By appealing to the tools only, you claim that you …

Comment on “Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design by Sean Pitman.

By appealing to the tools only, you claim that you have made the question philosophically neutral. If that is the case the results should come out identical within statistical sampling uncertainties. However, we are in this discussion because of the strong polarization that exists between ID and mainstream science. Thus, we know the answers will not be the same because of the necessity of the philosophical component that must be included in answering the question.

If your philosophy causes you to reject the design hypothesis for something like a highly symmetrical polished granite cube, your philosophy simply isn’t rational. What you’re doing is rejecting the obvious implications of the empirical evidence because of a blind desire to hang onto a philosophy or a belief system that just isn’t true. What you have at this point is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Science is supposed to go beyond mere philosophy or personal bias or wishful thinking by being open to the testing of ones hypotheses and theories with at least the potential for falsification. That’s the benefit of science. If your position is rooted so deeply in a cherished philosophy that you cannot be challenged in your thinking, your simply not being scientific or rational.

In short, your philosophy should have nothing to do with deciding if something like a highly symmetrical polished granite cube is or is not a true artefact of intelligent design.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

“Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design

If one is going to be able to “present a mindless natural mechanism” than one has to talk about the “shop” no matter if the mechanism is natural or intelligent. Otherwise the claim of falsification can never be achieved. Finding a “polished granite cube” on the shelf of a rock shop is going to have a much higher probability of being an artefact of intelligence than one found in an ice core 1000 meters below the surface.

That’s simply not true. The location where the polished granite cube is found is irrelevant to the determination that it is a true artefact of intelligent design. That’s why, even if found on an alien planet, like Mars by one of our rovers there, it would be instantly proclaimed an artefact of intelligent design and would in fact hit the front page of every news paper and science journal in the world.

Also, a hypothesis to be testable has to be specific not vague. “highly symmetrical”? Does that mean the corners are square to 90.00 +/-0.01 degrees? To 88 +/- 2 degrees? How am I to know? “polished”? What scratch and dig parameter is being applied here to determine the quality of polishing? Is natural desert polish sufficient to be polished enough? Again, how am I to know in order to falsify? Who is going to define the terms for falsification? Pitman does not seem to think such matters are important. To him, one only has to look at it to conclude “yup! that’s an artefact”.

I do think such parameters are important. I’ve even posted pictures to specifically illustrate what I was talking about.

  • To be specific, let’s define “highly symmetrical” as: less than 0.001 mm variation per 10 cm – parallel and perpendicular.
  • Let’s also define “polished” as a surfaced finished to 1000 grit definition.
  • I’ve also previously mentioned a size of exactly one cubic meter for the cube, but lets use a minimum size requirement of 10 cm^3.

    Such a granite cube would be recognized as a clear artefact of intelligent design regardless of where it happened to be found in the universe.

    Are you telling me that you would not be able to recognize these granite cubes as true artefacts of intelligent design? – regardless of where they happened to be found?

    In addition, Pitman’s claim of falsification in this case is itself inconsequential. If scientists finds a thousand polished granite cubes and one can be shown to have been formed by “a mindless natural mechanism”, the “hypothesis” (if you want to call it that) is still proven to be true 99.9% of the time – and that is falsification? Such a measure of falsification makes no sense? Are we required to throw out our ability to identify the other 999 granite cubes as artefacts of intelligence because one was found that is not? Again, it makes no sense.

    It makes perfect sense. The discovery of any non-intelligent natural mechanism that can produce such granite cubes would definitively falsify the hypothesis that only intelligent design can create such granite cubes. This falsifying demonstration would make the claim for intelligent design of such a cube much much harder to support.

    Finally, what gives a polished granite cube the unique place of having the properties sufficient to identify a “blindingly obvious artifact” better than any other creation by intelligence? Why not choose a hexagonal stoneware dinner plate? Certainly that has to be a “blindingly obvious artefact”. What about a shiny metal toaster? How about a molded rubber ducky? It seems that all of these satisfy the properties of shape, material and surface quality needed to identify an artefact of intelligence just as well as a polished granite cube. Selecting a granite cube because it is “closer to being natural, but not” is an extraneous addition that is at best ad hoc in trying to save the argument. Identifying a polished granite cube above other artefacts adds no merit to what is supposed to be an empirical statement.

