As far as I can tell this is a false premise. The scientific consensus on zoonotic origin was never really considered conclusive by anyone and was never really sold as being conclusive. There was a very strong backlash against the ridiculous theories spread by people like Tom Cotton that virus was engineered that absolutely soured the debate. And people like Trump and his sycophants who didn't just suggest lab leak but declared it as being overwhelmingly likely. That made honest debate extremely difficult. And even know the hand-wringing of "oh now they were right all along" is even worse. There was not then nor is there now sufficient evidence to declare this a settled debate. Trump is and was wrong. And Cotton shot himself the foot by ruining his credibility before trying to reset his opinion. In reality, we don't know. Zoonotic remains most likely. More investigation is warranted but is unlikely to turn up a smoking gun.
How can you read this then casually say Tom Cotton was spreading ridiculous theories that covid was engineered? One of the main points in the article is he never said that and what he did say was pretty reasonable. It’s ok if you think the article is wrong about that, but you should at least give a source for your claim at this point.
He speculated that it could have been a bioweapon that was accidentally or deliberately released. You and I can speculate on twitter but a US senator should keep his trap shut on social media.
I guess I'm not seeing the problem with those tweets?
I mean, he lists four options, and identifies natural release as the most likely and intentional release as very unlikely. And it's expressed clearly, in full sentences.
By the standards of republican politicians on twitter, that's actually pretty good.
"By the standards of republican politicians" is a low bar and also a relevant topic. Cotton was more careful with his words than a lot of his comrades but he was very tightly allied with people (like Trump himself) who were well known for spouting complete horseshit. Cotton also did himself no favors when he was one of 6 senators to vote against protection for Asian-American victims of hate crimes.
There is no source for these claims. Just like with Trump, people get angry and upset with what they think he said based on the impression from the media, not what was actually said. Just look at the 'fine people on both sides' comment that was taken ridiculously out of context.
This same thing happened to Sarah Palin with the 'I can see Russia from my house' phrase, which she never said. It was part of a comedy sketch, yet it was used to attack her. It is absolutely ridiculous. No one is interested anymore in what is said, just what they think someone 'like that' would say.
The fine people on both sides was truly as horrific as it was made out to be. They had a torchlight nazi parade where they chanted jews will not replace us and they murdered people.
Here is a pic of people flying as they were hit by a car.
On February 20th 2020 Tom Cotton speculated that it was possible that China deliberately released the virus or that it could be a bioweapon that had been released.
This isn't a hypothesis a US senator should throw out on twitter because the right wing completely ignored the speculative nature or any qualifications and completely ran with Tom says they Chinese attacked us.
The grandparent didn't say nothing bad happened at the protest, they said that Trump's comments were taken out of context, which is completely true. Read the thing in context (here: https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...) and it's clear that he's not defending white supremacists or anything of that sort.
The context was reported at the time and it still means exactly what people think it means. Here's his attempt to clarify
"I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general. "
Trump knows full well that this is a lie. No one was there because Lee was so great of a general and they love military tactics. They were there because he fought to protect slavery. There was absolutely no "both sides" about anything. In context he's still saying protestors were as much to blame as the counter protest and the counter protest had as much validity to their complaint as the protestors. These is exactly what everyone took his meaning and all the context and clarification make it very clear that he meant murdering racists are the same as peaceful protestors against violence.
I'm sorry but you personify the issue stated in this article.
The guys holding tiki torches were definitely white supremacists.
Most protesters who are in favor of preserving Confederate monuments aren't doing so because of slavery. I don't agree with them but I grew up around them in Virginia and it's much more complicated than "derp they love slavery derp".
The confidence you possess in your ability to read people's minds is likely unfounded since I've never met any human being who can successfully read others minds.
I hate to ad hominem but this statement is so disgustingly naïve it's difficult to fathom. The Confederacy existed to preserve slavery. It is theoretically possible for someone just be really into that 3.5 year span of history so, so much that they can't bear the thought of fewer statues or else they'll forget about it but I think that is far-fetched. I also don't believe they literally want to reinstitute slavery in 2021, but they are absolutely fighting to lionize people who fought to protect it. It is 100% equivalent to defending a statue of a Nazi general. And it is 100% racist whether they consciously accept it or not. There is absolutely no plausible explanation. And none of the explanations put forward by apologists are remotely convincing. The same people who think taking down statues is "erasing our history" are passing emergency laws to ban the 1619 Project from being taught.
You’re incorrect on nearly all of this and haven’t “broken out” of the forced narrative. All I can suggest is you go back to the primary sources yourself. Don’t take my word for it, don’t take your preferred media outlet’s word for it. Dig it up and decide.
