[HN Gopher] Book Review: "Viral" by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley
___________________________________________________________________
Book Review: "Viral" by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley
Author : feross
Score : 327 points
Date : 2022-01-02 00:48 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (scottaaronson.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (scottaaronson.blog)
| themgt wrote:
| The movie "Don't Look Up" but the asteroid scientists funded by
| NASA create an artificial black hole to pull asteroids towards
| Earth with sophisticated "gain of destruction" methodology - how
| better to study the potential civilization-ending power of
| asteroids?
|
| When an asteroid appears from out of nowhere right near the Wuhan
| Black Hole and on course to kill us all, head scientist DiCaprio
| dedicates himself to leading the effort to label anyone
| questioning the natural origins of the asteroid's planet-killing
| trajectory a conspiracy theorist, and almost everyone goes along
| and gets those people banned from the internet. The end.
| perihelions wrote:
| Carl Sagan expressed essentially the same idea in 1994 -- that
| the development of asteroid-deflecting *nuclear weapons* would
| be more likely to destroy the world than to save it. That the
| baseline risk of major asteroid impacts is low enough, that the
| threat of asteroid-deflecting technology being turned into a
| weapon -- a loose analogy to "gain-of-function" research, I
| guess -- is more probable than the natural threat it defends
| against.
|
| > _" In our view, development of this asteroid-deflection
| technology would be premature. Given twentieth-century history
| and present global politics, it is hard to imagine guarantees
| against eventual misuse of an asteroid deflection system
| commensurate with the dangers such a system poses. Those who
| argue that it would be prudent to prevent catastrophic impacts
| with annual probabilities of 10^-5 would surely recognize the
| prudence of preventing more probable catastrophes of comparable
| magnitude from misuse of potentially apocalyptic technology._"
|
| https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/368501a0 ( _"
| Dangers of Asteroid Deflection_", Carl Sagan & Steven Ostro)
| retrac wrote:
| > Carl Sagan expressed essentially the same idea in 1994 --
| that the development of asteroid-deflecting _nuclear weapons_
| would be more likely to destroy the world than to save it.
|
| He also talked about this in his book Pale Blue Dot around
| the same time. He found it darkly ironic, I think.
| Technologies like spaceflight and nuclear power and advanced
| biology are necessary for the long-term survival of the human
| species. Yet presently, it seems they are more likely to be
| misapplied and destroy us.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| We're like children building our own electrical outlets
| without a parent to stop us from sticking a fork in them.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Knowing the lab origin of the virus wouldn't have saved us from
| the virus though.
| telesilla wrote:
| We watched this over the weekend and found it very well written
| given what we're learning about ourselves as a modern race.
| Beautiful ending, also.
| spookybones wrote:
| Having also read this review (
| https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory...
| ), I don't know which review/scenario to trust, and virology is
| well outside my area of expertise.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| For another perspective on this I recommend Peter Daszak etc. in
| the This Week in Virology podcast explaining their efforts to
| trace the origin of COVID19:
|
| https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-760/
|
| A memorable quote is this: When you mix science with politics,
| you get politics.
| tux3 wrote:
| The quote is nice, but if there's any argument to be had I'd
| rather people quote something convincing, not persuasive.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I linked to the full thing for people with a genuine interest
| in the subject. Going into tit for tat would not really be
| helpful nor convince anyone as this is already deeply buried
| in politics.
|
| The people who did the phase 1 report were amongst the best
| in their fields and did a good faith effort. Unfortunately
| people did not like their boring conclusion and prefer
| politics and speculation instead.
| tim333 wrote:
| >When you mix science with politics, you get politics.
|
| True and Daszak has been more guilty of that than most.
| ekianjo wrote:
| The Peter Daszak who was at the origin of the infamous Lancet
| hoax ? That guy has lost any credibility he might have ever
| had.
| christophilus wrote:
| That's a great quote. Reminds me a bit of Munger: "If you mix
| raisins with turds they're still turds."
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| jerome-jh wrote:
| The conclusion "we don't yet live in a post-truth world" is hard
| to swallow, considering two years after the facts there is no
| truth about the origin of the pandemic. The reasons for this lack
| of scientific proof are the subject of the article and the 300
| pages reviewed book. The author is once again lacking courage not
| to admit we do leave in a post-truth world.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Expanding a bit on my comment: truth has not been established,
| that's one thing. The other thing is that there is no
| significant hope that truth is ever established. It is said
| that all the archive of Wuhan's P4 have been destroyed. That
| would not be surprising at all. A large part of the world is
| under very stringent information control, far more stringent
| than in the USSR at any period of time. It combines social
| control, total control over electronic communications, and a
| huge PR influence thanks to a wide spread diaspora. In this
| context truth has become relative.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I'm a flaming liberal but I still thought we should at least
| pursue the lab leak hypothesis for one simple reason. I was a
| scientist and I've seen the lax way people treat biohazardous
| samples and just how fallible humans are.
|
| After going down a long rabbit hole I lean towards non lab leak,
| but if we can't ask questions because of politicization of ideas
| we are done.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Does "flaming liberal" === excusing the CCP's behavior? At
| least in the US, the CCP is condemned by most politicians from
| across the classic liberal-conservative spectrum.
| haswell wrote:
| I'm curious how/why being a "flaming liberal" would ever lead
| to "excusing the CCP's behavior"?
| ralmidani wrote:
| It shouldn't. That's why I asked the question.
| labster wrote:
| Trump started calling it the Chee-I-na virus early on in a
| blatant move to justify his trade war, nationalism, and anti-
| intellectualism. This caused liberals to reflexively reject
| the lab leak theory in the US. At that time, it didn't matter
| where it came from, people just had to wear a goddamn mask,
| which Trump didn't want, he just wanted points.
|
| But it's okay that we were all wrong for a couple years: what
| we need to prevent is the next pandemic.
| sriram_malhar wrote:
| Nope. It is not a given that liberals "reflexively" do the
| opposite of Trump. There's a huge shared overlap about a
| distrust of China. I know that I rejected the lab leak
| theory because of WHO's press release and articles on
| foreignpolicy.com, but at that time I didn't know about the
| conflict of interest.
| [deleted]
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| No I despise the stifling of human freedom caused by the
| Chinese government.
| suction wrote:
| "Liberal" in the US policy-wise is extremely conservative in
| most Western European countries, for example Merkel's party
| CDU is a "right of center conservative" party in Germany but
| would be far left in the US. Maybe it's not comparable,
| coming to think of it, because morals and values are so
| extremely different in Europe and the US.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The CDU has very similar policies to Democrats. They would
| be completely within the overton window here.
| explodingcamera wrote:
| I don't know why people keep saying this, but there's no
| way in hell the CDU is far left. The CDU is a historically
| conservative center to slightly right party, and if they
| didn't need the votes, the current politicians in charge
| would go further to the right. A couple of years ago, the
| CDU lost many voters to the AFD, which is a far right
| extremist party, and many CDU politicians still sympathize
| with them, while no other party in Germany collaborates
| with the AFD. Getting pro gay, trans, and abortion laws
| through was hell with the CDU in power.
| reactor4 wrote:
| [...] would be far left in the US.
| rvba wrote:
| It is very obvious that "gain of function" research described
| here is basally manufacturing biological weapons, but
| supposedly this is done "the good of all humans" what is just
| another communist party slogan.
|
| Where are the vaccines or medicine invented by this facility?
|
| I can understand storing and analyzing the viruses. Yet gain of
| function is basically bioweapon research. How is this even
| allowed when it breaks bioweapon conventions?
|
| Also isnt the famous wet market in Wuhan like 300 yards from
| the Chinese center for disease and control building? (Not to be
| confused with other buildings in same town).
| forgotmyoldname wrote:
| > but supposedly this is done "the good of all humans" what
| is just another communist party slogan.
|
| Keep in mind research done there was an international effort.
| Some things being strongly funded and supported mostly be
| other countries.
| rvba wrote:
| International effort or not, still a biological weapon.
|
| It looks that China was collecting viruses (what makes a
| lot of sense) + also cooking some biological weapons on the
| side. They didnt call it "biological weapon production",
| they called it "gain of function research", but it is still
| the same thing.
|
| USA paid some money to be able to access this data (makes
| sense, the more data you have, the better) + probably they
| wanted to spy on the Chinese to see what is happening.
| Unfortunately they send people such as Daszak, who in my
| opinion looks like a Chinese double-agent, or someone
| bribed by China to be their mouth-piece.
