The lab leak theory would be a lot easier to discount if it weren't for Peter Daszak (the impetus behind the group of scientists who torpedoed the lab leak theory early on). His conflict of...
The lab leak theory would be a lot easier to discount if it weren't for Peter Daszak (the impetus behind the group of scientists who torpedoed the lab leak theory early on). His conflict of interest was egregious and undisclosed when the letter was published, though the Lancet later published an addendum addressing the conflict.
I'm confused that this article doesn't mention this at all. It's widely available, undisputed, information. The guy provided funding to the Wuhan lab and therefore had every reason to want to avoid being linked to a pandemic. That should preclude him from trying to be a part of the conversation. Especially when what he has to add is "nope, definitely not a lab leak, nothing to see there" without supporting evidence.
It's remarkable that we haven't found the animal source by now, we had already long since found the source for SARS and MERS by this point.
And it's remarkable that a lab studying coronaviruses that may or may not have been doing gain of function research was running in the same city where the pandemic started.
Ultimately we can't know what happened because China was quick to seal everything off and refuses to share important information. You'd think they'd want to rule out the lab leak possibility and would share any evidence that would help do that.
To be clear I'm not saying the source of SARS-CoV-2 was a lab. There's not clear evidence to support any theory at this point.
But there is more than enough reason not to discount the possibility. And if it were to turn out to be the case, maybe it would be enough to put the idiocy that is gain of function research to bed.
"Well if we make deadly, potential pandemic, pathogens, maybe we'll make one that could happen naturally and then we'll be ready for it. But that's pretty damn unlikely but maybe we'll learn something from our lab made viruses that will somehow be useful in combating future pathogens even though that hasn't happened so far in all the years of GoF reaearch".
It sounds like a joke. The infinitesimal chance of useful data can't possibly be worth the risk.
Until we have very strong evidence for, or against, a particular theory, it makes sense to keep looking at all reasonable possibilities.
Wait what? Why would I need to mention something from the article in order to qualify to mention something missing? Didn't we all read the article? What does the article's stance on China have to...
I'm confused that you mention literally nothing from the article while implying the absence of something you wanted mentioned delegitimizes it in some way. The article isn't exactly sympathetic to China, mentioning taking the WIV database offline and other attempts to muddy the water like their wargames explanation.
Wait what? Why would I need to mention something from the article in order to qualify to mention something missing? Didn't we all read the article? What does the article's stance on China have to do with whether or not Peter Daszak is mentioned?
I’m struggling to link this fact, which is easy to accept as true, to support the notion that it is unremarkable that the same city where a contagion is under research also happens to be the same...
The research was being done where it made sense for that sort of research to be done.
I’m struggling to link this fact, which is easy to accept as true, to support the notion that it is unremarkable that the same city where a contagion is under research also happens to be the same city where that contagion starts a global pandemic.
Therr may be many plausible explanations for this coincidence that do not involve a lab leak, but without strong evidence for one, the coincidence sure seems remarkable to me.
According to Dr. Steven Novella, it took 13 years to identify the origin of SARS. According to Wikipedia, it took 14 years. It's interesting, but I wouldn't say remarkable. The virus does not...
It's remarkable that we haven't found the animal source by now, we had already long since found the source for SARS and MERS by this point.
And it's remarkable that a lab studying coronaviruses that may or may not have been performing GoFR was running in the same city where the pandemic started.
It's interesting, but I wouldn't say remarkable. The virus does not appear to be human-edited. Even if the lab were involved somehow, the idea that GoFR played any role is extremely unlikely.
There simply isn't any more evidence for the lab leak theory today than there was a year ago. Unfortunately it is now the narrative that has taken hold. By all means, it should be investigated as a possibility, but I see no reason for the messaging to focus on that. There's already rampant speculation and conspiracy theories online, despite most scientists holding that a natural origin as far more likely.
Ok, to clarify, with SARS-1 and MERS they comparitively quickly found very likely animal hosts, that has not been the case with SARS-2. Which is the key point, if we had a high degree of certainty...
Ok, to clarify, with SARS-1 and MERS they comparitively quickly found very likely animal hosts, that has not been the case with SARS-2.
Which is the key point, if we had a high degree of certainty about the vector this conversation wouldn't be happening at all.
When you say there is no more evidence now for the lab leak theory, do you mean to imply that there is more evidence for another theory? All I've seen is educated speculation on all fronts.
