Thread by @mbalter

I've held off saying too much about this interview in @guardian with virologist Angela Rasmussen by @lfspinney, because I have great overall respect for Laura as a science journalist and she has been a good friend for a number of years. theguardian.com/world/2022/aug…

But my conscious has been bothering me because the framing and content of this interview is really pretty outrageous. The subhead says that Rasmussen "who has been abused online for defending a ‘natural’ origin" of Covid-19, and in the interview she is allowed...

to talk about the toxic nature of Twitter and how she has been attacked personally: "I’ve had rape and death threats; I’ve had to call the police. I’ve got pretty high self-esteem, but it wears you down." Obviously any such attacks are reprehensible, but they are not...

coming from any of the major discussants in the Covid origins debate, who are fellow scientists and science journalists. On the other hand, Rasmussen herself has been the single most toxic presence in this debate, as illustrated by this early Tweet (see screenshot.)

Rasmussen and some others, including many science journalists, became convinced early in the pandemic that the so-called lab-leak hypothesis for Covid origins had its roots in anti-Asian #racism and the world of conspiracy theorists, even though reputable scientists...

Were among those calling for a full investigation (something that Rasmussen and others give lip service to at the same time they hurl abuse at those who are calling for it most loudly.) We also had the unfortunate spectacle of an important Covid reporter at the...

@nytimes basically calling anyone who thought a lab-leak was possible a racist (see attached screenshot, a Tweet by @apoorva_nyc that she soon deleted; she has never written about Covid origins for the Times since.

The accusations of #racism coming from Rasmussen in particular are particularly ironic and hypocritical given her public treatment of @Ayjchan of the Broad Institute, who deserves huge credit for helping keep an honest debate about Covid origins alive. Here is what...

Rasmussen had to say about Chan last year in the @BostonGlobe: “In my opinion, she is an intellectually dishonest, manipulative conspiracist with very little subject matter expertise who has offered nothing of value to the search for the origins of COVID-19 and has...

compensated for her mediocrity by pursuing personal profit." In other words, Rasmussen, a white woman who claims to be a feminist, saw fit to launch a thoroughly dehumanizing attack against an (Asian) scientist of color who is highly trained scientifically and who...

in my view at least has provided some of the most balanced, cautious, and scientifically based analysis of the issues in the Covid origins debate, refraining from coming down on either side even as she is fully transparent about which way she leans. Who is the racist here?

That Rasmussen can not only get away with such a demeaning personal attack, but is actually cheered on by some other scientists and journalists, and even gets an interview in @guardian where she is allowed to play victim despite her victimizing behavior, is really rich.

The Covid origins debate has driven everyone involved at least a little crazy, given how much is at stake. Clearly, some on the natural origins side think they are fighting some kind of battle against racism. They are not. They are violating the basic principles...

of scientific inquiry and discourse; those science journalists who give them space should make sure that the full context for the role they are playing is provided to readers. Journalistic ethics demands no less.

One of the ironies of the way the Cover origins debate has played out is that left-leaning, progressive science journalists have by and large decided that this is actually an ideological debate, going back to when Trump used anti-Asian racism to deflect from his own...

failure to take the pandemic seriously early on. That failure has led to hundreds of thousands of lives and so in that sense the pandemic is very political. But the question of how it started is not, it's a matter for science. Unfortunately, those on the left who...

understand very well when right-wingers are substituting ideology for science in areas such as climate change and vaccines, seem to be blind to their own ideological blinkers when the shoe is on the other foot. It's as if Trump is telling leftists what to think, ie...

all we have to do is go 180 degrees from what he says and that is all that is necessary, no serious analysis or sifting of evidence necessary. If Rand Paul says China was responsible, then it can't be so. The opposite of what science and the intellectual life require.

Conscience

Covid origins, sorry, writing too fast. Anger does that.

Intellectual laziness is a real sin, especially in an age when we need those on the side of right and justice to be using every neuron in their brains to make things better and fight fascistic tendencies or just straight out fascism.

Not to belabor this, but another irony about Rasmussen’s role is that at the beginning of the pandemic she was downplaying the dangers of a worldwide pandemic. She later admitted she was wrong, which was good, but given the failure of her “subject matter expertise” …

She should have a little more humility about the limits of her knowledge in the present day.

PS—At the beginning of the pandemic, one might say that Rasmussen was marching in lockstep with Donald Trump. But some of those she now calls “epistemic trespassers” were not, and saw the dangers very early, including one well-known Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.