Head of UC Berkeley climate research hub resigns in protest after
invitation to host Chicago professor blocked amid woke row
19 Oct, 2021 09:48
©REUTERS/Mike Hutchings / ©Octavio Jones / GETTY via AFP
A UC Berkeley climate researcher has resigned after his request to host a fellow scientist from the University of Chicago was denied. The Chicago professor was targeted by ‘woke’ students due to his views on diversity admissions.
The threat of climate change is less acute than the threat of woke academics hearing a speech by a professor whose views on diversity admissions to US campuses they despise. This seems to be the conclusion from the unfolding controversy surrounding Dorian Abbot, a geophysicist who holds tenure at the University of Chicago.
Actually, I believe that woke, PCMad people are so self-righteous that they believe anyone who disagrees with them in one area must also be completely wrong in all areas, and therefore not worth listening to, and should be barred from having any kind of voice at all.
Abbot was scheduled to deliver a lecture on climate change and exoplanets at MIT, but it was cancelled earlier this month due to pressure from students, who disagree with his political views. The professor is a vocal critic of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) effort in US academia, which he sees as detrimental to scientific pursuit. Abbot’s opponents have been organizing public pressure campaigns to ostracize him, and have succeeded in stopping him from speaking at the Massachusetts university.
Abbot has his supporters in academia, and one of them is David M. Romps, head of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center (BASC) at UC Berkeley. In a Twitter thread on Monday, he explained how his intention to have the Chicago researcher deliver his prepared MIT speech at the California university resulted in him submitting his resignation.
By having Abbot talk about “Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets,” as his lecture at the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science was titled, UC Berkeley would “reaffirm that BASC is a purely scientific organization, not a political one,” Romps said.
The prestigious annual John Carlson Lecture at MIT, for which Abbot was booked, is meant for the general public rather than professional scientists. BASC hosted Abbot as speaker in 2014, before he came forward with his views on DEI. Romps’ proposal was apparently not viewed favorably by his faculty.
“In the ensuing discussion among the BASC faculty, it became unclear to me whether we could invite that scientist ever again, let alone now,” he said. Romps believes that excluding people from climate research based on their political views is detrimental to the stated mission of BASC.
“I hold BASC and its faculty -- my friends and colleagues -- in the highest regard, and so it has been a great honor to serve as BASC's director these past five years. But it was never my intention to lead an organization that is political or even ambiguously so,” he said, explaining his decision to step down.
Abbot became a target for what he calls an “outrage mob” last year, after he released a series of YouTube videos arguing his opposition to DEI. At the time, people unhappy with his views said they “threaten the safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups” at his department. Critics demanded that the university take several measures against Abbot, which boiled down to allowing students and postdocs to boycott him without repercussions.
The professor eventually took down the videos but has not changed his position, which he outlined in an August opinion piece published in Newsweek. He believes DEI stifles colleges’ ability to enroll students based on their merits and unfairly punishes individuals for belonging to groups that are supposedly overrepresented at campuses, like white people or males.
The result is both detrimental to the primary goal of universities – which is to seek truth and generate knowledge – and inherently unjust to people, who are being discriminated against. Ultimately, graduates who are supposed to benefit from DEI suffer too, since their degrees lose value in the eyes of the public, he wrote.
A better approach, Abbot believes, would be getting rid of legacy and athletic admission advantages, making the evaluation of applicants more robust and unbiased, and spending university resources on talent support programs in underprivileged communities.
“American universities are diverse not because of DEI, but because they have been extremely competitive at attracting talent from all over the world,” he concluded his piece. “Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from.”
He said the Nazi example was a warning to American academia. Though the article seemingly didn’t give his detractors on US campuses much pause for thought, not everyone has been discouraged by their continued pressure. His canceled MIT lecture is now scheduled to be shown on a Zoom call hosted by the James Madison Program at Princeton University.
This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
BY ZACHARY STIEBER
October 22, 2021
Epoch Times
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research in China that created a more potent form of a bat coronavirus, according to newly disclosed documents.
An experiment conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, situated near where the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, compared mice infected with the original bat coronavirus to mice infected with a modified strain created by researchers, according to the documents.
The mice infected with the modified version “became sicker than those infected” with the original version, Lawrence Tabak, the principal deputy director at the NIH, told lawmakers in letters (pdf) on Oct. 20.
The “limited experiment” was aimed at seeing if “spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model,” Tabak wrote, adding that the “unexpected result” was not “something that the researchers set out to do.”
