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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

#411

Post by willmadden »

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

What are you talking about? The NIH funded the research through Ecohealth alliance. It was funded from the US and created in the Wuhan lab. We've known the virus was created in a lab and not natural since early 2020.

https://peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-not-be...

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

#412

Post by Izkata »

jdietrich wrote: post #367
jtc331 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the two theories can have competing indications as to how to prepare. Specifically: should we do gain of function research, or is that foolish — depends on how you read what happened in 2020.

The question of whether we should do gain-of-function research is a fairly complex cost/benefit analysis. The precise cause of the 2019 pandemic is only a very minor variable in that analysis, because that specific outcome doesn't change the underlying probability of a lab leak. More to the point, do we realistically believe that everyone will stop doing it, even if there's a credible international moratorium? If not…

> The question of whether we should do gain-of-function research is a fairly complex cost/benefit analysis.

Has there ever been benefit to such research? People fall back on wishy-washy "we could learn ___" when trying to defend it, but with how long it's been going on have we ever actually had a solid benefit from it?

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

#413

Post by cyberax »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #404
cyberax wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> President Obama had banned it through an executive order. Can you provide a link to the executive order? It sounds seriously strange.

I can’t find the actual order but a search turns up many articles about it. Here’s one: https://www.nature.com/articles/514411a

> The US government surprised many researchers on 17 October when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible.

So it's not clear what the actual order entails and how temporary it was. And the whole advisory language ("asked scientists") seems to be kinda distinct from "banned".

> The grants are all public and document gain of function research, which was illegal since President Obama had banned it through an executive order.

In general, these kinds of conspiracy theories just collapse when you start pulling the threads.

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

#415

Post by florbo »

eightysixfour wrote: post #214
florbo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it was a given. We don't know. I don't know. I do enjoy postulating for this particular incident, though.

> Sorry, it was a given. No sorry necessary. I just think it is interesting how hard it is to not have an opinion about something beyond "I don't know." We all seem to feel more comfortable making an assumption and picking an answer, even when it won't change our behavior and not picking has no cost.

> I just think it is interesting how hard it is to not have an opinion about something beyond "I don't know."

I hadn't thought of this before. I wonder if we naturally formulate an opinion or hypothesis when we're curious about something. Which I did again just now.. huh.

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

#417

Post by ricksunny »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #89
frankharv wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They subbed it out to these guys because it was illegal to do Gain of Function research: https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2024/06/ecohealth-alliance...

The demonization of the Ecohealth Alliance is one of the more depressing aspects of the response to the pandemic. EHA has been warning for decades that a coronavirus pandemic is likely, and that governments should be taking steps to prepare for it and to make it less likely. Then, they're proved right, but instead of society thanking them, they're subject to a politically motivated witch hunt, with the aim of distrac…

Fun fact: Ecohealth terminated Daszak's job as CEO in the first week of this year

https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1880465349373751438?t=oBbkfRZ...

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

#418

Post by jyounker »

NeutralCrane wrote: post #272
therealpygon wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

> 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. Well in this case it’s more like if if a new flu burst onto the scene with the following all being true: - the epicenter of the outbreak being within a few miles of the CDC - the CDC working specifically on gain…

Actually, my first though would be that there were other outbreaks, but we only documented the one in Atlanta because the CDC happened to be there.

We should expect that the first outbreaks documented are those that happen to be close to facilities capable of identifying and documenting them.

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

#419

Post by dehrmann »

jyounker wrote: post #399
dehrmann wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a greater burden of proof for spillover when there just happens to be a lab doing virus research near the epicenter of the outbreak.

There have been two other spillover events from coronaviruses in the last 30 years. One of those (SARS) was from Chinese wet markets. Wuhan has a population of 13 million. It would be surprising if the city didn't have a lab doing virus research.

There are 42 BSL-4 facilities in the world. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I'm curious what percent of the world's population is near one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_...

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

#420

Post by jandrewrogers »

ioulaum wrote: post #379
jandrewrogers wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They could as well say "We aren't sharing our real sources, but we have high confidence." But they are saying that they have low confidence, and that there is no new evidence that changes anything. They're just changing the way they're biased, because they think that the lab's conditions weren't particularly safe. But then, we might as well expect that dozens of dangerous viruses should've gotten out.

Topic aside, it is often strategically useful in these types of contexts to convey lower confidence than you actually have. Saying you have high confidence without the ability to provide the reason encourages other parties to wonder whence that confidence comes, which may induce them to search for an answer you don’t want them to search for. There are many audiences for these public statements and you have to thread the needle of desired effect without unintended side-effect. Ambiguity is an advantage.

There are also many cases where adversaries both know the true story, and know the other knows the true story, but neither side finds it in their strategic interest to publish the truth e.g. the optics are terrible for both for different reasons.

That said, this particular case of the CIA publishing a report seems performative for domestic politics rather than strategic, which also happens all the time. There was nothing new or novel. The internal view of the intelligence community has been pretty consistent for years.

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