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Sorry but if these people aren’t willing to say this in a way that invites peer scrutiny, then I don’t give a shit what they mumble back and forth to one anothe

by Zetice 3y ago

Sorry but if these people aren’t willing to say this in a way that invites peer scrutiny, then I don’t give a shit what they mumble back and forth to one another, and you shouldn’t either. We saw this with election fraud claims from the Trump admin and his supporters; wild fraud claims in the media, but not a single legitimate peep in an actual courtroom. Same thing here, wild claims in informal settings but refusal to hold those claims up to scrutiny, knowing they wouldn’t survive.

somenameforme 3y ago
They did not omit it for fear of peer scrutiny, they omitted it because we live in a society where even experts at the top of their field can face brutal repercussions for having the wrong opinion. The lead author felt the lab leak was the most probable explanation, but said exactly the opposite because of politics. And this is something you very much should care about, because it's directly impacting and harming the quality of science that we produce, to say nothing of completely distorting social discussion. It's like science in the e.g. Mideast where any discovery or statement that may, in any possible way, run into conflict with religious values would largely be self censored away. It's this exact problem that caused the Mideast to go from the academic capital of the world, to a wasteland of such.
- Zetice 3y ago
  > They did not omit it for fear of peer scrutiny, they omitted it because we live in a society where even experts at the top of their field can face brutal repercussions for having the wrong opinion. The lead author felt the lab leak was the most probable explanation, but said exactly the opposite because of politics. So he claims. I don't believe him, and I don't agree with you. I don't believe him because he knows how the scientific process works; that peer review is the only way to credibly challenge an idea. The only real reason he could possibly have for writing the precise opposite of what he believes is if he knows what he believes won't hold up to scrutiny. There were many, many ways he could have handled this situation that didn't involve writing a paper that argues exactly the opposite of his supposed beliefs, but that's the route he chose, because that's the route the data led. I don't agree with you because you're clearly ignorant on all of the masking research that's come out lately that "contradicts" earlier held opinion re: effectiveness of the general population using masks to effectively slow down the spread of a respiratory virus. If it were so "dangerous" to speak contrary to popular opinion, why is it so trivially easy for the folks conducting the masking research to do so? The authors of this paper had no evidence to credibly support their beliefs, so they wrote what they could support. That matters a whole hell of a lot more than random emails of Slack messages ever will. The system worked, let's hope it keeps working.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Your ideal is a great one, it's not really how things work in reality. The issue is not one of public opinion, which is largely irrelevant and trivially reshaped - it's about pissing off the political establishment. Masking was never particularly taboo and the official position itself flip-flopped and was relatively open to constructive dialogue. But the lab leak was extremely taboo because this was at a time when the US still adamant that a lab leak was impossible, probably because we were actively involved in it. So you're pissing off the US political establishment, to say nothing of China. Oh, and the guy who's trying to decide whether or not to finalize the multi million dollar grant he's about to send you. Especially (and unfortunately) in academia, you just don't get far without knowing how to play these stupid and ultimately socially destructive games.
    - Zetice 3y ago
      No, the "lab leak" theory is not so taboo that any serious scientist would throw out everything they know about the scientific process. You're acting as if a credible argument was made and shot down unjustly already, but no such thing has happened. You have no evidence to suggest that would actually have happened here, either. Just wild speculation about the worst possible behavior of one man in particular who does not in any way deserve your hate. But even if that were the case, what this doesn't do is make any movement whatsoever as to the veracity of any "lab leak" theory. If you want to make that argument, do so. Nobody has, not credibly, even after these messages leaked. Where are the retractions, now that the cat is out of the bag? Nowhere, because they know such a thing would be indefensible. All you have are implications, scuttlebutt, and postulation. Until someone actually presents the argument, all you can do is speculate, and that's not good enough for the scientific process to be relevant.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        You're repeating yourself here, without adapting to what we've discussed. There was no grand scientific process. This is all just evaluating evidence and giving one's opinion on it - not some profound scientific process leading to an inescapable conclusion. The issue is finding a widget right beside a widget factory and trying to decide if it came from that factory, or if it came from a mystical laden African swallow that's evaded all attempts at discovery. Technically one cannot prove it one way or the other, and that's problematic when saying one thing sets the world (and likely, your livelihood) on fire, while saying the other is met with a yawn and vigorous approval from the two most influential nations in science, as well as the guy about to sign off on your dream scenario grant. The only argument they used to try to ignore having to deal with discussing a lab leak is that they claimed that COVID was inefficient at binding to a specific human receptor, with the implication that if it were lab created then you could have developed a more efficient binding mechanism. Nearly a trillion cases later, it seems fairly safe to say that the virus' binding mechanism was quite efficient after all, even prior to mutations.

