Talk:Bret Weinstein

Treatments for COVID-19: Current consensus

A note on WP:MEDRS: Per this Wikipedia policy, we must rely on the highest quality secondary sources and the recommendations of professional organizations and government bodies when determining the scientific consensus about medical treatments.

1. Ivermectin: The highest quality sources (1 2 3 4) suggest Ivermectin is not an effective treatment for COVID-19. In all likelihood, ivermectin does not reduce all-cause mortality (moderate certainty) or improve quality of life (high certainty) when used to treat COVID-19 in the outpatient setting (4). Recommendations from relevant organizations can be summarized as: Evidence of efficacy for ivermectin is inconclusive. It should not be used outside of clinical trials. (May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, July 2021, July 2021) (WHO, FDA, IDSA, ASHP, CDC, NIH)
2. Chloroquine & hydroxychloroquine: The highest quality sources (1 2 3 4) demonstrate that neither is effective for treating COVID-19. These analyses accounted for use both alone and in combination with azithromycin. Some data suggest their usage may worsen outcomes. Recommendations from relevant organizations can be summarized: Neither hydroxychloroquine nor chloroquine should be used, either alone or in combination with azithromycin, in inpatient or outpatient settings. (July 2020, Aug 2020, Sep 2020, May 2021) (WHO, FDA, IDSA, ASHP, NIH)
3. Ivmmeta.com, c19ivermectin.com, c19hcq.com, hcqmeta.com, trialsitenews.com, etc: These sites are not reliable. The authors are pseudonymous. The findings have not been subject to peer review. We must rely on expert opinion, which describes these sites as unreliable. From published criticisms (1 2 3 4 5), it is clear that these analyses violate basic methodological norms which are known to cause spurious or false conclusions. These analyses include studies which have very small sample sizes, widely different dosages of treatment, open-label designs, different incompatible outcome measures, poor-quality control groups, and ad-hoc un-published trials which themselves did not undergo peer-review. (Dec 2020, Jan 2021, Feb 2021)

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Last updated (diff) on 27 February 2023 by Sumanuil (t · c)

Use of adjective that is unnecessary

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The use of the word “fringe” to describe the Odysee website does not inform, but rather serves two purposes antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. The word inspires a disgust response in readers and it signals that the website attracts persons of low class status. It tells us nothing about the truth or falsehood of the content on that website. It does tell us that the author dislikes the website, which is completely irrelevant to readers, like myself, who are capable of making up our own minds. This should be an easy consensus target - remove “fringe” from this (Bret Weinstein) article. BleedingKansas (talk) 09:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comment on the Heather Heying's and Bret Weinstein’s book

The only comment cited about the quality of the book is by a Guardian reviewer. The citations sounds irreverently superficial and standing alone like it is, adds to the otherwise well-balanced article a biased look.

To improve and make the article more balanced, I suggest to add at least another citation by another reviewer. For example this one that says: "the book has been excellently written, deftly distilling complex ideas for the non-scientist, and at times it rises to a Dawkinsian level of prose-poetry." https://areomagazine.com/2021/10/27/the-lessons-of-evolution-a-review-of-a-hunter-gatherers-guide-to-the-21st-century-by-heather-heying-and-bret-weinstein/ Tonisarro (talk) 19:57, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Who is Daniel James Sharp? Seems like he's published something in his own magazine, so not due or reliable. Bon courage (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

The current guardian book review goes against allegedly conservative talking points, rambles on, mentioning, not explaining, problems, ending on the lab-leak hypothesis. It presents the latter as part of the main reason to refute the worldview the book represents, even though it is by now clear the lab-leak is seen as probable by many if not most experts. (https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-origin-lab-leak-china.html) Meaning at the time Stuart Ritchie didn't understand his closing point well enough for it to hold up longer than a few months.

The line about the review, looks valuable, it's well selected, well integrated, seems necessary. It's just obviously distasteful, spiteful. Please read and think for another minute about how the line looks, not if it can be justified, if it is justified. Wikipedia's spirit vs a low quality book review. Find a solution or delete both line and source.

