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You're taking about the assertion that the virus spread from an accidental contamination at a lab in Wuhan. It is crossing into conspiracy theory territory to b

You're taking about the assertion that the virus spread from an accidental contamination at a lab in Wuhan. It is crossing into conspiracy theory territory to believe the assertion without proof. However, the theory itself is completely reasonable and sound. This is an unproven claim; a conspiracy theory is something different.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
The theory is just as "reasonable" as the Soviet misinformation about HIV was. That is, not at all. It's a wildly implausible assertion that there's no evidence for. People outside of labs are exposed to bat coronaviruses all the time. The chances that one of a very small number of highly trained researchers working according to strict protocols was patient zero - as opposed to the millions of regular people who come into contact with bat coronaviruses with absolutely no protection or training - is minuscule. Just like the Soviet misinformation in the 1980s, the theory can't be disproven right now, in exactly the same way that any other malicious accusation made with zero evidence can't be disproven. The Trump administration is acting extremely recklessly by spreading this unsupported conspiracy theory.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  > implausible Explain the previous sars releases then.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    SARS spilled over naturally, not from a lab. After it spilled over naturally, it became the subject of intense study, sometimes in labs with poor procedures. Huge amounts of SARS-CoV were being cultured by people with little training. That's an entirely different circumstance from now. The lab where they study coronaviruses in Wuhan operates at a much higher standard than poorly run Chinese labs in 2004. The lab in Wuhan wasn't even conceived back then. It's essentially proven that SARS-CoV-2 was not under study before the outbreak, because the it's not in any of the standard databases where all known coronaviruses are published. But even disregarding that, the idea that huge quantities of a virus that nobody has ever heard of would be cultured is implausible.
- kjs3 6y ago
  It's a wildly implausible assertion that there's no evidence for. No...it's an entirely plausible assertion that there's no evidence for. That's why it's gained traction so easily. Biohazard accidents have happened before. There's a lab doing work with dangerous microbes in Wuhan. That means plausible. Conspiracy theories thrive on the tiny bit of truth buried in all the crap. If you dismiss the tiny bit of truth out of hand, it just becomes proof to the conspiracy that you're lying/deluded/part of the cabal. highly trained researchers working according to strict protocols To turn this back on your demand for evidence...how do you know? Is it plausible that someone was careless? Poorly trained? The protocols weren't as strictly adhered to as they should have been? Plausibility. The Trump administration is acting extremely recklessly by spreading this unsupported conspiracy theory. Well, duh. But you don't fight back with equally poorly considered knee-jerk retorts.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    > No...it's an entirely plausible assertion that there's no evidence for. Not technically impossible is not the same as plausible. It's technically possible that Hitler survived WWII and lived it his days in Argentina. It's not plausible. > To turn this back on your demand for evidence...how do you know? Because it's a BSL-4 lab built in collaboration with a top French lab. The researchers are trained at top national labs in the US, France and Australia. Top international virologists insist that the lab in Wuhan has an excellent safety record. There are a whole number of things that make the theory utterly implausible: 1. The lab did not have SARS-CoV-2. They sequence and publish a segment of the genome of every coronavirus they identify. SARS-CoV-2 is not among the several hundred viruses they've identified and published in this manner. In order to get around this, as a conspiracy theorist, you'd have to assert that the lab, for some reason, decided in advance not to publish SARS-CoV-2. That's implausible element #1. 