Nothing will breed more conspiracy theorists than the way how the scientific community dealt with Covid-19 pandemic.
That makes no sense.
Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
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Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#832Earlier quoted context omitted.
The headline is absolutely, literally true. I also don't understand the nuance that anyone could miss here. The astounding thing is that the Energy Dept. can say that a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic, and people jump out in front of them to say that what they somehow still mean is that a lab leak wasn't the cause of the pandemic. They have "low confidence" that it was a lab leak ( there might not e…
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The origin and the remedy are entirely uncorrelated (If anything, one would think that a manufactured origin of the virus would make "natural immunity" a LESS likely viable remedy).
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#833Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The headline is absolutely, literally true It absolutely, literally isn't. The headline says the lab leak is the most likely origin. The lab theory being the least shitty theory absolutely doesn't make it a likely origin: it is purely a statement about the information we have (rather lack thereof) on origins, not on the likelihood of any of those. Likelihood of origin doesn't even come into it given the current sta…
The headline is absolutely, literally true. The story is that the DOE determined a lab leak is the most likely origin . And that’s exactly what the headline says. Did they decide it’s only marginally more likely than other theories? Perhaps, but the headline remains true. This is not complicated.
it is if you have a narrative to sell.
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#834Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it even matter at this point? The WHO investigation in 2020, and subsequent report, was a complete sham. The CCP has the WHO in their back pocket. Nothing they say has any relevance in the matter.
Any evidence for the claim that WHO/WHO reports are not to be trusted?
If you're looking for definitive evidence, you're unlikely to find any. But there have certainly been many instances of the WHO acting in favor of China's best interests, and there are many criticisms of their SARS-CoV-2 research and report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM
https://nypost.com/2021/03/30/us-other-nations-slam-who-repo...
I, as a layperson, found several issues with the report as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26757817
All of this mounts sufficient evidence for any reasonable person to be suspicious of the WHO, if not to entirely dismiss their claims.
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#835Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#836This has been written about many times, in 2020, very convincingly in 2021 by Nicholas Wade ( https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... ) and now. It will always be dismissed by those who have a political interest in seeing things differently. Authortiarianism and coordinated censorship between govs, big health and big tech made it so that anything countering the mandated narratives was heavily…
The fact that my comment gets downvoted with no reply is par for course.
I know that HN etiquette will then complain and say "don't talk about downvotes" but that has been effectively another way to suppress dissent all along.
Make dissent hard and when the barrier is still passed, make it hard to view, if you can't outright censor it.
Now we also get SNL being able to "slightly criticize the narrative" when they were so for it for such a long time [1] although the link will still call it a conspiracy, the ever so useful label to anything that requires dismissal without arguments.
[1] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/02/26/wo...
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#837I feel like it doesn't matter how it happened, China caused it either by incompetent lab operation or incompetent food hygiene operation.
This has happened multiple times now. And at this point it's predicable, so it's not a matter of debate. So it's time to hold China accountable or at least take some preventative action like limiting direct flights and screening people whole been to China more closely.
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#838Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would guess that the vast majority of the population do not take meaningful actions based on election prediction (other than "I might [not] need to actually vote"). There are good reasons to have polls and predictions but they are far from necessary.
People who work for political campaigns need to know, businesses and investors might like to plan, etc.
Yes, but it is not "needed" in the current form. It is needed the same way you need to predict how global trends will be in 6 months: very important for a lot of people, but not an actionable information for most.
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#839Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "sightly-less-shitty-than-other-theories" theory is still a shitty theory. Low-confidence means exactly what it sounds like.
Where’s your comment from two years ago belittling the wet market theory as shitty? This whole saga is a damning indictment of: science journalism, government agencies’ public engagement, scientists’ public engagement, and the critical reasoning skills of middlebrow audiences.
>>> This whole saga is a damning indictment of: science journalism, government agencies’ public engagement, scientists’ public engagement, and the critical reasoning skills of middlebrow audiences
Aint this the dang truth.
Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says
#840Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems that lo these many years later all the theories are still full of holes. Lab leak is plausible but there's no public evidence to back it. Somehow the DOE thinks they have something but we haven't seen it. Just based on history, zoonotic remains most likely but no host has been found.
It's also weird to me that the Department of Energy (and not, say, the CDC/DHHS or USAMRIID or what have you) is advancing such hypotheses in the first place. What does the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have to do with American energy policy?
DOE supervises the national labs, which have 1) bio experience 2) high classification 3) supercomputers 4) lots more scientists than CIA or God help us FBI. DOE has organic science resources. The other agencies tend to rely on academic consultants, who are compromised because no one wants to bring virology labs under intense and blaming scrutiny.