I suppose we all heard that DONALD TRUMP has recently turned his genius towards the film industry. Specifically, he wrote:
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
Well done Donnie!
After this decisive move, the hero of the mentally challenged announced another, even more far-reaching and long-awaited measure:
“TARIFFS ON RATIONAL THOUGHT”
On his patform ‘UNTRUTH ASOCIAL’, Trump proclaimed:
Rational thinking in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw scientists and other experts away from the United States. Universities and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated and pseudo-science is thriving as a result. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing all my government Departments and other relevant bodies of the US administration, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all RATIONAL THOUGHTS coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT SCIENCE MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!
Trump’s latest move earned criticism as soon as it became public. Democrats pointed out that it was Trump himself who had driven US scientists to seek employment outside their home country. A spokesperson of the Whit House responded with merely a two-word-statement:
FAKE NEWS!
49 Responses to BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump’s surprising move to support US science
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lol… scientists will ebb and flow towards whomever is funding their research and will for the most part give those doing the funding the desired outcome.
Your boy RFK. Jr is doing just that: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0z9nmzvdlo to “find” the cause of autism by September. He is funding a rabid anti-vaxxer to lead the effort. We all know what the outcome would be. They are going to blame vaccines.
@RG
This sweeping accusation of scientific corruption says more about you than about scientists or science:
– it tells us that you yourself are likely to engage in corruption(*) if the opportunity presents itself, and
– it also tells us that you have no idea what scientists do or how they work.
*: I also recall that you regularly come to the defense of scientists who have been found to fudge or forge their data, produced atrociously bad work or who behaved unethical in other ways.
Richard
>> – it tells us that you yourself are likely to engage in corruption(*) if the opportunity presents itself >>
That is pure BS…. you have no basis to make that conclusion.
I could make the same accusation of you based on your opinions of Integrative MDs
https://edzardernst.com/2020/06/homoeopathy-should-not-be-used-to-treat-serious-diseases/#comment-124160
hey Pete
I admit to using some alternative (and yes perhaps SCAM) methods of treating myself. However,
I have never recommended to anyone here at this forum to use homeopathy to treat anything !
GOT IT !
Red herring.
You fawn over numpties, quacks, woomeisters, fecking eejits, and menaces to public health (MPH).
That is pretty much how most of us sane people feel whenever you post a comments on here.
You come off as pro-corruption and a massive hypocrite. In other words an unintentional buffoon!! ROFL!!!
@RG
Oh yes I have. People who routinely accuse others of being fraudsters, criminals etc. are more often than not found to be less than blameless themselves. Actual criminals tend to distrust other people far more than law-abiding citizens, simply because they know that THEY themselves (i.e. those criminals) can’t be trusted.
Just look at that convicted felon in the White House: Trump goes on and on about ‘being treated badly’ by ‘terrible people’ and how all countries in the world are out to harm America – he even goes as far as to say that the EU was explicitly established ‘to screw America over’. And all immigrants are deemed ‘rapists, murderers and gang-bangers(*)’ who deserve to be deported to a hell-hole prison that no-one ever returns from, without any due process whatsoever etc. etc. etc. …
… all the while HE is the one routinely committing crimes, breaking the law, and even killing hundreds of thousands of people by cutting off life-saving aid programs for the poor.
*: The violent type, definitely not the, um, ‘sexually promiscuous’ type …
The difference is that there are very good reasons to consider ‘integrative’ doctors to deliver sub-par healthcare (a.k.a. quackery) – because they openly advertise what they do. Same with studies and research from the SCAM domain: those studies provably have a much lower quality than studies from proper scientists.
Also, I mostly consider SCAMmers to be ignorant + arrogant, not primarily fraudulent. And yes, I can be pretty ignorant and arrogant too – but I don’t pretend that I can effectively treat sick people.
RG is pro-corruption if his side does it but wastes no time calling everyone else corrupt…LOL!
Aha, that is why Trump portrays himself as a
Jedi KnightSith Lord on the official White House X-account. 😀https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1919053040734072844
I would say Trump is in an intellectual decline but as he started and sustained such a low level for his entire life it’s difficult to tell. Hard to lose what you never had!
There is increasing mistrust in vaccination in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jgrlxx37do
RFK is responding to similar trends in the US.
