
Let's hear scientists with different Covid-19 views, not attack them - apsec112
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hear-scientists-different-views-covid-19-dont-attack-them/
======
tensor
The example this article uses doesn't help drive the point. Ioannidis _was_
heard, and the majority of the attacks on him came from outside the scientific
community. Within the community science played out how it's supposed to. The
paper was looked at critically and flaws in it's data uncovered and thus
correctly discredited.

Meanwhile, his hypothesis is _still_ held by many prominent figures outside of
the scientific community. So it's very hard to claim this is an example of
valid ideas being at all squashed.

Worse, in this case we have hard evidence of some pretty catastrophic results
from this virus. So trying to argue that the overall outcome isn't going to be
so bad is proven false by counter example. We _already_ have situations that
are bad enough to warrant extreme counter measures.

~~~
joe_the_user
Lots of things about the Ioannidis paper.

A) This was published as a research paper but how much of a research paper was
it? As mentioned, it selectively and fairly shallowly looked at some data (the
Diamond Princess) while wholly ignoring other data (South Korea) without even
providing a strong justification for its choices. It was more like "an essay
with scholarly footnotes".

B) This article wasn't simply offered to scientific community. You can find a
huge swath of mainstream media reports describing this paper and another large
number of popular articles with by _Ioannidis himself_ defending the positions
he staked out in his article. This was essentially a media campaign.

C). The particular position Ioannidis staked out was just one of a series of
positions one can find staked by a variety of figures, some real scientists,
some right wing ideologues, some somewhat in between. Again, if you look, a
well financed media campaign. Below is a series of link I've cobbled together
I've cobbled together as documentation of this:

The American Institute for Economic Research (libertarian/right wing think
tank) give it's of "significant" article: [https://www.aier.org/article/vital-
information-that-is-falli...](https://www.aier.org/article/vital-information-
that-is-falling-through-the-cracks/) Essentially a web of articles united by
the need to avoid undue action on the virus (IE, not cost money).

A nice article describing the similarity of Covid-denial and Climate-change-
denial:
[https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/04/coronavirus-d...](https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/04/coronavirus-
doubters-follow-climate-denial-playbook/)

An article on the effort to spin the Santa Clara tests befor e they were even
release: [https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-
circulating...](https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-
california-2019-bunk.html)

What's on with Ioannidis: [https://undark.org/2020/04/24/john-ioannidis-
covid-19-death-...](https://undark.org/2020/04/24/john-ioannidis-
covid-19-death-rate-critics/)

Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, another Stanford Connected
"minimizer" [https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-
corona...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-
theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration)

A summary of several related minimizers, with a similar program:
[https://arcdigital.media/what-the-federalist-doesnt-get-
abou...](https://arcdigital.media/what-the-federalist-doesnt-get-about-the-
importance-of-life-1833c714f08f)

Aljazeera gives a broader discussion, why real scientist would do this:
[https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-
herd-i...](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-herd-
immunity-eugenics-market-200414104531234.html)

~~~
op03
What is your point?

------
gbjw
Part of the problem with the reporting on death rates and, to a lesser extent,
many of the tests and treatments of COVID-19, is the almost nonexistent
emphasis on uncertainty quantification. A view might only be ‘different’ in
the sense that the mode of the belief is shifted significantly, which is to be
expected if existing beliefs are quite diffuse (i.e., uncertain).

~~~
exmadscientist
Former actual scientist here.

This! This, exactly! This, a million times over!

If I could teach people _one scientific concept_ to help us get through this,
it wouldn't be immunology or epidemiology. It would be an understanding of
uncertainty, where it comes from, what it means, and how to handle it.

~~~
cameldrv
The funny thing is that they actually do this -- they show that based on their
measurements of the assay's specificity, the confidence interval for the
number of true positives includes zero. That means, even discounting all of
the other biases, their study cannot provide a lower bound for the number of
infections, which was the whole point of the study.

They then proceed to ignore this and use a point estimate for their further
calculations.

