Given that we live in a world where almost everything, including the politics of the president, has fallen into the trap of cheap entertainment, anti-vaccine and anti-science claptrap purveyors are becoming legitimate experts. No wonder they are demanding that they justify their position through the spectacle. A public forum.

Of course the experts say no.

The most recent example of this demand is webcaster Joe Rogan, who enthusiastically promotes COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, anti-vaccine and other sources of pseudoscientific deception, on his show It recently erupted after hosting anti-vaccine Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 3 hours.

When vaccine expert Peter Hotez tweeted the following link, A thorough criticism of Kennedy’s lies and false reporting According to Vice.com, Logan challenged Hotez to participate in a public debate with Kennedy.

Hotez offered to work one-on-one with Logan, who had previously appeared on the show, but he declined, and Hotez intended to answer Logan’s misunderstandings one by one. Logan viewed the offer as evasive, which caused Hotez to be approached at his home by an unknown man and demanded to be fed.

There are many reasons why a serious scientist should turn down such an invitation. One is that it gives legitimacy to liars and fraudsters. John P. Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell School of Medicine, said, “Neither morally nor practically, true science should be equated with pseudoscience or phony.” says. “Just appearing with these people gives them heights that imply they’re equal, but they really aren’t.”

Moore’s insight comes from his experience with AIDS deniers such as: Notorious Peter Duisberg An HIV and AIDS expert, he was appalled by South African President Thabo Mbeki’s decision to deny AIDS patients antiretroviral drugs such as AZT in favor of herbal prescriptions.

Mbeki’s motive was a scientific adviser who doubted that a virus was the cause of AIDS.his policy has been criticized Over 330,000 unnecessary deaths in his country.

The deniers “always said, ‘Come on, let’s have a discussion,'” Moore said. Serious virologists have tried to post accurate information to clear up misunderstandings, but to little avail. “It was just a waste of time, because I never intended to persuade the core to change their positions.”

Moore recalls deniers frustrated by their refusal to participate in public debate.

Another reason not to discuss “gas lighter” As Science editor Holden Thorpe puts it, the debate is often settled. The safety and efficacy of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines are well established, with hundreds of millions of doses administered in the United States and billions of doses worldwide.

Side effects can occur infrequently, but in contrast to the fabricated and unethical claims of anti-vaccine advocates such as Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Radapo, compared to the risk of transmission of the disease itself. Mild is common.

The same applies to the fact that drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which President Kennedy has promoted, are powerless against the new coronavirus. No public debate can surpass the mass of proven evidence of its invalidity.

There is nothing new in the claims of anti-vaxxers and other freaks and scammers that all it takes is a public debate to prove the truth. The consumer demand for spectacle and clickbait for newspapers, news programs, and social media posts is nothing new, but a disgusting fact.

The late pseudoscience debunker Robert L. Park told the story of a Joe Newman at the beginning of his classic 2000 book Voodoo Science. He claims to have invented a machine capable of producing an inexhaustible supply of energy, given an office and a patent. The office got out of his way and he was incredibly publicized by CBS News and ended up appearing on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Neumann rented the New Orleans Superdome to demonstrate the machine, and ended the presentation by calling “any Ph.D. physicist in the crowd” to come down and discuss. The crowd began to murmur as Newman pretended to peer into the challenger’s stand, casting a shadow over his eyes. But scientists, understandably, ignored him.

Newman, like the freaks of today, profited from the refusal of real scientists to argue. They know their challenge will not be met, so they try to use it as proof that they should be right.

(Mr. Park, as many of today’s pseudoscientists do, is known for the best return to those who claim they are being persecuted for speaking scientific truth to those in power. It is not enough to put on the cloak of Galileo,” he wrote. You are being persecuted by an unkind organization, so you must be right.”)

Scientists and experts who accept invitations to debate, either out of arrogance or out of a genuine desire to point the public in the right direction, most often feel they are losing. Often this is because scientists have little training to give convincing presentations of their research in a hostile environment. They are comfortable defending their position in painstaking explanations, either in writing or before a meeting with a colleague.

“The general ‘forum’ format favors science deniers. Not even bound by science or truthsays veteran pseudoscience extortionist David Gorsky. The naysayers’ arsenal includes “ambiguous studies, bad studies, studies that do not support their claims, and even irrelevant studies that seem superficially support their arguments to non-experts. It even contains information.”

Such discussions treat science as a kind of cabaret act, in which “skill of speech, rhetoric, and charisma of the debater” is “much more important than fact, logic, reason, and science,” Gorski said. says Mr.

This is the downside of debates, whether on television or social media, that are aimed at mass consumption. Remember the last time a presidential debate gave you something like solid information, not an impression of the demeanor of the participants, or their flair for chatter or talent. Ability to avoid verbal stumbling blocks and gaffes.

The danger is even greater when science is on the agenda. A dispute often arises between the nuanced nuances of scientific inquiry and the confident dullness of pseudoscience.

“Scientists are rooted in truth. It’s what you’re trained to do,” says Moore. “We don’t lie, we don’t disagree, we acknowledge gray areas and often express ourselves with warnings. I fell to my death because I did it.” You can’t handle the subtleties when blatant lies are thrown at you. ”

Scientists are also trained to look at the evidence holistically when forming a position, Moore said. “Anti-vaccine and vaccine deniers will pick and choose facts. I am trained as an expert in eliminating the occasional Outrider, a product of distorted science.”

Even those skilled in communicating scientific principles to non-experts have been lured into the argument trap. One is Neil deGrasse Tyson, the world’s most famous science communicator today. In April, Tyson was allowed to be invited to a webcast discussion with anti-vaccine activist Dell Bigtree. He must have thought that if he knew how to speak in public, he would get through to the end.

he was wrong Tyson’s first mistake was agreeing to appear in the Big Tree webcast instead of in a neutral environment. But his main problem was that as an astrophysicist, he had no knowledge of how to counter the torrent of Big Tree anti-vaccine propaganda. The result left the impression that it was a legitimate scientific disaster, or something like that, where anti-vaccine positions prevailed.

Discuss Me agitators argue that research can only benefit from being investigated. That’s true, but there’s no point in exposing yourself to criticism from people who aren’t familiar with the underlying science, or arguing from the standpoint of ignorance.

Their aim is simply to sow suspicion for their own benefit, and often for political ends. The attacks on Hotez, Anthony Fauci, one of President Kennedy’s targets, and science in general have a distinctly partisan bent. Those who deny the link between global warming and tobacco and cancer have thwarted the big corporations that profit from fossil fuels and tobacco.

They see an opportunity for political gain in the interests of Republicans and conservatives, and thus have a common cause with anti-vaxxers. (Never mind that the COVID-19 vaccine was developed during the Trump administration. Even Trump provided a platform for vaccine deniers.)

But the results of their exercise can be measured by disease and death. By discouraging people from getting vaccinated, the anti-vaccine movement contributes to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone.

That may be the biggest reason responsible scientists turn down invitations to debate. “The spread of vaccine misinformation is hurting so many people in the most horrifying ways,” Moore said.

“That’s the moral side,” he says. “I can’t forget what these guys did. I couldn’t sit down with RFK Jr. any more than I could sit down with white supremacists and discuss eugenics. Give them moral equality.” I shouldn’t give it.”