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> 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 t

by smsm42 4y ago

> 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. Except those weren't conspiracy theories but alternative explanations of the known facts supported by at least as much evidence (not much, not conclusive, but neither had the alternative) as their explanation. Which the press tried to de-emphasize in every way possible, and paint it as if there's absolutely no possible legitimacy behind the alternatives. After 3 years of screaming abuse and calling people "conspiracy theorists" we finally arrived at the point where we find their assertions of there being an only valid explanation are not true. I have no problem with people believing for a while in a theory that later proven to be false or unsupported. I did it myself - believed in experiments and conclusions that failed to reproduce or have been disproven. It happens to much better people than me. I do have a problem with the same people making claims that people who believed in alternative explanations are crazy, racists, idiots, extremists, terrorists, etc. - and not even apologizing afterwards, just saying "well, we believed in the best theory NYT/WaPo described to us, what do you want?" I think they earned at least some epistemic humility. > Who exactly is the ""The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment"? Pretty much everybody you regularly seen on TV and in the newspapers discussing those things and making decisions on those things. > Declared by who? When? By the media, the politicians and, for a period, by publications such as Lancet. And in much further degree, by the "I fucking love science" crowd which took delight in mobbing the dissenters and calling them all kinds of names. And continues to do so on other questions, btw. > There was constant questioning of the origin and acknowledgement that there were multiple conflicting theories in mainstream media. Nope, there wasn't for a long while, until scientists prominent enough that there was no way to silence them started to raise objections. The most prominent event was probably in September 2021, when Lancet published a rebuttal to their February 2020 article flatly declaring any non-nautural-origin theories to be "conspiracy theories". That's when the idea started to regain legitimacy. Until then, it was The Science (TM) that only natural origin is scientific and all the rest is crazy. And if you don't believe me (which you are right to do, I'm just some jerk on the internet), think about it - why would a team of 16 health experts write an article to Lancet demanding "objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2" and arguing that scientists "need to evaluate all hypotheses on a rational basis, and to weigh their likelihood based on facts and evidence, devoid of speculation concerning possible political impacts" - if by then such debate was already happening for all this while and the political impacts did not influence it at all? Were they just bored and were Lancet editors dumb for publishing a letter calling for something that is already being done and stating the obvious? Or maybe it wasn't obvious by then and it wasn't done - and this is what not me, a random internet jerk, but experts serious enough to be taken seriously by the Lancet, were worried about enough to write a collective letter? > 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. Can you show me an article in NYT or WaPo in the period between February 2020 and September 2021 that describes natural origin and lab leak theories as equal possibilities, each of them could yet be proven true and each of them being legitimate alternatives and areas of scientific enquiry? I admit I do not read every article in these publications (mainly because I consider them mostly be utter garbage and in cases where they raise above that level I usually get a referral from one of the places I trust more) but I am willing to accept evidence if presented to me.

