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Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

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Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#41

Post by michaelmrose »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #22
Simulacra wrote: post #14

I think it's possible the virus leaked from a lab in China, but it's also possible it was transmitted in the wild a la "wet markets". Either way, regrettably due to Chinese propaganda and tight controls on speech and the press, it is highly unlikely the world will get an open and honest investigation from the Chinese government. The PRC simply cannot be trusted, which sadly has added immense fuel to all conspiracy th…

My own idea is a combination of the two. I wonder if it leaked out of the lab by a lab employee trying to make some money on the side by selling lab animals to the wet market. (Note well: This is just my "seems kind of plausible" guess. I have no actual evidence to support it. And no, it's not actually "my own" idea - I heard it suggested by someone, who also had no evidence that I recall.)

This is an extremely poor theory formulated by blindly speculating and then skipping the step where one gathers evidence for or against or even considers whether the idea even makes sense in theory.

Nobody would sell lab animals from a virology lab to markets to eat. The consequences are obvious, animals would be accounted for, the risk would be extremely high to the persons future, and the profits small.

It's the kind of ideas you find on racist conspiracy theory blogs and you shouldn't share it here.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#42

Post by jtdev »

traveler01 wrote: post #23

It's very possible and shouldn't be dismissed at all. But we will never know since the CCP has already covered its tracks (not saying it was on purpose, but a clearly an accident covered by the CCP).

It seems that the CCP actually very deliberately covered tracks here... nothing accidental about it.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#43

Post by bpodgursky »

ch4s3 wrote: post #37
crx07 wrote: post #21

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…

I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?

Not really. The lab is in a major city, and imported samples from all over China (and the rest of the world).

The hypothesized bat in question, if it was really a wet-market outbreak, was imported from hundreds of miles away.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#44

Post by offby37years »

0-_-0 wrote: post #4

For anyone who wants to set their Bayesian priors to estimate the probability of a lab leak I recommend this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident... For example, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) escaped from the lab twice, both in 2003 and 2004.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology is one of only two BSL–4 labs in China.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#46

Post by jtdev »

That’s curious. I wonder if the frozen seafood origin hypothesis holds any merit, or if it’s just an attempt by the CCP to divert attention from what seems to be the far more likely lab leak hypothesis... I’m inclined to believe that the CCP is being disingenuous.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#47

Post by wolfram74 »

ciupicri wrote: post #16
daly wrote: post #15

For expert opinion on this subject listen to actual virologists. They do a podcast about 2-3 times a week. https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/

So I should listen to all podcasts?

Podcasts run on a given domain run by domain experts are certainly a good step above, epistemologically speaking, than a lot of news source on said domain. Obviously you can't be 100% sure any statement about the physical world is true, so you know, believe what you want.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#48

Post by wallawe »

mancerayder wrote: post #33

How soon before stuff like this is marked as misinformation if it isn't coming from established media outlets? You know, dangerous conspiracy theories, and all that. Real world consequences, etc. and so forth.

Are you saying an opinion piece stating that we should leave open the possibility of a leak is misinformation? That doesn't make any sense.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#49

Post by totalZero »

crx07 wrote: post #21

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…

Sometimes diplomacy means you smile when you don't want to smile. WHO has to play politics until we get this virus under control (ie, vaccines distributed worldwide). If WHO blames China now, in the thick of things, it would damage the world's ability to further study the origins of the virus and the results of Chinese research. Chinese vaccines are being used and studied in many countries worldwide and that is a good thing. Apart from the obvious benefits of those vaccines, better access to data gives us an inactivated vaccine counterfactual with which to evaluate the mRNA and protein subunit vaccines.

CDC and other US government officials, on the other hand, must ratchet up their criticism of China as well as WHO. I agree with you there. It's alarming that there are so few PR ramifications for China. From the looks of it, either their unsanitary bushmeat consumption got the world sick, or their irresponsible laboratory containment procedures did. Both are a reflection of China's culture, and were only exacerbated by authoritarian crackdown upon the early warnings issued by Chinese medical professionals. The US government shouldn't defend bad practices and systemic problems in the name of multilateral cooperation. That variety of ethical blindness forgives bad faith from our counterparts and damages our hegemony.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#50

Post by [deleted] »

Ancapistani wrote: post #24
crx07 wrote: post #21

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…

> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. I think that it is at least somewhat likely that it was the result of the lab's activities, but your assertion here has a huge dose of selection bias. If the virology labs studying coronaviruses were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but t…

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