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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#521

Post by rdl »

ironmagma wrote: post #501
rdl wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airborne was always known; debate was droplet vs aerosol (particle size and thus dwell time/radius). Not really a binary distinction anyway; a matter of degree.

> the World Health Organization said that there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00974-w

Ah yeah, you are right, airborne is defined as "aerosol" but "through the air in droplets" is not.

It seemed pretty obvious it was aerosol but not proven early on/suppressed for reasons.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#522

Post by ethbr0 »

rzz3 wrote: post #513
ethbr0 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? That this plausibly could have been of natural origin would seem to override any value in discerning where it actually came from. If it was a lab leak, "Oops." We hastened it occuring naturally by some amount of time. Lots of people…

>Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? Meaning, someone who didn’t walk in with a bias and look around the room for things that support said bias. This debate is packed with armchair experts who seem to have a larger interest in the politics than the science. >If it was a lab leak, "Oops." … Oops?! >Or, in other words, what would we do differently if it were a la…

> we sure seem to put a lot of effort into stopping “human-origin” fires

Do we?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#523

Post by burrows »

rzz3 wrote: post #513
ethbr0 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? That this plausibly could have been of natural origin would seem to override any value in discerning where it actually came from. If it was a lab leak, "Oops." We hastened it occuring naturally by some amount of time. Lots of people…

>Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? Meaning, someone who didn’t walk in with a bias and look around the room for things that support said bias. This debate is packed with armchair experts who seem to have a larger interest in the politics than the science. >If it was a lab leak, "Oops." … Oops?! >Or, in other words, what would we do differently if it were a la…

> This sounds a bit “fuck it, why bother trying to make anything better, something bad will always happen”.

I agree.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#524

Post by lupire »

ethbr0 wrote: post #493
incrudible wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You underestimate the time value of not having a pandemic today, as opposed to perhaps hundreds of years in the future. Serial passage through humanized mice is not exactly something that happens in nature.

That is a substantial value, to be sure. But I also look at it the other way: COVID was perhaps the smallest scale event that could produce fundamental change in the way we (as in, humans) approach biodefense and disease control. If we needed a wakeup call, better to have it now than ~2100, when we're estimated to reach peak population + continued concentration in cities.

Peak population => we didn't figure out population control, so we need a virus to help out.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#525

Post by lupire »

briandear wrote: post #486
ethbr0 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? That this plausibly could have been of natural origin would seem to override any value in discerning where it actually came from. If it was a lab leak, "Oops." We hastened it occuring naturally by some amount of time. Lots of people…

Perhaps we could hold those responsible accountable? Especially if it came from research Fauci said wasn’t happening but actually was? Specifically gain of function. Look at how BP got hammered for an oil spill. Why wouldn’t China proportional penalties given that if it were a lab leak it lead to a global economic and health disaster. That it was coincidence that the virus happening near a research facility where the…

It wasn't "Chinese" research. It was Chinese-American research.

Same as how the toxic trash USA sent to China for fake recycling was USA trash, and same as how the outsourced manufacturing of "American" products to American specs is Chinese-American manufacturing.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#526

Post by SiempreViernes »

xtracto wrote: post #463
SiempreViernes wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biologists have well developed frameworks for judging the ethics of experiments that has been built up over a century of horrifying missteps. AI is at the "hire and fire until they get a sycophant" stage in the development of proper ethical review methods.

Not chinese biologists . Or Mexican biologists for all that matters (I'm from Mexico). I mean, there's a lot of countries capable of playing with viruses which dont have real practical controls.

Chinese biologists have ethics committees too, as do Mexican researchers.

Here's neurobiology at UNAM: http://www.inb.unam.mx/index.php/comite-de-etica-en-la-inves... and here's a bioethics committee in the university of Guadalajara: http://www.cusur.udg.mx/es/investigacion/comite-de-etica-en-... and here's a Ethics committee for the Shanghai Clinical Research Center: http://www.scrcnet.org/iec_en.asp

You might argue that these achieve little in practice, and due to corruption amount to nothing more than fig leafs. But that doesn't invalidate the argument because AI researchers don't even wear that much!

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#527

Post by user3939382 »

generj wrote: post #467
user3939382 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm more cynical, maybe even conspiratorial. My theory is that NIH was possibly, even if indirectly, contributing funding to the research that caused the outbreak, and that the major corporate media networks are there to shill for the establishment forces in the government and hushed this story as not to humiliate Fauci and the NIH. I've seen Rand Paul credibly grilling Fauci on this issue a number of times a…

Rand Paul isn’t credible on nearly any topic, but especially not SARS-CoV-2. We are talking about a man who proposed banning masks on public transit, knew he had COVID but didn’t inform anyone but instead spread COVID amongst a bunch of elderly Senators, and spent time railing against vaccines for children. The man is a non-practicing eye doctor who pretends to medical knowledge he doesn’t have.

When you're an MD for eyes or anything else, you can criticize his medical knowledge. Who cares if he specialized in eyes? He spent 2 decades as a surgeon. He obviously has more medical knowledge than most of Congress.

He's very credible on the discussions I referred to. Fauci basically sat there squirming and splitting hairs and playing semantic games to weasel his way out of admitting the NIH's involvement in the research going on at the Wuhan lab. My guess is you have some ideological axe to grind against Rand Paul or the right, that's just a guess, I could be wrong.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#528

Post by noobermin »

ethbr0 wrote: post #410
rzz3 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very well put. One thing I’d add, is that this entire debate regarding the lab leak hypothesis is entirely politicized, and I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth. Either theory is perfectly viable given the evidence we currently have.

> and I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth Not to be glib, but what would be a legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth? That this plausibly could have been of natural origin would seem to override any value in discerning where it actually came from. If it was a lab leak, "Oops." We hastened it occuring naturally by some amount of time. Lots of people…

A lab leak would have enormous impact on the way we fund virology research, that's what would change.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#529

Post by shadowgovt »

fortuna86 wrote: post #260
shadowgovt wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It could also have come from nature and while it was being studied in the lab, a similar strain made a jump to humans.

Yes but in that case, why would it emerge in Wuhan, hundreds of miles away from Southern China, where Coronaviruses actually exist in nature ?

Vehicular transportation is quite fast these days.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#530

Post by shadowgovt »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #215
corrral wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will impact other countries relationships with china. And it would impact the kind and level of scrutiny over this kind of research. I think the point is that neither of those would have had an effect on the pandemic . By the time it was major news in the US, it was too late for any of that to matter in terms of what to do about this pandemic . Not the next one, or our future relations with China, but with this…

A) I guess I interpreted "consequences" more generally to also include the consequences beyond the disease itself. B) I still believe that it would have been important. If it escaped from a lab, then those working in the lab could potentially have important information to share with the world about it. E.g. is it airborne, how much does it mutate, etc. They would have been studying it for a reason.

The fact that information never saw the light of day should be obvious evidence it didn't come out of a lab.
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