The “it’s not important” take is quite an interesting opinion. The Covid origin story is fundamental to understanding the sort of world we’re living in, and to how power, science, the media, and governments operate.
Are we living in a world where organic threats are all around and our expert class is all that stands between us and a parade of horribles, while the media works tirelessly with these experts to keep us informed about these dangers and how to protect ourselves and our families?
Or are we living in a world where our “experts,” through a combination of hubris and greed, are putting us all in danger, and the government and media work tirelessly to silence dissent, cover up misdeeds, and advance powerful interests at public expense?
Obviously I’m painting with a broad brush and we’re not living wholly within either of these extremes. But the Covid origin story is a powerful case study to keep in mind while trying to sense-make going forward. I suppose it’s not important if sense-making around world events is not important to you. But then what are you doing on Substack?
The question is why knowing that matters to the individual who is not in a position to change anything but her own life. It doesn't matter much if the answer to the origin question only confirms what she already believed about the world. It doesn't matter if it changes her view of the world but none of her choices depend on that view.
It might matter if she is politically active or enjoys arguing with people and doing that is more emotionally rewarding if you are reasonably sure you are supporting the right side. But while people clearly do engage in such activity I don't have a good model for it and it doesn't look to me as though most who do take much care to be sure the positions they are supporting are true.
So I prefer to think in terms of decisions she has to make for herself, such as whether to wear a mask, whether to live somewhere close to the coast that some warn is at risk from sea level rise, and the like. If she concludes that what Fauci says reflects not his expert professional opinion but only what it is in his interest for people to believe, or that accounts she sees in respectable media about catastrophic results from climate change should not be taken seriously, that might change some decisions she makes. And if she accepts my arguments strongly suggesting that the consensus against a lab leak origin was bogus, a deliberate fraud pushed, against the evidence, by Fauci and others, that ought to affect her judgement of other things she is told by similar sources.
This post implies a very high prior on "what happened to Covid is typical, so, whichever way it happened, the next pandemic (or, more broadly, danger) will come the same way" rather than, say, "both organic threats and expert mishaps happen, and so information on what it was this time is not very helpful in predicting what will happen next time".
It’s not about determining “organic versus man made” in any given situation. It’s about how much faith one should have in certain institutions. The Covid origin narratives gave some pretty deep insight into how organizations like the NIH, NIH funded scientists, the WHO, and mainstream news outlets approach sense-making in these sorts of situations. And in my view it ain’t pretty.
Most of the decisions, including the really-not-pretty ones, literally did not depend on whither origin is true. So we can, with high probability, draw the conclusion that the organizations you list have strong problems regardless of whither origin is true - including because, whichever it ends up being, they did not act on the knowledge available at the time but on political incentives.
I can think of the only one question where origin matters: what to do with other labs of ours that do similar research. And this question (beyond the obvious and thus probably not-full answer "we don't need more caution, any more caution and we lose research entirely") does require knowing whether COVID story (whichever it is in the end) is typical or a rare emergency.
I might say I don't care about the actual origin too... for different reasons than David's first interlocutor.
The situation is this... Many in the establishment took crazy risks that might have resulted in millions of deaths, and then denied denied denied. If it turns out that it was a lab leak, or if it turns out it was a wild strain, we're in the same boat; we have a lot of scientists taking crazy risks that may result in a lot of harm.
If someone takes a gun and starts firing it into the air, I care less about whether a stray bullet has already hit someone, than I care about stopping the maverick gunslinger.
In their defense: I think of all the political and emotional heat that was generated by the possibility it was a lab leak, and feel it pale in comparison to what might happen if it was conclusively and officially stated that it was a lab leak. [EDIT: Unless everyone agreed]
That would have been something I would have pondered had I been a “world leader “ of some kind at the time… that it would be like kicking over the card table in a saloon
It’s probably going to turn into a fight anyway but..
It’s not an easy call. The world seems very nervous at the moment.
That's true if it looked like a deliberate lab leak, but it didn't. If it had been deliberate it would not have been in Wuhan.
So far as an accidental lab leak is concerned, as I argued in response to an earlier comment, it isn't clear that an accidental lab leak is worse than zoonetic origin in a live animal market after Sars had been blamed on zoonetic origin and live animal markets supposedly shut down in China.
If world leaders were trying to keep China from being blamed, they should have pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" theory. But if virologists and people who had funded virological research, in particular in the WIV, were trying to make sure they didn't get blamed, zoonotic origin in a wet market was a more plausible story.
I don't think it will ever be conclusively established that it was a lab leak unless people who were at the WIV admit it was, which is unlikely. I think the correct conclusion from the beginning was that it was probably a lab leak, given where it appeared and what was known about the research being done at the WIV, and I doubt we will ever know more than that.
>If world leaders were trying to keep China from being blamed, they should have pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" theory.
Some world leaders were quite content with China being blamed for it...in a clever, off-handed way. And a lot of people pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" narrative.
I guess the bottom line going forward is whether gain of function research is worth the candle. I don’t see how the zoonotic origin is any better or worse than a lab leak, unless there was gain of function involved.
Think about it this way. Consider the effect Chernobyl had on both international relations and the nuclear industry. A lab leak implies that this kind of research is even more dangerous than nuclear power plants.
The “it’s not important” take is quite an interesting opinion. The Covid origin story is fundamental to understanding the sort of world we’re living in, and to how power, science, the media, and governments operate.
