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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#201

Post by sudosysgen »

riyadparvez wrote: post #179
sudosysgen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, because when you ignore the spin on both texts, you find out there is no contradictory information at all. Yet you could that it's nothing but disinformation. You should also note that the article is in the Opinion section, and doesn't actually publish the cables. The cables the is factually claiming is that US officials learnt that the research going on at the lab indicated that there is a high r…

I don't have the time to go through lawyer-speak arguments. The cables from officials regarding WIV safety have been verified. Just because it's on the opinion page doesn't mean it's false. It has way more credibility than some random virologist's claim about WIV safety on Reddit. Period. Just few points: * There's no agreement that this virus hasn't been engineered. Ralph Baric has said that just looking at the DNA…

> The cables from officials regarding WIV safety have been verified. Just because it's on the opinion page doesn't mean it's false. It has way more credibility than some random virologist's claim about WIV safety on Reddit. Period.

The cables were written by an entrepreneur and a manager, and the opinion section isn't willing to publish them. That's not lawyer speak, that's the lengths you have to go to in order to interpret a shady opinion piece that goes to lengths not to provide the actually interesting information.

> There's no agreement that this virus hasn't been engineered. Ralph Baric has said that just looking at the DNA it's not possible to distinguish whether a virus has been engineered or not. Alina Chan had raised this point and Vox has even made a correction on their article [1]:

> A previous version of this story stated that SARS-CoV-2 had been definitively proven not to be a bioengineered virus. While an August 2021 US intelligence report concluded, “Most agencies … assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered,” and many scientists agree with that assessment, it was an overstatement to claim that the theory has been definitively ruled out. The introduction and conclusion of the story have been updated to reflect this lower level of certainty. (h/t to Alina Chan, biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, for her critique and input)

You can't prove a negative. That's all the substance in what I've quoted.

> Please don't spread misinformation.

Where have a I tried to prove a negative?

> Viruses escape labs on regular basis [3]. Someone else on this thread also posted a link of a recent virus escape from a Taiwan lab.

You should read my reply - from that article, the infected scientist was at the time not wearing his PPE. The infection was due to his incompetence, and wouldn't have happened if he was actually following BSL4 regulations. It seems his colleagues saw this and thought it was fine.

> This is not the first time a lab leak happened and virologists tried to cover up. It happened during Soviet era in the 70s [4]. The truth came out after the fall of Soviet Union.

Don't try to beg the question, please.

> A bio safety expert has weighed in and also expressed his concern about possible lab leak of SARS-CoV-2 [2].

Now we're finally getting somewhere. I assume who you're referring to as a biosafety expert is James W. LeDuc. All he's saying is that it's a possibility and that it needs to be investigated - so I don't see the disagreement. This was in April 2020, before a lot of the evidence we are relying on came out. Beyond this, his interlocutors points seem not be factually accurate, or at leasy hasty conclusions that later did didn't bear out.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#202

Post by mod »

senectus1 wrote: post #84
RikNieu wrote: post #58

> “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. You know what else causes unnecessary harm to science, public trust and health policy? Repeated and condescending lies and gas-lighting from those in charge.

so also does the firehose of conspiracy theory's, misinformation and lunatic fringe that appears to be the overtly noisy minority on all forms of media these days.

I'm going to jump in here, because I wanted to make a point about conspiracy theorists, too.

What pisses me off most about this is that now it's so much easier for a conspiracy theorist to believe in government cover-ups of big, important things. One of my family members is way into all this stuff, and next time I tell him cancer isn't cured because how would all the experts across the globe all simultaneously keep that a secret--he's gonna point at this.

People can be stupid and believe really crazy ideas, but let's not have governments and experts lying to the people they represent.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#203

Post by AnthonyMouse »

awb wrote: post #61
Jimmc414 wrote: post #3

[But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.] The entire foundation of science is based upon empirical observation and asking hypothetical questions. It is discouraging that scientists can make sta…

> The entire foundation of science is based upon empirical observation and asking hypothetical questions True, but it’s possible to ask questions that sway public opinion. Look at all the “studies” tobacco companies paid for. Or the racist scientific theories that attempted to justify slavery. If you’re asking questions about a lab leak out of genuine scientific interest, that’s perfectly legitimate. But if you’re as…

> If you’re asking questions about a lab leak out of genuine scientific interest, that’s perfectly legitimate.

> But if you’re asking out of a desire to win political points, stir up tensions, etc., that’s destructive.

The trouble is that it's often both.

Suppose proof of a lab leak is bad for party A and good for party B. If no investigation takes place, people will assume it didn't happen. If we don't actually know the answer then party A is politically motivated to refuse to investigate and party B is politically motivated to demand an answer to the question better than "we don't know because we didn't look."

There may not be any party C who is completely disinterested and unbiased. You either investigate it or you don't. And either choice is politically charged.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#204

Post by donny2018 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #187
awb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of which was TWO BLOCKS from where the wet market from where the original Covid-19 virus which started the pandemic has been traced to TWO BLOCKS? Or a 40min drive? This is why the lab leak theory feels conspiracy-adjacent. Too much exaggeration. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/D961/production/... > The institute is a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market where the first cluster of infections e…

This is a common problem with conspiracies when they actually happened. You still get "conspiracy theorists" showing up with theories contrary to evidence or fabrications or misrememberings of details. Which then discredits their own position -- even if the conspiracy actually happened -- because it didn't happen the way they claim it did. There is a conspiracy theory that this method is used by conspirators to effec…

>There is a conspiracy theory that this method is used by conspirators to effect a coverup by discrediting skeptics of the official narrative.

