6 ms·

This article is a good counterpoint: https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory-covid-19 https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak

by ummonk 5y ago

This article is a good counterpoint: https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory-covid-19 https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory... While certainly more plausible than 9/11 conspiracy theories, the lab-leak proponents have the same tendency to put forth several mutually incompatible theories, while believing each has a strong amount of evidence for it.

CamperBob2 5y ago
It certainly makes a good argument in favor of the "We shouldn't have laid off our editors in the last budget crunch" hypothesis.
malshe 5y ago
What a garbage response. The author starts by discrediting both the authors. Next, the smoking gun which it cites repeatedly (The study on Laos bats) is not even peer-reviewed! This is from the articled linked from this article: “The results, which are not peer reviewed, have been posted on the preprint server Research Square.” Sounds like very lazy “journalism” to me.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  It also conflates "lab-engineered" with "lab-leak". How would a disease from a bat from Laos make it to Wuhan? It still could be from the WIV!
  - ummonk 5y ago
    This is what the article authors mean by lab-leak arguments being unfalsifiable. No matter what evidence comes out, it can still be shoe-horned into a lab-leak theory.
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      That's not really true. You could falsify it by: - Opening the records about which viruses the WIV was storing. It's not a mystery — labs track that kind of thing! But China refused to release any data about which viruses the WIV stored or modified. - Finding a clear chain of infection between a natural source and the outbreak in Wuhan - Finding clear evidence that there was a small outbreak which later spread to Wuhan Nobody has managed any of those.
    - jimrandomh 5y ago
      No, the Laos bats are strong evidence for the lab leak hypothesis because it makes a prediction which could have turned out false: that if a close relative of COVID-19 is found somewhere, predict that researchers took samples from that area to Wuhan prior to the start of the pandemic.
    - estaseuropano 5y ago
      Others below point out that it is indeed falsifiable but more importantly, why would it discredit the theory if you can't disprove it? You can certainly disprove some versions of it and as far as I can seen there has been a lot of outrage and occlusion by the Chinese government but very little effort to actually disprove anything.
  - adolph 5y ago
    It was winter so the manager of Alice Cooper’s Live Bat Bites at the Wuhan wet market has to bring them in from farther away.
- ummonk 5y ago
  While I don't personally find Matt Ridley's (or Alina Chan's) views on genetics or climate change to be damaging to their credibility, I think it's just as valid to mention them as it is to discuss Peter Daszak's conflict of interest. And the study on Laos bats is clearly undergoing peer-review: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1
  - blast 5y ago
    I don't see how it's "just as valid" to mention those extraneous things. Daszak's conflict of interest is directly relevant to the issue being discussed, and the Lancet piece which was distorted by it was a critical moment in the history of the issue.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      I most definitely think it's just as valid to present that Riley wrote this: https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/AIDS/River/Prospect.html https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/AIDS/River/Prospect... I think it's important to understand the writer's past history on an analogous subject, as it points to his motivations. I think letting you know he also previously argued about the benefits of global warming "nourishing the oceans", https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-heres-the-good-news-on-global-warming-p322w7026lv https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-heres-the-good-news-o... , points to the type of arguments this person likes to make. I agree the stuff about his failed bank is irrelevant.
      - estaseuropano 5y ago
        Yours is a super weird as hominem attack. The article you link is a very well written boon review which summarizes the arguments of the book. Ridley's review concludes that the theory that aids was transferred to humans through large-scale experimental vaccinations with vaccines made out of chimp liver is a theory worth further investigation. This is GOOD SCIENCE. You analyze data and put forward theory. I can't speak to the merits of the theory or the book being reviewed, but why would it discredit Ridley if he reads and reviews critical books and is open to exploring alternative theories?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sgt101 5y ago
  Was the Ridley / Chan book peer reviewed?
dqpb 5y ago
Let me get this straight, the fact that there are multiple plausible lab-leak scenarios makes the entire question less credible than if there was only one plausible lab-leak scenario? I would invite you to think about that a little longer.
- gjm11 5y ago
  I think both of the following things are true. 1. It is, in principle, good thinking to keep multiple competing hypotheses in mind, and allow each new piece of information you get to adjust your level of credence in each one, rather than picking one to Believe and Disbelieving all the others. 2. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to treat a bundle of mutually incompatible theories as a single thing, and to handwavily treat any bit of information that supports any of them as supporting the whole bundle, even when what the information actually does is to support some bits and undermine others. And also 3. It is also a common sort of bad thinking to adjust one's beliefs not on the basis of looking concretely at how likely a new piece of information is if each of your multiple competing hypotheses is true, but on the basis of vague notions of what feels as if it supports what. I take the New Republic review to be mostly accusing Chan & Ridley of doing 2 and 3 in the guise of 1. I haven't read their book and can't tell how fair that accusation is. Similarly, the following are both true. 1'. It is, in principle, good thinking to adjust the hypotheses you're considering in the light of new evidence, which may promote new hypotheses or new variants of old hypotheses to consideration. 2'. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to respond to criticism of your beliefs by moving the goalposts: you say A1, someone says "but P!", you adjust to A2 which is compatible with P, someone says "but Q!", you adjust to A3 which is compatible with Q, and at that point you don't check whether it's also compatible with P, so you confuse "at each step I had a version of my beliefs that was nicely compatible with the evidence presented to me" with "there is a version of my beliefs that is simultaneously compatible with all the evidence". And also 3'. Adjusting your hypotheses in the light of new evidence can lead to problems akin to overfitting in machine learning, where you find something that fits very nicely with the specific bits of evidence you looked at but not with the other evidence that's out there, because you optimized it to fit as well as possible with those specific bits of evidence. I take the New Republic review to be accusing Chan & Ridley of doing 2' and 3' in the guise of 1'. Again, since I haven't read their book it's not clear how fair the accusation is. What I would like to see is something that lays out a few specific hypotheses (SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered with malicious purposes; SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered for study with the goal of understanding/preventing/mitigating future pandemics; SARS-CoV-2 found naturally in bats or something but brought into contact with humans via the WIV; SARS-CoV-2 found naturally in bats or something and brought into contact with humans via the Wuhan wet market; maybe a couple more) and then goes through the available evidence trying to assess what each piece of evidence does to each hypothesis, noting where better versions of the hypotheses are suggested by the evidence and then either assessing those better versions against other evidence or just presenting them as "suggested by the available evidence but now in need of further verification or refutation as new evidence comes in". It doesn't seem to me, from either the Aaronson review or the NR review, as if the Chan & Ridley book does anything much like that. (To a good approximation, no one ever does anything much like that, and it's a pity.)

