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One problem with politically charged issues is that one's bias can significantly color unresolved factual issues. In the article the early 'red flags' pointed o

One problem with politically charged issues is that one's bias can significantly color unresolved factual issues. In the article the early 'red flags' pointed out in the January 2020 study by The Lancet left clear open questions regarding the Seafood Market hypothesis, but many in the media glossed over these red flags. Now that additional facts are coming to light including the fact that multiple scientists at the lab were hospitalized with Covid like symptoms in late 2019, the facts are starting to pierce through the early dismissal of the lab leak theory by many journalists. I think this will result in a rethink of how we tag unresolved topics as "False Information" or before enough facts are gathered. Perhaps a "Controversial" tag would be preferred. I really like the site https://www.allsides.com/ https://www.allsides.com/ that provides Left/Center/Right bias indicators for any story so you can read all sides and get the gist of how politics is coloring current stories in the media. (1) https://www.allsides.com/tags/wuhan-lab?search=wuhan%20lab#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=wuhan%20lab&gsc.page=1 https://www.allsides.com/tags/wuhan-lab?search=wuhan%20lab#g...

generalizations 5y ago
> I think this will result in a rethink of how we tag unresolved topics as "False Information" or before enough facts are gathered. Perhaps a "Controversial" tag would be preferred. If anything, it will taint the credibilty of people who claim they have the insight to tag the information's credibility in the first place.
- crystalmeph 5y ago
  That would actually be a silver lining in my opinion.
cheeseomlit 5y ago
>I think this will result in a rethink of how we tag unresolved topics as "False Information" or before enough facts are gathered. Wishful thinking perhaps, somehow I doubt most of the media/gov't figures who dismissed these claims did so in good faith to begin with.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Please be explicite iF you are going to make such accusations. What "bad faith" reason do you postulate motivated these actions?
  - caddemon 5y ago
    I wouldn't use the word bad faith, but I think for a lot of people it was very likely motivated by political/social pressure more than by trying to find the truth. In a positive light one could interpret some of the dismissal as an effort to combat anti-Asian racism occuring here. In a somewhat more negative light one might think it was simply the move to make to avoid even remotely aligning with conservatives. There were probably also dynamics going on with foreign politics, but even just on US soil there was more than enough politicization of the issue.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      I see a very different dynamic reading the article. Remember, at the time this all happened Trump was still very publicly backing the Chinese government's response. Tom Cotton was very much bucking the party line in calling the CCP liars. What I see over and over throughout all of this is repeated conflation of "lab-leaked" and "man-made". Tom Cotton absolutely never even insinuated that the virus was man-made, only that a china was lying about the market and that a lab leak was a possible origin This distinction was quickly lost, but it is not clear that was due to malice or even partisanship. In this very article, with the benedit of hind site, the author repeatedly conflates the two an switches which concept is being discussed. At the time there was no basis to reject the lab-leak theory. There was at the time some preliminary basis to reject the man-made hypothesis. As far as I cam tell, we are just really bad at protraying any nuance when all the incentives reward sensationalizing everything.
      - caddemon 5y ago
