Vaccines, fertility, and a cargo cult

I originally planned to write another response to the reaction of SMIS to this article, but I realised there's no point in arguing with a cult. Instead, I have decided to zoom out and take a broader look at what SMIS represents. This is not just about one very sad group. It's about anyone trying to sell you a simple explanation or a quick “debunk” of something that’s deeply complex.

Wolfgang Pauli, the physicist, once dismissed a confused paper with the words "Das ist nicht einmal falsch" – "That’s not even wrong." It couldn’t be disproven because it didn’t make enough sense to test in the first place. And that’s the trouble with trying to argue with a cult-like mindset – one that confuses surface rituals of science for the real thing. 

Richard Feynman described a concept called "cargo cult science." After World War II, islanders in the Pacific built bamboo replicas of airstrips, control towers and radios, hoping it would bring back the American planes filled with goods. They copied the form, but not the substance, and the planes obviously never returned.

SMIS isn't just building symbolic airstrips. They're also building their own airplanes. They publish plots about “collapsing fertility among vaccinated women,” draw naive curves from public datasets, and declare them as proof of something extraordinary, something that the others might be even trying to hide. But like the islanders, they lack aerodynamics (a testable hypothesis), physics (proper depth), and electronics (statistics).

A line on a graph is followed by sweeping claims about health risks, censorship, and betrayal by science. When someone points out missing context or alternative explanations, like economic instability, the response is that “we used real population data”, and thus, statistics are unnecessary. And when six editorial boards reject their manuscript before peer review, they don't reflect on their methods – they suspect conspiracy.

It’s not ignorance. Many people behind SMIS are educated. One works in an IVF clinic and calls herself an immunologist, another has a math degree, another leads a national lab for arboviruses, one is a former veterinarian and a pharma employee turned taxi driver, and another studied metallurgy but now claims expertise in virus origins.

What’s missing is not intellect but an awareness of their limits. Real science is slow, uncertain, and messy. SMIS replaces it with a simplified story crafted to go viral. Maybe it’s frustration from unfulfilled academic careers, maybe it’s the comfort of thinking the world is secretly simple and controlled. I don’t know. But the planes they’re waiting for still haven’t landed, ... and they never will.

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On platforms like Instagram and TikTok, what matters is not who you really are, but how well you present a version of yourself that others will like and share. People build online identities that are more polished than their real lives. These images and impressions become more important than the person behind them. We don’t just live with this kind of make-believe; we live inside it.

This idea is not new. Long before social media, the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard described something similar. He wrote about a world of “hyperreality,” where signs, images, and narratives no longer connect to real life. In his theory of simulation, Baudrillard explained how we move from showing reality, to distorting it, to eventually replacing it with polished versions that become more powerful than truth itself. He focused on media and advertising, but his thinking fits our current digital world perfectly.

Many believe science is immune to these trends. But increasingly, we treat science like something that must always be promoted, especially on LinkedIn. Every project or consortium gets its own sleek website. Every minor update is shared with upbeat hashtags and glowing language. Researchers are encouraged to be not only scientists, but also ambassadors and thought leaders, shaping how others see them. And yes, the author of this piece is also guilty of playing that game.

As a result, science is slowly becoming more about how it looks. It’s not just about doing meaningful work, it’s about showing that you're doing it in the right way, with the right optics. Metrics like citation counts, impact factors, and h-indices have become signals of quality, even if they say little about actual content. We learn to write papers for reviewers rather than for readers. Grant proposals are shaped to match current trends, using the right buzzwords and promises of social impact, rather than asking the most important or challenging questions. Often, the hottest topics are selected and amplified by well-meaning but trend-driven bureaucrats in funding agencies or charities. The result is that we stop observing the world around us and start performing for the systems that judge us.

This also affects how we present our findings. Research papers are often written as if the process was smooth and the story clear, even if the actual work was messy and uncertain. Over time, scientists figure out what editors and reviewers want, and it’s rarely slow, careful, incremental work. Instead, we aim for a clean narrative that fits expectations. When these stories reach the media, they’re often turned into dramatic headlines and inflated promises. Science looks less like a method for discovering truth and more like a polished product designed to impress.

If this continues, science could lose both its internal compass and the public's trust. Outside audiences may grow tired of the hype and constant contradictions. But inside the system, the damage could be worse. When everyone chases attention and funding, the kind of patient, risky, foundational work that drives real progress gets pushed aside. If we can’t tell the difference between looking successful and being useful, we risk losing what science is meant to be.

Baudrillard wasn’t writing about science, but his warning applies here too. The more we focus on appearances, the less we see what really matters. If we want science to stay honest and valuable, we need to push back against the pressure to constantly perform. We should reward truth-seeking, not storytelling. We should make space for slow, uncertain, and unglamorous work. If we don’t, we may end up trapped in a mirror maze where everything looks convincing, but nothing leads us forward.