by Zetice 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

They did not omit it for fear of peer scrutiny, they omitted it because we live in a society where even experts at the top of their field can face brutal repercussions for having the wrong opinion. The lead author felt the lab leak was the most probable explanation, but said exactly the opposite because of politics. And this is something you very much should care about, because it's directly impacting and harming the quality of science that we produce, to say nothing of completely distorting social discussion. It's like science in the e.g. Mideast where any discovery or statement that may, in any possible way, run into conflict with religious values would largely be self censored away. It's this exact problem that caused the Mideast to go from the academic capital of the world, to a wasteland of such.

Zetice 3y ago
> They did not omit it for fear of peer scrutiny, they omitted it because we live in a society where even experts at the top of their field can face brutal repercussions for having the wrong opinion. The lead author felt the lab leak was the most probable explanation, but said exactly the opposite because of politics. So he claims. I don't believe him, and I don't agree with you. I don't believe him because he knows how the scientific process works; that peer review is the only way to credibly challenge an idea. The only real reason he could possibly have for writing the precise opposite of what he believes is if he knows what he believes won't hold up to scrutiny. There were many, many ways he could have handled this situation that didn't involve writing a paper that argues exactly the opposite of his supposed beliefs, but that's the route he chose, because that's the route the data led. I don't agree with you because you're clearly ignorant on all of the masking research that's come out lately that "contradicts" earlier held opinion re: effectiveness of the general population using masks to effectively slow down the spread of a respiratory virus. If it were so "dangerous" to speak contrary to popular opinion, why is it so trivially easy for the folks conducting the masking research to do so? The authors of this paper had no evidence to credibly support their beliefs, so they wrote what they could support. That matters a whole hell of a lot more than random emails of Slack messages ever will. The system worked, let's hope it keeps working.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Your ideal is a great one, it's not really how things work in reality. The issue is not one of public opinion, which is largely irrelevant and trivially reshaped - it's about pissing off the political establishment. Masking was never particularly taboo and the official position itself flip-flopped and was relatively open to constructive dialogue. But the lab leak was extremely taboo because this was at a time when the US still adamant that a lab leak was impossible, probably because we were actively involved in it. So you're pissing off the US political establishment, to say nothing of China. Oh, and the guy who's trying to decide whether or not to finalize the multi million dollar grant he's about to send you. Especially (and unfortunately) in academia, you just don't get far without knowing how to play these stupid and ultimately socially destructive games.
  - Zetice 3y ago
    No, the "lab leak" theory is not so taboo that any serious scientist would throw out everything they know about the scientific process. You're acting as if a credible argument was made and shot down unjustly already, but no such thing has happened. You have no evidence to suggest that would actually have happened here, either. Just wild speculation about the worst possible behavior of one man in particular who does not in any way deserve your hate. But even if that were the case, what this doesn't do is make any movement whatsoever as to the veracity of any "lab leak" theory. If you want to make that argument, do so. Nobody has, not credibly, even after these messages leaked. Where are the retractions, now that the cat is out of the bag? Nowhere, because they know such a thing would be indefensible. All you have are implications, scuttlebutt, and postulation. Until someone actually presents the argument, all you can do is speculate, and that's not good enough for the scientific process to be relevant.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      You're repeating yourself here, without adapting to what we've discussed. There was no grand scientific process. This is all just evaluating evidence and giving one's opinion on it - not some profound scientific process leading to an inescapable conclusion. The issue is finding a widget right beside a widget factory and trying to decide if it came from that factory, or if it came from a mystical laden African swallow that's evaded all attempts at discovery. Technically one cannot prove it one way or the other, and that's problematic when saying one thing sets the world (and likely, your livelihood) on fire, while saying the other is met with a yawn and vigorous approval from the two most influential nations in science, as well as the guy about to sign off on your dream scenario grant. The only argument they used to try to ignore having to deal with discussing a lab leak is that they claimed that COVID was inefficient at binding to a specific human receptor, with the implication that if it were lab created then you could have developed a more efficient binding mechanism. Nearly a trillion cases later, it seems fairly safe to say that the virus' binding mechanism was quite efficient after all, even prior to mutations.