4 ms·

>The only thing I find somewhat frustrating about this is that lab leak is nearly impossible to disprove. I don't think that's really true and I think that sta

>The only thing I find somewhat frustrating about this is that lab leak is nearly impossible to disprove. I don't think that's really true and I think that statement comes from ignorance of the volume of work done in epidemiology and public health. Lots of natural spillover events have been pretty well figured out in the past through contact tracing and finding animal reservoirs with plausible proximity to index patients and stuff like that. When that much evidence piles up, it'd be pretty unscientific to conclude a lab-leak occurred. In this case though, a lab-leak remains a fairly plausible possibility. Natural spillover does too! We don't (and we may never) really have definitive evidence either way, but there are good reasons to suspect both.

elicash 3y ago
I'll obviously disagree my statements come from ignorance! I think our views are nearly perfectly aligned, in fact. We're talking about a rhetorical difference with me saying "disprove" versus what you called "plausible proximity." But I don't think we disagree about anything.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  Perhaps it is indeed a semantic argument then, it's just there's a big difference between assigning truth probabilities of 55% natural to 45% lab-leak vs. 98% natural to 2% lab. While in the latter case, it hasn't technically been "disproved", it pretty much has. And for many previous spillovers (NIPAH, HENDRA, ebola, various hauntavirus outbreaks, etc.) It's very definitive that it was indeed natural spillover. So basically I think it is indeed possible to disprove a lab-leak in many many cases. There remain several oddities about COVID that haven't led to that sort of truth probability. However, I still think it's possible we could shift those probabilities with COVID, particularly if the CCCP weren't being so shady about the whole thing above and beyond their usual lack of transparency. (Taking the genetic db offline, policy changes regarding lab safety etc.)
jghn 3y ago
The problem here is what does "lab leak" mean. Obviously at its core it means that the virus was stored at the lab and then found its way out somehow. However, to many people in the world it has other implications. And thus discussion around it needs to be careful. For instance there's an enormous difference between "virus was 100% as found in nature, stored in lab, leaked" and "virus was 100% synthetic, stored in lab, leaked". And of course the real answer in a lab leak scenario is likely somewhere in the middle. But when discussing the matter, one needs to take care to understand what "lab leak" *means* to the people on the other side of the conversation.
everdrive 3y ago
>We don't (and we may never) really have definitive evidence either way, I think your statement agrees with the parent comment that the "lab leak is nearly impossible to disprove." This isn't a disagreement with any other point you've made in your comment, but I think the parent was effectively saying that even if it were true that this did not come from a lab leak, it would probably be impossible remove that doubt from the public discourse because of the lack of definitive evidence that you point out.

elicash 3y ago

I'll obviously disagree my statements come from ignorance! I think our views are nearly perfectly aligned, in fact. We're talking about a rhetorical difference with me saying "disprove" versus what you called "plausible proximity." But I don't think we disagree about anything.

Enginerrrd 3y ago
Perhaps it is indeed a semantic argument then, it's just there's a big difference between assigning truth probabilities of 55% natural to 45% lab-leak vs. 98% natural to 2% lab. While in the latter case, it hasn't technically been "disproved", it pretty much has. And for many previous spillovers (NIPAH, HENDRA, ebola, various hauntavirus outbreaks, etc.) It's very definitive that it was indeed natural spillover. So basically I think it is indeed possible to disprove a lab-leak in many many cases. There remain several oddities about COVID that haven't led to that sort of truth probability. However, I still think it's possible we could shift those probabilities with COVID, particularly if the CCCP weren't being so shady about the whole thing above and beyond their usual lack of transparency. (Taking the genetic db offline, policy changes regarding lab safety etc.)

jghn 3y ago

The problem here is what does "lab leak" mean. Obviously at its core it means that the virus was stored at the lab and then found its way out somehow. However, to many people in the world it has other implications. And thus discussion around it needs to be careful. For instance there's an enormous difference between "virus was 100% as found in nature, stored in lab, leaked" and "virus was 100% synthetic, stored in lab, leaked". And of course the real answer in a lab leak scenario is likely somewhere in the middle. But when discussing the matter, one needs to take care to understand what "lab leak" *means* to the people on the other side of the conversation.

everdrive 3y ago

>We don't (and we may never) really have definitive evidence either way, I think your statement agrees with the parent comment that the "lab leak is nearly impossible to disprove." This isn't a disagreement with any other point you've made in your comment, but I think the parent was effectively saying that even if it were true that this did not come from a lab leak, it would probably be impossible remove that doubt from the public discourse because of the lack of definitive evidence that you point out.