4 ms·
Seems like a cheap shot to me. Does twitter as a communication medium somehow invalidate what was being said? One quoted thread was from "Tony VanDongen, an a
by sliken 5y ago
Seems like a cheap shot to me. Does twitter as a communication medium somehow invalidate what was being said?
One quoted thread was from "Tony VanDongen, an associate professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke"
Seems like a reasonably valid opinion from someone with a clue. He's addressing specifically why Omicron is weird, and doesn't look like a normal evolution of COVID-19.
Another is from "Scott Ferguson, a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences and a postdoc at the Harvard Center for Systems Biology".
3rd and 4th are: "Phillip Buckhaults, Ph.D., is a molecular biologist and cancer geneticist at the University of South Carolina" and "Valentin Bruttel, who received his PhD in 2016 at the University of Würzburg (Germany) where he studied tumor immunology, autoimmune diseases, and development of biologicals"
A key diagram used is a Phylogenetic Tree from Science.
Looks like a collection of valuable scientific info, collected to support an opinion. Not saying it proves COVID came from a lab leak, but it's not just random speculation. Seems like a pretty valuable discussion to me.
Wouldn't you want to know if a disease impacting billions of people looked inconsistent with a naturally evolved virus? The scientist involved mention possible other explanations, poor models, etc. But do seem to lean towards a likely explanation of artificially tweaks to get omicron.
- tatersolid 5y ago> Does twitter as a communication medium somehow invalidate what was being said? Pretty much. Serious people discussing serious things don’t use Twitter as their communication medium.
- carlivar 5y agoWhat do they use?
- rob_c 5y agoSerious people on serious topics, journals, peer reviewed publications, non anonymous blogs, large email threads... Almost anything other than a) social media and b) anonymous platforms
- netizen-936824 5y agoTwitter is not anonymous and the authors have their real names attached. Their credentials are easy to verify It's not peer reviewed but that shouldn't discount the opinions of people who work in the field
- rob_c 5y agoYes, but you don't find identified and certified accounts discussing technical details exclusively and exhaustively there...
- challenger-derp 5y agoHate to be the bearer of bad news but you're outdated on this point. Researchers & politicians of repute use Twitter to voice their opinion and share stuff with the public.
- rob_c 5y agoI didn't say these platforms are never used. In this context I don't regard the public as an entity where you have a meaningful engagement on a topic. An individual yes, but the public as a whole is broadcast to. Hate to break it to you, trump likely never read your tweets...
- botev 5y agoSo Twitter only for the Every Day Joe? This sounds like BS. How many scientists that you probably follow, have announced news around Covid, via Twitter. You've probably even re-tweeted them lol.