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Sure. We could also invoke Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. A coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan China miles away from a Virolog

Sure. We could also invoke Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. A coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan China miles away from a Virology Lab that studies coronavirus and has in the past exercised gain of function research on cornoviruses specifically with novel lung ACE2 bind may have had a lab accident and a live virus broke out if the lab. The problem is the media labeling common sense as conspiracy and conflating the two.

cameldrv 6y ago
Exactly. If there were an Anthrax outbreak in Ft. Detrick, MD, everyone would be immediately assuming the lab was involved. Wuhan is the Ft. Detrick of Coronaviruses.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  There were two incidents at that facility. The first led to a building being condemned. The second was a more nebulous investigation into the yet unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill#Lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill#Lawsuits
- FabHK 6y ago
  I wrote this on 2020-01-24 (when that speculation was fairly new), and wonder why that sort of simple statistical argument has rarely been made explicit: It certainly is an interesting coincidence that the only lab in China that can deal with it happens to be in Wuhan. The question is, how big of a coincidence. If the disease hit a random person randomly uniformly anywhere in China, the probability that it would have happened in Wuhan is a bit less than 1% (as there are about 10+m people in Wuhan, and 1400+m people in China). If you think it might have struck randomly any city above a million people in China uniformly, it’s also roundabout 1% (as there are about 100 of those). So this is by no means proof that something fishy happened, but it is significant enough to warrant investigation. If you assume that this could only have happened in a city with, say, more than 5m people, Wuhan is one of about 15 to 20 of those (so we're just above the "usual" 5% significance threshold). Still, an independent investigation of that lab seems warranted. Of course it’s China, so unlikely to happen... (I must say that I think the comment has stood the test of time, so far.)
  - bingbong70 6y ago
    We are fitting information here...if a foreign actor were to drop covid-19 in a Chinese city, they would choose Wuhan for the same reasons you stated... China and many other countries in the global south have a long history of being the victim of US/Japan/UK germ warfare. Seems convenient/self-serving to ignore this multi-century trend.
    - checker 6y ago
      If this was an attack it would be similar to being locked in a crowded elevator, getting into a fight with another passenger, and deciding to throw a hand grenade at your enemy instead of taking any other approach.
      - bingbong70 6y ago
        Many countries have shown they are stupid/shortsighted enough to do this, history makes this very clear. Study the actions of SAIMR in Africa and their plot to drive Africans to extinction using the AIDS virus and fake vaccines, purely for the sake of controlling African resources...that was the UK/US/SA/etc... govts and IA at work...they even assassinated a UN secretary general in the process. I wish man/nation-states/intelligence-agencies were as wise as you assume but history says no.
        checker 6y ago
        That's kind of my point. Your examples still show planning into the selection of the attack vector and preparing for its effects... even if this is some 4D-chess to move the US off of the global supply chain, there are cheaper ways (and better germs) to do it. Interesting that UK/US/SA always the "bad" actor in your posts? Axe to grind? Couldn't this just as easily be construed as a 4D-chess move by China/Russia/SeaLand/MoonPeople to weaken the US economy since pandemic conditions naturally favor governments that can enforce stricter lockdowns? At the end of the day this type of speculation is a waste of time without substantiation.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SkyMarshal 6y ago
Yup, though to nitpick, Occam's Razor actually says that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely the correct one. Subtle but important difference. Otherwise, /agree, especially with the media being confused.
- diydsp 6y ago
  Why do people rush to differentiate, e.g, the diffs bt correlation and causation, but never question Occam's razor (I'm officially leading the charge to cease its capitalization), which isn't science, isn't a law, but merely a design principle. It's been treated as an irrefutable endpoint at best and as a spell at worst. I find it a convenient false authority for lazy thinking. Consider a statement like: "an expressive programming language is necessary to manage a resource distribution system such as a food production, processing, and delivery system." One could quote Occam and say "nah let's hunt and gather," but how is that consistent with our values? Ergo, Occam's quote is a selectively applied false authority. We need to use our heads and put it to bed!
SyzygistSix 6y ago
I invoked Occam's Razor when I wondered what was more likely: that it was spread via a wet market or escaped from a lab with biosecurity protocols staffed by professionals? Of course I still don't know and my ideas regarding the latter have changed because of this article but I'm now pretty sure that I don't have enough information to invoke Occam's Razor in any kind of insightful or effective way.
- text70 6y ago
  When the virus broke out there was an early paper, later retracted, which tried to link the virus with engineered HIV carrier strains. Undoubtedly after looking at the sequences of that paper, there were some alignments, but how they were structured doesn't point to being engineered, but rather of co-infection, which did not match the conclusions of the paper. What they do actually indicate might even be more politically inflammatory. That the virus evolved out of a recombination event in an HIV infected person infected with a SARS-like virus, and repackaged as a new SARS-CoV-2 virus.

