zlacker

>>delbar+(OP)
Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground).

My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help dealing with this crisis at all.

It is certainly interesting to know where it did originate, and that knowledge could inform a debate on the future of (respectively) wet markets and animal husbandry practices, or BSL facilities, but these don't strike me as particularly emotionally charged topics, and in any case the posts I'm referring to don't mention these debates...

Anybody care to explain why you would respond so strongly to claims of lab origin?

>>bearbi+d7
In the US, it's because this claim, or rejection of it, is strongly tied to political identity. Because the US is highly polarized right now, once political identity comes into play, you've left the realm of rationality and entered the realm of tribalism.

>>cle+qp
In China too. With the foreign ministry spokespersons repeatedly making US bioweapon suggestions, believing otherwise is more political than just following the rest of weibo.

The media is more than happy to report on early detections out of China, and let suggestions that the vape lung (now linked to vit. E cutting agent) is COVID run free.

We left the realm of rationality long ago, when the government did a tribalism on behalf of all of us.

(Nationalism is a hell of a drug. The govt still funds crackpots to argue against Chinese people originating in africa, to call greco-roman and egyptian history faked, and don't even get me started on their insistence on 5k years.)

>>arthur+jB
> The govt still funds crackpots to argue against Chinese people originating in africa, to call greco-roman and egyptian history faked, and don't even get me started on their insistence on 5k years

Wait what? The Chinese government does this? Who do they claim faked Greco-Roman and Egyptian history, and to what end? And what is 5k years supposed to be? The age of the earth or something?

>>defen+RF
Not sure about that one but there's similar stuff in the world of archeology (https://www.nature.com/news/how-china-is-rewriting-the-book-...) , a political motivation to say that humans evolved in China and not Africa. It's a shame when there's so much potential for genuinely exciting finds to come out of the country.