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The response to "conspiracy theories" is: show us your proof. Otherwise we will wait to give it any credibility. If time and data prove out your claims, then we

The response to "conspiracy theories" is: show us your proof. Otherwise we will wait to give it any credibility. If time and data prove out your claims, then we will give it the proper attention it has earned. (ie, science > social media)

jtdev 5y ago
The media didn’t ask for proof of animal origin… in fact the media largely ran with animal origin with zero evidence to back that up. There’s always been more evidence to support the lab leak theory for those paying attention.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  The problem with "more evidence" is that much of it has been hearsay. Person A tells person B something. Person B repeats person A's claim to person C. Person A then talks to person C, and person C says it must be true because they've heard it from multiple sources. I have no doubt there's good evidence pointing to the lab leak origin, but virtually everything I've been exposed to over the last year are typically rumors or graphics shared on social media. Hearing something a lot doesn't give it additional credibility.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  According to the article, it's both: "researchers had assembled an archive of cave-bat-borne coronaviruses" Researchers were studying viruses that had an animal origin. The lab leak would be from not following proper safety protocols.
  - jtdev 5y ago
    Ah yes, the phrasing tricks have been a media favorite when discussing covid origins… conflating lab origin with natural origin through the almost certainty that the viral material used at the WIV originated in nature is pure intellectual dishonesty.
  - bingbong70 5y ago
    What people don't realize is there is an overlap between 'originating from nature" and "originating from a foreign attack", both share a non-lab-leak origin but the latter is not even considered in the countries (US, UK, Japan, etc) with a history of using bio-weapons against citizens/civilians. Mistaking one for the other is highly probable.
texaswhizzle 5y ago
The problem with this is who is the arbiter on what is, or isn’t, a conspiracy theory. The main stream media in the US seem to innately believe certain claims, without evidence, while also portraying other claims as “conspiracy theories.” In the case of covid there seemed to be universal belief in the media that covid originated in animals. There was no proof of this claim. It’s one thing to just simply pick a claim and believe in it. It’s quite another to attack people who are providing an alternative claim. The same thing rings true with regard to what is a “correct” thing to say. “China Virus” is apparently repugnant. However, naming the country of origin for variants is not. South African Variant is fine.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  You are the arbiter. Does the theory hold water? Is there evidence to support it? Is it self-consistent? Conspiracy theories often times fail under scrutiny because for example the amount of people they would involve. Think about the flat earth conspiracy: it would require that every airline pilot, every sailor, every satellite image processor, etc. all be in on the theory. It would only take one of them to show us photo/video/etc. evidence that the earth is in fact flat. And this isn’t just today but over thousands of years. Someone would have come forward by now. I believe there is even a formula for how much time it takes for someone to blow the whistle based on the size of the conspiracy. I think it estimated that the fake moon landing would have become public knowledge within four years. As for origins of COVID, I personally believe there is a good chance it came from bats, but also a good chance that it came from a lab experiment that had accidentally escaped. The theory that it was deliberately developed as a bio weapon or that it was released on purpose does not seem to hold water as there are no clear plausible beneficiaries of that action.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  > The main stream media in the US seem to innately believe certain claims, without evidence, while also portraying other claims as “conspiracy theories.” You can replace "main stream media" with any other group as well. (for example, the group that think masks and vaccines are part of a "plandemic" to undermine our economy and track everyone via 5g towers controlled by lizard people, while giving credence to medications recommended by politicians rather than medical professionals)
rufus_foreman 5y ago
>> The response to "conspiracy theories" is: show us your proof No, the response was to ridicule people making those arguments and to censor them. Like Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post telling Ted Cruz last May: "I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves." Or like "Twitter bans Chinese virologist claiming that coronavirus was made in a lab". As usual, best summed up by the Babylon Bee: "World-renowned fact-checking website Snopes has unveiled a brand new fact check rating called "False For Now." This will allow them to provide a rating for claims that are just conspiracy theories uttered by deranged far-right people until they later turn out to be true".
- Chris2048 5y ago
  To be fair, they said the response "to .. is" as in "it ( ought to / should ) be" - not "was" Point stands though. Lacking the ability to argue the case, the press often derive authority from the ability to slander, censor and humiliate.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Please show citations of that then, of mainstream media doing the: slander, censor and humiliate, instead of just reporting one side or the other as usual. Heck, US has a mature president now even acknowledging there are two major competing hypotheses. Seeing leaders embracing uncertainty is rare, so it seems humanity is going through a learning phase right now, having to face up to uncertainty and fear.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      What do you mean by "citation"? An academic reference, or an example? There are examples of these in these comments, so if you doubt that these things are true (and cannot find examples in this thread) then please narrow it down to one - this isn't a wikipedia articles, theres as much burden on you to disprove something you disagree with, and you haven't yet stated you disagree with anything.
Chris2048 5y ago
But many dismissed the idea outright, not on the basis of lack of proof, but on the basis of some outrage (or implying the existence of counter-proof, 'debunking', or at least consensus of expert opinion) Further more, the media needs to maintain that standard themselves: - No more anonymous, un-interrogatable sources; - No accusations of bad motive (e.g. racism) without proof - such as those implied of the conspiracy theorists.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Both of those standards would invalidate many of the claims we're discussing as well.
  - kodah 5y ago
    I think GPs framework is more aimed at the media and not a message board of pseudonymous nerds. There's an ocean of power on one side and relatively near none on the other.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    The claim that the virus originated in the lab? Yes. The claim that the virus might have originated in the lab? No.

