I thought you all might find this Twitter exchange to be as amusing as I did. Surgeons are notorious for their arrogance, while your humble host is not exactly known for being devoid of confidence.
Vox Day @voxday
A published study appears to have detected vaccine fraud in a CDC study of autism and the MMR vaccine.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday No, not so much. But your swallowing that codswallop whole shows just how little you know about science.Vox Day @voxday
@gorskon Amusing. You clearly don’t even understand the difference between statistical review and science. You’re science-illiterate.Sebastian Armstrong @spikesandspokes
@voxday @gorskon Hilarious, he is a cancer surgeon who has been part of breast cancer research, and YOU think HE is science-illiterate!Vox Day @voxday
@spikesandspokes @gorskon He observably is science-illiterate. Statistical analysis is not science. Neither, for that matter, is surgery.Vox Day @voxday
@spikesandspokes @gorskon We’re getting ready for our fantasy football draft. Or, as you science-illiterates would call it, “doing science”.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday @spikesandspokes Says the guy who has never published in the scientific literature and thinks he knows science.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday @spikesandspokes As opposed to
someone (me) who has actually published multiple scientific papers,
including one coauthor in NatureVox Day @voxday
@gorskon @spikesandspokes No, says the guy whose scientific hypotheses have been turned into multiple published papers and cited by Nature.David Gorski @gorskon
@spikesandspokes Don’t worry. @voxday amuses me with his arrogance of ignorance with respect to science, particularly vaccine science.Vox Day @voxday
@gorskon @spikesandspokes You’re the one dumb enough to claim statistical review is science, not me.Vox Day @voxday
@gorskon @spikesandspokes BFD. Nature has also cited one of my original hypotheses. And it doesn’t erase your basic blunder re statistics.Vox Day @voxday 2h
@gorskon @spikesandspokes But your logically fallacious appeal to credentials does amuse me. Now, I’ve got to get back to my draft science.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday @spikesandspokes Also, hypotheses are a dime a dozen. Hypotheses that stand up to scientific scrutiny are what matter, silly boy.Vox Day @voxday
@gorskon @spikesandspokes They did, Mr. Doctor Scientist. That’s kind of the point.Vox Day @voxday @gorskon @spikesandspokes I’m not worried.
Your insecurity is hilarious. Nobody gives a damn about your
credentials, Mr. Doctor Scientist.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday @spikesandspokes Who’s more insecure, the guy w/ actual scientific accomplishments (me) or the guy who brags about hypothese (you)?Vox Day @voxday
@gorskon @spikesandspokes I don’t brag about it. You’re the one who rushed to cite Nature, not me. I simply pointed out: BFD. So, you.David Gorski @gorskon
@voxday @spikesandspokes And you’re the one who bragged first about a hypothesis cited in Nature.Vox Day @voxday now
@gorskon @spikesandspokes Wrong again. I responded at 2:59 to your mention of Nature at 2:57. Science illiterate and can’t tell time either?
One thing I’ve noticed about scientists is that they never seem to understand that their expertise in one particular area doesn’t translate very well, if at all, into unrelated areas. That’s why it is so easy to trip them up; their rush to defend their wounded intellectual vanity leads them from one error into another.
And, of course, they always retreat to their credentials and citations in lieu of being able to actually argue their way out of a paper bag. It’s probably a character flaw, but I do love it when this sort of situational moron decides to take a crack at me.
UPDATE: To be fair to the guy, I was the first one to mention Nature. And, since apparently none of my would-be critics are smart enough to search the blog, the hypothesis referenced is obviously my argument demonstrating that religion does not cause war, which has been cited everywhere from Foreign Policy to Wikipedia to Nature to The New York Times. And as for anyone who wants to resort to the obvious dodge of crediting The Encyclopedia of Wars, well, I will simply laugh at you and observe that while I have it, and have read it, you obviously haven’t ever even laid eyes upon it.