NO MORE BS: Quasi-Science Video – A Rebuttal

It is no secret; I enjoy the SloMo Guys, Smarter Every day, and several other YouTube channels.  The science behind slow-motion cameras and the science behind seeing interactions is amazing to me.  I have seen things on the SloMo Guys channel that has blown my mind; for example, watching a box truck roof get peeled back like an accordion compressing, two paintballs meeting in mid-air, or the action of splitting a bullet; amazing!

Yet, I am not pleased with a video observed today.  The channel on YouTube is called “It’s Okay to be Smart” and featured Gavin in collaboration from the SloMo Guys.  The specific video is titled “Visualizing Herd Immunity (with 500 Mousetraps!).”  If you have not seen the video, please watch and comment, for I am offering a discussion, not a lecture.

1. I must be the thickest blockhead since Charlie Brown; I cannot compute how mousetraps and ping-pong balls represent a virus and herd immunity. I watched the video and was singularly unimpressed with the visuals.
2. The basis for the demonstration was shown to reflect how germs spread. The narrator spends significant time talking about germs and mixing germ terminology into a pandemic.  Plasticizing the definitions of the separation of germs, bacteria, fungi, and viruses makes for lousy science and reflect a demented mind.
   • From MayoClinic.com, it is clear that a germ is not a virus, a bacterial infection is not the same as a viral infection, and mixing and matching the terms makes for lazy minds!
   • The following are the classes of infectious agents and a simple description. Infectious agents come in many shapes and sizes. Categories include:
     • • Bacteria – Bacteria are one-celled organisms that can be seen only with a microscope.
       • Viruses – Viruses are just capsules that contain some genetic material, require a host to provide the missing genetic material, antibiotics designed for bacterial infections are useless against viral infections.

• • • • Fungi – Like bacteria, there are “good” and “bad” fungi, some are edible, like those fungi found in bread and cheese, others are in the air we breathe like molds, and athlete’s foot and ringworm are fungi.
      • Protozoans – Protozoans are single-celled organisms that behave like tiny animals — hunting and gathering other microbes for food. Like bacteria, there are helpful and hurtful protozoans found in nature and the human body.
      • Helminths – Helminths are among the larger parasites. Think intestinal worms, heartworms, and are transferred through eggs invading a host.
  • The terms and the infectious agents are NOT interchangeable; one infectious agent’s treatments will generally not work on another infectious agent type. Calling all infectious agents “germs” is at best disingenuous.

3. There is an axiom used in corporate training, “Improvement will occur, regardless of whether training occurs or not.” The same is true for viral infections, as supported by the demonstrations of the video in question.  The difference between corporate training improvements and viral protection is minimal at best; both require a cost.  In business, the cost of not training is higher marketing costs, higher production costs, and the higher cost of a product or service.  In fighting viral infections, the cost is dead people.  Why do I claim this is minimal because to allow the number of dead to spread fear is a tool of liberal leftists to propose changing societies.
   • Death is coming for everyone, as the axiom claims, “Life: NO ONE gets out alive!”
   • Fear of death is insufficient to strip liberty, freedoms, and basic human rights from a population.
   • I am not advocating that death is inconsequential; I am claiming that allowing your choices to be restricted because someone else is scared of death is irrational and wrong.
4. Basic Reproduction Number – R₀=4
   • More quasi-science that does nothing but disregard facts through assumptions.
   • Actual Basic Reproduction Number Formula: R₀ = ßT
     • R₀ = Basic Reproduction Number: The first person to catch a disease.
     • ß = infection producing contacts per unit time
     • T = Mean infectious period: Time the host can spread the disease.
   • The following supplies a solid understanding of the basic reproduction number, from a peer-reviewed source, posted publicly on the CDC website, and represents true science:
     • Delamater, P. L., Street, E. J., Leslie, T. F., Yang, Y., & Jacobsen, K. H. (2019). Complexity of the Basic Reproduction Number (R0). Emerging Infectious Diseases, 25(1), 1-4. https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2501.171901.
   • From Delameter, Street, Leslie, Yang, and Jacobsen’s abstract, I want to make the following perfectly clear.
     • “R₀ must be estimated, reported, and applied with great caution because this basic metric is far from simple.”
     • “R₀ cannot be modified through vaccination campaigns.” Hence the video in question is spreading false and misleading data as science.
     • “R₀ easily misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied. R₀ is not a biological constant for a pathogen, a rate over time, or a measure of disease severity.”
     • Hence, the person seeking truth must conclude that the video is not only misrepresenting science but blatantly lying about the basic reproduction number having any application to “Herd Immunity.”

