Even some expert 'pre-reviewers' that received the advance of the most recent bombshell paper that supposedly proved an unnatural virus with lab origin missed obvious tells that completely invalidated the authors' claims. E.g. this thread; https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/15870905072887767...
If people do want to make up their own minds on this - I'd encourage you to track down people making falsifiable claims and then changing their priors based on the results of that research instead of people jumping from one conspiracy theory to the next to avoid changing their views.
As one data point, several prominent "lab leakers" on Twitter are now insisting that prior strains are fake and were invented by virologists since those strains disprove recent papers instead of considering that maybe those recent papers were flawed. It's bizarre to watch. (One of the authors of the most recent 'bombshell' LL paper claiming that two related field-collected coronaviruses are fake / manipulated: https://twitter.com/VBruttel/status/1584920770605621248)
But the answer isn’t “go away and let the grownups decide”, the answer is to try to learn what constitutes an expert, try to understand what degree of consensus does or does not exist amongst those experts, try to ferret out some obvious biases (e.g. red team / blue team idiocy) and be as informed as possible.
The standard model of particle physics, or Wiles FLT proof, or 1000 other things are every bit as technical as anything in virology, but you’ll notice the mathematicians all agree: the layperson doesn’t have to look very hard to know what the takeaway is there.
It’s medicine’s (including virology’s) job to get its shit together on the public’s behalf, not the other way around.
This kind of condescension infuriates me, I’m working hard to be as polite as possible here.
I agree with the other person though, there is a correlation between people I've heard say "do your own research" and people with less reasonable beliefs. (Hi, mom).
I meant it in the more nuanced sense of trying to actually do research. A layperson who wants to be informed has to start somewhere, and when the stakes are as high as with global public health, I think it behooves the person in the street to try to at least read the abstracts of some papers, try to identify experts on both sides of a controversy, and be aware that credentials are no guarantee of reasonability.
Shockley played a big role in the transistor, IIRC got the Nobel, and later spent years advocating for racist eugenicist horseshit: credentials are a good guideline, but they can’t be blindly trusted.
I really wish the medical community just agreed about all this stuff: then my job would be easy, do what they say.
Unfortunately you seem to get one group of MD/PhD people saying those other MD/PhD people are cranks, we’re the “real” scientific consensus. This does not make it easy for the well-intentioned layperson.
There's no political or financial implications to whether Wiles' proof of FLT is correct or not, and the proof can be checked with certainty by experts in the field -- so of course they can come to a consensus about something extraordinarily technical. Unfortunately with Covid, every question has turned into a political shibboleth so there will forever be FUD promoted by people who should know better. How is the average reader supposed to weigh the probabilities of some esoteric question like what the potential presence or absence of IIS restriction sites means when it's being promoted by people with advanced degrees as evidence of an artificial origin, even though it's nonsense?
So I retreat to my earlier advice for those trying to form an opinion here -- look into the history of claims from the various scientists, and see whether evidence is guiding their claims or if their claims are guiding their evidence.
I called it a theory, as in, neither conclusively proven nor conclusively disproven. It’s a theory about which there has been significant controversy. I didn’t even say there was significant evidence for it.
Acknowledging the existence of a controversy is not the same thing as promoting a conspiracy theory, and as you yourself point out, basically everyone, from word-renowned virologists down to the man in the street, has skin in the game on this one.
The world’s medical community had a COVID response that was a fucking disaster: inconsistent and constantly changing guidance, conflicts of interest, geopolitical 4th dimensional warfare, rushed and sloppy-looking vaccine approvals.
It’s no wonder the public believes a bunch of crazy shit: the experts dropped the ball. Trying to blame that on the ignorance and gullibility of the layperson and flip the script like that set back the public’s willingness to take vaccines and listen to the authorities by 50-100 years.
Don’t try to blame that on us plebs.
I don't think you can claim to have consensus on this matter since Dr. Li-Meng Yan who worked at the lab and got the CCP scrub when she went public had been speaking out about this since 2020 after having been in hiding and then fleeing China for her claims. Moreover she detailed how people who worked at the lab in Wuhan have been in retrospect beholden to the CCP for not discussing the poor safety record of the lab.
And your position about how it's not worthy of discussion makes it very clear you speak with a sense of bias because ultimately a conclusive epidemiological study will prove impossible since the floods in Wuhan in 2020 took place that coincided with the CCP's abject refusal to have outside investigators come in and search for the possible origin of the COVID, and even accused the US of creating the virus and spreading it--much how Russia has made to justify it's illegal invasion into Ukraine to de-nazify it and now de-satanize it after claims of US COVID biolabs in Ukraine.
