1555 replies to this topic

[gamesguru]

Isn't it a strange journey we've been on for the last four years?

 

In 2020/2021 saying out loud that covid-19 probably came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was enough to get you kicked off of every single major social media platform, labeled a "right-wing conspiracy theory MAGA kook", and possibly lose you your job and professional career if you were in the medical industry.

 

Now no less than the New York Times publishes "Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points".

 

Great, I'm glad they've come around in their thinking. But where is the mea culpa? Where is the "We're so sorry we canceled you and tried to ruin your life, please accept our apologies".

 

Do you mean the same article that was "widely disputed by other scientists"?

 

The attempted connection between what authors at the NY Times write and the general motif of censorship may involve a bit of a slippery slope. It could be influenced by seeing patterns that might not exist (agency detection). The same people who write for the NY Times are not necessarily the ones suppressing books on Amazon or working in the White House.

 

 

What happened was this:

 

- A majority of opinions expressed skepticism toward the idea of a lab leak or vaccine-associated deaths. Private companies (with a known liberal bias) and some officials suppressed information to the contrary.

 

- Members who disagreed with the general opinion expressed dissatisfaction and raised concerns about how narratives were shaped or controlled.

 

- A scientist who dissents from popular opinion published a piece in the NY Times with an alternative perspective.

 

- You then made this post, discussing censorship motifs, claiming that some group of entities (possibly the "deep state") uniformly tried to "cancel" your narrative and that the expressed opinion of one "Alina Chan" proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the virus originated in a lab.

 

 

When viewed from that perspective, this interpretation might appear overstated. Would you agree?

 

There are multiple compelling reasons to believe in the zoonotic origin of COVID:

 

- The genetic diversity observed in early COVID strains supports the idea that the virus originated from various animal reservoirs and was not the result of a lab incident or genetic engineering [Pekar, et al. (2022)]. The genetic variation among early strains of COVID suggests multiple recombination and spillover events from animals to humans rather than a single introduction event. The high genetic diversity of early COVID strains is inconsistent with a lab-based release, which would likely show less variation.

 

- The pattern of initial cases, their geographical distribution, and the presence of infected animals at the Wuhan wet market strongly support the hypothesis [Pekar, et al. (2022)]. Many of the initial COVID cases had connections to the market, which suggests that the virus might have spilled over from animals to humans at this site [Worobey, et al. (2022)].

[Mind]

We have a different thread for the origins of COVID for this type of info - where you can read about how a very small cadre of scientists unscientifically pushed the zoonotic theory to the exclusion of everything else. According to recent testimony and reversals of opinion by many top scientists, hardly anyone believes in the zoonotic theory anymore.

[gamesguru]

Which top scientists have reversed their opinion? According to a February 2024 survey of top professionals in the annex report on the origins of COVID,

 

On average, respondents assigned a 77% probability to a zoonosis, 21% to the lab-leak scenario, and 2% to the “other” category. One-quarter of respondents seemed to be very sure about a zoonotic origin, giving it a probability between 96% and 100%.

 

That hardly means respondents believe the matter is settled, however. One in five researchers gave a probability of 50% or more to a scenario other than a natural zoonosis.

 

I understand some of the initial research was done by a few leading figures, but how was their analysis "unscientific"?

I reviewed the original post and the last few pages of the thread. Nothing in it is wildly incompatible with the zoonotic hypothesis. What pieces of evidence would you most like me to consider?

[Daniel Cooper]

Which top scientists have reversed their opinion? According to a February 2024 survey of top professionals in the annex report on the origins of COVID,

 

 

I understand some of the initial research was done by a few leading figures, but how was their analysis "unscientific"?

I reviewed the original post and the last few pages of the thread. Nothing in it is wildly incompatible with the zoonotic hypothesis. What pieces of evidence would you most like me to consider?

 

The unscientific part was that the lab leak theory was ridiculed and pronounced to be a conspiracy theory by various scientists in the public media.

 

It was never any such thing. It was always a rational possibility that sars-cov-2 had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was known that WIV had been experimenting on and modifying various bat derived coronaviruses. They had published a 2015 paper that detailed their work in this area that while that work had not directly produced sars-cov-2 (they published the genome and it did not match) it did show that they were doing work that would logically lead to a cov-2 type virus. And, they were known to have had leaks out of that lab previously.

