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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

#321

Post by lamontcg »

cicero wrote: post #208
lamontcg wrote: post #170

All of this can be explained by a real simple alternative hypothesis. Farmed animals like minks and racoon dogs were kept in cramped breeding conditions. Rhinopholous bats infected with sarbecoviruses are also present in Hubei. Those bats probably roosted above the animal pens and shit down on the animals below for years. The animals would periodically become infected. Eventually through mutation or recombination a s…

An alternative hypothesis does not rule out the other possibilities, even if it provides a better explanation. What matters is what actually happened, not what provides the neatest explanation.

The claim is being made that no other alternative hypothesis exists which can explain the features of the virus, so it must have come from a BSL lab.

This is an alternative hypothesis which is simpler and less convoluted and does, in fact, completely undermine the "it can't be anything other than bioweapons research" argument.

You're aiming your criticism at the wrong end of the argument.

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

#322

Post by refenestrator »

arcticbull wrote: post #308
refenestrator wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The write-up specified that they're a noisy minority who disagree with the consensus. In the subheading, after the heading 'scientists say..'. Media! It's still 100% speculation. The question to ask is, would there be this level of suggestive speculation if it wasn't America's newest top rival?

Sure, but also, if the PRC didn't have a tendency of murdering it's dissenters and anyone who made them look bad. They're not exactly a shining beacon of transparency. If this was going down in New Zealand I'm not sure anyone would be speculating, and also WHO investigators would have been granted full access to the facility on day 1.

And we're up to the nub of it -- lots of people fundamentally think China is evil and this topic is just another battleground.

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

#323

Post by oh_sigh »

jeduehr wrote: post #313
rebelos wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrible counterargument full of logical holes coming from someone who's supposedly a "PhD in virology". But you're also a green account that's so rabidly and suspiciously coming to China's defense throughout these comments that I literally assign no credence whatsoever to anything you've said. Several other scientists here have already eviscerated the arguments in your r/science post as well. I don't know w…

Hey you can literally look up my name in the post I linked and find all the evidence in the world that I am who I say I am. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... James Duehr, PhD Here's my google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com.co/citations?user=8wCwbNUAAAAJ&hl... Here's my PhD thesis: https://search.proquest.com/openview/8e7e18ee1e41133ae74a719... Sorry I'm a green account but I fo…

I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but I'm curious how much you would wager with even odds that COVID-19 didn't originate from a virology lab?

Not with me, because as I said I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but with some of the people who are pushing back against your posts.

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

#324

Post by jeduehr »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #245
jeduehr wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say my argument must be true because I have a PhD. I said you should trust that I'm not talking out of my ass because I have a PhD. I'd much rather you read my arguments and criticize my content. The fact is, criticisms in these things come from all angles. I was simply preempting one type of criticism in saying I have a PhD so I have thought about this and studied it a lot. And then directly responding to a…

I would like to criticise your content but you haven't posted any. You have simply claimed the posters claims #1 and #3 were false "because you said so". Anyways I applaud and respect you for working your way up to the PhD and I am sure you are trying your best to spread the truth, but it would be more effective if you rehashed the main parts of that essay for all the readers here to see if you want to clear up whate…

Hi, you can actually look elsewhere in this thread to find the substance of my comments pieced out to meet specific arguments.

If you make specific arguments I will do the same.

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

#325

Post by throwaway292893 »

sneak wrote: post #316
nbardy wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think we should wait one-two more years to figure out the biggest pandemic in 100 years?

I don't think it matters much how long we take, because it's not figuring out the pandemic - that we're already failing to do, even without an origin story - but instead figuring out the origin . The origin, truth be told, is basically irrelevant, just like the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. We live in the world today, and while the story of how we got here might be somewhat academically or historically interesting, i…

if you don't figure out the origin it's doomed to happen again.

if it did leak from a lab, we should shut these labs down.

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

#326

Post by natch »

jeduehr wrote: post #236
loveistheanswer wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of #1 is false? 1.1 Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature 1.2 and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. 1.3 If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"

1.3. you cannot take any virus known in nature (like Ratg-13 for example) and "cook" it for long enough or in any specific way to make it look like SARS-CoV-2. You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. You'd have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools that we've only just invented, and a huge number of willing test subjects. I cover this in extre…

> you cannot take any virus known in nature

That is such a straw man. I seriously doubt anyone, much less a signatory to the recent open letter (many with experience and knowledge far beyond yours) would have claimed they can take ANY virus and transform it to ANY OTHER virus. Your green handle just lost any respect I might have extended to it.

