Interview: Debunking (Antivaxx) Funk with Dr Dan Wilson

Decoding the Gurus

Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne

Science, Leisure, Social Sciences, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2022

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we speak to fellow traveller, kindred spirit, and vaccine misinformation debunker, Dr Dan Wilson. Yes, we know we've talked SO much about anti-vax rhetoric recently, and we hope the day will soon come when we can leave it all behind us, but friends, today is not that day.

For more than a year, Dan's YouTube channel DebunkTheFunk has focused on rebutting COVID and vaccine misinformation from characters such as Geert Vanden-Bossche, Joseph Mercola and RFK Jnr. His recent episodes on Robert Malone and Peter Mc Collough have been an invaluable source for the decoders for our recent episodes. So of course we were delighted that Dan could come speak to us about what he does, what they do, and what kind of rhetorical tropes and tricks he sees from these characters.

Dan seems to suffer from the same masochistic malaise we do, in feeling compelled to listen to some of the worst material available on the internet, so as to point out what's wrong with it. And he accomplishes that mission effectively, and most mysteriously for Chris and Matt, concisely as well.

It's not all negative, because as well as talking about anti-vaxxers specifically, we all bask in our shared admiration for This Week in Virology, the kind of critical yet open-minded science communication show we'd all love to see a lot more of. We also talk about the kind of everyday epistemics that we can all practice to separate fact from fiction, and the kind of public engagement that genuine experts, researchers and scientists need to practice in order to take back the infosphere from snake-oil salesmen and attention-seekers of all kinds.

It was an absolute pleasure to talk to Dan. We love what he does, and we hope he goes on doing it for a long time to come. We hope you enjoy it too, and we heartily recommend sharing DebunkTheFunk with friends, family and colleagues who have slipped down the conspiratorial rabbit-hole on COVID and vaccines.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And Hello and
0:25.0	welcome to Decoding the Guru's the podcast where a psychologist and an
0:28.8	anthropologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about on Matt Brown and with me is Chris Kavanaugh and we have someone else with us today to help us do a bit of COVID-specific decoding, don't we Chris?
0:45.0	We do. We have Dr Dan Wilson from Debunk The Funk channel on YouTube, which we relied on quite significantly
0:55.0	when we did the recent episodes on Robert Malone and Peter McCulloch,
1:00.0	so Dan, we owe you a bit of gratitude for at least saving us a bit of effort in the
1:09.9	preparation for that episode. So welcome and thanks. I'm honored guys. Hi,
1:16.3	thanks to be here. So Dan's channel is focused around debunking COVID misinformation and some other broader forms of
1:27.0	misinformation that we'll talk about. But your background down and correct me if I get any of this wrong, you're a PhD. Your PhD in molecular biology and now working as a researcher in a now working as a researcher in some variety of lab, is that correct?
1:46.7	So now I work in biotech.
1:49.1	I got my PhD and then instead of getting a postdoc, because I had a baby in the way I decided to go out into industry.
1:57.0	So you actually make money?
1:59.0	That's more than I would if I was working as a postdoc, yes.
2:04.0	I think you made a wise choice, even without knowing any other details, I could say it's
2:11.0	probably a wise choice overall. To get started, Matt and I were looking at your channel and that it started off in 2020.
2:21.0	So just to be clear, was did your channel emerge out of the pandemic and
2:26.1	responding to COVID misinformation or were you on YouTube and stuff beforehand?
2:31.5	So no I didn't respond directly to the pandemic.
2:36.0	I was actually really passionate about science communication for a very long time
2:40.0	and I was actually a believer in some conspiracy theories and health misinformation many years ago.
2:47.0	My science communication passion was kind of focused around teaching science by debunking.
2:53.6	And I was getting towards the end of my PhD
	...

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