How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media

Don’t think a lot of it is deliberate (obviously there can be some not-so-innocuous connections), but at best there are definitely elements there that are ignorant and naive at work, in the reluctance to criticize China.

For example I see Canadians complaining a lot about whenever someone tries to take Trudeau to task on CCP issues, he likes to imply it’s not appropriate/racist, apparently. Haven’t followed super close but that’s generally what I see mentioned.

I think that kind of reaction is stupid of course, and also something that’s pervasive in many parts of society, government, media, down to individuals. I think it’s more a disconnect between first world communities, for lack of a better term, and realities that exist outside of the first world bubble.

The good news is recent polls show that pretty much worldwide, anti-CCP sentiment is way up among populations. A good sign in getting the ball rolling on waking up elements of both media and government to try and cover this stuff straight up, without tippy toeing around so much.

Your reply is focused only on the political aspects of what we are discussing, which once again is better for the political forums.

The method by which we should deal with an issue scientifically is appropriate for this forum. Dismissing credible theories for political reasons is unscientific.

While the general population started speculating about the possibility of a lab leak in early Feb 2020, one might wonder when that possibility entered the thought process of our trusted scientific leaders. According to Peter Navaro who was in closed door meetings with the likes of Dr. Fauchi, he never once brought it up as a possibility right up till the election.

Imagine how the world might have reacted if the possibility occurred to Fauchi and others say in mid Jan 2020 and they had said “hey everyone, we can’t say for sure, but this might be a lab leak and a very dangerous bio weapon” maybe the world would have reacted differently?

We should not think the scientific community should be discounted if one finds a bad apple. I don’t think your meme really adds much to the discussion either, other than being a projection of what you wish to be true, perhaps.

Focus on the facts from experts who grossly outnumber the bad apples, because they will still always have more facts and knowledge than google experts like you, or me (though again I’m not jumping to conclusions here in lieu of evidence).

It’s a very facile technique to default trust no one. And not one that solves many problems, I’d wager.

Not a question of trusting or not trusting someone. There are questions being asked now, in light of some of Dr Fauchis emails, like this one (in late January 2020).

Re: FW: Science: Mining coronavirus genomes for clues to the outbreak 's origins
Hi Tony,
Thanks for sharing. Yes, I saw th is earlier today and both Eddie and myself are actually quoted in it . It’s a great article, but the problem is that our phylogenetic analyses aren’t able to answer whether the sequences are unusual at indivi dual residues, except if they are completely of f. On a phylogenetic t ree the virus looks totally normal and the close clustering with bats suggest that bats serve as the reservoir . The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered. We have a good team lined up to look very critically at this, so we should know much more at the end of the weekend . I should mention that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory . But we have to look at this much more closely and th ere are still further analyses to be done, so tho se opinions could still change.
Best,
Kristian

Specifically the discussion is about possible engineered virus, noting it looks inconsistent with evolution.

Dr. Fauchi as Peter Navaro says, never brought that up as a possibility, why not? Big tech and media teamed up to make sure no one asked that question going so far as to deplatform anyone who suggested it, why?

I think those are good questions.

Navarro is a politician and Trump sycophant though, Fauci is a career public servant across various presidencies, :brain:and disease expert.

Remember, science over politics. You may want to recalibrate whose questions you listen to.

Just posting some excerpts from various materials; okay to temp if it’s too bulky.

From the Newsweek article at the top of the thread:

This is from a fairly recent interview of Dr. Fauci:

“Transcript: What Dr. Fauci told PolitiFact,” (Politifact interview of Dr. Fauci conducted May 11, 2021), Politifact, May 14, 2021

An excerpt from an email in a large collection of emails apparently obtained by means of the Freedom of Information Act:

Email of Kristian G. Andersen to Anthony Fauci, dated February 1, 2020, from “Leopold NIH FOIA Anthony Fauci Emails,” page 3187 (not too far from the bottom of the collection, but you can just type the page number in the box at the bottom of webpage and click the arrow that points right)

From a 2015 Nature article on experimentation with bat virus:

Declan Butler, “Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research: Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells,” Nature, November 12, 2015 (citations omitted)

The above article links to another article about the experiment referred to above (or I hope that’s what it links to); it’s far too technical for me, but here’s the link: A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence | Nature Medicine

Most folks in the media don’t have a good understanding of the science. Its complex and even for the experts that can make the wrong conclusions sometimes e.g. those scientists who assumed no engineering or lab manipulation of SARS CoV2 occurred just because it didn’t match a computer model even though it has a perfectly adapted human ACE2 receptor binding protein .

When the media cast around it was easy to find some scientists who poo pooed the idea. Add in a dose of anti Trumpism…And a slight desperation not to be seen as racist …This is what you get.

I think also that people around the world realise after one year just how easy it is for this thing to transmit from person to person. I mean it’s ridiculously transmissible . So a lab leak isn’t far fetched at all if one person gets it…It’s easy to see how it spreads so fast from the lab to the city.

I guess the other factors that have been mentioned are China’s obvious intransigence to allow investigation, and folks aren’t so fooled or blindly trusting of the WHO charade anymore.

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That’s not all he said, just what supports your ahem…conclusions.

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Really looking forward to an article that fully breaks down the facts of that funding.

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Weinstein has been on this for a while. @DrewC posted one video at least a little while back.

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31 posts were merged into an existing topic: Wuhan lab leak theory

You know folks, sometimes everything is actually NOT about the former US president.

I don’t know if this is appropriate, but perhaps we could actually look at the topic of the thread, and if you like, you could continue discussing the perceived merits of the former US president in one of the umpteen threads available for this purpose in IP?

Your non-US forumosans will thank you. :slightly_smiling_face:

Guy

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I tried that. And the response was like that of the softly shifting Sahara sands. :slight_smile:

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Forumosa can be like that.

You’re a good one Charlie. Take care!

Guy

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Thanks! I don’t know if I’m good, but I know you are.

Be safe in these times!

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You seem to have glossed already again here @mups

Nope, I’ve already said it’s fair to question individuals if there’s evidence of corruption. For example WHO heads, possibly.

There are a lot of scientific experts on planet earth. Just like there are lots of doctors. But some doctors malpractice, so do we go turn to mechanics for medical advice?

That kind of water-muddying is ideocracy level. It’s part of recent obvious political efforts to delegitimize career experts in all fields, replaced by, I guess, youtubers, forum posters?

Intelligence, judiciary, scientific, name the field, there’s been a steady drumbeat to confuse society over who should be taken seriously, more specifically that nobody is worthy of being taken more seriously than someone else, even experts.

The very definition of stupidity, a version of socializing opinions. Which is fine if they’re only opinions I guess, but the problem is when one opinion is rooted in evidence and one is rooted in conjecture and speculation.

The conjecture crowd in what I’m describing is happy to cherrypick an example of corruption, for example, in a sea of professional experts, to paint the entire group as such. Meanwhile of course the non-experts remain non-experts on the whole, which is just…obvious.

It’s politically driven, an attempt to draw equivalency between experts and non, and it’s bad for progress.

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I think the only one propping up this crow bait is you.

Well, I’m in favour of expertise and a believer in experts. That said, have you looked at the first post in this thread? The entire point of this thread is that a group of mostly non-experts accomplished something quite incredible. I’m not saying what you said about mechanics and doctors (that is patently ridiculous), I’m just suggesting that it isn’t as simple as it seems to appear to you.

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I think you should pay more attention to patterns if not only do you not see it as a very real thing that gets promoted, but characterize it this way.

Also, your meter is up, too many comments unrelated to what I’m actually talking about.