Lab Leak?
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@doctor-phibes said in Lab Leak?:
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this thing leaked from the Wuhan lab, but I don't think it's clear at this point. Lots of people on both sides seem to be very certain - but of course that's nothing new.
I agree that is possible even probable that it can be traced back to the lab. Would not surprise me if it were the result of human error in the disposal of bio-haz waste or failure to follow handling protocols. I do not believe there was anything deliberate other than Beijing's cover up once it was known the genie was out of the bottle and people were dying.
Conspiracy? I doubt it. Negligence? Quite probable.
A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
In the case of China, a coverup would be routine state policy when something goes awry that would embarrass the leadership. At the same time it is also axiomatic that conspiracy forms the basis for Marxist-Leninist governance - that is what Leninism is. China has never departed from M-L ideology no matter how much we in the West, have tried to convince ourselves otherwise.
In the case of China, a coverup would be routine state policy when something goes awry that would embarrass the leadership. At the same time it is also axiomatic that conspiracy forms the basis for Marxist-Leninist governance - that is what Leninism is. China has never departed from M-L ideology no matter how much we in the West, have tried to convince ourselves otherwise.
And North Korea is China writ large, at least in terms of philosophy.
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Folks, if this thing came from a wet market, as the BS story goes, there are no cases within many miles of where the bats live. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at transmission probabilities.
Nah, this thing is most likely engineered. Whether it is a lab accident is the part I feel is open to debate...
Especially if it’s great for fund raising.
Remind me, what BSL lab did you work in?
None for sure but I do have a close friend who is a leading virologist for a big Pharma company and he has stated to me directly it has all the markings of making a leap vs coming from a lab. I don’t know enough as to what to make of it but his education and reputation is pretty amazing.
Folks, if this thing came from a wet market, as the BS story goes, there are no cases within many miles of where the bats live. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at transmission probabilities.
Nah, this thing is most likely engineered. Whether it is a lab accident is the part I feel is open to debate...
Especially if it’s great for fund raising.
Remind me, what BSL lab did you work in?
None for sure but I do have a close friend who is a leading virologist for a big Pharma company and he has stated to me directly it has all the markings of making a leap vs coming from a lab. I don’t know enough as to what to make of it but his education and reputation is pretty amazing.
I don't give a damn if you sleep with a virologist. Getting told ain't the same as donning the gloves and working under a negative pressure hood with something that can bite you.
There is a reason I have a positive TB test...
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Folks, if this thing came from a wet market, as the BS story goes, there are no cases within many miles of where the bats live. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at transmission probabilities.
Nah, this thing is most likely engineered. Whether it is a lab accident is the part I feel is open to debate...
Especially if it’s great for fund raising.
Remind me, what BSL lab did you work in?
None for sure but I do have a close friend who is a leading virologist for a big Pharma company and he has stated to me directly it has all the markings of making a leap vs coming from a lab. I don’t know enough as to what to make of it but his education and reputation is pretty amazing.
I don't give a damn if you sleep with a virologist. Getting told ain't the same as donning the gloves and working under a negative pressure hood with something that can bite you.
There is a reason I have a positive TB test...
Folks, if this thing came from a wet market, as the BS story goes, there are no cases within many miles of where the bats live. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at transmission probabilities.
Nah, this thing is most likely engineered. Whether it is a lab accident is the part I feel is open to debate...
Especially if it’s great for fund raising.
Remind me, what BSL lab did you work in?
None for sure but I do have a close friend who is a leading virologist for a big Pharma company and he has stated to me directly it has all the markings of making a leap vs coming from a lab. I don’t know enough as to what to make of it but his education and reputation is pretty amazing.
I don't give a damn if you sleep with a virologist. Getting told ain't the same as donning the gloves and working under a negative pressure hood with something that can bite you.
There is a reason I have a positive TB test...
Ok. I have an open mind about what happened and even said earlier the lab theory may be more than possible. Lots of smart people on both sides and a lot of ham handed stuff going on as well. Funding raising on Fauci’s name is definitely a thing and I don’t need to have spent time in a lab to know that.
I’m sure over time more will come out.
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@doctor-phibes said in Lab Leak?:
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this thing leaked from the Wuhan lab, but I don't think it's clear at this point. Lots of people on both sides seem to be very certain - but of course that's nothing new.
