Kyrie in headlines once again for not-great reasons...

[tommy]

Not sure of the point of this thread continuing. Political, major thread drift, and absurdity.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Not sure of the point of this thread continuing. Political, major thread drift, and absurdity.

We've hit all the high points, yes.

Let's just hope there's not more hot news that is relevant to this thread.

[Steven43]

I literally spit out my fruit smoothie a few minutes ago at Foster’s Market when I came upon this image!

Kudos, my friend. 👍

[Bluedog]

I suspect that we have Our Moderator Overlords to thank for the level of discourse here at DBR.

Yes, the mods are helpful, but I think it's just the general tone/standard of prolific DBR posters and who is attracted to this site. There are other Duke forum sites that have a VERY different feel. Not saying DBR is perfect, though, and some my find the more "free/short" content more suited to what they're looking for out of a fan site. Different strokes for different folks. Although even those other forums are a level above IC in discourse for sure -- I think that's largely because IC attracts a large mass of folks that is simply reflective of typical anonymous internet posting.

[Steven43]

Not sure of the point of this thread continuing. Political, major thread drift, and absurdity.

Give Kyrie a few minutes and he’ll come up with something else bizarre. Don’t you worry, tom!

KI is the controversial topic machine. He’s the off-season cure for DBR boredom.

[Steven43]

Although even those other forums are a level above IC in discourse for sure -- I think that's largely because IC attracts a large mass of folks that is simply reflective of typical anonymous internet posting.

Damn those Tar Heels!

Why does UNC have more fans than us??

[OldPhiKap]

You could find out all you wanted to know about Bigfoot by watching "In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy kicking out the jams.

I absolutely loved that show as a kid. Then watch Real People.

[Kfanarmy]

I've been trying not to chime in on this, but as someone who actually works in academic science full time, I wanted to mention a few things.

1) Not all academic journals are created equal. In fact, there's a huge problem in academic publishing with something called "predatory journals", which will essentially publish almost anything with minimal review just to get the the publishing fee. A cursory look into "Current Issues in Molecular Biology" shows the telltale signs of this. Without getting into the "inside baseball" of academia, the biggest red flag is the timeline. The article was received on January 18, revised on February 19, and accepted 4 days later. Having an article go from received to accepted in a month is absolutely unheard of in legitimate academic publishing (in fact, there's a major issue right now with the peer review process, where at legitimate journals you may be waiting upwards of a month to even get reviews, let alone revise accordingly). Especially with experimental papers, the review process usual involves the peer reviewers asking additional questions that require further experiments, and thus the review process takes months (up to years for the top journals). The timeline of this paper implies it was essentially "rubber stamped" by this journal rather than rigorously reviewed.

2) A major problem in scientific communication is that the subtleties and limitations of a study can be lost when simultaneously trying to write an article with a "headline grabbing" title. This leads to massive misconceptions when things are picked up by (social) media. This study in particular has been one that has been widely discussed, and the interpretations of it you described debunked, by the scientific community. One example:



Here's another, published in the same academic journal (so maybe it isn't as horrible of a "predatory journal" as I feared!), that explicitly says the conclusion you've drawn from the paper is not what the paper actually says:


*Bolding is mine in both the above quotes.

A little research will show you plenty of other more reputable sources outlining why the study does NOT show what you're claiming it does.

3) In academic science, one article is evidence, but not proof. Before coming to major conclusions, you'd typically want to see other studies, from separate groups, replicating and confirming the studies results. (As an aside, science has a "replication/reproducibility" crisis right now where the metrics on which we're judged don't encourage these type of replication studies, despite their huge importance... but that's another topic.) Long story short, if you only find a single study making a very bold claim, until it's reproduced or corroborated in some fashion you don't want to draw major conclusions.


I'm not going to touch the second part of your post with a ten foot pole, other than to say I think your logic is flimsy at best.

Interesting study that by its own admission is likely not particularly applicable to normal situations, since they used a carcinoma cell line that was undergoing active DNA replication, whereas normal human liver cells are not dividing. The authors also said that they don't know whether, even if reverse transcription is taking place, the new DNA would actually be integrated into the host cell.

One would think that if reverse transcription was an important part of normal cellular activity, the administration of reverse transcriptase inhibitors (which is routinely done in treatment of HIV) would cause a lot more problems than it does. I have been administering reverse transcriptase inhibitors to patients since 1994, including to hundreds and hundreds of newborn babies, and have found that these medications, by and large, are tolerated remarkably well.

