problems we're seeing right now, because people literally don't have the words to explain themselves.

Mallory Harris is critiquing Dr. Levitt because he has made scientifically incorrect statements and when presented with the contrary evidence has not corrected his misstatements. The article documents these misstatements, implores him to correct the record, and he does not. These misstatements are clearly presented and cited.

It would be problematic for a medical doctor to disseminate medically incorrect information to the public and not correct or clarify it. Similarly, it is problematic for a scientist to disseminate scientifically incorrect information and not correct or clarify it. It would be a simple thing for him to simply tweet, "On x date I tweeted y. The evidence now suggests that this statement was incorrect." The science on this continues to evolve, acknowledging that sometimes we are wrong is not a stain on one's reputation. It is the mark of a scientist who is pursuing evidence rather than a narrative. Dr. Levitt is pursuing narrative over evidence, and his actions have consequences.

Twitter is another form of public speech, like interviews, public lectures, etc. Scientists always were accountable for re-interpretations of their lectures, public speeches. Why it should change on twitter?

Really? Tell me how scientists have been held responsible for reinterpretations. It's easy to find many examples of scientists who can't be blamed for how their discoveries are used. For instance, Watson and Crick would never have reported DNA because they knew it would be used by supremicists and other racists to justify their thoughts.

Watson is pretty racist himself, actually: https://www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18182530/james-watson-racist

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