Suppose you have Prof McBonkers who invents a test for a virus that **doesn't even exist**. The test is rather good. Should the virus ever come into existence it has a 99% sensitivity and specificity.
He decides to test 100,000 people and, lo and behold, finds that 1,000 people are "infected".
Every single one of these is a false positive - because the virus doesn't even exist. At a 'population' level there's a 100% false positive rate, even though at the 'test' level the false positive rate is only 1%
Another way I use to illustrate this is to think of a binary communication channel in which only the symbol '0' is transmitted. Errors on the channel mean that some of those end up at the receiver as the symbol '1'. Every single one of those is an error. All of them.
You can then adapt this model to the occasional transmission of the symbol '1' (representing the prevalence). Intuitively you can see roughly that if you're sending about one '1' symbol for every 100 transmissions, then an error rate of 1% on the channel means that any '1' that is received is only 50% likely to have come from a genuine signal.
Thankfully we still have some academics like Professor Fenton who are not bought off.
Since the start of the covid crimes, we’ve seen a horde of “experts” supporting an agenda of cash & control.
They start with the result they wish to see (greater ‘vaccine’ uptake; more funding; businesses closed...) then announce “the science” supports them. Which is of course the direct opposite of the scientific method.
THANK YOU Professor Fenton for having & maintaining integrity.
Given PCR was used by the medical fraternity to diagnose "covid" for many deaths, despite the document above explicitly saying it could NOT be used to determine Covid as the CAUSITIVE AGENT for symptoms (or death)... Why was it used, why did doctors follow this method, and why wasn't this craziness stopped in its tracks early by the scientific community??
Something rarely addressed however in these discussions is the infection rate depends on the population being tested. If mass population testing is done, say with a population Infection rate of 1%, there are (too) many false positives, as you’ve shown very well. However, if only sick (eg ILI symptomatic) people are tested - not the population at large - the number of false positives is reduced as that (restricted) population IR Is necessarily larger. (Eg among that group the IR may be say 20% not 1%). When PCR testing was first employed, it seemed to be used only with sick people, not with all people. Test procedures are especially problematic when used with everyone (say all patients entering a hospital for any reason, or entering an aeroplane or a workplace, not for suspected Covid).
Similarly mass testing programs (notably mammogram screening as described by Gerd Gigerenzer) are especially problematic, much more so than programs testing symptomatic people to confirm a diagnosis.
Posted also as a reply. Placed here to maximise the chance others will see it:
In terms of positive test results when the entity notionally sought isn’t present, they’re all false positives, as you said.
When this occurs, as it has repeatedly in the past, we call that a PCR FALSE POSITIVE PSEUDO EPIDEMIC.
Here’s one, in case people think “Surely that could never occur, because it would involve all doctors, other medical staff and all patients mistakenly assuming their symptoms for a different disease than what they actually had! Sounds mad, does it?”
Next crisis is looming: A shortage of elephants to populate all those rooms. Thanks for analysing all the madness that was poored over us during the last 4 (yes 4!) years.
Starting as a cautuious sceptic in 2020, I gradully shifted to a position where I realise that everything about this self inflicted crisis was utter nonsense. Everything. The realisation that so many people are fooled by propaganda is mind blowing.
It boggles my mind that an English Presbyterian minister knew this more than 250 years ago and yet courts, government ministers and doctors still don’t.
This is great as always! Yet are you not missing the even bigger elephant in the room? The PCR test has never been validated against an actual virus. Is that not a more fundamental, much larger problem? The PCR test has only been validated against a genetic sequence that is presumed to be viral. That presumed viral sequence has never been validated against an actual isolated particle of any kind. It has never been proven that this genetic sequence IS indeed from this (still to this day only) theorized virus particle. Just as you are awe-struck by the judge missing the fantastic blatant "base-rate" problem you brilliantly point out, I am equally awe-struck that folks seem to be missing this foundational and fundamental and inescapable issue: one has to prove that there is a virus before one can test for it! This has still not been done. Not for SARS-COv2, nor for any other presumed "virus." All we have are theoretical genomic sequences assembled from billions of bits of genomic data on a computer, never, not once (!) proven to exist as such sequences in nature. Never, not once! The whole PCR test is built on begging the question! If I say "all people who have black underwear in their house are criminals" and then I go and use a "pcr underwear checker" and find that some people have black underwear in their house, that doesn't mean they are criminals! The PCR process is being used to look for bits of genomic data that have never been proven to have any meaning or relation to "viruses" or to any particular disease.
