5 ms·

This isn't just a random scapegoat. It just happens that the company (Ecohealth Alliance) proposed the gain-of-function research on the virus to DARPA, which wa

by afpx 5y ago

This isn't just a random scapegoat. It just happens that the company (Ecohealth Alliance) proposed the gain-of-function research on the virus to DARPA, which was subsequently rejected as being too risky. NIH later funded similar research to the same company for its work in Wuhan during 2020. I'm far from a conspiracy theorist. But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? The "from the wild" theory doesn't have any evidence either but requires more assumptions. Occam's razor.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Jesus Christ, son of Mary, please don't bring Occam's razor in yet another internet discussion that tramples all over it. There is no reason to assume a lab leak when every disease we know that affects humans is _not_ the result of a lab leak. A natural origin is the most likely explanation and we don't need any other explanation unless there is strong evidence that something different happened, which we absolutely don't. In fact the "lab leak theory" is exactly anti-science. In the most backwards fashion it starts not with an observation that must be explained with a hypothesis, but with a hypothesis -that the virus escaped from a lab- that is not supported by any observation. Its proponents then try to find evidence to justify their hypothesis. They don't find any, but they keep looking anyway because they are convinced it is true even in the complete absence of evidence. Then they accuse everyone else of hiding the evidence. "A-ha! That's why we can't prove this hypothesis we know is true! Because the evidence has been hidden from us!". This is the pattern of quackery, not science and not scientific hypothesis-making and verification.
- afpx 5y ago
  Scientists must do a better job of explaining how natural origin is the likely explanation, then. Otherwise, a lot of smart and educated people are going to put the wrong dots together.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab leak" is rubbish. And let me not get started on how people on HN think they're smart because they're on HN where people think they're smart.
    - varjag 5y ago
      Why is that a default explanation when you have no natural carrier habitats at the ground zero, but you do have a virology lab there?
      - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        There's no "when". A natural origin is the default explanation. To look for a different explanation you need to have a reason to look for a different explanation. The existence of a virology lab in the state where the pandemic began is no such reason. Rather, it is a post-facto attempt at making observations supporting an a-priori hypothesis.
        varjag 5y ago
        Not just "in the state" but in minutes distance from first cases. Plenty of reason to look into, it's not like every urban centre has virology labs studying the titular disease.
        YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        The first cases were found in a wet market. The lab is miles away from it: The first known human infections from SARS‑CoV‑2 were discovered in Wuhan, China.[37] Because many of the early infectees were workers at the Huanan Seafood Market,[50][51] it was originally suggested that the virus might have originated from bats or pangolins sold at the market.[30][33] It was later determined that no bats or pangolins were sold at the market.[52] Bats are not commonly eaten in Central China.[53] The Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control are located within miles of the original focal point of the pandemic, Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and this has been used to argue in support of the lab leak theory. However, another explanation for this is a tendency to build virology labs in proximity to outbreak areas.[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Wuhan... What's more, the proximity of the first detected cases to anything is a red herring. We don't know where the first transmission happened. We only know where the first cases were detected. For all we know the virus started in Alaska. Finally the location of the lab was only noticed after people started talking of a lab leak. Some people said "lab leak", some other people said "OMG there's a lab close by!".
- undecisive 5y ago
  "People whose whole job it is to study bat-based coronaviruses managed to cause a variant which escaped." "A virus whose whole job it is to mutate and infect mutated and infected people." I think most reasonably sensible people would consider these to be fairly equal in terms of unlikeliness or simplicity. So yes, Occam's razor does not apply, but not because of your particular bias against one of the options. > that is not supported by any observation It's supported by at least 3 observations, which is that a leading virology lab known to manipulate bat-based coronaviruses was less than 30mins drive from the potential wet market source, and that China has a history of covering up controversial facts, and that China did at least their usual amount of hindrance for investigators. I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. And unless you do, telling people they're stupid because of their preference is only going to cement their belief in a coverup. So maybe we should quit screaming at people and just say "you do you". (Just to clarify: Feel free to work against sinophobia... that's perfectly valid. But again, dismissing critical thought on a topic out of hand does nothing but hand the Sinophobes an own-goal)
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    >> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior knowledge. This is where Occam's razor comes in. We do not need to imagine lab leaks, when a natural origin suffices to explain the pandemic. Also, the "3 observations" you list are observations used to justify the hypothesis that a lab like happened, not observations that caused the hypothesis to be proposed in the first place. First people assumed there was a lab leak, then they went out to find reasons to support a lab leak. That's putting the cart before the horses. Solid reasoning needs observations to precede a hypothesis, not the other way around.
    - undecisive 5y ago
marcosdumay 5y ago
> But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? Enormous. The odds are heavily on the side of this being a coincidence. What are the odds of, if this was a leak, the leak coming from that single research line? It's basically 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab. And that's assuming it was a leak, if you estimate the odds of it being a leak, you will at a minimum halve that number.
- afpx 5y ago
  Why would there be a ban on this type of research, in the US, since 2014? https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-research/ https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-resear...
- dalmo3 5y ago
  > 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab That would only make sense if you knew there was a leak but didn't know which virus was leaked. Since we already have the knowledge of what virus (supposedly) leaked, the odds are (1/number of labs experimenting with that virus).
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    Yes, but isn't that lab the place to go for researching coronavirus? Dividing the odds through all experiments may underestimate it, but it's not very far.

