23 thoughts on “No, Dr. Fauci”

  1. You got that right, Rand. What an arrogant jerk.

    Anyone read Kennedy’s new Fauci book yet? I have it on Kindle but didn’t get to it yet. Peter Grant has some interesting excerpts on his blog today at bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com.

  2. The closest thing that Fauci is to being a scientist is that he’s a life-long research funding gatekeeper, which is mostly a political post.

  3. Sort of where we’re at vis-a-vis Science and the origin of COVID-19.
    From

    And in a May 19 statement, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said that “neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans.”

    Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a critic of gain-of-function research, told the Washington Post that the EcoHealth/Wuhan lab research “was — unequivocally — gain-of-function research.” He said it “met the definition for gain-of-function research of concern under the 2014 Pause.” That definition, as we said, pertained to “projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.”

    Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, said in a lengthy Twitter thread that the Wuhan subgrant wouldn’t fall under the gain-of-function moratorium because the definition didn’t include testing on naturally occurring viruses “unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity.” She said the moratorium had “no teeth.” But the EcoHealth/Wuhan grant “was testing naturally occurring SARS viruses, without a reasonable expectation that the tests would increase transmissibility or pathogenicity. Therefore, it is reasonable that they would have been excluded from the moratorium.”

    Chan, who has published research about the possibility of an accidental lab leak of the virus, also said: “But we need to separate this fight about whether a particular project is GOF vs whether it has risk of lab accident + causing an outbreak.”

    The University of Iowa’s Perlman told us the EcoHealth research is trying to see if these viruses can infect human cells and what about the spike protein on the virus determines that. (The spike protein is what the coronavirus uses to enter cells.) The NIH, he said, wouldn’t give money to anybody to do gain-of-function research “per se … especially in China,” and he didn’t think there was anything in the EcoHealth grant description that would be gain of function. But he said there’s a lot of nuance to this discussion.

    “This was not intentional gain of function,” Perlman said, adding that in this type of research “these viruses are almost always attenuated,” meaning weakened. The gain of function would be what comes out of the research “unintentionally,”* but the initial goal of the project is what you would want to look at: can these viruses infect people, how likely would they be to mutate in order to do that, and “let’s get a catalog of these viruses out there.”

    The article concludes:
    Perlman told us that he thought Fauci’s response in the May 11 exchange was correct — that no money was given for gain-of-function research. But, he added, there’s a scientific discussion to be had on the benefits and risks of research making recombinant viruses, which involves rearranging or combining genetic material. The politicization of the issue, Perlman said, “doesn’t do anybody good.”

    With this last statement I disagree. I think a full discussion of the issue from an ethics and if you will a civic (i.e. political) viewpoint is warranted. Now more than ever.

    *Also let’s not be naive about the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We cannot know with certainty that dual-use investigation was not taking place there. Without a rigorous international inspection protocol there is, in fact, no way to know what Perlman asserts.

    2. In microbiology, unlike atomic research for example, there is a bit of hubris concerning risk evaluation. Atomic research has been politicized to the point that certain research excursions have been prohibited by treaty for example. Such formalism has been internalized in the nuclear research community to the point that the researchers in atomic energy (esp fission) performing the experiments don’t take it upon themselves to gauge the risks of their research. None such formalism exists in microbiology or molecular biology. At 5,205,121 and counting deaths world-wide due to COVID-19* it might be wise to consider otherwise.

      *https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

      1. … to the point that the researchers in atomic energy (esp fission) performing the experiments don’t take it upon themselves to gauge the risks of their research.

        This was not always the case:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

        Fermi argued that by using the delayed neutrons, and by carefully controlling the reaction rates as the power is ramped up, a pile can reach criticality at fission rates slightly below that of a chain reaction relying solely on the prompt neutrons from the fission reactions. Since the rate of release of these neutrons depends on fission events taking place some time earlier, there is a delay between any power spikes and the later criticality event. This time gives the operators leeway; if a spike in the prompt neutron flux is seen, they have several minutes before this causes a runaway reaction. If a neutron absorber, or neutron poison, is injected at any time during this period, the reactor will shut down. Consequently, the reaction can be controlled with electromechanical control systems such as control rods. Compton felt this delay was enough to provide a critical margin of safety,[71][72] and allowed Fermi to build Chicago Pile-1 at Stagg Field.[74][72]

        [Arthur] Compton later explained that:

        As a responsible officer of the University of Chicago, according to every rule of organizational protocol, I should have taken the matter to my superior. But this would have been unfair. President Hutchins was in no position to make an independent judgment of the hazards involved. Based on considerations of the University’s welfare, the only answer he could have given would have been—no. And this answer would have been wrong.[74]

  4. He said he represents science.

    The sad part is that for a loooot of people (on the Left) that seems to be … true?

