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The problem is that we sometimes have to rely on other people. We can’t all be experts in everything. We can’t all reproduce or witness every experiment.

What we can do is delegate the process.

There’s a difference between saying “whatever X says is true, because X said it”, and “I trust what Y says because Y has explained the process and methods of how it was derived, and I don’t have reasonable doubt to assume Y lied”.

[jazzyk]

What to do when you have two very different opinions coming from experts:

- Anthony "I am The Science" Fauci

or

- Dr Malone (mRNA inventor)?

Who to believe?

Difficult to say, but these days, sadly, the first (and prudent) thing to do is to follow the money. While credentials matter, the first thing I check when I read a paper/publication is who funded the work.

[spion]

Doesn't really work. Social media grifting can be really profitable - it brings in audience, clicks, ad money. Even just audience is enough as long as you can come up with something to sell later.

Even if the original paper was an unfunded honest mistake, grifters can find a way to profit from spreading it especially if its novel and sensational.

[tripletao]

All claims I've seen that Malone is "the" inventor of mRNA vaccine technology trace back to Malone himself. He possibly has some real claim to be "an" inventor, among the top dozen or so contributors of early advances that ultimately enabled the present vaccines. It's also possible that the contribution he's claiming as his own was basically his supervisor's idea (Felgner's), and Malone is just the one who did the lab work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

Either way, I'm pretty sure Malone's claims about vaccine safety are dangerously wrong. After literally billions of doses of mRNA vaccines, the adverse effects he's been warning about simply haven't materialized. The rate of those effects isn't zero, and surveillance at mass scale has identified adverse effects that the original trials weren't powered to detect; but for now, the risk/benefit ratio for the vaccines looks highly favorable. Malone's baseless assertions otherwise are causing real harm.

That said, please don't take anything above as a defense of Fauci or of censorship. While I'm pretty sure that Malone is dangerously wrong, this pandemic has repeatedly demonstrated that the mainstream consensus can also be dangerously wrong--so like the Royal Society, I'd rather tolerate false information from the contrarians than risk a false mainstream view that can never get corrected. That doesn't mean contrarians are automatically (or even usually) right, though.

"Follow the money" may sometimes be a useful standard, but I don't see the relevance here. Fauci appears to get his money from the government, where he's the single highest-paid employee but still earns less than countless anonymous tech workers. This seems more to me like a matter of prestige, ego and power for both men.

[berdario]

> I'd rather tolerate false information from the contrarians than risk a false mainstream view that can never get corrected. That doesn't mean contrarians are automatically (or even usually) right, though

I don't. I think it's reckless to tolerate contrarian information (and in fact, it's causing a much higher death toll during this pandemic) in public.

I agree that specialists should still be allowed to discuss contrarian information, via papers, peer review and the overall scientific process.

But should Software Engineers (like most of us here) really be warranted a platform, a listening audience on their ideas about virology?

[imbnwa]

What exactly is the "false mainstream view that can never get corrected"? I'm likely out of the loop to some extent, but WRT, e.g masks, that was retracted and corrected; vaccines prevent transmission/reception, that was retracted and corrected. What else am I missing, or is it simply that people don't like "flip-flopping", which is strange cause there wasn't massive outrage at the way "cigarettes don't give you cancer" was propagated, or Absestos, etc

[tripletao]

In the two examples that you give, I don't think there was significant censorship of the initially-contrarian viewpoints ("masks are likely enough to protect against SARS-CoV-2 that they're worth a try", "the vaccine is highly effective against death and serious illness but much less so against infection long-term"). Perhaps in part because of that open discussion, those viewpoints indeed quickly became the mainstream.

I was thinking more of stuff like the origin of the pandemic. It's far from proven, but I believe it's entirely possible that (a) the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic originated from reckless virological research; (b) if this research continues, then new pandemics will occur by similar means in future, with similar or worse mortality; and (c) the only force likely to prevent that is public outcry against continued funding of such research. For about a year, discussion of this possibility was grounds for a ban from Facebook. It's only thanks to the huge reputational risks taken by a small number of researchers that this topic has now entered the mainstream. Without those few dozen people, we could easily have landed in a world where that topic remained forbidden indefinitely.