    You miss the point entirely. I never said that my granite cube would be the only “blindly obvious artefact” if found in nature. I only used it as an example of something that is “simple” yet clearly artificial. The method for determining that it is a true artefact of intelligent design can be used to determine that other phenomena are also “blindingly obvious” artefacts as well – to include SETI radio signals, hexagonal stoneware dinner plates, metal toasters, rubber duckies, granite cubes, other granite artefacts (see picture below), and biological machines. The very same argument applies in all of these cases – giving it universal application as a scientific method of investigating various phenomena for artefactual features.

  • http://www.thome-precision.com/precision-granite-parts-thome.html
  • http://www.pyramidgranite.com/pages/granite_surface_plates.html

    Please be clear, that I am not saying that ID is not a valid argument. The position here is to demonstrate that Sean Pitman’s approach to ID and empiricism is untenable.

    But you are actually saying that ID is not a valid argument – outside of knowing exactly how, by what precise method, the phenomenon in question was produced. If you know with absolute certainty how something was done, you no longer need science to determine how it was most likely done. Science isn’t about producing absolute certainty. Science is about producing useful predictive value given limited information. That is why a scientific hypothesis is always open to the potential for falsification…

    Your position, in comparison, invalidates SETI as well as forensic science and anthropology. You’re also not being consistent in your claims since you yourself would in fact recognize my granite cube, as described, as a true artefact of intelligent design – as would any candid observer with any background experience with the material of granite.

    Sean Pitman
    www.DetectingDesign.com


    “Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design

    Even your statement “A simple polished cube of granite… is well beyond what can be ‘naturally’ produced and is therefore a clear artefact of intelligent design.” is an existential statement, not scientific since falsification is necessary for it to be scientific (as according to Popper). Intuitively there is nothing unscientific about this claim as presented, but intuition is not an acceptable basis for making scientific conclusions. Intuition is subjective not objective. Phrases such as “well beyond “ or “clear artifact” are vague and therefore makes this stated claim unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific.

    Not true. The hypothesis that a highly symmetrical polished granite cube is a true artefact of intelligent design is testable in a potentially falsifiable manner. All that has to be done to falsify this hypothesis is to present a mindless natural mechanism that is capable of producing such a cube. Such a demonstration would effectively falsify the artefact hypothesis.

    This isn’t just “intuition”. This is science in that some real investigation of the natural world is required before one can detect true artefacts with any degree of useful predictive value. Also, your “presuppositions” are themselves testable and potentially falsifiable.

    Testability is the key element in science. Using the results of these tests to extrapolate or to predict the future is the whole purpose of science. And, this is what separates science from mere wishful thinking or pure philosophy – testability. This is the difference between pure subjectivity and objectivity. While we cannot be purely objective, while biases cannot be fully overcome, we do not have to be purely subjective either. We can actually test our ideas against external information – external reality.

    Sean Pitman
    www.DetectingDesign.com


    “Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design

    You seem to be ignorant of the fact that in all domains of science ID proponents reject methodological naturalism and accept theistic science as a basis for making even the simplest observation and drawing a conclusion.

    You’re not talking to just any ID proponent here. You’re talking to me. What I’m pointing out here is that from the perspective of methodological naturalism, as it is generally applied in sciences like forensic science, anthropology, and SETI science, the same rules used to hypothesize ID in these sciences can be used to discover true artefacts of intelligent design, on a “natural level” behind certain aspects of living things.

    Also, your argument that a highly symmetrical polished granite cube would not be a clear artefact of intelligent design unless a shop were found with tools, etc., simply isn’t a valid argument. Such a cube is a clear artefact of intelligent design regardless of if evidence for how it was created is or isn’t discovered. The same is true for SETI-type radio signals.

    Sean Pitman
    www.DetectingDesign.com


  • Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

    Dr. John Campbell: mRNA Vaccines Cause Lethal Encephalitis?

    Two brains, locked in on the official narrative. Please look outside of the box. Jesus walked and talked and cared for people outside the box. Follow your leader who warned about deceptions by big pharma and big business as the beast the harlot church rides — Revelation 18:23
    “… all nations were deceived by your sorcery (pharmakeia)!
    https://revelationscriptures.com/revelation-18-23-babylons-pahamakeia/

    You do realize that Ellen White herself promoted various medications and medical therapies of her day that she considered to be helpful in various situations? – to include the use of what was generally regarded as a “poison”, quinine, to prevent malarial infections for missionaries who worked in malaria-infested regions of the world? She wrote, “If quinine will save a life, use quinine.” (Link) She also supported the vaccination of her son William, both as a child and as an adult (despite William having had an adverse reaction to vaccination as a child) (Link). She supported blood transfusion when necessary, despite their risks (Link). And, she even supported using radiation therapy when appropriate, despite its risks (Link). Beyond this, she recognized the advantages of anesthesia during surgery and the use of medicines to relieve the intense pain and suffering of the injured or sick (Link).