Yeah the conspiracy theories... Early on the support for the lab leak theory from the qanon crowd, and from Trump, combined with the Lancet letter, was enough for me to discount it entirely.
But here we are in 2021 with no animal link. I don't see a rational reason to discount other possibilities just yet.
Edit: I might not have been clear above, and I just read the wikipedia article. It took 14 years to find a colony of bats that harbored the specific virus. They had settled on a selection of animals as the vector far earlier, due to solid evidence.
I'm a little out of date on this so I probably missed whatever happened here, but wasn't the leading speculation early on that it made the jump from pangolins? Did they rule that out now?
I'm a little out of date on this so I probably missed whatever happened here, but wasn't the leading speculation early on that it made the jump from pangolins? Did they rule that out now?
There could have been a development I missed, otherwise with Pangolins it was all circumstantial. It could have happened, Pangolins can host coronaviruses that can also infect humans, but there's...
There could have been a development I missed, otherwise with Pangolins it was all circumstantial. It could have happened, Pangolins can host coronaviruses that can also infect humans, but there's no evidence that it happened with sars-2 so far.
I think this is all academic and pointless. Let's say that we could conclusively prove that it came from a lab leak. What would we do with that information? Go to war with China? Our medical...
I think this is all academic and pointless.
Let's say that we could conclusively prove that it came from a lab leak. What would we do with that information? Go to war with China? Our medical systems are already over-taxed, they have a 5:1 population advantage over us, and they're our major trading partner. Sanctions would similarly have about as much luck as the previous administration's tariffs, which is to say, not good. Again, they're our primary trading partner, and could hurt us just as much, if not more.
It may not be politically actionable information, but it’s still very useful scientific information, if for no other reason than to identify shortcomings in lab procedures and ensure they get...
It may not be politically actionable information, but it’s still very useful scientific information, if for no other reason than to identify shortcomings in lab procedures and ensure they get addressed and not repeated elsewhere.
This assumes an accidental leak of a virus under academic (as opposed to bioweapon) research.
Perhaps we could move the gain-of-function research to somewhere sensible. It seems spectacularly stupid - borderline suicidal, in fact - to do this stuff in a city, of all places. I'm sure there...
Perhaps we could move the gain-of-function research to somewhere sensible. It seems spectacularly stupid - borderline suicidal, in fact - to do this stuff in a city, of all places. I'm sure there are a number of suitable deserts or islands, and there's always Antarctica. Put the labs in a place where the virus won't survive outside or can't travel without passing through ironclad quarantine. A place where there is nothing down the street, no markets, no clusters of homes, no travel terminals, no humans.
As much as I hate China's handling of this (and many other things), "punishing" them doesn't matter so much. What matters is assessing the risk of gain of function research.
As much as I hate China's handling of this (and many other things), "punishing" them doesn't matter so much. What matters is assessing the risk of gain of function research.
The point is to give political leaders who failed to properly deal with the pandemic somewhere to deflect and divert the blame to. That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it...
The point is to give political leaders who failed to properly deal with the pandemic somewhere to deflect and divert the blame to.
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault. (Wuhan lab leak theory goes here)
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Impressive article! A few things I learned... The quantity of lab leaks of serious pathogens over the years, and the resulting US moratorium on GoF funding that ended in 2017. The number of...
Impressive article! A few things I learned...
The quantity of lab leaks of serious pathogens over the years, and the resulting US moratorium on GoF funding that ended in 2017.
The number of signatories of the Lancet letter who have now publicly changed their stance.
The extreme measures by China to cover up the outbreak and then to make sure that information which could help international research was not made available. We've all heard about some of it, but this article adds to the list.
None of which proves anything of course, but it begs investigation.
As always, one should consider the agenda of every author. Anecdotal, but it seemed to me that those in education with doctorates in relevant backgrounds strongly pushed the idea that the virus...
As always, one should consider the agenda of every author. Anecdotal, but it seemed to me that those in education with doctorates in relevant backgrounds strongly pushed the idea that the virus was definitely from an animal before any investigations even began to be put together.
I believe it was because many of these highly educated individuals were shocked by the racism against Asians and Asian Americans that "seemingly" came out of the woodworks when the pandemic first started, and desperately wanted to avoid providing any fodder for racists to latch onto as "justification".
