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The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

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Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#41

Post by m0llusk »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #15
m0llusk wrote: post #8

This is silly. The lab leak hypothesis was never off limits, it was ridiculed because it had little evidence and was based on political things are different this time thinking. Finding viral origins is never a fight, it is hard work requiring detailed research. Both SARS and MERS are good comparisons and took around three years to fully understand. The lab leak theory is popular because of politics and ignoring the d…

It was off limits if you dared post it on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or any other "popular" place for public discourse.

The dominance of those forums is the problem. Note how many posters on this thread are calling out how "shocking" articles and evidence are? This is how social media works by pushing hot buttons. Actual science is based on evidence and is often an extreme bore. What we are seeing is people getting excited over made up stories while ignoring the real hard work which has time and again pointed to viruses hopping from animals to humans.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#42

Post by seaman1921 »

mmcgaha wrote: post #4

If anything good can come of this, I hope some of the folks who trusted the science begins to realize that people are behind science and people often act in their own best interest. Not that it will change much but we can at least stop yelling down and shaming skeptics.

this is terrifying.. who can we even trust then :\

Such exposed dishonesty leads to more and more people completely losing faith in everything that the scientists say and turning into anti-vaccers etc.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#43

Post by mc32 »

peter422 wrote: post #25
tpfour wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The calculation is simple and could have been made in early 2020. What's the joint probability of occurrence given everything you know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2? There is _very_ high probability that this is just a human error.

Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

So when we find Anthrax outside its normal "range" but close to a lab we can just say, yeah, no, while it's not endemic to this location it is 1000 miles away, so nothing to worry about? Oh, and never mind the lab.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#44

Post by flukus »

yumraj wrote: post #29
peter422 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?

These labs are in major cities. Epidemics are likely to be detected in Major cities. The chance of an outbreak being near a research lab aren't as long as you seem to think.

If an outbreak were to happen in the United states just about everywhere would be near a CDC location: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf...]

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#45

Post by JPKab »

peter422 wrote: post #21
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

I’ve never heard of 2-3 people getting sick before in a large organization. That sounds like a smoking gun.

Several were HOSPITALIZED with a respiratory illness, in a lab studying bat viruses on humanized mice.

The cognitive dissonance you are suffering is painful, I'm sure, but it's obviously clouding your judgment.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#46

Post by m0llusk »

disgrunt wrote: post #34
m0llusk wrote: post #8

This is silly. The lab leak hypothesis was never off limits, it was ridiculed because it had little evidence and was based on political things are different this time thinking. Finding viral origins is never a fight, it is hard work requiring detailed research. Both SARS and MERS are good comparisons and took around three years to fully understand. The lab leak theory is popular because of politics and ignoring the d…

> If you really want justice then you need a coherent statement of the offense, there should be a fair hearing with representatives of all sides, there should be impartial review whether that be trained judges or a selected jury of peers or whatever else, and so on. Cool. Since China is the source of this virus, can they take the lead here? I'll wait.

There is no lead. Since America is the prime location for infection and death we should probably try to be serious about the issue instead of getting distracted.

And what exactly is China expected to do in any case? Apologize? Pay in the way fining Germany for WWI led to WWII?

You are full of moral rage, yet still have essentially zero scientific support. Are you sure that is okay?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#47

Post by bartart »

peter422 wrote: post #21
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

I’ve never heard of 2-3 people getting sick before in a large organization. That sounds like a smoking gun.

I would agree that it doesn't seem like much. But the article says that the director of the wuhan institute's BSL-4 laboratory wrote in 2019 that “Maintenance cost is generally neglected ... Some BSL-3 laboratories run on extremely minimal operational costs or in some cases none at all.”

Most importantly, "the WIV housed numerous laboratories that worked on coronaviruses. Only one of them has the highest biosafety protocol: BSL-4, in which researchers must wear full-body pressurized suits with independent oxygen. Others are designated BSL-3 and even BSL-2, roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office."

"Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research—some involving live SARS-like viruses—had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories."

There is apparently a history of SARS escaping from Chinese labs on multiple occasions, and the bat coronavirus from the mine that was human transmissible was the "only one whose genome closely resembled SARS". And according to the Wuhan lab itself, the coronavirus is "96.2%" similar to this sample, though they tried to hide this.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#48

Post by LegitShady »

arrosenberg wrote: post #37
harryf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

You are getting downvoted because it's muckraking. There is nothing shady about NIAID giving a (verrrry small for this type of research) grant to a foreign research lab, which is doing research about a topic of interest. That's how you ensure the U.S. government gets a copy of the results.

There is a lot of evidence that Fauci had quite a bit of conflict of interest, and knew about the gain of function research long before he denied it to Rand Paul in May.

It's not muckraking. There is heavy smoke, and people denying the existence of fire while trying to get people to stop looking for it.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#49

Post by kaesar14 »

flukus wrote: post #44
yumraj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?

These labs are in major cities. Epidemics are likely to be detected in Major cities. The chance of an outbreak being near a research lab aren't as long as you seem to think. If an outbreak were to happen in the United states just about everywhere would be near a CDC location: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf... ]

As pointed out in the article, there were exactly 3 cities in the world working on gain-of-function research related to bat-originated coronaviruses. Galveston, Texas, Chapel Hill N.C, and Wuhan. It’s way more narrow than just being near a biological laboratory.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#50

Post by tpfour »

peter422 wrote: post #25
tpfour wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The calculation is simple and could have been made in early 2020. What's the joint probability of occurrence given everything you know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2? There is _very_ high probability that this is just a human error.

Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

You're taking this the wrong way. You have to update your priors and calculate a joint probability knowing everything we know about the origins of this particular virus.
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