Exactly. A wrong (incomplete) assumption results in wrong conclusions, which appear right because they prove part of the wrong thesis being wrong.
The missing part of the assumption may be more important because taking it in into account could require the complete redesign of the “testing” process.
The risk is that we could arrive at more “realistic” (whatever it means) data sets - which would in turn require the complete redesign of healthcare policies, funding principles, approval and manufacturing requirements, and more… These data sets would probably vary a lot from region to region or from population to population. Which would require the redesign of the thinking process underlying everything :-)
There is a veritable herd of elephants in the room, Professor, and with this offering, you identify one of the largest animals in that herd.
What I find most disturbing, is the lack of understanding by the general public, of how empirical research becomes invalidated by database corruption.
Multiple databases corrupted by the PCR elephant, are still in use, and we've reached the stage where papers utterly reliant on those corrupted databases are foundational.
The resulting edifice is an inverted pyramid resting on a capstone formed from quicksand.
The 2010 Simpsons clip is so hilarious! And spot on! Even suggests lockdowns! And there's the Center for Disease Disinformation...nailed it...
Here's the transcript...
Round table discussion (just like Event 201, although that was square...)
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: I'd like to call to order this secret conclave of America's media empires. We're here to come up with the next phony baloney crisis to put Americans back where they belong, in dark rooms, glued to their televisions, too terrified to skip the commercials.
NBC Guy: Well I think...
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: NBC you are here to listen and not speak. I think we should go with a good old-fashioned public health scare, (yeah),
Janice: A new disease, no-one's immune, it's like the summer of the shark except, instead of a shark, it's an epidemic, and instead of summer, it's all the time!
Other Guy: Now I hate to be the guy who derails what everybody else loves...
Janice: He loves being that guy...
Other Guy: ...but, Janice, we do have standards, this can't be a made-up disease. The only moral thing to do is release a deadly virus into the general public.
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: We do have something we've been holding onto, but it hasn't been tested. Get over here NBC...
NBC Guy: Ah, well, we certainly believe in testing, but... (CDD guy jabs NBC guy...and he dies...)
Janice: Wow, wow... (Oh yeah!)
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: So we've got our deadly disease. Now we just have to blame it on something that's in every household, something that people are a little bit afraid of already...
Newsreader: (Apocalypse Meow) House cat flu is coming people. The Center for Disease Disinformation predicts, with some degree of probability, that the house cat flu might spread, in the following hypothetical outbreak pattern... (Diversion to US map covered in cats!) So petter beware, that warm body on your lap just might be ready to destroy your tender fiddles. (Diversion to Homer Simpson bagging up cat on Marge's lap.)
Back to the newsreader in hazmat suit: (The purrrrfect storm) Springfielders are advised to stay tuned for more information if they experience any of the following symptoms - mild thirst, occasional hunger, tiredness at night.
I remember a Saturday morning broadcast of a very early UK Open University (Black & White) program series on the influence of false-positive and false-negative results of diagnostic tests on disease statistics. This was in the 1980’s!
I usually use a silly example to make the point.
Suppose you have Prof McBonkers who invents a test for a virus that **doesn't even exist**. The test is rather good. Should the virus ever come into existence it has a 99% sensitivity and specificity.
He decides to test 100,000 people and, lo and behold, finds that 1,000 people are "infected".
Every single one of these is a false positive - because the virus doesn't even exist. At a 'population' level there's a 100% false positive rate, even though at the 'test' level the false positive rate is only 1%
Another way I use to illustrate this is to think of a binary communication channel in which only the symbol '0' is transmitted. Errors on the channel mean that some of those end up at the receiver as the symbol '1'. Every single one of those is an error. All of them.
You can then adapt this model to the occasional transmission of the symbol '1' (representing the prevalence). Intuitively you can see roughly that if you're sending about one '1' symbol for every 100 transmissions, then an error rate of 1% on the channel means that any '1' that is received is only 50% likely to have come from a genuine signal.
Thankfully we still have some academics like Professor Fenton who are not bought off.
Since the start of the covid crimes, we’ve seen a horde of “experts” supporting an agenda of cash & control.
