Hacker News Reader

Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the book, alina. As a former molecular biologist (who worked on non-pathogenic enzyme gain-of-function projects) when the details of the virus came out I looked at it and immediately thought, "huh, that's exactly what I would have done", caveat I wasn't a virologist, of course, but I felt like I was being gaslit for being told that there was "no way" it could have been a lab leak. I know that I am not the only molecular biologist who felt this way. In no small part due to your work I think it's being taken more seriously, and maybe this is selfish in the context of the crazy situation going on worldwide but I feel 'less crazy'.

View on HN

> I felt like I was being gaslit for being told that there was "no way" it could have been a lab leak

Can I say, as someone also looking at this somewhat dispassionately, how upsetting it is that the discourse on this issue has shifted from "It was a lab leak!" (to which strong replies absolutely were "There's no evidence"), to "It might have been a lab leak", now to "People were unfairly treated on the internet for saying it was a lab leak".

I mean, it's been two years now, and there's still no evidence beyond the kind of circumstantial stuff detailed by Chan and Ridley (I have the book but haven't read it yet, though I've seen most of Chan's public posts on the subject so I'm pretty sure I know the arc of what's in it).

And it seems like everyone has basically conceded that. But instead of just admitting we'll never know with certainty (and that natural evolution remains the most probable origin), everyone wants to talk about meta stuff instead?

It’s important to have a meta conversation because the media and social media were actively hindering discussion (censoring) that examined the lab leak hypothesis.

One can’t have an honest investigation if one major avenue is shut down.

But... we're literally discussing a book written on the subject. It wasn't censored. Neither were discussions here on this site, where lab leak arguments were very popular.

Are you really sure you aren't confusing controversy (the fact that an opinion can be a minority one with which most experts disagree) with suppression?

Just because suppression wasn't successful doesn't mean it wasn't attempted. And the attempt itself, by leading Western scientists who attempted to forestall any discussion and gaslight dissenters with accusations of anti-Chinese bigotry and scientific ignorance, is to me an even bigger story than covid's actual origins.

The government continued to investigate the lab leak hypothesis from the very beginning. The fact that some scientists tried to paint it as anti-Chinese bigotry (and some of the accusations clearly were) did not stop this. There's very little there there.

Social media actively censored such discussion and Google also manipulated autocomplete, etc. The WHO and CDC dismissed the theory at the time. The CCP actively scrubbed data which would affect the effectiveness of any subsequent investigation.

1. What data did the CCP delete?

2. Facebook ham-fistedly censored conspiracy theory posts that the virus was man-made and later realized that they were also censoring actual lab leak discussion and fixed their policy.

3. Google turned off autocomplete because most of the autocompletions were crazy conspiracy theories. People could still search for whatever they wanted.

None of this stopped actual investigation of the lab leak hypothesis, which you claim could not have happened due to Facebook's actions.

I mean, the reality also is that there were in fact serious attempts to unleash bigotry instead of focusing on response. That is reality of what happened too. Huge reason why people painted it as anti-Chinese bigotry is that such a thing played a huge role in Trump response. Renaming Covid-19 to Chinese virus while downplaying need for tests and such was exactly that.

There was no suppression, quite tyje opposite: the lab leak hypothesis has been pusjed again and again, often with 'convenient' timing.

Now for scientists there is no point discussing this without any concrete element. Sure, a lab leak or even an artificial origin of the virus are potential hypotheses but then people need to find evidence, and the more far-fetched the hypothesis the stronger the evidence needed before keeping mentioning it (or writing books...)

Currently I don't think there are any material element so the reasonable and scientific thing to do is to work on finding the origin of the virus and only then to discuss facts.

“Quite the opposite,” really?

Lancet CORRESPONDENCE| VOLUME 395, ISSUE 10226, E42-E43, MARCH 07, 2020

We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Lancet CORRESPONDENCE| VOLUME 398, ISSUE 10309, P1402-1404, OCTOBER 16, 2021

The authors associated any alternative view with conspiracy theories by stating: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin”. The statement has imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate, including among science journalists.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Edit: to add context: the authors of that letter didn’t disclose their conflicts of interest and mischaracterized the cited genomic research which hadn’t and still hasn’t found a wild match.

