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Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

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Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#21

Post by ab7675226 »

modzu wrote: post #12
dhimes wrote: post #9

The only issue here is that lab safety protocols may have to be tightened up in the lab responsible. Scientists mutate things in the lab all the time in order to have a tool for effective study. If this came from a lab, then it would be the same thing (not some sort of weapon, like the hysterical Right wants people to believe). Most believe that it didn't, but rather that it was in the human population a few months b…

i'm curious what you would add to biosafety level 4 to tighten it up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve...

It's not that you need to tighten up the rules... it's that you need to actually follow them. The Wuhan lab had a reputation for not following the rules for the CCP-Claimed Biosafety Level 4.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#22

Post by tastyfreeze »

modzu wrote: post #12
dhimes wrote: post #9

The only issue here is that lab safety protocols may have to be tightened up in the lab responsible. Scientists mutate things in the lab all the time in order to have a tool for effective study. If this came from a lab, then it would be the same thing (not some sort of weapon, like the hysterical Right wants people to believe). Most believe that it didn't, but rather that it was in the human population a few months b…

i'm curious what you would add to biosafety level 4 to tighten it up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve...

If there is a leak at a BSL 4 lab that implies that the lab is not strictly adhering to protocols not that the protocols are loose.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#23

Post by loveistheanswer »

Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that:

1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"

2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab

3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]

[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#24

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

gfodor wrote: post #7
newacct583 wrote: post #2

Almost no theories can be "ruled out" in this space. Viruses evolve in crazy and essentially unobservable ways. Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There i…

Occam's Razor doesn't really apply to this one, because each side has different priors on which theory is actually the "simplest." Given that, as far as I know, we don't have a single human case documented before those in Wuhan - something which a) should have been likely and b) China would be highly incentivized to root out since it would disprove the lab hypothesis, it implies patient zero was probably in Wuhan. If…

Wuhan is a gigantic city, bigger than NYC. You'll be able to find an example of nearly anything in any category there. But it's also completely unsurprising they were researching the coronavirus category: the 2003 SARS outbreak was a coronavirus too, and obviously motivated an incredible amount of research across the world, but particularly in China.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#25

Post by Rochus »

mylons wrote: post #3

we should definitely shout down anyone who says it, though!

“If we are at the point where all science is politicized and no one cares about truth and only being politically correct,” he [Petrovsky] says, “we may as well give up and shut down and stop doing science.”

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#26

Post by mylons »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #5
mylons wrote: post #3

we should definitely shout down anyone who says it, though!

When someone's reasons for saying it are simply because it aligns with their own prejudices, shouting it down is reasonable.

it must be nice to understand everyone's intentions all the time

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#27

Post by metalliqaz »

zthrowaway wrote: post #11

We should really be considering this if we want to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. Unfortunately this theory coming out during the Trump era made people knee-jerk shoot it down for political reasons, and you can also say the CCP is very invested in making sure they don't have pie on their face if this ends up being what truly happened.

The problem is evidence. What is the evidence? As far as I can tell, what we have is either circumstantial (for example, the location of the first detected cases) or outright hunches (the virus seems to be more adaptive than expected for normal corona viruses).

Compare that to what we know: it's a SARS variant, in a place where SARS outbreaks have already occurred in the past, with DNA showing it came from pangolins, in a place where pangolins are caught, sold, and eaten by people.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#28

Post by kaliali »

modzu wrote: post #12
dhimes wrote: post #9

The only issue here is that lab safety protocols may have to be tightened up in the lab responsible. Scientists mutate things in the lab all the time in order to have a tool for effective study. If this came from a lab, then it would be the same thing (not some sort of weapon, like the hysterical Right wants people to believe). Most believe that it didn't, but rather that it was in the human population a few months b…

i'm curious what you would add to biosafety level 4 to tighten it up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve...

Looks good on paper but what is actually happening in reality? How do I know they follow those procedures? How do I know they're not paying someone to give a checkmark for inspection?

What would be the punishment if they were caught not following procedures? Would they publicly punished or would the embarrassment for the Chinese government be quietly swept under the rug?

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#29

Post by space_fountain »

gfodor wrote: post #7
newacct583 wrote: post #2

Almost no theories can be "ruled out" in this space. Viruses evolve in crazy and essentially unobservable ways. Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There i…

Occam's Razor doesn't really apply to this one, because each side has different priors on which theory is actually the "simplest." Given that, as far as I know, we don't have a single human case documented before those in Wuhan - something which a) should have been likely and b) China would be highly incentivized to root out since it would disprove the lab hypothesis, it implies patient zero was probably in Wuhan. If…

Are they incentivized to do that? Remember they’re dealing not just with The west’s opinion, but also home opinion, where I don’t know that documenting that they should have found this weeks earlier would go over well. Not to mention I think they’re happy with the current local conspiracy theory that this was actually the US’s fault. It also seems likely that a big city especially one with a big lab would be more likely to be able to identify that the disease going around was new

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#30

Post by mylons »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #10
silicon2401 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally the ad hominem fallacy. We should investigate the claim on its own merits, not the merits of whoever is making the claim

Uh-huh, lets have a polite conversation sprinkled with some Latin. Mean while racists are empowered to attach Asian Americans in the street because they "created the virus".

let's just turn our brains off because there might be racism around
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