They start with the result they wish to see (greater ‘vaccine’ uptake; more funding; businesses closed...) then announce “the science” supports them. Which is of course the direct opposite of the scientific method.
THANK YOU Professor Fenton for having & maintaining integrity.
Amazing how these basics of statistics are being missed, very worrying when this is the case in legal decisions...
We have been the victims of an incredibly complex and evil plan.
I highly recommend this testimony by Dr JJ Couey at the National Citizens Enquiry in Canada.
The PCR could not be tuned to look for covid so much as to look for ANY background coronavirus... At 32:45 timecode:
https://rumble.com/v2kzyiq-jjcouey-dr.-jj-couey-phd-testifies-at-the-nci-national-citizens-inquiry-res.html
Also not sure if this helps, or if my interpretation is on the mark, but...
The caveats in the CDC "diagnostic" panel relay specify that the PCR test is very inconclusive...
Therefore exactly what are they looking for... and why were we using PCR??
"Important to note re PCR used for Covid CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel"
Page 38:
"Detection of viral RNA may NOT indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the CAUSATIVE agent for clinical symptoms"
"This test CANNOT rule out diseases caused by OTHER BACTERIAL or VIRAL pathogens.”
https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
Given PCR was used by the medical fraternity to diagnose "covid" for many deaths, despite the document above explicitly saying it could NOT be used to determine Covid as the CAUSITIVE AGENT for symptoms (or death)... Why was it used, why did doctors follow this method, and why wasn't this craziness stopped in its tracks early by the scientific community??
Thanks Norman … another nice video.
Something rarely addressed however in these discussions is the infection rate depends on the population being tested. If mass population testing is done, say with a population Infection rate of 1%, there are (too) many false positives, as you’ve shown very well. However, if only sick (eg ILI symptomatic) people are tested - not the population at large - the number of false positives is reduced as that (restricted) population IR Is necessarily larger. (Eg among that group the IR may be say 20% not 1%). When PCR testing was first employed, it seemed to be used only with sick people, not with all people. Test procedures are especially problematic when used with everyone (say all patients entering a hospital for any reason, or entering an aeroplane or a workplace, not for suspected Covid).
Similarly mass testing programs (notably mammogram screening as described by Gerd Gigerenzer) are especially problematic, much more so than programs testing symptomatic people to confirm a diagnosis.
Posted also as a reply. Placed here to maximise the chance others will see it:
In terms of positive test results when the entity notionally sought isn’t present, they’re all false positives, as you said.
When this occurs, as it has repeatedly in the past, we call that a PCR FALSE POSITIVE PSEUDO EPIDEMIC.
Here’s one, in case people think “Surely that could never occur, because it would involve all doctors, other medical staff and all patients mistakenly assuming their symptoms for a different disease than what they actually had! Sounds mad, does it?”
Yes. That is exactly what can happen, irl.
https://silview.media/2020/12/26/nyt-2007-faith-in-quick-test-leads-to-epidemic-that-wasnt/
Now, if PCR FALSE POSITIVE PSEUDO EPIDEMICS can happen to honest people, can you imagine how easy it would be to fake one?
Answer: very easy, such that FOUR YEARS LATER, few people, even so-called experts insist there’s been a pandemic, when there hadn’t been.
Thank you Professor Fenton.
This just says it all.
Deception and coercion for the purpose of profiteering 🤑 and controlling 💉 the masses...
If 'Normies' ever read this with an open mind, their heads would explode.
Next crisis is looming: A shortage of elephants to populate all those rooms. Thanks for analysing all the madness that was poored over us during the last 4 (yes 4!) years.
Starting as a cautuious sceptic in 2020, I gradully shifted to a position where I realise that everything about this self inflicted crisis was utter nonsense. Everything. The realisation that so many people are fooled by propaganda is mind blowing.
