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

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#671

Post by Xorakios » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

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…

That is an excellent article and, as the authors say in the first paragraph, lengthy and informative.

The combination of Chinese secrecy and Trump demanding that they pay reparations have poisoned a lot of discussions.

But come on, a novel bat virus exploding from the world's main research facility about bat viruses that was first reported by a doctor from a hospital in the same city with symptoms from the wife of a researcher at the Wuhan facility?

That's a lot of coincidences. And Jethro Gibbs doesn't believe in coincidences ;)

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#672

Post by peteradio » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #626

ikrenji wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is really not extremely unlikely. mainly because it happened multiple times previously in china with sars epidemic. there is a precedent https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/

There's also a difference between leaking a novel virus and one that has been circulating. Also the accusation of "gain of function" experiments making the virus more dangerous. Of course it is not extremely unlikely that a virus escapes from a lab. To me it seems very unlikely that this particular virus first escaped from this lab and especially that it wasn't a threat before being collected.

> Also the accusation of "gain of function" experiments making the virus more dangerous.

Is that a complete sentence? What are you saying? Are you dismissing out of hand the possibility that gain of function research was being done at the time of the first discovery of SARS-COV-2 on the same type of viruses?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#673

Post by peteradio » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #319

mw888 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is garbage appeal to authority designed to make people embarrassed to hold an opposite view. I learned nothing from your comment and was simply told to trust this source you hid any arguments behind. It’s not fostering discussion and it’s strawmanning those you disagree with.

The fundamental premise here is that most people who are arguing about COVID origins simply don't understand enough about known factual biology to make informed arguments. The appeal to authority is important because, in the case where we're not particularly knowledgeable, we should use authorities as guidance on how to reason. I agree with what the parent said although I wouldn't say the evidence is "overwhelming".…

A layman can have explained the pieces at play and how they should work together, that allows the layman to point out logical inconsistencies while taking for granted they do not understand all the low level bits and pieces.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#674

Post by ravel-bar-foo » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

dpbriggs wrote: post #348

stetrain wrote: post #12

I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…

We already had intense media speculation about the source of the virus at the start of the pandemic because _people wanted to know_. It would have been nice to have a proper investigation at the start of the pandemic as they may have caught evidence before it could have been destroyed.

This proper investigation would never have happened. China started a trade war with Australia for promoting an independent international investigation. I think the fact that China is willing to go to bat (pun intended) over this is a great argument for international sanctions no matter the origin, but I'm just a nobody on the internet.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#675

Post by dekhn » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #673

dekhn wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental premise here is that most people who are arguing about COVID origins simply don't understand enough about known factual biology to make informed arguments. The appeal to authority is important because, in the case where we're not particularly knowledgeable, we should use authorities as guidance on how to reason. I agree with what the parent said although I wouldn't say the evidence is "overwhelming".…

A layman can have explained the pieces at play and how they should work together, that allows the layman to point out logical inconsistencies while taking for granted they do not understand all the low level bits and pieces.

Not in medical biology. It doesn't work that way.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#676

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

tripletao wrote: post #536

ethbr0 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, my response was not "Oh well." It was "And if we did all of that, how much would it decrease our future risk of zoonotic spillover?"

And if we banned thalidomide, how much would that help pregnant women with morning sickness? The fact that you're trying to prevent one kind of harm (morning sickness, natural-origin pandemics) doesn't excuse causing unlimited amounts of a different kind of harm (birth defects, research-origin pandemics). The non-absurd version of this argument is that risky virological research will provide a public benefit offsetti…

I haven't said it excuses it: I've just said that I don't see blame as productive. Something can be morally wrong and also less important to pursue.

The non-absurd version of this argument is that we can't police everything, everywhere, especially across national borders with sovereign, independent governments in power.

So taking that into account, there's always going to be a fog over truth in certain places.

We can spend substantial amount of effort trying to pierce that, probably fruitlessly, or we can focus that effort on things we can actually change and improve.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#677

Post by peteradio » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #276

ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

> If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. The lesson here is not “we need to prove it was a lab leak,” the lesson is “we need better visibility inside China.” Which is also true for viruses that arise naturally inside China. Do you think that if y…

> We can’t control other nations

Really? Is diplomacy dead? I guess you can probably say "we can't absolutely control other nations" but nations don't even absolutely control themselves.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#678

Post by kgwgk » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #624

kgwgk wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP didn’t send a link to that particular outdated section within that site. July 9, 2020 This article has not been updated recently You did. Why? How are your link and quote related to the « 200k+ cases per day in June 2022 » claim? If you don’t know yourself, asking GP won’t help.

On the page they link to, in the section the 241k came from, is a link that says "More detail on the analysis". It goes to my link.

I still don't get how that is related to the "The 241K number is total gibberish." statement that follows.

Is it because they should have removed the "More detail on the analysis" link to a no-longer-updated analysis and not removing the link invalidates the latest results somehow?

Or is there anything in that analysis of the results as of two years ago that discredits also everything that came later?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#679

Post by snowwrestler » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #677

snowwrestler wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. The lesson here is not “we need to prove it was a lab leak,” the lesson is “we need better visibility inside China.” Which is also true for viruses that arise naturally inside China. Do you think that if y…

> We can’t control other nations Really? Is diplomacy dead? I guess you can probably say "we can't absolutely control other nations" but nations don't even absolutely control themselves.

Exactly, there is no way to reliably prevent work with dangerous infectious agents across the entire globe.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#680

Post by djsmisc » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

Why do we ignore history and not consider the possibility that COVID was intentional - by a rogue government or corporate cell, or a individual such as Dr. Bruce Ivins (Ft. Detrick)?