|
| Still we are moving away from the discussion: this
| "research" is basically against Biological Research
| Convention (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Weapons_Convention
| ). And yes, I know that Russia signed the convention but
| does not abide it - they manufacture lots of biological
| weapons. But it is another problem.
| forgotmyoldname wrote:
| > who in my opinion looks like a Chinese double-agent, or
| someone bribed by China to be their mouth-piece.
|
| Are you an authority on the subject or are you making an
| unfalsifiable claim?
| orbifold wrote:
| EcoHealth alliance is as transparent of an intelligence
| front as it gets.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| It is infinitely disturbing that political sides are a factor
| in determining whether to pursue justice and truth, in this
| case, the Covid-19 lab leak question.
| stef25 wrote:
| Accusations should be ignored when asking valid scientific
| questions.
|
| Imagine a scientist not being curious about HIV in its early
| days because of homophobia (it was definitely a thing but the
| right people ignored it). Maybe the analogy isn't perfect ... I
| didn't want to open a can of worms but hopefully you get my
| point :)
| downrightmike wrote:
| China had to slaughter and dispose of millions of pigs up to
| november 2019. There were stories of drones being used to
| infect pig farms through the summer to drive up pork prices.
| Odds are that this was covered up so much that when it hit the
| breaking point, people blamed the lab, even though wuhan is
| down stream from farm lands.
| ummonk wrote:
| Are you referring to the outbreak of African swine flu? What
| does that have to do with coronavirus?
| downrightmike wrote:
| Realistically they were over taxed and they missed the SARs
| outbreak. Probably why they are using draconian methods
| still and welding people into their homes, to make up for
| their lax action.
| JackFr wrote:
| Is "African" swine flu acceptable? Or does that gate only
| swing one way?
| ummonk wrote:
| Not just that, but the long history of lab leaks (with e.g.
| smallpox and SARS) that indicates lab leaks are not an unusual
| occurrence.
|
| I too think the evidence in this particular virus comes down on
| the side of a natural origin, but the a priori denial of the
| possibility (and need for investigation) of a lab leak early in
| the pandemic was really unjustified. In fairness, the right
| wing demands to sanction (or even attack) China certainly
| didn't help things.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Lab leaks of _known_ pathogens being studied aren't unusual.
| chana_masala wrote:
| Are you meaning it is or is not a frequent occurrence?
| Because the way you've phrased it here it seems that you
| agree with the OP but I suspect you meant the opposite.
| zpeti wrote:
| What evidence comes down to it being of natural origin? I'm
| genuinely curious because I haven't seen much "evidence" of
| it.
| prestonh wrote:
| I don't think there's much direct evidence to support
| natural spillover event other than that much of the initial
| spread could be localized to a wet market, which may have
| had vendors selling meat from animals known to carry these
| types of viruses. That seems like pretty weak evidence,
| though. Other than that, IMO we should have very high prior
| weight assigned to the natural origin hypothesis in the
| Bayesian sense, so even without new direct evidence it's
| still reasonable to believe that hypothesis to be more
| likely.
| odiroot wrote:
| It's this Matt Ridley, from "The Red Queen" fame. Immediate add
| to my list.
| tim333 wrote:
| There's a good interview with him on this stuff
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRksNG4uvU
|
| >HJS Virtual Event: "Viral: The Search for the Origin of
| Covid-19" Streamed live on Dec 13, 2021
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| darkerside wrote:
| > But the thing is you don't need these conspiracies to hate
| China.
|
| You're projecting, and it's not a good look
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| darkerside wrote:
| This is buried, but I do think people would care if they
| could see it because it delegitimizes the very valid
| reasons to investigate the lab leak hypothesis. Nobody
| cares if you have a personal vendetta against a country,
| and it will end up distracting from the fact that, whether
| this came from a lab or a marketplace, the fact that we
| can't answer which was the source means the rational
| response is to take the precautions that would be warranted
| as if it came from BOTH.
| dang wrote:
| Not so. We don't want people hating entire countries here.
| It's deeply against the intended spirit of this site, which
| is curiosity.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dustintrex wrote:
| Would you also support a total ban on hunting wild animals in
| the West? Or are the animals only "exotic" when they're
| consumed by Chinese people?
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| We already have a good definition of exotic animal trading so
| we don't need to strawman any larger scope here.
|
| I 100% support the shutdown of exotic animal trading. From
| the Wuhan wet markets carrying animals from the corners of
| the globe for supposed medicinal benefits to the idiots in
| the west with pet tigers.
| adolph wrote:
| What do "Wuhan wet markets" have to do with anything?
|
| From the article:
|
| _The seafood market was almost certainly "just" an early
| superspreader site, rather than the site of the original
| spillover event. No bats or pangolins at all, and
| relatively few mammals of any kind, appear to have been
| sold at that market, and no sign of SARS-CoV2 was ever
| found in any of the animals despite searching._
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Widely accepted as the source of the coronavirus
| outbreak.
| adolph wrote:
| I wonder how that came to be and retained as the received
| knowledge? Who was the person or organization who
| identified which specific market?
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| You can read about it here https://www.technologyreview.c
| om/2021/11/19/1040390/covid-wu...
| adolph wrote:
| It was received knowledge well before 11/21, I remember
| well from that morning on NPR [0]. I read that article
| and the academic paper [1] behind it. There is nothing
| there other than thin correlation. No evidence to say a
| single zoonotic exposure occurred, much less many over
| several months, over that human to human transmission
| occurred there. Correlation is great for starting an
| investigation such as Snow's [2]. After the map Snow
| established causation and a mechanism, Worobey does
| nothing.
|
| 0. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/29/800725826/why-wet-
| markets-are...
|
| 1. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_choler
| a_outb...
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > And one point Viral makes abundantly clear is that, if our
| goal is to prevent the next pandemic, then resolving the
| mystery of COVID-19 matters less than one might think. This is
| because, whichever possibility--zoonotic spillover or lab leak
| --turns out to be the truth of this case, the other possibility
| would remain absolutely terrifying. Read the book and see for
| yourself.
|
| Apparently the book does not only focus on lab leaks.
| pezzana wrote:
| > Searching my inbox, I found an email from April 16, 2020 where
| I told someone who'd me asked that the lab-leak hypothesis seemed
| entirely plausible to me, that in fact I couldn't understand why
| it wasn't being investigated more, but that I was hesitant to
| blog about these matters. As I wrote seven months ago, I now see
| my lack of courage as having been a personal failing. Obviously,
| I'm just a quantum computing theorist, not a biologist, so I
| don't have to have any opinion at all about the origin of
| COVID-19 ... but I did, and I didn't share it only because of the
| likelihood that I'd be called an idiot on social media. Having
| now read Chan and Ridley, though, I think I'd take being called
| an idiot for this book review more as a positive signal about my
| courage than as a negative signal about my reasoning skills!
|
| The groupthink around the lab leak hypothesis, and especially
| that letter signed by scientists in the early days of the
| pandemic, has done a lot of damage. The problem is that is isn't
| just this topic. About a dozen other topics have become
| minefields of politics and mind control masquerading as science.
| We only see the idiocy of this approach in the case of the lab
| leak because the consensus has crumbled.
|
| Hopefully, this won't be the last wall to fall under its own
| weight.
| vmception wrote:
| The intertwined nature of country, financial and personnel
| relationships is not easy for people to understand.
|
| I was just at a gathering the other day where a woman couldn't
| comprehend that the lab in Wuhan is a joint venture with US
| public resources, US private sector resources, Chinese
| resources, and personnel from both countries and others, which
| includes Dr. Fauci.
|
| She had, until that point, mostly been enamored by Dr. Fauci
| and mostly been quite angry at Wuhan as a general disavowal of
| the CCP.
|
| There is nothing to conclude from any of that observation
| alone, aside from noticing gaps in US federal oversight. Many
| people will just spiral into some other rabbit hole since
| nuance isn't their strongsuit. We still have to react to the
| pandemic whether that bolsters a lab leak hypothesis, or leads
| to a smoking gun, or not.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| I got into a slightly heated argument with my mother when she
| claimed that "China had manufactured the virus in a lab" - I
| didn't even consider the possibility of virus manufacture for
| study and a possible leak happening, I just assumed she was
| being fed propaganda that this was the beginning of some kind
| of bio-war being started by China. So that is my failing, and
| after reading more about the lab-leak hypothesis I learned to
| hold my tongue and be curious about such left-field claims
| instead of judgemental
| johnnylambada wrote:
| I hope you looped your mother into your new insights!
| thelittleone wrote:
| Indeed. one of my favorite learnings in life is the power
| of admitting when I'm wrong (which is often enough). Quite
| an empowering decision and also relationahip building.
