5 ms·

A lot of people here claiming there is no evidence. Whether they think there was none because they didn't bother to look, they think the evidence is poor, or th

A lot of people here claiming there is no evidence. Whether they think there was none because they didn't bother to look, they think the evidence is poor, or they can't imagine any authoritative evidence without the help of China it's just not true. People imagine Chinese social media as something that is completely locked down when in reality it was abuzz with information when a new mysterious disease was appearing in Wuhan. Countries like Taiwan were suspicious and taking action as early as December. Here is a set of evidence I have a hard time poking holes in: https://project-evidence.github.io/ https://project-evidence.github.io/ There are some pieces of evidence that are compelling alone: - beyond a reasonable doubt, coronavirus research was done at WIV. - beyond a reasonable doubt, collection of coronavirus from bats was done for the lab. - beyond a reasonable doubt, there have been instances of poor PPE/safety measures.

throwkeep 5y ago
> Whether they think there was none because they didn't bother to look The origin was politicized in the US and taboo to even question it, so few did. It was labeled a crazy conspiracy theory by the media and that shut the door on open inquiry until recently.
- prox 5y ago
  This is why there is a big difference between skepticism and conspiracy. A skeptic digs deeper to gather more data and facts, a conspiracy loosely joins a few data points and makes a poor conjecture. Conspiracy is political ammunition, skepticism is healthy debate and gladly welcomes more data.
  - andrewclunn 5y ago
    "Skepticsm" is when over educated pseudo-intellectuals want THEIR theories to have the ring of "science," while dismissing others as conspiracy theorists.
  - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
    All of science is driven by hypothesis, but those hypotheses don't just appear out of nowhere. Suspicion, bias, and bad data can all drive focus on a particular field. In that way, such conjecture is a powerful scientific tool that in my opinion is too often dismissed.
lumost 5y ago
It is a miraculous coincidence that a novel virus would spontaneously emerge at the exact location of a virology lab studying that virus. The counterpoint to this is that this lab was setup in this location for the exact reason that a novel coronavirus would potentially emerge from bats in the region. This would require both miraculous forethought on the potential for bats in the region to produce novel coronaviruses, and a strange desire to place the virology lab near the location. Most high level virology labs are centered based on considerations such as ability to hire talent and security/land concerns. It's relatively straightforward to organize expeditions to any region of the world at this point to collect samples. Which means that for the standard explanation to hold true. - A virology lab was created to study potentially dangerous versions of coronavirus (WIV founded 1956) - The virology lab must have been placed near the location where animals were producing interesting virus strains. (WIV studying coronaviruses from all over China since 2005 including Horshoe bats from Yunnan province carrying progenitor strains of the SARS virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology) - A novel coronavirus emerged near the WIV lab in Q4 2019 due to unrelated sales of locally hunted bats. Strange things occur, but this would be strange enough as to require plausible studies identifying animal sources of Covid-19 to take at face value.
querez 5y ago
I'm sorry, but this feels like conspiracy-theory peddling and FUD. What the linked site calls "evidence", is are at best "hints" or "possible signs". No evidence anywhere. Instead, you have wildly weird texts like section 8.3 ("A Note on Biowarfare") that literally just reads "This document does not make any attempt to link the work done at these laboratories as part of a 'bioweapon' or "bio-warfare" program.". It's completely and utterly disconnected from the rest of the text. Why even bring it up? Just so you can throw the word "bioweapon" out there? Plus, the site always seems to see "causation" whenever there is correlation, and never even stops to admit that there's the possibility they got the chain of causation backwards: if there was a lot of coronavirus-carrying bats in the region wouldn't it make sense to build a research institute there? And publish on all the findings? The site goes on to cite papers and job postings that are exactly the kinds of research (and job postings) you'd expect from a site that focuses on coronavirus related research. Yet the linked site makes it sound ominous, when it is utterly mundane. So one has to ask who actually produced this site to begin with? To quote the page: > "We are an anonymous group of researchers" Very convenient. In other words, no-one with a serious research background could be convinced to put their name on this nonsense.
- lumost 5y ago
  There doesn't appear to be any regional association with the WIV's research on Bats. WIV studied bats fro all over China and notably isolated the likely center of the 2003 SARS outbreak to a set of bats in Yunnan. The institute was founded in 1956, long before Coronavirus research started in earnest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#SARS-related_coronaviruses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#SA...
  - bigpumpkin 5y ago
    Wuhan is, however, in the range of Horseshoe Bats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_horseshoe_bat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_horseshoe_bat So people who suggest that it's far from Yunnan are missing the point.
    - 5y ago
pishpash 5y ago
This is not evidence of anything in particular, without some Bayesian calibration: - What other kinds of virus research besides coronavirus was done at the WIV? - What proportion of coronaviruses are anyway derived from bats? - What were the outcomes of the instances of poor PPE/safety measures with regard to containment? Without this calibration, all you've written is innuendo.
pedalpete 5y ago
Isn't "beyond a reasonable doubt" a legal construct, rather than a scientific one? Science looks at probabilities and measurable numbers not one person or another's "reasonable doubt".
mike00632 5y ago
2019 happened to have a really bad flu season. Taiwan responding to that is extremely logical and not much of a coincidence.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  Taiwan responded when their (assistant) minister of health came across posts on online forums claiming that there was a SARS-like disease being covered up in Wuhan. On Dec 31 they were screening passengers and on Jan 2nd they started asking all patients about travel histories. It also helped them that mainland China was limiting travel at the time for political reasons.