The right thing to have done would have been to test the assay further, or
move the study to an area where there was higher positivity and they could get
a more reliable signal.

~~~
exmadscientist
What I actually had in mind with my comment was the hydroxychloroquine trials.
The interpretation of those results has been just saddening to the scientist
in me. They've all been weak studies, for various reasons (many of them quite
valid!), and so the results just don't have much power. And yet, the partisans
jump on everything they like to push their agenda: Miracle cure! Worse than
drinking bleach! Et cetera.

My reading of the data to date (note: not including anything that might have
shown up in the last few days) is more nuanced. Hydroxychloroquine most likely
has a small positive effect, but the data are consistent with anything from a
modest negative effect to a modest positive effect to absolutely nothing at
all. From its long history of previous use, the drug has known negative
effects, but these are unimportant or manageable for most COVID-19 patients.
However, any positive effect it may have is limited; the studies to date,
albeit limited, _have been_ powerful enough to detect a "miracle cure".

None of this says a word about mechanism of action. Someone is bound to say,
"But what about zinc? You need to consider zinc!" The thing is, we _did_.
These analyses are independent of mechanism of action. It's entirely possible
that hydroxychloroquine's small positive effect is mostly or entirely caused
by zinc interactions. Or not. We don't know! We'd have to do a study designed
around zinc to test that theory out.

In my opinion, again as a science-y but not doctor-y person, is that giving
hydroxychloroquine to COVID-19 patients in most cases will not hurt them, and
might help a little bit. The biggest danger, I believe, is that people think
it's more powerful than it is. We should not stop and think that
hydroxychloroquine is good enough or a "cure". Because it isn't. And if a
patient receives hydroxychloroquine instead of better care because people
misunderstand science, that is a _failing_.

(The above is definitely a tangent. But getting it off my chest somewhere was
good for _my_ mental health!)

~~~
jblarneyforward
Problem is that most patients will recover from Covid 19, so unlike a more
deadly disease, need a high bar for treatments.

------
jaaron
Views still need to be backed by solid data and in this case, the Stanford
study the article is highlight has a number of issues with its data:

"I think the authors of the above-linked paper owe us all an apology. We
wasted time and effort discussing this paper whose main selling point was some
numbers that were essentially the product of a statistical error."

"I’m serious about the apology. Everyone makes mistakes. I don’t think they
authors need to apologize just because they screwed up. I think they need to
apologize because these were avoidable screw-ups. They’re the kind of screw-
ups that happen if you want to leap out with an exciting finding and you don’t
look too carefully at what you might have done wrong."

source: [https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-
flaw...](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-
stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/)

~~~
cameldrv
I don't think that Ioannnidis needs to resign or something, but he should
retract the paper and recuse himself from the ongoing debate about this issue.
It was their group's decision to

a) Run op-eds in the WSJ and get on Fox News with their theories

b) Create a faulty study with biased data analysis (of all people, Ioannnidis
should be very sensitive to this -- he's famous for his paper "Why Most
Published Research Findings Are False."

c) Publish the flawed paper as a preprint without peer review.

d) Publish the results of the L.A. serological survey without even a preprint
so that the methods could be looked over.

If you publish a study that has huge societal implications before peer review,
then Twitter is going to be your peer review. Deal with it.

~~~
blueblimp
I don't blame them for posting a dodgy preprint (that's what preprints are
for) but I do blame them for going on a press blitz for their dodgy preprint.
It's not a responsible way to use their platform.

~~~
ravitation
Well, some may find posting said preprint particularly questionable simply
because it had Ioannidis' name on it, and he's primarily known for his
emphasis on standards of evidence.

~~~
epistasis
As somebody who was always annoyed by the weird amounts of odd attention that
Ioannidis' "standards of evidence" papers got, I hope that this makes people
reevaluate them.

The "standard" he set up was a straw man, and not how any practicing scientist
I know actually looks at papers.

And when he allows his name to be used to push highly politci contrarian
takes, all the weird attention his other papers received starts to make sense.
It's not about the science, it's about being contrarian, at best, and at worst
ways to subvert the public's view of science by deriving them on what it
really means to publish a peer-reviewed paper.

------
nardi
_That’s why we believe that the bar to stifling or ignoring academics who are
willing to debate their alternative positions in public and in good faith must
be very high._

But the "good faith" part is precisely the problem. Though it is difficult to
discern good faith from bad, those who argue in bad faith destroy the system
entirely, and we need some kind of defense against them.