This leads me to believe that the experimental system set up by the researchers you cited, while interesting, is not representative of what actually happens in a human body when vaccine is administered. Well, that and the fact that 5.4 billion people (which is nearly 70% of the entire world's population) have received at least one of these vaccines. If the situation described in the paper were likely to happen in the human body, we would have seen a lot more than the occasional case of autoimmune hepatitis (which, by the way, I have been seeing in patients decades before there was such a thing as a Covid vaccine).

An interesting discussion on academic science, but one must recognize that the entire process for creating the initial vaccines was so shortened that there was not the rigor associated with a more routine production. Less than two years down the road, the rigor and time necessary to determine long-term effects doesn't exist.

I am grateful there are any publications who've attempted to inform others about the science of both COVID and the vaccines. My personal opinion is that there is never "proof" in academic science. Science is a process; rarely is it ever settled on anything. Further understanding builds and tears at original hypotheses. I think it will take decades to understand the final impact of both COVID and the vaccines.

(As an aside, I'm not sure these bolded sentences say what you think they do...Just going to rebold a couple of words in each: "his article explains reasons as to why such a phenomenon, demonstrated recently in vitro, may not manifest clinically in vivo and therefore cannot be generalised to the healthy population," The in vitro data presented by Aldén et al. [1] without any in vivo validation in an appropriate animal model (for instance, the transgenic Fischer 344 Big Blue® rats in vivo mutation assay) can lead to misleading inferences. The current findings from Aldén et al. [1] may be detrimental to public confidence in mRNA therapeutics in general if not proven in vivo." Both of those sentences were constructed with precision. They lead the reader to believe something is not possible or unlikely without actually saying so. )


I think both of you missed my point, which was not to argue for a position on the merits vaccines/COVID vaccines. By and large, Kyrie's views on COVID are being characterized as though he is some nut with no basis to have those opinions. Most people don't spend a moment to figure out where those views may be coming from, but rather fall back to some nonsense/non-science they heard. Clearly anyone who has read much at all could at least understand that KI may be making more of an effort to truly understand what he is talking about than most of those who would ban him from the Duke campus for heresy.

[scottdude8]

An interesting discussion on academic science, but one must recognize that the entire process for creating the initial vaccines was so shortened that there was not the rigor associated with a more routine production. Less than two years down the road, the rigor and time necessary to determine long-term effects doesn't exist.

I am grateful there are any publications who've attempted to inform others about the science of both COVID and the vaccines. My personal opinion is that there is never "proof" in academic science. Science is a process; rarely is it ever settled on anything. Further understanding builds and tears at original hypotheses. I think it will take decades to understand the final impact of both COVID and the vaccines.

(As an aside, I'm not sure these bolded sentences say what you think they do...Just going to rebold a couple of words in each: "his article explains reasons as to why such a phenomenon, demonstrated recently in vitro, may not manifest clinically in vivo and therefore cannot be generalised to the healthy population," The in vitro data presented by Aldén et al. [1] without any in vivo validation in an appropriate animal model (for instance, the transgenic Fischer 344 Big Blue® rats in vivo mutation assay) can lead to misleading inferences. The current findings from Aldén et al. [1] may be detrimental to public confidence in mRNA therapeutics in general if not proven in vivo." Both of those sentences were constructed with precision. They lead the reader to believe something is not possible or unlikely without actually saying so. )


I think both of you missed my point, which was not to argue for a position on the merits vaccines/COVID vaccines. By and large, Kyrie's views on COVID are being characterized as though he is some nut with no basis to have those opinions. Most people don't spend a moment to figure out where those views may be coming from, but rather fall back to some nonsense/non-science they heard. Clearly anyone who has read much at all could at least understand that KI may be making more of an effort to truly understand what he is talking about than most of those who would ban him from the Duke campus for heresy.

With all due respect, I think that you're trying to rewrite history here. You explicitly posted the article in response to Steven43 saying "vaccines absolutely DO NOT change DNA", with the tag "some scientists would beg to differ about whether or not vaccines change DNA." That is explicitly NOT what the study you posted says, as rsvman and I outlined in detail. In fact, multiple members of the scientific community identified that the article might be misinterpreted to draw that conclusion and advance existing conspiracy theories, and tried to explicitly warn against it.

What you're describing isn't research, or a valid basis of opinion. It's either A) A problem with scientific literacy, which we have to improve upon as a society, or B) A willful ignorance of the reality of the science, as has been outlined by the experts thoroughly. While the former isn't a moral fault like the latter, neither is a valid basis for an opinion on science. Science doesn't deal with opinions, it deals with facts. There are correct and incorrect interpretations of science. Whether or not an incorrect interpretation came from a genuine misunderstanding or willful ignorance, the end result is the same.

