21–30 of 631 posts
Well I hope that at least the next lab-made pandemic will insert some beneficial mutations to humanity. In a way, the lab-leak hypothesis is comforting, because it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease, despite the facts of modern life, record human population and rates of travel. If it is not lab-made, then nature may do this again soon with another vir…
Well I hope that at least the next lab-made pandemic will insert some beneficial mutations to humanity. In a way, the lab-leak hypothesis is comforting, because it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease, despite the facts of modern life, record human population and rates of travel. If it is not lab-made, then nature may do this again soon with another vir…
Sometimes this is indirect; there is some debate on why some Europeans have immunity to HIV, the current hypothesis is that it’s a result of us surviving the Black Plague.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325234239.h...
I don’t go looking for covid discussions but they arrive in my feeds so i’m conscious i’m seeing a feed that someone(s) else curated for me and wanted me to view. That said… Is there any popular discussion or action regarding mitigation of both lab and natural origins for future? It seems that both avenues are possible. If we know both are possible, that seems like enough knowledge to move forward with exploring poss…
There is zero evidence for a lab leak, there is plenty of evidence against it (the randomness of the genetic changes between naturally occurring Covid 19 predecessors being the big piece). Yet people are (with flowery language) pretending that lack of evidence makes the "hypothesis" more likely.
It appears reasonable to assign COVID lab leak hypothesis a higher prior, in Bayesian terms, just based on the many institutions/individuals whose image/status would it directly or indirectly damage if found true (NIH, DARPA, the US, WIV, CCP), and which therefore would be compelled to paint it as unlikely.
Here's an example illustrating how bad of an argument that is:
It appears to be reasonable to assign the "your mother is a [insert derogatory term]" hypothesis a higher prior, in Bayesian terms, just based on the many familiy members whose image/status would it directly or indirectly damage if found true (your dad, your uncle, your sister, your grandparents), and which therefore would be compelled to paint it as unlikely.
Well I hope that at least the next lab-made pandemic will insert some beneficial mutations to humanity. In a way, the lab-leak hypothesis is comforting, because it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease, despite the facts of modern life, record human population and rates of travel. If it is not lab-made, then nature may do this again soon with another vir…
Nature did in the past many times, didn't it?
I understand that most of the major viral pathogens have emerged in the last 10,000 years, since urban society replaced hunter-gatherer culture.
It has not been difficult to bring what naturally evolved under control in developed countries.
I don’t go looking for covid discussions but they arrive in my feeds so i’m conscious i’m seeing a feed that someone(s) else curated for me and wanted me to view. That said… Is there any popular discussion or action regarding mitigation of both lab and natural origins for future? It seems that both avenues are possible. If we know both are possible, that seems like enough knowledge to move forward with exploring poss…
The second would be to prohibit gain of function research in general, especially with funds emerging from a country that has implemented such restrictions as the United States did.
The pathological human obsession with narratives such as this often does more harm than good.
No useful investigation can now occur. No punishment can be meted out. Any lessons learned from one origin or another can be learned now regardless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand it either
The parent is saying that the lab is close to trees, and birds live in trees, and birds have wings, and bats have wings which makes them a bit like birds that way, and bats can harbour coronaviruses. The parent is telling us we need to cut down all the trees before there's another pandemic, clearly.
It's Brandolini's law [0] in action, and no matter how many times virologists rebut these positions the same old tripe gets wheeled out again, and again, and again. If you ignore rebuttals and just repeat yourself + get 20k likes on twitter how many people are going to see a rebuttal like the excellent one from Dr Rasmussen here - https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15669764417361715...
The recent science papers which have been closely peer reviewed and none of these guys have been able to rebut (but oh have they tried, since they are VERY inconvenient for lab leak), instead it's the same tired nit-picking and misunderstanding.
For a break down of the science papers read https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15519378265808240... which goes into painful levels of detail to explain what the paper discovered and why it's so compelling and why it all but rules out lab leak.
It's sad to me that somebody with a name and position and blue tick abuses that position to spread what amounts to misinformation, but that's where we are in society I guess.
If you want a test, see how these lab leak advocates have reacted to any paper or data that pushes back against their claim. It has been a mad scramble to attack, nit-pick, dismiss and smear (Ebright especially likes confict-of-interest implications). These are not honest people.