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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31387 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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Since my 'don't trust Science' threads were already toeing the line between 'Pepe Silvia!' and schizophrenic (fair!) (I didn't even touch the four-part follow-up), Nate Silver summarizes better than I can :

Here’s the scandal. In March 2020, a group of scientists — in particular, Kristian G. Andersen the of The Scripps Research Institute, Andrew Rambaut of The University of Edinburgh, Edward C. Holmes of the University of Sydney, and Robert F. Garry of Tulane University — published a paper in Nature Medicine that seemingly contradicted their true beliefs about COVID’s origins and which they knew to be misleading. The paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”, has been cited more than 5,900 times and was enormously influential in shaping the debate about the origins of COVID-19.

We know this because of a series of leaked and FOIAed emails and Slack messages that have been reported on by Public, Racket News, The Intercept and The Nation along with other small, independent media outlets. You can find a detailed summary of the claims and a copy of the emails and messages here at Public. There’s also good context around the messages here (very detailed) or here and here (more high-level).

((Silver's links carry the touchstones of conspiracy paranoia, like an emphasis on coverups and literally-by-the-minute analysis of claimed coordinated action, which would normally discourage me from pointing to them, except they also happen to be reasonable factual descriptions.))

To be clear, this isn't a case of some barely-related scientists from nearby offices in slightly-related fields being somewhat more open-minded. These documents demonstrate each and every single author of the paper held some of the exact same concerns about the proposed wet market origin as piles of shitposters and too-online dogs, often pointing to the exact same evidence... privately. In public, they named opponents giving these possibilities conspiracy theorists for naming options they were accepting privately, or drawing out a web that actually existed. Jeremy Farrar would send e-mails giving 50:50 odds on natural (and non-natural, mostly serial passage) origins at the same day he was shopping around early drafts of the paper; while he isn't on the author list, that's its own mess. To be fair, they do change positions in private, as information comes around and as debate occurred. But they remain far from as convinced as they pretended in public, not just during publication but months later, and it's exceptionally clear that the political and pragmatic ramifications drive that.

Nor was this filled with caveats and used or intended to be used solely as a small opinion piece. It contains a few limited cautions about available data's ability to discriminate from evolution at the wet market from cryptic adaptation among humans, but serial passage was actively dismissed by an incoherent mush that steps from animal models to purely in vitro considerations. The paper's authors and 'unrelated' academics (who had been heavily involved in discussions with the paper's authors behind closed doors) cited this not-a-paper at length to justify treating anyone even considering the possibility of just serial passage or an accidental lab leak to be a conspiracy theory that must be shut down, all the way from casual shitposters to federal politicians, including those who advocated specifically serial passage or a purely transport-focused accident. These private messages make clear that wasn't some unintentional side effect, but a if not the specific goal.

Nor was this limited to the broadest strokes: at best, these otherwise closely-knit scientists did mention important information not widely available to random shitposters to each other, such as the rarity of live pangolin trafficking, or the animal makeup of the wet market's official shipments, or a variety of information about possible serial passage techniques, all of which were carefully excluded from the final paper. Some writers received confidential notice of discovery of RmYNO2, and after finding that it wasn't itself more helpful to their point than other already-known genomes, decided to instead obliquely reference it as possible to make a 'prediction', because the Texas Sharpshooter's approach would have been too on the nose.

And that's the stuff that came through FOIA-able emails or broad and leakable Slack channels. The messages show many people involved transitioning to private e-mails, to phone calls, to unrecorded Zoom meetings, often dropping to very clipped wording during that transition: they knew this could eventually be public, and they knew other conversations would not.

None of this amounts, as many COVID skeptics are calling it, to research fraud; I'm not even sure it fits most definitions of academic misconduct. But that's mostly because the publication didn't have enough numbers or analysis to need to actively lie: this paper has no pixels to check for signs of photoshopping, nor specific population numbers to hit with GRIM. Silver has joined calls to retract the paper, but Nature's staff have already said that "Neither previous out-of-context remarks by the authors nor disagreements with the authors’ stated views, are, on their own, grounds for retraction." It ain't happening.

