What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis? • Hacker News Board

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#631

Post by bayesian_horse » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:59 AM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #391

bayesian_horse wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a spectrum... The zoonotic virus would need to have some rare "talent" to start with. Then there is the ominous "breeding" part, which many people describe as reckless or evil. In any case this isn't done in Humans but rather some kind of humanized model (and it's not clear that could work at all). Which is why it is quite a coincidence or accident that this process would end with a virus so well adapted to H…

> Gain-of-function research is medical research that genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance the biological functions of gene products. This may include an altered pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host range. Isn't the goal to end up with an infectious agent? I don't understand why it seems so implausible that they would succeed? Why would someone give a lab money for a truly impossible task?

A virus that is optimized for mice or bats doesn't normally work well in Humans. If a bat virus somehow evolves in a lab into a pandemic in Humans, without essentially breeding the virus in Human subjects, that would be somewhat of an accidental development because the viral particles aren't specifically selected for that reason.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#632

Post by trompetenaccoun » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:01 AM UTC

cloutchaser wrote: post #619

harishcs wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elephant in the room, as far as support for GOFROC (gain of function research of concern) goes, is Fauci. Several leading biologists (Marc Lipsitch, David Relman and others) have argued for years that the risk/reward ratio for GOFROC is too high to justify it. But it had to go all the way to Obama for Fauci to change course. Obama imposed a 3-year moratorium from 2014-17, which was lifted soon after he left offic…

To me the fact that top officials in both the US and China have a likely interest in not investigating lab origins goes a long way to show why this hasn’t been done. And why no other country can get the ball rolling on it, these are the two most powerful countries in the world. IMO it’s likely no one knows where this virus came from right now. but it could well be a lab, but anyone who could potentially investigate t…

It's even worse. If you look at that Lancet Letter scandal, you'll find for example Christian Drosten as a signatory, who was the expert with the most influence over the German government until recently.

Even after the Daszak conflict of interest was discovered, despite the declaration of no conflict of interest, none of them ever retracted it or even apologized. Even more, it was later revealed the letter had actually been authored by Daszak himself, as the pretend lead author Charles Calisher himself admitted. Calisher is a long retired professor born in 1936 who at this point may or may not understand what's going on. To his credit at least he told the truth when journalists questioned him. It looks like Daszak used his name to distract from his authorship. The strategy worked too, at first.

What's shocking is that none of them have faced any consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_letter_(COVID-19)

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#633

Post by brigandish » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:10 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #411

ChemSpider wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of the people in those emails have updated their priors to favor zoonosis, According the to released FOIA'ed emails, these scientists changed their mind within 1-2 days from "wow, could really be a lab leak" to "lab leak is a conspiracy theory" - why that? None of them can explain what made them change their mind on this short time frame in spring 2020. Was there new knowledge? A break thru experiment? They ref…

> None of them can explain what made them change their mind on this short time frame in spring 2020. Really? Can you point to interviews with these people that have no answer when asked why they change their mind? It's quite a strong statement to say what you said, and it would surprise me to see an entire group of people refuse to answer a question. That would be quite something. But I suspect a more likely descript…

You're basically asking someone to prove a negative as it could always be claimed that they'd explained themselves elsewhere. Wouldn't it be easier to provide interviews where they do explain their reasons?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#634

Post by noptd » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:14 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #350

thereddaikon wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists aren't going to prove lab leak one way or the other because the evidence isn't going to be in the virus itself. The for or against lies with the lab and the staff working there and the PRC is not going to allow an open and honest investigation to either prove or discount it. So unless it can be proven to have come from somewhere else, you are likely never going to settle whether it was lab leak.

But we've pretty much established that it was a virus of natural origin - all of our molecular techniques leave signs, so an honest discussion would foreclose that possibility. That doesn't eliminate the possibility that it was a natural virus which had been collected and subsequently escaped due to bad lab technique but the former is too attractive a conspiracy theory to let go..

>But we've pretty much established that it was a virus of natural origin

You keep repeating this sentiment even though there are other comments that provide evidence to the contrary, that we haven't established that at all.

Do you have any sources to support this claim other than what are effectively op-ed essays?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#635

Post by harishcs » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

cloutchaser wrote: post #619

harishcs wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elephant in the room, as far as support for GOFROC (gain of function research of concern) goes, is Fauci. Several leading biologists (Marc Lipsitch, David Relman and others) have argued for years that the risk/reward ratio for GOFROC is too high to justify it. But it had to go all the way to Obama for Fauci to change course. Obama imposed a 3-year moratorium from 2014-17, which was lifted soon after he left offic…

To me the fact that top officials in both the US and China have a likely interest in not investigating lab origins goes a long way to show why this hasn’t been done. And why no other country can get the ball rolling on it, these are the two most powerful countries in the world. IMO it’s likely no one knows where this virus came from right now. but it could well be a lab, but anyone who could potentially investigate t…

I agree. Australia was one of the few countries which called for an investigation of all possibilities and the reaction from China was swift and furious. For most countries, concerns about trade and geopolitics outweigh everything else.

