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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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there isn’t any evidence for either scenario I don’t think it’s at all accurate to say one possible origin is “the most plausible”. A lack of evidence for one does not give credence to the other and vice versa.

There is plenty of evidence. CCP cleaning house at Wuhan Institute and purging online references is one item to question.

Not really. The CCP is paranoid enough to do that either way.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#304

there is footage of Fauci in a public congressional questioning where he first denies a financial tie to that lab and then admits it reluctantly. can somebody shed light on what's going on there?

Yes - he's trying to hide this:

https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529

It is funding explicitly to study bat coronavirus and it is explicitly for the Wuhan Lab.

This is a government ran website that shows government funding.

He perjured himself last week under testimony and that is why the CDC has made the new recommendations.

This is bigger than treason - it is genocide.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. The tweet was talking about the virus being engineered in a lab, not the possibility it escaped from a lab. Their opinion on the possibility of lab leak seems [1] quite reasonable to me - they believe it's possible but unlikely, and link to more info. > You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that.…

What’s the difference between gain of function research and engineering? My understanding is that gain of function research accelerates the natural selection process to intentionally produce i.e. engineer desired mutations, like the capability of infecting human cells. Seems like a distinction without a difference.

Recently there was an article about software engineering where the (apparently non-technical) author defined colloquial phrases such as "to engineer an outcome" as to jerry-rig and generally do the opposite of any scientifically-principled process. I think the onus should be on the researchers to use clearer technical jargon or else it creates this kind of false dichotomy where a very narrow claim is used to imply much more. Frankly I think exploiting vagueness of words like that is sometimes intended, especially in titles/headlines. The careful technical interpretation is for CYA, while the broad colloquial interpretation is for social/political points and agendas.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#306
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

> We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. This seems like a reach. There's a big difference in liability between "mismanaged deadly pathogens, caused a pandemic" and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens".

It isn't a reach - it was funded by the NIAID/NIH:

https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#307

there is footage of Fauci in a public congressional questioning where he first denies a financial tie to that lab and then admits it reluctantly. can somebody shed light on what's going on there?

As i understood it Fauci denied funding gain of function research in the lab but readily admitted funding other research since this area is a hotspot for new viruses. Rand Paul tried to mix the gain of fuction research in the US with that done in wuhan which made it confusing.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#309

A lot of people here claiming there is no evidence. Whether they think there was none because they didn't bother to look, they think the evidence is poor, or they can't imagine any authoritative evidence without the help of China it's just not true. People imagine Chinese social media as something that is completely locked down when in reality it was abuzz with information when a new mysterious disease was appearing…

2019 happened to have a really bad flu season. Taiwan responding to that is extremely logical and not much of a coincidence.

Taiwan responded when their (assistant) minister of health came across posts on online forums claiming that there was a SARS-like disease being covered up in Wuhan. On Dec 31 they were screening passengers and on Jan 2nd they started asking all patients about travel histories.

It also helped them that mainland China was limiting travel at the time for political reasons.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being in Japan, 3 was fascinating. I feel like Japans strong cultural belief in their own superiority and love of hierarchy make it especially susceptible to these type of issues. If you’re interested, here is a more recent example of “politics vs science” and politics losing badly: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Abe-declares-e... Here’s a fun quote from the article: "We have managed to bring the outbr…

I highly doubt that AtlasObscura article, it sounds like a classical urban myth. In East Asia there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people who've eaten nothing but white rice as the staple in their diet their whole life, and it's not caused any issues as far as I'm aware. Of course if you eat just rice and nothing else, that might be unhealthy. But that's not an issue with white rice.

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