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More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

nytimes.com

341–350 of 382 posts

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#341
It has all the traits of a perfect bio weapon. China is the only country that seems to be totally unaffected by it.

Far from helping out its neighbours it has tried to expand its territory. Any offer of help is more of an extortion.

Even in countries with otherwise porous borders, the virus seems to obey political boundaries.

I have no doubt that it is a controlled bioweapon.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#342

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 wasn't debunked:

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th...

It's a long read but a worthy one. Exploring all the options better than the NYT article.

The lack of biomarkers is not proof either way.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a 3rd option. I'm going to repost a comment I made a few days ago regarding the labs in Wuhan: The "Wuhan Institute of Virology" is named in a couple of news articles and scientific publications. However what is rarely discussed is that the Wuhan CDC (武汉市疾病预防控制中心), which also has a virus lab and was also researching coronaviruses is in walking distance from that wet market! I took a screenshot of it, in the…

[deleted]

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

I don't think a lot of people dismissed the "lab theory" per se. The people who were coopting the theory were also the folks who called in intentional/by design. We had evidence for neither and yet suddenly it had become an excuse to yell epithets at random people on the street.

No. The response was overwhelmingly political and censorious and it has everything to do with the extremist culture around politics where if Trump said "A" it must be "not A" and viceversa.

You're justifying that censorship saying that the "wrongthink people" were close to this so that's why it was mostly shunned.

It's disingenuous. This whole year and counting (specially in places with slow vaccine rollouts) has been full of instances where certain challenges to the official local government doctrine where combated heavily with not much argument other than personal attacks and requests for faith in the "one true narrative".

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#345
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't at all look "like a conspiracy theory". Many past lab leaks have been documented (edit: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327678136852488 ), there had been widespread debate among virologists for years about whether the risk of a lab leak was too high to fund such research, the Obama administration banned it for a while for that reason, the State Department had expressed concerns about lax safety at t…

The "conspiracy" part of the theory isn't the leak itself but that hundreds or thousands of people are involved in covering it up and the effort is being lead by an über-competent cabal of unnamed government officials. That is what makes this theory different from historical lab accidents and makes it seem pretty crackpot.

That's a strawman, though. Pretty similar to when someone is talking about government overreach with regards to restrictions or the effectiveness/negative effects of lockdowns or PCR tests as ways to deal with a pandemic and people call them "covid deniers" as if they were denying the existence of the virus.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#346

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…

> "Our own American scientists said this process would likely result in biomarkers that were not found in the circulating virus"

There is debate about that. Interesting article here:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

(It also suggests that one of the loudest early detractors of the "escaped from lab" theory, the main author of the Feb 19, 2020 Lancet letter, had an undeclared conflict of interest because he is president of an organisation which funded Coronavirus research at WIV)

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#347

If I have a virus, how do I tell if its natural or man made? Unless someone has gone out of their way to add an indicator won't all viruses just be the same? It's not like you can leave finger prints or a "made in China" sticker on a virus right?

If you look at a cow knowing nothing about it or its history how do you know it was subject to artificial selection? The excessive production of milk or negative consequences that happen to it should it not be milked are some pretty big clues. The information the process of evolution imparts on the genes/features of an organism differs based on whether it was natural or artificial.

That makes sense. But that seems to indicate covid 19 was entirely natural does it:

* highly transmissible

* not very deadly

* similar to know viruses in the proposed natural sources

A lot of people seem to really want covid to be an engineered thing. But I'm not seeing any evidence to support that. And I would highly support action against China so I am bias in favour of this theory...

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

Project EVIDENCE has records-ish of some of those deletions. https://project-evidence.github.io/

That's a great page. I'm always looking for fact based news (they say evidence based). Having it as a git repository that people can clone and push to is a great way of doing it. Thanks.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#349
I just can't fathom how anyone thought it was a good idea to keep changing viruses in a lab with the sole purpose of making them capable of infecting humans. This kind of research needs to be banned. And people who allowed it to happen (in the US and in China) need to be held accountable.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

The behaviorist interpretation of belief is that beliefs expressed will be based on whatever is the most socially acceptable, and that that internal beliefs are formed to be consistent with outward expression of belief.

Nobody will be able to look at this rationally until nobody cares either way. That’s what makes history interesting. It always changes.

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