[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.
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