[HN Gopher] Early 'lab-grown' Covid virus found in sample lends ... ___________________________________________________________________ Early 'lab-grown' Covid virus found in sample lends weight to Wuhan theory Author : forthelose Score : 189 points Date : 2022-02-09 22:03 UTC (57 minutes ago) (HTM) web link (www.telegraph.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.telegraph.co.uk) | ImaCake wrote: | User rcpt shared the, much more legible, twitter thread this | kinda trash telegraph article is citing, reposting as a top level | comment since the parent comment there is being modded: | https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1491297779855278082?t=... | | And my response based on that: | | >Thanks, that twitter thread actually makes sense, unlike the | telegraph article. The conclusion seems to be that we need a | timestamp on when these samples were sequenced. If in Jan 2020 it | is fine, if its in 2019 it catches the Chinese Gov in a lie. The | sequences themselves are not unusual for early COVID and have | been seen before, but the context of human cell lines suggests | they were being cultured. >So, no conclusive evidence of lab leak | without a known timestamp we don't have. The telegraph is | editorialising for clicks. | [deleted] | guelo wrote: | Where are the sources here? Shouldn't there be an arxiv link or | something? | nickdothutton wrote: | Another year passes. Still waiting for conclusive proof of an | animal origin. | paxys wrote: | It's pretty obvious that we are not going to have "conclusive | proof" of any kind of origin. | throwaway6532 wrote: | Yeah, the only conclusive proof we've gotten is that China | demands everyone shut up and not piss off China. | replwoacause wrote: | This has always seemed like a plausible scenario to me for the | origin of this virus. It's just too bad it might have occurred in | China, considering their government's propensity for dishonesty | and suppressing information. I wonder what the handling/research | would have been like if it had leaked from a lab in another | country, like the US or Canada for example. Would those | governments have been more forthright if one of their labs were | to blame? | firecall wrote: | > Would those governments have been more forthright if one of | their labs were to blame? | | I'd say maybe not. | | But the Chinese are a lot better at suppression! | | Defenestration is a very effective tool.... | forthelose wrote: | http://web.archive.org/web/20220209201918/https://www.telegr... | verytrivial wrote: | Also from TFA: "If it was sequenced in early 2020, it may have | been contaminated from experiments carried out by researchers | trying to learn more about the emerging virus." | ratg13 wrote: | Then where did the virus sample the lab was working with come | from? Was it also from Yunnan where RATG13 came from? (1500 | miles from Wuhan). | | Why are they destroying all of their virus samples of | everything that can trace the lineage of the virus? Why are | they going out of their way to delete all of this data out of | public databases? | | (RATG13 had to be retrieved from the trashbin of history as | well.) | | If you believe that this all harmless and that this is all a | normal part of studying the virus, you might be in the market | for a bridge. Possibly two. | woodruffw wrote: | As the underlying Twitter thread points out[1], there's a | significant confounding factor here: the sample is from 2019 but | might have been processed in 2020, at which point the Chinese | government's (public) timeline for COVID's spread admits of the | possibility of contamination. | | I don't think that completely deflates the evidence here. But as | a layperson, I would like to understand the probability of | happening to find COVID in an Antarctic soil sample in 2019 | versus the probability that someone accidentally contaminated the | sample with early samples in early 2020. Put another way: my | (lay) intuition doesn't understand why there would be COVID in | Antarctic soil, whereas it _does_ understand how contamination | might happen in a lab that was actively processing samples of | COVID. | | [1]: https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1491297806115807233 | slt2021 wrote: | covid may have leaked from Wuhan, but the origins of research | have started in the US in UNC-Chapel Hill where there is | Biosafety Level 3 high security virology lab. | | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02903-x | | The gain of function for coronaviruses has been successful in | UNC-Chapel Hill as of 2015 when other researchers raised alarms | that this research is extremely dangerous and US government | pulled funding out of this research. | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787 | | After public funding for corononavirus Gain of Function research | disappeared, UNC's visiting researchers, scholars, postdocs went | back to Wuhan to continue research at Virology Institute. | | And the rest is history. | ea550ff70a wrote: | wild stuff | russellbeattie wrote: | Two hour old account posting crazy right wing propaganda to HN? | Why aren't these insta flagged? And wow, sensible comments are | already greyed out. Is HN getting brigaded? | cap10morgan wrote: | I would encourage folks to listen to this podcast episode from | April 2020 for some background on how the virus itself can carry | detectable earmarks of being natural or lab-grown and what we see | in SARS-CoV-2 based on that: | | https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/dvheexn/coronavirus... | | Gives you some good additional questions to ask when reports like | this come out. | frabcus wrote: | Link to the study: | https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1330800/v1 | | Found via: https://biotechnews.net/2022/02/09/antarctic-soil- | sample-fro... | DantesKite wrote: | Regardless of where your opinion stands, the way the Chinese | government, WHO scientists, and even some American scientists | handled (and continue to handle) the search for the origin of | Covid is despicable. | | Contrast to the incredible lab work of African scientists when | Omicron first came out. | mistrial9 wrote: | contrast to Ebola, too | munk-a wrote: | > Contrast to the incredible lab work of African scientists | when Omicron first came out. | | And yet, if hindsight is 20/20 those South African scientists | probably should have kept their mouth shut since