jtdev 5y ago

The media didn’t ask for proof of animal origin… in fact the media largely ran with animal origin with zero evidence to back that up. There’s always been more evidence to support the lab leak theory for those paying attention.

bdcravens 5y ago
The problem with "more evidence" is that much of it has been hearsay. Person A tells person B something. Person B repeats person A's claim to person C. Person A then talks to person C, and person C says it must be true because they've heard it from multiple sources. I have no doubt there's good evidence pointing to the lab leak origin, but virtually everything I've been exposed to over the last year are typically rumors or graphics shared on social media. Hearing something a lot doesn't give it additional credibility.
bdcravens 5y ago
According to the article, it's both: "researchers had assembled an archive of cave-bat-borne coronaviruses" Researchers were studying viruses that had an animal origin. The lab leak would be from not following proper safety protocols.
- jtdev 5y ago
  Ah yes, the phrasing tricks have been a media favorite when discussing covid origins… conflating lab origin with natural origin through the almost certainty that the viral material used at the WIV originated in nature is pure intellectual dishonesty.
- bingbong70 5y ago
  What people don't realize is there is an overlap between 'originating from nature" and "originating from a foreign attack", both share a non-lab-leak origin but the latter is not even considered in the countries (US, UK, Japan, etc) with a history of using bio-weapons against citizens/civilians. Mistaking one for the other is highly probable.

texaswhizzle 5y ago

The problem with this is who is the arbiter on what is, or isn’t, a conspiracy theory. The main stream media in the US seem to innately believe certain claims, without evidence, while also portraying other claims as “conspiracy theories.” In the case of covid there seemed to be universal belief in the media that covid originated in animals. There was no proof of this claim. It’s one thing to just simply pick a claim and believe in it. It’s quite another to attack people who are providing an alternative claim. The same thing rings true with regard to what is a “correct” thing to say. “China Virus” is apparently repugnant. However, naming the country of origin for variants is not. South African Variant is fine.

IgorPartola 5y ago
You are the arbiter. Does the theory hold water? Is there evidence to support it? Is it self-consistent? Conspiracy theories often times fail under scrutiny because for example the amount of people they would involve. Think about the flat earth conspiracy: it would require that every airline pilot, every sailor, every satellite image processor, etc. all be in on the theory. It would only take one of them to show us photo/video/etc. evidence that the earth is in fact flat. And this isn’t just today but over thousands of years. Someone would have come forward by now. I believe there is even a formula for how much time it takes for someone to blow the whistle based on the size of the conspiracy. I think it estimated that the fake moon landing would have become public knowledge within four years. As for origins of COVID, I personally believe there is a good chance it came from bats, but also a good chance that it came from a lab experiment that had accidentally escaped. The theory that it was deliberately developed as a bio weapon or that it was released on purpose does not seem to hold water as there are no clear plausible beneficiaries of that action.
bdcravens 5y ago
> The main stream media in the US seem to innately believe certain claims, without evidence, while also portraying other claims as “conspiracy theories.” You can replace "main stream media" with any other group as well. (for example, the group that think masks and vaccines are part of a "plandemic" to undermine our economy and track everyone via 5g towers controlled by lizard people, while giving credence to medications recommended by politicians rather than medical professionals)

rufus_foreman 5y ago

>> The response to "conspiracy theories" is: show us your proof No, the response was to ridicule people making those arguments and to censor them. Like Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post telling Ted Cruz last May: "I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves." Or like "Twitter bans Chinese virologist claiming that coronavirus was made in a lab". As usual, best summed up by the Babylon Bee: "World-renowned fact-checking website Snopes has unveiled a brand new fact check rating called "False For Now." This will allow them to provide a rating for claims that are just conspiracy theories uttered by deranged far-right people until they later turn out to be true".

Chris2048 5y ago
To be fair, they said the response "to .. is" as in "it ( ought to / should ) be" - not "was" Point stands though. Lacking the ability to argue the case, the press often derive authority from the ability to slander, censor and humiliate.
- loopz 5y ago
  Please show citations of that then, of mainstream media doing the: slander, censor and humiliate, instead of just reporting one side or the other as usual. Heck, US has a mature president now even acknowledging there are two major competing hypotheses. Seeing leaders embracing uncertainty is rare, so it seems humanity is going through a learning phase right now, having to face up to uncertainty and fear.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    What do you mean by "citation"? An academic reference, or an example? There are examples of these in these comments, so if you doubt that these things are true (and cannot find examples in this thread) then please narrow it down to one - this isn't a wikipedia articles, theres as much burden on you to disprove something you disagree with, and you haven't yet stated you disagree with anything.

Chris2048 5y ago

But many dismissed the idea outright, not on the basis of lack of proof, but on the basis of some outrage (or implying the existence of counter-proof, 'debunking', or at least consensus of expert opinion) Further more, the media needs to maintain that standard themselves: - No more anonymous, un-interrogatable sources; - No accusations of bad motive (e.g. racism) without proof - such as those implied of the conspiracy theorists.

bdcravens 5y ago
Both of those standards would invalidate many of the claims we're discussing as well.
- kodah 5y ago
  I think GPs framework is more aimed at the media and not a message board of pseudonymous nerds. There's an ocean of power on one side and relatively near none on the other.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  The claim that the virus originated in the lab? Yes. The claim that the virus might have originated in the lab? No.