Hacker News Reader

Comment by triyambakam | Hacker News Reader

You've certainly repeated this same comment a number of times, maybe it helps you feel like you believe it more.

The WHO tweeted about a study with a preliminary conclusion that there is no human to human transmission. Whatever other statements that the WHO made, you seem to be denying that by tweeting this they did not by default endorse the results. They added no other context - they shouldn't tweet something they don't believe is true and they shouldn't expect everyone to always read their other sources if they contrast with their Twitter account.

View on HN

> there is no human to human transmission

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus"

There is a world of difference between "no human to human transmission" as you claim they said and "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" as they actually said.

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

I fail to see this world of difference. Can you explain?

It's the difference between:

- There is no evidence that P

- There is evidence that NOT-P

(without accounting for whether higher order evidence [evidence of evidence] counts as first-order evidence).

"There is no alien life in the universe" vs "There is no clear evidence of alien life in the universe".

Or say I have a jug containing marbles. I tell you there are either ninety-nine yellow marbles and one blue or one hundred yellow marbles. I'll draw 10 marbles and you pick "no blue" or "no clear evidence of blue" as your statement. If you're wrong, you owe $1M to charity. I've drawn 10 yellow. Which statement do you pick?

No evidence of something is not the same as evidence of (not something).

No evidence that Person A is the murderer does not mean there is evidence that he is not the murderer(e.g. alibi). Evidence may turn up later on that he was indeed the murderer.

WHO said that there was no evidence of human to human transmission. They did not say they found evidence that it is not transmissible from human to human. That's a world of difference.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com