Hey @Sam, maybe you can post a pointer to the sequence and/or immunological data that proves that the three scientists mentioned had COVID and not, say, colds.
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So can I put you down on the side of those who haven’t wavered a nanometer from the position of those who “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife”?
And your recommended retort to counter the blowing winds of change on this topic is,
Cool. I’ll try that out. and if it fails I can pull out the never failing tactic (following the lead of the Lancet) of labeling them all conspiracy theorists.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”
Just wanted some assurance that that was still the recommended position.
Thanks for being the unwavering stalwart you appear to be Michael.
No, I can’t. I don’t even know what those things are. You don’t think that The Wall Street Journal might have thought to question that too? It seems unlikely, however, that it would make any difference to you.
So, can I add your name to Micheal’s, on the list of those who haven’t moved an iota from the Lancet’s position that “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife”?
One thing that seems clear to me is that you are both very faithful, apparently not wavering an iota from your assurance that The Lancet is on the right track with comments such as these, included. I’d not be the least surprised to hear that some of the Lancet staff are ashamed of the unscientific conclusions they drew and the statements they made. But good old Michael and Art are holding the faith. I’m sure there are others among the faithful here. 
You mean in a future post? When are you going to try to provide the evidence? Can you do it or not?
Don’t leave me out! Ron.
I guessed right. It’s all baseless ranting. When you have something concrete, wake me up.
What new solid evidence is there to support this “wavering”?
To quote you:
All that you provide is the opinion of an attorney-not-a-scientist, who in turn provides no evidence to back up that inexpert opinion, and a vague claim about "stories with subtitles such as “Confirmation of Wuhan scientists as “patients zero” makes the lab leak theory look likely—and the misinformation police look like fools”.
The latter would appear to refer to this deceptive article that claims:
The lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origins gained tremendous legitimacy this week as The Wall Street Journal confirmed independent reports that the earliest outbreak occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019.
However the linked WSJ article states:
A prominent scientist who worked on coronavirus projects funded by the U.S. government is one of three Chinese researchers who became sick with an unspecified illness during the initial outbreak of Covid-19, according to current and former U.S. officials.
(My emphasis)
“Unspecified illness” means that there is no confirmation that this illness was coronavirus, and thus no confirmation that they were among “patients zero” for it.
So we have no new evidence and thus no reason to “waver”.
Thank you @Sam for “popping in” to check that none of us have drunk the koolaid since you were last here. 
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As a general rule, we sane people do condemn conspiracy theories that lack evidence. This is as true of COVID-19 as it is for anything else. There are claims that a certain scientist is “patient zero” (a term that has its own misunderstood history), but no one can present evidence that this scientist was infected with SARS-CoV-2. Do you see the problem here?
If evidence surfaces for a lab leak I will gladly change my mind. Until then, all I have is the overwhelming evidence for a zoonotic spill over in the Wuhan market.
I will also add that some of us were around for the “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction” fiasco.
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Here’s what I have trouble understanding: Suppose we DID have clear evidence that the first cases of COVID arose from people who worked at or had visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology immediately prior to falling ill.
PLUS, when all the earliest cases in the initial outbreak were plotted on a scatter map it showed clear clustering around the WIV, with cases numbers diminishing the further one moves from the lab.
PLUS we had photographic evidence of workers at the WIV carelessly spilling the contents of vials marked “DANGER! CONTAINS HIGHLY CONTAGIIOUS AND LETHAL BAT VIRUS!” over their work benches while wearing inadequate protective clothing.
PLUS those work benches were swabbed and tested positive for SARS-COV-2 strains identical to those isolated in the early patients in the outbreak.
Meanwhile, there had been not a single case traced to the wet market, and no evidence that so much as a single virus was found there.
Would we be taking seriously anyone who continued to insist “No! COVID-19 originated in the wet market from infected animals! It’s too much of a coincidence! And I heard that some people there got sick just before COVID-19 started!”
We wouldn’t and, moreover, I doubt anyone would even be saying this.
So why are we expected to take seriously people who still support the lab leak when the actual situation is exactly analogous to the above, except in favour or a zoonotic orign?
