The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box? • Hacker News Board

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#81

Post by christocracy » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #30

mromanuk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don’t read articles written by racists. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2834627 https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/on-the-...

And if the article tells the truth? Why would author's racial preferences matter? You might be surprised how much of modern tech was developed by racists and other bad apples. If you are from the US try reading how your rocket / space industry had been developed for example.

>You might be surprised how much of modern tech was developed by racists and other bad apples

William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor. See section “Views on Race and Eugenics”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#82

Post by saiya-jin » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

I keep repeating this since it seems like folks ignore this quite crucial piece of data which completely changes the whole Wuhan covid narrative - Covid was backdated in blood samples in September 2019 in Italy. They didn't have earlier samples still kept on ice, so its entirely possible it would be there earlier.

Since its rather trivial to compare viruses and I haven't seen mention about it being a different variant, I assume its still the same virus as original Wuhan ones.

Even to my rather ignorant eyes this makes Wuhan just a place it got spread to wider public, and not much more. Definitely not some patient-0 situation and most probably not even ground-0 one. Now I don't claim to understand why it didn't explode in those early days like it did afterwards, but this fact can't be ignored when evaluating this topic. I wonder why there isn't a single mention of this in article.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#83

Post by rramadass » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:05 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #67

FpUser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only care about one thing whether that virus came out as the result of aforementioned research. I could not care less about author's worldview and whether he eats babies for breakfast.

>I only care about one thing whether that virus came out as the result of aforementioned research Then you should read what scientists write, not science journalists. If you can't actually understand the science, which is perfectly reasonable given that most of us are laymen, you can read scientific journalists, but then you need to acknowledge that you operate on trust, which would mean you need to take the authors…

Thank you for putting it so clearly!

It is disingenuous to claim to care about Science while willfully ignoring the biases inherent in the narrative of presentation.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#84

Post by FpUser » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:05 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #67

FpUser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only care about one thing whether that virus came out as the result of aforementioned research. I could not care less about author's worldview and whether he eats babies for breakfast.

>I only care about one thing whether that virus came out as the result of aforementioned research Then you should read what scientists write, not science journalists. If you can't actually understand the science, which is perfectly reasonable given that most of us are laymen, you can read scientific journalists, but then you need to acknowledge that you operate on trust, which would mean you need to take the authors…

>"and don't pretend you 'only care about the science'."

I don't. The question was did the virus come out as the result of that research or not. The answer is simple yes or no. No need to dance around.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#85

Post by dehrmann » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:06 AM UTC

Side question: what was the reason the WHO had a team inspect the lab in Wuhan a year after the outbreak happened? What would they even look for?

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#86

Post by carlmr » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #80

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

I assume practically every city in China has wet markets. I wonder how many cities have facilities that do virus research. It might actually be more than you'd assume; I have no idea what sort of research might happen at universities, You also have to weigh this with SARS Classic originating in China.

>SARS Classic

The remakes are always worse.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#87

Post by seymore_12 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:08 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #80

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

I assume practically every city in China has wet markets. I wonder how many cities have facilities that do virus research. It might actually be more than you'd assume; I have no idea what sort of research might happen at universities, You also have to weigh this with SARS Classic originating in China.

"a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" presumes some form of uniqueness amongst potential other similar facilities

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#88

Post by anoncake » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:09 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #76

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

Nobody has spoken of malice. It could have been a simple case of one lab worker getting infected. That would count towards stupidity. Rhetorically speaking, Hanlon's razor doesn't quite have the same weight as Occam's, if only because people tend to view behavior they don't understand as stupid. But I'll add another "razor": don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to self-interested.

Malice is a form of self-interest.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#89

Post by carlmr » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:09 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #82

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

I keep repeating this since it seems like folks ignore this quite crucial piece of data which completely changes the whole Wuhan covid narrative - Covid was backdated in blood samples in September 2019 in Italy. They didn't have earlier samples still kept on ice, so its entirely possible it would be there earlier. Since its rather trivial to compare viruses and I haven't seen mention about it being a different varian…

With air traffic everything that was in Italy in November could have come from any country with same day express shipping.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#90

Post by trog » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:15 AM UTC

seymore_12 wrote: post #61

If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…

> If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward

Heh, what is the Razor or other applicable language construct when someone gives two options and then suggests there's one they think is obviously correct, without saying which one or why - leaving it completely opaque or confusing to the casual reader?

I legit do not know which of the two cases here you think Occam's Razor applies straightforwardly. I can make easy cases for both sides being the simplest explanation.

e.g., "it seems simplest that the leading world centre would have excellent safety protocols and thus the chaotic wet market in a region known for those viruses is more likely the source", vs "it seems simplest that human error in a research environment studying these viruses compared to a wet market where, if that was a likely vector, we'd surely be seeing these things way more often", kind of thing.