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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

#721

Post by [deleted] »

afpx wrote: post #717
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior…

A scientist parks her car under a tree, everyday. Occasionally, branches fall off and scratch her car. Today, she goes outside and sees that her window is smashed. She looks around to find the branch that smashed her window but can't find it. She notices some kids playing baseball nearby. They look guilty. However, scientist rules that the window was broken by a branch because strong prior knowledge.

[deleted]

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

#723

Post by cloverich »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #305
bellyfullofbac wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, holding strong to the logic that's like a mom concluding of her kindergartner "You're being evasive, this means definitely that you're hiding something" is ridiculous. If the outbreak started in Colorado, and Russia wanted access to the CDC lab there, Americans (officials and public) would also be crying and screaming...

If Russia wanted access to a CDC lab, the Americans would be crying and screaming regardless of whether something happened there or not.

Said hypothetical should include the disease originating around the lab, numerous conspicuous coverups and missing people, and a lack of transparent investigation. Should such a scenario happen, I think your argument becomes a bit of a strawman (i.e. that a segment of every nation's population would always cry foul in said scenario). I would expect more than just Russia would want access, and likewise that plenty of US citizens would protest as well.

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

#724

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

afpx wrote: post #717
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior…

A scientist parks her car under a tree, everyday. Occasionally, branches fall off and scratch her car. Today, she goes outside and sees that her window is smashed. She looks around to find the branch that smashed her window but can't find it. She notices some kids playing baseball nearby. They look guilty. However, scientist rules that the window was broken by a branch because strong prior knowledge.

>> However, scientist rules that the window was broken by a branch because strong prior knowledge.

Prior knowledge doesn't stop you from forming new hypotheses, otherwise we wouldn't be going anywhere. The way it works is, you make an observation, you form a hypothesis to explain the observations based on prior knowledge and then you test your hypothesis with new observations. Ideally you look for observations that allow you to refute your hypothesis (because refutation is more secure than positive proof). If you can't find evidence to refute your hypothesis, you adopt it, provisionally, until such time as you have sufficient evidence to support it with good certainty, or until you have found evidence against it.

In your example, the initial observation is the broken window. The prior knowledge is that branches keep falling off and scratching the car. The hypothesis is that a branch fell and broke the car window. The second observation that tests the hypothesis is that there is no fallen branch around the car. This observation refutes the hypothesis. Then the scientist is free to go looking for additional observations and form a new hypothesis: the kids playing baseball nearby are the new observation. The next hypothesis is that they broke the window.

This process actually works very well in most situations where we have uncertainty and need an explanation, be it in the sciences or everyday world. I think you assume it's just some idealised version of "science" in the broad, but it's actually the most solid form of empirical reasoning we know of.

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

#725

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

undecisive wrote: post #716
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior…

This is all utter horse manure. > We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally Correct. We also have very strong prior knowledge that existing diseases can be manipulated and produced by means of unnatural selection. We also have strong prior knowledge that this particular lab have done a fair amount of that. With coronaviruses. With bats. 5 minutes with wikipedia would tell you that. It's a bit…

>> This is all utter horse manure.

That's great to know. Thank you for your kind and dignified contribution.

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

#726

Post by Maursault »

krisoft wrote: post #349
slg wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really weird how HN talks about this in comparison to similar topics. For example, this is the exact same logic that leads people to believe that encrypting data or using Tor is evidence of someone trying to hide criminal behavior. Almost everyone here would object to that type of thinking, but when it comes to China it suddenly becomes "Why would they object to transparency unless they had something to hide?".

Yes. Countries and people are two different thing and the expected and acceptable behaviours are different too. If you write an officially sounding letter to your neighbour demanding to know how they come to choose the paint to repaint their bikeshed you are a weirdo and they are in their right to ignore you. If you write the same letter to a city official about a public bikeshed you are sending a freedom of informat…

You missed GP's point, which apparently was equating personal privacy with China's national security. I didn't think twice about China's lack of transparency. It's normal and expected behavior from China, so I would never suspect it to mean they were hiding something that was actually salient to the global pandemic... they're just hiding everything, but all it amounts to is hiding whatever corruption comes with government. IOW what they're usually hiding is often well known and is nothing interesting. Suspicion of things being hidden, wild speculation on it and tenuously attaching it somehow to common strife seems to be a conservative theme.

