NYT writes that scientists have withheld information about the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. This undermines trust in government structures and science. How can we trust the information we get from them? How dangerous are lax laboratory practices in view of the next pandemic? Does this insecurity help conspiracy theories?
My hair stands on end. How could this happen? How can scientists fail us to that extent?
It either undermines trust in scientists, or it undermines trust in the New York Times.
This is not an investigative report, but an Opinion piece. I would place less faith in an opinion piece than scientists.
Maybe you could summarize the “new information”? Is there anything close to a smoking gun?
I note the writer of the opinion piece is not a “scientist” but a sociologist and computer programmer.
To be fair, she may very well have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
It is all in the article.
It seems that scientists from the beginning of the pandemic had clues that the virus was the result of a laboratory research for GOF (gain of function) changes on the virus. Laboratory rules obviously were lax, the virus might have infected an employee who passed it on. American scientists participated in the research, Dr Fauci and others did everything to hide their involvement, conflicts of interest and so on. Many scientists let their communications vanish, followed the mainstream opinion of a zoonotic agent. So the publidc was lead to believe Covid was of zoonotic origin while scientists seemed to have cooperated to hide their information. They don’t know anything for sure.
I have read this information in other media, so it is not only in the NYT. I don’t know whether this is to be considered a smoking gun. I find it very disappointing that by the actions of scientists conspiracies will take on again, saying that you cannot believe anybody. But who is really reliable then?
OK, so just the same conspiracy theories that have been going around for years, then.
Yeah, I had to double-check to make sure I didn’t get led to a four-year-old thread…
I don’t understand what you mean, could you elaborate?
How many years has it been? All there is for actual evidence of a lab leak is seems and might?
An advertising campaign for that hotel chain, in which people who are not experts in a field or subject suddenly start acting like they are, due to the great feeling that they get from getting a good night’s sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.
You are a gentleman and a scholar (which you knew) and you have my thanks (which may be the new bit).
If both my wife and I neglected to lock our back door last evening, that doesn’t inherently constitute evidence that our house was robbed while we slept. What it can mean is that it’s worth double-checking to be sure that nothing is missing.
I have yet to see any direct evidence of a Wuhan lab leak hypothesis.
“What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence, rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
–Carl Sagan
And I have yet to see any reason it matters. Leak or no leak, we had a pandemic on our hands.
I’m afraid you will never see this direct evidence since China does not and will probably never cooperate. What I meant to discuss is the ambiguity in the science community, their shifting of position according to political tendencies, their conflicts of interest and the immense danger in view of a new pandemic. We have learnt that we cannot trust our governments, we cannot trust our scientists and doctors. This opens the doors for new conspiracies. We don’t get the evidence, we will probably never be told what really happened. This does not bode well for a new pandemic even with well known infections like measles.
That opinion piece does not actually support what you’re saying.
This again? Really?
This is a Gish-gallop of unsubstantiated crap. It’s also the hallmark of conspiracy thinking - “I can’t find the evidence I’m looking for, so somebody must have buried i!” All absent evidence, or contradictions of the thesis, are taken as evidence of a coverup.
The only people who changed their positions for political reasons is Republicans who decided that Covid was fake, and also Covid is a deadly pandemic caused by an accidental Chinese lab leak, and also China fabricated it on purpose to derail a certain American politician. They express all these conflicting ideas simultaneously depending on their political needs of the day.
In this environment, scientists had to defend themselves against this kind of stupidity. But don’t ever make the mistake of believing that reacting to bad-faith politicization is in itself politicization.
I’ll second that this “opinion” piece is a hot mess. From the byline:
Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, the author of “Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest” and a New York Times Opinion columnist. @zeynep • Facebook
A sociologist is not qualified to opine on Gain of Function, although it appears she “did her own research”.
From that bio: “perhaps the only good amateur epidemiologist”
If I rolled my eyes any harder I would have knocked down the pins in the neighboring alleys.
If by “ambiguity in the science community”, you mean that no scientist ever said “We can 100% absolutely certainly rule out the possibility that it came from a lab”, then that’s because scientists are never 100% absolutely certain about anything. The fact that they don’t falsely claim to be certain when they’re not is precisely why we can trust scientists.
But scientists were not keeping secrets. We’re lousy at it. When scientists learn something, we blab about to everyone we can find, because the desire to share knowledge is an inherent part of the sort of personality you need to be a scientist. Even Chinese scientists are still scientists, and they’re also smart enough to find the holes in the Great Firewall of China. If there were evidence (actual evidence, not just “some people are saying”) that covid came from a lab, China wouldn’t have been able to suppress it.
My bolding.
Shame on the New York Times. This stinks of blatant pandering
to those in power (who’ve demonstrated often that they want to believe in the Evil of Fauci).
(I would suggest we keep an eye on the political situation; this may have been an opening salvo in an attempt to “make an example of” Fauci. The Trump regime want to get started on the project of crucifixions.
(I’ve spoilered much of my post as this is not a sub-forum devoted to political comment.)
The editorial’s author does not appear to have publications on gain of function or anything approaching it. Per wikipedia, her best-known work is:
Books
- Tufekci, Zeynep (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780274756650.
Theses
- Tufekcioglu, Zeynep S (1999). Mental Deskilling in the Age of the Smart Machine (M.A.). University of Texas at Austin, Department of Radio-Television-Film.
- Tufekci, Zeynep (2004). In Search of Lost Jobs: The Rhetoric and Practice of Computer Skills Training (Ph.D.). University of Texas at Austin.
Critical studies and reviews of Tufekci’s work
Twitter and tear gas:
- Heller, Nathan (August 21, 2017). “Out of Action: Do Protests Work?”. The Critics. A Critic at Large. The New Yorker. Vol. 93, no. 24. pp. 70–77.[38]