‘Give me back my fact: How can social science help us survive the post-truth pandemic?’, Campaign for Social Science SAGE Annual Lecture 2020

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
I haven't watched this.
In her lecture: ‘Give me back my fact: How can social science help us survive the post-truth pandemic?’, Professor Trish Greenhalgh OBE drew attention to mass dissemination of distorted scientific facts in the wake of the COVID-19 and the important role of the social sciences in countering this harmful and misleading trend.

To tackle the problem, she emphasised the need to draw on the ‘social science of science’ to produce a 21st-century post-truth account of what science is. She encouraged scientists and researchers not to shy away from their detractors, but instead read what is being written about them to understand how their facts and uncertainties are being twisted. Trish concluded that science communication is a ‘bareknuckle fight’ and to win the battle scientists ‘must reflect, engage, do epistemological work, and deconstruct’.

Responding to Trish, Dr Mahlet Zimeta explored concepts that explain our relationship with epistemology, while looking at possibilities presented by data science and new digital technologies to counter some of the challenges.
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https://campaignforsocialscience.or...lgh-delivers-the-campaigns-sage-lecture-2020/
 
She encouraged scientists and researchers not to shy away from their detractors, but instead read what is being written about them to understand how their facts and uncertainties are being twisted
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Reading this with the BPSers in mind it strikes me that they're the ones twisting the facts and data in their own research. The SMC have a history of regurgitating the "facts" as presented to them.

Much of what is said about their research by patient groups is in fact, fact. They have a habit of misrepresenting their data.

Perhaps a good place to start would be to encourage scientists and researchers to be truthful - the whole truth and nothing but the truth - when writing up and reporting their results.
 
Andy said:
I haven't watched this.

https://campaignforsocialscience.or...lgh-delivers-the-campaigns-sage-lecture-2020/
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I guess the offer is not applicable to people Greenhalgh personally disagrees with. Which is the whole issue, when facts remain ambiguous pre-breakthrough people choose what they agree or disagree with, especially in medicine because evidence can be made entirely optional thanks to EBM. That she misrepresents basic facts of the type that insists that ME is just fatigue and "feels" different than another type of fatigue is an excellent example of the problem, which she is unaware of in her case because of her own biases. And of course not only did she not listen to what pwME said, she did not even bother to look at the facts as they are, because her biases assured her of what the "facts" are.

So it always comes down to: everyone is biased but me.

Of course, it had to be someone crippled by their own biases who ended up influencing much of LC's course in the UK. Of course. Someone so utterly devoid of self-reflection that she would teach against things she is doing herself, going so far as to actually want to "teach" about ME despite never having bothered to learn the first thing about it, entirely because of biases.

It really is all about bias in the end. And people's biases obviously prevent them from noticing their own biases. People in biased houses shouldn't tut-tut about other people's houses.
 
To tackle the problem, she emphasised the need to draw on the ‘social science of science’ to produce a 21st-century post-truth account of what science is.

What the Baloney does this mean?


Maybe it should have been:

She encouraged scientists and researchers not to shy away from their detractors, but instead read what is being written about them to understand how their 'facts' and uncertainties were wrong after all.

I can't even make sense of that original sentence either.

Empty vessels...
 
‘Give me back my fact: How can social science help us survive the post-truth pandemic?’

she emphasised the need to draw on the ‘social science of science’ to produce a 21st-century post-truth account of what science is

I've always understood "post-truth" to mean "my 'facts' are better than your 'facts'".

TG seems to be just re-iterating that her facts are better than other people's facts.

If I've misunderstood, can someone enlighten me, please.
 
I have tried to work out what it is that is supposed to be being said in the social science article.

Rather like the Turner-Stokes and Wade piece it seems all completely arse-over-tit.

Greenhalgh talks of post-truth (which Wikipedia says is where emotional arguments win out over facts) but then she talks of a social science 21st century post-truth account, as if this was a good thing. I think she means post-modern, not post-truth. Post-modernism, which includes deconstruction (if you are Derrida at least) which she mentions favourably says that truth and facts are impossible to pin down. Not that the facts get lost but that there are no facts.

So why is called give me back my fact?

Have I missed something is this complete gibberish?
 
I haven't read the article. I have just read the short summary.

Here's what I get from that:

We live in a 'post truth' age where fake facts are spreading. Some examples I think of: coronavirus is not real it's a conspiracy to control populations, coronavirus symptoms are really symptoms of electrical sensitivity to 5G networks, the vaccine injection is really injecting a listening device so the government can spy on you ...

The bit about needing to listen to social scientists is about social scientists researching the way these fake facts are spread and why people believe them.

So Greenhalgh is saying we are surrounded by fake facts and people spreading and believing them, and we need social sciences to help us reverse that undermining of science.
 
It seems to me that TG is confusing BPS rhetoric (and thinking it's science) and people with ME's emotional pleas to be heard while suffering under the oppression of said rhetoric.

Yes, PwME say a lot of things many of which are not scientific musings but telling their stories from their POV and at times they include misguided attempts at validation.

The only engagement that TG et al should consider in good faith are the papers written in refute of the BPS model of ME. This is something they are losing at as they look elsewhere to deflect from their not having any refutation. Thus this gibberish.

All this talk about facts and truth is obfuscation. They have yet to respond to valid points made regarding their research.

*ETA: not TG's research as we know but the BPS research she champions done by the usual suspects.
 