I believe the reason why those with doctorates in relevant backgrounds supported the idea of a natural origination because there were no evidence proving otherwise. As scientists wont to do. If...
I believe the reason why those with doctorates in relevant backgrounds supported the idea of a natural origination because there were no evidence proving otherwise. As scientists wont to do. If ever evidence to suggest otherwise is discovered and vetted, I'm sure they will change their minds. Until then...
No, I was under this impression when there was no evidence to point towards animal transmission either. Edit: beyond "there is a food market with exotic animals"
No, I was under this impression when there was no evidence to point towards animal transmission either. Edit: beyond "there is a food market with exotic animals"
Right, that isn't how it works. It makes a great hypothesis; SARS and other similar viruses have had animal vectors, so we hypothesize that Covid-19 also has an animal vector. Now we will try to...
Right, that isn't how it works.
It makes a great hypothesis; SARS and other similar viruses have had animal vectors, so we hypothesize that Covid-19 also has an animal vector. Now we will try to test our hypothesis.
That's not true. Researchers are actively looking for animal vectors, but it's not something that is easy or simple to do. It took 14 years before the origin species of SARS-CoV-1 was discovered.
Origin species or vector? We already know the origin species was bat, unless I am confusing the terminology. But regardless, I don't think it is right to say with any level of certainty that the...
Origin species or vector? We already know the origin species was bat, unless I am confusing the terminology. But regardless, I don't think it is right to say with any level of certainty that the vector was an animal at a food market without evidence. Speculating and hypothesizing is different.
Edit: that article is about finding bats as the origin behind SARS. But we knew much earlier that humans had contracted it from civets. We don't have evidence of the animal vector like the civets.
What doesn't work that way? Rejecting the null hypothesis? Just because there were not enough concrete evidence to reject it doesn't mean it hasn't taken place. It means we couldn't reject it.
What doesn't work that way? Rejecting the null hypothesis? Just because there were not enough concrete evidence to reject it doesn't mean it hasn't taken place. It means we couldn't reject it.
All the marbles in my hand are blue is a true statement, because there are no marbles in my hand. Have you rejected that it was a lab leak or something else? No? You don't have enough concrete...
All the marbles in my hand are blue is a true statement, because there are no marbles in my hand. Have you rejected that it was a lab leak or something else? No? You don't have enough concrete evidence to reject that either. (If you do, please share). So why should one hypothesis be promoted over others without even an investigation? I am not supporting any particular hypothesis here, just trying to remind people that doctors are also people and also make mistakes and also have biases and agendas.
I think I may be misunderstanding what you want to say. Sorry. Could you clarify more about why the animal vector hypothesis holds special merit?
I think it might be worth it for you to read up on hypothesis testing You can't just flip H_0 and H_1 and then exclaim that H_0 hasn't been proven. That's just not how it works. When a new planet...
the null hypothesis suggests nothing special is going on; in other words, there is no change from the status quo, no difference from the traditional state of affairs, no relationship. In contrast, the alternative hypothesis disagrees with this, stating that something is going on, or there is a change from the status quo, or there is a difference from the traditional state of affairs.
You can't just flip H_0 and H_1 and then exclaim that H_0 hasn't been proven. That's just not how it works. When a new planet is discovered we don't assume it's a cube then set out to prove it's a sphere.
just trying to remind people that doctors are also people and also make mistakes and also have biases and agendas
Doctors absolutely make mistakes and have biases. That's why they're using the scientific method to assess the data we have so far. That's why we invented double blind experiments. And that's why we need peer reviewed papers to assess whether those methods were followed.
Alright, I appreciate the link. It's been a while. To clarify, this requires measuring significance with p-value. I don't know how the fuck anyone can measure the significance of anything put...
Alright, I appreciate the link. It's been a while.
To clarify, this requires measuring significance with p-value. I don't know how the fuck anyone can measure the significance of anything put forward as evidence so far. If I understand correctly, "it was contracted from an animal vector like civets" is a significantly large p-value for Ho, and "we can not demonstrate it was contracted from an animal vector like civets" is not going to disprove Ho.
But what is the significance of an absence of evidence?
Edit: if it is a small p-value, then this seems like a good reason to not prioritize the null hypothesis. The article is a persuasive essay explaining why some scientists argue against one Ha, but I did not find the myriad reasons compelling. One was roughly "I made a prior statement without knowing what I now know", which is much more compelling than another, which was roughly "worsening relations with China will make everything more difficult".
