Harrassment of scientists is surging – institutions aren't sure how to help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_control#By_proxy

When you work in the backrooms of a faculty for awhile, the illusion is shattered fairly rapidly. =3

Where is your paranoia coming from? I'm not seeing any comments supporting harrassment of academics.

> I only comment about this because it's a bit concerning to me how wide spread this type of irrational paranoia has become.

So you are paranoid about the irrational paranoia you are seeing everywhere?

> It's the rage towards people who have dedicated their lives to studying a subject holding a different view that I find concerning.

Nobody is upset about people studying. The article is almost entirely about 'scientists' and 'academics' who are involved in politically sensitive issues ( climate change, gun control, covid, etc ) getting some pushback.

It is rare, but scientific and academic misconduct does happen.

Can you explain for us a set of circumstances that would justify, in good faith, writing EcoHealth as "Ec~Health" and specifically taking steps to avoid FOIA?

Can you explain for us a set of circumstances that would justify, in good faith, recruiting other scientists to lie to the American people and the world about the possibility of a leak from WIV, and then rewarding those scientists with grant money, as in the case of "Anders$n"?

Can you explain for us a set of circumstances that would justify, in good faith, doing the above with the explicit goal of giving aid and comfort to a nation who is not only an opposing belligerent in an ongoing frozen war but is actively engaged in espionage, cyberattacks, and low grade kinetic armed conflict against the United States?

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024....

Protecting one's own interests in keeping rights protected is not paranoid thinking. The problem is "science" has turned into a religion. Where the faithful use their faith to justify locking down & taking away the rights of others. And transforming the economy in their favor. The integrity of the scientific institutions has turned cynical & beholden to capital interests. It's obvious.

Hypocrisy in how the Covid policies were enforced don't help. BLM rallys & the political elite should not be exempt from Covid rules when the rest of the public is locked down.

There comes a point where oopsies need to be harshly condemned. Even if the oopsies are not cynical. We don't let our children get away with oopsies. Why should the "experts" get a free pass? The "experts" are not supposed to make oopsies.

I can see the logic of seppuku in stopping misconduct. Not saying that should be policy. But real consequences to incompetence or cynicism by "experts" is needed. If the corporations & government cannot deliver these real consequences, then the public must pick up the slack. Or incompetence & cynicism are rewarded & grow more prevalent.

But even setting aside all of that, it’s ridiculous that you think that there is any sort of equivalence between supporting a research institution that even if we grant for the sake of argument fucked up here, at worst the fuckup is defensible as seen by all the credible people defending it, and actually threatening and attacking people.

This is worse than saying “oh yeah, I’m against threats but you know, that guy got a parking ticket once” because a parking ticket isn’t least breaking some rules. Defending what at worst is an extremely reputable organization that made a filing mistake is not even close to getting a parking ticket.

—————- From [1] > Lawrence Gostin, an expert on global health law at Georgetown University, says that although EcoHealth has 30 days to contest the suspension, he expects any such effort will fail.

“All in all, this has an unpleasant political smell behind it,” Gostin says, adding that he believes the move reflects “a political campaign to dissuade scientific cooperation with China.”

Virologist Stuart Neil of King’s College London says the alleged grant offenses are not “crimes, nor are they evidence of misuse of public money.” He calls the HHS action “performative political nonsense carried through by the cowardice of the ranking Democrat members [on] the select committee.”

Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine, adds that “EcoHealth Alliance is one of the few organizations we have to track the emergence of new and dangerous virus pathogens. If they disappear, our national security suffers.”

But critics of EcoHealth applauded the decision. Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King’s College London, says that although “there are a range of views” among virologists and other experts about EcoHealth’s alleged transgressions, “for me, an overriding concern is to have, and to be seen to have, a robust oversight system,” particularly for potentially risky research.

https://x.com/TruePerspectiv3/status/1619293294474973184

After reviewing the above video clip, I believe that it's understandable why he has been attacked by so many.

I don’t see that as clear at all given the open contempt for “experts” and scientists being a prominent example of an expert.

Further to the point, attacking all sciences and suggesting research papers are no better than toilet paper churned out from an AI factory serves the ends of all those that have a grievance wrt vaccines, climate, energy, etc.

So maybe their statement is accurate: people aren't mad at science, they're mad at the science -- the authoritarian technocratic regime that locked everyone inside for a year and force-fed them a "safe and effective" vaccine the next.

The lockdowns in hindsight seem to have caused more harm than they prevented. I think masks and vaccines were decent and underrated though, although sadly the vaccines lost efficacy fast as COVID kept mutating. The lockdowns were an abomination.

>Those scientists will need to work a bit harder if they expect to regain the public trust.

These harassed scientists didn't understand politics, went deep and damaged public trust to an extreme degree. They are now repeating their consequences.

Consider:

* this large-scale fraud represents a small percentage of submissions to journals

and

* The extent of the paper mill problem has been exposed by members of the scientific community who on their own have collected patterns in faked papers to recognize this fraud at scale and developed tools to help surface the work.

Reading the entire WSJ article, it's a problem in the tail end of papers that doesn't impact "working science" were people stick to papers in their field that make sense and talked about within the network of those in a domain. It's also a problem being self policed by working scientists.

Likely with a better job of pushing back on bad apples than many a LEO.

Paper mill's, as laid out in the WSJ, are about boosting the credentials of small publishing houses with little to no real use in order to defraud larger legiot publishing houses, or else they're about attempting to fake up and boost the credentials of "virtual researchers" and fake labs in order to boost dodgy marketing schemes - it's a lot like the dodgy USB TB memory stick market - it's a nuisance that isn't really having an effect on mainstream computing.

Might sound odd but from the PoV of the primary equations it checks out.

Can you think of any reasons there might be parties intent on discrediting or harrassing scientists that work in numeric fluid dynamic models of heat in the atmosphere?

I'm out of replies, have a wonderful day to you too. :)

It's time that we quit thinking that just because something is "online" it isn't harmful.

If anything, threats over the internet should be considered more dangerous as the reach is larger and you are more likely to attract people who are genuinely deranged along with the attendant increased risk of violence.

To pick a uncontroversial example: scientists have made all sorts of false claims about food/diet in the last 50 years, and their retracted imperatives have taught people to reject listening to them. Since "scientist" (and "doctor", "professor") are the major terms that people think of, that distrust then spreads across to other fields.

Middle school science is F=ma. That stuff is barely interesting once you enter the 20th century.