Put another way: let's say I were to build a computational study of a brain function of interest based on an experimental study I found, which I interpreted to say ABC. If I misinterpreted that study because it wasn't in my area of expertise, and didn't take the time to properly collaborate with area experts to fully understand it, the results of my computational study are baseless. If I start with premise ABC instead of the true XYZ, no one is going to care about my computational results, because they aren't based in reality. Whether this was an honest mistake on my part or willful ignorance to try to advance my own research agenda, the work still isn't going to get published in any reputable journal without MAJOR changes and acknowledgement of these issues.

I'm not sure what you do for a living Kfanarmy, but rsvman and I are both doctors (for this we can put aside the MD vs PhD rivalry, I hope, haha). I would hope you take our insight and expertise on this matter seriously, since this is what we deal with on a day-to-day basis in our day jobs. I hope you're engaging with us in good faith here, since you've been such a positive member of the board generally speaking. If not, perhaps it's time we put this argument to the side and go back to talking about basketball.

[rsvman]

An interesting discussion on academic science, but one must recognize that the entire process for creating the initial vaccines was so shortened that there was not the rigor associated with a more routine production. Less than two years down the road, the rigor and time necessary to determine long-term effects doesn't exist.

This is largely a trope, as well. Most of the time savings in terms of getting vaccine to market was based on the fact that, in a normal, non-emergent situation, one would put in one's data to the FDA and then sit and do nothing until full approval was granted. The last thing you want to do, as a drug company, is make 200 million doses of your latest vaccine and then have to throw it all away. So you wait, and then you produce.

In this case there were exigencies that made it likely they would get an EUA, and their data were very good, so they went into full production mode while the vaccine was under review.

The other thing that saved a lot of time and that a lot of people don't seem to understand is that most vaccines take a long time to produce. In this particular case, the Chinese scientists posted the genome online and within 48 hours the sequence required for the vaccine was delivered to the company. It was approximately two WEEKS from the time the genome was published to the time the first subjecting the initial studies received the vaccine. Yes, there were people being vaccinated in early to mid February of 2020, before most of you even knew the pandemic was coming.

By way of contrast, it takes several months to manufacture a flu vaccination.

So there were a llt of ways that time was saved in getting the vaccine to the people, but cutting scientific corners or 'not properly studying' or 'not properly vetting' the vaccine were not among them.

[scottdude8]

This is largely a trope, as well. Most of the time savings in terms of getting vaccine to market was based on the fact that, in a normal, non-emergent situation, one would put in one's data to the FDA and then sit and do nothing until full approval was granted. The last thing you want to do, as a drug company, is make 200 million doses of your latest vaccine and then have to throw it all away. So you wait, and then you produce.

In this case there were exigencies that made it likely they would get an EUA, and their data were very good, so they went into full production mode while the vaccine was under review.

The other thing that saved a lot of time and that a lot of people don't seem to understand is that most vaccines take a long time to produce. In this particular case, the Chinese scientists posted the genome online and within 48 hours the sequence required for the vaccine was delivered to the company. It was approximately two WEEKS from the time the genome was published to the time the first subjecting the initial studies received the vaccine. Yes, there were people being vaccinated in early to mid February of 2020, before most of you even knew the pandemic was coming.

By way of contrast, it takes several months to manufacture a flu vaccination.

So there were a llt of ways that time was saved in getting the vaccine to the people, but cutting scientific corners or 'not properly studying' or 'not properly vetting' the vaccine were not among them.

Agree with all of this (shocking, haha). One addendum for those interested: a lot of people don't realize that part of why these vaccines seemed to come out quickly was because the underlying science had been pursued for YEARS before the pandemic. The general principles for mRNA vaccines had been in active study and development for a while (I'm not saying specifics here because I don't know them off the top of my head and don't want to guess wrong).

My understanding of this (admittedly this is outside my field of expertise, so take with the appropriate grain of salt) is that, since the underlying science behind the mRNA vaccines was established, things became almost "plug and play" once the pandemic hit. We had the toolbox, we just had to figure out which specific tool was needed, and that was determined by the genome of the virus. That allowed us to grab the "COVID-19" sized wrench out of the mRNA toolbox and use that to create the vaccine.

Amongst the scientific community, this is seen as really important evidence for why "basic science" research is important. Decades, or even years, ago, someone doing a thesis focused on mRNA probably never would've imagined the impact it could have. But that's inherent in the scientific endeavor, and part of why funding all sorts of diverse basic science is important. My favorite anecdote: a mathematician who was one of the founders of the field of "number theory" once claimed that his was the purest form of mathematics, since it had no viable applications. Now, number theory is the undergird for essentially all of our digital security and encryption tools.

