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The media's lab leak fiasco

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Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#191

Post by fasteddie31003 »

ajcp wrote: post #39

> “Cotton’s views should be associated with conspiracy theories and misinformation,” even though his core factual claim was not particularly different from what anyone was else was saying. Does the author not know how conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns work? I'm not sure how useful it is doing a hotwash on how we could have been so remiss as to ignore the comments of a public official whose views are of…

Tom Cotton is an idiot and putting his name behind anything is counter productive even if he has a point.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#192

Post by caddemon »

cratermoon wrote: post #46
Leary wrote: post #14

The US has intelligence that three Wuhan virologists were hospitalized. China says nobody was sick. It's quite simple, the US should release the names of those who were sick.

They never will, because there is no such intelligence, it was reported as a statement from an unnamed intelligence official. It's garbage.

What incentive would the US government have to lie about this though? They were funding research at that lab, I don't understand why they would want people to think lab leak is correct all of a sudden - if that's what you're claiming?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#193

Post by asciimov »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #37

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story. No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy. I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label…

The far right will use this as a reason to curtail research. Maybe just curtail "dangerous" research at first. Then whatever other research they can convince their followers is also dangerous.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#194

Post by speeder »

contemporary343 wrote: post #187
danboarder wrote: post #12

One problem with politically charged issues is that one's bias can significantly color unresolved factual issues. In the article the early 'red flags' pointed out in the January 2020 study by The Lancet left clear open questions regarding the Seafood Market hypothesis, but many in the media glossed over these red flags. Now that additional facts are coming to light including the fact that multiple scientists at the l…

Weren't scientists from the Chinese CDC actually authors of the Lancet article that everyone cited? It doesn't seem like they were trying to push any seafood market hypothesis either.

The author of that article is actually Peter Daszak of Ecohealth Alliance, that was funding the Wuhan lab for gain of function research, seemly using money from US government (NIH and another department I can't recall now).

EDIT: why people are downvoting this? I got something wrong? The Peter Daszak that signed the article is not the same one that runs Ecohealth Alliance?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#195

Post by enaaem »

generalizations wrote: post #13
andybak wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally in favour of the actions taken against misinformation but this situation surprises me. Lab leak always seemed plausible and non-crazy even if you think the odds are against it. I don't envy the task of making a call on any of this stuff.

If we accept that taking action against misinformation is good, then this sort of mistake will inevitably happen. If you're in favor of taking action against misinformation, then you should be willing to accept this situation as an acceptable failure. I'm not willing to accept that.

I believe that censorship is more harmful than misinformation.

Censorship is a bottom down initiative. It requires a few bad actors or 'mistakes' to completely change the information landscape. Misinformation is bottom up. It still needs to compete with a whole bunch of other ideas and it requires far more effort to spread. You also don't create a pretence that all available information is correct.

Censorship carries far larger risks, with small short term gains. It's like picking pennies in front of steamroller.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#196

Post by greedo »

tomjen3 wrote: post #96
greedo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a world of difference in considering this theory, and with calling it the "Asian Flu" or "Kung Flu" etc. One act addressed what happened, the other tars entire nations/cultures/regions with a wide brush.

Current the major concern is the Indian mutation. But we are not allowed to call it the Chinese or Wuhan virus.

Pretty simple to refer to it as COVID, no? West Nile Virus was named in 1937, so hard to really say it's equivalent. Ebola is named after a river, I doubt it gets offended by the association. MERS is widely acknowledged as a mistake in naming by the WHO.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#197

Post by hooande »

bradford wrote: post #113
ratsmack wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think it would play out if it is found that our government (e.g. NIH/CDC) supplied funding for research that created this virus? I suspect many countries would take notice.

> funding for research that created this virus? The very question demonstrates part of the problem here: there are ways that it could have been 'released' by the lab without being 'created' in the lab (or any lab). It's not clear to me that people are aware of this when the lab origin theory is discussed. Please don't prematurely make an assumption about what was going on in the lab. It's possible that some researche…

This is the smartest comment. Lab leaks happen frequently, it's part of medical research. There's no hard evidence that this virus was engineered or human modified. China didn't create the concept of a virus. Mistakes happen

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#198

Post by undersuit »

speeder wrote: post #61
thundergolfer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you got a link to examples? I’m wondering if they weren’t also saying that China deliberately leaked the virus. Saying “it is possible but very unlikely that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab” is talking about the lab-leak theory. Saying “the virus was cooked up and leaked from a Wuhan lab to hurt Trump’s re-election chances” is also talking about the lab-leak theory.

A Infamous case was Twitter baning Zerohedge because of it. And all that Zerohedge did was point out a lot of public documents, nothing private, and no bioweapon theory. (Twitter claimed Zerohedge had doxxed the scientist, but Zerohedge only had shown the official lab website and documents from it). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-bans-zero-hedge-coronav...

Good revisionism there. The very first sentence they push the bioweapon theory.

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/man-behind-global-coronavir...

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#200

Post by shkkmo »

ratsmack wrote: post #84
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #37

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story. No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy. I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label…

How do you think it would play out if it is found that our government (e.g. NIH/CDC) supplied funding for research that created this virus? I suspect many countries would take notice.

The US absolutely knew there were risks here. US diplomats knew that the lab had insufficient safety systems for the research that we already know was being done in Wuhan. Those diplomats explicitly warned the US of the dangers several years ago but the US did nothing. [0]

If anything, the Wuhan lab needed more US funding that was primarily focused on safety.

Edit: If you want to prevent certain types of dangerous research, simply cutting funding is a bad way to do it because it can reduce safety. Instead you need to use other diplomatic or legal tools that won't increase risk.

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin...

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