81–90 of 372 posts
The Chinese sure acted like it was a possibility that it came from their own lab - their initial reaction was to downplay and cover up.
No other government downplayed and covered up?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does it make China more liable. Allowing wet markets to exist is a equal or greater threat than shoddy research labs.
Are you suggesting that people should not be able to hunt for wild foods? Or that they shouldn’t be able to sell what they catch or kill? Or something else?
Whenever 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…
Because there is no strong evidence. Strong claims require strong evidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That tweet is as misleading as possible and does present it as fact. At best this is a startup company seeking publicity so 'good faith' is to be taken with more than a grain of salt.
>Probably our most surprising finding to date: COVID-19 has likely originated in a lab. A probabilistic analysis shows the proximity to a major coronavirus lab and anomalies in the genetic code are too unlikely for SARS-CoV-2 to have developed naturally. They're stating the facts of the results of the probabilistic analysis, not the facts of the actual situation. Their only comment about the actual situation is that…
Is it a fact that this virus has "anomalies" in its DNA?
If the answer is 'no' then there is no point discussing their 'analysis' further.
I haven't seen any media try to verify or disprove this claim. Does anybody know any more about this?
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.
> When you see a reliable public betting challenge with real stakes, you can be very confident the claim is true at a probability that is significantly above 50% (assuming 1:1 odds are being offered). This makes the assumption that the overall stakes are even. What if Alex Jones puts up 100K that boiled frog eyes cure COVID? He could be absurdly wrong, but the additional credibility offered by this may let him sell a…
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The assumption the writer makes about correlation of odds and probability is nonsensical - betting houses change the odds regularly so they make money based on essentially random bettors current intuition.
Exactly, like under the 'WIV lab procedures' section it states: Probabilistic Estimates: Labs with lax security and procedures are conservatively estimated as 2x more likely to produce a lab escape. However, since the reports are not very reliable, this is reduced to 1.5x. There's no explanation or methodology presented as to how they derive these probabilities based on articles they found in the news and most of the…
You can then also do a sensitivity analysis to figure out how much your conclusions change if you modify your priors. So if you, the reader, think the priors are wrong, then you can change them and re-do the analysis.
I think the most interesting thing about this analysis is exactly that: we can look at the priors and come up with a principled conclusion. We can then argue about whether the priors are right.
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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.
But liable to what end? What international jurisdiction will force China to “pay”? America destroyed Iraq on lies, but what has that liability cost them?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That tweet is as misleading as possible and does present it as fact. At best this is a startup company seeking publicity so 'good faith' is to be taken with more than a grain of salt.
>Probably our most surprising finding to date: COVID-19 has likely originated in a lab. A probabilistic analysis shows the proximity to a major coronavirus lab and anomalies in the genetic code are too unlikely for SARS-CoV-2 to have developed naturally. They're stating the facts of the results of the probabilistic analysis, not the facts of the actual situation. Their only comment about the actual situation is that…
> 11 November 2020 Editor's Note: Readers are alerted that concerns have been raised about the identity of the pangolin samples reported in this paper and their relationship to previously published pangolin samples. Appropriate editorial action will be taken once this matter is resolved.