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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34949969.)
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What it means is that we lack the ability to prove either of those theories, not necessarily that either theory is bad.
This entirely depends on the total amount of theories. It also assumes the known theories cover all possible origins. Saying COVID evolved from nature is sort of a catch all. It's like saying all possible theories in aggregate except for the lab leak theory. For example: What are the chances of anyone but you winning the lottery? Quite high. So when they say low confidence of the lab leak theory it most likely means…
Low confidence means inability to prove or disprove. That is it.
Edit: extrapolating further about this is just a Rorschach test.
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A lot of people seem to think the lab leak premise is the same as the "engineered biological weapon" premise so if that become popular it'll probably only drive a perception of "weak government that betrays the citizens" even more than we've already got...
Lab leak involves bio-engineering because it involves gain of function research. Bio-engineering can be used in a testing setting but it could also be used to make a weapon. I highly doubt China was stupid enough to make a bioweapon and not immunize its citizens first. The significance of getting people to investigate, and if all things are true, confirm lab leak is that it puts an impetus on the importance of contro…
> The October 2021 report said that there was a consensus that Covid-19 wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program. But it didn’t settle the debate over whether it resulted from a lab leak or came from an animal, saying that more information was needed from the Chinese authorities.
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Yeah, instead it was sheer incompetence and arrogance. They screwed up because they poorly handled the virus while doing something they should never have been doing: gain-of-function research. We need to stop that research, and we can't let them defend it with any nonsense excuses.
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Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. This subthread was a noticeable step in that direction and we want the opposite here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34949969 .)
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The headline is absolutely, literally true. I also don't understand the nuance that anyone could miss here. The astounding thing is that the Energy Dept. can say that a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic, and people jump out in front of them to say that what they somehow still mean is that a lab leak wasn't the cause of the pandemic. They have "low confidence" that it was a lab leak ( there might not e…
How can "low confidence" and "higher confidence than all other theories combined" jive? Does it require "all other theories" to not include "we don't have a clue" which is the most likely of all or am I missing something else?
Its fairly standard SOP. If you don't know what it means that video explains it fairly well.
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Of course there's a reservoir. That's why there was a lab in the first place. There are many more viruses in those caves. Many many. And tourists literally pay money to go into such caves, and look up to the ceiling to look at the bats. Bats that may at any time shit into their eye with one of these new viruses. And then on top of that people catch them and sell them live to slaughter them at home to eat. Again, this…
Well its been years, why haven't they found the reservoir yet then? They would obviously want to since it would prove that it wasn't a lab leak, yet as far as I know they haven't claimed to have found it yet.
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It's not like any other options have high confidence. All theories are low confidence right now because there is no conclusive proof for either. But if you support some, you are the defender of science, and if you support another, you are a filthy conspirologist and get banned from social media. Try explaining that to 95% of the American populace.
I think it has more to do with the fact that one opinion is supported by more conspiracy nuts. Doesn’t mean it isn’t the right answer, but having lots of crazies insisting it is the only possible answer makes more grounded people less credible in the eyes of others.
Evaluating an empirical claim based on the aggregate character of those who are supporting it rather than actual steelmanned arguments is poor epistemic hygiene. It's a commonly-used justification for tribal epistemic closure - "the red tribe has lower IQ than average, therefore they are wrong in every disagreement with the blue tribe."
There's an equally-negative opposite of a "conspiracy nut" here - something like "sheeple".
There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…
Good luck getting 95% of the American populace to understand any of that nuance. After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to.
I linked a video above that explains it very simply.
There isn't much nuance to it at all.
The lab leak hypothesis makes the most sense. The lab in Wuhan which researches coronaviruses conducts experiences on animals, including bats. Like other labs, there are dedicated personnel for hydrating and feeding the experimental animals. Notably, there are "wet markets" in Wuhan where live animals are sold, including bats, which harbor coronaviruses. Someone who is working in the facility in charge of maintenance…
I don't understand the mental gymnastics to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. The fact that the lab and epicenter of the virus are in the same geographic area make it the likely scenario and warrants the most investigation. The efforts to look past this seem artificial.