Silver proposes that the scientists were motivated by some combination of :

  • Evidence of a lab leak could cause a political backlash — understandably, given that COVID has killed almost 7 million people — resulting in a reduction in funding for gain-of-function research and other virological research. That’s potentially important to the authors or the authors’ bosses — and the authors were very aware of the career implications for how the story would play out;
  • Evidence of a lab leak could upset China and undermine research collaborations;
  • Evidence of a lab leak could provide validation to Trump and Republicans who touted the theory — remember, all of this was taking place during an election year, and medical, epidemiological and public health experts had few reservations about weighing in on political matters.

These aren't exactly the most charitable framings for each possibility, if perhaps more charitable than focusing on Anderson's certainty this paper got him tenure. But with a more forgiving description, I get something along the lines of :

  • Prohibitions on gain-of-function and other virological research could undermine pandemic responses (and we wouldn't know about past prevented pandemics, after all), or drive research to locations with worse biosecurity or oversight (than BSL2?).
  • Bad relations with China could undermine future pandemic responses or escalate to a 'hot' war.
  • Trump and Republicans responding to a China with marginal scientific research could result in another Korematsu, undermine future pandemic responses, or escalate to a 'hot' war.

Perhaps @Chrisprattalpharaptor can do better. But even if these somewhat earnest reasons that business or political tribe might have controlled what these scientists were willing to say publicly, or if there was some more noble cause that they held above providing an accurate model of the world, it's still something other than providing an accurate model of the world. Which is what, supposedly, was their job.

Worse, few of these matters stop here. Trivially, a lot of academics and casual observers are saying that even if the Nature op-ed authors were playing fast-and-loose with the facts at the time, we since have a ton of evidence in favor the wet market/natural origin side and very little recently published in favor of serial passage or any intentional manipulation, and normally drawing big charts claiming almost all the experts in a field were conspiracy to hide The Truth would be the sorta thing you do shortly before the nice men give you a coat with extra-long sleeves and take you to get some anti-psychotics. Except all of the above.

I wonder when Nate Silver will be labeled far right the way he is going ... his insistence of following facts is quickly turning him into apostate. Colbert in 2006 joked that reality has a well known liberal bias. How tables have turned.

For the revelations - it was obvious even at the time.

If you went back in time to 2015 and told people that the left had become so extreme that Nate Silver, Mathew Ygglesias, and Glen Greenwald were all considered far-right fascists, you'd have been locked up in a psych ward tossed into a homeless encampment.

I already saw people saying he'd gone MAGA or comparing him to Glenn Greenwald in the comments on that twitter thread.

Colbert in 2006 joked that reality has a well known liberal bias. How tables have turned.

Is it a turning of tables, or merely the difference between 'liberal' and 'left'?

Colbert in 2006 joked that reality has a well known liberal bias.

These same people think reality’s socially constructed.

You are referring to an extreme form of constructivism. The mainstream of constructvism has important insights in many fields.

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Could you point out where in that article (or elsewhere) there is any important insight provided by the mainstream of constructvism? I do not have a positive view of constructivism as a useful way to analyze the world or predict future events, and that article further cemented my view since it mostly seems like a posthoc justification for obviously-true statements whenever it's testable: "Constructivists argue that states can have multiple identities that are socially constructed through interaction with other actors." is untestable, "500 British nuclear weapons are less threatening to the United States than five North Korean nuclear weapons" is obvious without constrictivism.

"Constructivists argue that states can have multiple identities that are socially constructed through interaction with other actors." is untestable,

I don't know why you think it is untestable. A variable like "identity" is difficult to measure, but that does not make the claim untestable.

"500 British nuclear weapons are less threatening to the United States than five North Korean nuclear weapons" is obvious without constrictivism.

But is not obvious why it is obvious. IR schools of thought such as realism predict that the US would respond the same way to the development of nukes by the UK as to the development of nukes by North Korea. Constructivism provides an answer. As it says, "nuclear weapons by themselves do not have any meaning unless we understand the social context."

In addition, as the article notes, constructivists argue that "the social relation of enmity between the United States and North Korea represents the intersubjective structure (that is, the shared ideas and beliefs among both states), whereas the United States and North Korea are the actors who have the capacity (that is, agency) to change or reinforce the existing structure or social relationship of enmity. This change or reinforcement ultimately depends on the beliefs and ideas held by both states. If these beliefs and ideas change, the social relationship can change to one of friendship. This stance differs considerably from that of realists, who argue that the anarchic structure of the international system determines the behaviour of states."