I'm not an epidemiologist or even a biologist, I'm a physicist, so in true physicist fashion I'm going to condescendingly assume how other disciplines are doing their jobs. Please take this with a...
I don't know how the fuck anyone can measure the significance of anything put forward as evidence so far.
I'm not an epidemiologist or even a biologist, I'm a physicist, so in true physicist fashion I'm going to condescendingly assume how other disciplines are doing their jobs. Please take this with a Jupiter-sized grain of salt.
If H0 is set as "it was contracted from an animal vector", rejecting H0 with a reasonable p-value I assume would look for genetic markers in the virus that are significantly different from animal transmission. For the purpose of illustration, let's assume that a virus that evolved naturally has a significant portion of junk DNA (let's call this fraction fj), where one that was developed in a lab does not. A hypothesis test would compare fj for COVID-19 to the fj measured in other known naturally evolving viruses. Naturally, there is not one single fj that represents this - it is distribution - some naturally evolving viruses have small fj and some have large fj. What we would ask ourselves is, what are the chances a virus with this specific fj came from the naturally-evolving distribution. This is a very basic statistical test and the formulas to calculate it are well established.
You can imagine that fj is just one parameter to measure (and a bad one at that) - there are probably dozens if not hundreds of markers whose distribution can be measured and compared to known quantities. Any one of them is probably not a strong enough test, but taken together they can be.
Very cool, thanks for the explanation. What I still don't understand is, if there are measurable markers that would point towards animal transmission, has anyone demonstrated their presence? Do we...
Very cool, thanks for the explanation. What I still don't understand is, if there are measurable markers that would point towards animal transmission, has anyone demonstrated their presence? Do we just need more time to compare to other viruses? I know this is an unfair question to dump on you. But somehow this article doesn't discuss "also, the virus contains a statistically significant number of markers that may be linked to, for example, transmission from pangolins".
I'm afraid this is hitting the limit of my (very limited) expertise. The article indeed doesn't discuss genetic markers linked to naturally evolving viruses - probably because I plucked this...
I'm afraid this is hitting the limit of my (very limited) expertise. The article indeed doesn't discuss genetic markers linked to naturally evolving viruses - probably because I plucked this particular example from my addled brain. It is very likely that there are other better methods of measuring this. For example, we can sample the related viruses found in the wild and measure what the chances are for a virus like that to naturally evolve to COVID-19 over X months/years. There is probably ample research on virus evolution paths we can sample from.
But you're right that the article doesn't make that point and mostly discusses circumstantial evidence. Why that is, I do not know. These studies are exceedingly difficult because they require a lot of very accurate data to be collected and analyzed, and that takes time.
Funny that the Biden Administration seriously conducted an investigation into this theory when the right wing were immediately dismissed as racists for even entertaining the possibility. I don't...
Funny that the Biden Administration seriously conducted an investigation into this theory when the right wing were immediately dismissed as racists for even entertaining the possibility.
I don't think the virus is a bio-weapon. But I do wonder if China's decision to cover up the initial outbreak, arrest journalists and medical professionals who spoke up and only lock down at the very last moment once it had gone global was deliberate. One theory I heard early on in the pandemic was that they intentionally let the virus spread globally in order to damage Trump's chances at re-election. It's plausible, but mere incompetence and paranoia could explain it a lot better, and I'm a believer in Hanlon's razor.
I seem to remember that early on Trump was using terms like “the Chinese virus” and other like terms that exclusively linked it to China, which seemed to be that he was implying that either China...
I seem to remember that early on Trump was using terms like “the Chinese virus” and other like terms that exclusively linked it to China, which seemed to be that he was implying that either China had developed it because it was a hellhole or because it was a bioweapon. And he continued to use those terms for so long after a name came out for it that it really did seem to come out of a place of xenophobia.
But who knows, my memories aren’t that good to begin with.
Why is that funny? Actions can be taken in two very different contexts and be totally different. Why are we blind to the rhetorics and motives that drove those groups long before COVID-19 ever...
Why is that funny? Actions can be taken in two very different contexts and be totally different. Why are we blind to the rhetorics and motives that drove those groups long before COVID-19 ever appeared and only tunnel vision on their direct actions?
The administration has to take any remotely credible threat as an existing danger to be dealt with. Kind of like science... you don't just try to prove a theory, you have to try to disprove it as...
