Nice compendium of (parts of) the case for lab origin. You left out the sort of Bayesian no-miracles line of reasoning (what a coincidence, same city as WIV! etc.), except in your title, was that just to focus on the easiest-to-appreciate stuff? Another Bayesian-type argument: why did the Chinese absolutely *freak out* about C19, for years on end? Easy to understand if they knew it was a GOF human construct designed for heightened transmissibility and lethality.
You could also add the fact that some government investigators were literally paid to change their conclusions to favor natural origin instead of lab leak. (I can look up this episode if you don't have it at hand.)
I guess at the time that people were making the coincidence argument, I didn't it very convincing. As for the * freaking out* I guess I've read in place i consider trustworthy that the people freaking out weren't well positioned to know if it was in fact leaked.
As for US government behavior. 1. The "paying off" claim is made by one whistle-blower. Who knows if its true? And who knows what makes the US security state behave the way it does?
You have trustworthy info about who's in a position to know what, in China? You should have a word with the CIA :-)
Other than that, fair points.
Oh, and I meant to mention one other thing that you might have added in the part about DEFUSE. In science (and even to some extent philosophy), a grant application is typically submitted for work that is already half-done, and will be completed no matter what. The funding is needed for keeping the lab going, and starting the *next* research project, for which money will be applied for later, etc. Scientists know this. So this shows how incredibly insincere are those scientists who say "but project DEFUSE was never funded!", as if that somehow meant the research *couldn't* have been done.
The fact that you managed to learn something from twitter--and enough to write a detailed and convincing essay--is impressive!
Twitter is the best and the worst.
Nice compendium of (parts of) the case for lab origin. You left out the sort of Bayesian no-miracles line of reasoning (what a coincidence, same city as WIV! etc.), except in your title, was that just to focus on the easiest-to-appreciate stuff? Another Bayesian-type argument: why did the Chinese absolutely *freak out* about C19, for years on end? Easy to understand if they knew it was a GOF human construct designed for heightened transmissibility and lethality.
You could also add the fact that some government investigators were literally paid to change their conclusions to favor natural origin instead of lab leak. (I can look up this episode if you don't have it at hand.)
I guess at the time that people were making the coincidence argument, I didn't it very convincing. As for the * freaking out* I guess I've read in place i consider trustworthy that the people freaking out weren't well positioned to know if it was in fact leaked.
As for US government behavior. 1. The "paying off" claim is made by one whistle-blower. Who knows if its true? And who knows what makes the US security state behave the way it does?
You have trustworthy info about who's in a position to know what, in China? You should have a word with the CIA :-)
Other than that, fair points.
Oh, and I meant to mention one other thing that you might have added in the part about DEFUSE. In science (and even to some extent philosophy), a grant application is typically submitted for work that is already half-done, and will be completed no matter what. The funding is needed for keeping the lab going, and starting the *next* research project, for which money will be applied for later, etc. Scientists know this. So this shows how incredibly insincere are those scientists who say "but project DEFUSE was never funded!", as if that somehow meant the research *couldn't* have been done.
Totes. But in his case we have an actual email *saying* it.
Nice work.
One correction: the "freak out" comment was by Ralph Baric, not Peter Daszac.
Ha! Yup, you can even see the intials in my screenshot. "BRS". Thanks for the catch!