------
rflrob
Reading the tweet thread linked under "personal attacks and general
disparaging comments"
([https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1253822258692284416](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1253822258692284416)),
I see much more a criticism of poor science journalism in the WSJ than the
poor science in the article itself (aside from one swipe as a "methodological
piece of shit"). I'm all for rigorous debate of different scientific ideas,
but the WSJ Opinion page is not where people should be marshaling allies to
their scientific ideas that are regarded as tenuous by the majority of the
community.

------
olivermarks
This point from the article is really important IMO

'Scientific consensus is important, but it isn’t uncommon when some of the
most important voices turn out to be those of independent thinkers, like John
Ioannidis, whose views were initially doubted. That’s not an argument for
prematurely accepting his contestable views, but it is a sound argument for
keeping him, and others like him, at the table'

In a free society information and ideas should flow freely, not be banned and
originators punished as happens in closed societies. It is alarming the level
of vitriol and blind adherence to 'the scientific method' aka accepted
establishment viewpoint in some cases, particularly online.

For all the endless proselytizing about 'innovation' there are some remarkably
closed minded people around, enabled and amplified by social networks

~~~
missedthecue
I'm not in the academic sciences but when my uncle published his thesis in a
journal for his physics PhD, he got literal hate mail in his mailbox for going
against the old-guard with his conclusions. It completely blew my mind that
his peers who worked in the sciences got so wound that they sent hate mail to
him. I think he still has the letters all these decades later.

I learned second hand that apparently a lot of scientific acedemia is like
that. Crazy.

~~~
imcoconut
Thanks for sharing this. I've heard many stories like that of your uncle from
professional researchers in science, economics, and other fields. This is
something that people who have no experience in professional academia and
science often do not understand.

In my experience a lot of people assume that because science and related
disciplines are rational endeavors that the institutions and culture
compassing them must also be rational, empirical, purely evidence-based, etc.
Reality can be almost comically, and sometimes tragically, the opposite.

~~~
asdff
It's like finance or law or any other field with some hothead cutthroat
personalities in powerful positions. Where there is perceived power there is
an attraction to people who feed off of power alone. Egos are a plenty and
often cruel to others trying for the same goals. Lots of people are
hypercompetitive rather than collaborative, and see any peer as an adversary
or challenger rather than leaning into synergy.

This kind of stuff would happen at conferences too, a couple notable cases of
screaming matches from the audience to the presenter have happened. Sometimes
vindictive professors will go to a rival professors's grad student's talk and
just grill the poor kid, asking them impossible questions and being
hypercritical. Usually the grad student's own professor has to step in and try
to deflect the assholes line of questioning. Sometimes the professors are even
in the same department. It's a total cringe moment for the rest of the
audience, and is definitely a phenomenon that is slowly growing out of the
field as professors retire.

Take a look at the comment section of this blog to see it first hand:
[https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-
perf...](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-perform-a-
differential-expression-analysis-or-science/)

------
Ensorceled
Part of the problem is that there are some Doctors and Scientists
participating with agendas.

Take cloth masks, there are doctors who say it helps and doctors who say it
doesn't help much. Some the doctors who said it doesn't help were genuine.

But some of the doctors were saying it doesn't help were lying because they
assumed people wouldn't social distance if they wore a mask, believing the
increased risk due to not wearing masks was not worth what they believed would
be a big decrease in social distancing. Some of the doctors were are saying
they didn't help, were lying to preserve masks for health care professionals
(including lying about n95 masks).

It's hard not to feel like attacking some one you believe is deliberately
putting many lives at risk to forward a political or personal agenda.

~~~
benmmurphy
I've also heard it claimed that masks not helping was pushed because there was
no peer reviewed randomized trials that showed that masks helped therefore the
official advice was there is no evidence that masks helped. Of course there is
no randomized trial evidence on the effectiveness of social distancing on long
term reduction in mortality due to corona virus but different ideas have to
hurdle different levels of evidence. This idea of different levels of evidence
actually makes sense because some things have potentially high payoffs and
very likely low costs. For example wearing masks would appear to fall into
this bucket.

This comes back into reasoning under uncertainty that someone else brought up
in the thread. The medical community has had problems in the past because bad
medical interventions typically impose high costs on patients so if they have
little positive benefit then it can easily become a net-negative situation. So
then you have a culture where anything that hasn't gone through an RCT with
multiple confirming studies doesn't exist as an intervention.

