5 ms·

>The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely s

>The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus. It's forever going to confound me how early on in this so many were certain that the lab leak hypothesis was a "conspiracy theory" or had been "debunked by the 'experts'". We still don't have any actual data from the lab? It's a tremendous indictment of the journalist class that this happened, since knowing the point of origin - be it natural or a lab accident or something else - has tremendous scientific value. If it was natural that tells us something, just as a lab leak would tell us about the risks and value of that kind of research. It's an awful example of the continued hijacking of scientific inquiry to drive what are many times partisan political objectives (not offending China, making Trump look stupid). I honestly want to know what changed so suddenly such that it's now okay to discuss the lab leak hypothesis in polite company.

natch 5y ago
Not all journalists. To be fair you said journalist class, and I agree. One journalist who is clear eyed and a fantastic communicator about this case, based on having heard his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, is Josh Rogin. Yeah similar names but no relation. Even though it’s a three hour conversation, by the end you’ll be wanting more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Rogin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Rogin
stevenicr 5y ago
"honestly want to know what changed so suddenly such that it's now okay to discuss the lab leak hypothesis in polite company." - first guess is someone no longer in office that could of benefited politically from that possible truth, ahem rhetoric, err.. conspiracy - no what do we call it now?
- stevenicr 5y ago
  So it seems some others are seeing it this way too - Krystal and Saagar: New Evidence Emerges For Lab Leak Hypothesis As Fauci Does Total 180 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZniDsuCX5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZniDsuCX5g And if you consider this is part of the cost for the walls against Trump to 'save democracy'( https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ ) - some think it's a small price to pay I guess. I never understood how media just couldn't come out and say "odds of lab creation are 1 in 500 billion, so it's more likely trump is wrong - instead it was all a solid - debunked - wrong, racist, not a chance, yada yada." Seeing the time piece I guess it makes more sense. I wonder how many memes copy pasta to how many people to influence with this not-half-truth.
  - stevenicr 5y ago
    A deeper (wider maybe) dive into this issue with more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuwqHDIRSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuwqHDIRSQ Media’s Lab-Leak Failure Is [like ramifications from] Next Iraq WMD from the Hill / Rising with Krystal and Saagar [brackets words added by me, not in original title, also uncapped some words]
ergocoder 5y ago
We are too woke. It's simply because Trump hinted at this theory, so we say it's conspiracist and racist. The same thing happened to "China virus". It is racist because Trump said it. Indian-variant of covid is not racist because Trump hasn't said that yet.
- _chris_ 5y ago
  Lying all the time has consequences.
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    Yeah, he doesn't have any social "credit" left. It put US at a great disadvantage. If his policy was slightly not in favour for China, the policy would be called racist immediately.
- bufferout 5y ago
  Trump also referring to it as the "kung flu" probably didn't help matters.
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    He now can help us by saying "Brazilian/Indian/UK flu". Boom. We will immediately stop using the word like "India variant" (and etc.).
yumraj 5y ago
I think one of the things is that Trump is gone. He was using anti-China rhetoric even for valid questions and enabling media to brand everything pointing to China as racist. For example, I still don't know why is it OK to refer to secondary variants with the origin country, such as UK, South Africa, India, Brazil variants, but not to refer to the original as China-Variants or simply Chinese-Flu or Wuhan-Flu. Remember Spanish-Flu is perfectly acceptable even though it did not even originate in Spain - go figure). To be clear, I have no problem using country-origin variant names, as long as we use the same standard for Covid-19. This is very similar to GOP trying to whitewash the Jan-6th thing, that now we're talking about UK, South Africa, India, Brazil variants, but the original is just COVID-19, no mention of China. This may seem unimportant now as everyone knows it came from China, but in 20-30 years will we remember, No!! Even recently, when the ex-CDC Director Redfield talked about China lab-origin, CNN went to great lengths to question it and make a note that no evidence was presented. Even Fauci was quoted saying it's just an opinion: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-26-21/h_d2fe59849d042d0c63b7a9c4d4021a0d https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic...
- tfcata 5y ago
  It's ok to call the variants with the country names because everyone are certain. The origin is not certain so you can't call it with any country names yet. Your logic is flawed.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
awb 5y ago
Here are some competing narratives about the odds of a lab leak: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-much-more-likely-the-coronavirus-came-from-wildlife-not-a-lab1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-much-more-lik... https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COVID-19-SARS-CoV-2 https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...
mikem170 5y ago
It appears that we have a lot of data from the WIV lab [0]. The work there to survey bat coronaviruses was paid for by the American National Institute of Health. Duplicate samples were sent to other labs, across several countries. Genetic sequences were publicly posted, as per NIH funding rules. (I encourage anybody interested in the lab-leak scenario to read more of the reddit post below, not just this one section. There a ToC link at the bottom of the post.) [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/fqpce2z/ https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...
- remarkEon 5y ago
  It's easy to accept that explanation because it logically follows, but it requires you to make extreme assumptions (the lab's competence/honesty stats approach 100%), which he seems prepared to do. But it's hard for me to apply those kinds of assumptions to a CCP organization, for reasons that should be quite obvious. That WIV is still refusing to allow outside investigators should cause one to adjust their priors on that competence/honesty spectrum.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    True. I gave a lot more weight to the genetic evidence, the 1200 mutations from the nearest related bat virus, the receptor optimized for multiple species, evidence it was first seen in humans hundreds of miles form Wuhan, etc.
throwawaysea 5y ago
PolitiFact also quietly retracted their lab leak fact check (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politifact-retracts-wuhan-lab-theory-fact-check https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politifact-retrac...). It’s incredible to me how just last year and up until a couple months ago, journalists and social media users viciously attacked those who proposed the lab leak hypothesis. It resulted in numerous acts of censorship (for example Zero Hedge’s ban from Twitter around a year ago), and was also incorrectly used to attack Trump (presumably for political gain in an election year). It allowed the WHO to perform a poor, biased site visit that misled the world, as the CCP tightly limited what investigation they could perform. This entire sad saga of information warfare highlights the need to limit the blind trust we put in journalists, news industry, and fact checkers. We should be especially wary of those who seek to censor views that are unpopular, disagreeable, or speculative.
- remarkEon 5y ago
  If you go back to last year and re-read the articles written it makes one really cynical and suspicious of a lot of the coverage on the entire thing. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/trump-intelligence-community-china-coronavirus-origins/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/trump-intelligence-c...
diomedes 5y ago
Huh... sorry your whole post is borderline racist and denies science, please refrain from posting from on similar topics in cyberspace. Regards, Ministry of Truth
thu2111 5y ago
I honestly want to know what changed so suddenly such that it's now okay to discuss the lab leak hypothesis in polite company. The proximate cause? Probably the reporting of Nicholas Wade, whose article is targeted at the mainstream and which brings together some pretty hefty and complex topics around lab leaks in an accessible way. https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... If you look at the sources he cites, they're not really accessible to the mainstream. Yuri Deigin's essay for example is 34 pages printed out and filled with dense micro-biological evidence. You have to be really dedicated to read the whole thing. Wade's article is also very long but at only 15 pages, it's still much more accessible. It also brings together a lot of different strands of evidence into a coherent and convincing narrative. I don't think anyone can read it and not be left with a deep impression of suspicious scientific wrongdoing. Additionally, lab leaks were first being discussed and dismissed a year ago. In the last year a lot of people have to come to realize just how unreliable public health researchers actually are. Some very well educated people learned that not only can they read the scientific papers forming public policy directly, but that when they do they keep discovering really huge mistakes and/or outright manipulations. So a lot of people who would previously have loyally dismissed any suggestion of scientific malpractice are newly open to the possibility. And yeah then there's the Trump effect.