|
| However there are times when people find it so unusual that
| they see it as weakness and instead of admitting their own
| wrong, try to capitalise on an opprtunity (perceived
| weakness).
|
| One exception though is playing chess online, where my ego
| is yet to be mastered.
| strictfp wrote:
| I use self-deprecating humor a lot. And some people,
| usually the ones who don't pick up on the irony, also use
| it as an opportunity to attack. It's quite sad when you
| think about it :)
| animal_spirits wrote:
| We can find strength from being vulnerable
| orzig wrote:
| I super appreciate your willingness to share a small moment
| of intellectual humility - they are too rare and I hope that
| it will inspire at least one other person to approach at
| least one other issue with a similar spirit.
|
| I know that my thinking and behavior has benefited from the
| small subset of people who have been willing to do so
| publicly in the past.
| temporalparts wrote:
| One of my favorite fallacies is the fallacy fallacy. Just
| because one used fallacious reasoning, doesn't mean they're
| wrong. e.g. I can give a bad reason for why 16/64 = 1/4, just
| cross out the 6's, but just because the reason is bad doesn't
| mean the result is wrong.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| In this case the fallacy was (US perspective)-- just
| because the Orange-Haired Man said it, doesn't make it
| wrong.
|
| Admitting this fallacy would be too much to expect from
| political partisans. The guy is not a _very_ _stable_
| _genius_ , but he's not always 100% wrong either.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > the Orange-Haired Man
|
| Carrot Top?
| xdennis wrote:
| Not sure why downvoted. Trump is the orange-face man, not
| hair.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Yes, this case has generated an amount of "Hitler was a
| vegetarian" cases.
|
| More "shockingly", some perceived in certain circles that
| an amount of "odd actors" acted to throw gasoline on
| every spark, enticing savage gut reactions. Another blow
| to civilization, opinion benders encouraging towards the
| dismissal of clean evaluation, mining the pillar that
| after "He said we walk using feet!!!" the response should
| be "Actually, ", not "Boo!".
| have_faith wrote:
| The problem with this is that it could very well be the case
| that she was being fed propaganda or just repeating something
| written on facebook by a randomer before more details were
| known. The fact that it could turn out to be true makes it
| very difficult to know how to take future similar statements
| because they probably have a higher likelihood of being wrong
| if they come from similar sources.
| dnautics wrote:
| "that letter signed by scientists" does not do justice to the
| fact that the organizer of that letter had a severe conflict of
| interest that he failed to disclose. Like why the hell would a
| scientist not disclose that??! Having been a scientist myself
| it boggles the mind.
| zachlatta wrote:
| Can someone link the mentioned letter? Having trouble finding
| it.
| willhinsa wrote:
| Here is the letter[0], and the researcher in question with
| a huge conflict of interest is Peter Daszak[1].
|
| [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0
| 140-6...
|
| [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2414
| thedrbrian wrote:
| It's not just Daszak either, 26 of the 27 signatories had
| links.
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/revealed-
| scienti...
| nkurz wrote:
| I think it's "Statement in support of the scientists,
| public health professionals, and medical professionals of
| China combatting COVID-19" in the Lancet from Feb 19 2020:
|
| _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._ _..._ _We declare
| no competing interests._
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-
| 6...
|
| They later published an "Addendum: competing interests and
| the origins of SARS-CoV-2" in June 2021:
|
| _Peter Daszak has expanded on his disclosure statements
| for three pieces relating to COVID-19 that he co-authored
| or contributed to in The Lancet--the February, 2020,
| Correspondence, as well as a Commission Statement and a
| Comment for the Lancet COVID-19 Commission._
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-
| 6...
| dekhn wrote:
| I get the feeling a lot of very successful scientists got to
| where they are by cutting moral corners where other
| scientists wouldn't.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| reading the description of the conflict and paraphrasing
| Upton Sinclair I would say it is hard for someone to admit a
| conflict, if their continuing access to funding is dependent
| on keeping it hidden.
| dnautics wrote:
| I reread aaronsons blogpost more carefully and I take back
| my "??!". Daszak is very possibly avoiding the trauma of
| having had the experience of trying to save lives and
| ending up resulting in -15m lives saved. That's a unique
| experience in human existence that goes even beyond the
| Sinclair quote. I can't honestly say I wouldn't do the same
| thing, and I've historically done the right thing -- issued
| corrections two of the n < 10 papers I have to my name.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| ok, perhaps I'm in a bad mood this morning, which makes
| me generally prone to cynicism.
| ekianjo wrote:
| thats called corruption. Scientists can be corrupted as well.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| And there's as yet no academic/systemic consequence for them
| not declaring this blatant conflict of interest. That sends a
| big bold message to future scientists considering whether or
| not to declare them honestly.
| rapsey wrote:
| > Like why the hell would a scientist not disclose that?
|
| Because they are trying to avoid getting lynched?
| petre wrote:
| Daszak is already getting _lynched_ , at least
| mediatically. Do a search in his name on ddg, see what the
| top result is. I'd say it's a crackpot website but in fact
| it seems it was all written by a covid19 victim. I'd
| probably move to an Antarctic research station until people
| forget, as opposed to confortably living in a country where
| every crackpot and their neighbour has access to firearms.
| [deleted]
| thom wrote:
| Perhaps the Antarctic wouldn't currently be very
| welcoming:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59848160
| emmelaich wrote:
| Especially when Daszak himself had warned that the research
| was risky, in 2015 and Nov 2019.
|
| https://twitter.com/__ice9/status/1344832354100125699
| xwolfi wrote:
| If only the American president at the time had been more
| responsible and less inflammatory it would have resulted in a
| lot less reflexive aggression - asian people beaten in the
| street included.
|
| The CCP is not very responsible if they know and hide it or if
| they don't and refuse to look, but to their defense, it's also
| because it will be used and reused to their detriment (possibly
| deserved) if proven. Having a sound diplomatic strategy would
| have _maybe_ helped convince them otherwise, but it was
| apparently more interesting to ALSO play down the virus in the
| U.S. for whatever reason and make absolutely clear that China
| would pay a dear price for it. So hard to blame China :s
| tartoran wrote:
| I personally think that since all the Wuhan lab info is being
| suppressed the theory of a lab leak could never be disproved.
| tim333 wrote:
| You could disprove it by finding the non lab animal it came
| from. For instance with SARS 1, pretty much as soon as they
| looked they found it had come from palm civets at the local
| market so no one was hypothesising lab leaks on that one.
| However this time 80k + animals tested, nothing like that
| found.
| throwaway05112 wrote:
| tim333 wrote:
| >Shi and Daszak have increasingly stonewalled
|
| It's really over time that they subpoenaed Daszak and acquired
| and published all records from EcoHealth. I realize that would be
| annoying for them but really with millions dead the right to know
| what went on should take priority.
| ummonk wrote:
| This article is a good counterpoint:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory...
|
| While certainly more plausible than 9/11 conspiracy theories, the
| lab-leak proponents have the same tendency to put forth several
| mutually incompatible theories, while believing each has a strong
| amount of evidence for it.
| malshe wrote:
| What a garbage response. The author starts by discrediting both
| the authors. Next, the smoking gun which it cites repeatedly
| (The study on Laos bats) is not even peer-reviewed! This is
| from the articled linked from this article:
|
| "The results, which are not peer reviewed, have been posted on
| the preprint server Research Square."
|
| Sounds like very lazy "journalism" to me.
| [deleted]
| sgt101 wrote:
| Was the Ridley / Chan book peer reviewed?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| It also conflates "lab-engineered" with "lab-leak".
|
| How would a disease from a bat from Laos make it to Wuhan? It
| still could be from the WIV!
| ummonk wrote:
| This is what the article authors mean by lab-leak arguments
| being unfalsifiable. No matter what evidence comes out, it
| can still be shoe-horned into a lab-leak theory.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| That's not really true. You could falsify it by:
|
| - Opening the records about _which viruses the WIV was
| storing_. It 's not a mystery -- labs track that kind of
| thing! But China refused to release any data about which
| viruses the WIV stored or modified.
|
| - Finding a clear chain of infection between a natural
| source and the outbreak in Wuhan
|
| - Finding clear evidence that there was a small outbreak
| which later spread to Wuhan
|
| Nobody has managed any of those.
