[mritun]

> investigators did not receive a response from Raoult, the corresponding author. To date, 32 papers published by IHU authors have been retracted, 28 of them co-authored by Raoult, and 243 have expressions of concern.

I am not a scientist but it of 32 faulty widgets, 28 widgets are made by a guy called Raoult, then even blue collar workers know Raoult is an idiot with no business making widgets. If that does not happen, ACME Widgets will eventually go out of business.

This is how science gets discredited - by allowing idiots do “science”. Here Raoult does not get kicked out, but is Director of the ACME - this is how entire field of medicine research gor tainted.

[ndsipa_pomu]

> This is how science gets discredited - by allowing idiots do “science”.

Not really - science has to be open to all as otherwise we risk having a "priesthood" of scientists. What we need are better systems to deal with rogue researchers and retracted papers.

The scientific principle is fine, it's just our implementation that is lacking.

[Cthulhu_]

The biggest issue, I think, is what happens after a paper is released; it gets spread, reinterpreted, diluted, popularised, editorialised, etc through three or four layers of media (university press room -> serious news/science outlets -> popular news/science outlets, going from "these numbers indicate with 89.1346% certainty that this exoplanet may contain traces of h2o" to "EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE FOUND PACK YOUR STUFF WE'RE GONNA COLONISE IT"), then onto social media.

The Wakefield paper linking autism to vaccines has become so mainstream in certain communities it's impossible to undo the damage even though it was (finally) retracted in 2010 and Wakefield himself was struck off the register. At this point only through a very long, slow and arduous process can you get this idea out of people's heads, thanks to constant repetition, reinterpretation, scaremongering, and a whole community forming. It's going to be the same with this paper and the idea that dewormer is effective against the 'rona, or any quack 'rona countermeasures for that matter.

[parsimo2010]

There is probably a reasonable amount of retractions to expect in your career- if you work for 40 years doing research and publish a couple papers per year, then I will allow that a researcher might have become involved in a study that was deeply flawed, and the related papers need retracted. But to stay in good standing with the community, the researchers should admit the flaws (as some of the authors of this paper did).

Didier Raoult is on a whole other level. He refuses to admit any issues with the study. He has been under criminal investigation for this. This isn't the first time this has been a big deal (scroll through here to see the issues he's had for the last few years https://retractionwatch.com/?s=Didier+Raoult).

[ANewFormation]

This misses the context that Raoult alone has published more than 3000 papers and is one of the most highly cited researchers in his field. Take the combined sum of all the IHU authors and it's likely in the tens of thousands.

This is also why people increasingly believe whatever they want. Nobody is honest, everything is framed in the most exaggerated ways - which then makes it easy to undermine, and there's mass corruption everywhere on top of all of this especially in covid related stuff where you have geopolitics, politics, and hundreds of billions of dollars in profiteering stewing in one giant, and quite toxic, pot.

[bwfan123]

people have always believed whatever they want. hence, it has been a game of persuation for eons. the most persuasive person was always listened to regardless of what they said.

science changed the game by insisting that it is not what we believe, but whats out there. But, it doesnt come naturally to most of us. we still love narratives, and are easily fooled.

[marcosdumay]

> Raoult alone has published more than 3000 papers

Hum...

There's something very wrong with a figure like that.

[throw0101c]

> This is how science gets discredited - by allowing idiots do “science”. Here Raoult does not get kicked out, but is Director of the ACME - this is how entire field of medicine research gor tainted.

It should be noted that a few months after Raoult's paper was published another one contradicting his was

* https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022926

It's just the contradiction may not have been as widely known, especially by those that aren't involved in the field.

Isn't this how science is (at least partly) done? Claim (which is falsifiable) and counter-claim (verification/repudiation).

[dessimus]

Based on my experience as an analyst of Looney Tunes, it would appear that being a Director of ACME Widgets is right up his alley.

[itsdrewmiller]

He is under criminal investigation and has been banned from practicing medicine for two years - I think that substantially undercuts your argument.

[throwaway290]

> by allowing idiots do “science”.

Anyone can "do science". No permission is required. The question is who publishes what garbage.

[bwfan123]

it has always been an "attention"-economy rather than a "science"-economy. and scientists are human too, with their biases.

there are two kinds of people. the majority of us have made up our minds and find evidence for it. the rare few listen to whats out there with an open mind. once someone has put their name on something, they fight hard to protect that.

entire populations have always been and still are driven by pseudo-science (astrology etc).