I agree that is possible even probable that it can be traced back to the lab. Would not surprise me if it were the result of human error in the disposal of bio-haz waste or failure to follow handling protocols. I do not believe there was anything deliberate other than Beijing's cover up once it was known the genie was out of the bottle and people were dying.
Conspiracy? I doubt it. Negligence? Quite probable.
A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-covid-groupthink-functioned-like-chinas-repression-11623085417
America’s Covid Groupthink Functioned Like China’s Repression
Marching in ideological lockstep is less forgivable in a society where one has a choice in the matter.
What we eventually learn about the origins of Covid-19 may implicate China’s government in failure and falsehood on a grand scale. But before we get too carried away with the endemic failures of the communist order, we should ponder that the episode has exposed layers of rottenness in critical institutions of American civil society that are similarly damning.
China’s officials may well be culpable of a combination of incompetence, recklessness and deceit. But in an authoritarian regime, they might not have had much individual agency in the matter. In this country, scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and executives of Big Tech companies suppressed the story not out of fear of imprisonment or death, but of their own volition, out of ideological or even venal motives. You may well ask: Whose culpability is greater?
It’s not simply that the lab-leak theory was “debunked,” as news organizations repeatedly told us when anyone tried to raise it a year ago. It wasn’t even permitted to be considered. Discussion of the topic was deliberately extinguished on tech platforms, in the respectable scientific journals and in newsrooms.
Some highly influential figures in the “scientific community” were the first to block serious consideration of the thesis that the viral pathogens escaped from a Chinese government laboratory.
Letters in the Lancet and Nature in the early days of the pandemic from an impressive constellation of experts dismissed the lab-leak idea, and in the case of the former, denounced it as a conspiracy theory.
Thanks to a recent release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that some of the scientists dismissing the idea had themselves expressed concerns that the zoonotic explanation they were publicly championing might not be right. We also know that in the case of the Lancet letter, some of the correspondents were involved in similar research and had a strong professional interest in denying the possibility of an engineered virus.
Scientists differ in their methods and conclusions—and do so in good faith. It’s possible some believed there was a genuine scientific basis for rejecting challenges to the official Chinese version of events. But this dismissal of the lab-leak idea is of a piece with the politicization of science that’s been a feature of the last few years. The obsession with debunking anything Donald Trump said and the fear of being accused of racism undoubtedly colored the judgment of many whose job is to consider only the empirical evidence.
Last year, many scientists beclowned themselves by bowing to the prevailing political pieties with their absurd assertion that taking part in protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter was literally salubrious, whereas taking part in protests against lockdowns was lethally reckless.
If too many American scientists failed to help us get a proper understanding of the origins of Covid, they seem to have been abetted by like-minded people in the permanent bureaucracy. Emails to and from Anthony Fauci uncovered last week show that while there were some genuinely diligent officials determined to get to the truth, too many in positions of power seemed keen to stamp out a proper investigation.
As Katherine Eban reported in Vanity Fair last week, officials from two separate bureaus in the State Department warned against a proper investigation for fear of opening a “can of worms.”
Again we have good grounds to suspect that officials in a bureaucracy that had already undermined Donald Trump’s presidency with baseless allegations about Russian collusion seemed intent on suppressing any suggestion, however well-supported it might be, that Trump officials might be right about a critical issue of state.
Yet the largest responsibility for the failure to consider in a timely fashion the lab-leak theory lies with the media.
Journalists were once marked by their curiosity. Now the only thing that’s curious about many of them is their lack of curiosity when a story doesn’t fit their priors.
Instead of pursuing the tantalizing suggestion that the official Chinese and World Health Organization account might not be true, they simply signed onto it and dismissed anyone who didn’t as a kook or a xenophobe. Their ideological cousins in Silicon Valley then firmly shut the door on the story by blocking access to articles that didn’t fit the approved version.
In each field—science, government, media and tech—there were surely independent-minded people who did seek the truth. But they were no match for the groupthink and coverup.
It seems increasingly likely that Chinese officials mishandled research and misrepresented and misinformed the public. But they did so under pain of punishment, even death, in a system designed to suppress that kind of information.
