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

telegraph.co.uk

251–260 of 833 posts

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

#251
post #223

I think the clearest article on topic is from Zeynep Tufekci https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-lab.h... who says , repeatedly what we do not know and what is disturbing.

Somebody in HN recommended Zeynep Tufekci for covid coverage, and I'm really thankful for that, as IMO is quality scientific journalism.

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

#252
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Yeah, the line in there about how "debate on such accusations will cause the voices of conspiracy to dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.", to paraphrase, almost made me laugh out loud.

Do they really not see the glaring irony there? They are creating the voices of conspiracy all on their own by hiding that information. They are the ones doing harm to science and international harmony.

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

#253
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Getting into crypto around 2012 dramatically highlighted this for me.

Many in here still regurgitate the same talking points I saw published then.

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

#254
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Yep. I'm a case in point. At the beginning of this thing i went along with the mainstream narrative like a good sheeple. Now that i've watched how a narrative can go from 'your a crazy person to believe there COULD have been a lab leak' to 'yahhh it was probably a lab leak the whole time'...my faith has probably been permenantly destroyed in main-stream sources of information. Which sucks because idealy i just want to focus on what i'm good at and let others do what they are good at. But now its been shown that the people who are supposed to take care of gathering the facts and presenting them to the public have agendas and will lie if they see it fit. Not sure how any semblance of democracy survives with people like this in charge.

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

#255
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

You've studied and worked on viruses?

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

#256
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

"Trust the science" hasn't made people more rational, it has made "science" more dogmatic. I wonder what governments and the media will latch onto once they have eroded the trust in science, because there aren't many other trustworthy institutions left.

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

#257
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably true, but constant suspicious behavior shouldn't normalize behaving suspiciously.

If you're approaching this with a western democratic frame of mind, yes. This is not suspicious behavior in China, as the GP said - it is standard operating procedure.

I don't expect it to be suspicious or odd _in China_. What I am saying is that internationally we should not just shrug it off as "aww, it just China, they're always so sneaky and secretive even when it's nothing!" We should treat the situation as if they are indeed hiding something important every time, because otherwise, constantly acting suspiciously about everything is an effective strategy for them conceal anything important.

Barring foreign scientists, arresting journalists, and destroying evidence is always suspicious, even if they always do it, and it should always make people from open and free societies curious of why they are doing it, not shrug it off because it's the norm.

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

#258

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.

The problem is that the lab leak was dismissed as a conspiracy theory as are many of the things that have now come to pass, e.g.: ineffective vaccines, side effects. Pair that with the disinformation coming from once trusted institutions, e.g.: 5 vs 10 day quarantine, sending health care workers to work while still positive. It's no wonder people are giving more credence to these fringe groups. The government has nob…

But don't you see the conflicting positions here...

on one hand The Gov and bureaucracies in general have ham-fisted the response. This surprises no one really. we all know that Governments can be awful at these sorts of things.

yet somehow they have masterminded the development and release of a contagious bio weapon and done it in damn near perfected secrecy?

How can someone hold both those statements with equal weight in their minds at the same time.

does. not. compute.

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

#259
post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Getting into crypto around 2012 dramatically highlighted this for me. Many in here still regurgitate the same talking points I saw published then.

Could you list a few of those, please?
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