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Wouldn’t you know it:
No, it’s a general perception, of virtually every ID or YEC or OEC person who posts here.
And the excuse of “provocation” is just that – an excuse. It’s possible to control one’s irritation and refrain from ad hominem remarks, from imputing bad motives to people, from stating false things about people (e.g., that I’m a creationist), etc. Certain people here simply choose not to control their irritation. The ethos here encourages aggressive bullying of creationists and IDers. As on BioLogos, another website founded by Christians, a small number of rather belligerent atheists (aquaticus being one of the less belligerent) have managed to dominate the discussions. There are many consequences of this, one of which is that very few women post here at all, or, if they do, don’t stay very long. And I don’t think it’s the atheism that puts them off, but the conversational tone. But I don’t expect the alpha-male attitude here to change any time soon.
That judgment in itself is part of the attitude I’m talking about, but there is no point in discussing this further, as your mind, like that of Faizal, Mercer, etc. is snapped shut.
You must have breathed a sigh of relief to be able to scrape up two counter-examples to what is otherwise a pretty solid generalization.
Your attitude is poor. I presented you with a great deal of philological and literary evidence in a field about which you know next to nothing, and you are unwilling to grant even the slightest point You may be a “friendly” atheist, but you’re also a very stubborn one. Oh, well, you can lead a horse to water…
It stopped being scholarly when you said this: “No, I’m complaining because you are misusing logic,”
You have your conclusion, and you really don’t care how it is reached.
I have not studied in detail all his claims about vaccines. I tried to find out precisely what his current views were from an ABC interview with him a few months back, when he announced his candidacy, but ABC news deleted a whole section of an interview with him, condemning his views as unscientific while preventing ABC viewers from finding out from his own words in the interview what those unscientific views were:
In any case, he is not a medical scientist with peer-reviewed publications, and my comments made very clear that I was talking about debates between scientific peers, not debates between scientists and non-scientists. Remember whom I was replying to: Mercer. Mercer in the past here has made clear that it’s not just about debates with cranks; he’s against scientific debates, period. He thinks debates have no place in science or in public discussions of matters where science is concerned. His use of the “crank” trope was merely a cover for his general dislike of public dialogue about the claims of scientists, even when both sides in the dialogue are represented by trained, peer-reviewed scientists. My remarks were responding to that. And there’s no excuse for your not perceiving that, as you’ve been here when I’ve had the same debate with Mercer many times before.
By the way, if RFK Jr. thinks all vaccines are bad and that no one should take any vaccines, I would disagree with him. I think millions of lives (including children’s lives) and much suffering have been avoided by the use of vaccines (for polio, diphtheria, etc.), and I would call a view that vaccines are never effective a “crank” view. On the other hand, there is nothing “crank” about European medical scientists who have advised their governments that COVID vaccinations and boosters for young healthy people are not necessary and can be discontinued. But if those same scientists had given the same advice in the USA just two years ago, during the height of COVID panic, you can be sure that Fauci and the establishment would have shouted them down and called them cranks.
I ignore your other paragraph, which is just more of your usual one-sided, intellectually inflexible dogmatism.
You could not possibly have got that message from what I wrote above – not if you read its careful qualifications with any care or attention. (Especially since I’ve never even discussed the general questions of vaccinations here.) It appears you have read into what I wrote (eisegesis) instead of drawing out my stated meaning (exegesis). But of course, eisegesis is the normal hermeneutical practice around here, so nothing new there.
Textual evidence from those “earliest hearers and readers,” please…
Ditto.
And some examples of their evidence?
Actually, most biblical scholarship doesn’t give these men or their writings a second thought. In all the years I studied the Bible, I never saw anyone rail against, argue against, or even mention any of these people or their writings. No teacher in graduate or undergraduate school mentioned any of them. And I was in a secular department where there were plenty of profs who did not like Christianity and would have been glad to hear arguments that it had no historical basis. Even in a historical course I took that was entirely devoted to Christian origins, taught by a Jewish classical historian who made very plain that he was not a Christian, and had every religious motive to argue that no person named Jesus ever existed, no hypothesis of solar religion was endorsed or even discussed. He thought Jesus was a real person.
