While it wasn't that hard, general public does not know where to even look for primary or even preliminary evidence. Much less how to evaluate the densely written papers.

So in the end it is reliant on science communicators, and there is enough people who are either bad at it, fake it or altogether evil and misrepresenting scientific evidence for it to fail.

You always will have some authority needed as you have to be able to read really well and a lot of practice with the specific field to handle the outputs of science.

The general public could choose to inform themselves through alternative institutions that got it correctly in the first place.

But this is disincentiviced and labeled as conspiracy theories.

What alternative institutions?

>While it wasn't that hard, general public does not know where to even look for primary or even preliminary evidence. Much less how to evaluate the densely written papers.

I feel like its much worse than that. All of current research is very specialized. I am not a scientist but I do work in vaccines. After having worked for the past eight years in this field, I feel I can generally get the gist of scientific articles/papers, and understand if its something useful or junk - but only in my niche areas. Outside of that, I'm pretty much your average Joe.

The same could be said about the science behind lockdowns (as very little was knows about the effects of attempting to control a pandemic until this incredibly costly experiment went underway), but it doesn't stop experts proclaiming this is what is needed to help.

Vaccines (especially mRNA vaccines) are not a bad field to be an expert in.

As an example I have chronic sinusitis without polyps which totally destroys my quality of life, while I can probably live with it for a long time. I’m looking at the successful cystic fibrosis inhaled vaccine trials that looks like a great way to help the cells produce missing proteins.

I’m hoping for similar treatments to be available in the near future, and I have some money that I would happily use to invest / donate in a chronic sinusitis vaccine development, but so far I see only biologics trials that are probably much slower to go through because of the greater toxicity.

Actually your knowledge is enough for you to have an edge over other people in investing in biotech companies.

The problem with the medical world vs people who suffer from chronic illnesses is even the doctors who treat them don't seem to understand how bad it is to live with.

Last time I saw my ENT doctor he's like well it's not that bad and I just wanted to scream at him.

I liked how someone else on HN put it: your body is constantly sending an error code but there's no way to shut it off.

Do you also have chronically irritated, dry sinuses with no polyps?

I've tried nasal irrigation and a corticosteroid but nothing works.

Yes. My symptoms correlate with the amount of air pollution around me, and much worse in winter.

Right now the only thing I can do is travel away from Europe to south/central america for the winter.

I tried all commercial air cleaners, but they don't decrease toxic gases, just PM2.5, which doesn't help me. I'm thinking of building a house/apartment with very clean air (maybe using nitrogene and oxygene concentrator). Also I'm planning to try cortisosteroid in my sinuses using a biodegradable net.

Biologics may help as well, but they help only IL-4 / IL-5 type inflammation, and I don't know what cytokins are causing my inflammation (I was thinking of doing an cytokin profiling from biopsy, but of course I need a great ENT doctor to help with it).

At the end the main problem is that there are multiple causes with CRS symptoms, so it's impossible to have 1 drug to cure all the symptoms. Also as it's not deadly short term, FDA is much stricter with the drug companies that try to come up with treatments, which is understandable.

Well vaccines as a field is super-mega broad, there are so many pure research sub-disciplines one can choose to be an expert on due to the intersection of medicine/immunology/chemistry/biology. And even those are super broad themselves. From an applied sciences standpoint again there are various disciplines depending on the particular vaccine technology - fermentation, protein purification, conjugation chemistry, formulation, drug delivery, etc, etc, etc. From an analytical chemistry/biology standpoint there are dozens more fields that come into the picture when testing. You can spend years and decades in any of these niche fields and still not probe the depths of our accumulated knowledge. And once you have a product, you get into the regulatory domain - finding the quickest and shortest path to the market - which is its own nightmare.

I don't know much about the particulars of the vaccine you are referring to, but when it comes to investing, I think it is always safe to assume that all major investing firms have ready access to SMEs that can give them the scoop on any company they're interested in.

The exciting thing with mRNA vaccines is that while developing the delivery platform took decades, developing the COVID vaccine itself was just 48 hours according to the CEO of both Moderna and BioNTech. Right now they have a lot of work with manufacturing (and they had lots and lots of paper work to do), but even there I think they are doing great, as they were not prepared for a pandemic.

As the drug delivery platform is working great, it seems like it can be reused (unlike with older platforms), and the hardest part of developing new mRNA vaccines is to research the genetic code to put in it.

It is exciting. But what's a bit unclear (to me) is how re-usable safety testing is. Are we going to arrive at stage where we can "push to production" after this 48 hour design phase, or are we going to need months-to-years of trials for each new code?

