Slack / Private Message Drop — page 187

SLACK_000401 [Robert Garry] Thanks - will do - need to dig a bit deeper...but yes insertion is what it looks like... [Robert Garry] Topic: Special Seminar by Dr. Zhengli Shi Time: Sep 21, 2020 09:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://umaryland.zoom.us/j/91277177632?pwd=NEJtdUdKQ1ZNUVQ4ZWUDYjVIVi9IUTO9 ne tap mobile [Robert Garry] Good seminar - - very solid scientist - they have a lot of new bat-CoVs - she also got several questions re Yan/Chan [Kristian Andersen] Cool - I unfortunately missed it, because, well, 6am. How did she handle the questions about Yan? [Eddie Holmes] Good to hear. Looking forward to seeing those new bat CoVs. [Robert Garry] Graciously - but you could certainly tell that it was getting wearisome dealing with the questions. All you can do with faced with the nonsense is say it's not true and that the evidence is faulty - try to keep to the science/facts. BUT - Liar's Dividend is a real thing - fakes and frauds know that they are more than likely going to get away with it even if they eventually are proven wrong. At that point they can claim victimhood and in the meanwhile they get the attention they crave. [Robert Garry] Simultaneous responses - but yeah seems like they have sequences and samples from 10s of 1,000s of bats from most provinces. [Eddie Holmes] What people like Alina don't realise is that they are effectively calling Shi and a lot of other people liars. She does not comprehend the hurt and monumental waste of time she is causing. [Robert Garry] I'd entertain the possibility that she does realize it and just doesn't care and thinks it's a good career move [it's really not]. [Kristian Andersen] It's an "end of career" move - she just hasn't realized it yet... What's so annoying with her and other folks doing the same is that they just don't understand this type of work. They don't understand the viruses ("isn't that FCS peculiar". "Isn't it peculiar that we haven't identified the reservoir yet") and the technology ("why does this sample have less bacterial reads"). People doing this type of work knows, but to amateurs it all looks mysterious... One thing we can definitely say for sure based on the raw RaTG13 sequence - this thing wasn't cultured. If it was, itd have way way higher coverage. It's all just really dumb.