| jimrandomh wrote:
| No, the Laos bats are strong evidence for the lab leak
| hypothesis because it makes a prediction which could have
| turned out false: that if a close relative of COVID-19 is
| found somewhere, predict that researchers took samples
| from that area to Wuhan prior to the start of the
| pandemic.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Others below point out that it is indeed falsifiable but
| more importantly, why would it discredit the theory if
| you can't disprove it? You can certainly disprove some
| versions of it and as far as I can seen there has been a
| lot of outrage and occlusion by the Chinese government
| but very little effort to actually disprove anything.
| ummonk wrote:
| While I don't personally find Matt Ridley's (or Alina Chan's)
| views on genetics or climate change to be damaging to their
| credibility, I think it's just as valid to mention them as it
| is to discuss Peter Daszak's conflict of interest.
|
| And the study on Laos bats is clearly undergoing peer-review:
| https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1
| blast wrote:
| I don't see how it's "just as valid" to mention those
| extraneous things. Daszak's conflict of interest is
| directly relevant to the issue being discussed, and the
| Lancet piece which was distorted by it was a critical
| moment in the history of the issue.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I most definitely think it's just as valid to present
| that Riley wrote this:
|
| https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/AIDS/River/Prosp
| ect...
|
| I think it's important to understand the writer's past
| history on an analogous subject, as it points to his
| motivations. I think letting you know he also previously
| argued about the benefits of global warming "nourishing
| the oceans", https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-
| heres-the-good-news-o... , points to the type of
| arguments this person likes to make.
|
| I agree the stuff about his failed bank is irrelevant.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Yours is a super weird as hominem attack.
|
| The article you link is a very well written boon review
| which summarizes the arguments of the book. Ridley's
| review concludes that the theory that aids was
| transferred to humans through large-scale experimental
| vaccinations with vaccines made out of chimp liver is a
| theory worth further investigation.
|
| This is GOOD SCIENCE. You analyze data and put forward
| theory. I can't speak to the merits of the theory or the
| book being reviewed, but why would it discredit Ridley if
| he reads and reviews critical books and is open to
| exploring alternative theories?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| We live in a world where, at least in some respect, when
| you are evaluating detailed technical analysis for which
| you are not an expert, it should be normal _and expected_
| to at least attempt to determine the level of expertise
| and trustworthiness of the source.
|
| For example, I think it is extremely relevant and valid
| to point out Daszek's clear conflict of interest when he
| put out his original letter.
|
| In this case, the fact that the writer has promoted other
| theories (importantly, theories analogous to the one
| under discussion) I consider completely crackpot
| certainly makes me look at the data here with a more
| skeptical eye.
|
| More importantly, there are plenty of other researchers
| who I consider much more credible who have raised loud
| alarms about the chance of a lab leak (e.g. Zeynep
| Tufekci's excellent analysis here,
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-
| lab.h... ). The fact that I can look at one piece of
| writing with a more critical eye based on the author's
| history of insincerity does not mean I discount more
| credible researchers making similar arguments.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| Let me get this straight, the fact that there are multiple
| plausible lab-leak scenarios makes the entire question less
| credible than if there was only one plausible lab-leak
| scenario?
|
| I would invite you to think about that a little longer.
| gjm11 wrote:
| I think both of the following things are true.
|
| 1. It is, in principle, good thinking to keep multiple
| competing hypotheses in mind, and allow each new piece of
| information you get to adjust your level of credence in each
| one, rather than picking one to Believe and Disbelieving all
| the others.
|
| 2. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to treat
| a bundle of mutually incompatible theories as a single thing,
| and to handwavily treat any bit of information that supports
| _any_ of them as supporting the whole bundle, even when what
| the information actually does is to support some bits and
| undermine others.
|
| And also
|
| 3. It is also a common sort of bad thinking to adjust one's
| beliefs not on the basis of looking concretely at how likely
| a new piece of information is if each of your multiple
| competing hypotheses is true, but on the basis of vague
| notions of what feels as if it supports what.
|
| I take the New Republic review to be mostly accusing Chan &
| Ridley of doing 2 and 3 in the guise of 1. I haven't read
| their book and can't tell how fair that accusation is.
|
| Similarly, the following are both true.
|
| 1'. It is, in principle, good thinking to adjust the
| hypotheses you're considering in the light of new evidence,
| which may promote new hypotheses or new variants of old
| hypotheses to consideration.
|
| 2'. It is, in practice, a common sort of bad thinking to
| respond to criticism of your beliefs by moving the goalposts:
| you say A1, someone says "but P!", you adjust to A2 which is
| compatible with P, someone says "but Q!", you adjust to A3
| which is compatible with Q, and at that point you _don 't
| check whether it's also compatible with P_, so you confuse
| "at each step I had a version of my beliefs that was nicely
| compatible with the evidence presented to me" with "there is
| a version of my beliefs that is simultaneously compatible
| with all the evidence".
|
| And also
|
| 3'. Adjusting your hypotheses in the light of new evidence
| can lead to problems akin to overfitting in machine learning,
| where you find something that fits very nicely with the
| _specific bits of evidence you looked at_ but not with the
| other evidence that 's out there, because you optimized it to
| fit as well as possible with those specific bits of evidence.
|
| I take the New Republic review to be accusing Chan & Ridley
| of doing 2' and 3' in the guise of 1'. Again, since I haven't
| read their book it's not clear how fair the accusation is.
|
| What I would like to see is something that lays out a few
| _specific_ hypotheses (SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered
| with malicious purposes; SARS-CoV-2 deliberately engineered
| for study with the goal of understanding
| /preventing/mitigating future pandemics; SARS-CoV-2 found
| naturally in bats or something but brought into contact with
| humans via the WIV; SARS-CoV-2 found naturally in bats or
| something and brought into contact with humans via the Wuhan
| wet market; maybe a couple more) and then goes through the
| available evidence trying to assess what each piece of
| evidence does to each hypothesis, noting where better
| versions of the hypotheses are suggested by the evidence and
| then either _assessing those better versions against other
| evidence_ or just presenting them as "suggested by the
| available evidence but now in need of further verification or
| refutation as new evidence comes in".
|
| It doesn't seem to me, from either the Aaronson review or the
| NR review, as if the Chan & Ridley book does anything much
| like that. (To a good approximation, no one ever does
| anything much like that, and it's a pity.)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| It certainly makes a good argument in favor of the "We
| shouldn't have laid off our editors in the last budget crunch"
| hypothesis.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Great interview/podcast/discussion with Alina Chan re: the
| origins from the Stated Clearly/Evolution Podcast:
|
| https://youtu.be/IEfpWvQjD0Q
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Considering the current political climate between US and china,
| supporting a non-lab origin is slowly becoming the contrarian
| idea.
|
| I wonder if the authors discuss the evolution of the virus since
| it was first leaked/mutated. For example , eventhough it is
| believed, as the authors say, furin cleavage is a key to the
| virus' transmissibility, a computational study of the Omicron
| variant suggests the furin cleavage site has evolved for less
| efficient replication of the virus[1] (but still more
| transmissible due to immunity escape).
|
| beyond the flashy politics, the lab leak hypothesis is terrifying
| as it means that someone can create a worldwide crisis by doing
| relatively well understood modifications to existing viruses, and
| the world is clearly not prepared for such biodefense attacks. We
| should be talking about the day-after covid and what measures we
| need to prevent such rapid worldwide spread of pathogens.
|
| [1]
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.14.472704v1....
