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I just couldn't take the "research" seriously when I read this: > They said they found no support for an alternate theory that the coronavirus escaped from a l

I just couldn't take the "research" seriously when I read this: > They said they found no support for an alternate theory that the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. No support? Really? Not just "weak" support, but not a single shred of support whatsoever? So it's just a hoax? There's a long article going into what would be otherwise some very strange and implausible coincidences [1] surrounding the issue for those curious. Surely unbiased research into the topic would deem these to be worthy of at least some cursory mentions (and ideally, some debunking)? Moreover, this might be an interesting read: In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet. [...] During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory. [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep...

asojfdowgh 5y ago
Coincidences arn't evidence though, Coincidences don't need to be debunked
- pauldenton 5y ago
  If you want to dismiss the connection between pieces of evidence, you need an argument. Not just calling them a coincidence and dismissing the connection out of hand.
- esperent 5y ago
  Enough coincidences absolutely do need to be debunked. I'm not sure that's the case here, but talking in the abstract - if you start to see tens or hundreds of well documented coincidences, there comes a point at which you can no longer reasonably dismiss them.
  - zmgsabst 5y ago
    Of the 9 us intel agencies asked: - 4 refused to say what they believed likely, because they couldn’t decide between a lab leak and natural origins; - 4 weakly assessed a natural origin, but didn’t rule out a lab leak; - 1 moderately assessed a lab leak, but didn’t rule out natural origin. This report was before a number of studies that led to more support for the lab leak — eg, the patented gene being the only genetic difference between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13. You don’t have to believe it, but surely you can’t say that there’s zero evidence supporting a lab leak.
  - mushbino 5y ago
    The US military was in Wuhan for the military games right at the beginning of the outbreak and they were some of the first to get sick. They also flew through Seattle to get there, which was the site of the first outbreak in the US. Combine that with the history of leaks from Ft. Detrick. I haven't seen any of this be debunked. Why won't they allow inspectors into Ft. Detrick?
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      The lab leak theory originated in China in January 2020. It wasn’t until much later that China started pushing propaganda about Ft. Detrick to distract everyone. It serves no purpose than to get everyone to stop talking about the origin being china and instead shift the blame to everyone else. If China is so positive that they are not the origin they would have opened up for an investigation in 2020. But it’s 2022 and it hasn’t happened and it’s too late.
      - mushbino 5y ago
        They've allowed inspectors from the WHO to investigate twice: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210203-who-covid-19-investigation-team-visits-chinese-virus-lab-in-wuhan https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/asia-pacifi...
- gmadsen 5y ago
  Do you live in the US? This would be part of circumstantial evidence in conjunction with a response of why the statement was removed. by itself there is nothing to debunk, it is a fact, the statement existed before, now it is down. That clearly warrants an explanation. i feel like the word coincidence is abused like the way the word conspiracy is abused, to shut down the conversation. The circumstances of these two events together absolutely are relevant to any lab leak investigation.
- IanDrake 5y ago
  How many places have virology labs in China doing this kind of research? Now many places have wet markets? Now calculate the probability that a virus would happen to naturally mutate in a wet market next to a virology research facility. A lab leak has the highest probability of being true. It takes a mountain of evidence to overcome that very simple probability calculation.
- lolinder 5y ago
  On the contrary, put enough coincidences together and you have what is called evidence. They're not proof, but you certainly need to address them if you want to be taken seriously. "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." https://xkcd.com/552/ https://xkcd.com/552/
- orblivion 5y ago
  This is something I'm trying to sort out. Is there a qualitative difference between a coincidence and evidence? Ex: Supposing they recover the old database from the WIV and they found the SARS-CoV-2 sequence in there, and notes that described it as the result of an ongoing project. It's still possible that the exact same sequence occurred naturally and leaked to humans that way. It could be a coincidence that the sequence is exactly the same. It seems that the difference between this and the other coincidences is merely a question of orders of magnitude of likelihood. Otherwise it's the same sort of thing. Therefore, the coincidences so far stated are tantamount to weak evidence. Yes? No?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    No, not really. There's evidence of lots of events that are extremely unlikely to occur by chance, and it gets labelled as a "coincidence" by people who don't like where it points and are trying to stop people drawing obvious conclusions. The term "coincidence" only really makes sense when the probability of accidental coexistence is very high but that's not the case here.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
veganhouseDJ 5y ago
bradleyjg 5y ago
You don’t need to be a scientist to recognize when a group of people are circling the wagons. I don’t know whether on not the virus leaked, but I don’t give much credence to claims by the wagon circle-rs.