For what's it worth, I have a BSc in cellular and molecular biology, and I was also involved in the plight of the HK people since the Umbrella Revolution, and had people been actually abreast of that situation they would have known that something was going incredibly wrong by November 2019: the CCP/Lam regime forced the protests for the extradition bill (and possibly declare independence the way things were going since the Summer) in HK to be quelled altogether for a fear of contagion of what had been going around in order to prevent the calamity of the Avaian Bird flu that is still in recent memory for many in HK--which was much worse on the mainland than it was in HK because of the abysmal health and safety practices by the CCP.
And had people paid attention, the CCP not only arrested many dissenters and created a massive diaspora in one of the most affluent and well educated countries in Asia that served as an economic hub to the West it got the NSL to pass during this time, it also continued to arrest and intimidate Hong Kong into abject repression all under the pretense of COVID. when they themselves, via the Lam regime, kept the borders open and allowed mainland Chinese to enter HK and their were plenty of recorded footage of them violating covid practices (quarantine) and actively going into public areas and act as vectors (coughing and spitting on elevators), going into restaurants despite quarantine practices etc...
Lastly, Propublica released an investigative piece last month about the lab leak theory [0] under the auspicious of the US senate, which I'm not denying has glaring geo-political overtones; especially given the CCP's saber-rattling towards Taiwan and well documented tyrannical behaviour in Xinjiang and Hong Kong; the latter violated the Sino-British treaty and dismissed international Law which effectively mean it illegally annexed a territory imposed a repressive law (NSL) to suppress any dissent which was to operate autonomously until 2037--which can be seen as hostile as Russia violating both the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk agreements when it invaded Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed and occupied Crimea/Lugansk/Donetsk and has led to full invasion and crimes against Humanity ever since with indiscriminate shelling on civilian areas under the aforementioned pretenses.
I'll leave it here because quite honestly I can't fathom anyone to be so brazenly reductionist in their thinking and claim to have the 'upper hand' when their is clear violations all the way which implicate not just the CCP but the US (via NIH funding) as well for funding the GoF research in Wuhan [1] despite repeated safety record violations.
And on a personal note: it's because the health sciences is filled with people like you that I had to turn to tech in the end. I was sent into such a forlorn depression after a short career in it when I found the Industry is was mainly filled with people who will cling on to any party-line in order to continue their work and research. In retrospect I wish I had chosen something else to give so much of my time, effort and passion had I known how quickly it becomes a way to legitimize the commonly held narratives of the State or a Corporation, and how quickly it willing compromise itself for such short-sighted goals in the process.
0: https://www.propublica.org/article/senate-report-covid-19-or...
1: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statem...
You: "What about this Chinese scientist who lied about their experience and had no actual evidence of anything but who was working with Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui and repeatedly platformed on Tucker Carlson?![1] Oh and a Senate Republicans minority committee just released a report that mistranslates standard Chinese party doctrine as menacing![2]"
Admitting that Covid19 was very likely a spillover of a natural virus doesn't mean that you trust China, that you think their labs are run well or are incapable of accidents, that they've been transparent or helpful with the investigations, or that the possibility of new evidence pointing to a lab origin is foreclosed -- just that the actual physical evidence we have today about this virus and this pandemic overwhelmingly points to a natural origin.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bann...
[2] - https://twitter.com/janeqiuchina/status/1589098167051911169
Since you put the Twitter handle as an evidence for your argument. This particular Chinese jounalist is using Twitter and publishing articles in Western journals *while living in China*. What makes you think she is more trustworthy than Steve Bannon? Even if she is an honest and trustworthy person why would CCP let her publish anything that goes against their narrative?
> just that the actual physical evidence we have today about this virus and this pandemic overwhelmingly points to a natural origin
actual physical evidence *provided by China* FTFY. You don't think China will readily handover the data to you if it came from lab, do you? And what physical evidence? The evidences are just some early patient data and virus gene sequences. By that logic HIV spillover happened in US, not in Africa. Because early HIV cases have been detected in USA.
> overwhelmingly points to a natural origin
according to whom? The virologists who also have a history of covering up lab leaks. The virologists who will have the most to lose if lab leak is true. [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/world/europe/coronavirus-...
For you to say, e.g. “My bona fides are such and such, I find this theory highly implausible for $REASONS” would be eminently useful and helpful and very much in the spirit of the site.