2. Even if the lab had discovered SARS-CoV-2, and then not published it for whatever unknown reason, they wouldn't have found it interesting. It's 20% divergent from SARS-CoV. Before this pandemic, researchers weren't particularly interested in viruses that are so different from SARS-CoV. There are viruses that are only a few percent different from SARS-CoV. Those are the types of viruses that are intensively studied, where you can start spinning theories about lab accidents. This is implausible element #2. 3. People outside labs are exposed to SARS-related viruses all the time. There are estimates that literally millions of people are exposed every year. If you compare that against a few highly trained researchers working under strict protocols, you begin to see the absurdity of blaming the researchers. We're talking about odds that are literally a million to one here. That's implausible element #3. > But you don't fight back with equally poorly considered knee-jerk retorts. You should learn something about the subject before you comment that the theory is plausible.
thefounder 6y ago
>> However, the theory itself is completely reasonable and sound. Isn't it the same with most conspiracy theories?(plain bullshit excluded) Just on History Channel you can see a lot of such cases about Hitler still being alive somewhere in Argentine, Ancient Aliens etc. Anyone can find compelling reasons to support anything but if you want to be objective you need to analyse the evidence. What evidence does Trump have that the virus was developed in a lab in China? Even with reasonable evidence I don't know who would believe him anyway.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  > plain bullshit excluded These ones that you listed were plain bullshit though.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Not any more BS than the lab theory is.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      The biologists that I saw talking about this topic all called it "possible" or "unlikely". Meanwhile the theories that you mentioned are pretty much impossible. "Hitler still being alive somewhere in Argentine" would mean that he is 131 years old. I think that you let your political affiliations get in the way and cloud your view.
      - thefounder 6y ago
        Nobody says that Hitler is still alive. The theory is that he was still alive after the war/was seen in Argentine (i.e he didn't commit suicide) which can be supported/may be "possible". My point is that without hard evidence anyone can provide "reasonable" arguments for almost anything. That's why we have protocols and run clinical trials instead to rely on what "makes sense"(i.e inject disinfectant to kill covid-19) in our more or less sharp minds. Now if someone talks bullshit all day long it is very hard to figure out when he says the truth so without evidence it would be safe to assume that whatever he says it is very likely to be false or at least partially false.
wahern 6y ago
In the absence of proof, how is the contemporaneous assertion "[AIDS] was the product of biological weapons experiments conducted by the United States" any less reasonable? We didn't even realize until the 2000s that AIDS had been around for over 30 years at the time the assertions were made. Prior to SARS-CoV-2, researchers around the world had been warning that the next global pandemic would likely 1) be a coronavirus that 2) emerges from bat reservoirs 3) in China. There was a whole special issue of the journal Virus with multiple papers making that claim: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses/special_issues/viruses_bats_2019 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses/special_issues/viruses_... At least one of those papers was written by a Wuhan Institute researcher.[1] Is that supposed to constitute circumstantial evidence that implicates the institute? That's the sort of spurious logic at the core of all conspiracy theories. You can implicate anything with coincidence; it's a collection of related coincidences which constitute a hypothetical causal chain that make for evidence, and there are none with respect to the Wuhan Institute. And not only that, such a hypothesis has to overcome the a priori likelihood, not to mention substantive evidence (e.g. pangolin intermediary), of it emerging precisely as claimed by the consensus hypothesis. Is it possible it leaked from the Wuhan Institute? Sure. Just as it was possible the U.S. manufactured AIDS as part of its extensive biowarfare program. They're both still nutty theories, it's just that one has the benefit of hindsight and distance filtering all the contemporaneous coincidences, while the other still seems intuitively plausible without the assistance of analytical thinking to clear the brain fog. [1] "Thus, it is highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks will originate from bats, and there is an increased probability that this will occur in China." Yi Fan, Kai Zhao, Zheng-Li Shi, Peng Zhou, Bat Coronaviruses in China, March 2, 2019. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210 https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210
