How much are Disco 'Tute Fellows being paid these days? Last I heard most of the salary budget was going to Meyer for his position as CSC Program Director.
No idea. But there are presumably speaking fees, and he ought to get royalties for his book contributions.
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It’d be interesting to see how well a cosmopolitan agnostic like Berlinski sells to ID’s core audience. His last book appears to have been published in 2013, and his last two ID-related books in 2009. The latter two are rated as #236 and #478 in Science and Religion, by Amazon, respectively. I don’t know how that translates into income. Admittedly, at approximately 80yo, he must be more-or-less retired by now.
Behe is 71 and Meyer is approximately 65. It seems most of ID’s ‘big guns’ are at or near retirement age.
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Except that retirement tends to imply having done something beforehand.
I guess Axe is still relatively young. But as far as anyone who can at least do a credible impersonation of an actual working scientist, I can’t think of others. Bechly, maybe.
Creationism, of course, will never die as long as there are people sufficiently committed to a particular religious doctrine that requires the denial of particular scientific truths. But DI’s time at the forefront of that movement may be dwindling down.
Thank you for clarifying - I haven’t been following the whole thread.
They pay him, too, I suspect
It was intended to redirect to the obvious - that the DI could act with scientific integrity any time they choose - and they choose not to do so. If they did then we should see published corrections, retraction of errors, experimental validation of predictions, and practical application of Design Science. That never happens.
To build on the shoulders of giants first requires a giant, and then you have to build something new that actually works. Trial and error is an OK way to do that, but it requires the ability to recognise errors, and the DI doesn’t do that.
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And you have to be on the giant’s shoulders, not trying to climb a haystack while the giant shouts “You doofus, I’m over here!”
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I would allow a person might build something new starting from basic research. This is how “giants” were built in the first place. I don’t think anyone here is impressed with basic research efforts from the DI. But if the DI were serious about science, that would be the starting point for a real research effort. Even negative results could be a real research effort.
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Indeed. And in fact the original quote is:
if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
In the case of ID proponents, the proposition fails on the “if” clause.
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That is certainly within the realm of possibility. But, if I understand correctly what you are suggesting, I see one problem.
Arguably, the main reason suspicion of a lab leak was raised is the admittedly eyebrow-raising coincidence that the outbreak originated from a location in close proximity to a lab conducting research into just this sort of virus. But if Patient Zero was a worker at the lab who had unwittingly contracted the virus then the epicentre of the outbreak could have been anywhere: A shopping mall, a movie theatre, a concert or sporting event, a private gathering, etc. And yet, as the article you cite shows, the epicentre was in fact a wet market, exactly the sort of location one would expect if the outbreak was the result of zoonotic spread without the lab being involved at all.
IOW, both competing hypotheses now involve jaw-dropping coincidences, not just the zoonotic hypothesis.
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I ultimately agree, despite exploring other possibilities.
This coincidence can also give weight to the wet market hypothesis, in that the research priorities of the lab were largely instigated and driven by the local regional prevalence of endemic coronaviruses to begin with. The natural reservoir existed well before the lab was established, so it is not surprising that an outbreak would occur near the lab location.
It is pertainent that this prescient paper came out the the Wuhan lab prior to the outbreak:
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and
When I get a moment I intend to respond to some of these comments further, but when I heard of this I couldn’t help but think how it seemed to be at odds with my good buddy Faizal’s assertions,
Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said during floor debate that determining how COVID-19 began has been especially challenging due to the Chinese government.
“At every juncture, the PRC government has obfuscated and obstructed legitimate inquiries and investigations into the origins of the disease,” Himes said. “China’s approach has been deeply irresponsible and dangerous to global public health.”
Please Faizal, set this guy straight.
Sure, my pleasure.
So just what is the scientific evidence that the pandemic began at the seafood market?
Neither of the Science papers provide the smoking gun — that is, an animal infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at a market.
But they come close. They provide photographic evidence of wild animals such as raccoon dogs and a red fox, which can be infected with and shed SARS-CoV-2, sitting in cages in the market in late 2019. What’s more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market.
The data in the 2022 studies paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. Photographic and genetic data pinpoint a specific stall at the market where the coronavirus likely was transmitted from an animal into people. And a genetic analysis estimates the time, within weeks, when not just one but two spillovers occurred. It calculates that the coronavirus jumped into people once in late November or early December and then again few weeks later.
At this exact same time, a huge COVID outbreak occurred at the market. Hundreds of people, working and shopping at the market, were likely infected. That outbreak is the first documented one of the pandemic, and it then spilled over into the community, as one of the Science papers shows.
At the same time, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found two variants of the coronavirus inside the market. And an independent study, led by virologists at the University of California, San Diego, suggests these two variants didn’t evolve in people, because throughout the entire pandemic, scientists have never detected a variant linking the two together. Altogether, the new studies suggest that, most likely, the two variants evolved inside animals.
Now, suppose the available evidence, instead, was able to identify the exact lab bench in the Wuhan Virology lab where the initial outbreak of the pandemic had originated. plus had photographic evidence of workers engaged in gain-of-function experiments while using inadequate protective equipment and safety precautions and every case of the first two outbreaks had been traced to people who worked at or visited the lab at the time of the beginning of the pandemic and, meanwhile, not a single case had been linked to the wet market.
