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Hamburg (dpa) - Around two weeks after the publication of a controversial study by the University of Hamburg on the origin of the corona virus, University President Prof. Dieter Lenzen has partially apologized.
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 indulgence".
In mid-February, the university's press office had published a study entitled “Study on the origins 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 university's request to speak was to spark astonishment and a broader discussion.
"It is better to bring an uncertain hypothesis up for discussion than to have concealed a correct one in the end."
This is also how science becomes political.
The scientific must be "more than the mere provision of expert advice, which politicians and society can deal with at will".
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