Occam’s Razor says this was a natural incident. To suggest otherwise without evidence is a conspiracy theory.
It’s even pretty lame for a conspiracy theory. If it’s true, then the Chinese government is covering up how their lab bungled the safe handling of a natural virus and let it get out from there to the human population, as opposed to its getting into the human population through contact with wild animals.
Not much there to get worked up about.
One could just as easily say that Occam’s Razor indicates that a new virus that starts at the doorstep of a virology lab came out of the virology lab.
How so?
The hypothesis that this virus was accidentally let loose from the virology center posits several things that we don’t have evidence for. No evidence of such an accident, no evidence that the unnamed virologist has been in China in the last 4 years, no evidence of a cover up.
Meanwhile, for the alternative hypothesis we have the names of the first patients and their connection to the wet market. We know that bats and other exotic animals such as pangolin (scales) are sometimes sold there. We know that bats carry this virus if not being the original source.
The OP has things backwards. If you begin with believing claims before they’ve been definitively ruled out, then you’re going to believe all kinds of crap. It’s hard to rule things out, particularly if we’re allowed to throw in ad hoc suppositions. Better to only start to have confidence in a hypothesis when it has supporting evidence.
How long until the right blames cryptobiologist Hillary Clinton for creating the coronavirus in a secret lab funded by George Soros?
Moderator Note
Keep the political cracks out of GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Sorry, I didn’t notice the forum.
This is all highly dubious. I would quibble with some of your facts, e.g. 1) there is evidence of a cover up of some sort in the way the Chinese government has dealt with the issue, 2) I believe bats are not sold in the market, which why there’s speculation that the virus would have to have gone from bats to something else like pangolins which are. (Or possibly it’s snakes.) 3) the first patient was not connected to the market and of the first cluster, 2/3 had such a connection but not all. cite.
Bottom line and broader point is that very little is definitively known about the origins and any hypothesis involves some speculation. More below.
You’re presenting things in a highly skewed manner.
If you don’t know things and there are several possibilities, what you do is keep your mind open and allow for the possibility that any one of these might possibly be correct. You’re presenting it as if the only two choices are to “believe claims” or to ignore them entirely, but that’s illogical and also not anything anyone here has said.
The question is whether the notion that the virus somehow escaped from the research facility (possibly to the market, which is a few miles away) is a nutty conspiracy theory or whether it’s a legitimate possibility. That’s all.
There’s no evidence of a cover up to support this hypothesis. If I thought that China was collaborating with aliens, I can’t point to the fact that they tried to suppress early info about the virus as evidence.
Funny that you’re giving the market a very specific benefit of the doubt here. Oh, because you’re wedded to a particular theory.
Note that your cite just cites a japanese article for the claim that the market sells snakes (and potentially implied: not bats), and that article just lists snakes and marmots as among things potentially sold illegally there.
We would not expect that a virus that is person-to-person contagious would have 100% of cases directly linked to the market. 37 out of the first 51 is a pretty clear pattern though. There is no such pattern linking to the virology center.
The paper mentions that the first patient identified had no apparent link to the wet market (or the virology center), but that’s not the same thing as postulating that that patient was the index case, which would need to be confirmed with genetic sequencing.
It’s ironic that you’re suggesting I’m mischaracterizing a position, then you characterize my position as being a binary “believe or entirely reject”; something I have never said. In fact I chose my words carefully, talking about confidence levels.
The wet market hypothesis has plenty of supporting evidence and is considered by far the most likely origin by organizations such as the WHO. Meanwhile the virology center thing has basically nothing but speculation behind it right now.
There’s plenty of evidence that Chinese authorities were engaged in a cover-up WRT this disease. This is pretty well-known. Random link here.
If I want to say a certain theory is true I’m perfectly capable of saying it myself. All I’ve said in this thread is that the notion that the research center was involved doesn’t seem like a nutty conspiracy theory.
Your attempt to pretend that I’m “wedded to a particular theory” is a continuation of your attempt to enable you to “win” by simply showing that the research facility notion is not conclusive, rather than having to show that it’s implausible. You don’t seem to be arguing in good faith here.
I only have your own words to go by. You said:
Your entire point was that one shouldn’t “believ[e] claims” and your entire argument was directed against “believing claims”, which was not a position I or anyone else have argued in this thread. And indeed in this very post, you go on to assert that I was “wedded to a particular theory”, which is a continuation of the same approach, as noted above.
Again, the only thing I’ve supported in this thread is the notion that the virology center hypothesis doesn’t seem like a nutty conspiracy theory, in the context of overall uncertainty as to the original source of the outbreak. You want to honestly take a position against that, go ahead. But don’t dismiss it by pretending that you’re arguing against “believing claims” or the like.
I think this is deliberately being obtuse, because in my last message I stated very clearly evidence of a cover up to support this hypothesis and even gave the example of how evidence of information about this disease being suppressed in the first couple of weeks does not in itself support a given conspiracy theory.
I haven’t called it nutty either. I’ve just said it’s completely unsupported at this time.
Nobody has to show it’s implausible, that’s the point you’re missing.
Until there’s any supporting evidence, directly supporting, not “The Chinese suppressed information in the early days, so…”, this hypothesis belongs in the same filing cabinet as the other infinity of hypotheses with no supporting evidence.