Then there is the discussion in the article about social norms and how they affect state behavior. After all, all else being equal, which country would you predict would be more likely to intervene to stop a genocide: Sweden, or Nazi Germany? Realists, et al, would say that they are equally likely, but constructivists would disagree. Why do countries tend to support countries whose majorities are ethnically similar? And what the heck is all this stuff about the "special relationship" between the US and the UK? Would the UK have backed the US in Iraq so strongly in its absence? Surely the UK's interest were served no more by the Iraq war than were French or German interests.

I'm not educated on these terms and this whole school of thought, and right now the gap between my understanding of how the world works and what you've linked/described about Constructivism is too great for me to understand your points. I do not see a reason why I'm not allowed to conclude that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea should elicit a different international response than nuclear weapons in the hands of Great Britain without the constructivist need to claim that the nature of the nuclear weapons is different between the two. Like, I can change my opinions, reactions, and decisions between a good adult friend and the 14-year-old across the street when each asks to borrow my car. I'm allowed to do that without needing to believe that my car has changed. And there are inherent truths about nuclear weapons and cars that would be true regardless of social context: nuclear weapons make a big explosion when successfully activated, and cars have 4 wheels. A society that believes the will of a supernatural entity is the only cause of fire is unable to modify a nuclear detonation through prayer no matter how important the supernatural entity is in their society. A society that believes the number 4 to be bad luck and that refuses to allow anything to have that number of wheels is allowed to collectively say a car has 3 wheels, but that doesn't make it true.

Where are you getting your definition of "realists"? In the colloquial meaning of "realist", I don't see why they would conclude that a country whose government has committed genocide would be less likely to intervene to stop another genocide. The obvious conclusion seems like it could be reached by observing the real world, with real, testable things that really exist, regardless of social constructs. Measure: has each country committed genocide, and have they intervened to stop another genocide. Calculate: historically, what's the chance a country that has committed genocide will intervene to stop another genocide versus one that hasn't. Predict: given two countries, one that has committed genocide and one that hasn't, which is more likely to intervene to stop this particular genocide. The answer is independent of social context.

Again, I'm ignorant here. I want to understand why there is any benefit for believing that social context changes the reality of objects, or that we're not allowed to consider any actor as different than any other actor without constructivism. Because the downstream effects of constructivism I see are awful: college professors claiming that aboriginal interpretations of the world are just as valid as the scientific method, and the superweapon of unfalsifiable "lived experiences" that trump rational debate. I want to stop those things, and from my perspective shunning constructivism - making it costly and embarrassing to believe and support - seems to be a good solution. I don't see any loss, because what you're saying constructivism adds all seem like common sense that we could figure out without that structure.

Where are you getting your definition of "realists"? In the colloquial meaning of "realist"

I don’t mean to sound impatient, but why not spend two minutes googling realist school of IR before asking that? That is, after all, what I explicitly referred to. Not to the colloquial meaning. As for "I don't see why they would conclude that a country whose government has committed genocide would be less likely to intervene to stop another genocide," first, the difference I meant to highlight was not that Nazi Germany committed genocide but Sweden did not, but rather that they have different norms. See the topic sentence of the paragraph in question. Second, realists don’t make that prediction. Rather, they would think they are exactly equally likely, because realists don't consider norms at all when discussing state behavior.

do not see a reason why I'm not allowed to conclude that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea should elicit a different international response than nuclear weapons in the hands of Great Britain without the constructivist need to claim that the nature of the nuclear weapons is different between the two

Two points. First, previous IR schools like realism were unable to predict that the responses would be different. In contrast, constructism can. That’s what I meant when I said it had some useful insights. Second, constructivists do not say that the nature of the weapons is different, but rather that the meaning of the weapons is different (eg, one is a threat), and it is the meaning assigned thereto, not the inherent nature thereof, which determines how a state will respond.