------
eric_b
I've followed the virus from the very beginning. About six weeks ago the media
decided blanket lockdowns were the only reasonable solution. Flatten the curve
became the mantra, dozens of models showing millions of dead in every country
were trotted out as evidence and justification for draconian shutdowns.

Any scientist that had a differing viewpoint was a monster who didn't value
human life. Any public health official who suggested maybe just the most
vulnerable be isolated was met with scorn and a heap of emotional but
illogical arguments.

Look up David Katz [1]. Only Fox News would let him talk until Bill Maher put
him on. He's eminently sensible, and he was silenced by the media.

Blanket lockdown (that is, all ages locked down) for this virus has never made
sense in Western democracies. China did it because they could, and they have a
command economy and a willing populace. The UK knew it didn't make sense from
day one, but caved to public pressure. Sweden is still going strong, thank
God, as they will be the country that shows the rest of the world how to live
with, and ultimately beat, this disease. Norway just let the youngest kids go
back to school, smartly, to increase herd immunity with less personal impact.

It will be clear in several more months that the Sweden strategy is the only
way to minimize total harm and navigate this crisis.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lze-
rMYLf2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lze-rMYLf2E)

[Edit]: Good job HN participants. Way to prove the story correct.

~~~
tapland
Stockholm has about 1300 deaths per million (excluding our systematic late
reporting) and it's still increasing and no sign of the curve tapering off.

Also, probably the wrong country to praise a capital G God about, but that's
just a cultural thing.

(yeah, everyone says it does since a week ago but data is reported late and it
has been showing a downward trend the last few days for many weeks, it's not)

~~~
rurban
Sweden COVID-19 numbers are much lower than the flu numbers in the years
before. Now they are at 2000 deaths total, in the years before they were at
1800 weekly. That's almost everywhere, besides a few outliers which need to be
studied. The global trend is that it is a very weak flu season, despite
there's no vaccine, no proper treatment (ventilators turning up wrong at the
end of the wave) and extremely high spread (R0 of 5). Turns out people's
immune reaction can fight SARS-CoV-2 much better than the normal influenza
strains, for which vaccination exist. Maybe because it's so close to the
common cold our body is accustomed to.

Everybody likes to play the numbers and curves games, but don't make it
political by deliberately faking it. Like the NY Times or FT curves lately.

Even euromomo.eu changed its curves recently so they do lookh more dramatic.
Not backed by the absolute numbers. They suddenly invented 32.000 unaccounted
new deaths out of the magicians hat, not telling us were these new numbers
came from. Some countries forbid pathologies on COVID-19 cases and forbid
classification post-mortem. But this only applies to elderlies dying at home
alone. But this would only apply to countries like the US with no healthcare
system. Like the New Jersey case of 70 seniors. Everybody else goes to the
hospitals.

~~~
jsnell
The mortality rate from all causes in Stockholm is more than double the
average from the previous five years.

Suggesting it is the equivalent of a "weak flu season" is an outright lie. And
the bit about our immune system being able to fight it off well due to a
similarity with the common cold is just something you made up, right?

------
ravitation
Scientists who "express different views" _are_ listened to, when they have
convincing data to support those "views."

Ioannidis is the only real example provided in the article, and his opinion
piece (and the related Stanford study) was criticized, not because he's an
iconoclast, but because it was bad science (and especially bad policy). Not
only that, but then, instead of engaging with the scientific community, his
"expertise" was co-opted by the conservative media and its agenda.

~~~
nogabebop23
>> but because it was bad science (and especially bad policy).

is this not exactly what the original article cautions against? if it's bad
science (which should be debatable) it's value as policy follows directly and
doesn't need to be stated or discussed seperately.

~~~
ravitation
Uh, no.

First, the original article is actually about the exact opposite. It says
nothing about attacking an opinion based on its merit, it talks about
attacking an opinion based on dogma. When I say it's bad science, I'm saying
it's bad science because of glaring problems with its methodology; I thought
that was obvious (the term "bad science" being fairly common).

Second, I'm talking about the social policy argued for in Ioannidis' opinion
piece. Social policy absolutely _does not_ just directly follow the science;
they are very different things and absolutely should be discussed separately.
I find it a bit absurd to think that science inherently dictates a certain
social policy.

------
foxfired
The problem is that the word science has been robbed of its meaning. Or the
meaning didn't scale well.

Every side of the so-called debate throws it left and right, now which science
do you believe in? As if belief is part of the equations.

And the other issue is that there are no debates. You send a tweet, and tag
WHO or some authoritative figure and then we have to believe it. Those who
don't believe it are not following the science.

Edit: Science is supposed to evolve as new data comes in. Today, we stop at
the first sensational news. When a fact is updated or retracted, it doesn't
make the news.

