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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

#731

Post by kenjackson »

member492 wrote: post #550
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…

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…

Isn’t it mass media covering this now? It seems like this is a credit to mass media in that it moves as data moves. I always feel this is a highly underrated attribute in organizations and individuals.

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

#732

Post by myfavoritedog »

I know that most people won't; but if this article is some kind of major a revelation to you, I hope that you take some time to re-evaluate your information sources. You really should think more carefully about how you detect bullshit.

There were those who were sounding the alarm about this lab leak hypothesis well over a year ago. The overwhelming media narrative to look away from that hypothesis and smear those who talked about it was always artificially manufactured in a way that should have been obvious to most people.

But this kind of misinformation is really par for the course with the mainstream media. If you're only paying attention to ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc. (and downstream from those sources) for your day-to-day news - you're in the worst manufactured media bubble in existence. Those big media companies are a locus of power that is manipulated to an incredible degree.

I'm not telling you to drink the koolaid and only watch Fox News while reading Breitbart. I'm definitely not telling you to waste your time on Alex Jones or someone like that. I'm saying to balance what you look at with other information sources with a variety of political slants. This WIV narrative is just one of many that the MSM has been pushing over the last few years. It scares me how gullible people have been on so many topics.

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

#733

Post by sam345 »

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…

Maybe you didn't read the full article? There's a lot more supportive of the lab leak theory than the three researchers getting sick.

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

#734

Post by ddxxdd »

armada651 wrote: post #624
isolli wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misreading the context. The furor comes from the fact that the lab leak hypothesis (distinct from the engineered virus hypothesis) was dismissed by fact checkers as a debunked conspiracy theory for a year based on nothing but assurances from the few scientists they interviewed. This is just one example I could find quickly, but there are many more... https://twitter.com/JoePCunningham/status/139718591836522496…

The fact checkers were definitely too eager to mark this as debunked, but it still lacks real evidence. No fact checker would mark this theory as true even now. So let's not make the same mistake by eagerly jumping to conclusions that it was engineered in a lab based on assurances from a different set of scientists.

So are we to believe that, out of 200 million square miles on this planet, this novel bat-related coronavirus just naturally emerged within 8 miles of a facility that specializes in novel bat related coronaviruses?

During a season when bats hibernate to areas thousands of miles away?

If you look at the circumstances behind this pandemic's origins, and do some basic back-of-the-envelope math, the lab-leak hypothesis is close to a certainty.

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

#735

Post by justicezyx »

ngc248 wrote: post #534
justicezyx wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if most mainlanders know that their state media is bogus, and that Xi is a dictator I am an ethnic Chinese, I don't see this impression at all. Disclaimer: this is quite normal, China is huge with 1.4b people, there are a lot of social bubbles. And the readers should read this comment and the parent of proving that. Not that this comment or the parent is true.

Well its turtles all the way isnt it, "And the readers should read this comment and the parent of proving that. Not that this comment or the parent is true.". The same standard would apply to your comment.

Yes, of course, my comment and the parent are to show that there cannot be a simple truth about a nation with 1.4b people.

Realizing that, is the first step to reach any meaningful truth about China.

That's true even to native Chinese people. That's even more true to outsiders (obviously).

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

#736

Post by greenwich26 »

shlant wrote: post #716
greenwich26 wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be absurd. Every single major social media platform banned even the most gentle suggestion that the lab was involved. And everyone who mentioned it was called "racist". Now that the scientific consensus is settling and lab leak does indeed seem to be true, they are all in major damage control. And you are trying to change the narrative by introducing some silly victim-blaming charade about "oppression complex",…

> Now that the scientific consensus is settling and lab leak does indeed seem to be true That is absolutely not the scientific consensus > It had an enormous amount of evidence I've been following this since the beginning. No it didn't > This paper was publicly available in March 2020 did you read the paper? it does not conclude what you insinuate it does.

I realize this is difficult and embarrassing for you, but you cannot remain in denial much longer. And your feeble attempt to be cavalier and aloof by omitting punctuation fools no one. It just makes you look like a haughty fool. The paper may "conclude" nothing but it provides strong evidence for the lab leak theory, if you understand it. As did many other things back then, some of which are alluded in the OP article. Indeed, the pure prior probability, based simply on the emergence of a novel coronavirus in the one city with the biggest coronavirus research center, is significant enough to make the hypothesis very credible.

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

#737

Post by myfavoritedog »

When Trump himself floated the lab-leak hypothesis last April, his divisiveness and lack of credibility made things more, not less, challenging for those seeking the truth.

Right, it's Trump's fault that the media and political opposition acted like children in opposing every word that came out of his mouth.

Apply that logic to your favorite left-leaning politician:

"The fact that Obama was always a natural born citizen would have been accepted by some Conservatives who thought he was born in Kenya, but the fact that Obama denied the claims that he was foreign-born made things worse."

When you're wrong, you're wrong. Try to own up to it without blaming the people who were actually right.

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

#738

Post by pjc50 »

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…

This is the Iraq war situation all over again, by which I mean the same people (literally) are pushing the same angle through the same media outlets in the same way.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-w... : Michael R. Gordon, WSJ on the "lab leak"

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-i... : Michael R. Gordon, NYT on "Iraq WMD"

The media are, in these cases, bad, but only because they've not adequately defended against the internal psyop by the US security agencies.

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

#739

Post by freeflight »

The article claims "the Lancet statement rejected the lab-leak hypothesis", which is a bit misleading considering what the Lancet statement actually did was reject a human origin of the virus, based on genome sampling and other evidence.

The two are not equal, the virus could be of natural origin but leaked from a lab, that scenario is still very much possible even in the context of the Lancet statement.

Gilles Demaneuf, a data scientist, then is cited as saying there is no evidence in the statement, when actually there are around 12 relevant citations in there. I guess a dozen is just not enough data for a data scientist?

The actual context of that statement also gets quite a bit embezzled with an off-hand remark about "xenophobia and climate denialism": Since the first case in the US, there had been a concentrated and very nasty effort to politicize the virus.

It was US senators and US new pundits who at first floated the claim of it being a bio weapon [0], that's what triggered said Lancet statement in the very first place. It didn't just come out of nowhere for no reason, as some people like to claim, to imply the statement itself is already evidence for a cover-up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_...

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

#740

Post by myfavoritedog »

throwaway4good wrote: post #711
kelnos wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure if I ran an organization that funds a bunch of labs that do virus research, and a global pandemic started in the neighborhood of a lab doing virus research, and people started floating the theory that the virus leaked from that lab, one of the first things I'd do is call my grant-funding team and ask them if we funded that lab. If Fauci didn't do that, he's a strange dude.

Or maybe he just knew enough about his field to know that this theory is lala land and catnip for conspiracy nutheads.

"knew"?

That seems to be the wrong word.

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