    Regarding Revelation 18:23, in particular, the term “pharmakeia” is best translated as “sorcery” here. There is no intended advice at all against modern medicine in this passage. What, are you suggesting that medications like antibiotics to treat bacterial infections or insulin to treat diabetes are evil “sorceries”? Again, such arguments only make the Christians who say such things look sensational and irrational – which puts the Gospel Message itself into a bad light for those who are considering following Christ. (Link, Link)

    Jesus reached out asking to “let us reason together.”
    “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Matthew 12:20).
    There is a spirit in the SDA Church that is breaking reeds and putting out wicks.
    Not an example of who we say is our leader.

    Again, the delegates simply were not so uninformed as you and Pastor Vine are claiming here. They had already heard enough reasons and arguments regarding vaccines to make an intelligent informed decision on this particular topic…

    Wilson/ADCOM/Hart disowns members who dare want to “let us reason together” about the Vaccine Statement. Attorney Zirkle’s request stomped by Wilsons command to delegates to vote NO, and by a mal-functioning electronic voting system that would not even register the seconds to Zirkle’s motion. Request to check the electronic voting system was rejected by GC. Not something Jesus would reject.

    As already discussed, this isn’t true. Elder Wilson simply doesn’t have the power to command the delegates to do anything. And Zirkle’s motion did in fact receive “seconds” since the internet connection issue was fixed. The electronic voting system simply wasn’t an issue at this GC session as it had been back at the 2015 GC session. You’re simply repeating claims here that aren’t true.

    You say without compassion:
    Really? Why then haven’t the sudden death rates for adults or young healthy athletes increased since the mRNA vaccines became available?

    Why are you accusing me of having no compassion when I simply point out the fact that the actual sudden death rate for adults and young healthy athletes has not increased since the mRNA vaccines became available? – that the rate of these tragic events has not changed? – that, despite these events being true tragedies that are horrible indeed, they are are not being cause by the mRNA vaccines?

    You say the vaccine is a risk-benefit decision. I say that each “risk” dying or harmed is a human person, not a throw-away statistic. Where is the informed consent, and information on vaccine adverse affects within the vaccine medicine box? Do you have a copy of what information about the vaccine is provided to patients and doctors?

    Everything you do is a risk/reward decision. Even drinking pure clean water can kill you, since water can be toxic if taken into the body beyond its level of toxicity. And, the risks of the mRNA vaccines are well known and have been well-publicized. It’s just that, for most people, the risks of getting infected by the COVID-19 virus was much much greater than getting vaccinated ahead of time.

    Article:
    Athlete deaths are 1700% higher since Covid 19 vaccine began.

    Study finds Athlete Deaths are 1700% higher than expected since Covid-19 Vaccination began

    Book: Sudden Deaths in 2020-2021
    Children’s Defense Fund, Edward Dowd, Robert Kennedy

    Names of athletes who died after vaccine began:
    https://airtable.com/shrbaT4x8LG8EbvVG/tbl7xKsSUIOPAa7Mx

    Tucker Carlson interview:
    https://dailyclout.io/excess-mortality-goes-mainstream-in-earth-shattering-ed-dowd-tucker-carlson-interview/

    This is all based on false or misleading information, some of which has been completely fabricated (Link). You’re taking lies for truth and truth for lies here. I’m really sorry that you’ve been do deceived, but that’s the reality of the situation. The voices that you’ve chosen to listen to are, in fact, not telling you the actual truth. And, just a little bit of even-hand investigation would demonstrate this to the candid observer. The claim that young healthy athletes have started dying at much higher rates since the mRNA vaccines became available just isn’t true. This conspiracy theory is flat out wrong, without any basis in actual generally-available empirical data. Here’s a little history behind this particular conspiracy theory:

    Ben Swann, who has spread misinformation about the pandemic since 2020, posted on Facebook on Jan. 3 an old video promoting the unsupported theory that there’s a recent surge in athlete deaths. The same day, conservative commentator Liz Wheeler and Dr. Simone Gold — who has peddled dubious cures for COVID-19, anti-vaccination messages and politicized medical misinformation — posted similar claims… Both Wheeler and Gold cited a letter to the editor published in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology that was co-authored by Dr. Peter McCullough, another prominent purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation. Although its publication may give the letter a veneer of legitimacy, the letter did not include any original research, as suggested by Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson. Rather, it relied upon an arbitrary list of athlete deaths maintained on an anonymous website that we wrote about shortly after it appeared online in late 2021.