Snowdrop said:
Yes, PwME say a lot of things many of which are not scientific musings but telling their stories from their POV and at times they include misguided attempts at validation.
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It would be hard to see how the BPS crowd could object to this. If you read Kleinman and much of the anthropological outpourings from Harvard and elsewhere in the 1980s this was what amounted to "Science"
 
Trish said:
The bit about needing to listen to social scientists is about social scientists researching the way these fake facts are spread and why people believe them.

So Greenhalgh is saying we are surrounded by fake facts and people spreading and believing them, and we need social sciences to help us reverse that undermining of science.
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So why is Greenhalgh talking of deconstruction- which is to do with there being NO facts (Derrida) and belongs to what used to be a fringe touchy-feely branch of social science but seems to be takin over.

And what has social science got to do with people spreading lies, I ask myself? Certainly not the social science of deconstruction.

I think she is just blowing buzzword bubbles from a kids toy.

And as others have said the agenda is to shift the focus from her own muddled incompetence to that of others.
 
And of course Greenhalgh's own effort to do some qualitative research on a few people with Covid-19 is laughable. It allows her to prove that Covid-19 probably isn't ME because the patients 'know' their fatigue is due to organ damage that presumably, if they have Long Covid, isn't there.
 
I have serious doubts about the usefulness of any social science in a pandemic situation. All the people I have heard on the media who are professors of social sciences, like health psychology and sociology invited on to explain how people are or are going to behave in various Covid related scenarios, and whose 'facts' they might believe and why, seemed to be no more than chatting about their guess of what might happen and why in the way anyone could. They added no interesting insights.
 
Arnie Pye said:
I've always understood "post-truth" to mean "my 'facts' are better than your 'facts'".

TG seems to be just re-iterating that her facts are better than other people's facts.

If I've misunderstood, can someone enlighten me, please.
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I would say that's about right.

Kind of a reframing of Richard Horton's claim that 50% of all published research is junk. Not his, though, not at the Lancet. He's not worried that half of all papers aren't being retracted as they should, especially not under his editorialship. Nope, it's everyone else that's wrong. Just like about 80% of people feel they're above average and 77.7% of all stats are made up on the spot.
 
Invisible Woman said:
Reading this with the BPSers in mind it strikes me that they're the ones twisting the facts and data in their own research. The SMC have a history of regurgitating the "facts" as presented to them.

Much of what is said about their research by patient groups is in fact, fact. They have a habit of misrepresenting their data.

Perhaps a good place to start would be to encourage scientists and researchers to be truthful - the whole truth and nothing but the truth - when writing up and reporting their results.
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Absolutely. I have always thought that clinical trials should be more like criminal trials with a jury drawn from members of the public. And the "judges" should not be impact factor obsessed journal editors either!
 
Trish said:
We live in a 'post truth' age where fake facts are spreading.
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Fake facts have always found fertile ground. What is different is that the internet, and especially social media, are greatly exacerbating the problem.

In fairness, the internet is also bringing genuine knowledge and learning opportunities to vast numbers of people who previously had no prospect of it. See the Khan Academy for an excellent example, and there are countless channels on YouTube that are offering all sorts of good stuff, including lots of practical skills.

Turns out that IT tech can be used for good and bad. Just like every other tech we have ever invented. It is all about how we use it.

We could not have achieved what we have without it. Certainly not in the time frame. It would have taken vastly longer at the very least.

TrixieStix said:
Charlatans love postmodernism. In a world with no objective facts they can never be wrong. They can make it up as they go and you can't tell them they're wrong.
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Postmodernist: There is no such thing as an objective truth!

Sane Person: Is that an objective truth?

Postmodernist: o_O :confused: :whistle: :speechless: :bag:
 
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Trish said:
The bit about needing to listen to social scientists is about social scientists researching the way these fake facts are spread and why people believe them.

So Greenhalgh is saying we are surrounded by fake facts and people spreading and believing them, and we need social sciences to help us reverse that undermining of science.
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But what evidence do they have that belief in "fake facts" is
(a) higher than in the past?
(e.g. 20 years ago, 50 years ago and 100 years ago)
(b) prevalent in society, rather than just a minority of individuals?

Do they distinguish between science-like facts that are proliferated by the mainstream media that aren't actually based on high quality evidence, like the theory that severe COVID symptoms are due to "cytokine storms" or that "VUI-202012/01" has higher transmissibility than other SARS-CoV-2 variants or the theory that long-covid symptoms that are shared with ME/CFS are due to fundamentally different mechanisms?
 
Wonko said:
So they cannot 'do' science so they want to change what is meant by science to something they can do?
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Which is talk a LOT of clap trap. I did listen to the 2nd half of the lecture, and the questions afterwards.

During the Q&A TG justified her blocking of people on Twitter. It seems to be anyone who dares to disagree with her, or even support someone else she disagrees with. I guess that's why she blocked me, as I have never said anything at all to her publicly.

Although she herself made a disparaging comment about me publicly after she had blocked me. She then, rather surprisingly, made it clear that, because she doesn't want these nasty things to pop up on her timeline, she goes back in her own time to look at what the people who she has blocked are saying about her! I assumed that if she blocked me she didn't want to know what I thought about anything, let alone her.

I guess it's nice that she wants to understand how I am twisting her facts and uncertainties. But I am not twisting anything. I have told the truth about unsubstantiated claims she has made about people with ME, and questioned them.
 
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