birdwatcher: (Professor Moriarty)
[personal profile] birdwatcher
Michael B. Weissman@econjwatch.org -- An influential paper by Pekar et al. published in Science in 2022 claimed that Bayesian analysis of the molecular phylogeny of early SARS-CoV-2 cases indicated that the likelihood that two successful introductions to humans had occurred was greater than the likelihood that just one had occurred. After correcting a fundamental error in Bayesian reasoning, the results presented in that paper imply larger likelihood for a single introduction. That correction reduces the compatibility of the results with the wet-market zoonosis account.

Michael B. Weissman is a Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has worked mostly on condensed matter experiments, especially on low-frequency noise in disordered materials. He thinks that libertarian philosophy is factually detached from the realities of our species, implicitly cruel, and will lead to environmental catastrophe.