This is not acceptable. A scientist cannot make a public claim of discovering something that s/he knows had already been discovered by others. I know it is obvious but that is exactly what happened in this press release of @theDESurvey @fermilab

@theDESurvey @Fermilab +..
The lead author, Yuanyuan Zhang, claims that "we discovered that intracluster light is a pretty good radial tracer of dark matter", which sounds awfully similar to...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab +... this 2019 paper by Mireia Montes and Ignacio Trujillo (MT19) "Intracluster light: a luminous tracer for dark matter in clusters of galaxies" ...+

https://t.co/lzZ0KnPUB7
@theDESurvey @Fermilab +...Could it be that the authors were not aware of the MT19 work? No. I mean, it's not like MT19 was an obscure paper published in a small journal 30 years ago. It was published last year in one of the top astronomy journals... AND... +
@theDESurvey @Fermilab +...AND... NASA made a press release about it:

https://t.co/yJ3crQjWwT

That in addition to their home institution @IAC_Astrofisica press release:
https://t.co/yb60Mws5Cg

...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +...
The MT19 paper was all over the science media ...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +.. There's no question that the authors were well aware of the MT19 paper because IT IS PROPERLY CREDITED IN THEIR TWO PAPERS. Here are some screenshots from both papers...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +...In fact, the second paper says that "we further explore this connection" (see attached screenshot). So how does one go from "providing additional evidence" and "further exploring [a] connection" to "we have discovered that"??? ...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +...We're told all the time that scientists need to overstate the importance of their results in a press release, or explain it in a way that the public can grasp the impact of the research. Look, I'm not saying this work is not important. It is! But this PR is not acceptable...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +...We cannot lie to the public and that's what's happened here. I don't know whose fault it is. Exaggerated headlines or bad press releases are often blamed on the journalist who wrote them. But in the institutions I know, ...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +..the lead scientist is ultimately responsible for the contents of a press release. Furthermore, Zhang's quote is "we discovered..."...+
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica +...In my opinion, it is dishonest to oversell one's achievements in a PR. The discovery that ICL traces dark matter was done by Montes and Trujillo, as is correctly stated in the scientific papers. The public should not be told a different story.

PS: Montes is @mireiamontesq
@theDESurvey @Fermilab @IAC_Astrofisica @mireiamontesq cc @emulenews @El_Lobo_Rayado @cienciabrujula @SaraRC83 @GastonGiribet @joseedelstein @DarkSapiens @radioskylab_es @StartsWithABang

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global health policy in 2020 has centered around NPI's (non-pharmaceutical interventions) like distancing, masks, school closures

these have been sold as a way to stop infection as though this were science.

this was never true and that fact was known and knowable.

let's look.


above is the plot of social restriction and NPI vs total death per million. there is 0 R2. this means that the variables play no role in explaining one another.

we can see this same relationship between NPI and all cause deaths.

this is devastating to the case for NPI.


clearly, correlation is not proof of causality, but a total lack of correlation IS proof that there was no material causality.

barring massive and implausible coincidence, it's essentially impossible to cause something and not correlate to it, especially 51 times.

this would seem to pose some very serious questions for those claiming that lockdowns work, those basing policy upon them, and those claiming this is the side of science.

there is no science here nor any data. this is the febrile imaginings of discredited modelers.

this has been clear and obvious from all over the world since the beginning and had been proven so clearly by may that it's hard to imagine anyone who is actually conversant with the data still believing in these responses.

everyone got the same R

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