First, the bad news: Media Bias Fact Check rates The Guardian only 'mixed' (not high or very high) for factual accuracy.
The good news: this article seems pretty well grounded and reasonable to this reader.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/01/wuhan-coronavirus-lab-leak-covid-virus-origins-china
Discuss?
The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 08:16:34 AM
The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!
What'ya think of the piece?
Quote from: mahagonny on June 01, 2021, 08:48:37 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 08:16:34 AM
The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!
What'ya think of the piece?
That it's inferior to the one their fired columnist wrote on the same subject a few weeks ago (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-stakes-of-finding-covid-19s-origins&ved=2ahUKEwjA-O3D5vbwAhUT6Z4KHUUqD0YQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw2n8QrWUT367S8C9fisZsb3).
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 08:59:14 AM
That it's inferior to the one their fired columnist wrote on the same subject a few weeks ago (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-stakes-of-finding-covid-19s-origins&ved=2ahUKEwjA-O3D5vbwAhUT6Z4KHUUqD0YQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw2n8QrWUT367S8C9fisZsb3).
"Many of the people pushing the theory that the virus came from a lab in Wuhan (e.g. Donald Trump) have been clearly ideologically opposed to China already. "
Meaning what, not communists? OK, I'll sign up.
It seems possible that it was indeed a virus that escaped from a lab. Nicholson Baker has done some good work on this kind of thing. I certainly hope we can get to the bottom of it, with enough depth of evidence or absence of evidence to establish the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. There will certainly be people with unreasonable conclusions, whichever way the evidence ends up pointing, because we seem to be in a post-evidence age. And the most important point is that evidence of its origin doesn't give us a way to end the pandemic, or even ways to prevent new ones both coming out of labs and emerging from the wild. Both are entirely possible, whatever the truth behind this one.
Quoteor even ways to prevent new ones both coming out of labs
But it does tell us where to look. With all the talk, and it's just talk, by some about risk, it is easy to forget Mark Twain's masterful insight about risk: There are two ways of dealing with risk. One is to not keep all your eggs in one basket. The other is to keep all your eggs in one basket, AND WATCH THAT BASKET!
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 08:59:14 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on June 01, 2021, 08:48:37 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 08:16:34 AM
The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!
What'ya think of the piece?
That it's inferior to the one their fired columnist wrote on the same subject a few weeks ago (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-stakes-of-finding-covid-19s-origins&ved=2ahUKEwjA-O3D5vbwAhUT6Z4KHUUqD0YQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw2n8QrWUT367S8C9fisZsb3).
Here's an interesting quotation:
Quote
Wade was a New York Times science journalist for 30 years, but he also wrote a book on genetics and race that was harshly criticized by well over 100 experts on population genetics and evolutionary biology. (That book was blurbed by white supremacist pseudoscientist Charles Murray, which is a giant red flag.) Ultimately, arguments need to be evaluated independent of the person making them.
Kind of forwards-backwards.
Do arguments need to be "evaluated independent of the person making them", or does any statement made by a "problematic" person raise a "red flag"?
He needs to make up his mind.
A red flag is a warning, an indication that we should be cautious about accepting whatever's being claimed. It does not establish that the claim is false. There's nothing inconsistent about your excerpt.
The fact that some claim is peddled by someone who consistently does bad work is not sufficient to establish that the claim is garbage, but it is a good reason not to just accept it at face value without further scrutiny.
There's a reason why the appeal to authority (or the genetic fallacy, if you prefer) is not a formal fallacy: you can't identify it based on its form alone. There will be instances that fit the from but which are not fallacious. That's not true for formal fallacies like denying the antecedent.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 02:12:26 PM
A red flag is a warning, an indication that we should be cautious about accepting whatever's being claimed. It does not establish that the claim is false. There's nothing inconsistent about your excerpt.
The fact that some claim is peddled by someone who consistently does bad work is not sufficient to establish that the claim is garbage, but it is a good reason not to just accept it at face value without further scrutiny.
It sounds like justification for "journalists" to drag their heels investigating things they don't
want to be true. If overwhelming evidence eventually forces them to admit it, they can try to get off the hook
for their own failure by saying the original source was unreliable.
Or, you know. Epistemic responsibility. Deference to science rather than discredited crackpots. Whatever.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 02:57:37 PM
Or, you know. Epistemic responsibility. Deference to science rather than discredited crackpots. Whatever.