        Yes I agree there was a lot of conflation of man made and lab leak, but I much more frequently saw people dismiss lab leak because of arguments focusing on man made, than people saying they believed the man made hypothesis because it could be a lab leak. That might just be my social circle though. Similarly, I can't recall a time that lab leak wasn't considered a conservative conspiracy among my social circles, and that does include a conservative group from my hometown. In the exact same groups I do recall a rapid swapping of position on masks however. That is of course anecdote, but in general Trump has been very critical of China, and also issued travel bans relatively early on that were painted as racist by the media. Additionally, Trump and his fans childishly insisted on calling COVID the "China flu" for awhile there. So the origin of the lab leak hypothesis may not have been conservative, but from what I can tell they pretty quickly latched onto the potential for anti-China sentiment there. And not too long after that we had another situation where the Democrats decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater because they didn't like the ideas that had picked up steam with Trump supporters. But maybe you're right it's a more untargeted lack of ability for nuance. Certainly in this case that's possible, as it's a more difficult technical topic. I just see the way some of my friends hedge fairly benign statements these days, out of fear of being associated with Trumpers. I actually know someone who got rid of the couple of red baseball caps they had because they were afraid people might think it's some sort of MAGA statement. Nuance is even harder when there's a fear of saying anything that might get you out-grouped.
contemporary343 5y ago
Weren't scientists from the Chinese CDC actually authors of the Lancet article that everyone cited? It doesn't seem like they were trying to push any seafood market hypothesis either.
- speeder 5y ago
  The author of that article is actually Peter Daszak of Ecohealth Alliance, that was funding the Wuhan lab for gain of function research, seemly using money from US government (NIH and another department I can't recall now). EDIT: why people are downvoting this? I got something wrong? The Peter Daszak that signed the article is not the same one that runs Ecohealth Alliance?
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    You are correct that this is the same Peter Daszak that is president of EcoHealth and he appears as an author on some papers put out by WIV concerning bat coronavirus research. He was also the only American representative the WHO allowed on the Wuhan visit and investigation earlier this year, after the WHO rejected three other nominees from the Trump administration. There are massive conflicts of interest all over his involvement in this tale. The other department you are thinking of is NIAID, which is a sub agency of the NIH. Fauci runs NIAID. The EcoHealth grant which went to WIV was from NIAID/NIH. You can find links to the actual grant from this fact check (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fact-check-obama-administration-did-not-send-3-7-m-wuhan-lab/3061490001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fac...), which ironically is one of these deceptive fact checks that claims something is false in the headline, then claims deep in the text that it is only partially false, all while the original claim is actually essentially true. As an aside, Professor Ebright from Rutgers described the EcoHealth-WIV research as “unequivocally” gain of function research (https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain...). He also accused NIH/NIAID of systematically undermining and avoiding oversight processes that were meant to prevent dangerous grants like this, especially since GoF research was banned in the US (https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/06/fauci-must-explain-why-oversight-bypassed-for-funding-to-wuhan-lab-congressman-says/ https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/06/fauci-must-explain-wh...). Ebright also accused Fauci of lying during the recent senate hearing where Senator Rand Paul questioned him (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biosafety-expert-explains-why-faucis-nih-gain-of-function-testimony-was-demonstrably-false/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biosafety-expert-explain...). Ebright was also one of the few brave signatories on the March letter pointing out flaws with the WHO investigation and study, and asking for a new investigation (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/04/us/covid-origins-letter.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/04/us/covid-orig...).
roca 5y ago
I'm open to the lab leak hypothesis, but the intel around those scientists being hospitalized is pretty weak.