    As we explained before, the list includes students, professionals, amateurs, coaches and retirees. It includes people who died by suicide, car crash and drug overdose. The list does not — in nearly all cases — include the vaccination status of the deceased, let alone prove any causal relationship between vaccines and the deaths. In fact, as we’ve previously reported, some of the deaths initially listed happened before the vaccines had even become available to the age category for the person listed.

    Wheeler and Gold, though, each shared an image that highlighted a portion of the letter comparing the number of deaths listed on the anonymous website with the number of sudden cardiac deaths among athletes that had appeared in academic literature over a 38-year period as compiled in a 2006 paper. The two figures reflect different criteria. One number is very broad and includes anyone with a passing relationship to sports who died for any reason since 2021, while the other is conspicuously narrow and includes only the deaths of athletes that were analyzed in English-language academic research papers.

    Although the comparison they make is meaningless, Wheeler and Gold leave the false impression that there’s been a surge in deaths and further the baseless narrative that there’s been an increase in athlete injuries and deaths since the COVID-19 vaccines became available.

    But the surge is fiction. It doesn’t exist.

    “There is no uptick in sudden cardiac arrest or death in athletes due to COVID-19 or from COVID vaccinations. This is total misinformation,” Dr. Jonathan Drezner told us in an emailed statement. Drezner is the director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology at the University of Washington, editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and a team physician for the Seattle Seahawks, the OL Reign soccer team and the University of Washington Huskies.

    More than 2,000 children and adolescents in the U.S. die from sudden cardiac arrest every year, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and two-thirds of the deaths “occur during exercise or activity.” Among young athletes, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death, according to CHOP.

    Drezner said his center monitors “all cases and all causes” of sudden cardiac arrest or death in athletes by working with the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “[T]here is no change,” he said.

    The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research catalogs injuries for high school and college athletes, and its most recent report covers the 2020-21 school year. It shows that 21 athletes died while playing their sport that year.

    COVID-19 vaccines were available to everyone 16 and over in the U.S. by April 2021, so the overlap between the period covered by the report and the period in which vaccines were widely available to young people was relatively small. We reached out to the center to find out if the data collected for the 2021-2022 school year has indicated any increase in deaths.

    The center’s director, Dr. Kristen Kucera, told us that so far, “the numbers are the same and it’s actually fewer than we captured in 2018-19.”

    For context, the center reported 19 deaths in 2019-20, 25 deaths in 2018-19 and 21 deaths in 2017-18.

    Similarly, Dr. Robert Cantu, the center’s medical director, told us in an emailed statement that he’s seen no increase in athlete deaths and called the claims “misinformation.”

    “The statistics don’t bear out that there’s been an increase in events among athletes,” Dr. Curt Daniels, professor of cardiovascular medicine and director of the sports cardiology program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, told us in a phone interview.

    The field of sports cardiologists who oversee the health of athletes is relatively small, Daniels said. “We talk and communicate all the time,” he said, and none of his colleagues has flagged a rise in sudden cardiac arrest.

    “There’s been no increase,” he said.

    Also, Daniels noted, there’s a high vaccination rate among athletes in part because many organizations require vaccination to participate. He noted that a rare side effect of the mRNA vaccines is heart inflammation, or myocarditis, which has primarily affected young men between 12 and 24 years old after a second dose, as we’ve explained before. The risk is highest for males ages 16 to 17, at 106 cases per million doses after the second dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Those cases have appeared to resolve faster and have better clinical outcomes when compared with the more common cases of myocarditis caused by viral infection, including from the virus that causes COVID-19. Despite that, anti-vaccine campaigners have distorted the rare vaccine side effect as being more common than it is, using that misrepresentation in claims about increases in athlete deaths.

    For those who develop myocarditis, stressing the heart with intense physical activity could create an arrhythmia resulting in a cardiac event, Daniels said.

    “And, in fact,” Daniels said, “we have not seen an increase in events.”