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > beyond the flashy politics, the lab leak hypothesis is
| terrifying as it means that someone can create a worldwide
| crisis by doing relatively well understood modifications to
| existing viruses, and the world is clearly not prepared for
| such biodefense attacks. We should be talking about the day-
| after covid and what measures we need to prevent such rapid
| worldwide spread of pathogens.
|
| Scientists have been able to create viruses in a lab for some
| time now, e.g. it's pretty well-known how to create smallpox
| from scratch. None of this is new. The point is, as the
| pandemic has shown, it makes a really lousy bioweapon when the
| whole world gets infected. Even if you're a psycho and your
| goal is total world destruction, a pandemic still sucks for
| your goals because a comparatively teeny percentage of people
| actually die.
| disambiguation wrote:
| These conversations all miss the single most important underlying
| detail.
|
| Even if covid didn't come from a lab, we clearly possess the
| technology.
|
| The cherry on top is that we're still actively working on said
| technology.
|
| We have collectively and silently learned that we have the
| technology to end the world, and no one is really shocked by it.
|
| This is far worse than nukes because M.A.D. doesn't apply, and
| it's not resource constrained. Viruses can come from anywhere and
| be enhanced with the right equipment and knowledge, which
| probably isn't all that expensive.
|
| Why the hell aren't we shutting these labs down, or at the very
| least this type of research?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This does seem to be the case. Pathogenic (or even
| nonpathogenic 'silent riders' with minimal effects) respiratory
| viruses exist in a wide variety of animal species, and it seems
| the main barrier to cross-species transmission is that the
| natural host's cell-surface receptor proteins are different
| enough from human cell-surface receptor proteins that
| transmission is blocked.
|
| With all the modern biotech tools, it's now possible to swap
| out the cell-surface binding domain from any virus with one
| that matches a human cell-surface receptor protein, which is
| how the viral particle gains access to the cell's interior.
| Cellular interiors seem more highly conserved across species,
| i.e. it appears that once you breach the outer defenses, the
| rest of the viral package can replicate within the cell without
| being constrained so much by inter-species differences. The
| ribosomal machinery will build just about anything in other
| words.
|
| Hence the 'gain-of-function' game, which proponents justify as
| 'finding the potentially dangerous mutations before they arise
| naturally' is just creating novel pathogenic viruses with a
| high chance of escape from the labs where they're being
| created. This kind of research was temporarily banned in 2014
| in the USA, but then that ban was lifted in 2017, all with
| little public discussion.
|
| A permanent international ban on this kind of research,
| including an inspection and monitoring regime, is likely the
| only long-term solution that will work.
| Dowwie wrote:
| If every democratic nation voted to cease development of these
| programs, the programs will continue where democracy doesn't.
| throw10920 wrote:
| The meme answer to which is "Then let's continue to spread
| the democracy :D".
|
| Except that that also might be the most reasonable serious
| answer... What else do you do when a country continues to
| develop an extremely dangerous weapon?
| latchkey wrote:
| stuxnet
| astronautjones wrote:
| > Even if covid didn't come from a lab, we clearly possess the
| technology.
|
| patently false. no one is even close to being able to create or
| control the types of mutations that resulted in this virus
| estaseuropano wrote:
| The point is you don't need to control them to wreak havoc.
| Yes you would harm your own community/country, but this is
| already in many ways the case with conventional weapons.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Why go out of your way to make absolutist claims? you're just
| setting yourself up to fail.
|
| What you really meant to say is, "where is my evidence", and
| well we've been doing this since 2012, at least.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22722205/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22723413/
| astronautjones wrote:
| because you are clueless and/or misinformed as to what
| separates this virus from other coronaviruses and HOW
| different it is from other coronaviruses. the technology
| absolutely does not exist.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Agree, it's not possible to create something like sars-
| cov2 completely de-novo. I assume this is what you mean?
| Claims of impossibility here need to be quite specific to
| be meaningful, I think.
|
| On the other hand if you have not read the DEFUSE
| proposal you are in for a real treat. It is absolutely
| plausible that sars-cov2 could be an output of this line
| of research.
|
| We also don't really know what backbones they had.
| notahacker wrote:
| At the other end of the scale, it is absolutely certain
| that if humans started with a virus more similar to SARS-
| COV-2 than any publicly disclosed virus and made some
| possibly very minor modifications they could end up with
| COVID-19, whether the virus leaked was more or less
| harmful than its all-natural ancestors.
|
| But if we're looking at specific claims about applied
| research apparently featured in the book: that it was
| [most] plausible details like the spike binding to ACE2
| receptors were the product of human ingenuity applied to
| RATG13, the likelihood of this seems to have been
| undermined by the subsequent discovery of other naturally
| occurring viruses more similar to SARS-COV-2 already
| featuring a spike capable of binding to human ACE2
| receptors.
|
| Ultimately I guess the question is whether the
| intermediate viruses between SARS-COV-2 and other
| variants are more likely to exist in secret in the labs
| or outside the scope of human knowledge, I guess. I do
| believe it is possible for virologists to cover up things
| in their lab especially in this context, but _outside the
| scope of human knowledge_ is a bigger search space.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Are you a bot? this reply makes no sense.
|
| I know plenty about the differences, and even if I didn't
| what would that have to do with our technological
| abilities?
|
| Here's what's patently true:
|
| 1. We are actively funding many "gain of function"
| research grants.
|
| 2. We have gene editing technology, CRISPR has been
| around for over a decade now.
|
| 3. We have literally synthesized DNA, RNA, bacteria, and
| viruses in the lab. The covid vaccines alone are enough
| to validate this, but here's further evidence we've been
| doing this for at least 2 decades. [0]
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12114528/
|
| (2002) Chemical synthesis of poliovirus cDNA: generation
| of infectious virus in the absence of natural template
|
| So, yeah. We clearly possess the technology.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Because we have natural pathogens that could be released to do
| the same as a bioengineered one. For example the Spainish Flu,
| smallpox, plague. All of these could be introduced into our
| cities and kill millions. In addition there is and has been for
| quite a while the potential for buoengineered viruses as well.
|
| So, what should we do if the local chapter of the Aryan Nation
| or whatever bad actor we choose to discuss were to go on a
| bioterrorism campaign? What could we do if we had not
| capability to test, evaluate and develop counters for these
| agents? These labs are where the folks that understand these
| agents come from.
| javagram wrote:
| Plague can be treated with antibiotics now.
|
| We have supplies of smallpox vaccine ready to go in the event
| of an attack.
|
| I don't think we actually have the Spanish flu in a lab
| somewhere in reproducible form. Supposedly H1N1/swine flu is
| descended from it, but most people have protection against
| severe disease now from vaccination or a previous H1N1
| infection.
|
| If someone releases a new SARS-CoV-3 that's been engineered
| to be as good a killer as MERS or SARS1 while retaining the
| transmission characteristics of covid-19 we could be in
| trouble, same if someone did it with a different virus family
| we don't have some immunity to already.
|
| Bird flu could be a good example here. It is an excellent
| human-killer but luckily doesn't transmit well.
| spfzero wrote:
| I don't think it is the best strategy to build a dangerous
| pathogen, because we do not have the capability to contain it
| reliably. We just do not, as has been demonstrated many
| times. Humans are involved, and mistakes will happen.
|
| To imagine you are "preparing" for a possible outcome, by
| realizing that exact outcome (as this pandemic may
| demonstrate), is like training the fire department by burning
| down Chicago.
| orbifold wrote:
| There is bioweapon potential in these combination of
| technologies beyond simply engineering a virus, I won't go
| into detail here, since maybe (however unlikely) no-one else
| has come up with this particular scheme. However recent work
| by Baric and others leads me to believe that this kind of
| scheme is precisely their endgame.
| disambiguation wrote:
| I understand that's the value proposition of the research,
| but the difference between theory and practice is.. we just
| had a plague and it's not clear the research helped in any
| tangible way. In fact it may very well have been the
| catalyst.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| In addition, I also recommend watching 4.5 hours of Jamie Metzl,
| who is on a first name basis with WHO's director Tedros Adhanom
| and even talks about how he called Tedros on his cell phone a
| time when it was urgent to relay the message, describe the
| insanity of what happened in 2020 with regards to Lab Leak
| theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K78jqx9fx2I
| [deleted]
| cjmb wrote:
| > I don't have to have any opinion at all about the origin of
| COVID-19 ... but I did, and I didn't share it only because of the
| likelihood that I'd be called an idiot on social media.
|
| This is a great justification for anon accounts -- both "primary
| anon-only" users and also fully- or semi- anon alts for people
| who have thoughts like this (which, in my opinion, ought to be
| every smart intellectual who doesn't make the Culture War their
| primary stomping ground).
|
| Blaming a lack of courage is all well and good _after_ the tides
| have turned, but courage is slim comfort when the eye of sauron
| turns on you. You will not feel much better for martyring
| yourself in service of the beliefs you hold with about-as-much-
| confidence as Scott expresses here -- and you 'd be wise not to
| do so.
|
| If you must put something down in writing that you know has the
| potential to cause political heat to fall on your shoulders, and
| it's not something core to your life's work, it's perfectly fine
| to either a) use a semi-anon alt or b) write in a circumspect
| manner. Preferably both.
|
| Anonymity is a thin shield to hide behind, so I say "semi-anon"
| in support of the idea that, though the anonymity may be
| imperfect and the identity may be tied to your own, it can
| clearly be shown as a vehicle to express thoughts you are less
| sure of, or that you wish to distance yourself from somewhat.
|
| I say all this will the empathy & sympathy of a fellow online
| writer, though with only a tiny fraction of Scott's reach...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > it's perfectly fine to either a) use a semi-anon alt or b)
| write in a circumspect manner. Preferably both.
