I don’t get much support from, or interact much, with my fellow academics at the University but the other day I received this email suggesting we might be suitable candidates for the John Maddox prize.
Dear Martin,
Browsing some funding opportunities and awards, I have come across this prize and thought of you and your team. Although I then saw the winners of 2020 and was left in doubt but here is the link.
https://senseaboutscience.org/john-maddox-prize/
Kind regards
I immediately thought that this might be an award given to rebels who stand up against establishment and mainstream views. You know, the sort of prize Galileo would have won back in the day. So, I clicked the link to see who the past winners were……
First one I noticed was that well known rebel Anthony Fauci who won it in 2020 for his brilliant work helping the public understand ‘The Science’:
Next up was Elisabeth Bik who is a brave champion against medical misinformation and supposedly exposed hydroxychloroquine for the evil treatment that it is.
And then there is Olivier Bernard, who bravely stood up to alternative health proponents of vitamin C injections for breast cancer.
In all of these puff pieces these scions of the medical establishment are heralded as Davids fighting Goliath, suffering harassment and even death threats in the process of fighting the good fight, yet are clearly the exact opposite. They are actually defending entrenched big Pharma interests!
So, I penned a quick response:
Thanks for thinking of us!
I don’t think we’d get beyond the wastebasket, from a quick look at prior winners like Anthony Fauci!
https://senseaboutscience.org/john-maddox-prize/past-winners/
And the woman who supposedly exposed “errors” in HCQ research - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/doctors-diary/covid-unleashed-tsunami-bad-science/ [twaddle]
This is a prize for academic gatekeeping given to those who toe the establishment line, but presents them as rebels. Its actually Goliath giving David a good kicking!
By way of quick background: 1) I've been following Professor Fenton's Covid Blog for quite some time, and 2) have watched nearly every tutorial videos on Bayesian networks, and 3) have now more recently followed this Substack series, and 3) of course have been following Prof. Fenton's adventures on YouTube with Dr. Campbell, and on Darkhorse, and 4) have sometimes looked at the occasionally spicy push-backs from others against Dr. Campbell and against Prof. Fenton, who fall just short of accusing them of all sorts of mischief, and 5) it should go without saying that, of course, I have the book you co-authored with him on Risk Assessment with Bayesian networks (...eagerly waiting for the updated 3rd edition!) So when I read the first paragraph that you guys might be eligible for a prize for advancing the discourse on sound science, I thought, "Hooray! Science wins again!" But wait ... what's this? Faucci a past recipient? ... I can't say I know anything about the others, but I've finally quite made up my mind about poor old Fauci who, once might have been - but to my mind no longer is - worthy of so much respect.
But your brief post quite boggles my mind since I would have thought that at least in academia there would have been a sense, from your colleagues, of where the truth lies, and that at least, in the corridors, there would be some nods and assents in silent recognition of the work you guys have done. That very word "academia", for me, has (or had) a kind of saintly halo around it, as if at least its denizens are blessed with a better vision than the rest of us mere benighted mortals down below. But that seems not to be. I can still hear the "pop" of that bubble your post has just punctured!
But honestly, I hope that your team can win this prize without yet betraying what your work has been about. Would it not be a sign that the tide is somehow slowly shifting?
Peter Hotez will probably be the 2023 winner for his commitment to fighting anti-vaxxer misinformation about vaccines. A worthy winner. and sets him up nicely as Fauci's replacement?