Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

You mean, most journalists lack a basic science education? Yes, I think that's sometimes true. And many are too-easily cowed by credentials. But laziness plays a large role, too--or to be kinder, lack of time. Example:

https://twitter.com/rferrisx/status/1402090885953716227

When I actually bothered to read it, I realized that the references in the infamous Nature article didn't, actually, support the argument the authors were making. That was something I *could* have seen on the day it was published.

I'm not a virologist or a biochemist, but I can read a paper, look up the terms, and ask, "Is this evidence of what they say it is?" I certainly understand enough biology, chemistry, and logic to do that. My reading comprehension skills are good.

But I didn't do that until Wade--and the authority of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists--convinced me, "There's something here that warrants my attention.

Prior to that, I just didn't bother. Why? I'm lazy, yes, but in this case, that wasn't why.

I didn't because it's impossible to go through life in a state of radical doubt about *everything* you read. I tend to assume that publications in the Lancet or Nature are on relatively sound epistemic foundations. Not infallible, but better than, say, The New York Times:

I assumed that if that many virologists signed the letter, at least a few of them had checked the references, and so had the editor. I remain shocked that this doesn't seem to have been so. I expect many of them are also shocked:

I'm guessing some signed it not because they're venal and corrupt but because they're clubby; they knew and trusted Peter, and didn't think he'd embarrass them with sloppy scholarship. He was the weak link in the epistemic chain.

I strongly think the editor of the @TheLancet should resign over that letter to restore public trust in the journal. (This isn't the only screw-up: There was also the screw-up of trusting Russia's Sputnik V data, which is really a bridge of credulity too far.)

But note: What got my attention was the publication of a detailed, careful case *made in the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences.* I figured, "They would not have stuck their neck out to publish this without checking the references."

"If authority X says it, it must be true" is a logical fallacy. But "If authority X says it, it is more likely to be a careful and well-argued piece of scholarship, and I should learn more about this" is not an unreasonable thought to have--

--and we all have to triage what we read and think about using strategies like this; there's too much information in the world to read everything. Nonetheless, this strategy failed me in this case: I skimmed that letter when it came out, thought, "Sounds okay,"

and went on to devote my attention to other things. It wasn't so much laziness that caused me to do that as a faulty assumption: "The editors looked at this carefully and saw no problem; that's their job, and surely the editors of the Lancet take their job seriously."

Many other journalists, I presume, had exactly the same thought: "We can trust this publication. They wouldn't publish nonsense. We don't need to check their work." Is that laziness? In a sense, yes.

You're asking, "Might it be that many journalists were *unable* to read that letter and the references carefully, because basically, they can't read above the sixth-grade level?" I suspect that's true of quite a few, yes. But certainly not all.

This is biology, not physics; the paper and references were written in English; with a bit of work, most journalists I know could have read and understood them. But many might not have had the confidence to believe their eyes--many might have said (as I did),

"I might be misunderstanding this; this isn't my field of expertise." Because Wade had said, "No, you're not misunderstanding," I was motivated to believe my eyes. You can see me trying to work through it in these threads:

https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1390400944119156742

https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1390587008410603524

https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1390691151859044352

None of those points are inherently too difficult for journalists to understand, though most would probably have to look up a lot of terms. (I had to.)

So, no, I don't think the problem is that journalists aren't "trained in intellectual rigor," or unable to understand STEM. I think the problem is many don't bother to try: They think the phrase, "Experts say" is adequate. It isn't.

Generally, experts are right about their fields of expertise more often than amateurs. But they are not infallible, and no journalist should mindlessly defer to experts without understanding said expert's argument.

This is why @cosmo_globalist bans the use of the locutions, "scientists say" and "experts say."
As for Assange and Snowden, it wasn't their technical acumen that allowed them to break these stories but their access to secrets and willingness to work for Russia.

Wylie and Kaiser, too, were able to break those stories because of their access, not because they were in possession of superior intellectual faculties.

Basically, if I had to assign blame here, I'd assign most of it to Daszak and the editors of the Lancet.

It *is* astonishing, though, that among the thousands and thousands of journalists who were reporting on this story, so few thought to read that paper critically and carefully.

And it's extremely dismaying that Big Tech thought the world would be improved if they censored people who had. I doubt the people who made *that* decision lack the ability to read a scientific paper.

I'd like to see some transparency and reflection from the people who made that decision.
The whole story is deeply dismaying.

All that said, I'm genuinely curious to know how something like this happened:

https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1401497281929560064

Were @YasmeenAbutaleb and @MattViser unable to read these papers? I genuinely don't understand.