5 ms·

Sorry, I'd misunderstood what you meant by "referenced". The 700k is also reported in papers published before the one I linked, for example Table 1 of https://

Sorry, I'd misunderstood what you meant by "referenced". The 700k is also reported in papers published before the one I linked, for example Table 1 of https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00430-009-0118-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00430-009-0118-5 So the author didn't just make it up. Peer review isn't magic, but it does tend to catch such a blatant level of fraud; so it's odd that was your first assumption. He should have included the reference, but it's not uncommon to get sloppy when a result is widely reported. I haven't yet traced this number back to the epidemiological methodology. As noted, I fully accept that it might wrong, since influenza numbers tend to be calculated from excess mortality and not directly counted. Until we've reviewed that methodology, I agree that it's reasonable to question the exact number. I believe that uncertainty applies to most epidemiological estimates, including but not limited to the 1977 flu. But I've explicitly acknowledged the uncertainty, so I'm not sure why you're continuing to focus on this. There is no significant question that the 1977 flu was reintroduced into humans due to a research accident, and no question that it went on to infect a large fraction of the world. There's no question that many people died, even if the exact number is uncertain. Are you proposing that it's few enough that there's no reason to care? If so, what's your cutoff? The 200k was an arbitrary placeholder. I thought the phrase "or whatever the right number would be" following it would make that clear, but maybe not. > That's not a prior, it's a posterior: it's the probability of an event given the evidence. We're interested in a prior probability when we don't have enough evidence to calculate a posterior. Like with Covid-19. I mean that if SARS-CoV-2 were proven to have arisen unnaturally, then my prior that a different future pandemic was unnatural would go up. That again seems very normal to me, since humans predict the future using the past. As I noted, I would adjust my prior based on factors other than a simple count of past research-origin pandemics too; but the count is obviously relevant information. Your updated prior of p ~ 0.0001 to 0.00001 seems to also be derived from a past count, just reaching into prehistory to inflate the denominator. This thread started when you asserted that "every single pandemic and disease that has ever infected humans did not leak from a lab". Exact numbers for the death toll and prior aside, do you at least agree that's false?

YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
Table 1 in the other paper you cite also has no reference to the number. That's because the number is made up, hearsay, someone's back-of-the-napkin calculation etc. I'm "continuing to focus on this" because it's obvious the numbers you quoted, and on which you based your entire argument about the 1977 flu, are completely made up and I want you to understand that. >> That again seems very normal to me, since humans predict the future using the past. Humans predict the future? That sounds like magic. Are you sure that's true? Are we talking about prior probabilities or palmistry? Note that it doesn't make sense for a prior to be "your prior" or "my prior". I think that's a turn of phrase that's common in EA circles, where people really have no clue about probabilities or statistics. My advise is to not copy their mannerisms and try to learn about probabilities from a good source, like a textbook or an online course. There used to be a good course on Udcity presented by Sebastian Thrun, based on his course at Stanford IIRC. If you can find it, have a go at it, it's really good. >> This thread started when you asserted that "every single pandemic and disease that has ever infected humans did not leak from a lab". Exact numbers for the death toll and prior aside, do you at least agree that's false? Not at all. Besides which the thread started when you used the term "prior probability" without understanding what it means.
- tripletao 2y ago
  Table 1 actually does have a reference in the text, but it doesn't seem to be helpful. I think the major point of unclear methodology is the period over which those deaths are summed, since the lineage has continued to circulate since reintroduction: > The human H1N1 lineage caused pandemic and endemic influenza from 1918 to 1956, then disappeared entirely around 1957 only to reappear in relatively low-level pandemic form in 1977. It has continued to circulate endemically in humans up to the present time (2009). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2862331/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2862331/ Michaelis's Table 1 says "1977-1979", but 700k seems too high for that; so the table seems misleading or wrong to me. Perhaps they're actually counting deaths from descendant lineages up to present--if a terrorist reintroduced smallpox, would you not blame them for every death until it was re-eradicated, even if that took many years? That might be what Burke meant by "over the ensuing years", though in that case it should have increased since 2009. That seems more plausible to me, if anything low. It seems most likely to me that no one has calculated very rigorously, and the reviewers did back-of-the-napkin calculations similar to those I've just done and decided it was close enough, within the usual uncertainty (rigorous estimates in countries with good statistics are often ranges over 5:1 or more). I agree their failure to explain their methodology is bad, and I won't provide numbers in future without this context. The calculation you provided earlier seems to be only for the period immediately around 1977, not including descendant lineages in subsequent years. I'd guess that's the reason for the apparent inconsistency, since almost all the death comes later. So after all this, do you at least agree that (a) many people died, (b) the research accident caused those deaths, and (c) that's bad? I absolutely agree it's (almost surely) not 700.000k; but can you agree it's not zero? > Humans predict the future? That sounds like magic. Are you sure that's true? Are we talking about prior probabilities or palmistry? I assume you don't think weather forecasters are magicians? Or almost any human activity involves aspects of prediction--I cross the street because I predict that the barking pit bull might attack me, or I choose an item from the restaurant menu that I predict I'll enjoy eating. So I don't see what's abnormal here. I don't think this dorm-room epistemology serves much purpose beyond distracting from the practical and serious topic at hand. > Note that it doesn't make sense for a prior to be "your prior" or "my prior". I think the possessive is just an acknowledgement that the right answer is disputable, and reasonable people may end up with different numbers. I'd tend to agree there's an EA-adjacent tendency towards misleading quantification, but the concept of a prior here seems fine to me. > Not at all. Besides which the thread started when you used the term "prior probability" without understanding what it means. So are you saying the 1977 flu doesn't infect humans, or that it didn't leak from a lab? I'm not sure what you mean here. I also think you've confused me with user rich_sasha, since I didn't mention prior probability until you did.

YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago

Table 1 in the other paper you cite also has no reference to the number. That's because the number is made up, hearsay, someone's back-of-the-napkin calculation etc. I'm "continuing to focus on this" because it's obvious the numbers you quoted, and on which you based your entire argument about the 1977 flu, are completely made up and I want you to understand that. >> That again seems very normal to me, since humans predict the future using the past. Humans predict the future? That sounds like magic. Are you sure that's true? Are we talking about prior probabilities or palmistry? Note that it doesn't make sense for a prior to be "your prior" or "my prior". I think that's a turn of phrase that's common in EA circles, where people really have no clue about probabilities or statistics. My advise is to not copy their mannerisms and try to learn about probabilities from a good source, like a textbook or an online course. There used to be a good course on Udcity presented by Sebastian Thrun, based on his course at Stanford IIRC. If you can find it, have a go at it, it's really good. >> This thread started when you asserted that "every single pandemic and disease that has ever infected humans did not leak from a lab". Exact numbers for the death toll and prior aside, do you at least agree that's false? Not at all. Besides which the thread started when you used the term "prior probability" without understanding what it means.

tripletao 2y ago
Table 1 actually does have a reference in the text, but it doesn't seem to be helpful. I think the major point of unclear methodology is the period over which those deaths are summed, since the lineage has continued to circulate since reintroduction: > The human H1N1 lineage caused pandemic and endemic influenza from 1918 to 1956, then disappeared entirely around 1957 only to reappear in relatively low-level pandemic form in 1977. It has continued to circulate endemically in humans up to the present time (2009). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2862331/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2862331/ Michaelis's Table 1 says "1977-1979", but 700k seems too high for that; so the table seems misleading or wrong to me. Perhaps they're actually counting deaths from descendant lineages up to present--if a terrorist reintroduced smallpox, would you not blame them for every death until it was re-eradicated, even if that took many years? That might be what Burke meant by "over the ensuing years", though in that case it should have increased since 2009. That seems more plausible to me, if anything low. It seems most likely to me that no one has calculated very rigorously, and the reviewers did back-of-the-napkin calculations similar to those I've just done and decided it was close enough, within the usual uncertainty (rigorous estimates in countries with good statistics are often ranges over 5:1 or more). I agree their failure to explain their methodology is bad, and I won't provide numbers in future without this context. The calculation you provided earlier seems to be only for the period immediately around 1977, not including descendant lineages in subsequent years. I'd guess that's the reason for the apparent inconsistency, since almost all the death comes later. So after all this, do you at least agree that (a) many people died, (b) the research accident caused those deaths, and (c) that's bad? I absolutely agree it's (almost surely) not 700.000k; but can you agree it's not zero? > Humans predict the future? That sounds like magic. Are you sure that's true? Are we talking about prior probabilities or palmistry? I assume you don't think weather forecasters are magicians? Or almost any human activity involves aspects of prediction--I cross the street because I predict that the barking pit bull might attack me, or I choose an item from the restaurant menu that I predict I'll enjoy eating. So I don't see what's abnormal here. I don't think this dorm-room epistemology serves much purpose beyond distracting from the practical and serious topic at hand. > Note that it doesn't make sense for a prior to be "your prior" or "my prior". I think the possessive is just an acknowledgement that the right answer is disputable, and reasonable people may end up with different numbers. I'd tend to agree there's an EA-adjacent tendency towards misleading quantification, but the concept of a prior here seems fine to me. > Not at all. Besides which the thread started when you used the term "prior probability" without understanding what it means. So are you saying the 1977 flu doesn't infect humans, or that it didn't leak from a lab? I'm not sure what you mean here. I also think you've confused me with user rich_sasha, since I didn't mention prior probability until you did.