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The author affiliations are listed as "Rule of Law Society". A quick google search shows that it is a political non-profit dedicated to "investigating Chinese
by djaque 6y ago
The author affiliations are listed as "Rule of Law Society". A quick google search shows that it is a political non-profit dedicated to "investigating Chinese corruption" and is led by Steve Bannon of all people [1].
Given the extraordinary nature of the claims, the fact that this didn't see any peer review and isn't published in a real journal as well as the clear political motivations of the money behind the study, my BS meter is going off the charts. Even the name of the document "The Yan Report" makes it sound like a political hit piece cosplaying as a scientific article.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/steve-bannon-guo-wengui/2020/09/13/8b43cd06-e964-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/steve-bannon-guo-wen...
- cafed00d 6y agoAn aside though: ^^This comment crystallizes the best of hn. Within 30s I was able to learn so much — The gist of the paper, about how nefarious activities masquerade as academic research, politics and money in funding, and hardcore commitment of folks like Steve Bannon in pushing the overton window on trade relations, geopolitics etc. Phew!
- DarthGhandi 6y agoHeadlines are all you need in the modern world. It's enough.
- throwaway4good 6y agoThe author Li Meng Yan is also a regular on Bannon's 4-hour daily YouTube-show "War Room Pandemic" which is absolutely crazy. However they have a lot of money from some curious Chinese groups and you shouldn't underestimate how much influence they have over the current US administration.
- jl2718 6y agoYour statement implies that “Hacker News” is primarily talking about people. Is that what “Hackers” do now?
- davvolun 6y agoHackers talk about tech. Tech can't be separated from people and politics anymore than anything else can.
- Uberphallus 6y agoI was reading half through the paper and it was kinda sketchy but I'm not an expert so I kept going, only to check the comments and wow, thanks for pointing these out.
- ttflee 6y agoPutting the Bannon label aside, this paper seems to be well written and proofread. The claims fell into the range of educated guess and reasonable doubts. EDIT: You may like or dislike Bannon and/or Trump, but I judged this paper using my only knowledge in biochemistry/molecular cloning from when I was trained during undergraduate.
- markvdb 6y ago> Putting the Bannon label aside, No. The Bannon label is the problem here. White collar way to start dumpster fires. This is malice. Knowingly and actively undermining public trust in the scientific method. Whatever works to make two stones fight.
- selfhoster11 6y agoYou are committing the genetic fallacy[0] by stating your argument in this way. A paper like this should be judged on its merits, not its origin. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
- taylodl 6y agoIdeally, yes, but practically no. We are in the midst of a massive disinformation campaign aimed to undermine public trust in public institutions. It takes time to properly evaluate a paper in the manner you describe - and that's a key element of their game. Keep you distracted so they can control the narrative. No. We have to collectively decide to stop playing their game and shut it off at the source. Therefore our strategy must be to ignore papers from known bad actors.
- markvdb 6y agoThat would be absolutely true for those with unlimited mental bandwidth and time, large nations' intelligence services for example. If one wants my attention for something that looks like scientific writing, except for rare exceptions at my personal discretion, one will have to go through peer review - the main filter of the scientific method. Otherwise, the bin.
- soVeryTired 6y agoNice job uncovering the link to Bannon. In the abstract, aside from the claim of ‘censorship by the scientific community’, I thought this line was a red flag: * In this report, we describe the genomic, structural, medical, and literature evidence...* If they had decent scientific evidence, they’d be pounding on it. Instead it sounds like they’re trying to cobble together a story from bits of cherry-picked analysis.
- jerome-jh 6y agoIf not censorship, there is self-censorship in the scientific community. Who wants to sacrifice its carrier, funding, link with chinese labs? Even if not told aloud or published, entire teams are intimately convinced the virus was released by the Wuhan BSL4, although not necessarily intentionally. I am not surprised only "politically motivated" scientists try to break that out. I am absolutely not in favor of Bannon either.
