Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by Robotbeat on Friday July 17, 2020 @06:50PM
(#23876929)
Just a side note, but this is uncharacteristically overwrought and overconfident language for scientific discourse.
EDIT: It sounds less like a scientific/academic argument and more like the caricature of a legal argument.
Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by bnjms on Friday July 17, 2020 @06:59PM
(#23877012)
Not sure he has any options there. The normal approach would need to be overwhelming to be taken seriously without the protection of some political language. You’ll need to defend your reasoning just for people to hear you out once there are political implications. And that’s on top of the normal work. I can’t interpret this though so I cannot say myself.
Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by fanimalmanimal on Friday July 17, 2020 @08:16PM
(#23877642)
I’m a layman, but the paper reads more like a series of assertions. Maybe those assertions are self evident for an expert in the field (Id love if someone could reply with follow up information if that’s the case), but it just doesn’t seem to present actual evidence to back up the claims.
Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by Robotbeat on Friday July 17, 2020 @07:27PM
(#23877241)
I don’t agree. Political, overconfident language is not scientifically appropriate, especially for a paper purporting to overturn the scientific consensus.
Sounds like this is language that was in there before peer review but that was removed before publication. Makes sense that part didn’t pass peer review as it’s improper to make such overconfident conclusions and claims in a scientific paper.
> Conclusion
> We have deduced the internal logic of published research which resulted in the exact functionalities of SARS-CoV-2,
> including the convergence of agreement from difference classes of source,
> the timings of the stages of the research,
> and the development of documented capabilities by named institutions and individuals.
> These meet the criteria of means, timing, agent and place in this reconstructed historical aetiology to produce sufficient confidence in the account to reverse the burden of proof.
> Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong before asserting that their evidence is persuasive, most especially when, as we have indicated, we note puzzling errors in their use of evidence.
> In our companion article, in a similar forensic manner we will explore the primary evidence used to sustain the hypothesis of zoonotic transfer.
> In neither this article nor the next do we speculate about motive.