This is the post.


This is a challenge to the community to determine if they can come together and analyze this logically. So, here’s what I would suggest: • Given that there are several obviously very competent molecular biologists who have already commented or asked the right kinds of questions in this Reddit thread… I would say they might organize amongst themselves and create a spreadsheet of all the relevant statements and answers to questions the original poster has put forth. Break them down into ideas and claims as individually as possible. Self-organize a subgroup, and report back in a regular scientific mode/manner. • I would only focus on the biology claims. Though if a different group wants to address the non-biology issues raised that could be another discussion (and not one on which I am a sufficient expert to comment). • Then for each claim break down the credibility, pros and cons from both a scientific point of view individually and a “how does this all work together, if at all”? And a separate set of considerations for whether this is an elaborate “misrepresentation” or a “larp” (I had to look that one up). This is how many labs address putting together papers as well as answering reviewers of our papers under peer review. Businesses and project managers do the same thing. No reason it cannot be done here. It just needs to be done methodically by people with the time and interest/ability to do it. You don’t have to be a card-carrying molecular biologist. ChatGPT could probably do a credible first draft… I’ve been flooded with requests to conclude something, but I won’t assign any likelihood of the claims as there is just not enough actual data here for me to conclude anything. It is, at present, an individual anecdote. My question to the community is: “Can you come up with a process that is credible and scientifically deterministic to consider the merits of the claims” and “What would be the next steps if any of this is testable”?

As with everything in life, believability is a chain of custody of trust. How much do you trust the data or the people presenting it?

I won’t comment any further based on time constraints. I think this community has the horsepower to get this started, organize the alleged claims, and provide a template for others to be able to work from a common framework. It could be a model of how to address other claim sets that might come forward one day.

  • makunamatata
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Read that post and thought it was a fantastic idea for a book, but it ends there. The poster clearly has experience with molecular biology, knows the jargon and lab environment, but some of the claims on the morphology of the EBOs, and the idea of preserving the specimens without proper preparation in -80 degrees just needs more elaboration for the story to be believable with the scientific community.