Suppose, in the face of all this evidence, someone continued to insist that the virus had originated in the wet market. He’d be pretty foolish, wouldn’t he?
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Well then do it.
Your response totally missed the mark. Sorry, I didn’t know I’d have to be so specific, but how did you not see what I was asking for?
It seems clear to me that your,
is being totally denied by,
“At every juncture, the PRC government has obfuscated and obstructed legitimate inquiries and investigations into the origins of the disease,” Himes said. “China’s approach has been deeply irresponsible and dangerous to global public health.”
You’re right.
Me, well, I’m wrong.
Good one.
As to the rest of the comment, it kind of misses the point. I’ll try and explain what I mean when I get a moment.
I should have made the above acknowledgment sooner. It got by me.
Cheers.
I would have thought my point was self-evident: That research of the sort I cited could not possibly have been done if the Chinese gov’t was as obstructionist as Himes claims. But you are correct in that I did not provide support for the specific claim I made. That was based on first hand testimony, such as that provided here by three of the scientists who were part of an international group that was allowed to investigate the Wuhan Institute of Virology three years ago:
I have no idea what Himes bases his sweeping claim on, but he clearly overstates his case, as these scientists who have been working on the ground investigating the origins of the pandemic attest. It pains me to have to disillusion you about this, but sometimes politicians will speak with great confidence and feigned authority on subjects about which they don’t really know all that much. Sometimes even Democrats do this!
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I hope not too much. It doesn’t pain me to have my eyes opened. But let’s take this to a private message so as not take this thread any further off topic. We are miles away from where I resurrected it with,
I realize I was the one that brought up the topic of the lab leak but as you may (or maybe not )see by going to the origin of the quoted post here,
I was using the supposed “consensus” manufactured or not and the over-the-top vitriol as no help at all in shedding light upon the question.
My initial, very modest challenge that the,
[quote=“Tim, post:3, topic:15600”]
(who surely understand their own work better than some ID-Creationist apologist).
could not be sustained is virtually unsupportable, and yet among this partisan lot, that to make that simple concession was beyond the pale.
As I said at the top of this reply, as hard as it may be to believe, I’m happy to be instructed in the truth, even by you guys.
Let me ask you this, can you even imagine that there could possibly be an over-the-top accusation that could be made against the Discovery Institute or its members that was unsupported by any evidence? and if so what would the natural response by from those who have a hatred for the Discovery Institute? would it not be the most natural thing in the world for them to wish to deny that they’d overstated their case, especially if the one doing the pointing out was obviously a sympathizer with the Discovery Institute?
As hard as it may be to admit, there is nothing self-evident in the claim I originally objected to,
[quote=“Tim, post:3, topic:15600”]
(who surely understand their own work better than some ID-Creationist apologist).
As far as further back on forth on lab-leak, it is just a diversion on this thread.
I’ll take it to a private message to you. I may take a few days.
Another, it seems to me, appropriate place to take it would be on the original thread on the origins of the lab leak, but that thread looks to be closed and unable to open.
Do you know how to open it up? I doubt there is any appetite to do so here which kind of boggles my mind. You said that it pains you to disillusion me. 
What disillusions me is how closed the so-called Peaceful Science can be to truths it would rather weren’t.
The lab leak thing has even consumed the objectivity and trustworthiness of our science journals.
The Lancet (with I assume Fauci’s blessing) in an article “strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” while yesterday he (Fauci) said, “I must say we all must keep an open mind about this.”
Am I living in a bizzaro world or does anyone else see the contradiction here?
Anyway, I’m rambling it seems. So to a private message unless you’re able to open up that original, About the origin of SARS-CoV-2
Do you have any actual evidence of a lab-leak? I mean as in sequence evidence that SARS-Cov2 was present inside the WIV before the outbreak of the pandemic? No.
Testimony from someone who worked there that they had it? No.
Blood-tests from workers prior to the pandemic that shows they had antibodies against SARS-Cov2 spike or nucleoprotein already? No.
Do you have any evidence that workers from the WIV were the source of superspreader events, or carrying hosts prior to the outbreak of the pandemic? No.
You have none of this.
What you have instead is the lack of total, abiding, unfettered collaboration from everyone all the time, and you use this fact to explain away why you have no actual evidence that the pandemic began with a lab-leak. You are essentially positing some sort of conspiracy as the reason why you have no actual evidence of a lab-leak.
That is the very essence of a conspiracy theory. The fact that you have no actual evidence is sort of “accounted for” by positing the idea that you totally could have lots of evidence if just everyone wasn’t keeping secrets and lying to us.
But that means your “hypothesis” is literally based on the conjunction of you having
-
No evidence
and - The ASSUMPTION that the reason people don’t stand around going goatse in your general direction on the off chance you’d want to inspect deeper is because they’re hiding coronaviruses inside it.
No evidence and an assumption of lying and secrets to explain why you have no evidence (thus admitting that you have no evidence).
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