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Covid-19 likely to be man made

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭mcsean2163



    Yes, it's incredible. It's really exposed the virtue signalling conspiracy bashers as miscreants that take joy in gas lighting and attacking honest and curious people.

    I worked in one of Ireland's biggest success stories and i believe a huge part of that success was one guy who wasn't afraid to ask stupid questions.

    In this case, the biggest research center into bat coronaviruses in China and possibly the world is located in Wuhan and they disabled access to their virus database in 2019. Shouldn't that too be investigated?

    Instead of a polite answer and an investigation, it's been "conspiracy nut!! Crazy! Prove it! Show a peer reviewed paper that proves it! You are StuPiD! I don't like your answers"

    There are some very strange people out there... hopefully a proper investigation will follow and we'll get some answers.

    Same content in the new York times as per ZH.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/us/politics/coronavirus-origins-intelligence.html#click=https://t.co/1jnc3qjUmK


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,236 ✭✭✭mcmoustache


    patnor1011 wrote: »
    Of course not. Purely coincidental. From what we know they probably ordered bat soup takeaway from wuhan wet market.
    "Science" and current consensus among majority say it could not happen any other way.


    They don't say that though. The consensus has been that it could have come about via natural species jump or from a lab. It's just that there was zero evidence of it coming from a lab outside of the ramblings of a known liar and it was therefore assigned a low probability. Now that there is more evidence, the consensus is shifting a bit in terms of how people assign probabilities to events.


  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    mcsean2163 wrote: »
    Instead of a polite answer and an investigation, it's been "conspiracy nut!! Crazy! Prove it! Show a peer reviewed paper that proves it! You are StuPiD! I don't like your answers"

    And more misrepresentations.

    No one here has said any of those things.

    Do you consider misrepresentation to be acceptably polite?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Who tf is Tyler Durden? A fictional character from a movie? This is pretty poor evidence from a journalistic or scientific standpoint, akin to the paper at the start of the thread. That article is like the Roswell stuff more suited to the purpose of this forum.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,309 ✭✭✭patnor1011


    They don't say that though. The consensus has been that it could have come about via natural species jump or from a lab. It's just that there was zero evidence of it coming from a lab outside of the ramblings of a known liar and it was therefore assigned a low probability. Now that there is more evidence, the consensus is shifting a bit in terms of how people assign probabilities to events.

    So it was not rambling and lies then. You characterize what happened as "assigned low probability" when truth is that it was outright dismissed and even aggressively pursued as conspiracy theory. A lot of people earned conspiracy theorist badge and a ban trying to go against "consensus".


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    mcsean2163 wrote: »
    Yes, it's incredible. It's really exposed the virtue signalling conspiracy bashers as miscreants that take joy in gas lighting and attacking honest and curious people.

    I worked in one of Ireland's biggest success stories and i believe a huge part of that success was one guy who wasn't afraid to ask stupid questions.

    In this case, the biggest research center into bat coronaviruses in China and possibly the world is located in Wuhan and they disabled access to their virus database in 2019. Shouldn't that too be investigated?

    Instead of a polite answer and an investigation, it's been "conspiracy nut!! Crazy! Prove it! Show a peer reviewed paper that proves it! You are StuPiD! I don't like your answers"

    There are some very strange people out there... hopefully a proper investigation will follow and we'll get some answers.

    Same content in the new York times as per ZH.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/us/politics/coronavirus-origins-intelligence.html#click=https://t.co/1jnc3qjUmK

    Not sure that's fair. Most folks with enough education / experience to rationally analyse scientific papers are not able to feasibly "take a stance" on an issue that might not otherwise impact their careers and additionally call into question their agenda for doing so. It's obvious that the letter in Science calling for a proper investigation was published because DJ Trump was no longer spouting incoherent nonsense from the White House.

