Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab but feared discussions(nationalpost.com)
nationalpost.com
Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab but feared discussions
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/scientists-believed-covid-leaked-from-wuhan-lab-but-feared-further-discussion-would-be-harmful-emails
7 comments
There will be, but it's not going to help. They were trying to deal with the fact that they knew they would be misinterpreted and deliberately misunderstood. That is something that didn't change.
Scientific outcry won't change that fact that this will be cited, forever, to undermine anything said by any scientist about COVID. Spreaders of misinformation don't care about overall scientific opinion. These scientists are called on to repent when they make a mistake, but the lairs aren't. They just move on to their next lie, with no repercussions.
Public health experts are required to manage people's perceptions, and their actions. If people were capable of evaluating and acting on scientific evidence themselves, we wouldn't need them. They're in an impossible position, and you'll get their mea culpas if you want them... but it won't fix anything.
Scientific outcry won't change that fact that this will be cited, forever, to undermine anything said by any scientist about COVID. Spreaders of misinformation don't care about overall scientific opinion. These scientists are called on to repent when they make a mistake, but the lairs aren't. They just move on to their next lie, with no repercussions.
Public health experts are required to manage people's perceptions, and their actions. If people were capable of evaluating and acting on scientific evidence themselves, we wouldn't need them. They're in an impossible position, and you'll get their mea culpas if you want them... but it won't fix anything.
But a leading scientist told Farrar that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.” Collins, the former director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony.”
trust the scientists I mean politicians I mean scientists!
trust the scientists I mean politicians I mean scientists!
We used to get deplatformed for sharing the truth. Censorship is never the answer.
Much as we'd like to believe 'bad people' made this Covid disaster happen, in fact it was us. Firstly by encroaching on the habitat of wild animals in search of more resources to exploit, and secondly by our failure to control the virus once it emerged. We did this.
Note that no new evidence is presented here, only that some scientists thought it might have leaked from the Wuhan lab. Some other scientists then suggested it would be unhelpful to debate that conjecture.
As it was, the Wuhan lab possibility was aired at length in the media, and many experts concluded that the origin was almost surely completely natural (in the sense of not from a lab).
Note that no new evidence is presented here, only that some scientists thought it might have leaked from the Wuhan lab. Some other scientists then suggested it would be unhelpful to debate that conjecture.
As it was, the Wuhan lab possibility was aired at length in the media, and many experts concluded that the origin was almost surely completely natural (in the sense of not from a lab).
The point is that scientific discussion and debate was shut down by some of the most powerful scientists in the country. The disaster is not COVID and it is not the source of COVID. The problem is the lack of free discussion and inquiry.
Careful, believing things isn't the same as knowing, demonstrating and documenting
There needs to be a public response by scientists decrying the bad behavior here. It's the least we can do to try to slow the general public's loss of faith in experts.