More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins • Hacker News Board

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#221

Post by JadeNB » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

JohnWhigham wrote: post #92

bko wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And maybe liability on the offending party?

I agree. We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

> We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0].

This seems like a reach. There's a big difference in liability between "mismanaged deadly pathogens, caused a pandemic" and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens".

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#222

Post by usrusr » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #207

SECProto wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " Take a similar situation, imagine you were a structural engineer a decade ago and you tweeted "If you think 9/11 was an inside job because jet fuel can't melt steel beams, please unfollow me" or an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the mo…

> an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" That's a pretty bad analogy. It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Follow the money trail.

The analogy isn't really working, but the core is valid nonetheless: when an idea has few valid examiners and thousands of nutjob followers and they all want to talk to you, perhaps the latter even more than the former, then you'll eventually accept the risk of perhaps missing out on one of the few gems rather than suffering through the endless repetitions of all the others.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#223

Post by throwaway316943 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

bonzini wrote: post #130

monday_ wrote: post #39

The trouble here is that a lot of institutions and public persons have more or less staked their credibility on dismissing the lab origin hypothesis. They had their reasons - if anything, over the last years their standing and the value of expert opinion was under constant pressure (notice I'm talking about a reason, not a justification). But this makes any admission of an error and, by extension, any useful reflecti…

Lab manufacturing is one thing and has been widely debunked, lab leak is another. I don't think the lab leak has been dismissed as much.

They’ve been repeatedly conflated, either purposefully or carelessly. Almost no one was actually pursuing the engineered bioweapon angle but anyone who even suggested that it may have leaked from a lab that studies bat coronaviruses was treated like a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut. It’s pretty dismal that no one is going to be accountable for their behaviour through this whole mess, nothing will be learned and we’ll probably be worse off the next time something like this happens.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#224

Post by JadeNB » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

wedn3sday wrote: post #24

Claiming that COVID came from a lab is pretty close to non-falsifiable, i.e. impossible to prove. I assume that if it was an accidental or intentional release of a bioweapon, all evidence would have long since been wiped clean. Making the claim that the CCP secretly created COVID is backed by zero evidence, and assuming they're even vaguely competent, all evidence to prove it would have been long since destroyed. Thi…

> Claiming that COVID came from a lab is pretty close to non-falsifiable, i.e. impossible to prove.

I don't think this is true. A hypothesis can be unfalsifiable without being unprovable. (Think of a "needle in a haystack" existence hypothesis: it's unfalsifiable, at least practically speaking, but it can be proven simply by finding the needle.)

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#225

Post by throwaway316943 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #77

tomjen3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If experts can make a decent argument that the lab escape is the most likely scenario, then the PRC can choose to let us have access to the data, or look 100% guilty and be treated accordingly.

No, all the choices have already been made. The data have already been destroyed. The Wuhan lab where this research was taking place also had a leadership change, and is now run by someone in the military. That happened in March or April of 2020, IIRC. Chinese researchers and journalists disappeared in that time frame (their work was deleted from online archives, their names removed from public employment listings...…

There are still the American scientists and foundations that were involved in offshoring this research to China.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#226

Post by jimmygrapes » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

matt_kantor wrote: post #218

franciscop wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Since the beginning the science has been in conflict with politics (or the Church, or the Kings/Emperors before democracy). Notable political/social opposition to the sciences are well documented. Couple of examples: doctors washing their hands was a controversial issue [2] and how being able to eat "higher-class" food killed thousands of Japanese, who rejected eating other food even when it was known it was k…

Don't forget about Galileo.

Here is a well written article about the topic, which outlines some details that I am currently investigating for confirmation, and helps make Galileo's story a little more nuanced than the elementary school version: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what...

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#227

Post by cameldrv » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #214

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

There are 2 concrete distinct ideas, but many are conflating both of the ideas. It results in it being very hard to have a conversation because it's unclear which idea people are talking about. Idea 1: SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab Idea 2: SARS-CoV-2 was in/around/related to WIV and escaped Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists. Idea 2 is an idea that there is a considerable body of circumstantial ev…

What do you mean by "engineered in a lab?" No one believes that anyone just typed a sequence into their computer and created it from whole cloth.

On the other hand, the WIV has recently published papers about creating new coronaviruses by combining a gene from one virus with the rest of another virus, as well as other types of modifications to existing coronaviruses. They have active grants to continue with this type of research. They also have acknowledged performing this work in BSL-2 labs, which would not be secure enough to contain SARS-CoV-2 if it were to have been the result of one of these experiments.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#228

Post by BuyMyBitcoins » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #219

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " There were a lot of them on twitter, and frankly, they disqualified themselves from the adult table. They've chosen politics over science.

Social media is designed around social proof and validation. Plenty of otherwise rational people crave the support and affirmation of endorsing “correct” thinking while also attacking the “incorrect” thinking.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#229

Post by mellosouls » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #214

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

There are 2 concrete distinct ideas, but many are conflating both of the ideas. It results in it being very hard to have a conversation because it's unclear which idea people are talking about. Idea 1: SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab Idea 2: SARS-CoV-2 was in/around/related to WIV and escaped Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists. Idea 2 is an idea that there is a considerable body of circumstantial ev…

Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists

I don't personally doubt it's a conspiracy theory but would you clarify exactly where "American scientists" debunked this - is it in the link you provided, it's not clear, it appears to only deal with claim 2?

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#230

Post by SECProto » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #207

SECProto wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " Take a similar situation, imagine you were a structural engineer a decade ago and you tweeted "If you think 9/11 was an inside job because jet fuel can't melt steel beams, please unfollow me" or an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the mo…

> an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" That's a pretty bad analogy. It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Follow the money trail.

> It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all.

The tweet was talking about the virus being engineered in a lab, not the possibility it escaped from a lab. Their opinion on the possibility of lab leak seems [1] quite reasonable to me - they believe it's possible but unlikely, and link to more info.

> You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that.

Sure - do you have more info on his sources of grants etc?

[1] https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1391777097434152963