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Scientists aren't a monolith though. There few better career boosts than proving everyone else wrong, and the satisfaction of poaching work off a competitor who

by ploika 4y ago

Scientists aren't a monolith though. There few better career boosts than proving everyone else wrong, and the satisfaction of poaching work off a competitor who messed up isn't restricted to any one industry. Research into dangerous viruses isn't going to stop, no matter what happened in Wuhan, and it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world anyway. Whatever about the strength of the natural origin theory, the idea that there's a conspiracy of silence from all the scientists in the world (including ones who would love to give the Chinese authorities a black eye) just doesn't seem plausible. You said it yourself - all it takes is a single dissenter to bury a paper.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Scientists who aren't part of the monolith find themselves pushed out as wacko conspiracy theorists. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the past thirty or so months. Even HN took part in this, supporting the depersoning of anyone who dared question the natural origin narrative. Scientists aren't a monolith as long as you include those who have been threatened with dire consequences for not toeing the line. Even now there are still some who want anyone who suggests the possibility of a lab leak origin to be silenced.
- Retric 4y ago
  HN isn’t part of the scientific community. You can find peer reviewed research published on the lab leak idea shows it was considered orthodox enough to be worth looking at. As recently as June of this year, WHO still wants to look more deeply at it. That said, it’s considered fringe because there isn’t enough evidence supporting the idea and the meat market theory showed up first.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
pnf 4y ago
Science funding is dominated by industry and academic sources. Academic research departments are funded by industry or by NGOs funded by industry and government. As with any culture, successful people generally know where the third rails are, and where to focus their energies if they just want to have a career. Controversial science is relegated to the fringe by the internal logic of the system. It doesn't require a conspiracy, just an Overton window. Within any large organization there may be malfeasance, corruption, etc, that is widely known or suspected. Yet there are few "whistleblowers". Who wants that fight? Who wants their reputation blemished? Very few. Even so, if the system isn't hiring people who don't need to be told what to investigate and what to leave alone then the system is doing it wrong. Ideological guardrails and discourse policing take care of the bulk of compliance. The few kooks who insist on honest debate, well, people like Fauci and Francis know what do do about them. The sociopaths at the top have no compunction about ruining careers and make sure that is widely understood. Occasionally they'll kill a chicken while the monkeys watch to remind everyone. If someone doesn't know this about Science and Scientists now, after cigarettes and cancer, the replication crisis, and now 2+ years of pandemic evidence smacking us in the face, then they don't want to know.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  The problem with your argument and anyone else's argument that alleges grand conspiracy among scientists is that you always take a US centric view and pretend the US is the only place in the world with scientists. Scientists like many other individuals are divided by country. There are many countries out there that would love to do nothing but prove that this was a lab leak so that they could take a swing at China. All of that information is accessible and public. In order for grand corruption theory to make sense you would need to posit some way not only for the US to suppress this information perfectly but also control every single other countries scientific research.
  - pnf 4y ago
    I specifically said that no conspiracy is required, that the mechanism is baked into the system. As for the rest of the world, all the information is NOT accessible and public. Far from it. China is notoriously secretive and the US bio-security industry certainly isn't more forthcoming. Second, who says there isn't a control mechanism for non-US research science? Where does funding come from outside the US and how is it any different from the situation inside the US? The Atlanticist alliance is one center of knowledge-power. The BRICS may be another. But the idea of sovereignty operating at the country level is absurd on its face. Tell that to th EU member states. Most countries are effectively vassal states for the major powers. You can easily see what happens when they act independently. That's geopolitics 101. Like the US, China is a major source of funding for developing countries in what it considers to be its sphere of influence. So, pick your poison. Either the US hegemonic science industrial complex or the Chinese version. Either way, savvy people don't shit where they eat. Who do you think wants to take a swing at China? A full investigation of Wuhan (and Ukraine) would likely reveal the hand of the biodefense industry evading local laws by laundering illegal weapons research through fronts like EcoHealth Alliance. Would you like to go up against that? I sure wouldn't. For your version of things to make sense, you would also need to explain the embargo on the publication of dissenting research across the major US and European journals. Did you propose that just happened organically? Reality is catching up to politics and the consensus is shifting of necessity or the system will lose all remaining credibility.
boltzmann-brain 4y ago
> it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world what else could you bring up?
- dylan604 4y ago
  Tesla style wireless electricity delivery. If "don't cross the streams" was ever applicable...