- kspacewalk2 6y ago
  >In the absence of proof, how is the contemporaneous assertion "[AIDS] was the product of biological weapons experiments conducted by the United States" any less reasonable? Because that claim is nonsensical and defies common sense, whereas the idea that an accidental infection took place is entirely reasonable and requires no leaps of faith whatsoever. >At least one of those papers was written by a Wuhan Institute researcher.[1] Is that supposed to constitute circumstantial evidence that implicates the institute? What gave you the impression that this particular paper is the reason for the theory? This institute works extensively with bat coronaviruses, published over 40 papers on the subject, had teams doing field work in caves where they came in direct contact with bats, stored many samples on site, have had systemic deficiencies in their safety and training, and were in Wuhan, the ground zero which is hundreds of kilometres away from where the bat populations likely to carry the virus that SARS-CoV-2 mutated from actually live. All of this, while being insufficient to say anything definitive, together points to accidental release as a completely legitimate origin theory. The US government of course may have a lot more information, leading it to believe that a lab accident is not just plausible, but likely. Or they could be lying and/or engaging in dirty politics. That too is a legitimate theory. > not to mention substantive evidence (e.g. pangolin intermediary), of it emerging precisely as claimed by the consensus hypothesis. Consensus hypothesis is very much subject to change. For example, the wet market origin was a significant part of it, and just a few days ago China officially said it now no longer considers that to be the source of the patient zero transmission, but merely a site of a super-spreader event. The pangolin theory was dismissed as recently as a month ago, and now there's some new evidence in its favour. Nothing we're talking about, including accidental release from a lab in Wuhan, remotely crosses into conspiracy theory territory. >Is it possible it leaked from the Wuhan Institute? Sure. Just as it was possible the U.S. manufactured AIDS as part of its extensive biowarfare program. What do these word games add to an adult discussion? 'Possible' means nothing. The difference between these, much like the difference between a one in ten and one in a billion chance, is how possible. >They're both still nutty theories, it's just that one has the benefit of hindsight and distance filtering all the contemporaneous coincidences, while the other still seems intuitively plausible without the assistance of analytical thinking to clear the brain fog. Again, analytical thinking, if you do choose to apply it, would lead you to see the clear difference between a conspiracy theory and a legitimate theory without sufficient proof. Here we have the latter, since accidental release would be logical, plausible, contradict no firmly established facts at all and would require no leaps of faith at all (unless you consider the idea that the Chinese dictatorship tried to obfuscate and cover up the truth about such a theoretical accident).
brutt 6y ago
A level 4 virus lab had major incident at 16.09.2019: some equipment was stolen from lab, because of fire blast. Incident was caught on video. After that spike of pneumonia cases of unknown origin happens. Now, testing shows that people already have antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, but no virus, and they were not sick for two months, so they had it for at least two months before anybody else. However, lab is not in China, which Trump hates, but in another country near to China, which Trump loves.
- kspacewalk2 6y ago
  That's precisely my point. I'm in no way suggesting that such incidents are only possible in China. Simply put, shit happens and protocols get violated. I work at a research institute with a level 3 lab and find it entirely plausible that it can happen here. So do the health and safety people who meticulously check whatever they can think of multiple times a year.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

