"If your science is correct but your communication is poor, you harm your own cause." This is the crux of so many errors over the past 2 years, (at least). I'm most likely guilty of it myself, along with personal biases.
Alasdair, your Substacks really should be published to a broader audience in my opinion.
We are all guilty of it from time to time. That is the nature of human frustration!
Thank you for your kind words Lisa, please do share the posts if you think the content is good - or if you know anyone who might want to publish them to a broader audience then tell them too!
“Some people are stating xyz. I believe this is wrong, here is why…” - But in published scholarship, this would be completely unacceptable. I get that quote tweets can cause pile-ons, but if you have a specific argument with someone else's statement, don't you want readers to know exactly what that statement is? That will help readers judge for themselves, and is also good discipline for you against straw-manning.
Sure, twitter's less civil than controversy in journals, but no scientist is forced to be on twitter.
The benefit of engaging through a scientific journal process they can moderate content which is deemed offensive or as hominem. There is no mechanism for trolling. The process on twitter is completely different, hence why more care must be taken with how you engage. The ramifications of your actions are very different.
You can use de-identified screenshots if you wish to show specific examples, but I find this is often unnecessary.
Thanks. There is a mechanism for trolling: it's called blocking. I appreciate that you value comity, but I repeat: no scientist is forced to go onto twitter. Those who do and who spread fear and untruths need to be called out specifically by honest and decent actors like yourself. Leaving that to the trolls legitimates dishonest scientists' twitter personae and messages.
Conversely, scientific journals so value civility (ahem) that many of them are extremely resistant to publishing critiques of research they've published, no matter how shoddy.
I appreciate that it's sad to see scientific discourse get nasty. But your attempts and those of like-minded scientists to protect children from the harms of lockdown while maintaining comity failed at the former, which is surely the more important outcome.
I'm not arguing that you start insulting colleagues, just that personal accountability for one's ideas is a reasonable expectation.
This is an excellent post and I appreciate it. Can you put this in 280 characters so we can rtweet lol? Seriously I think it is a very sound piece of advice. I admired the little discourse you and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had over a paper recently, both of you were very respectful and I remember thinking to myself “this is how it’s done”. I am thankful for substack because this is a much better platform for scientific discussion. Twitter is really such a pedestrian avenue!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge, hope more and more more people see, read and comprehend!
Yes, quite extraordinary to see in a medical journal. The conflation between harms occurring from a lack or preparation/intervention and purposeful, direct action has been quite unhelpful. There is a wide berth between incompetence and malice.
Your common sense arguments are easy for people to follow. But what you have to remember is there is a $60 billion Pharma corrupted medical establishment that you are fighting against. Common sense and civility does not work under those conditions. They have declared war on us.
"If your science is correct but your communication is poor, you harm your own cause." This is the crux of so many errors over the past 2 years, (at least). I'm most likely guilty of it myself, along with personal biases.
Alasdair, your Substacks really should be published to a broader audience in my opinion.
We are all guilty of it from time to time. That is the nature of human frustration!
Thank you for your kind words Lisa, please do share the posts if you think the content is good - or if you know anyone who might want to publish them to a broader audience then tell them too!
The people who need to read this won't sadly.
You never know. Maybe someone will send it to them as a gentle nudge...!
“Some people are stating xyz. I believe this is wrong, here is why…” - But in published scholarship, this would be completely unacceptable. I get that quote tweets can cause pile-ons, but if you have a specific argument with someone else's statement, don't you want readers to know exactly what that statement is? That will help readers judge for themselves, and is also good discipline for you against straw-manning.
Sure, twitter's less civil than controversy in journals, but no scientist is forced to be on twitter.
The benefit of engaging through a scientific journal process they can moderate content which is deemed offensive or as hominem. There is no mechanism for trolling. The process on twitter is completely different, hence why more care must be taken with how you engage. The ramifications of your actions are very different.
You can use de-identified screenshots if you wish to show specific examples, but I find this is often unnecessary.
Thanks. There is a mechanism for trolling: it's called blocking. I appreciate that you value comity, but I repeat: no scientist is forced to go onto twitter. Those who do and who spread fear and untruths need to be called out specifically by honest and decent actors like yourself. Leaving that to the trolls legitimates dishonest scientists' twitter personae and messages.
Conversely, scientific journals so value civility (ahem) that many of them are extremely resistant to publishing critiques of research they've published, no matter how shoddy.
I appreciate that it's sad to see scientific discourse get nasty. But your attempts and those of like-minded scientists to protect children from the harms of lockdown while maintaining comity failed at the former, which is surely the more important outcome.
I'm not arguing that you start insulting colleagues, just that personal accountability for one's ideas is a reasonable expectation.
This is an excellent post and I appreciate it. Can you put this in 280 characters so we can rtweet lol? Seriously I think it is a very sound piece of advice. I admired the little discourse you and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had over a paper recently, both of you were very respectful and I remember thinking to myself “this is how it’s done”. I am thankful for substack because this is a much better platform for scientific discussion. Twitter is really such a pedestrian avenue!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge, hope more and more more people see, read and comprehend!
Excellent set of guidelines, thank you.
Thank you for reminding me.
Not directly related to Twitter, but I was stunned when the BMJ described our pandemic response in terms of ‘murder’. https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n314
Interesting to see historical precedent for this
Yes, quite extraordinary to see in a medical journal. The conflation between harms occurring from a lack or preparation/intervention and purposeful, direct action has been quite unhelpful. There is a wide berth between incompetence and malice.
Your common sense arguments are easy for people to follow. But what you have to remember is there is a $60 billion Pharma corrupted medical establishment that you are fighting against. Common sense and civility does not work under those conditions. They have declared war on us.
You are blaming Semmelweis for the stupidity of his colleagues?
The same is still going on.
Nobel Prize winning proof that most doctors lack fundamental medical knowledge and thus sicken us with devastating chronic diseases
https://zenodo.org/record/3475557