The views you are talking about are treated by most religion scholars as of the quality of the views of von Daniken or Velikovsky. They are ignored. I realize this must be an ego-blow to you, since you seem to have spent a large part of your adult life studying these views and are convinced that they are wholly correct. But the fact is that scholarship regards these views as sub-scholarly and so does not invest time even in refuting them.
Once again, you are showing that you don’t have a clue what goes in Biblical scholarship in serious universities and colleges. Not surprising, since you never attended any such institutions.
The date of birth for a fictional character doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Jesus is one of many solar deities, not an historical person. Christians don’t have a verifiable birthdate for Jesus which seems odd since he’s supposedly the most famous and influential person in all of history! Even more odd (smirk) is the fact that Christians don’t have a day, month or even year for the crucifixion or resurrection of Jesus which Christian apologists routinely claim is the best attested event in all of history. Truth be known this “event” is not attested to by anyone. This claim clearly illustrates the desperation and dishonesty of Christian apologists. This is the group you have decided to join up with.
The earliest hearers and readers of the biblical texts knew the narratives were allegorical. It was the Christian Church that decided to mortalise Jesus. “When the conception of a purely spiritual Christ could no longer successfully be imported to the turbulent masses, who clamored for a political savior, it was found necessary or expedient to substitute the idea of a personal messiah… The swell of this tide carried the Church fathers to the limit of recasting the entire four gospels in terms of human biography.” - Alvin Boyd Kuhn.
It wasn’t until skepticism, deism, free inquiry forcibly removed Christianity’s death grip on the Western world that the truth about Christianity could be told in public. Two Frenchmen Depuis (1742-1809) and Volney (1757-1820) independently concluded that the Bible was a collection of solar myths and that Jesus Christ was a representation of the Sun God. William Drummond and Robert Taylor reached the same conclusion. Two Englishmen Godfrey Higgins (1772-1833) and Gerald Massey (1828-1907) were also engaged in similar work in the 19th Century, both concerned to show how the biblical religions originated in Egypt. Today biblical “scholarship” still tries to hand wave and pray the findings of these men away. More proof that prayer doesn’t work.
So why did you bring it up?
Well, sure. If Alvin Boyd Kuhn says it, we should all just believe it. Your arguments have convinced me.
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2nd Century Christian apologist Origen wrote "…these do not contain a pure history of events, which are interwoven indeed according to the letter, but which did not actually occur. Then he gives an example in Genesis which relates that the Sun, Moon and stars didn’t appear until later in the creation week. Origen says, “A curious anomaly, introduced deliberately so that we won’t be tempted to take it literally, so will be forced to seek a deeper meaning in the text than one that immediately suggests itself. We could approach the numerous Gospel contradictions in a similar spirit.”
In Acts 2:9-11 this is not an arbitrary list. According to the ancients, countries and territories have a zodiacal correspondence and can be associated with the four quadrants of the earth, each of which is under the rulership of one of the elements earth, fire air and water. According to Ptolemy, who was writing after Luke’s gospel (the alternative facts gospel), but no doubt faithfully reporting the tradition - Parthia, Media, and Mesopotamia belong to the Earth element, Phrygia, Cappadocia and Pamphylia belong to Air, Libia and Egypt ruled by Water, and Rome and Crete belong to Fire. The author of Luke emphasizes universality and completeness by subtle reference to the belief that the earth’s geography could be related to the celestial sphere.