This is developing into a crisis for vaccine policy so something has to be done at Gov level as constant reassurances from Gov and the medical establishment are not helping.
View the data in the link. We have MMR take up rates delclining, Confidence among NHS staff in winter vaccines declining.
Conspiracy theory focused EBM fanatics can always view the graphs upside down, stick their fingers in their ears and shout la,la,la.
The best course of action is to reassure the public with a well publicised review of the data.
If RFK finds no new evidence then that will support the Gov and the medical reassurances that have been ignored by many the public and by NHS staff.
RFK can’t just blame vaccination. He needs evidence but i would not expect delusional EBM fanatics to see this.
The obvious daner is that RFK finds correlations that suit his agenda and interprets them as causation.
Welp…evidently its affecting MDs with years of experience.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1L7d8VupmC/
Casey Means … new Surgeon General
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Means
another quack at the helm?
Well, let’s do the litmus test: can we find any product peddling?
https://www.caseymeans.com/my-faves
Yup, it’s a quack.
Dr. Casey Means is a Stanford-trained physician, co-founder of Levels, a metabolic health company, and a New York Times bestselling author of Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. She advocates for addressing chronic disease through metabolic health, emphasizing nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle changes. After leaving surgical residency due to disillusionment with the healthcare system, she pursued functional medicine, though her Oregon medical license has been inactive since January 2024. Means has gained attention as a wellness influencer, with a significant following on platforms like Instagram and X, where she shares health insights. She and her brother, Calley Means, advised Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 campaign and have been linked to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. On May 7, 2025, President Donald Trump nominated her as U.S. Surgeon General, replacing Janette Nesheiwat after controversy over Nesheiwat’s qualifications. However, some, like political activist Laura Loomer, have criticized Means’ nomination due to her inactive medical license.
DR CASEY MEANS: “I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?”
DR CASEY MEANS: “I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?”
QUOTE Weasel word, Wikipedia
In rhetoric, a weasel word, or anonymous authority, is a word or phrase aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated. The terms may be considered informal. Examples include the phrases “some people say”, “it is thought”, and “researchers believe”. Using weasel words may allow one to later deny (aka weasel out of) any specific meaning if the statement is challenged, because the statement was never specific in the first place. Weasel words can be a form of tergiversation and may be used in conspiracy theories, advertising, popular science, opinion pieces and political statements to mislead or disguise a biased view or unsubstantiated claim.
“I bet that one dumb quack in the government won’t kill any patients, but what about the 20 or more that are now destroying science-based healthcare in the US?”
Richie …
Elections have consequences… dont forget it.
@RG
Yup, stupid people elect even stupider people to rule them. And the very stupidest people – including you – even seem quite happy about it. Thank you for confirming this basic world order once again. My advice: enjoy it while it lasts – which won’t be for much longer.
‘RG’ claimed to have moved from California to Bolivia:
https://edzardernst.com/2022/09/helmut-pilhar-1965-2022/#comment-145005
I think I should add a little nuance to my comment about ‘stupid voters’: most people who voted for Trump aren’t exactly stupid, but fell for Trump’s bluster and lies. I’ll try to explain.
As a malignant narcissist, Trump’s only purpose in life is aggrandization of his ego. He basically thinks of himself as god’s gift to the world – and he is projecting that image by continuously hammering on how GREAT he is, how everything he does and touches will be instantly successful and beneficial, a bit like King Midas turning everything he touched into gold(*).
He just kept repeating over and over again how electing him would make everything better for everyone – of course completely ignoring stubborn reality and a myriad of practical problems – and this resonated with millions of people who were struggling to make ends meet. These are traditionally also people who are used to do what their boss tells them to do, without need to think for themselves overly much, especially about politics.
So what you get is exactly like what happens in SCAM: people are suffering in all kinds of ways, and regular politicians / doctors so far haven’t helped all that much – mostly because there are no simple solutions, but that last bit is not what people want to hear.
This makes the lure of narcissistic demagogues respectively quacks with their simple, wonderful promises almost irresistible – even though people know that the Trumps / quacks of this world produce a lot of hot air and empty promises. But hey, if only a few of those promises are fulfilled, then that would still make things better, right? Alas, in all their optimistic beliefs they overlooked one possibility: that things could also get worse – much, much worse. Which is what we see happening now.
