1/: Scientific integrity is a valuable commodity. What happens when external funders take influence on both scientific™ findings and media coverage can be seen in the current global crisis. It is time to return to the fundamental principles of science: ⬇️A thread⬇️

2/: In this thread, I will roughly explain why #empiricism and #repeatability are important factors for science and why model approaches should be interpreted with caution (and that is what I am saying as a modeller).
3/: I am aware that the principle of science is far more profound than explained in this thread, but this thread is written for laymen on @twitter and not for the lecture room. Also, within the scientific community, there is no clear consensus about this topic either.
4/: In recent years, I have been working on complex food production systems that increase food production and show high nutrient and water use efficiencies. I have thus been involved in plant growth experiments and holistic system modelling activities (@MATLAB, @AnyLogicCo).
5/: The plant growth experiments included environmental factors, #metagenomics (i.e. microbial genome sequencing), flow regulations etc. and the modelling covered the prediction on non-existing systems based on experimental and literature data.
6/: The IMHO most important principle of science is #empiricism. Empirical evidence is information that verifies the truth (which accurately corresponds to reality) or falsity (inaccuracy) of a claim. However, experiments and observations usually do not represent the "truth".
7/: There can be many intervening factors that have an impact on the observations. The less the conditions are controlled, the higher the deviations. So in order to “find the truth”, one wants to conduct an experiment in an environment with as few as possible inference factors.
8/: I will explain this through the example of my plant growth experiments. One can conduct the experiment in a greenhouse; solar radiation, humidity, temperature etc., are no stable factors. However, in a “climate chamber”, all of these factors can be standardized.
9/: This allows us to compare experiments with one another much easier. But there are also other factors that are not easy to control. These are (often) the genetic diversity of plant species, microbiological characteristics of the process water etc.
10/: This brings us to the point to talk about #repeatability. First of all, it’s essential that an experiment should contain several replications (or, if not possible repetitions) and control groups to ensure a high statistical relevance with respect to the made observations.
11/: However, the results are fundamentally dependent on the many factors, which have a decisive influence on the experiment’s outcome. I will give you two examples to explain what I mean: (a) my experiences with plant growth experiments; (b) vitamin D #COVID trials.
12/: In one experiment, we observed that lettuce grew much faster (40%) when being grown in aquaculture-derived water that contained many bacteria (i.e. which was not sterile such as it is the case for hydroponics systems). https://t.co/WBMyfb5v8k
13/: I repeated this experiment in different locations repeatedly, and the results seem to differ (still, we always see a growth advantage). This has to do with environmental conditions, different microbial strains in the process water, different seed material/quality etc.
14/: So what’s the truth? I don’t know. Why don’t I know? Because it depends. What does it depend on? Well, many factors.

