9 ms·

This is a really big claim, so some background checking: The paper was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics[0] (this accepted version is materially

by maest 6y ago

This is a really big claim, so some background checking: The paper was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics[0] (this accepted version is materially different from the original link posted here). Only thing I could find about Birger Sorensen's was his Linkedin page [1a] and the Immunor page where he's listed as the Chairman [1b]. Angus Dagleish looks legit, although it's notable that he did stand for Parliament in 2016 as a UKIP candidate, according to Wikipedia[2]. Can't find any primary sources for Andreas Susrud. [0]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/DBBC0FA6E3763B0067CAAD8F3363E527/S2633289220000083a.pdf/biovacc19_a_candidate_vaccine_for_covid19_sarscov2_developed_from_analysis_of_its_general_method_of_action_for_infectivity.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c... [1a]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/birger-sorensen-174a20b/?originalSubdomain=no https://www.linkedin.com/in/birger-sorensen-174a20b/?origina... btw, if this is considered doxxing, let me know and I can remove the link. [1b]: https://immunor.com/about-immunor/board-of-directors/ https://immunor.com/about-immunor/board-of-directors/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Dalgleish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Dalgleish

chrisco255 6y ago
Why do the background checking? Why not just consider the arguments on their merits alone? That's what science is.
- maest 6y ago
  I disagree. Or rather, I don't think this is about doing science. In many aspects of our lives we rely on the advice of experts. Personally, as I am not a trained biologist, I am unable to reliably decide if the arguments here are right or wrong. I also believe the vast majoriy of people are in a similar position. As a result, the only options are to look at: 1. The scientific consensus. 2. The legitimacy of the people making the claims. It's too early for 1, so 2 is what remains.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    In many aspects we rely on multiple and competing opinions from various experts. It's not unheard of to go see half a dozen or more experts for treatment recommendations from various experts on a disease. Covid is a novel virus, so nobody has any more than 6 months or so of experience with this particular virus. So first of all, the rush to consensus is a mistake for a novel virus. Secondly, ascertaining the origin of a virus is not something that you garner from consensus. It takes serious investigative work that may take years. So, again, consensus is just a way to cast complex, nuanced topics as flat, solved for things. That's not the case in most scientific subjects. #2 is not what remains. You can engage with the arguments and the logic. Even as a layperson.
  - neilwilson 6y ago
    Who says an expert is an expert? Catholic priests are all experts in catholicism. They write papers about Catholicism, all peer reviewed by other experts in catholicism. Most agree the Pope is infallible. Groupthink is still Groupthink and belief is still belief. Hence why we have debacles like the lipid hypothesis.
    - JohnStrangeII 6y ago
      It is very easy to find out whether someone is an expert, as long as you really want to and don't just fool around. For example, an expert on viral diseases will have a long track record of publications in highly acclaimed journals for the past 30 years or longer. For the purpose of validation or expert testimony, there is no need to consider everyone who has a PhD and got tenure an expert. It is reasonable to set the bar very high. The expert on catholicism example is a needless distraction. Of course, there are such experts on catholicism, and they can tell you best what catholic doctrine says. Their opinions about virology are obviously irrelevant, though.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        It's not easy at all. By your measure, Professor Ferguson at ICL is an expert in predicting diseases. He's got a big team and has been doing it for more than 20 years. Many published papers. Invited repeatedly to advise world government's due to his expert status. Widely asserted to be the best in his field. Guess what - it appears every prediction he ever made was wildly wrong. His predictions for COVID were also wildly wrong. His code was released and it was full of severe bugs. He told the world millions would die of COVID and then when they didn't, claimed his expert recommendations had saved them, all in a fraudulent paper that assumed as a prior that the virus in Sweden mysteriously behaved totally differently to everywhere else and that only lockdowns can possibly affect the course of an epidemic (despite knowing that it isn't true). This guy has been a failure and fraud his entire life. So has his entire field. It's not just him. All the expert epidemiologists produced models that failed to track reality in any way at all. Yet, he's an expert by any proxy metric you care to pick. His colleagues rally around, his university protects him, Nature magazine published apologetics for him. He's an expert, unless you pick the only test that matters - are his papers correct? I know it's scary. But decades, perhaps centuries of near sheep-like behaviour towards science and academics has led to their institutions being saturated with incompetence and fraud. They have no working institutional mechanisms to detect or clear it out. That's why so many fields have "skeptic" movements that "deny" the science. Usually they aren't actually science-deniers as painted, they're people who expected the so-called science to actually care about the scientific method and do their sums right. When they discover that it isn't happening they blog about the errors they found, and the next thing they know, they're being demonised by the press and the very self-same scientists they're criticising. Not because they are wrong, but because they are dangerously right.
