Documents show scientist calling lab leak likely after paper claiming opposite

https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-republicans/

by nradov • 3 years ago

73 18 3 years ago

The relevant bit for HN:

The newly exposed documents include full emails and pages of Slack chats that were cropped for the report, exposing the “Proximal Origin” authors’ real-time thinking. According to the metadata in the PDF of the report, it was created using “Acrobat PDFMaker 23 for Word,” indicating that the report was originally drafted as a Word document. Word, however, retains the original image when an image is cropped, as do many other apps. Microsoft’s documentation cautions that “Cropped parts of the picture are not removed from the file, and can potentially be seen by others,” going on to note: “If there is sensitive information in the area you’re cropping out make sure you delete the cropped areas.”
When this Word document was converted to a PDF, the original, uncropped images were likewise carried over. The Intercept was able to extract the original, complete images from the PDF using freely available tools, following the work of a Twitter sleuth.

sdwr• 3 years ago

I've believed the lab leak was likely at least since the Atlantic (?) expose of the lab came out.

Disheartening but not unsurprising to see political concerns + firefighting trump the truth.

Threading the needle between naivety, skepticism and conspiracy thinking is tricky. There's a tradeoff between being lazy + letting existing patterns think for you, vs doing the hard work of questioning.

Someone like Scott from SSC lands in the hard-working but naive box for me. Typical reddit (and HN) posts are lazy and skeptical.

rhaway847733• 3 years ago

There is no evidence for the lab leak theory.

Even if it was a lab leak, I think it’s fairly uncontroversial that the null hypothesis cannot be that there was a lab leak.

So the burden of proof lies on proving the lab leak. And there is very little to no evidence that it was other than “here’s a few unlikely things that happened”.

However, if we used that standard to examine airplane crashes, for example, accidental airplane crashes wouldn’t exist. Because for an airplane crash to happen a lot of highly unlikely things need to go wrong in highly unlikely ways at the same time.

Similarly for a once in a century global pandemic to happen, a lot of things need to go wrong in a lot of unexpected ways.

lyu07282• 3 years ago

“I personally think we should get away from all the strange coincidence stuff. I agree it smells really fishy but without a smoking gun it will not do us any good,” he wrote. “The truth is never going to come out (if [lab] escape is the truth).

Some private positions that never supposed to become public, it's just the assumption that the general public needs to be carefully cradled like a child, to protect it from itself. The average person can not be trusted with such complicated and nuanced things, they start eating bleech if you aren't careful with how you talk to them.

That's what the people in charge think anyway. I think some of the "average person" will drink the metaphorical bleech anyway so you might as well tell it how it is, wouldn't really be an issue, in theory, in a functioning society that is.

FreshStart• 3 years ago

Just another special interest group burning long time society interests for shortterm gains, wondering how society could turn on them. Now the regulated death of that field will drag even rational parties towards anti-scientific populists.

rhaway847733• 3 years ago

Interesting.

On one side you have a detailed paper with evidence, assumptions, conclusions, etc laid out in detail and with precision that anyone with the requisite scientific skill can read and critique.

On the other side you have incomplete transcripts of private thoughts and words of an individual scientist, which might potentially disagree with the evidence laid out in the detailed paper.

I think it says a lot about someone whether they choose to put more weight in the former or the latter.

schrectacular• 3 years ago

Did I read something different? What I saw was a group literally conspiring to mold the narrative so that people wouldn't have fuel for conspiracy theories. More irony than the Eiffel Tower.

This isn't to say I think it's me way or the other stuff like this is why people are losing faith in our public institutions.

And just because something is in a paper does not really mean it's true, the sausage grinder that produces scientific literature doesn't really have safeguards that check for truth or accuracy, rather they check for things being novel, interesting, and covering the existing literature.

rhaway847733• 3 years ago

Literally none of this is correct. The article headline is also false.

The scientists are all saying that the lab leak is a possibility. About the most “suspicious” thing being said is that if it is a lab leak they will need irrefutable evidence, but they simultaneously claim that it’s entirely explainable by natural causes as well.

One scientist is unsure about the natural explanation because of the distance of the believed origin of the virus. Of course, later information has completely explained this, but even then a scientist responds by saying that it’s absolutely possible by natural causes as well.

