Philipp Markolin, PhD Profile picture
Science blogger and communicator. Not a fan of myth, manipulation and magical thinking in the information age. Also: https://t.co/KKLHqGzMxC
3 subscribers
Aug 14 10 tweets 3 min read
Listen to @PeterHotez; he points out 3 strategies of the anti-science movement to shift blame now that their actions killed so many people:

1) blame the vaccines for the deaths
2) blame the scientists for creating COVID
3) blame public health for bad communication

All false
1/ The anti-vaccine movement became a juggernaut during COVID-19 by exploiting people's anxieties & profiting from their fears

Because emotional manipulation is politically valuable, republicans soon merged with the ideology

Unfortunately, that caused over 200k Americans to die
2/
Jun 9 6 tweets 2 min read
I don't know, but I feel like the cool kids don't get sucked into magical worldviews and waste their time live-action roleplaying as "investigators" in trite conspiracy myths.

Which makes all of those in the media who fall for them, over and over again, kinda embarassing? Image There is no version of the lab leak idea that does not assume conspiratorial elements, given the evidence we have today.

There is no lab leak "theory" in the first place, just innuendo and magical thinking with mutual contradictory ideas that can not explain available evidence
Jun 1 5 tweets 2 min read
🚨 Public service announcment 🚨

During the election season, discourse manipulators and influence campaigns work overtime to mislead citizens about scientific topics.

Here are 18 common tactics explained, why it works, and why you should guard yourself against it.

A 🧵

1/

Image
Image
Image
First up are the merchants of doubt

They use an array of manipulation techniques to denounce experts with various smear tactics, deny a scientific consensus exists, and deceive the public with irrelevant stories.

Full story with case examples here:


2/protagonist-science.com/p/denounce-den…
May 27 22 tweets 10 min read
Conspiracy theorists are shocked to learn that a science blogger writing about the bat origins of SARS-CoV-2 visits field sampling expeditions to interview bat researchers 😅

Good journalistic practice must be a nefarious plot 🤣

A niche 🧵 about conspiratorial ideation

1/ Image Yesterday, I posted the above fotos to explain that my writing is based on expert interviews, personal research experience, scientific analysis and of course legwork.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed since 2022 that I must be a "paid" shill; from China, Biden, Fauci or EHA

2/

Image
Image
Image
May 22 10 tweets 5 min read
🚨Important facts 🚨

SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus that has nothing to do with gain-of-function research.

While a complex topic, there is zero scientific doubt behind this today.

--> Full story:

Here are 5 key highlights why we know this:
A short🧵

1/protagonist-science.com/p/treacherous-… I) SARS-CoV-2 has a mosaic genome that could only have come about through viral #recombination with other bat viruses in the wild.

No laboratory procedure or experiment can create, fake, or simulate this natural process.

Design is out of the question
It was once a bat virus

2/ Image
May 15 8 tweets 3 min read
Decent article from @benjmueller at NYT about the administration's political decision to defund EHA.

He ends on a curious note 🔽

"Why now, 3 years after all the banalities the HHS cites to justify the farce were already known?"

I have some thoughts

1/
nytimes.com/2024/05/15/hea…
Image It is a critically important election year, so the Biden WH can not afford to have this emotional issue with large visibility be a differentiator between the parties.

They have to act as the ones driving accountability so the Republicans can not weaponize it against them

2/ Image
May 3 15 tweets 4 min read
There will be a ramp-up of media coverage to bring the false #lableak myth back to the attention of the masses; right when the general election heats up.

Multiple reasons for this, first and foremost the political need for emotional activation of potential voters

A short🧵 Image As I have written previously, the #lableak myth is a powerful emotional narrative that profits from the many incentive asymmetries in our modern information ecosystems.

This ensures not only attention, but retention in public discourse.

Read:


2/ protagonist-science.com/p/a-tale-of-tw…
Image
Apr 13 16 tweets 5 min read
The Furin-cleavage site (#FCS) in SARS-CoV-2 is one of the most misunderstood genetic elements in the whole #originsofcovid story.

#lableak proponents consider it a "pandemic trigger" that was recklessly inserted by #GoF researchers

Do they have a point?

A thread
1/ Image Especially an unfunded research proposal from 2018 called DEFUSE that got played up by amplifiers empowered imaginations.

So before we jump into the FCS itself, a quick sidebar here 🔽

While DEFUSE is irrelevant, it hightlights two telling misconceptions

2/ Image
Apr 11 6 tweets 3 min read
🚨🚨 Did SARS-CoV-2 come from gain-of-function research? And if so, will we ever find out?

I have been on a scientific journey for a definitive answer that took me to the cutting edge of #covidorigin science.

Here is what I found
➡️ open.substack.com/pub/protagonis…
It is fair to say that virology has been seen with suspicion and experts are distrusted.

How much of this is self-inflicted, and how much is driven by forces beyond science?

The idea of arcane gain-of-function experiments creating flask monsters is powerful, it evokes fears. Image
Mar 9 6 tweets 3 min read
Very interesting paper from Jijón S. et al., using a population-dynamic approach (not a whole genome seq. approach) to date the first spillover event of the Wuhan outbreak

--> Nov.28

This is a methodologically independent confirmation of previously published estimates.