 

Furthermore - anytime you have a zoonotically produced virus in almost all cases you will find that the people that work around the proposed origin species show evidence of antibodies to the new virus in their system. They typically get exposed to the earliest versions of the virus which aren't as successful in the new human host and normally they end up with antibodies that confer immunity once it successfully jumps the species barrier. No such antibodies were ever found in the workers of the notorious wet market. And, no animals in the wet market were discovered to be carrying sar-cov-2.

 

So you have a new virus that appears de novo well adapted to human hosts, that is highly transmissible, and doesn't seem to go through a transitory stage where its ability to infect the new host is low and then rises as time progresses. That's not what you'd expect from a true zoonotic origin but is exactly what you'd expect if the virus was constructed in a lab and was either purposely designed to infect humans or had been passed generation after generation through lab animals with humanized immune systems and it some how escaped.

 

Now we know that WIV/Eco Health Alliance had floated a research proposal in front of DARA that almost exactly describes the virus that causes covid. Of course, Dr. Fauci was well aware of that proposal because he had seen it.

 

So given all the above - did it ever make more sense to say it was zoonotic as opposed to a leak? Was it ever scientifically valid to ridicule the idea that sar-cov-2 had leaked from WIV as a "kook conspiracy theory"?

[gamesguru]

Furthermore - anytime you have a zoonotically produced virus in almost all cases you will find that the people that work around the proposed origin species show evidence of antibodies to the new virus in their system. They typically get exposed to the earliest versions of the virus which aren't as successful in the new human host and normally they end up with antibodies that confer immunity once it successfully jumps the species barrier. No such antibodies were ever found in the workers of the notorious wet market. And, no animals in the wet market were discovered to be carrying sar-cov-2.

 

So you have a new virus that appears de novo well adapted to human hosts, that is highly transmissible, and doesn't seem to go through a transitory stage where its ability to infect the new host is low and then rises as time progresses. That's not what you'd expect from a true zoonotic origin but is exactly what you'd expect if the virus was constructed in a lab and was either purposely designed to infect humans or had been passed generation after generation through lab animals with humanized immune systems and it some how escaped.

 

I think calling the lab leak a conspiracy is a bit unfair. But I wouldn't call researchers who confirmed the zoonotic hypothesis "unscientific."  It's still the leading and accepted hypothesis.  It could get turned on its head, but I haven't seen enough evidence for that yet.

 

Can you point to specific evidence establishing proto-MERS or proto-SARS from prior outbreaks?  I wasn't able to find any.  As far as I can discern, they jumped to humans in a relatively "final form."  Camels are the likely intermediate host for MERS, but I haven't seen any evidence of the claim that MERS evolved "through a transitory stage where its ability to infect the new host is low and then rises as time progresses."  It's challenging to discover antibodies to long-gone "intermediate viruses."  The absence of such observations doesn't mean intermediates didn't occur; it just means we failed to detect them.  Researchers did detect proper COVID antibodies in members of the Hunan wet market, including domestic cats[1].

 

There was also evidence between 2015 and 2018 that suspected early COVID recombination events in Yunnan caves led to a prototype virus in an intermediate host and was already starting to infect humans (see below quote block).  These antibodies are not incompatible with the idea that the virus underwent serial passage (as hypothesized for MERS in the below figure[2]) before successfully jumping to humans.  There is additional evidence to support this view[3].  Also, we know of other viruses that lack a known intermediate host or prototypical form, i.e., Ebola and Zika.  Yet no one thinks these were lab-made.  The proximity of the WIV to the wet market and the fact that they were doing coronavirus research is cause for reasonable suspicion but not probable cause.  They could have set up shop there (for research) due to the proximity to caves and easy access to bat coronavirus cultures.

 

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Serological Evidence of Bat SARS-Related Coronavirus Infection in Humans, China - PMC

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC6178078/

 

In this study, we performed serological surveillance on people who live in close proximity to caves where bats that carry diverse SARSr-CoVs roost. In October 2015, we collected serum samples from 218 residents in four villages in Jinning County, Yunnan province, China (Fig. 1A), located 1.1–6.0 km from two caves (Yanzi and Shitou).

 

As a control, we also collected 240 serum samples from random blood donors in 2015 in Wuhan, Hubei Province more than 1000 km away from Jinning (Fig. 1A) and where inhabitants have a much lower likelihood of contact with bats due to its urban setting. None of the donors had knowledge of prior SARS infection or known contact with SARS patients.

