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Comment by torstenvl | Hacker News Reader

Millions of people are dead. I think it's worth having an objective public debate about what steps would be appropriate to reduce the risk of this happening again. I don't see that "be mad at science" has anything to do with an insistence on an honest exploration and testing of hypotheses.

Neil deGrasse Tyson sums up the scientific approach as follows: "Test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the test, reject the ones that fail. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. And question everything." Cosmos (2014).

Why is that approach considered so anathema when it comes to hunting down the killer of millions of people?

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I suspect you have a bit of a straw man in mind. The opposition would likely say something like: "GoF is the best means at our disposal to fight diseases much worse than COVID".

I suspect that the opposition then is not considering the gravity of this research being responsible for the deaths of millions.

Which is obviously absurd, so there is definitely something else going on.

I suspect:

1. You don't know what my position actually is, as I haven't stated it

2. You are confusing assertion and evidence

In order to be even remotely convincing, you would have to show that the risk/reward ratio of GoF is stacked against GoF. Right now, you're just aggressively telling us that it is.

You'll note that no matter how bad you demonstrate COVID to be, the opposition could (rightly!) claim that there are potentially worse diseases. And no matter how bad you postulate a future GoF-related outbreak might be, they could postulate a scenario in which humanity were saved by GoF.

This is a hard question. It's literally a philosophical one. I really wish you wouldn't be so snarky.

Well you still didn't told us whats your position is, but maybe you can answer my question:

HOW GoF helped us to fight Covid? How the process that most likely played a huge role of creating the virus also helped us fighting it? Everyone how defends GoF tells us plebs, it helps us to fight future epidemics, but no one give us an example how it is helping the current one.

Friend, I think you maybe clicked the wrong reply link? I didn't say anything about GoF research at all.

Assuming that we ever get the honest and open public debate about COVID-19's origins, and if it was a lab leak from WIV and was related to GoF research, then certainly the potential benefits of GoF research would be weighed against the potential dangers. I don't take a position one way or another in that conversation at this point, because I think it's premature.

The fight we are facing right now is whether we're even allowed to have that debate or whether any discussion of the WIV as a possible origin is stamped out as anathema.

I find myself on the side of "follow the evidence" and "question everything" rather than "you're a conspiracy theorist if you even entertain this idea."

Perhaps I read into your comment more than was warranted.

However, "follow the evidence" applies to science. You are describing an ethical question, which means you are doing philosophy.

"Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?" is a scientific question. It certainly could have ethical implications, granted, but that does not make it not a question suitable for scientific inquiry.

You’re right, it seems I read into your comment too deeply, probably given the context of a GOF related article. Please accept my apology.

No apology necessary, thank you for the pleasantness in hashing it out. :)

We just need to hope that whoever discovers that much-worse-than-covid virus doesn't scratch their nose at the wrong time and carries it to the world.

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