~~~
RhysU
> As if belief is part of the equations.

In the data starved regime, belief indeed does enter the equations in the form
of a Bayesian prior.

Agreed that new data should update the results.

------
freetime2
I think the researchers behind the Santa Clara study should be applauded for
going out and gathering data. While the methodology may have been flawed, I
think that having a small amount of flawed data is better than having no data.
My hope is that the public controversy of this study spurs more and better
serological studies in the future.

I don't agree with the premise that scientists should be silenced or suffer
personal attacks for putting out controversial or even flat out "bad" science.
I think we have seen that approach backfire, and lead to distrust of expert
opinions and traditional news sources. Instead I think that we should be
focusing on improving scientific literacy in the general population, and
electing leaders who surround themselves with and take advice from competent
scientists. And if people in certain countries, districts, etc. are not
interested in doing so... well... they are certainly free to vote however they
see fit and live with the results of that decision.

~~~
not2b
The main criticism is that they came to a conclusion that was completely
unsupported by the evidence. They made an error you'd flunk a first-year
statistics student for: ignoring the effect of false positives. They then
politicized their bad conclusion by doing a media blitz. This is especially
dangerous when the conclusion you are prematurely coming to is something that
a lot of people really want to believe. When their report first came out, it
gave me hope. I live in Santa Clara County; what they were saying would lead
to a very low death rate -- unless you allow for as few as 1% false positives,
and then you realize that the numbers they report could also arise if _no one_
had any antibodies.

They shouldn't be silenced, but they should be criticized, and criticized
intensely, for a botch a first-year grad student shouldn't make.

~~~
freetime2
> They made an error you'd flunk a first-year statistics student for: ignoring
> the effect of false positives.

I don't think it's fair to say they "ignored" the effect of false positives.
The paper very clearly states:

> We consider our estimate to represent the best available current evidence,
> but recognize that new information, especially about the test kit
> performance, could result in updated estimates.For example, if new estimates
> indicate test specificity to be less than 97.9%, our SARS-CoV-2 prevalence
> estimate would change from 2.8% to less than 1%, and the lower uncertainty
> bound of our estimate would include zero.

Some statisticians have accused them of being sloppy with their estimate of
their lower uncertainty bound (among other things). The authors have stated
that they disagree, and are working to put out additional data to show that
their findings are "robust". I honestly don't know (I don't have enough of a
background in stats to have an opinion either way), but I look forward to
seeing what the authors put out next and how the scientific community responds
to it. And more importantly than the results of this single study, I’m looking
forward to more antibody testing in the future.

------
lbeltrame
This is pretty much a problem in public communication in Italy. There are some
notable figures that (even if they are right) act in total disregard of
deontological ethics, and make disparaging comments on other colleagues.

As the article notes, it is not a matter of agreeing but of treating other
people in the scientific field with respect.

Also, some of those opinions may be wrong or just partially wrong, but we
don't see that many _mea culpa_ , if any.

~~~
cm2187
I agree (though I am not aware of the Italian controversies), but it’s worth
acknowledging that in the case of a pandemic, scientific opinions drive
policy, and policy may have dramatic consequences, including the loss of
lives. So it is understandable that conversations get heated, vs disagreeing
about a pure academic topic. I am less worried about the heat than about
deplatforming, ie suppressing the dissenting opinion.

~~~
lbeltrame
I don't mind heated discussions, I mean, I had some on lab meetings over what
people could consider obscure details. I find however not professionally
appropriate to shame what are essentially your colleagues on social media.

These controversies are pretty local: they tend to flare up every now and then
because most of these people are regularly invited (in presence or via video
call) to TV shows.

------
natvert
The fact that this article exists, and needs to exist, worries me more than
any virus or lockdown.

What, if anything, is more necessary to a free society than the free
expression and debate of ideas?