The theory is just as "reasonable" as the Soviet misinformation about HIV was. That is, not at all. It's a wildly implausible assertion that there's no evidence for. People outside of labs are exposed to bat coronaviruses all the time. The chances that one of a very small number of highly trained researchers working according to strict protocols was patient zero - as opposed to the millions of regular people who come into contact with bat coronaviruses with absolutely no protection or training - is minuscule. Just like the Soviet misinformation in the 1980s, the theory can't be disproven right now, in exactly the same way that any other malicious accusation made with zero evidence can't be disproven. The Trump administration is acting extremely recklessly by spreading this unsupported conspiracy theory.

dependenttypes 6y ago
> implausible Explain the previous sars releases then.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  SARS spilled over naturally, not from a lab. After it spilled over naturally, it became the subject of intense study, sometimes in labs with poor procedures. Huge amounts of SARS-CoV were being cultured by people with little training. That's an entirely different circumstance from now. The lab where they study coronaviruses in Wuhan operates at a much higher standard than poorly run Chinese labs in 2004. The lab in Wuhan wasn't even conceived back then. It's essentially proven that SARS-CoV-2 was not under study before the outbreak, because the it's not in any of the standard databases where all known coronaviruses are published. But even disregarding that, the idea that huge quantities of a virus that nobody has ever heard of would be cultured is implausible.
kjs3 6y ago
It's a wildly implausible assertion that there's no evidence for. No...it's an entirely plausible assertion that there's no evidence for. That's why it's gained traction so easily. Biohazard accidents have happened before. There's a lab doing work with dangerous microbes in Wuhan. That means plausible. Conspiracy theories thrive on the tiny bit of truth buried in all the crap. If you dismiss the tiny bit of truth out of hand, it just becomes proof to the conspiracy that you're lying/deluded/part of the cabal. highly trained researchers working according to strict protocols To turn this back on your demand for evidence...how do you know? Is it plausible that someone was careless? Poorly trained? The protocols weren't as strictly adhered to as they should have been? Plausibility. The Trump administration is acting extremely recklessly by spreading this unsupported conspiracy theory. Well, duh. But you don't fight back with equally poorly considered knee-jerk retorts.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  > No...it's an entirely plausible assertion that there's no evidence for. Not technically impossible is not the same as plausible. It's technically possible that Hitler survived WWII and lived it his days in Argentina. It's not plausible. > To turn this back on your demand for evidence...how do you know? Because it's a BSL-4 lab built in collaboration with a top French lab. The researchers are trained at top national labs in the US, France and Australia. Top international virologists insist that the lab in Wuhan has an excellent safety record. There are a whole number of things that make the theory utterly implausible: 1. The lab did not have SARS-CoV-2. They sequence and publish a segment of the genome of every coronavirus they identify. SARS-CoV-2 is not among the several hundred viruses they've identified and published in this manner. In order to get around this, as a conspiracy theorist, you'd have to assert that the lab, for some reason, decided in advance not to publish SARS-CoV-2. That's implausible element #1. 2. Even if the lab had discovered SARS-CoV-2, and then not published it for whatever unknown reason, they wouldn't have found it interesting. It's 20% divergent from SARS-CoV. Before this pandemic, researchers weren't particularly interested in viruses that are so different from SARS-CoV. There are viruses that are only a few percent different from SARS-CoV. Those are the types of viruses that are intensively studied, where you can start spinning theories about lab accidents. This is implausible element #2. 3. People outside labs are exposed to SARS-related viruses all the time. There are estimates that literally millions of people are exposed every year. If you compare that against a few highly trained researchers working under strict protocols, you begin to see the absurdity of blaming the researchers. We're talking about odds that are literally a million to one here. That's implausible element #3. > But you don't fight back with equally poorly considered knee-jerk retorts. You should learn something about the subject before you comment that the theory is plausible.

thefounder 6y ago

>> However, the theory itself is completely reasonable and sound. Isn't it the same with most conspiracy theories?(plain bullshit excluded) Just on History Channel you can see a lot of such cases about Hitler still being alive somewhere in Argentine, Ancient Aliens etc. Anyone can find compelling reasons to support anything but if you want to be objective you need to analyse the evidence. What evidence does Trump have that the virus was developed in a lab in China? Even with reasonable evidence I don't know who would believe him anyway.

dependenttypes 6y ago
> plain bullshit excluded These ones that you listed were plain bullshit though.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Not any more BS than the lab theory is.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    The biologists that I saw talking about this topic all called it "possible" or "unlikely". Meanwhile the theories that you mentioned are pretty much impossible. "Hitler still being alive somewhere in Argentine" would mean that he is 131 years old. I think that you let your political affiliations get in the way and cloud your view.
    - thefounder 6y ago
      Nobody says that Hitler is still alive. The theory is that he was still alive after the war/was seen in Argentine (i.e he didn't commit suicide) which can be supported/may be "possible". My point is that without hard evidence anyone can provide "reasonable" arguments for almost anything. That's why we have protocols and run clinical trials instead to rely on what "makes sense"(i.e inject disinfectant to kill covid-19) in our more or less sharp minds. Now if someone talks bullshit all day long it is very hard to figure out when he says the truth so without evidence it would be safe to assume that whatever he says it is very likely to be false or at least partially false.

