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Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

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Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#411

Post by garren »

robomartin wrote: post #398
nomel wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, it has reached the top, with the most disturbing phrase I’ve seen come out of the White House [1]: “When you are not with where the majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.” 1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dButKWnTmG8&feature=emb_title

The majority of any population (not just USA) are ignorant about most topics. Masses are not intelligent. This is particularly true of a range of topics, from economics and financial domains to anything in the sciences and engineering. The masses are also really bad at being intelligent about anything that requires a long term view or planning. Given that, it is probably fair to say that the intelligent people are li…

I’d be curious to get a better understanding of the “solar energy reali[sm]” that you mentioned. It sounds like you’re suggesting that solar is less practical or efficient than we’ve been led to believe.

I’ve got at least 3 neighbors by me with arrays that effectively eliminate their monthly home energy costs, that seems pretty great. Is that not a realistic expectation for most people with the time/money to invest in such a setup?

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#412

Post by rtikulit »

sinecure wrote: post #274

I think covid's lasting impact will be one of vastly growing mistrust in the political and scientific organizations that society looks to for guidance. From the CDC's ever changing guidelines, the liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission, the labeling of media pushed medical hypothesis as "science" and any debate as heresy, the effortless militarization of common citizens to so…

Are you claiming that all authorities, organizations, businesses and experts acted (and are continuing to act) largely in bad faith?

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#413

Post by telchar »

ethbr0 wrote: post #173
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fundamental difference with nuclear theory is that nukes don't self-assemble more nukes. The exponential replication of biological pandemics means there are very different optima. Whether that's in favor of GoF or anti-GoF, I can't say. It's a tradeoff between {increased risk of pandemic & more prepared for pandemic} vs {decreased risk of pandemic & less prepared for pandemic}. A sane response probably means we s…

That’s the fundamental difference from the anti-GOF side. The fundamental difference from the pro-GOF side is that understanding exactly how a nuke works gets you no closer to being able to protect a population from nukes because there is no such thing as a nuke vaccine.

Your suggestion seems like a likely workable compromise if one of those labs is primarily in the US/Euro sphere and the other is primarily in the Russia/China sphere, with enforced transparency.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#414

Post by tbrownaw »

mikkergp wrote: post #384
nomel wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, it has reached the top, with the most disturbing phrase I’ve seen come out of the White House [1]: “When you are not with where the majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.” 1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dButKWnTmG8&feature=emb_title

Isn't this just the definition of the word extreme? I mean, I get that maybe they're using the word extreme to equal bad (maybe not), but I think this is just the definition of the word. Why do you think it's bad to have an extreme opinion? I probably have quite a few of extreme opinions. Some wrong, some right, some I cherish, some I dismiss.

> Isn't this just the definition of the word extreme?

Nope.

Consider, say, this chart of adult male height (no idea if it's actually accurate, that's not really the point): https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ip4sMYv438c/TRjMhUlQczI/AAAAAAAAA...

The majority are around 5'7" - 5'10".

"Extreme" would be the tail ends, say 6'3".

There's a fair bit between those, that is neither part of the majority nor extreme.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#415

Post by credit_guy »

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…

Here's some evidence: if you fart in an elevator, it stinks, but if you fart outdoors, not so much.

Viruses, as opposed to farts, don't smell, but otherwise they are similar. If someone coughs outdoors, the aerosols containing the viral particles just spread around and soon their concentration becomes negligible. If someone coughs, or just breathes indoors, the aerosols spread, but if the space is not very large, their concentration will stay elevated, enough to infect other people.

With this preamble out of the way, what is the hypothetical scenario where the pandemic starts in the market? Covid does not spread from dead meat, it's an airborne disease. Was there some live bat (or pangolin) that was sneezing in some enclosed space, and some people acquired the virus there? A google search shows links with evidence to the contrary ([1], [2]).

Here's and NY Times article [3] that's arguing for the non-lab-leak origin, but you'll notice they are using misdirection (e.g. "dozens of species that can carry pathogens that infect humans" -> ok, this says nothing specific about Covid, but is written to prime the reader to think Covid was among those pathogens).

Overall, the simplest explanation is that one lab worker acquired the disease from aerosols in the lab produced by the lab mice infected with the virus. The worker then left the lab and stopped here and there (home too) and left aerosols that some other people inhaled. Whenever it was outdoors, the aerosols did not cause infections, but sometimes when it was indoors, they did. Is it possible that that person went to the market nearby to have lunch or dinner and coughed or sneezed while indoors, and some of the market workers, or co-diners got infected? It does not sound outrageous.

You can envision tons of plausible scenarios with an initial lab worker getting infected, but you need to get into contorted scenarios to cook up a theory where some bats from a few thousand kilometers away get transported to Wuhan and fail to infect anyone on their way, then the disease explodes like a bomb in Wohan, and then nobody is able to find evidence of those live bats being sold in that market.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2

[2] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/wet-market-sources-co...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/world/wuhan-animal-market...