The US (and I would add France, which built the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan) has additional reasons not to investigate, as you said.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#636

Post by noptd » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #332

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.

> I feel few people actually have legitimate scientific interest in discovering the truth. Either theory is perfectly viable given the evidence we currently have. This has been extensively investigated by scientists - it’d be a career making move if you could prove something that juicy! - but the problem is that the conclusions aren’t completely certain but rather comparing probability & the limited evidence to concl…

>the limited evidence to conclude that the lab leak hypothesis is increasingly unlikely.

Any citations to share? I've only seen peer-reviewed evidence shared in this comments section that contradicts this claim.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#637

Post by mike_d » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

kaitaincps wrote: post #590

mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

One thing I would point out here: Shi Zhengli is the principal bat-borne sarbecovirus researcher at the WIV. When the pandemic first came to light, the first thought Shi Zhengli had was, "Oh my goodness! That might have have come from our lab! Let's investigate! I wonder if the municipal health authority has got it wrong. I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China." Zhengli goes on t…

> "I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China"

Which in itself is an extremely odd statement, to the point I think it might have been taken out of context or mistranslated.

If it was going to happen anywhere, Wuhan was one of the most likely candidates - to the point they built the lab there to do the research.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#638

Post by noptd » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:27 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #628

dpbriggs wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the disagreement is around the word "undetected". It's possible some failure was covered up and I trust the Chinese government to be capable enough to do that. > virus has to be collected and be propagated in the lab That's a weaker statement than the one I replied to. I'm referring to the how it's necessary that it needs to a "pandemicable" virus that enters a lab "undetected" and I guess leaves the lab "und…

The whole point is that the virus that was collected would already need to have some properties that predispose it to become a dangerous pandemic. Which is unlikely because those Viruses are pretty rare. And the rest of your comment just tells me you know nothing about biology.

So the crux of your argument is that it's more likely that a virus with that type of predisposition occured in nature in a specific area around the Wuhan market as opposed to being sampled from one of many areas, potentially modified, and then leaked into said area? Seems unlikely considering the rarity as you pointed out.

>And the rest of your comment just tells me you know nothing about biology.

No need to resort to ad-hominems ; all it achieves is tainting your future responses on the topic with a lingering question of whether they are being made in good faith.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#639

Post by harishcs » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:29 AM UTC

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #632

cloutchaser wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the fact that top officials in both the US and China have a likely interest in not investigating lab origins goes a long way to show why this hasn’t been done. And why no other country can get the ball rolling on it, these are the two most powerful countries in the world. IMO it’s likely no one knows where this virus came from right now. but it could well be a lab, but anyone who could potentially investigate t…

It's even worse. If you look at that Lancet Letter scandal, you'll find for example Christian Drosten as a signatory, who was the expert with the most influence over the German government until recently. Even after the Daszak conflict of interest was discovered, despite the declaration of no conflict of interest, none of them ever retracted it or even apologized. Even more, it was later revealed the letter had actual…

Shocking and depressing. It was a gross abuse of the trust that society places in scientists. What is astonishing is that the conlicts of interest of the authors would have been clear with a simple Google search. Yet, no newspaper thought of doing that! More likely, they took a decision to not pursue that angle.

  I didn't know that Calisher is that old !

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#640

Post by qikInNdOutReply » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

I blame, the uneducated about viruses, wuhan-institute-janitor with the dead animals, on the food market, instead of expensive cremating them, making a little money in a side hustle.

Cluedo its fun for the whole family.

But it provides nothing tangible regarding responsiblity.

The janitor is clueless on the danger(the government does not properly educate its citizens, which have medieval concepts of medicine), a culture of side hustles & "stealing from the man that steals" is normal in all post-sovjet countries.

The problem here is that the risk is systemic. Meaning, the societal characteristics to be found in all post-sovjet totalitarian societities, will produce this again and again, against all promises of reform. Which makes outsourcing exponentially dangerous endavours to these places a crime.

I do not blame ccp-china there. That potemkin village of a working society is very obvious for anyone willing to watch and able to look past "brute" reality-i-command-you-so sovjet style propaganda.

I blame those who thought they could perform already irresponsible endavours for cheap without oversight there.

Yes, medieval concepts of medicine. Why do you think those life animal markets still exist? Because frozzen food is considered "bad" for your chi. Now, im going to pretend that outrage at outrageous behaviour could have consequences.