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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#51

Post by fabian2k »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #2

The lab-leak hypothesis is meta-scientific. When it was first tossed around, the lab leak hypothesis generated two predictions: 1. We would find evidence that someone was doing experiments on furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses. 2. We would find that the furin cleavage site matched a known sequence. We did not find 2, which should have been easy to find. Eventually, we found 1, since a rejected DARPA grant proposal…

I don't find any arguments around the furin cleavage site convincing. This kind of cleavage site is pretty small and the number of variations that have good efficiency is limited. The presence of a specific furin cleavage site is not clear evidence of genetic manipulation.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#54

Post by etcet »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #44
NationalPark wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link some sources here? Call me skeptical, but if the evidence is as convincing as you make it sound, then it implies a pretty widespread conspiracy among experts (of many countries and affiliations) who would understand the implications yet are deliberately mis-communicating via their podcasts, news appearances, papers in famous journals, etc. Are there any papers published on this or is it just in the book…

You can find the primary source for the DARPA leak on hn; if you care to verify that the sequence comes from a patent yourself directly from primary sources, you can find instructions on how to do that on hn too. I've done the search myself, it's real. I can't provide direct sources for the fact that these predictions preceded the discoveries, but I can tell you they ran through my head, and others I talked to, and t…

If you've done it could you link to or provide instructions on how we may reproduce your findings rather than just saying "the truth is out there"?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#55

Post by jiggawatts »

I initially dismissed the lab leak hypothesis because surely nobody would be stupid enough to make new SARS virus strains on purpose. They’re worthless as biological weapons, and the risks are insane.

Then it turns out that that is precisely the type of research the Wuhan lab does regularly.

And then when our prime minister merely suggested an investigation, China put punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of our exports to them.

Because clearly, that’s how innocent governments with nothing to hide act.

Immediate, massive retaliation for merely suggesting that someone should look into things.

But everybody should believe the Chinese government! They told you: it came from a pangolin in the market. Why would they lie?

They lied about the reason for the punitive tariffs, sure, making up some insane story about centrally orchestrated “dumping”.

Okay, so they lied. But not about Wuhan! That would be unethical…

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#56

Post by xadhominemx »

EA_itsinthegame wrote: post #50
xadhominemx wrote: post #22

It’s because there was a series of scientific papers that pointed very strongly to a zoonotic origin: https://mobile.twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1499406148...

The Proximal paper was used by Chinese disinformation bots to skelch any debate about a lab leak. I take that as a Streisand effect. Same when Fauci strongly and publically rebuked the Indian bioinformatics pre-print paper talking of the GP-120 HIV inserts. That is how I came to know about those inserts and their interesting history. So strangely, the grossly unscientific propaganda effort that was the Proximal Origi…

What’s your scientific criticism of the paper?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#57

Post by bandyaboot »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #2

The lab-leak hypothesis is meta-scientific. When it was first tossed around, the lab leak hypothesis generated two predictions: 1. We would find evidence that someone was doing experiments on furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses. 2. We would find that the furin cleavage site matched a known sequence. We did not find 2, which should have been easy to find. Eventually, we found 1, since a rejected DARPA grant proposal…

I haven’t been fixated on this by any means but I remember reading an article months back that looked at the timeline and locations of the early cases and compared them against the locations of the market and the research facility. I came away thinking that the animal market hypothesis seemed much more likely than the lab leak.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#58

Post by martythemaniak »

Two years and I have yet to read an explanation of what this hypothesis is. Were they careless with a natural virus? Did they modify viruses? Did they release a nature virus on purpose? Did they accidentally release a modified virus? What's modified even mean here, studying random mutation? Engineering things?

It's Schrodinger's Argument. It's all of them and none of them and it always shifts depending on who you're talking to. So I've concluded it's the largest, dumbest motte-and-bailey argument there is.

But at least we can all agree, whatever it is, there's no practical lessons to be taken from it.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#59

Post by letmevoteplease »

ricardobayes wrote: post #24

When the first sentence is factually incorrect, it's tough to read on. The UK doesn't have 200k cases a day, it's less than a tenth of that.

The figure is based on this study, which currently puts it at 241K cases per day: https://health-study.joinzoe.com/data

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#60

Post by [deleted] »

pphysch wrote: post #37
buttocks wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

Weird non-sequitor. Chinese people don't obsess over and celebrate those sad days just like American people don't obsess over and celebrate the innumerable crises and human rights abuses of their own, say, the MOVE bombing. A little empathy goes a long way.

[deleted]
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