by ummonk 5y ago

CamperBob2 5y ago

It certainly makes a good argument in favor of the "We shouldn't have laid off our editors in the last budget crunch" hypothesis.

malshe 5y ago

What a garbage response. The author starts by discrediting both the authors. Next, the smoking gun which it cites repeatedly (The study on Laos bats) is not even peer-reviewed! This is from the articled linked from this article: “The results, which are not peer reviewed, have been posted on the preprint server Research Square.” Sounds like very lazy “journalism” to me.

bpodgursky 5y ago
It also conflates "lab-engineered" with "lab-leak". How would a disease from a bat from Laos make it to Wuhan? It still could be from the WIV!
- ummonk 5y ago
  This is what the article authors mean by lab-leak arguments being unfalsifiable. No matter what evidence comes out, it can still be shoe-horned into a lab-leak theory.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    That's not really true. You could falsify it by: - Opening the records about which viruses the WIV was storing. It's not a mystery — labs track that kind of thing! But China refused to release any data about which viruses the WIV stored or modified. - Finding a clear chain of infection between a natural source and the outbreak in Wuhan - Finding clear evidence that there was a small outbreak which later spread to Wuhan Nobody has managed any of those.
  - jimrandomh 5y ago
    No, the Laos bats are strong evidence for the lab leak hypothesis because it makes a prediction which could have turned out false: that if a close relative of COVID-19 is found somewhere, predict that researchers took samples from that area to Wuhan prior to the start of the pandemic.
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    Others below point out that it is indeed falsifiable but more importantly, why would it discredit the theory if you can't disprove it? You can certainly disprove some versions of it and as far as I can seen there has been a lot of outrage and occlusion by the Chinese government but very little effort to actually disprove anything.
- adolph 5y ago
  It was winter so the manager of Alice Cooper’s Live Bat Bites at the Wuhan wet market has to bring them in from farther away.
ummonk 5y ago
While I don't personally find Matt Ridley's (or Alina Chan's) views on genetics or climate change to be damaging to their credibility, I think it's just as valid to mention them as it is to discuss Peter Daszak's conflict of interest. And the study on Laos bats is clearly undergoing peer-review: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1
- blast 5y ago
  I don't see how it's "just as valid" to mention those extraneous things. Daszak's conflict of interest is directly relevant to the issue being discussed, and the Lancet piece which was distorted by it was a critical moment in the history of the issue.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I most definitely think it's just as valid to present that Riley wrote this: https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/AIDS/River/Prospect.html https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/AIDS/River/Prospect... I think it's important to understand the writer's past history on an analogous subject, as it points to his motivations. I think letting you know he also previously argued about the benefits of global warming "nourishing the oceans", https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-heres-the-good-news-on-global-warming-p322w7026lv https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-heres-the-good-news-o... , points to the type of arguments this person likes to make. I agree the stuff about his failed bank is irrelevant.
    - estaseuropano 5y ago
      Yours is a super weird as hominem attack. The article you link is a very well written boon review which summarizes the arguments of the book. Ridley's review concludes that the theory that aids was transferred to humans through large-scale experimental vaccinations with vaccines made out of chimp liver is a theory worth further investigation. This is GOOD SCIENCE. You analyze data and put forward theory. I can't speak to the merits of the theory or the book being reviewed, but why would it discredit Ridley if he reads and reviews critical books and is open to exploring alternative theories?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sgt101 5y ago
Was the Ridley / Chan book peer reviewed?