 

Our study provides the first serological evidence of likely human infection by bat SARSr-CoVs or, potentially, related viruses. The lack of prior exposure to SARS patients by the people surveyed, their lack of prior travel to areas heavily affected by SARS during the outbreak, and the rapid decline of detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV in recovered patients within 2–3 years after infection strongly suggests that positive serology obtained in this study is not due to prior infection with SARS-CoV (Wu et al. 2007).

 

Coronaviruses are known to have a high mutation rate during replication and are prone to recombination if different viruses infect the same individual (Knipe et al. 2013). From our previous studies of bat SARSr-CoVs in the two caves near these villages, we have found genetically highly diverse bat SARSr-CoVs and evidence of frequent coinfection of two or more different SARSr-CoVs in the same bat (Ge et al. 2013). Our current study suggests that our surveillance is not exhaustive, as one would have expected, and that further, more extensive surveillance in this region is warranted.

 

 

References

[1] SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing serum antibodies in cats: a serological investigation | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv....1196v1.abstract

[2] Adaptive Evolution of MERS-CoV to Species Variation in DPP4: Cell Reports https://www.cell.com...1247(18)31148-3

[3] SARS-CoV-2 mutations acquired during serial passage in human cell lines are consistent with several of those found in recent natural SARS-CoV-2 variants - ScienceDirect https://www.scienced...001037022001398

[Mind]

No more posts about the origins in this thread - post in this other thread dedicated to the topic.

[Mind]

Many reasonable and intelligent people are still not able to comprehend the scale of deception/propaganda that occurred during the COVID panic.

 

Many doctors have blown the whistle on the ventilator "disaster". Here is another confessing that doctors were ordered to put people on ventilators, even though they knew the ventilators were basically a death sentence (compared to standard pneumonia care).

 

Even I was deceived by the large number of "COVID" deaths early in the pandemic. Most were being killed by ventilators. As you can see from the beginning of this thread, I recognized the deception pretty early.

[Dorian Grey]

Many reasonable and intelligent people are still not able to comprehend the scale of deception/propaganda that occurred during the COVID panic.

 

Many doctors have blown the whistle on the ventilator "disaster". Here is another confessing that doctors were ordered to put people on ventilators, even though they knew the ventilators were basically a death sentence (compared to standard pneumonia care).

 

Even I was deceived by the large number of "COVID" deaths early in the pandemic. Most were being killed by ventilators. As you can see from the beginning of this thread, I recognized the deception pretty early.

 

I recall one reason ventilators were so popular was, a ventilated patient was no longer contagious through aerosol / droplet (respiratory) vectors, as the ventilator is a closed system with a microbial filter in the exhaust.  

 

There was considerable concern, if healthcare workers started catching plague from their patients and dying, this news might cause a panic, and doctors & nurses alike might suddenly "injure their back" in a big way that prevented them from working until they "got better".  

 

I worked in healthcare for 35 years (as a surgical tech) through the early years of AIDS and Hep-B & C.  I actually quit working in hospitals and moved to outpatient / minor surgeries to reduce my blood exposures. 

 

Nothing worse than having a plague, when there's no healthcare showing up to work.  

[Mind]

I recall one reason ventilators were so popular was, a ventilated patient was no longer contagious through aerosol / droplet (respiratory) vectors, as the ventilator is a closed system with a microbial filter in the exhaust.  

 

There was considerable concern, if healthcare workers started catching plague from their patients and dying, this news might cause a panic, and doctors & nurses alike might suddenly "injure their back" in a big way that prevented them from working until they "got better".  

 

I worked in healthcare for 35 years (as a surgical tech) through the early years of AIDS and Hep-B & C.  I actually quit working in hospitals and moved to outpatient / minor surgeries to reduce my blood exposures. 

 

Nothing worse than having a plague, when there's no healthcare showing up to work.  

 

A disease so deadly that hospitals cannot function properly would be the "end of the world". COVID was not that. (HIV/Aids was not either, not even close).

 

Your observation is an even greater indictment of the public health authorities who spread fear early in the pandemic - even though there was plenty of data (from the ships alone), that this was not any worse than a bad flu season. If public "health" bureaucrats were competent, there would never have been a need for doctors to fearfully lock people away on vents to die.