What always interests me is:

1) How many pandemics have there been? 2) How many lab leaks have there been? 3) How many lab leaks have caused outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics? 4) What is the cause of every other pandemic?

The answers lead me to believe a lab leak of virulent COVID, if it occurred, and let's assume it did, is only a coincidence, and the hidden cause of this pandemic is, while somehow the most unsuspected in light of the assumed lab leak, was the same cause as every other pandemic, ever.

I think the article just shows that experts are human and subject to human bias, and as such, like everyone else that similarly succumbed to bias, foolish for considering or believing in something with literally millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions to one odds against (lab leaks happen occasionally, there have probably been hundreds to thousands of lab leaks in 100 years, but over eons there have been millions of pandemics, and in recorded history, there have been enough of them to see a clear pattern: viruses jump species, people living and working in close proximity to animals are infected, the infection spreads).

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

#727

Post by KingOfCoders »

tim333 wrote: post #683
KingOfCoders wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who is right. A lab that does bat related research and is located where bats have traditionally shown these viruses, it's hard to determine cause and effect. "When I first heard about the Arctic, I thought about that Arctic ice research institute in a nano second. There are only two places. There are not a dozen places, it's two places."

>A lab that does bat related research and is located where bats have traditionally shown these viruses But it isn't - the bats carrying coronaviruses live 600+ miles away. Wuhan was actually used as a control in a paper on bat coronaviruses as a population that wasn't exposed to them.

Ah didn't know, do you have a map with all the bat viruses say last 20 years in the wild + Wuhan? Couldn't find one, perhaps I don't have the right Google keywords.

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

#728

Post by native_samples »

chimprich wrote: post #553
native_samples wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the advice that wearing a mask doesn't protect you very well from getting Covid has held up pretty good; they're a lot better at protecting everyone else from the mask wearer." They're actually no good at anything. You can compare places that were right next to each other and which differed only in mask mandates, or look at the times mask mandates were introduced and removed. Cases don't shift. See the graphs here,…

This is nonsense. You can't do comparisons like that. For example, mask mandates tend to get imposed when cases are rising, and removed when they fall. To say they have no effect on cases is to confuse cause and effect. The conspiracy site you link to has no interest in looking at the data dispassionately. There's a reason why we have data science and peer review to investigate these things.

The site I link to isn't a "conspiracy site", it's a blog written by a guy who does lots of data analysis. Please, have you not learned yet that this word is meaningless anyway?

There are lots of cases where mask mandates were not added and removed at the times you claim, which were geographically next to each other, and in which there was no observed difference. There are lots of cases where mask mandates were added and the trend of the case graph didn't change at all. These are evidence against the hypothesis that masks work which was, note, the standard belief prior to mid-2020. That's why public health officials all said mass masking doesn't work. It's because it doesn't.

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

#729

Post by undecisive »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #725
undecisive wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all utter horse manure. > We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally Correct. We also have very strong prior knowledge that existing diseases can be manipulated and produced by means of unnatural selection. We also have strong prior knowledge that this particular lab have done a fair amount of that. With coronaviruses. With bats. 5 minutes with wikipedia would tell you that. It's a bit…

>> This is all utter horse manure. That's great to know. Thank you for your kind and dignified contribution.

Any time.

I will point out though, I would rather be undignified and call out bad arguments, than saying it takes a "certain type of person" to show bad arguments.

Prove me wrong. Show me the arguments that actually do make sense. I'd love to have a good reason not to sit on the fence, these spikes ain't doing my piles any good.

But quite frankly, my dignity doesn't care.

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

#730

Post by jokethrowaway »

himinlomax wrote: post #523
mike_d wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc. That is par for the course. The Chinese government would have acted this way regardless of if it was a lab leak, natural event, or space aliens.

No kidding: the best (and only?) argument against the lab leak theory is that the communist dictatorship is just acting like a dictatorship.

No, it's that it happened right next to a centre doing Gain Of Function research on coronaviruses.

If you prefer to close your eyes and keep blaming a bat in the nearby Wuhan fish market, you're free to do so.

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