> warned it could damage “international harmony”.

I've never understood the argument that people would want to suppress the (accidental) lab-leak hypothesis out of a desire to protect the image of China. If the lab-leak hypothesis is incorrect, that doesn't change the fact that the virus originated in that country, it just means that the virus emerged from a wet market.

I'm not Chinese, but I'd imagine that a country's image is more harmed by accusations of having backwards cultural and food habits (and insufficient government regulation of dangerous markets) rather than potentially just one lone scientist making a mistake while working on advanced genetic research, which is a risk at any such lab in the world.

>> I'm not Chinese, but I'd imagine that a country's image is more harmed by accusations of having backwards cultural and food habits

You forget the politics. CCP can never be wrong or do wrong. That would risk their rule. I'm pretty sure they would rather see the country burning than admitting guilt and incompetence. You can see that kind of selfish behaviour at most of the leaders(I would dare to say even in recent US history) but in an authoritan system this is made worse/more dramatic b/c there is no alternative(i.e opposition to replace leaders in a peaceful way)

> CCP can never be wrong or do wrong. That would risk their rule.

But by failing to regulate wet markets properly, aren't they equally at fault?

Perhaps the supposed logic is that a scientist at a lab doing this sort of research probably counts as a government employee, whereas someone storing animals unhygienically would more likely be self-employed, so that makes the government less directly responsible.

I'm not sure if that distinction really matters to people who want to blame China's government, though.

>> But by failing to regulate wet markets properly, aren't they equally at fault?

Not really. It's just "bad luck" and "nature's fault". I never heard anyone angry on the Chinese government for not adding more red tape /regulation to the wet market. If that would be the case we should have seen people protesting all over the world against public markets where sanitary conditions are not the primary concern of the merchants. I believe it'a well known that more viruses are expected to jump from animals to humans. It's just a matter of time/luck. Simply put, failing to regulate wet markets does not equal to developing and releasing a deadly virus.

You may not be able to replace the people at the top, but if a city in China is failing to to take active steps to contain an outbreak, you can bet that those local leaders will be replaced by the CCP.

Yes, any evidence of a lab leak theory could decimate Chinese society and further oppression.

No, but it could hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

I agree. Should Galileo have suppressed his observations to protect the Catholic Church? If he had, would it have been in the name of science or something else?

An amusing factoid is that the Vatican astronomers bought one or more telescopes from Galileo and confirmed his observational data.

Animal to human transmission is understandable though and forgivable as it happens all the time.

Human error would generate blame though and cost China tons of political capital with countries eager to calculate just how much damage this mistake cost them.

>I'm not Chinese, but I'd imagine that a country's image is more harmed by accusations of having backwards cultural and food habits (and insufficient government regulation of dangerous markets)

Yeah, there could never be a virus transmitted between Westerners and their food. Some kind of "swine flu" is a ridiculous notion.

I would guess it benefits the US too since they had been providing business to the Wuhan lab and failed to vet them effectively. Here is a fun conspiracy theory: what if the US put high risk projects in China hoping that they could obfuscate blame from themselves in case it caused a public health crisis?

It's actually a serious path of investigation that took place last year. And documents actually show some US institution financing at least one lab in China. The motive wasn't to obfuscate blame but more likely to practice the research on a territory having less stringent regulation on this field.

In all likelihood, the local government conveniently blamed the wet market while the propaganda machine at the national level started blaming Americans visiting Wuhan for a military comp. I seriously doubt bats from faraway caves were being sold in a wet market in Wuhan. I personally haven't seen anything as disgusting as a bat being sold in a wet market, but I suppose the possibility is nonzero.

As I understand, bats are believed to be the reservoir for SARS-CoV, but the virus was spread to humans via an intermediate host. It would be the same with SARS-CoV-2, with an intermediate host acting as an amplifier.

In a democratic country the "ruling party" and "love towards their country" can be independent. But in an authoritarian country this feeling is supressed.

Hints at where the support for that ideology originates from.

That "ideology" originates in the US, namely in black communities that have been marginalised since slavery. No need for conspiracy theories about China somehow causing wokeness and antiracism.

It most certainly does not originate from the black community, but leftist liberal white academics. Blacks have certainly adopted the cause but they are not the ones stirring most of the ridiculousness we are seeing.

A view that is both incorrect and racist.

For example, "intersectionality" was coined by this black academic:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberl%C3%A9_Williams_Crens...

There are many more examples of black activists and scholars who have pioneered this way of seeing the world. Ascribing that work to white scholars denies the people actually doing the work agency, and to reiterate, is racist.