|
| This is the reason I use an anon account but there are still
| problems on HN. I apologize if I cause some trouble here on HN,
| but the flagging aspects of HN beyond rude/spam comments (which
| is what I suspect it is designed for) does a disservice to the
| community. My comments about inflation were flagged in March
| 2021 despite of being cordial and respectful. I trusted the
| scientists and the intellectual community, but I similarly saw
| some Lab Leak theory comments being flagged on HN. Vouching is
| a great feature, but not many people know it since it requires
| a couple of prerequisites - enough karma + settings to show
| flagged comments.
|
| I hope we restrain ourselves to flagging behavior on HN. It
| also enrages people for trying to be reasonable, but
| contrarian, and seeing their comments disappear. Now, they're
| resolute and firmly dug into their contrarian views even if
| they were false.
|
| So, if HN has these issues, the outside world is even worse.
| Try the same on Twitter and hard echo chambers form
| (blocking/etc). I am not engaged on Twitter or Reddit, but I
| occassionally observe this.
|
| My 2 cents.
| chana_masala wrote:
| It's like an extra powerful downvote button when someone
| disagrees with you.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, it really isn't. Flags are used to mark comments that
| are breaking the guidelines, enough flags will kill a
| comment, but fewer will result in a moderator having a look
| at the comment, time permitting.
| chana_masala wrote:
| Haha, in theory that's true. But in practice comments are
| frequently flagged that the majority demographic of HN
| disagrees with, even breaking no guidelines. It's exactly
| what the OP to my comment was saying.
| cutenewt wrote:
| What's the best solution for a semi-anon scenario?
|
| The best solution I've seen are Reddit AMAs where mods verify
| a semi-anon's credentials (e.g. "Mod has confirmed that ___
| is an employee at the NIH.")
| csee wrote:
| A service that a journalism outfit could provide. Someone
| like Quillette, perhaps. The author and the outlet mutually
| agree to what extent personal info is disclosed before
| publishing the controversial article.
| causi wrote:
| _I hope we restrain ourselves to flagging behavior on HN._
|
| Like many informal groups, it's difficult to judge the
| composition of the whole when you might be seeing just the
| actions of the very active few. You'll notice certain topics
| tend to provoke flagging and downvoting wildly out of
| proportion with the nature of the comments, and I believe
| this is because those have particular user interest groups
| with very _ahem_ strong opinions. You may have also noticed
| how your comments tend to do quite well when they 're new,
| but somehow pick up a basket of downvotes hours after the
| post has fallen off the front page. I believe these to be due
| to a population of generic haters crawling over every post
| downvoting large numbers of comments.
| mherdeg wrote:
| > If you must put something down in writing that you know has
| the potential to cause political heat to fall on your
| shoulders, and it's not something core to your life's work,
| it's perfectly fine to either a) use a semi-anon alt or b)
| write in a circumspect manner. Preferably both.
|
| Huh. This has me thinking about
| https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1241551327743770624 and
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2020/04/21/japan-coronavirus/ and
| wondering how things went with that experiment.
| api wrote:
| Unfortunately the problem is that anonymous information is
| untrustworthy. It's fine for speaking unpopular opinions, but
| reporting something anonymously discredits it. This will only
| get worse with deep fakes. Pretty soon we will be flooded with
| fake video evidence of things like the Qanon claims.
| peakaboo wrote:
| I would say today, it's dangerous to speak uncomfortable
| truths. Assange is still in prison for speaking out about the
| NSA and looks like he will die there.
|
| Does humanity deserve people like that to walk amongst us, or
| do we deserve to just get a society where we have no freedom
| even over our bodies?
|
| After covid i think humanity sucks. We have easily been put
| into two camps, arguing with eachother. The divide and conquer
| strategy always works it seems. Like idiots we are not seeing
| the bigger picture of who profits and benefits from the change
| society now is transforming into.
| [deleted]
| SergeAx wrote:
| > a global pandemic far worse than any in living memory
|
| I beleive author means that 1918 Spanish flu, with death toll of
| 25m to 50m according to different sources, is something no on
| living today has a memory of.
|
| But smallpox death toll in XX century was about 300m, and there
| are a lot of people alive with memories of it.
| Linosaurus wrote:
| > smallpox
|
| Could have be been classified as an endemic disease in many
| areas and not a pandemic.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Good point, agreed.
| yellowbeard wrote:
| HIV/AIDS is also bigger if you count that as a pandemic.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| If the lab leak is not a conspiracy after all then it's safe to
| say the propaganda behind it's censorship is a conspiracy.
| sgt101 wrote:
| I can't understand why you would complain about censorship when
| discussing this book on a public forum. Can you explain to me
| so I can get my head round this?
| umvi wrote:
| We weren't allowed to discuss lab leak on social media until
| the information overlords decided it was ok to do so. And it
| took them over a year before they gave us permission to
| discuss it.
| [deleted]
| christophilus wrote:
| Two years ago, suggesting a lab-leak origin would get your
| comment flagged on most major platforms.
|
| It's now acceptable to discuss it, but such was not the case
| early on. Hence the claims of censorship.
| ekianjo wrote:
| a conspiracy is just a big word used by the media to describe
| something that happens all the time: people behind closed doors
| getting along with a plan to exploit the masses for profit or
| power.
| TheFreim wrote:
| There's also the commonly overlooked fact that sometimes
| people don't even need to get together, they already have
| aligned interests and go with the flow.
| ekianjo wrote:
| when it's aligned interests without a formal
| discussion/agreement between different parties, I don't
| think it's fair to call it a conspiracy, rather purely
| selfish incentives at play.
| Symmetry wrote:
| At the start of the pandemic I thought the leak of a modified
| virus from a lab was very unlikely and that a naturally occurring
| virus being brought to Wuhan by lab activities or a natural
| origin were both far more likely. At this point I think that's
| the second most significant thing I was wrong about, coming in
| after my early doubts about aerosol spread.
| temp8964 wrote:
| > And one point Viral makes abundantly clear is that, if our goal
| is to prevent the next pandemic, then resolving the mystery of
| COVID-19 actually matters less than one might think. This is
| because, whichever possibility--zoonotic spillover or lab leak--
| turns out to be the truth of this case, the other possibility
| would remain absolutely terrifying and would demand urgent action
| as well. Read the book and see for yourself.
|
| This logic does not convince me. If it did come from lab leak,
| there are lots of things the scientific community need to do to
| themselves to prevent the next lab leak from happening. It's
| defenitely not the same as a zoonotic spillover. Scientists are
| not wild animals, they can regulate themselves.
|
| If the virus did leak from one of the two Wuhan labs, at least
| these actions need to be taken:
|
| * All the Chinese labs doing this kind of research need to be
| seriously examined by the international community
|
| * All the bio research funding from the western countries to
| China labs need to be stopped and only can be restarted with
| serious conditions met
| toufka wrote:
| I think their point is that the leak has a plausible route -
| and whatever protections we would institute were that to have
| been true - we still should implement - precisely because they
| could have been true.
|
| In many safety contexts, the strong possibility of an accident
| is often considered as the failure - not just the accident
| itself.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Social media has basically turned the world into a sort of
| bizarre mob rule situation when it comes to unpopular opinion.
|
| I think that we have a responsibility to speak out on matters we
| believe in and ignore negative pushback.
|
| The alternative is that anyone can shut down a viewpoint by
| simply flooding the opposite side. You don't know whether a
| poster is a troll, a real person that's simply misguided, or a
| real person that posts in good faith.
|
| You don't even end up with what's merely emotionally satisfying -
| that would be bad enough - but with the set of events or opinion
| that wins out purely based on competition.
| blueboo wrote:
| The sad thing, even as you identify into this (true) dynamic,
| is that it's happening in this community in favour of this
| supposedly heterodox viewpoint.
|
| The slightest counterpoint to this supposedly suppressed lab
| leak theory is downvoted, flagged, and the community
| congratulates itself on its paradoxical unity-in-
| contrarianness. Before our very eyes!
|
| Just asking questions -- and saying what people really think --
| has long been a profitable grift. It's sobering to see how
| different audiences succumb to it so acutely.
| umvi wrote:
| > I think that we have a responsibility to speak out on matters
| we believe in and ignore negative pushback.
|
| You can try, but new "fact checking" norms will ensure
| unpopular (especially politically unpopular) opinions get
| censored on social media before anyone sees them
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Facebook and friends were screwed before they even got going.
|
| I find it amusing that people use "getting news from
| Facebook" as a slur. It's stupid, but for entirely the
| opposite reason that they think it is.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Facebook and friends were screwed before they even got
| going._
|
| I remember seeing a cool SEM micrograph of a violin at the
| ~10um scale at one meme site, but I'm having trouble
| finding it now...
