It’s really gotten to the point where “go talk to some virologists” or “I’m a virologist and you’re not” has become a crude form of gaslighting in Covid origins and GoF discussions. A technique perfected by Angela Rasmussen. But a real disservice to public understanding…
Of science, in that it elevates credentialism, argument from authority, and gatekeeping to the highest levels and can be used as a shield against all argumentation based on evidence. Also, a crude form of elitism, which implies that only “experts” are qualified to discuss…
Issues important to all of humankind and everyone else should sit unquestioning at their feet.
btw all this gaslighting would be more difficult to pull off if so many science journalists weren't helping them do it, by acts of commission and omission. #journalism#media
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Some preliminary comments from me, as a science journalist. First: This is serious business. These authors are claiming to have found fingerprints left in SARS-CoV-2 left by stitching together the parts that allegedly went to making it. If true...
2/ It would be the first direct evidence for lab origins hypothesis (which takes several forms), which up to now does not exist--only some circumstantial indications. There is NO direct evidence for the natural origins hypothesis. The closest we have...
are the Worobey and Pekar papers published in Science in July of this year, which claimed to trace the "epicenter" of the pandemic to the Huanan "seafood" market in Wuhan. Those papers have numerous limitations, outlined by others, which make them far from the last word.
2/ There is no actual direct evidence for the natural origins hypothesis. I’m sure this paper will get very close scrutiny, and I hope it will get as much media attention as other high-profile papers have received.
3/ I hope to publish my own perspective on this tomorrow on my newsletter. Watch for it.
It’s odd, but if we discuss the wisdom of doing what some claim are GoF experiments at BU, that’s a legitimate discussion of biosafety. If we discuss that experiments very similar in concept were done in Wuhan for years, that’s a conspiracy theory. Of course, it took…
The work of interdependent journalists to reveal at least some of the work at the Wuhan institute, no one told us that voluntarily. It was kept secret, and now WIV refuses to tell @NIH everything it did with their @EcoHealthNYC sub-grant. To me, this is the main…
@ScienceMagazine has published an eLetter in response to the Worobey et al. paper, by Andreas Martin Lisewski of Jacobs Univ in Bremen. It is a version of one of 5 preprints now posted that challenge the Worobey conclusions. Lisewski finds that the Wuhan Inst Virology...
is statistically linked to the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, and critiques the statistical analysis of Worobey et al. (the issue: Use of medians vs. means in the Worobey paper.) By publishing this as an eLetter rather than a Technical Comment...
@siencemagazine has effectively tried to hide and bury this relevant critique. I hope others familiar with the methods involved will weigh in with thoughts. See the letter at the bottom of the paper: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
So, can’t publish work that criticizes work in another journal, and looks as though you can’t publish work that criticizes papers in Science either. I know we are all getting cynical but protecting the “definitiveness” of a journal’s own papers would be very serious breach.
And, as I pointed out earlier today, it appears that Science is telling some authors one thing and others another thing about its policies re Covid Technical Comments. Waiting to hear back from them about this.
The editors of @ScienceMagazine got a lot of press for the Worobey/Pekar papers concluding the pandemic began at the seafood market. So they now have a vested interest in not seeing them challenged. Is that why they tell one author they are not accepting challenges, but…
2/ If any of these journalists/editors were required to explain the lack of coverage, they would probably chalk it up to “editorial judgment”—something that seldom has to be justified. But a more reflective attitude might allow for the possibility of bias in coverage…
3/ Based on a preconceived narrative that the Covid origins question has been resolved, and the lab-leak hypothesis was always just a racist “conspiracy theory.” That bias leads reporters to filter out all new information (a continuing stream) that contradicts the narrative.