trashcan wrote:
The concern is that an institution like the NIH would be seen as an instrument of the conspiracy. To the extent that funding could be as widely distributed and transparent as possible it might mitigate some of that effect.
This may not be the most efficient way to fund research, but if any research is automatically opposed by a growing number of people who see the entire process as a means of exploitation, then we may lose a significant amount of the benefit of the research.
Most research I can follow. There were a couple of articles regarding Covid where there was essentially a black box(for instance, applying complex algorithms to multiple fields of an individual and THEN aggregating the result for each individual) that I had to trust was well designed and operating properly. Needless to say,I felt less comfortable relying on the results of those studies.
The more research seems like a black box, the less it will be trusted.
The way to fix this is for funding to be balance across both sides of any issue. As in the case above, the government should be funding extensive studies looking at all health impacts of vaccines. If this is done and the real info on dangers is brought to light then anti-vaxers and such won't go down such crazy paths of thought on the dangers. There are always dangers but if better information is available on them people will realize that they are not that bad and the vaccine is still worth the risks. If the government is to be trusted in science they should support well planned studies even if they are politically controversial. I doubt this would ever happen, but if it does it needs to come from the left we as of recently as worked to heavily politicize science and select the winners and losers; that would need to stop, but I doubt they are capable of something that helpful to humanity.