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Around two weeks after the publication of a controversial study by the University of Hamburg on the origin of the coronavirus, University President Prof. Dieter Lenzen apologized in part.
In an internal video message to the employees of the university, which is available to the German Press Agency, Lenzen said: “Nothing could be further than provoking colleagues by evaluating a discussion paper on the same level as a study on experimental or empirical research results which were achieved in a painstaking and laborious effort. ”Should such an impression arise,“ then I ask for your forbearance ”.
In mid-February, the university's press office had published a study entitled “Study on the Origin of the Coronavirus Pandemic”.
In it, the physicist and nanoscientist Prof. Roland Wiesendanger came to the conclusion that the cause of the pandemic was both the number and quality of the evidence for a laboratory accident at the virological institute in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Its sources are reputable but also of dubious origin - such as YouTube videos or websites of conspiracy theorists.
This also sparked outrage.
Lenzen announced that the university would pay more attention to the separation of research results and science-political theses.
The aim of Wiesendanger's "literary work" and the request to speak from the university was to spark astonishment and a broader discussion.
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“It is better to bring an uncertain hypothesis up for discussion than to have concealed a correct one in the end.” This is another way of making science political.
The scientific must “be more than the mere provision of expert advice, with which politics and society can deal with at will”.
University President Dieter Lentzen had not yet commented 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 to the public and not just put them up for discussion in scientific circles," said Wiesendanger.
The university's press office stated that there was no censorship of the research objects and results of its scientists.
One is obliged to make studies by their scientists available for exchange and discussion in the specialist community or the public, according to a spokeswoman.
Every scientist has the right to conduct research, regardless of his or her specialist area, and to publish the knowledge gained.
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The dean's office of the natural science faculty, to which Wiesendanger himself belongs, became all the more clear shortly after the publication: The elaboration was “not a scientific study”.
However, the dissemination via official channels 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".
The specialist spokesman for the Hamburg parliamentary groups had also expressed criticism of the paper.
All emphasized the high value of academic freedom, but criticized the sources and methodology of the paper.