Astroturf - fake internet personas manipulating your mind (TEDx)

"Provable", really? So when she claims...blah blah blah

You're weirdly ignoring the "or refutable" part.

The sun is green.

This is a provable or refutable statement. I can test this and either find that the sun is in fact green or that this is a false statement. By describing it as provable or refutable, I am not making any claim about the validity of the statement.

She is attacking the character of scientists by calling them liars paid by corporations. That is an ad hominem irrespective of whether she is correct or not. But that does not automatically mean that it is a bad argument.

What is ironic, is that I am somehow guilty of using an ad hom (which I did), but she is not. Her talk amounted to calling people astroturfers and my original comment amounted to calling her an antivaxer.

She says in the presentation:

As for your own doctor, the medical lecture he attended that had all those positive evaluations was in fact like many other continuing medical educations classes sponsored by the drug company.

This questions the validity of the information provided to them. Not their character.

As for her remarks about those who approved the drugs being paid by the drug companies, that could theoretically be considered an ad hom. However, financial incentive for a certain outcome in subjective matters (such as being a decision maker in an approval process) does indeed give good enough reason to raise eyebrows.

Would you be suspicious if a the panel of judges for Olympic figure skating got paid by China after their person won the gold? It doesn't automatically mean the person who won didn't deserve to. But the validity of their win is certainly in question.

But then, the bit about being paid by the drug companies is again provable or refutable (in case you missed it this time) statement of fact. Is she just making stuff up? It's certainly possible. But it's worth looking into...like I did with this example here:

Revisiting financial conflicts of interest in FDA advisory committees - "CONCLUSIONS: There appears to be a pro-sponsor voting bias among advisory committee members who have exclusive financial relationships with the sponsoring firm..."

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