Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
This is true in the US legal system. This is far less true in the general social system.
In my "social system" no one is less trustworthy than the CIA.
CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
111–120 of 868 posts
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#112Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#113> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…
Both the FBI and DOE, which have their own foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, had previously assessed that COVID was caused by a lab leak with moderate confidence. So while I agree with you that the truth will likely remain shrouded in some mystery, most of us that believed it originated from zoonosis at first (and I would include myself in that camp) should update our priors both based on the CIA assessment and previous assessments
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests the Wuhan wet market was the origin. Those are not mutually exclusive theories. It could have been a lab leak that was then superspread by the visit of an affected lab worker (or someone they came into contact with) at the wet market.
They really are mutually exclusive theories. The current evidence points to at least two different spillover events (of slightly different variants) at the market, followed by spread of the virus in the communities surrounding the market, eventually radiating out to the rest of Wuhan. There is solid evidence now for each of those statements. If you try to reconcile that with the lab leak theory, you end up with an ev…
Carful when assuming how a lab leak must have unfolded, there’s many possibilities.
A single worker gets infected/accidentally releases multiple variants, sloppy worker messing up twice doesn’t seem that crazy. A lab leak is also consistent with an infection person visiting a location that experienced a separate variant.
And that’s just a few options there’s also things like an intentional leak followed by another intentional leak etc.
I’ve read that the lab was intentionally set near that wet market, so there being overlap like this doesn’t seem extraordinary.
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#115> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…
> I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. That's fine. The really problem is all debate on such matters was shut down during pandemic. To the benefit of no one (except for maybe Biden trying to cajole to Chinese into something, or other. Or to protect USG's role in this affair by financing Chinese gain of function research).
[flagged]
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It did though. Animal origin only stopped being the most favored explanation because we haven't found the link in 5 years.
There was a nucleotide sequence in the covid strain that did not show up in any of the proposed hosts or progenitor viral sequences, which is where leaked documents showed NIH (Fauci included I believe) discussing the non-natural origin of the nucleotide sequence. It's possible to search for articles about the Fauci NIH emails, and whether they mean anything scandalous. Here's a technical article at NIH discussing th…
This is an open access journal by two people whose publication history you can look up if you want to draw your own conclusions. Read the disclaimer at the top of the link. Don’t bootstrap its credibility by linking it to being at NIH (which does mean something) anymore than saying something found on Google is from the company itself.
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
[flagged]
Actually, you've made my point quite clearly. The fact that you think you know the answer without a doubt, and that I am refusing to acknowledge it due to political reasons, is exactly why we won't know the truth.
If you were to step back and evaluate the possibilities rationally, acknowledge the evidence you do and do not have, and ask how well your heuristics are calibrated to this domain, you would see that not only do you not have any real answers to this question, but that you are as fundamentally incapable of adding meaningful value to the conversation as a biologist is to a deep cybersecurity investigation.
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#118It's wild to me that everyone is calling lab leak a politicized theory. I suppose flat earthers make heliocentrism and the laws of physics politicized theories too, then.
All theories regarding COVID-19 origin are politicized simply because the question itself became a prominent political matter.
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#119So there’s a new president and the main intelligence agency changes its position radically in alignment with the new government. Why should we be confident in any other claim they made in the past?
Considering what is known about that agency's activities under Reagan, I think everyone lost confidence about any claims they made before I was even born.
That's just it. It was a very long time ago. Not many CIA employees are still there.
That's not reason to trust it. But "a bad thing happened in the 80s and that's all I need to know" isn't a compelling argument either.
Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
They really are mutually exclusive theories. The current evidence points to at least two different spillover events (of slightly different variants) at the market, followed by spread of the virus in the communities surrounding the market, eventually radiating out to the rest of Wuhan. There is solid evidence now for each of those statements. If you try to reconcile that with the lab leak theory, you end up with an ev…
Carful when assuming how a lab leak must have unfolded, there’s many possibilities. A single worker gets infected/accidentally releases multiple variants, sloppy worker messing up twice doesn’t seem that crazy. A lab leak is also consistent with an infection person visiting a location that experienced a separate variant. And that’s just a few options there’s also things like an intentional leak followed by another in…
This is how conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable.
You're now positing that a lab worker got infected with multiple variants (which wouldn't exist in the lab, by the way, since they would work with cloned virus), then traveled across town and spread the virus at the market.
The evidence all points towards a spillover (two, actually) at the market, but you can always make the lab leak theory ever more convoluted to keep it alive.