4 ms·

Sure, but if that's the metaphor you want to invoke for this situation, you need to actually argue that the probabilities of the "lab leak" vs. "natural origin"

by 4bpp 4y ago

Sure, but if that's the metaphor you want to invoke for this situation, you need to actually argue that the probabilities of the "lab leak" vs. "natural origin" scenarios are actually similar, _in this particular case_, to "undetectable agent" vs. "natural heart attack" - which brings us back to having to comb through the evidence on both sides. I think we are bound to walk in circles as long as we don't separate the proposition that it was in fact a lab leak from the proposition that further open-ended investigation is necessary; it is my impression that natural origin proponents mostly are strongly against both (whether they think the latter is too costly, or think it will be used to get the former accepted when it is actually false, or think the former should be treated as false even if it is true), but I really only want to push for the latter (it's not like I know anything about virus genetics myself anyway!).

hotpotamus 4y ago
This makes me wonder - is it possible to prove that it was not a lab leak?
- 4bpp 4y ago
  I think something like a convincing natural pipeline (such as a close relative with last common ancestor predating known human infections) from a wild animal population that was shown to be traded at the wildlife market, or in contact with some population that was, would be pretty compelling. Barring that, systematic evidence against the circumstantial evidence for the lab leak would bring us closer to the general prior that infectious viruses arise in nature: show that the "furin cleavage site" or what that molecular construction which was found to resemble a gain-of-function grant proposal closely was called arose naturally in some other case, have another COVID-like virus emerge somewhere where the circumstances are not met but the purported circumstances of the natural origin story are (like Laos?), have hackers make a credible leak of all the internal data the WIV took offline in the wake of COVID and no data implicating them turn up, ...
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I mean, I have no expertise in any of this, but I was under the impression that there was already evidence of a natural pipeline, though again I don't know the details, but it involved bats and/or pangolins. Also, given the name of the virus is sars-cov-2, I would think that a sars-cov-1 might already have happened and could perhaps qualify as another example of a similar virus with a natural origin. I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of the whole lab leak theory thing - and it's hard to pin down what a lab leak means - there seems to be a spectrum of theories that range from a virus sampled from natural origins that escaped a lab in Wuhan to a fully lab created artificial virus, and plenty of theories in between. But at the end of the day, it seems like most people just want it to be true for some reason; perhaps they want to blame China for the pandemic or they just want some explanation that's more satisfying than a random mutation of a virus at the wrong time and the wrong place brought the world to its knees and is still causing downstream affects throughout the global economy through to today and probably will for years to come.
    - 4bpp 4y ago
      If there was concrete evidence (of the form I described) beyond speculation, I don't know about it. Bats have a relative of the virus, but as was said further up in the conversation and if I understand correctly, it was found very far away from Wuhan in caves that are a lot more interesting for coronavirus researchers than for wildlife traders. > sars-cov-1 That was the original SARS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS), which from what I understand didn't have the features that made COVID so suspect and whose existence probably was also one of the main drivers of funding for coronavirus gain-of-function research, so the causality there could go either way. > I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of the whole lab leak theory thing - and it's hard to pin down what a lab leak means - there seems to be a spectrum of theories that range from a virus sampled from natural origins that escaped a lab in Wuhan to a fully lab created artificial virus, and plenty of theories in between. I think it's more than fair to be skeptical - as a 60% believer, in a world where it was the accepted gospel, I'd be one of the skeptics! - but I don't see why "there are different theories that could be glossed as 'lab leak'" is any sort of evidence that the total probability of all the theories that could be glossed as such is lower (relative to the situation where there is exactly one theory). > But at the end of the day, it seems like most people just want it to be true for some reason; perhaps they want to blame China for the pandemic or they just want some explanation that's more satisfying than a random mutation of a virus at the wrong time and the wrong place brought the world to its knees and is still causing downstream affects throughout the global economy through to today and probably will for years to come. I mean, I could say the same thing of the converse - it seems like most people on the natural origin side just want it to be false for some reason; perhaps they are morally offended by the idea that someone would blame China for the pandemic or certain politicians in the US would get to strut around feeling vindicated, or want some explanation that's more reassuring than that the people who we considered to be our intellectual vanguard to have been short-sighted and irresponsible and caused a lot of damage. I don't feel a desire to see anything that could be read as "blaming China for the pandemic"; I'm generally for science and skeptical of excessive demands for safety and think that shit happens, and wouldn't even "blame" the Soviet Union for Chernobyl. However, in this particular case, _if_ it were to turn out it was a lab leak, there are obvious comparatively cheap actions we could and should take to make a repeat less likely, and moreover in that situation we would have a strong case to increase oversight over the institutions that worked so hard to try to prevent us from coming to that conclusion (although this last thing might also amount to another grounds on which some people will want the lab leak hypothesis to be false), hopefully increasing our society's general ability to solve problems. Perhaps I should ask you as well - what would you consider sufficient evidence to convince you that it was a lab leak?

by 4bpp 4y ago

hotpotamus 4y ago

This makes me wonder - is it possible to prove that it was not a lab leak?