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

#327

Post by arcticbull »

refenestrator wrote: post #322
arcticbull wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but also, if the PRC didn't have a tendency of murdering it's dissenters and anyone who made them look bad. They're not exactly a shining beacon of transparency. If this was going down in New Zealand I'm not sure anyone would be speculating, and also WHO investigators would have been granted full access to the facility on day 1.

And we're up to the nub of it -- lots of people fundamentally think China is evil and this topic is just another battleground.

Nope, I don't think they're evil, I think they have a track record. That's not the same thing at all. Track records can be good or bad -- in this case, it's a bad track record.

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

#328

Post by ricksunny »

jeduehr wrote: post #209
ricksunny wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can afford to wait and let experts do their jobs We can emphatically not expect the experts to do their job. Those cited as having the most expertise (virologists who undertake gain-of-function research, symbolically under the auspices of HHS’ toothless P3CO regulation framework) have the most to lose from a finding that the pandemic’s source was a lab leak. They lose all the grants and public financial support,…

Actually a lot of virologists are also critical of GOF. Just look at public health people, epidemiologists. Folks like Andrea Sant, Michael Osterholm, David Topham, etc. These folks criticize GOF all the time, and are a big part of the group that helps write regulations to make Virology research safe. But you know what these same virologists also don't believe? That SARS-COV-2 was cooked up in a lab. That should tell…

@jeduehr No one established there was a consensus, nor should a consensus necessarily be respected out of hand even if there was one. (Recall that it was not long ago that there was ‘consensus’ that sc2 couldn’t pass human-to-human, or that non-healthcare workers shouldn’t wear masks to name a few examples). A lot of lab leak researchers _are_ scientists (microbiologists, genomics researchers & bioinformaticians). The profile you describe of an anti-GOF scientist is met by Marc Lipsitch of The Cambridge Working Group, and he is far from taking any position that states a wholly zoonotic origin for sc2:

https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1373978645560229890?s=2...

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

#329

Post by natch »

jeduehr wrote: post #276
loveistheanswer wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the detailed response. As a layperson, these specifics are over my head. Assuming everything you say is true, that still would not rule out a lab leak of a virus collected from nature, would it? >You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. You'd have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools that we've only just invented, and a huge numb…

Yes, a lab leak of a virus collected from nature is the most plausible of these lab theories. But the epidemiological evidence points to covid-19 originating outside wuhan entirely, that's why I find that theory less likely, among other reasons. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpcfs2 Also if they had collected it in nature, it would have been in their freezers, or likely that people invo…

> They were built and designed by very reputable people in the virology community.

Anyone under the thumb of communist party minders is by definition not in a position to freely act as a very reputable person. They may very well have a reputation, but they are not free to fulfill it well.

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

#330

Post by jeduehr »

oh_sigh wrote: post #323
jeduehr wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey you can literally look up my name in the post I linked and find all the evidence in the world that I am who I say I am. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... James Duehr, PhD Here's my google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com.co/citations?user=8wCwbNUAAAAJ&hl... Here's my PhD thesis: https://search.proquest.com/openview/8e7e18ee1e41133ae74a719... Sorry I'm a green account but I fo…

I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but I'm curious how much you would wager with even odds that COVID-19 didn't originate from a virology lab? Not with me, because as I said I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but with some of the people who are pushing back against your posts.

I don't really have a lot of money (I'm 300k in debt from medical school and PhD school and undergrad combined) but sure...

if Yuri Deigin or Alina Chan wagered with me, I would probably bet like.... idk $2,000 that it was a natural zoonotic event? Like I said I don't have a lot of money in my bank account. That would be about how much I spend out of my student loans for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. in a given month.

The problem with a wager like that is that we will probably /never/ be truly 100% sure either way. The thing I would push on, though, is that we would need to set forward exactly the criteria we would use to reassess our positions or give up the bet.

I set out exactly what that criteria is for me in this last section of my original writeup: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

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