the entire | world (briefly, I'll grant) responded to the open sharing of | information by essentially embargoing the country - while China | remained in a pretty positive light through early COVID | receiving praise for aggressive lock downs and quickly produced | procedures to help try and stem the spread of "the disease that | just happened to hit them first". | | You can say that one of those parties acted in a way we'd like | to see more of in the future - but the world's reaction | rewarded (or was neutral at least) China and punished South | Africa. It sucks but it's true. | jlmorton wrote: | I'm not sure I understand how to contrast the two things. They | are entirely unrelated. | major505 wrote: | Maybe if they had taken the correct measures in the beggining, | it would never turned into this cluesterfuck. China will be | accounted one day for this. | chrischen wrote: | You make it sound like the spread of covid could have been | avoided. Only some island nations managed to prevent the | spread and even then they are merely delaying the inevitable. | major505 wrote: | Mabybe, When SARS break into Asia, WHO recommended closure | of all airports and the governments instituted quarantine | into the region. If the Chinese government did not tried to | hide covid from the world, maybe it could be contianed in a | smaller region. Maybe. | KennyBlanken wrote: | And if the work prior administrations had done on disease | surveillance and assistance to other countries in handling | outbreaks hadn't been ripped apart, that would have helped as | well. | | Lot of folks to blame. | jjulius wrote: | >China will be accounted one day for this. | | Boy, have I got a bridge to sell ya. | jlmorton wrote: | Covid was already in Europe by December 27th, 2019. The | pathogen was first noticed in China on December 29th, 2019, | with a few dozen patients hospitalized in Wuhan presenting | with pneumonia, during peak flu season. China notified the | WHO of a pneumonia of unknown cause on December 31st, 2019. | | One week before, there were only a few hospitalized patients. | | With a few dozen hospitalized patients, you would expect | perhaps several hundred patients infected, many asymptomatic, | and many with mild symptoms. | | Please explain what you would have done to prevent the spread | of Covid given these facts, how the virus could have been | detected earlier, and what reasonable steps could have | prevented global transmission. | | We now know that Covid was likely transmitting in China by | mid-November 2019, and the earliest case dates to Dec 8. But | it's not very easy to identify a novel pathogen when there | are single digit numbers of patients presenting with flu-like | symptoms during peak flu season. | rbut wrote: | The leaked DARPA report confirms that it was a lab leak from | Wuhan. Why is this report ignored by the media? Am I missing | something? | arcticbull wrote: | This is a really polarizing theory for a lot of folks, but it's | completely precedented. SARS-CoV-1 leaked out of [edit](three | separate labs (one in China, one in Singapore and one in Taiwan)) | in the early 2000s - and these leaks were acknowledged by their | respective governments, including the PRC. [1] And a whole bunch | of other diseases from a whole bunch of other labs over like a | hundred years. [2] | | It could have happened. I'm not sure it did, but it certainly | could have. This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it | shouldn't ever have been treated as such. | | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/ | | [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... | pageandrew wrote: | Mere weeks after Covid-19 arrived on our shores, nearly every | media, social media, and scientific establishment were in | lockstep denouncing the "fringe", "far-right" lab leak theory, | and suppressing it as best they could (Twitter banned people | for posting about it in 2020). Not only was it fringe, it was | racist too! Before any real, thorough research had been done, | they stated with certainty that it definitely _did not_ come | from the lab. How could they know so quickly? | | Its scary to see how quickly our formerly respected | institutions were to suppress a legitimate inquiry, simply | because... why? It was associated with Trump? It offended | China? | | Anyone who argues for more social media censorship needs to | look long and hard at the lab leak theory and how it was | handled. These corporate giants that are supposed to be the | arbiters of what constitutes misinformation got it wrong, and | they got it spectacularly wrong. They got it wrong to the | detriment of people who want to know what really happened, and | they got it wrong in favor of America's greatest adversary. | KennyBlanken wrote: | It was denounced because at the time there wasn't any | evidence, mostly racism (see: "kung flu"); the accusation was | rooted solely in a desire to rile up the president's base. It | generated substantial harassment and violence against anyone | who even appeared to be of Chinese descent, another reason it | was denounced; not because of some vast media conspiracy. | camjohnson26 wrote: | One reason could be because some of the people responsible | for researching origins were personally involved in funding | gain of function research in these labs. Some scientists | privately supported the lab leak theory, but they abruptly | changed their minds for unknown reasons. https://republicans- | oversight.house.gov/release/comer-scalis... | munk-a wrote: | > Its scary to see how quickly our formerly respected | institutions were to suppress a legitimate inquiry, simply | because... why? It was associated with Trump? It offended | China? | | Because it immediately led to an increase in anti-asian hate | crimes. That included effecting Chinese-Americans who have | literally never been to China and south east asians that were | mistaken as Chinese. | | It is difficult to have a nuanced discussion about lab safety | in the public view when there's a big chunk of the political | sphere that will use it to rile up their base. It sucks that | censorship is the better option but we've learned from 9/11 | that people are anything but reasonable - I had wealthy | middle eastern neighbors who fled the country within a week | of the attacks and, after everything that came from 9/11, it | seems like they made the right decision. | manuelabeledo wrote: | > Not