Have a good one. PleaseInvestIntoFusion (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

the lab-leak is seen as probable by many if not most experts Not true, and not to be sourced to a journalistic source. Find a scientific source for that (you can't, because it is not true).

The rest of your contribution is hard to parse. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

even though it is by now clear the lab-leak is seen as probable by many if not most experts.
This is absolutely not true. Which experts? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:30, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Read the article I've linked. Expert opinions don't vary widely enough that I cannot take a well researched (arguably even biased in favor of natural origin) NYT article as proxy. 'Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission.' - 'Conclude' with 'low confidence'. It means even to believers in natural origin a lab-leak remains well possible. Experts using the scientific method must arrive at the conclusion it is possible/probable, because there's no evidence against it. And of course quality of evidence in favor of lab-leak is bad, because the CCP hid and destroyed whatever they could. In such a case evidence missing is evidence too. Why die on this hill? Viruses escaping Chinese labs is nothing new. https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20040427-03

It seems you want to ignore my point and you'll likely keep ignoring it. I'm not suggesting an addition to the article about Bret Weinstein, but caution when it comes to using bad sources. I've shown the current source is to some extent incoherent. It's making fun of an opinion which is in fact taken seriously by most of the scientific community. Do you think the review is coherent on that point? If it isn't, the rest of its content loses credibility. I don't even care about bias at this point. As it stands the article about Bret Weinstein is a frozen building site or a sad joke. Just compare it to other, better researched and written articles about more prominent people. Whoever is working on this needs help.

Find a book review which makes it seem like Wikipedia cares about a minimum of coherence, replace or delete the line mentioning the current one. Do your job, or somebody else's I don't care. PleaseInvestIntoFusion (talk) 14:21, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Read the article I've linked. Expert opinions don't vary widely enough that I cannot take a well researched (arguably even biased in favor of natural origin) NYT article as proxy

We typically don't use news sources to assess scientific consensus. Peer reviewed secondary review journal articles published in topic-relevant journals are the way we do that, per WP:MEDSCI. Those articles (e.g. Holmes et al.) say there is no evidence in favor of a lab leak.

'Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission.' - 'Conclude' with 'low confidence'. It means even to believers in natural origin a lab-leak remains well possible.

This is original research. You are drawing your own conclusions from what is written, probably based on what you would like to be true.

It seems you want to ignore my point and you'll likely keep ignoring it. I'm not suggesting an addition to the article about Bret Weinstein

Then why are you commenting here? Your comments should be made elsewhere, where your points are relevant.

I've shown the current source is to some extent incoherent. It's making fun of an opinion which is in fact taken seriously by most of the scientific community

Where have you shown it's taken seriously by most of the scientific community? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:23, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree. The following could be added foe the sake of balance:

In his review of the book, psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business and author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) said “Razor-sharp and fun to read, A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century secures Weinstein and Heying’s reputation as heroes who stand up not only for academic freedom, but also moral principles”.

https://swiftpress.com/book/a-hunter-gatherers-guide-to-the-21st-century/ tpof1 (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

This review firmly secures Jonathan Haidt's reputation as a shamelessly opportunistic ideologue. 2600:4040:7ED2:BE00:6D22:909:AB98:BAD (talk) 09:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

"alternative/fringe" to "fringe alternative"

I've changed the wording that seemed to be contentious from "alternative/fringe" to "fringe alternative". It seems to match what appears on LBRY (Video platforms built on LBRY, such as Odysee, have been described as decentralized, fringe alternatives to YouTube.) and gets rid of the slash, which annoyed me for MOS' sake. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 06:15, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

conspiracy theory on the hamas attack 2023

in is new podcast he is spreading conspiracy theorys about the hamas attack on isreal: https://rumble.com/v3oewxb-the-israel-attacks-beyond-the-obvious-with-efrat-fenigson.html Fraxs (talk) 07:44, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

If/when secondary sources appear, might be worth considering for addition. Bon courage (talk) 08:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

COVID Stance

Medical journals and pharmacological research suggest he was actually more right than wrong on ivermectin. Whether social conditions will allow this to be heard is another question. 24.231.100.40 (talk) 21:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)