Brickbat: Shhhh!

The Université Laval, a public university in Quebec, has suspended Patrick Provost, a professor of microbiology and immunology, for eight weeks without pay for saying at a conference that he believes the risks of vaccinating children for COVID-19 outweigh the benefits. A university committee declared that his remarks were not objective. "I was just doing what I was hired to do," Provost said. "I had some concerns about something, I searched the literature and I prepared a speech, delivered it to the public. Being censored for doing what I've been trained to do—and hired to do—well, it's hard to believe."

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...it's hard to believe.

It's hard to believe people living in this bubble can't see what the bubble is capable of.

[Vernon Depner]

It's like the bubble in The Prisoner.

[The Team Struggling]

Or the anti-escape orb from The Simpsons parody of The Prisoner.

[Ajsloss]

The Leader is good! The Leader is great! We surrender our will, as of this date!

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[Dillinger]

and when is this weekend?
it's this weekend.

[The Encogitationer]

"Be Seeing You..."

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[Brandybuck]

Rover was originally meant to be one of those golf cart things. Mansplaining. But the director saw a weather balloon and wanted to try that. Mansplaining.

[mad.casual]

*squints*
Unable to tell if mansplaining or just correct.

[A Cynical Asshole]

Aren't those the same thing? *ducks*

[The Encogitationer]

Don't worry. Like Rad-Fems would be watching The Prisoner...Oh, wait, maybe for strategery.

[cgr2727]

Sounds like this guy hasn't followed the science and listened to the mountains of objective evidence...that the Canucks, especially the froggy ones, are easily believable censors and stampers-out of wrongthink.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You had better capitalize The Science, sir. And genuflect when you say it.

[Ajsloss]

And don't forget to cup the balls.

[A Cynical Asshole]

So that's what Hunter was doing in those photos...

[kcuch]

what I've been trained to do—and hired to do

is to promote the Sovereign's agenda.

[Don't look at me!]

100% safe and effective with no downsides.

[Longtobefree]

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise"

[Jerryskids]

The Université Laval, a public university in Quebec...

Say no more. Canadians have no rights, Trudeau is a dictator, the press is state-owned, Wokeness is a cancer that has consumed the populace.

[docduracoat]

The funny thing is he did the research and the data shows that for healthy people, vaccination has a higher risk than infection with the current less virulent corona virus strains.

But the State says different.

[Longtobefree]

Nazi theory, indeed, specifically denies that such a thing as "the truth" exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as "Science". There is only "German Science", "Jewish Science", etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future, but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, "It never happened"—well, it never happened. If he says that "two and two are five"—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs—and, after our experiences of the last few years [the Blitz, 1940–41] that is not a frivolous statement.

[Ronbback]

now they understand how all those professors felt when they were fired for having an alternate view of climate alarmism. the silencing of alternate views was started some 20 plus years ago

[mad.casual]

When I read "I had some concerns about something, I searched the literature and I prepared a speech, delivered it to the public. Being censored for doing what I've been trained to do—and hired to do—well, it's hard to believe." I pictured Jordan Peterson, in the middle of doing nothing at all, blurting out "No shit, Sherlock."

[Brandybuck]

Science is not a set of facts, it's a process. I remain amazed that people on both sides (both sides) seem unaware of this. The response to an immunologist disagreeing with the state over the risk of vaccinations is not the heavy hand of the state, but more immunology. Science changes all the time. As new facts come in the leading theories and suppositions shift. It doesn't mean that science is wrong, it means that science is not a body of established orthodoxy. Nor does it mean that science is always getting it wrong. It's a process of slowly discovering the the area where the truth may lie.

That doesn't mean we should follow the lone scientist speaking heterodoxy, but it does mean the immunology should be left to the immunologists and not the university administrators.

p.s. I have no idea if this guy is right or wrong. But it doesn't matter. If he's wrong consistently then the truth will out. But you don't go suspending a professor for saying "the data as I analyze it seems to indicate this level of risk". If he's wrong then he will be shown to be wrong by other scientists. But by officially pronouncing him wrong you're only playing into the hands of the anti-science/anti-vaxx crowd by turning science into an arm of the state.