wahern 6y ago

In the absence of proof, how is the contemporaneous assertion "[AIDS] was the product of biological weapons experiments conducted by the United States" any less reasonable? We didn't even realize until the 2000s that AIDS had been around for over 30 years at the time the assertions were made. Prior to SARS-CoV-2, researchers around the world had been warning that the next global pandemic would likely 1) be a coronavirus that 2) emerges from bat reservoirs 3) in China. There was a whole special issue of the journal Virus with multiple papers making that claim: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses/special_issues/viruses_bats_2019 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses/special_issues/viruses_... At least one of those papers was written by a Wuhan Institute researcher.[1] Is that supposed to constitute circumstantial evidence that implicates the institute? That's the sort of spurious logic at the core of all conspiracy theories. You can implicate anything with coincidence; it's a collection of related coincidences which constitute a hypothetical causal chain that make for evidence, and there are none with respect to the Wuhan Institute. And not only that, such a hypothesis has to overcome the a priori likelihood, not to mention substantive evidence (e.g. pangolin intermediary), of it emerging precisely as claimed by the consensus hypothesis. Is it possible it leaked from the Wuhan Institute? Sure. Just as it was possible the U.S. manufactured AIDS as part of its extensive biowarfare program. They're both still nutty theories, it's just that one has the benefit of hindsight and distance filtering all the contemporaneous coincidences, while the other still seems intuitively plausible without the assistance of analytical thinking to clear the brain fog. [1] "Thus, it is highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks will originate from bats, and there is an increased probability that this will occur in China." Yi Fan, Kai Zhao, Zheng-Li Shi, Peng Zhou, Bat Coronaviruses in China, March 2, 2019. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210 https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210

kspacewalk2 6y ago
>In the absence of proof, how is the contemporaneous assertion "[AIDS] was the product of biological weapons experiments conducted by the United States" any less reasonable? Because that claim is nonsensical and defies common sense, whereas the idea that an accidental infection took place is entirely reasonable and requires no leaps of faith whatsoever. >At least one of those papers was written by a Wuhan Institute researcher.[1] Is that supposed to constitute circumstantial evidence that implicates the institute? What gave you the impression that this particular paper is the reason for the theory? This institute works extensively with bat coronaviruses, published over 40 papers on the subject, had teams doing field work in caves where they came in direct contact with bats, stored many samples on site, have had systemic deficiencies in their safety and training, and were in Wuhan, the ground zero which is hundreds of kilometres away from where the bat populations likely to carry the virus that SARS-CoV-2 mutated from actually live. All of this, while being insufficient to say anything definitive, together points to accidental release as a completely legitimate origin theory. The US government of course may have a lot more information, leading it to believe that a lab accident is not just plausible, but likely. Or they could be lying and/or engaging in dirty politics. That too is a legitimate theory. > not to mention substantive evidence (e.g. pangolin intermediary), of it emerging precisely as claimed by the consensus hypothesis. Consensus hypothesis is very much subject to change. For example, the wet market origin was a significant part of it, and just a few days ago China officially said it now no longer considers that to be the source of the patient zero transmission, but merely a site of a super-spreader event. The pangolin theory was dismissed as recently as a month ago, and now there's some new evidence in its favour. Nothing we're talking about, including accidental release from a lab in Wuhan, remotely crosses into conspiracy theory territory. >Is it possible it leaked from the Wuhan Institute? Sure. Just as it was possible the U.S. manufactured AIDS as part of its extensive biowarfare program. What do these word games add to an adult discussion? 'Possible' means nothing. The difference between these, much like the difference between a one in ten and one in a billion chance, is how possible. >They're both still nutty theories, it's just that one has the benefit of hindsight and distance filtering all the contemporaneous coincidences, while the other still seems intuitively plausible without the assistance of analytical thinking to clear the brain fog. Again, analytical thinking, if you do choose to apply it, would lead you to see the clear difference between a conspiracy theory and a legitimate theory without sufficient proof. Here we have the latter, since accidental release would be logical, plausible, contradict no firmly established facts at all and would require no leaps of faith at all (unless you consider the idea that the Chinese dictatorship tried to obfuscate and cover up the truth about such a theoretical accident).

brutt 6y ago

A level 4 virus lab had major incident at 16.09.2019: some equipment was stolen from lab, because of fire blast. Incident was caught on video. After that spike of pneumonia cases of unknown origin happens. Now, testing shows that people already have antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, but no virus, and they were not sick for two months, so they had it for at least two months before anybody else. However, lab is not in China, which Trump hates, but in another country near to China, which Trump loves.

kspacewalk2 6y ago
That's precisely my point. I'm in no way suggesting that such incidents are only possible in China. Simply put, shit happens and protocols get violated. I work at a research institute with a level 3 lab and find it entirely plausible that it can happen here. So do the health and safety people who meticulously check whatever they can think of multiple times a year.