Top science journal faced attacks from Covid conspiracy theory group
October 6, 2023 5:48 AM Subscribe
"One of the world’s most prestigious general science journals, Nature, was the target of a two-year-long sustained and virulent secret attack by a conspiratorial group of extreme Brexit lobbyists with high-level political, commercial and intelligence connections, according to documents and correspondence examined by Computer Weekly and Byline Times."
Are we all just going to sit by as these chaos-goblins subvert and destroy everything decent in society?
Sure seems like it.
posted by chronkite at 6:21 AM on October 6, 2023 [32 favorites]
Sure seems like it.
posted by chronkite at 6:21 AM on October 6, 2023 [32 favorites]
I couldn't finish it because of that central "node" graph "USA!" "CIA!" "BOJO" "Brexit" resemblance to this meme
There is most likely be a concerted effort by these assholes, but i found the relentless tenuous connection-linking offputting in the extreme, paradoxically weakening the central thesis.
If you're gonna make this kind of investigation serious, PRESENT IT SERIOUSLY.
posted by lalochezia at 6:34 AM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is most likely be a concerted effort by these assholes, but i found the relentless tenuous connection-linking offputting in the extreme, paradoxically weakening the central thesis.
If you're gonna make this kind of investigation serious, PRESENT IT SERIOUSLY.
posted by lalochezia at 6:34 AM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Are we all just going to sit by as these chaos-goblins subvert and destroy everything decent in society?
What exactly do you suggest we do that isn't being done already?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
What exactly do you suggest we do that isn't being done already?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
That was a wild story. There are too many good parts to pick my favorite!
I do however particularly like when they angrily demanded something more from Nature than a form letter rejection for their very important paper and got: “The piece is written as a stream of consciousness rather than as a scholarly/scientific paper. It asserts certain assumptions and demands [that] are accepted as fact without sufficient evidence . . . The right decision has been made"
To be clear, it doesn't seem this particular gang actually had any impact; a lot of paragraphs end with something like "There is no evidence [important entity] read their e-mails or responded"
They tell the UK government in 2020 that they are making a limited time offer of a vaccine; respond now or it will go to another government! It's like the language of late night infomercials.
posted by mark k at 7:09 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]
I do however particularly like when they angrily demanded something more from Nature than a form letter rejection for their very important paper and got: “The piece is written as a stream of consciousness rather than as a scholarly/scientific paper. It asserts certain assumptions and demands [that] are accepted as fact without sufficient evidence . . . The right decision has been made"
To be clear, it doesn't seem this particular gang actually had any impact; a lot of paragraphs end with something like "There is no evidence [important entity] read their e-mails or responded"
They tell the UK government in 2020 that they are making a limited time offer of a vaccine; respond now or it will go to another government! It's like the language of late night infomercials.
posted by mark k at 7:09 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]
I teach vaccines as part of the medical school curriculum. I got an email from someone who cited an (OAN) article that the vaccine was killing 10,000 children. I don't like being told I'm killing children by ignorant fuckwits.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:46 AM on October 6, 2023 [34 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:46 AM on October 6, 2023 [34 favorites]
MetaFilter: written as a stream of consciousness rather than as a scholarly/scientific paper. It asserts certain assumptions and demands [that] are accepted as fact without sufficient evidence.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:01 AM on October 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 8:01 AM on October 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
Hillary Clinton was 100% correct in identifying the deplorables, as was President Biden in decrying the MAGA types for trying to destroy America.
My only complaint is that they didn't keep hammering on it.
We really are facing a situation where a small group of billionaires is operating quite openly to destroy democracy, promote ethnonationalism, and destroy public trust in science. And a significant portion of the world's population is eager to be their footsoldiers.
The only real way to fight it is to acknowledge the problem, name and blame, and explicitly organize against them.
This is another aspect of the same sort of evil that takes over library and school boards to ban books.
Across the world we need political leaders to keep denouncing these people and be more vocal in their identification of these people as the problem.
posted by sotonohito at 8:11 AM on October 6, 2023 [28 favorites]
My only complaint is that they didn't keep hammering on it.
We really are facing a situation where a small group of billionaires is operating quite openly to destroy democracy, promote ethnonationalism, and destroy public trust in science. And a significant portion of the world's population is eager to be their footsoldiers.
The only real way to fight it is to acknowledge the problem, name and blame, and explicitly organize against them.
This is another aspect of the same sort of evil that takes over library and school boards to ban books.
Across the world we need political leaders to keep denouncing these people and be more vocal in their identification of these people as the problem.
posted by sotonohito at 8:11 AM on October 6, 2023 [28 favorites]
A former spy, a retired historian, and a climate-change denier walk into a...
Sounds like a movie plot to me. Just not the one they wanted.
