The Lab Leak Hypothesis
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The Lab Leak Hypothesis
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Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#2I'm not convinced either way, but posting because this is an articulate well written non-sensational discussion of the idea.
If it is true, it was almost certainly an accident. Nobody really benefited from this (even if China really has eradicated it, it's damaged their export-heavy economy badly), and if it was terrorists they would have claimed responsibility since that's the point of terrorism. Biological warfare is dumb anyway. It's like trying to use a grenade as a handgun. Yes it does damage the enemy, but...
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#3I'm not convinced either way, but posting because this is an articulate well written non-sensational discussion of the idea. If it is true, it was almost certainly an accident. Nobody really benefited from this (even if China really has eradicated it, it's damaged their export-heavy economy badly), and if it was terrorists they would have claimed responsibility since that's the point of terrorism. Biological warfare…
However, the state-sponsored gain-of-function research towards particular properties is not an accident.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has published papers on how they were able to modify a bat virus to achieve more dangerous properties [77][88].
[77] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
[88] - https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat...
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#4Months ago, everyone talking about this hypothesis was denounced as an evil right wing racist conspiracy theorist, mostly because the people who came to that conclusion were generally right wing racist conspiracy theorists. What does this say about the appropriate credibility update for right wing racist conspiracy theorists?
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#5I'm not convinced either way, but posting because this is an articulate well written non-sensational discussion of the idea. If it is true, it was almost certainly an accident. Nobody really benefited from this (even if China really has eradicated it, it's damaged their export-heavy economy badly), and if it was terrorists they would have claimed responsibility since that's the point of terrorism. Biological warfare…
However, the state-sponsored gain-of-function research towards particular properties is not an accident. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has published papers on how they were able to modify a bat virus to achieve more dangerous properties [77][88]. [77] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/ [88] - https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat...
That always did strike me as reckless. It reminds me of 1950s and 1960s atomic testing: yes, there is value in the knowledge gained, but the method of gaining it was a bit YOLO.
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#6I don't see any evidence for the speculation it was lab created (or modified into it's current form) except for an acknowledgement that the capability to do so exists.
I don't doubt the possibility of such a thing occurring, but I just haven't seen any evidence to support this.
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#7Months ago, everyone talking about this hypothesis was denounced as an evil right wing racist conspiracy theorist, mostly because the people who came to that conclusion were generally right wing racist conspiracy theorists. What does this say about the appropriate credibility update for right wing racist conspiracy theorists?
I heard a lot of people discussing this possibility including liberals and leftists, but there was and still is a taboo against discussing it publicly. Most of the public articles I saw on it were sensationalistic pieces from far-right news sources, and I flagged those. I upvoted one sanely written scientific paper on the subject, and posted this because it was also not sensationalistic.
The problem is that if we discuss the possibility or the suspicion in public, a lot of people are going to run all the way to it being a certainty. This could lead to some fairly destructive geopolitical consequences with the worst case scenario being a world war that could kill far more people than the virus. It is prudent to be careful and maintain a high standard of evidence just like we should in our justice system: "innocent until proven guilty."
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#8Months ago, everyone talking about this hypothesis was denounced as an evil right wing racist conspiracy theorist, mostly because the people who came to that conclusion were generally right wing racist conspiracy theorists. What does this say about the appropriate credibility update for right wing racist conspiracy theorists?
One one hand a broken clock is right twice a day.
On the other hand, a lot of groups are quick to assign anything that doesnt fit their work view to some kind of alt/fringe label, so it's best to take that label with a grain of salt.
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#9I think the closest natural virus was 95% similar. 5% seems pretty far for mutations. Is there a historical track record for finding the natural virus to a 99.9% similarity?
Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
#10Months ago, everyone talking about this hypothesis was denounced as an evil right wing racist conspiracy theorist, mostly because the people who came to that conclusion were generally right wing racist conspiracy theorists. What does this say about the appropriate credibility update for right wing racist conspiracy theorists?
There's a difference between an intentional release of the virus, which is what conspiracy theorists say, and an accidental release, which is what this article postulates.
Do people have a tendency to dismiss both as if they were the same? Sure. But that's just because there's many more people saying it was intentional than accidental.