cameldrv 6y ago

Exactly. If there were an Anthrax outbreak in Ft. Detrick, MD, everyone would be immediately assuming the lab was involved. Wuhan is the Ft. Detrick of Coronaviruses.

aww_dang 6y ago
There were two incidents at that facility. The first led to a building being condemned. The second was a more nebulous investigation into the yet unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill#Lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill#Lawsuits
FabHK 6y ago
I wrote this on 2020-01-24 (when that speculation was fairly new), and wonder why that sort of simple statistical argument has rarely been made explicit: It certainly is an interesting coincidence that the only lab in China that can deal with it happens to be in Wuhan. The question is, how big of a coincidence. If the disease hit a random person randomly uniformly anywhere in China, the probability that it would have happened in Wuhan is a bit less than 1% (as there are about 10+m people in Wuhan, and 1400+m people in China). If you think it might have struck randomly any city above a million people in China uniformly, it’s also roundabout 1% (as there are about 100 of those). So this is by no means proof that something fishy happened, but it is significant enough to warrant investigation. If you assume that this could only have happened in a city with, say, more than 5m people, Wuhan is one of about 15 to 20 of those (so we're just above the "usual" 5% significance threshold). Still, an independent investigation of that lab seems warranted. Of course it’s China, so unlikely to happen... (I must say that I think the comment has stood the test of time, so far.)
- bingbong70 6y ago
  We are fitting information here...if a foreign actor were to drop covid-19 in a Chinese city, they would choose Wuhan for the same reasons you stated... China and many other countries in the global south have a long history of being the victim of US/Japan/UK germ warfare. Seems convenient/self-serving to ignore this multi-century trend.
  - checker 6y ago
    If this was an attack it would be similar to being locked in a crowded elevator, getting into a fight with another passenger, and deciding to throw a hand grenade at your enemy instead of taking any other approach.
    - bingbong70 6y ago
      Many countries have shown they are stupid/shortsighted enough to do this, history makes this very clear. Study the actions of SAIMR in Africa and their plot to drive Africans to extinction using the AIDS virus and fake vaccines, purely for the sake of controlling African resources...that was the UK/US/SA/etc... govts and IA at work...they even assassinated a UN secretary general in the process. I wish man/nation-states/intelligence-agencies were as wise as you assume but history says no.
      - checker 6y ago
        That's kind of my point. Your examples still show planning into the selection of the attack vector and preparing for its effects... even if this is some 4D-chess to move the US off of the global supply chain, there are cheaper ways (and better germs) to do it. Interesting that UK/US/SA always the "bad" actor in your posts? Axe to grind? Couldn't this just as easily be construed as a 4D-chess move by China/Russia/SeaLand/MoonPeople to weaken the US economy since pandemic conditions naturally favor governments that can enforce stricter lockdowns? At the end of the day this type of speculation is a waste of time without substantiation.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SkyMarshal 6y ago

Yup, though to nitpick, Occam's Razor actually says that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely the correct one. Subtle but important difference. Otherwise, /agree, especially with the media being confused.

diydsp 6y ago
Why do people rush to differentiate, e.g, the diffs bt correlation and causation, but never question Occam's razor (I'm officially leading the charge to cease its capitalization), which isn't science, isn't a law, but merely a design principle. It's been treated as an irrefutable endpoint at best and as a spell at worst. I find it a convenient false authority for lazy thinking. Consider a statement like: "an expressive programming language is necessary to manage a resource distribution system such as a food production, processing, and delivery system." One could quote Occam and say "nah let's hunt and gather," but how is that consistent with our values? Ergo, Occam's quote is a selectively applied false authority. We need to use our heads and put it to bed!

SyzygistSix 6y ago

I invoked Occam's Razor when I wondered what was more likely: that it was spread via a wet market or escaped from a lab with biosecurity protocols staffed by professionals? Of course I still don't know and my ideas regarding the latter have changed because of this article but I'm now pretty sure that I don't have enough information to invoke Occam's Razor in any kind of insightful or effective way.

text70 6y ago
When the virus broke out there was an early paper, later retracted, which tried to link the virus with engineered HIV carrier strains. Undoubtedly after looking at the sequences of that paper, there were some alignments, but how they were structured doesn't point to being engineered, but rather of co-infection, which did not match the conclusions of the paper. What they do actually indicate might even be more politically inflammatory. That the virus evolved out of a recombination event in an HIV infected person infected with a SARS-like virus, and repackaged as a new SARS-CoV-2 virus.