And plant growth experiment cannot be considered complex compared to the field of epidemiology or alike, where it’s even harder to control conditions.
15/: I was able to make similar observations regarding vitamin D studies. Many studies have been conducted in this field, and they are everything but uniform, also due to different hypotheses. An overview of conducted vitamin D studies can be found here: https://t.co/zhzTWwF9br
16/: In general, we can see that vitamin D has a high impact on the severity of the course of COVID, the death rate etc. And yet, meta-analyses generally compare apples and oranges (which is often unavoidable, so there is nobody to blame). https://t.co/YgJJNwMfzE
17/: The approach of every study differs in the following approaches: (1) amount IU of vitamin D administered; (2) time of administration; (3) physical characteristics of the patients; (4) selection of individuals; (5) dietary co-factors; etc. just to name some.
18/: There are, for example, studies out there that claim that vitamin D doesn't have an impact on COVID. Those studies, however, assume that a sufficient vitamin D blood serum level lays around 20 ng/mL, which is a completely faulty assumption. Still made it through peer review.
19/: Such drawn conclusions can cause confusions, and it’s the scientific community’s job to analyse, verify, and discuss findings. Such open discussions (which should include transparent peer-review processes) would help us to reduce biases. https://t.co/c1ONzsVMWC
20/: After having given you a brief insight into #empiricism and #repeatability, I want to talk about the field of modelling. During this 'pandemic', the outcome of models, again and again, justify political restrictions. But how does modelling work?
21/: The objective of a prediction model is to predict the future on the basis of available or predicted data. Often, complex situations have to be simplified for a model to work.
22/: In the last couple of months, we came across many modelled predictions: almost all of them were completely wrong (remark: don’t let physicists work in the field of epidemiology). Issues such as #seasonality have been purposely neglected, which is a methodological failure.
23/: Comparing the model prediction with the actual observations is called “model validation”. Every serious scientist should validate their models and publicly discuss why the model failed or was able to predict the future. This is somehow not the case anymore.
24/: It would be exciting to get to know why @ViolaPriesemann, @EricTopiol, @CorneliusRoemer, @neil_ferguson, or @VSPTUBerlin (who are traffic planners lol) do not validate their COVID-models but instead keep on publishing doomsday scenarios with their faulty work.
25/: It is also useful to illustrate complex relationships in so-called causal-loop diagrams prior to blindly modelling a situation. That is at least what I do (see graphic for Kombucha).
26/: A holistic causal loop diagram demonstrating the complexity of the pandemic environmental–health–socio–economic system can be found in this publication: https://t.co/CpCL4wMq2b. This could for example be a solid basis for a holistic model (consisting of several submodels).
27/: Every serious scientist should keep on questioning the “reality” and his/her own work. I can only recommend the mentioned “scientists” and many other modellers to read the following article. https://t.co/UBoPEliLiL
28/: I also have another shout-out to the media: why do you keep on giving scientists a platform that have been wrong several times.
29/: … are openly lying... https://t.co/nPKyuGTr63
30/: … committed scientific fraud… (hello @Eurosurveillanc & @StephenABustin)
https://t.co/1m7rpVqYFQ
31/: … let their bachelor students do the modelling job…
https://t.co/5hLDktlvf8
32/: … lack of a scientific degrees…
https://t.co/pMIGbbKrLU
33/: … make false statements… (plus get funded by #Soros, @wef and @WHO; i.e. conflict of interests)
https://t.co/nElSOLHMUd
34/: … defame genuine colleagues…
https://t.co/h78oX9Ah3a
35/: … have conflicts of interests… (best wishes to the @gatesfoundation). etc.
https://t.co/2AzbGs4KDT
36: Also, the #TeamScience that the media talks about is much bigger than assumed. Critical voices are disregarded or discredited. Instead, those who are in line with the agenda (no matter how unscientific their approach is) are presented as “THE SCIENCE™” we should listen to.
37/: Last but not least, John Ioannidis wrote one of the most important publications of the last decades about this topic: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”. Give it a go because he is part of the real #TeamScience. https://t.co/LeGCfIMHFf

More from Dr. Simon ツ

Substantial analysis of @BenMarten regarding the mortality in Germany. Particularly noticeable is the "excess mortality" in December. Ben states that "lockdown deaths" could play an important role here. I would like to elaborate my thoughts on that. ⬇️Mini-Thread⬇️


Factor 1: Vitamin D deficiency.

Many people (especially elderly) have been locked in during the summer. Also the majority of holiday trips have been cancelled, leading to a lower 25(OH)D blood serum level as usual. The body can store vitamin D up to several months.


As vitamin D is a hormon that modulates the immune responses, we can assume that the lockdown measures had some adverse effect on our immune system. Especially elderly people in retirement homes must have been severely affected.

Factor 2: Loneliness

"Loneliness, it seems, can lead to long-term "fight-or-flight" stress signaling, which negatively affects immune system functioning. Simply put, people who feel lonely have less immunity and more inflammation than people who

Factor 3: Hyper Hygiene

Constant disinfections and high hygienic standards weaken the immune system. It gets literally "out of
1/ Happy to announce that we have submitted our #paper ‘Bayes Lines Tool (BLT) - A SQL-script for analyzing diagnostic test results with an application to SARS-CoV-2-testing’.

In this ⬇️thread⬇️, I will explain why our tool is that powerful for decision makers. #UnbiasedScience


2/ In the meantime, the submitted paper is available on the preprint platform @zenodo_org. Factual criticism is highly desired and encouraged. The publication itself presents a seminal Bayesian calculator, the Bayes Lines Tool (BLT). (Petje af, @waukema!)

