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

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

#701

Post by SiempreViernes »

isolli wrote: post #614
thebigman433 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems more like people declaring victory because they're finally getting a hint of public support for their suspicions, rather than some truly damning evidence. I think this is the main thing driving these comments. Instead of being totally against the idea, these articles are providing a shred of hope (despite not having any new proof as far as I can tell) for the people who are locked in on the lab leak theo…

There was censorship in the form of calling the hypothesis of a lab leak (distinct from the hypothesis of an engineered virus) a debunked conspiracy theory. The fact that the theory is considered acceptable again is what people are claiming vindication for, and rightly so.

Someone telling you that your theory is wrong isn't censorship dude.

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

#702

Post by XorNot »

krrrh wrote: post #488
XorNot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, 2 days drive depending on road conditions and trucking shipment along the route to a major metropolis. This is an argument from incredulity.

Doesn’t it seem likelier that zoonotic transmission from an animal in Yunnan would infect a local and result in an initial local outbreak, which we have no evidence of? What do you think the ratio of locals in Yunnan are to visitors from Wuhan or potential visitors to Wuhan are at any given time? 100 to 1, 1000 to 1? I have no idea, but excuse the incredulity. It’s less likely that a virus from Yunnan would break out…

This presumes COVID-19 had to evolve in the place people are looking for possible coronaviruses and had to jump directly from bats to people, and not in surrounding or isolated areas where the bats might roam. Or that their wasn't - as is suspected now - one or several interim species.

SARS after all was found in civets, and then later several other species as well despite originating in bats.

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

#704

Post by SiempreViernes »

nickysielicki wrote: post #504
tmp404 wrote: post #155

While this article is quite illuminating on the political side of the lab leak theory, on the evidence side it's mostly a rehash of some long-standing speculations. The only recent evidence it contains is the fact that 3 researchers from WIV sought hospital care back in autumn of 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID. However, this piece of evidence is hardly consequential without further details: - First, most common…

My recurring shower thought at the moment is that there will eventually be strong evidence of a natural origin and this whole debacle will be rubbed in the faces of people who dared challenge the medical/media industrial complex and its infinite wisdom. Let's be clear: there's no strong evidence either way. The take away is that it doesn't matter whether it was from a lab or whether it was naturally originating. What…

The fact the most ancestral strains of active Covid-19 virus we know of are from outside Guandong, some hundreds of kilometers away from Wuhan, is pretty strong evidence the epidemic didn't originate from the WIV though?

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

#705

Post by Aachen »

ralph84 wrote: post #454

We can only hope that someday the "I fucking love science" crowd will realize science is no less political than any other human endeavor.

More like they weren't actually doing science, not that science was wrong or turns out to be a bad concept. I should most sincerely hope that the love of proper science will not be reduced due to articles and comments like these. What kind of dark ages would that land us in if the general public started doubting that if you do an experiment that shows X, and you can repeat that and it still shows X, that X is likely true?

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

#707

Post by shlant »

concordDance wrote: post #626
member492 wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even more shocking is that the mass media and big tech have done everything to keep this covered. Most of the revelations are nothing new if you read alternative news sources where true journalism still exists. Big tech and mass media are now more like China state television, they decide what and how to tell you something based on what they want you to believe. The greatest threat of our times is not the Coro…

The reason that big tech is corrupted is mass media and activists (here I mean anyone who pushes for their company to do good things rather than just neutral thinhs) within the big tech organization. The (non-rightwing) news orgs had constantly been going on about the evils of Trump and racism and fake news and virus misinformation how very bad it all was, the activists were convinced (because most people don't know…

question: who constitutes the "mass media"?

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

#708

Post by SiempreViernes »

whitepaint wrote: post #672
sega_sai wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there is no evidence, the discussion is purely in the sphere of priors. And that doesn't make it very fruitful to discuss, as different people will likely have different priors. I think I agree that the likelihood of lab-leak was downweighted previously probably too strongly, but in the same time, I still don't see too much evidence in favor of it now.

What was the evidence of it occurring naturally in the seafood market?

Uh, nobody ever claimed that the seafood marked was some sort of natural reservoir.

It was just the earliest suspected point of where the animal to human transmission happened, the reservoir was always presumed to be somewhere else.

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

#709

Post by Aachen »

systemvoltage wrote: post #410

> Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the CDC, said he received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN he thought the virus likely escaped from a lab. “I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science,” he said. Holyshit. We have created an atmosphere of censorship and suppression to the point where noble, well meaning people have been turned into monsters.

Turns out one human isn't necessarily better than another? This emphasis on that scientists are evil in this thread astounds me.

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

#710

Post by LudwigNagasena »

raphlinus wrote: post #130

This is a good article. There's been so much junk over the past couple of weeks or so that it's been very frustrating. I've mostly been watching the debate unfold on Twitter, and it's confirmed for me that Twitter is a terrible place for real intellectually-curious discussion (probably social media in general). I've been wondering certain things, especially why Marc Lipsitch (one of the most consistently trustworthy…

> For an audience of honestly intellectually curious people, the Trumpian right-wingers did enormous damage to their theory, even if it was correct, by being racist and scientifically willfully stupid. Similarly, the Chinese authorities, even if they were correct did enormous damage to their theory by being authoritarian and stifling real communication.

Eh? And no mention of American urban blue check marks who are being racist, scientifically willfully stupid and who are stifling real communication?

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