There's a huge difference between months and years.

The delivery platform is reusable, which is a big difference from older vaccines, where the virus that is delivered can be used only once (Sputnik-V vaccine uses 2 different delivery platforms _because of_ this.

The other thing to look at is efficiency: as the vaccines can deliver mRNAs that cells express anyways in healthy people, the lesser toxicity can mean a higher likelihood of success for the drug (which is the main problem with drug development in the last 10-20 years).

>As the drug delivery platform is working great, it seems like it can be reused (unlike with older platforms), and the hardest part of developing new mRNA vaccines is to research the genetic code to put in it.

While we're all cheering for its success, its important to remember that the current authorization was under the 'emergency use' clause. Also, our body continues to evolve to fight attempts by external agents to inject foreign genetic material into our cells. Whether the same platform with work on future vaccines will be known only by performing science. But as always, data >> opinion.

You seem well read so you've already identified one of the key problems - the genetic code that forms the basis of the vaccine. Its not really my area, but from what I understand, dealing with synthetic RNA (RNA Mimics) is tricky since its never identical to cellular RNA. All of the associated problems will already be known to anyone working in that field, so there's nothing of value that I can add anyway.

I'm not sure what you are refering to, as the end proteins expressed by the ribosome should be the same, even if the syntetic mRNA is optimized for increased expression compared to the non-syntatic one.

At the same time the vaccines can't control which cells get the mRNA delivered as opposed to non-syntetic cells, where the cells are differentiated by their methylation and other epigenetics and gene expression control pathways, which I guess can be problematic for some cell types.

I don't think that is accurate. The spike protein that is being expressed has been modified (2p mutation) to enhance its stability. Proteins have a structure-function relationship and I believe this change in structure was done to inactivate the function of the spike protein, and merely use it as a immunogen.

But I was making a different point. Even before you get to the final expression of the protein, there are various steps that need to go smoothly. The mRNA sequence is carefully engineered to dodge the body's various defenses, among other things - and this sort of engineering is not trivial - which is the point I thought you were also making with - "and the hardest part of developing new mRNA vaccines is to research the genetic code to put in it. ".

But maybe I misunderstood your original point?

I had sinusitis that left me bedridden for a week once. You have my sympathies.

> You always will have some authority needed as you have to be able to read really well and a lot of practice with the specific field to handle the outputs of science.

In other words, prophets, pastors and priests.

The conflation of academia and science is starting to grate.

In the middle ages multiplication was a skill that was taught at universities. Somehow we now teach it to 7 year olds.

The reason why we haven't done the same for critical thinking is that the people in charge won't be if we had a citizenry which could think logically.

Case in point: NYC and SF have the worst homelessness problem of any city despite being in the hands of the party that keeps saying they are for the poor. That you now have dozens of reasons lined up in your head why it's not their fault despite having the power to solve it for decades and should be let off the hook is the lack of critical thinking in American education at work.

> The reason why we haven't done the same for critical thinking is that the people in charge won't be if we had a citizenry which could think logically.

I think this is only true because people think its true. There's plenty of PhD holding scientists that still participate in tribal politics. There's also plenty that are smart in their field and nothing more. This was logic that was used in the past and every time we've educated people the elite haven't lost their positions of power. But everyone's lives have increased in quality, I mean we don't use the streets of London as a sewer.

What do you mean by "Critical Thinking"? If something can be explicitly explained, it can be taught. But a lot of people who want "critical thinking" just seem to think "I wish people weren't stupid and would all agree with me".

This may not be what the parent meant, but I think teaching logical reasoning in grade school would be a good first step. Understanding logical arguments and fallacies would go a long way to having a more informed, and less gullible populace.

I dont think it is nearly enough. Mostly because of my experience with how people who fancy "facts and logic", but dont know much else end up arguing.

The knowledge itself matters. The ability to see when is the statement subtly exaggerating what facts say, so that one can use it in manipulative "logical" claim matters great deal. The ability to understand nuance matters a lot too. So does the ability to deal with bad actors in discussion, to understand motivations of whoever wrote this or that document matters.

I totally think we should be teaching logical fallacies and such in schools. Along with basic ethics (as in the various competing schools of thought).

But in fairness to the average person, scammers have to play big numbers games to find suckers and pick weaker targets like elderly because the average person isn't that incapable of critical thinking.

Grammar schools in Croatia teach it, there is a subject called Logika, with all the moduses (ponens, tollens, etc) and mnemonics (barbara, celarent, etc) and everything in between. And it's probably been a subject since the austrian empire (the inherited school system here is slow to change).

