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Again, this writeup is more about the bioengineering hypothesis while embarak states another theory. in it‘s current state the term lab leak has almost become m

by siva7 5y ago

Again, this writeup is more about the bioengineering hypothesis while embarak states another theory. in it‘s current state the term lab leak has almost become meaningless

derbOac 5y ago
I think equating the lab leak hypothesis with climate change denial also caused me to tune out. It's just not acting in good faith. I also feel like if he's serious about it, he would produce something other than a tweet thread, at least a real blog post with links to papers he refers to. Otherwise it's hard for me to take them any more seriously than anyone else who handwaves about papers. It would be nice to see something like that with good faith opportunities for people to respond and counterrespond but I'm skeptical about it happening. There's also a sense that I have from reading stuff like that and others that we should treat the peer-reviewed academic paper trail as somehow the state of things, rather than looking at the evidence on its own terms. I don't mean anything conspiratorial about that, just that it's almost like they expect there to be some peer-reviewed paper out there from China that shows how they would have engineered it if they had, as if that's realistic at all. That's not even getting into what you mention, which is the possibility nothing was engineered and there was a leak.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  You're asking people to prove a negative and then you're upset when they can't? It's impossible to disprove but both SARS and Bird Flu crossed over from animals in Southern China so there's no reason it must have come from the lab, either. Right now we have zero evidence either way, just people speculating mostly based on their pre-existing opinions of the Chinese state.
mike00632 5y ago
That's the problem with these conspiracy theories, though, right? They are unfalsifiable by design. A scientific hypothesis would be testable. For example, "Did the COVID-19 virus come from a lab?" would be falsifiable if the COVID-19 virus didn't share the base genetic sequence of typical viruses tested in a lab. Lo and behold, the COVID-19 virus doesn't have the genetic signature of viruses in labs. Therefore the conspiracy theory is more convoluted to include vastly more participants in a complex web of motives resulting in a theory that is less falsifiable and plays into every possible prejudice a laymen could have about geopolitics, money, race and national governments. We've seen lab leaks and this is supposedly different because it's not disclosed and numerous other reasons making it hard to prove. We know about lab made viruses which this is supposedly different because it somehow looks like a virus of zoonotic origin. We've seen the Chinese government cover up embarrassing situations but this is different because there was heavy involvement from American researchers and American public educational institutions and they are in on the cover up too for some reason. We've seen the US government dislose previously classified information but this is different because all of the government officials who say they saw classified information about a lab leak (and were in a position to declassify said information) did not accompany their accusations with gathered intelligence. At some point we should recognize that these necessary mental gymnastics put the theory well into crank territory.
- JPKab 5y ago
  There is currently zero evidence to support a zoonotic origin. It took 9 months to find the source of MERS (camels). It took 14 months to find the origin of SARS1 (bats). What evidence do you have that this was transmitted from an animal carrier? What mammal in China (it's not like there are that many mammal species living in the Wuhan metropolitan area) has been identified that easily catches COVID? The answer is zero. The most likely explanation for this, which fits with all the other circumstantial data, is that the zoonotic origin was a genetically engineered mouse with human ACE2 receptors lining it's lungs. Note that I'm saying the mouse was genetically engineered, not the virus itself. The virus could easily evolve to infect humans by repeatedly exposing the humanized mice to the original, completely natural origin bat viruses. Calling out "mental gymnastics" when you are acting as if it's a pure coincidence that a bat virus pandemic originated in a city containing the world's leading bat-borne virus research facility is the height of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. And before you say that the lab is in Wuhan because that's where the viruses are, no, it's not. The viruses historically have emerged in Yunnan province, in remote caves 1000 KM away from Wuhan.
  - scheme271 5y ago
    OTOH, no one has found the zoonotic origin for ebola people looking for literally decades. That's also the case for a few other diseases as well. Just because the origin for MERS and SARS was found quickly, it doesn't follow that covid investigations will be as quick
    - danenania 5y ago
      If ebola had emerged right next to a lab doing high-risk research on ebola-like viruses, people would have (justifiably) been highly suspicious.
  - l33tbro 5y ago
    To add to this, the wet market theory is baloney. No bats were sold or traded there. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2
tootie 5y ago
No it covers the entire spectrum of theories. You have to follow the thread it's like 50 tweets long. He talks about bioengineering, gain of function, serial passage and direct animal to lab to public.

