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

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

#511

Post by chrischen » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #471

tripletao wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SARS-CoV-2 emerged due to the WIV's research activities, then it was potentially with the knowledge and funding of the American government, via the EcoHealth Alliance. Racism is always stupid, but in this case it's particularly so. This absolutely shouldn't be China vs. USA, and it's deeply unfortunate that the Trump administration's early, characteristically unsupported rhetoric made it so. The WIV's safety was p…

Anti-Chinese racism is stupid and toxic, yes, but you're missing the point. People here generally aren't blaming China because that's where COVID-19 originated. That would be stupid. No, they're blaming the CCP for covering it up in the early days, which allowed it to spread and become the global pandemic which it became. Big difference. It's not China's fault that COVID originated there (lab leak or otherwise). It i…

Let’s be honest if Xi Jinping called up Trump and told him to shut down borders and instate mandatory curfews he’d have done the opposite.

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

#512

Post by chrischen » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #507

tripletao wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we disagree? There's plenty of reason to dislike the CCP, in relation to their handling of SARS-CoV-2 and otherwise. I just don't think SARS-CoV-2 originating in a WIV lab accident would add to that.

It would add to it, because it would significantly increase the number of lies they told the rest of the world, given that they've been maintaining that it isn't a lab leak.

The thing with covid was it caught everyone by surprise. It’s not like the US even caught on first. It devastated Italy before we even flinched, so that alone is evidence that, at least for the US response, we would have gone to shit no matter who warned us.

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

#513

Post by 02020202 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

nah, it was the bat. how can anyone believe anything else? you must be crazy.

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

#514

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #281

tinus_hn wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m concerned you can start right now, I’m not afraid of ideas. I think however that, unless someone makes a really big mistake, it’ll never be possible to prove such a hypothesis.

Of course; if we wait around for documentary proof of covert operations to emerge it almost invariably arrives long after the point where anything can be done with the information. There are oddities in the whole timeline which stand out to me. The social media videos of people keeling over in streets and buildings in Wuhan from the virus, which doesn't appear to be a genuine phenomenon of its pathology and therefore…

Well, dreaming about how the world would be able to organize such a conspiracy does sound like conspiracy theory to me. But that is not my point, what I wanted to say is that, even if it turns out the coronavirus was leaked from a lab, practically it is impossible to prove that this was intentional.

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

#515

Post by chrischen » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #137

arcticbull wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not xenophobic to suggest the possibility of a lab leak because lab leaks happen regardless of who's doing the research; even at BSL-4 facilities, mistakes are made. And also because there were two separate SARS-CoV-1 leaks/outbreaks from Chinese labs which the PRC admitted to. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/

I just want to add: "A government is not the people and the people are not the government." Just in case this needs to be stated for anyone here or reading. If you disagree with a people's government that doesn't mean you should treat the people of said government in a critical manner. Their views do not necessarily reflect that of their government (often they do not, just look at us here in America where criticizing…

The CCP is basically China and at least most Chinese people, because it draws its authority and power from the complacency of its constituents. Trying to differentiate the CCP from its subjects will leave you labeling all counter-parties as communist agents until you’ve realized you’ve labeled the majority of Chinese citizens!

Of course no country’s government has the full support of its citizens, but to say Chinese people are wholly distinct from the CCP is disingenuous.

There is no ruling ethnicity, just a more unified single party system. People can choose to participate in politics, they just have to do it within the party.

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

#516

Post by drran » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

phyalow wrote: post #420

drran wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of them had a major incident between September-December 2019?

Probably only one. There is strong tertiary evidence that patient zero was a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher named Huang YanLing 黃燕玲, this has all been scrubbed from public memory. The wayback archive links still hold up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU (links are at the bottom of the video description).

When the epidemic was started, I started to spread information about new danger in my country, and I was attacked by our government then (including police and three letter agency), so I'm not surprised that the lead SARS researcher is missing in China, because she knows the danger of SARS-CoV very well. Our government did not understand the danger of SARS-CoV-2 until now, when clinics collapsed under load.

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

#517

Post by blablabla123 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

eightysixfour wrote: post #55

loveistheanswer wrote: post #23

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…

I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between "engineered" and "leaked." There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research. My personal feeling is that these statements are true:…

> The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.

Likely, unlikely, it's not really possible to attach probabilities to events that already happened. Also history is told chronologically, when told anti-chronologically we tend to make causal connections where there are none.

I don't want to dismiss the lab theory completely but consider this:

These kinds of labs are all over the world, in China, in the Netherlands, in the US and so on. They are mostly being built in metropole regions because that's where large science clusters tend to be. Coincidentally city centers are traditionally built around markets. These tend to be the densest areas of cities. Densest areas are where infection clusters are most likely to build up and get noticed.

And now we find a case where all these 3 coincide. Really, that doesn't say much. Also there have been quite some hints about Covid19 cases before December 2019, outside of China even. [1] Statistics is a highly counter-intuitive discipline. If it wasn't maybe the virus would be already under control anyway.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/covid-inf...

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

#518

Post by drran » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

phyalow wrote: post #506

drran wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia says no danger after blast in smallpox lab A gas cylinder exploded and prompted a fire in a Siberian research facility which houses samples of smallpox, SARS, Ebola and other potentially deadly viruses. Russian officials said there was no threat of contamination. https://www.dw.com/en/russia-says-no-danger-after-blast-in-s...

Ah very interesting, I had no idea about that. Thanks for sharing.

The first covid-like epidemic was in November 2019 in South part of the Russian Federation, where Vector lab is located: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMh11FtfaP0

Turn on subtitles, then select automatic translation -> English in options.

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

#519

Post by jeduehr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

jeduehr wrote: post #451

fiter wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From reading some of your comments here and on Reddit: your tone hurts your credibility.

I find this argument comes most often from people who already are so far down the rabbit hole, I had no chance of convincing them of anything anyway. Not always. But often. If you read the reddit comments, you'd also see ones like this: - https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... - https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... - https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/comments/gogzk0…

Or to be fair, I should say: I will try harder next time, I guess.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, but you can certainly make an effort. Right now I don't really see what specific criticisms you're making other than that you don't like the way I write.

Please, let me know! Thanks

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

#520

Post by f6v » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

eightysixfour wrote: post #55

loveistheanswer wrote: post #23

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…

I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between "engineered" and "leaked." There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research. My personal feeling is that these statements are true:…

> but there's no evidence disproving...

I don’t think that’s how legal system or science works(at least in statistics). We can assume that null hypothesis is that there was no leak/engineering of the virus, i.e. defendant isn’t guilty. Then it’s up to a prosecutor/someone with the evidence to reject that hypothesis. But you don’t start proving the alternative hypothesis when doing science, since it’s much more complicated. And again, the defendant doesn’t have to prove his innocence.