Originally published at: COVID almost certainly originated in a wet market, groundbreaking genetic study - Boing Boing
…
7 Likes
Where “debate” means “right wing conspiracy theorists continue to insist”. Debate also continues about vaccines, climate change, whether jet impacts can destroy buildings, and the sphericity of the Earth. 
26 Likes
There are some reasonable people still open to the idea that it could have a lab based origin. Dr. Alina Chan, for example.
Mostly the serious people who still entertain the possibility keep their mouths shut about it because they don’t want to get lumped in with the much more common conspiracy aficionado.
8 Likes
While you are correct that there is a strong contingent of right wing conspiracy theorists who want to insist the virus was man made for their own personal attention seeking gain or for racist reasons, it is worth remembered that famous right wing conspiracy theorist /s Jon Stewart famously went all in on the lab leak theory.
The backlash against Jon made him say a couple other things (Warning: Fox News link) that are worth remembering, I think:
“The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that.”
I have no desire to be lumped in with any right wingers, but I read the article, and I think with some light critical thinking you can see that they didn’t really prove diddly squat other than there having probably been infected animals at the market. They didn’t prove, for example, that the infected animals didn’t come to the market via the lab.
Does that take some leaps into assuming a bad actor in the lab would and could go to such lengths? Yes. Is it a possibility, though? Also yes.
As the source article states: (added for clarity)
But a lack of strong evidence for an intermediate host has led some researchers to argue that the virus could have escaped — deliberately or accidentally — from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
6 Likes
The problem is that high-profile non-experts like Stewart and Nicolson Baker made that leap in popularising the least parsimonious explanation for the origin of the virus, lending their credibility to the right-wing conspiracists. If they didn’t want to be lumped in with the Qnuts, they should have spent some time thoroughly de-bunking their claims before taking the leap and going all-in.
Wait, what? Chinese biolabs may be sloppy, but there are still basic standards about the disposition of test animals that every serious lab in the world follows. Under what circumstances do you see someone in a Chinese biolab selling an infected test animal in a Chinese market?
10 Likes
As always people should take the time to read the original scientific paper if they can, rather than news reports about it that don’t always get details right in the reporting. But I thought that this NPR article was a pretty good explainer which discussed the strengths and weaknesses of this latest study:
One main takeaway for anyone hoping that this is conclusive evidence that will finally shut down this discussion is this quote from one of the authors:
Assuming that the animal market really was the source it sure would have been nice if they’d been able to find the infected animals as they managed to do relatively quickly with SARS (masked palm civets) and MERS (camels) but sometimes science is harder than we’d like.
8 Likes
I don’t know if they are sloppy? I have no reason to believe they are sloppy.
The point I tried to make is that the article supports a hypothesis of natural infection at the market, but it does not disprove intentional infection at the market. However unlikely.
And I was also trying to make a point that I hope we can be civilized talking about possibilities and not pile on people who don’t tow the party line.
2 Likes
Yeah, but those racoons have been running experiments in that lab for years. (One racoon on another’s shoulders, per white lab coat.) Easy for them to smuggle stuff out.
/s (Or IS it?) /s
7 Likes
from Allan Rose Hill, Author at Boing Boing
but also, yeah: have they ruled out a biolab in a wet market?
11 Likes
And so long as we can come up with any scenario that involves a lab, we have to consider it a plausible origin, no matter whether there is any reason to actually believe in it at all. Because we have to both-sides everything.
(And yes, although Jon Stewart isn’t a conspiracy theorist, he does that way too much.)
7 Likes
You know what they say about claims presented without evidence, right?
5 Likes
Then why would you suggest that someone in the lab would bring test animals to the market?
ETA: You, like non-conspiracist Jon Stewart, seem find the lab-leak origin theory more likely than the wet-market one, for whatever reason. Here, a study provides compelling evidence for the latter theory. And your response is to create an implausible scenario to explain how the animal genetic material discussed in the study might have found its way from the lab to the market.
If I were so inclined, I could provide a whole range of unlikely scenarios that this study doesn’t disprove. But I’m not so inclined, because it’s a waste of time when what the study does is lend support to what was already the most likely explanation (so likely that the conspiracists weren’t interested in considering it).
What “party line”? The one about the most likely origin?
3 Likes
Except your one example, Dr. Chan, has absolutely not kept her mouth shut about it. Regardless, the “theory” that it originated in a lab is mostly speculation without a whole lot of evidence at all. It essentially amounts to “Well it could have originated in a lab. You can’t prove it didn’t.” I can’t prove Santa Claus doesn’t exist, either, but until I see some evidence that he does, I don’t see the point in researching it.
Has it been proved it originated in a wet market? No. But there’s a lot of evidence that it did. Until we have something other than speculation for a different origin, I think this “debate” is kind of pointless.
9 Likes
Oh man, don’t do this. If you’re sorry for something, say you’re sorry. If you’re not, don’t. But you can’t apologize for how other people feel. Apologies don’t work that way. And it comes across as patronizing.
17 Likes
7 Likes
Pick a side, dude.
Devil don’t need no advocates.
11 Likes
Lots of us disagree on posts without getting flags. I’m not sure saying you’re bad at that in general is quite the flex you think it is.
6 Likes
“Lab leaks” tend to show up in lab staff, staff families, lab suppliers and others who are linked to the lab. Just looking at where the early infections happened in COVID shows them miles away, near a market.
4 Likes
almost certainly
6 Likes
And if he does, he can afford his own counsel. No need to do Pro Bono work.
7 Likes
