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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#141

Post by UIUC_06 »

martythemaniak wrote: post #58

Two years and I have yet to read an explanation of what this hypothesis is. Were they careless with a natural virus? Did they modify viruses? Did they release a nature virus on purpose? Did they accidentally release a modified virus? What's modified even mean here, studying random mutation? Engineering things? It's Schrodinger's Argument. It's all of them and none of them and it always shifts depending on who you're…

> at least we can all agree...

No, we can't all agree. On anything.

Given that the Chinese have shut down investigation, how would you expect anyone to tell you exactly how it happened?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#142

Post by secondcoming »

ttpphd wrote: post #113
throwawaymaths wrote: post #2

The lab-leak hypothesis is meta-scientific. When it was first tossed around, the lab leak hypothesis generated two predictions: 1. We would find evidence that someone was doing experiments on furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses. 2. We would find that the furin cleavage site matched a known sequence. We did not find 2, which should have been easy to find. Eventually, we found 1, since a rejected DARPA grant proposal…

Sorry but the post above is unscientific sophistry. Science is about weighing competing theories by examining the relative strength of evidence. The evidence is strongly in favor of zoonotic origin. What's posted here is an exercise in confirmation bias, not rigorous scientific thinking.

Aren’t you assuming that you’re being shown all the evidence?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#143

Post by csours »

There are two sources that most people talk about:

1. The Wuhan Institute of Virology

2. A particular market in Wuhan.

However, all we really know is that Wuhan is the first city with a lot of cases. It is entirely possible that the virus, or a virus precursor was active in a small population somewhere else. Also, there are a lot of labs in Wuhan besides the WIV.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#144

Post by rdl »

ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91
stetrain wrote: post #12

I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

Airborne was always known; debate was droplet vs aerosol (particle size and thus dwell time/radius). Not really a binary distinction anyway; a matter of degree.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#145

Post by honkdaddy »

johndfsgdgdfg wrote: post #135
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

Thank you for posting this. WHO-China report found that COVID almost certainly came out of China and the market is just the amplifying venue. It's the racist and xenophobic groups that are trying to incite hatred against China by spreading propaganda.

You post this viewpoint all the time, I've seen you comment it before. Which report are you referring to exactly?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#146

Post by aksss »

johndfsgdgdfg wrote: post #135
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

Thank you for posting this. WHO-China report found that COVID almost certainly came out of China and the market is just the amplifying venue. It's the racist and xenophobic groups that are trying to incite hatred against China by spreading propaganda.

China gives its critics plenty to work with. And, no, critics of China are not automatically or even likely racist and xenophobic.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#147

Post by jahewson »

1024core wrote: post #97

9/11 cost us ~ 3000 lives? And we spent 20 years fighting wars, killing 100s of 1000s of people, bombing the shit out of entire countries, and trillions of dollars in trying to exact revenge. COVID kills 1,000,000 people (and counting...), which is 333X the death toll from 9/11; and we just shrug and do nothing? Just doesn't compute.

One is an intentional act by a group of people. The other is, at worst, an accident where the main actor is a molecule.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#148

Post by secondcoming »

mikeyouse wrote: post #103
bandyaboot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t been fixated on this by any means but I remember reading an article months back that looked at the timeline and locations of the early cases and compared them against the locations of the market and the research facility. I came away thinking that the animal market hypothesis seemed much more likely than the lab leak.

Yep - there are a ton of such points of evidence. The strict "lab leak" proponents have essentially made an unfalsifiable hypothesis akin to the intelligent design people's "God of the Gaps" where each time there's new research that disproves a core assumption, that just means the conspiracy goes deeper. I linked it above, but aside from the fact that every other pandemic we've seen came about the same way, there's a…

Brought what to the market? Themselves or animals from a lab?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#149

Post by BiteCode_dev »

khazhoux wrote: post #3

Jon Stewart's classic lab-leak rant on Colbert's show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfejgwbDQ8&t=178s

I dig it because it's like a summary of half of the Marvel movies, where the protagonists spend the entire adventure solving a problem they caused themselves.

Like, without the Thanos thingy, iron man is not a bloody hero, he is a villain. He is responsible for so much death and destruction it's not even funny. Black Mamba, killer. Black panther ? Maintains in place a political system that clearly allows any psychopath to access absolute power. Hulk, a time bomb. Thor ? He let his genocidal brother of the hook as soon as he is nice for 2 minutes. Spiderman ? Give an deadly bot swarm to the first father figure that smiles at him. Dr Strange ? Accept the request to GHB the planet and almost destroys it because a kid ask for it for 30 seconds.

It's a well known trope in sups stories, but for some reasons a lot of viewers really believes they are heroes. Even as a kid I though Batman was stupid for spending times fighting one criminal at a time with all his money.

Now, we are seeing a lot of this in today's IRL world.

Progress is saving you by giving you drugs for all the diseases it increases: diabetes, cancer, obesity, hormonal dysfunctions, etc. It's giving you a car so that you can you can go work in a remote place you would never have to work to without progress. It gives you software to organize your day to fit all the thing you would not have to do without progress.

Ok, it's tongue in cheek. I love progress.

But still.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#150

Post by [deleted] »

ikiris wrote: post #115
ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

I'm going to be blunt here. No one with medical training thought this wasn't airborne.

[deleted]
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