This of course requires a literate and critical interpretation of the facts
and data by all, but I digress. This is science.

~~~
jhayward
> _What, if anything, is more necessary to a free society than the free
> expression and debate of ideas?_

The commons must be protected from bad actors, and bad faith whose purpose is
to use the openness of society against itself. [1]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

~~~
nostromo
To imply that John Ioannidis is a bad actor is ridiculous.

~~~
stonogo
What is a "good actor" motivation for organizing a press tour for a non-peer
reviewed preprint?

~~~
nostromo
If that's suspect, why aren't you questioning all the other scientists and
doctors doing interviews right now?

~~~
stonogo
I am absolutely questioning all of the scientists and doctors who perform
press tours for unreviewed preprints, yes.

------
pbreit
Good luck. Anyone even slightly out of the mainstream will get shamed into
oblivion.

Just look at the 2 Bakersfield doctors this week.

~~~
rlp
But those doctors clearly don't have a good grasp of basic statistics. You
cannot extrapolate cases for a whole state based on test results from a non-
random sampling of people. They are making a basic error and claiming to be
experts, that deserves some shaming in my book.

~~~
pbreit
Everyone seems to be doing that from NYC data.

IHME_UW has been making massive errors and no one seems to mind.

~~~
rlp
No, they aren't. That's why those two were called out. Not sure how IHME's
mistakes come in to play here. If they are making mistakes, they should be
called out as well.

------
dayvid
Is there a resource for up-to-date reviewed papers on COVID? Like a Reddit
group with community members from relevant backgrounds or something? Because
it gets hard for me to keep up on what’s bs or factual, and many people
pushing articles usually have political motivations.

~~~
throwaway1777
r/covid19 is pretty good unlike the much larger and more political
r/coronavirus.

~~~
dayvid
Gotcha thanks. I also found r/medicine. Lots of doctors and ER professionals
weighing in on the news with personal experience from their hospitals.

------
lagilogi
That is not how science advents, not currently. Collaboration takes a backseat
in science when your name, reputation, career prospects are in the line.

If you advance an argument that lack proper and vigorous proof, I have no
reason to hear you. I will however tear your work to pieces. As many pieces as
I can, so I can ride that train as long as I can.

That's how science advents currently. Otherwise all of us academics would be
building our work on top of each others' collaboratively and productively.
Minorities and women would not have been shunned out; graduate slave labor,
and adjunct faculty would have been unthinkable.

------
kgarten
Scientist should hold themselves to the highest ethical standards. The article
seems to defend an article and opinion that sees economic consequences are
more dangerous than human lives lost to COVID-19. In terms of scientific
discourse, this sounds fishy to me. We don‘t know so much about the virus:
long term effects etc.

If a scientist argues against saving human lives now, because of a man made
economic systems inability to cope with the crisis might kill more people
later, I say don‘t hear him, criticize him based on an ethical discourse. Save
the lives now and adjust the system so people don‘t need to die.

~~~
gbjw
You are assuming that a particular course of action: (1) is guaranteed to be
the best way to save lives and (2) only has ramifications which we have the
ability to ‘adjust’. Many scientists may disagree with you on both accounts. I
don’t see why they are not holding themselves to the highest ethical
standards.

~~~
kgarten
In hypotheticals I would agree with you. Yet, at the time of the writing of
that article, the data from several countries regarding COVID 19 were in, and
we have an indication on what metrics work to limit deaths.

We also see what we could have done to prevent and outbreak, China, South
Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan seemed to be extremely prepared.

Germany followed the virologist, epidemiologist consensus (and is going now
off track to open businesses again ... a lot of scientist believe too early).

We will see in the long run which approaches worked and which didn’t. Yet,
calling for an opening of businesses (because we cannot be sure about the
death rate), when none of the successful countries did that, is ethically
dubious to me.

