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

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

#231

Post by onethought »

didericis wrote: post #214
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 lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they…

Arresting Drs talking about a possible repeat of SARS is something China clearly wouldn’t want out unless it absolutely had to. The effects on markets, general panic etc are not nothing issues.

Later discovering they really did have a problem and it was even worse than SARS going to a full lockdown at the main crossroads city right before Chinese New Year (the largest human migration event).

The motivation feels very normal/predicable for China. And also similar to their SARS response. So is SARS also an intentional self inflicted lab leak? And is MERS a secret belt and road initiative?

Seems weird there is a conspiracy about the third deadly coronavirus but not the first two... or the common cold for that matter? Where did that come from and was that a lab leak?

Whole thing smells of lazy arm chair enquiry with a touch of xenophobia

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

#233

Post by dirtyid »

didericis wrote: post #214
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 lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they…

>I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural.

No doctors were arrested early on. Few got cold tea lectures about spreading rumors that literal SARs returned not novel SARs like virus. Signed boilerplate paperwork and was released back to work. This is generic behavior for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" tier infractions. Not particularly heavy handed at all as far as PRC behavior is concerned. Folks get talks with cyber security for far less. Arguably warranted, had covid not been once in generation virus, spreading panic based on rumors to some critical mass before CNY is pretty egregious. The fact these doctors got slap on risk treatment shows officials were essentially oblivious of severity of novel virus. If there was foreknowledge of a lab leak, these doctors would be under surveillance and stashed away in safe house away from family/friends/work for months/years like in other politically sensitive cases.

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

#234

Post by RickJWagner »

Years from now people will look back and say:

"Hmmmm. On one hand, Wuhan Institute of Virology is located where the outbreak started. On the other hand, they did have some markets where people sold animals. Tough call."

Then they'll laugh and joke about how badly people were manipulated.

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

#235

Post by darkerside »

tomp wrote: post #187
inciampati wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Covid turns out to be a lab escape (which is a big if), It seems like we don't have evidence, but the natural evolutionary experiment that's occurred provides a staggering amount. We can see from the virus phylogeny that: 1. The virus entered the human population in October 2019. All known SARS2 sequences are related in a single clade that, under very soft assumptions about mutation rate, would coalesce in late…

This sounds a plausible explanation, but I see one problem: there’s a big fear that the vaccines don’t work on the more infectious strains (South African, Brazilian, Indian, ...). Vaccines target the spike protein. So surely if the spike protein doesn’t evolve (and isn’t responsible for the increased virality of these strains), then the vaccines should still work against it?

Well, so far the vaccines do work against the variants

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

#236

Post by twobitshifter »

andreareina wrote: post #127
Clewza313 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've been pretty skeptical of the lab theory to date, but: > We visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is an impressive research facility, and looks to be run well, with due regard to staff health. We spoke to the scientists there. We heard that scientists’ blood samples, which are routinely taken and stored, were tested for signs they had been infected. No evidence of antibodies to the coronavirus was fou…

I'm reading it as shorthand for, "The prior probability of a lab escape is low, and we didn't see much evidence for it in this particular case, therefore we conclude that this instance being a lab escape is low", which is a fine argument.

But lab escape caused pandemics are surprisingly common so that prior probability is unwarranted.

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

#237

Post by throwaway4good »

exegete wrote: post #225
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing to turn upside down. The burden of proof is equal for both theories.

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim and the more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be in my opinion.

Exactly.

There is an investegative group from the WHO interviewing the Wuhan lab people and looking at various form of documentation.

The lab leak proponents claim that they are all lying and all the documents are fraudulent.

The lab leak proponents have the burden of proof and IMHO kinda should shut up until they can carry that burden.

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

#238

Post by mrkramer »

altacc wrote: post #183
tomp wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First, "conspiracy theory" these days has a wider meaning, in that it can be used to refer to pretty much any claim that goes against conventional explanations. I'm not a fan of the wide use of this term but it is what it is and it's now basically a useless term in any discussion except for manipulation. But let's flip this round as the author here is openly heavily weighing his dismissal of scientific support for na…

I agree with you conspiracy theory can mean pretty much anything for example during WW2 people couldn't grasp that Nazi regime had extermination camps until Allies entered East Europe and Germany and filmed the horrors of those camps. Some people could've called extermination camps conspiracy theory and regard it as propaganda against Hitler and Nazi Germany.

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

#239

Post by open0 »

hmry wrote: post #142
BillyTheKing wrote: post #114

the fact that this theory is still around after more than a year and not completely debunked is quite telling by itself. I thought this was a complete conspiracy theory last year, but the longer it sticks around the more likely it does become.

People still think the moon landings were fake 50 years later, and that Bush did 9/11 20 years later. I guess most conspiracy theories must be true if we go by "still around after a year" as our metric.

Bush's friends "did" 9/11, as in orchestrated it, suppressed investigations into it, and even directly funded it in the form of $130,000 USD transferred to two of the attackers days before the attacks. Didn't you know that?

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

#240

Post by darkerside »

altacc wrote: post #197
BillyTheKing wrote: post #114

the fact that this theory is still around after more than a year and not completely debunked is quite telling by itself. I thought this was a complete conspiracy theory last year, but the longer it sticks around the more likely it does become.

Debunking a theory doesn't make it disappear. Sometime it can do the opposite and reinforce the theory. In this case there is no smoking gun either way and a natural origin is much harder to trace than lab origin. That lack of absolute certainty, which science is often comfortable working with, leaves room for alternative theories to circulate and attach to those who like the sound of them for various reasons. It is…

It can be rational to behave as if the event did occur if you don't know that it didn't.

Even if we're 50/50 on the source of the virus, maybe we should still ban or regulate GoF research, and consider banning or regulating some types of wet markets.

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