    Most people in research fields are trying to pursue knowledge incrementally on a subject that they have relevant experience in. The moment politics is introduced into the equation, it will inevitably polarise people. The response from China about the US calls for a full investigation has been pathetic though. Like a cheating partner trying to explain the flirty texts with a colleague, excuse the simplistic comparison.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭Unicorn Milk Latte


    It is important to differentiate between two entirely different 'lab origin' theories:

    1. The virus was created in a lab.
    This has been widely dismissed as nonsense in the scientific community.


    2. A lab was researching how viruses that occur naturally in animals can be transmitted to humans. Due to negligent care, Sars-Cov 2 was released from this lab by accident.
    This is a hypothesis that most scientists agree on should be looked into, even if it's not terribly likely.


    To add to the confusion, many articles in mainstream media have mixed these two, and are currently trying to walk back and clarify.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    It is important to differentiate between two entirely different 'lab origin' theories:

    1. The virus was created in a lab.
    This has been widely dismissed as nonsense in the scientific community.


    2. A lab was researching how viruses that occur naturally in animals can be transmitted to humans. Due to negligent care, Sars-Cov 2 was released from this lab by accident.
    This is a hypothesis that most scientists agree on should be looked into, even if it's not terribly likely.


    To add to the confusion, many articles in mainstream media have mixed these two, and are currently trying to walk back and clarify.
    There is extremely circumstantial and vague evidence for either a gain-of-function accidental release hypothesis or a natural-virus accidental release hypothesis. a large issue is the meaning of the word "man-made", as an accidental release can imply human negligence etc while we also have to consider the troubling furin cleavage site that's not currently backed up by any evidence-based hypothesis, and has circumstantial evidence to indicate at least the potential for human interference.

    What appears to be dismissed as nonsense is the idea it was developed as a bioweapon, or a tool to inflict harm on humanity.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    There is extremely circumstantial and vague evidence for either a gain-of-function accidental release hypothesis or a natural-virus accidental release hypothesis. a large issue is the meaning of the word "man-made", as an accidental release can imply human negligence etc while we also have to consider the troubling furin cleavage site that's not currently backed up by any evidence-based hypothesis, and has circumstantial evidence to indicate at least the potential for human interference.

    What appears to be dismissed as nonsense is the idea it was developed as a bioweapon, or a tool to inflict harm on humanity.

    And the question this poses is that there needs to be an open and transparent investigation, which is why that letter in Science was published, along with the Biden Administration calling for the same this week.


  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    ... also have to consider the troubling furin cleavage site that's not currently backed up by any evidence-based hypothesis, and has circumstantial evidence to indicate at least the potential for human interference.
    Are there any studies into this?
    What appears to be dismissed as nonsense is the idea it was developed as a bioweapon, or a tool to inflict harm on humanity.
    Do you believe that this should be dismissed as nonsense?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭Unicorn Milk Latte


    And, to add some context:

    There has been research of Coronaviruses since the 1960s.


    Several pre-SARS-COV-2 types of coronavirus are extremely common and widespread, they cause common cold.


    Here is an overview of the different variants of SARS-COV-2. Interesting, because it shows that the original Wuhan variant was pretty much irrelevant outside of China. Also interesting to see how many variants there are.


    The graph looks confusing at first, filtering by country or type (like B 1.1.7 - the variant first identified in Britain) can help with making sense of it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    And, to add some context:

    There has been research of Coronaviruses since the 1960s.


    Several pre-SARS-COV-2 types of coronavirus are extremely common and widespread, they cause common cold.


    Here is an overview of the different variants of SARS-COV-2. Interesting, because it shows that the original Wuhan variant was pretty much irrelevant outside of China. Also interesting to see how many variants there are.


    The graph looks confusing at first, filtering by country or type (like B 1.1.7 - the variant first identified in Britain) can help with making sense of it.
    Couldn't see a graph in what you posted. Also worth noting that "cold" research has involved alphacoronaviridae and not betacoronaviridae, pre SARS in 2003. Happy to be proven wrong on that. There is a dearth of information pre-2003 because much of the research, if I remember correctly, was about a hypothetical vaccine for the common cold and predicting outbreaks.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭Unicorn Milk Latte


    Couldn't see a graph in what you posted.