autoexec 4y ago
> those weren't conspiracy theories but alternative explanations of the known facts supported by at least as much evidence (not much, not conclusive, but neither had the alternative) as their explanation. This just isn't true. There wasn't anywhere near as much evidence for the lab leak theory as their was for a natural origin which is why the lab leak theory was determined to be unlikely compared to other theories. Even the people who were pushing the conspiracy theory admitted to the lack of evidence. Tom Cotton, one of the first in politics to push the theory, said himself: "Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says" (https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-f...) For example there is an early article from a 'low credibility' right biased news website (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/) The Daily Mail, and even they had a microbiologist explain: "at this point there's no reason to harbour suspicions' that the facility had anything to do with the outbreak, besides being responsible for the crucial genome sequencing that lets doctors diagnose it" (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-lab-studying-SARS-Ebola-Wuhan-outbreaks-center.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-la...) Same story with this article which was pushing the bio-weapon theory. (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus...). It also stated that evidence was incredibly weak without dismissing it entirely: "In principle, outward virus infiltration might take place either as leakage or as an indoor unnoticed infection of a person that normally went out of the concerned facility. This could have been the case with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but so far there isn’t evidence or indication for such incident." Meanwhile, other theories being talked about at the time were supported by actual science such as genome analysis (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9) and note that here too they weren't totally dismissing any other theories either, only presenting the best evidence we had saying: "Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here...More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another." > The most prominent event was probably in September 2021, when Lancet published a rebuttal to their February 2020 article flatly declaring any non-nautural-origin theories to be "conspiracy theories". The opinion piece February did not flatly declare every non-natural origin theory to be a conspiracy. What it said was "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." which is very different from saying that all theories of a non-natural origin are by definition conspiracy theories. Those same authors made that explicit in a followup article (July 21) saying: "Careful and transparent collection of scientific information is essential to understand how the virus has spread and to develop strategies to mitigate the ongoing impact of COVID-19, whether it occurred wholly within nature or might somehow have reached the community via an alternative route, and prevent future pandemics." They did not dismiss that other options were possible. They were just saying "We want evidence, not conjecture" > Can you show me an article in NYT or WaPo in the period between February 2020 and September 2021 that describes natural origin and lab leak theories as equal possibilities, each of them could yet be proven true and each of them being legitimate alternatives and areas of scientific enquiry? They weren't equally supported by the evidence, but there are certainly cases where articles on those (left-biased) sites made it clear that a lab leak was possible and that the origin of the virus was not certain. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/health/wuhan-coronavirus-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/health/wuhan-coronavirus-... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fauci-kristian-andersen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fa... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/medias-dereliction-duty-lab-leak-theory/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/medias-de... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/30/scientist-covid-19-lab-leak-investigation/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/30/scientist...

by smsm42 4y ago

autoexec 4y ago

> those weren't conspiracy theories but alternative explanations of the known facts supported by at least as much evidence (not much, not conclusive, but neither had the alternative) as their explanation. This just isn't true. There wasn't anywhere near as much evidence for the lab leak theory as their was for a natural origin which is why the lab leak theory was determined to be unlikely compared to other theories. Even the people who were pushing the conspiracy theory admitted to the lack of evidence. Tom Cotton, one of the first in politics to push the theory, said himself: "Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says" (https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-f...) For example there is an early article from a 'low credibility' right biased news website (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/) The Daily Mail, and even they had a microbiologist explain: "at this point there's no reason to harbour suspicions' that the facility had anything to do with the outbreak, besides being responsible for the crucial genome sequencing that lets doctors diagnose it" (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-lab-studying-SARS-Ebola-Wuhan-outbreaks-center.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-la...) Same story with this article which was pushing the bio-weapon theory. (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus...). It also stated that evidence was incredibly weak without dismissing it entirely: "In principle, outward virus infiltration might take place either as leakage or as an indoor unnoticed infection of a person that normally went out of the concerned facility. This could have been the case with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but so far there isn’t evidence or indication for such incident." Meanwhile, other theories being talked about at the time were supported by actual science such as genome analysis (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9) and note that here too they weren't totally dismissing any other theories either, only presenting the best evidence we had saying: "Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here...More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another." > The most prominent event was probably in September 2021, when Lancet published a rebuttal to their February 2020 article flatly declaring any non-nautural-origin theories to be "conspiracy theories". The opinion piece February did not flatly declare every non-natural origin theory to be a conspiracy. What it said was "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." which is very different from saying that all theories of a non-natural origin are by definition conspiracy theories. Those same authors made that explicit in a followup article (July 21) saying: "Careful and transparent collection of scientific information is essential to understand how the virus has spread and to develop strategies to mitigate the ongoing impact of COVID-19, whether it occurred wholly within nature or might somehow have reached the community via an alternative route, and prevent future pandemics." They did not dismiss that other options were possible. They were just saying "We want evidence, not conjecture" > Can you show me an article in NYT or WaPo in the period between February 2020 and September 2021 that describes natural origin and lab leak theories as equal possibilities, each of them could yet be proven true and each of them being legitimate alternatives and areas of scientific enquiry? They weren't equally supported by the evidence, but there are certainly cases where articles on those (left-biased) sites made it clear that a lab leak was possible and that the origin of the virus was not certain. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/health/wuhan-coronavirus-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/health/wuhan-coronavirus-... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fauci-kristian-andersen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fa... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/medias-dereliction-duty-lab-leak-theory/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/medias-de... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/30/scientist-covid-19-lab-leak-investigation/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/30/scientist...