The administration has to take any remotely credible threat as an existing danger to be dealt with. Kind of like science... you don't just try to prove a theory, you have to try to disprove it as well. Merely investigating a claim isn't the same as shouting it to the public.
The lab leak theory would be a lot easier to discount if it weren't for Peter Daszak (the impetus behind the group of scientists who torpedoed the lab leak theory early on). His conflict of interest was egregious and undisclosed when the letter was published, though the Lancet later published an addendum addressing the conflict.
I'm confused that this article doesn't mention this at all. It's widely available, undisputed, information. The guy provided funding to the Wuhan lab and therefore had every reason to want to avoid being linked to a pandemic. That should preclude him from trying to be a part of the conversation. Especially when what he has to add is "nope, definitely not a lab leak, nothing to see there" without supporting evidence.
It's remarkable that we haven't found the animal source by now, we had already long since found the source for SARS and MERS by this point.
And it's remarkable that a lab studying coronaviruses that may or may not have been doing gain of function research was running in the same city where the pandemic started.
Ultimately we can't know what happened because China was quick to seal everything off and refuses to share important information. You'd think they'd want to rule out the lab leak possibility and would share any evidence that would help do that.
To be clear I'm not saying the source of SARS-CoV-2 was a lab. There's not clear evidence to support any theory at this point.
But there is more than enough reason not to discount the possibility. And if it were to turn out to be the case, maybe it would be enough to put the idiocy that is gain of function research to bed.
"Well if we make deadly, potential pandemic, pathogens, maybe we'll make one that could happen naturally and then we'll be ready for it. But that's pretty damn unlikely but maybe we'll learn something from our lab made viruses that will somehow be useful in combating future pathogens even though that hasn't happened so far in all the years of GoF reaearch".
It sounds like a joke. The infinitesimal chance of useful data can't possibly be worth the risk.
Until we have very strong evidence for, or against, a particular theory, it makes sense to keep looking at all reasonable possibilities.
Wait what? Why would I need to mention something from the article in order to qualify to mention something missing? Didn't we all read the article? What does the article's stance on China have to do with whether or not Peter Daszak is mentioned?
I’m struggling to link this fact, which is easy to accept as true, to support the notion that it is unremarkable that the same city where a contagion is under research also happens to be the same city where that contagion starts a global pandemic.
Therr may be many plausible explanations for this coincidence that do not involve a lab leak, but without strong evidence for one, the coincidence sure seems remarkable to me.
According to Dr. Steven Novella, it took 13 years to identify the origin of SARS. According to Wikipedia, it took 14 years.
It's interesting, but I wouldn't say remarkable. The virus does not appear to be human-edited. Even if the lab were involved somehow, the idea that GoFR played any role is extremely unlikely.
There simply isn't any more evidence for the lab leak theory today than there was a year ago. Unfortunately it is now the narrative that has taken hold. By all means, it should be investigated as a possibility, but I see no reason for the messaging to focus on that. There's already rampant speculation and conspiracy theories online, despite most scientists holding that a natural origin as far more likely.
edit: Typo
Ok, to clarify, with SARS-1 and MERS they comparitively quickly found very likely animal hosts, that has not been the case with SARS-2.
Which is the key point, if we had a high degree of certainty about the vector this conversation wouldn't be happening at all.
When you say there is no more evidence now for the lab leak theory, do you mean to imply that there is more evidence for another theory? All I've seen is educated speculation on all fronts.
Yeah the conspiracy theories... Early on the support for the lab leak theory from the qanon crowd, and from Trump, combined with the Lancet letter, was enough for me to discount it entirely.
But here we are in 2021 with no animal link. I don't see a rational reason to discount other possibilities just yet.
Edit: I might not have been clear above, and I just read the wikipedia article. It took 14 years to find a colony of bats that harbored the specific virus. They had settled on a selection of animals as the vector far earlier, due to solid evidence.
I'm a little out of date on this so I probably missed whatever happened here, but wasn't the leading speculation early on that it made the jump from pangolins? Did they rule that out now?
There could have been a development I missed, otherwise with Pangolins it was all circumstantial. It could have happened, Pangolins can host coronaviruses that can also infect humans, but there's no evidence that it happened with sars-2 so far.
I think this is all academic and pointless.