only was it fringe, it was racist too! | | It wasn't "racist" per se, but it was subsequently used as an | ideological weapon. | | There was a clear consequence of tying COVID-19 with some | sort of WMD released by the Chinese, and it was the increase | in violence against AAPI folks. | jcims wrote: | Alex Jones' counter-influential powers on one 'side' appear | to be substantially greater than his influential pull on the | other. | mbostleman wrote: | Considering whether it is polarizing or a crackpot theory would | be an ad hominem fallacy anyway right? | nicoburns wrote: | > This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't | ever have been treated as such. | | I agree. I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of | the early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked _on | purpose_ , which strays well into conspiracy theory territory. | dnautics wrote: | You could say that but, based on some revealed communications | it also _feels_ (we can never truly know what was in their | heads) like there was a concerted effort by denouncers of the | lab leak theory to conflate lab leaks with purposeful leaks | to _discredit_ the lab leak theory. | timr wrote: | > I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of the | early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked on | purpose, which strays well into conspiracy theory territory. | | Maybe, but the early communication allowed for no dissent: | | https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6. | .. | | > The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this | outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and | misinformation around its origins. We stand together to | strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 | does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple | countries have published and analysed genomes of the | causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome | coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude | that this coronavirus originated in wildlife | | > Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, | and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the | fight against this virus. | | That's not ambiguous language. Pretty much a blatant slamming | of the door on all non-natural theories of origin. Anything | else was labeled "conspiracy" at a very early stage. | ipaddr wrote: | I remember when it was racist to say it came from China and | to wear a mask. | yebyen wrote: | When it was racist to wear a mask? Have to admit that's a | new one for me. | MathCodeLove wrote: | There are still plenty of people who will accuse you of | sinophobia if you dare acknowledge the ongoing genocide | happening in China. | btgeekboy wrote: | I'm totally open to the idea that it was a lab leak of some | sort. What I'm opposed to is certain political figures | presenting that theory as fact, without evidence, for political | gain at the expense of an entire race of people. | innocentoldguy wrote: | The CCP isn't a "race of people" any more than the federal | government is. I could be wrong, but I don't remember a | single accusation being leveled at Asians. I do recall a lot | of accusations being leveled at the CCP and also the US | federal government though. | woodruffw wrote: | The CCP is not a race. But everyday Asian Americans (not | just Chinese, mind you) have seen a _staggering_ rise[1] in | racially motivated crimes because of baseless and | intrinsically racist assumptions about their role in | COVID[1]. It is difficult to square the latter statistic | with claims that our political leaders _didn 't_ levy blame | at their expense, particularly given their own words[2]. | | [1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian- | hate-c... | | [2]: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps- | chinese-viru... | orhmeh09 wrote: | Is there any more evidence that it originated at a lab in Wuhan | and not at Fort Detrick, MD, as some Chinese say? | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322 | phyalow wrote: | To get a comprhensive and upto date overview for the lab leak | theory and its evidence I would recommend reading the | following four long form articles in order (primarily to get | good context on how the narriative has evolved). | | As background: | | [1] Jan 2021 - Intelligencer: | https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab- | esca... | | [2] June 2021 - Vanity Fair: | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak- | theory-... | | [3] Oct 2021 - New Yorker: | https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious- | ca... | | [4] Feb 2022 - Inference Review https://inference- | review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china | ceejayoz wrote: | A known, actively-studied virus leaking out of a lab is | precedented, sure. Mistakes happen. | | A novel one leaking out is a bit different. | pvg wrote: | SARS-CoV-1 was not a novel virus, these were lab accidents that | happened after the initial outbreak which was unrelated to | labs. Obviously, it's not impossible for an outbreak involving | a novel virus to to happen because of a lab leak but | 'completely precedented' doesn't sound quite right - you're | equating two fairly different _kinds_ of event. | tcmart14 wrote: | This is where unfortunately the mass public messes things up. | There lots of possibilities that exist as to the origins of | COVID. However, everyone I know who thought lab leak was | possible, also thought it could only be lab leak and accepted | that based on little to no evidence. They themselves rejected | that any other origin was possible. The same is said of animal | origins. Essentially people picked sides with lack of evidence | for whatever their popular theory is. So what we are left with | is two sides who point at the other for being the bad guy while | doing the same bad thing they accuse the other of. | barbazoo wrote: | I remember at the very beginning people jumping from the fact | that there is a lab in Wuhan to the conclusion that it must | have come from there which is different than what's happening | nowadays where it's a theory based on data or am I looking at | this wrong? | | In the beginning it had a very xenophobic after taste, at least | what laypeople were sharing on social media. | | To be clear, I don't care much if it came from a lab. I'd | probably even prefer it at least then