The lab leak is overwhelmingly likely. It’s the Occam’s Razor without question. It’s still a hypothesis to be clear. It’s not proven. It could be wrong. But if we are assigning probabilities, it’s extremely one sided. It should have been the leading hypothesis from the beginning.
But Trump said it, so it must be wrong. We must find reasons for it to be not only wrong, but worthy of ridicule. And when those narratives fall, we must keep shifting the goal posts. And when that doesn’t work anymore, we must blame our failure on republicans in some roundabout way.
Sorry, that’s not how we science. We have to put the damn political tribal warfare away for a minute.
The lab leak theory is not Occam's razor. We've had many, many pandemics and epidemics and none have been associated with research labs. We've had SARS outbreaks in China that are not associated with a lab. There is also no proof beyond circumstance to associate it with the lab.
And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency. Cotton was far more measured in his statements even if he was still stretching. I'm also saying that the MSM and scientific consensus only really threw a fit over the bioweapon theory and inflammatory rhetoric. Even the infamous WHO study said accidental lab leak was possible.
The fact that you aren't aware of the 1970s flu in the Soviet Union which was caused by a lab leak is telling. Again confident absolute statements from someone who doesn't really understand the topic they are commenting on.
There have been numerous lab leaks that are recorded in history and they happen every year.
After SARS it only took 4 months to identify the intermediate host which was a civet. After MERS, it took nine months to identify a camel as an intermediate host.
18 months later with vastly more scientific resources at their disposal and also technology that didn't exist for the other two like smartphones, no intermediate mammal host has been found yet.
The Occam's razor suggestion for this is the reason for this is the only intermediate mammal host that exists is a humanized mouse with human ACE2 receptors lining its lungs.
You know, the humanized mice that were specifically mentioned as being present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology by multiple sources including grants applied for and received directly stating this.
This entire comment is the personification of a person who has taken their political identity and with no self-awareness applied it to science. You have no basis for your confidence other than the hatred of your political enemies.
I watched brainwashed GOP folks cling to the WMD in Iraq myth for years after it was proven false. You might not be do different from them.
Its only recently that research labs could engineer these viruses. Only recently have you been able to engineer mice with human ACE2 receptors, and breed viruses in them. History is not what you base your conclusions on in 2020’s biochemistry.
It has been strongly asserted by the scientific community that Covid-19 bears no hallmarks of an engineered virus. In fact, no one in this thread is even suggested it was engineered. That's the whole point of the article. The "accidental leak" theory is being conflated with "engineered weapon theory". The only options on the table are "animal -> human" or "animal -> lab -> human". Both are plausible and we have no conclusive evidence one way or the other.
Engineering a virus, in the sense that you're talking about, is not what was meant. Allowing the virus to naturally mutate in an animal host, over thousands of generations, will get you to the same endpoint. This is gain of function research, the whole point is to find out if the virus could naturally evolve some feature you are interested in. Engineering it to do so would defeat the point.
This is not exactly accurate. But it’s easier to get to the full story if people accept the lab leak of an unmodified virus as a possibility. However, the “assertions” are misleading and have been debunked. The virus does appear to be chimeric. There is a missing link in both hypotheses, but the lab leak hypotheses offers a few possible explanations. The zoonotic hypothesis still doesn’t have an explanation for that part.
You're not actually refuting any argument the parent made.
First, pointing out that other pandemics have happened absent lab accidents doesn't negate all the evidence pointing in that direction this time. As far as evidence and probability goes (with regard to the potential evolutionary paths the virus would have had to have taken in the wild), the lab leak hypothesis is very strong. The simplest answer is that it leaked from the lab a few miles away studying this exact family of viruses.
Second, the parent wasn't saying anything about whether or not Trump was twisting the truth or being dramatic. His whole point is that the discussion was able to be hijacked by the simple act of a divisive figure talking about it. It's fine if people dismiss Trump (the smart thing to do honestly), but allowing that to bias you in the opposite direction without any evidence is making the exact same mistake he did.
> And it's not wrong because Trump said it. He may end up being partly correct. The fact remains he had no reason to be as confident in his pronouncement as he was aside from political expediency.
except his CDC head claimed after the new administration took over that Trump's administration did have additional classified evidence that made it more likely. It is extremely likely that the intelligence community knew of the chinese researchers who had gone to the hospital (and maybe more) way before it was released to the public. By the time these facts are made public, they have been researched and assigned a high level of confidence.