Pretty much the most controversial thing here is that some scientists might have been personally slightly leaning towards a lab leak theory but had absolutely no evidence for it. Just that the “coincidences” seemed quite too many. In Feb/Mar 2020 when we had very little information (for example, at this point, scientists outside China didn’t even know that asymptomatic spread was possible with COVID-19, which in itself changes the equation completely).

I would challenge someone to actually copy a controversial quote from what the scientists actually said. Unfortunately this article is doing a massive disservice by presenting exploratory thoughts as some sort of cover up.

arghandugh2• 3 years ago

There is still no evidence whatsoever for the lab leak conspiracy theory (while the case for natural sourcing is obvious and approaching overwhelming) and half of the English speaking world now believes it is the most likely explanation because of this kind of drivel. Are we all truly so bored of reality?

It’s one of the truly irritating mass delusions of the era and of course it’s on here, tracked in through Glenn Greenwald’s private pigsty.

supriyo-biswas• 3 years ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807...

frankreyes2• 3 years ago

FBI Director Christopher Wray has said that the bureau believes Covid-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64806903

US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/26/politics/covid-lab-leak-w...

Top WHO virologist admits it should never have dismissed lab leak theory as being more implausible than China's own 'frozen food' origin story

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12203765/Top-viro...

Intelligence Community releases declassified COVID origins report, lawmakers say it ‘lends credence’ to lab leak theory

https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/intelligence-community-release...

But hey, keep those conspiracy theories running

arghandugh2• 3 years ago

Trumper, tortured opinion piece, irrelevant sidebar from someone who can’t meaningfully comment on Chinese politics, and a NY POST blurb. Shattering work. Great. You’ve blown this whole thing wide open.

oliv5900• 3 years ago

There is still no evidence whatsoever for the natural origins conspiracy theory (while the case for lab leaks is obvious and approaching overwhelming) and half of the English speaking world now believes it is the most likely explanation because of this kind of drivel. Are we all truly so bored of reality?

It’s one of the truly irritating mass delusions of the era and of course it’s on here, tracked in through mainstream news’ private pigsty.

What has been asserted without evidence, can just as well be dismissed without evidence.

notTooFarGone• 3 years ago

in dubio pro reo is still fundamental in our society and we should still hold other countries to the same standard (even if it's hard with bad faith actors)

sharts• 3 years ago

It is too political an issue for any definitive evidence to surface any time soon. Why would the most likely explanation be something worthy of dismissal?

We make lots of decisions in life based on likely explanation.

benreesman• 3 years ago

That’s a pretty stiff assertion in a thread on HN where there’s any debate: there are like a zillion PhDs in everything on here so when I see a conversation I just assume it’s not open and shut.

Maybe you’re one of them, arguments to authority are imperfect but we all use them, so now would be the time to break out the PhD in virology.

As a kind of side note, “conspiracy theory”, while once a somewhat useful term, at this point has joined “fake news”, “misinformation”, “psyop”, “alt-right”, “deep state” and all the other stuff that is just basically a partisan gang affiliation flex.

And it’s a shame, because some of these words meant something at one time and they don’t anymore.

But I’m pretty sure we’ll make up new ones.

sazz• 3 years ago

So senior scientists are not working for the good of humanity, but are embedded in a system that is thoroughly corrupted by power.

Science in itself can be a useful tool for gaining knowledge. All scientific knowledge builds on earlier knowledge. But when it is no longer possible to discern which knowledge was created for the honest pursuit of truth and conscience and which for pure power interests, the whole foundation collapses.

As long as the extent of this corruption is not known, one should treat every "scientific finding" with the greatest scepticism, because the findings are no longer trustworthy. Especially those that find wide and welcome dissemination in the media and politics.

This should be kept in mind under all circumstances if one wants to continue listening to the narratives about the "climate apocalypse" that are excellently placed in the media. For here, too, the exact same propaganda mechanisms are used: alleged consensus among all scientists and dissenting opinions are defamed as conspiracy theories and right-wing narratives. Anyone who thinks they will find honest discourse and argumentative competition here should have been taught better by now.

But I have already given up hope. Humanity will make the same mistake again and again.

Documents show scientist calling lab leak likely after paper claiming opposite

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