we can do something about | it and avoid it going forward rather than this being a random | nature thing that could happen again at any time. | ipaddr wrote: | It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many | people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. The message was | designed to make you feel that way. | woodruffw wrote: | > It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many | people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. | | You don't remember when the sitting president called it | "kung flu"[1]? I don't need a newspaper to see the | xenophobia in that. | | [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436 | beebmam wrote: | It matters that the Chinese government is actively trying to | prevent any third-party investigation into the origins of the | SARS-CoV-2 virus | axlee wrote: | The theory was not "crackpot", but it was asserted with 0 | evidence back then. The evidence is judged, not the theory | itself. | throwaway894345 wrote: | At t=0, none of the theories had any evidence. That's cause | for _investigation_ , not _derision_. | csdvrx wrote: | In the news today: scientists say they are totally not at | fault when a lab-grown virus escapes from a science lab! When | asked for how it could happen then, they said "Oh no no no | no, it must be some people, uh... COOKING AND EATING BATS! | Yeah! It must be the cooks, or the patrons, or someone else, | BUT TOTALLY NOT US, because, uh, there's a market right by | our lab!" | | Just for the lolz I would have asked if they are frequent | patrons :) | | IDK, but I tend to apply Occam's to the theory, and to me, | the alternative theory looked a _LOT_ more crackpot-ish... | orangecat wrote: | The first outbreak being down the street from the Wuhan | virology lab is in fact evidence. Not conclusive by any | means, but it's an event that is more likely to occur if the | lab leak theory is true than if it's false. | hartator wrote: | > it was asserted with 0 evidence back then | | The bat theory was asserted with way more force at the time | with even less evidence. | dnautics wrote: | I think you mean wet market theory. This is true, but at | least there was a "high bayesian prior" due to that being | how it happened in the past. Nonetheless the wet market | proponents were irresponsibly aggressive in their | forcefulness. | snowgrove wrote: | As other commenters mentioned there was a "high Bayesian | prior" for lab leaks, too. | matthewdgreen wrote: | All of the previous lab leaks were of known viruses that | had previously spilled over into humans via natural | processes, then were collected and later leaked out | (again). I'm not aware of any truly novel viruses that | spilled into humans through a lab leak. Are there any | examples? | timr wrote: | > This is true, but at least there was a "high bayesian | prior" due to that being how it happened in the past. | | I'm not an expert in the history of viral origin stories, | but I'm pretty informed, and I'm not aware of any | documented examples of pathogens emerging from public | markets. | | To be clear, I'm aware of lots of examples _associated | with_ pig and chicken farms, and several viruses that are | _presumed_ to have emerged from various kinds of "bush | meat" (monkeys, guinea pigs, deer), but even these are | pretty much correlative lines of evidence. A documented | case of a virus emerging from a wet market? No. Moreover, | if you've been to one of these things, it's pretty | implausible as the source of a respiratory virus. They're | usually outdoors, or in vast spaces. | | The evidence for the wet-market theory has always felt | like one of those things that "scientists just | know"...until it turns out they were repeating apocryphal | stories to each other. This happens far more often than | scientists care to admit. | api wrote: | It was also damaged by the fact that a bunch of true | crackpots asserted that COVID-19 was a _bio-weapon_ released | by either the Chinese or the US Military. There is zero | evidence for that, and it makes no sense. | | I heard someone once describe that kind of germ warfare as | "attempting to use a grenade as a handgun." Yes it hurts your | opponent, but... | | Someone will bring up the fact that China seems (if you buy | their numbers) to have had good success containing COVID, but | the thing is: there's no way they could have known this would | be the case. What if they released it on purpose and their | containment efforts failed? What if it mutated into something | 5X as deadly and 100X as contagious? Viruses don't take | loyalty oaths. | | Also: the global recession it caused probably did not do | China any good in terms of net economic growth. | | Also also: why would China release it inside their own | country? Why not drop it in some random airport somewhere? If | they really wanted to target the USA the thing to do would | have been to drop it in Bethesda, Maryland and then spread a | lot of anti-US conspiracy theories. | | Lots of reasons it would have been a stupid idea to release | it on purpose. China's leadership might be evil in some ways | but they're not stupid or careless. | ethanbond wrote: | Yep, one of the confounding factors of this whole | conversation is that there have always been several | theories under the heading "lab leak." Some of which were | completely plausible (though had little to no _evidence_ ) | and some of which were 10 layers deep in actual | conspiratorial lunacy (also with similar amounts of | evidence). | ksaj wrote: | There is precedence for this, too. Still is, although we | currently don't use the same terminology as we did during | the cold war. You could argue that terrorists who strap | themselves into bomb jackets also demonstrate this, and | I've heard the acceptance of "collateral damage" thrown | around as yet another aspect of it. