A quarter of people in the UK believe Covid was or was probably a hoax (as well as believing other conspiracy theories)

[cakeorwine]

Quarter in UK believe Covid was a hoax, poll on conspiracy theories finds | Social trends | The Guardian

"The UK is home to millions more conspiracy theorists than most people realise, with almost a quarter of the population believing Covid-19 was probably or definitely a hoax, polling has revealed.
About a third of the population are convinced that the cost of living crisis is a government plot to control the public, and similar numbers think “15-minute cities” – an attempt to increase walking in neighbourhoods – are a government surveillance ruse, and that the “great replacement theory” – the idea that white people are being replaced by non-white immigrants – is happening."

I guess that there are people out there who believe in conspiracy theories - but I am very surprised by the numbers.

I wonder what the cross over is between theories - in other words, if you believe 1 conspiracy theory, you are more likely to believe another?

What the BBC has been using this data for
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65821747

It depends how the questions were worded.

It's been shown through Hancock's texts that Covid was exaggerated to scare us into staying at home.

I think.they probably do somewhere in 'the vast,vast universe tbh.

Exactly how I feel

I was describing their parents as stupid, dear. There was still hope for the children

Of course. There must be now, Mr Chips 😀

All tongue-in-cheek, to add!

Also read up the peer reviewed sources. Academic discourse is robust because they are constantly testing out hypotheses

I don't think many people realise the horrendous issues with 'academic research'. Unfortunately much of it has been corrupted by, guess what, money.

Did you know who set up the 'academic journal' system?

Robert Maxwell.

Here's an article the bastion of The Science, the Guardian, would never publish these days from a while ago explaining the history. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science

And then there is the evidence around the much lauded 'peer review' system which is largely subjective and pot luck https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/

And further to this, many pharmaceutical companies did not release their raw clinical trial data before the publication of journal articles relating to covid vaccines. This of course causes suspicion, wouldn't you say? Where is the transparency? We can't be said to be 'following The Science' if that science is only presented by the company who is set to make billions of pounds

The BMJ commenting from this article: https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102

"We are left with publications but no access to the underlying data on reasonable request. This is worrying for trial participants, researchers, clinicians, journal editors, policy makers, and the public. The journals that have published these primary studies may argue that they faced an awkward dilemma, caught between making the summary findings available quickly and upholding the best ethical values that support timely access to underlying data. In our view, there is no dilemma; the anonymised individual participant data from clinical trials must be made available for independent scrutiny."

It makes me somewhat of a conspiracy theorist because I roll my eyes when I hear someone saying "do you have a peer reviewed study for that" as if that is the gold standard. If you take one look into the actual scientific process in any detail in 2023, you find very un-science things going on and the much lauded peer-review journal process is very much flawed.

Unfortunately they are allowed to vote.

Why is that so radical? Do you really think in the whole entire universe we are the only planet with life?

People were posting about sheep and wake up on a newspaper article on FB the other day
It took 2 seconds to open it and read it was suicide

All the people saying about the thick people, others may think you are the thick ones. No one ever declares themselves thick

I don't think it is surprising that death certificates recorded Covid first - both my fathers and mothers certificates recorded flu first because they couldn't fight it - their 'real' cause of death was the underlying conditions listed second and third. It has always been this way. Nobody noticed before.

Covid was a mishmash. Philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn talk of a pre-paradigmatic phase of normal science where there is no agreement. There follows a period of stability where a paradigm is accepted and research might be constructed in such a way to support it. Then anomalies build to an extent that the paradigm is overturned. This is normal science.

But normal science (and it's timeline such as trial of experimental vaccine) was overwhelmed by political imperative which was heavily influenced by 'secret' government gain of function research and financial opportunities - both of pharmaceutical companies and those that would benefit from a huge transfer of wealth if it were argued that there was scientific agreement that meant that draconian response were required.