generalizations 5y ago

> I think this will result in a rethink of how we tag unresolved topics as "False Information" or before enough facts are gathered. Perhaps a "Controversial" tag would be preferred. If anything, it will taint the credibilty of people who claim they have the insight to tag the information's credibility in the first place.

crystalmeph 5y ago
That would actually be a silver lining in my opinion.

cheeseomlit 5y ago

>I think this will result in a rethink of how we tag unresolved topics as "False Information" or before enough facts are gathered. Wishful thinking perhaps, somehow I doubt most of the media/gov't figures who dismissed these claims did so in good faith to begin with.

shkkmo 5y ago
Please be explicite iF you are going to make such accusations. What "bad faith" reason do you postulate motivated these actions?
- caddemon 5y ago
  I wouldn't use the word bad faith, but I think for a lot of people it was very likely motivated by political/social pressure more than by trying to find the truth. In a positive light one could interpret some of the dismissal as an effort to combat anti-Asian racism occuring here. In a somewhat more negative light one might think it was simply the move to make to avoid even remotely aligning with conservatives. There were probably also dynamics going on with foreign politics, but even just on US soil there was more than enough politicization of the issue.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    I see a very different dynamic reading the article. Remember, at the time this all happened Trump was still very publicly backing the Chinese government's response. Tom Cotton was very much bucking the party line in calling the CCP liars. What I see over and over throughout all of this is repeated conflation of "lab-leaked" and "man-made". Tom Cotton absolutely never even insinuated that the virus was man-made, only that a china was lying about the market and that a lab leak was a possible origin This distinction was quickly lost, but it is not clear that was due to malice or even partisanship. In this very article, with the benedit of hind site, the author repeatedly conflates the two an switches which concept is being discussed. At the time there was no basis to reject the lab-leak theory. There was at the time some preliminary basis to reject the man-made hypothesis. As far as I cam tell, we are just really bad at protraying any nuance when all the incentives reward sensationalizing everything.
    - caddemon 5y ago
      Yes I agree there was a lot of conflation of man made and lab leak, but I much more frequently saw people dismiss lab leak because of arguments focusing on man made, than people saying they believed the man made hypothesis because it could be a lab leak. That might just be my social circle though. Similarly, I can't recall a time that lab leak wasn't considered a conservative conspiracy among my social circles, and that does include a conservative group from my hometown. In the exact same groups I do recall a rapid swapping of position on masks however. That is of course anecdote, but in general Trump has been very critical of China, and also issued travel bans relatively early on that were painted as racist by the media. Additionally, Trump and his fans childishly insisted on calling COVID the "China flu" for awhile there. So the origin of the lab leak hypothesis may not have been conservative, but from what I can tell they pretty quickly latched onto the potential for anti-China sentiment there. And not too long after that we had another situation where the Democrats decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater because they didn't like the ideas that had picked up steam with Trump supporters. But maybe you're right it's a more untargeted lack of ability for nuance. Certainly in this case that's possible, as it's a more difficult technical topic. I just see the way some of my friends hedge fairly benign statements these days, out of fear of being associated with Trumpers. I actually know someone who got rid of the couple of red baseball caps they had because they were afraid people might think it's some sort of MAGA statement. Nuance is even harder when there's a fear of saying anything that might get you out-grouped.

contemporary343 5y ago

Weren't scientists from the Chinese CDC actually authors of the Lancet article that everyone cited? It doesn't seem like they were trying to push any seafood market hypothesis either.

speeder 5y ago
The author of that article is actually Peter Daszak of Ecohealth Alliance, that was funding the Wuhan lab for gain of function research, seemly using money from US government (NIH and another department I can't recall now). EDIT: why people are downvoting this? I got something wrong? The Peter Daszak that signed the article is not the same one that runs Ecohealth Alliance?
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  You are correct that this is the same Peter Daszak that is president of EcoHealth and he appears as an author on some papers put out by WIV concerning bat coronavirus research. He was also the only American representative the WHO allowed on the Wuhan visit and investigation earlier this year, after the WHO rejected three other nominees from the Trump administration. There are massive conflicts of interest all over his involvement in this tale. The other department you are thinking of is NIAID, which is a sub agency of the NIH. Fauci runs NIAID. The EcoHealth grant which went to WIV was from NIAID/NIH. You can find links to the actual grant from this fact check (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fact-check-obama-administration-did-not-send-3-7-m-wuhan-lab/3061490001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fac...), which ironically is one of these deceptive fact checks that claims something is false in the headline, then claims deep in the text that it is only partially false, all while the original claim is actually essentially true. As an aside, Professor Ebright from Rutgers described the EcoHealth-WIV research as “unequivocally” gain of function research (https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain...). He also accused NIH/NIAID of systematically undermining and avoiding oversight processes that were meant to prevent dangerous grants like this, especially since GoF research was banned in the US (https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/06/fauci-must-explain-why-oversight-bypassed-for-funding-to-wuhan-lab-congressman-says/ https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/06/fauci-must-explain-wh...). Ebright also accused Fauci of lying during the recent senate hearing where Senator Rand Paul questioned him (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biosafety-expert-explains-why-faucis-nih-gain-of-function-testimony-was-demonstrably-false/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biosafety-expert-explain...). Ebright was also one of the few brave signatories on the March letter pointing out flaws with the WHO investigation and study, and asking for a new investigation (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/04/us/covid-origins-letter.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/04/us/covid-orig...).

roca 5y ago

I'm open to the lab leak hypothesis, but the intel around those scientists being hospitalized is pretty weak.