Fernando writes:
Hi TWiV hosts,
I’m a longtime listener, recommender, and financial supporter of the podcasts. I have a background in several areas of science and technology, and even a few papers listed in PubMed. I enjoy and support what you do, but your (mostly Vincent with Dickson support) rants about conflicts between science, politics, and law, and specifically about the Chevron doctrine, are losing the plot, and risk alienating otherwise well-disposed listeners.
Here’s why. None of us who have worked in science and technology over the last 50 years can ignore that it’s ever harder, even for good-faith people, to understand and act wisely in an increasingly complex technological world. Whether it is the economy, environment, health, technology, even as many of the worldwide baselines have become objectively better (less poverty, more medical successes, less everyday pollution, easier everyday living), it’s also become harder for even scientifically literate folks to manage the complex, opaque processes that our everyday lives depend on.
The epitome of this were the many misguided policies of health authorities during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where substantial restrictions were imposed on people’s lives and livelihoods with claims of scientific backing, when in fact — as your discussion in this same episode of the new WHO respiratory infection guidelines showed — much of the so called “science” on infection control was medical just-so stories. It got to extremes like my local health authorities closing hiking trails and children’s playgrounds for months because of alleged infection risk. Not to mention the abusively long closing of public schools.
So, why are you shocked that political opportunists and grifters take advantage of understandable public lack of confidence in “scientific” opinion that hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory? The defense you sometimes use, that there’s much uncertainty in science, and so science should be forgiven for later corrected errors, tastes very sour when those who claim scientific authority in their public policy decisions have shown no such humility.
Sure, we are skeptical that judges will always make scientifically sound interpretations of Federal laws. The long and successful attack against the Chevron doctrine was well-funded by the obvious self-interested parties. But again, it’s not as if Federal agencies, wrapping themselves in the magic cloak of “science,” are exactly blameless here. For example, those of us in the American West who know folks who try to make a living from the land here learn about many arbitrary Federal decisions in the name of “scientific” conservation that aren’t anything but petty exercises of bureaucratic authority or careerist cowardice.
I appreciate you already do a huge job of advancing science education through all of these podcasts, but your frustration with anti-science demagoguery should not make you unable to recognize that trust in science and scientists needs to be constantly earned. Blaming the messenger does not change the truth of the message.
— F
Suzanne writes:
While listening to Alan’s recommendation in episode 1129 I thought he might enjoy this book that was recently added to Project Gutenberg. I haven’t finished reading it yet, although it’s relatively short, but the beginning is delightful. A father, son, and their cat sail from the northeast coast down to Florida a little over 100 years ago. The father made a book out of his log.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74010
James writes:
Vincent,
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02170-6
This Nature article is very intriguing. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, I received the vaccine for this and wonder if this will work as well?
“That doesn’t leave people completely unprotected, because exposure to an older pandemic flu strain can defend against a newer one, says Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. For example, in a 2009 pandemic caused by the swine-flu virus H1N1, 80% of deaths were in people younger than 65. Older generations were spared owing to immunity stemming from exposure to different H1N1 strains when they were younger. Exposure to H1N1 during the 2009 pandemic and at other times might, in turn, provide some protection against the H5N1 strain on the rise today. Both the H5N1 and H1N1 viruses have a surface protein designated N1, and an immune system that responds to H1N1 might also respond to H5N1. Peiris and his colleagues found that the near-universal exposure to H1N1 in 2009 and subsequent years produces antibodies that respond to H5N1 in nearly 97% of the samples they collected. He is now running animal experiments to determine whether this antibody response confers protection against infection and serious illness.”
Keep up the great work!
James
Peter writes:
I really appreciated your recent detailed analysis of the claim that the COVID virus originated in a lab, but there is one part of your analysis that I don’t think you addressed, forgive me if I missed or misunderstood something in the analysis:
You state that the COVID virus was so drastically different and in such an unusual manner that it would not have been designed that way in a lab and thus it could only have originated randomly in nature when it appeared in the animal market – but I would think the same argument could work the other way – that the variant was so different that it would be unexpected that it would suddenly turn up naturally in the market without any more subtle variants appearing in the market or in other places (e.g maybe variants that make people mildly ill vs seriously ill). What if the variant we saw in the market was a variant from a lab that accidentally got loose, thus it wasn’t designed that way but was simply an errant version of different things they were testing that got out into the wild? Given the poor containment reputation of the lab, it would seem like a plausible scenario. I realize testing was probably better around Wuhan, but if such a variant occurred naturally, wouldn’t similar variations have been recorded eventually in other geographies?
I would appreciate your perspective on this. I am not always able to listen to all of every episode, so if you respond on your podcast, I’d appreciate it if you would let me know which one.
Thanks for such a thorough analysis of the topic.
Peter
Rena writes:
Hi all! Love your podcast.
Question: Historically speaking do viruses that “spill over” from animal to human, immediately have the capability to go human to human right out of the gate? Or does that take time for a natural born virus?
You also have to assume that the government isn’t lying…in particular the Chinese government…which does not have a reliable history of truth telling.
Thank you for your time,
Rena