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发表于 2021/3/27 01:55:08
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来自河南商丘
Scientists say the suggestion that China has made a new coronavirus is misleading. But either way, they spread like a virus.
The unverified claims of the Chinese scholar Yan Limeng are widely regarded as "flawed" and their dissemination shows how easily scientific sites can be misused and misunderstood. In September, Yan Limeng, a Chinese virologist, published an explosive paper claiming that China had produced a deadly coronavirus in a research laboratory, scientists from the Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and other leading American universities then studied the paper with unusual speed. The American scientists concluded that the paper was seriously flawed. Yan's claims "are sometimes baseless and unsupported by data, " according to a report in the new online journal of the MIT Press, which was created to review claims about SARS-COV-2. But in an era when anyone can post anything online with just a few clicks, this reaction is not enough to stop Yan Limeng's controversial statement from spreading quickly, and get millions of viewers on social media and Fox News Channel. According to misinformation experts, this reality highlights how systems set up to promote scientific understanding can be used to spread politically charged ideas that are distinct from scientific consensus. A report released by Harvard researchers on Friday showed that the media manipulated Yan Limeng's paper in Zenodo, a scientific research repository, on Sept. 14 without any advance notice, with the help of influential conservatives such as the Republican Strategist Stephen Bannon, after the paper was exposed on Twitter, Youtube and far-right websites on the recommendation of his online show "war room: epidemics, " Yan Limeng expanded on her claim on Oct. 8, explicitly accusing the Chinese government of developing a coronavirus as a "biological weapon. ". Online research databases have become key forums for revealing and discussing epidemics. To advance science more flexibly, they have been at the forefront of reporting discoveries about masks, vaccines, novel coronavirus variants and so on. But these sites lack the protections inherent in the traditional -- or slow -- world of peer reviewed scientific journals, where articles are published only after being criticized by other scientists. Research suggests that papers posted on websites can also be hijacked, fuelling conspiracy theories. Yan's paper on Zenodo has been viewed more than a million times, possibly making it the most widely read study on the origins of a coronavirus pandemic, despite several heated scientific criticisms and extensive news coverage of its alleged flaws, according to researchers at Harvard University. They concluded that online science sites were vulnerable to what they called "stealth science, " which gives dubious research "a veneer of scientific legitimacy. ". "At this point, anything that is open will be exploited, " said Landon Donovan, Research Director of the Center for Media, politics and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, where Ms. Yan, a former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, fled to the United States in April. In an interview with the Washington Post, she acknowledged that online science sites were vulnerable to abuse, but denied that her story was a case study in the matter. Instead, Yan said, she was a dissident trying to warn the world about what she called China's role in making the coronavirus. She used Zenodo because she feared that the Chinese government would block the publication of her work, and Zenodo was able to post information without restrictions. She believes that academic criticism of her will be proved wrong. "None of them can refute from real and reliable scientific evidence, " Yan said. "They can only attack me, " Zenodo acknowledged, a situation that has prompted reforms, including a label posted Thursday on a paper with Ms. Yan's name on it that read: "Note: potentially misleading content. ". The Post had previously asked Zenodo if he would delete the article. The site also features links to comments from Georgetown University and MIT Press. "We take misinformation very seriously, so that's the issue we want to address, " said Anais Rassat, a spokeswoman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. "We don't think that withdrawing the report is the best solution. ". We want it to survive and prove why experts think it's wrong.mainstream researchers, however, have seen Yan's claims spread far faster on the Internet than they can respond to refutation, and they are obsessed by the experience -- as if they were convinced that their ability to spread misinformation far exceeds that of well-known social media sites. Any online platform without strong and expensive protections is equally vulnerable. "It's similar to our debate with Facebook and Twitter. To what extent have we created a tool to accelerate the spread of false information, and to what extent have you contributed to this? Stefano Bertozzi, editor-in-chief of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Online Journal, Quick Review: COVID-19. Bertozzi) to Yan Limeng's statement questioned. "Most scientists are not interested in a fierce competition in cyberspace, " Bertozzi added. The new coronavirus has reinforced the importance of online science sites, which have been developing for more than a decade and are an important part of the ecosystem for making and censoring claims in many academic fields, but their development has been driven by the urgency of spreading new findings about a deadly epidemic. Some of the best known sites, such as Medrxiv and Biorxiv, have rapid assessment systems designed to avoid publication of works that have not passed the initial test of scientific credibility. Richard Sever, co-founder of MEDRXIV and bioRxiv, said they would also reject papers that only review the work of others, or that claim they should not be published before peer review. "We wanted to create a high enough barrier that people would have to do some research, " Sever said. "We don't want to be in a place full of conspiracy theories. " Online publishing sites are often referred to as "preprint servers, " because many researchers use them as the first step in traditional peer-review, allowing authors to expose their work to the public before embarking on a more in-depth analysis and providing usability for possible journalism. Proponents of preprint servers tout their ability to create early visibility for important discoveries and generate useful debate. They point out that traditional peer-reviewed journals also have a history of occasionally publishing hoaxes and pseudoscience. "It's interesting that everyone is worried about what preprints provide because, overall, journals don't do a very good job of preventing misinformation, " Sever said. However, he and other supporters acknowledge the risks. But scientists argue that as Foshan sometimes refutes the false claims of the other, non scientists scan preprint servers for data that might support their beloved conspiracy theories. |
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