Let's say that we could conclusively prove that it came from a lab leak. What would we do with that information? Go to war with China? Our medical systems are already over-taxed, they have a 5:1 population advantage over us, and they're our major trading partner. Sanctions would similarly have about as much luck as the previous administration's tariffs, which is to say, not good. Again, they're our primary trading partner, and could hurt us just as much, if not more.
It may not be politically actionable information, but it’s still very useful scientific information, if for no other reason than to identify shortcomings in lab procedures and ensure they get addressed and not repeated elsewhere.
This assumes an accidental leak of a virus under academic (as opposed to bioweapon) research.
Perhaps we could move the gain-of-function research to somewhere sensible. It seems spectacularly stupid - borderline suicidal, in fact - to do this stuff in a city, of all places. I'm sure there are a number of suitable deserts or islands, and there's always Antarctica. Put the labs in a place where the virus won't survive outside or can't travel without passing through ironclad quarantine. A place where there is nothing down the street, no markets, no clusters of homes, no travel terminals, no humans.
As much as I hate China's handling of this (and many other things), "punishing" them doesn't matter so much. What matters is assessing the risk of gain of function research.
The point is to give political leaders who failed to properly deal with the pandemic somewhere to deflect and divert the blame to.
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault. (Wuhan lab leak theory goes here)
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Ah, the narcissist's prayer. I'd recognize that anywhere.
Related reading, NYT: Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling. - By Dr.Zeynep Tufekci
Impressive article! A few things I learned...
The quantity of lab leaks of serious pathogens over the years, and the resulting US moratorium on GoF funding that ended in 2017.
The number of signatories of the Lancet letter who have now publicly changed their stance.
The extreme measures by China to cover up the outbreak and then to make sure that information which could help international research was not made available. We've all heard about some of it, but this article adds to the list.
None of which proves anything of course, but it begs investigation.
As always, one should consider the agenda of every author. Anecdotal, but it seemed to me that those in education with doctorates in relevant backgrounds strongly pushed the idea that the virus was definitely from an animal before any investigations even began to be put together.
I believe it was because many of these highly educated individuals were shocked by the racism against Asians and Asian Americans that "seemingly" came out of the woodworks when the pandemic first started, and desperately wanted to avoid providing any fodder for racists to latch onto as "justification".
I believe the reason why those with doctorates in relevant backgrounds supported the idea of a natural origination because there were no evidence proving otherwise. As scientists wont to do. If ever evidence to suggest otherwise is discovered and vetted, I'm sure they will change their minds. Until then...
No, I was under this impression when there was no evidence to point towards animal transmission either. Edit: beyond "there is a food market with exotic animals"
And, you know, the fact that this has been the course of all such diseases
Right, that isn't how it works.
It makes a great hypothesis; SARS and other similar viruses have had animal vectors, so we hypothesize that Covid-19 also has an animal vector. Now we will try to test our hypothesis.
That last part did not take place, however.
That's not true. Researchers are actively looking for animal vectors, but it's not something that is easy or simple to do. It took 14 years before the origin species of SARS-CoV-1 was discovered.
Origin species or vector? We already know the origin species was bat, unless I am confusing the terminology. But regardless, I don't think it is right to say with any level of certainty that the vector was an animal at a food market without evidence. Speculating and hypothesizing is different.
Edit: that article is about finding bats as the origin behind SARS. But we knew much earlier that humans had contracted it from civets. We don't have evidence of the animal vector like the civets.
What doesn't work that way? Rejecting the null hypothesis? Just because there were not enough concrete evidence to reject it doesn't mean it hasn't taken place. It means we couldn't reject it.
All the marbles in my hand are blue is a true statement, because there are no marbles in my hand. Have you rejected that it was a lab leak or something else? No? You don't have enough concrete evidence to reject that either. (If you do, please share). So why should one hypothesis be promoted over others without even an investigation? I am not supporting any particular hypothesis here, just trying to remind people that doctors are also people and also make mistakes and also have biases and agendas.
I think I may be misunderstanding what you want to say. Sorry. Could you clarify more about why the animal vector hypothesis holds special merit?
I think it might be worth it for you to read up on hypothesis testing
You can't just flip H_0 and H_1 and then exclaim that H_0 hasn't been proven. That's just not how it works. When a new planet is discovered we don't assume it's a cube then set out to prove it's a sphere.
