I am not at all against the Worobey et al authors making a case to support their #COVID19 market origin hypothesis. I am against any misrepresentation of those arguments as proof that this hypothesis is proven. That is simply not supported by the available evidence.
@JamieMetzl Not to mention them saying that most knowledgeable scientists agree with them, and that if you don't agree with them then you're not a knowledgeable scientist.
@michaelzlin @JamieMetzl This really strikes me a twitter thing. I've talked with many scientists (in real life) about Covid origins, and there were exactly two who expressed 'high confidence' in a zoonotic spillover scenario. Most remain largely agnostic, and the more knowledgeable, often the more so.
@michaelzlin @JamieMetzl Even more anecdotally, we twice got anonymous reviewers' comments on Covid papers submitted to top-tier journals, encouraging us to mention the possibility of a lab leak origin. Neither paper dealt with Covid origins and we wiggled our way out with noncommittal statements.
@BallouxFrancois @Biorealism @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl Homophile, and knowledgeable as measured by what?
@BallouxFrancois @Ayjchan @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl How many went public with their agnosticism, sensible and fundamental though this position of rational thought be?
@BallouxFrancois @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl Are they really agnostic? Is it normal to do a LL vs zoo debate? An uncomfortable hypothesis gets treated differently.
@BallouxFrancois @Ayjchan @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl "High confidence" based on what evidence? Even DOE only has low confidence
@BallouxFrancois @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl Yes but the Twitter thing becomes the journalist thing because Twitter has from its inception been a journalist sandbox in which they trialballoon their next story. Story becomes media becomes the uncompromised subset of scientists' perceived pressure not to speak out,
@BallouxFrancois @michaelzlin @JamieMetzl Imo it's just peer pressure. For too long LL was a "not plausible" "conspiracy theory". Saying that you consider it in private is much less "scary" than exposing it to 1000s on Twitter.