I want to understand why there is any benefit for believing that social context changes the reality of objects, or that we're not allowed to consider any actor as different than any other actor without constructivism

Those are both strawmen. As I mentioned, in its non-extreme form, constructivists do not talk about the reality of objects, but the meaning attached to objects, and also to concepts. After all, important concepts in IR like "threat" and "ally" are not objects at all. As for whether we are not allowed to consider some actors as different from others without constructivism, no one said otherwise. There are other schools of IR which treat states as nonunitary actors whose behavior is a function of internal factors. Constructivism's contribution is re the role of norms, identity, and other ideas.

For anyone following along, some handy Wikipedia links:

I do not believe that Googling Constructivism, IR, or realist would have got me there within 2 minutes, but mea culpa. I should have tried harder to figure it out from context.

I don't care about the philosophy of international relations, so I can't claim an educated opinion on whether "previous IR schools like realism were unable to predict that the responses would be different." That sounds stupid to me as a layman. Other times I have heard that an entire field has failed to notice something obvious, the error has been with the person making the claim and not with the field itself. Gdanning, I appreciate your attempts to explain it to me, but I remain unconvinced that "The mainstream of constructvism has important insights in many fields". If I need to understand the history of the philosophy of international relations in order to see the important insights of Constructivism, then I'm comfortable dismissing its insights as "not actually important in the grand scheme of things", which I will file in the Constructivism folder in my mind next to "that stupid philosophy that people are referring to when they say 'reality is a social construct'".

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Oh, really? Who would that be?

How many would you like me to direct you to? I have a character limit here. The whole mainstream progressive wing of the left, including mainstream punditry. The liberal stranglehold over the whole Ivy League. Most people living in deeply blue state’s, with ties to the Democratic Party. What are you looking for? Lol.

Your conduct throughout this thread has been pretty belligerent, condescending, and full of sneering, but this one stands out for the obnoxious "Lol" at the end, so this is the one I'm attaching a warning to. Calm down and be less antagonistic.

I was hoping you’d have a smoking gun of Colbert saying reality was “socially constructed.”

I’ll settle for any major politician or pundit saying that. I don’t believe it’s actually a common sentiment. Not among people who’ve worked a non-advocacy job.

I’ll settle for any major politician or pundit saying that. I don’t believe it’s actually a common sentiment.

It being dead center at the heart of woke ideology is good enough for me. But if that doesn’t do it for people, I suppose virtually nothing will. That has been obvious now for over a decade.

While she does not say, "I am a strict constructivist", I think this clip of Kentanji Brown-Jackson makes it clear that she adheres strongly to constructivism. It's also possible that she's simply lying to avoid question, but her mannerisms and verbiage are consistent with a sincere belief that "woman" isn't really something that one could define based on their perception of the world, but strictly requires additional context.

That’s a pretty good point. I should have thought about the legal profession.

I have a sense that some jobs—activists, blog-journalists, certain academics—have postmodernism in the job description. Law feels like it’s in that category. I want to discount them, but in the interest of not moving the goalposts, I guess I’m convinced.

As a lawyer I can confirm, but there's nothing inherently right-wing or left-wing about any of it. I have a deposition tomorrow where I'm going to ask some poor retiree about 500 questions, the vast majority of which I know he doesn't know the answer to and that he knows I couldn't possibly think he knows the answer to. I'm going to ask him for specific details about pieces of insustrial machinery he says he worked with in the 1970s. For instance, if he brings up a particular brand of industrial compressor I'm going to ask him when the first time he saw the brand was, how he was able to identify the brand, when the last time he saw it was, how many of that brand were in the facility, what each one he remembered specificly did, if he associated it with any particular color, detailed description of what it looked like, how it worked, what it was used for. And if he has the misfortune of actually being able to answer any of these questions in the affirmative then it will only lead to more questions pushing for more specifics. But I need to do this because whenever I go into negotiations with opposing counsel I can't just assume he doesn't know all of this (it's good for my client that he doesn't know), because if I do opposing counsel will ask to see where on the record it is that he says he doesn't know and now I don't have as much negotiating power. Every detail matters, every term must be defined, every hair must be split. If I don't do all that it's a disservice to my client.

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Do you think if you asked Joe Biden “what is a woman” that he would say a biological woman or “someone who identifies as a woman?” Biden might fuck up the answer but still.

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