Whether intended or not, the research fits the definition of gain-of-function, some experts say.
“The genetic manipulation of both MERS and the SARS conducted in Wuhan clearly constituted gain-of-function experiments,” Jonathan Latham, executive director of The Bioscience Research Project, told The Epoch Times in an email. “Further, it is absurd of NIH to describe the enhanced viral pathogenicity that was observed in the experiments they funded as ‘unexpected’ when clearly these experiments were expressly designed to detect increased pathogenicity.”
The NIH “corrects untruthful assertions by NIH Director Collins and NIAID Director Fauci that NIH had not funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist with Rutgers University, wrote on Twitter.
The newly released documents primarily consist of the fifth and final progress report (pdf) for the series of grants. The report was submitted on Aug. 3, over two years after the research concluded.
Which would mean that the research was likely concluded in 2019, right about when the coronavirus made its public debut down the street.
EcoHealth’s final report also contained a description of experimenting on clones of MERS-CoV, a virus that caused an outbreak in the Middle East in 2012 and has a mortality rate of approximately 35 percent, according to the World Health Organization.
The scientists said they used a “similar reverse genetics strategy” that they utilized in studies of the bat coronaviruses and, after constructing a “full-length infectious clone of MERS-CoV,” they replaced the receptor binding domain of the virus with domains from various strains of coronaviruses identified in bats from southern China.
Jack Nunberg, a virologist and director of the Montana Biotechnology Center at the University of Montana, told The Epoch Times in an email that both viruses use the same receptor protein.
“By keeping to the same receptor protein, I’d label the experiment overly risky (due to the pathogenic backbone and their previous findings of increased virulence in some chimeras) but not blatantly” gain-of-function, he said.
Both Dr. Francis Collins, the outgoing director of the NIH, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the agency’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), have denied the agency has funded gain-of-function research in China.
“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,” Collins said in a May statement.
The term generally refers to any research that increases the pathogenicity or transmissibility of a biological agent like a virus.
The research in question was funded through millions of dollars of grants from the NIH to EcoHealth Alliance, which then funneled money to the lab in Wuhan.
That's called money laundering by the Mafia.
The NIH has repeatedly declined to make documents concerning the research public, only disclosing many after being sued or pressured by members of Congress.
“Thanks to the hard work of the Oversight Committee Republicans, we now know that American taxpayer dollars funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab,” House Oversight Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Epoch Times in an email.
The documents were sent to the Comer and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The NIH says a review of EcoHealth’s research plan before it allocated the funding determined it did not fit the definition of research involving “enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential” because the bat coronaviruses “had not been shown to infect humans.” However, “out of an abundance of caution,” language in the terms and conditions of the grant award stated that a secondary review would be triggered by multiple scenarios, including EcoHealth reporting one log, or 10-time increase, in growth.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, appears before a Senate hearing to discuss vaccines, in Washington, on Sept. 9, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/Getty Images)
“This means EcoHealth should have reported if any of the viruses being tested turned out to grow 10 times faster or more than the control virus would without their new spike proteins,” an NIH spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
EcoHealth failed to abide by conditions of the grant, Tabak said, and was notified that it has five days from Oct. 20 to submit to NIH all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under the award.
Presented with the accusation by some that the new documents show Fauci and Collins lied to Congress, the NIH spokesperson said that the allegation is incorrect.
The challenge appears to revolve around different definitions of gain-of-function research. The NIH has defined it as research that is “reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to … viruses such that the resulting virus has enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility (via the respiratory route) in mammals.” Its parent office, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), defines “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens” in a framework (pdf) as a highly transmissible and highly virulent pathogen that is enhanced through research.
“While the findings of this limited experiment in mice were somewhat unexpected, NIAID reviewed the progress report and has determined that the research described in the progress report would not have triggered a review under the HHS P3CO Framework because the bat coronaviruses used in this research have not been shown to infect humans and the experiments were not reasonably expected to increase transmissibility or virulence in humans,” the spokesperson said.
The grant is suspended while the NIH conducts a review that includes working with EcoHealth to get more information about its noncompliance.
EcoHealth has not responded to requests for comment, including questions sent last month after another set of documents, detailing other work the nonprofit funded with U.S. taxpayer money, were made public.
The fresh disclosures add to the concern about government transparency, Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right to Know, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“It has been obvious for decades that our federal government is not transparent enough, that there is not nearly enough congressional oversight and that the Freedom of Information Act badly needs strengthening. We citizens need better transparency tools to uncover all sorts of corruption, mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse of power, and impending disasters,” he said, adding that NIH in particular has an “abysmal” track record of being transparent.
