Science is Good

Faith & Science Conversation
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a good example of why good science is needed, not disinformation. Studies have been widely published on the topic as soon as available rather than covered up. And they show the risk of myocarditis is 7 times higher with Covid infection than the vaccine, as has been posted on the forum multiple times. That is somewhat intuitive, since infection floods the body with far more spike protein than an immunization. How to provide a balanced view and communicate those risks in such a way as to help people make decisions based on fact rather than emotion is a difficult task, and one we need to work toward. Myocarditis in SARS-CoV-2 infection vs. COVID-19 vaccination: A systematic review and meta-analysis - PMC

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This is pretty tough Marty to move forward from here, but your response reminded me of something that happened to me in 2021.

I did a talk at our university (well on zoom) with the vaccine coordinator with the Virginia Department of health. In that I proposed that it could be an act of love for your neighbor to get a vaccine. This was both to reduce your risk of contracting and spreading the vaccine or to reduce your risk of severe or more debilitating illness (thus taking up resources that could be utilized for someone else for example). And one of the professors listening asked, “so if we don’t get vaccinated, do you think that we aren’t loving our neighbors?”

This little anecdote showed me a few things along with a separate experience in what I would call an experience with the Lord in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot.

  1. In any given moment, what it looks like for someone to “walk in love” can look wildly different. So, for you @Marty it might look like sharing a blog post from an anonymous blogger named Vigilante Fox. Sure, I personally have some questions here, and perhaps demonstrating why many things from this blogger are incorrect would take dozens of hours, but you shared it in good faith - that I can appreciate. I was working a few months ago from home and heard one homeschool mom sharing with my wife and several others about how so many people were “dying suddenly” from the COVID-19 shot. While I think she was greatly mistaken, I can appreciate her sharing that “out of love” for the well-being and “love for others.” This family was so concerned about the vaccine that the husband quit the military after many years of service, refusing to get vaccinated, forfeiting his career and future financial security. Sure, I wondered if they believe that God could keep them safe from COVID, why couldn’t he keep them safe from a simple vaccine? But they were convinced and honestly, I can’t blame them for speaking from their convictions.
  2. The “you aren’t loving” narrative sucks. I mean I had so many people who easily charged me with “lacking love” as I social distanced, wore a mask, met outside, got vaccinated. And part of their charge could be valid, because many of them probably showed each other more love than I did at times. It felt good to throw away all COVID-restraints and meet together, in person, in homes, and worship God together. And that was the main question impressed upon my heart in that Chick-Fil-A parking lot - I was wondering if my approach to COVID was reasonable and he just asked me “how well are you loving my people?” On the other hand, it really sucked to have people like Sean Feucht come to my former church and mock people for wearing masks as I was one of three people wearing one.
  3. A way forward is tough. We like to imagine ourselves as reasonable, smart people. The alternative is essentially unthinkable… that you @Marty or me @pevaquark have been fooled… perhaps for years. We are both pretty sharp humans, surely it must be the other who is fooled and not me, right? You bring the Vigilant Fox, whom I think is probably not a reliable resource, and I will bring various organizations like CDC, the WHO, or major medical journals like JAMA or NEJM, and I think I’m superior and correct here. It feels so obvious to my brain, and I say, “How could anyone trust the Vigilant Fox over me?”
  4. We could go back and forth here a little bit, and perhaps I’d get a few more likes per post than you because the forum is a bit biased towards people who think like me on these topics than you. But what would honestly be helpful for you? I know at times we haven’t had the best interactions… do you really want to go through this post line by line and examine the claims? Would we even accept the same evidence as evidence? Maybe, but it will take a step of trust in each other, and this process one step at a time.
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The numbers in that chart in the image are meaningless: they don’t show anything in relation to doses administered on individuals treated.

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These kind of claims have been told and I think that we need to consider the claims that seem to have some support in the data. That does not mean that we should believe everything that is claimed. Statistics can be misleading if they are misused.

One key problem with this kind of claims are that deaths claimed to be caused by the vaccine are often not caused by it (usually not). Here (Finland), there were claims of thousands of deaths after the first vaccination round but later studies showed that the real numbers of deaths were very low. I do not remember the actual number of deaths judged to be caused by vaccination but it may have been less than ten.

The reason why people could misread the statistics was the guideline how the statistics needed to be compiled. For every death that happened within a given time after a vaccination (72h, IIRC), vaccination needed to be added as a potential factor contributing to the death unless the cause of death could be determined with certainty. For a large number of deaths, the actual cause of death cannot be identified with full confidence before an autopsy. All these cases were initially marked in the statistics as deaths where the vaccine may have played a role. Those opposing vaccinations interpreted these statistics like all these deaths would have been really caused by the vaccination.
So, if your elderly grandma got a heart attack or stroke within 72h from the vaccination and died, the statistics got a mark that the vaccine may have contributed to the death. For those opposing vaccinations, that turned to a conviction that this was one more death caused by the vaccination, even when the vaccine had nothing to do with the death.