In case the multiple people saying this aren’t saying it clearly enough: you sound more like “Serious people all agree about this, only cranks disagree with us, and you plebs wouldn’t understand even if I explained it”.
Love #1. Fuck #2 in fucking particular.
I'd rather question your claims than your position, because I know where you stand anyway, which is the crux of my response: so, where was it revealed that Dr. Yan lied about her credentials and her experience at the Wuhan lab? To date that has never been proven despite constant criticism, what has been proven is that she was scrubbed from the Internet when she went public and that the CCP targeted her family (she is a Chinese National) while she was still in HK. She continues to publish her work in peer-reviewed journals [0] and her work stands alongside her colleagues who continue to publish their work on other journals. I'm willing to review these sources that discredit her in order to contrast with my currently held position and arrive to a better informed position, which is something I'm not sure you are willing to do.
I will agree that those who ran with the story first have a clear and unscrupulous bias, but that is the very definition of shooting the messenger which never result in her claims being thoroughly vetted--she released her scientific papers after having arrived to the US and fleeing from China then HK and finally to the US. That takes resources she likely didn't have after the ordeal.
This has to be seen as dire as the exodus of Jewish scientists fleeing Nazi Germany for it to be seen in proper context, as that is what has happened in Hong Kong since the Summer of 2019 and ultimately what set the NSL doctrine in HK, but since so many dismiss things based on association then you're making my point for me that is continues even in the upper echelons of Academia as I presume you are given what you have said and how you have expressed yourself thus far.
> Admitting that Covid19 was very likely a spillover of a natural virus doesn't mean that you trust China, that you think their labs are run well or are incapable of accidents, that they've been transparent or helpful with the investigations, or that the possibility of new evidence pointing to a lab origin is foreclosed -- just that the actual physical evidence we have today about this virus and this pandemic overwhelmingly points to a natural origin.
Personally, I fully admit I do not have beyond an undergrads understanding of genetics/virology; my career was spent in the field of oncological diagnostics (specifically Leukemia and Lymphoma), so it's hardly the same field and I do not claim expertise. But, unlike most, I have a very clear and documented history laying out the violent hypocrisy of the CCP's held beliefs on COVID and it's actions in HK that coincided with the protests in 2019-2021.
But, it stands to reason that anyone who remains so adamant of the claims (Natural origin) and is coaxing it as much as you are the likely cause requires much more compelling evidence and is otherwise ignoring the simple fact that we will never know what happened due to the refusal of the CCP to allow investigators into the country in the onset while having cases in HK and still forcing the borders open to the mainland when it was in lockdown and that the subsequent floods removed any real evidence that could identify the origin (on either side) in order to create a consensus is done in order to get back to business as usual while simultaneously trying to absolve anyone guilt of this as something that needs to be accepted--which is ironic since this naturaly caused illness is still forcing people in China to be locked-down due to China's zero-covid policy.
These are the (many) mental gymnastics I underscored in my first post, and why I think it's deserving of such ire. You make claims, you cannot support and instead will play identity politics (entirely useless since I'm an anarchist and I have no political affiliation) rather than rebuttal with actual evidence and facts to support your claim. Which thus far include:
- COVID is of Natural Origin due the evidence (that's not conclusive)
- Dr. Yan is not a real scientist and lied about her experience and is puppet of the MAGA crowd
- Lab Leak is absurd and should be dismissed because reasons(?)
Again, I remain that any person with any shred of credibility would question all positions and realize we simply do not have, and will likely never have, enough information to conclusively arrive to either.
But it's this forced narrative and consensus MO (and the arrogance that follows with it) that is strikingly consistent in my experience--not to mention this need for a 'COVID amnesty' and the blanket immunity of pharmaceutical corps got early on.
Do I know it definitely leaked from a lab? Absolutely not, I felt it was rather convenient and compelling evidence to quell the HK revolts against the extradition bill (given who bird flu went down) and I saw to what length the CCP was willing to go to do so, and has continued on a belligerent war-path to achieve it's end thorough out it's bloody history and will disspaear, kill and enslave people who question it's position and supremacy clause on the one china policy.
And this is why I think it's not beyond reason that they used the pre-tense of a wet-lab based disease in order to achieve their end(s), which ironically was supported by the US via NIH grants to study GoF at the Wuhan lab until 2017 and had a documented lengthy history of safety violations and had reported cases of similar symptoms in the Fall of 2019 which was critical in suppressing the HK protests.
0: https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453edsnp55rrgjct55))/referenc...
