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CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

nytimes.com

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Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#241

Post by wk_end »

Retric wrote: post #114
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #76

Earlier 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…

> I’ve read that the lab was intentionally set near that wet market...

That seems unlikely, given that - per Wikipedia - the WIV opened in 1956 and the wet market opened in 2002.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#242

Post by wk_end »

hulitu wrote: post #121
chimprich wrote: post #33

The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a natural spillover event. There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests that the Wuhan wet market was the origin. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

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You think China, in the 1950s, was opening research labs at the behest of the CIA?

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#243

Post by jfengel »

morkalork wrote: post #189
jfengel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm missing the part where there has been institutional reform since then. Otherwise, the mandate and policies that fostered those affairs are still in place, no?

The agency has been through several reforms since then, most notably the complete reorg after 9/11.

Like I said, that's not the same as knowing that they're following the rules now. But it isn't the same organization by any stretch.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#244

Post by gpm »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #204
chowells wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

The fact that there's a biolab doing gain-of-function research a few blocks away from ground zero is much stronger bayesian evidence than "but maybe it's true". (And then the fact that ground zero is a wet market is strong evidence against . It's so weird that we have two plausible origins for this virus and they're almost right next to each other.)

"but maybe this could have happened"* is the exact evidence being input into your bayesian model. The fact that this particular thing could have happened is a bit surprising, so it does count as some evidence, but it's not strong enough to then go run around saying on the internet it definitely did happen. Especially in the context where, as you point out, there's also other evidence of the form "but maybe could have happened and that's also surprising".

Which to address a different subthread, is exactly what some people did (go around on the internet confidently stating it did happen). Which is why, I think, other people then labelled the people seriously discussing the theory as conspiracy theorists. Which is a step too far, it's only the people confidently asserting from weak evidence that it definitely did happen who should be labelled as conspiracy theorists. Which is all to say since when does the internet do any of this nuance at all well on any side.

* GP's phrasing, which is arguably different from your phrasing of "but maybe it's true"

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#245

Post by crazygringo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #168
snowwrestler wrote: post #166

I think it’s important to note that there are really two “lab leak” theories: One in which the virus developed naturally, was collected in a remote location, and was being studied in a lab when it leaked from the lab into nearby human society. One in which it was not a dangerous virus originally, and it became dangerous in the lab through human agency, either maliciously (e.g. bioweapons research) or accidentally (e.…

> These two theories get mixed up constantly, either by accident or on purpose, who knows I'm struggling to see the practical difference. Ebola naturally evolved. I'm not sure I'm be more incensed if an American lab released natural versus artifical Ebola into the population.

One way to look at the difference is that a "natural Ebola" almost certainly would have spread at some point anyways, and so it wouldn't affect the total number of world deaths in the end, just make them happen some number of years sooner.

Whereas an "artificial Ebola" would never have existed without it being intentionally created, so all the deaths aren't just time-shifted, they wouldn't have happened otherwise. They're new.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#246

Post by therealpygon »

giantg2 wrote: post #149
drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> 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 have family that have worked on developing NBC equipment for the military. The first thing they said when covid was spreading was that it was most likely from a lab. That was before anyone in the news was saying that. So an independent first-look assessment by someone with experience, followed by later finding out that there was in fact a lab there, has me heavily leaning towards it being true. But it doesn't reall…

You should realize experience in a tangentially related field and there being a lab somewhere in the area is not the same as insight and evidence. That’s like saying that if a new flu came out of Atlanta, the fact the CDC is there proves it came from a lab, and must be true because someone’s janitor cousin who worked there one summer said it was true.

“Low confidence” means that there is a lack of evidence and the statement is ambiguous; that it could be completely true, or completely false. The only lower confidence would be direct evidence that it is outright false. Given, as you said, how nearly impossible it would be to prove true, wouldn’t you think it equally nearly impossible to prove false?

Believe what you want, but even the CIA doesn’t lean on the side of you being right.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#247

Post by wahern »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #131
chimprich wrote: post #33

The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a natural spillover event. There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests that the Wuhan wet market was the origin. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

US intelligence likely has more evidence than they will publicly discuss. It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. That they coincidentally happened to be johnny-on-the-spot when the initial infection(s) happened, long before anyone was paying attention or trying to create a narrative, suggests that they probably have mor…

> It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019.

What's public record is that ABC News reported[1] that two anonymous officials claimed there was an internal intelligence report in late November discussing an outbreak in China, and that it was briefed up the chain. All other news outlets then picked it up, with attribution (ABC News says someone else says...) buried deep in the text per usual. The report was immediately denied publicly by various officials and in over 4 years has never been corroborated, not even with other anonymous sources.

Plus, even if it were true, what's the relevance? It originally made headlines because it implied the Trump administration was slow to react; in particular, that they possibly had as many as 4 additional weeks in which to begin preparations. But it doesn't speak to origin. Most advocates for both the natural and lab-leak arguments all agree that the COVID-19 outbreak began sometime in Fall 2019. It's not a point of contention except possibly when comparing one overspecified theory against another overspecified, straw man theory. There are so many degrees of freedom to either theory (or rather, group of theories) that an early or late start doesn't significantly weigh in favor of one or the other.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-c...

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#248

Post by eightysixfour »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #233
eightysixfour wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how the CIA has "low confidence," but that you are positive. You should share your evidence with them so that they can upgrade to "high confidence" and we can settle it.

I like how you have high confidence in the CIA.

I have substantially more confidence in their assessment than I do in you and your "circle." A circle which, based on your other posts in this thread so far, provides you a convenient safe-space to avoid the need to provide evidence, defend your assertions with sound argument, and enables you to feel superior by way of intellectual dishonesty.

I can only aspire to be so woke, to see reality so clearly and with such confidence!

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#250

Post by pstuart »

hansvm wrote: post #205
scarface_74 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world Does COVID being a “plague” jibe with the talking point that COVID is “no worse than a cold”

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