Joe Rogan is trying to arrange a debate on vaccines and COVID between scientist Peter Hotez and antivax laywer and presidential candidate RFK Jr. Is it a good idea? No...but the reason is more complicated than just the simplistic "don't debate conspiracy theorists" rhetoric, or the "don't play chess with a pigeon" analogy. It has nothing to do with whether or not both parties are sufficiently knowledgeable to participate, or whether or not they are entering the debate "in good faith". The arguments against this debate would equally apply to a public debate between Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking on the nature of black holes.
2 quick points to highlight that may feel insufficiently explored in the video:
First, I suspect that some will be upset at my statement that most people are not able to understand the relevant scientific literature that would be part of a debate between Hotez and RFK Jr. I want to be clear that I’m not saying people are not intelligent enough or smart enough to understand it, but rather that they don’t have the specific training and experience to – just like I don’t have the specific training and experience to understand Python code or a patent application. Those are forms of information that I haven’t spent years studying – it has nothing to do with intelligence.
Second, saying that science is not advanced through 1 on 1 realtime debates is *not* the same thing as saying science isn’t “debatable”. A lot of people both on social and traditional media are conflating these two uses of the word “debate”. Of course people can disagree on scientific principles and on the findings and the interpretation of studies and experiments. And yes, that disagreement can be reconciled by those people making arguments that are adjudicated by third parties. However, those arguments are made via papers and prepared presentations, not via live, in-person, face-to-face debates; and the adjudication of truth is made by experts in the relevant field(s), not the general public.
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"Why are comments disabled?"
In 12 years and after nearly 400 videos, I have never had a video so rapidly generate such ill-informed and vile comments as this one. Even during the peak of COVID, comments left on my vaccine videos were relatively tame compared to this. Policing every single comment individually in realtime is not practical. In addition to comments which were blatantly offensive, a large number of others were left by people clearly did not actually watch the video. And to those of you who had already left overtly anti-semitic rants or insults about someone's physical appearance, you are *not* welcome on this channel. Go troll on some other corner of the internet.