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage | dghlsakjg wrote: | I think that there is sleight of hand in a lot of these | politicized arguments. People are conflating a lab leak with | being developed in the lab. | | There's plenty of precedent for lab leaks. What the conspiracy | theorists are lumping it into is that it was created AND | leaked. See Rand Paul and his whole Fauci interrogation | soperj wrote: | The reasons it was are very obvious, when you had Donald Trump | consistently making it a political issue to further his re- | election. | rbanffy wrote: | Particularly serious is trying to confuse a possible lab | accident with a deliberate weaponization of a virus. | nxmnxm99 wrote: | And the other side calling anyone suggesting a lab leak a | right wing conspiracy nut wasn't politicizing it? | sorry_outta_gas wrote: | tbh it went both ways | twofornone wrote: | Was Trump the one making it political? Or were his opponents | making it political by using it as a cheap excuse to accuse | him of racism/xenophobia, as they did when he suggested a | travel ban in March while democratic senators were explicitly | encouraging citizens to visit their local chinatowns? | mikeyouse wrote: | The amount of retconning that's being attempted to shore up | how dismal of a response Trump's administration had to | Covid is something to behold. People were calling trump | racist/xenophobic because he was calling it the china virus | and the kung flu while lying about his travel 'ban' and | lying about Pelosi visiting Chinatown.. | | https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-claims- | about-... | | https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps- | travel... | tiahura wrote: | Joe Biden and the democrats strongly supported Xi's ascent. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQaBdlu4rL4 | | So, I'd say that this actually wasn't an example of TDS the | left really supports Xi and China. | stjohnswarts wrote: | It should be treated as fringe until there is some proof. | Initially Trump and the other fringe were claiming almost | immediately it was a lab accident (or even intentional) before | there was ANY proof at all. Don't do that if you want people to | take you seriously. | bsimpson wrote: | I hadn't realized how dogmatic so many people are about | "believe science" until the pandemic. It's mildly terrifying. | | It also spills over into other domains. If people feel they | aren't allowed to be curious or skeptical about the origins of | CoV2, how are they going to feel when you tell them manmade | global warming is "settled science"? | | Curiosity is what fuels life. It's not healthy for us or for | our discourse to suppress it. | adventured wrote: | It's of course not: believe science. | | It's: obey authority. That's what they really mean when they | say it. It's philosophically very wide, it represents a much | broader spectrum for the person using it than just science. | What you're witnessing is a coward's soul laid bare, when you | witness someone shut down discussion with bumper sticker | regurgitations. | | When you read the history of any given authoritarian regime | of more recent times, there is a large fraction of the | general population that tremendously assists the monsters | into coming to power, through endless acquiescing. They're | the gray moralists, the fence sitters: who am I to have a | brain, who am I to have an opinion, little me, who am I to do | anything, who am I to hold an opinion separate from such and | such important person, I do what I'm told when I'm told | without asking questions. They're zombies and they're | terrifying to observe in action. | dghlsakjg wrote: | Except it's not the introspective people that have nuanced | opinions driving this. Right now (on the right and the | left) it is being driven by people with absolutist opinions | based on contempt for authority and facts. | AYBABTME wrote: | I think calling them cowards is wrong. These people | probably are just as spread out on the anti-authority front | as any other group. They just appeal to different | authorities, and in this case the Gentile Society's | authorities were saying that a lab leak is unacceptable | belief. | | Also at the time, there was huge reactionary responses to | Trumpism, BLM was in full fling, and there wasn't much | mental space (and time) left for most people to make clear | informed decisions. The trustworthy-looking authorities | were saying it's not a leak... and wink-wink if you think | it is, you're a Trump supporter. | | Now that US internal politics is a lot less saturated with | crazy stuff, it seems like there's more breathing room for | people to sit back and requestion their prior beliefs. And | the audience is more receptive, more ready to hear, less | occupied with anti-Trumpism. | manuelabeledo wrote: | While I agree that dogmatic belief is not a good outlook for | progress, here we should be talking about the alternatives. | | And the alternative to a supposed "scientific belief" is | "wishful thinking". | cdot2 wrote: | This is called a strawman | derefr wrote: | To be clear, we're talking here about the general category | of "things stated by scientists", not the more specific | "things stated by scientists _about_ the findings of the | scientific process. " Many people conflate the both of | these as "trusting science" -- and that's a problem. | | You can believe in scientists' claims about what scientific | studies say/mean, or about what the scientific consensus on | a question is -- without believing any random claim a group | of scientists makes about any random subject. | | Specifically, there is strong reason to treat scientists as | just like any other group of people, where claims about | _how the work of science gets done_ (e.g. whether it 's | possible for a lab to have an accident resulting in a leak) | are concerned. | jessaustin wrote: | You suggest a terrible alternative. Much better would be | "believe nothing". | manuelabeledo wrote: | It is terrible, but it is what we are looking at. | | It would be naive to believe that every single person out | there is equipped with the knowledge and the critical | thinking skills to discern between good and bad | information, thus it would be vastly preferable that | people trust science. | malkia wrote: | Yeah, I get it. What I don't get is flat-earthers... | swayvil wrote: | They obviously don't listen to the right priests or | scientists. Or subscribe to the right YouTube channels. | | Maybe they suffer from a deficiency of midichlorions. | swayvil wrote: | Zombie apocalypse 24-7 forever. That's how it is. Not to | sound nihilistic or anything. | upsidesinclude wrote: | I contend that the large majority were not so dogmatic, | rather a concentrated effort was made insisting that to do | otherwise was shameful. The wild elevation of an institute | director to public spokesperson further muddied that water. | Anthony Fauci's absolute unwavering denial of any