Read part one.

What is "science"? What is "a scientist"?

As I sit in Wetherspoons, once again, supping upon a kombucha (so delicious I have been inspired to make my own at home - thanks, Michelle! - and don't you think SCOBY is the cutest ever word?), I am contemplating the plastic screens I see before me, and pondering "the science" behind them.

I would like someone who "follows the science" to explain to me the precise scientific mechanism (after they have compiled a literature review and written abstracts on each article, collecting a random sample of sources, and performing probability statistics on the reported results, of course - see my last post...) that enables these screens to reduce the national mortality rate.

This is the problem with people who believe they believe in "science". You can make them suspend all their own basic common sense and reason by labelling something "science" - in exactly the same way you can get followers of organised religion to do the same thing. There is no material difference at all between people who believe complete nonsense because it's labelled "science", and people who do similarly because it's called "religion".

Obviously, these ridiculous screens do nothing whatsoever to protect anyone's health and I did not need to read any journals or conduct any meta-analyses to determine that BECAUSE IT'S OBVIOUS (and as an aside, "the science" now purports to agree with me: https://www.bloomberg.com/.../fortunes-spent-on-plastic...).

If you can't see what's plainly in front of you and doubt the evidence of your own eyes and intellect simply because a man in a white coat hasn't popped up in front of you to confirm it, then how on earth do you so much as get out of bed in the morning? Do you have a team of scientists assisting you in determining the proven most peer-reviewed way to switch off your alarm clock and stand upright?

Anyhow: for these people who claim to worship "science" and "scientists" so much, I would like to gain a working definition from them of what they believe these terms mean.

Would the following qualify someone as "a scientist"? Degree in biology, PhD in biochemistry, and a 35-year research career including publishing hundreds of papers in scientific journals and giving talks at prestigious universities all over the world?

Well, that is a description of my friend, Professor Chris Exley FRSB, who has published research determining that some vaccines are unsafe (owing to their aluminium content).

So, is he "a scientist" or not? Chris would never agree that "the science" supports a universally pro-vaccine position, given he actually produces "the science" and it doesn't.

According to pro-vaxxers, then, he is not a scientist, but a quack.

Because, according to the oracles of the internet and mainstream media, qualifying as "a scientist" doesn't depend on, you know, actually being a scientist and doing the science, it depends on confirming the establishment bias. Anyone who doesn't do this or who doesn't agree "the science is settled" (the most unscientific phrase in the history of the world) is clearly not a scientist (despite a string of scientific credentials and a decades-long research career), they are a quack. And Dave from Twitter knows better, with his BTEC in David Beckham Studies from the University of Swindon Ring Road (see, that elitist snobbery thing can work both ways, Dave. If you want to condemn your opponents for "not being scientists", remember that you certainly aren't, either).

Anyway, I could sit here all day and enumerate a very long list of highly qualified scientists, who have produced highly-regarded science, who are not evangelically pro-vaccine - in fact, many of them are vehemently against them. This science doesn't count, though, because Dave knows it's quackery (because other, more sciencey scientists, on the BBC payroll, said so). Dave knows, that despite not being a scientist himself, he is qualified to smugly quote science, because he quotes the right science. The TV science. The science you read in the Guardian.

People who disagree with Dave, however, require scientific credentials to quote science. Because that's how science works.

(This isn’t hyperbole, by the way. I posted an article the other day, quoting vaccine developer, Dr. Peter Hotez, a very eminent scientist, who has warned that the accelerated development of the coronavirus vaccines makes them dangerous. Some pro-quaxxer was tagged into the post by a friend and said, “er right, so this Miri's’a a scientist is she?", thereby qualifying that pro-quaxxers believe you must be a scientist in order to quote science. Unless you agree with the scientists on telly, which qualifies you as more sciencey than scientists who produce science that contradicts TV science.)

So anyway, Dave, back to these screens…