Daszak’s story began falling apart last November when the non-profit group US Right to Know published emails gathered through a freedom of information request that showed he had orchestrated the Lancet statement without disclosing that he was funding Shi Zhengli through grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Daszak’s credibility took a further hit this June when Sachs published an essay that called for an independent investigation of the pandemic’s origin and charged that both China and the NIH should be transparent about virus research, including “gain-of-function” studies that make viruses more transmissible and virulent.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2414

"not a natural origin" is not simply a lab leak, it's claiming that the virus is artificial and engineered.

I don't believe that there are any elements to support this claim at the present time. To keep bringing this claim up to 'discuss' it is therefore not scientific and might be considered FUD or conspiracy theory indeed.

Open research and science does not mean giving all claims equally. As said, the more extraordinary the claim the more solid the evidence. A claim backed by nothing has no place in publications. This is not "suppression". In fact, what you've quoted shows the opposite: the claim is pushed by dubious means.

Read: The statement has imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate, including among science journalists.

Yes, two years after the fact.

It’s like saying, after Snowden released his trove of documents, what government secret data collection? look, here’s what Snowden showed us, it’s not secret!

We need open discussion at all times not only after we “get permission”.

When we had the ricin incident in the 2000s people openly discussed the possibility of a lab insider being the source any it wasn’t censored by the media.

> It wasn't censored.

When the establishment media and big tech puts forth extreme concerted effort in using whatever underhanded techniques it can to attempt to slander and undermine you and your ideas, calling you every name in the book, associating you with "undesirable" groups of people, putting "debunked" labels next to the things you say, de-platforms, cancels, the whole nine yards... and its followers lap up that behavior, and engage in it themselves on discussion websites and social media, and even in real life, but you can still technically talk about it on the far corners of the web or if you're in a group of people you're sure think like you think, sorry but that is absolutely 100% still a form of censorship.

The lab leak theory was never treated by the establishment as "a minority opinion with which most experts disagree", it was ridiculed and attacked, thereby effectively changing much of the public psyche against it. The damage was done. The government doesn't have to force a website to delete a post mentioning the lab leak theory in order for something to be considered censorship. Otherwise you're playing the semantics game - and losing at it.

The suppression is occurring in the actual investigation in China, not in relation to this book.

> It’s important to have a meta conversation because the media and social media were actively hindering discussion (censoring) that examined the lab leak hypothesis.

> One can’t have an honest investigation if one major avenue is shut down.

The problem is that to my understanding the lab-leak discussion was (and still somewhat is) dominated by raving mad conspiracy lunatics[1] or instances trying to inflict racism. I fully admit that someone should seriously research that hypothesis (I fully assume there are some serious folks doing just that), but it is also difficult to blame media trying to keep the raving mad in check, even if some sensible arguments are thrown with the bathwater. (Besides, I am not sure if public discussion has anything substantial to add before there is some conclusion on the matter)

[1] As this is somewhat heated discussion, I think I need to emphasize that I definitely do not imply that all who doubt lab-leak are raving mad. If you think I do, please breathe and read again.

In a free society the job of the media is to report the facts, not to "keep the raving mad in check".

If a theory has been labeled as raving mad racism, only those that are comfortable with the cost of that being labelled thus will speak up.

I don’t see where the media deserves a pass.

You have failed to comprehend the parent comment. Please read again.

The really odd part of the meta conversation is that the “pro lab leak” folks are complaining they were stripped of nuance, but claim they were told it’s impossible or it’s crazy to think it could’ve been a lab leak. That might have been their subjective experience of people apparently not taking them seriously, but I have never actually seen this position held by an authority. What are we supposed to do, send military-escorted scientists into Wuhan to swab every inch? And what if that came up inconclusive, as it certainly would?