natch 5y ago

Not all journalists. To be fair you said journalist class, and I agree. One journalist who is clear eyed and a fantastic communicator about this case, based on having heard his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, is Josh Rogin. Yeah similar names but no relation. Even though it’s a three hour conversation, by the end you’ll be wanting more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Rogin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Rogin

stevenicr 5y ago

"honestly want to know what changed so suddenly such that it's now okay to discuss the lab leak hypothesis in polite company." - first guess is someone no longer in office that could of benefited politically from that possible truth, ahem rhetoric, err.. conspiracy - no what do we call it now?

stevenicr 5y ago
So it seems some others are seeing it this way too - Krystal and Saagar: New Evidence Emerges For Lab Leak Hypothesis As Fauci Does Total 180 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZniDsuCX5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZniDsuCX5g And if you consider this is part of the cost for the walls against Trump to 'save democracy'( https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ ) - some think it's a small price to pay I guess. I never understood how media just couldn't come out and say "odds of lab creation are 1 in 500 billion, so it's more likely trump is wrong - instead it was all a solid - debunked - wrong, racist, not a chance, yada yada." Seeing the time piece I guess it makes more sense. I wonder how many memes copy pasta to how many people to influence with this not-half-truth.
- stevenicr 5y ago
  A deeper (wider maybe) dive into this issue with more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuwqHDIRSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuwqHDIRSQ Media’s Lab-Leak Failure Is [like ramifications from] Next Iraq WMD from the Hill / Rising with Krystal and Saagar [brackets words added by me, not in original title, also uncapped some words]

ergocoder 5y ago

We are too woke. It's simply because Trump hinted at this theory, so we say it's conspiracist and racist. The same thing happened to "China virus". It is racist because Trump said it. Indian-variant of covid is not racist because Trump hasn't said that yet.