In short: Trump is only good at one thing: promoting himself. For all the rest, he is a deeply stupid, utterly incompetent man, who surrounded himself with even stupider and more incompetent people, selected only for their
ass-kissing talentsunconditional loyalty. And now reality is catching up with this merry band of fools.And yes, doubt is beginning to creep in with even his most loyal voters. For now, they still cling to Trump’s endless lies that he knows what he is doing and that everything will be much better after ‘a bit of pain and disruption’. But ever more republicans (and even Fox News) are now openly doubting that the current course of chaos, destruction and corruption will end up being good for normal Americans after all.
*: While in reality, Trump is best described as the inverse of king Midas: everything Trump touches or merely even looks at turns into crap almost instantly.
@Richard
It think it’s a waste of time to have a nuanced discussion about intelligence levels of Trump voters. Trump’s first term was horrendous and yet these people chose to vote for him anyways. That says everything we need to know about them, especially all those who voted to make him president a second time. Most of them are either uninformed, stupid, cruel or a combination of those.
We see examples of MAGA moronicity every day in the comments section. For example, a dimwit keep parroting “elections have consequences” like a used toilet salesman, however he doesn’t seem to understand that the consequences are felt by everyone including Trump voters, how else would one explain Trump’s abysmal approval ratings across all groups: https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker.?
lol… don’t like it Talker ?
I am simply parroting the great Barack Obama, he coined the phrase.
ahahahahaha
@RG
So you agree that you are the dimwit I was referring to. 🤣
It is sooooo easy to hook and reel you in for a quick laugh. You are such a putz!!
Not everyone who repeats the phrase has an intellect rivalled only by garden tools:
Maas A, Lu L.
Elections have Consequences: Partisan Politics may be Literally Killing Us.
Appl Health Econ Health Policy. 2021 Jan;19(1):45–56.
doi:10.1007/s40258-020-00621-5.
Epub 2020 Dec 18.
PMID: 33336326; PMCID: PMC7746427.
@Pete Attkins
Thanks for the article. Very interesting . This time consequences would be dire for many people across the political spectrum. Not sure how much of our domestic policy is covered in news on your side of the pond but here is a small sampling of very bad ideas floated by the winning side:
https://www.medicarerights.org/medicare-watch/2025/05/08/cbo-analysis-shows-medicaid-cuts-would-terminate-coverage-for-millions-including-people-with-medicare
https://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/senate-votes-remove-federal-clean-air-protections-public-health-risk-highly-toxic
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louisbiscotti/2025/05/06/fda-job-cuts-spark-food-safety-debate/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-doges-cutbacks-at-the-faa-could-affect-aviation-safety
If these ideas get implemented (some already are), people will die regardless of who they voted for. This past election is different in that the consequences are for everyone, not just for the loosing side.
@Talker
I’m trying to figure out why people sometimes do extremely stupid things (voting for Trump) while not necessarily being extremely stupid themselves – at least not all of them. Mind you, individuals can be very stupid indeed – as also evidenced by our share of stupid trolls here. And of course Trump himself is objectively stupid to an almost unimaginable extent. There is nothing the man isn’t very bad at.
But I refuse to accept that almost half the American electorate is stupid. It is too easy an escape hatch, that doesn’t help understanding of what motivates those them, and only serves to further divide and demonize people. Of course this is also Trump’s main authoritarian strategy: insulting and denigrating anyone and anything he doesn’t like, designating them as the enemy to be utterly humiliated and crushed.
Another important reason to keep trying to understand those ‘stupid’ people is also that better understanding them may eventually help to break through their blind, almost religious adulation of Trump and his rhetoric. Not that anything we say here actually makes a difference of course, but maintaining nuance is also important for ourselves, to prevent us from easily descending into only negative knee-jerk reactions, dismissing people at the slightest sign of them having a different opinion from us. And of course we also do stupid things sometimes (I know I do).
@Richard
I would have mostly agreed with you if we were in the first few months of Trump’s first term. But how can one forget all that stupidity, incessant lying, and display of authoritarian tendencies and decide to vote for him again?
For example, a typical US voter sees Trump on TV musing about injecting bleach to cure covid, decides to vote for him again. Is the word ‘unwise’ a less harsh way to describe such a person?