As you might imagine, students mostly learn this for the exams and forget everything when they leave schools. The poor political and economical situation in the country reflects the ineffectiveness of this approach.

And hey, schools in yugoslavia also taught marxism as a subject I kid you not (it was an established science back then!). Yet the whole generation in the 90s soon abandoned it for the next shiny thing. Most probably expected to become capitalists themselves, forgetting that even in capitalism someone has to actually do the work and only cca 200 families would actually own the businesses.

(Logika curriculum in croatian) https://mzo.gov.hr/UserDocsImages/dokumenti/Publikacije/Pred...

It's fascinating that they teach the medieval approach to syllogism. I learned about that in a history of logic class, not in the actual logic classes. Slow to change indeed.

Second and higher order cognition. For starters realizing that what people in power say and what they do are very different.

Preferably for their own side first because I am really sick of predicting what the next 4 years will be like, being called shill, having that prediction borne out and then being told that it was actually impossible for anything else to happen from the start.

The bigger problem is that in many fields, even if you can read and understand the paper, it is not actionable, much less verifiable by you. It may be incomplete, hide an asterisk as some other branch may mention, or be altogether written as to be unverifiable.

The last bit is especially common in the most important but soft sciences like psychology, sociology, economy, history or anthropology...

Or worse, it may be in principle verifiable but only at high expense, or the results of the analysis are incomplete or buried.

Reading cutting edge papers is not something the layman can do, it's a waste of time.

This is why we have things like the CDC offer guidelines, taking into account the changes and growth in our knowledge base. Knowledge is collected and verified over time and eventually becomes distilled in easy to understand ways to the public.

You're making the assumption that either party can solve homelessness simply by being in power.

Homelessness is a deeper problem that requires cultural change. It's not simply an economic problem.

For example, when I lived in Taiwan in the early 90s there was nary a homeless person. That's not because Taiwan's government had a better social net, nor was it because Taiwan . It was simply because in Taiwan's culture it was unheard of for anyone to let anyone else in their family go homeless. That in America people could have a homeless sibling or child or parent was almost unfathomable.

I'm not suggesting America adopt Taiwan's culture. But I am saying American culture's hyper-individualistic sink-or-swim culture has consequences. It's only in the context of such a culture that the neoliberal Democratic party appears "left", when in fact it is quite center if not center-right.

> You're making the assumption that either party can solve homelessness simply by being in power.

There are several obvious ways of doing this, from "just build more homeless shelters" to a UBI to less restrictive zoning so that people aren't priced out of housing etc. But these all cost money or political capital, so we see where the priorities are.

> It's only in the context of such a culture that the neoliberal Democratic party appears "left", when in fact it is quite center if not center-right.

This is old talking point that might have been true in 1994:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-...

Unless you're talking about what they do instead of what they say they're going to do. Then you might still be correct.

> Unless you're talking about what they do instead of what they say they're going to do.

Yes. That’s my point about culture.

There’s a reason racism and sexism still dominate despite a constitution that has said “all men are created equal” for nearly 250 years and then clarifying amendments 150 and 100 years ago. It’s the culture. Both problems could have been vanquished long ago if they were truly priorities in people’s hearts. But there are not. American culture, both liberal and conservative subcultures, always put self-interest ahead of common good when the chips are down.

Your link speaks of liberal vs conservative. Talk to any true leftist: Liberal != Left. See “neoliberalism”. See the nomination of Biden by the Dems. See Diane Feinstein continuing to be California’s senior senator. Etc. See the amount of wealth inequality just within the liberal subset of the population. New York has the most segregated school system of any big city despite being liberal, and then look at the backlash by liberals over attempts to desegregate both in NYC and SF. I could go and on.

I think we're mostly agreeing, but I have a bone to pick with the claim that it's a problem with self-interest. Self-interest isn't culture, it's human nature. Getting people to act against their own self-interest is an exercise in futility. The key is to establish an environment in which people genuinely believe that the common good is in their own self-interest.

So for example, a primary reason why there is such high homelessness in San Francisco is high housing costs. But it's in the housing developer's self-interest to knock down some housing valued at $4000/month and build 50 units of the same size on the same lot, even if the aggregate effect of doing so at scale is to cause the value of each unit to fall to $2000/month, because 50*$2000 is still a lot more than $4000. Which in turn reduces housing costs and homelessness. What's stopping this isn't individuals acting in their own self-interest, it's the local government being captured by local landlords who don't want rents to fall.