dqpb 5y ago

Let me get this straight, the fact that there are multiple plausible lab-leak scenarios makes the entire question less credible than if there was only one plausible lab-leak scenario? I would invite you to think about that a little longer.

gjm11 5y ago
I think both of the following things are true. 1. It is, in principle, good thinking to keep multiple competing hypotheses in mind, and allow each new piece of information you get to adjust your level of credence in each one, rather than picking one to Believe and Disbelieving all the others. 2. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to treat a bundle of mutually incompatible theories as a single thing, and to handwavily treat any bit of information that supports any of them as supporting the whole bundle, even when what the information actually does is to support some bits and undermine others. And also 3. It is also a common sort of bad thinking to adjust one's beliefs not on the basis of looking concretely at how likely a new piece of information is if each of your multiple competing hypotheses is true, but on the basis of vague notions of what feels as if it supports what. I take the New Republic review to be mostly accusing Chan & Ridley of doing 2 and 3 in the guise of 1. I haven't read their book and can't tell how fair that accusation is. Similarly, the following are both true. 1'. It is, in principle, good thinking to adjust the hypotheses you're considering in the light of new evidence, which may promote new hypotheses or new variants of old hypotheses to consideration. 2'. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to respond to criticism of your beliefs by moving the goalposts: you say A1, someone says "but P!", you adjust to A2 which is compatible with P, someone says "but Q!", you adjust to A3 which is compatible with Q, and at that point you don't check whether it's also compatible with P, so you confuse "at each step I had a version of my beliefs that was nicely compatible with the evidence presented to me" with "there is a version of my beliefs that is simultaneously compatible with all the evidence". And also 3'. Adjusting your hypotheses in the light of new evidence can lead to problems akin to overfitting in machine learning, where you find something that fits very nicely with the specific bits of evidence you looked at but not with the other evidence that's out there, because you optimized it to fit as well as possible with those specific bits of evidence. I take the New Republic review to be accusing Chan & Ridley of doing 2' and 3' in the guise of 1'. Again, since I haven't read their book it's not clear how fair the accusation is. What I would like to see is something that lays out a few specific hypotheses (SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered with malicious purposes; SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered for study with the goal of understanding/preventing/mitigating future pandemics; SARS-CoV-2 found naturally in bats or something but brought into contact with humans via the WIV; SARS-CoV-2 found naturally in bats or something and brought into contact with humans via the Wuhan wet market; maybe a couple more) and then goes through the available evidence trying to assess what each piece of evidence does to each hypothesis, noting where better versions of the hypotheses are suggested by the evidence and then either assessing those better versions against other evidence or just presenting them as "suggested by the available evidence but now in need of further verification or refutation as new evidence comes in". It doesn't seem to me, from either the Aaronson review or the NR review, as if the Chan & Ridley book does anything much like that. (To a good approximation, no one ever does anything much like that, and it's a pity.)