throwkeep 5y ago

> Whether they think there was none because they didn't bother to look The origin was politicized in the US and taboo to even question it, so few did. It was labeled a crazy conspiracy theory by the media and that shut the door on open inquiry until recently.

prox 5y ago
This is why there is a big difference between skepticism and conspiracy. A skeptic digs deeper to gather more data and facts, a conspiracy loosely joins a few data points and makes a poor conjecture. Conspiracy is political ammunition, skepticism is healthy debate and gladly welcomes more data.
- andrewclunn 5y ago
  "Skepticsm" is when over educated pseudo-intellectuals want THEIR theories to have the ring of "science," while dismissing others as conspiracy theorists.
- TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
  All of science is driven by hypothesis, but those hypotheses don't just appear out of nowhere. Suspicion, bias, and bad data can all drive focus on a particular field. In that way, such conjecture is a powerful scientific tool that in my opinion is too often dismissed.

lumost 5y ago

It is a miraculous coincidence that a novel virus would spontaneously emerge at the exact location of a virology lab studying that virus. The counterpoint to this is that this lab was setup in this location for the exact reason that a novel coronavirus would potentially emerge from bats in the region. This would require both miraculous forethought on the potential for bats in the region to produce novel coronaviruses, and a strange desire to place the virology lab near the location. Most high level virology labs are centered based on considerations such as ability to hire talent and security/land concerns. It's relatively straightforward to organize expeditions to any region of the world at this point to collect samples. Which means that for the standard explanation to hold true. - A virology lab was created to study potentially dangerous versions of coronavirus (WIV founded 1956) - The virology lab must have been placed near the location where animals were producing interesting virus strains. (WIV studying coronaviruses from all over China since 2005 including Horshoe bats from Yunnan province carrying progenitor strains of the SARS virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology) - A novel coronavirus emerged near the WIV lab in Q4 2019 due to unrelated sales of locally hunted bats. Strange things occur, but this would be strange enough as to require plausible studies identifying animal sources of Covid-19 to take at face value.

querez 5y ago

I'm sorry, but this feels like conspiracy-theory peddling and FUD. What the linked site calls "evidence", is are at best "hints" or "possible signs". No evidence anywhere. Instead, you have wildly weird texts like section 8.3 ("A Note on Biowarfare") that literally just reads "This document does not make any attempt to link the work done at these laboratories as part of a 'bioweapon' or "bio-warfare" program.". It's completely and utterly disconnected from the rest of the text. Why even bring it up? Just so you can throw the word "bioweapon" out there? Plus, the site always seems to see "causation" whenever there is correlation, and never even stops to admit that there's the possibility they got the chain of causation backwards: if there was a lot of coronavirus-carrying bats in the region wouldn't it make sense to build a research institute there? And publish on all the findings? The site goes on to cite papers and job postings that are exactly the kinds of research (and job postings) you'd expect from a site that focuses on coronavirus related research. Yet the linked site makes it sound ominous, when it is utterly mundane. So one has to ask who actually produced this site to begin with? To quote the page: > "We are an anonymous group of researchers" Very convenient. In other words, no-one with a serious research background could be convinced to put their name on this nonsense.

lumost 5y ago
There doesn't appear to be any regional association with the WIV's research on Bats. WIV studied bats fro all over China and notably isolated the likely center of the 2003 SARS outbreak to a set of bats in Yunnan. The institute was founded in 1956, long before Coronavirus research started in earnest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#SARS-related_coronaviruses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#SA...
- bigpumpkin 5y ago
  Wuhan is, however, in the range of Horseshoe Bats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_horseshoe_bat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_horseshoe_bat So people who suggest that it's far from Yunnan are missing the point.
  - 5y ago

pishpash 5y ago

This is not evidence of anything in particular, without some Bayesian calibration: - What other kinds of virus research besides coronavirus was done at the WIV? - What proportion of coronaviruses are anyway derived from bats? - What were the outcomes of the instances of poor PPE/safety measures with regard to containment? Without this calibration, all you've written is innuendo.

pedalpete 5y ago

Isn't "beyond a reasonable doubt" a legal construct, rather than a scientific one? Science looks at probabilities and measurable numbers not one person or another's "reasonable doubt".

mike00632 5y ago

2019 happened to have a really bad flu season. Taiwan responding to that is extremely logical and not much of a coincidence.

ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
Taiwan responded when their (assistant) minister of health came across posts on online forums claiming that there was a SARS-like disease being covered up in Wuhan. On Dec 31 they were screening passengers and on Jan 2nd they started asking all patients about travel histories. It also helped them that mainland China was limiting travel at the time for political reasons.