These events make it quite likely that we have a huge crisis of faith in the medical establishment.
I am less confident than you in the lab leak hypothesis, but am even less confident that this development will shake confidence in the medical establishment. People rarely care much when experts get things wrong. At the most, I expect that there will be medium-sized media outlets telling people that the medical establishment is unreliable, and their audience—the vast majority of whom had already agreed with that thesis—will nod their heads in agreement.
I’m unsure about how to operationalize a crisis of faith here, but I’m willing to bet against it.
I am less confident than you in the lab leak hypothesis, but am even less confident that this development will shake confidence in the medical establishment. People rarely care much when experts get things wrong.
Experts just getting it wrong and experts first getting it right in private, discovering that they failed to put related research through the official safety review and then telling everybody the wrong thing and organizing for the censorship of the right thing all in the span of 3-4 days are very different things as far as public trust is concerned.
Funding research in violation of a government ban and then that research resulting in a global pandemic is different then just getting a factual call whether something is true or not wrong.
I would also be surprised if this meaningfully affected Fauci. Anyone paying attention already knows that he lies constantly, so if he downplayed the lab leak hypothesis for political or diplomatic reasons, is there anyone who would even care at this point?
It’s neither political nor diplomatic reasons but preventing personal accountability for funding research that led to the pandemic in violation of the gain of function ban.
There’s an argument to be made that Obama did the right thing when he banned gain of function research and Trump was bad for lifting that ban. If that’s what you argue then Fauci playing word games to circumvent the Obama’s gain of function ban looks very bad.
While unbanning they instituted a safety review process. While it might be possible that gain of function research that went through that safety review process (P3) still causes a lab leak, it seems that at the moment none of the grants that passed the safety review process are associated with a lab leak.
I would prefer no gain of function research (expect maybe on a space station where no material leaves the space station to go back to earth) at all.
There some chance that this will be a public consensus in half a year but I consider it plausible that the mean policy opinion will be gain of function research should only happen under very strong safety protocols.
I’m not sure what your question is. What do you mean with “bad”? We are here at LessWrong and not at an outlet where you that needs to dumb down positions.
I have the impression that you focus too much on the political judgements to see what this debate is about. This post is not mainly about my judgement of Fauci but predicting about what the public debate will be like in a few months.
I’m opposed to gain of function research and as a said above, don’t want any of it on earth. That said in a world where gain of function research does happen on earth I prefer it to happen in an enviroment that is as safe as possible.
On thing about the initial ban of gain of function research was that it wasn’t made by the NIH or the Department of Health but by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Most of the people from there weren’t there anymore after the Obama administration was over so the NIH got want they wanted.
I don’t trust the NIH but I acknowledge that for someone who isn’t a domain expert saying “Let’s let the NIH handle the question of gain of function and trust the scientifics experts” was a reasonable position to have in 2017. Wouldn’t have been my decision but I can understand someone making it. It’s quite different from the decision to circumvent an existing ban that exists for safety reasons.
The CCP doesn’t think they know how science works. They generally try to copy Western judgements for what good science happens to be. That’s why they pay their scientists based on their ability to publish in Western journals.
Getting Western grant money is a signal that what Shi is doing is good science to the CCP. While it’s not certain that the signal tiped the scales to allow the WIV to do their research when they lacked enough trained personal to do so safely (that’s what they told US diplomats in 2018), it might have tipped the scales against letting them operate this way.
Generally, it also makes no sense to give Western grant money to Chinese Institutes when they would do the same work if you wouldn’t fund them with Western grant money. Giving that grant money only makes sense when you think it influences what research they are doing.
“Anyone paying attention already knows....” but that’s the rub, innit? The pandemic has repeatedly demonstrated that there are a lot of people who believe only official, Expert-Approved(tm) truth, and who think of this as a form of virtue. If the knowledge of malfeasance in the medical establishment becomes part of the official narrative, then the number of people who are willing to believe it will go up substantially.
The pandemic has repeatedly demonstrated that there are a lot of people who believe only official, Expert-Approved(tm) truth, and who think of this as a form of virtue
It’s also demonstrated the exact opposite..that there are a lot of people who only believe contrarianism. So it goes
I am less confident than you in the lab leak hypothesis, but am even less confident that this development will shake confidence in the medical establishment. People rarely care much when experts get things wrong. At the most, I expect that there will be medium-sized media outlets telling people that the medical establishment is unreliable, and their audience—the vast majority of whom had already agreed with that thesis—will nod their heads in agreement.