 

UK health bureaucrat says that they overdid it with the fear porn. No accountability, of course.

[albedo]

Xie Y, Choi T, Al-Aly Z. Postacute sequelae of sars-cov-2 infection in the pre-delta, delta, and omicron eras. N Engl J Med. 2024;391(6):515-525.

https://www.nejm.org...211?logout=true

 

"...Thus, a comparison of the risk and burden of PASC during the main eras of the pandemic, including the era before the delta variant became the dominant lineage (pre-delta era), the era when the delta variant was dominant (delta era), and the era when the omicron variant was dominant (omicron era), is needed.^{5 ..."}

 

"...The cumulative incidence of PASC during the first year after SARS-CoV-2 infection decreased over the course of the pandemic, but the risk of PASC remained substantial even among vaccinated persons who had SARS-CoV-2 infection in the omicron era. (Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs.)..."

[Mind]

Here is a good study to provide context: In Germany, excess deaths from 2022 influenza wave was greater than all COVID waves combined!

 

In contrast to the COVID debacle/panic, no one raised alarm about the deadly influenza wave, no lockdowns, no social distancing, no people screaming at others for not wearing ineffectual masks, no forced injections.

 

One other good data point to provide context - that was detailed earlier in the thread (even way back to the beginning) - is that the average age of death from COVID in most countries of the world is around 80 or older. Many people are still unaware to this day that younger people were not at risk of dying from COVID anymore than dying of any regular flu.

[albedo]

Four ways COVID changed virology: lessons from the most sequenced virus of all time

 

https://www.nature.c...linkId=13441548

 

(need to read after I pass the paywall)

 

 

[Mind]

Just something to think about for the context of the COVID pandemic panic.

 

If it really was a super deadly virus, why did the US government and big-pharma companies need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars (well-documented) to convince everyone there was a super deadly pandemic going on?

 

Why did they need to pay influencers?

 

Why did someone (or an organization) feel the need to create dozens of fake social media accounts to scare people?

 

Why did the US government need to censor everyone who asked any reasonable questions about the COVID pandemic panic?

 

Why did the government and health bureaucrats need to force everyone to follow the draconian unscientific COVID pandemic panic regulations. If it was so bad, people would have gladly volunteered - even the most ardent skeptic.

[Mind]

Yet more data arrives indicating the COVID deaths were wildly overcounted through the COVID pandemic panic.

 

Sadly, a large segment of the population still believes everything they saw and heard during the panic. I am unsure if there is any study, data, or admission from public health bureaucrats (we have had plenty in the last couple of years) that will change their minds. Memories are linked with emotions. The fear-porn during the panic left a deep impression in the memories of many people, it seems.

[Mind]

The fear-porn worked the first time - as you can see in this thread history. Ever since the first wave (and all of the iatrogenic deaths), Government health bureaucrats, national media outlets, etc., have been trying to scare up a new panic, screaming about "new highly contagious variants" about every couple of months since 2020. No one is paying attention. Hardly anyone is getting boosters, not even in Australia.

[albedo]

As a matter of option too, I do not personally see US cancelling mRNA cancer research and just hope, as I wrote previously, your Administration will reset if signs are such that big damage is being done for the future (e.g. if your scientists really start to move abroad). I mean that reform, rebudgeting, reprioritization, correcting errors made during the pandemics are necessary and welcome measures to be taken but I hope US will still be able to maintain top researchers and funding for a life saving technology not only for the US but for the World as science and technology are almost by definition global and of global impact.

 

https://www.noahpini...way-your-cancer

[Daniel Cooper]

Keep in mind that most drug development in the US is privately funded by drug companies, not via our federal government. 

 

There may be some overreaction against mRNA technology at work here. But there is lots of blame to go around. We know that the federal government and the drug companies haven't been exactly transparent about any adverse effects of the covid mRNA vaccines. Many of us here predicted that this lack of transparency would eventually result in blowback against vaccines in general and mRNA in particular. 

 

There were many in this forum that argued in favor of the "noble lie" - i.e. telling the public things that were not true in order to get compliance on the covid vaccines. A number of us argued that it was foolish for the medical community to burn down their credibility for this particular "crisis" as the long term effects of that would likely outweigh whatever short term benefit might be had, if any.

 

We've unfortunately seen this come to fruition in the last several years. 