In this country, constitutionally protected, free and independent scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and others did the same. What’s their excuse?
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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One year ago, a study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said that the leak is a possibility and should be investigated:
And our social media betters told us it was a debunked conspiracy theory. "Shut up," they explained.
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One year ago, a study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said that the leak is a possibility and should be investigated:
And our social media betters told us it was a debunked conspiracy theory. "Shut up," they explained.
-
A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-covid-groupthink-functioned-like-chinas-repression-11623085417
America’s Covid Groupthink Functioned Like China’s Repression
Marching in ideological lockstep is less forgivable in a society where one has a choice in the matter.
What we eventually learn about the origins of Covid-19 may implicate China’s government in failure and falsehood on a grand scale. But before we get too carried away with the endemic failures of the communist order, we should ponder that the episode has exposed layers of rottenness in critical institutions of American civil society that are similarly damning.
China’s officials may well be culpable of a combination of incompetence, recklessness and deceit. But in an authoritarian regime, they might not have had much individual agency in the matter. In this country, scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and executives of Big Tech companies suppressed the story not out of fear of imprisonment or death, but of their own volition, out of ideological or even venal motives. You may well ask: Whose culpability is greater?
It’s not simply that the lab-leak theory was “debunked,” as news organizations repeatedly told us when anyone tried to raise it a year ago. It wasn’t even permitted to be considered. Discussion of the topic was deliberately extinguished on tech platforms, in the respectable scientific journals and in newsrooms.
Some highly influential figures in the “scientific community” were the first to block serious consideration of the thesis that the viral pathogens escaped from a Chinese government laboratory.
Letters in the Lancet and Nature in the early days of the pandemic from an impressive constellation of experts dismissed the lab-leak idea, and in the case of the former, denounced it as a conspiracy theory.
Thanks to a recent release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that some of the scientists dismissing the idea had themselves expressed concerns that the zoonotic explanation they were publicly championing might not be right. We also know that in the case of the Lancet letter, some of the correspondents were involved in similar research and had a strong professional interest in denying the possibility of an engineered virus.
Scientists differ in their methods and conclusions—and do so in good faith. It’s possible some believed there was a genuine scientific basis for rejecting challenges to the official Chinese version of events. But this dismissal of the lab-leak idea is of a piece with the politicization of science that’s been a feature of the last few years. The obsession with debunking anything Donald Trump said and the fear of being accused of racism undoubtedly colored the judgment of many whose job is to consider only the empirical evidence.
Last year, many scientists beclowned themselves by bowing to the prevailing political pieties with their absurd assertion that taking part in protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter was literally salubrious, whereas taking part in protests against lockdowns was lethally reckless.
If too many American scientists failed to help us get a proper understanding of the origins of Covid, they seem to have been abetted by like-minded people in the permanent bureaucracy. Emails to and from Anthony Fauci uncovered last week show that while there were some genuinely diligent officials determined to get to the truth, too many in positions of power seemed keen to stamp out a proper investigation.
As Katherine Eban reported in Vanity Fair last week, officials from two separate bureaus in the State Department warned against a proper investigation for fear of opening a “can of worms.”
Again we have good grounds to suspect that officials in a bureaucracy that had already undermined Donald Trump’s presidency with baseless allegations about Russian collusion seemed intent on suppressing any suggestion, however well-supported it might be, that Trump officials might be right about a critical issue of state.
Yet the largest responsibility for the failure to consider in a timely fashion the lab-leak theory lies with the media.
Journalists were once marked by their curiosity. Now the only thing that’s curious about many of them is their lack of curiosity when a story doesn’t fit their priors.
Instead of pursuing the tantalizing suggestion that the official Chinese and World Health Organization account might not be true, they simply signed onto it and dismissed anyone who didn’t as a kook or a xenophobe. Their ideological cousins in Silicon Valley then firmly shut the door on the story by blocking access to articles that didn’t fit the approved version.
In each field—science, government, media and tech—there were surely independent-minded people who did seek the truth. But they were no match for the groupthink and coverup.
It seems increasingly likely that Chinese officials mishandled research and misrepresented and misinformed the public. But they did so under pain of punishment, even death, in a system designed to suppress that kind of information.
