I continually see memes quoting statistics that claim to show the ineffectiveness of vaccines.
Anybody with even middle school level math competency should be able to see through the misrepresentation of these statistics.
A recent example stated that 85.7% of deaths over a particular week in Scotland were vaccinated people. The conclusion drawn was that the vaccines don't work because the vast majority of people dying were vaccinated.
What was left out in the post was that 94% of Scotland has received at least 1 dose and 74% has received 3 doses. That leaves only less than 6% of the population unvaxxed accounting for 12% of the deaths. This data suggests (suggests, doesn't prove anything), just the opposite of the conclusion drawn.
Misuse of statistics makes people look either stupid or dishonest. If you see something posted like this, you should immediately question your source. Anybody passing off this kind of stuff isn't vetting their sources or their numbers either through actual intent to mislead or sheer stupidity. Either way, the source cannot be trusted. Trusting such a source is just allowing yourself to be duped (which makes you a dupe) or a liar yourself.
Hold yourself to higher standards of integrity, please, everybody. It doesn't help anybody to lie about facts or pass on lies about facts.
I agree with you on this point- there's a lot of bad references floating around. Though, there's also a LOT of bad policy and bad support for the vaccine. If our goal is to be objective then we need to condemn dogma where it exists.
Of course we should condemn dogma. I have yet to see where the support for the vaccine is "bad policy." You won't show your "math" and I have literally read hundreds of links that anti-vaxxers put up purporting to be "studies" showing the vaccines to be ineffective at best, harmful at worst. Of all those links, not one stands up to even the most cursory of examination.
Show me THE BEST study that demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the COVID vaccines. I will read it and consider it. But I am not an epidemiologist or a virologist. I doubt that you are either and when we have studies like this:
Covid-19 Vaccine Effectiveness against the Omicron (B.1.1.529) Variant
we should have substantial reasons for rejecting it. Not conspiracies about the "western medicine establishment" that won't sanctify drinking urine or eating placentas as sound preventative health practices because they want to sell more drugs to people. (And, yes, absolutely, many drugs are overprescribed, physicians get taken in by drug companies, too, yes, I'm not saying those problems don't exist.)
it is ludicrous to trust an anonymous person on the internet doing the math on vaccine efficacy over the work of experts in the field, openly publishing their work in prestigious journals for the whole world to see, consider, and critique.
I don't trust "experts" i trust experts
You mean you don't trust the actual experts who have studied their subjects for nearly a decade just to earn their PhDs then have secured prestigious research positions and publish their work in prestigious research journals where other "experts" working at other prestigious research institutions review their work prior to publication and either reject it or mark corrections to be made before the research is published in said presitigious journal?
No, your experts publish on blogs on the internet or made up anti-vax journals that are not held in high regard by the scientific community and are not reviewed by people who earned their PhDs after nearly a decade of higher education and do not work at prestigious research institutions. Those are your experts.
It's literally irrational. If I'm wrong, cite one of your experts. Cite yourself and provide the "math" you did on the effectiveness of vaccines. Don't give me studies based on VAERS, I have demonstrated already how and why using that data to make causal links between "vaccine injuries" and vaccines is entirely spurious and outright dishonest. So if your number are based on VAERS, be prepared to defend why you are using a database that itself says shouldn't be used for that purpose.
You keep saying I'm wrong and that all this research in all these prestigious scientific journals is wrong, but you have yet to cite a single study or even a single fact to support your position.
I don't trust the experts the TV tells me to trust, only trust good research. Fo you have any or are you still relying upon personal attacks and dogma?