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Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

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Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#291
Individuals should be skeptical of all sources including journalists.

The question to ask is 'what personal experience have I got off the claim that is being made?'

Is it possible that I am just being steered by consensus, where consensus is presented in print and on screen by journalists? Is whatever-it-is just an idea/theory supported by 'experts say' or is any evidence presented that can be verified/tested? When I test the idea, have do I agree with the conclusions? Etc.

The scientific method should be applied personally in one's life.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ruling out laboratory manipulation != ruling out the virus escaping from a lab. lab manipulation = bio-engineered; the authors clearly distinguish those two things.

In that April slack conversation, the lead author expressed strong, persistent concern about a lab cultured virus that had adapted and become pandemic-ready through that process. Lab culturing = lab manipulation. Authors have taken their names off papers for much less.

Manipulation implies control does it not? I don’t think most people would assume lab manipulation meant merely growing it

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Historically, a zoonitic origin is extremely likely. Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps. People that wish to shutdown lab leak conversation are quick to mix in engineering. Lots of less educated people can't tell the difference. It is very possible that the virus was both zoonotic in origin, and leaked from the lab.

> Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps No. First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Second, while there were a few leaks of SARS-CoV after it had been discovered and was being grown in large quantities (these leaks were recogni…

> First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open.

Can you point me to one or two cases you are talking about, please?

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't. Liberal arts classes are taught at such a massively lower level that this requirement would mean STEM courses would have to be dumbed down or liberal arts majors couldn't pass. Lots of failed STEM majors in history class, but did you ever run into a failed liberal arts major in diff eq?

I went to a UK uni but my observation was that the curve was much narrower and forgiving for humanities and then much broader for STEM. So this meant it was much more straightforward to get a top grade in STEM but on the flipside it was easy to objectively fail. Whereas for humanities it was extremely opaque what it took to get a top mark but most people would get a decent mark. And almost no one fails.

In the US it's just A's all the way. If you want to see where the problem comes from, just look at the average GPA in a teaching degree program! Standards are in the past here. They are even dumbing down math class now in the name of "equality."

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#295
post #8

The biggest error a considered, good-faith journalist typically makes is "Presenting both sides" without comment when one of them is an established consensus with abundant supporting evidence. If you go looking for a fringe outside perspective on an issue, or the motivated reasoning of somebody who stands to gain by a bit of sophistry, you will probably eventually be able to find one presented by a PhD. That is not h…

Declassified report[0] shows that CIA is still 50/50 on lab vs natural origin.

[0]: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Report-...

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#296
To be skeptical they first need competency to understand both sides of the argument. Unfortunately the longer I observe the work of journalists the more I become convinced,except few individuals, most people that become journalists do so because they failed in their primary choice of career.

This is a huge threat to democracy that one of the most important functions in society (to inform) has been "outsourced" to a bunch of random people that landed in this job because they failed in others.

Unless we find a solution to increase the quality of journalism or replace it with something else I doubt democracy as a system will be anything more than a facade over oligarchy or even worse dictatorships.

What is the solution? It has to be country specific, but one common theme has to be better wages for journalists to attract talent and much more strict requirements for professional conduct to filter out those unable to do it right. Both have to happen at the same time.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#297

A few years ago I started undertaking practices to let go of emotional attachments, which I discovered after a lengthy and difficult period trying to figure out how to overcome some major life challenges. I’ve been doing these practices consistently now for about 11 years. Even after all that time, I’m not at all free of emotional attachments; I’m working through some very deep career-related ones right now. But that…

[flagged]

I'm not "stoic" or much into any other "ism", and don't particularly align with many other people in "STEM" fields.

The practices I've discovered came after many years of experiencing debilitating emotional and physical pain, which is now mostly resolved, though not completely, hence the ongoing work.

That it's common for people to be influenced more by cognitive biases and other emotional patterns than logic is not exactly a novel or controversial notion, but it's easily forgotten, particularly by people who self-describe as "rationalist" (which I very much don't).

Anyway, I frequent HN in the hope of avoiding sneery comments like this one, which seems to break the guidelines.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#298

"“trust the science” or “trust the experts” is usually right." This statement and general belief is antithetical to science. Dr. Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying talk about this misconception of science on their Darkhorse podcast all the time. Dr Brian Keating nicely summarises this issue in this short video https://youtu.be/gAqq72m-ipo You should "trust the scientific method" when done correctly.

> This statement and general belief is antithetical to science. No, it's not. 99% of the population doesn't have the cognitive ability to independently verify whether a scientific publishing has had rigorous checks on its scientific method and methodologies and samples were selected appropriately. In this scenario, you should trust the science and/or experts, unless other experts have verified that the findings are g…

You missed the point about science being solved and the view around consensus. I'm guessing you didn't watch the short video.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps No. First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Second, while there were a few leaks of SARS-CoV after it had been discovered and was being grown in large quantities (these leaks were recogni…

> First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Can you point me to one or two cases you are talking about, please?

They may be referring to the study below [0]. This showed that several genetic variants (lineages) of SARS-CoV2 were identified in infected people associated with the market, indicating 1) that the virus was already circulating among people before the epidemic took off, and 2) that there was more than one transmission event.

Note that no comparable data associates SARS-CoV2 with the lab in Wuhan.

[0] The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8715

>we inferred separate introductions of SARS-CoV-2 lineages A and B into humans from likely infected animals at the Huanan market (38). We estimated the first COVID-19 case to have occurred in November 2019, with few human cases and hospitalizations occurring through mid-December. [...] the evidence presented here that lineage A, like lineage B, may have originated at the Huanan market and then spread from this epicenter into the neighborhoods surrounding the market and beyond.

Edit: Additional study:

[1] The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337

>We show that SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity before February 2020 likely comprised only two distinct viral lineages, denoted “A” and “B.” Phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations, reveal that these lineages were the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans. The first zoonotic transmission likely involved lineage B viruses around 18 November 2019 (23 October to 8 December), and the separate introduction of lineage A likely occurred within weeks of this event.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. More scie…

>Historically, a zoonitic origin is extremely likely. Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps. People that wish to shutdown lab leak conversation are quick to mix in engineering. Lots of less educated people can't tell the difference. It is very possible that the virus was both zoonotic in origin, and leaked from the lab.

There are numerous cornaviruses that infect humans as well as bats and birds, and have done so for thousands of years at least. Animal-to-human transfer of novel viruses is by far the most common cause of novel epidemics.

>Many human coronaviruses have their origin in bats.[75] The human coronavirus NL63 shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (ARCoV.2) between 1190 and 1449 CE.[76] The human coronavirus 229E shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (GhanaGrp1 Bt CoV) between 1686 and 1800 CE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus

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