Corona: “Wiesendanger expresses compatible with conspiracy ideologues”

Dhe debate on the Corona paper by top Hamburg researcher Roland Wiesendanger is now reaching politics. Social Senator Melanie Leonhard (SPD) said in the health committee that, based on the sources cited, she would not have dared to make this thesis of a laboratory accident.

 The  responsible science authority quickly distanced itself after the publication.

Hamburg’s top researcher Roland Wiesendanger, an expert in nanotechnology and who has repeatedly acted as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics, had published a self-made study on the origin of the coronavirus via the university’s press office last Thursday. This is not the market in Wuhan, but a laboratory in the city in which research has been carried out on the corona virus.

Wiesendanger said he was “99.9 percent” sure. An employee was infected there and thus carried the virus outwards.

 The  100-page thesis paper with lots of colorful markings, greased comments and copied pictures looks more like a collection than a study – and arouses a lot of criticism and irritation.

“Does not meet the scientific standards”

 The  spokespersons for the Hamburg parliamentary groups were shocked to astonished. All emphasized the high value of academic freedom, but criticized the sources and methodology of the paper. “This work does not correspond to the high scientific standards that we are used to at the University of Hamburg,” said the Green MP Miriam Block. Clues are not scientifically founded facts.

“Without having gone through a peer review beforehand, the physicist expresses himself compatible with conspiracy ideologues such as Xavier Naidoo and others“Said left-wing politicians Stephanie Rose. It is a mystery to her why a study of which there are obviously methodological doubts is being put in the spotlight without prior review by specialist experts.

 The  laboratory thesis is not new; according to research by the World Health Organization (WHO), it is also not disproved, but it is unlikely.

 The  majority of the published studies also show transmission via a host animal as the most likely variant.

Wiesendanger, however, claims to have collected 600 pieces of evidence that speak for the laboratory orthosis: including scientific studies, but also YouTube snippets and links to articles in publications such as the “Epoch Times”, which is popular with conspiracy theorists.

 The  physicist did not do any research on the subject himself. Although there is talk of an “interdisciplinary approach” and Wiesendanger is listed as the head of the study, he is the only author.

 The re was also no classic scientific appraisal by peer review, as is usually the case in studies of this type before publication.

 The  paper is not aimed at the scientific community, but is intended for the public, explained Wiesendanger.

“I assume that the university – after the study has now received so much media attention – will carry out a very careful examination and check the evidence and conclusions it contains extremely thoroughly for plausibility, sources and correctness”, says Annkathrin Kammeyer, scientific policy Spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group. “If it turns out that mistakes have been made, that too has to be made public.“

CDU spokeswoman Anke Frieling said: “Under no circumstances should this form of publication become the rule.” Hamburg is a University of Excellence and wants to stay that way. “University President Lentzen has to ask himself whether he has done justice to his task here.”

You exercise “no censorship”

University President Dieter Lentzen remains on the diving station and does not comment on the publication, which, according to Wiesendanger, was closely coordinated with him. “He encouraged me, in my role as a scientist, to bring these things into the public eye and not just put them up for discussion in scientific circles,” said Wiesendanger.

 The  university’s press office said there was no censorship on the research objects and results of their scientists, a spokeswoman said.

One is obliged to make studies by their scientists available for exchange and discussion in the specialist community or the public. Every scientist has the right to conduct research, regardless of his specialist area, and to publish the findings.

“Chaotic Internet Research”

 The  dean’s office of the natural sciences faculty, to which Wiesendanger himself belongs, is all the more clear: the elaboration is “not a scientific study”.

 The  dissemination via official channels, however, gives the impression that it is a matter of “sound scientific knowledge”.

This alienates the dean’s office.

 The  University’s Coronavirus Structural Task Force, which researches the virus, calls Wiesendanger’s theses a “rather chaotic and tendentious Internet research that in no way corresponds to good scientific practice”.