The “anti lab leak” position has always been 1) we don’t know, 2) it’s not the most important question right now, and 3) we probably will never know.

The people complaining about lack of nuance are proving their own inability/unwillingness to grapple with nuance.

> The “anti lab leak” position has always

That is absolutely not true. Don't you dare try to rewrite history. The anti-lab-leak position has included claims like "it's racist to say that china lab leaked the virus". At best, the "official" anti lab leak position has been framed by the lancet article. Go read that and tell us if that position is as neutral as you claim.

Yeah this is another view I see commonly expressed and have found no evidence ever coming from an authority. The Lancet letter (effectively an op-ed), for example, mentions race exactly zero times. It does somewhat recklessly affiliate these theories with conspiracy theories, but it’s worth remembering that they were responding to actual conspiracy theories like the virus being a bioweapon purposely released. This is an actual theory of conspiracy for which there continues to be no evidence. Scientists were getting death threats on this basis.

And again, the Lancet letter itself points to the then-current body of evidence, which people can contribute to or refute via their own publications (this is how science works).

They weren't responding to any body of evidence. There was zero at that time, on either side. They were trying to get out in front and head off what they thought was something reasonable people would include in their consideration of origins.

They had no evidence either way but knew that they had a lot to lose, and fired everything they had.

The letter didn’t blame racism, the letter cited several genomic analyses that actually had already been conducted by that point, and to my knowledge that letter didn’t disrupt any research into the virus’s origins. Open to seeing evidence otherwise though.

You're twisting my words and deflecting from my point. To clarify: The letter did not call it racism, other people did. This is verifiable in many places.

And we’re to take some commentators (Twitter users? TV personalities maybe?) calling it racist as evidence of what would certainly be the largest scientific suppression campaign ever conducted?

People are discussing this hypothesis nonstop.

The Lancet article was opinionated. It may have been wrong. I still don't see how that constitutes suppression or cancellation or censorship (and certainly not an accusation of racism). There were people within the scientific community who disagreed (Chan is one). There just weren't many of them.

Holding an opinion contrary to an expert consensus isn't a state of persecution.

The Lancet letter came about to imply there was an expert consensus, when there was not yet one. It was driven by the exact people who would know best that a lab origin was plausible, saying loudly that it was not.

That's not suppression, though. It's just disagreement. I understand that you personally believe that the Lancet authors were acting in bad faith. But you surely agree they had the right to author that letter, right? You just... disagree.

That's the way things are supposed to work. Maybe science is wrong sometimes, and people argue. And eventually we come to consensus.

I have to say: it sounds like you're the one on the pro-suppression side here (arguing that the Lancet shouldn't have published that letter). Am I wrong?

I don't blame the Lancet for publishing it. They had no way of knowing it was not what it seemed. They should have maybe looked for the conflicts of interest a bit harder, and it is to their credit that they encouraged Daszak to write a correction later.

Everyone should be heard. Unfortunately the intent of that original letter was to pre-bias against opposing viewpoints, before they got to be heard.

> the intent of that original letter was to pre-bias against opposing viewpoints

Isn't that the same thing as saying the intent was "persuade" the reader? How is it different except in the sense that they managed to persuade people to believe something with which you disagreed?

You're right. It's highly suspicious, but it's just that and the problem is that the lab leak theory has many ramifications that are net negative for everyone: was it intentional, was it preventable, was it modified to test bioweapons, was it financed by France (yes, in France, we're not so hot about discussing our own little responsibility in building that lab).

I think if it was a clear-cut case of manipulation screwup, and that some people in China know today for sure that it was, we'll know eventually when we care less. If nobody, even close to the lab in China, knows for sure, then we probably won't investigate more just in case we'd discover with horror we killed all these people.

Btw I don't think the French should feel so bad, by my understanding they did the right thing, or as best as they could: once they reviewed the construction of the building they refused to sign off on the bsl certification and no french researchers were sent to the institute (or maybe it was just one). I suppose they could have raised a bit more of a stink about it, but it was a different era, one when diplomacy with china was still a net win-win for everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com