I will give you another example, this time around Trump ran on a platform promising to enact policies that would be detrimental to various groups (trans folks, immigrants, press, federal employees etc.). As soon as he took office, he started doing just that. What would you call a US voter who decided to vote for Trump despite him promising to hurt people? Perhaps ‘unkind’ is a safe enough word to use in this case?
What words should we be using to describe these Trump voters, so their sensitive sensibilities are not hurt? Do we have to bend over backwards to accommodate the feelings of those who voted for a politician who unequivocally promised to target us, our families and friends?
On a related note, people in Australia and Canada learned from our experience (in US) and voted to defeat pro-Trumpian conservative counterparts who were doing well in polls before Trump took office. We can safely say that intelligent people tend to learn from other people’s mistakes, but stupid people don’t even learn from their own mistakes.
At this point Trumpism is a cult. I am not an expert in cults, but I have an interest in how cults work, and my understanding is that it is very hard and sometimes impossible to de-program a cult member. However, half the people in the country are acting like they are in a cult, and they are actively fed lies and misinformation via social media. How would one go about breaking through to half the country?
…but those consequences do not extend to changing the nature of reality, any more than the path of a hurricane can be changed with a Sharpie.
@Talker
Yes, I guess you have a point here …
And again a very good point. Many MAGA people are brainwashed (or perhaps better: dumbed down) to such an extent that they not only tolerate people being plucked from the street and sent to foreign hell-hole prisons without any due process – they’re actively cheering this on. Because Trump basically says that all immigrants (illegal and legal) and even many US citizens are ‘bad people’ who should have no human rights.
Which is eerily parallel to what happened in Germany in the 1930’s, where certain groups of people were turned into scapegoats and a focus of hate. We all know how that played out …
@Richard
While reading this article: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/17/2322498/-Republicans-voted-to-kill-woke-only-to-hurt-their-own-communities I was reminded of the above conversation we had. I highly recommend reading the entire series: https://www.dailykos.com/tags/LeopardsAteFace on Trump supporters. I am not sure if these articles will help you understand the mindset of Trump supporter but at least you would get an idea of what the leopards are eating for dinner.
@Talker
Thanks, and I was already aware of the existence of The Daily Kos.
Articles like this contribute to an overall picture of what one could call the Red State mindset: people happily accept money and help from democrats for structural support of their communities, yet still vote for republicans – even though the latter don’t lift a finger to help ordinary people, and in fact are responsible for a large part of the disparity in wealth and income, and for the dismal state of public services.
Maybe the big problem here is PR? Democrats may be doing a lot of good stuff especially for lower-income areas and demographics, but somehow fail to advertise this as such. Even worse: republicans turn these projects into negative propaganda, accusing democrats of ‘wasting taxpayers’ money’. In effect, they say that everyone will be better off when the government collects and spends as little money as possible. This also means that in their opinion, everything should be privatized as much as possible, up to and including healthcare and social security.
And the crazy thing is that lots of republican voters believe this – even the ones receiving social security and federal healthcare, which they seem to take for granted.
So maybe democrats should learn at least one thing from the republican playbook: effective propaganda. Keep hammering on just one very simple message, i.e. that democrats make people’s lives better in all sorts of ways. And that making people’s lives better is NOT ‘wasting taxpayer money’ – it is in fact the single most important function of a government.
@Richard
Of course, Democrats would benefit from better PR, but it is too late now. Most of the media that serves middle America is in the hands of right-wing media, here is one such example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#Political_views and now Trump is going after the rest of the media in broad day light.
Before the elections the big tech started putting their thumbs on the scale against Harris. Facebook, YT stopped fact-checking and let misinformation flourish, Bezos stopped his paper editorial board from endorsing Harris are some egregious examples.
On top of that Democrats suffer from lack of coherent message and more importantly leadership. They keep squandering opportunities to attack Trump and show the nation how bad he is at his job.
I think we went way off topic here. If you would like to continue this discussion, feel free to email me. You probably have my email address from when you sent me a copy of your book.
@Talker
Thank you for your friendly offer to continue the discussion privately, but I think it’s better for my peace of mind if I cut down a bit on the topic of Trump – especially since the operative word is ever more tending towards ‘disgust’ instead of ‘discuss’.
In fact, there isn’t all that much to discuss. I think we all agree that what Trump is doing is nothing short of catastrophic on all levels of society and economy, and that he should be removed from power ASAP, together with his entourage.
