[FabHK]

It would be ad hominem if I said that they are nutcases with bad English, and therefore their arguments were invalid. It would be an appeal to authority if I said that the Drosten has received Germany's Federal Cross of Merit (twice), is co-discoverer of SARS-CoV (the previous one), has researched MERS-CoV, and has been called "one of the world’s foremost experts on coronaviruses" by Science magazine, and therefore the Drosten PCR is good.

However, I am saying that these guys are nutcases with bad English, and Drosten is an eminent expert on coronaviruses, and also the Drosten PCR has proven to be fine, and also the "report" the nutcases wrote has been largely refuted, by people that know much more about this than I do.

This article outlining the "Ad hominem fallacy fallacy" might be instructive.

https://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html

> Put briefly, ad hominem is "You are an ignorant person, therefore your arguments are wrong", and not "Your arguments are wrong, therefore you are an ignorant person." The latter statement may be fallacious, but it's not an ad hominem fallacy.

[tboyd47]

You just repeated the same thoughts in an even more condescending way and still didn’t explain why they’re wrong.

It’s so odd that top level comment would be flagged.

[rualca]

On the contrary. The reply is a clear explanation of why the ad hominem accusation makes no sense.

The initial comment was rightfully flagged because it either ignores the bad and unscientific nature of the attacks on the paper.

[thu2111]

No. The replies don't address a single scientific point whatsoever, instead distracting with irrelevancies like attacking the English of the authors (which is plenty good enough), claiming the PCR test is "fine" when it's obviously nowhere even close to fine for the purposes it's being used for, and writing off things like the evident lack of review as a minor unimportant thing.

It's a classic example of desperately trying to shoot the messengers and tboyd47 is correct to say it doesn't belong here. His post was flagged simply because he's another messenger and thus is getting shot - it obviously has nothing to do with the politeness or quality of his posts.

[rualca]

> No. The replies don't address a single scientific point whatsoever

The reply actually addresses all the points.

* It provides an objective description of the test, supported by primary sources.

* Provides a description of the sources of criticism that were referred to in the initial statement.

* Describes the nature and quality of the criticism.

* Allows you to check that the papers under attack were not retracted, which is the testament to the scientific substance of said attacks.

* More importantly, raises the attention to the fact that there are far more test procedures nowadays which, even if we took the complains at face value, render them null.

There's a radical fringe which for some unexplained reason are both radically anti-science and heavily invested in trying to produce and use fraudulent pseudo-scientific work to attack scientific findings they find politically inconvenient, as a kind of Trojan horse based on appeals to authority.

[thu2111]

None of those points are convincing.

Firstly, lack of retraction does not imply quality. I've read papers about COVID that were not merely wrong but deliberatively deceptive, and they haven't been retracted. Public health research just has a huge problem with bad papers, and it's not one they're admitting to.

Secondly, have you actually read the criticisms? A big part of it is that the Drosten protocol appears to have been published via a journal that he himself controls, hence the 24 hour submission-to-publication turnaround time. Obviously if that is true the paper will never be retracted, thus using lack of retraction as a way to attack the critics is circular; the non-independence of the publication path is itself a part of their criticism.

Thirdly, I read the criticism. A few things were indeed quibbly and didn't seem that important, others were not good but perhaps understandable if you make allowances for extreme speed. Other criticisms were highly substantive. But this may depend on your pre-existing value system. A critical problem with PCR testing is the way the people behind it appear to consider false positives either non-existent or entirely free: it's clear that everything about these testing programmes is designed to maximize positive results at all costs. They're terrified of false negatives but don't care about FPs at all. That isn't excusable.

Finally, w.r.t. "more test procedures", they all seem to have very similar reliability problems that are dismissed with circular logic of the form, "COVID is anyone who tests positive, therefore there are no false positives" or "A PCR positive means it detected RNA, and PCR is the most sensitive way to detect RNA, therefore if RNA is present you get a PCR positive, therefore the test works fine", all of which is entirely blind to the way it's being used in the real world.

There's a radical fringe which for some unexplained reason are both radically anti-science and heavily invested in trying to produce and use fraudulent pseudo-scientific work to attack scientific findings they find politically inconvenient, as a kind of Trojan horse based on appeals to authority

Yes, that fringe is called the public health establishment.

[tboyd47]

Sad, but true. We're not anti-science. HN is one place where I'm quite sure everyone loves science. What we are is aware that the establishment entrusted with interpreting science has gone completely off the rails, and it has nothing to do with red vs. blue.