They update their likelihood of lab origin from 1.4% to 42% solely based on the virus originating in Wuhan. They use fancy words like "evidence" but I don't even see a clear reference to Bayes.
Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
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Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#32I don't see any _new information_ here, it's all stuff we've known for months. To me, this is just a conspiracy theory wrapped up with 'probability charts'. Unless I'm missing something, is there any non-circumstantial evidence that this is true? All I've seen for the past year(!) is "it's not a coincidence that these two things happened in the same place" - which isn't science.
Its pretty irritating to me that any theory of conspiracy must outright be rejected in the english language because "Conspiracy Theory" has somehow come to mean undoubtedly wrong. And the same thing with "Circumstantial Evidence", somehow in common english language has come to mean not very good evidence. Guess what, eye witness accounts of the accused murderer at the scene is circumstantial evidence, but damn if its not pretty devastating evidence coupled with the bloody clothes!
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#33Looks like we can do nothing but wait for the WHO analysis outcome...
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#34For those interested, the specific breakdown is on this page [1]. I don’t know what good will come of this discussion, unless all countries are willing to discontinue gain-of-function research if this claim is found to be true. However that’s a lot of “ifs” and there is too much opportunity to simply place blame, which won’t help anyone. [1] https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/what-is-the-source-of-cov...
It used to be banned here. The ban ended in 2017
https://id.elsevier.com/ACW/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.jbs...
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#35I still think is a bioweapon. Is not deadly enouth to kill an entire population, but enouth to cause panic.
The time that the virus stays incubated, already transmiting, but with not sympthons, is like is was designed to break quarentine protocols.
That sayed, if it is a bio weapon, I also think it got out by accident. The lab that in Wuhan alread have problems with employes selling animals that should be euthanized.
So I think is something like Chernobyl. Someone made a stupid mistake, but fear of repercutions, delay action that could avoid the spread of the virus.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#36Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground).
My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help dealing with this crisis at all.
It is certainly interesting to know where it did originate, and that knowledge could inform a debate on the future of (respectively) wet markets and animal husbandry practices, or BSL facilities, but these don't strike me as particularly emotionally charged topics, and in any case the posts I'm referring to don't mention these debates...
Anybody care to explain why you would respond so strongly to claims of lab origin?
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#37They're probably receiving >$100k worth of attention by making this claim so... I'd like to see more zeroes in the wager.
Or just the ability for others too wager against them based on their conclusion. If they think they have a 99% chance of being correct, then let people put 1,000 up against their 100,000.
Good point
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#38Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground). My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help de…
I'm also curious about that. HN has very strong opinions about China especially about the Xinjiang re-education camps and/or the organ harvesting in China YET for some reason can't believe that the same country would lab make a virus like this.
idk I'm just an outsider
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#39Likelihood of covid originating from lab has always been 50-50, due to the fact that China has not allowed any impartial outside investigation on this. They even imposed trade restrictions on countries like Australia that demanded. What's sad is we may never know.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#40Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground). My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help de…
The liability of China is the main question here.
If it was released from a lab (and I don't think it was), China is liable to this world pandemic which is a huge thing.