"Many of the researchers behind the new studies were also participants in a review published last summer that said the pandemic almost certainly originated with an animal, probably at a wildlife market."

Pretty clearly there was no such evidence last summer to support such a strong assertion

Some of the prior active opponents of the lab leak theory had financial/research reasons for doing so. I don't have the time or inclination to look into whether that holds true for any of these researchers.

I have become a tad more cynical about the motivations of research scientists when there are political or research funding implications of research...

freeman3 wrote:" ...

Some of the prior active opponents of the lab leak theory had financial/research reasons for doing so. I don't have the time or inclination to look into whether that holds true for any of these researchers.

I have become a tad more cynical about the motivations of research scientists when there are political or research funding implications of research...

Isn't that always going to be the case? There's always a reason to mistrust the other side's data. Confirmation bias is real for everyone. I think that's part of the reason that we have all become so polarized.

rayjay

Isn't that always going to be the case? There's always a reason to mistrust the other side's data. Confirmation bias is real for everyone. I think that's part of the reason that we have all become so polarized.

Polarization is much worse in the US rather than anywhere else in the western world. (Other political systems in democracies have more voices, i.e. political parties, and therefore more nuanced political discourse.)
So is mistrust of science. (There's a more complex reason for that I think)

The notion that there was a lab leak of a virus is also primarily a US phenomena.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

rickyp wrote:rayjay

Isn't that always going to be the case? There's always a reason to mistrust the other side's data. Confirmation bias is real for everyone. I think that's part of the reason that we have all become so polarized.

Polarization is much worse in the US rather than anywhere else in the western world. (Other political systems in democracies have more voices, i.e. political parties, and therefore more nuanced political discourse.)
So is mistrust of science. (There's a more complex reason for that I think)

The notion that there was a lab leak of a virus is also primarily a US phenomena.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Yeah, a Canadian trucker friend of mine was telling me about how you all get along so nicely.

Ray Jay wrote:

freeman3 wrote:" ...

Some of the prior active opponents of the lab leak theory had financial/research reasons for doing so. I don't have the time or inclination to look into whether that holds true for any of these researchers.

I have become a tad more cynical about the motivations of research scientists when there are political or research funding implications of research...

Isn't that always going to be the case? There's always a reason to mistrust the other side's data. Confirmation bias is real for everyone. I think that's part of the reason that we have all become so polarized.

Well, 26 of the 27 researchers who took part in that Lancet letter that shut down debate about the lab leak theory were connected to the Wuhan lab. Just a coincidence!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailym ... Wuhan.html

And Ricky saying it's a conspiracy theory doesn't make it so. Even the Chinese have admitted ot's a possibility. Of course it's a reasonable possibility given all of the circumstantial evidence.
I readily admit the ego gets involved when arguing these issues which is why I suggested we stop. We're not likely to get the evidence we need to prove it one way or another. Each side finding things that marginally point to one theory or another and the other side countering with their own evidence is tiresome at this point.

Its tiresome because the only new evidence to come out continues to confirm that the source was the Wuhan wet market and zoonotic transfer. Not a lab leak.

Worobey was the same researcher in November who submitted similar contentions in November to Science when a responsible journalist in the Atlantic contacted other researchers who easily answered it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... et/620794/

Here is an article from Science discussing these latest studies.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... mal-market

These two lineages that were found differed by only two mutations. "Coincidentally" in 10% of transmissions the virus acquires two mutations. Are we to believe that two separate jumps occurred that differ by only 2 mutations...or these two lineages were the result of one lineage that branched off from one jump?

By the way, the Chinese study discussed in the Science article claimed the fact Covid was found in the cages and not in the animals meant that the virus had been introduced from outside the market. Hmm...the virus was jumping from animals to humans in the market and yet they could not find any animal in the market that had Covid. And now that's a head scratcher for that theory...

If they come up with something convincing I'm willing to change my mind but I don't see how this moves the needle much. If the virus jumped from animals that much they should have been able to find the animal source. And they couldn't find it. They're claiming two zoonotic jumps, right? So presumably it was being transmitted around the animals in the market and then jumped to humans twice? Then how come they did not find ONE with it? One zoological jump you might think it jumped from an animal in the market to humans and it wasn't really an outbreak otherwise among animals in the market. But two? That would have to mean it was widespread among the animals, right? And yet no trace...

For scientists they really aren't very logical.

Unreadable. I am not going to be reading someone who is so obnoxious about there being a lab leak when we know the Chinese had documented lab leaks from SARs and the US suspended gain-of-function research because of concern about lab leaks. Someone with that much of an agenda is not someone I'm going to bother reading

Internal documents obliquely pointing to some problem happening in the Wuhan lab in mid-November, more questions about lab safety, and an impossible speed of the development of a vaccine by a Chinese researcher constitute strong evidence pointing towards the lab leak theory...

https://www.propublica.org/article/sena ... -wuhan-lab

freeman3 wrote:https://mobile.twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1615386300751949824

WOW!

Not a surprise here...

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-w ... agreement/

Ebright is beating a dead horse.

rickyp wrote:https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/

Ebright is beating a dead horse.

Not per your link. Per your link it is still an open topic of discussion. The horse is not close to dead, it is thriving.