“Even if the research EcoHealth conducted under the National Institutes of Health grant does not precisely fit the definition of gain-of-function, which is for scientists and not policy analysts to decide, government transparency certainly required the NIH to reveal this information at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. At this point, it is obvious that the NIH and other government health agencies require reform and far more intensive oversight by Congress, and in some cases outright abolition,” added S.T. Karnick, publications director at The Heartland Institute.
The very idea of gain-of-function research is bizarre. They chose to work with a bat virus because it wouldn't infect humans, and they 'improved' its pathogenicity until it could and did infect humans. These are crimes against humanity and should never be allowed in any country. It's madness!
‘Resign in disgrace!’: Republicans eviscerate AG Garland as they
accuse him of sending FBI after parents protesting school boards
27 Oct, 2021 21:29
© Tom Brenner/Pool via REUTERS
Republican lawmakers have savaged Attorney General Merrick Garland for doubling down on a memo pitting the federal government against parents criticizing school boards. The GOP accused Garland of waging “political retribution”.
Garland testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, and Republicans on the committee were out for blood. The hearing took place several weeks after Garland authored a memo seemingly directing the Justice Department to sic the FBI and other federal agencies on parents protesting school boards over mask mandates, transgender policies, and the inclusion of ‘Critical Race Theory’ in curricula – according to the conservatives and the parents in question.
Garland has denied targeting parents, claiming that the effort is directed at the threats to school board members, not the First Amendment rights of the parents.
While Garland’s memo doesn’t implicitly mention “parents,” it was issued after the National Association of School Boards (NASB) claimed in a letter to President Joe Biden that the protests of angry parents “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” and should be handled like “domestic terrorism,” using the Patriot Act.
PC Madness!
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) accused Garland of “politicizing” the Justice Department and using it as “a tool of political retribution” against the angered parents. No violent incidents were cited in Garland’s memo, and Cruz forced the Attorney General to admit that he knew of no such incidents, and that speaking out to school boards is protected by the First Amendment.
Documents retrieved by parents under the Freedom of Information Act show that NASB President Viola Garcia and CEO Chip Slaven planned their letter over several weeks with the White House, and sent it without the approval of the association’s board of directors, who considered its language “extreme.” The letter has since been disavowed by the NASB, but Garland’s memo has not been rescinded.
Under questioning from Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), Garland maintained on Wednesday that he acted based on the recommendation of the NASB, but Sasse cut off the AG mid-sentence.
“No, you didn't receive an anonymous letter,” Sasse interjected. “White House political staff co-wrote it with this organization, which is why the organization has rejected it. You know these facts now to be true, yet you still won’t disavow your memo.”
Garland insisted that his memo toned down some of the language contained in the NASB’s letter, and told the hearing that “True threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment...those are the only things we are worried about here. We are not investigating peaceful protests or parent involvement in school board meetings.”
One of the cases cited in the letter was that of Scott Smith, who was arrested at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Virginia earlier this year. Smith physically threatened someone and resisted arrest, and was taken to the ground by officers. However, Smith’s daughter had been raped in the school’s bathroom by a boy in a skirt. A member of the board told Smith that she didn’t believe him, and it later emerged that the rape did happen, and was covered up by the school, apparently to protect its transgender bathroom policy.
“Do you apologize to Scott Smith?” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) asked Garland on Wednesday. Garland didn’t directly apologize, but did admit that Smith was within his rights to cause a scene at the board meeting. “Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court,” Cotton shot back. “You should resign in disgrace, Judge.”
The Smith case has further inflamed tensions in the affluent Virginia county, where students staged a walkout on Tuesday to protest the cover-up. The case, as well as disputes over mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory, has become a key issue in Virginia’s gubernatorial election, set to take place next week.
Democratic Candidate Terry McAuliffe has alternated between insisting that critical race theory is not taught in public schools, and claiming that such theory “is as important” as math and English. He has accused his rival, Glenn Youngkin, of trying to “silence the voices of black authors” by suggesting that parents should be made aware that their children are being shown books like ‘Genderqueer’ and ‘Lawn Boy,’ the latter of which contains descriptions of gay sex between children.
Youngkin is a supporter of parents having some say in what their children are taught, while McAuliffe stated at a debate this month that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” More than six in 10 Virginians say school curricula will be a “major factor” in how they vote next week.
