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The main point that no scientists seems to want to mention is the clear cut and well defined conflict of interest in determining the origins. How would the sci

• deleted 4y ago
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• spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Scientists are not a monolith. I highly doubt any of them are concerned about the macro level feasibility of science funding. It's fine.
  • b4je7d7wb 4y ago
    They could be subconciously following the herd
    • spywaregorilla 4y ago
      A scientist could be following a herd, but that is irrelevant to the point.
      • programmarchy 4y ago
        It’s not irrelevant because a herd behaves in a monolithic way.
  • jcims 4y ago
    They aren't a monolith but there is a pretty large overlap between the set of scientists that would be negatively impacted by major policy changes in virus research and those who's opinion is considered useful in the discussion of possible origins of SARS-CoV-2.
    • notahacker 4y ago
      There is also a pretty large overlap between the set of scientists who would be positively impacted by major policy changes in virus research. "We need more money to research coronaviruses because we can't trust our counterparts in China" and "Funding should be restricted to labs in $homecountry with better biosecurity controls" are fairly natural conclusions to draw from discovering it was Chinese error, and "this is an arms race we have to fund to win" from discovering it was Chinese malfeasance.
      • shmel 4y ago
        Yeah, right, but it may also backfire if all gain-of-function research is banned. Imagine if we accidentally invented a rogue AI that caused as much disruption worldwide as covid did? Would you trust the general public and policymakers to come up with conclusions "it is fine, we continue AI research only in big corps based in SF, we can trust those" rather than "AI bad, ban AI research!"? I remember when this controversy about NIH grants just started, Fauci said: "if you want to ban gain-of-function research, you may just as well ban the virology entirely". And honestly, I am fine with that. I advocate for banning all gain-of-function research. If virologists can't do anything else except engineering deadly viruses on purpose, it is their problem.
      • jimmydorry 4y ago
        This kind of research was already banned in America, which is why American money was funelled towards WIV research grants to continue the research with less oversight and off American soil [1]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699 https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699 >This body did give money to an organisation that collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. >That organisation - the US-based EcoHealth Alliance - was awarded a grant in 2014 to look into possible coronaviruses from bats. >EcoHealth received $3.7m from the NIH, $600,000 of which was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. >In 2019, its project was renewed for another five years, but then pulled by the Trump administration in April 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. >Senator Paul believes the research did qualify as "gain-of-function" research, and referred to two academic papers by the Chinese institute, one from 2015 (written together with the University of North Carolina), and another from 2017.
  • mannykannot 4y ago
    I suspect you are mostly right in that many are more concerned about funding - and publication - at the micro (personal) level, and this might discourage many from going against the establishment armed only with speculation. As for the scientific establishment (eg the NIH in the USA), it is very politically aware and was apparently determined to speak with a single voice. Somewhat ironically, this may have made it impossible for them to put an end to lab-origin hypotheses, even if they are false.
  • programmarchy 4y ago
    > not a monolith > I highly doubt any of them Do you see the problem with your reasoning here? If you say scientists are not a monolith, then you don’t get to make sweeping generalizations about them.
    • spywaregorilla 4y ago
      > If you say scientists are not a monolith, then you don’t get to make sweeping generalizations about them. Sure you can. Humans are not a monolith but humans don't worship the Dark God-Eater Yglocth-Tyr. Both statements are accurate. Largely because he doesn't exist, in much the same way as there's no such thing as a macro level threat to scientists ability to ask for funding. It's not a real concept. If you feel compelled to argue that there may be some people who do act this way despite it being irrelevant, great, you win points on pedantry and nothing changes. This line: > Remember all it takes a single dissenter to bury a paper. Is not accurate
      • programmarchy 4y ago
        The discussion of how Big Science presents a macro level threat has been ongoing since at least WWII. It's no secret that the way things are funded have introduced bias or in some cases completely undermined the scientific method. There's the opportunity cost of Big Science displacing smaller, more independent researchers, the replication crisis, the publish or perish culture that has developed, etc. It's because of the concerns raised by the scientific community that the paltry checks and balances we do have even exist. So it's totally off base to write off this history of concern as non-existent, or pedantry. It's also wrong to say a single dissenter can't bury a paper. It depends on the field, but in some fields there will only be one referee, and even when there are multiple referees, if the dissenter is a "leading authority" then they can absolutely bury the paper single-handedly.