Surely a classic joke setup. Unfortunately, it's not funny.
posted by fairmettle at 8:22 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Sounds like a movie plot to me. Just not the one they wanted.
Surely a classic joke setup. Unfortunately, it's not funny.
posted by fairmettle at 8:22 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Interesting to read this, compared to how the Vaccine Task Force's work was described by Kate Bingham in her memoir; she came across as very professional and very competent, but this crowd come across like short-sighted idiots, the way the article describes them.
Caveats: I've got little faith in Byline Times as a reliable source; and the article keeps saying that the denials (from Nature and the scientific establishment) of any lab origin for the vaccine as "science-based finding". It has since emerged that the denials were very biased and not as science-based as claimed, the DNA evidence (e.g. the furin cleavage site) was indeed consistent with a lab origin, the Chinese certainly were engaging in a cover-up, etc. So some of this group's claims have been borne out, though I doubt that the reasons are much to do with the kind of deliberate conscious conspiracy they believe in.
posted by vincebowdren at 8:22 AM on October 6, 2023
Caveats: I've got little faith in Byline Times as a reliable source; and the article keeps saying that the denials (from Nature and the scientific establishment) of any lab origin for the vaccine as "science-based finding". It has since emerged that the denials were very biased and not as science-based as claimed, the DNA evidence (e.g. the furin cleavage site) was indeed consistent with a lab origin, the Chinese certainly were engaging in a cover-up, etc. So some of this group's claims have been borne out, though I doubt that the reasons are much to do with the kind of deliberate conscious conspiracy they believe in.
posted by vincebowdren at 8:22 AM on October 6, 2023
So many conspiracy theories rely on the premise that governments are significantly less dysfunctional than they actually are. Even the Manhattan Project, which was the most secret secret project of WWII was full of Soviet spies.
posted by tommasz at 9:00 AM on October 6, 2023
posted by tommasz at 9:00 AM on October 6, 2023
I know! Most conspiracies turn out to be nothing more than people acting without co-ordination, just with the usual range of human motivations and influences: face-saving, groupthink, rivalry, empathy for victims, petty greed, etc.
posted by vincebowdren at 9:18 AM on October 6, 2023
posted by vincebowdren at 9:18 AM on October 6, 2023
So we have a situation where Elsevier is the good guy. Took me a while to get used to being chummy with Microsoft...
posted by ocschwar at 9:49 AM on October 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 9:49 AM on October 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
Sounds like a movie plot to me
Retired spies pushing misinformation to push a dodgy business deal with the government? It's a draft of a later John le Carre novel.
some of this group's claims have been borne out
this is a bit like saying "well they were wrong about the communists trying to brainwash us by fluoridating the water supply but they were right that the Soviets were up to no good." The specifics matter a lot! There is absolutely no evidence that Nature rejected any contributions because of hidden "extreme Sinophile views," or that the general resistance to the lab-leak idea was motivated by pro-China bias. That's the bulk of the allegations here, that these people tried to get the editors at Nature put under MI6 surveillance on the basis of "they didn't publish our letter."
(also China doing a coverup is only very weak evidence; China does coverups almost as a reflex, there are lots of reasons to do a cover-up that don't involve there being a real lab leak)
posted by BungaDunga at 9:52 AM on October 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
Retired spies pushing misinformation to push a dodgy business deal with the government? It's a draft of a later John le Carre novel.
some of this group's claims have been borne out
this is a bit like saying "well they were wrong about the communists trying to brainwash us by fluoridating the water supply but they were right that the Soviets were up to no good." The specifics matter a lot! There is absolutely no evidence that Nature rejected any contributions because of hidden "extreme Sinophile views," or that the general resistance to the lab-leak idea was motivated by pro-China bias. That's the bulk of the allegations here, that these people tried to get the editors at Nature put under MI6 surveillance on the basis of "they didn't publish our letter."
(also China doing a coverup is only very weak evidence; China does coverups almost as a reflex, there are lots of reasons to do a cover-up that don't involve there being a real lab leak)
posted by BungaDunga at 9:52 AM on October 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
Surely a classic joke setup. Unfortunately, it's not funny.
I have to say this is, in fact, hilarious.
I understand not everyone is in a mood to laugh at stuff like this. When I say it's funny, I can laugh here because this particular set of malefactors seems mostly to be people not getting phone calls returned. It's like we have real life James Bond villains, and these guys are e-mailing them claiming they have designs for sharks with laser beams.
Scientists often appeal editorial decisions by journals. Here's how they approached this:
They are this phenotype of people who are always saying thing like "I discussed this with the Senior Executive Vice President of Global Research and they got very excited by this project" Eventually you realize that they basically mean they walked up to the guy at an all employee reception and he made a few polite noises.
