Guardian Journalist Warns of "Earthquake"

[mahagonny]

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?

[Parasaurolophus]

The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!

[mahagonny]

The Guardian recently fired a columnist for extamural speech critical of Israel. Free speech!

What'ya think of the piece?

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

[mahagonny]

That it's inferior to the one their fired columnist wrote on the same subject a few weeks ago.

"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.

[Hegemony]

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.

[dismalist]

or 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!

[marshwiggle]

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.

Here's an interesting quotation:

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.

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[Parasaurolophus]

Or, you know. Epistemic responsibility. Deference to science rather than discredited crackpots. Whatever.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[Anselm]

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. 

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

[mamselle]

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.