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A credible fact check would not state "Covid-19 did not leak from a laboratory" - it would state "There is no evidence that shows Covid-19 leaked from a laborat

by depaya 5y ago

A credible fact check would not state "Covid-19 did not leak from a laboratory" - it would state "There is no evidence that shows Covid-19 leaked from a laboratory." Back in early 2020 the "evidence" to which people were pointing was the fact that there was a lab researching coronavirus in Wuhan, and... general conspiracy nonsense. If over time actual evidence emerges that there was a potential lab leak, that doesn't in any way vindicate people making baseless claims early in the pandemic.

dionidium 5y ago
> "There is no evidence that shows Covid-19 leaked from a laboratory." But this, too, is complicated, because despite what people say on Twitter, as humans we actually can reason from first principles, assign probabilities, and discount or promote less or more likely explanations -- especially when hard evidence isn't forthcoming. When there's "no evidence" for something, that doesn't mean all explanations are equally likely.
rob_c 5y ago
Again the problem was the convolution of "lab leak" incorrectly meaning "lab made and leaked" exclusively which is different to poor quality control of wild specimens held on site...
MichaelDickens 5y ago
> Back in early 2020 the "evidence" to which people were pointing was the fact that there was a lab researching coronavirus in Wuhan This absolutely qualifies as evidence. If there were no such lab, that would pretty much conclusively rule out the lab leak hypothesis, right? If observation X is evidence against a hypothesis, then observation not-X must be evidence in favor. We could debate about how strong this evidence is, but it's definitely evidence.
- hairofadog 5y ago
  With respect, I don't think that's true. Consider: If MichaelDickens did not exist, it would rule out his having robbed the bank. However, MichaelDickens exists, and therefore it is evidence, however weak, that he robbed the bank.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    If MichaelDickens, the bank robber, were as rare and as close to the bank robbery as the a lab researching coronavirus in Wuhan was to the earliest part of the outbreak, you'd be goofy if you didn't talk to him first.
formerly_proven 5y ago
There are several issues with this argument. It's making a statement about hypothetical Credible Fact Checks instead of the fact checks that actually exists or that can exist (the "no true scotsman" fallacy). As far as contents go, in early 2020 the Fact Checked story was that there's a wetmarket selling bats and pangolins, which the Chinese eat, which is where it came from. Similarly, the evidence for a lab leak was that the ground zero is close to the lab, the lab handles SARS coronaviruses and it performs GoF research on them in a facility with a Bio-Safety Level (BSL) that's not quite right for that work. This theory was generally conflated with the "the virus was engineered at a secret Chinese bioweapons lab" theory. Fact Checks asserted this was false and people talking about it got banned. Later it became clear that the wetmarket didn't handle either bats not pangolins and The Chinese don't usually eat bats around there.

by depaya 5y ago

dionidium 5y ago

> "There is no evidence that shows Covid-19 leaked from a laboratory." But this, too, is complicated, because despite what people say on Twitter, as humans we actually can reason from first principles, assign probabilities, and discount or promote less or more likely explanations -- especially when hard evidence isn't forthcoming. When there's "no evidence" for something, that doesn't mean all explanations are equally likely.

rob_c 5y ago

Again the problem was the convolution of "lab leak" incorrectly meaning "lab made and leaked" exclusively which is different to poor quality control of wild specimens held on site...

MichaelDickens 5y ago

> Back in early 2020 the "evidence" to which people were pointing was the fact that there was a lab researching coronavirus in Wuhan This absolutely qualifies as evidence. If there were no such lab, that would pretty much conclusively rule out the lab leak hypothesis, right? If observation X is evidence against a hypothesis, then observation not-X must be evidence in favor. We could debate about how strong this evidence is, but it's definitely evidence.

hairofadog 5y ago
With respect, I don't think that's true. Consider: If MichaelDickens did not exist, it would rule out his having robbed the bank. However, MichaelDickens exists, and therefore it is evidence, however weak, that he robbed the bank.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  If MichaelDickens, the bank robber, were as rare and as close to the bank robbery as the a lab researching coronavirus in Wuhan was to the earliest part of the outbreak, you'd be goofy if you didn't talk to him first.

formerly_proven 5y ago

There are several issues with this argument. It's making a statement about hypothetical Credible Fact Checks instead of the fact checks that actually exists or that can exist (the "no true scotsman" fallacy). As far as contents go, in early 2020 the Fact Checked story was that there's a wetmarket selling bats and pangolins, which the Chinese eat, which is where it came from. Similarly, the evidence for a lab leak was that the ground zero is close to the lab, the lab handles SARS coronaviruses and it performs GoF research on them in a facility with a Bio-Safety Level (BSL) that's not quite right for that work. This theory was generally conflated with the "the virus was engineered at a secret Chinese bioweapons lab" theory. Fact Checks asserted this was false and people talking about it got banned. Later it became clear that the wetmarket didn't handle either bats not pangolins and The Chinese don't usually eat bats around there.