If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and
"Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward
But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2]
"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
> If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward
Heh, what is the Razor or other applicable language construct when someone gives two options and then suggests there's one they think is obviously correct, without saying which one or why - leaving it completely opaque or confusing to the casual reader?
I legit do not know which of the two cases here you think Occam's Razor applies straightforwardly. I can make easy cases for both sides being the simplest explanation.
e.g., "it seems simplest that the leading world centre would have excellent safety protocols and thus the chaotic wet market in a region known for those viruses is more likely the source", vs "it seems simplest that human error in a research environment studying these viruses compared to a wet market where, if that was a likely vector, we'd surely be seeing these things way more often", kind of thing.
If you knew that US state department had flagged safety concerns with Wuhan and claimed knowledge of infected lab workers, would that change your idea of the “leading world center”
> it seems simplest that the leading world centre would have excellent safety protocols
There’s an unnecessarily large assumption being made here. We can look at the Wuhan institute’s past and the history of comparable labs to get an estimation of lab leak frequency.
Similarly, there’s a whole bunch of context around things like: what kind of samples did the lab have in its freezers when covid was discovered? In the wetmarket case, what’s the transmission chain from a reservoir through to the market have to look like?
Once you compile all this context, then Occam’s Razor becomes a good tool. But before that it’s just a shot in the dark (kinda like you hint at). I’m not sure any single HN comment is really capable of giving sufficient context for this particular case.
Occam's razor in terms of scientific theories means choose the theory with the fewest variables, not just compare guesstimated probabilities or something. From that, I would guess the poster means the lab leak is preferred as it has only one variable related to the possibility of a leak of viruses that are already there.
Nobody has spoken of malice. It could have been a simple case of one lab worker getting infected. That would count towards stupidity.
Rhetorically speaking, Hanlon's razor doesn't quite have the same weight as Occam's, if only because people tend to view behavior they don't understand as stupid. But I'll add another "razor": don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to self-interested.
I'd say it's a possible manifestation of self-interest, but that it isn't always self-interest. There are people that hurt others without any apparent self-interest. When it gets out of control, we call them sociopaths or psychopaths. But that's a minor point.
My point was more that the dichotomy stupidity vs. malice seems to imply that e.g. playing music, or having dinner is either stupid or bad. Many things get done out of self-interest without being malicious, or without malicious intent.
> If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward
The conclusion that "the coronavirus originated in Wuhan therefore the Wuhan Institute caused the virus" could be backwards even if the correlation is real. It could be the virology institute is in Wuhan because there are bat coronaviruses near there.
I assume practically every city in China has wet markets. I wonder how many cities have facilities that do virus research. It might actually be more than you'd assume; I have no idea what sort of research might happen at universities, You also have to weigh this with SARS Classic originating in China.
A "wet market" is simply a market where you can buy meat, fish, and vegetables.
Every neighbourhood in every city in Asia has a wet market. Well other than Japan and Singapore, I guess. I live in Asia and there are two wet markets within walking distance of my house.
Wet markets are as omnipresent as convenience stores in America.
Presumably they specialised in coronaviruses because of the proximity to a bat population with coronaviruses, making sample gathering much easier? Are there other areas with significant coronavirus hosts? Are there other labs that specialise in coronaviruses to the same extent? The two seem linked to me, although I have no background in this area.
So we'd a priori expect coronavirus to originate in the area with coronavirus hosts, whether it was through the lab or the market...
It's been written everywhere that the horseshoe bats most likely to carry coronaviruses live in Yunnan province, more than 1000 km away. It's where the closest COVID relative was found as well.
Also while there are other species of bats near Wuhan, they are in hibernation in winter.
Is going out with butterfly nets to catch some bats a common routine activity among virologists? I'd say if not then the proximity of the research lab to where any bats can be found is not of much relevance - if needed, any bats can be obtained, but they are likely not the most definite factory for locating a major research center.
There's no razor to apply, both hypothesis are plausible at this point based on available evidence and without any speculation whatsoever.
And still without any speculation, one of those hypothesis could potentially be confirmed if only the main suspect did let us look at the crime scene. In any criminal trial, said suspect would get a guilty verdict from the jury in minutes.
> In any criminal trial, said suspect would get a guilty verdict from the jury in minutes.
No, since in a criminal trial the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That hasn't been met here.
This article certainly makes a prima facie case which would be enough to trigger discovery in a civil case. A reasonable person could also think that it has provided proof on the balance of probabilities, which would be enough for civil but not criminal liability.
Hanlon's razor does not apply here. The theory outlined in the article does not suggest the lab leak was intentional, but rather an accident. To me, Occam's razor strongly suggests an accidental lab leak.
I thought according to the crossover theory the virus was not theorised to have crossed from animal to person in the wet market, but was in humans already at that point and that was just the first “superspreader” site
I keep repeating this since it seems like folks ignore this quite crucial piece of data which completely changes the whole Wuhan covid narrative - Covid was backdated in blood samples in September 2019 in Italy. They didn't have earlier samples still kept on ice, so its entirely possible it would be there earlier.
Since its rather trivial to compare viruses and I haven't seen mention about it being a different variant, I assume its still the same virus as original Wuhan ones.
Even to my rather ignorant eyes this makes Wuhan just a place it got spread to wider public, and not much more. Definitely not some patient-0 situation and most probably not even ground-0 one. Now I don't claim to understand why it didn't explode in those early days like it did afterwards, but this fact can't be ignored when evaluating this topic. I wonder why there isn't a single mention of this in article.
It is worth noting that this was claimed in exactly one publication from researchers that are not experts in the field. The publication has meanwhile earned an expression of concern [1] by the publisher that unfortunately does not give much more details. It is also quite strange that the paper was published in a journal about cancer research.
The other big inconsistency is that the epidemic did not become nonticeable in Italy until late February 2020. If COVID was already present in September 2019, why didn't it spread rapidly like it did anywhere else?
But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor