5 ms·
The article shouldn’t have quote this person in the first place - there are plenty of serious investigations into the lab leak theory from reputable virologists
by systemvoltage 5y ago
The article shouldn’t have quote this person in the first place - there are plenty of serious investigations into the lab leak theory from reputable virologists. I recommend Alina Chan’s new book: Viral.
This clarification also masquerades as a clarification of something important. This person quoted by the tabloid is irrelevant here. In fact this article does more damage to the credibility of lab theory than otherwise and your clarification just shows.
Frustrating both the article and your clarification of basically a meaningless source.
There is a vast amount of information regarding lab leak theory and potential origin spanning back 20 years even though China has shut any investigation with gag orders and complete lack of transparency. Too much to unpack.
My concern is this: People will read your clarification of the quote as if it’s something important to clarify. Source itself is garbage.
- JamisonM 5y agoIDK, seemed like it was pretty important to clarify that a quote was used very deceptively! Seems important to point out that Chan's co-author is a climate-change sceptic that is a hereditary peer in the British House of Lords after chairing the bank Northern Rock - famous for failing spectacularly in 2007. Very credible!
- systemvoltage 5y agoI think there is some sort of a misunderstanding. I am saying that the source of a person who is not a virologist, has never worked in a lab environment and the general credibility of a tabloid (Telegraph.co.uk) does not give a good impression of the lab leak theory. I am trying to steering people away from the article.
- JamisonM 5y agoAnd in so doing you advocate that people read a book written by a British Hereditary Lord climate change denier and a Molecular biologist? I don't think there is a misunderstanding.
- suifbwish 5y agoFacts are facts. The fact is in 2019 there were 39,397 wet markets in China. How many virology labs were there in China handling Corona-viruses? TWO. One of which was TWO BLOCKS from where the wet market from where the original Covid-19 virus which started the pandemic has been traced to. One might be forgiven for being curious as to the likelihood of the virus emerging from this particular wet market as opposed to all others.
- dboreham 5y agoThat's not how probability works. You'd need to wait for thousands of years and several pandemics to know if they are more or less likely to emerge next to a virology lab. And then you'd need to control for the fact that virology labs are better at detecting dangerous viruses than average humans. Like how the first confirmed cases in the US were in Davis --- because there's a specialist unit at UC Davis that was already treating cruise ship patients.
- divbzero 5y agoThat is actually how probability works when you are assessing the probability of uncertain propositions [1]. The prevalence of wet markets vs. virology labs should not be the only input but it is definitely relevant to our assessment of probabilities. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference
- endominus 5y agoOh, I never get to share this. Relevant SMBC comic; https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-09-08 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-09-08
- mads 5y agoAdditionally the closest cave containing any viruses resembling SARS-Cov-2 are 1500 km away from Wuhan.
- carlivar 5y ago
- chrisjc 5y agoRegarding Alian Chan, she and her co-author appeared on the Hidden Forces podcast a few months back and it's a pretty good listen to anyone unable to squeeze a book into their busy lives. https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/lab-leak-hypothesis-alina-chan-matt-ridley/ https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/lab-leak-hypothesis-alina-c...