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[return to "Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out"]
1. rndmiz+fA[view] [source] 2021-04-09 16:38:22
>>todd8+(OP)
I feel that for people paying attention to COVID news, this has always been the case; there's never been any kind of conclusive evidence on the origin of the virus (that I've read of). The article outlines three main possible origins - natural, accidental combination in lab, deliberate construction in lab. (There's a fourth option I've seen floating around - deliberate release of a constructed virus.) It seems that most of the scientists in the article are considering the second option; however, right-wing media has apparently in multiple instances sought to take their work to push the third, or even fourth option.

It is thoroughly unsurprising to me that most scientific publications would take a stance against releasing studies or articles considering option two or three, as right-wing media and politicians were/are fishing for anything with a suitable scientific veneer they could throw out as evidence of someone to blame. (And its not hard to see why - telling your constituents they have to deal with job losses, family deaths and lockdowns because someone in China ate a bat leaves people without something to blame, and the politicians tend to be the closest relevant people.) Given the amount of anti-asian racism/crime/murder we've seen spiking in the last year, I think the publications' stances (and the more mainstream media) to lean heavily towards option one is understandable - no one wants to be the used as justification for hate crimes or political action a la the Iraq war buildup.

Perhaps in another year or two things will have cooled down enough that stuff like this can be considered without collateral damage.

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2. rossda+dG1[view] [source] 2021-04-09 22:19:37
>>rndmiz+fA
Absolutely. Lots of issues that are just way too high-emotion right now for rational and objective discussion.

One other reason it's way too hot to discuss right now: it would suggest that scientists were at least partly to blame for the pandemic. Even if you're not Chinese, you might not want to be discussing that idea if you were a scientist yourself.

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3. nbardy+fO1[view] [source] 2021-04-09 23:24:43
>>rossda+dG1
Because people are having emotional discussion doesn’t mean we should stop trying to have rational ones.

In fact it’s the opposite we need to have the hard conversations as early as possible.

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4. rossda+aP2[view] [source] 2021-04-10 13:24:18
>>nbardy+fO1
Not if it causes people to (emotionally) dig themselves into positions which they later are unwilling to relent on because people hate admitting they're wrong, and hate it more the more adamantly they had stated their position before. We're in a very polarized environment, with very little trust between groups, and having an early emotional hard conversation could actually be another obstacle in the way of having a productive one later.
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