Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

newrepublic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 233 posts

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#31

Post by GekkePrutser »

pjc50 wrote: post #29
pmoriarty wrote: post #12

"Ever since the SARS outbreak of 2002-03, after all, paper after paper and countless popular pieces have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague" .[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings tha…

> especially if we believe SARS 2 was created by humans instead of being just another natural disease Here's the thing: if we knew the answer definitively to the lab-leak question, how would it change the pandemic response? The things we need to do to combat the virus remain the same.

For the current pandemic yes, but we could start banning all gain of function research to make another one less likely. And increase lab safety measures.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#32

Post by goldenkey »

emilgouliev wrote: post #10
_huayra_ wrote: post #7

As someone who is out of the loop on this and only a basic understanding, it seems very peculiar that scientists were so quickly to just jump on the "it must be bats and a wet market" thing so early on despite the Wuhan lab being right there. It's like when some out-of-control company creates a superfund site through gross negligence of industrial byproduct handling and then goes "idk cancer gonna cancer. you can't l…

“When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980s, it was alleged, with a little Soviet help, that the virus had been developed in an American lab. Between Washington’s inaction on the epidemic and its sordid past of shady experiments, proponents said the theory couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. After many early cases of tick-borne Lyme disease were first identified around Long Island Sound, it was deemed too much of a coincidenc…

You want to use a razor to shave a bear. Simplicity is not enough to favor a belief model. Machine Learning has shown us that large complex models can perform much better at providing the ground truths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_razor

Razor's aren't scientifically rigorous theorems. Feel free to use them but don't argue by them in a public forum, it's disingenuous to truth.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#33

Post by goldenkey »

HoytRaymond wrote: post #8
aritmo wrote: post #2

It's kinda obvious that the 'lab leak theory' was created just to attack China.

I would argue the exact opposite: the lab leak theory is intentionally downplayed to protect China/relations with China. There are a lot of coincidences that make a lab leak a real possibility. It is possible those are all coincidences and the virus is of natural origin, but it is also possible that those are not coincidences and the virus originates from a lab leak. Most likely we will never know since virus origin…

No gain in truth, let's just lie. Yeah, I think my government says the same things about UFOs. It's working out really well, for the past 80 years. We should have the truth so we can be abreast of what is possible in this world. For example, if actual engineers knew that Mach 10 UFOs existed, they'd probably be working on next-generation propulsion systems. And as for the lab leak, those in biological research would be a little bit more careful. How do you avoid mistakes if you are unaware one ever occurred? A lab leak that killed millions and changed years of our lives is not a white lie! It's egregious that you are willing to sacrifice truth for a diplomatic pin cushion.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#34

Post by pmoriarty »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #31
pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially if we believe SARS 2 was created by humans instead of being just another natural disease Here's the thing: if we knew the answer definitively to the lab-leak question, how would it change the pandemic response? The things we need to do to combat the virus remain the same.

For the current pandemic yes, but we could start banning all gain of function research to make another one less likely. And increase lab safety measures.

Since virtually every disease comes from nature and not from labs, the thing that would really make a big difference is stopping encroaching on animal habitats and distancing ourselves from animals (including stopping the eating of animals).. not to mention massive increases in funding to virology and way better pandemic planning.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#35

Post by stavros »

pmoriarty wrote: post #12

"Ever since the SARS outbreak of 2002-03, after all, paper after paper and countless popular pieces have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague" .[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings tha…

> The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings that humans were continuing to play russian roulette with the way they were living with an using animals.

How do we live with and use bats that makes viruses crossing over more likely, though?

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#36

Post by VortexDream »

garmaine wrote: post #13
jfktkrkfk wrote: post #11

In 10 years China will be the foremost global superpower. I would urge everyone to be very carefully in their criticism of China or support of Taiwan. Remember that what you say on the Internet can live forever. People are being cancelled for far less. And China will not cancel in the way the West cancels. Instead of being fired, be prepared for your whole life to be destroyed, and maybe you being even imprisoned if…

China can't imprison people outside of its own borders.

It can, at the very least, harass and threaten people outside their borders, as is already done today in many Western countries against Chinese/Russian/Saudi-Arabian/Belarussian/etc dissidents living abroad. Modern democracies are wholly ill-equipped to deal with modern authoritarian governments and the means they have and are willing to use.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#37

Post by GekkePrutser »

jo123hn wrote: post #21
jfktkrkfk wrote: post #11

In 10 years China will be the foremost global superpower. I would urge everyone to be very carefully in their criticism of China or support of Taiwan. Remember that what you say on the Internet can live forever. People are being cancelled for far less. And China will not cancel in the way the West cancels. Instead of being fired, be prepared for your whole life to be destroyed, and maybe you being even imprisoned if…

The Lab Leak Hypothesis itself is not criticism of China, and it’s very important that we get to the bottom of it! If it turns out to be true we need to learn from it before we leak something much deadlier. You’re advocating for self-censorship of an important topic, based on the assumption that in 10 years a new global superpower will arise and start punishing those that discussed the hypothesis. It makes no sense t…

The problem with China is that they consider everything that's not unconditionally positive automatically as criticism.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#38

Post by busymom0 »

_huayra_ wrote: post #7

As someone who is out of the loop on this and only a basic understanding, it seems very peculiar that scientists were so quickly to just jump on the "it must be bats and a wet market" thing so early on despite the Wuhan lab being right there. It's like when some out-of-control company creates a superfund site through gross negligence of industrial byproduct handling and then goes "idk cancer gonna cancer. you can't l…

Because the scientists were too busy playing politics.

> "... it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins."

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lab-leak-theory...

It never occurred to these people that claiming the virus came from bats because they eat bats there is the more "xenophobic" thing and not the possible lab leak caused due to poor handling.

The next time someone asks us to trust the science, our response should be "okay, but can I trust the scientists?" And if they can be so easily manipulated based on politics, what else are they and the dissenters being silenced on?

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#39

Post by simonh »

aritmo wrote: post #2

It's kinda obvious that the 'lab leak theory' was created just to attack China.

It originated because we know for a fact that lab leaks do happen. SARS leaked from a lab in Beijing a few years ago and there have been leaks in Russia, the USA, the UK and many other countries. It's just a fact that these things can happen. That by itself doesn't make this particular lab leak theory particularly likely or plausible, but it definitely make it possible.

I have no time whatsoever for the nutters who say the lab leak is definitely correct or has been proven. Likewise I have no time for people who say the lab leak was not possible and should not be considered. In both cases there's a big chunk of motivated reasoning, and quite possibly wilful ignorance going on IMHO.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#40

Post by danparsonson »

stavros wrote: post #35
pmoriarty wrote: post #12

"Ever since the SARS outbreak of 2002-03, after all, paper after paper and countless popular pieces have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague" .[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings tha…

> The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings that humans were continuing to play russian roulette with the way they were living with an using animals. How do we live with and use bats that makes viruses crossing over more likely, though?

By increasingly moving into their territory and disturbing populations of animals with which we were hitherto not in contact.
Post reply on HN