That’s because Bible scholars are shamefully historically and scientifically illiterate. They’ve been taught that whether the Bible is true or not it must be interpreted as historical and/or literal. Because Jesus is real! Well that’s wrong. I know this because I’ve seen the damage done by the brainwashing they got from their instructors. Perhaps we can agree that the public is extremely lacking in biblical literacy - more than ever before. I had to laugh when three very bright people could not finish a line in the Lord’s Prayer. I mean you’d think they would know Howard is God’s name! LOL. Along with this illiteracy comes apathy for anything Bible scholars say. If you eavesdrop on any conversation in a restaruant or anywhere people gather you will likely hear people talking about politicans, sports figures, movie stars, recording artists, the Kardasians and who knows what? What you will never hear is, “Hey did you her the latest from Bible scholarship?” I realize this must be an ego-blow to you, since you seem to have spent a large part of your adult life studying these views and are convinced that they are wholly correct and important. Well they are not. Nobody cares anything about Bible scholarship except the people who are actually in that cult of ignorance. The views you are talking about are treated by the general public as of the quality of the views of von Daniken or Velikovsky because that is exactly what they are. I cannot express to you how much I don’t care what you or any other Bible thumper thinks or says. Nobody and nothing is more irrelevant than Bible scholars and their superstitions.
Origen’s dates are ca. 185 - ca. 254, which means that his life as an adult writer was entirely in the third century, not the second. He certainly would not have been one of the “earliest hearers or readers” of the Gospels, three of which were almost certainly completed before 85 and the last of which was probably completed before 100.
But yes, Origen does make remarks suggesting that some of the events in the Gospels (and the rest of the Bible) are not meant to be historical. However, he does not argue that the entire narrative of the Bible is unhistorical; he insists on some core historical facts, including the historical reality of the man Jesus and even a historical Adam and Eve (admittedly within a Garden story not meant to be read entirely historically). If you want a detailed discussion by someone who has actually read Origen’s statements closely, have a look at:
You were asked for evidence that Christianity is rooted in “solar myths”, and instead you write about correspondences between the elements and the various quadrants of the earth. Further, the list in Acts includes peoples not found in the list you give from Ptolemy. You’re grasping at any set of loose associations to make your case – as do the writers you regard as your mentors.
No, they have not been taught that.
And you won’t hear them talking about quantum physics, either, or supply-side economics, or medieval history, or theories about the origin of language. Does that prove that they think none of those subjects have any value? No, it proves only that when people get together to relax they don’t generally talk about scholarly or scientific things – unless they themselves are scholars or scientists. So your criticism is pointless.
But if your criticism were valid, it would apply even more to your own ideas. I have, from time to time, heard people in a coffee shop or restaurant or bar talking about God or the Bible or religion along traditional lines, either to support the Bible or debunk it; I don’t think I’ve ever overheard a conversation in such venues about Jesus as a solar myth, or the Gospels as describing a journey through the zodiac. So you’ve got a bigger problem than just Bible scholars; the non-scholars aren’t any more attracted to your ideas than the Bible scholars are. In fact, your ideas are not only well out of mainstream academic conversation, but also well out of normal human conversation. So if “Nobody is interested in what Bible scholars talk about” is proof that Bible scholarship is an irrelevant waste of time, then all the more are your intellectual pursuits an irrelevant waste of time.
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What you misunderstand here is that “scientist” and “crank” are not mutually exclusive terms. James Tour, for instance, while a very accomplished scientist in his own field, is an utter and complete crank on the subjects of abiogenesis and evolution. Never mind the credentialed scientists who work for organizations like Answers in Genesis and promote the idea of a young earth.
I am not sure exactly what you are referring to here. Is it what is discussed in the article below? If so, it is hardly surprising that a recommendation made at the present time would be different from one made at the height of the global pandemic (which was not a mere “panic”, but an actual disease that was killing millions of people). Anyone making this recommendation 2 years ago most likely would have been an anti-vaccine crank, and rightly ignored by the “establishment”.
WHO experts revise Covid-19 vaccine advice, say healthy kids and teens low risk | CNN
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No one is saying that they are cranks.
I would assume the recommendation was done the same way it is done here. Experts get together, discuss the literature and latest data, and then try to find some sort of agreement on a recommendation. They don’t set up a debate on a stage, set up two podiums, pick out two scientists to argue about stuff for an hour, and then invite the public to watch. They don’t go to twitter and facebook to make one paragraph rants about government conspiracies and ivermectin.
You assume those same scientists would have made those same recommendations at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s a very, very faulty assumption. Vaccine policy is always guided by the current state of infection within the population in balance with the risk of side effects from the vaccine. That calculus varies greatly depending on the current infection and hospitalization rates.
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