- lemmsjid 6y ago
  I think it's valid in a politically charged scenario such as this one to take into account the motivation behind the research as well as the research itself. At least in a forum like this one, as opposed to similar research papers. And I think the GP did it in an even handed way.
- robbiep 6y ago
  In science (as in politics) it is important to understand the reputations of the people who have produced research. Andrew Wakefield being a terrific example. It's also important to point out that this is pretty much an opinion piece.
- zenhack 6y ago
  Can't speak for the OP, but for myself: I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. But sometimes when you get some out-there questionable sounding stuff research, and you spend a minute googling, you quickly find out that the journal the thing is published in is chaired by the author and itself has no credibility, the author is selling some form of snake oil directly supported by the dubious claims, and similar. Sure technically their argument ought to stand on it's own anyway, but there are so many quacks out there and so little time. It's a useful optimization.
  - thinker912345 6y ago
    > I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. A "background check" does not change this fact, nor does your point actually negate the comment you are responding too. No one here is arguing that you must listen and believe everything that someone has written in a paper, but things must be proven and disproven. "Background checking" in any form is not science. It might help you make a decision. But that does not make the decision a scientific one even if you consider it "an informed" decision. To be completely honest, it has become silly that things like this need to be said and reirerated so often on HN.
    - philwelch 6y ago
      As a non-expert, if someone says something unusual that would require expertise in the field to say with credibility, I have every right to verify their expertise. Or to at least verify whether or not they have a history of things like “being convicted of fraud” or “being barred from practicing medicine due to publishing fraudulent papers in the Lancet”.
    - aaron695 6y ago
      Do you think pagerank works? Do you think it's unscientific? Should we look at websites in random order after a search? Don't confuse the fact h-index has significant issues with the idea it is useless.
    - chris_wot 6y ago
- strstr 6y ago
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Doubly so when there is motivated reasoning behind the argument. If a pharma company came out with a paper saying “we’re almost done developing a cure for cancer!”, people would be rightly skeptical. Lethal manmade viruses are less ridiculous than that, but I’d still classify them as very surprising. Motivated reasoning for those with political ends should be unsurprising when it comes to discussing whether covid is manmade. Checking background/credentials is due diligence to ensure you aren’t being duped. I wish the world exclusive operated on good faith argumentation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- esalman 6y ago
  Actually it makes sense to background check from an ethical point of view. There's a reason you are supposed to disclose your affiliation, source of funding, conflict of interest, human subject consent statements etc when publishing any bio paper.
bitcurious 6y ago
>“The authors feel that, in light of this preponderance of circumstantial evidence, the hypothesis that the biogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 involved human intervention should be seen as the leading (i.e. most likely) explanation.” I think they are just two different papers. The linked paper has the following quote: >We have just (2nd June 2020) published Biovacc-19 in QRB-Discovery: a candidate vaccine for this daunting task (Sørensen et al., 2020).
atc 6y ago
So what if Angus stood for UKIP? He's entitled to his views. How is that relevant to virus research or his scientific credentials?!
- thu2111 6y ago
  It's not of course, it's chaff from the sort of leftists who don't believe anyone who believes in local government should be allowed to have any influence.
  - maest 6y ago
    I don't appreciate the snide remark. This is a politically charged topic so any strong political affilications are notable. I would've also mentioned it if he had run for lib-dems or green or any other party.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      The idea this is relevant to the argument relies on a hugely convoluted and entirely unarticulated conspiracy theory of the form ... "the paper is a clever obfuscation that's not really about the stated topic but rather designed to push the political goals of ukip" but there's no plausible way that's true. It's about as relevant as saying the guy is a dog owner.
fastasucan 6y ago
Might find more if you search for Birger Sørensen. He is kind of legit from previous work however he is viewed as a fringe character in Norway with this, and "no-one" supports this.