possibility | that doesn't suit or credit his policies has cost the US | greatly and by extension the world | ipaddr wrote: | Settled science isn't science it's religion and politics. | Many things get super seeded by new theories. Even the number | of planets in our solar system has changed a number of times. | syshum wrote: | I am sorry Pluto is a Plant, it is Settled Science... ;) | SllX wrote: | Biggest plant in the solar system. I wouldn't trust | whoever planted it. | svaha1728 wrote: | Also a Disney character... | javajosh wrote: | Agree, and take it further. This insight should be the | centerpiece of the next generation of suggestion algorithms! | The truly science-minded adult _should be actively seeking | data that disproves their currently held beliefs_. This does | not mean, however, that you must endure endless, pointless | flat earth screeds; ideally you should be able to take | individual claims and mark them "settled", a state that can | only be invalidated by the output of a new, concrete | experiment. | | I bought the book The Skeptical Environmentalist, for just | this reason. I love hearing dissenting opinions from people | who aren't a PR firm flunky. Bjorn Lomborg was and is paying | a high price for his honest heterodoxy, and the least we can | do is listen and not lump him in with the self-serving, lying | Koch brother funded PR machine. That effort is driven by the | psychological requirement of emotionally manipulating people | to your side, not by an intellectually honest questioning of | "common sense", and it's a real shame the two get confused. | syki wrote: | Regardless of whether or the corona virus was a lab leak several | things are certain. A moderately lethal virus that is highly | transmissible can be created in a lab and those nations with this | capability now know what the effect of releasing such a virus | will have on a country. As biological knowledge and capabilities | increase the purposeful release of a virus becomes more | realistic. | | Warfare between advanced countries has changed the last decade or | so. Cyber warfare, disinformation, fomenting dissent, and | creating biological threats are much easier and more disrupting | now. It does not require bombs and bullets to bring an advanced | nation to its knees. | ceejayoz wrote: | > A moderately lethal virus that is highly transmissible can be | created in a lab and those nations with this capability now | know what the effect of releasing such a virus will have on a | country. | | It has also demonstrated the connectedness of the supply chain | and the fundamental impossibility of safe biological warfare. | Even the countries that tackled COVID effectively still saw an | enormous social and economic hit. Barring pre-vaccinating your | own population before releasing it, I guess, but that invites | nukes lobbed your way when the rest of the world figures it | out. | | I'm more worried about bioterrorism than nation states being | dumb enough to use it. | verve_rat wrote: | Yeah. My take away from all this is that New Zealand might be | the only country in the world that has even a small chance of | engaging in bio-warfare without foot gunning itself. | | It is just all round a bad idea. | MengerSponge wrote: | The thing that's so frustrating about this is how some hyper- | partisan hacks poisoned the whole damn line of questioning by | conflating weaponized/deliberate release with "laboratory | accident". SMH my head. | whiddershins wrote: | It is _completely inconsistent_ to think a political structure | that would put a million people in forced work camps would | never ever do something like this deliberately, or cover up an | accident. | | Calling people partisan hacks for mentioning that does nothing | to surface truth. | munk-a wrote: | I actually do find it extremely hard to believe that even the | Chinese government would be able to internally formulate a | plan to intentionally release a virus without droves of | bureaucrats coming out as vocal whistleblowers. When you have | a large organization (especially one as large as the Chinese | government) you're going to have some actors with strong | ethical beliefs. Deciding to take this course of action (for | some reason whatever it may be) and then actually | implementing this action would be incredibly difficult. | | Silencing discussion about an accidental release is in a | completely different ballpark where you're working to (in | your view) prevent harm - not cause it. The intentional | weaponized release angle of lab-leak entirely preempted any | reasonable discussion on the matter. | echelon wrote: | This shouldn't be a political issue. If viruses that kill | millions are leaking out of labs, we need to know about it so | that we can put a stop to it. | | Nothing political about it. | | Even if a lab leak doesn't turn out to be the cause, which I | fully grant as a possibility, the censorship and political | correctness of scientists, policy makers, and journalists are | antithetical to the core scientific process and root cause | analysis that would save lives and prevent future mishaps. | odiroot wrote: | > Nothing political about it. | | It's not only about politics but also about money. | | If it came out, with certainty, that some lab worker messed up, | it could lead to further moratorium on virus research. The | grants would be cut, money would stop flowing. Some people's | wealth depends on that money not stopping. | webwielder2 wrote: | Literally everything is political at some level and always has | been. | cpsns wrote: | No it isn't and I'm tired of being told to pretend it is. I | do things daily which are in no way political, all people do. | SkyPuncher wrote: | What's something you think isn't political? | | ----- | | In my opinion, politics is in everything because it's | simply the word used for how societies (on all scales) | decide how to operate. Everything we interact with has been | influenced by politics. | | Luckily, in much of the first world, we no longer debate | the politics of most things. | jjulius wrote: | > _Literally everything_ is political at some level and | always has been. | | The Big Bang was political before humans even evolved? | ryeights wrote: | > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation | of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to | criticize. Assume good faith. | | Everything _involving people_ | Johnny555 wrote: | If