It boggles my mind that an English Presbyterian minister knew this more than 250 years ago and yet courts, government ministers and doctors still don’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bayes
This is great as always! Yet are you not missing the even bigger elephant in the room? The PCR test has never been validated against an actual virus. Is that not a more fundamental, much larger problem? The PCR test has only been validated against a genetic sequence that is presumed to be viral. That presumed viral sequence has never been validated against an actual isolated particle of any kind. It has never been proven that this genetic sequence IS indeed from this (still to this day only) theorized virus particle. Just as you are awe-struck by the judge missing the fantastic blatant "base-rate" problem you brilliantly point out, I am equally awe-struck that folks seem to be missing this foundational and fundamental and inescapable issue: one has to prove that there is a virus before one can test for it! This has still not been done. Not for SARS-COv2, nor for any other presumed "virus." All we have are theoretical genomic sequences assembled from billions of bits of genomic data on a computer, never, not once (!) proven to exist as such sequences in nature. Never, not once! The whole PCR test is built on begging the question! If I say "all people who have black underwear in their house are criminals" and then I go and use a "pcr underwear checker" and find that some people have black underwear in their house, that doesn't mean they are criminals! The PCR process is being used to look for bits of genomic data that have never been proven to have any meaning or relation to "viruses" or to any particular disease.
Exactly. A wrong (incomplete) assumption results in wrong conclusions, which appear right because they prove part of the wrong thesis being wrong.
The missing part of the assumption may be more important because taking it in into account could require the complete redesign of the “testing” process.
The risk is that we could arrive at more “realistic” (whatever it means) data sets - which would in turn require the complete redesign of healthcare policies, funding principles, approval and manufacturing requirements, and more… These data sets would probably vary a lot from region to region or from population to population. Which would require the redesign of the thinking process underlying everything :-)
There is a veritable herd of elephants in the room, Professor, and with this offering, you identify one of the largest animals in that herd.
What I find most disturbing, is the lack of understanding by the general public, of how empirical research becomes invalidated by database corruption.
Multiple databases corrupted by the PCR elephant, are still in use, and we've reached the stage where papers utterly reliant on those corrupted databases are foundational.
The resulting edifice is an inverted pyramid resting on a capstone formed from quicksand.
So it was all a ‘phoney baloney crisis’…
Yes 'a new disease - no-one's immune'...The Simpsons leaked the plan in 2010, before Event 201! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQQFpHypoY
Probably influenced by the 2009 Swine Flu scam - mind-boggling this has been allowed to happen again! See: WHO and the pandemic flu 'conspiracies', The BMJ, June 2010: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/340/7759/Feature.full.pdf
The 2010 Simpsons clip is so hilarious! And spot on! Even suggests lockdowns! And there's the Center for Disease Disinformation...nailed it...
Here's the transcript...
Round table discussion (just like Event 201, although that was square...)
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: I'd like to call to order this secret conclave of America's media empires. We're here to come up with the next phony baloney crisis to put Americans back where they belong, in dark rooms, glued to their televisions, too terrified to skip the commercials.
NBC Guy: Well I think...
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: NBC you are here to listen and not speak. I think we should go with a good old-fashioned public health scare, (yeah),
Janice: A new disease, no-one's immune, it's like the summer of the shark except, instead of a shark, it's an epidemic, and instead of summer, it's all the time!
Other Guy: Now I hate to be the guy who derails what everybody else loves...
Janice: He loves being that guy...
Other Guy: ...but, Janice, we do have standards, this can't be a made-up disease. The only moral thing to do is release a deadly virus into the general public.
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: We do have something we've been holding onto, but it hasn't been tested. Get over here NBC...
NBC Guy: Ah, well, we certainly believe in testing, but... (CDD guy jabs NBC guy...and he dies...)
Janice: Wow, wow... (Oh yeah!)
Center for Disease Disinformation Guy: So we've got our deadly disease. Now we just have to blame it on something that's in every household, something that people are a little bit afraid of already...
Newsreader: (Apocalypse Meow) House cat flu is coming people. The Center for Disease Disinformation predicts, with some degree of probability, that the house cat flu might spread, in the following hypothetical outbreak pattern... (Diversion to US map covered in cats!) So petter beware, that warm body on your lap just might be ready to destroy your tender fiddles. (Diversion to Homer Simpson bagging up cat on Marge's lap.)
Back to the newsreader in hazmat suit: (The purrrrfect storm) Springfielders are advised to stay tuned for more information if they experience any of the following symptoms - mild thirst, occasional hunger, tiredness at night.
I remember a Saturday morning broadcast of a very early UK Open University (Black & White) program series on the influence of false-positive and false-negative results of diagnostic tests on disease statistics. This was in the 1980’s!
All forgotten and ignored since.