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I haven't watched their Congressional testimony, but I've read Quay's "analysis" and heard Asher propound on his bioweapon theory elsewhere. Quay's analysis is

I haven't watched their Congressional testimony, but I've read Quay's "analysis" and heard Asher propound on his bioweapon theory elsewhere. Quay's analysis is not a rigorous Bayesian analysis in any sense. It's a series of subjective judgments about likelihoods of various scenarios. It's classic garbage-in, garbage-out, dressed up as science by using the word "Bayesian." The thing is, Bayesian inference is only as good as the information and knowledge you put into it. Quay treats cancer patients and invents medical devices. He has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to virology. It's incredibly telling that he's the guy that pro-lab-leak congresspeople invite to talk, instead of an actual virologist. Asher is just a career political hack with no scientific background. Edit: Right off the bat, Quay's first claim in his testimony is highly dubious. He claims that the Huanan Seafood market was not where the virus spilled over, because supposedly the earliest version of the virus wasn't found in patients who were at the market. Two problems: 1. We don't actually know which is the oldest lineage of the virus. 2. Only a tiny fraction of people who got sick at the market have had samples taken. Probably hundreds of people at the market caught the virus and had mild or asymptomatic cases. We only have a few samples, from people who fell seriously ill. By the way, mortality evidence independently supports the Huanan market as the area of the first major outbreak.

api 5y ago
There are actual virologists who support the lab leak theory, but my guess is that Congress is calling him because he is pushing it as an intentional lab leak. There is so far no evidence at all for that, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Biological warfare is like trying to use a grenade as a handgun. Yes it does hurt your opponent, but... Yes China did seem to contain COVID well, but if it were (hypothetically) a bio-weapon there's no way they could have known ahead of time they'd be this successful or that the virus wouldn't mutate into something far more dangerous. The CCP can be evil but they're not reckless. They prefer a very measured, calculated, incremental approach, not high-risk gambits like releasing a bioweapon. If that backfired it could decimate their population, drag them into WWIII, or both, and none of that would be a win.
- DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
  > There are actual virologists who support the lab leak theory Very few. I don't know of any major virologist who actually says it's more likely, and the overwhelming majority say it's highly unlikely. Right now, everything points to the outbreak being associated with animal markets, just like SARS.
  - CMay 5y ago
    Using quantity like this to prop up your reasoning and discounting the contributions of someone outside of a field both weaken the strength of your conclusions, unfortunately.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      When people who know what they're talking about say one thing, and people who don't know what they're talking about say the opposite, who are you going to listen to? There are very good reasons why virologists think SARS-CoV-2 spilled over naturally. I've discussed some of the reasons elsewhere in this discussion (there's absolutely no evidence the WIV had this virus before the outbreak, and there's pretty good evidence they didn't, dangerous human-animal interactions outside labs are vastly more common than in labs, the first outbreak was centered on a market that housed live animals).
Natsu 5y ago
One problem for the wet market theory is that neither bats nor pangolins were sold at that wet market: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 "Here we document 47,381 individuals from 38 species, including 31 protected species sold between May 2017 and November 2019 in Wuhan’s markets. We note that no pangolins (or bats) were traded, supporting reformed opinion that pangolins were not likely the spillover host at the source of the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic." That doesn't mean there couldn't be a zoonotic explanation, of course, but it does significantly complicate the main alternative to the theory that WIV was doing coronavirus research in humanized mice and that escaped from the lab.
- DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
  > One problem for the wet market theory is that neither bats nor pangolins were sold at that wet market That's not a problem for the theory. SARS did not come directly from bats (or pangolins). It went through civets first, which were sold at markets. That's why SARS first showed up in Foshan, 1000 km away from where the bats that harbor the ancestral virus to SARS live. The Nature paper you linked shows that live animals that are known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 were sold at the Huanan Seafood market. Because of that, the paper has been generally received as strongly supporting the idea that the outbreak began at the Huanan market.
  - Natsu 5y ago
    Can you give more data on that? Last I knew, the animal reservoir wasn't identified, has that changed recently? We have a wild animal population infected with Covid-19? I would revise my assessments if we have a clear animal reservoir, but I need to see more data on that first.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      The intermediate host hasn't yet been identified, but the site of the first known outbreak was a market where wild animals were sold, exactly like with SARS. On the other hand, there's no evidence that links the outbreak to the lab in any way.

api 5y ago

There are actual virologists who support the lab leak theory, but my guess is that Congress is calling him because he is pushing it as an intentional lab leak. There is so far no evidence at all for that, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Biological warfare is like trying to use a grenade as a handgun. Yes it does hurt your opponent, but... Yes China did seem to contain COVID well, but if it were (hypothetically) a bio-weapon there's no way they could have known ahead of time they'd be this successful or that the virus wouldn't mutate into something far more dangerous. The CCP can be evil but they're not reckless. They prefer a very measured, calculated, incremental approach, not high-risk gambits like releasing a bioweapon. If that backfired it could decimate their population, drag them into WWIII, or both, and none of that would be a win.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
> There are actual virologists who support the lab leak theory Very few. I don't know of any major virologist who actually says it's more likely, and the overwhelming majority say it's highly unlikely. Right now, everything points to the outbreak being associated with animal markets, just like SARS.
- CMay 5y ago
  Using quantity like this to prop up your reasoning and discounting the contributions of someone outside of a field both weaken the strength of your conclusions, unfortunately.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    When people who know what they're talking about say one thing, and people who don't know what they're talking about say the opposite, who are you going to listen to? There are very good reasons why virologists think SARS-CoV-2 spilled over naturally. I've discussed some of the reasons elsewhere in this discussion (there's absolutely no evidence the WIV had this virus before the outbreak, and there's pretty good evidence they didn't, dangerous human-animal interactions outside labs are vastly more common than in labs, the first outbreak was centered on a market that housed live animals).

Natsu 5y ago

One problem for the wet market theory is that neither bats nor pangolins were sold at that wet market: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 "Here we document 47,381 individuals from 38 species, including 31 protected species sold between May 2017 and November 2019 in Wuhan’s markets. We note that no pangolins (or bats) were traded, supporting reformed opinion that pangolins were not likely the spillover host at the source of the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic." That doesn't mean there couldn't be a zoonotic explanation, of course, but it does significantly complicate the main alternative to the theory that WIV was doing coronavirus research in humanized mice and that escaped from the lab.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
> One problem for the wet market theory is that neither bats nor pangolins were sold at that wet market That's not a problem for the theory. SARS did not come directly from bats (or pangolins). It went through civets first, which were sold at markets. That's why SARS first showed up in Foshan, 1000 km away from where the bats that harbor the ancestral virus to SARS live. The Nature paper you linked shows that live animals that are known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 were sold at the Huanan Seafood market. Because of that, the paper has been generally received as strongly supporting the idea that the outbreak began at the Huanan market.
- Natsu 5y ago
  Can you give more data on that? Last I knew, the animal reservoir wasn't identified, has that changed recently? We have a wild animal population infected with Covid-19? I would revise my assessments if we have a clear animal reservoir, but I need to see more data on that first.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    The intermediate host hasn't yet been identified, but the site of the first known outbreak was a market where wild animals were sold, exactly like with SARS. On the other hand, there's no evidence that links the outbreak to the lab in any way.