https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210114-covid-19-how-effective-is-a-single-vaccine-dose

Sputnik V

The Sputnik V vaccine is named after the world's first artificial satellite, the iconic Soviet-era "Sputnik 1", which was launched into low Earth orbit in October 1957 – it burned up three months later when its batteries died. Its namesake was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, Russia.

Any time Russia or the USSR are mentioned there needs to be some added slight in the text.

Is this meant to hint something about the vaccine? Or just about Russian manufacturing.

  • panopticon [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Sputnik's battery was only supposed to last 3 weeks anyway, and they used its orbital decay to estimate the density of the upper atmosphere, so it was never intended to stay up there indefinitely... Meaning the satellite worked pretty much exactly as intended. So yeah, it's a smarmy remark about Russian manufacturing, real small bitch energy. But those details are in like the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page, so at least they did their research.

    • howdyoudoo [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      all of this is besides the point: BBC is using a logical fallacy here.

      But this fallacy hasn't been named yet. We need a name

      "The shoehorning in of a fact that is irrelevant to the point, in order to display a strong bias."