by maest 6y ago

chrisco255 6y ago

Why do the background checking? Why not just consider the arguments on their merits alone? That's what science is.

maest 6y ago
I disagree. Or rather, I don't think this is about doing science. In many aspects of our lives we rely on the advice of experts. Personally, as I am not a trained biologist, I am unable to reliably decide if the arguments here are right or wrong. I also believe the vast majoriy of people are in a similar position. As a result, the only options are to look at: 1. The scientific consensus. 2. The legitimacy of the people making the claims. It's too early for 1, so 2 is what remains.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  In many aspects we rely on multiple and competing opinions from various experts. It's not unheard of to go see half a dozen or more experts for treatment recommendations from various experts on a disease. Covid is a novel virus, so nobody has any more than 6 months or so of experience with this particular virus. So first of all, the rush to consensus is a mistake for a novel virus. Secondly, ascertaining the origin of a virus is not something that you garner from consensus. It takes serious investigative work that may take years. So, again, consensus is just a way to cast complex, nuanced topics as flat, solved for things. That's not the case in most scientific subjects. #2 is not what remains. You can engage with the arguments and the logic. Even as a layperson.
- neilwilson 6y ago
  Who says an expert is an expert? Catholic priests are all experts in catholicism. They write papers about Catholicism, all peer reviewed by other experts in catholicism. Most agree the Pope is infallible. Groupthink is still Groupthink and belief is still belief. Hence why we have debacles like the lipid hypothesis.
  - JohnStrangeII 6y ago
    It is very easy to find out whether someone is an expert, as long as you really want to and don't just fool around. For example, an expert on viral diseases will have a long track record of publications in highly acclaimed journals for the past 30 years or longer. For the purpose of validation or expert testimony, there is no need to consider everyone who has a PhD and got tenure an expert. It is reasonable to set the bar very high. The expert on catholicism example is a needless distraction. Of course, there are such experts on catholicism, and they can tell you best what catholic doctrine says. Their opinions about virology are obviously irrelevant, though.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      It's not easy at all. By your measure, Professor Ferguson at ICL is an expert in predicting diseases. He's got a big team and has been doing it for more than 20 years. Many published papers. Invited repeatedly to advise world government's due to his expert status. Widely asserted to be the best in his field. Guess what - it appears every prediction he ever made was wildly wrong. His predictions for COVID were also wildly wrong. His code was released and it was full of severe bugs. He told the world millions would die of COVID and then when they didn't, claimed his expert recommendations had saved them, all in a fraudulent paper that assumed as a prior that the virus in Sweden mysteriously behaved totally differently to everywhere else and that only lockdowns can possibly affect the course of an epidemic (despite knowing that it isn't true). This guy has been a failure and fraud his entire life. So has his entire field. It's not just him. All the expert epidemiologists produced models that failed to track reality in any way at all. Yet, he's an expert by any proxy metric you care to pick. His colleagues rally around, his university protects him, Nature magazine published apologetics for him. He's an expert, unless you pick the only test that matters - are his papers correct? I know it's scary. But decades, perhaps centuries of near sheep-like behaviour towards science and academics has led to their institutions being saturated with incompetence and fraud. They have no working institutional mechanisms to detect or clear it out. That's why so many fields have "skeptic" movements that "deny" the science. Usually they aren't actually science-deniers as painted, they're people who expected the so-called science to actually care about the scientific method and do their sums right. When they discover that it isn't happening they blog about the errors they found, and the next thing they know, they're being demonised by the press and the very self-same scientists they're criticising. Not because they are wrong, but because they are dangerously right.
lemmsjid 6y ago
I think it's valid in a politically charged scenario such as this one to take into account the motivation behind the research as well as the research itself. At least in a forum like this one, as opposed to similar research papers. And I think the GP did it in an even handed way.
robbiep 6y ago
In science (as in politics) it is important to understand the reputations of the people who have produced research. Andrew Wakefield being a terrific example. It's also important to point out that this is pretty much an opinion piece.
zenhack 6y ago
Can't speak for the OP, but for myself: I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. But sometimes when you get some out-there questionable sounding stuff research, and you spend a minute googling, you quickly find out that the journal the thing is published in is chaired by the author and itself has no credibility, the author is selling some form of snake oil directly supported by the dubious claims, and similar. Sure technically their argument ought to stand on it's own anyway, but there are so many quacks out there and so little time. It's a useful optimization.
- thinker912345 6y ago
  > I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. A "background check" does not change this fact, nor does your point actually negate the comment you are responding too. No one here is arguing that you must listen and believe everything that someone has written in a paper, but things must be proven and disproven. "Background checking" in any form is not science. It might help you make a decision. But that does not make the decision a scientific one even if you consider it "an informed" decision. To be completely honest, it has become silly that things like this need to be said and reirerated so often on HN.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    As a non-expert, if someone says something unusual that would require expertise in the field to say with credibility, I have every right to verify their expertise. Or to at least verify whether or not they have a history of things like “being convicted of fraud” or “being barred from practicing medicine due to publishing fraudulent papers in the Lancet”.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    Do you think pagerank works? Do you think it's unscientific? Should we look at websites in random order after a search? Don't confuse the fact h-index has significant issues with the idea it is useless.
  - chris_wot 6y ago
strstr 6y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Doubly so when there is motivated reasoning behind the argument. If a pharma company came out with a paper saying “we’re almost done developing a cure for cancer!”, people would be rightly skeptical. Lethal manmade viruses are less ridiculous than that, but I’d still classify them as very surprising. Motivated reasoning for those with political ends should be unsurprising when it comes to discussing whether covid is manmade. Checking background/credentials is due diligence to ensure you aren’t being duped. I wish the world exclusive operated on good faith argumentation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
esalman 6y ago
Actually it makes sense to background check from an ethical point of view. There's a reason you are supposed to disclose your affiliation, source of funding, conflict of interest, human subject consent statements etc when publishing any bio paper.

