The Dangerous Game Of Gain-Of-Function Research

 The Fauci Paradox tempts us to allow scientists to regulate science, to Follow the Science and Trust the Experts, but trusting the experts can lead us to our doom as scientists are so prone to short-term ambitions and so limited in their knowledge of other human affairs and longer-term objectives of civilization that, given the opportunity, they are likely to open Pandora’s Box

Such is the catastrophic risk management of scientists stuck in a Nash equilibrium of their scientific games, where any unilateral deviation from the strategy of harrowingly risky research will yield the board to other scientists with fewer ethical guardrails.

We live in a civilization where science has created technology of such remarkable power across different disciplines that the slightest mistakes in one discipline risks triggering disasters from other disciplines' technology and sending civilization tumbling backwards to disorder or even destruction.

Our civilization remains intact despite a few ambitious scientists' egotistical gamble to win fame and fortune at the risk of ending human civilization.

Not only should there be no laboratory accidents capable of ending our civilization, there should also not be systems of science funding and research that make risky research such a viable and alluring possibility.

The Fauci Paradox tempts us to allow scientists to regulate science, to Follow the Science and Trust the Experts, but trusting the experts can lead us to our doom as scientists are so prone to short-term ambitions and so limited in their knowledge of other human affairs and longer-term objectives of civilization that, given the opportunity, they are likely to open Pandora's box if it might result in an impactful paper or a Nobel Prize.

The game theory of science and scientists is too small-minded and narrowly focused compared to the game theory of nation states.

The Game of Science will inevitably pick the strategy to open Pandora's box if it has some chance of rewarding an individual desperate for fame, and that strategy in the microscopic game of science can upend the macroscopic games of civilization. 

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-dangerous-game-of-gain-of-function-research/