------
ggm
The SAGE committee in Whitehall is permitting Dominic Cumming not only to
listen in to the scientists and demographers and economists: he is joining in.
Thus, the mis-apprehension of science leaks out, into official acts.

~~~
benmmurphy
It will be interesting to see what policy influence Cummings has had. A media
outlet earlier had claimed Cummings pushed for no lockdown. So seeing we had a
lockdown that would appear to show that he doesn't have much influence.
Though, it might be that Cummings opinion on what to do changed as he received
more information and he ended up supporting the lockdown. Or it could be that
the media misreported the situation.

------
notacoward
My worry with pieces like this is that they're meant to encourage intellectual
diversity _in scientific discourse_ , but some people will undoubtedly try to
use them as "teach the controversy!" to justify any kind of crazy non-
scientific idea. How do we teach people to draw that line? Or is that a lost
cause?

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Scientific discourse is based on the assumption that all parties have the
basic reading comprehension to look at the primary data.

I'm not really worried about creationism or climate stabilism competing given
those conditions. And if those aren't the conditions, it's not scientific
discourse.

~~~
ravitation
Others are not so discerning in what they think is scientific discourse.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
If anyone who feels that way would like to suggest a neologism for the sort of
discourse I describe, I'd be open to using it - I do feel the term 'scientific
discourse' has been watered down a fair bit.

~~~
ravitation
My point wasn't that I necessarily have a different view on what scientific
discourse is; my point was that someone who is less discerning might see a
discussion of one of the views you listed and see valid scientific discourse.

The issue is not that scientists, or discerning non-scientists, will take
those views seriously, it's that others might (or will, or do). Hence the
issue is not with defining scientific discourse, it's with educating a
population to be able to apply that definition (or formulate their own
functional individual ones).

------
egberts1
We can see how Seattle and Tokyo kept their SARS-CoV-2 case load very low by
listening to their own scientists; New York City and Austin, not so much.

~~~
Cyclone_
In what ways did Austin not listen to their own scientists? I was there during
part of this and they had a fairly early response, I believe SXSW was one of
the first major events to be cancelled in the US. They were also pretty quick
about limiting the size of gatherings.

------
kgarten
Interestingly also other scientists seem to suffer from this phenomenon:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/virologist-
chr...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/virologist-christian-
drosten-germany-coronavirus-expert-interview)

------
yters
Just graphing death rate data that Google provides shows weird trends.
[https://mindmatters.ai/2020/04/why-does-covid-19-target-
the-...](https://mindmatters.ai/2020/04/why-does-covid-19-target-the-northern-
hemisphere/)

------
notechback
Let's look at climate science: there was a study that 99% of researchers on
the topic are convinced it's real, 1% have some doubts.

Should we give the 1% a voice? Yes

Should we consider the view of the 1% as equal to the 99%? No.

Here's what happens when someone vocally has a dissenting view: they get press
coverage, both neutral and from agenda-driven perspectives. There is exactly
one country (the US, maybe two if you count Australia) where a majority of
those in decision making positions believe or act as if they believe that
climate change is not real. They justify this by quoting the 1% and ignoring
the 99%.

As such then the 1% are causing significant harm to the planet (assuming that
the majority view is correct).

The same in a more vivid way is true for covid: those dissenting voices (eg
the French doctor Trump ended up quoting) get a lot of coverage no matter how
sound the science proposed by those dissenters is (or in this case unsound - a
study on the medicine he recommended had to be ended due to heavy health
impacts of the medicine).

These dissenters and rapidly published papers have led to deaths. No doubt, no
questions, people have died due to those perspectives being pushed into the
mainstream discussions.

So should they be heard by peers and their views be discussed? Yes. Should
they get press coverage, blog their viewpoints out there, etc, even if it
leads to thousands of deaths (or destruction of the planet)? I don't think so.

This is a role for media to filter (rather than blare everything into the
ether), but also a self-constraint that any serious scientist should impose
upon themselves. The public is not able to decide which old guy with a
professor/Dr in front of his name is the one to trust.

------
cfv
Yeah... About that... I mean... no. When the possible death of thousands upon
thousands of people is on the line, your proposal better be ironclad and well
equipped to stand many lines of attack if you want it to be taken seriously.

"Hey maybe let's not do the one massively researched thing that we've done
since times of the plague because there's not enough data" is neither of those
things.

Open dialogue in science needs to take place in the forums already in place,
not on clickbaity money-starved legacy media.

EDIT: Dear rando downvoters, please instead of lurking help foster debate by
stating why in your opinion untestable indefensible claims should be allowed
to pass as science in the name of "open dialogue".

------
maallooc
Imagine being forced to remove this article, the server provider cuts off
service, and your domain banned because these kind of articles have violated
terms of services.