As no paradigm had been established there have been a number of scientists that have raised the alarm and highlighted anomalies. They have been treated in a very unscientific manner and attacked as conspiracy theorists. This is political and economic. Science progresses by other scientists highlighting anomalies.

Non-scientific 'normal' people have noticed.

Government backed Science can no longer be trusted - government and finance never could.

If you want to hear the anomalies then take to YouTube etc which may be the only voice of non conforming science. But then you are also prey to wider conspiracy theories.

It is sad that the research and theories of actual scientists are portrayed as conspiracy theories because their research raises anomalies.

This is the problem not the beliefs of neighbour or family member.

@x2boys I have no idea. I've come to the conclusion now that she was so scared that she went into a kind of denial. I can think of no other logical reason why she took that stance. She used to scoff at me for wearing a mask and sanitising. After 40 years of friendship I really saw her in a different light.

What is your evidence they don’t exist?

I prefer to keep an open mind because it’s still theoretically very possible

What is more shocking is that 17 million people or 52% of the vote that that voting for Brexit was a good idea.

Strangely though I think some of the people that believe this sort of stuff are fairly intelligent/intellectual....a close friend of ours has fallen head first into this rabbit hole...covid hoax, flat earth, royal family lizards, holographic alien invasions, chem trails...the lot! He was completely level headed, has a family and works as a senior software engineer. He's lost so many friends and now almost his family... it's scary.

"Covid minimisation" is not a conspiracy theory.

Events change, further information becomes available and we adapt. Otherwise we would all still be in lockdown now and Covid vaccines would still be recommended for the under 40s.

What is also shocking is why a lot of the 48% of the population still don’t understand why people voted for Brexit, like literally don’t have a clue: And resort to “they must be idiots”

@hamstersarse

"What is also shocking is why a lot of the 48% of the population still don’t understand why people voted for Brexit, like literally don’t have a clue:"

+++
Apologies for derailing a Covid thread and promise this is my last post on Brexit.

Other than leaving the EU what Brexit would actually look like was never defined, aside from "Brexit means Brexit " or Brexit is red, white and blue " (May)

This meant that different Brexit voters wanted different outcomes (EFTA membership or cut all links), some did it as a protest vote and some fell for the lies.

What this all means is that the eventual solution is never going to please all Leave voters - some think it doesn't go far enough, some think too far and some don't think at all. Plus you have the 48% that didn't want it at all. The net result is a divided nation.

The EU is a massive conspiracy, Brexit was a massive conspiracy. Just follow the money.

@Dacadactyl

In one breath they say "We have an overpopulation and climate crisis" and in the next "the old must be protected at all costs and especially at the expense of the young".

Talk about lack of critical thinking skills! These are not exclusive statements though the latter part of the second is in your mind only. You can believe that the world is overpopulated and the cause of climate crisis alongside wanting to protect the vulnerable including not just the old but the additional millions vulnerable for reasons other than age, including children. Whether the measures taken were overly draconian, which most people would agree with, or we should have followed Sweden's example, we will see in detail from the ongoing inquiry, weighting its conclusions as most thinking people do with the knowledge that even the scientific establishment is divided, that the government was fighting for political advantage for most of it, and No10 behaved scurrilously.

2016 Brexit vote
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023 today

Do I believe that the lockdowns and other restrictions will cause more deaths over the next 5 years than were saved from having the lockdowns and other measures- yes.

Do I believe that young people and children and their education were thrown under a bus to reduce deaths in the over 80s - yes

Do I believe that the average age of death from Covid was 82 and the average age of death in general was 81 - yes because the statistics show it.

Do I believe that there was general hysteria in trying to prevent Covid - yes.

Exactly- it was seven years ago and the country is still divided.

Telling people to get over it doesn't seem to be working does it?

We pay into a health care system that has been deliberately underfunded for years.

Others may well think that but without the actual wherewithal to come to this conclusion then it's whistling in the wind.

With a modicum of intelligence they'd laugh at the conspiracy theories not buy into them.