4 ms·

At this point I'm no longer sure if that'd be good or bad. It's highly speculative, and does a lot of cherry picking, and an informed reader can read it for wha

by fer 5y ago

At this point I'm no longer sure if that'd be good or bad. It's highly speculative, and does a lot of cherry picking, and an informed reader can read it for what it is, but it dumbs down some things so far as to make it fodder for the tinfoil hat crowd. And it's especially ugly when it justifies the cherry picking as "it's because these people don't make their living with GoF research". Substack is becoming YouTube for text at this point.

indigodaddy 5y ago
Hmm, dunno, I thought it was a great article, with the main takeaway being that GoF research is unequivocally and inarguably dangerous AF, should be halted ASAP, if not forever then for a long period of time where we can proverbially have a breather such that the scientific community can engage in an official reassessment/reexamination upon its safety and viability.
- fer 5y ago
  It's great to oversee certain hypotheses, but as a whole it's largely clickbait, IMO. Aside from what I said, for example, GoF research generally introduces silent mutations at about the same rate as natural evolution, because it's experimental evolution after all. Likewise, such research often implies loss-of-function, due to uneven selection pressure (unless you do GoF in humans, which isn't really needed in a pandemic scenario). But on the other hand, he raises the point of the low level of silent mutations, which is more a case of genetic modification than GoF, and doesn't even mention the possible loss-of-function. So even though the lab leak is plausible, she's using arguments that contradict each other, knowing that at least one of them is invalid (most certainly the GoF one).
kelnos 5y ago
I'm not convinced that censoring ideas is healthy. Outright lies and attempts to generate panic and outrage might be an exception. But this isn't what's happening here: the article may be speculative and flawed, and may turn out to be incorrect, but it makes its case with actual real data, not with hand-waving and conspiracy theories. Even if none of the "popular" variants (or the original virus) came from a lab leak, this is an angle we need to be investigating, and silencing people who talk about it is counterproductive and dangerous. Sure, the tinfoil hat crowd will likely take things like this and run with them in all the wrong ways. But that's going to happen regardless, and that's just the price of living in a society where we can and should be able to discuss ideas freely, even ideas many of us may vehemently disagree with.
- fer 5y ago
  Censoring ideas isn't healthy, but platforms that snowball bits of information into dangerous wackery for ad revenue aren't exactly healthy either. It's funny how some people are swift to be against gain-of-function research because of its dangers, but when it's social media the one playing with petri dishes of information for (and I think I'm going to coin a new term here) "gain-of-engagement research", then for the same people free speech is paramount and social media blocking content is literally 1984. Not saying that's you or GP, but it's a common overlap in my experience. Everyone should be able to read whatever they want. I can't argue with that, because I defend that. What I disagree with is with corporations (or any institution, really) abusing their position to spoon-feed content only to maximize some function regardless the externalities of the spread of such content. That's not free speech, that's giving a megaphone to the loudest and most digestible yet polarizing ideas. So, sure, I think GP should be always allowed to share that on his FB with their peers. But maybe feeding that content to people who will potentially misunderstand it just because it generates engagement isn't the best thing to do. How can FB know that? No idea, but it shouldn't be our problem.

by fer 5y ago

indigodaddy 5y ago

Hmm, dunno, I thought it was a great article, with the main takeaway being that GoF research is unequivocally and inarguably dangerous AF, should be halted ASAP, if not forever then for a long period of time where we can proverbially have a breather such that the scientific community can engage in an official reassessment/reexamination upon its safety and viability.

fer 5y ago
It's great to oversee certain hypotheses, but as a whole it's largely clickbait, IMO. Aside from what I said, for example, GoF research generally introduces silent mutations at about the same rate as natural evolution, because it's experimental evolution after all. Likewise, such research often implies loss-of-function, due to uneven selection pressure (unless you do GoF in humans, which isn't really needed in a pandemic scenario). But on the other hand, he raises the point of the low level of silent mutations, which is more a case of genetic modification than GoF, and doesn't even mention the possible loss-of-function. So even though the lab leak is plausible, she's using arguments that contradict each other, knowing that at least one of them is invalid (most certainly the GoF one).

kelnos 5y ago

I'm not convinced that censoring ideas is healthy. Outright lies and attempts to generate panic and outrage might be an exception. But this isn't what's happening here: the article may be speculative and flawed, and may turn out to be incorrect, but it makes its case with actual real data, not with hand-waving and conspiracy theories. Even if none of the "popular" variants (or the original virus) came from a lab leak, this is an angle we need to be investigating, and silencing people who talk about it is counterproductive and dangerous. Sure, the tinfoil hat crowd will likely take things like this and run with them in all the wrong ways. But that's going to happen regardless, and that's just the price of living in a society where we can and should be able to discuss ideas freely, even ideas many of us may vehemently disagree with.

fer 5y ago
Censoring ideas isn't healthy, but platforms that snowball bits of information into dangerous wackery for ad revenue aren't exactly healthy either. It's funny how some people are swift to be against gain-of-function research because of its dangers, but when it's social media the one playing with petri dishes of information for (and I think I'm going to coin a new term here) "gain-of-engagement research", then for the same people free speech is paramount and social media blocking content is literally 1984. Not saying that's you or GP, but it's a common overlap in my experience. Everyone should be able to read whatever they want. I can't argue with that, because I defend that. What I disagree with is with corporations (or any institution, really) abusing their position to spoon-feed content only to maximize some function regardless the externalities of the spread of such content. That's not free speech, that's giving a megaphone to the loudest and most digestible yet polarizing ideas. So, sure, I think GP should be always allowed to share that on his FB with their peers. But maybe feeding that content to people who will potentially misunderstand it just because it generates engagement isn't the best thing to do. How can FB know that? No idea, but it shouldn't be our problem.