This is how science works in the post-WW2 era. Most prominent scientists (in any field) seldom do science when they attain their stature -- they manage people (students and postdocs), and many become politicians for their institution or lab to attain more funding.

I'm curious, what effect do you see WW2 having on science itself? That is not intended to be argumentative, I'd like to hear your opinion.

Government funding of science and a proposal/grant system. Senior people spend a lot of time writing proposals, and need underlings to do the leg work. They also have to be politically savvy so their peers don't reject their proposals.

To expand on this, before World War II, there was far less federal funding for science, and I don't think university faculty had the need to bring in external funding that they do now. I don't know the history of requirements that faculty bring in funding, however.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45556/

By that point most of the low-hanging scientific "fruit" had already been picked. Due to increasing complexity and the high workload of running experiments, solo scientists could no longer make much progress. So they had to act as administrators and project managers, leading larger teams of assistants and graduate students.

> The entire foundation of science is based upon empirical observation and asking hypothetical questions

True, but it’s possible to ask questions that sway public opinion. Look at all the “studies” tobacco companies paid for. Or the racist scientific theories that attempted to justify slavery.

If you’re asking questions about a lab leak out of genuine scientific interest, that’s perfectly legitimate.

But if you’re asking out of a desire to win political points, stir up tensions, etc., that’s destructive.

There are plenty of actors on both sides, using the same tool of scientific inquiry for good and for ill.

If China screwed up and didn’t follow proper first world standards for their research and directly caused 2 years of hell for the rest of the world then they deserved everything that would have come their way. To hell with the future of science in China, some fuck ups are too big to sweep under the rug. Sometimes you need destructive anger. Sometimes you need raw political backlash.

It’s really bizarre to me that western scientists would feel more obligated to defend the future of scientific progress in a foreign communist country (especially one that’s currently engaging in an ethnic cleansing not seen since WWII) over their obligation to their own country and more importantly, than their obligation to the truth. These people have taken scientific and technological progress as their god and it’s impossible to understand their actions if you haven’t.

It's not really bizarre. Money talks.

And nothing brings in the money like political clickbait.

Your examples don't match the point you were making. The bent studies from tobacco companies were falsifying answers, not just asking questions, and the racist theories were operating on a hazy pseudoscientific level that can't even be called "falsification," but were also, by another means, giving false answers.

There may have been a time in history when asking questions alone has been used maliciously, but it's neither of those.

They’re the end result of asking biased questions then manipulating answers to fit those biased questions. My point is that if you ask biased questions it won’t be long until someone provides biased answers.

You need to ask unbiased questions to get unbiased answers.

"Does tobacco smoking cause cancer," isn't a biased question... What's biased is answering it with a "no."

Right but when asked by biased people, with biased intent, it solicits biased answers. It looks innocent on the surface but it’s anything but.

If it's the people and their intent then I think we're agreeing that it's not the questions themselves, but the ways they can be biased-ly answered.

You're simplifying too much. The tobacco company example illustrates very well how you can distract and lead astray by asking biased questions. Leading (smoking) statisticians like Fisher continued to point out there may be confounding causes. He did not falsify data. Even a spurious discussion about a "smoking gene" was created. Asking questions may seem innocent but it can be done strategically and can hinder drawing the right conclusions. Eventually the scientific method would correct those views, but it took more than 40 years even though the statistical data was available from the start.

Judea Pearl dedicates a whole chapter (Ch. 5) of his The Book of Why to this example.

> If you’re asking questions about a lab leak out of genuine scientific interest, that’s perfectly legitimate.

> But if you’re asking out of a desire to win political points, stir up tensions, etc., that’s destructive.

The trouble is that it's often both.

Suppose proof of a lab leak is bad for party A and good for party B. If no investigation takes place, people will assume it didn't happen. If we don't actually know the answer then party A is politically motivated to refuse to investigate and party B is politically motivated to demand an answer to the question better than "we don't know because we didn't look."

There may not be any party C who is completely disinterested and unbiased. You either investigate it or you don't. And either choice is politically charged.

There always will be someone trying to win political points from scientific questions asked by others. It's not a reason not to ask.

Motivation might go to bias. But, ultimately, if the science is good, the motivation should be irrelevant. Science and exploration, regardless of what motivates it has value.

A charitable interpretation would read the statement as "further speculative debate". Indeed, several of the lab leak arguments mentioned in that very article were subsequently disproven months later, and their unqualified and categorical assertions were arguably no less unprofessional (indeed, perhaps more unprofessional) than other scientists simply exclaiming, "Ssshhhhhh".

