Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.77 [SLACK_000291] · slack_pm:msg:00777

Date: 2020-06-13 06:34
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry
Topics: Wuhan Institute of Virology collaboration Proximal Origin paper

Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.

"We have two choices: just ignore it or make a group response...it's up to the WIV to deal with this, not us." I agreewe should ignore this BBC effort and whomever they've co-opted for their show. Totally agree that a group response would be counter-productive - we put our thoughts out, raised the issue ourselves and came to conclusions. I'm starting to see so many similarities to the "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" decades-long shit show. Raising it ourselves BTW when many other "advisors" on the initial email chain got pissed off and said not too is starting to look correct. There is a third way - a commission - WHO or other - to look into the proximal origins - would give WIV a chance toclear themselves. Otherwise, scientists (Pain-Hobson LOL) who want to challenge our conclusions should write their own papers in science journals not say contrarian nonsense just so they can get on the teevee or the tabloids.

Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
"We have two choices: just ignore it or make a group response...it's up to the WIV to deal with this, not us." I agreewe should ignore this BBC effort and whomever they've co-opted for their show.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	asserts
There is a third way - a commission - WHO or other - to look into the proximal origins - would give WIV a chance toclear themselves.	own voice, substantive	speaker_own	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

"We have two choices: just ignore it or make a group response...it's up to the WIV to deal with this, not us." I agreewe should ignore this BBC effort and whomever they've co-opted for their show.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

asserts

There is a third way - a commission - WHO or other - to look into the proximal origins - would give WIV a chance toclear themselves.

own voice, substantive

speaker_own

asserts

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

2020-06-13 06:34 Robert F. Garry

"We have two choices: just ignore it or make a group response...it's up to the WIV to deal with this, not us." I agreewe should ignore this BBC effort and whomever they've co-opted for their show. Totally agree that a group response would be counter-productive - we put our thoughts out, raised the issue ourselves and came to conclusions. I'm starting to see so many similarities to the "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" decades-long shit show. Raising it ourselves BTW when many other "advisors" on the initial email chain got pissed off and said not too is starting to look correct. There is a third way - a commission - WHO or other - to look into the proximal origins - would give WIV a chance toclear themselves. Otherwise, scientists (Pain-Hobson LOL) who want to challenge our conclusions should write their own papers in science journals not say contrarian nonsense just so they can get on the teevee or the tabloids.
2020-06-13 07:28 Kristian G. Andersen open

It's absolutely ridiculous - the questions raised about our study are dumb (idiotic even) and show a complete lack ofunderstanding.I might chose to respond vigorously - we gain nothing responding to individual questions, but I wonder if we might gain something by extremely strongly pushing back at him and his shitty journalism. I will think on it for a couple ofhours.
2020-06-13 07:36 Andrew Rambaut open

I think a good strategy is not to directly engage with the nutters (or even acknowledge they exist) but address their attack points indirectly by reiterating the plausibility of the reality. Bring in new evidence and studies and admit theunknowns and sell them as exciting things to find out. Good science journalists like this stuff, find it fascinating and don't give space to the nutters. The bad journalists just want to report on the conflict.Perhaps it will soon be time for an update review - there is lots of new stuff to think about.
2020-06-13 07:44 Kristian G. Andersen open

Agreed!

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