Today there's this tweet from Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"FYI: Deleted the Republican-Democrat COVID tweet. Was causing too many unintended Twitter fights"
[ADDED: I feel like I caught DeGrasse Tyson cheating at cards and I’m the only one that knows as he deleted the evidence. But I have screenshots! OTOH maybe I'm making a mountain out of a Twitter storm.…]
The reason I'd got to that above tweet today was that I was checking back into deGrasse Tysone's account. I'd already screenshot the now deleted tweet yesterday and was wanting to write something about it, so I just wanted to see the latest discussion before doing so. Deleted!
What was it that deGrasse Tyson had tweeted to his 14.5 million followers and now deleted? It just happen I have the screenshot, because I’d thought it rather extraordinary:
"Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That's 5X the rate for Democrats"
I thought, when I read it, "huh?". Where are those figures from? I know there's more vaccine hesitancy amongst Republicans — we all know that, right? — but dying at
five times the rate of Democrats?! Where the figs, Neil? And then attaching a gratuitous slur on Republicans, these "Medieval Peasants"?! (Even if, at least, a welcome break from "Deplorables"). Meantime, no mention that the most vaccine hesitancy is not Reps vs Dems, but Black Americans v White (
Racial and ethnic differences in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy,
NIH, 28 Feb 21).
I wasn't the only one who wondered "where the figs?" for Tyson's tweet:
Chuck Huber: "Where's that raw data? Link please?"
Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Thanks for asking. Twitter of course, does not lend itself to full citations.
I derived the number from published COVID-19 death rates of unvaccinated people (about 1,000 per day). And from the polls that show 25% of Republican voters are unvaccinated, versus 5% of Democrats"
Chuck Huber's subsequent reply (deleted by Tyson) was something like "Aha! so, made up then. Thanks for clarifying". And the numbers sure didn't look right to me. Didn't pass the "common sense"test. I'd accept, for the moment, the figures for deaths of unvaccinated, but "the polls that show" 25% of Reps are unvaccinated vs 5% of Democrats? That didn't look right, didn't smell right. It didn't take long to find other figures, other polls, such as
these:
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| Click to enlarge |
If a combined 52% of those whose Party affiliation is Democrat say they will either "Wait and See" or "Definitely not get the vaccine" then how on earth could 95% of them be vaccinated? Even if the poll figures I quote are nearly two months old, it's highly unlikely the could have got to the figures Tyson uses.
I call BS on that, and total made up. I'd have said so on Twitter if I ever tweeted, which I don't. I just followed some of the discussion, which did indeed get pretty nasty and divisive. No-one made the point I make here: that the Tyson's figures just make no sense, don't add up, and should be called out as BS.
He claims the twitter fights were "unintended" but then what was intended? To convince Republicans that they ought to get the jab? Well, that's not the way to go about it, Neil. As you ought to know -- there are plenty of studies showing that dissing folks is not the way to persuade.
I like deGrasse Tyson a lot. Have numbers of his books. I like his shows (Cosmos aside, which I find a bit cheesy). But this is a major own goal. A failure of common sense, a failure of good will.
A failure too to come clean about the figures he posted: total nonsense and plain wrong. He ought to have admitted that, instead of falling back on the "unintended" trope, as in the "unintended Twitter fight". That's a bit slippery. I feel like I caught him cheating at cards and he denies it...
Shame on you, Neil, I think less of you cause of this. Joining other heroes of mine that are now tarnished (in my mind, at least) by not living up to their "driven only by facts and science" brands: Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.