In this country, constitutionally protected, free and independent scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and others did the same. What’s their excuse?
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At this point is there anyone suggesting the lab theory is hogwash?
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At this point is there anyone suggesting the lab theory is hogwash?
He has not taken to print. I will check in this weekend.
FYI you have been hitting the wrong quote button recently.
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What quote button is there besides where it says in blue: Quote?
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What quote button is there besides where it says in blue: Quote?
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A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-covid-groupthink-functioned-like-chinas-repression-11623085417
America’s Covid Groupthink Functioned Like China’s Repression
Marching in ideological lockstep is less forgivable in a society where one has a choice in the matter.
What we eventually learn about the origins of Covid-19 may implicate China’s government in failure and falsehood on a grand scale. But before we get too carried away with the endemic failures of the communist order, we should ponder that the episode has exposed layers of rottenness in critical institutions of American civil society that are similarly damning.
China’s officials may well be culpable of a combination of incompetence, recklessness and deceit. But in an authoritarian regime, they might not have had much individual agency in the matter. In this country, scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and executives of Big Tech companies suppressed the story not out of fear of imprisonment or death, but of their own volition, out of ideological or even venal motives. You may well ask: Whose culpability is greater?
It’s not simply that the lab-leak theory was “debunked,” as news organizations repeatedly told us when anyone tried to raise it a year ago. It wasn’t even permitted to be considered. Discussion of the topic was deliberately extinguished on tech platforms, in the respectable scientific journals and in newsrooms.
Some highly influential figures in the “scientific community” were the first to block serious consideration of the thesis that the viral pathogens escaped from a Chinese government laboratory.
Letters in the Lancet and Nature in the early days of the pandemic from an impressive constellation of experts dismissed the lab-leak idea, and in the case of the former, denounced it as a conspiracy theory.
Thanks to a recent release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that some of the scientists dismissing the idea had themselves expressed concerns that the zoonotic explanation they were publicly championing might not be right. We also know that in the case of the Lancet letter, some of the correspondents were involved in similar research and had a strong professional interest in denying the possibility of an engineered virus.
Scientists differ in their methods and conclusions—and do so in good faith. It’s possible some believed there was a genuine scientific basis for rejecting challenges to the official Chinese version of events. But this dismissal of the lab-leak idea is of a piece with the politicization of science that’s been a feature of the last few years. The obsession with debunking anything Donald Trump said and the fear of being accused of racism undoubtedly colored the judgment of many whose job is to consider only the empirical evidence.
Last year, many scientists beclowned themselves by bowing to the prevailing political pieties with their absurd assertion that taking part in protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter was literally salubrious, whereas taking part in protests against lockdowns was lethally reckless.
If too many American scientists failed to help us get a proper understanding of the origins of Covid, they seem to have been abetted by like-minded people in the permanent bureaucracy. Emails to and from Anthony Fauci uncovered last week show that while there were some genuinely diligent officials determined to get to the truth, too many in positions of power seemed keen to stamp out a proper investigation.
As Katherine Eban reported in Vanity Fair last week, officials from two separate bureaus in the State Department warned against a proper investigation for fear of opening a “can of worms.”
Again we have good grounds to suspect that officials in a bureaucracy that had already undermined Donald Trump’s presidency with baseless allegations about Russian collusion seemed intent on suppressing any suggestion, however well-supported it might be, that Trump officials might be right about a critical issue of state.
Yet the largest responsibility for the failure to consider in a timely fashion the lab-leak theory lies with the media.
Journalists were once marked by their curiosity. Now the only thing that’s curious about many of them is their lack of curiosity when a story doesn’t fit their priors.
Instead of pursuing the tantalizing suggestion that the official Chinese and World Health Organization account might not be true, they simply signed onto it and dismissed anyone who didn’t as a kook or a xenophobe. Their ideological cousins in Silicon Valley then firmly shut the door on the story by blocking access to articles that didn’t fit the approved version.
In each field—science, government, media and tech—there were surely independent-minded people who did seek the truth. But they were no match for the groupthink and coverup.
It seems increasingly likely that Chinese officials mishandled research and misrepresented and misinformed the public. But they did so under pain of punishment, even death, in a system designed to suppress that kind of information.