Closer to the Malone case, the BMJ published an article alleging improper conduct by a contractor that conducted some of Pfizer's vaccine trials. (For emphasis, they're not saying that any of these allegations, even if true, would mean the vaccine is unsafe. The point is to expose and correct localized procedural failures before they become patient safety failures.) Facebook marked this as "partly false information", and indicated that users who shared the article would see their posts deprioritized. This has been widely publicized, and Facebook hasn't changed its position.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/376/bmj.o95.full.pdf

So if the vaccine were actually dangerous, then would I ever find out? (Again, I strongly believe the vaccine is safe; but I'm asking this hypothetically.) I think I still would for now, because the censorship on the major platforms isn't complete, and I spend enough time on other platforms that they don't have total control anyways. It's not a comforting trend, though.

[berdario]

We know how the pandemic originated, let's stop spreading FUD and propaganda

https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/

[tripletao]

A group of authors including Ralph Baric, the father of modern coronavirology, published a letter in Science calling for investigation of all possible origins of the pandemic, explicitly including a research accident:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016

Last I checked, Baric still thought a natural origin was more likely; but the point is that he considers an unnatural origin sufficiently likely that an open investigation is required. The FBI assessed with "moderate" confidence that the pandemic had unnatural origin, while some other agencies assessed with "low" confidence that it was natural and the rest declined to judge.

We don't know how the pandemic originated. Nothing is proven in either direction, but mainstream consensus now absolutely includes the possibility that it originated from such a research accident. Your dismissal of that as "FUD and propaganda" now puts you in a position as fringe as the opposite would have been eighteen months ago. From your other comment, I guess you think I should have been censored for entertaining it back then. But given that the mainstream consensus has since changed--apparently without you realizing--do you believe that you should be censored for rejecting it now?

Unless you somehow become our dictator, you are unlikely to find that the censors' arbiter of truth always agrees with you. Specifically on this website, I believe that Paul Graham is our dictator; and from his Twitter account, I'm pretty sure he disagrees with you on this matter:

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396787092726984707

He surely can afford to moderate as strictly as he wants. But he doesn't seem too inclined to censorship, so you got to post your comment. I'm fine with that, among other reasons because it gave me the chance to explain the basis for my beliefs, and possibly change your mind (or that of someone else reading).

As to your link, I assume you're aware that the host and guests on TWiV have advocated for and performed exactly the kind of high-risk research that may have caused this pandemic? That certainly gives them special expertise that deserves attention, but to trust only them on this question is like trusting only Monsanto on herbicide safety.

[skybrian]

No, looking at funding is a terrible shortcut. If you can't study the papers yourself, maybe see what other scientists think of their work? For COVID there is plenty of discussion.

If you can't figure it out, hedging your bets is better than choosing a side.

[Jansen312]

I trust Malone way more. Fauzi has vested interest in continuing COVID measures. Check out his pay (higher than western leaders in the world). Check also his stock holdings. Still Fauzi has way more credibility than the entire WHO which has been a laughing stock for the past 2 years.

[rrrhys]

Why are you intentionally spelling his name wrong? It certainly doesn't add credibility to your argument.

[peteradio]

You can delegate whatever process you want. Please allow me to make that decision for myself, we have different capabilities and values.

[posterboy]

> The problem is that we sometimes have to rely on other people. We can’t all be experts in everything. We can’t all reproduce or witness every experiment.

Implying that anyone has to have expert knowledge.

> I trust what Y says because Y has explained the process and methods of how it was derived, ...

Doesn't that directly contravene what you said before?

> ... and I don’t have reasonable doubt to assume Y lied”.

Completely different issue, same problem though. Reformulated by sylogism, you are basicly saying "I trust that I don't have reasonable doubt, because we can’t all be experts in everything. We can’t all reproduce or witness every experiment.", which is really a definition for what you might consider reasonable. It's a recursive definition at second order when "What expert X says is true, because they do not have reasonable doubt. They sometimes have to rely on other people. We can’t all be experts in everything. We can’t all reproduce or witness every experiment." Whereby the default case for the recursion is "I don't trust X, because Y said they's an ass" or something like that where being an arse can come in many coloures.

[raxxorrax]

Of course you have to rely on experts, that is not the criticism. The criticism is that people with opposing views were silenced and declared as spreaders of misinformation. It is not hard to craft a counter argument if you have evidence for it. Just stating that you believe that X is wrong is enough. Having X removed hints that you do not have contradicting evidence. If said evidence is not politically communicable, you still should not ban people and remain on your position.