6 ms·

It's just as much China's (or anyone else's in the interest of science) to prove the lab had zero correlation to this incident. If only to appease a crowd.

avs733 6y ago
it's really and truly not. This isn't a movie...
- papermachete 6y ago
  They are solely responsible for this outbreak and only engage in political damage control.
meowface 6y ago
What? That's not how evidence works. The onus is on the person making the claim to provide positive evidence. Not actively insisting they have to prove a negative.
- papermachete 6y ago
  That's just appeal to perfection, proving a secret military base got away with corona would make you more effective than CIA and MI-6 combined. However, China has hundreds of documents of this base and backgrounds on all scientists, which it can release to no detriment at all, supposing the lab had nothing to do with corona.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    You're using a "Nothing to hide" argument to counter this supposed "appeal to perfection". Lack of evidence is not evidence.
  - meowface 6y ago
    Asking for any evidence is appeal to perfection? Or saying that it's unreasonable to demand an extraordinary, serious, world-impacting claim be disproved, while simultaneously not supporting it with any evidence? Also, I'm just saying any evidence that anything may have escaped by mistake; not that it was intentionally spread. Sure, CIA and such can discover such evidence much more effectively than any commenter here, but in that case, shouldn't you let the CIA / US government make those accusations instead of a random commenter who has no knowledge of the situation or basis for their claim? >China has hundreds of documents of this base and backgrounds on all scientists, which it can release to no detriment at all, supposing the lab had nothing to do with corona. What documents, exactly? And how would that help disprove that the virus inadvertently escaped from the lab?
- rumanator 6y ago
  > What? That's not how evidence works. The onus is on the person making the claim to provide positive evidence. You might have had a point if the Chinese regime wasn't putting it's propaganda machine into overdrive spewing conspiracy theories on how covid19 was created by the US to attack China.
  - YarickR2 6y ago
    Right now US propaganda is in overdrive mode trying to lay the blame onto China ; there are no other views in mainstream media , and if anyone tries to doubt that, asking for evidence and reminding the world about presumption of innocence, they are instantly labeled chinese bots. So much for freedom of speech and thought
    - papermachete 6y ago
      I'd like to remind people it's not just the US - Chinese test (and inhaler) suppliers being sued for highly unreliable (and some even pre-infected) equipment.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      > trying to lay the blame onto China How exactly is the Chinese regime not to blame for this mess? Between the blatant cover-up and falsified reports and underreporting deaths by a couple of orders of magnitude and knowingly stating that the virus didn't spread when they knew full well it spread like wildfire and intentionally leaving out demostratedly infected but asymptomatic cases out of the statistics while simultaneously blaming new cases on infected foreigners, how is China's regime not to blame for this whole mess? And should we now just forget that the Chinese regime has been trying to pin the blame on their covid19 mess on Italy of all places?
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      Presumption of innocence is a legal matter and this is not a court of law. It might be hard for you to understand but freedom of speech doesn't protect you from getting called out. Nay, it is the affirmative right to do so. It would also do you well to keep in mind that if we're using the criminal justice system as some standard obstruction of justice itself is a crime, as is destruction/tampering of evidence as well as witness tampering. Physical evidence is not required to convict; strong circumstantial evidence is often sufficent.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  I'm not sure the concept of "onus" is meaningful in this kind of public debate. It's not like everyone has agreed to only believe conclusions reached by particular forms of argument.
  - meowface 6y ago
    This isn't some kind of weird, esoteric form of argument. It's an underlying principle of empiricism that you should try to provide evidence for claims you make rather than making the accused prove something is false. Someone accuses you of murder and says "prove you didn't do it". You didn't do it, but can't satisfactorily prove such a negative. Maybe you were outside taking a walk and no one can provide an alibi. Does that mean you should be assumed guilty?

avs733 6y ago

it's really and truly not. This isn't a movie...

papermachete 6y ago
They are solely responsible for this outbreak and only engage in political damage control.

meowface 6y ago

What? That's not how evidence works. The onus is on the person making the claim to provide positive evidence. Not actively insisting they have to prove a negative.

papermachete 6y ago
That's just appeal to perfection, proving a secret military base got away with corona would make you more effective than CIA and MI-6 combined. However, China has hundreds of documents of this base and backgrounds on all scientists, which it can release to no detriment at all, supposing the lab had nothing to do with corona.
- Klinky 6y ago
  You're using a "Nothing to hide" argument to counter this supposed "appeal to perfection". Lack of evidence is not evidence.
- meowface 6y ago
  Asking for any evidence is appeal to perfection? Or saying that it's unreasonable to demand an extraordinary, serious, world-impacting claim be disproved, while simultaneously not supporting it with any evidence? Also, I'm just saying any evidence that anything may have escaped by mistake; not that it was intentionally spread. Sure, CIA and such can discover such evidence much more effectively than any commenter here, but in that case, shouldn't you let the CIA / US government make those accusations instead of a random commenter who has no knowledge of the situation or basis for their claim? >China has hundreds of documents of this base and backgrounds on all scientists, which it can release to no detriment at all, supposing the lab had nothing to do with corona. What documents, exactly? And how would that help disprove that the virus inadvertently escaped from the lab?
rumanator 6y ago
> What? That's not how evidence works. The onus is on the person making the claim to provide positive evidence. You might have had a point if the Chinese regime wasn't putting it's propaganda machine into overdrive spewing conspiracy theories on how covid19 was created by the US to attack China.
- YarickR2 6y ago
  Right now US propaganda is in overdrive mode trying to lay the blame onto China ; there are no other views in mainstream media , and if anyone tries to doubt that, asking for evidence and reminding the world about presumption of innocence, they are instantly labeled chinese bots. So much for freedom of speech and thought
  - papermachete 6y ago
    I'd like to remind people it's not just the US - Chinese test (and inhaler) suppliers being sued for highly unreliable (and some even pre-infected) equipment.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > trying to lay the blame onto China How exactly is the Chinese regime not to blame for this mess? Between the blatant cover-up and falsified reports and underreporting deaths by a couple of orders of magnitude and knowingly stating that the virus didn't spread when they knew full well it spread like wildfire and intentionally leaving out demostratedly infected but asymptomatic cases out of the statistics while simultaneously blaming new cases on infected foreigners, how is China's regime not to blame for this whole mess? And should we now just forget that the Chinese regime has been trying to pin the blame on their covid19 mess on Italy of all places?
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Presumption of innocence is a legal matter and this is not a court of law. It might be hard for you to understand but freedom of speech doesn't protect you from getting called out. Nay, it is the affirmative right to do so. It would also do you well to keep in mind that if we're using the criminal justice system as some standard obstruction of justice itself is a crime, as is destruction/tampering of evidence as well as witness tampering. Physical evidence is not required to convict; strong circumstantial evidence is often sufficent.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I'm not sure the concept of "onus" is meaningful in this kind of public debate. It's not like everyone has agreed to only believe conclusions reached by particular forms of argument.
- meowface 6y ago
  This isn't some kind of weird, esoteric form of argument. It's an underlying principle of empiricism that you should try to provide evidence for claims you make rather than making the accused prove something is false. Someone accuses you of murder and says "prove you didn't do it". You didn't do it, but can't satisfactorily prove such a negative. Maybe you were outside taking a walk and no one can provide an alibi. Does that mean you should be assumed guilty?