This is actual public disinformation practice, not a "conspiracy theory".

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#205

Post by Thorrez »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #180
DevKoala wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean it is non-actionable? If it was a lab leak we can determine what conditions lead to the leak and adopt better safety measures. The lab leak was most likely a protocol error and without a collective awareness of the cause, the population cannot push our elected leaders to demand better safety protocols.

Who is "we"? And if it's a weapons lab, what makes you think China is going to allow geopolitical adversaries to poke around to make a more secure and safer environment? This idea works with countries that can't defend themselves against the West such as Iraq, but it's always backed by an invasion. No such option exists in the case of China, so their sovereignty will remain unsullied.

A weapons lab? I could be wrong, but I thought the scientists were doing gain of function research because it helped them get published.

If there was an international agreement to stop gain of function research, then that motivation would be gone.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#206

Post by AnthonyMouse »

donny2018 wrote: post #204
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common problem with conspiracies when they actually happened. You still get "conspiracy theorists" showing up with theories contrary to evidence or fabrications or misrememberings of details. Which then discredits their own position -- even if the conspiracy actually happened -- because it didn't happen the way they claim it did. There is a conspiracy theory that this method is used by conspirators to effec…

>There is a conspiracy theory that this method is used by conspirators to effect a coverup by discrediting skeptics of the official narrative. This is actual public disinformation practice, not a "conspiracy theory".

Moon landing conspiracy theories are full of discredited nonsense. It is a conspiracy theory to claim that the source of the discredited nonsense is the people who faked the moon landing, because the moon landing wasn't faked so there were no such conspirators to do that.

Distinguishing this from the other thing is the issue. They do it because it works.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#207

Post by sudosysgen »

riyadparvez wrote: post #185
sudosysgen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now a single passage out of context that accounts for 4 out of 1000 differing nucleotides is proof positive that the author's mind was absolutely settled that it was a lab leak? Give me a break.

This is what I've written: > while privately discussed that not only it is a possibility, some of them believed it's *highly probable*. This is what you have written: > proof positive that the author's mind was *absolutely settled* that it was a lab leak Judge for yourself. I am not going to respond to any of your comment on this thread. Peace.

There is actually only one of these people that pronounced themselves about the implausibility of it being a lab leak. The only email attributed to him don't say that he thinks it was "highly probable", just that he didn't find at the time an explanation for those 14 nucleotides.

Do you have something about Mike Farzan saying, in public, that it was very unlikely that the lab leak theory was true? Or is it then incorrect to say that individual virologists were saying privately one thing and publicly another?

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#208

Post by throwaway4good »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #160
perihelions wrote: post #6

> "Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”." > "He added: “I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan.”" This pair of quotes has a completely different meaning from the original quote it sliced up: > "I am also agnostic on this – I do not have any experience of…

dishonesty in the Telegraph in this case might be caused by scientific illiteracy, that is to say they might honestly have thought that their selective quotations were a reflecting the message of the longer quote. Or maybe I'm being too lenient in attributing to incompetence and not malice here.

Also notice the last bit in the article:

The University of Edinburgh recently turned down an Freedom of Information request from The Telegraph asking to see Prof Rambaut’s replies, claiming “disclosure would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health and safety of individuals”.

James Comer, the Republican congressman who secured the unredacted emails, said it showed that experts like Dr Fauci had taken the Wuhan lab leak theory “much more seriously” than they had let on.

Sir Jeremy has been approached for comment but had not replied at the time of publication.

Basically journalists and politicians scour thousands of emails to find a selected quote that fit their sensationalist agenda, and then ask the persons involved for a comment. When they then explain how the quote is out of context, doesn't say what journalist thinks it says, or that new information is out. Then they get harrassed and bullied by a (mostly) online mob.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#209

Post by senectus1 »

disambiguation wrote: post #117
senectus1 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so also does the firehose of conspiracy theory's, misinformation and lunatic fringe that appears to be the overtly noisy minority on all forms of media these days.

Deliberate misinformation directly from your government meant to control the reaction of the masses is orders of magnitude more dangerous than your right-wing uncle meme-ing on Facebook. Not even close.

Not sure I agree.

Its harder for Gov to keep a secret than it is for a facebook group to maintain a lie.

much much harder.

And there are various degrees of accountability to every level of a Gov. Not as much as I'd like and not as reliable as i'd like it to be, but its there.

there is zero, zilch, no accountability for facebook liars.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#210

Post by sudosysgen »

garbagetime wrote: post #175
sudosysgen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no sense is the source Reddit, anymore than the source of a New York Times article is paper, or the source of my word is your screen. Citing sources is meant to borrow the credibility of the source for elements of your argument. Not to attribute that credibility to the sheet of paper your pen is inking.

I suspect you've locked onto the specific denotation of "source" as being an individual article. That is not the only denotation of the word. It can also refer to, as examples, persons or journals.

I absolutely haven't. A source can be an article itself (as in the content), or it can be an organisation (a joirnal, a newspaper), or it can be a person. I'm saying that the source isn't the medium over which the content itself is delivered. So for example, the New York Time is a source, so is any given article and it's associated author. However, the blank paper on which it was printed isn't a source, neither is the ink it was printed on, and correspondingly a website which merely relays words is not a source, but a medium.
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