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The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

vanityfair.com

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Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#521

Post by garmaine »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #315
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. No. It’s because of politics and TDS. People were taught that this was a Trump theory. That’s all the media needs to say to ensure that nobody will take it seriously and nobody will tolerate anyone else who takes it seriously.

This is a totally fair reaction to all "trump theories".

No, it is not. Judge ideas on their own merits please.

These same people ridicule the Space Force, for example, despite it being a reorganization of US Space Command that had bipartisan approval years before Trump even ran for office.

A broken clock is still right twice a day.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#522

Post by systemvoltage »

tootie wrote: post #96
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

I don't think lab workers getting sick is really a useful data point. People get sick all the time. Could have very easily been seasonal flu or whatever. It also seems The Lancet letter doesn't actual address the question of lab leak. Only that it wasn't engineered. That was a pretty hot conspiracy theory at the time and one that remains far fetched. They didn't positively say it couldn't be a naturally occurring vir…

3/6 fatality rate of researchers dying should be absolutely chilling evidence of something that’s gone wrong.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#523

Post by coupdejarnac »

justicezyx wrote: post #397
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does no one else remember the videos out of China with people laying dead in the streets, falling over as they walked, convulsing behind the steering wheels of cars? Who paid for all that acting, scenes, and filming and then have it presented as “news”? CCP owns Hong Kong, that was over in 1997, the only surprising thing about HK is that China waited this long to make it better known. Now... The country of Taiwan on…

> Does no one else remember the videos out of China with people laying dead in the streets, falling over as they walked, convulsing behind the steering wheels of cars? Could you provide a link? I never saw such video on YouTube.

There is a guy on r/China I think who archived a bunch of disturbing videos from last January /February. I think I saved them or links, but I'm away from my computer. Will update if I find it.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#524

Post by yarcob »

One thing that's baffling to me is that I've not seen any discussion from scientists who actually know what they are talking about. All we get are articles who talk about the political side, and try to prove things by how certain actors behaved.

Most of the actual science that all the articles cite are pop-sci simplifications at best. People talk about how parts from multiple viruses would be joined together etc, how base pairs are 97% identical, etc. These are all very high level summaries that don't really allow for detailed conclusions.

Now I'm not a subject matter expert myself, but from what I've learned about evolutionary genetics is that some scenarios would be pretty obvious when looking at the genome. For example, you could look at where in the genome the mutations occur.

I'd love to read an article that goes in depth on the actual scientific arguments, rather than just rehashes of rehashes like this.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#525

Post by starfallg »

rayiner wrote: post #329
version_five wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the only really horrible thing is the way that anything other than the mainstream version of events was treated. I think there are different plausible theories, and I'm not surprised they have different adherents that are mostly all motivated by something other than a pure quest for the truth. That's life. If this was e.g. a civil or criminal trial, you'd see the same thing. The only difference is, in a trial,…

That’s another symptom of the same disease. People have an idea that “trust the experts” can replace all the messy, gross, and often wrong processes we have developed to deal with the fact nobody can be trusted. Trusting scientists involved in gain of function research will neutrally investigate the origins of the pandemic is one manifestation of that conceit. So is trusting fact checkers and review panels to decide…

>The marketplace of ideas is better than trusting gatekeepers of knowledge.

That's such a simplification of the real situation that it's harmful to apply as an axiom.

There are many levels of the marketplace of ideas. Ideally, the gatekeepers of knowledge also create a marketplace of ideas so that expert opinion is varied and shifts as new information come in. This is in inline with what we're seeing here.

The marketplace of ideas with no experts to guide discussion often results in crank ideas that seem plausible but heavily influenced by our biases bubbling to the top. That's how things like the Anti-vax movement gained a foothold.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#526

Post by tablespoon »

mc32 wrote: post #39
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

The other astonishing things is the sudden about face by the media. I'm glad they allowed themselves the liberty of looking at alternative origins. But... they were SO adamant and complicit in any discussion about alternative theories being shut down under the guise of conspiracy, Trumpism, anti-China, etc. (These are the same people who have no qualms about attributing anything to Russia even if evidence is thin, so…

> The other astonishing things is the sudden about face by the media. I'm glad they allowed themselves the liberty of looking at alternative origins. But... they were SO adamant and complicit in any discussion about alternative theories being shut down under the guise of conspiracy, Trumpism, anti-China, etc.

