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?

#171

Post by Dah00n » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

strogonoff wrote: post #129

DoreenMichele wrote: post #124

I don't really think it matters a whole lot whether it jumped species or was created in a lab. I think the issue is that there are nearly 8 billion people on the planet and that fact has somehow fundamentally changed how disease spreads and mutates. We need to be figuring out how to deal with that. Wondering where it came from is mostly neither here nor there. We aren't going to magically stop doing lab experiments i…

The issue with COVID is the precedent of attempts of trying to identify the origin of this new disease being sabotaged for seemingly political reasons (and with no obvious repercussions). It seems intuitive that knowing the origin of the virus (sample escaping a lab or pure nature) could help prevent similar cases in the future or deal with them more efficiently. Is my intuition wrong here?

I can't read from your comment if you are talking about the PRC or the US political meddling. Given that both sides are as likely to do this for easy brownie points I don't think it matters as we will never have the correct answer: People in the US will at most be told one side while people in the PRC will be told the other. In the end it's just two sides throwing turds, like most politics.

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

#172

Post by ximeng » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #167

ximeng wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... Here is a paper that states that the furin cleavage site appears naturally in a number of viruses. I looked into these lab origin theories for the furin cleavage site last year. The problem with it being a laboratory insertion was that although performing an insertion is relatively easy once you know what to insert, generally it’s beyond current science…

> generally it’s beyond current science to independently create mutations for a specific purpose. No it isn't. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810786/

Quite a long article, but skimming it it looks like that experiment involves applying naturally occurring mutations to an existing virus?

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

#173

Post by herbst » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

The second main reason we are where we are is that many western countries did nothing, some even less than nothing by actively spreading the virus by hosting religious or political events.

If we are playing the blame game we should be playing it right.

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

#174

Post by tomp » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

ximeng wrote: post #157

zby wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural origin hypothesis is also pushed for ideological reasons - at this level of meta analysis we are at a stalemate. The article was good at revealing that there is not just ideology - but also material interests involved and that the two prestigious letters that were so categorical in dismissing the lab escape hypothesis were quite a bit tainted by conflicts of interests.

I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel th…

I find it hard to take seriously any “scientist” that dismisses an idea as a “conspiracy theory” (i.e. a concept developed by the CIA specifically to discredit political opponents) as opposed to using actual rational / scientific arguments.

At best, it demonstrates intellectual laziness, at worst a political / ideological conviction, neither of which is a hallmark of a good scientist.

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

#175

Post by herbst » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

amadvance wrote: post #40

For such disruptive events the most logical reaction would be to shutdown all the possible causes. But wet markets and virus laboratories are still on...

As were most events for months, plenty of political rallies and other bullshit that should not have been happening and heavily contributed to the spread.

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

#176

Post by tgv » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #88

tgv wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it's a possible manifestation of self-interest, but that it isn't always self-interest. There are people that hurt others without any apparent self-interest. When it gets out of control, we call them sociopaths or psychopaths. But that's a minor point.

My point was more that the dichotomy stupidity vs. malice seems to imply that e.g. playing music, or having dinner is either stupid or bad. Many things get done out of self-interest without being malicious, or without malicious intent.

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

#177

Post by tomp » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

_trampeltier wrote: post #170

For me it felt allways a bit strange how fast china acted. The virus was very fresh, nothing was known, just a few cases and china totaly locked down millions if people. Two, three months later, when we already had high numbers if cases in the west, lockdowns started in the west also. But everybody said, "we know nothing about this new virus". For me it allways like, china knew much more about the virus early on.

This is easily explained by a combination of past experience (SARS), Chinese dictatorship (Western countries can’t realistically solder people into their homes), hubris (“our medical system is so good that we could easily handle a pandemic”), wokeism (locking borders is evil) and scientific failures in medicine (if it’s not proven by randomised controlled trials, it doesn’t exist). Add a bit of political infighting in the mix (which presumably doesn’t exist in China) and ...

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

#178

Post by ximeng » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #174

ximeng wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel th…

I find it hard to take seriously any “scientist” that dismisses an idea as a “conspiracy theory” (i.e. a concept developed by the CIA specifically to discredit political opponents) as opposed to using actual rational / scientific arguments. At best, it demonstrates intellectual laziness, at worst a political / ideological conviction, neither of which is a hallmark of a good scientist.

To be clear, the scientist is not quoted as calling it a conspiracy theory, that is the wording of the author of the article.

The scientist provides a scientific explanation (“Recombination is naturally very, very frequent in these viruses, there are recombination breakpoints in the spike protein and these codons appear unusual exactly because we’ve not sampled enough.”).

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

#179

Post by yread » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:47 AM UTC

_trampeltier wrote: post #170

For me it felt allways a bit strange how fast china acted. The virus was very fresh, nothing was known, just a few cases and china totaly locked down millions if people. Two, three months later, when we already had high numbers if cases in the west, lockdowns started in the west also. But everybody said, "we know nothing about this new virus". For me it allways like, china knew much more about the virus early on.

They did have the experience with SARS1. And if you look at other countries that had experience with SARS1 they also acted very swiftly and did fairly well - Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

What I found absolutely baffling is that we in west saw what China was doing and haven't got our shit together until months later (with exceptions). Instead the discourse was about how much the Chinese eat unsavory things and how much pollution is there so it wouldn't be the same if it got here at all.

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

#180

Post by KoftaBob » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:50 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #11

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And let's not even begin to think what will happen if there were to be evidence that this was an intentional release. But don't you think it's important to know this?

It's important to know and it's important not to know. Both paths have mostly negative outcomes. The best path is for it to have been natural, second best is accidental. Intentional is unfathomable and has unlimited downside. We should all hope that's not the case here.

I see very little incentive for China to release covid intentionally. What could they possibly have gained from that?

Mind you, I'm becoming increasingly convinced it was an accidental lab leak due to negligence, so this isn't my attempt at defending China in any way.