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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#671

Post by tim333 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #59
DarknessFalls wrote: post #33

Can someone explain why the furin cleavage site is unusual from a natural evolutionary view?

If a feature would make the virus very unsuccessful in bats, then how did it propagate? There had to be another cross-over species or something but no one has any data to suggest what that is. China has apparently made it impossible to do the work of piecing that together, so the lab leak hypothesis may never be put to bed. Maybe the party leadership believes a lab leak is likely even if they have no specific knowled…

EcoHealth Alliance, the main US funders of the Wuhan lab have been awfully shy about letting anyone see their data. There's a good chance proof is there and the data can legally forced out of them.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#672

Post by throwaway4good »

rozab wrote: post #417
jacquesm wrote: post #341

If this comment thread is the way the self proclaimed smartest forum on the web deals with articles like this then we're doomed. This article contributes zero actual evidence, is littered with out of context quotes (including of all places the title), doesn't appear to understand the science or the probabilities involved and finally is clearly written with an agenda. It shouldn't have been posted to HN in the first p…

Evidence? The hypothesis of the article is that certain scientists did believe a lab leak was likely, but hid their views. The article provides ample evidence for this. If you also want it to conclusively prove the lab leak hypothesis in the same breath then I'd say your expectations are too high. Better publications have tackled the subject anyway: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

I too would like to see some evidence for the hypothesis that hn is "the smartest forum on the web".

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#673

Post by varjag »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #665
afpx wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists must do a better job of explaining how natural origin is the likely explanation, then. Otherwise, a lot of smart and educated people are going to put the wrong dots together.

The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab lea…

Why is that a default explanation when you have no natural carrier habitats at the ground zero, but you do have a virology lab there?

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#674

Post by [deleted] »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #345
vasco wrote: post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Climate change is mostly that barometer for me. So when I see this article cites Viscount Ridley, the climate change denier, I pretty much put it in the same category of bullshit as all of that stuff This is assuming I've not spotted its in the Telegraph first, which is enough to know its almost certainly lies and misrepresention.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#675

Post by varjag »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #629
sumedh wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article contributes zero actual evidence What evidence has China given to show that the virus jumped from animals?

Why is such evidence needed? The vast majority of diseases we know have not come from a lab leak. Why should this one in particular be assumed to be different?

The other most famous outbreak with wet market specified as culprit (Sverdlovsk 1979 anthrax) was in fact a lab leak.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#676

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

varjag wrote: post #673
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab lea…

Why is that a default explanation when you have no natural carrier habitats at the ground zero, but you do have a virology lab there?

There's no "when". A natural origin is the default explanation. To look for a different explanation you need to have a reason to look for a different explanation.

The existence of a virology lab in the state where the pandemic began is no such reason. Rather, it is a post-facto attempt at making observations supporting an a-priori hypothesis.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#677

Post by varjag »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #676
varjag wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a default explanation when you have no natural carrier habitats at the ground zero, but you do have a virology lab there?

There's no "when". A natural origin is the default explanation. To look for a different explanation you need to have a reason to look for a different explanation. The existence of a virology lab in the state where the pandemic began is no such reason. Rather, it is a post-facto attempt at making observations supporting an a-priori hypothesis.

Not just "in the state" but in minutes distance from first cases. Plenty of reason to look into, it's not like every urban centre has virology labs studying the titular disease.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#678

Post by tim333 »

Angostura wrote: post #557
vasco wrote: post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

I'm very surprised to find someone on HN who lists the Daily Telegraph as their favourite news source. This remoinds me of Climegate where cherry-picked phrases taken out of context were used to try and smear scientists. I'll wait to see the words in context.

I'd like that. One of the problems here is seeing the words at all - this stuff has only come out after over a year of freedom of information requests.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#679

Post by s5300 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #661
s5300 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the reaction you get when you tell people there was literally something created & called “Pandemic Playbook” which was devised because they were expecting a pandemic in the next decade or two. & what happened to the Pandemic Playbook created by the 44th presidential administration? It was completely discarded by the 45th presidential administration. What proceeded to happen during the 45th presidential adminis…

And I love when ppl are so sucked into a particular narrative that they ignore the question being asked: Where were the stockpiles of appropriate equipment? Or did the playbook say such things would fall out of the sky, like manna from heaven? Fact: The 45th didn't discard them. In fact, the gov bought masks from Facebook and (I think) Google who did have a stockpile (but evidently not for pandemic purposes). You're…

…sigh

Feel free to use the search engine of your choice to search “US PPE Stockpile” & read any of the multiple credible articles that come up as the first results of the search. As it was known nearly immediately after COVID started, the stockpiles were mostly depleted - and what wasn’t depleted was mostly expired. This is why you saw pictures and videos of nurses demonstrating their supplied smocks disintegrating into dust as they put them on.

The 45th administration had the responsibility to refresh the stockpiles, and they purposely chose not to. If you’re unaware of this, your snark is a bit funny as you appear to be the one suckered.

Secondly: As for what the government bought after they remembered the stockpile is screwed, also for the small bit of it that was still useable.

“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” - Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor, 45th Admin

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4/3/21207140/jared-kus...

So much to the point that at least one state had to buy shipments of PPE in secrecy & then guard the distribution of said shipments with their National Guard. Everything not done in secrecy or guarded was being “appropriated” by the Feds, for reasons not hard to imagine given the statement of the aforementioned advisor.

There’s a lot more to it, but I digress.

Somebody here is indeed a sucker - but I do not believe it is I.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#680

Post by blitzar »

loceng wrote: post #590
cocoggu wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a strong opinion about what happened, it may or may not be a lab leak. It's still ongoing and I feel it will be a very long and sterile debate with few scientific facts to prove anything. Granted, if the title of the article was "Scientists believed that Covid had natural origins...", this article wouldn't attract my attention as much, because I already believe that to be the popular opinion. But if, in…

Did you notice though that the lab leak in mainstream media was stated as being conclusively not a lab leak - not even potentially? That's what I saw, only relatively recently did the tune change.

Oddly enough the mainstream media I saw stated that it was conclusively a lab leak, orchestrated by the democrats, in conjunction with soros, gates, leftists, globalist and the CCP. There was zero potential that it could be anything else at all, or that even one of the supposed conspiring parties was not involved.
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