bitcurious 6y ago

>“The authors feel that, in light of this preponderance of circumstantial evidence, the hypothesis that the biogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 involved human intervention should be seen as the leading (i.e. most likely) explanation.” I think they are just two different papers. The linked paper has the following quote: >We have just (2nd June 2020) published Biovacc-19 in QRB-Discovery: a candidate vaccine for this daunting task (Sørensen et al., 2020).

atc 6y ago

So what if Angus stood for UKIP? He's entitled to his views. How is that relevant to virus research or his scientific credentials?!

thu2111 6y ago
It's not of course, it's chaff from the sort of leftists who don't believe anyone who believes in local government should be allowed to have any influence.
- maest 6y ago
  I don't appreciate the snide remark. This is a politically charged topic so any strong political affilications are notable. I would've also mentioned it if he had run for lib-dems or green or any other party.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    The idea this is relevant to the argument relies on a hugely convoluted and entirely unarticulated conspiracy theory of the form ... "the paper is a clever obfuscation that's not really about the stated topic but rather designed to push the political goals of ukip" but there's no plausible way that's true. It's about as relevant as saying the guy is a dog owner.

fastasucan 6y ago

Might find more if you search for Birger Sørensen. He is kind of legit from previous work however he is viewed as a fringe character in Norway with this, and "no-one" supports this.