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Comment by CodeWriter23 | Hacker News Reader

Imagine being a scientist and advocating the position that the truth should not be sought in order to protect people’s feelings.

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Is anyone here doing that? They are simply saying the whole argument has gotten toxic and pointing out that the rhetoric is fuelling hate crimes. No one is against investigating the origins, quite the opposite really.

> For instance, a neuroscientist belonging to a group that claims to independently investigate COVID-19 tweeted that the letter is a diluted version of ideas his group posted online last year. The same week, on Twitter, the neuroscientist also lashed out at Rasmussen, who has tried to explain studies suggesting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the public. He called her fat, and then posted a derogatory comment about her sexual anatomy. Rasmussen says, “This debate has moved so far from the evidence that I don’t know if we can dial it back.”

The article is doing exactly that. The biggest theory now is not a lab leak theory but simply that the virus was created in a lab. Any connection to a lab leak is some logical conclusions after finding out it a lab is the most likely source. Tensions always get high for a few days after new information is found and then those tensions fade away. Looking to Twitter for your scientific research and a healthy debate is like going to the bathroom to learn how to cook food. It’s simply not equipped to help further a debate, it mostly only lets people post what they believe themselves. We can’t judge a theory by its supporters. We all understand the mean guys in movies are always the ones wrong but in the real world you always get mean guys on the right and wrong side, and they are easy to find on social media websites but that doesn’t interfere with actual research, not that there aren’t mean researchers as well.

That's an inaccurate and incendiary paraphrase. It would be just as accurate to say "the truth" should not be sought only to hurt people's feelings, and I think that applies to more people than your formulation, but neither is really the point. The fact is that we're never going to get a definitive answer. If it was a lab leak, there have been too many opportunities to destroy the evidence necessary for a firm conclusion. If it wasn't, then no such evidence ever existed. The most conclusive evidence we could find for any theory is an intermediate host, but even that would show it could have happened that way and not that it did.

Pursuing the lab-leak theory more aggressively will not improve the state of scientific knowledge. It might improve the state of scientific practice (e.g. lab safety protocol or advisability of gain-of-function research), but given how much the spotlight has already been on these issues regardless of virus origin I'm skeptical of that too. The only thing driving this is politics, either classic geopolitics or the politics that exist between pathological contrarians and any kind of established experts. It's the latter we're seeing here, day after day after day, and TBH it's a very ugly thing.

After reading the article this was what I wanted to say. The article says that some researchers are worried an investigation will cause tensions. Tensions are a constant between nations and working through them is one of the major responsibilities of leaders. The other problem with the article is it already discounting the “lab leak theory” as founded on “unsubstantiated claims” and instead refers to a report released by WHO in March of 2020, over a year old that basically set up the wet market theory. That report is completely outdated and no evidence of a wet market animal or even that the disease is contagious in bats has been found since then. I’m disappointed in nature on this one. In this article they blame journalists, republicans and talk show hosts for promoting a theory, obviously using the source of their news as a reason the theory is not sound, rather to reviewing the theory itself.

It may hurt your feelings to know this, but The investigation isn't scientifically important. It is motivated by politics. Gotta find a way to finger China.

Yes because discussions about safety protocols at laboratories like these aren't worth having or trying to improve.

No, because the investigation isn't motivated by that, obviously. You're being deliberately disingenuous, because it isn't science you're interested in. You're interested in fingering China.

You can't break the site guidelines like this, regardless of how wrong another is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do it, and we've had to warn you more than once in the past. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. I realize it's not easy when it feels like you're in a minority position, but actually it isn't easy to begin with, and we all need to make the effort.

Are you in turn assuming that those discussions aren't happening already? It seems like you are, and thus your sarcasm is ill warranted.

They are no more visibly happening than discussions about shutting down wet markets.

That has nothing to do with what I said. Maybe those discussions aren't "visible" to you because they don't exactly make headlines and you're disinclined to look any harder. Unless you're in a position to be sure you'd be privy to any such discussions in the places where they'd matter then it's an assumption that they're not happening. Getting all caustic at someone for not sharing your own unfounded assumption is pretty poor form, to put it politely.

It's important to know what the risks of gain-of-function research are, independent of whether China or US was ultimately responsible. Deciding what or if something should be studied is decided politically, not a scientifically.

Perhaps this can serve as a wake up call for the scientific community to develop its "metascience" practices.

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