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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.42 [SLACK_000256] · slack_pm:msg:00415

Date: 2020-05-27 07:14
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen

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I gotta admit, that is really bugging me as well. There are different kinds of mistakes, including honest ones and those you make because unexpected new data is brought to light. Then there are those that are very consequentialand made on so little data that the chance of them being wrong is very high. I'm not sure we should applaud those mistakes as they undermine what we're trying to do in the first place (in this case, exactly two high-profile hypotheses were put forward, both of them wrong (one of which was immediately obvious to anyone with basic knowledge in the field)). That's not "science in action", because science is not about making a bunch of random predictions others later have to walk back - science is about trying to get it right in the first shot, and then refine asnew data is brought to light. Great preprint btw - I wonder if Trevor would have admitted the mistake if it hadn't come out...

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2020-05-27 07:14 Kristian G. Andersen

I gotta admit, that is really bugging me as well. There are different kinds of mistakes, including honest ones and those you make because unexpected new data is brought to light. Then there are those that are very consequentialand made on so little data that the chance of them being wrong is very high. I'm not sure we should applaud those mistakes as they undermine what we're trying to do in the first place (in this case, exactly two high-profile hypotheses were put forward, both of them wrong (one of which was immediately obvious to anyone with basic knowledge in the field)). That's not "science in action", because science is not about making a bunch of random predictions others later have to walk back - science is about trying to get it right in the first shot, and then refine asnew data is brought to light. Great preprint btw - I wonder if Trevor would have admitted the mistake if it hadn't come out...
2020-05-27 07:59 Robert F. Garry open

Yes - all true. Hands clapping for the preprint! As for being bugged - I feel the pain. Calling out the bullshit is anunforgiving task. Can even make you a little bit crazy. I should know. Necessary to prevent long-term damage to the field. Still it is possible if you try really hard and are adept at bringing the BS to the public through the press to domore damage than publishing a crap paper in a medical journal - that can be corrected to a certain extent. What's harder to take - because people actually die - is the kind of misinformation we saw in the WA Ebola outbreak where the experts said early on that eating bushmeat was sustaining the Ebola outbreak or this is a normal outbreak and itwill be over in 2 weeks. More recently some of the same "experts" said that protecting yourself against C19 was assimple as using a Kleenex to hold onto the rail in the crowed subway car or that this is NOT an airborne virus. That made people selling hand sanitizer very wealthy, but delayed talk of social distancing by about a month in the US.

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