Are we living in a world where organic threats are all around and our expert class is all that stands between us and a parade of horribles, while the media works tirelessly with these experts to keep us informed about these dangers and how to protect ourselves and our families?
Or are we living in a world where our “experts,” through a combination of hubris and greed, are putting us all in danger, and the government and media work tirelessly to silence dissent, cover up misdeeds, and advance powerful interests at public expense?
Obviously I’m painting with a broad brush and we’re not living wholly within either of these extremes. But the Covid origin story is a powerful case study to keep in mind while trying to sense-make going forward. I suppose it’s not important if sense-making around world events is not important to you. But then what are you doing on Substack?
The question is why knowing that matters to the individual who is not in a position to change anything but her own life. It doesn't matter much if the answer to the origin question only confirms what she already believed about the world. It doesn't matter if it changes her view of the world but none of her choices depend on that view.
It might matter if she is politically active or enjoys arguing with people and doing that is more emotionally rewarding if you are reasonably sure you are supporting the right side. But while people clearly do engage in such activity I don't have a good model for it and it doesn't look to me as though most who do take much care to be sure the positions they are supporting are true.
So I prefer to think in terms of decisions she has to make for herself, such as whether to wear a mask, whether to live somewhere close to the coast that some warn is at risk from sea level rise, and the like. If she concludes that what Fauci says reflects not his expert professional opinion but only what it is in his interest for people to believe, or that accounts she sees in respectable media about catastrophic results from climate change should not be taken seriously, that might change some decisions she makes. And if she accepts my arguments strongly suggesting that the consensus against a lab leak origin was bogus, a deliberate fraud pushed, against the evidence, by Fauci and others, that ought to affect her judgement of other things she is told by similar sources.
This post implies a very high prior on "what happened to Covid is typical, so, whichever way it happened, the next pandemic (or, more broadly, danger) will come the same way" rather than, say, "both organic threats and expert mishaps happen, and so information on what it was this time is not very helpful in predicting what will happen next time".
It’s not about determining “organic versus man made” in any given situation. It’s about how much faith one should have in certain institutions. The Covid origin narratives gave some pretty deep insight into how organizations like the NIH, NIH funded scientists, the WHO, and mainstream news outlets approach sense-making in these sorts of situations. And in my view it ain’t pretty.
Most of the decisions, including the really-not-pretty ones, literally did not depend on whither origin is true. So we can, with high probability, draw the conclusion that the organizations you list have strong problems regardless of whither origin is true - including because, whichever it ends up being, they did not act on the knowledge available at the time but on political incentives.
I can think of the only one question where origin matters: what to do with other labs of ours that do similar research. And this question (beyond the obvious and thus probably not-full answer "we don't need more caution, any more caution and we lose research entirely") does require knowing whether COVID story (whichever it is in the end) is typical or a rare emergency.
I might say I don't care about the actual origin too... for different reasons than David's first interlocutor.
The situation is this... Many in the establishment took crazy risks that might have resulted in millions of deaths, and then denied denied denied. If it turns out that it was a lab leak, or if it turns out it was a wild strain, we're in the same boat; we have a lot of scientists taking crazy risks that may result in a lot of harm.
If someone takes a gun and starts firing it into the air, I care less about whether a stray bullet has already hit someone, than I care about stopping the maverick gunslinger.
Yes.
In their defense: I think of all the political and emotional heat that was generated by the possibility it was a lab leak, and feel it pale in comparison to what might happen if it was conclusively and officially stated that it was a lab leak. [EDIT: Unless everyone agreed]
That would have been something I would have pondered had I been a “world leader “ of some kind at the time… that it would be like kicking over the card table in a saloon
It’s probably going to turn into a fight anyway but..
It’s not an easy call. The world seems very nervous at the moment.
That's true if it looked like a deliberate lab leak, but it didn't. If it had been deliberate it would not have been in Wuhan.
So far as an accidental lab leak is concerned, as I argued in response to an earlier comment, it isn't clear that an accidental lab leak is worse than zoonetic origin in a live animal market after Sars had been blamed on zoonetic origin and live animal markets supposedly shut down in China.
If world leaders were trying to keep China from being blamed, they should have pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" theory. But if virologists and people who had funded virological research, in particular in the WIV, were trying to make sure they didn't get blamed, zoonotic origin in a wet market was a more plausible story.
I don't think it will ever be conclusively established that it was a lab leak unless people who were at the WIV admit it was, which is unlikely. I think the correct conclusion from the beginning was that it was probably a lab leak, given where it appeared and what was known about the research being done at the WIV, and I doubt we will ever know more than that.
>If world leaders were trying to keep China from being blamed, they should have pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" theory.
Some world leaders were quite content with China being blamed for it...in a clever, off-handed way. And a lot of people pushed the "zoonotic origin in the wild" narrative.
I guess the bottom line going forward is whether gain of function research is worth the candle. I don’t see how the zoonotic origin is any better or worse than a lab leak, unless there was gain of function involved.
>it isn't clear that an accidental lab leak is worse than zoonetic origin
This I am not so sure about. When fingers are pointed every one goes into CYA mode.
To use a crude analogy, it’s like someone in the room farted but who’s going to admit it?
>I doubt we will ever know more than that.
This I completely agree with.
Think about it this way. Consider the effect Chernobyl had on both international relations and the nuclear industry. A lab leak implies that this kind of research is even more dangerous than nuclear power plants.