Well this comes down to the old question of whether JAQ is a rhetorical method for advocating for a position. Why not JAQ about my alien hypothesis, or something about the CIA, or whatever? The fact that some ideas might seem more plausible to you isn’t worth anything, where’s the evidence?
Apparently there’s a hypothesis going round on WeChat that corona virus was planted by the US. Big emphasis on apparently, as I live in China, I’m a frequent WeChat user, and I only heard about this through Western websites, trying to suggest “Look! The Chinese are racist / ignorant too”!
But if it turns out that some people find this hypothesis plausible, what exactly does that count for?
Here’s the thing about science-minded folks. They believe evidence, not claims.
There is evidence that it came from bats and reached the human population via the Wuhan wet market.
There is no evidence that it came from the lab. There is no evidence that it was engineered. There is no evidence that it was deliberately or accidentally released by humans.
Those options are possibilities… all science minded people would be open to them being correct if evidence were presented to support those ideas. Until then, positing things is just navel-gazing, discussing them is virtually useless, except to ask if there’s any evidence that they are correct. When you’re told “no, there is no evidence” you can’t just reply “but what if this and what if that?” What if isn’t evidence. CTs are theories held with no evidence to support them and held despite evidence pointing another way.
I was being charitable in interpreting your words.
Obviously if there were evidence that the Chinese government was suppressing specifically that the virus had leaked from the research facility that would itself be evidence that the virus had actually leaked. So if you’re already arguing that there’s a paucity of evidence for the hypothesis itself, then you would be double-counting if you also claimed that there was a paucity of evidence that the hypothesis specifically was being covered up. So I assumed you meant that there was no evidence of a cover-up generally, which would preclude that this specifically was being covered up.
But if you accept that the government has engaged in a cover-up WRT to the disease in general, then it makes it all the more plausible that the facility was involved, especially since that’s something they would be particularly keen to cover up.
OK. This thread was about whether it’s nutty.
IMHO, the facility hypothesis is far more plausible than the notion that the virus was due to aliens or the CIA. Do you disagree with this? Do you think that it’s equally plausible that the virus leaked from the facility as that it was introduced by aliens or the CIA? If not, then you have no point here.
ISTM that you’re calling some things “evidence” and other things “claims” without valid justification.
You’re saying there’s “evidence” it came from bats based apparently on the notion that the virus is present in bats, but someone cited earlier that the virus was also known to be present in the lab and you’re not considering that “evidence” that it came from the lab.
[I’ve noted repeatedly in this thread, including the OP, that the notion that it was engineered is not what I’m considering here.]
Actually, outside of being a little more serious than the flu, it’s a pretty ordinary virus as viruses go. If they are working on a killer virus as a form of germ warfare, it’s going to be something like the Andromeda Strain (Michael Crichton), a virus that can decimate their target. They’ll also want an antidote so they don’t destroy themselves in the process.
The things spread by WeChat and Weibo (and other social media) can often be blamed on a Moronavirus…
Since the OP seems to be more interested in an argument rather than facts;), let’s move this to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It’s evidence that samples are stored in the lab. That’s the end of your evidence. I believe your evidence.
There is evidence that the virus exists in the wild animal population. There is evidence that a large proportion of the first infected people had links to a market that sold wild animals of a type that can transmit the virus.
Here’s the thing that I think you’re not getting… when scientists say there’s no evidence that it came from the lab it means THEY LOOKED. When scientists say it wasn’t engineered… THEY LOOKED. I absolutely guarantee that virologists looked into the possibility that it came from that lab, they’d be complete fools if they didn’t. They’re not fools, and you’re not smarter than all the virologists around because you figured out that it’s possible for a virus to escape a lab, there’s been like 1,000 movies depicting that exact scenario.
What? I’ve read this paragraph several times and I don’t follow what you’re saying.
I’m simply saying there’s no evidence of a virus leaking from a lab or of a cover up of a virus leaking from a lab. What am I double-counting?
There are lots of reasons we can speculate for the early cover up. There’s a history, for example, of hiding bad news until after the annual congresses in January. So, in itself, no, I don’t think it supports a hypothesis about aliens making the virus. Or it being leaked from the virology center.
Not quite. The OP asks why this hypothesis is not being taken more seriously. The answer is because there’s no supporting evidence.
My point is, and I said it again twice in my last post alone, *who cares *what sounds plausible to me or you? Where’s the evidence?
I’m being a bit more forthright in this thread than normal, simply because I think CTs are such a scourge. CTs about climate change, about political opponents, and other races and nationalities are causing so many problems around the world.
And it’s all based on a simple lack of understanding on skeptical thought. Evidence first, dammit.
The thing I’m not getting is that I’m not aware of any scientists claiming there’s no evidence it came from the lab. No one has posted anything of this sort to this thread, to this point. If you have a cite for this claim, please post it.
If scientists have looked and failed to find evidence that it came from the lab, that would obviously change things considerably.
The OP asked “why is that CT territory?”, i.e. why that should be treated as nutty.
Things which are plausible are more likely to be true than things which are not plausible. Therefore, they are worth paying more attention to.