by ploika 4y ago

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Scientists who aren't part of the monolith find themselves pushed out as wacko conspiracy theorists. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the past thirty or so months. Even HN took part in this, supporting the depersoning of anyone who dared question the natural origin narrative. Scientists aren't a monolith as long as you include those who have been threatened with dire consequences for not toeing the line. Even now there are still some who want anyone who suggests the possibility of a lab leak origin to be silenced.

Retric 4y ago
HN isn’t part of the scientific community. You can find peer reviewed research published on the lab leak idea shows it was considered orthodox enough to be worth looking at. As recently as June of this year, WHO still wants to look more deeply at it. That said, it’s considered fringe because there isn’t enough evidence supporting the idea and the meat market theory showed up first.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

pnf 4y ago

Science funding is dominated by industry and academic sources. Academic research departments are funded by industry or by NGOs funded by industry and government. As with any culture, successful people generally know where the third rails are, and where to focus their energies if they just want to have a career. Controversial science is relegated to the fringe by the internal logic of the system. It doesn't require a conspiracy, just an Overton window. Within any large organization there may be malfeasance, corruption, etc, that is widely known or suspected. Yet there are few "whistleblowers". Who wants that fight? Who wants their reputation blemished? Very few. Even so, if the system isn't hiring people who don't need to be told what to investigate and what to leave alone then the system is doing it wrong. Ideological guardrails and discourse policing take care of the bulk of compliance. The few kooks who insist on honest debate, well, people like Fauci and Francis know what do do about them. The sociopaths at the top have no compunction about ruining careers and make sure that is widely understood. Occasionally they'll kill a chicken while the monkeys watch to remind everyone. If someone doesn't know this about Science and Scientists now, after cigarettes and cancer, the replication crisis, and now 2+ years of pandemic evidence smacking us in the face, then they don't want to know.

fzeroracer 4y ago
The problem with your argument and anyone else's argument that alleges grand conspiracy among scientists is that you always take a US centric view and pretend the US is the only place in the world with scientists. Scientists like many other individuals are divided by country. There are many countries out there that would love to do nothing but prove that this was a lab leak so that they could take a swing at China. All of that information is accessible and public. In order for grand corruption theory to make sense you would need to posit some way not only for the US to suppress this information perfectly but also control every single other countries scientific research.
- pnf 4y ago
  I specifically said that no conspiracy is required, that the mechanism is baked into the system. As for the rest of the world, all the information is NOT accessible and public. Far from it. China is notoriously secretive and the US bio-security industry certainly isn't more forthcoming. Second, who says there isn't a control mechanism for non-US research science? Where does funding come from outside the US and how is it any different from the situation inside the US? The Atlanticist alliance is one center of knowledge-power. The BRICS may be another. But the idea of sovereignty operating at the country level is absurd on its face. Tell that to th EU member states. Most countries are effectively vassal states for the major powers. You can easily see what happens when they act independently. That's geopolitics 101. Like the US, China is a major source of funding for developing countries in what it considers to be its sphere of influence. So, pick your poison. Either the US hegemonic science industrial complex or the Chinese version. Either way, savvy people don't shit where they eat. Who do you think wants to take a swing at China? A full investigation of Wuhan (and Ukraine) would likely reveal the hand of the biodefense industry evading local laws by laundering illegal weapons research through fronts like EcoHealth Alliance. Would you like to go up against that? I sure wouldn't. For your version of things to make sense, you would also need to explain the embargo on the publication of dissenting research across the major US and European journals. Did you propose that just happened organically? Reality is catching up to politics and the consensus is shifting of necessity or the system will lose all remaining credibility.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

> it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world what else could you bring up?

dylan604 4y ago
Tesla style wireless electricity delivery. If "don't cross the streams" was ever applicable...