        • spywaregorilla 4y ago
          > It's also wrong to say a single dissenter can't bury a paper. It depends on the field, but in some fields there will only be one referee, and even when there are multiple referees, if the dissenter is a "leading authority" then they can absolutely bury the paper single-handedly. The implication of the phrasing "It only takes one" tends to imply that anyone can do something. Not that there exists a single entity that can do it. You wouldn't say "remember, it only takes one person to pass an executive order". I also just don't agree with the claim that one person can bury a paper across an entire field. Otherwise we wouldn't have seen so many idiot papers being published about covid from quacks. > So it's totally off base to write off this history of concern as non-existent, or pedantry. There is no big science. There's DARPA, sure. But it's hardly "big science"
• ploika 4y ago
  Scientists aren't a monolith though. There few better career boosts than proving everyone else wrong, and the satisfaction of poaching work off a competitor who messed up isn't restricted to any one industry. Research into dangerous viruses isn't going to stop, no matter what happened in Wuhan, and it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world anyway. Whatever about the strength of the natural origin theory, the idea that there's a conspiracy of silence from all the scientists in the world (including ones who would love to give the Chinese authorities a black eye) just doesn't seem plausible. You said it yourself - all it takes is a single dissenter to bury a paper.
  • Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    Scientists who aren't part of the monolith find themselves pushed out as wacko conspiracy theorists. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the past thirty or so months. Even HN took part in this, supporting the depersoning of anyone who dared question the natural origin narrative. Scientists aren't a monolith as long as you include those who have been threatened with dire consequences for not toeing the line. Even now there are still some who want anyone who suggests the possibility of a lab leak origin to be silenced.
    • Retric 4y ago
      HN isn’t part of the scientific community. You can find peer reviewed research published on the lab leak idea shows it was considered orthodox enough to be worth looking at. As recently as June of this year, WHO still wants to look more deeply at it. That said, it’s considered fringe because there isn’t enough evidence supporting the idea and the meat market theory showed up first.
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  • pnf 4y ago
    Science funding is dominated by industry and academic sources. Academic research departments are funded by industry or by NGOs funded by industry and government. As with any culture, successful people generally know where the third rails are, and where to focus their energies if they just want to have a career. Controversial science is relegated to the fringe by the internal logic of the system. It doesn't require a conspiracy, just an Overton window. Within any large organization there may be malfeasance, corruption, etc, that is widely known or suspected. Yet there are few "whistleblowers". Who wants that fight? Who wants their reputation blemished? Very few. Even so, if the system isn't hiring people who don't need to be told what to investigate and what to leave alone then the system is doing it wrong. Ideological guardrails and discourse policing take care of the bulk of compliance. The few kooks who insist on honest debate, well, people like Fauci and Francis know what do do about them. The sociopaths at the top have no compunction about ruining careers and make sure that is widely understood. Occasionally they'll kill a chicken while the monkeys watch to remind everyone. If someone doesn't know this about Science and Scientists now, after cigarettes and cancer, the replication crisis, and now 2+ years of pandemic evidence smacking us in the face, then they don't want to know.
• pydry 4y ago
  What you're describing is more how a politician would think if "science" were a country. But science isnt a country, most scientists arent politicians and most would prefer the truth to out.
  • brnaftr361 4y ago
    most scientists But scientists aren't in a single domain, they're cut up into biology and physics and etc... And they're further divided into specializations, and then specialties... And if we don't discount that they're human, they have families, careers, friends, and nations. And at this point we're talking about a pretty narrow cross section of the population, even narrower when you take into account the few that publish, and minute when you finally arrive at who among them can be counted as prime drivers. And what would the geopolitical consequences be if an objective finger driven by unanimous assent pointed itself at some culprits? All the deaths implicated in the disease, all the destruction, the damage wrought economically - they're culpable for it all. Would it be war or sanctions? Could it be handwaved away? There's a lot of reasons, at scale, that such data is better kept quiet, and long lists of lots of individuals in many high places which immediately evince one of conflicts of interest if we do take it for granted that it was a fuckup.
• caseysoftware 4y ago
  > How would the scientists of the future ask for funding if it turns out they themselves directly caused an epidemic? It is a black eye for science, it provides ammunition to the "anti-science" crowd. The real black eye for science is the refusal to consider a line of inquiry because the answer might be unacceptable.
  • kcplate 4y ago
    > The real black eye for science is the refusal to consider a line of inquiry because the answer might be unacceptable. Yes, but this is what happens when science and politics occupy the same bed, as they did for COVID. Politics is what made certain answers unacceptable.
