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The evidence for not being a lab leak was just as weak as being a lab leak. But only one of these scenarios was ridiculed, cancelled, censored, banned by the me

The evidence for not being a lab leak was just as weak as being a lab leak. But only one of these scenarios was ridiculed, cancelled, censored, banned by the media. We also know that senior people in the US medical establishment responsible for funding research at the Wuhan lab had a strong motive to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. I agree we may never know the truth with certainty but we can be 100% certain that the media is garbage, pure and simple.

autoexec 4y ago
> The evidence for not being a lab leak was just as weak as being a lab leak. Not at all, because the evidence for a lab leak was non-existent and the people and sources spreading the conspiracy theory often admitted as much. Tom Cotton, one of the first republicans 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" when the washington times jumped into the game their own article included this admission: "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." (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus...) Meanwhile the evidence for not a lab leak was actual science like genome analysis. That work was published by scientists in preprints for the world to scrutinize unlike the politicians whose claims were based on suspicion alone. There was no science supporting the lab leak theory in January 2020, just speculation.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Nonsense. Given labs obviously keep a library of natural viruses for research purposes, how does "actual science like genome analysis" prove it wasn't a lab leak? This argument is just bs put forward by scientists highly motivated to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. Using the same level of analysis there was zero evidence for the wet market transmission either (other than the massive levels of obsfucation, misdirection and disinformation that a nation state like China is able to inject into the discussion).
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > how does "actual science like genome analysis" prove it wasn't a lab leak? You're right, it doesn't, I was just using your own phrasing. What the science did do was provide verifiable evidence which supported the theory that the virus could have came from animals. Having actual research that can be repeated and verified will always win out over vague accusations or suspicions made without evidence, such as your claim that it all came from "scientists highly motivated to discredit the lab leak hypothesis." On one hand we have wild speculation, on the other we have "SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events" (https://zenodo.org/record/6291628/files/Pekar_Zoonosis.pdf?download=1 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628/files/Pekar_Zoonosis.pdf?d...) Neither of the two have to be correct, and neither offers definitive proof of how the virus spread, but if you can honestly look at those two things and say neither one offers any evidence or that that they provide an equal level of analysis I don't know what to tell you.
    - lazyeye 4y ago
      In the context of an issue of such global significance, given the degree of pressure a nation-state like China is going to apply, I think you are being incredibly naive to accept a single scientific paper on face value. Here's a critique of the very same paper:- https://zenodo.org/record/7169296#.Y0RCpkPP02y https://zenodo.org/record/7169296#.Y0RCpkPP02y https://changingtimes.media/2022/10/12/investigators-challenge-claims-that-covid-19-began-in-the-huanan-seafood-market/ https://changingtimes.media/2022/10/12/investigators-challen... So which is right? You don't know, I don't know...so maybe we need to also consider other scenarios too. And contemplating the possibility of a lab leak, when a coronavirus outbreak randomly appears just down the road from a laboratory that studies coronaviruses (of all places in the world) is about as far from "wild speculation" as you can get. It's just simple commonsense, unless you have an agenda. Here's some other examples where "wild speculation" must have been involved:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... And I havent mentioned all the other kinds of intelligence data used to analyse such an event, like satellite photos of the Wuhan lab carpark, or peaks in mobile phone activity in the area, or there are some indications that 3 scientists at the Wuhan lab came down with an "unknown" respiratory disease a month before the first appearance of Covid. https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228 https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-w...

autoexec 4y ago

> The evidence for not being a lab leak was just as weak as being a lab leak. Not at all, because the evidence for a lab leak was non-existent and the people and sources spreading the conspiracy theory often admitted as much. Tom Cotton, one of the first republicans 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" when the washington times jumped into the game their own article included this admission: "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." (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus...) Meanwhile the evidence for not a lab leak was actual science like genome analysis. That work was published by scientists in preprints for the world to scrutinize unlike the politicians whose claims were based on suspicion alone. There was no science supporting the lab leak theory in January 2020, just speculation.

lazyeye 4y ago
Nonsense. Given labs obviously keep a library of natural viruses for research purposes, how does "actual science like genome analysis" prove it wasn't a lab leak? This argument is just bs put forward by scientists highly motivated to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. Using the same level of analysis there was zero evidence for the wet market transmission either (other than the massive levels of obsfucation, misdirection and disinformation that a nation state like China is able to inject into the discussion).
- autoexec 4y ago
  > how does "actual science like genome analysis" prove it wasn't a lab leak? You're right, it doesn't, I was just using your own phrasing. What the science did do was provide verifiable evidence which supported the theory that the virus could have came from animals. Having actual research that can be repeated and verified will always win out over vague accusations or suspicions made without evidence, such as your claim that it all came from "scientists highly motivated to discredit the lab leak hypothesis." On one hand we have wild speculation, on the other we have "SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events" (https://zenodo.org/record/6291628/files/Pekar_Zoonosis.pdf?download=1 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628/files/Pekar_Zoonosis.pdf?d...) Neither of the two have to be correct, and neither offers definitive proof of how the virus spread, but if you can honestly look at those two things and say neither one offers any evidence or that that they provide an equal level of analysis I don't know what to tell you.
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    In the context of an issue of such global significance, given the degree of pressure a nation-state like China is going to apply, I think you are being incredibly naive to accept a single scientific paper on face value. Here's a critique of the very same paper:- https://zenodo.org/record/7169296#.Y0RCpkPP02y https://zenodo.org/record/7169296#.Y0RCpkPP02y https://changingtimes.media/2022/10/12/investigators-challenge-claims-that-covid-19-began-in-the-huanan-seafood-market/ https://changingtimes.media/2022/10/12/investigators-challen... So which is right? You don't know, I don't know...so maybe we need to also consider other scenarios too. And contemplating the possibility of a lab leak, when a coronavirus outbreak randomly appears just down the road from a laboratory that studies coronaviruses (of all places in the world) is about as far from "wild speculation" as you can get. It's just simple commonsense, unless you have an agenda. Here's some other examples where "wild speculation" must have been involved:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... And I havent mentioned all the other kinds of intelligence data used to analyse such an event, like satellite photos of the Wuhan lab carpark, or peaks in mobile phone activity in the area, or there are some indications that 3 scientists at the Wuhan lab came down with an "unknown" respiratory disease a month before the first appearance of Covid. https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228 https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-w...