Well, it seems to me that’s an assertion that people are incredibly stupid. That if someone with an ulterior nefarious political motive is pushing an idea, people will automatically assume it must be false without examining the evidence. I don’t see how that’s any less stupid than believing what Trump says without examining the evidence.
Since I don’t think everyone is that stupid, I don’t think that’s sufficient explanation.
This is exactly what I think may have happened. If there was a lab leak, I suspect that it was a similar form of sars-cov-2 that was collected from humans outside of Wuhan. Sequencing of early variants suggest that very few of what is thought of as the original variant was in Wuhan. I can’t remember where they think it came from, but it was somewhere in China.
Well, I think if you ask any scientist what they mean by “natural origin” for the virus in this context, it’s what I said - whether the mutation and recombination events that created SARS-CoV-2 took place entirely in the wild within animal hosts, as opposed to whether some or all of those steps took place in a laboratory setting, whether deliberately or unintentionally.
Mauna Kea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Now, maybe it’s natural, and I’m not saying that it’s not, but did you know that it’s right next to a major vulcanology lab? I don’t think we can reject the idea out of hand that the magma was actually released from the lab.
That analogy would only hold up if, like the volcano, the relevant bat habitat was a small local region around Wuhan. (It’s a terrible analogy anyway, because vulcanology labs don’t hold samples of magma that could be released.)
But the Wuhan lab is the premier lab researching coronavirus, it’s not as though labs like this are dotted all over the region. And the size of the region over which a natural zoonotic event could have occurred is vast - encompassing a big chunk of China plus numerous neighboring countries.
The fact the outbreak occurred near the Wuhan lab is unlikely by chance, and on a probabilistic basis does make some causal connection to the lab somewhat likely. It’s purely circumstantial in itself, but it is a significant and valid reason to examine the possibility of lab involvement carefully.
But the point is, there’s good reason for the lab to be located in an area known to have animal reservoirs of various coronaviruses. And there are also reasons why both the lab and the initial outbreak site would be in or very near a large city. Is it still enough of a coincidence to be surprising? Maybe, but coincidences happen all the time, and it’s not a very big coincidence.
No, that’s not the point. If we’re going to talk about probabilities, the point is exactly what I said it is - the size of the relevant area where a natural event might occur (very large) and the number of such labs within that area (one).
You’ll need to back that assertion up with some numbers. I’ll do the same, there are some old posts with references on this that I’ll have to find. But I think you’re wrong, it’s a significant coincidence.
I think this kind of facile adage is beneath you. We’re talking about assigning probabilities to the various hypotheses here. You know as well as I do that you don’t just selectively ignore some probabilistic evidence on the basis that “coincidences happen all the time”. The best approach at every stage is to take into account all the data.
Sure. I mean, you’re tacking the word ‘origin’ on there, which frames the issue around the dimension of where the virus entered into existence. What about - to use a term from slightly upthread - ‘zoonotic spillover’? I think that’s closer to meaning I articulated.
OK, how large is that area, and how many cities the size of Wuhan are there within that area? I don’t know, myself, but I’m not going to be the one to look it up, either, because I’m not the one making the extraordinary claim.
Well, OK, then, how often does it happen that a worldwide pandemic results from a lab leak, vs. how often does it happen that one results from a zoonotic transfer from a food animal?
I don’t think either side of this is extraordinary. We know that the first major outbreak occurred in close proximity to the premier coronavirus research lab. The question of how unlikely that is clearly needs to be quantified at least in order of magnitude - it would be equally extraordinary to just dismiss it out of hand.
But I’ll dig out the earlier references and get back to you on this.
@Chronos re the probability of first outbreak occuring near the lab by chance: I can’t find the earlier sequence of posts, and I certainly have no ecological expertise, but here’s some data relevant to putting a ballpark estimate on the total size of the area where natural zoonotic evolution & spillover to humans might have occurred. I’m working on the assumption that what’s required is that the relevant species are present; and large numbers of humans with wet markets.
Horseshoe bat range - a big chunk of China, some neighboring countries:
Greater horseshoe bat - Wikipedia
Pangolin range - covers all of the SE Asian horseshoe bat range:
Pangolin - Wikipedia
The closest sequence to SARS-CoV-2 found in the wild (RaTG13) was in Yunan in the far west of China 2000km from Wuhan.