4bpp 4y ago
I think something like a convincing natural pipeline (such as a close relative with last common ancestor predating known human infections) from a wild animal population that was shown to be traded at the wildlife market, or in contact with some population that was, would be pretty compelling. Barring that, systematic evidence against the circumstantial evidence for the lab leak would bring us closer to the general prior that infectious viruses arise in nature: show that the "furin cleavage site" or what that molecular construction which was found to resemble a gain-of-function grant proposal closely was called arose naturally in some other case, have another COVID-like virus emerge somewhere where the circumstances are not met but the purported circumstances of the natural origin story are (like Laos?), have hackers make a credible leak of all the internal data the WIV took offline in the wake of COVID and no data implicating them turn up, ...
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I mean, I have no expertise in any of this, but I was under the impression that there was already evidence of a natural pipeline, though again I don't know the details, but it involved bats and/or pangolins. Also, given the name of the virus is sars-cov-2, I would think that a sars-cov-1 might already have happened and could perhaps qualify as another example of a similar virus with a natural origin. I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of the whole lab leak theory thing - and it's hard to pin down what a lab leak means - there seems to be a spectrum of theories that range from a virus sampled from natural origins that escaped a lab in Wuhan to a fully lab created artificial virus, and plenty of theories in between. But at the end of the day, it seems like most people just want it to be true for some reason; perhaps they want to blame China for the pandemic or they just want some explanation that's more satisfying than a random mutation of a virus at the wrong time and the wrong place brought the world to its knees and is still causing downstream affects throughout the global economy through to today and probably will for years to come.
  - 4bpp 4y ago
    If there was concrete evidence (of the form I described) beyond speculation, I don't know about it. Bats have a relative of the virus, but as was said further up in the conversation and if I understand correctly, it was found very far away from Wuhan in caves that are a lot more interesting for coronavirus researchers than for wildlife traders. > sars-cov-1 That was the original SARS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS), which from what I understand didn't have the features that made COVID so suspect and whose existence probably was also one of the main drivers of funding for coronavirus gain-of-function research, so the causality there could go either way. > I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of the whole lab leak theory thing - and it's hard to pin down what a lab leak means - there seems to be a spectrum of theories that range from a virus sampled from natural origins that escaped a lab in Wuhan to a fully lab created artificial virus, and plenty of theories in between. I think it's more than fair to be skeptical - as a 60% believer, in a world where it was the accepted gospel, I'd be one of the skeptics! - but I don't see why "there are different theories that could be glossed as 'lab leak'" is any sort of evidence that the total probability of all the theories that could be glossed as such is lower (relative to the situation where there is exactly one theory). > But at the end of the day, it seems like most people just want it to be true for some reason; perhaps they want to blame China for the pandemic or they just want some explanation that's more satisfying than a random mutation of a virus at the wrong time and the wrong place brought the world to its knees and is still causing downstream affects throughout the global economy through to today and probably will for years to come. I mean, I could say the same thing of the converse - it seems like most people on the natural origin side just want it to be false for some reason; perhaps they are morally offended by the idea that someone would blame China for the pandemic or certain politicians in the US would get to strut around feeling vindicated, or want some explanation that's more reassuring than that the people who we considered to be our intellectual vanguard to have been short-sighted and irresponsible and caused a lot of damage. I don't feel a desire to see anything that could be read as "blaming China for the pandemic"; I'm generally for science and skeptical of excessive demands for safety and think that shit happens, and wouldn't even "blame" the Soviet Union for Chernobyl. However, in this particular case, _if_ it were to turn out it was a lab leak, there are obvious comparatively cheap actions we could and should take to make a repeat less likely, and moreover in that situation we would have a strong case to increase oversight over the institutions that worked so hard to try to prevent us from coming to that conclusion (although this last thing might also amount to another grounds on which some people will want the lab leak hypothesis to be false), hopefully increasing our society's general ability to solve problems. Perhaps I should ask you as well - what would you consider sufficient evidence to convince you that it was a lab leak?