• smrtinsert 4y ago
  Even if the lab leak theory was true and some irresponsible handlers were responsible for it, so what? Science moves and lives on. If we had to throw out every concept that committed some catastrophic failure we'd have nothing - no governments, no religions, etc. This is only an attack on science if you are already anti-science.
  • qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    There is no chance, that this is just a call for reform, for working oversight, for not outsourcing to the cheapest bidder, for a outside inquisition to have visits and quality control. For reproduceability? For a limiting of potentially exponetially dangerous research, like we are perfectly willing to push it with nuclear weapons? No, every one opposing my oppinion is a absolute enemy, there is only black and white and the institutions we have are perfect, right now, at this very moment. All those yells, just from touching the pots. Sorry, but this absolutist, finalist stating of facts, is verz unscientific in itself. Were does that sentiment, that yelling the loudest and ascribing every oppossition evil motives come from? Its not very democratic. Not very scientific either.
  • jrockway 4y ago
    I think a lot of people in the lab leak community are looking for someone to blame, purely out of retribution, which is ultimately pointless. Ignoring that contingent, it's still important to do a full postmortem after a catastrophe. If a bridge collapses, people don't say "oh well, life moves on". They figured out why it collapsed, and then design the next generation of bridges to not fail in that way. If you don't do the analysis, you can't do the mitigation.
    • nomel 4y ago
      > purely out of retribution, which is ultimately pointless. If a mad scientist was making a better bomb design, and accidentally blew up a million people through negligence, would your perspective be different? What about a bridge that collapses and kills people? Engineers go to prison for that. There needs to be accountability for, demonstrably, one of the most dangerous acts that can be done. I would be perfectly ok with the the lab being shut down/redesigned, if a flaw in its design were found, and any negligent scientists and safety officers being removed/prosecuted.
• oasisbob 4y ago
  > If you read the papers that claim natural origin, these turn out to be extremely weakly argued. What didn't you like about Pekar 2022?
  • tripletao 4y ago
    You mean the polytomy argument? As I said earlier, it's incredibly weak. They're assuming they can capture the spread of the first human cases in an SIR-type model well enough to recreate the shape of that early phylogenetic tree. During this pandemic, such models haven't shown particularly good accuracy in forecasting case count at a country level, certainly no better than less physical curve-fitting approaches like Youyang Gu's. I see no reason to believe such a model would be accurate on the more difficult problem of SARS-CoV-2's early spread, in an unknown group of people with unknown behaviors, and perhaps different biology for those earliest variants too. Essentially Pekar's argument is a "two introductions of the gaps"--that if their model of a single introduction doesn't conform to reality, then it must have been two introductions. But the other possibility is simply that their model is wrong. I see no reason to exclude that. Here are some Twitter threads expressing the same concerns in more detail: https://twitter.com/NimwegenLab/status/1563490916006264833 https://twitter.com/NimwegenLab/status/1563490916006264833 https://twitter.com/nizzaneela/status/1509431997713764352 https://twitter.com/nizzaneela/status/1509431997713764352
• BryantD 4y ago
  This doesn’t convince me because we have a recent covid-related example of scientists making a significant mistake and admitting it: namely, the primary means of transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, the scientific community argued that transmission was surface-based. As more data came in, it became evident that transmission was aerosol-related. This was a huge mistake with significant implications, but nobody tried to cover it up. I conclude that scientists are more truth-motivated than you assert.
  • kurupt213 4y ago
    They were lying. They knew how corona viruses spread. This is just like sars, but less lethal.
  • effie 4y ago
    Admitting scientists were wrong in their claims on science does not hurt societal standing of science or funding. The cost is very low, everybody expects scientists to be wrong on science from time to time. Admitting scientists may have caused the pandemic is on a whole another level. Societal status and funding may be pulled. The cost is so huge it makes relevant scientists unlikely to admit any of the sort.
    • BryantD 4y ago
      I don’t have a great way to prove this, because we’re arguing about a hypothetical, but I think you’re wrong. Let me try one similar but non-medical counter-example. People are still willing to get on planes, even though Boeing 737 MAX engineering flaws caused 346 deaths.
      • effie 4y ago
        Some, not all, people are willing to get on Boeing 737 MAX. Certainly not people who know about the fiasco and avoid increased risk. Your counter-example does not work at all, instead it is an example of my point. Boeing managers were driven solely by profitability of the company, mismanaged safety concerns, did not tell the customer about problems and MCAS fearing lost or less profitable contracts, and that's why we got crashed planes and hundreds dead.