by afpx 5y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

Jesus Christ, son of Mary, please don't bring Occam's razor in yet another internet discussion that tramples all over it. There is no reason to assume a lab leak when every disease we know that affects humans is _not_ the result of a lab leak. A natural origin is the most likely explanation and we don't need any other explanation unless there is strong evidence that something different happened, which we absolutely don't. In fact the "lab leak theory" is exactly anti-science. In the most backwards fashion it starts not with an observation that must be explained with a hypothesis, but with a hypothesis -that the virus escaped from a lab- that is not supported by any observation. Its proponents then try to find evidence to justify their hypothesis. They don't find any, but they keep looking anyway because they are convinced it is true even in the complete absence of evidence. Then they accuse everyone else of hiding the evidence. "A-ha! That's why we can't prove this hypothesis we know is true! Because the evidence has been hidden from us!". This is the pattern of quackery, not science and not scientific hypothesis-making and verification.

afpx 5y ago
Scientists must do a better job of explaining how natural origin is the likely explanation, then. Otherwise, a lot of smart and educated people are going to put the wrong dots together.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab leak" is rubbish. And let me not get started on how people on HN think they're smart because they're on HN where people think they're smart.
  - varjag 5y ago
    Why is that a default explanation when you have no natural carrier habitats at the ground zero, but you do have a virology lab there?
    - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
      There's no "when". A natural origin is the default explanation. To look for a different explanation you need to have a reason to look for a different explanation. The existence of a virology lab in the state where the pandemic began is no such reason. Rather, it is a post-facto attempt at making observations supporting an a-priori hypothesis.
      - varjag 5y ago
        Not just "in the state" but in minutes distance from first cases. Plenty of reason to look into, it's not like every urban centre has virology labs studying the titular disease.
        YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        The first cases were found in a wet market. The lab is miles away from it: The first known human infections from SARS‑CoV‑2 were discovered in Wuhan, China.[37] Because many of the early infectees were workers at the Huanan Seafood Market,[50][51] it was originally suggested that the virus might have originated from bats or pangolins sold at the market.[30][33] It was later determined that no bats or pangolins were sold at the market.[52] Bats are not commonly eaten in Central China.[53] The Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control are located within miles of the original focal point of the pandemic, Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and this has been used to argue in support of the lab leak theory. However, another explanation for this is a tendency to build virology labs in proximity to outbreak areas.[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Wuhan... What's more, the proximity of the first detected cases to anything is a red herring. We don't know where the first transmission happened. We only know where the first cases were detected. For all we know the virus started in Alaska. Finally the location of the lab was only noticed after people started talking of a lab leak. Some people said "lab leak", some other people said "OMG there's a lab close by!".
undecisive 5y ago
"People whose whole job it is to study bat-based coronaviruses managed to cause a variant which escaped." "A virus whose whole job it is to mutate and infect mutated and infected people." I think most reasonably sensible people would consider these to be fairly equal in terms of unlikeliness or simplicity. So yes, Occam's razor does not apply, but not because of your particular bias against one of the options. > that is not supported by any observation It's supported by at least 3 observations, which is that a leading virology lab known to manipulate bat-based coronaviruses was less than 30mins drive from the potential wet market source, and that China has a history of covering up controversial facts, and that China did at least their usual amount of hindrance for investigators. I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. And unless you do, telling people they're stupid because of their preference is only going to cement their belief in a coverup. So maybe we should quit screaming at people and just say "you do you". (Just to clarify: Feel free to work against sinophobia... that's perfectly valid. But again, dismissing critical thought on a topic out of hand does nothing but hand the Sinophobes an own-goal)
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  >> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior knowledge. This is where Occam's razor comes in. We do not need to imagine lab leaks, when a natural origin suffices to explain the pandemic. Also, the "3 observations" you list are observations used to justify the hypothesis that a lab like happened, not observations that caused the hypothesis to be proposed in the first place. First people assumed there was a lab leak, then they went out to find reasons to support a lab leak. That's putting the cart before the horses. Solid reasoning needs observations to precede a hypothesis, not the other way around.
  - undecisive 5y ago

marcosdumay 5y ago

> But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? Enormous. The odds are heavily on the side of this being a coincidence. What are the odds of, if this was a leak, the leak coming from that single research line? It's basically 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab. And that's assuming it was a leak, if you estimate the odds of it being a leak, you will at a minimum halve that number.

afpx 5y ago
Why would there be a ban on this type of research, in the US, since 2014? https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-research/ https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-resear...
dalmo3 5y ago
> 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab That would only make sense if you knew there was a leak but didn't know which virus was leaked. Since we already have the knowledge of what virus (supposedly) leaked, the odds are (1/number of labs experimenting with that virus).
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Yes, but isn't that lab the place to go for researching coronavirus? Dividing the odds through all experiments may underestimate it, but it's not very far.