    I was referring to the part at the top left, with the 'Phylogeny' heading.


    It's a timeline, going from left to right, with a 'tree' showing how variants occur, and how they are related.


    If you scroll down to the 'Filter by country' section and click on Ireland, then scroll back up to the Phylogeny graph, you see how it has changed, to show only the variants that occurred in Ireland.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    I was referring to the part at the top left, with the 'Phylogeny' heading.


    It's a timeline, going from left to right, with a 'tree' showing how variants occur, and how they are related.


    If you scroll down to the 'Filter by country' section and click on Ireland, then scroll back up to the Phylogeny graph, you see how it has changed, to show only the variants that occurred in Ireland.

    I'm sorry, maybe it's a "mobile user" thing but I can't see any link or source in your post.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭Unicorn Milk Latte


    I'm sorry, maybe it's a "mobile user" thing but I can't see any link or source in your post.


    Here's the link to the variant overview again, this time with the full URL:

    https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global


    Just tried it on Safari on iOS to make sure, works.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    And, to add some context:

    There has been research of Coronaviruses since the 1960s.


    Several pre-SARS-COV-2 types of coronavirus are extremely common and widespread, they cause common cold.


    Here is an overview of the different variants of SARS-COV-2. Interesting, because it shows that the original Wuhan variant was pretty much irrelevant outside of China. Also interesting to see how many variants there are.


    The graph looks confusing at first, filtering by country or type (like B 1.1.7 - the variant first identified in Britain) can help with making sense of it.

    Now that I can see the graph, the phylogenetic tree, as that's what it basically is, uses the Hu virus as a single point of ancestry. (Hu meaning Hubei, China I think, the province in which Wuhan is located). I'm not seeing what context this offers with regards to the thread topic?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭Unicorn Milk Latte


    I'm not seeing what context this offers with regards to the thread topic?


    OK, here's some context:
    thought experiment: a lab develops a bioweapon and releases it. Ideally, this virus would have strong genetic advantages. A virus that mutates often and quickly would completely defy the purpose of it being a weapon.


    And - when you're unaware (like I was..) just how quickly natural variants develop, and how fast the ones with genetic advantages become dominant, it's easier to believe in a lab accident narrative.



    Just to be clear - I'm not saying that a lab accident origin is impossible - just that it seems much less likely, considering the fast, natural mutation/selection cycle that can be observed in the Covid timeline.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,699 ✭✭✭thecretinhop




  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Yes, the Daily Mail is also a sensationalist rag.

    Not sure why you keep dumping these links then highlighting why people shouldn't take them seriously.

    Rather than posting from dubious sources and far right mouthpieces, why not just post the study directly?
    I suspect that it's because the study doesn't actually say what the articles say, and they and you are trying to avoid people realising that.
    Or the paper isn't as definitive or repuatble as the article and yourself would like people to think.

    Have you read the actual paper? Or just the article from the Daily Mail?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,714 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    King Mob wrote: »
    Yes, the Daily Mail is also a sensationalist rag.

    Not sure why you keep dumping these links then highlighting why people shouldn't take them seriously.

    Rather than posting from dubious sources and far right mouthpieces, why not just post the study directly?
    I suspect that it's because the study doesn't actually say what the articles say, and they and you are trying to avoid people realising that.
    Or the paper isn't as definitive or repuatble as the article and yourself would like people to think.

    Have you read the actual paper? Or just the article from the Daily Mail?

    The Daily mail isnt far right but even if it was, that wouldn't prove or disprove the study, in anyway. Daily Mail publishes an awful lot of academic papers. Including one of mine. When they cover published papers wouldn't normally pull random claims out of thin air but they can over egg things. This covid paper isnt yet published so we can't judge. Here is the Times coverage.
    A British scientist who was shunned for claiming that the coronavirus was manufactured and leaked from a Chinese laboratory has welcomed President Biden’s demand for US intelligence agencies to trace its source.

