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Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s)

by smsm42 4y ago

Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I think if you attempt to have serious discussion the minimum you should do is to learn what the disagreement is about. If you don't bother to do even that, then what's the point in it? Just booing the outgroup one more time? > is that one group accepted the possibility and investigated that I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. To the honor of the actual scientific community, they managed to fight back and re-legitimize the leak theory, but it took significant time and effort, and significant struggle. And the PR damage (and career damage, etc.) to the people who dared to dissent was already done. > and beating up random Asian people in the streets I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. > "Crazies" went all in regardless of evidence or reason, and for that the pejorative is well earned. The "bat soup" propagandists went all in much further than the "crazies" - while the crazies only talked about the possibility of the lab leak (or bioweapon lab, ok) - the non-crazies banned, fired, ruined careers, declared opponents racist, and all that with even less evidence - at least for the lab leak theory there's a lab to leak from. By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible there was nothing to support it evidentially, let alone on the level of the only viable possibility. So "the crazies" earned their name, then "bat soup" propagandists must be named "super crazies on crazy juice while taking crazy pills and bathing in the crazy ocean". Or we can go back to actually discussing the evidence, if anybody is interested in that, of course.

autoexec 4y ago
> Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I never said they were the same thing. They are different, but they were both BS conspiracy theories because they were pushed without sufficient evidence to support them and while ignoring stronger evidence for other theories. > I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, the mainstream media acknowledged that the science was still primarily, and that there were a lot of questions, but they mostly reported on our best understanding of the facts that we have and not on conspiracy theories that ignored our best understanding of the facts that we had. > "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. Who exactly is the ""The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment"? As you yourself acknowledge scientists and governments continued to investigate the origins of the virus including the possibility of a lab leak to find evidence. > I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. I clearly made a distinction between the people who believed a BS conspiracy theory and acted on it (in some cases by beating asian people) and those who accepted it was possible, and investigated that, but followed the available evidence and supported the theory that best fit the facts that we had. > By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible Declared by who? When? There was constant questioning of the origin and acknowledgement that there were multiple conflicting theories in mainstream media. I don't know where you were getting your information from, but it sounds like you weren't paying much attention to what mainstream media was actually saying.
- anon291 4y ago
  The bat origin also had no evidence given that the bats that naturally carry this kind of corona virus are not endemic to Wuhan and are not regularly consumed. Yet many people insisted that this was the origin.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > The bat origin also had no evidence Of course it had evidence (see https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-origin-bats.html https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-origin-bats.html and https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157) but there were always questions (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/who-report-says-covid-originated-in-bats-but-critics-claim-the-study-was-biased https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/who-report-says-covid-orig...)
    - smsm42 4y ago
      Congratulations, you have just discovered why almost every claim "there's no evidence about X" is false. Almost every conspiracy theory - and surely almost every side of a scientific debate - has some evidence behind it. Maybe inconclusive evidence, maybe bad evidence, maybe very weak evidence, maybe even evidence later proven to be false or fake - but there's almost always at least something. The reason is simple - the number of possible theories is infinite, but people's attention is finite. So even the dumbest, most gullible person would select the theories to believe in somehow - and those that have zero evidence to lean on would rarely make the cut, because there's just too many of them, so the probability of any of them to land any significant number of supporters is practically zero. Thus, the theories you've heard about likely to have at least some evidence - but there are questions, as you correctly noted. For bad theories, there would be very small and bad evidence and very large and hairy questions. It's not a 100% rule - hence I say "almost" - but it is very often the case. For more exploration of the "no evidence" question, I suggest you read https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence-is-a-red-flag https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence...
- smsm42 4y ago
kube-system 4y ago
The rightmost political commentators in the US almost universally entertained the lab leak theory in the same breath as the bioweapon idea. The implicit or explicit accusation was that there was no other reason to be working with viruses. People love a good mad-scientist story and those without an understanding of public health research, or a xenophobic disbelief that science is even conducted in China, ate it right up.
Shekelphile 4y ago
> Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories No, they're not. The people who pushed the lab leak hoax originally (and as evidenced by several redcap troll accounts in this thread) all believed that covid-19 was engineered in a lab and released by the chinese government to harm them personally. Even if it ends up being a case where a natural virus was studied in a lab and accidentally released, it does not validate their views.
- smsm42 4y ago
  "Even if it's proved we are wrong, we were right because bad people partially agreed with our opponents". Makes sense.

by smsm42 4y ago

autoexec 4y ago

> Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I never said they were the same thing. They are different, but they were both BS conspiracy theories because they were pushed without sufficient evidence to support them and while ignoring stronger evidence for other theories. > I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, the mainstream media acknowledged that the science was still primarily, and that there were a lot of questions, but they mostly reported on our best understanding of the facts that we have and not on conspiracy theories that ignored our best understanding of the facts that we had. > "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. Who exactly is the ""The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment"? As you yourself acknowledge scientists and governments continued to investigate the origins of the virus including the possibility of a lab leak to find evidence. > I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. I clearly made a distinction between the people who believed a BS conspiracy theory and acted on it (in some cases by beating asian people) and those who accepted it was possible, and investigated that, but followed the available evidence and supported the theory that best fit the facts that we had. > By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible Declared by who? When? There was constant questioning of the origin and acknowledgement that there were multiple conflicting theories in mainstream media. I don't know where you were getting your information from, but it sounds like you weren't paying much attention to what mainstream media was actually saying.

anon291 4y ago
The bat origin also had no evidence given that the bats that naturally carry this kind of corona virus are not endemic to Wuhan and are not regularly consumed. Yet many people insisted that this was the origin.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > The bat origin also had no evidence Of course it had evidence (see https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-origin-bats.html https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-origin-bats.html and https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157) but there were always questions (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/who-report-says-covid-originated-in-bats-but-critics-claim-the-study-was-biased https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/who-report-says-covid-orig...)
  - smsm42 4y ago
    Congratulations, you have just discovered why almost every claim "there's no evidence about X" is false. Almost every conspiracy theory - and surely almost every side of a scientific debate - has some evidence behind it. Maybe inconclusive evidence, maybe bad evidence, maybe very weak evidence, maybe even evidence later proven to be false or fake - but there's almost always at least something. The reason is simple - the number of possible theories is infinite, but people's attention is finite. So even the dumbest, most gullible person would select the theories to believe in somehow - and those that have zero evidence to lean on would rarely make the cut, because there's just too many of them, so the probability of any of them to land any significant number of supporters is practically zero. Thus, the theories you've heard about likely to have at least some evidence - but there are questions, as you correctly noted. For bad theories, there would be very small and bad evidence and very large and hairy questions. It's not a 100% rule - hence I say "almost" - but it is very often the case. For more exploration of the "no evidence" question, I suggest you read https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence-is-a-red-flag https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence...
smsm42 4y ago

kube-system 4y ago

The rightmost political commentators in the US almost universally entertained the lab leak theory in the same breath as the bioweapon idea. The implicit or explicit accusation was that there was no other reason to be working with viruses. People love a good mad-scientist story and those without an understanding of public health research, or a xenophobic disbelief that science is even conducted in China, ate it right up.

Shekelphile 4y ago

> Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories No, they're not. The people who pushed the lab leak hoax originally (and as evidenced by several redcap troll accounts in this thread) all believed that covid-19 was engineered in a lab and released by the chinese government to harm them personally. Even if it ends up being a case where a natural virus was studied in a lab and accidentally released, it does not validate their views.

smsm42 4y ago
"Even if it's proved we are wrong, we were right because bad people partially agreed with our opponents". Makes sense.