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More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

nytimes.com

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Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#41

Post by dang »

varispeed wrote: post #34
Bayesian_bro wrote: post #23

The origin of COVID-19 is going to be one of the biggest news stories in 2021-22 IMO. China's global reputation is going to take a hit. I don't think they did this intentionally. I think everyone had the best of intentions and either they found something deep in a bat cave or there was a lab mishap. I've gone down the rabbit hole on this issue. Here are some interesting links https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=R01A…

> China's global reputation is going to take a hit. If having openly racist culture and running concentration camps has done nothing to their reputation, I don't think anything will. > I don't think they did this intentionally. Regardless if this was intentional or not, they should take responsibility. Imagine if Russia dropped a nuclear bomb on Europe by mistake. This is the same calibre of "oops my bad.". It's not…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Nationalistic flamewar is particularly not welcome here.

If we're to have a thoughtful, substantive conversation about a topic as sensitive as the OP, not jumping straight into the flames of hell is...rather a precondition.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#42

Post by bryanlarsen »

btilly wrote: post #27
mirekrusin wrote: post #18

What's the point? Regardless if it leaked from the lab or not we have to prepare for the future the same way.

The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.

Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. Without previous studies of related viruses, it would have taken multiple years to produce a vaccine.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#43

Post by btilly »

austincheney wrote: post #21
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #8

As it takes longer and longer to find any evidence in nature a lab leaking is becoming the most likely source.

That is an argument from ignorance logical fallacy. The inability to find something has no bearing on whether it exists or not and thus has no bearing on the probability of an inverted outcome. Dark matter/energy also frequently fall into this sort of argument. There is no evidence that they do exist, which does not suggest the absence of their existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

It stops being a fallacy and starts to become a valid consideration when the search for the thing not found has been thorough enough that it would have been very likely to be found if it had been there.

Suppose that I remember leaving $5000 in plain sight on a table. My initial priors are a 90% chance that it is there, a 9% chance that I put it somewhere else by accident, and a 1% that my friend Bob took it. I conduct a search that would have found it with 100% odds if it was on the table, 95% odds if I had put it somewhere else by accident, and a 0% chance if Bob took it. Add in the evidence of the search and all of a sudden the new odds are 0% chance that it is where I thought it was, about a 31% chance that I put it somewhere else, and a 69% chance that Bob took it.

This is the first major disease to jump to humans in the last 20 years that we haven't quickly tracked down the path to us. We're good at it. The fact that we didn't succeed this time when more effort was put into the search is something that should give us pause.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#44

Post by [deleted] »

monday_ wrote: post #39

The trouble here is that a lot of institutions and public persons have more or less staked their credibility on dismissing the lab origin hypothesis. They had their reasons - if anything, over the last years their standing and the value of expert opinion was under constant pressure (notice I'm talking about a reason, not a justification). But this makes any admission of an error and, by extension, any useful reflecti…

[deleted]

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#45

Post by actusual »

whatthesmack wrote: post #32
austincheney wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an argument from ignorance logical fallacy. The inability to find something has no bearing on whether it exists or not and thus has no bearing on the probability of an inverted outcome. Dark matter/energy also frequently fall into this sort of argument. There is no evidence that they do exist, which does not suggest the absence of their existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Not sure what your point is. The source for SARS and MERS were found within months. We're over a year into this with no clue. Based on the current circumstances' inconsistencies with historical circumstances, this appears to be something different.

His point still stands. Lack of evidence for one thing shouldn't be confused as evidence for something else. A man is home alone during a murder, and there is no evidence for this, did he commit the murder?

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#46

Post by [deleted] »

google234123 wrote: post #5
mensetmanusman wrote: post #3

Part of me thinks that we should almost not waste the time to find out. Spend the effort on preparing for the next one, by improving air filtration etc. Politics is too deeply entrenched, it will be an impossibility to uncover the truth.

What is sad is that these ideas were dismissed as crackpotish or racist until now.

[deleted]

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#47

Post by dataflow »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #42
btilly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.

Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. Without previous studies of related viruses, it would have taken multiple years to produce a vaccine.

> Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release.

This is disputed.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#48

Post by antattack »

It's not going to be possible to prove lab origin w/o Chinese cooperation.

However, lab origin should not be totally dismissed, so we can have a discussion about safety of gain-of-function research now, rather than waiting for some verifiable event to happen in the future.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#49

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

bko wrote: post #36
btilly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.

And maybe liability on the offending party?

There's no possibility to get that kind of money paid back if a party was found responsible. At this point it must be trillions.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#50

Post by saas_sam »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #42
btilly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.

Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. Without previous studies of related viruses, it would have taken multiple years to produce a vaccine.

>Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release.

That is not the assertion being made by the scientists pushing for the investigation. The assertion is that this is a chimeric virus that very much does NOT show up in nature and its lab-made qualities are precisely why it became a global pandemic.

Or would you take it as pure coincidence that the first truly global pandemic in however many decades you'd like just happened to be lab made?

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