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As far as I can tell this is a false premise. The scientific consensus on zoonotic origin was never really considered conclusive by anyone and was never really

by tootie 5y ago

As far as I can tell this is a false premise. The scientific consensus on zoonotic origin was never really considered conclusive by anyone and was never really sold as being conclusive. There was a very strong backlash against the ridiculous theories spread by people like Tom Cotton that virus was engineered that absolutely soured the debate. And people like Trump and his sycophants who didn't just suggest lab leak but declared it as being overwhelmingly likely. That made honest debate extremely difficult. And even know the hand-wringing of "oh now they were right all along" is even worse. There was not then nor is there now sufficient evidence to declare this a settled debate. Trump is and was wrong. And Cotton shot himself the foot by ruining his credibility before trying to reset his opinion. In reality, we don't know. Zoonotic remains most likely. More investigation is warranted but is unlikely to turn up a smoking gun.

lawnchair_larry 5y ago
You’re incorrect on nearly all of this and haven’t “broken out” of the forced narrative. All I can suggest is you go back to the primary sources yourself. Don’t take my word for it, don’t take your preferred media outlet’s word for it. Dig it up and decide. The lab leak is overwhelmingly likely. It’s the Occam’s Razor without question. It’s still a hypothesis to be clear. It’s not proven. It could be wrong. But if we are assigning probabilities, it’s extremely one sided. It should have been the leading hypothesis from the beginning. But Trump said it, so it must be wrong. We must find reasons for it to be not only wrong, but worthy of ridicule. And when those narratives fall, we must keep shifting the goal posts. And when that doesn’t work anymore, we must blame our failure on republicans in some roundabout way. Sorry, that’s not how we science. We have to put the damn political tribal warfare away for a minute.
- tootie 5y ago
  The lab leak theory is not Occam's razor. We've had many, many pandemics and epidemics and none have been associated with research labs. We've had SARS outbreaks in China that are not associated with a lab. There is also no proof beyond circumstance to associate it with the lab. And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency. Cotton was far more measured in his statements even if he was still stretching. I'm also saying that the MSM and scientific consensus only really threw a fit over the bioweapon theory and inflammatory rhetoric. Even the infamous WHO study said accidental lab leak was possible.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    > And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency. except his CDC head claimed after the new administration took over that Trump's administration did have additional classified evidence that made it more likely. It is extremely likely that the intelligence community knew of the chinese researchers who had gone to the hospital (and maybe more) way before it was released to the public. By the time these facts are made public, they have been researched and assigned a high level of confidence.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    You're not actually refuting any argument the parent made. First, pointing out that other pandemics have happened absent lab accidents doesn't negate all the evidence pointing in that direction this time. As far as evidence and probability goes (with regard to the potential evolutionary paths the virus would have had to have taken in the wild), the lab leak hypothesis is very strong. The simplest answer is that it leaked from the lab a few miles away studying this exact family of viruses. Second, the parent wasn't saying anything about whether or not Trump was twisting the truth or being dramatic. His whole point is that the discussion was able to be hijacked by the simple act of a divisive figure talking about it. It's fine if people dismiss Trump (the smart thing to do honestly), but allowing that to bias you in the opposite direction without any evidence is making the exact same mistake he did.
  - spfzero 5y ago
    Its only recently that research labs could engineer these viruses. Only recently have you been able to engineer mice with human ACE2 receptors, and breed viruses in them. History is not what you base your conclusions on in 2020’s biochemistry.
    - tootie 5y ago
      It has been strongly asserted by the scientific community that Covid-19 bears no hallmarks of an engineered virus. In fact, no one in this thread is even suggested it was engineered. That's the whole point of the article. The "accidental leak" theory is being conflated with "engineered weapon theory". The only options on the table are "animal -> human" or "animal -> lab -> human". Both are plausible and we have no conclusive evidence one way or the other.
onionisafruit 5y ago
How can you read this then casually say Tom Cotton was spreading ridiculous theories that covid was engineered? One of the main points in the article is he never said that and what he did say was pretty reasonable. It’s ok if you think the article is wrong about that, but you should at least give a source for your claim at this point.
- iammisc 5y ago
  There is no source for these claims. Just like with Trump, people get angry and upset with what they think he said based on the impression from the media, not what was actually said. Just look at the 'fine people on both sides' comment that was taken ridiculously out of context. This same thing happened to Sarah Palin with the 'I can see Russia from my house' phrase, which she never said. It was part of a comedy sketch, yet it was used to attack her. It is absolutely ridiculous. No one is interested anymore in what is said, just what they think someone 'like that' would say.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Here is Sarah Palin actually making that claim on CBS. Not in those hilarious words but really and in fact. It's like 2 minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg The fine people on both sides was truly as horrific as it was made out to be. They had a torchlight nazi parade where they chanted jews will not replace us and they murdered people. Here is a pic of people flying as they were hit by a car. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/2017_Charlottesville%2C_Virginia_car_attack_photograph.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/2017_Charlott... On February 20th 2020 Tom Cotton speculated that it was possible that China deliberately released the virus or that it could be a bioweapon that had been released. https://twitter.com/sentomcotton/status/1229202139232292866 https://twitter.com/sentomcotton/status/1229202139232292866 This isn't a hypothesis a US senator should throw out on twitter because the right wing completely ignored the speculative nature or any qualifications and completely ran with Tom says they Chinese attacked us.
    - 5y ago