1/ https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011934 The idea is to look at how an epidemic progresses (based on branching) and infer these dynamical parameters from known progressions

Once the model is calibrated, it can be used to estimate a time window when the first infection likely occurred; which might be before the tMRCA
2/
Image
Image
Jan 5 11 tweets 3 min read
As 2024 ushered in a new year of myth, #manipulation & magical thinking, too few have adjusted to counterbalance the #vulnerabilities of our broken information ecosystem

During US elections, this might spell democratic backsliding as online #discourse will be weaponized

A 🧵
1/
The disruption of our information technology broke a few things we needed as guardrails for democracy, such as the free flow of information & journalistic principles for information sharing

Today, gatekeepers have changed to:
#Algorithms, #influencers & #audience demand

2/
Dec 1, 2023 22 tweets 6 min read
One thing that is fascinating with the history of the #lableak myth is how many people have been fooled by naïve claims that "one can not tell from the genome" one way or the other whether this is a natural virus.

This is false.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2, there is zero doubt.
1/ People might have encountered arguments such as we can modify viruses with "no see 'um" genetic methods, or just design a sequence & synthesize whole cloth

-> this implies nobody can ever #disprove whether a new genome has been man-made, only sometimes prove that it was
2/ Image
Nov 17, 2023 17 tweets 7 min read
NEW EXCLUSIVE from me

#Disparage, #disorient, #dispute - the manipulation playbook after anti-science actors, part 3

"In the #battlespace of information, we are civilians in harm’s way."

Please read, share, and take it to heart:
open.substack.com/pub/protagonis…
Image The full range of tactics and why the work is summarized here. 🔽

➡️ Free-access medium version of the article here:

A thread with more details follows below

1/ protagonist-science.medium.com/disparage-diso…
Image
Aug 2, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
This is what scientists like @PeterHotez have been screaming from the top of their lungs to anybody willing to listen to facts and reason.

Anti-science activism in public health, no matter if smoking, alternative medicine, or vaccination, comes with a gruesome body count. It is not a victimless crime to mislead the public about evidence-based interventions and treatments, or selling citizens medical distrust and fake miracle cures.

It is however a lucrative business for media manipulators.

Where are the regulations and accountability? Image
Jul 15, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
The idea that it is up to scientists to solve #conspiracy myths around their topic of expertise, otherwise they deserve what is coming to them, is in fact anti-science and quite harmful.

Yet often #influencers point the finger directly at those injustly maligned scientists. https://t.co/LlRES8rxoQ
Image There are so many #asymmetries in our information age that #disfavor science of popular myths; but the idea that it false solely on scientists to correct the record, educate, debunk and explain themselves over and over again is unequivocally injust.

Society needs to realize ... Image
Jun 23, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Predictable, despicable, intolerable.

The recent smear attacks & character assassinations on a celebrated vaccine scientist all come from the same #conspiracy myth-addled info sphere that profits from creating conflict, spectacle & exploiting the fears of vulnerable communities. Conspiracy theories can be #weaponized into a tool of power, wielded by demagogues and media manipulators alike to further their own strategic, ideological, financial or political goals.

Science & reason are the one defense society has against their greedy #assault.
Jun 16, 2023 18 tweets 14 min read
#Information cascade alert!

The US #intelligence agencies are supposed to reveal all information they have with respect to the #OriginOfCovid

I wanted to use the opportunity to explain exactly what you will see happening in the media, no matter the content of those reports
🧵 Image First, let's talk about expectations.

From the get-go, it is absolutely clear that there is no #smoking gun or similar to be expected.

The intelligence services all had access to the same information and most assessments are low confidence, with 4 agencies favoring #zoonosis. Image
Jun 14, 2023 8 tweets 6 min read
Surprise, the climate change denying, Twitter-files propagandists find themselves coming down on the #bioweapon myth too.

@shellenberger @mtaibbi are such bottom-feeding losers it would almost break my heart if they weren't as malicious & intentional in their quest for attention Image The alleged sick workers are neither a new nor true part of the #bioweapon mythology; it is made up BS from David Asher and the State Department under Pompeo, going back to 2020 and laundered through some unnamed intelligence sources that got wide media coverage in 2021. ImageImage
Jun 11, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
At some point, every #lableak advocate can't help but go full radical. "Crime of the century", "avoidable pandemic" dogwhistle and calling for a "tribunal" based on nothing but vibes.

These people have no place in any normal society and their #lies deserve to haunt them forever. Image Oh look, the lackeys of actual criminals like billion-dollar-fraudster Miles Guo have no shame to lie about ordinary scientists.

@DiLiMengYAN1 everybody knows you are a liar, fraudster and exchanged you modest credentials for a media stunt by con artists.
Was it worth it? Image
May 15, 2023 12 tweets 17 min read
NEW EXCLUSIVE from me:

#Distort, #discredit, #dismiss - 6 additional tactics of media manipulators and why they work to sabotage public discourse

Read:
protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/distort-disc…

Details follow:
1/ 6 types of media manipulators Anti-science activism never went away, it got a new ugly face in the #information age:

Quacks, gurus, contrarian doctors, fake experts, influencers, political commentators and similar media manipulators.

Previously we looked at "merchants of #doubt"

2/
May 2, 2023 10 tweets 7 min read
Frustrating but important perspective by @PeterHotez:

"The phenomenon of red Covid was not a random occurrence but instead an expected outcome of predation linked to extremist politics"

Read in full:

A few thoughts follow 🔽
faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/fb… In this perspective, Dr. Hotez offers some insights on the topics I have been writing & talking about, namely the #weaponization of conspiracy #myths by political actors to attack unwelcome scientific authority in public discourse.

He first outlines the damage: Needless deaths Image