I’m unsure about how to operationalize a crisis of faith here, but I’m willing to bet against it.
Experts just getting it wrong and experts first getting it right in private, discovering that they failed to put related research through the official safety review and then telling everybody the wrong thing and organizing for the censorship of the right thing all in the span of 3-4 days are very different things as far as public trust is concerned.
Funding research in violation of a government ban and then that research resulting in a global pandemic is different then just getting a factual call whether something is true or not wrong.
I would also be surprised if this meaningfully affected Fauci. Anyone paying attention already knows that he lies constantly, so if he downplayed the lab leak hypothesis for political or diplomatic reasons, is there anyone who would even care at this point?
It’s neither political nor diplomatic reasons but preventing personal accountability for funding research that led to the pandemic in violation of the gain of function ban.
There’s an argument to be made that Obama did the right thing when he banned gain of function research and Trump was bad for lifting that ban. If that’s what you argue then Fauci playing word games to circumvent the Obama’s gain of function ban looks very bad.
As bad as Trump?
Bad in a different way. Trump didn’t fund research that associated with causing millions of deaths.
What would unbanning consist of except allowing other people to fund it?
While unbanning they instituted a safety review process. While it might be possible that gain of function research that went through that safety review process (P3) still causes a lab leak, it seems that at the moment none of the grants that passed the safety review process are associated with a lab leak.
So is GoF good or bad?
I would prefer no gain of function research (expect maybe on a space station where no material leaves the space station to go back to earth) at all.
There some chance that this will be a public consensus in half a year but I consider it plausible that the mean policy opinion will be gain of function research should only happen under very strong safety protocols.
So Trump did a bad thing when he restarted GoF even with safety protocols?
I’m not sure what your question is. What do you mean with “bad”? We are here at LessWrong and not at an outlet where you that needs to dumb down positions.
Was it a worse thing than keeping them banned?
According to what standard?
You’ve been casting judgement on Fauci, so it would be fair to use the same standard.
I have the impression that you focus too much on the political judgements to see what this debate is about. This post is not mainly about my judgement of Fauci but predicting about what the public debate will be like in a few months.
I’m opposed to gain of function research and as a said above, don’t want any of it on earth. That said in a world where gain of function research does happen on earth I prefer it to happen in an enviroment that is as safe as possible.
On thing about the initial ban of gain of function research was that it wasn’t made by the NIH or the Department of Health but by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Most of the people from there weren’t there anymore after the Obama administration was over so the NIH got want they wanted.
I don’t trust the NIH but I acknowledge that for someone who isn’t a domain expert saying “Let’s let the NIH handle the question of gain of function and trust the scientifics experts” was a reasonable position to have in 2017. Wouldn’t have been my decision but I can understand someone making it. It’s quite different from the decision to circumvent an existing ban that exists for safety reasons.
Why is it all about the US? Neither of us is usian.
Because the US funded research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology that caused the pandemic.
I haven’t yet read up on Jacques Chirac and his responsibility for the WIV getting their biosafety level 4 lab.
I think you mean funded
if hadn’t, the CCP could have funded it anyway.
The CCP doesn’t think they know how science works. They generally try to copy Western judgements for what good science happens to be. That’s why they pay their scientists based on their ability to publish in Western journals.
Getting Western grant money is a signal that what Shi is doing is good science to the CCP. While it’s not certain that the signal tiped the scales to allow the WIV to do their research when they lacked enough trained personal to do so safely (that’s what they told US diplomats in 2018), it might have tipped the scales against letting them operate this way.
Generally, it also makes no sense to give Western grant money to Chinese Institutes when they would do the same work if you wouldn’t fund them with Western grant money. Giving that grant money only makes sense when you think it influences what research they are doing.
“Anyone paying attention already knows....” but that’s the rub, innit? The pandemic has repeatedly demonstrated that there are a lot of people who believe only official, Expert-Approved(tm) truth, and who think of this as a form of virtue. If the knowledge of malfeasance in the medical establishment becomes part of the official narrative, then the number of people who are willing to believe it will go up substantially.
It’s also demonstrated the exact opposite..that there are a lot of people who only believe contrarianism. So it goes