a government accidentally killed millions of people across | the globe, how is that not political? Even a diplomat killing | someone in a car accident causes a political incident, I don't | see how you could remove political repercussions from an | accident that kills millions. There's little incentive for a | government to admit responsibility and lots of incentive to | hide it. | beebmam wrote: | It is such a shame that the Chinese government has been actively | trying to obscure the origins of this virus from impartial | investigations for the last 2 years. | otrahuevada wrote: | Gotta wonder who's financing this chimeric search for a Chinese | scapegoat and why are those funds not being used in vaccination | campaigns in vulnerable places, where 98% of the actual problem | lays. | | EDIT: Oh noes the "big words hurt my feelings" crowd got to me | what will I ever do | dang wrote: | Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's not | what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We want | _curious_ conversation here. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | windows2020 wrote: | Root cause analysis | fdgsdfogijq wrote: | There's some political piece missing to the whole story of Covid. | From the lab theory suppression, the draconian lockdowns, vaccine | mandates, etc. There are a ton of details that just dont add up. | rcpt wrote: | > These are not from seals or penguins but from African green | monkeys and Chinese hamsters. | | That's two new animals to me in one sentence. | bdcravens wrote: | I have cystic fibrosis, and the Chinese hamster has been used | in quite a bit of CF research and medication production. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9002671/ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornase_alfa | dmix wrote: | I was hoping the monkey would actually be green-ish | | https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=African+green+monkeys&iax=i... | | But then I realized there aren't any green mammals... | | https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1357,0... | actually_a_dog wrote: | Chinese hamsters are actually very common pet animals. | MikeDelta wrote: | Next step is having them featured on the cover of an O'Reilly | book, or as a character in Aggretsuko. | YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: | The best thing coming from all this threads about COVID, masks | and vaxxing. You see that there are idiots on both sides of the | argument even on HN BUT you can be sure that the idiots on HN are | really sure about everything they can google in 20 seconds. | m0llusk wrote: | The most important thing about all of this is the lack of | relevance. Regardless of where the virus came from we have to | deal with it anyway and it is certain that there will be more | viruses including but not limited to coronaviruses spreading | among humans. Being more careful with laboratory work and | processes might be a start, but being truly ready for what we | have every reason to expect means a lot more than that. Looking | backward is not going to get us very far with this problem. We | need to look forward and actually do the work to have processes, | protective gear, and robust care systems in place. | firecall wrote: | I agree with that in many ways. | | However, I cant help but think that we do need to understand | the causes of Covid-19. | | Our society should be able to prevent this kind of thing in | future. Regardless of it's a Lab Leak or Natural Transmission. | | Just moving on and doing better next time isnt the entire | solution. | | All aspects of this Pandemic can be investigated, studied and | learnt from! | | Next time things could be considerably worse! | ohCh6zos wrote: | If we know it came from China we might embargo them for causing | the mass casualties. | verdverm wrote: | It would inform our decision as a society on whether or not to | engage in dangerous virus research. We do RCA in tech to | prevent repeating errors. Why should we not care about this | with the pandemic? | tragictrash wrote: | Consider the source. | | https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-telegraph/ | | Excerpt from the link: | | Bias Rating: RIGHT Factual Reporting: MIXED Country: United | Kingdom (34/180 Press Freedom) Media Type: Newspaper | Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic MBFC Credibility Rating: MEDIUM | CREDIBILITY | | They want you to read their paper, not to inform you. Should be | no supprise they are posting polarizing statements with little to | no proof. | | Personally, I believe the lab leak is plausible. Doesn't make the | paper a good source of info. | inglor_cz wrote: | What makes "mediabiasfactcheck" a more credible source of info | than the outlets it is labeling, judging and sorting into | categories? Is the founder Dave Van Zandt a famously reliable, | neutral, fair person? | | If the Daily Telegraph says that "mediabiasfactcheck" has a | mostly Clown bias with Medium Rare Credibility, will you | consider such ranking equally reliable? | rcpt wrote: | Just read the Twitter they're citing | | https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1491297779855278082?t=... | | probably the url should be replaced with that anyway | ImaCake wrote: | Thanks, that twitter thread actually makes sense, unlike the | telegraph article. The conclusion seems to be that we need a | timestamp on when these samples were sequenced. If in Jan | 2020 it is fine, if its in 2019 it catches the Chinese Gov in | a lie. The sequences themselves are not unusual for early | COVID and have been seen before, but the context of human | cell lines suggests they were being cultured. | | So, no conclusive evidence of lab leak without a known | timestamp we don't have. The telegraph is editorialising for | clicks. | [deleted] | CountDrewku wrote: | adriancr wrote: | You can find the research being reported on, just a quick | google away. | | Here you go: | https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1330800/v1 | dang wrote: | On HN, we go by article quality, not site quality [1]. Most | major sites produce a lot of bad articles and a few good ones. | Because we're trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity | [2], it's important to let the good ones through while weeding | out the bad ones (or at least try to). It's also increasingly | the case that certain classes of article are limited to certain | classes of publication--because each publication excludes what | doesn't match its ideological coloring. This isn't a great | development--it would be better to have more neutral sources-- | but that's increasingly where we find ourselves. Since | intellectual curiosity is (almost by definition) not primarily | an ideological emotion, it follows that we should try to stay | open regardless of the coloring of the source. That doesn't | mean trusting it, of course--only considering it. | | One of the criteria we apply in cases like this, especially | when it's a major ongoing topic like this one, is whether the | article contains significant new information [3]. That's | generally a better lens to look at these things through. | | [1] | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... | | [2] | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... | | [3] | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... | inglor_cz wrote: | Your patience, Dang, is admirable. You might be the only | force that prevents HN from going feral, Reddit-style. | dang wrote: | That's flattering! but by far the strongest force is that | most of the community wants HN to remain a site for | intellectual curiosity. If that weren't true, it would be a | lost cause; but because it is true, I feel empowered to | make posts that represent that point of view. | tragictrash wrote: | Woah! I didn't expect a response from dang! | | I think this article is light on facts and high on | sensationalism, making it a poor quality article that does | more harm than good. | | Re reading my comment, I see how I failed to communicate that | and focused more on the source than the paper. | | I will keep this in mind in the future, thank you. | dang wrote: | Thanks for the kind reply. It doesn't always turn out that | way :) | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | Oh no... Quick, release the fact checkers! | CountDrewku wrote: | jasonhansel wrote: | > If it was sequenced in early 2020, it may have been | contaminated from experiments carried out by researchers trying | to learn more about the emerging virus. | | That seems like--by far--the most probable explanation. | | I'm not even sure if it would need to have been researchers | studying Covid--it could just have been that the technician | handling the samples was infected and contaminated the samples | accidentally, or that the equipment had previously been used with | samples unknowingly contaminated with Covid. | | In fact, that could have been the case even if it was sequenced | in December 2019, since Covid was already spreading in the | population at that time. | actually_a_dog wrote: | Yes, and that's supported (albeit weakly) by the fact that 3 | researchers at the Wuhan lab became sick with flu-like symptoms | in November 2019: | https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210524/wuhan-lab-researche... | [deleted] | api wrote: | Here's what I wonder: what if the people associated with the | Wuhan lab don't even know if it was a lab leak? What if they | couldn't even prove it was if it was, or vice versa? | | That could explain a rush to downplay a lab leak too. It | wouldn't be "oh crap we leaked a deadly virus." It would be "oh | crap... wait... did we leak a deadly virus? this looks like | maybe something from our lab but... hmm... shit... we have to | stop people from speculating until we figure out what the hell | just happened..." followed by over a year of them quietly | attempting to figure out what happened and not being sure | because there is no clear smoking gun for any theory. | | Of course that's almost scarier: the idea that we are doing GOF | research that's dangerous in such a way that it could blow up | in our faces without us really understanding what happened. | ratg13 wrote: | RATG13 was sequenced in 2018. The only place this virus was | emerging, was in a lab. | | Even if this were true and they were studying covid post- | outbreak, where did all of their samples of these precursor | viruses go? And why are they covering them up? | derbOac wrote: | The idea that in 2020 maybe they were continuing to conduct | GOF research on SARS-CoV-2, with everything going on, and | then being so sloppy as to infect antarctic soil samples is | better... I guess? | | I'd think the nature of the three mutations in between | circulating virus and bat coronavirus maybe lowers the odds | of it being postpandemic but maybe not. | ratg13 wrote: | I am not implying GOF at all, please don't twist my words. | | I am merely pointing out that if you were to study the | virus after it emerged, you would be studying SarsCoV2. | | If the lab were working with a precursor to the virus (in | any fashion), it is perfectly reasonable to question where | that sample came from. | ImaCake wrote: | Does your single-issue account mean to suggest that | sequencing a close-ish relative of COVID in 2018 means they | were growing it in a lab? I can't think of a good explanation | that would link sequencing to lab experiments. | | RATG13 is 96% similar to Sars-cov-2 which means there is a | staggering 1200 mutations between them. For reference, Delta | and Omicron are both about 40-70 mutations away from OG Sars- | COV-2. And that's after 2 very good years for Sars-COV-2 | evolution! | lamontcg wrote: | RaTG13 is decades of evolution away from SARS-CoV-2. You | don't get from RaTG13 in 2018 to SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 in a | lab or in nature. You don't get that from serial passage and | you don't get that from gain of function in a lab, or any | kind of lab created chimera. You get it from serial passage | over decades of time through probably hundreds of millions of | animals in a natural gain of function experiment. | mbostleman wrote: | What exactly is the problem if it were created in a lab. Why are | some people so hellbent on refusing to consider the possibility? | ratg13 wrote: | > _The Hungarian team say that when it first pointed out the | discrepancy in the sequencing data, the samples were immediately | removed from the genetic database by the Chinese, although have | since been restored._ | | The Chinese repeatedly deleting data from shared databases is one | of the craziest parts of the pandemic timeline. | | If they want the world to believe they are not responsible, they | are doing a terrible job. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-09 23:00 UTC)