As pointed out here: <a href="https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-mu...</a> some of the main reasons why it should be retracted include:<p>1. The paper was had ghost writers<p>2. Due to ghostwriting the paper failed to properly disclose COI<p>3. The paper is intentionally misleading, written with the sole purpose of misleading the scientific process<p>4. The authors both before and after publication expressed different conclusions from the paper itself.<p>5. The paper was published in Nature Medicine without peer review.
It's important to note the misleading paper purported to rule out the lab leak hypothesis. Calling it "COVID-19 lab leak paper" makes it sound to my ear like it's a paper affirming a lab leak origin, but it was the opposite.
Nature very much has a political axe to grind these days:<p><a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/26/nature-manuscripts-that-are-ideologically-impure-and-harmful-will-be-rejected/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/26/nature-manuscripts...</a>
Has this post been shadowbanned? I don't see it in the hacker news listing anywhere and yet it's not marked as flagged. (edit: it is now flagged, though notably it dropped off the listing about 30 minutes before the flagged designation appeared)<p>Also, it's intentionally misleading to call this paper a 'lab leak paper' as it is widely known as the 'proximal origin' paper.
<i>Email messages and Slack direct messages among authors of the paper obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process or by the U.S. Congress and publicly released in full in or before July 2023 (2-7), show that the authors did not believe the core conclusions of the paper at the time it was written, at the time it was submitted for publication, and at the time it was published.</i><p>Quite damning if true.
I don't understand why so much breath is wasted on the lab leak debate.<p>As I see it, there are four questions regarding the lab leak theory that have actionable answers:<p>1. Is it feasible in principle for dangerous viruses be released into the wild by a lab leak -- Yes<p>2. Do we need strict regulations to reduce the chance of lab leaks -- Yes<p>3. Is any form of external pressure likely to push the Chinese government into increasing controls on their labs if that is not already a priority for them -- No<p>4. Is any form of external pressure or even material evidence likely to push the Chinese government into admitting responsibility for the COVID pandemic -- No<p>Take note that whether COVID leaked from a lab has no bearing on the answer to any of those four actionable questions listed above. So what's the point of the debate? What are we aiming to achieve other than playing a blame game?
You know, it's a bit peculiar that this thread has been here for an hour and there isn't a feverish level of enthusiasm over the topic. So strange given how most COVID threads on this site go.
This topic has broken the brains of so many otherwise reasonable people. Is a lab leak possible? Of course it is. But the purported evidence for it is so weak, repeated by the same cranks who seem to have made up their minds.<p>Also, it's not like the authors of the Nature Medicine paper thought one thing and wrote another. Read their correspondences! Their thoughts evolved over time. It's almost as if that's how science is supposed to work.<p>From the original paper:<p>"Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to disprove the other theories of its origin described here."<p>And<p>"More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another."<p>I don't see the issue here.
People really go crazy over the origins of COVID-19 but will happily inhale a purported bioweapon and give it to children and the elderly. What a world.