Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #345

pmiller2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that article convinced you? All I saw was some concern about safety protocols 2 years before the outbreak, some content free insinuations, and a whole lot of "we don't have any evidence." It's not a crazy theory by any means, but, if it happened, then there's evidence. So, where is the evidence? Literally, where is there any actual evidence it happened?

> if it happened, then there's evidence Really? Why would there be evidence TODAY? Those bats have likely been destroyed, and all records of sequences taken from them have likely long since been shredded and burned. There's not that much evidence involved here.

Then, why wasn't evidence uncovered earlier? Surely the theory had just as much plausibility a year ago as today.

Are you asking me to believe a theory for which all the evidence was either not uncovered or destroyed? Why is that more plausible than origin from outside the lab?

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

#372

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #158

My understanding of the author's central thesis is this: the US, despite its world-class virology and disease study labs, regularly has lapses in procedure that regularly lead to situations in which the public might be exposed. Given that this is happening in our own backyard, we might reasonably expect countries of similar status (like China) to experience similar lapses. That reads as reasonable to me, but raises a…

COVID hits the sweet spot of infectiousness, asymptomatic spread, incubation time, and low mortality. I would expect the R of Ebola to be pretty low in developed countries. People wash their hands more often when every place you go to has running water, and if you show Ebola symptoms, you're going to the hospital, and if it's a hospital with a city that has a BSL4 lab, there isn't going to be an outbreak - someone will recognize what it is, and you'll be in an isolation unit in no time and your contacts will be quarantined.

I would expect such a case to make the headlines, but it's quite possible it would be quietly swept under the carpet. How well known was Reston back when it happened? If that didn't make the news, would a lab-originated outbreak?

With COVID, a worker could get infected, hide the exposure out of fear/shame, never show any symptoms... and yet start a pandemic.

With a low-probability high-impact event like a global pandemic, near misses are the only indicator you have until the one time it does go catastrophically wrong.

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

#373

Post by Jcowell » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

esja wrote: post #350

onethought wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As has been pointed out, it will happen again no matter what. The vectors of deadly disease occurring are huge. The response is the piece we can properly control.

If it is shown that this occurred because scientists took a virus and made it much more infectious to humans, banning that sort of research would mitigate a lot of the risk.

Would it ? I mean it’s the same for nuclear. You can try to Ban it but someone will eventually get it. The difference here is that Nuclear Weapons aren’t formed in nature will virus can be.

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

#374

Post by rpsw » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

tbenst wrote: post #155

SpaceRaccoon wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are indeed misunderstanding the point. Smallpox is also naturally originating virus. That doesn't prohibit it from leaking from a lab.

The author is irresponsibility propagating a conspiracy theory and elevating its status in the public’s mind. I’m a bioscientist. It’s frustrating to respond with evidence and in good faith, and be downvoted by those who simply disagree. But sadly it appears that the loudest voice prevails over reason. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7

What is your opinion the open letter, as mentioned in the article: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/COVID%20OPEN%20...

Would you say the signatories are being irresponsible or are not qualified to suggest the lab-leak theory is worth investigating?

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

#375

Post by tryonenow » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #302

dvt wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should get better at responding fast and saving lives (my opinion). I think you're wrestling with a strawman here, no one's arguing the inverse. But in any investigation (arson, murder, etc.) the details do matter -- where, how, what weapon, when, and so on.

Respectfully, there is still a sizeable contingent of the US population that thinks that the pandemic is "no worse than the annual flu" and that efforts to combat the pandemic are at best a wild over-reaction and at worst some kind of sinister plot by the government.

The data clearly demonstrates at this point that the virus is indeed comparable to the flu, except with higher R value. This is also an implied strawman, that sizable contingent that you are alluding to is questioning whether the price of the lockdowns, and continued lockdowns, and approach to lockdowns, are worth the mitigation.

Clearly the virus is only a major issue for elderly and infirm patients, where the vast majority of people under the age of 30-40 present mildly or asymptomatically. And if that's indeed the case, then perhaps forcing the entire population to shelter in place for more than a year makes less sense than, say, recommending protective measures primarily for the vulnerable.

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

#376

Post by tehjoker » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

bumbada wrote: post #237

tehjoker wrote: post #161

Pretty incredible how far the US media will go to deflect attention from how bad the US response to the pandemic was to China. "Let me be clear: Labs in Wuhan might not have played any role in the origin of the pandemic. But a year later, no source has been found, and the world deserves a thorough, unbiased investigation of all plausible theories that is conducted without fear or favor." Okay. So basically this autho…

People are too naive when they talk about China. For one people actually believe Chinese's numbers, something no Chinese national will ever do. China is a totalitarian country, they have the monopoly of the press. That means official numbers are not real numbers because if you go against the official numbers you just dissapear. You can not compare numbers given in a free press country against numbers being given by a…

It's amusing that you post this under a US propaganda piece trying to convince people based on zero evidence that China did something bad. The US press is just as propagandistic and vehemently denies it as large sections of the US population lose trust in it (so called "fake-news").

I think you are referring to an event in Ukraine where some of the peasantry burned crops, but some exports were still bound for the cities. In the Irish potato famine, the UK exported food from Ireland even as people starved to death. In the US, farmers burned crops and poured out milk in the great depression as people starved.

Juxtaposed, there is little reason to treat foreign governments as inherently worse than our own and much reason hold them to similar evidentiary standards. My hope is that the standard would be high for both domestic and foreign stories.

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

#377

Post by midrus » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

My conspiracy theory is that, if the virus intentionally or unintentionally escaped from that lab, and the CDC,CIA, whatever, etc already know this, probably everyone prefers to shut up and deny it, because otherwise it might lead to a war with china and it would be a lot worse for everyone.

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

#378

Post by weaksauce » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

enchiridion wrote: post #340

danudey wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's also add in that the "Wuhan lab leak theory", combined with the "China virus" nomenclature, has resulted in huge increases in racist and white supremacist violence against people of Asian descent.

It's infuriating. I'm not sure what the solution is though. We can just not talk about the very real lab leak hypothesis because some people are dangerously unstable.

you can just call it covid-19 instead of the insert racist nickname here for it and then discuss where the origin it may be from. those two things are not mutually exclusive. hell, the spanish flu is generally not thought to be originated in spain but they were the only ones talking about because the other countries had a gag on discussing it.

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

#379

Post by throwawaysea » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

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'm also waiting for people to admit that the dubious ban of Zero Hedge from Twitter (later reinstated) for bringing up this theory and "doxxing" the lab head was all made in bad faith (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter...). It's crazy how words like "doxxing" can lose all coherent meaning and be used to describe this blog post, where they simply posted the publicly listed information of the public face of the lab, fully visible from the Wuhan lab's own website. This authoritarian act of censorship and the biased news media coverage that followed led to further censorship, where discussions exploring the possibility of accidental lab leaks were banned on places like Medium or other social media. This is why free speech matters as a fundamental principle and this is why we must hold all tech platforms accountable to protect free speech.

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

#380

Post by alacombe » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #264

Huffers2 wrote: post #157

If true, I think this would be the first ever case of a novel virus ever being developed in a lab and then accidentally released. If false, then it's yet another viral mutation / species cross over which have happened all the time throughout history. When I hear hoofbeats I think "horses" not "zebras"...

If I’m walking down the street and get surprised with a punch in the face I assume it was intentional, even if there are many scenarios in which it could be accidental.

Accidental or intentional is irrelevant.