3/ The Bayes Line Tool (available on
https://t.co/jIomSIxOd9) is able to back-solve disease #prevalence, test #sensitivity, test #specificity, and therefore, true positive, false positive, true negative and false negative numbers from official governmental test outcome reports.

4/ This is done by creating confusion matrices with four variables. Namely: TP, FP, TN, FN. In order to calculate the matrices, we need prevalence, specificity, and sensitivity as well as the number of people that got tested (within a given period) and the number of positives.


5/ The number of positives and the number of tests are given by the government. Prevalence, specificity, and sensitivity are unknown. So we assume any combination of them ranging from 0-99%. These three combinations can amount up to #millions of #combinations.
1/: The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation created as a result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. In light of the current events, they are more actual than ever before. ⬇️an important thread⬇️


2/: These so-called ‘Doctors’ Trial’ focused on physicians who conducted #inhumane and #unethical human experiments in German concentration camps, in addition to those who were involved in over 3,500,000 sterilizations of German citizens. (the picture shows doctors/criminals)


3/: Ten points of the code were given in the section of the verdict entitled "Permissible Medical Experiments". They can be found in detail on the following website:

4/: Point #1 means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, or deceit.


5/: Using an insufficiently-tested vaccine on humans is unethical. However, as long as people voluntarily consent to receive the vaccine, being informed about all risks, everything is OK. Doing this with force, however, is against the Nuremberg Code.
1/: The inventor of the corona PCR-Test @c_drosten is one of the #protagonists of the current crisis. He is known for involving himself in contradictions. In 2014, he gave a legendary #interview to @wiwo (https://t.co/jzTRh5Suhc) that I will address in this ⬇️short thread⬇️.


2/: The interview is significant because @c_drosten made totally sane statements back then that follow the principle of common sense. Considering his involvement in the "genesis of the current pandemic", his assertions appear in an entirely different


3/: In 2014, for instance, washing the hands was sufficient against being infected by coronaviruses. Several years he demands measures that destroy national economies and social life worldwide.


4/: Young @c_drosten also severely criticized the fact that Saudi Arabia used the PCR method to detect potential infections. From his point of view, that specific method could lead to many irrelevant cases. Nowadays, his view shifted his opinion towards 'collective punishment'.


5/: Whereas he demands "testing, testing, testing" nowadays and spreads panic and fear via (social) media, he heavily condemned that behaviour of Saudi media in 2014. On top of that, he expressed his concern that medial panic could increase the number of lab tests significantly.

More from Category c19

1/: The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation created as a result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. In light of the current events, they are more actual than ever before. ⬇️an important thread⬇️


2/: These so-called ‘Doctors’ Trial’ focused on physicians who conducted #inhumane and #unethical human experiments in German concentration camps, in addition to those who were involved in over 3,500,000 sterilizations of German citizens. (the picture shows doctors/criminals)


3/: Ten points of the code were given in the section of the verdict entitled "Permissible Medical Experiments". They can be found in detail on the following website:

4/: Point #1 means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, or deceit.


5/: Using an insufficiently-tested vaccine on humans is unethical. However, as long as people voluntarily consent to receive the vaccine, being informed about all risks, everything is OK. Doing this with force, however, is against the Nuremberg Code.
All you need to know about COVID19
FACTS NOT FEAR

Covid 19 is a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. SARS-CoV-2 is one of 7 coronaviruses known to man. 1/n

The pandemic is real. Excess deaths were observed in many countries. Not all countries were affected in the same way due to pre-existing immunity, the health status of the population and demographics (the proportion of elderly in the population) 2/n
https://t.co/65elPq3gp5


COVID 19 presents a high risk for the very few and negligible risk for the many.

The infection fatality rate in different age groups:
<19 y, IFR= 0.003%
20-49 y: IFR= 0.02%
50-69 y: 0.5%
>70y, IFR=

Not everybody is susceptible to the virus. If reinfected, pre-existing immunity from related viruses gives protection from developing the disease or from developing serious symptoms.
4/n

“The evidence that a subset of people has a cross-reactive T cell repertoire through exposure to related coronaviruses is

You May Also Like

I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