3 ms·

Actually many people would like it to be false for personal profit or just human mentality. It's another ballpark of seriousness if that wasn't brought up by mo

Actually many people would like it to be false for personal profit or just human mentality. It's another ballpark of seriousness if that wasn't brought up by mother nature. What kind of evidence do you need? This paper is full of evidence that if you combine the probability of each event happening, the probability that it was accidental is really small. So the burden of probability should be to prove that it wasn't leaked which isn't proven after 3 years.

ethbr0 4y ago
At what probability does the burden of proof shift?
- WithinReason 4y ago
  An important question. For the sake of adjusting priors here is a list of biosecurity incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... SARS itself leaked from the lab 4 times, once from a BSL-4 lab.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    * SARS*, including the original SARS virus (3 times, per page) and SARS-CoV-2 (1 time, post-pandemic)
    - WithinReason 4y ago
      Actually I meant SARS-CoV-1 leaked 4 times, one of the events listed was actually 2 separate ones 2 weeks apart if you read the description.
- arisAlexis 4y ago
  Although you can find a Bayesian answer for this which I am not qualified to calculate, it's irrelevant. The most pressing issue is not to dismiss it as zero probability as has been until know because it is viewed as a conspiracy. Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    > Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe. There are very small chances of many catastrophes that we happily ignore. Among the less small ones, off the top of my head: a large earthquake on the San Andreas fault and the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting.
    - arisAlexis 4y ago
      Can we prevent a volcano erupting? No. Can we prevent a lab leak? Yes. I wonder why people are soooo resistant to this idea and make up a myriad bad arguments.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        Because we get annoyed when people insinuate that pointing out features of reality are evidence of a conspiratorial cabal. Can we prevent a lab leak? Not really insofar as humans are less than perfect individuals. Pretending we hadn't discovered atomic fission would have been just as dangerous as ignoring biological threats.
      - igouy 4y ago
        Can we prevent the live animal trade bringing people into daily proximity with novel viruses.
dathinab 4y ago
> for personal profit it's not just personal profit, I mean if it's true how would you react to it? Putting aside how it would affect research, it also would make many people including such in power blame China for it. Which would be a political nightmare not just for China but also US, EU, etc. So if any secret service has proof it was a leak you can be sue they wait until there is a major conflict with China. Like e.g. because China attacking Taiwan before the US/EU become more independent of TSMC. Through at that point of time there is also a lot of insensitive to just make up a "proof". So the public probably will never know for sure.

ethbr0 4y ago

At what probability does the burden of proof shift?

WithinReason 4y ago
An important question. For the sake of adjusting priors here is a list of biosecurity incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... SARS itself leaked from the lab 4 times, once from a BSL-4 lab.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  * SARS*, including the original SARS virus (3 times, per page) and SARS-CoV-2 (1 time, post-pandemic)
  - WithinReason 4y ago
    Actually I meant SARS-CoV-1 leaked 4 times, one of the events listed was actually 2 separate ones 2 weeks apart if you read the description.
arisAlexis 4y ago
Although you can find a Bayesian answer for this which I am not qualified to calculate, it's irrelevant. The most pressing issue is not to dismiss it as zero probability as has been until know because it is viewed as a conspiracy. Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  > Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe. There are very small chances of many catastrophes that we happily ignore. Among the less small ones, off the top of my head: a large earthquake on the San Andreas fault and the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting.
  - arisAlexis 4y ago
    Can we prevent a volcano erupting? No. Can we prevent a lab leak? Yes. I wonder why people are soooo resistant to this idea and make up a myriad bad arguments.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Because we get annoyed when people insinuate that pointing out features of reality are evidence of a conspiratorial cabal. Can we prevent a lab leak? Not really insofar as humans are less than perfect individuals. Pretending we hadn't discovered atomic fission would have been just as dangerous as ignoring biological threats.
    - igouy 4y ago
      Can we prevent the live animal trade bringing people into daily proximity with novel viruses.

dathinab 4y ago

> for personal profit it's not just personal profit, I mean if it's true how would you react to it? Putting aside how it would affect research, it also would make many people including such in power blame China for it. Which would be a political nightmare not just for China but also US, EU, etc. So if any secret service has proof it was a leak you can be sue they wait until there is a major conflict with China. Like e.g. because China attacking Taiwan before the US/EU become more independent of TSMC. Through at that point of time there is also a lot of insensitive to just make up a "proof". So the public probably will never know for sure.