So they did get real meetings with Gove and in their own accounts they went swimmingly, but objectively what happens is they get shunted to someone who knows the field and get turned down. So they e-mail the prim minister angrily:
It's almost interesting Dearlove--who was chief intelligence during the Iraq war and certainly caused massive harm then--got so little traction and everyone saw through their bullshit. Either his contacts are stale or their scam was really, really bad; most likely both.
I do hope this embarrasses the people involved enough they lose their various board memberships, but overall I feel like it's laugh at these guys and save the rage & fear response for so many other people who accomplished so much worse.
posted by mark k at 10:08 AM on October 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
I have to say this is, in fact, hilarious.
I understand not everyone is in a mood to laugh at stuff like this. When I say it's funny, I can laugh here because this particular set of malefactors seems mostly to be people not getting phone calls returned. It's like we have real life James Bond villains, and these guys are e-mailing them claiming they have designs for sharks with laser beams.
Scientists often appeal editorial decisions by journals. Here's how they approached this:
[Dalgleish] sent Nature increasingly severe warnings. If Nature failed to publish, he warned, “we will immediately take appropriate other steps in the public interest”.This is Monty Python Black Knight "I'll bite your kneecaps off" level of threats. Their self-written bios for the movie pitch is great too ("Hero. Brilliant and eccentric with astonishing brain. . . . Passionate 6 Dan Aikido Black Belt.")
Prins noted that ignoring them was “a VERY big mistake by Nature … they are cornered and sweating”. Dalgleish added: “It was a choice Nature had made and would have to own.”
Failing to recognise the group’s genius was “extraordinary”, Dalgleish told a Nature Medicine editor in a further email
They are this phenotype of people who are always saying thing like "I discussed this with the Senior Executive Vice President of Global Research and they got very excited by this project" Eventually you realize that they basically mean they walked up to the guy at an all employee reception and he made a few polite noises.
So they did get real meetings with Gove and in their own accounts they went swimmingly, but objectively what happens is they get shunted to someone who knows the field and get turned down. So they e-mail the prim minister angrily:
[Boris] Johnson was also warned of their fury that Dalgleish had received a “scientifically illiterate and disrespectfully gauche email from a civil servant” working for the chief medical officer, proposing “animal trials”. “The last time we checked, human beings are animals,” the group complained.There's no sign the prime minister or anyone else read the e-mail, let alone responded. Certainly the government didn't spend billions on their vaccine, even though the group promised to hold "Full Priority until 2.00pm tomorrow"
It's almost interesting Dearlove--who was chief intelligence during the Iraq war and certainly caused massive harm then--got so little traction and everyone saw through their bullshit. Either his contacts are stale or their scam was really, really bad; most likely both.
I do hope this embarrasses the people involved enough they lose their various board memberships, but overall I feel like it's laugh at these guys and save the rage & fear response for so many other people who accomplished so much worse.
posted by mark k at 10:08 AM on October 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
This isn't the place to review or rehash the lab origin debate, but I'd suggest that anyone's who's interested look at the Wikipedia article (which includes a discussion of the furin cleavage site that vincebowdren mentioned) and edit it if they have anything to add.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:21 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:21 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
there are lots of reasons to do a cover-up that don't involve there being a real lab leak
Right. One likely reason is if the Chinese government doesn't know if it's a lab leak or not so they start covering up just in case.
posted by duoshao at 10:27 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]
Right. One likely reason is if the Chinese government doesn't know if it's a lab leak or not so they start covering up just in case.
posted by duoshao at 10:27 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]
Let's not forget that the whole thing is also massively racist. "Sinophiles". JFC.
posted by sotonohito at 11:02 AM on October 6, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 11:02 AM on October 6, 2023 [20 favorites]
Yeah, "sinophiles" made me recoil.
posted by brundlefly at 11:53 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 11:53 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'd just like to note for the non-Brits reading this that the clown car featured the usual suspects from 55 Tufton Street, home of numerous astroturf lobbying groups like The Taxpayers Alliance that turn out to have no discernible funding source or to be bankrolled by Koch, Mercer, et al. Climate change denialists, small government activists, anti-environmentalists, and libertarians.
Of special note: Liz Truss, the UK's previous Prime Minister (the one who lasted 55 days before her own party fired her after she nearly destroyed the British economy) is a 55 Tufton Street regular. That's about how close they get to the seat of power: they're so far out on the loony-tune libertaran right that the Brexit-era Conservative Party think they're deranged.
