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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

#351

Post by austincheney »

dkersten wrote: post #147
actusual wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but when the second hypothesis is the one that CCP has banned any investigation and news of, is not cooperating on the investigation and when there had been claims about the WIV safety and the WIV has openly stated that they were researching bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses, then the lack of evidence for any other cause makes this one seem all the more likely. That's a lot of coincidences. If CCP are covering it…

Using a conspiracy theory to qualify a clear example of a logical fallacy is pretty weak.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#352

Post by jl2718 »

stirfish wrote: post #150
adrianb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you made statements like "this started in Wuhan, in the lab there, not in the animal market next to it," you were called racist, even though race had nothing to do with it. Honestly I always felt like "a scientist working with dangerous pathogens had an accident" is way less racist than "someone ate a weird animal from a wet market"... And yet the backlash was stronger for the lab leak scenario, almost as if the…

We went pretty quickly from "it started somewhere in China" to beating elderly asian people to death in the streets. I think the backlash was more against the justifications people use to be awful.

Who is “we”? The line of thinking that starts with COVID19 and ends with violence against grandmothers seems so preposterous that it should be tested objectively to see if it exists. There are reports of huge increases in hate crimes during a year full of brazen violence and media-fueled racial tensions. This is most easily explained by a trend in classification rather than victimization. That is, law enforcement is now documenting something that has been going on for a long time. This is certainly true of the national crime victimization survey, which listed Asians for the first time in the 2018 report, released at the end of 2019. I do expect to see increases in Asian victimization in the 2020 report, but the motivations are most likely under the banner of social justice. Nobody was looting and burning down cities in protest of the coronavirus.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#353

Post by dkersten »

austincheney wrote: post #351
dkersten wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but when the second hypothesis is the one that CCP has banned any investigation and news of, is not cooperating on the investigation and when there had been claims about the WIV safety and the WIV has openly stated that they were researching bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses, then the lack of evidence for any other cause makes this one seem all the more likely. That's a lot of coincidences. If CCP are covering it…

Using a conspiracy theory to qualify a clear example of a logical fallacy is pretty weak.

Are you saying that the CCP did, in fact, let people talk about it? That they didn't cover it up for months before admitting that there was a pandemic, after it had already spread around the world? That they did, in fact, let the WHO investigate last year rather than a year later? That the WIV didn't research bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses?

There's also the reports about the leaked state department cables from 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep... But I couldn't actually figure out where to find them, so you can discount that one as "not enough evidence to verify".

Those things aren't conspiracy theories. Yes, its not enough evidence to prove it either, but damn does it make them look shady.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#354

Post by jl2718 »

I’d like to understand why the entire media and government were so intent on ridicule of any such inquiry. (Perhaps even more so why the usual virtue signaling crowd on social media was parroting this, but that’s a different phenomenon). The best explanation I can see is that they didn’t want to spark ‘racism’ against Asians. If so, it really shows that they think of us like violent apes. Strangely the narrative is strongest in academia and scientific literature, suggesting that intellectuals are simply the most trainable form of ape, mostly useful for their influence upon the hebetudinous. At some point, if we are all idiot followers in such lockstep, there must be some kind of idiot leader that sets the agenda for us to delude ourselves with.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#355

Post by Nitramp »

What's interesting to me on a meta level is that this appears to be a very hotly contested topic in the United States. Meanwhile it's not even making news over here in Germany, outside of "Americans are discussing odd things" kind of reporting. I believe it's generally accepted that it's most likely an animal origin.

That's just a data point, but it goes to show how political the debate is.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#356

Post by kubanczyk »

xxpor wrote: post #188
arrozconcosas wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was by accident, then it calls into question the quality controls over labs. It isn't "equally likely to happen anywhere" if the quality and safety standards vary by location. Operating a lab with poor safety standards is not "bad luck".

The problem is: what is anyone going to do about it? China will never admit it, even if it is true (I have no position one way or the other).

> China will never admit it, even if it is true.

China has ways to stop this class of research internally. It's very likely to happen. That's the entire point.

China does not need to admit, discuss, have referendums, or partake in any other self-harming activities.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#357

Post by kubanczyk »

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #115
johncena33 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a sci-fi author or book have to do anthing with actual investigation of a real-life pandemic?

No answer will be given, of course, but perhaps it can open one's mind to new avenues of thought that may help lead to an/the answer.

In short, enlarging the hypothesis space.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#358

Post by Izkata »

gnicholas wrote: post #279
tshaddox wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just sounds like the “lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy” epistemology so often resorted to by conspiracy theorists. The problem with the epistemology is that it applies equally well to all conceivable conspiracies.

This may be true in general, but in this case we're trying to figure out if something is man-made or occurred naturally. No one is saying it couldn't have happened naturally, but natural evolution happens differently (and more slowly and messily) than human creation. In prior cases (SARS and MERS), plenty of evidence of natural evolution was found very quickly. Here it has been conspicuously absent. What conclusion w…

> but in this case we're trying to figure out if something is man-made or occurred naturally.

False dichotomy. The main lab-leak theory is that a natural virus being studied escaped from a lab, not a man-made one.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#359

Post by Izkata »

JadeNB wrote: post #221
JohnWhigham wrote: post #92

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".

> and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens".

In 2014 when the US stopped gain-of-function research for being too risky, Fauci started funding it in Wuhan through EcoHealth. That's a lot more than just "said someone should study deadly pathogens".

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#360

Post by ricksunny »

kodah wrote: post #314
tshaddox wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that tweet pretty clearly aimed at people who were already concluding that it was engineered in a lab? That’s a lot different than saying we should investigate the origins of the virus.

If a scientist is telling people to unfollow them because those people believe it's a possibility that they don't want ruled out without evidence; that is the very definition of being a child. In fact, maybe they shouldn't have credentials at that point. If someone is telling people who already only believe that conclusion then that makes sense. It's important to ask people that do this stuff to be very specific abou…

To wit, @BlockedVirology on Twitter documents virologists' blocking of people making rational, non-trolling inquiry into lab leak.
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