Pekar 2022 was 1 of 2 key papers supporting a market origin of covid, via multiple spillovers. v3 of my arXiv fixing its math errors in a transparent way is now up, with a new histogram. tl;dr The answer from their model applied to their data is the opposite of their claim. arxiv.org/abs/2510.01484

I recycle some old thoughts (2017) about Trump and the collapse of civilization. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/civilizati...

The corrections to the Pekar 2022 Science paper claiming multiple SARS-CoV-2 introductions are factorizable and simple, using data contained in the paper and minimal assumptions. Their data and model imply that a single introduction was more likely. arxiv.org/abs/2510.01484

Very few PhD students finish within 4 years. But international students will need to do that if US proposed visa rules change go through. Sound reasonable to you? Fed register is accepting comments for next month. Details at the link & comment button www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

With troops being employed for domestic suppression and war looming, I briefly escaped into nostalgic family memories. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/more-stori...

College alumni join forces open.substack.com/pub/lastpaig...

This is urgent. We have until noon Sat. to get 10 k alumni signers for this amicus brief. Harvard may suck, but this is where the front lines are in the defense against Trump's attacks on science and education. Please sign if you're eligible. and circulate! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

There was more interest than I expected in this niche substack answering Scott Alexander on Covid origins. It may be more generally useful for its brief discussion of how hierarchical Bayes is needed in messy practical problems. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/open-lette...

tl;dr — this EO co-opts the language of open science to implement a system of political control wherein presidential appointees are given broad latitude to designate any number of reasonable scientific activities and inferences as scientific misconduct, and to penalize those involved accordingly.

Harvard today, your institution tomorrow. It's all part of the Project 2025 plan to destroy high education in America. All leading US universities depend on federal funding and tuition dollars from international students. They severely curtailed the former. Now they're eliminating the latter.

More substack, this time recycling some old prison memories. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/prison-mem...

I posted a light, slightly pretentious piece over at the Stack. At least with some anecdotes. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/two-tales-...

Here's my summary of and comments on a Brookings/RAND meeting on pandemic prevention and preparedness. Some info on their views on Covid origins and thoughts on coping with the next pandemic. Complete with an explanatory cartoon and a quote from Trotsky. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/brookingsr...

This is what a rigged economy looks like: In the 1970s, CEOs made 27 times more than the average worker. In the 1980s, CEOs made 48 times more than the average worker. This decade, CEOs are making 354 times more than the average worker. That has got to change.

I've just posted a response to Trump's new Covid announcements. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/trump-on-c...

An update about various letters for Harvard alums and others to sign trying to get universities not to cave to Trump on free speech. There's a range of political slants but groups plan to work together. Here the link doesn't have to go in separately: michaelweissman.substack.com/p/campus-fre...

NIH slashes overheads, fires directors and staff, freezes funds, halts trials, interrupts research, stalls grant review, and terminates 100s of grants on infectious disease, vaccines, mRNA, DEI, LGBTQ health. NIH director, to Bari Weiss: Scientists are just upset because they didn't vote for Trump.

It's getting a lot of attn today. But even before today most of the country had very little idea of what has happened at NIH or through it the entire ecosystem of biomedical research in the US. Simply put, Musk, Kennedy & Trump exploded a bomb right in the middle of cancer cure research in the US.

There's a letter circulating among Harvard alums on defending free speech against Trump. links to sign the letter and a Crimson story here: michaelweissman.substack.com/p/campus-fre...

A group started today circulating a carefully worded letter from Harvard alums (all types) insisting that Harvard protect free speech, and not cave in to Trump. If you're interested, DM me for the text and email to sign. Other schools could do the same!

🧪On covid origins, Angus McCowan has just posted a preprint showing that the two-spillovers story on which the market account rested was based on an explicit mathematical error. Using the data and model of the orignal 2-spill paper, fixing the error reverses the conclusion. arxiv.org/html/2502.20...

On covid origins , Angus McCowan has just posted a preprint showing that the two-spillovers story on which the market account rested was based on an explicit mathematical error. Using the data and model of the orignal 2-spill paper, fixing the error reverses the conclusion. arxiv.org/html/2502.20...

1st glance suggests no more work on chemical reaction rates: “transition” “barrier”. Also forget causal inference: “bias”.

Major news on Covid origins, not from spies: Andy Levin posts a deep Bayesian analysis of the space-time data on NBER. I post a short explainer. Please share. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/big-news-o... www.nber.org/papers/w33428

I posted a 1996 article on the postmodern turn in attitudes toward science and politics that turned up in some old papers. Might be worth a look, better than anything I write these days. michaelweissman.substack.com/p/postmodern...

Testing the waters again. I wnder how people here respond to this article on the origins of covid, with which I mostly agree: vbruttel.substack.com/p/why-sars-c...

Just testing unfamiliar waters. Are the sorts of views I express here (michaelweissman.substack.com) considered kosher on this site? They are not in line with the current liberal consensus on covid origins and use of tests in college admissions.

I guess I'll try this platform. X is getting too narrow, filled with Musk stuff. Not an easy transition.