There are further reasons to keep this question alive. At a time when public confidence in our institutions has reached a truly dangerous nadir, it's important to shore up the few that remain:
We need to ask how a scientist *with* a conflict of interest--a classic conflict-- was able to round up so many members of his profession and persuade them to sign a letter in Nature putting their professional imprimatur behind a statement with massive political ramifications--
while signing it with the words, "I declare I have no conflict of interest." Science as an institution can't survive unless we insist it be practiced by certain rules, among them, declaring conflicts of interest honestly.
If we lose the authority of science, as an institution, we are absolutely hosed.

So that matters a great deal, too.

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More from @ClaireBerlinski

31 May
I'm not persuaded that understanding the origins is key to risk mitigation. We should operate on the assumption that both a zoonotic and lab origin are plausible and thus behave as if *both* happened:
Every precaution we'd strive to put in place if we established a zoonotic origin *should be put in place.* Every precaution we'd strive to put in place if we established a lab origin *should be put in place.*
If we discover an infected intermediary species in a cave somewhere, we should *not* say, "Phew! We can stop worrying about biosecurity! Let's go back to collecting bat viruses and seeing if we can get them to bind to human ACE2!"
Read 4 tweets
27 May
Actually, to be strictly accurate, I stealth-edit a *lot* of typos. We ran the wrong number on only just last week. (What was it? I can't remember. I just remember the horror of realizing the number was wrong, and sneaking in guiltily, in the dead of night, to change it.)
(Oh! I remember what it was. I referred to the Paris climate accords as the product of "COP21." That was a ghastly mistake. I think it was my fault, too. Though I don't know how I did it.)

No, "not many minor errors" would not be correct. @cosmo_globalist
I'd say, "many minor errors, but we work assiduously to correct them." We never strive to mislead.

This reminds me: We need to correct the record (again) about the Sputnik: claireberlinski.substack.com/p/finish-off-c…
Read 5 tweets
27 May
The aftermath of a pandemic that systematically killed the overweight seems a particularly bad time to make the argument that the relationship between weight and health is "a myth." @nytimes, does the world need more health misinformation? Really? nytimes.com/2021/05/26/opi…
And my God, it's not even "the aftermath." There were half a million *new* Covid19 cases diagnosed yesterday. Dispensing advice like this in the middle of a deadly pandemic is grossly irresponsible. And we all know you've done it for strictly ideological reasons.
Telling people lies like this because they conform to your ideological preferences is no better than telling people "masks don't work," or "vaccines kill." The evidence that overweight and obesity are deadly, and *particularly* so right now, is overwhelming.
Read 5 tweets
17 May
Lucky Lusitano: Did anyone miss this lovely piece by @c_smrstik, which we published yesterday? On Sundays, we only publish beautiful stories about the world's beauties and pleasures: claireberlinski.substack.com/p/lucky-lusita…
It is obviously no longer Sunday, but if like me you woke up, looked at the news, and felt tempted by horror and despair, take a break and read this. Remind yourself that calm, peace, and harmony are also aspects of the world--
and these aspects are as real, and as true, as its cruelty, murderousness, and suffering.
It is not the worst of all possible world's. It isn't the best, but it certainly isn't the worst.
Read 5 tweets
16 May
I should stress that I don't disparage the effort to learn as much as one can about virology, or complex human conflicts. To the contrary. There is, however, a specifically modern personality who drives me berserk: Someone who isn't humbled by what he doesn't know.
e.g., people who venture bold new theses in virology without grasping that never having so much as looked at an organic chemistry textbook probably forms an impediment to their ability to improve on the consensus view.
I have nothing against autodidacts, and arguments from authority are fallacious. But people who don't realize they're not yet in possession of the tools they need fruitfully to add to the store of human knowledge--but who insist upon trying anyway--really are a public menace.
Read 4 tweets
16 May
Okay, I think I'm figuring this out. The cool resides in split-second micro-expressions that are dissonant from the body-language, overall. Let me show you what I mean. I'll present them first without commentary. Look first at this, A on the left, B on right.
Then this, C and D--these micro-expressions suggest the same thing.
This one is especially interesting, E:
Read 7 tweets

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