That's happening on YouTube now.

~~~
happytoexplain
I usually find that if you have to make an analogy for any reason other than
explaining something technically complex, your position is probably faulty.
E.g. in this case, I'd call this a false equivalence. Rather than making an
analogy, you should explain directly why YouTube's policy is immoral or
dangerous, rather than indirectly pointing at some other scenario, which will
always differ in many relevant and irrelevant ways by the simple nature of it
being a different scenario. It needlessly complicates the conversation.

~~~
maallooc
Your video gets deleted, your channel gets a warning or a ban. Seems
equivalent to what YouTube is doing to youtubers that posts information
inconsistent with WHO.

~~~
lern_too_spel
> Seems equivalent to what YouTube is doing to youtubers that posts
> information inconsistent with WHO.

Absolutely nothing? Unless you post misinformation, in which case, it will be
left up but demonetized.
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9803260?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9803260?hl=en)

Where did you get the deletion and ban nonsense from?

------
woodandsteel
The article makes some good points. Much is not yet known about the pandemic,
and we should listen carefully to alternative views.

The article ends by saying the problem is that the issue has been politicized,
which is quite correct. But author should have said this started when Trump
and a large portion of the conservative media claimed that the whole thing was
a hoax, that the scientists knew the coronavirus is no more dangerous than the
seasonal flu, but decided, thousands of them, to lie to the public so as to
undermine the US economy and prevent Trump from being re-elected in November.

------
briandear
Let’s apply this to climate change as well.

~~~
garg
The first line of the article is

>When major decisions must be made amid high scientific uncertainty, as is the
case with Covid-19, we can’t afford to silence or demonize professional
colleagues with heterodox views.

How much scientific uncertainty actually exists when it comes to climate
change and its causes?

~~~
tlb
A lot! There's no serious debate that it's happening and the main cause is
human burning of fossil fuels, but numerical estimates of future temperature
change have wide error bars and estimates of ecosystem damage are all fairly
speculative since they depend on species not being able to adapt (which they
may or may not.)

The debate has been poisoned by deniers pointing to any uncertainty as
evidence of it all being fake. The intellectually honest approach is to
consider the expected costs across all likely outcomes, and spend money on
mitigations accordingly.

------
rdxm
<rant> Is anyone really surprised? Current culture world-wide is built on 15
second attention span idiocy and social media b __ _s_ __.

Want to see this go away? Remove FB/Insta/Twitter from the planet, along with
the entire mainstream media, all of which have business models based on the
aforementioned idiocy as well as non-stop conflict generation.

When you are done with that task go purge every sitting legislative body on
the planet which in general are bought and paid for by those same special
interests.

Then you'd have a clean slate to build on for intelligent dialog and
meaningful efforts related to not just Covid 19, but many other pressing
global concerns...</rant>

------
baddox
> Scientists who express different views on Covid-19 should be heard

It's interesting to phrase this as "views." I'd prefer to see all relevant
_data_.

~~~
dnautics
You're out of luck, the data are still relatively sparse, (understandably)
collected under duress, and (understandably) without controls. Just about
anything predictive (and many descriptive things too) any reputable scientist
says will be slightly better than informed speculation. The ethically sound
scientists will disclose the level of caution their suggestions for policy
entail, and there will be plenty of very talented scientists who will raise a
furor on the grounds that the _layperson_ cannot be trusted to take socially
responsible action without an exaggerated threat over their heads.

------
throwaway0a5e
The public response to COVID-19 made the transition from a scientific topic to
a subject of politics/religion about a month ago. While I appreciate the
author's sentiment I can't help but feel the authors' are pissing into a
hurricane. At this point the course this thing is gonna run seems to be out of
the control of scientists, academics and honest debate.

~~~
bottled_poe
An individual is smart. People are stupid. Collective thinking is just too
hard. We’re all guilty of it.

~~~
clairity
or how about a crowd is wise but a herd is not?

------
drummer
Yeah videos of doctors and scietists who don't follow the official line are
being censored on YouTube. This one is the latest, highly recommend watching
to the end. [https://archive.org/details/full-press-conference-dr-dan-
eri...](https://archive.org/details/full-press-conference-dr-dan-erickson-dr-
artin-massihi)