Only if they never investigate claims but simply broadcast whatever they're given. If they actually
investigate the claims, as they're supposed to, then the presumed veracity of the original source is irrelevant.
Maybe I am missing something here but from day one I never really cared about its origin. I only cared about how it affected me and society, how we deal with it, how we can move on and get back to normal, etc. Each story, wet market or a lab, relied on lots of circumstantial evidence and I have seen no conclusive evidence for either version. Then again, I did not read too much about it since I could not get myself to care.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 01, 2021, 04:17:33 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 02:57:37 PM
Or, you know. Epistemic responsibility. Deference to science rather than discredited crackpots. Whatever.
Only if they never investigate claims but simply broadcast whatever they're given. If they actually investigate the claims, as they're supposed to, then the presumed veracity of the original source is irrelevant.
And the relevant detail here is that Charles Murray is full of shit and we've known it for decades now. I know underdogs are popular, but only when they're in the right.
Now, back to the topic of this thread.
I agree with Anselm.
Unless and until some intentionality is ever proven, I see it as simply a seriously unfortunate event that wants resolution, not retribution.
When someone (like one of my sibs) tries to make a big deal about it, I consider it an excuse to feed some latent magma pool of zenophobia they're nursing, or to bait me--or both--and let it go.
M.
I would agree too, but when I recently heard about 'gain of function' it's a new twist. Apparently biochemists know how to take a naturally occurring disease and tweak it to make it more virulent for experimental work. Playing with fire?
Quote from: mahagonny on June 01, 2021, 05:33:50 PM
I would agree too, but when I recently heard about 'gain of function' it's a new twist. Apparently biochemists know how to take a naturally occurring disease and tweak it to make it more virulent for experimental work. Playing with fire?
Yes, sometimes. There's a balance to be struck, as Robinson shows pretty persuasively. You probably don't usually want to do gain of function research on something with a totally crazy mortality rate, for instance. But it does make sense for plenty of perfectly awful and deadly illnesses, since it helps you develop vaccines, cures, etc.
A thought experiment that has crossed my mind on occasion would be to ask what if anything the US/ UN, etc., ought to do about it should it ever be conclusively proved that covid-19 did escape from a Chinese lab? What about if it were also proved that covid-19 was an engineered virus made as part of a germ warfare program? This is a very hard question, especially since the country in question is China.
Quote from: kaysixteen on June 01, 2021, 06:50:11 PM
A thought experiment that has crossed my mind on occasion would be to ask what if anything the US/ UN, etc., ought to do about it should it ever be conclusively proved that covid-19 did escape from a Chinese lab? What about if it were also proved that covid-19 was an engineered virus made as part of a germ warfare program? This is a very hard question, especially since the country in question is China.
It's a good question.
-If escaped by accident, WATCH THAT BASKET.
-If also part of a germ warfare program, 'twould be like an accidental nuclear strike. They gotta pay.
Quote from: dismalist on June 01, 2021, 06:54:50 PM
-If also part of a germ warfare program, 'twould be like an accidental nuclear strike. They gotta pay.
Do you mean
you have to pay, since it's a US-funded lab?
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2021, 07:21:02 PM
Quote from: dismalist on June 01, 2021, 06:54:50 PM
-If also part of a germ warfare program, 'twould be like an accidental nuclear strike. They gotta pay.
Do you mean you have to pay, since it's a US-funded lab?
Funded does not mean controlled. And a germ warfare program would not have been funded.
Quote from: mahagonny on June 01, 2021, 07:56:26 AM
First, the bad news: Media Bias Fact Check rates The Guardian only 'mixed' (not high or very high) for factual accuracy.
The good news: this article seems pretty well grounded and reasonable to this reader.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/01/wuhan-coronavirus-lab-leak-covid-virus-origins-china
Discuss?
1. It's an opinion piece, not investigative science journalism.
2. If your scientific process is using strong inference then the goal is to rule out the weaker hypothesis based on the available evidence, with some room for decision error, not "prove" a hypothesis.
