[reducesuffering]

This is what rationalists like to refer to as a strawman. Show me any example of one claiming to eventually be without err or irrationality. The claims are simply that most people have many implicit biases and illogical means, and that there are some ways of bettering your thinking methods.

[dekhn]

I think the idea is that the author of the post we're talking about doesn't consider the idea that they may be internally biased in a way that affects their ability to be rational. From my perspective, it looks like they started from the belief that ivermectin is an generally effective treatment for COVID and that "the data" (that is, a properly weighted and filtered version of the publication record) demonstrates that.

To me that shows a lot of overconfidence. Even as I make statements saying that ivermectin isn't a generally effective treatment for COVID, I fully accept that it's possible my reasoning and interpretation of the evidence could be faulty and that some future study could somehow demonstrate a slam-dunk benefit even for countries with no level of parasitic infections, like the US. If that happened (seems very unlikely, but not impossible) I would change my statement (as would the mainstream medical establishment). The author of the above article doesn't really show that level of epistemic humility.

[robonerd]

> Show me any example of one claiming to eventually be without err or irrationality.

Interact with them long enough and you'll come across a whole lot who act like it.

What do you even think I'm strawmanning? That comment is a defense of Scott Alexander and rationalists generally.

[sinity]

I thought you meant to imply that rationalists believe they're perfectly rational. Lots of people do so.