I want to begin by stating some hypotheses. Some may be obvious. Others may be contentious. I will number them so that people can easily make comments about specific ones. The underlying issues are illustrated in recent debates about the possible origins of covid-19.
1. Systematic critical thinking is essential to scientific progress and public policy. Healthy doses of skepticism can be valuable.
2. Science progresses well by making multiple hypotheses and examining carefully what evidence is consistent with each of the hypotheses. This is something that Murray Gell-Mann wished someone had told him when he was twenty years old.
3. Transparency is essential to science. People need to share data, including primary data. The more that such data is publicly available the better. This is what open science advocates.
4. Science is built on ethical conduct, both implicit and explicit. It is important that declarations of conflicts of interest are not just a box-ticking exercise.
5. Scientists cannot have allegiance to some greater authority than truth and integrity. Problematic allegiances include to a company, a family, an institution, a political party, or to a nation. An example is the case of the recent change to the charter of Fudan University, indicative of the stranglehold that the Chinese Communist Party has over Chinese universities.
6. Given these issues about integrity and conflicts of interest luxury journals are problematic because there is a conflict of interest between the commercial success of the publisher in the short term (achieved by promoting hype, i.e. newsworthy sexy scientific breakthroughs, even if they are wrong) and the boring work of doing careful painstaking science.
7. One approach to solving some of these problems is self-regulation of scientific communities. However, when sub-communities (e.g. virologists, string theorists) self-regulate this may be impeded by conflicts of interest.
8. Given the issues above, science journalists need to be more critical and skeptical. Too often they seem in awe of scientists and want to promote hype as it sells. Journalists need to ask more hard questions about conflicts of interest, weak reasoning, claimed "breakthroughs", hype, proposed great technological applications, and the "science as saviour" narrative.
9. There is a fear among scientists about publically speaking about scientific uncertainty and ambiguity. This fear is understandably driven by the experience of "skeptics" latching onto uncertain statements to promote climate change denialism, young-earth creationism, and anti-vaccines. Thus, a great challenge in public engagement is to educate about the role of uncertainty in science.
10. Science always occurs in a political context whether it is in Australia, Romania, or China. The context will always have some influence, but it should not be determinative.
11. The greater the stakes (whether potential Nobel Prizes, company profits, government scandal, a disaster) in play, the greater the likelihood will be for mistakes, corruption, deception, and cover-up. Consequently, the level of scientific diligence and regulation needs to be proportionate to the possible benefits and risks. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
12. Beware of the argument from authority. A hypothesis should be accepted or rejected based on the quality of the reasoning and evidence provided, not on the scientific prestige (or lack thereof) of the proponent.
All of the claims above I see played out recently in debates about the origins of covid-19. Two distinct hypotheses are dissected in a helpful and long article recently published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? Nicholas Wade
Hypothesis 1. The virus spread from a wet market in Wuhan. The virus was zoonotic, i.e. as a result of evolution it crossed the species barrier from bats to humans.
Hypothesis 2. The virus spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology where a research group was investigating bat viruses and doing "gain of function" research to see how the bat viruses might be modified genetically into a form that could infect humans.
The article is worth reading because it carefully lays out the science while also raised many of the issues I mention above. A few things that I learned follow.
There is significant evidence that the MERS, SARS1, Ebola viruses are zoonotic. The evidence consists of finding intermediate genetic forms in intermediate species. Often this evidence was found within months of the disease outbreak. In contrast, after 18 months there is still no evidence of intermediate forms for SARS2.
The "gain of function" research in Wuhan was being funded by the USA National Institutes of Health, via a grant to the EcoHealth Alliance of New York, led by Peter Daszak. Wade writes
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in the Lancet on February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on the frontline of fighting the disease.
Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know.
It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, ... This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”
Wade points out that there is no direct evidence for either of the two hypotheses (which he calls theories).
He also talks quite a bit about "who is to blame" and claims that we need to know the answer as to which hypothesis is correct in order to know how to prevent the next pandemic. However, I disagree. Based on the evidence we already have we can conclude the following.
A. New deadly viruses can be zoonotic. The best way to reduce their likelihood is to close wet markets and reduce environmental destruction.
B. Even if SARS2 did not spread from the "gain of function" research in Wuhan it is completely plausible that it could have. Thus, given such risks that research should be stopped until a case is made that the possible benefits outweigh the risks and that it is done with much greater transparency and regulation than currently.
For balance I include an extract from Wikipedia
In May 2021, Wade published an article which advanced the claim that COVID-19 likely originated from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[12][13] Wade's article generated significant controversy,[14] and has become one of the most-cited pieces in support of the lab leak hypothesis.[15] This claim is at odds with the prevailing view among scientists that the virus most likely has a zoonotic origin.[16][17][18][19] Some experts have supported taking the lab leak possibility seriously, while the majority consider it very unlikely, calling it "speculative and unsupported".[20][21] Others noted the explosive and implausible nature of Wade's allegations about virologists conspiring to avoid blame for causing the pandemic,[22] with Science-Based Medicine among those calling Wade's argument a conspiracy theory.[23]
Another article worth reading (recommended by a commenter on this blog) is
Beijing’s useful idiots: Science journals have encouraged and enforced a false Covid narrative by Ian Birrell.