The reason racism and sexism still dominate is that they're a wedge used by elites to keep poor black folks and poor white folks on opposite sides of the isle instead of voting together against the corruption that victimizes them both, and sow general discord in the population by dividing any group that contains both men and women, which is just about all of them.

They convince black people that their enemy is the redneck and vice versa so that the two groups don't get together and start asking why it's so hard to start a small business. The true solution to racial and economic inequality is upward mobility, but notice that nobody is even talking about that anymore. As if the solution to race is taking down statues and similarly worthless symbolic voids.

But none of this is culture or individualism. It's purposeful manipulation.

The problem is absolutely solvable to a large extent. Where we get stuck is in the decision as to which solution to take. We have to pick a solution, and we are unfortunately stuck in democracy-powered limbo and deadlock where we can't reach consensus. Each of the solutions have pros, cons, and some groups have ideological or moral objections to various combinations of the solutions, not to mention existing legal and moral frameworks that gimp them.

> In the middle ages multiplication was a skill that was taught at universities. Somehow we now teach it to 7 year olds.

I think that this is [citation needed] category.

Actually in both ways, my kids were not taught multiplication as 7 years old. At that age, they were still doing additions in school.

Remember to vote Republican!

This is a rich take coming from anyone living in the US. It's a two party system - the failure of the party partially aligned with your views does not and has never made voting for the party expressly against your views the correct outcome.

This is you telling people to think critically while failing to think critically (because it suits the politics you want to advocate for).

It's a two party system because everyone in US tries their hardest to keep it a two party system. Every election is the most important one ever, so there are "no options".

Instead of this, you can stop acting myopic towards elections and punish your party (vote the other one, 3rd party, or even write-in Bernie Sanders/Ron Paul) and force the political powers to answer accordingly if they want your vote for the next time.

You do not understand your own country's electoral system.

Question: in a first past the post electoral system, what happens if the vote between two parties in a three party election is split 35% and 20%? Does either party take power? Do any of their candidates take power?

NO.

The other party wins - with 45% of the vote. EVERY TIME.

Third parties in the US literally cannot win, unless some mysterious outcome hands them an immediate largest share of the vote. Which isn't going to happen in one electoral cycle, which means the ascendancy of such a party has to involve decades of losses for whichever party they accidentally poach more voters from each cycle.

Last time I checked, there were six parties in my country's general assembly. Also in my country, in your situation two parties would have to form a coalition to form a government as none of them would have the necessary majority in the assembly.

> Remember to vote Republican!

In NYC and SF? Sure. Or Greens, Independents, Socialists, anyone but Democrats.

I'd be giving the same advice to anyone from Alabama about voting not Republican.

Politics isn't about good and evil, it's about who gets what. If people who keep failing to give you what you want keep getting your vote they will keep doing what they were doing.

Alabama has one of the lowest homelessness rates in the country. What's wrong with Alabama? :)

yah, who knew how limited the utility of masks were until we tried it en masse? or the unreasonable effectiveness of distancing indoors around familiars, even without a mask? crazy, isn't it?

science is hard; human behavior is even harder.

Masks of the FFP2/N95 variety have great utility at protecting the wearer, even when not worn perfectly.

This should be the main concern of every individual. Governments can worry about whether they work en masse.

no, the type of mask doesn’t matter. the situations where masks help are minimal and fleeting, and distancing (or natural dynamics) does the work in most common situations. moreover masks aren’t typically worn in situations where they’d actually be useful (around familiars, because less distance). those are (some of) the human dynamics involved, which nullify the potential utility of masks. masks are primarily palliative, political, tribal, and cargo-culted.

In Germany (and other countries) masks must be worn whenever distance can't be kept, so they are widely worn. Doctor's offices, public transport, work (typically not at one's desk), religious gatherings, retirement homes, etc.

Many people are nowadays wearing FFP2 masks, which are available everywhere.

masks don't absolve individuals of situational awareness (and worrying about the type of mask is a non sequitur in this regard), as we each still need to understand the actual risks of various common situations, ignorance of which is what is driving infection rates, not flouting arbitrary masking rules. mask messaging makes that worse by masking (ha) the real, actionable information and issues. people have been relentlessly messaged to think that wearing a mask in public is all they need to do, but that's diametrically opposed to the real infection threats we typically face (e.g., people we know gathering privately).

we shouldn't accept mindless rules from our "superiors", especially incorrect and politically motivated ones, but rather demand timely and correct information devoid of political intent, so that we can internalize the risks appropriately and act accordingly.