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The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

technologyreview.com

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Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#41

Post by beowulfey »

graeme wrote: post #36
beowulfey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever dismissed it. It has been a viable theory since the beginning. What was dangerous was pointing the finger at China and saying “this is all their fault!” without any evidence. There STILL is not evidence, but that doesn’t mean it should not be investigated as a source. Dismissing the theory outright has never and will never be an option. I don’t like that this is what the team decided to do, and I suspect…

They absolutely did. See this NYT article. Ben Thompson of Stratechery discussed it in an excellent article linked below. Key excerpt from the NYT piece. Doesn’t get more official than that: > Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republicans have a favorable view of QAnon, according to a recent YouGov poll. Accordi…

That is addressing the theory that the virus was manufactured in a lab, i.e with the intent to release. Not the idea that it was released accidentally. It is very different.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#42

Post by incrudible »

beowulfey wrote: post #40
dataflow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody ever dismissed it There was at least one paper calling it "natural selection", and some folks who read it agreed that it ruled out laboratory accidents: "The high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the p…

That is not addressing the same claim though. That was refuting the theory that people were spreading about it being genetically engineered to be infectious towards humans.

> ...it being genetically engineered to be infectious towards humans

That's literally what a gain-of-function experiment is. These are done to study how viruses interact with humans so that we can deal with them better. There's nothing sinister about it, such experiments are happening all over the world and they did happen in Wuhan.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#43

Post by cheaprentalyeti »

mrkramer wrote: post #16
tyingq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accidental lab escape, or premeditated lab escape? Edit: Because the former doesn't sound like much of a conspiracy, aside from a cover-up afterwards.

Most likely accidental if it was premeditated all out global bio-weapon war would happen. Just like assassination of Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand brought domino effect and caused First World war the same would happen now.

>Most likely accidental if it was premeditated all out global bio-weapon war would happen.

No, because at the same time they'd simultaneously make it look accidental; with a dictatorial, authoritarian country like China they could keep the evidence that it was premedicated from coming to light _and_ they could count on their politically fractured victims reacting in such a way as to further their goals.

I notice that the matter of HCQ getting effectively shut down in the US due to the fraudulent Surgisphere paper and it _didn't raise any alarms at HN where someone asked WHY someone went through the trouble of planting a fake paper IN THE LANCET_.

It's been brought up here but noone notices the implications.

When did Hacker News become so damn intellectually incurious about these sorts of things?

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#45

Post by beowulfey »

incrudible wrote: post #32
beowulfey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever dismissed it. It has been a viable theory since the beginning. What was dangerous was pointing the finger at China and saying “this is all their fault!” without any evidence. There STILL is not evidence, but that doesn’t mean it should not be investigated as a source. Dismissing the theory outright has never and will never be an option. I don’t like that this is what the team decided to do, and I suspect…

> Nobody ever dismissed it. You must've missed out on previous HN discussions. I remember these guys in particular being paraded around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQplOe8-LE I did find their tone quite dismissive, and the verdict in the title leaves little room for interpretation. > What was dangerous was pointing the finger at China and saying “this is all their fault!” without any evidence. True, but that's…

I think a lot of the confusion, based on the responses to my comment, is separating the idea that the virus was CREATED in a lab from it being accidentally released from the lab. The former implies intent and carries a lot of secondary implications about bioweapons and political maneuverings. It is a hefty claim.

The latter is simpler—it is reasonable to think a lab that maintains and studies viruses similar to Covid-19 accidentally allowed one to be released. It does not imply an intent to misuse the virus.

I have not watched the video, I’m sorry. I’ll try and get to it later.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#46

Post by dataflow »

beowulfey wrote: post #40
dataflow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody ever dismissed it There was at least one paper calling it "natural selection", and some folks who read it agreed that it ruled out laboratory accidents: "The high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the p…

That is not addressing the same claim though. That was refuting the theory that people were spreading about it being genetically engineered to be infectious towards humans.

> That is not addressing the same claim though.

Did you just reply to the sentence I quoted or did you click the links? The tweets are very obviously not limited to that: https://twitter.com/ehundman/status/1246598376377831425

And honestly, it's hard to go from "this happened via natural selection" to "nobody dismissed this coming from a lab". Even if it's technically possible, surely you can understand why readers' message from this is not "this could have come from a lab".

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#47

Post by incrudible »

beowulfey wrote: post #41
graeme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely did. See this NYT article. Ben Thompson of Stratechery discussed it in an excellent article linked below. Key excerpt from the NYT piece. Doesn’t get more official than that: > Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republicans have a favorable view of QAnon, according to a recent YouGov poll. Accordi…

That is addressing the theory that the virus was manufactured in a lab, i.e with the intent to release. Not the idea that it was released accidentally. It is very different.

It doesn't say anything about "intent". The hypothesis that the virus was modified in a gain-of-function experiment in Wuhan is plausible.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#48

Post by beowulfey »

dataflow wrote: post #46
beowulfey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not addressing the same claim though. That was refuting the theory that people were spreading about it being genetically engineered to be infectious towards humans.

> That is not addressing the same claim though. Did you just reply to the sentence I quoted or did you click the links? The tweets are very obviously not limited to that: https://twitter.com/ehundman/status/1246598376377831425 And honestly, it's hard to go from "this happened via natural selection" to "nobody dismissed this coming from a lab". Even if it's technically possible, surely you can understand why readers'…

Alright, I’ll concede I should not have used the phrase “nobody”

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#50

Post by melling »

incrudible wrote: post #34
melling wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, we have seen... So we have prior evidence...so we give more weight... The investigators should examine all possibilities, of course. Repeating the most “exciting” theory on Opinion News night after night...

We have prior evidence for both lab escapes and gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses (in Wuhan, no less). Assigning weights to these circumstances can be done arbitrarily, to the point where the lab escape hypothesis becomes the most plausible one: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

Sure, when you get the evidence let me know.

Speculate all you want.

I’ve never heard of the escapes. Perhaps we watch different news sources and you spend a lot of time reading different stories.

I’ve got 55 years of hearing about viruses jumping from animals so my priors are different.

AIDS, SARS, swine flu,...

By the way, the last thing I want to be shown is some random sight on the Internet as evidence. Climate change deniers live by these sites

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