Oh, I’m sure they do. So, who was this person? Can we see the lab tests confirming his infection?
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Where do these proponents think the virus that caused this first infection came from? What evidence do they offer to support their suppositions?
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I think I see what has @Giltil confused. When I wrote that not even the most fervent Lab Leakers claim the epicentre of the outbreak was at the WIV, what I meant was they do not claim to be able to produce maps like this:
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Some proponents of the lab leak think that the Turin shroud is a genuine relic.
Why should what they think be persuasive?
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In @Giltil’s defense, I believe he was simply challenging my assertion that Lab Leakers do not claim the epicentre of the pandemic was the WIV. I have hopefully clarified that what I meant was that they do not claim to be able to show a large number of cases clustering around the WIV in the initial outbreak. Obviously, many of them would still believe the earliest cases would have been linked to the WIV (somehow without leaving any traces of evidence.)
I also recently saw this from the journal Science. There is a paper, but not yet published so caution is due.
A sneak peak: The paper analyzed data of samples collected from the Wuhan market and some of these samples contained both SARS-CoV-2 RNA and mtDNA of susceptible mammals (incl. raccoon dog). Not just that, there appears to be a tight spatial correlation between the distribution of the virus RNA and mammal mtDNA samples, with a “hot spot” at a specific location in the market.
Whether this is the slam dunk or not remains to be seen.
What can also be noted is how frustrating it is that such important data collected in 2020 wasn’t made available until last January 2023. IT’S FREAKING 3 YEARS OLD!!
This data was collected by a Chinese research team who uploaded the data on the virology database GISAID in June 2022 in support of a preprint paper they published a few months before. The data was made available in January to other users of GISAID, when Florence Débarre (evolutionary biologist at CNRS, and frequent sparer of lab-leak proponents) just happened to stumble upon it.
While there is an ethical argument against the public disclosure of original data before the research team are able to publish their findings, it’s still should’ve be made public (or at the very least confidentially available to other independent researchers) in my opinion.
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I disagree in this case given the massive mortality involved. In other contexts, sure, but not this one.
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It appears almost impossible to find any grounds whatsoever on which to doubt Anthony Stephen Fauci’s testimony.
First and foremost, his goal from the start has been to be transparent as well as unequivocal. Ambiguity is utterly despised by him.
Excellent! It appears that these people who complain about misinformation are very good at misinforming the public. The watered-down sprinkler!
The lab leak was described as “unlikely” in an early draft of the paper, then later was changed to “improbable” when published? Whoah, it’s almost like those are synonyms.
And Fauci contradicted himself once in like 200 plus media appearances over the last four years? Clearly he must be bought by the chinese.
What’s next, in a grandiose scandal, emails will be leaked that show scientists actually considered the details of a lab-leak hypothesis before making up their minds and decided on the basis of the facts they had that it was less likely than a zoonotic origin? Oh wait…
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This one is also a good one
Ahh yes but remember. A worker from WIV was sent by the chinese military to spray SARS2 samples on vegetable stalls at the market to throw off investigators that the pandemic began at WIV. Or something. The contaminator, of all places, coincidentally went to the animal trade market for his first “superspreader” event. Not a supermarket, shopping mall, train station, movie theater, concert, or any of a thousand other places one is likely to go to infect lots of people in an enclosed space. The infected WIV worker went to the seafood market to buy vegetables, or incompetently sprayed the virus there later to be collected to throw off investigators.
This is basically what they believe now.
Do these guys have considered the details of a lab-leak hypothesis before making up their mind that it was a conspiracy theory? Give me a break!
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
We’re talking about the authors of the “proximal origins” paper. Remember? That whole stupid webpage you linked calling for a retraction of the paper, purporting to show a huge scandal in that scientists were giving statements in public they didn’t believe in private. Yet all it really showed was how, in fact, the scientists were considering a lab-leak, and over time settled on the zoonotic origins hypothesis as being the most likely. There was no contradiction, we were witnessing people go from undecided to decided over time.
That all mysteriously been memoryholed now? Do you have, like, any recollection of past discussions around here where they do not just conform to your preconceptions?
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What’s good about it?
Yes. Many times. The difference between them and conspiracy theorists is that, over and above merely “considering” something and then calling it a fact, they actually tested the considered model against the available data. And as more data came in, they tested it again, just to be as charitable as they possibly could be. And again. Thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have been spent on more research towards prevention and cure were wasted on entertaining an idea that never had any basis in fact to begin with, just to de-escalate a social tension caused by a contrarian fringe that has a history of never being satisfied by any amount of research anyway - which is, incidentally, once more demonstrated by that same fringe being either ignorant or dismissive (or both) of all of those efforts, as usual. At no time was the data actually in favour of the lab leak hypothesis. It was more consistent with it at some times than it was at other times, but never once was the hypothesis actually indicated by anything other than lots of people believing it just because it conflicts with the data-backed official narrative.
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I guess that labeling your opponents as conspiracy theorists is to be as charitable as possible…
Ah! The « fringe » label! Another trick widely used by the the guardians of the official narrative to muzzle their opponents. It was used by Francis Collins to discredit the authors of the great Barrington declaration during the covid crisis. Except that Collins recently made an amazing mea culpa regarding the way he and public health officials handled the crisis, vindicating the alternate way put forward by the so-called fringe authors of the GBD. As often in the history of science, the « fringe » guys happened to be correct against the mainstream view.
Even Fauci doesn’t believe this!
Ahh, the “Ah! The « fringe » label! Another trick widely used by the the guardians of the official narrative to muzzle their opponents.”-retort. The line literally all conspiracy theorists have been programmed to regurgitate when any of their their alternative reality theories meets any opposition.
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No. What we label each other has nothing to do with charitableness. Charitableness is about how we treat each other’s positions, and giving ones that pertain to scientific questions and have zero basis in fact any time of day at all is already plenty charitable. Doing it repeatedly is well beyond that. But nothing is ever enough for people who believe those. Nothing short of a total abandonment of reason and evidence, and complete capitulation can ever be enough, because it was never about the facts in the first place. To label people like that conspiracy theorists is charitable, in that it assumes that the flaw in their thinking begins or ends merely with a handful conspiracy theories, when in actuality unreasonableness is a much deeper seated flaw that overtakes and rots the entirety of a person’s critical faculty.
Often, you say? Can you name, oh, I don’t know… two examples?
And, what’s perhaps more crucial: Can you supply the data that shows that this is the case this time? Because until you can, all we have is said fringe guys saying stuff and you just declaring that they happen to be correct without knowing if they are. That’s called “lying”.
What the data does or does not indicate in no way depends on what anybody believes it to. What Fauci thinks or says is therefore immaterial to the substance of the comment you are responding to, and of even less interest to yourself and to yours truly.
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I have a question for you.
The authors of the great Barrington declaration have complained that they were labeled as fringe epidemiologists in order to discredit them, so that their view on how to manage the covid pandemic would not be seriously considered. According to you, are these authors of the GBD conspiracy theorists ?
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When your opponents are literally advocating a theory involving a conspiracy, it is being as charitable as possible.
Collins’ admission in no way vindicates the GBD.
Which, btw, was not censored. Unless you’re going to explain how you managed to circumvent that censorship in order to find out what was in it.
You have no idea whether they were correct or not.