    So, he said, if the vaccines were causing an increase in sudden deaths, “we would be seeing it here and we’re not.” (Link)

    Yet, you don’t accept any data that is contrary to your position. Why not? Upon what basis do you believe the claims of known conspiracy theorists over the observation of the vast majority of experts in this particular field of study? I mean, how credible are those that you’re referencing here?

    Tucker Carlson, in particular, admits that he lies on his program for entertainment purposes (Link, Link). Robert Kennedy consistently makes completely false and outrageous claims and promotes innumerable conspiracy theories – most of which are completely ludicrous. Drs. Peter McCullough and Robert Malone aren’t much better, spouting off endless tin-hat just-so conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 and the mRNA viruses. Yet, these are the types of people that you are citing to support your positions here? Can’t you do any better than this?

    I know you will say that all the above are non-worthy opinions compared to the experts’ opinions in the above article. Every opinion that differs is immediately discarded.

    It’s not that these differing opinions haven’t been very carefully and thouroughly considered. It’s just that they’ve all turned out to be wrong. The actual data that is currently in hand very clearly falsifies the claims that you’ve been forwarding – all of them. How then, do you explain away what seems to be the very strong weight evidence that I’ve provided to you that appears to effectively falsify your positions here?

    Dealing with narcissists who think they are empathic:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SCLRtTAGHE

    Again, you accuse me of narcissism and lack of empathy with great confidence – without actually knowing me or my true heart or motivations. What makes you so confident that I care not about reducing serious injuries or saving lives? How could you possibly think yourself clear to make such God-like accusations? Are such moral judgments and accusations really Christlike? I mean, even though I think that what you’re promoting is actually hurting people and putting their very lives at risk, I don’t accuse you of evil motives. I think that you honestly and sincerely believe what you believe – that you are honestly trying to help people. Why can’t you offer me the same benefit of the doubt here? – at least with regard to my own motivations and personal morality?


    Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
    Again, it wasn’t Ted Wilson nor the members of ADCOM who voted down Zirkle’s motion – nor did they force or unduly coerce the vote of the delegates in Session. Also, it isn’t true that the vaccine issue hadn’t been adequately discussed for the benefit of the delegates – or that the delegates didn’t have already enough information to make an informed decision. I’d say that they were much more informed on this topic than Pastor Vine gives them credit for.

    Now, I’ve very sorry you feel like you do and I can understand your honest confusion since what you’re hearing from anti-vax conspiracy theorists is truly scary stuff. However, the voices that you’re referencing truly are misleading you – telling you things that simply aren’t true. Your latest example of this, from Dr. James L. Marcum, is no better than Dr. Peter McCullough. He makes many claims that are simply false or misleading. Now, Dr. Marcum certainly comes across as very caring and kind, and I’m sure that he is. The only problem here is that he’s wrong – flat out wrong in what he’s telling you. And, this has resulted, no doubt, in a great many long-term injuries and deaths that could have been avoided. Kindness and sincerity isn’t enough here. True kindness will take the time to carefully investigate the actual weight of currently available scientific evidence and present it in an honest even-handed manner. That’s not what Drs. McCullough and Marcum have been doing – not at all.

    In short, when your health and life are on the line, would you rather have a doctor with a wonderful bedside manner who isn’t giving you the best available information, or a doctor who may not be as smooth or delicate with his/her words, but who is actually giving you the best available information?

    You see, I’m not trying to be mean or harsh here. I’m just truly trying to save lives and prevent long-term injuries. That’s what I’m trying to do. And, I’m sure you’re trying to do the same thing, and I appreciate that. It’s just that you don’t have good scientific evidence to back up your position…


    Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
    You’re mistaken. No one has lost his/her job because of the GC statement who wouldn’t have lost his/her job anyway – regardless of what the GC had said or didn’t say regarding vaccines and vaccine mandates. That’s just not how the legal system works with regard to religious liberty issues. Check with an actual religious liberty attorney if you don’t agree with me. Or, consider this Memorandum from the US Attorney General:

    The Free Exercise Clause protects not just the right to believe or the right to worship; it protects the right to perform or abstain from performing certain physical acts in accordance with one’s beliefs. Federal statutes, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (“RFRA”), support that protection, broadly defining the exercise of religion to encompass all aspects of observance and practice, whether or not central to, or required by, a particular religious faith. (Link)

    Again, note the statement here that religious liberty rights are supported and protected on an individual basis regardless of if one is or is not a member of a church or part of a particular religious faith.