by siva7 5y ago

Again, this writeup is more about the bioengineering hypothesis while embarak states another theory. in it‘s current state the term lab leak has almost become meaningless

derbOac 5y ago

I think equating the lab leak hypothesis with climate change denial also caused me to tune out. It's just not acting in good faith. I also feel like if he's serious about it, he would produce something other than a tweet thread, at least a real blog post with links to papers he refers to. Otherwise it's hard for me to take them any more seriously than anyone else who handwaves about papers. It would be nice to see something like that with good faith opportunities for people to respond and counterrespond but I'm skeptical about it happening. There's also a sense that I have from reading stuff like that and others that we should treat the peer-reviewed academic paper trail as somehow the state of things, rather than looking at the evidence on its own terms. I don't mean anything conspiratorial about that, just that it's almost like they expect there to be some peer-reviewed paper out there from China that shows how they would have engineered it if they had, as if that's realistic at all. That's not even getting into what you mention, which is the possibility nothing was engineered and there was a leak.

refenestrator 5y ago
You're asking people to prove a negative and then you're upset when they can't? It's impossible to disprove but both SARS and Bird Flu crossed over from animals in Southern China so there's no reason it must have come from the lab, either. Right now we have zero evidence either way, just people speculating mostly based on their pre-existing opinions of the Chinese state.

mike00632 5y ago

That's the problem with these conspiracy theories, though, right? They are unfalsifiable by design. A scientific hypothesis would be testable. For example, "Did the COVID-19 virus come from a lab?" would be falsifiable if the COVID-19 virus didn't share the base genetic sequence of typical viruses tested in a lab. Lo and behold, the COVID-19 virus doesn't have the genetic signature of viruses in labs. Therefore the conspiracy theory is more convoluted to include vastly more participants in a complex web of motives resulting in a theory that is less falsifiable and plays into every possible prejudice a laymen could have about geopolitics, money, race and national governments. We've seen lab leaks and this is supposedly different because it's not disclosed and numerous other reasons making it hard to prove. We know about lab made viruses which this is supposedly different because it somehow looks like a virus of zoonotic origin. We've seen the Chinese government cover up embarrassing situations but this is different because there was heavy involvement from American researchers and American public educational institutions and they are in on the cover up too for some reason. We've seen the US government dislose previously classified information but this is different because all of the government officials who say they saw classified information about a lab leak (and were in a position to declassify said information) did not accompany their accusations with gathered intelligence. At some point we should recognize that these necessary mental gymnastics put the theory well into crank territory.

JPKab 5y ago
There is currently zero evidence to support a zoonotic origin. It took 9 months to find the source of MERS (camels). It took 14 months to find the origin of SARS1 (bats). What evidence do you have that this was transmitted from an animal carrier? What mammal in China (it's not like there are that many mammal species living in the Wuhan metropolitan area) has been identified that easily catches COVID? The answer is zero. The most likely explanation for this, which fits with all the other circumstantial data, is that the zoonotic origin was a genetically engineered mouse with human ACE2 receptors lining it's lungs. Note that I'm saying the mouse was genetically engineered, not the virus itself. The virus could easily evolve to infect humans by repeatedly exposing the humanized mice to the original, completely natural origin bat viruses. Calling out "mental gymnastics" when you are acting as if it's a pure coincidence that a bat virus pandemic originated in a city containing the world's leading bat-borne virus research facility is the height of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. And before you say that the lab is in Wuhan because that's where the viruses are, no, it's not. The viruses historically have emerged in Yunnan province, in remote caves 1000 KM away from Wuhan.
- scheme271 5y ago
  OTOH, no one has found the zoonotic origin for ebola people looking for literally decades. That's also the case for a few other diseases as well. Just because the origin for MERS and SARS was found quickly, it doesn't follow that covid investigations will be as quick
  - danenania 5y ago
    If ebola had emerged right next to a lab doing high-risk research on ebola-like viruses, people would have (justifiably) been highly suspicious.
- l33tbro 5y ago
  To add to this, the wet market theory is baloney. No bats were sold or traded there. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2

tootie 5y ago

No it covers the entire spectrum of theories. You have to follow the thread it's like 50 tweets long. He talks about bioengineering, gain of function, serial passage and direct animal to lab to public.