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> if someone claims that black swans existed, and someone else is skeptical, the onus is on the pro-black-swan side to provide evidence Your example is exactly
by kryogen1c 4y ago
> if someone claims that black swans existed, and someone else is skeptical, the onus is on the pro-black-swan side to provide evidence
Your example is exactly backwards. Black swan events are meaningful because they don't have prior evidence to inform their existence. This is the opposite of the case for zoonotic spillover - there is a well established pattern that should be present and is not.
Actually, your point is unintentionally correct - the black swan event here would be if zoonotic spillover DID occur, because there is substantial, expected, historically modeled, missing evidence. So, as you say, the onus is not on the lab-leak believer.
- enasterosophes 4y agoWell, I prefer to think that my point is intentionally correct, and I can't help it if the OP blog post I'm responding to has some epistemic issues which twist the whole discussion ;) Anyway, I think the onus is on whoever is making claims, not whoever the claimant is trying to convince. iiuc, there is additional evidence available that the virus came from a lab; but if we're focusing purely on the zoonotic spillover theory, isn't the current strongest position something like this: "claims that sars-cov-2 is purely zoonotic in origin are not consistent with the current evidence and modelling" ? Such wording avoids the tortured epistemology of "no evidence = evidence".