President Trump won a lot of support from me when he called out liars for spreading lies, bias as fact, and personal opinion as news.  Plastic words and the tyranny of language surrounds each and every person worldwide.  Does herd immunity exist; yes, but you can get herd immunity both through not vaccinating a population and through vaccinating a population, which is always excluded from the discussions in an endeavor to sell more vaccines.  Pay close attention to the “mouse-print” that flashes on the screen in the video discussed.  The sources for the quasi-science are the same people trying to sell COVID-19 vaccinations.

Personal interest does not create a scientific fact.  This saying is also reworded as, “Statistics prove nothing,” and from Mark Twain, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  For example, an interesting factoid, when you see a commercial selling toothpaste, usually there is a claim that “9 out of 10 dentists agree.”  The study being referenced for this statistic is from the 1960s and was reporting that dentists generally agree that brushing your teeth is a good thing and flossing and regular dental checkups.  But there has never been a time study that showed any scientific support for toothbrushing producing better teeth, healthier gums, or that flossing is a good thing.  Hence, the dentists have a personal stake in selling dental visits; toothpaste, toothbrush, and flossing manufacturers have a personal stake in selling more products.  Thus, the statistic represents personal bias, personal interest, and personal desires, all as a fact to have you brush, floss, and visit your dentist regularly.  Is the pattern clear for the video under discussion?

If Pfizer and Moderna can “explain” something “science-like” that people will automatically presume is too difficult to understand, then they sell more vaccinations.  Remember, these companies cannot be sued for a faulty product, harm, long-term disability, or death.  Hence, selling more vaccines has no down-sides and is a game of chicken, where your life is on the line.

Let’s review some of the facts about the vaccines being peddled:

• The Bio-Tech companies producing vaccinations are free from litigation.
• The method of creating the vaccine is untried, untested, and unknown. Meaning, there have been zero long-term studies done regarding the health effects of the vaccine.  As a 20-yr old male, does the vaccine create problems with sterility; nobody knows.  Are you willing to bet your future on an untried drug in a game of chicken?
• COVID is a common viral infection found in common colds.
• Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial medicine approved in the United States to prevent or treat certain types of malaria, lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Fauci reported hydroxychloroquine is good medicine for beating COVID viral infections in a peer-reviewed research paper.  Then Fauci lied.  Then Fauci made hydroxychloroquine a political issue to thwart President Trump.
• Tonic Water, with Quinine, aids the immune system against malarial disease, works against COVID, and has limited side-effects and limited long-term health problems. Plus, it is inexpensive, easy to obtain, and tastes good!

Thus, I refute the video as being nothing more or less than falsehoods wrapped in quasi-science, deep-fried in personal opinion, and marketed to scare people into getting a questionable vaccine so the Bio-Tech firms can increase profit share.  I am not anti-vaccination.  I am for smart, informed, and intelligent decisions making, without marketing hype.  I am for people not making dangerous decisions about their health based upon questionable data, incomplete studies, and government/media fear-driven information.

Where the COVID-19 vaccine is concerned, please ask questions.  Please keep asking questions until you are comfortable with your choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, to mask or not to mask, or to comply or not comply.  The government has been winning because conservatives first believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.  Please question whether the “law” is really a “law” or an executive order tyranny masquerading as law.  Please ask why a common cold (COVID) is being treated as dangerous when COVID has a 99.99% survival rate.  Please question why a measles outbreak is not treated the same as a COVID outbreak when measles is more contagious, potentially more deadly, and possibly disfiguring.

Chicken Pox is a viral infection but is not regarded the same as COVID-19 (SAR-COV-2); do you ever ask yourself why?  The video claims Smallpox has been eradicated; but, one thing Mother Nature has proven time and again, nothing is ever gone; it’s just waiting for a new population.  Discussing Smallpox is not fear-mongering but merely an expression that problems still lurk, even with vaccines.

For example, scientists went to an Alaskan village where the Spanish Flu was prevalent and dug up bodies from the permafrost to harvest the Spanish Flu.  Then began studying what they found.  Humans are regularly on the path of their own demise, and Hollywood and other media channels have made vast sums on this exact premise.  Dig up a virus; the virus escapes the lab, huge populations die.  Where humans and infectious agents cross, there is always danger and opportunity, risk and reward.

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.