zlacker

>>ruarai+(OP)
IMO it's very likely to have originated in a lab leak. It doesn't matter much however since there is no evidence, and any evidence of such will likely be covered up.

Being culpable for a disaster on this scale would be unprecedented in the economic reparations, so much so that we'll likely never find the origins.

>>kneel+Lq1
> it's very likely to have originated in a lab leak

What evidence is informing this belief? i.e. what is your model for assigning "P>0.5" to the probability here? For example do you think the SARS outbreak circa 2002 was also a lab escape?

>>thepti+8s1
You misquoted me, I said 'IMO...'

I've worked in several labs, created several viruses (non-pathogenic) myself. People are careless, did you read the article?

>>kneel+zv1
Do you feel that I was misquoting you because you don't think of it as a belief as you prefaced it with "IMO", or do you take issue with me translating "very likely" to "P>0.5"? (Or maybe something else?)

I wasn't trying to be confrontational about it, just trying to understand why that's your opinion. In particular I was curious about your "very likely", because my priors are that most infectious diseases are not caused by lab leaks, and that there's no particular evidence of a lab leak here (though as you say plenty of reason to believe such evidence would be suppressed). But it's not my field so I'm not strongly attached to those priors.

I'd certainly agree with the article's premise that the lab theory should not be dismissed out of hand, but I think that's a different conclusion than saying "it's very likely to have originated in a lab leak". My takeaway from the article is "it's possible, but still not very likely", though I suppose I'd give a higher % of probability now than before reading the article.