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Universität Hamburg: Publication kindly supported by the President
Photo: Henning Angerer / Hoch Zwei Stock / imago images
On Thursday, the University of Excellence Hamburg published a press release that should not be conducive to its reputation: The nanoscientist Roland Wiesendanger had "shed light on" the origin of the coronavirus, it said.
Anyone who reads on, however, by no means dawns.
In the text there is a collection of allegedly "serious evidence" that are supposed to speak for a laboratory accident at the virological institute in Wuhan city as the cause of the current pandemic.
A restriction on the part of the press office has been brought forward, which raises the question of why the communication exists at all.
"The study" does not provide "any highly scientific evidence," it says.
This is supposed to suggest that they are still scientific, but not highly scientific.
However, if you click on the link to the original work, you will see that it is not only not a highly scientific study, but none at all.
Posted on Science Facebook
Wiesendanger has simply uploaded a PDF with the official letterhead of the University of Hamburg on the ResearchGate platform.
The site is a kind of Facebook for scientists, a social network on which they can present their research.
A systematic examination of the content of the theses, as is customary for studies published in recognized specialist journals, does not take place.
In the corona pandemic, many studies have now been published in advance without testing.
That alone is not a knockout criterion, but it is also not the only problem with work.
To put it in the words of the press office: The circumstances under which the work was published do not provide "any highly scientific evidence, but numerous and serious evidence" that it is scientific nonsense.
The professor seems to be well aware of this.
At »ZDFheute« he also stated that his work was »not intended for the scientific community, but for the public«.
That makes perfect sense, because the paper written in German would in no way withstand a technical examination - atypical for scientific specialist theses.
One could even argue that someone is trying to provide conspiracy storytellers with a pseudoscientific basis.
A single interpretation
The basis for this is a colorful hodgepodge of serious and dubious sources.
There are studies to be taken seriously, but Wiesendanger also refers to the »Focus«, YouTube videos, Twitter and conspiracy theorists' pages, sometimes from the right-wing margin.
On »ZDFheute« he stated bluntly: »In principle, any journalist could have found that out.«
Its 105-page report hardly delivers any added value.
The reputable sources have been discussed in the professional world for months.
Among other things, a group of experts from the WHO, which admittedly also had some squabbling, is investigating the origin of the pandemic.
Even she cannot rule out a laboratory accident, but after a circumstantial examination, unlike Wiesendanger, considers it unlikely.
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Now it can be argued that this is a research dispute and that every point of view should be heard.
However, there is a fundamental difference between the WHO expert group and Wiesendanger.
While the WHO group consists of around a dozen qualified medical, pandemic and zoonoses specialists, Wiesendanger is a researcher with no expertise whatsoever in the field.
You could also say: the opinion of any individual.
The professor's specialist expertise lies in the nanosciences, more precisely scanning tunneling microscopy.
One argument, two different conclusions
One example shows how differently the real experts and the non-specialist professor then rate the facts.
Wiesendanger argues that, in contrast to previous coronavirus pandemics such as Sars and Mers, no intermediate value has yet been found, i.e. no animal from which the current Sars-CoV-2 pathogen could have jumped directly to humans.
From this he concludes that this zoonosis theory as a possible explanation for the pandemic has no sound scientific basis.
However, the WHO experts argue exactly the other way around: Since the two other pandemic coronaviruses Sars and Mers have already jumped to humans via animal intermediate hosts, they consider this to be likely with the new coronavirus Sars-CoV-2.
But after some back and forth, she wants to examine the laboratory orthosis further.
During the Sars outbreak in 2002/2003, around 8,000 people worldwide were infected and around ten percent died.
In the meantime, experts assume that crawling cats or raccoon dogs passed the virus on to humans, which, like Sars-CoV-2, probably originated in bats.
The Mers pathogen, which in the meantime mainly appeared in humans on the Arabian Peninsula, was detected as intermediate hosts in dromedaries.
Ennobled by the highest authority
The University of Hamburg does not seem to be bothered by the unscientific approach of its professor.
According to Wiesendanger, he even planned its publication together with President Dieter Lenzen.
Both had expected that they would be placed in the corner of conspiracy theories as a reaction.
Lenz's term as president ends in about a year.
At the request of SPIEGEL, the university formulated somewhat more cautiously: "The university management and the press office of the University of Hamburg do not exercise any censorship on the research objects and results of their scientists," explains a spokeswoman.
Rather, researchers are obliged to publish their scientific results.
That's right, considering that their work is financed from taxpayers' money.
The question remains, however, whether the current paper is even a scientific result.
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