[4]

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#416

Post by 0x445442 »

vidro3 wrote: post #254
0x445442 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your speculation of the poster’s positions on said questions is not in good faith either. Even if your assumptions were correct, they’re entirely irrelevant as the questions stand on their own.

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.

> but I think it make sense to question the motivation in this instance.

By this logic it's equally valid to question the motivation of someone hand waving the questions away as "copy pasta" rather than just answering them. The Socratic method is a perfectly valid way to further an argument.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#417

Post by tripletao »

oasisbob wrote: post #289
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…

> If you read the papers that claim natural origin, these turn out to be extremely weakly argued. What didn't you like about Pekar 2022?

You mean the polytomy argument? As I said earlier, it's incredibly weak. They're assuming they can capture the spread of the first human cases in an SIR-type model well enough to recreate the shape of that early phylogenetic tree. During this pandemic, such models haven't shown particularly good accuracy in forecasting case count at a country level, certainly no better than less physical curve-fitting approaches like Youyang Gu's. I see no reason to believe such a model would be accurate on the more difficult problem of SARS-CoV-2's early spread, in an unknown group of people with unknown behaviors, and perhaps different biology for those earliest variants too.

Essentially Pekar's argument is a "two introductions of the gaps"--that if their model of a single introduction doesn't conform to reality, then it must have been two introductions. But the other possibility is simply that their model is wrong. I see no reason to exclude that. Here are some Twitter threads expressing the same concerns in more detail:

https://twitter.com/NimwegenLab/status/1563490916006264833

https://twitter.com/nizzaneela/status/1509431997713764352

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#418

Post by arisAlexis »

barnacled wrote: post #272
arisAlexis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sophistry. The OP is stating facts. You are being "vague" by saying that these have been "debunked" relying on the long term "no conspiracy" theory which does really not apply in this case. This is a very clear Bayesian probability problem.

No, you literally said 'all his claims are facts until proven otherwise'. I am not being vague, I literally posted a link to a rebuttal thread. This is why I don't post on hacker news any more.

You guys are missing the point. Either you believe some unknown variable has zero probability or even if it is small you think ifs not worth discovering, for an event that is the most important since ww2. Is there proof of zero probability? No.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#419

Post by tripletao »

barnacled wrote: post #80
chrisan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope this gets more upvotes. Kind of dismaying the number of people relying on tweets with no source(s). Haven't we learned enough over these years of misinformation and "fake news"? TLDR the tweet string from the actual Dr of Virology: evidence so far points to natural but more info is needed

Ah I expected to get downvoted into oblivion, I know it's a cliche to say it but HN isn't what it once was. A key point to take away is that the fact there are 2 lineages means that lab leak is super unlikely. It would require somebody from the lab to come to the same relatively small market to give lineage A, then somebody else who got infected through a totally different evolutionary route at the lab to happen to c…

The two lineages are literally just two SNPs apart. SARS-CoV-2 averages ~1/3 of an SNP per human-to-human transition, so ~1/9 of such transmissions generate "two lineages" at least that different. So intuitively, it seems easy to believe those lineages could have evolved in just a few weeks of early cryptic (unsampled) human spread.

Pekar et al. did some complicated modeling that purports to establish that the MRCA in humans is so recent that the two lineages must have arisen in animals, implying two introductions into humans. I believe that's highly suspect though, per my explanation and links at

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32740568

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#420

Post by yonaguska »

hackerlight wrote: post #354
yonaguska wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you still think we have decentralized media figures simply copying each other...when all your media companies air the same advertisements from the same pharmaceutical companies, it's no surprise that they would all take the same opinions. Speaking for American media only. They might not be conspiring with each other, but they are certainly are taking orders from the same places. This doesn't cover the other news e…

> They might not be conspiring with each other, but they are certainly are taking orders from the same places. I don't see enough evidence for this claim. The simpler explanation is that they're lazy (as most humans are) and scared to dissent (as most humans are), therefore they don't bother doing original work that challenges the accepted wisdom and they copy each other. I do have some evidence for this. Within hour…

> Lol, very few people are minimizing Azov or other far-right groups in Ukraine. Everyone knows they're a huge problem

Your response to the USA spearheading propaganda efforts to support far right neo-nazi's is- 1) they failed and 2) russian nazi's are worse.

My problem is with the fact that the US did it at all, whether we agree or disagree on the success of that operation isn't part of my point.

As for media being driven by conspiring forces, I agree that they are lazy and scared to dissent, but this doesn't account for everything. I'm not going to take the time to prove that right now. If you truly believe the media organizations are benign, just lazy and conformists, then I doubt I can change your mind anyways.

> albeit they are a problem that is caused by Russia's invasion in 2014

Unrelated, they were an organization that existed long before Russia's invasion, and they arguably played a crucial role in ensuring that the peaceful Euromaiden protests turned bloody. This goes back to CIA Operation ANYFACE, and subsequent Western intervention during the Cold War and after the fall of the USSR to combat Russian influence.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article216406.html https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/operation-anyface-how...

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