Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

eu.usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 1001 posts

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

#121

Post by bosswipe »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #64
wallawe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not OP, but I'm assuming he was arguing that, given that the major social media platforms have said they will remove any Covid information that is misleading, would they even allow posts like this "suggesting the possibility of a Wuhan lab leak is plausible". Note Facebook has previously explicitly banned posts "falsely claiming the virus is man-made". Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965390755/facebook-widens-…

From FB's policy https://www.facebook.com/help/230764881494641

  " Claims that it was created by an individual, government, or country

    Excluding claims that it was studied in, came from, or leaked from a lab without specifically calling it man-made"
So discussing possibility of a lab leak is not a problem, it's the deliberate bioweapon aspect that they're banning.

  "The goal of this policy is to remove common viral hoaxes that have been repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers."

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

#122

Post by tbenst »

This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowledge we have about the sequence of SARS-COV2. The preponderance of evidence supports a natural origin of the virus.

This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but this investigative opinion doesn’t pass scientific muster. Misinformation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

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

#123

Post by roywiggins »

sudosysgen wrote: post #95
roywiggins wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious coronaviruses have jumped into people like, twice in the last 20 years entirely naturally[0], and so many more people have contact with animals outside of labs than within labs (orders of magnitude!), that it seems much more likely that SARS-CoV-2 jumped the same way than any lab-leak idea. Like, it's physically possible, and it would be important to know if that's what happened- people shouldn't dismiss it!-…

Serious cornaviruses jumped into people probably dozens of times in the last 20 years, and caused 3 epidemics, not two.

I meant to say two times other than Sars-CoV-2 (SARS and MERS).

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

#125

Post by tantalor »

Delk wrote: post #100
tantalor wrote: post #55

Easy answer: it's impossible to prove a negative. In this case, that the lab was not responsible.

You can't prove it, but apparently you can try to find evidence to see if it seems likely: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.h...

It can be both! The lab could have mishandled a natural specimen, causing first human infection.

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

#126

Post by jtdev »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #88

Peter Daszak, member of the WHO Covid origins team, was also the project lead for the US funded gain of function research of novel coronaviruses that was going on at the Wuhan BSL4 lab. There is historical precedent of authorities blaming local meat markets to cover up a lab leak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

I can't believe that Mr. Daszak is on the origins team... nothing like letting the accused do the investigation.

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

#128

Post by ceejayoz »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #112
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.

Lab 257 is an amazing book about germ research labs. It fascinated me both with how hard it is to contain diseases under ideal conditions (lab 257 was on an island miles from anything inhabited) and how poor of a job people who should have known better, the actual virologists and people with MDs, did at containing diseases they were researching. https://www.amazon.com/Lab-257-Disturbing-Governments-Labora... Warning:…

> Warning: this book is non-fiction and is scary.

It may be scary, but it's not non-fiction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_257#Discredited_consp...

> A discredited 2004 book entitled Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory fueled the conspiracy theories. Archived specimens show that Lyme disease was endemic well before the establishment of Plum Island laboratory. Additionally, Lyme disease was never a topic of research at Plum Island, according to the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture.

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

#129

Post by coliveira »

Except that experts have visited Wuhan and never found evidence of the theory proposed in this article. I think it is time to stop spreading even more disinformation about this deadly disease. If the US government had taken the virus seriously as the Chinese did, we most certainly wouldn't be in this situation.

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

#130

Post by garmaine »

tbenst wrote: post #122

This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowledge we have about the sequence of SARS-COV2. The preponderance of evidence supports a natural origin of the virus. This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but thi…

I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab manufactured.”
Post reply on HN