 

The pharmaceutical companies and the federal medical bureaucracy desperately needs to rebuild trust with the public. That must start with a full and complete disclosure about the true origins of covid, the adverse effects of the vaccines, and what was and wasn't done correctly in response to the virus. Anything short of that is just pissing in the wind. 

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 08 August 2025 - 04:14 PM.

[albedo]

My point is basically about continuing to support the US success of the more advanced form (vs EU which should improve) of public-private-partnerships as witnessed by Operation Warp Speed.

Grok writes (unchecked):

 

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[Mind]

The medical establishment credibility in the US is in tatters. I come back to the fact the NONE of the COVID mitigation efforts worked (and likely killed more people than would have died otherwise). Everyone ended up getting COVID - no matter what precautions they took. The medical establishment continues to push nonsense in regards to COVID - even as the US government is taking baby steps toward real science regarding vaccines.

 

In regards to the mRNA injections, Imminst members were on the case a long time ago (2004) discussing the promise of this technology. 20 years later, it still doesn't work well, and it has deadly side effects that probably outweigh any benefit.

[albedo]

...20 years later, it still doesn't work well, and it has deadly side effects that probably outweigh any benefit.

 

Common in many area of research. Stopping this research (again I think these are temporary political agendas not lasting in the long term but they can be damaging, good point re the private funding though) will not happen and  would be one of the most stupid things this Administration can do, potentially un-leaveraging what they have bee achieving. The damage in public perception can be real though.

 

A quick status by ChatGPT (unchecked)

 

Here’s the quick, current picture (as of Aug 13, 2025):

• No cancer mRNA vaccines are approved yet. Multiple candidates are in mid- to late-stage trials, often paired with PD-1 inhibitors. AIM at Melanoma Foundation

• Personalized (neoantigen) mRNA vaccines are in Phase 3.

  • Moderna/Merck V940 (mRNA-4157) + pembrolizumab is being tested as adjuvant therapy in resected high-risk melanoma (INTerpath-001) and NSCLC (INTerpath-002); designs/public notices confirm the Phase 3 starts. Additional randomized studies span CSCC, RCC, and urothelial cancer. ASCO PublicationsMerck.comAACR Journals

  • Prior Phase 2 melanoma data (KEYNOTE-942) showed sustained improvements in recurrence-free and distant-metastasis-free survival, motivating the Phase 3s. investors.modernatx.comASCO Publications

• “Off-the-shelf” mRNA vaccines targeting shared antigens are advancing.

  • BioNTech FixVac BNT111 (advanced melanoma) reported positive topline Phase 2 results (with cemiplimab). BNT113 (HPV+ head & neck) is enrolling broadly across the NHS. BNT116 (NSCLC) is in mid-stage testing. investors.biontech.deOncLive

• Pancreatic & colorectal programs are active, with encouraging early signals.

  • Autogene cevumeran (BNT122)—a personalized vaccine—has shown durable T-cell responses and signs of delayed recurrence in small cohorts; randomized Phase 2 adjuvant trials in resected PDAC and ctDNA-positive CRC are underway. Nature+1ClinicalTrials

  • MSK reports continuing immune activity in resectable pancreatic cancer patients receiving autogene cevumeran in combination regimens. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

• Access/scale efforts are growing (UK).

  • The NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad is matching patients to mRNA vaccine trials for skin, bowel, and now HPV+ head & neck cancers (BNT113) across 15 hospitals. NHS England+1

• Funding/policy backdrop (US).

  • While HHS has announced a wind-down of some mRNA platform funding, oncology experts note cancer vaccine programs continue; keep an eye on how policy shifts might affect future support. HHS.govSTAT

What this means

• The most advanced path to approval is likely the personalized neoantigen vaccines (e.g., V940) in adjuvant settings with checkpoint blockade—results from ongoing Phase 3 melanoma/NSCLC trials will be pivotal. ASCO PublicationsMerck.com

• Disease-specific “off-the-shelf” approaches (HPV-driven, shared tumor antigens) are catching up, with positive mid-stage signals (BNT111) and expanding trial access (BNT113). investors.biontech.de

• Pancreatic cancer—historically immunotherapy-resistant—now has randomized trials testing personalized mRNA vaccines post-surgery; early immunogenicity is promising but confirmatory data are pending. Nature

 

[albedo]

Posted by Matt Healy on LI.

