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> It is blatantly and patently clear that is where the virus came from. I don't think it's so clear. However, rejecting the lab leak is deeply unscientific.

> It is blatantly and patently clear that is where the virus came from. I don't think it's so clear. However, rejecting the lab leak is deeply unscientific. From a Bayesian standpoint, before anything was known, it was silly to dismiss the probability. Estimates from before the pandemic suggested the annual risk was ~2.4% [1], or roughly less than a 50-year recurrence interval. Compare that to the base-rate of roughly 1% of natural spill-over once-every-hundred-year pandemics and it seems foolish to dismiss it. I tended to think the escape estimates were a bit overstated and so I reduced that to ~1% which puts it at about 50/50 without much additional knowledge. After all the information to date has come in, there's circumstantial evidence in favor of both hypotheses. Unfortunately, it's quality is such that I doubt it pushes my truth estimate much beyond 60/40 one way or the other, so 50/50 remains a decent educated guess. The US top intelligence agencies mostly came to exactly the same conclusion. [1] https://sci-hub.st/10.3389/fpubh.2014.00116 https://sci-hub.st/10.3389/fpubh.2014.00116

voz_ 3y ago
The vehement rejection of it out of not wanting to anger China speaks volumes to its credibility. The truth is always the opposite of what that regime says. Nothing happened in Tiananmen Square -> We massacred pro democracy students There is no food shortage -> There is a food shortage We are not interning Uighers in concentration camps -> We are doing ethnic cleansing on native populations Taiwan is not a country -> Taiwan is a fully sovereign state So, applying that same logic, it's pretty easy to figure this one out. On top of that, people trying to somehow decry that this is "republican" or "racist" are ignorant themselves, facts stand on their own merit, and there is nothing racist about any of these accusations. It is a pathetic appeal to partisan identity politics where there should be none.

voz_ 3y ago

The vehement rejection of it out of not wanting to anger China speaks volumes to its credibility. The truth is always the opposite of what that regime says. Nothing happened in Tiananmen Square -> We massacred pro democracy students There is no food shortage -> There is a food shortage We are not interning Uighers in concentration camps -> We are doing ethnic cleansing on native populations Taiwan is not a country -> Taiwan is a fully sovereign state So, applying that same logic, it's pretty easy to figure this one out. On top of that, people trying to somehow decry that this is "republican" or "racist" are ignorant themselves, facts stand on their own merit, and there is nothing racist about any of these accusations. It is a pathetic appeal to partisan identity politics where there should be none.