    It’s not good for them, and very bad for science (and not even good for “science”), but it seems to be so.

    (This is just one part of the broad, nonpartisan problem of Seeing Everything As Representing Big Things.

    When everything is a symbol of how good We are and how bad They are, or Deeply Meaningful In A Way That Conveniently Matches My Priors, well … you never get anywhere.)

    1. I’m happy to let the left think Fauci and science are one and the same, because it’s similar to saying “Dr. Mengele represents medicine!” It should hopefully, somewhat soon, shatter the elite mythos that produces so much “scientism” on the left.

  5. “He said he represents science.”

    Has anyone asked Science to see how it feels about his claim of representation?

  7. Fun jape: ask some non-STEM type, “What is Science?” They have no idea. Sadly, most STEM types don’t know either. “Scientia” means “knowledge,” that’s all. “Ex Luna Scientia” impressed me as a meer yoot.

      1. If “I all” is the first person of “you all” then we can stop using “we.” I don’t know if it’s still in use, but when I was a kid my hillbilly friends had a pronoun “us ‘uns.”

        1. I may be a hillbilly at heart but that was a transposition typo. Thank you no-edit WordPress and y’all are welcome.

    2. Science may derive from the word meaning knowledge, but what it is is a process – hypothesis, testing, analysis, conclusion. A tool that has proven to be one of humanity’s best for both understanding the nature of things, as well as for shaping the world around us to better fit our desires.

      We have been more on a ‘Theory! Execute!’ trajectory of late, and it is concerning. Since I don’t do ‘cults of personality’ I no more see the (ahem) esteemed Dr. Fauci as the face of medical science than I see the esteemed Dr. DeGrasse-Tyson as the face of space science. [quick side note – saw his dad in an audience at a Presidential Commission hearing in NYC, same one with Carly Fiorina, and the look of absolute pride in his eyes was amazing. His son on a Pres. Comm. up on stage. Quite powerful, emotionally] Nor any more than I regard Trump as the face of competent presidential leadership.

      I’ve relied on my immune system and it’s worked so far. I mask up when I need to to keep my snot to myself. As a libertarian I’m indifferent as to whether anyone wants to get injabinated or not. That’s their choice and I respect their freedom to make that choice for themselves. Doesn’t mean they can make that choice for me.

      There’s a saying that a life lived in fear is a life half lived. I prefer to live my life in joy and wonder, getting out in nature and being excellent to others. Whilst partying on, dudes!

      1. You’re describing the scientific method, of which science is the output. Latin also uses scientia for what we would describe as engineering (which I think is a poor choice for English). If the ancients had known about the scientific method, we’d have some other word for it. (I’m suddenly remembering trying to explain to one of my little sisters, then aged 9 or 10, that “engineer” didn’t always refer to a train driver.)

        Thinking of “science” as a system of discovery is actually what Marxists mean when they use the word, and what Fauci and DeGrasse-Tyson mean when they say “science.” But they’re wrong.

        1. I would argue that knowledge is the output, science is the rigorous method or process of obtaining that knowledge.

          1. One can argue anything, but that doesn’t change what words mean. Sometimes everybody buys into something, and that does change it (as when the goofy-ass Frenched decided chaire longue would henceforth be the meaningless chaise longue, and the stupid English editors changed that to chaise lounge). Be that as it may, I think it’s a bad idea to adopt the Marxist definition of their magic word “science.” Since we already have the phrase scientific method, there’s no reason to argue science means the same thing, and thus no reason to argue that “science” outputs “knowledge.” Bill Nye the Science Guy and Neil DeGrasse-Tyson the Science Jackass notwithstanding. Now you done it! Horkenheimer! Horkenheimer! They’re coming to take me away, ha-ha, to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all of time. ha-ha-hee-ho-ho…!

  8. Fauci is corrupt, but no Cruz missile hit him until it is clear to Americans his involvement in giving us the Corona virus. Cruz’s and Paul’s rhetoric is helpful but ultimately futile at the moment.

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