| estaseuropano wrote:
| This is a complicated issue and requires a careful approach.
| I don't think any serious fact checkers simply declare non-
| mainstream views as false, rather they would highlight only
| issues where a clear scientific consensus exist. So you flag
| an article about masks being ineffective and quote a clear
| analysis, or you flag an article about the Chinese (or US)
| government purposefully spreading covid, but you don't flag
| an article discussing the evidence for and against origin
| theories. See e.g. also the EU imitative on Russian
| disinformation:
|
| https://euvsdisinfo.eu/
| simion314 wrote:
| >I think that we have a responsibility to speak out on matters
| we believe in and ignore negative pushback.
|
| I would prefer to read you thoughts in areas you have
| experience in rather your random believes, as a non political
| example I don't care about your option on Linux init systems if
| you are not a system administrator, distro maintainer or
| somehow that is more then a random Linux distro user, same with
| programming languages opinion, I don't care about your anti-X
| pro-Y opinion if you have zero experience on X and Y but your
| opinion is just because your hero blogger/developer/youtuber
| hates X and likes Y.
|
| For sure there are topics where you have experience with and
| you can share that and there are topics where everyone has same
| level of experience and we can all give our opinion.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Sure, your take is a bit overly harsh though. I don't think,
| with the exception of the odd mentally ill crackpot, most
| people do do this. Like, you don't see QAnon theories about
| systemd because well, it doesn't affect them at all, most
| people don't even know it exists.
|
| By contrast, to give a recent and poignant example, the idea
| that e.g. _only_ a Harvard epidemiologist or equivalent
| should speak out on coronavirus restrictions is absurd.
|
| They might have more precise data about specific models, but
| in the general case they don't know more about the impacts
| restrictions will have on anything else, they don't have a
| representative opinion on what an acceptable risk reward
| balance is, and it's also likely that they have personal bias
| due to their family and friends (as we all do).
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The problem is that what you have said is literally the exact
| same thing that people say to promote their not just crazy but
| _nonsensical_ conspiracy theories. I mean, the QAnon folks
| literally go on and on about "what the media doesn't want you
| to see" as they wait for JFK's return in Dallas.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Sure, so just ignore them.
|
| It's really not hard to identify stuff that makes no sense at
| all, and having to manually filter through that stuff is
| worth it if it means being able to form a model of the world
| that's actually correct as opposed to simply being what the
| most powerful entities want.
|
| Brain damaged space lizard believers aren't doing scientific
| research, as an obvious example.
| ayjchan wrote:
| Hi Scott,
|
| This is Alina Chan, one of the authors of the book.
|
| Thank you very much for your thorough review of our book :)
|
| On the Laos connection, I made a thread on Twitter to lay out the
| latest findings about virus samples being sent directly from Laos
| to Wuhan over several years:
| https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1476231824267485190?s=20
|
| I hope this is a good update on that point.
|
| Happy new year!
| ricksunny wrote:
| Indeed, thank you for producing Viral.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'm looking forward to reading your book. As a former
| microbiologist / biochemist with a fair amount of knowledge
| about what is possible in terms of gain-of-function research,
| and with a fair amount of experience reading technical research
| papers and a long-standing interest in both environmental and
| infectious microbiology and virology, the discussion of origins
| of the virus in the literature really seemed shady during the
| first six months of the pandemic.
|
| In particular, the early flood of 'data' about potential links
| to pangolins and a supposed bat-pangolin cross-breeding event,
| which was discredited pretty quickly, indicated that someone
| was trying to muddy the waters. Past natural outbreaks
| involving these kinds of cross-species jumps (MERS and camels
| for example) had a a long-term natural history, they didn't
| just appear wholly formed out of the blue, and the natural
| reservoirs were quickly identified[1, 2]
|
| [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/middle-
| east...
|
| [2] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/20/8/14-0596_article
|
| The failure to identify any such natural source of the virus
| within six months despite intensive searches really put the
| Wuhan lab leak theory back on the front burner, and the fact
| that the Lancet and Nature op-eds proclaiming a 'natural
| source' were organized by those linked to providing U.S.
| funding to the Wuhan lab was another huge red flag. When it
| became clear that the funds sent to Wuhan were intended to
| continue a branch of research (gain-of-function with
| respiratory viral pathogens) that the U.S. government had
| severely restricted in 2014[3], well...
|
| [3] https://www.science.org/content/article/us-halts-funding-
| new...
|
| Clearly both some elements of the US government's academic
| funding wing and of the Chinese government have a deeply vested
| interest in not allowing an open and independent inquiry into
| the actual source of the pandemic. This only encourages future
| similar outbreaks - as it really seems that there may be
| literally hundreds of wild-type animal viruses that can be
| turned into human pathogens by selective modification of their
| cell-surface-protein binding capabilities via techniques such
| as CRISPR etc. International bans on this kind of research
| (including an inspection regime as with nuclear non-
| proliferation treaties) really make sense.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > This is Alina Chan, one of the authors of the book.
|
| Hey Alina! Welcome to HN!
|
| I hope you will stick around and spend some time here with us.
| This is hands down the best online community I've ever seen in
| my life.
| dnautics wrote:
| Thanks for the book, alina. As a former molecular biologist
| (who worked on non-pathogenic enzyme gain-of-function projects)
| when the details of the virus came out I looked at it and
| immediately thought, "huh, that's exactly what I would have
| done", caveat I wasn't a _virologist_ , of course, but I felt
| like I was being gaslit for being told that there was "no way"
| it could have been a lab leak. I know that I am not the only
| molecular biologist who felt this way. In no small part due to
| your work I think it's being taken more seriously, and maybe
| this is selfish in the context of the crazy situation going on
| worldwide but I feel 'less crazy'.
| causi wrote:
| The politicization of the pandemic will in the future perhaps
| be looked upon as our civilization's greatest mistake.
| ekianjo wrote:
| That's assuming the History books even report it. What
| matters is who wins the narrative at the end of it all.
| api wrote:
| We really need to start working to de-politicize as many
| things as we can. Maybe this one can be a start because the
| politicization of COVID has a literal body count. Next
| could be climate change, which should be reframed as an
| engineering problem not a moral problem or a guilt trip.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and:
|
| The enemies of science have agency too.
|
| I fail to see how being more reasonable is a winning
| strategy when the opponents are determined to be
| unreasonable.
|
| Simply "try harder" hasn't worked. Better messaging,
| better framing, active listening, empathy, patience,
| yadda, yadda.
|
| I'm totally on board with any and all ideas for mooting
| the efforts of those who actively politicize these
| things.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Politicization of very consequential things is inevitable
| and desirable. If you say "don't politicize trade", and
| attempt to make it a technocratic matter about trade
| treaties and comparative advantage and such, you'd be
| rightly laughed out of the room. Why should a response to
| a pandemic be different?
|
| To put another way: "de-politicize" simply means "don't
| discuss in the public realm".
| watwut wrote:
| Climate change is already politicized, because it costs
| money to take it seriously. Some people will loose money
| on taking it seriously, so they have to politicize it.
|
| The response to it have to be political too.
| I-M-S wrote:
| Saying we need to "de-politicize" things is akin to
| saying we need to "de-human" them.
| refurb wrote:
| Precisely.
|
| I used to look at politics as some "side effect" of
| humans working together when in fact it's just a
| necessary component.
|
| Politics is simply leadership, persuasion, communication,
| debate all wrapped up together. It's neither good nor
| bad, but just a necessary component to large groups of
| humans working together.
| Jedd wrote:
| > The politicization of the pandemic will in the future
| perhaps be looked upon as our civilization's greatest
| mistake.
|
| I don't believe this is a civilisational-wide mistake --
| more so an issue with a handful of relatively small (by
| population) countries trying to leverage this event.
|
| Civilisation obviously extends way beyond those, say the 5%
| of the planet's population that live in the USA for
| example, but certainly there's some lessons to be learned
| here.
| [deleted]
| ajross wrote:
| > I felt like I was being gaslit for being told that there
| was "no way" it could have been a lab leak
|
| Can I say, as someone also looking at this somewhat
| dispassionately, how upsetting it is that the discourse on
| this issue has shifted from "It was a lab leak!" (to which
| strong replies absolutely were "There's no evidence"), to "It
| might have been a lab leak", now to "People were unfairly
| treated on the internet for saying it was a lab leak".