In this country, constitutionally protected, free and independent scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and others did the same. What’s their excuse?
A deliberate coverup would literally be a conspiracy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-covid-groupthink-functioned-like-chinas-repression-11623085417
America’s Covid Groupthink Functioned Like China’s Repression
Marching in ideological lockstep is less forgivable in a society where one has a choice in the matter.
What we eventually learn about the origins of Covid-19 may implicate China’s government in failure and falsehood on a grand scale. But before we get too carried away with the endemic failures of the communist order, we should ponder that the episode has exposed layers of rottenness in critical institutions of American civil society that are similarly damning.
China’s officials may well be culpable of a combination of incompetence, recklessness and deceit. But in an authoritarian regime, they might not have had much individual agency in the matter. In this country, scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and executives of Big Tech companies suppressed the story not out of fear of imprisonment or death, but of their own volition, out of ideological or even venal motives. You may well ask: Whose culpability is greater?
It’s not simply that the lab-leak theory was “debunked,” as news organizations repeatedly told us when anyone tried to raise it a year ago. It wasn’t even permitted to be considered. Discussion of the topic was deliberately extinguished on tech platforms, in the respectable scientific journals and in newsrooms.
Some highly influential figures in the “scientific community” were the first to block serious consideration of the thesis that the viral pathogens escaped from a Chinese government laboratory.
Letters in the Lancet and Nature in the early days of the pandemic from an impressive constellation of experts dismissed the lab-leak idea, and in the case of the former, denounced it as a conspiracy theory.
Thanks to a recent release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that some of the scientists dismissing the idea had themselves expressed concerns that the zoonotic explanation they were publicly championing might not be right. We also know that in the case of the Lancet letter, some of the correspondents were involved in similar research and had a strong professional interest in denying the possibility of an engineered virus.
Scientists differ in their methods and conclusions—and do so in good faith. It’s possible some believed there was a genuine scientific basis for rejecting challenges to the official Chinese version of events. But this dismissal of the lab-leak idea is of a piece with the politicization of science that’s been a feature of the last few years. The obsession with debunking anything Donald Trump said and the fear of being accused of racism undoubtedly colored the judgment of many whose job is to consider only the empirical evidence.
Last year, many scientists beclowned themselves by bowing to the prevailing political pieties with their absurd assertion that taking part in protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter was literally salubrious, whereas taking part in protests against lockdowns was lethally reckless.
If too many American scientists failed to help us get a proper understanding of the origins of Covid, they seem to have been abetted by like-minded people in the permanent bureaucracy. Emails to and from Anthony Fauci uncovered last week show that while there were some genuinely diligent officials determined to get to the truth, too many in positions of power seemed keen to stamp out a proper investigation.
As Katherine Eban reported in Vanity Fair last week, officials from two separate bureaus in the State Department warned against a proper investigation for fear of opening a “can of worms.”
Again we have good grounds to suspect that officials in a bureaucracy that had already undermined Donald Trump’s presidency with baseless allegations about Russian collusion seemed intent on suppressing any suggestion, however well-supported it might be, that Trump officials might be right about a critical issue of state.
Yet the largest responsibility for the failure to consider in a timely fashion the lab-leak theory lies with the media.
Journalists were once marked by their curiosity. Now the only thing that’s curious about many of them is their lack of curiosity when a story doesn’t fit their priors.
Instead of pursuing the tantalizing suggestion that the official Chinese and World Health Organization account might not be true, they simply signed onto it and dismissed anyone who didn’t as a kook or a xenophobe. Their ideological cousins in Silicon Valley then firmly shut the door on the story by blocking access to articles that didn’t fit the approved version.
In each field—science, government, media and tech—there were surely independent-minded people who did seek the truth. But they were no match for the groupthink and coverup.
It seems increasingly likely that Chinese officials mishandled research and misrepresented and misinformed the public. But they did so under pain of punishment, even death, in a system designed to suppress that kind of information.
In this country, constitutionally protected, free and independent scientists, bureaucrats, journalists and others did the same. What’s their excuse?
The best thing that can come out of this is a total abandonment of big media along with government regulation and oversight of the electronic public square, with a huge emphasis on the First Amendment.
