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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?

#411

Post by RC_ITR »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #409
followtheplot wrote: post #294

"... proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence." "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities." This is a fantastic article, but amazingly almost all of it is year-old news. Most of this was known in March 2020, and nearly all of it by the end of 2020. How does it take so long for the trut…

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

I know you’re trying to be high minded, but yes if it escaped from a lab, China should stop doing independent unsupervised virology. Full stop.

EDIT: If a kid crashes a car, you sure as hell are going to make them take more driving lessons before letting them drive again. And hearing them then say “it was a cosmic accident, why should anyone be allowed to drive” is not going to absolve them of negligence

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

#412

Post by [deleted] »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #339
gonehome wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers me about it is not only did it take a long time for the “truth to win”, but mainstream media orgs actively suppressed it because of tribal stupidity. It was used as an example of “fake news”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/technology/biden-reality-... > “ Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republ…

Exactly! 2020 will be forever the year I lost total trust in mainstream media. It's one thing to just "get it wrong" it's an entirely different thing when the powers that be are actively trying to promote a false narrative. And then to turn around and label actual journalism and truth seeking as "conspiracy-theorist" and "crack pots" it is just too much to bear. Filling the news with endless critiques and shaming of…

[deleted]

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

#413

Post by pbourke »

caseysoftware wrote: post #390

I think the media successfully conflated four separate questions: a) Did it form in nature or in a lab? b) Did it become more communicable via nature or via the lab? c) Did it make it to humans through nature (or wet market) or via the lab? d) If it came from the lab was it on purpose or an accident? as simply "OMG IT CAME FROM A LAB" and then claimed it's all a conspiracy theory. The media as a whole shot themselves…

The article refers to two letters from leading researchers arguing against the lab escape hypothesis, one published in a Nature journal. It’s not like the media were spinning this story out of whole cloth. The whole thing was unfortunately hyper politicized from the start.

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

#414

Post by bhk »

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 growing prevalence of this line of thinking explains the current "post truth" environment, wherein we are assaulted with disinformation from previously trustworthy institutions.

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

#415

Post by __s »

anikan_vader wrote: post #337
__s wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, humans can't impregnate chimpanzees. That really hurts the "humans evolved from apes" theory

Since this is a common misconception, I'll note that humans didn't evolve from apes or chimpanzees. We share a relatively close common ancestor with them.

Ape is a broad enough term (& fuzzy) that depending on context humans could be considered included or excluded from the category, meanwhile chimps & that common ancestor do fit into the category

Hence I didn't say we evolved from chimpanzees, even though it'd've suited the snow clone better

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

#416

Post by pbourke »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #409
followtheplot wrote: post #294

"... proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence." "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities." This is a fantastic article, but amazingly almost all of it is year-old news. Most of this was known in March 2020, and nearly all of it by the end of 2020. How does it take so long for the trut…

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

> What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way?

Is this a serious question?

How about, if this is true the US government should not be funding any research like this in China.

How about, the research must be done at BSL-4 instead of 2/3 as noted in the paper.

How about, we need to massively step up our surveillance efforts on the current state of respiratory viruses going forward. Something like the Seattle Flu Study at national scale. This last point is true regardless of the origin story for SARS-CoV-2.

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

#417

Post by notriskfree »

didericis wrote: post #335
notriskfree wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting the actual tragic pandemic to one side. It is not true that there are never going to be reasonable motivations to deploy a virus:- It could be viewed as a tool to alter population demographics in an ageing society. It might be deployed against an adversary. It might be used to reduce the human population to avoid a predicted ecological disaster. There are probably dozens of very reasonable motivations.

That’s a stronger claim than I was making; I don’t think it’s categorically unreasonable to assume there’s motivation to intentionally release a virus. I think it’s unreasonable to think there was a motivation to intentionally release Covid. I don’t think there’s reasonable motivation given when and where the outbreak started, how the virus works, China’s response, etc. I think the particular scenarios you’re paintin…

Right, I agree with you completely on Covid.

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

#418

Post by evrydayhustling »

zby wrote: post #308
evrydayhustling wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we abstract away the specific actors/motivations, this reminds me a bit of the Oumuamua debate. "Man made" and "natural" are both very broad theories that admit many details and are thus hard to falsify. But I wonder to what degree we agree about: (1) Which category (if either) has an advantage by Occam's razor? (2) Which category (if either) is more easily falsifiable? (Meaning easier to determine improbable, sin…

Just one nitpick - it does not need to be 'man made' to make a 'lab escape'.

Yeah, my spouse just hit me with the same point. I think the ["natural" process but facilitated by lab escape] branch is probably the hardest to falsify, so it's a place peoples' prior weights on that scenario are going to end up really dominating discourse.

I think that branch is past what scientific dialog really covers, and it's probably the methods and standards of proof from legal exploration that might be the way to progress the discussion. Unfortunately, the world is missing a moderator that folks would broadly trust to facilitate that conversation.

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

#419

Post by mekkkkkk »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #316
uvesten wrote: post #251

I think most people are confused because of CCP’s successful disinformation campaign, and also out of fear of being seen as prejudiced. The fact is that an epidemic with a corona virus (never before or since seen in the wild) with a peculiarly efficient ability to infect humans started in the _only city in the world with a lab where gain-of-function experiments on corona viruses_ is located. Just apply occam’s razor,…

I would like to add another factor in your favor for this hypothesis. Naturally occurring viruses/bacteria tend to evolve to spread most effectively in conditions similar to how animals live: outside. COVID-19, conversely, seems to fair poorly outside and spreads most rapidly in indoor conditions not unlike one would expect in a human run laboratory environment.

The way bats congregate and sleep in tight huddled up clusters would seem to be perfect for transmission.

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

#420

Post by abecedarius »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #409
followtheplot wrote: post #294

"... proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence." "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities." This is a fantastic article, but amazingly almost all of it is year-old news. Most of this was known in March 2020, and nearly all of it by the end of 2020. How does it take so long for the trut…

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

No. Your conclusion is lawyer/politician/bureaucrat-thinking presented as science. In science there is no "noble lie".
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