We can't know the precise motivations behind those who suggested Sir Jermey pipe down, but indeed that's the problem with such speculative discourse. When speaking with a public voice--which can arguably include private communications to political leadership--there's nothing per se untoward, IMHO, with demanding that professionals speak carefully.

It's a fine line, but I don't see anything damning in these e-mail disclosures even though I'll readily admit that many people, including professionals (scientists, journalists, etc), prematurely dismissed the possibility of a Wuhan lab leak.

This is the behavior of a priesthood.

> warned it could damage “international harmony”.

"international harmony" is just a front for hiding self-interest. Many elites, including the said virologists and bureaucrats, have significant financial or other ties with China. That's why any discussion of China and pandemics is very quickly buried with bullying and force [1].

[1]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FI3V-gdWQAkWyJS?format=jpg&name=...

Collins hasn't done anything except management and policy for the last 30 years. The closest he's gotten to science is writing books I'd put in the autobiography or philosophy section and tag it "theistic evolution".

At least as of 2011: "Collins remains actively involved in research, studying the molecular genetics of diseases including cancer and adult-onset diabetes. His group also is developing animal models of genetic disorders to test potential therapeutic approaches." [0]

[0] Kresge N, Simoni RD, Hill RL. The Molecular Genetics of Cystic Fibrosis: The Work of Francis Collins. J Biol Chem. 2011 Aug 12;286(32):e8–9. doi: 10.1074/jbc.O111.000248. PMCID: PMC3151108

Yes, that is the management part of his job. He runs a research group and probably has to spend much of his time looking for funding for that group while lightly supervising the actual science it is doing.

That’s what most senior scientists do. It doesn’t condone violating the norms of science, though.

Check out Peter Daszak twitter profile for an example for the abuse you will get if you speak out against the lab leak hypothesis:

https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak

Quite understandable if you would not want to participate in that.

Somewhat telling that you need a "throwaway" to point that out...

But seriously. It is easy to be labelled "CCP-shill" or "useful idiot" if you question the lab leak theory.

And what is even crazier is that the lab leak-proponents are convinced that they are being censored. Even though they are completely dominating here (and elsewhere) in the hn comments, commenting on a pro-lab leak theory article from a major UK newspaper.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram deleted millions of posts for simply discussing the mere possibility of a lab leak.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/27/facebook-...

That's not conspiracy, that's fact; and it's weird no one called you out on it.

JudasGoat was already taken ...

"Science" is a big-money industry with motivated sponsors, government influence, and strict gatekeeping.

When the quote says "further debate would do unnecessary harm to science," it's talking about this, the big S Science industry.

The scientific method is a way to verify truths by testing hypotheses. The Science industry will kick you out if you uncover inconvenient truths or even test the wrong hypotheses.

Scientists do not have the luxury of pretending politics and bad actors don’t exist.

Politics and bad actors have always existed. Scientists should counter them with facts and honesty not censorship.

> Scientists should counter them with facts and honesty not censorship.

Scientists must be careful in how they communicate, and organizations like the CDC and FDA need to staff expert scientific communicators who can explain complicated things to lay people. Bill Nye types.

"Vaccines contain dihydrogen monoxide, a chemical that killed over 200,000 people within hours in 2004" is a scientifically factual statement, but not a well communicated one.

That's not how the world or mathematics (game theory) works

Can you think of a scenario where science has ever benefited from censorship? Correct me if I am wrong, but respectfully that is the argument you are making, right?

Not that science benefits from censorship, but that game theory sometimes necessitates it.

Imagine a scientist with significant political cachet. This allows them to receive more funding, do more science. They cannot optimize their behavior only for truth-seeking, because that fails to maximize their political capital. If they optimize for the former, they will be replaced by someone who is better at the latter.

Any scientist that relies on external funding must balance science with politics to continue to do science, sometimes this involves censorship.

The reality is not so rosy. Many virologists know that if lab leak is true their careers will be over. So I am very skeptical of how much obfuscations and disinformation spread by virologists is for the good of humanity and how much of it is just to protect their self interest.

I can’t tell if this is satire or not…

The CCP is already furthering oppression more than anyone else. They have absolutely decimated the indigenous way of Chinese life because they are anti culture and anti religion, except where it aligns with their party ideology. Harming their credibility actually helps the “actual” indigenous Chinese people and way of life.

Oh give me a fucking break.

Ever been to China? The country is ruled by Han supremacists and is openly racist to its own citizens who aren't Han. To defend the CCP using the argument of "Deep racism since the West existed" is just absurd party propaganda.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. It just leads to hell. Also really tedious and repetitive threads, and we want the opposite.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html