3. Our minds like certainty, confirming our beliefs, and seeing causation even when it's not there. A human-caused origin of COVID-19 makes our intuitive minds happy and thus such explanations appeal to us. We want to -blame- someone which is cause-effect thinking. Pursuing the random dynamic multifactorial origin through nonhuman animal - human transmission requires us to temper our default thinking and dig into a complex system that is more challenging to explain. The sound bites and headline ledes for that are not as provocative.
4. Risk management and lab safety are important. Absolutely investigate the Wuhan lab, but that still does not rule out nonhuman animal - human transmission and the messy process of virus organisms.
5. Everyone is coping with some level of stress and trauma. I get it. Even opinion columnists. It can be comforting to get mad at careless scientists and political operatives.
FWIW, some random dude on the internet claimed that he worked in biological warfare for the US military. He maintained that we don't use viruses because they are too hard to control. I have no documentation for this but everything I have read on the topic seems to confirm this. I see no motive for the Chinese to release a virus knowing it would hurt the global economy, especially their own.
If any country did cause a global virus, even by mistake, shouldn't the rest of the world be entitled to compensation?
Quote from: downer on June 02, 2021, 06:22:26 AM
If any country did cause a global virus, even by mistake, shouldn't the rest of the world be entitled to compensation?
Sure, but not from those responsible. From the great great grandchildren of the responsible party, or anyone who looks like them.
Quote from: Anselm on June 02, 2021, 05:57:40 AM
FWIW, some random dude on the internet claimed that he worked in biological warfare for the US military. He maintained that we don't use viruses because they are too hard to control. I have no documentation for this but everything I have read on the topic seems to confirm this. I see no motive for the Chinese to release a virus knowing it would hurt the global economy, especially their own.
Was he a Stephen King reader?
Quote from: jimbogumbo on June 02, 2021, 07:12:59 AM
Quote from: Anselm on June 02, 2021, 05:57:40 AM
FWIW, some random dude on the internet claimed that he worked in biological warfare for the US military. He maintained that we don't use viruses because they are too hard to control. I have no documentation for this but everything I have read on the topic seems to confirm this. I see no motive for the Chinese to release a virus knowing it would hurt the global economy, especially their own.
Was he a Stephen King reader?
If you want to read about a lab leak, read (non-fiction) "The Hot Zone", which was about an *Ebola leak in the DC area. It's the one non-fiction book I've read that I would describe as a page-turner.
*turned out to be a non-human transmissible variant, but it did get out.
How would you even prove it either way? There's no obvious motive for a deliberate release, but proving or disproving accidental release seems close to impossible. The media had reported that scientists studying the virus had seen no signs of it being artificially modified - but a lab could have wild strains, so that doesn't truly rule anything out. Who would even conduct an investigation, esp. since it clearly would get nowhere without China's cooperation? The WHO, which has made its own blunders and is clearly and blatantly beholden to China?
Prove neglecting of normal caution, irresponsibility? If you're talking about the small potatoes of destruction of property, there's malicious destruction of property, wanton destruction of property and just bad driving that means you're on the hook for the repairs. It would be a colossal task to calculate the damages.
Quote from: mahagonny on June 02, 2021, 08:27:59 PM
Prove neglecting of normal caution, irresponsibility?
Again, how would anyone prove that, since China surely wouldn't cooperate with an investigation whose outcome wasn't a foregone conclusion? Even if there Chinese cooperation, and there were an impartial investigation, everyone in that institute, responsible or not, whether there was negligence or not, would be in CYA mode. Even if you did prove that they were negligent, that's different from proving that they did in fact accidentally release the virus or whatever.
Quote from: mahagonny on June 02, 2021, 08:27:59 PM
...If you're talking about the small potatoes of destruction of property, there's malicious destruction of property, wanton destruction of property and just bad driving that means you're on the hook for the repairs. It would be a colossal task to calculate the damages.
As well as a pointless one. Even if you somehow gathered "enough" (by what standards?) evidence, China would surely deny it, and who the hell can make China pay, even if "convicted" by, well, who exactly? China has grown significantly stronger since the beginning of the pandemic. Also, there are tons of leaders and former leaders who would surely not be supportive of negligence-related pandemic charges that could eventually apply to them, from Trump to Brazil's Bolsonaro (and there are Brazilians actively seeking ICC involvement in pandemic-related crimes against humanity charges against Bolsonaro) to the government of Tanzania to that of India to... it's a long list.
Basically, there's justice, and then there's jurisprudence.
M.