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Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#361

Post by lovemenot »

onethought wrote: post #328
pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

Exactly. The lab leak theory is a story of cherry picking evidence to match your conclusion. Why was the wet market on the other side of the city the only identified outbreak site if it came from the lab? There were/are many markets on the other side of the river that would be much more relevant to residents living and working on that side. People looking up flu symptoms in the middle of winter is not evidence of any…

>> it feels like some kind of state run propaganda piece, I assume to just keep a negative view on China in people’s minds.

China is a fantastic country filled with amazing people, culture, history and so on. It is quite possible to recognise a country's positive characteristics while questioning specific actions by some of the people within that country. This is as true of China as it is of any other country.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#362

Post by julianeon »

HardlyCurious wrote: post #304
pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…

There is a huge difference though between “lab leak” meaning “a wild virus collected and stored at the Wuhan lab escaped”, vs. “biomedical engineers manufactured a super weapon which escaped.” I think the evidence, or at least the plausibility, of the former is excellent. For the latter, it’s poor.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#363

Post by hn_thrwn »

Xen9 wrote: post #116

I personally believe in Rootlclaim's Bayesian analysis ( https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV... ) which states that "the virus was developed during gain-of-function research and was released by accident (89% probability)" This is consistent with David Martin's speech in Europe: https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1661698114917646336 I haven't checked the "publicly available references" but m…

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Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#364

Post by throwaway2990 »

lamontcg wrote: post #267
amoss wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The map showing the clustering around the lab is not labelled in the article. It looks like the map from the senate report which used internet search history. I recall that their point in the original report was that there was a cluster of internet searches for flu-like symptoms clustered around the institute, rather than the market. There is no new direct evidence in the article, simply the weight of existing indire…

> It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing. - We have a bunch of evidence of WIV engineering SARS-1-like viruses because they talked about it before the pandemic. - We have zero evidence of them ever doing experiments on live SARS-2-like virus - We have zero evidence of the existence of a SARS-2-like progenitor virus - Before the pandemic th…

> The spread of SARS-CoV-2 looks exactly like it originated in the Seafood market.

Huh? No it doesn’t. The discussion of a possible SARS outbreak started weeks before the seafood market incident. The lab leak theory started in China BEFORE the seafood market was pinned as the cause.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#366

Post by ajross »

randomperson01 wrote: post #276
ajross wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My position hasn't changed for years: if covid was really a lab creation we'd know, because someone would have told us. An email dump, a memo, a document, an interview. Something would have leaked out. The incentives are just too high and the access is too pervasive[1] to believe otherwise. Is it possible? Sure! Is it likewise possible that some of the circumstantial claims about WIV are true? Sure! But if someone ma…

Just like someone leaked out about the Sverdlovsk lab accident - how many years did that take? http://web.archive.org/web/20210621032149/https://www.nytime...

Sverdlovsk was instantly and correctly interpreted in western intelligence communities as evidence for a weaponized anthrax program. It wasn't admitted to be so until the 90's. It's true this wasn't a "leak", but only because there was no one to leak to (the civilian world was mostly unaware it had even happened). I'm not sure I understand why you think this is evidence for the ability of the USSR to keep it secret or otherwise control perceptions?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#367

Post by ajross »

ergodic1 wrote: post #316
ajross wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if such information pops up, I will (with great surprise) re-evaluate my priors. Nonetheless I think history bears out my intuition here. The overwhelming majority of conspiracies likes this, especially ones in fundamentally civilian organizations like science labs, don't survive a year if that.

Making the claim that you know the proportion of conspiracies that get reported implies you know the number of conspiracies not reported. Im not aware of any way you could know that or the relative proportion of each. Where do you get your certainty here?

I have no certainty, that's the point! The evidence for natural evolution is pretty reasonable (it matches every other pandemic ever -- these are hardly unknown!), the evidence for lab genesis is at best circumstantial and frankly pretty heavily spun by everyone dealing in it.

You want the fact that I can't prove you wrong to be evidence that you're right, and that's not how logic works.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#368

Post by smeagull »

Matl wrote: post #358
HardlyCurious wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…

> The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. There was some indirect and even some more direct evidence of Iraq doing nuclear weapons research in some capacity at some point too, this is incredibly dangerous line to go own without being 250% sure. Indirect evidence simply doesn't cut it. > No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of build…

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Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#369

Post by Fomite »

dehrmann wrote: post #302
pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

> all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses There should be more attention on this. We're busy worrying about AI that can troll at a college level, while scientists are still busy making frankenviruses after a pandemic plausibly caused by a lab leak.

You've jumped from "do research" to "making frankenviruses" - which beyond being a sensationalist term with no formal definition, isn't necessarily the sum totality of viral research. Just the bit that the popular press likes writing lurid articles about.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#370

Post by startupsfail »

godelski wrote: post #322
HardlyCurious wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…

> No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. To add to this, most countries have turned away from infectious biological weapons because they are near impossible to control. The the release of them might harm your enemies, but at a serious cost to yourself. It is like trying to cut off your enemy's leg by cutting off your own arm. It ends up ki…

Can the lab be sued out of existence for damages?

It is quite clear that they did amplification research as they’ve planned. And had inserted the furin site into the coronavirus . And they’ve mismanaged the research and they’ve let the virus to spread. This had caused a lot of damage, in particular the deaths, economical damage, long-covid damages, mental illnesses and diminished IQ (covid brain fog). There’ve been some positive sides: diminished air travel, diminished carbon emissions, transition to work from home, more pedestrian zones in the cities, mRNA vaccine technology. But the negative side from the pandemic is still overwhelming.

Arguably this lab should be sued out of existence for damages.

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