I agree. However, I can empathize with the media's position. Their business model has been under intense pressure for decades, so they're far too understaffed to do the kind of job we'd all like them to do; and viral disinformation/misinformation has become far more prevalent and influential in the last several years. Donald Trump also acted as a siren (in the Greek mythology sense) during his presidency to greatly exacerbate both difficulties. It's not surprising that, when they were faced with a crisis where they were arguably on one of the front lines, they were forced to take shortcuts out of expediency that were ultimately mistakes. After all the lab-leak theory is both 1) extremely plausible, 2) conspiracy-theory bait.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#527

Post by mcintyre1994 »

Obviously this article isn’t making a comprehensive argument for gain-of-function research, but it’s interesting how the arguments made in favour of it seem to have been demonstrated so poorly during this pandemic.

The argument that it’d help detect risk doesn’t seem very good, we know these researchers published work on similar viruses and it doesn’t seem to have caused anything to change and increase safety.

The argument that it could contribute to vaccine research doesn’t seem to have held up either, AFAIK there’s no link between such research and the Covid-19 vaccines we now have.

I’m sure there are other arguments for the research, and I’m sure it won’t stop regardless of what people want given how the article says Obama’s moratorium was treated and the obvious military applications. But it seems that the experience of Covid-19 does drastically alter the risk/benefit calculation of that research given it seems to have had no benefit in practice.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#528

Post by teorema »

lamontcg wrote: post #185

> Wade devoted a full section to the “furin cleavage site,” a distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells. > Within the scientific community, one thing leapt off the page. Wade quoted one of the world’s most famous microbiologists, Dr. David Baltimore, saying that he believed the furin cleavage site “was the smoking gun for the…

In one of these recent articles (the Wade piece?) they explain it's not the presence of a furin cleavage site, it's this particular furin cleavage site pattern including its flanking regions. There's discussion about the existence of furin cleavage sites in other coronaviruses, but also explanation for why it's unusual in SARS-CoV-2.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#529

Post by ngc248 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #137
kaesar14 wrote: post #54

It’s crazy to me how many people on even this forum, a place purportedly of science, continue to dismiss a lab leak origin out of hand citing it as some sort of crackpot theory. The serious questions raised in this article have been around since last April but it’s only now it’s even allowed to talk about them on digital forums. Excellent write up by Vanity Fair.

It's worth remembering that a good percent of any social media audience are paid Chinese posters (ie the $.50 army). China has been working _very_ hard to redirect the origin of COVID-19 away from the WIV, and even from China itself (starting rumors that it originated in Italy). Take any skeptical audience with a huge grain of salt, considering that the zeitgeist might not be organic in the slightest.

Any rational person would give a bit of consideration to the lab leak theory, as some one said upthread

1. Corona virus outbreak started in wuhan

2. Wuhan has the WIV which does research on coronaviruses

At a minimum this should make someone think that the lab leak theory is probable, instead of outright dismissing it.

Also there were concerns raised by the US state department officials who had reviewed the protocols at the lab that the standards were not upto bar.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep...

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#530

Post by ordiman85 »

justicezyx wrote: post #397
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does no one else remember the videos out of China with people laying dead in the streets, falling over as they walked, convulsing behind the steering wheels of cars? Who paid for all that acting, scenes, and filming and then have it presented as “news”? CCP owns Hong Kong, that was over in 1997, the only surprising thing about HK is that China waited this long to make it better known. Now... The country of Taiwan on…

> Does no one else remember the videos out of China with people laying dead in the streets, falling over as they walked, convulsing behind the steering wheels of cars? Could you provide a link? I never saw such video on YouTube.

These videos [1] were published by a number of tabloids such as The Daily Mail [2] and The Sun [3]. I also remember that a very popular french TV show (Quotidien [4]) published them as well.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/people-collapsing-coronavi...

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7923981/Coronavirus...

[3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10808633/coronavirus-wuhan-zom...

[4] https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2020/01/31/les-videos-di...

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