[FastBreak]

For anyone interested, especially the vaccine hesitant out there, this article is a terrific commentary of the debate here... expanding on what scottdude and rsvman have been arguing.

https://www.newyorker.com/science/me...rent-dangerous

The whole article is worth the read, but to address the point immediately above about the "vaccines being rushed to approval", here is a snippet:

Nearly everything that doctors do carries risk. Surgeries can go awry. Diagnostic tests can yield false positives, exposing patients to more invasive tests or procedures. Medications and vaccines are no exception. Some 1.3 million emergency department visits are attributed to adverse drug effects each year, and studies have estimated that nearly seven per cent of hospitalized patients suffer some form of adverse drug reaction, with a fatality rate of 0.3 per cent. These numbers, extrapolated across the country’s population, suggest that more than two million adverse drug reactions probably occur in U.S. hospitals each year, potentially resulting in more than a hundred thousand deaths. If that’s true, then adverse drug effects are the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States—ahead of diabetes, pneumonia, and car accidents.

This all sounds quite risky. Does it mean that we should avoid prescription medicines entirely?

...The article quotes the adverse reaction rate to the Covid vaccine being 0.0002%... That's probably a much lower rate than most other medicines given in the hospital...

[Bluedog]

One addendum for those interested: a lot of people don't realize that part of why these vaccines seemed to come out quickly was because the underlying science had been pursued for YEARS before the pandemic. The general principles for mRNA vaccines had been in active study and development for a while (I'm not saying specifics here because I don't know them off the top of my head and don't want to guess wrong).

My understanding of this (admittedly this is outside my field of expert.

We've got SARS and MERS to "thank" for this... That's primarily why the mRNA technology was being studied years before.

[AZLA]

With all due respect, I think that you're trying to rewrite history here. You explicitly posted the article in response to Steven43 saying "vaccines absolutely DO NOT change DNA", with the tag "some scientists would beg to differ about whether or not vaccines change DNA." That is explicitly NOT what the study you posted says, as rsvman and I outlined in detail. In fact, multiple members of the scientific community identified that the article might be misinterpreted to draw that conclusion and advance existing conspiracy theories, and tried to explicitly warn against it.

What you're describing isn't research, or a valid basis of opinion. It's either A) A problem with scientific literacy, which we have to improve upon as a society, or B) A willful ignorance of the reality of the science, as has been outlined by the experts thoroughly. While the former isn't a moral fault like the latter, neither is a valid basis for an opinion on science. Science doesn't deal with opinions, it deals with facts. There are correct and incorrect interpretations of science. Whether or not an incorrect interpretation came from a genuine misunderstanding or willful ignorance, the end result is the same.

Put another way: let's say I were to build a computational study of a brain function of interest based on an experimental study I found, which I interpreted to say ABC. If I misinterpreted that study because it wasn't in my area of expertise, and didn't take the time to properly collaborate with area experts to fully understand it, the results of my computational study are baseless. If I start with premise ABC instead of the true XYZ, no one is going to care about my computational results, because they aren't based in reality. Whether this was an honest mistake on my part or willful ignorance to try to advance my own research agenda, the work still isn't going to get published in any reputable journal without MAJOR changes and acknowledgement of these issues.

I'm not sure what you do for a living Kfanarmy, but rsvman and I are both doctors (for this we can put aside the MD vs PhD rivalry, I hope, haha). I would hope you take our insight and expertise on this matter seriously, since this is what we deal with on a day-to-day basis in our day jobs. I hope you're engaging with us in good faith here, since you've been such a positive member of the board generally speaking. If not, perhaps it's time we put this argument to the side and go back to talking about basketball.

Or… let’s make DBR into a peer-review academic journal! 25 forks = phd! -as you can tell I’m still at about the associates level on the pitchfork scale

[Wahoo2000]

An interesting discussion on academic science, but one must recognize that the entire process for creating the initial vaccines was so shortened that there was not the rigor associated with a more routine production. Less than two years down the road, the rigor and time necessary to determine long-term effects doesn't exist.

I am grateful there are any publications who've attempted to inform others about the science of both COVID and the vaccines. My personal opinion is that there is never "proof" in academic science. Science is a process; rarely is it ever settled on anything. Further understanding builds and tears at original hypotheses. I think it will take decades to understand the final impact of both COVID and the vaccines.