    Dr. John Campbell: mRNA Vaccines Cause Lethal Encephalitis?
    Really? Why then haven’t the sudden death rates for adults or young healthy athletes increased since the mRNA vaccines became available?

    “There is no uptick in sudden cardiac arrest or death in athletes due to COVID-19 or from COVID vaccinations. This is total misinformation,” Dr. Jonathan Drezner told us in an emailed statement. Drezner is the director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology at the University of Washington, editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and a team physician for the Seattle Seahawks, the OL Reign soccer team and the University of Washington Huskies.

    The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research catalogs injuries for high school and college athletes… The center’s director, Dr. Kristen Kucera, told us that so far, “the numbers are the same and it’s actually fewer than we captured in 2018-19.”

    For context, the center reported 19 deaths in 2019-20, 25 deaths in 2018-19 and 21 deaths in 2017-18.

    Similarly, Dr. Robert Cantu, the center’s medical director, told us in an emailed statement that he’s seen no increase in athlete deaths and called the claims “misinformation.”

    “The statistics don’t bear out that there’s been an increase in events among athletes,” Dr. Curt Daniels, professor of cardiovascular medicine and director of the sports cardiology program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, told us in a phone interview. (Spencer, January 2023)

    In fact, when you look at “all cause mortality rates”, you will see that those who are vaccinated actually have a lower all-cause mortality rate compared to those who are not vaccinated. And, this is true here in the United States and all around the world. It simply isn’t true that vaccines increase death rates of any kind. The mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented many millions more hospitalizations and long-term injuries.

    A moderate-sized cohort study of 21,222 nursing home residents compared all-cause mortality between COVID-19 mRNA vaccinees and unvaccinated residents and found that vaccinees had lower all-cause mortality after adjusting for some confounders.[15] A longitudinal study compared mortality rates over time among vaccinated patients in the U.S. Veterans Affairs health system with no history of COVID-19 and found no evidence of excess mortality associated with receipt of mRNA vaccines.[16] Preliminary results in a large cohort study showed that COVID-19 vaccine recipients had lower rates of non-COVID-19 mortality than did unvaccinated comparators after adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and study site,[17] suggesting possible effects of unmeasured confounders and healthy vaccinee effects (i.e., vaccinated persons tend to be healthier than unvaccinated persons).[18], [19]. (Link)


    Source: Our World in Data

    Even within the United States, those states and counties with higher vaccination rates had a lower all-cause mortality rate compared to those states and counties with lower vaccination rates:

    The US continued to experience significantly higher COVID-19 and excess all-cause mortality compared with peer countries during 2021 and early 2022, a difference accounting for 150 000 to 470 000 deaths. This difference was muted in the 10 states with highest vaccination coverage; remaining gaps may be explained by greater vaccination uptake in peer countries, better vaccination targeting to older age groups, and differences in health and social infrastructure. (Link)

    Deaths more than 80% lower in communities with high vaccination coverage. A large US study published by The BMJ (Link) found that fewer people died from covid-19 in better vaccinated communities. The findings, based on data across 2,558 counties in 48 US states, show that counties with high vaccine coverage had a more than 80% reduction in death rates compared with largely unvaccinated counties. (Link)

    See also the excellent review of this by Dr. Roger Seheult:

    Also, where are the “lies about these vaccines and their origins”? What are you talking about here? It seems to me that you’re simply repeating what you’ve read or heard from conspircy theoriests without actually checking to see if such claims are truly valid.


    Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
    As noted in my article, religious liberty is not based on corporate, but individual convictions. It really doesn’t matter what the Church’s position on vaccines or any other topic might be. That’s irrelevant. All that matters are the religious convictions of the individual.

    The SDA Church is only giving recommendations to its members regarding vaccines and what it feels are the best use of religious liberty claims. The SDA Church is not dictating what church members may or may not believe or do regarding this topic. Again, one may or may not agree with the advice of the SDA Church here. That’s entirely up to the individual. Legally, it makes absolutely no difference since employers have no legal basis against the religious liberty claims of an employee based on what the Church says or doesn’t say.

    Beyond this, there has been much discussion on this issue, with a motion for further discussion. It’s just that the GC delegates clearly thought that further discussion was pointless on this topic, voting instead to effectively endorse the previous statements of the SDA Church regarding vaccines and the recommended appropriate use of religious exemption claims…