|
| I mean, it's been two years now, and there's still no
| evidence beyond the kind of circumstantial stuff detailed by
| Chan and Ridley (I have the book but haven't read it yet,
| though I've seen most of Chan's public posts on the subject
| so I'm pretty sure I know the arc of what's in it).
|
| And it seems like everyone has basically conceded that. But
| instead of just admitting we'll never know with certainty
| (and that natural evolution remains the most probable
| origin), everyone wants to talk about meta stuff instead?
| xwolfi wrote:
| You're right. It's highly suspicious, but it's just that
| and the problem is that the lab leak theory has many
| ramifications that are net negative for everyone: was it
| intentional, was it preventable, was it modified to test
| bioweapons, was it financed by France (yes, in France,
| we're not so hot about discussing our own little
| responsibility in building that lab).
|
| I think if it was a clear-cut case of manipulation screwup,
| and that some people in China know today for sure that it
| was, we'll know eventually when we care less. If nobody,
| even close to the lab in China, knows for sure, then we
| probably won't investigate more just in case we'd discover
| with horror we killed all these people.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The really odd part of the meta conversation is that the
| "pro lab leak" folks are complaining they were stripped of
| nuance, but claim they were told _it's impossible_ or _it's
| crazy to think_ it could've been a lab leak. That might
| have been their subjective experience of people apparently
| not taking them seriously, but I have never actually seen
| this position held by an authority. What are we supposed to
| do, send military-escorted scientists into Wuhan to swab
| every inch? And what if _that_ came up inconclusive, as it
| certainly would?
|
| The "anti lab leak" position has always been 1) we don't
| know, 2) it's not the most important question right now,
| and 3) we probably will never know.
|
| The people complaining about lack of nuance are proving
| their own inability/unwillingness to grapple with nuance.
| dnautics wrote:
| > The "anti lab leak" position has always
|
| That is absolutely not true. Don't you dare try to
| rewrite history. The anti-lab-leak position has included
| claims like "it's racist to say that china lab leaked the
| virus". At best, the "official" anti lab leak position
| has been framed by the lancet article. Go read that and
| tell us if that position is as neutral as you claim.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yeah this is another view I see commonly expressed and
| have found no evidence ever coming from an authority. The
| Lancet _letter_ (effectively an op-ed), for example,
| mentions race exactly zero times. It does somewhat
| recklessly affiliate these theories with conspiracy
| theories, but it's worth remembering that they were
| responding _to actual conspiracy theories_ like the virus
| being a bioweapon purposely released. This is an actual
| theory of conspiracy for which there continues to be no
| evidence. Scientists were getting death threats on this
| basis.
|
| And again, the Lancet letter itself points to the then-
| current body of evidence, which people can contribute to
| or refute via their own publications (this is how science
| works).
| spfzero wrote:
| They weren't responding to any body of evidence. There
| was zero at that time, on either side. They were trying
| to get out in front and head off what they thought was
| something reasonable people would include in their
| consideration of origins.
|
| They had no evidence either way but knew that they had a
| lot to lose, and fired everything they had.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The letter didn't blame racism, the letter cited several
| genomic analyses that actually had already been conducted
| by that point, and to my knowledge that letter didn't
| disrupt any research into the virus's origins. Open to
| seeing evidence otherwise though.
| dnautics wrote:
| You're twisting my words and deflecting from my point. To
| clarify: The letter did _not_ call it racism, other
| people did. This is verifiable in many places.
| ethanbond wrote:
| And we're to take some commentators (Twitter users? TV
| personalities maybe?) calling it racist as evidence of
| what would certainly be the largest scientific
| suppression campaign ever conducted?
|
| People are discussing this hypothesis _nonstop_.
| ajross wrote:
| The Lancet article was opinionated. It may have been
| wrong. I still don't see how that constitutes suppression
| or cancellation or censorship (and certainly not an
| accusation of racism). There were people within the
| scientific community who disagreed (Chan is one). There
| just weren't many of them.
|
| Holding an opinion contrary to an expert consensus isn't
| a state of persecution.
| spfzero wrote:
| The Lancet letter came about to imply there was an expert
| consensus, when there was not yet one. It was driven by
| the exact people who would know best that a lab origin
| was plausible, saying loudly that it was not.
| ajross wrote:
| That's not suppression, though. It's just disagreement. I
| understand that you personally believe that the Lancet
| authors were acting in bad faith. But you surely agree
| they had the right to author that letter, right? You
| just... disagree.
|
| That's the way things are supposed to work. Maybe science
| is wrong sometimes, and people argue. And eventually we
| come to consensus.
|
| I have to say: it sounds like you're the one on the pro-
| suppression side here (arguing that the Lancet shouldn't
| have published that letter). Am I wrong?
| spfzero wrote:
| I don't blame the Lancet for publishing it. They had no
| way of knowing it was not what it seemed. They should
| have maybe looked for the conflicts of interest a bit
| harder, and it is to their credit that they encouraged
| Daszak to write a correction later.
|
| Everyone should be heard. Unfortunately the intent of
| that original letter was to pre-bias against opposing
| viewpoints, before they got to be heard.
| ajross wrote:
| > the intent of that original letter was to pre-bias
| against opposing viewpoints
|
| Isn't that the same thing as saying the intent was
| "persuade" the reader? How is it different except in the
| sense that they managed to persuade people to believe
| something with which you disagreed?
| mc32 wrote:
| It's important to have a meta conversation because the
| media and social media were actively hindering discussion
| (censoring) that examined the lab leak hypothesis.
|
| One can't have an honest investigation if one major avenue
| is shut down.
| ajross wrote:
| But... we're literally discussing a book written on the
| subject. It wasn't censored. Neither were discussions
| here on this site, where lab leak arguments were very
| popular.
|
| Are you really sure you aren't confusing controversy (the
| fact that an opinion can be a minority one with which
| most experts disagree) with suppression?
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Just because suppression wasn't successful doesn't mean
| it wasn't attempted. And the attempt itself, by leading
| Western scientists who attempted to forestall any
| discussion and gaslight dissenters with accusations of
| anti-Chinese bigotry and scientific ignorance, is to me
| an even bigger story than covid's actual origins.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The government continued to investigate the lab leak
| hypothesis from the very beginning. The fact that some
| scientists tried to paint it as anti-Chinese bigotry (and
| some of the accusations clearly were) did not stop this.
| There's very little there there.
| watwut wrote:
| I mean, the reality also is that there were in fact
| serious attempts to unleash bigotry instead of focusing
| on response. That is reality of what happened too. Huge
| reason why people painted it as anti-Chinese bigotry is
| that such a thing played a huge role in Trump response.
| Renaming Covid-19 to Chinese virus while downplaying need
| for tests and such was exactly that.
| mc32 wrote:
| Social media actively censored such discussion and Google
| also manipulated autocomplete, etc. The WHO and CDC
| dismissed the theory at the time. The CCP actively
| scrubbed data which would affect the effectiveness of any
| subsequent investigation.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yes, two years after the fact.
|
| It's like saying, after Snowden released his trove of
| documents, what government secret data collection? look,
| here's what Snowden showed us, it's not secret!
|
| We need open discussion at all times not only after we
| "get permission".
|
| When we had the ricin incident in the 2000s people openly
| discussed the possibility of a lab insider being the
| source any it wasn't censored by the media.
| celticninja wrote:
| The suppression is occurring in the actual investigation
| in China, not in relation to this book.
| beefield wrote:
| > It's important to have a meta conversation because the
| media and social media were actively hindering discussion
| (censoring) that examined the lab leak hypothesis.
|
| > One can't have an honest investigation if one major
| avenue is shut down.
|
| The problem is that to my understanding the lab-leak
| discussion was (and still somewhat is) dominated by
| raving mad conspiracy lunatics[1] or instances trying to
| inflict racism. I fully admit that someone should
| seriously research that hypothesis (I fully assume there
| are some serious folks doing just that), but it is also
| difficult to blame media trying to keep the raving mad in
| check, even if some sensible arguments are thrown with
| the bathwater. (Besides, I am not sure if public
| discussion has anything substantial to add before there
| is some conclusion on the matter)
|
| [1] As this is somewhat heated discussion, I think I need
| to emphasize that I definitely do not imply that _all_
| who doubt lab-leak are raving mad. If you think I do,
| please breathe and read again.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| If a theory has been labeled as raving mad racism, only
| those that are comfortable with the cost of that being
| labelled thus will speak up.
|
| I don't see where the media deserves a pass.
| craftinator wrote:
| You have failed to comprehend the parent comment. Please
| read again.
| [deleted]
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