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Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

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Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#171

Post by Klinky »

kcplate wrote: post #168
Klinky wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> discount and argue against using circumstantial evidence Didn't discount or argue against using circumstantial evidence, nor did I argue against speculating. I am stating the evidence only supports the possibility, it does not prove it happened. Please stop making up false arguments. >neither side of the debate has the definitive evidence Agreed.

The original comment you replied made no claim that those two links were definitive proof of a lab leak, only that they were known to be factual. They may be circumstantial but circumstantial evidence can still be provably true. You made the leap to assume that original commenter meant it as definitive proof of a lab leak in your comment. I read the comment to mean thatit was offered as a strong circumstantial eviden…

>made no claim that those two links were definitive proof

They implied their confidence through the rhetorical use of "What are the chances?". That was not a genuine question.

> circumstantial evidence can still be provably true

Circumstantial evidence MUST be true to be usable.

The circumstantial evidence provided in the articles was:

- There was a denied research grant that was going to look into modifying the furin site of coronaviruses. It was denied though, and as far as we know, never done.

- The furin site was complex, but could've evolved naturally.

- Some scientists think it could have been of lab origin.

- Some scientists think it could have been zoonotic origin.

All of this is true, but it doesn't mean a lab leak is "probable" or "more than likely".

>Every study I see leaning towards a lab leak origin

So even the studies that lean towards the theory qualify that the evidence is not definitive. We're back where we started.

Definitive or Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: No

Probable or More Likely Than Not: No

A strong possibility: Yes

There is not a consensus on the origin of COVID-19 at this time.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#172

Post by Klinky »

BasedAnon wrote: post #170
Klinky wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I don't even think there's enough evidence here to win a civil trial where the bar is lower than criminal. Don't act like you have the answer while citing sources that literally say your claim might not be what happened. Y'all just want to jump to a conclusion.

You realise you don't have to agree with everything in a source you cite, right?

Why would I ignore the parts of a cited source they don't agree with or that's counter to the claim being made? You don't think that's important?

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#173

Post by Klinky »

BasedAnon wrote: post #169
Klinky wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's no evidence of Bill Gate's involvement in the appearance of COVID. You're drinking from the same well as those Facebook boomers.

That's not what I said.

It sure seemed like you were saying the "Bill Gates wants to kill/control you with COVID-19/Vaccine" conspiracies had more merit than the "5G Causes COVID-19" conspiracies. Both of them were crackpot theories.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#174

Post by D13Fd »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #163
D13Fd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all that. But there is also the question: why should we care? What difference does it make now?

It does matter. Because if it came from a lab, it means the restrictions and regulations surrounding that lab were completely insufficient to contain the leak. It means that we are all under a constant threat that other, worse leaks, will happen, and that millions have died and a good percentage of the GDP of the entire world was lost due to gain of function experiments done without enough precaution. It deeply matte…

I would say that I don’t think it matters whether it was a lab leak or not, COVID shows that we shouldn’t be doing this kind of research either way.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#175

Post by D13Fd »

rich_sasha wrote: post #165
D13Fd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all that. But there is also the question: why should we care? What difference does it make now?

jaybrendansmith made a good response. I would say more broadly, COVID happened, and could happen again. We need to understand how . If it was natural in origin, we need to identify risk factors that we can minimize going forward. And if it was lab-bourne somehow... Well ditto! Maybe we shut down this kind of research. Maybe we need better safety protocols. I don't know. I know people are dead and won't undie if we un…

Yes but we know it was one or the other, and I think we need to follow both paths regardless. We are unlikely to ever know definitively which one it was.

And all of the effort debating lab leak or not just distracts time and attention from actual efforts to prevent it from happening again.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#176

Post by rich_sasha »

D13Fd wrote: post #175
rich_sasha wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jaybrendansmith made a good response. I would say more broadly, COVID happened, and could happen again. We need to understand how . If it was natural in origin, we need to identify risk factors that we can minimize going forward. And if it was lab-bourne somehow... Well ditto! Maybe we shut down this kind of research. Maybe we need better safety protocols. I don't know. I know people are dead and won't undie if we un…

Yes but we know it was one or the other, and I think we need to follow both paths regardless. We are unlikely to ever know definitively which one it was. And all of the effort debating lab leak or not just distracts time and attention from actual efforts to prevent it from happening again.

> we know it was one or the other

Well we don't really, and to me that's part of the problem. Until we know, we don't know.

> And all of the effort debating lab leak or not just distracts time and attention from actual efforts to prevent it from happening again.

In America perhaps, and other polarized polities. As a scientist, again, I cannot comprehend how anyone can see this as a waste of time. We will surely learn a lot from tracking it through time.

I see that the polarising labels got stuck to this issue, and it's unfortunate, but it is in no way inherent to the question.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#177

Post by tmaly »

EMM_386 wrote: post #34

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on adding a unique furin cleavage site to a bat coronoavirus strain to make it bind to human ACE-2 receptors. This is factual, because the grant proposals are out there and DARPA in the US turned them down: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... Suddenly, we have a global pandemic featuring a bat coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that bi…

Are you saying the virus did not originate from a wet market?

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#178

Post by revelio »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #152
revelio wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What incentive do people on the left have to deny the obvious conclusion that it came from the lab? Huh, isn't that kind of obvious? A big part of left wing ideology is progressivism, which is an exaltation of progress. The exact definition of progress changes over time, but the idea is at heart about having the most intelligent and specialized people being granted power to re-organize society for the greater good,…

Some world-class putting words in peoples mouths there. We learn more about the speaker when such nonsense is repeated.

No words are ascribed to anyone, so you're off base there. It's just an attempt to analyze the behavior of a group of people by seeking underlying themes and rationales, like millions of other such explanations out there.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#179

Post by JoeAltmaier »

revelio wrote: post #178
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some world-class putting words in peoples mouths there. We learn more about the speaker when such nonsense is repeated.

No words are ascribed to anyone, so you're off base there. It's just an attempt to analyze the behavior of a group of people by seeking underlying themes and rationales, like millions of other such explanations out there.

You can't read those words up there? Literally the entire diatribe is ascribing motivations, internal dialogs, ideas, words and actions to entire groups of people you don't likely know.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#180

Post by revelio »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #179
revelio wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No words are ascribed to anyone, so you're off base there. It's just an attempt to analyze the behavior of a group of people by seeking underlying themes and rationales, like millions of other such explanations out there.

You can't read those words up there? Literally the entire diatribe is ascribing motivations, internal dialogs, ideas, words and actions to entire groups of people you don't likely know.

It doesn't ascribe words to anyone. For the rest, yes, that's what political analysis is. Do you find all political commentary illegitimate or just the stuff you don't like?

"Putting words in someone's mouth" is different. It means ascribing a quote to them that they didn't actually say. It doesn't cover all speculation about what people think.

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