    Angus Dalgleish, 71, a vaccine researcher and professor of oncology at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, argues that Sars-Cov-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology because of poor biosecurity. “I’m a great believer in the universal law of human incompetence,” he said.

    He goes further than others who support the “leak” theory by arguing that the virus’s spike protein contains artificially inserted sequences. “This coronavirus is ideally adapted for infecting bats,” he said. “The changes required to infect humans are extremely unlikely to have occurred naturally.”

    For a concise rundown of the developments that matter, combined with expert analysis, sign up to receive our dedicated daily coronavirus newsletter
    Sign up now Dalgleish and his collaborators struggled to find a publisher for their paper last year because, he claims, the scientific establishment did not want to upset China. The study was published “disguised as a vaccine paper” and has been downloaded 200,000 times.

    Dalgleish said: “I was basically ostracised. I was fearful — really frightened by the way I was being treated. I was told I was not an expert on coronaviruses and I should just shut up. We couldn’t believe that people with whom we’d collaborated and published papers with in the past would shun us — I was warned I was out of my depth and I shouldn’t get into this and I’d make a fool of myself.”

    Dalgleish said that President Trump’s adoption of the leak theory and use of phrases such as “Wuhan flu” and “the Chinese virus” damaged scientific debate on the subject. Dalgleish added: “People said to me, ‘The biggest problem you have is that Trump agrees with you’. Even though he knew nothing about it and didn’t understand it, no scientist wanted to get into bed and agree with Trump.”

    Intelligence agencies in the US and Britain also said there was no evidence to contradict the Chinese explanation that the virus originated in a live animal market in Wuhan. China has said the US “does not care about facts or truth, nor is it interested in serious scientific origin tracing”. No 10 has called for “all possible theories” to be examined.

    Dalgleish said that his position was supported by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 who now chairs the University of London board of trustees.

    He fears that “politics has squashed scientific debate” on the most important issue of the century. He added: “We tried to enter into debate with one group and they dismissed us as rank amateurs — I’ve never come across that in science before. The breakthroughs I’ve been involved with in science come when people disagree with something you present, then you talk afterwards and get into the real argument and realise you’re both partially right.”
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-scientist-feels-vindicated-as-focus-turns-to-wuhan-lab-h9x7jtvnj


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  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The Daily mail isnt far right
    I was referring to the previous link that poster dumped.
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=117290102&postcount=378
    but even if it was, that wouldn't prove or disprove the study, in anyway. Daily Mail publishes an awful lot of academic papers. Including one of mine. When they cover published papers wouldn't normally pull random claims out of thin air but they can over egg things. This covid paper isnt yet published so we can't judge. Here is the Times coverage.
    Generally though, when science is announced in the popular press before the actual paper is published or reviewed or responded to, then end up not actually amounting to much.
    The example in the OP illustrated this.

    The claims that a paper struggled to get published because of a conspiracy is also something we've heard a lot around these parts.

    Notice also the difference in headlines:
    EXCLUSIVE: COVID-19 'has NO credible natural ancestor' and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with 'retro-engineering' to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats, explosive new study claims
    vs
    UK scientist feels vindicated as focus turns to Wuhan lab


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,714 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    King Mob wrote: »
    I was referring to the previous link that poster dumped.
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=117290102&postcount=378


    Generally though, when science is announced in the popular press before the actual paper is published or reviewed or responded to, then end up not actually amounting to much.
    The example in the OP illustrated this.
    maybe but I dont know how anyone would keep tabs of that.

    King Mob wrote: »
    I was referring to the previous link that poster dumped.
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=117290102&postcount=378


    Notice also the difference in headlines:

    vs
    The Times is waiting to see the paper. Very unlikely that the Daily Mail is making that up. Not waiting for peer review or media embargos doesn't make you far right. Sensationalist sure but that is different.


  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    maybe but I dont know how anyone would keep tabs of that.
    Things like global medical and health organisations.
    Reviews of the array of studies as a whole rather than relying on single papers.