- Uberphallus 6y agoActually, after going through the paper, most concerns seem to me like cherry picked data, except for the fact that Shi theoretically found the RaTG13 (the "origin" of SARS-CoV-2) in 2013. Even though it displayed potential for human infection and literally her job was to analyse bat coronaviruses with human infection potential, the virus was shelved for 7 years, and there's NO scientific literature, produced by her or otherwise, about this virus. Not until the pandemic arrived, at least, then she's the first to say "nCoV-2019 actually comes from the bat coronavirus RaTG13, look how similar they are, it's zoonotic, teeheehee".
- dependenttypes 6y agoHow true is this? I was under the impression that all of the coronaviruses were published in a public repository even before the outbreak started.
- Uberphallus 6y ago
- codecamper 6y agoCan we just break his legs already?
- dirtyid 6y agoI've been following this mess for a while. Banon/Guo has been playing up Yan since she fled HK in late April. She's been doing media circuits on usual alternative media properties. HKU, her previous employer released a statement characterizing some of her claims as "hearsay" and rejected her assertion that she worked on covid19 early in the outbreak [0]. Brief timeline: mid April - China indicates they will hammer National Security Law to HK* late April - Yan defects Early May - rumors spread of alleged Chinese virologist defection, western rag media misattributed to Shi Zhengli "bat woman" who worked at Wuhan institute of Virology. She's 56, renown in her field. Late May - Chinese media confirms it was Yan MengLi, she's in her 30s, and basically a labtech. They traced her to Guo's villa in NY, alleging that she paid her to defect [1]. July - Now - Yan starts her wave of interviews on western alt media. HKU disavows her claims. Late August - Banon/Guo is being probed by FBI. Now - Banon/Guo doubles down on Yan and lab modification narrative. *NSL law timing is significant, the fact that she bailed HK so fast after NSL announcement is (conjecture) because she was already in contact with Guo prior. Guo is at the very top of CCP fugitive shitlist. CCP doesn't do much social media manipulation on western platforms, but when they do, he's almost always targeted. She would have been 100% dead if they found out she was coordinating with him regardless of the credibility of her claims. Personally, I think she's digging for a US VISA and at least being paid well by Guo, Banon/Guo digging for good graces with Trump for FBI probe. [0]https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/21274.html https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/21274.html [1]http://www.nextdigital.cc/index.php/2020/05/22/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E7%97%85%E6%AF%92%E5%B0%88%E5%AE%B6%E8%A2%AB%E9%83%AD%E6%96%87%E8%B2%B4%E8%97%8F%E5%9C%A8%E7%B4%90%E7%B4%84%E4%B8%80%E5%88%A5%E5%A2%85%E4%B8%AD/ http://www.nextdigital.cc/index.php/2020/05/22/%E4%B8%AD%E5%...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- threeseed 6y agoNot really buying the visa angle. She is young, highly skilled and in an industry which most countries have high demand for. Could easily get into UK, EU, AU/NZ etc.
- 6y ago
- tibbydudeza 6y agoNo doubt all paid for by Bannon's Chinese billionaire yacht friend Guo Wengui that is wanted by Beijing for corruption and now wants "asylum" in the US. Since the Chinese govt don't bother with gulags in Siberia for corruption charges , they rather shoot you in the back of the head. I can't really blame the guy.
- davesque 6y agoConsidering how egregious the funding source is for this, I felt justified in flagging it.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y agoBut you probably should read the paper first.
- m0llusk 6y agoIn other words, unique features of this study indicate it was constructed in a political laboratory and does not emerge from scientific practice.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y agoIt has references for each claim, in the very end. Lot's of completely neutral scientists (such as inhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/340924249_Is_considering_a_genetic-manipulation_origin_for_SARS-CoV-2_a_conspiracy_theory_that_must_be_censored https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340924249_Is_consid...) have voiced concerns about the dominant hypothesis of natural origin.
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoWith tongue firmly in cheek I have to ask you for evidence of the existence of such an entity as a "completely neutral scientist" :p
- SomeoneFromCA 6y agoI mean neutral in a sense that there is no obvious gain for them to fabricate the data.