Addendum: A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin | Nature
Commentary on the WHO search for the origin of the virus -
the WHO team should survey bats and other wildlife across southeast Asia for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies
Where did COVID come from? WHO investigation begins but faces challenges
In China as a whole, there are over 100 cities with more than a million people, so approx 50 cities with over a million people within the range of the relevant species. Wuhan is one of the largest of those cities; but on the other hand there are many smaller towns and cities than those 50, also with wet markets.
I’m sure somebody with some ecological expertise could do much better than this, and in any event it’s going to be impossible to put any precision on this, but I think it would be reasonable to estimate the probability of the outbreak occurring this close to the lab purely by chance is maybe in the range 1%-5%.
So he’re I presume you’re looking for a prior probability, without the data that the outbreak was close to a lab. This is even harder to answer, since the number of global pandemics since research labs like this have been in existence is 1 (well, depending how you define it, I guess). Given the vast number of animals in the world that are reservoirs for mutation and recombination, I’m confident this prior probability is small. But there’s a history of leaks of dangerous pathogens from labs. Here’s an article free from any COVID-related bias, since it dates from 2019:
So although I’m confident this prior probability is “small”, I don’t think anyone can be confident that it’s so small that it dwarfs the 1%-5% probability estimate that I gave above for the proximity of the outbreak to the lab.
You and Omnicient seem to be talking about different subjects.
You seem to be talking about the various hypotheses concerning the origin of the virus species itself.
Omniscient seems to be discussing hypotheses concerning the origin of the pandemic.
The origin of the virus could have been natural, artificial, or some combination. But the origin of the pandemic can have mutually exclusive hypotheses. It could have been:
or,
Those two pretty much cover it.
I’m not sure you two have defined what hypotheses you are talking about here and even though you agree on the principle you’re both somehow getting mired in the concerns over—was it leaked on the bottom of a shoe or was it planned and designed to take over the world.
I believe this is source may answer many of arguments to the sources you seek. Pay particular attention to the links and PDF’s when offered. The same posters will bury you with questions and will demand and expect exact, sources exact date’s, their qualifications etc. When that fails spelling and punctuation come next. FYI This is my experience again and again.
I would hope that they checked the field workers for exposure and investigated where they’d been. If they found anything, I don’t think they would feel the need to cover it up, since as you say, collecting samples in the field is what disease researchers normally do and not an example of negligence.
The article is amazing and quite damning for the Wuhan Lab.
What we know is that on a planet with 197 million square miles of land there was a virus that broke out in China. It broke out close to a lab that dealt with that virus. People in the lab became ill at the time it was breaking out.
The country where it broke out took great pains to isolate people locally but not internationally.
The same country that made Dr Li Wenliang.sign a letter of admission for making false comments and severely disturbing the social order after his suggestion doctors should take precautions.
the same country that blamed pangolins and then bats as the culprit.without producing any evidence of it.
It’s the same country that imposed economic restrictions on Australia for suggesting how the virus started.
Now I can’t prove that a lab known for working with Covid viruses at ground zero had anything to do with it but I can point out the behavior of the country involved has been less than forthright.
Maybe, and I’m just throwing this out for discussion, it might be possible to test the lab workers who became ill and see if they were infected with the early versions of covid along with examples of animals from the wet markets that were in question. Surely they tested them as part of the premise they were the cause of the virus so as to address the issue of other carriers in the same location.
Or maybe that’s beyond the technical skills of the virus lab in China, the World Health Organization and other scientist from around the world.
Without proof it would be unconscionable to accuse China of actively repressing negative information.
Since this is the source used by the article linked in the OP, it’s not really breaking new ground, and is based fully on supposition. I’ll let the various opinion pieces toss around theories all day long and wait for a reputable organization to do a thorough investigation and come up with definitive results. Since the government has already started that process, I’ll wait until I see the results, unless a reputable news source does the ground work before that time.
In the mean time, you keep on listening to the guy whose last opinion piece elicited the following official response from the very people who actually did the work on which his opinions were based:
Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results, political institutions and economic development. We reject Wade’s implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork. They do not.
We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures.
At least Charles “The Fucking Bell Curve” Murray had high praise for his work.
Under what conditions do you see the investigation taking place?
My current understanding is that of the three intelligence communities that have taken positions on the origins to the president, two are leaning towards natural human contact scenario while one leans more towards the lab leak. All three have thus far given just low or moderate confidence in the validity of their positions. I believe that the President has asked for them to see if they can find more evidence to strengthen their stances, or change them and strengthen the confidence in the changed stance, and has asked for it within 90 days.
Once we have that in hand, we can sift through the evidence and go from there.
