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  1. #1
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    Scientists said claims about China creating the coronavirus were misleading.

    The spread of the unverified assertions by Chinese scholar Li-Meng Yan, widely dismissed as “flawed,” show how vulnerable scientific sites are to misuse and misunderstanding.

    Scientists from Johns Hopkins, Columbia and other leading American universities moved with rare speed when a Chinese virologist, Li-Meng Yan, published an explosive paper in September claiming that China had created the deadly coronavirus in a research lab.


    The paper, the American scientists concluded, was deeply flawed. And a new online journal from MIT Press — created specifically to vet claims related to SARS-CoV-2 — reported Yan’s claims were “at times baseless and are not supported by the data” 10 days after she posted them.


    But in an age when anyone can publish anything online with a few clicks, this response was not fast enough to keep Yan’s disputed allegations from going viral, reaching an audience in the millions on social media and Fox News. It was a development, according to experts on misinformation, that underscored how systems built to advance scientific understanding can be used to spread politically charged claims dramatically at odds with scientific consensus.
    Yan’s work, which was posted to the scientific research repository Zenodo without any review on Sept. 14, exploded on Twitter, YouTube and far-right websites with the help of such conservative influencers as Republican strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who repeatedly pushed it on his online show “War Room: Pandemic,” according to a report published Friday by Harvard researchers studying media manipulation. Yan expanded her claims, on Oct. 8, to blame the Chinese government explicitly for developing the coronavirus as a “bioweapon.”


    Online research repositories have become key forums for revelation and debate about the pandemic. Built to advance science more nimbly, they have been at the forefront of reporting discoveries about masks, vaccines, new coronavirus variants and more. But the sites lack protections inherent to the traditional — and much slower — world of peer-reviewed scientific journals, where articles are published only after they have been critiqued by other scientists. Research shows papers posted to online sites also can be hijacked to fuel conspiracy theories.


    Yan’s paper on Zenodo — despite several blistering scientific critiques and widespread news coverage of its alleged flaws — now has been viewed more than 1 million times, probably making it the most widely read research on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Harvard misinformation researchers. They concluded that online scientific sites are vulnerable to what they called “cloaked science,” efforts to give dubious work “the veneer of scientific legitimacy.”
    “They’re many years behind in realizing the capacity of this platform to be abused,” said Joan Donovan, research director at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, which produced the report. “At this point, everything open will be exploited.”


    Opinion: CNN destroys coronavirus research showcased on Tucker Carlson’s show


    Yan, who previously was a postdoctoral fellow at Hong Kong University but fled to the United States in April, agreed in an interview with The Washington Post that online scientific sites are vulnerable to abuse, but she rejected the argument that her story is a case study in this problem.


    Rather, Yan said, she is a dissident trying to warn the world about what she says is China’s role in creating the coronavirus. She used Zenodo, with its ability to instantly publish information without restrictions, because she feared the Chinese government would obstruct publication of her work. Her academic critics, she argued, will be proven wrong.
    “None of them can rebut from real, solid, scientific evidence,” Yan said. “They can only attack me.”


    Zenodo acknowledged that the furor has prompted reforms, including the posting of a label Thursday above Yan’s paper saying, “Caution: Potentially Misleading Contents” after The Washington Post asked whether Zenodo would remove it. The site also prominently features links to critiques from a Georgetown University virologist and the MIT Press.


    “We take misinformation really seriously, so it is something that we want to address,” said Anais Rassat, a spokeswoman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which operates Zenodo as a general purpose scientific site. “We don’t think taking down the report is the best solution. We want it to stay and indicate why experts think it’s wrong.”


    But mainstream researchers who watched Yan’s claims race across the Internet far more quickly than they could counter them have been left troubled by the experience — newly convinced that the capacity for spreading misinformation goes far beyond the big-name social media sites. Any online platform without robust and potentially expensive safeguards is equally vulnerable.
    “This is similar to the debate we’re having with Facebook and Twitter. To what degree are we creating an instrument that speeds disinformation, and to what extent are you contributing to that?” said Stefano M. Bertozzi, editor in chief of the MIT Press online journal “Rapid Reviews: COVID-19,” which challenged Yan’s claims.


    Bertozzi added, “Most scientists have no interest in getting in a pissing match in cyberspace.”


