Slack / Private Message Drop — page 259

[2020-11-15 07:02:38] [Robert Garry] One example of many logical fallacies [https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/] is the strawman: "Scientists who are convinced of the natural origin base their belief on *Occam's razor*: epidemics from the past have shown that these things do happen in nature, so the simplest explanation is that it happened this time too." [2020-11-15 09:42:25] [Robert Garry] IF it's real this is important: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0300891620974755 [2020-11-15 10:20:40] [Andrew Rambaut] Just been tweeting about it... https://twitter.com/arambaut/status/1327985409331257345 [2020-11-15 10:38:09] [Andrew Rambaut] This is good - someone has hand drawn a growth curve to 'prove' the Italian epidemic could have started in September [shared file(s): image.png] [2020-11-15 12:17:32] [Eddie Holmes] Convincing graph. I'm sold. [2020-11-15 12:21:34] [Eddie Holmes] Bob, that article is dire. I think Alina just dictated it to him over his shoulder. [2020-11-16 05:20:37] [Robert Garry] I dunno - would Italy be considered a "high-spice" country? OTOH -the data in the paper is either 1. just bad serology/virology or 2. low level cross-reactivity. Too much IgM and the low level neutralization not consistent with actual SARS-CoV-2 infections. [2020-11-16 16:05:36] [Andrew Rambaut] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2951-z [2020-11-16 16:21:39] [Kristian Andersen] Eh? Isn't that a bit of a weird addendum? I mean - what does it add we didn't already know? [2020-11-16 16:29:33] [Andrew Rambaut] It is very odd. I think it is trying to address the tinfoilers who are going on and on about that bloody mine. [2020-11-16 16:31:26] [Kristian Andersen] I think so too - or at least that must have prompted it. But this basically adds nothing - and isn't really an 'addendum' - it's just a bit of extra background information. [2020-11-16 17:24:54] [Eddie Holmes] 100% due to the tinfoilers. Both Shi and Nature have likely been inundated with comments about this. And that BBC bloke keeps emailing me. To me, this is just clarifies what they did. I think the Methods bit in the first paper had some suspect English. No doubt Inspector Clouseau is already typing vigorously.