Doctors absolutely make mistakes and have biases. That's why they're using the scientific method to assess the data we have so far. That's why we invented double blind experiments. And that's why we need peer reviewed papers to assess whether those methods were followed.
Alright, I appreciate the link. It's been a while.
To clarify, this requires measuring significance with p-value. I don't know how the fuck anyone can measure the significance of anything put forward as evidence so far. If I understand correctly, "it was contracted from an animal vector like civets" is a significantly large p-value for Ho, and "we can not demonstrate it was contracted from an animal vector like civets" is not going to disprove Ho.
But what is the significance of an absence of evidence?
Edit: if it is a small p-value, then this seems like a good reason to not prioritize the null hypothesis. The article is a persuasive essay explaining why some scientists argue against one Ha, but I did not find the myriad reasons compelling. One was roughly "I made a prior statement without knowing what I now know", which is much more compelling than another, which was roughly "worsening relations with China will make everything more difficult".
Edit: had p-value backwards. Oops.
I'm not an epidemiologist or even a biologist, I'm a physicist, so in true physicist fashion I'm going to condescendingly assume how other disciplines are doing their jobs. Please take this with a Jupiter-sized grain of salt.
If H0 is set as "it was contracted from an animal vector", rejecting H0 with a reasonable p-value I assume would look for genetic markers in the virus that are significantly different from animal transmission. For the purpose of illustration, let's assume that a virus that evolved naturally has a significant portion of junk DNA (let's call this fraction fj), where one that was developed in a lab does not. A hypothesis test would compare fj for COVID-19 to the fj measured in other known naturally evolving viruses. Naturally, there is not one single fj that represents this - it is distribution - some naturally evolving viruses have small fj and some have large fj. What we would ask ourselves is, what are the chances a virus with this specific fj came from the naturally-evolving distribution. This is a very basic statistical test and the formulas to calculate it are well established.
You can imagine that fj is just one parameter to measure (and a bad one at that) - there are probably dozens if not hundreds of markers whose distribution can be measured and compared to known quantities. Any one of them is probably not a strong enough test, but taken together they can be.
Very cool, thanks for the explanation. What I still don't understand is, if there are measurable markers that would point towards animal transmission, has anyone demonstrated their presence? Do we just need more time to compare to other viruses? I know this is an unfair question to dump on you. But somehow this article doesn't discuss "also, the virus contains a statistically significant number of markers that may be linked to, for example, transmission from pangolins".
I'm afraid this is hitting the limit of my (very limited) expertise. The article indeed doesn't discuss genetic markers linked to naturally evolving viruses - probably because I plucked this particular example from my addled brain. It is very likely that there are other better methods of measuring this. For example, we can sample the related viruses found in the wild and measure what the chances are for a virus like that to naturally evolve to COVID-19 over X months/years. There is probably ample research on virus evolution paths we can sample from.
But you're right that the article doesn't make that point and mostly discusses circumstantial evidence. Why that is, I do not know. These studies are exceedingly difficult because they require a lot of very accurate data to be collected and analyzed, and that takes time.
That's fine! I really appreciate everything you've shared with me.
Funny that the Biden Administration seriously conducted an investigation into this theory when the right wing were immediately dismissed as racists for even entertaining the possibility.
I don't think the virus is a bio-weapon. But I do wonder if China's decision to cover up the initial outbreak, arrest journalists and medical professionals who spoke up and only lock down at the very last moment once it had gone global was deliberate. One theory I heard early on in the pandemic was that they intentionally let the virus spread globally in order to damage Trump's chances at re-election. It's plausible, but mere incompetence and paranoia could explain it a lot better, and I'm a believer in Hanlon's razor.
I seem to remember that early on Trump was using terms like “the Chinese virus” and other like terms that exclusively linked it to China, which seemed to be that he was implying that either China had developed it because it was a hellhole or because it was a bioweapon. And he continued to use those terms for so long after a name came out for it that it really did seem to come out of a place of xenophobia.
But who knows, my memories aren’t that good to begin with.
Why is that funny? Actions can be taken in two very different contexts and be totally different. Why are we blind to the rhetorics and motives that drove those groups long before COVID-19 ever appeared and only tunnel vision on their direct actions?
The administration has to take any remotely credible threat as an existing danger to be dealt with. Kind of like science... you don't just try to prove a theory, you have to try to disprove it as well. Merely investigating a claim isn't the same as shouting it to the public.