(As an aside, I'm not sure these bolded sentences say what you think they do...Just going to rebold a couple of words in each: "his article explains reasons as to why such a phenomenon, demonstrated recently in vitro, may not manifest clinically in vivo and therefore cannot be generalised to the healthy population," The in vitro data presented by Aldén et al. [1] without any in vivo validation in an appropriate animal model (for instance, the transgenic Fischer 344 Big Blue® rats in vivo mutation assay) can lead to misleading inferences. The current findings from Aldén et al. [1] may be detrimental to public confidence in mRNA therapeutics in general if not proven in vivo." Both of those sentences were constructed with precision. They lead the reader to believe something is not possible or unlikely without actually saying so. )


I think both of you missed my point, which was not to argue for a position on the merits vaccines/COVID vaccines. By and large, Kyrie's views on COVID are being characterized as though he is some nut with no basis to have those opinions. Most people don't spend a moment to figure out where those views may be coming from, but rather fall back to some nonsense/non-science they heard. Clearly anyone who has read much at all could at least understand that KI may be making more of an effort to truly understand what he is talking about than most of those who would ban him from the Duke campus for heresy.

There seems to be a lot of focus on your end of people trying to *punish* Kyrie for his beliefs/statements about COVID, vaccines, and the flat-earth stuff.

I'd like to dispute that on two levels:
1) People/fans disassociating/distancing themselves from Kyrie, and hoping that the University and Basketball program do the same, is not a *punishment* to Kyrie, or done in an attempt to affect a change in his behavior. It's simply and individual (and/or possibly a school/athletics program) saying, "being associated with this person is 'bad for business' and we're drawing a line"
2) While I'm sure there are some, given the polarizing nature of the covid/vaccine topic, that would disassociate from Kyrie because of that specifically (or even the flat-earth stuff), I think it VERY likely that's a minority of people overall. People may find it distasteful, but I honestly think it would be a pretty small minority of the public at large (though admittedly a larger percentage than that of those on this board specifically) would take the, "he's dead to me" approach based on those views. What I think a LARGE majority of people would believe worthy of "disowning" him over (and this is the KEY of my second point here) is the endorsement of a post calling for abuse/violence towards ANYONE, and ESPECIALLY in this case towards people who have had children murdered. That goes to a level of being so socially irresponsible to be NEARLY inciting violence, which can be seen as (at least borderline) criminal, and likely extremely immoral by an overwhelming majority. It's DEFINITELY this specific opinion/idea that has Kyrie in hot water with the vast majority of the public. I think it's an extreme minority who have a major issue with the flat-earth stuff, and a relative minority that have an issue with this opinions on covid/vaccine. If you don't want him "cancelled" based on those thoughts, I can empathize somewhat. Anything suggesting that people should be targeted for abuse and/or violence because they believe the murder of their children was a hoax to deprive people of their gun rights? Honestly, I think more than a disassociation is deserved at that point and wish there was some form of ACTUAL punishment meted out by the appropriate authorities if feasible.

TLDR:
1) Duke and/or it's Bball program distancing themselves from Kyrie isn't a "punishment" designed to censor Kyrie or force him to change his behavior.
2) When you endorse someone calling for violence/abuse, it's no longer "free speech" or "just an opinion". It's darn near a crime that deserves punishment.

[Lord Ash]

Kareem has written a piece, in response to Kyrie.

“Kyrie Irving’s thought process is an example of what happens when the education system fails.… Irving is… more destructive, insensitive, and just plain silly than before. Kyrie Irving would be dismissed as a comical buffoon if it weren’t for his influence over young people who look up to athletes.”


https://kareem.substack.com/p/kareem...s-desantis-6ca

[cato]

Kareem has written a piece, in response to Kyrie.

“Kyrie Irving’s thought process is an example of what happens when the education system fails.… Irving is… more destructive, insensitive, and just plain silly than before. Kyrie Irving would be dismissed as a comical buffoon if it weren’t for his influence over young people who look up to athletes.”


https://kareem.substack.com/p/kareem...s-desantis-6ca

I hope that Kyrie hears what Kareem is teaching.

[Jeffrey]

We've got SARS and MERS to "thank" for this... That's primarily why the mRNA technology was being studied years before.

I thought it was also being researched, for many years, as a possible cancer cure or treatment?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Kareem has written a piece, in response to Kyrie.

“Kyrie Irving’s thought process is an example of what happens when the education system fails.… Irving is… more destructive, insensitive, and just plain silly than before. Kyrie Irving would be dismissed as a comical buffoon if it weren’t for his influence over young people who look up to athletes.”


https://kareem.substack.com/p/kareem...s-desantis-6ca

Kareem is the anti-Kyrie.

[killerleft]

I hope that Kyrie hears what Kareem is teaching.

Kyrie will hear it, and likely just double down on calling himself a martyr.