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Josh Rosenau Profile picture
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5 Jul, 5 tweets, 3 min read
Well this is definitely a sign that #LabLeak discourse is healthy and responsible and not an obvious trolling operation with no goal but to interfere with science.
It’s just about ethics in science journalism, IYKWIMAITYD.
wHY d0nT seyeuhntests tAkE uZ zEriosLeeeeeeeee? we’re just gamifying trolling them and getting them to block us.
Of course, it’s followed by most of the “lab leak” leadership and usual players in the super-rad acronym internet sleuth set.
Computer, enhance.

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More from @JoshRosenau

Josh Rosenau Profile picture
6 Jul
If #LabLeak #OriginsOfCovid types were smart, they’d take this as a win. thelancet.com/journals/lance…
This is just objectively true. I know the #LabLeakTheorytypes really want the facts to show something else, but right now they’re arguing about what’s possible, not what we know.
And facts don’t care about your feelings. Lab leak loons have succeeded in creating the debate they wanted, but not in producing the substance to keep it going. There’s no data and no plausible hypothesis.
Read 4 tweets
Josh Rosenau Profile picture
5 Jul
Come and take a walk with me Through this green and growing land.
Walk through the meadows and the mountains and the sand.
Walk through the valleys and the rivers and the plains.
Walk through the sun and walk through the rain.

1/
Here is a land full of power and glory,
Beauty that words cannot recall.
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom,
Her glory shall rest on us all, on us all.

2/
From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too;
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new;
Texas and Ohio and the California shore,
Tell me, who could ask for more?

3/
Read 5 tweets
Josh Rosenau Profile picture
25 Jun
This is so true and rarely said in breathless reporting on lab leak claims. Some letter in Science or The Lancet doesn’t shut down people who thought they might get a Nobel Prize. technologyreview.com/2021/06/25/102…
In my experience, no one wishes Bigfoot or aliens existed more than skeptics do. That’s what gets them so upset about sloppy claims. The issue with the “lab leak” isn’t that science suppresses the inquiry, it’s that the inquiry isn’t turning up actual evidence.
As @antonioregalado writes, the evidence and methods that Chan’s approach rests on are exactly the sort that make a skeptic’s BS detector tingle. Arguments based on what we don’t know, and requiring elaborate conspiracies, just sound like nonsense.
Read 5 tweets
Josh Rosenau Profile picture
23 Jun
The structure of this story is a bit confusing, but it does make clear the sequences are a) not new, b) not telling a new story, c) possibly useful. As an editing matter, I’d like those points up front, ahead of speculation about why they were deleted. washingtonpost.com/health/coronav…
Just to add, it isn't news that the Chinese government is pretty secretive about everything, and that they are secretive about viral sequences would thus not be dispositive about the existence of a coverup.
Also, given how politicized all this got, a Chinese researcher preferring not to rely on US infrastructure (absent any government pressure) makes sense.
Read 4 tweets
Josh Rosenau Profile picture
17 Jun
There's a lot interesting in this interview between @dwallacewells and @mlipsitch, but I'm not understanding this concluding exchange. How would our pandemic response have been different if we knew SARS-CoV-2 was a lab escape? nymag.com/intelligencer/…
At best, this idea that the West would take the pandemic more seriously if we knew it came from a lab reflects some really poor reasoning on the part of the West (if true). I mean, we'd been lucky that SARS, MERS, and Ebola hadn't spread globally, but we know they could've.
We should take zoonosis seriously! We're pushing further and further into wilderness areas where novel viruses may hide, and we're bringing all sorts of domesticated species with us, some of which are potential intermediate hosts for viruses! Ebola alone should've warned us!
Read 5 tweets
Josh Rosenau Profile picture
17 Jun
I wish this piece wasn't framed around a "leak," but it does a good job debunking some of the nonsense. nbcnews.com/science/scienc…
Immediately after explaining why the viruses we know WIV possessed couldn't be the ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, the piece quotes @Ayjchan defending the possibility of genetic manipulation, without clarifying that she could not possibly be talking about RaTG13.
Or maybe she is? I see her citing RaTG13 in her tweets, but the whole "lab leak" discourse is so filled with equivocation and strategic ambiguity that I don't know what the actual hypothesis is. Is RaTG13 supposed to be the source, or is it some other virus that WIV kept secret?
Read 10 tweets

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