(As a friend of mine puts it, "they're so far out of their tree that the squirrels are sending out search parties".)
posted by cstross at 1:38 PM on October 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
Of special note: Liz Truss, the UK's previous Prime Minister (the one who lasted 55 days before her own party fired her after she nearly destroyed the British economy) is a 55 Tufton Street regular. That's about how close they get to the seat of power: they're so far out on the loony-tune libertaran right that the Brexit-era Conservative Party think they're deranged.
(As a friend of mine puts it, "they're so far out of their tree that the squirrels are sending out search parties".)
posted by cstross at 1:38 PM on October 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
Most articles submitted to Nature are rejected. Most of us just go submit to another journal. But of course that only works if you actually have a journal article to submit and not an unhinged, unsourced, unscientific screed. (And no, these people do not have a point about anything, and no, real scientists do not need to take any portion of their argument seriously.)
posted by hydropsyche at 3:20 PM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 3:20 PM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
What do I suggest we DO?
If I type it here my comment will be deleted, and so will my account.
posted by chronkite at 3:24 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
If I type it here my comment will be deleted, and so will my account.
posted by chronkite at 3:24 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
‘We tried nothin’ and now we’re all out of ideas!’
posted by chronkite at 3:27 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by chronkite at 3:27 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
the clown car featured the usual suspects from 55 Tufton Street, home of numerous astroturf lobbying groups like The Taxpayers Alliance that turn out to have no discernible funding source or to be bankrolled by Koch, Mercer, et al.Sooo.. where DO they get the money from...?
posted by slater at 4:23 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Most articles submitted to Nature are rejected. Most of us just go submit to another journal
These clowns could pay a few hundred quid to get their papers in some fake scientific journals I get spammed with now and again. Except a lot of the fake journals seem to come out of China, which might present a moral conflict to racists needing to rely on the very people they hate in order to get published. Tough one. Publish or perish.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:01 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
These clowns could pay a few hundred quid to get their papers in some fake scientific journals I get spammed with now and again. Except a lot of the fake journals seem to come out of China, which might present a moral conflict to racists needing to rely on the very people they hate in order to get published. Tough one. Publish or perish.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:01 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I wonder if Jon Stewart has seen this?
posted by B3taCatScan at 5:32 PM on October 6, 2023
posted by B3taCatScan at 5:32 PM on October 6, 2023
‘We tried nothin’ and now we’re all out of ideas!’
The article actually discusses many roadblocks that the people attempting to advance their ideas encountered and the many things other people did to successfully stop them.
If you're looking for ideas, might I suggest RTFA?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 PM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
The article actually discusses many roadblocks that the people attempting to advance their ideas encountered and the many things other people did to successfully stop them.
If you're looking for ideas, might I suggest RTFA?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 PM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
tommasz: So many conspiracy theories rely on the premise that governments are significantly less dysfunctional than they actually are.
Totally weird that a head of clandestine service forgets the state of the civil service within which he spent his career.
Except for the pathology of conspiracy theories, something that's founded in believing you should have agency in a cosmos and democratic system that doesn't let your influence reach that far. You don't have agency, but you believe someone must do, so the idea at the core of conspiracy theories that there's a lot going on behind the scenes becomes very appealing.
The terror of a global pandemic and the need to feel a sense of control (again) to blame a human origin and to put money in the hands of a charlatan promising a vaccine ... those are plausible causes for this sad behaviour by these men who believe they're world-class agents of change.
I'm a bit sad that I can't ask UK clandestine services to wiretap people because I believe it's so. I'll get over myself, I promise.
posted by k3ninho at 6:25 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Totally weird that a head of clandestine service forgets the state of the civil service within which he spent his career.
Except for the pathology of conspiracy theories, something that's founded in believing you should have agency in a cosmos and democratic system that doesn't let your influence reach that far. You don't have agency, but you believe someone must do, so the idea at the core of conspiracy theories that there's a lot going on behind the scenes becomes very appealing.
The terror of a global pandemic and the need to feel a sense of control (again) to blame a human origin and to put money in the hands of a charlatan promising a vaccine ... those are plausible causes for this sad behaviour by these men who believe they're world-class agents of change.
I'm a bit sad that I can't ask UK clandestine services to wiretap people because I believe it's so. I'll get over myself, I promise.
posted by k3ninho at 6:25 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Several comments and responses removed for not being considerate and respectful, per the guidelines.
If you're going to post comments, please make them related to the post and address the topic at hand. If you're going to be snarky, just realize that can come off badly and help create a derail where people are being condescending and/or name calling each other. Engage with the topic, not each other please!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:14 AM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you're going to post comments, please make them related to the post and address the topic at hand. If you're going to be snarky, just realize that can come off badly and help create a derail where people are being condescending and/or name calling each other. Engage with the topic, not each other please!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:14 AM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
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Sounds like a movie plot to me. Just not the one they wanted.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:12 AM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]