Another questionable appointment. Vinay Prasad is the new head of CBER.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-names-agency-critic-vinay-prasad-top-vaccine-official-2025-05-06/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinay_Prasad
Prasad’s appointment confirms Kennedy motto: “MASA! Make America Sick Again!” *cynism end*
In reply to Richard Rasker on Saturday 10 May 2025 at 09:43 above:
“It isn’t possible to have equality. It’s been tried again and again in history, giving everybody a vote, and it’s always failed—always, in a few generations, the worse politicians drove out the better. Because by definition, half the people always have below-average intelligence; and the average is not high.”
— Poul Anderson, The Long Way Home (1955).
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
— George Carlin
“Twitter is a daily reminder that 50 percent of the population are of below average intelligence. If that insults you, please unfollow me.”
— Richard Dawkins (2015)
QUOTE Illusory superiority, Wikipedia
In the field of social psychology, illusory superiority is a condition of cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, in relation to the same qualities and abilities of other people. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.
END of QUOTE
I empathize, but in so doing I commit the following three errors:
1. Counterfactual fallacy (aka speculative fallacy, argumentum ad speculum). Confusing “what might have been” with “what ought to have been”; speculating what would have happened in other circumstances, then drawing conclusions from the speculation.[RationalWiki]
2. QUOTE Is–ought problem, RationalWiki
The is–ought problem is a philosophical problem of how knowledge of the present world does not necessarily lead to knowledge of how the world ought to be. This is also sometimes referred to as Hume’s law or “Hume’s Guillotine”.
…
The is-ought problem has become prominent in matters of ethics and meta-ethics. Simply put, it deals with an apparent logic gap between statements of what “ought” to be, following statements regarding what “is” — the first often following the second without any kind of explanation regarding why they are logical or correct.
Furthermore, it argues that just because someone has knowledge of how the world is (descriptive statements), this doesn’t automatically prove that they know how the world ought to be (prescriptive statements), and it is in fact impossible to derive the second based solely on the information of the first.
END of QUOTE
3. Furthermore, it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of reasoning under the (usually hidden from our consciousness) assumption that people have free will — they don’t !
Illusory superiority?
Quite a few CAMists and CAMees probably have this condition right now.
EBM fanatics are currently in the process of being cured of this condition.
Illusory superiority, as plentifully evidenced by the snide and supercilious comments from the anonymous goading halfwits ‘JK’, ‘Krishna’, ‘Old Bob’, ‘RG’, and the compulsive nymshifter Astro/Ocean/…/Sunbead/Tabbygraycat.
To be fair Pete us CAMists 10-15 years ago had very little to goad about!
It is not my problem that your ship is sinking.
Please explain to me, and to the readers, exactly what my “ship” is.
The readers may have forgotten that troll ‘JK’ got itself banned on19 May 2018 at 14:30 for making false accusations.
https://edzardernst.com/2018/05/are-you-a-homeopath-this-is-how-you-can-get-rich-quickly/#comment-102045
You are an exemplar of illusory superiority and belligerent stupidity. This isn’t a criticism; I thoroughly enjoy observing you:
• tilting at windmills
• frequently setting fire to your own straw man arguments.
🤣 🤣
You are talking about yourself yet again Pete.
Please read your quotes first before flapdooddling us one of your fallacy routines.
You wrote: “It is not my problem that your ship is sinking.”
Please explain to me, and to the readers, exactly what my “ship” is.
As usual, you make snide, supercilious and sanctimonious accusations by implication because you have no evidence whatsoever.
I can assure you that you are indeed tilting at windmills, but please carry on.
QUOTE
Tilting at windmills is an English idiom that means “attacking imaginary enemies”. The expression is derived from Don Quixote, and the word “tilt” in this context refers to jousting. This phrase is sometimes also expressed as “charging at windmills” or “fighting the windmills”.
The phrase is sometimes used to describe either confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an inopportune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote#Tilting_at_windmills
END OF QUOTE
You are a shining exemplar of both illusory superiority and belligerent stupidity. First you double down on stupid, then you triple down, then… ad infinitum.
Have you ever considered the possibility that you are wrong [rhetorical].
🤣🤣🤣🤣
@JK
Your SCAMMIES don’t even have a ship but have been drowning for a long long time. 😉
Nothing wrong with you being into windmills Pete. Just keep your head down when you tilt your head towards one.