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Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

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Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#291

Post by cloverich »

gfodor wrote: post #263
vidro3 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

these questions are basically copy pasta amongst the lab-leak crowd. that doesn't mean they aren't valid but I think it make sense to question the motivation in this instance.

What’s the best way to raise these facts - are you supposed to just list them out since writing them in the form of a question is misleading or something?

It is considered a more genuine take, yes. When posed as a series of questions as such, it is meant in a sense to lead while initially posing as genuine curiosity. To level set, genuine and very general curiosity is maybe the most typical feature that holds this community together.

IMHO A more genuine approach would be to list the key points and why they are compelling to one of that persuasion. Or alternatively, to more directly take a position: "I find the lab leak hypothesis compelling, and TFA/primary objection's don't explain or " etc.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#292

Post by BryantD »

glofish wrote: post #114

The main point that no scientists seems to want to mention is the clear cut and well defined conflict of interest in determining the origins. How would the scientists of the future ask for funding if it turns out they themselves directly caused an epidemic? It is a black eye for science, it provides ammunition to the "anti-science" crowd. In contrast scientists are in the drivers position if the cause was all natural…

This doesn’t convince me because we have a recent covid-related example of scientists making a significant mistake and admitting it: namely, the primary means of transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, the scientific community argued that transmission was surface-based. As more data came in, it became evident that transmission was aerosol-related. This was a huge mistake with significant implications, but nobody tried to cover it up.

I conclude that scientists are more truth-motivated than you assert.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#293

Post by dathinab »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #50
jtc331 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a natural fork in the road here which is why this is so contentious. The best argument gain of function proponents have for their research (besides weaponization of course) is to create the next big thing in a lab first so that we can figure out how to neutralize it. The argument the anti-GoF advocates have is that creating the next big thing in a lab leads eventually/inevitably to at least one of them gettin…

Nuke Game Theory all over again, with AGI to add too!

IMHO it's not the same, very different nonce and factors of control leading to quite different dynamics

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#294

Post by svnpenn »

ok_computer wrote: post #288

Hi, content aside, tweet chains posts are terrible to read on any device. And twitter bugs me to log in to track me through the browser. To all the people who think this is the best way to deliver information to their audience please stop. 1/1

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#295

Post by brnaftr361 »

chasil wrote: post #26
thegabriele wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature did in the past many times, didn't it?

Not really that many times. 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.

No, it was the neolithic, and in particular animal husbandry that was the culprit rather than simply urbanization which was a later emergence. And when you contrast new world peoples who had very few animals to domesticate, there's only one disease thought to have originated there: syphilis. This is despite the records of highly concentrated populations in various regions in the New World.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#296

Post by californical »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #223
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, to this day, there are still exactly zero RCTs showing that masks were ever effective against COVID, and at least two major RCTs whose results indicate they are not very effective (there was no statistically significant benefit to masking). If, after two years of a world-wide pandemic, the best evidence we can put forth are low-quality observational studies which explicitly state they cannot show cau…

You do you, but I've enjoyed not even getting the slightest cold for the last couple years that I might just keep masking in a lot of public spaces for the foreseeable future. It's anecdata for sure, but my experience seems to suggest that masks can help protect against airborne transmissible viral infections. For more anecdata, pretty much everyone in my extended contacts that has chosen to relax their masking postu…

I do wonder if there are long-term affects from sheltering our immune systems for extended periods.

Now, I’m still in favor of wearing masks in some particularly high-risk places. And absolutely supported masks in the earlier days (until vaccines were readily available & common).

But by not getting exposure to the regular tiny amounts of bacteria and viruses that float around from other people (our body deals with quickly and we never feel sick), do we know anything about the long term affects of that on the immune system? Genuinely curious because I couldn’t find anything.

We know it causes an increase in blood-CO2 concentration: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072811/

And possibly a decrease in white blood cell count: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34585544/

But I don’t think we know yet if there are long-term immune system complications

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#297

Post by slg »

gfodor wrote: post #263
vidro3 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

these questions are basically copy pasta amongst the lab-leak crowd. that doesn't mean they aren't valid but I think it make sense to question the motivation in this instance.

What’s the best way to raise these facts - are you supposed to just list them out since writing them in the form of a question is misleading or something?

Just my personal opinion here, I think this is an acceptable rhetorical device normally, but specifically in covid discussions this is an off-putting approach. "Just asking questions" is a common strategy among covid deniers and anti-vax folks who are also often pro-lab leak hypothesis.

When I see a comment like the top most one in this thread, I can't tell if the author is actually coming to this discussion in good faith with a fact based approach or they are a nut job "just asking questions". Is the author meaning for the audience to infer actual confirmed facts or are they trying to imply guilt without any actual evidence? In this situation it is better to actually write out the facts with sources verifying them. Without that, the author risks being lumped in with the crazies.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#298

Post by [deleted] »

Retric wrote: post #249
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists who aren't part of the monolith find themselves pushed out as wacko conspiracy theorists. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the past thirty or so months. Even HN took part in this, supporting the depersoning of anyone who dared question the natural origin narrative. Scientists aren't a monolith as long as you include those who have been threatened with dire c…

HN isn’t part of the scientific community. You can find peer reviewed research published on the lab leak idea shows it was considered orthodox enough to be worth looking at. As recently as June of this year, WHO still wants to look more deeply at it. That said, it’s considered fringe because there isn’t enough evidence supporting the idea and the meat market theory showed up first.

[deleted]

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#299

Post by oasisbob »

WithinReason wrote: post #195
samwillis wrote: post #47

Other than the second tweet in the thread (which source is questionable, see edit below), no sources are provided. Does anyone have a list of sources for the claims in the remaining eight tweets? It's a compelling list of "facts" but without sources and an understanding of the science it's difficult to ascertain whether this is a genuinely strong argument by a "blue check mark" academic. Edit: This is the Nature edit…

>There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus. Well, 2 things: 1. An animal could be the source of the virus which could be leaked from a lab. Even with the lab leak hypothesis an animal is part of the chain, just not the last step. 2. There is also no evidence that the epidemic had no lab involvement. COVID was never found in any animal from t…

> 2. There is also no evidence that the epidemic had no lab involvement

The timing of the A and B lineages spreading at the same time strongly indicates multiple spillover events.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#300

Post by Izkata »

mellavora wrote: post #158
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. Knowing what caused this should be important, so it doesn't happen again. If it happens naturally and randomly, there's nothing we can do. If it was a lab leak, maybe some special precautions should be taken, or such things should not be done in labs with iffy security practices... or maybe even not done at all. Many workplace (and general) safety rules were written because someone has died doing something (…

> If it happens naturally and randomly, there's nothing we can do. Some people say the main progress of civilization is the ability to do things about forces which were previously seen as natural and random. > If it was a lab leak, maybe some special precautions should be taken, Do you mean like making sure the labs follow certain biohazard handling standards and procedures? Which they currently have to do to maintai…

> Do you mean like making sure the labs follow certain biohazard handling standards and procedures? Which they currently have to do to maintain their certifications/ratings?

Part of the lab leak claim is that the 2018 experiments mentioned in the tweet were done in a BSL2 lab even though they required BSL3 or 4.

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