    Catch up on the most important developments in the pandemic with our coronavirus newsletter. All stories in it are free to access.


    Coronavirus fuels prominence of online science sites
    Online scientific sites have been growing for more than a decade, becoming a vital part of the ecosystem for making and vetting claims across numerous academic fields, but their growth has been supercharged by the urgency of disseminating new discoveries about a deadly pandemic.


    Some of the best-known of these sites, such as medRxiv and bioRxiv, have systems for rapid evaluation intended to avoid publishing work that doesn’t pass an initial sniff test of scientific credibility. They also reject papers that only review the work of others or that make such major claims that they shouldn’t be publicized before peer review can be conducted, said Richard Sever, co-founder of medRxiv and bioRxiv.
    “We want to create a hurdle that’s high enough that people have to do some research,” Sever said. “What we don’t want to be is a place where there’s a whole bunch of conspiracy theories.”


    Online publishing sites generally are called “preprint servers” because many researchers use them as a first step toward traditional peer review, giving the authors a way to make their work public — and available for possible news coverage — before more thorough analysis begins. Advocates of preprint servers tout their ability to create early visibility for important discoveries and also spark useful debate. They note that traditional peer-reviewed journals have their own history of occasionally publishing hoaxes and bad science.


    “It’s very funny that everyone is worrying about preprints given that, collectively, journals are not doing a great job of keeping misinformation out,” Sever said.


    After Wuhan mission on pandemic origins, WHO team dismisses lab leak theory


    He and other proponents, however, acknowledge risks.
    While scientists debate — and sometimes refute — flawed claims by one another, nonscientists also scan preprint servers for data that might appear to bolster their pet conspiracy theories.


    A research team led by computer scientist Jeremy Blackburn has tracked the appearance of links to preprints from social media sites, such as 4chan, popular with conspiracy theorists. Blackburn and a graduate student, Satrio Yudhoatmojo, found more than 4,000 references on 4chan to papers on major preprint servers between 2016 and 2020, with the leading subjects being biology, infectious diseases and epidemiology. He said the uneven review process has “lent an air of credibility” to preprints that experts might quickly spot as flawed but ordinary people wouldn’t.


    “That’s where the risk is,” said Blackburn, an assistant professor at Binghamton University. “Papers from the preprint servers show up in a variety of conspiracy theories … and are misinterpreted wildly because these people aren’t scientists.”


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...n-li-meng-yan/

  2. #2
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    Yan said, she is a dissident
    'nuff said.

  3. #3
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    Oh look. Newbies first post.
    Friend of hoho's?

  4. #4
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    Dunno, but Covid did not originate in a Lab- that's been known for some time.

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Dunno, but Covid did not originate in a Lab- that's been known for some time.
    That doesn't mean it didn't leak from a lab.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    That doesn't mean it didn't leak from a lab.
    Interesting to see that Redfield is now on record saying he believed it leaked from a lab in Wuhan.

    Mind you, trying to separate out theories that it 'leaked" from the lab (a natural virus that was being propagated), and was "engineered" (built) in the lab is going to be an exercise in futility.

    Personally remain unconvinced by the lab origin theory. Time will tell I suppose.

  7. #7
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Welcome to TD.

    Thanks for your first post here on TD. Keep them coming.

    Published by the Washing Post, maybe our ameristani members can comment on what maybe an uncommon expression on the subject - instant gratification v thoughtful analysis
    Last edited by OhOh; 29-03-2021 at 02:54 PM.

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat YourDaddy's Avatar
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    Lets reward this first post with some greens

  9. #9
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    China realized after the Sar's epidemic that they had a problem with regions that contained animals populations infected with animal born virus's that were capable of being transmitted to humans. China soon realized that they seriously lagged in Virology research and facilities. So with the aid of the US and the CDC the Wuhan Labratory (s) were built. China staffed the Lab with their leading Virologist. Part of studying viruses is reproducing and modifying the virus for research.

    While the Labratory had top notch researchers, the lay staff lacked proper training and the Labratory protocols and procedures had serious problems. There are reports of clean rooms sealed doors being propped open with chairs etc. So it is very possible that an engineered virus cold have escaped from the Labratory by infected workers.

    Redfield said, the virus could have leaked from the Lab about Sep/Oct.

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