I actually listened to that one and even though I don't agree with everything that was discussed during that 3 hour interview, a few things struck me as odd in the huge wave of criticism that followed.
- Dr Malone has a rather impressive CV and a rather relevant one when it comes to Covid. This is a point that is glossed over by most media. He's not some crackpot theorist but somebody with a rather impressive research career centered on doing research around major virus outbreaks. Or at least that's what Joe Rogan spends about an hour of the interview trying to establish as the ground truth. Like him or not, when somebody like that says something, you might want to listen. Or if that reputation has some flaws, an eager fact checker might want to highlight that. Instead it was glossed over. If this is somehow not true, I've yet to find an article challenging that reputation.
- In the podcast, Dr Malone and Rogan discuss the cancel culture and the fact that several notable colleagues of his have had to deal with that. To the point where medical licenses were cancelled. And that he too has been under attack following a rather negative piece in the Atlantic.
- Some pretty harsh criticism is voiced towards Pfizer and the FDA's failure to do its job in overseeing the way Pfizer rushed the vaccine to market and maybe cut a few corners with testing protocols. Those are serious accusations. When they are made by somebody with Malone's apparent reputation, a serious journalist might want to fact check them. I've not seen any attempt at that.
- During the interview, Dr. Malone singles out the Atlantic article that criticized him and the author of that article as an inexperienced "woke" journalist that basically got their facts wrong. And then every other mainstream media goes on to use specifically that article as the core basis for "cancelling" Malone. What happened to allowing the other side to counter? Isn't that what you are supposed to do as a good journalist?
You don't have to agree with any of what was discussed during that interview of course but I find it notable that mainstream media gloss over most of that and fail to fact check any of it. There are some rather serious issues that were discussed in this interview that as of yet have not been challenged and instead are simply ignored.
For example, I read a pretty harsh article on the BBC a few days ago that was actually attempting to "fact check" exactly this episode on a few things and it left me wondering if they'd even bothered to listen to this episode or whether I actually listened to the same thing. A Guardian actually mentioned the Atlantic article. Neither of them gave Malone an opportunity to respond. Given the amount of time spent during the podcast discussing exactly that article, that is more than a bit sloppy.
I noticed as well the bias in Rogan's interview and maybe a bit eagerly jumping to conclusions by Joe Rogan. For me that falls under free speech. But still, it was an interesting exchange and packed with a lot of detail and well argued opinions that, as of yet, remain mostly unchallenged. That worries me.
For reference, I got vaccinated, boostered, and will get another shot. But I have a few growing concerns regarding the special status of Pfizer at this point and their apparent influence over mainstream media and politicians to basically run what looks like a character assassination campaign. There's plenty there for a serious journalist to fact check. Maybe the most worrying thing is the apparent self censure ship mainstream media seem to be applying to themselves.
I suppose that's representative of how we're seeing so many folks gloss over Dr. Malone's CV and so many other facts about this podcast in particular. Could it just be a criticism bandwagon where no one is _actually_ listening to Rogan?
Science doesn't work flawlessly, nor does it rely on some magical subset of the population deemed "scientists" having perfect knowledge and judgement. The rest of the process matters, precisely because scientists make mistakes likely at rates not really any different than anybody else. By waving Malone's scientist credentials, JR is implicitly saying that this story is science, but that whole angle is actually anti-science! Credentials alone don't define the scientific process.
Furthermore, people haven't internalized how difficult much of this is. Scientists make mistakes all the time because despite professionalism interpreting data isn't easy, and even peer review doesn't catch most errors. As a symptom of that consider what's underlying the replication crisis in science (which doesn't affect all science equally). Interpreting messy data with lots of confounders and imperfect experimental setups, imperfect measurements of those confounders, imperfect statistical models that simplify distribution characteristics, imperfect statistical tools that cannot capture all higher order effects, imperfect generalization from the specific experiment to the interesting take-home claim, etc etc etc may well be impossible in most cases. Finding the few nuggets of truth where we can cut through all that trickiness is not easy. And identifying flaws in such research is not easy either; experts get it wrong all the time. That's OK, that's normal. The hope isn't that every scientific claim is perfect, it's that the system eventually converges to a slightly better understanding of the world than we have now.
If Malone wants to present his interpretation to his peers: that's great, and fine. They're used to uncertainty, and have the best tools and training to deal with the cognitive dissonance of having lots of partially contradictory research. But his arguments seem to have failed to convince them - at least I'm not hearing much backup. However, cherry-picking "experts" with non-conventional views and presenting their interpretation to an audience that cannot interpret the uncertainty behind Malone's claims while supporting his credentials is essentially lying to listeners; you're encouraging them to draw false conclusions.
People are social animals; we're uniquely good at learning - and copying from - others. It's that copying that is our greatest strength, while also being a risk when mixed up with mass-media's ability to selectively amplify voices. And we all run our economies fully embracing that; which is why businesses hire experts and try to avoid all kinds of biases when it hits their bottom line; it's why advertisements work as a business; it's why we talk about propaganda and use information warfare in actual military conflicts. People aren't very good at filtering and processing information; they're great at _copying_ it and distributing that knowledge through social circles. Knowledge is power, but it's also a vulnerability.
If we cannot acknowledge our cognitive weaknesses, we cannot prevent being ruled by them. To put it another way: memes are real, and have the power to control us if we're not careful. Giving Malone an unfiltered megaphone through which to amplify what most other experts appear to conclude is nonsense is not being careful.
https://odysee.com/@Plazma:9/BroughtToYoubyPfizer:1
Absolutely not! Pfizer is not getting any sort of special treatment.