asojfdowgh 5y ago

Coincidences arn't evidence though, Coincidences don't need to be debunked

pauldenton 5y ago
If you want to dismiss the connection between pieces of evidence, you need an argument. Not just calling them a coincidence and dismissing the connection out of hand.
esperent 5y ago
Enough coincidences absolutely do need to be debunked. I'm not sure that's the case here, but talking in the abstract - if you start to see tens or hundreds of well documented coincidences, there comes a point at which you can no longer reasonably dismiss them.
- zmgsabst 5y ago
  Of the 9 us intel agencies asked: - 4 refused to say what they believed likely, because they couldn’t decide between a lab leak and natural origins; - 4 weakly assessed a natural origin, but didn’t rule out a lab leak; - 1 moderately assessed a lab leak, but didn’t rule out natural origin. This report was before a number of studies that led to more support for the lab leak — eg, the patented gene being the only genetic difference between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13. You don’t have to believe it, but surely you can’t say that there’s zero evidence supporting a lab leak.
- mushbino 5y ago
  The US military was in Wuhan for the military games right at the beginning of the outbreak and they were some of the first to get sick. They also flew through Seattle to get there, which was the site of the first outbreak in the US. Combine that with the history of leaks from Ft. Detrick. I haven't seen any of this be debunked. Why won't they allow inspectors into Ft. Detrick?
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    The lab leak theory originated in China in January 2020. It wasn’t until much later that China started pushing propaganda about Ft. Detrick to distract everyone. It serves no purpose than to get everyone to stop talking about the origin being china and instead shift the blame to everyone else. If China is so positive that they are not the origin they would have opened up for an investigation in 2020. But it’s 2022 and it hasn’t happened and it’s too late.
    - mushbino 5y ago
      They've allowed inspectors from the WHO to investigate twice: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210203-who-covid-19-investigation-team-visits-chinese-virus-lab-in-wuhan https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/asia-pacifi...
gmadsen 5y ago
Do you live in the US? This would be part of circumstantial evidence in conjunction with a response of why the statement was removed. by itself there is nothing to debunk, it is a fact, the statement existed before, now it is down. That clearly warrants an explanation. i feel like the word coincidence is abused like the way the word conspiracy is abused, to shut down the conversation. The circumstances of these two events together absolutely are relevant to any lab leak investigation.
IanDrake 5y ago
How many places have virology labs in China doing this kind of research? Now many places have wet markets? Now calculate the probability that a virus would happen to naturally mutate in a wet market next to a virology research facility. A lab leak has the highest probability of being true. It takes a mountain of evidence to overcome that very simple probability calculation.
lolinder 5y ago
On the contrary, put enough coincidences together and you have what is called evidence. They're not proof, but you certainly need to address them if you want to be taken seriously. "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." https://xkcd.com/552/ https://xkcd.com/552/
orblivion 5y ago
This is something I'm trying to sort out. Is there a qualitative difference between a coincidence and evidence? Ex: Supposing they recover the old database from the WIV and they found the SARS-CoV-2 sequence in there, and notes that described it as the result of an ongoing project. It's still possible that the exact same sequence occurred naturally and leaked to humans that way. It could be a coincidence that the sequence is exactly the same. It seems that the difference between this and the other coincidences is merely a question of orders of magnitude of likelihood. Otherwise it's the same sort of thing. Therefore, the coincidences so far stated are tantamount to weak evidence. Yes? No?
- native_samples 5y ago
  No, not really. There's evidence of lots of events that are extremely unlikely to occur by chance, and it gets labelled as a "coincidence" by people who don't like where it points and are trying to stop people drawing obvious conclusions. The term "coincidence" only really makes sense when the probability of accidental coexistence is very high but that's not the case here.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

veganhouseDJ 5y ago

bradleyjg 5y ago

You don’t need to be a scientist to recognize when a group of people are circling the wagons. I don’t know whether on not the virus leaked, but I don’t give much credence to claims by the wagon circle-rs.