Those that got the vaccine first (in addition to the health care staff in institutions where they treated COVID patients) were the old and weakened persons. In that group, the mortality rates are naturally high. When the mortality rates within this group were compared to the young and healthy that got the vaccination much later, naturally the mortality rates within the vaccinated group (the oldest and weakest persons) were higher than among the young and healthy.

It is an acknowledged fact that vaccinations have side effects and in rare cases, a vaccinated person may get a symptom that kills. What is more important is the probability of death or a serious sickness. Vaccination lowers the risk of death and the probability to need intensive care after getting an infection. A few persons die because of vaccinations but a much larger number of persons die because they were not vaccinated.

If someone is convinced that vaccinations are harmful, facts do not necessarily change that opinion. For those that inspect the reality with an open mind, the results of scientific studies can show which one is more dangerous, to get a vaccination or to refuse to be vaccinated.

Edit:
To the claim that global fertility rates are dropping because of vaccinations, I answer with a competing explanation. In Europe, the dropping fertility rates have been associated with the decline of the stork populations. As many Europeans know, European babies are carried to the parents by storks - less storks equals less babies for the parents…

If someone thinks that the stork hypothesis is ridiculous, please explain why the vaccination hypothesis would be a more credible explanation for the decline in the fertility rates.

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I remember looking at one of those ‘death by vaccine’ lists that was being touted, and pointing out that the first few listed included

  • a teenager in New Jersey who had died before teenagers were eligible for vaccination;
  • some-one from Wales who had died before the vaccine was created;
  • an unidentified man who had fallen off his bike, who’s vaccination status was unknown;
  • a man who died in 2018; and
  • some-one who got hit by a train.

The person touting the list continued to claim that the vaccine was to blame.

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First of all, thank you for the thoughtful engagement with the Vigilant Fox post (BTW VF has 1.7M followers). And are there distortions and conspiracy theories on that side? Of course.

But I’m not sure why people here are arguing the failings of only one side of covid response. My point is that the Biologos “initiative” does not address the fundamental concern of many Christ followers, the other side, namely, that we were lied to by scientists. In covid alone, they lied to us about masks, the need for school closings, that the vaccine was better than natural immunity, about the origin of the virus, the actual death rates from the virus, the need to vaccinate kids at all, they censored those whose data was sound. This is NOT about science. It is about scientists more interested in power, prestige, and money than the truth. If you do not address that, you will be part of the cover-up.

And @jpm “they” also claimed that vaccine immunity was 5 X as effective as natural immunity. You’re right that “good science is needed.” And you’re all tacitly agreeing that “bad science is a problem.” It’s a trust problem at this point because of bad scientists. IMO You’re barking up the wrong tree.

This is probably the last post I’ll add on this thread. I’m trying to help Biologos to not stand up for a good cause by putting a bandaid on an infection. This may ingratiate yourselves with the establishment that your “fellow Christ followers” already don’t trust, but your target audience ain’t gonna buy it. Just sayin’.

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What happened during the Covid pandemic in different countries is a rich story about many aspects of human mind - scientists trying to find answers to open questions, politicians trying to show firm control in a bad situation, libertarian minds going nuts about the control and forced regulations, people trying to turn the catastrophe to a business opportunity, conspiracy theories blooming, … It is easy to find faults in the actions of the various groups.

USA may have got extra spices from wide mistrust against science and scientists and the wide acceptance of diverse conspiracy theories and comparable beliefs. What a friend of friend tells may have a stronger weight than what the experts explain.

A general observation is that open questions in science + politicians demanding rapid answers and action is a dangerous combination. Getting answers through research takes time but time is a resource that the politicians do not have or give. The politicians cannot wait for years for the results, so they demand rapid answers that will help them to do something that shows that they are the correct persons to lead in the difficult situation. The experts give the little they have, that is hypotheses and educated guesses. Politicians act based on those educated guesses and the politically motivated interests. Time shows whether the actions were correct or wrong but the actions were attempts to do the best with insufficient information and conflicting demands.

Afterwards, it is easy to blame the experts for the actions that were partly based on their best guesses - they were not given sufficient time to find the answers through research, and the actions were forced by the political need to do something.

A lack of understanding about the way how science operates makes the situation worse because people have unrealistic assumptions and hopes, and when the scientists cannot deliver what is demanded, the scientists are blamed.

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I was blessed with parents who insisted we not believe things just because someone told us. I forget what the subject was, but I clearly recall once in junior high when I had told my mom and dad something and they said together, “And you believe that because . . . why?”

That’s true of any time something needs serious consideration (it’s why I regard Chalcedon as a broken council: they were forced to a quick decision by the emperor for political reasons).

