Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

I'm deeply skeptical of any 'science' that happens to perfectly fit an ideological narrative. Imagine the exact same thing with the opposite agenda, trying to show the virus didn't even start in China. In fact we don't have to imagine, there was literally a scientific-looking paper published as a pre-print which did just that [1]. Long story short the "theory" was that corona-virus actually came into China via imported frozen food (subtext: everything bad is a foreigners fault).

I know the seafood theory is bullshit nationalistic motivated reasoning. But I don't know how to refute the actual paper per se. I'm not a biologist. If for patriotic reasons I were predisposed to believe the sea food theory, and both scientists and the media were telling me the seafood theory is true, I might never notice how blatantly bullshit it is. Using the format of an academic article makes bullshit highly non-obvious.

So the lab leak theory. We have this thing that is very convenient to people predisposed to believe certain 'patriotic' things. The media seems to be picking it up out of no where for 'reasons that are surely free of agenda'. Some very academic looking articles have been published promoting the theory. If the 'science' going on here is actually just non-obvious bullshit mixed with nationalistic motivated reasoning, will I recognize it? Will you?

1. https://europepmc.org/article/PPR/PPR241540

Some context: https://www.firstpost.com/health/in-preprint-of-new-research...

The difference is that the lab leak hypothesis is being vigorously debated out in the open for all to see, by journalists and scientists from multiple countries, with references cited and available for perusal. China (allegedly) has gone out of its way to restrict access to records that might cast serious doubt on the lab leak theory and is peddling fairly preposterous alternative theories from state-controlled media outlets.

And in a year there's basically zero progress in hard facts supporting this hypothesis.

The debate so far looks like

   10 LET A = 0
   20 PRINT "Scientists: Look there is no evidence of a lab leak"
   30 PRINT "Journalists: What about" HYPOTHETICAL$(A)
   40 PRINT "Scientists: that very unlikely"
   50 PRINT "Journalists: So there is a chance!"
   60 A = A + 1
   70 GOTO 10

    65 REM ?
    70 GOTO 20

The "vigorous open debate" only began when the initially vehement denial of the possibility of a lab leak (from many Chinese and American scientists, officials, and press alike, e.g. Daszak's early 2020 publications) failed to convince

In any case, if the hypothesis turns out correct, the important question is not "who is to blame", it's "how exactly did this happen" and "following a detailed and public risk/benefit analysis, should we allow this kind of research to continue"

> fit an ideological narrative.

That a narrative becomes attached to by a particular ideology does not make the narrative ideological itself.

> Imagine the exact same thing with the opposite agenda

uhm, you mean something like "this virus is 120% zoonotic and any suggestion otherwise is racist"

Whether something fits an ideology or political agenda should be irrelevant. Either it was engineered and escaped a lab or it didn’t.

Also in this case the GoF research was partly US funded and involved US researchers, so it can’t be blamed exclusively on China. If the lab leak hypothesis is true there will be lots of egg on lots of faces.

Should be irrelevant isn't the same as is irrelevant. You can't derive ought from is.

The methods of science and peer review and open debate only work when a majority of the participants are good faith disinterested truth seekers. When bad faith motivated reasoners start to crowd out the former, you end up with something akin to a show-trial. The process is technically followed by the result is a fraud.

There is so much political interest in the lab leak question that I think good faith scientists are strongly outnumbered. There's a truth value to the lab leak question, but I can't possibly expect to know it in this environment. Anyone making a claim to the contrary is a bullshitter.

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