[mad.casual]

So when you say "the truth will out", do you mean that will happen regardless of the process?

Isn't that effectively saying, "The process can be fundamentally wrong and can actually always get it wrong." and just disregarding that fact for no real reason other than your fervent belief?

[Brandybuck]

No, I meant that if he were wrong then eventually it would be demonstrated he was wrong. Science is a continuous process.

[CE]

Statistics are pretty well established though, and clearly on the side of the prof.

[Stuck in California]

You see, that's the thing.

Danger to children of any strain of the 'rona, but especially an Omicron we've encountered, is so close to zero as to be statistically insignificant.

The point of a vaccine is that it's effectiveness outweighs safety concerns. It's never going to beat statistically insignificant for safety or be more efficacious than "never have bad outcome anyway". It can't be. It's a divide by zero error.

Math must be different in Canadian French.

[The Last American Hero]

When the establishment doesn’t respond with their own data then I know who is right and who is afraid.

[Inigo Montoya]

This

It seems people who back “science” the most strongly have no idea what the scientific method even is.

That said, a lot of published science depends on funding and that funding often comes with strings attached.

Theories get overturned after enough anomalous data accumulates, just as explained in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” But the danger is when a field of inquiry becomes heavily politicized. Suddenly those experiments that show too much anomalous data don’t pass peer review and get published and that’s followed by a decreased funding for the team that couldn’t get their papers published.

[Brandybuck]

> It seems people who back “science” the most strongly have no idea what the scientific method even is.

This is very true. And I see it on both sides (both sides!). Science is NOT pretty nature pictures from IFLS. Nor is it the set of beliefs one chooses to adhere to. It's a process of slowing arriving at the vicinity of certainty, but never actually achieving it.

It's very fallible, but it's better than any other system of seeking the truth that we have ever stumbled across. It cannot actually achieve the truth, but it's still better than what politicians or preachers can do. Which makes it so ironic that people want to turn science into politics or a secular religion.

[The Encogitationer]

Basically, Science is evidenced-based and shows it's homework. And Science is neither an ideology or a religion. It is the only game in town for understanding in the only "town" there is, which is the Natural Universe. And beats a stick in the eye. 🙂

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Being censored for doing what I've been trained to do—and hired to do—well, it's hard to believe.

It's not hard to believe, and he should be fired for stupidity for saying so.

[mad.casual]

Patrick Provost

Good thing the IBM machines in Quebec's education system don't have a sense of humor. Otherwise, Provost Provost getting suspended for doing his job and educating children as to the facts would be really creepy.

[Holmes IV]

I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about. Who ever heard of an AI with a sense of humor playing tricks on government employees? That is just silly...

[CE]

Sure he's an immunologist and microbiologist, but was his speech peer reviewed? He couldn't even post that political screed on YouTube.

[Dillinger]

>>"I was just doing what I was hired to do,"

apparently not.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I thought Brickbats were supposed to be for the kind of oddball, crazypants edge cases that resulted in outcomes everyone generally found horrifying.

[mad.casual]

I thought Brickbats were supposed to be for the kind of oddball, crazypants edge cases where a criminal is caught doing something illegal, with all kinds of direct and circumstantial evidence, and we pretend direct evidence doesn't exist, criminals are victims, and all cops are bastards because circumstantial evidence is circumstantial.

[Libertariantranslator]

Canoocks can be so charmingly naíve. Eventually some are bound to realize that allowing 'Murrican rednecks with green teeth to easily cross the border entails the unintended consequence of cultural contamination by collectivist brainwashees hostile to individual rights. Maybe MAGA caps could trigger some cavity searches. Then at least the NSDAP faithful would feel their hide as they do unto others.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

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[Ed Grinberg]

"When state-backed ideology meets dispassionate scientific inquiry, ideology wins every time." (source)