 

Unfortunately no time to go into the link and details, it looks as a normalized and age adjusted excess mortality stats:

 

 

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[albedo]

"...unfortunate but predictable..." 

 

The US is experiencing a significant reversal in the direction of its vaccine policies, and this reversal is an unfortunate but predictable backlash against public health measures from the COVID-19 pandemic era and earlier years. This policy shift comes at the worst possible time: even before the current administration’s antivaccine agenda took hold, vaccination rates were already declining and disease outbreaks were mounting. National nonmedical exemption (NME) rates for school vaccine mandates have reached record highs, climbing to 3.6% for kindergarteners in 2024 to 2025, up from 2.5% before the pandemic. Seventeen states now report exemption rates exceeding 5%, whereas 39 of 50 states fell below the 95% measles-mumps-rubella vaccine coverage target for herd immunity.¹ Idaho leads with a 15% NME rate and just 78.5% measles-mumps-rubella vaccine coverage. With such low coverage, it is not surprising that measles cases exploded from 285 in 2024 into the thousands in 2025, with the first 3 measles fatalities in the US in a decade. Rather than addressing this public health crisis, current policy reversals are likely to accelerate these dangerous trends.

 

https://jamanetwork....utm_term=121125

[Mind]

"...unfortunate but predictable..." 

 

The US is experiencing a significant reversal in the direction of its vaccine policies, and this reversal is an unfortunate but predictable backlash against public health measures from the COVID-19 pandemic era and earlier years. This policy shift comes at the worst possible time: even before the current administration’s antivaccine agenda took hold, vaccination rates were already declining and disease outbreaks were mounting. National nonmedical exemption (NME) rates for school vaccine mandates have reached record highs, climbing to 3.6% for kindergarteners in 2024 to 2025, up from 2.5% before the pandemic. Seventeen states now report exemption rates exceeding 5%, whereas 39 of 50 states fell below the 95% measles-mumps-rubella vaccine coverage target for herd immunity.¹ Idaho leads with a 15% NME rate and just 78.5% measles-mumps-rubella vaccine coverage. With such low coverage, it is not surprising that measles cases exploded from 285 in 2024 into the thousands in 2025, with the first 3 measles fatalities in the US in a decade. Rather than addressing this public health crisis, current policy reversals are likely to accelerate these dangerous trends.

 

https://jamanetwork....utm_term=121125

 

Yes, it was very easy to predict that people would shun the vaccine-industrial complex. After all of the lies and censorship during the COVID panic, why would anyone trust the national health authorities?

[albedo]

Yes, it was very easy to predict that people would shun the vaccine-industrial complex. After all of the lies and censorship during the COVID panic, why would anyone trust the national health authorities?

 

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

[Advocatus Diaboli]

"Free speech is not an independent value but a political prize, and if that prize has been captured by a politics opposed to yours, it can no longer be invoked in ways that further your purposes, for it is now an obstacle to those purposes. The ideal of free speech—abstract, neutral, and fair-minded—does not exist. Any society will have a speech policy, shaped by and shaping its fundamental norms. The only question is whether that policy is going to be deliberate and open, or implicit and covert. Mill’s vision of a marketplace where ideas compete on equal footing is a fantasy that masks the reality: some voices are always amplified by power, while others are suppressed by it. The truly urgent question, therefore, is not 'is this speech free?' but 'whose power does this speech policy serve, and to what end?'"

 

Stanley Fish

[albedo]

While I agree with Fish's criticism of "free market of ideas" I remain fundamentally popperian in my approach, "corrected" though by the establishment and the improving of the Institution as eg described by Johnathan Rauch in his excellent Constitution of Knowledge.

 

Prompting around a bit on these authors, ChatGPT come up with a quote I tend to share:

 

“Free speech is not the absence of power, but the institutionalization of error correction. Its purpose is not to equalize voices, but to ensure that no authority—political, moral, or cultural—is exempt from criticism. Power is always present, but when speech is governed by open, impersonal rules, power must answer to reasons rather than force. The alternative to this system is not justice, but the replacement of criticism with coercion—and the replacement of disagreement with violence.”

 

Institutions is what we as a society put in place to solve the too idealist and too individualistic vision Popper had in the growth of knowledge, probably inspired by his obsession with physics, and if we loose trust in them we are in big troubles.

 

Regarding Science, good read is also the last book by Lawrence Krauss (The War on Science).

Edited by albedo, Today, 12:55 PM.