by tootie 5y ago

lawnchair_larry 5y ago

You’re incorrect on nearly all of this and haven’t “broken out” of the forced narrative. All I can suggest is you go back to the primary sources yourself. Don’t take my word for it, don’t take your preferred media outlet’s word for it. Dig it up and decide. The lab leak is overwhelmingly likely. It’s the Occam’s Razor without question. It’s still a hypothesis to be clear. It’s not proven. It could be wrong. But if we are assigning probabilities, it’s extremely one sided. It should have been the leading hypothesis from the beginning. But Trump said it, so it must be wrong. We must find reasons for it to be not only wrong, but worthy of ridicule. And when those narratives fall, we must keep shifting the goal posts. And when that doesn’t work anymore, we must blame our failure on republicans in some roundabout way. Sorry, that’s not how we science. We have to put the damn political tribal warfare away for a minute.

tootie 5y ago
The lab leak theory is not Occam's razor. We've had many, many pandemics and epidemics and none have been associated with research labs. We've had SARS outbreaks in China that are not associated with a lab. There is also no proof beyond circumstance to associate it with the lab. And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency. Cotton was far more measured in his statements even if he was still stretching. I'm also saying that the MSM and scientific consensus only really threw a fit over the bioweapon theory and inflammatory rhetoric. Even the infamous WHO study said accidental lab leak was possible.
- iammisc 5y ago
  > And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency. except his CDC head claimed after the new administration took over that Trump's administration did have additional classified evidence that made it more likely. It is extremely likely that the intelligence community knew of the chinese researchers who had gone to the hospital (and maybe more) way before it was released to the public. By the time these facts are made public, they have been researched and assigned a high level of confidence.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  You're not actually refuting any argument the parent made. First, pointing out that other pandemics have happened absent lab accidents doesn't negate all the evidence pointing in that direction this time. As far as evidence and probability goes (with regard to the potential evolutionary paths the virus would have had to have taken in the wild), the lab leak hypothesis is very strong. The simplest answer is that it leaked from the lab a few miles away studying this exact family of viruses. Second, the parent wasn't saying anything about whether or not Trump was twisting the truth or being dramatic. His whole point is that the discussion was able to be hijacked by the simple act of a divisive figure talking about it. It's fine if people dismiss Trump (the smart thing to do honestly), but allowing that to bias you in the opposite direction without any evidence is making the exact same mistake he did.
- spfzero 5y ago
  Its only recently that research labs could engineer these viruses. Only recently have you been able to engineer mice with human ACE2 receptors, and breed viruses in them. History is not what you base your conclusions on in 2020’s biochemistry.
  - tootie 5y ago
    It has been strongly asserted by the scientific community that Covid-19 bears no hallmarks of an engineered virus. In fact, no one in this thread is even suggested it was engineered. That's the whole point of the article. The "accidental leak" theory is being conflated with "engineered weapon theory". The only options on the table are "animal -> human" or "animal -> lab -> human". Both are plausible and we have no conclusive evidence one way or the other.

onionisafruit 5y ago

How can you read this then casually say Tom Cotton was spreading ridiculous theories that covid was engineered? One of the main points in the article is he never said that and what he did say was pretty reasonable. It’s ok if you think the article is wrong about that, but you should at least give a source for your claim at this point.

iammisc 5y ago
There is no source for these claims. Just like with Trump, people get angry and upset with what they think he said based on the impression from the media, not what was actually said. Just look at the 'fine people on both sides' comment that was taken ridiculously out of context. This same thing happened to Sarah Palin with the 'I can see Russia from my house' phrase, which she never said. It was part of a comedy sketch, yet it was used to attack her. It is absolutely ridiculous. No one is interested anymore in what is said, just what they think someone 'like that' would say.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Here is Sarah Palin actually making that claim on CBS. Not in those hilarious words but really and in fact. It's like 2 minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg The fine people on both sides was truly as horrific as it was made out to be. They had a torchlight nazi parade where they chanted jews will not replace us and they murdered people. Here is a pic of people flying as they were hit by a car. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/2017_Charlottesville%2C_Virginia_car_attack_photograph.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/2017_Charlott... On February 20th 2020 Tom Cotton speculated that it was possible that China deliberately released the virus or that it could be a bioweapon that had been released. https://twitter.com/sentomcotton/status/1229202139232292866 https://twitter.com/sentomcotton/status/1229202139232292866 This isn't a hypothesis a US senator should throw out on twitter because the right wing completely ignored the speculative nature or any qualifications and completely ran with Tom says they Chinese attacked us.
  - 5y ago