[YeGoblynQueenne]

Nothing happened to Ioannidis. He did his job as a scientist and said what he thought was right, even when everybody disagreed with him.

So he was wrong? So what? To be a scientist means to blunder a lot. In fact, to be a scientist means to (be willing to) blunder much, much more than everybody else because that is the only way to learn. Science, ultimately, only gives you the tools to know when you're wrong.

[UncleMeat]

Well, he also decided it was appropriate to insult the physical appearance of grad students on twitter who disagreed with him. He definitely didn't come out of covid looking fully dispassionate.

[lliamander]

> He definitely didn't come out of covid looking fully dispassionate.

No one did.

That said, despite the serious amount of professional scrutiny and and public harassment he was subject to, I think he made valuable contributions to the conversation around COVID-19 public policy.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I have no idea what incident you are talking about but, from the context, I have no doubt that it is something inconsequential that social media made a big deal about just to have some reason to be outraged at Ioannidis, with whom they were already outraged.

[anonymouskimmer]

The commenting on personal appearance took place in a peer-reviewed article in which he was sole author. Read the link.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

The linked article is 6,848 words, not counting the embedded tweets. Given the low-level content in the first couple paragraphs, and the constant quoting of tweets, I have no reason to read it. Social media is uniformly bullshit and I'm not in the habit of wasting my time with it.

If you would like to send me a link, or other reference, to the "peer reviewed article" in which "the commenting on personal appearance took place" please feel welcome to do so.

[anonymouskimmer]

Here we go: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554

From the Supporting Information: [Correction added on 5 January 2022 after first online publication: Information including ad hominem comments directed by the author at people critiquing his work was removed by the author from the appendix in Supporting Information during copy editing between Accepted Article and Version of Record versions of this article. For more information about Wiley policy on changes to Accepted Articles please refer to https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.htm...

[anonymouskimmer]

Search the original article ( https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-j... ) for this text: "This is how Prof. Ioannidis responded in his new paper."

From what I can gather from the published journal article it appears that if these paragraphs of ad hominems were in it they did not survive the review process: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554

Unfortunately I don't know how to find the pre-publication submission.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

So he made a mistake and the corrected it?

[UncleMeat]

I didn't say you should be outraged. Feel what you want to feel. I list this example where he definitely did more than "his job as a scientist."

[YeGoblynQueenne]

To clarify, I didn't say you said I should be outraged. I said that social media made a big deal of something in order for them (its users) to be outraged. That's what social media is all about, yes?

[anonymouskimmer]

Passion is fine and great in all endeavors. Not being able to acknowledge when you are wrong in small or large is the problem. And it's a problem for both passionate and dispassionate people.

One of the earlier researchers on psychopaths was Hervey M. Cleckley. In his book on the topic The Mask of Sanity one of his vignettes of, I believe, "incomplete manifestation of psychopathology" was of a psychologist who gave public lectures on psychopaths, without apparently recognizing that he was almost one of them.

To sum up the parallel, there are two kinds of people who tend to talk the most about any social or personal ill: those who are worried about the ill, and those who are distracting from the fact that they themselves embody it. (Technically this probably overlaps a bit, as ex-alcoholics are often worried about alcoholism, for example.)

[selimthegrim]

He really lowered himself by personally attacking a grad student who opposed him – the very definition of punching down.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Why? He can't criticise his critics, unless they're scientists of his own standing? I don't know who wrote those rules but I don't remember reading them.

[selimthegrim]

The attacks were not substantive, along the lines of how dare you grad student open your mouth to me exalted professor

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Are you sure this is not just you painting meaning and intensions on the exchange because of the people involved and preconceived ideas about "exalted professors" snottily dismissing mere grad students etc?

I think I read the biggest part of the appendix in the linked article and it doesn't come across as what you say. It comes across as irrelevant and unnecessary. The passage was put in an appendix but it really belonged in a blog post, or a tweet, but certainly not in a scholarly article. But other than that, it wasn't even particularly vituperative, just indulgent, really.

It certainly wasn't "insult[ing]" as the parent claimed.

And then of course he removed it from the appendix with a note taking responsibility for it. Yet here we are, still talking about it, as if he stabbed someone in the face or ate babies alive, or anyway whatever a scientist's reputation can reasonably be expected to never recover from.