_chris_ 5y ago
Lying all the time has consequences.
- ergocoder 5y ago
  Yeah, he doesn't have any social "credit" left. It put US at a great disadvantage. If his policy was slightly not in favour for China, the policy would be called racist immediately.
bufferout 5y ago
Trump also referring to it as the "kung flu" probably didn't help matters.
- ergocoder 5y ago
  He now can help us by saying "Brazilian/Indian/UK flu". Boom. We will immediately stop using the word like "India variant" (and etc.).

yumraj 5y ago

I think one of the things is that Trump is gone. He was using anti-China rhetoric even for valid questions and enabling media to brand everything pointing to China as racist. For example, I still don't know why is it OK to refer to secondary variants with the origin country, such as UK, South Africa, India, Brazil variants, but not to refer to the original as China-Variants or simply Chinese-Flu or Wuhan-Flu. Remember Spanish-Flu is perfectly acceptable even though it did not even originate in Spain - go figure). To be clear, I have no problem using country-origin variant names, as long as we use the same standard for Covid-19. This is very similar to GOP trying to whitewash the Jan-6th thing, that now we're talking about UK, South Africa, India, Brazil variants, but the original is just COVID-19, no mention of China. This may seem unimportant now as everyone knows it came from China, but in 20-30 years will we remember, No!! Even recently, when the ex-CDC Director Redfield talked about China lab-origin, CNN went to great lengths to question it and make a note that no evidence was presented. Even Fauci was quoted saying it's just an opinion: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-26-21/h_d2fe59849d042d0c63b7a9c4d4021a0d https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic...

tfcata 5y ago
It's ok to call the variants with the country names because everyone are certain. The origin is not certain so you can't call it with any country names yet. Your logic is flawed.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

awb 5y ago

Here are some competing narratives about the odds of a lab leak: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-much-more-likely-the-coronavirus-came-from-wildlife-not-a-lab1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-much-more-lik... https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COVID-19-SARS-CoV-2 https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

mikem170 5y ago

It appears that we have a lot of data from the WIV lab [0]. The work there to survey bat coronaviruses was paid for by the American National Institute of Health. Duplicate samples were sent to other labs, across several countries. Genetic sequences were publicly posted, as per NIH funding rules. (I encourage anybody interested in the lab-leak scenario to read more of the reddit post below, not just this one section. There a ToC link at the bottom of the post.) [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/fqpce2z/ https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

remarkEon 5y ago
It's easy to accept that explanation because it logically follows, but it requires you to make extreme assumptions (the lab's competence/honesty stats approach 100%), which he seems prepared to do. But it's hard for me to apply those kinds of assumptions to a CCP organization, for reasons that should be quite obvious. That WIV is still refusing to allow outside investigators should cause one to adjust their priors on that competence/honesty spectrum.
- mikem170 5y ago
  True. I gave a lot more weight to the genetic evidence, the 1200 mutations from the nearest related bat virus, the receptor optimized for multiple species, evidence it was first seen in humans hundreds of miles form Wuhan, etc.

throwawaysea 5y ago

PolitiFact also quietly retracted their lab leak fact check (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politifact-retracts-wuhan-lab-theory-fact-check https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politifact-retrac...). It’s incredible to me how just last year and up until a couple months ago, journalists and social media users viciously attacked those who proposed the lab leak hypothesis. It resulted in numerous acts of censorship (for example Zero Hedge’s ban from Twitter around a year ago), and was also incorrectly used to attack Trump (presumably for political gain in an election year). It allowed the WHO to perform a poor, biased site visit that misled the world, as the CCP tightly limited what investigation they could perform. This entire sad saga of information warfare highlights the need to limit the blind trust we put in journalists, news industry, and fact checkers. We should be especially wary of those who seek to censor views that are unpopular, disagreeable, or speculative.

remarkEon 5y ago
If you go back to last year and re-read the articles written it makes one really cynical and suspicious of a lot of the coverage on the entire thing. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/trump-intelligence-community-china-coronavirus-origins/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/trump-intelligence-c...

diomedes 5y ago

Huh... sorry your whole post is borderline racist and denies science, please refrain from posting from on similar topics in cyberspace. Regards, Ministry of Truth

thu2111 5y ago

I honestly want to know what changed so suddenly such that it's now okay to discuss the lab leak hypothesis in polite company. The proximate cause? Probably the reporting of Nicholas Wade, whose article is targeted at the mainstream and which brings together some pretty hefty and complex topics around lab leaks in an accessible way. https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... If you look at the sources he cites, they're not really accessible to the mainstream. Yuri Deigin's essay for example is 34 pages printed out and filled with dense micro-biological evidence. You have to be really dedicated to read the whole thing. Wade's article is also very long but at only 15 pages, it's still much more accessible. It also brings together a lot of different strands of evidence into a coherent and convincing narrative. I don't think anyone can read it and not be left with a deep impression of suspicious scientific wrongdoing. Additionally, lab leaks were first being discussed and dismissed a year ago. In the last year a lot of people have to come to realize just how unreliable public health researchers actually are. Some very well educated people learned that not only can they read the scientific papers forming public policy directly, but that when they do they keep discovering really huge mistakes and/or outright manipulations. So a lot of people who would previously have loyally dismissed any suggestion of scientific malpractice are newly open to the possibility. And yeah then there's the Trump effect.