DEFUSE
Article
DEFUSE is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 15, 2024 and July 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Long discussion of new data about DEFUSE proposal”; ““experts” said they hadn’t heard of DEFUSE (the gain-of-function project Wuhan was involved in)“. It most often appears alongside Afrobarometer, AGI, AI 2027.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: April 15, 2024
- Last seen: July 01, 2025
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Afrobarometer (1 shared issues)
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- AGI (1 shared issues)
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- AI 2027 (1 shared issues)
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- AI Safety Institute (1 shared issues)
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- Allan Shivers (1 shared issues)
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- America (1 shared issues)
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- American Butchers Association (1 shared issues)
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- Ann Arbor (1 shared issues)
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- Apollo Program (1 shared issues)
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- Arguments About Aborigines (1 shared issues)
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- askaforecaster.com (1 shared issues)
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- Astralcodexten (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Long discussion of new data about DEFUSE proposal.
Inline links: Long discussion of new data about DEFUSE proposal
33: A few years ago, a group surveyed expert biologists on their beliefs about zoonotic vs. lab origins of COVID; most believed zoonosis. Lab leakers objected that many of the “experts” said they hadn’t heard of DEFUSE (the gain-of-function project Wuhan was involved in; knowing about this should be table stakes for this discussion), and many others said they had heard of a fake paper put into the poll to trap lazy/dishonest responses; this (they said) invalidated the survey. But I recently learned (X) that there’s crosstabs in the appendix, and neither of these matter - people who had heard of DEFUSE, or who honestly admitted not having heard of the fake paper, had the same answers as everyone else. In fact, opinion always divided about 77-23, regardless of whether participants had seen any particular piece of evidence, fell for the fake paper, or whatever. I guess this is good (the verdict wasn’t dependent on a few ignorant or dishonest people), but maybe also bad (shouldn’t being familiar with the best evidence for one side or the other make you believe that side more?)
Inline links: I recently learned (X)