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"it would also be an odd coincidence for a devastating zoonotic coronavirus plague to occur in a city that happened to host a lab doing research on coronaviruse

by tootie 5y ago

"it would also be an odd coincidence for a devastating zoonotic coronavirus plague to occur in a city that happened to host a lab doing research on coronaviruses" Uh, no it's not a coincidence at all. It was doing coronavirus research because SARS-1 was known to have jumped from bats to humans in China and Wuhan had a lot of bats near human population. China (and everybody else) had spent decades on high alert for another bat-born coronavirus variant and it was considered a very likely source of the next pandemic. So, they dedicated a ton of resources to studying exactly that. It would be like expressing shock at the coincidence of war breaking out in the exact spot where two opposing armies have been pointing guns at each other for 20 years.

burnished 5y ago
They do point out that there are no discovered precursors in the bat populations of that region.
dboreham 5y ago
Some confused logic here. You can't have a war without two opposing armies. So places where war breaks out are limited to only locations with two opposing armies in position. You might have, say, 5 such places in the world, but a war starts in only one of them. The probability of war is O(0.2) across that set of locations. The probability is O(0) in all other locations. If war breaks out you wouldn't marvel at the coincidence because having two armies was a prerequisite. Now, you can have a virus pandemic originate anywhere there are large numbers of humans (too sparse a population and it doesn't spread far). You don't need a virus lab in order to begin a pandemic. There is a theory that you could start a pandemic with a virus lab. In order to have a lab-originated pandemic you do need a lab at your location or origin. Therefore it's a coincidence that a non-lab-originated pandemic began in a city with a lab. It's not a coincidence that a lab-originated pandemic began in a city with a lab. So if you had a lab-originated pandemic you would not be surprised that there is a lab at the location of origin. You can not however conclude that if a pandemic originated in a city that has a lab then it must have been a lab-originated pandemic. There's no probabilistic link between those two known facts. Causation only goes one way.

by tootie 5y ago

burnished 5y ago

They do point out that there are no discovered precursors in the bat populations of that region.

dboreham 5y ago

Some confused logic here. You can't have a war without two opposing armies. So places where war breaks out are limited to only locations with two opposing armies in position. You might have, say, 5 such places in the world, but a war starts in only one of them. The probability of war is O(0.2) across that set of locations. The probability is O(0) in all other locations. If war breaks out you wouldn't marvel at the coincidence because having two armies was a prerequisite. Now, you can have a virus pandemic originate anywhere there are large numbers of humans (too sparse a population and it doesn't spread far). You don't need a virus lab in order to begin a pandemic. There is a theory that you could start a pandemic with a virus lab. In order to have a lab-originated pandemic you do need a lab at your location or origin. Therefore it's a coincidence that a non-lab-originated pandemic began in a city with a lab. It's not a coincidence that a lab-originated pandemic began in a city with a lab. So if you had a lab-originated pandemic you would not be surprised that there is a lab at the location of origin. You can not however conclude that if a pandemic originated in a city that has a lab then it must have been a lab-originated pandemic. There's no probabilistic link between those two known facts. Causation only goes one way.