    Not relying on what the Daily Mail claims.
    The Times is waiting to see the paper. Very unlikely that the Daily Mail is making that up.
    But there's a difference between making things up and spinning things.
    There's exargating and misrepresenting. There's omitting things.

    There's lots of ways to manipulate facts without "making things up."
    The Daily Mail is quite well know for this:
    https://www.pne-online.net/forum/index.php?threads/things-the-daily-mail-say-causes-cancer.48020/
    Not waiting for peer review or media embargos doesn't make you far right. Sensationalist sure but that is different.
    But I didn't call the Daily Mail far right. I explained this in my last post. You copy pasted where I did this twice for some reason, so I know you didn't miss it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,714 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    King Mob wrote: »
    Things like global medical and health organisations.
    Reviews of the array of studies as a whole rather than relying on single papers.

    Not relying on what the Daily Mail claims.


    But there's a difference between making things up and spinning things.
    There's exargating and misrepresenting. There's omitting things.

    There's lots of ways to manipulate facts without "making things up."
    The Daily Mail is quite well know for this:
    https://www.pne-online.net/forum/index.php?threads/things-the-daily-mail-say-causes-cancer.48020/

    All of those Daily Mail stories are based on peer-reviewed studies. You could do the same from any big paper that covers international news.

    Aslo zerohedge isnt far right. Its anti establishment not far right.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    OK, here's some context:
    thought experiment: a lab develops a bioweapon and releases it.

    This is where you lost me. That's a useless presupposition. There is zero evidence to say that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon in the UN treaty sense at least. What we do know is that the lab along with the UNC lab had pioneered methods of creating chimeric coronavirus that specifically involved introducing spike proteins more suited to human ACE2 receptor binding, and infecting mice with those.

    I did read the rest of your post though. The SARS-CoV-2 clade shows a rate of mutation that is peculiarly stable for ssRNA viruses like it. Something like two orders of magnitude slower to mutate, compared to extant known strains of SARS and its emergence in humans.

    This preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.073262v1.full also notes that the earliest known SARS-CoV-2 variant was already well-adapted to human infection and transmission.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    All of those Daily Mail stories are based on peer-reviewed studies. You could do the same from any big paper that covers international news.

    Aslo zerohedge isnt far right. Its anti establishment not far right.

    The author of that particular article is using a pseudonym to make a very weak point. And I don't think that site is purely anti-establishment, it doesn't seem to have much content that deals with issues of poverty and the disadvantages that ethnic minorities face in capitalist, "well-developed" societies :)


  • Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    All of those Daily Mail stories are based on peer-reviewed studies.
    Yes. It then manipulates them and sensationalises them to draw eyeballs.
    You could do the same from any big paper that covers international news.
    Yet, the link you provided to the Times does not do this.
    Aslo zerohedge isnt far right. Its anti establishment not far right.
    No, it's far right.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge

    Thank you for at least now accurately presenting my point.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,236 ✭✭✭mcmoustache


    patnor1011 wrote: »
    So it was not rambling and lies then. You characterize what happened as "assigned low probability" when truth is that it was outright dismissed and even aggressively pursued as conspiracy theory. A lot of people earned conspiracy theorist badge and a ban trying to go against "consensus".


    The people pushing the lab theory were doing it without any evidence. It's fair to say that they were full of shíte. If people pointed to evidence that it came from a lab, calling them cranks, kooks, dipshíts, retards. idiots and other assorted words that people associate with conspiracy theorists would have been unfair but that's not what happened.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,120 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    patnor1011 wrote: »
    Of course not. Purely coincidental. From what we know they probably ordered bat soup takeaway from wuhan wet market. "Science" and current consensus among majority say it could not happen any other way.

    And there it is, "science". A universal method put in inverted commas.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,839 ✭✭✭silliussoddius


    Dohnjoe wrote: »
    And there it is, "science". A universal method put in inverted commas.

    And bat soup. Reducto ad tinfoil


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