Kary Mullis on Fauci

"He doesn't know anything, really, about anything". What a reasoned way to start off the discussion

He also denied that HIV causes AIDS.

He had a right to say whatever he wanted to say. (He's dead and no longer has the ability to say anything.) But he doesn't have a right to be believed. And no matter how incredibly smart he may have been about a thing, he also believed some stuff so incredibly stupid as to force us to take everything else he said with a grain of salt.

This is a debatable point. Mullis definitely patented PCR, but there's a legitimate argument Har Gobind Khorana (another Nobel winner, for separate contributions to biology) actually invented PCR almost two decades prior. According to the oral history of the Khorana lab, the PCR method was used routinely going back to 1970, but they didn't consider it important enough to publish separately as a method. However, they did describe the method clearly in a 1971 publication.

“The principles for extensive synthesis of the duplexed tRNA genes which emerge from the present work are the following. The DNA duplex would be denatured to form single strands. This denaturation step would be carried out in the presence of a sufficiently large excess of the two appropriate primers. Upon cooling, one would hope to obtain two structures, each containing the full length of the template strand appropriately complexed with the primer. DNA polymerase will be added to complete the process of repair replication. Two molecules of the original duplex should result. The whole cycle could be repeated, there being added every time a fresh dose of the enzyme.” - Kleppe, K., E. Ohtsuka, R. Kleppe, I. Molineux, and H. G. Khorana. "Studies on polynucleotides: XCVI. Repair replication of short synthetic DNA's as catalyzed by DNA polymerases." Journal of molecular biology 56, no. 2 (1971): 341-361.

The use of thermostable polymerase (Taq) was a separate innovation, which Mullis also didn't invent.

Relevant quote from Henry Erlich, who led the Cetus PCR group:

“On the one hand I was delighted to see that PCR as a technology was recognized by the Nobel Committee, but I was frustrated that awarding the prize to Mullis alone certified an account which Kary had created which was not true.

Mullis had a great idea, which he followed up with years of misrepresentation and self-promotion. Rewriting history was more productive than writing papers. He never really got it to work. It would have been appropriate to include others on the award.”

Has strong parallels to the Linus Pauling/Vitamin C situation.