Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#311

Post by flavius29663 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

fsh wrote: post #243

stablechaos wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero evidence", huh? The epicenter of Covid-19 was the middle of a major metropolitan city (instead of a rural area near lots of animals), blocks away from a major virology lab which was specifically studying these viruses, collecting hundreds of wild strains from field operations, in research DARPA said before the fact endangers the local community and was banned by NIH, trying to specifically create this virus as…

SARS was first discovered in a major city too. This makes a lot of sense. If there is an outbreak in a rural village, the chances of it spreading worldwide are slim. It is quite possible that small outbreaks happen occasionally without anyone noticing. Who is going to test a few villagers that got pneumonia for novel coronaviruses? I would also argue that in the age of factory farming it is not so clear if more human…

Was the first SARS discovered in the vecinity of a lab studying SARS?

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#312

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #240

hammock wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning suggestions of a lab origin for Covid-19 as conspiracy theories. Tangent, but if it takes this long to learn a fact like that, consider a critical audit of your regular news sources.

Yeah, I'm always curious about this -- what would a good recommendation be to get a broad base of news while also relying on credible information? E.g. I want to know the different reasonable perspectives on issues/events without entertaining every kooky idea. In this case, I feel like I lumped what seems a plausible concern in with kooky ideas, and so missed the entire non-kooky narrative.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#313

Post by flavius29663 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #303

stablechaos wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero evidence", huh? The epicenter of Covid-19 was the middle of a major metropolitan city (instead of a rural area near lots of animals), blocks away from a major virology lab which was specifically studying these viruses, collecting hundreds of wild strains from field operations, in research DARPA said before the fact endangers the local community and was banned by NIH, trying to specifically create this virus as…

> It's like seeing smoke billowing out of a building and refusing to accept that there's a fire until you see the flames. The stuff you cite is circumstantial at best. Yes, given the seriousness of covid i would like someone to investigate it, but i would hardly call it billowing smoke. > Very convenient that your standard of evidence surpasses anything we can possibly obtain after the CCP scrubbed everything. Is tha…

Occam's razor works against your argument...given everything we know so far, the simplest explanation is that a chinese lab leaked a virus and it's covering it. There is no jump in logic needed. It's actually easier to explain why the virus was so close to the Wuhan lab.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#314

Post by flavius29663 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #142

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been extremely wary of how some of the evidence of Covid-19 origins have come about, particular because so much of it has been presented as "Well, we've never seen this before, so it must have lab origins." That said, I think the context around this is extremely damning for Daszak. I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the La…

>I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning suggestions of a lab origin for Covid-19 as conspiracy theories. Tangent, but if it takes this long to learn a fact like that, consider a critical audit of your regular news sources.

Good call out; People should re-evaluate their sources. I had a similar epiphany 10 years ago, since then I'veve expanded my sources considerably, and if it's something I am interested in, then I will look for at least one counter view point

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#315

Post by willhinsa » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #240

hammock wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning suggestions of a lab origin for Covid-19 as conspiracy theories. Tangent, but if it takes this long to learn a fact like that, consider a critical audit of your regular news sources.

Yeah, I'm always curious about this -- what would a good recommendation be to get a broad base of news while also relying on credible information? E.g. I want to know the different reasonable perspectives on issues/events without entertaining every kooky idea. In this case, I feel like I lumped what seems a plausible concern in with kooky ideas, and so missed the entire non-kooky narrative.

You should stop outsourcing credibility evaluation to others and see what you think of the kooks. The kooks called the coronavirus sooo much better than everyone else, from the jump.

You'll get a lot more "noise", sure, but the signal you do get can be incredibly useful. You learn to place less trust on any individual thing you hear, and get a better bullshit detector as you go. It's well worthwhile, and you'll be surprisingly well informed all without some large entity telling you "what's really happening".

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#316

Post by flavius29663 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #115

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been extremely wary of how some of the evidence of Covid-19 origins have come about, particular because so much of it has been presented as "Well, we've never seen this before, so it must have lab origins." That said, I think the context around this is extremely damning for Daszak. I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the La…

> while conveniently leaving out that his own organization was involved in highly risky coronavirus research? Don't get me wrong, but in online discussions, all too often telling the whole truth makes people ignore your message. That's probably also why dishonest politicians can get populist votes from many people. Whenever you include the material to dig your grave with, people just take that by the horns and stop l…

Umm, wouldn't "I worked on coronaviruses, hence I know a lot about them" make his argument stronger?

Anyway, this was in Lancet, a scientific publisher, not a mass medium, disclosures of interest are mandatory. I know that in today's age it looks like science papers are just mass media because they're so easy to consume and distribute, but they are not. They're supposed to be rigurous, otherwise people would lose trust in them. Which is exactly what happened in this pandemic: it's a worldwide lack of trust in science, scientists, leaders, governments.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#317

Post by rualca » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

twobitshifter wrote: post #86

Daczak serves on the WHO team to investigate the virus origins, but this did not get mentioned in any reports. Instead he warns other not to discuss it. He does not include notes that research was done on modifying bat viruses to make them infectious to human cells. These behaviors look like a guilty person, do they not? The wuhan and eco-health researchers had already started work on the furin cleavage sites and why…

> Daczak serves on the WHO team to investigate the virus origins (...)

As a reference never hurts, specially in a topic prone to disinformation, here's a link to the WHO's page on its official list of members of their "Global Study of the Origins of SARS-COV2".

Dr. Peter Daszak, Ph.D (EcoHealth Alliance, USA) is listed as a member.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the...

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#318

Post by lovemenot » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

passivate wrote: post #276

lovemenot wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It all comes down to burden of proof. The more circumstantial evidence of a lab leak piles up, the more reasonably open-minded people will tend to shift their priors in that direction. You will only accept hard evidence, yet you are aware that parties in China have actively removed some possible evidentiary sources. And others in USA promoted a campaign to shut down lin…

Statistical models work great for well defined problem spaces like the probability of rolling a die in a particular way. You can reason in your own mind the probability of aliens or extinction events or lab leaks or anything really, but it doesn't get you very far (IMO) in proving anything. To paraphrase Wernher von Braun - "Hard data is worth a thousand expert opinions." :)

You seem to be conflating subjective and opinion on the one hand with statistical on the other.

Actually, Bayes statistics works great in poorly defined problem spaces where we can update our priors as new information becomes available. Just like in the issue under discussion.

Your example of rolling dice is Frequentist, not Bayesian. We wouldn't use Frequentist stats in this domain, for the reasons you mention.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#319

Post by the-dude » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #288

gfodor wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the good news is that either way we are still exposed to a lab leak of an airborne highly contagious coronavirus as much as we were before. Oh wait did I say good news?

Not either way. Investigations to find out whether this virus was in fact made in lab has tremendous utility. First it would seek reparation from all parties involved in creating this chaos. Second it will dissuade other lunatic research group or companies getting funny ideas in the future.

How can any reparation be meaningful on this scale of damages?

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#320

Post by rualca » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #265

ramraj07 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do also note that damn near every lab today would not propose a new approach or project without already secretly having gone half the way in it with prior funds. No one proposes a potential novel idea without already being fully sure it will work.

Certainly not true in the area of particle accelerator experiments. Every single step there is done in public so to say. And it's not that it's a niche, literally thousands of scientists and engineers work on this stuff. (Also I know people that had to change thesis topics half-way through, although I cannot fully recall the reasoning for that.) It's well-known that there has been high-risk coronavirus research acros…

> It's well-known that there has been high-risk coronavirus research across the globe.

It's the first time I heard of anything of the sort.

Do you have any reference pointing out, or is this just Facebook hearsay?