As a missionary to Africa said once in a talk in the U.S., people want witch doctors, not pastors or scientists – that is, people want instant remedies, not well-thought-out ones.

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Why do you trust the scientists who you claim were censored? How did you determine that only the censored scientists’ data was sound?

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woudn’t it be nice if … :slight_smile:

considering how often we try

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have a look of the side effect table for ivermectin

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As the old saying goes, show me a drug without side effects and I will show you a drug that doesn’t work. All drugs have side effects, and that includes vaccines. NSAIDS (e.g. ibuprofen) will kill way more people this year than any vaccine.

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As a doctor friends adds . . . “And most are unknown”.

Probably a bit of hyperbole, but worth keeping in mind!

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Ahh, but we have a pill for that!

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Probably because most of the alleged failings – including the bulk of what you wrote – are falsehoods, (Good) masks really do reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (if you meant lying in the opposite direction, yes, some scientists were slow to recognize the airborne nature of covid). The vaccine offered comparable protection from infection-based immunity and was far safer. The origin of the virus was very likely in the wet market. The death rates from the virus were well-estimated. Yes, it’s true that there really wasn’t any need to vaccinate kids – as long as you think letting a few hundred kids die isn’t a big deal.

That’s really, really ugly. I’ve made most of the claims above that you say were lies. What power, prestige, and money exactly do you think I got from them?

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As well as the seasonal flu!

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Same goes for pediatric vaccination. Of late, seasonal flu has been killing about 200 kids per year in the US. If the vaccination rate were higher (it’s around 50% now), that number would be smaller.

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What exactly is the relevance of the follower count? Are you trying to suggest that popularity = credibility? That line of reasoning would lead us to trust the Kardashians on climate science or Joe Rogan on vaccines. Vigilant Fox may have 1.7 million followers, but that only proves he’s good at giving people what they want to hear—not that what he says is accurate, ethical, or edifying.

And why do people want to hear it? That’s the deeper question. I say this not as an outsider but as someone who’s been drawn into these kinds of voices before. Here’s what I’ve observed in myself and others:

  • They make me feel smarter than the experts—like I’m the one who really sees through the lies (when in fact, I’m usually just parroting someone else’s unverified take).
  • They offer certainty in a chaotic world. Instead of wrestling with ambiguity, I get the comfort of simple good vs evil narratives.
  • They give me community and identity. It feels good to be on the “persecuted” side—especially if I can come into forums like this and feel heroic for “standing up to the establishment,” then go back to my own social media circles and receive affirmation for being bold.
  • They often align neatly with my theological categories—especially ones involving spiritual warfare, deception, or end-times thinking. If they quote a few Bible verses and use religious language, that makes it even easier to trust them.

I’m not saying all followers of people like VF are mindless or malicious. But I am saying that we have to ask: What emotional, social, or spiritual needs are being met by this kind of content? And are those needs being filled with truth—or just with flattery and fear?

This is a huge claim, and it needs to be examined. “Censored” how? Most of the people labeled as “silenced truth-tellers” had massive platforms. Tucker Carlson aired these views to millions nightly. Substack gave many of them a lucrative publishing platform—some making six figures monthly from their anti-vaccine newsletters (source).

The fact that mainstream scientific institutions didn’t endorse their claims doesn’t mean they were “censored.” That’s a dangerous rhetorical bait-and-switch. Disagreement isn’t suppression. Peer review isn’t persecution. And the scientific consensus didn’t come from silencing dissent; it came from multiple lines of evidence that pointed in a consistent direction, even while allowing space for revision over time (e.g., on masking, natural immunity, etc.).

It’s not that scientists were infallible—far from it. But cherry-picking outliers and calling them “the censored truth” while ignoring the robust body of open, peer-reviewed, and evolving science is not discernment. It’s confirmation bias.

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Thanks for the podcast here:

I found it inspiring, with good teaching from Matthew 25, which I think can be well applied to work in the scientific domain.

It was good to get to know Dr. Torjesen better - the story about her work in Malawi for the prevention of HIV/AIDS was quite moving.

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Sometimes I wish I didn’t care, but… unfortunately, I do. I don’t want to see Biologos waste time and money on an initiative that fuels rather than solves a problem. Now we have Francis Collins in a podcast lending his sullied reputation to you all.

Here’s a paper from 8 years ago that summarizes the problem I’m trying to explain: What is science’s crisis really about? - ScienceDirect

Quotes from the closing paragraphs:

  • some skepticism toward ‘expertise’ may be a sign of maturity rather than barbarism.
  • a new storyline is needed, requiring acknowledgment of ignorance and failure.

The problem has only gotten worse in the last 8 years by some significant factor. You guys trying to help the poor, unwashed masses understand just how pure and holy is the scientific enterprise, you align yourselves with the problem, not the solution.

Just sayin’.