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Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

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Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#101

Post by pelorat »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #41
sneak wrote: post #28

The origin does not matter. Nothing changes now, regardless of how it started. 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.

The origin being a lab leak would likely lead to more stringent controls around researchers.

Yes, but this is China that you're talking about where EVERYTHING is connected to a lying government. Nothing would happen except for a coverup as the Chinese government will never ever come clean.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#102

Post by chmod600 »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #45

If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea…

There is also no evidence that it came from animals directly.

Given that there are really only two plausible hypotheses, and nondirect evidence of either, we have to speculate based on circumstantial evidence.

And if one hypothesis is floated around the media, we need to raise the other one as well.

I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning).

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#103

Post by _86sk »

barnacled wrote: post #54
scotchmi_st wrote: post #45

If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea…

There is now evidence firmly against lab leak and firmly in favour of natural origins, covered in depth by a domain expert here - https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15519378265808240... I feel like this isn't publicised enough. The lab leakers are louder and people definitely seem to want it to be true more than natural origins and they are not being honest in their attempts to dismiss these papers.

What I saw is that it started in SW Indonesia, in a jungle near the coast, in 2008. That was its first appearance:

  covid-19 origin's
i see this coronavirus first originated in South West India

And first jumped to human in coastal Bengkulu/West Sumatra in Indonesia

I'll try to get time on these events

end of 2008: origination in SW india near Mangalore

1Q2013: first jumps to humans in BGK/WSU indonesia after an animal outbreak on the coast in late 2012

first substantial human outbreak: Mid 2013 slightly inland from outbreak location.

but of course there's no political capital to be made by blaming these poor places ....

feel kind of sad to consider how much of the crazy blame game is actually driven by knowledge, desire for truth and competence, and how much of it is just driven by political competition....i guess the motivation doesn't matter...the result matters. the output is not about truth it's about politics and narrative ... so sad....

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#104

Post by junofan »

kgarten wrote: post #77
barnacled wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is now evidence firmly against lab leak and firmly in favour of natural origins, covered in depth by a domain expert here - https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15519378265808240... I feel like this isn't publicised enough. The lab leakers are louder and people definitely seem to want it to be true more than natural origins and they are not being honest in their attempts to dismiss these papers.

why is this downvoted? this is an excellent thread with links to a paper that seems to show strong evidence against the lab leak ...

> there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure

From the paper.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#105

Post by projektfu »

kick_in_the_dor wrote: post #60
barnacled wrote: post #30

The problem with this is it is full of utterly debunked nonsense that Ebright knows full well has been addressed. 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 on…

Care to give us the spark notes of the paper?

The Twitter thread is the SparkNotes on the paper.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#106

Post by nostrebored »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #75
oxff wrote: post #52

I mean guys, it supposedly started next to a lab that studies the virus and they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it. If I made a Contagion 2 film that asked you to suspend your disbelief wrt. these two facts you wouldn't buy it.

It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the wet market, but not around the lab, which is more than 10 km away.[0] > a lab that studies the virus The lab did not study SARS-CoV-2. It studied viruses that are about 20% different from SARS-CoV-2. We know what viruses they were working with, because they publ…

The cases were very heavily investigated around the wet market — particularly looking at adjacent hospitals. This is an obvious example of a biased sample.

If you were doing controversial research using controversial methods how transparent would you be?

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#107

Post by eternalban »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #90

The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the Huanan wet market, but not around the lab, which is on the other side of the Wuhan, a pretty massive city.[0] If the virus had come from the lab, you'd expect the early cases to cluster around the lab. Instead, they were centered around a wet market, just like the early cases of the original SARS were back in 2002. This is completely aside from the other reaso…

As someone else has already pointed out, the provenance of the virus, and its emergence/release location are two distinct matters.

There appears to be consensus on the latter: the wet market (although some do wonder about the mystery illness in Summer of 2019, in US).

https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/11/2-dead-unknown-respirat...

"A news report from Virginia says that two people are dead and 18 have been hospitalized following an outbreak of an unknown respiratory infection at a retirement community. What could it possibly be?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Detrick#2019_closure_and_...

So, were these "mystery illnesses" caused by vaccinated US military personnel who work in F.D. cranking around Washington DC metro area?

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#108

Post by lock-the-spock »

ajross wrote: post #96
chaosbolt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence Say mr X was seen at the crime scene at 10 am, he also knew the victim and lots of people have seen them fight a week ago, the victim had just came out of the bank with 20k$ in cash in a bag, mr X who's broke have been seen driving a car a month after the crime worth 18k$. There is no evidence mr X killed the vic…

> Say mr X was The problem is that none of the circumstantial evidence for a lab leak is remotely as convincing as your hypothetical. And most of it tends to be spun. Read the linked thread and note how many times the author throws out terms like "much more likely to be lab-generated" without evidence. We don't know any of that. We have very limited understanding of wild pathogen evolution in general. Likewise the "1…

You are confusing or conflating the lab-leak and lab-made theories.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#109

Post by parkingrift »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #45

If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea…

There isn’t enough evidence to convict, so to speak, but the one place that could easily disprove the lab leak claim is the same place desperately stonewalling and destroying evidence. Acting guilty doesn’t mean your guilty, but something nefarious went on in that lab. To the point where they would rather fire bomb the entire lab than answer questions or provide documents.

>On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative.

I wonder how many such people would exist if there wasn’t such a massive media and big tech push to silence anyone discussing lab leak. At peak manipulation you were labeled a racist for discussing lab leak and permanently banned from most (all?) big tech platforms.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#110

Post by jongjong »

goblin89 wrote: post #14

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.

The evidence certainly seems to point in that direction and the absence of an official conclusion seems to support this... It should be easy to rule out the leak hypothesis. The fact that those who are implicated appear to be unable to clear their names by providing counter-evidence suggests foul play.
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