Compelling lines from N Wades article.
ReplyDelete"Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other’s work. So why didn’t other virologists point out that the Andersen group’s argument was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today’s universities speech can be very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community’s declared view risks having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency"
New type of cancel culture.
Thanks for this helpful summary and breakdown, Ross. I'd like to see #7 fleshed out a bit more. What does good self-regulation look like?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't you say that #5, #8 and #12 are prescriptions or imperatives rather than hypotheses? #5 made me pause for other reasons too. As a Christian, I'd say that Jesus Christ is the greatest authority of all. And scientists are often also parents, citizens, worshippers, etc., with values of justice, love, faithfulness, etc. Would it be better to say "Scientific work should have no higher values than truth and integrity"?
I appreciate the balance of your piece!
I read through the issue the approach one needs to take as a 'scientist'; that of "Truth & Integrity." At the same time I sense the warning that Scientist more than 'Science' have a tendency to morph the findings to please a cross-section of stake holders, Noble Prize included! Thank you for this excellent writing.
ReplyDeleteThe WHO origins report seriously considered the possibility of a lab leak, even though that was not its main mission, and was evidenced-based and correct in assessing the lab leak hypothesis (including accidental leak of a virus from a sample without any genetic manipulation or laboratory evolution) as being extremely unlikely.
ReplyDeleteThe key evidence comes from reports by Shi Zhengli, the relevant Principal Investigator at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, of their active investigation into that possibility. Much detail was reported by her through interviews with Science in July 2020. The WHO report contains a few details beyond that interview.
1) All of her staff had blood drawn in March 2020. These blood samples were tested for antibodies, and the results were negative for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
2) A search through all of her bat samples for sequences turned up no sequence closer than RaTG13, which at 96% similarity is about 30 years or more in natural evolution from SARS-CoV-2, and even if hastened by lab-evolution is extremely unlikely to be a source of SARS-CoV-2. They have published the full sequence of RaTG13. Their "live" viruses (the most likely sources of any leaks) have only about 80% similarity to SARS-CoV-2.
The above 2 results mean a lab leak is extremely unlikely. They do not rule it out only because no tests are 100%. But they do mean that assigning a considerably higher plausibility to the lab leak theory than the WHO report must be based on unfounded accusations that Shi Zhengli and her colleagues are lying.
However, if you take the trouble to read her interview, I believe you will find her remarks to be in the character of a careful and honest scientist.
Furthermore, the lab has openly published its work for many years. Thus its work has not been any secret. In fact, RaTG13, the virus they have that is closest to SARS-CoV-2 and whose full sequence they published in 2020, had already been previously published as a partial sequence (quite the opposite of doing anything in secret).
There have been numerous conspiracy theories, and while the conspiracy theorists have revealed some details have not available in the international literature, there is no major point made by the conspiracy theorists (unfortunately these must include Nicholas Wade, and Alina Chan of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) that was not in fact already widely and openly available in the international literature. I would liken the strategy of the conspiracy theorists as being similar to those used to make people want to ban dihydrogen monoxide.
What is irresponsible about the conspiracy theorists is that their misinformation and politicization is jeopardizing the the international cooperation (including cooperation between governments) needed to further investigate the origins of the pandemic (for example, searches through patient samples to look for earlier cases, as suggested by the WHO report) and build better responses to future outbreaks.
Let me comment a bit more on the idea the "gain of function" experiments. There are different definitions of the term, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology experiments that some may call "gain of function" have been said by Fauci not to fall under "gain of function" definition relevant to the NIH funding pause (statements in a 2015 Nature Medicine paper published by Ralph Baric about similar experiments, together with more recent clarifications by Baric corroborate Fauci's remarks).
ReplyDeleteImportantly, it is impossible for the experiments similar to those published by Shi Zhengli that have been called "gain of function" to have given rise to SARS-CoV-2. This is because the experiments used viral backbones that have only about 80% similarity to SARS-CoV-2.
Could they have done other "gain of function" experiments with other backbones? According to the WIV, all their "live" viruses have only about 80% similarity to SARS-CoV-2, consistent with what we know from their published work.
Furthermore, it is quite reasonable they are telling the truth about this. Christian Drosten, a German virologist, has explained it with an analogy. https://www.republik.ch/2021/06/05/herr-drosten-woher-kam-dieses-virus
"Let me explain it with a picture: To check, for example, whether adjustments make the virus more contagious, I would take an existing system, incorporate the change and then compare it with the old system. If I want to know whether a new car radio improves the sound, I take an existing car and replace the radio there. Then I compare. I'm not building a completely new car for it. But that's exactly how it was with Sars-2: The whole car is different."