zlacker

It's almost as if the motivation for a claim matters.

>>Touche+(OP)
So, if a claim is made, but the person who claims it has bad intentions, it can be dismissed?

I believe there's a logical fallacy for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

>>incrud+f
We don't know if it's true, there's still no evidence even today.

Motivation affects how we react to a theory with no evidence, when coming from Tom Cotton vs. a former CDC director.

Btw, Tom Cotton's claim was that it was a government biochemical weapon's lab, that's not Redfield's theory.

>>Touche+w
> We don't know if it's true, there's still no evidence even today.

I have edited my comment to reflect that.

> Motivation affects how we react to a theory with no evidence, when coming from Tom Cotton vs. a former CDC director.

There's another fallacy for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

>>incrud+Q
I took logic in college too. I didn't say that motivation affects whether something is true or not, just how much skepticism we apply to it. It's perfectly normal and good that we believe things experts say (when we ourselves do not have expertise) over a guy shouting on a street corner.

>>incrud+f
If a claim is made and no evidence is provided, then should anyone give it much credibility?

The news prints these stories then they become the truth in the minds of many people.

>>mellin+r1
In hindsight, I'm not happy with the word "claim" either, but I don't want to edit the comment again.

Let's go with "hypothesis" for the sake of argument:

In this case, we have a basket of competing hypotheses, none of which have any solid evidence going for them.

Yet, some of these hypotheses have not been dismissed as conspiracy theories. Those were the hypotheses that conveniently fit a "humans encroach on wildlife"-narrative.

I'm just pointing this out as "interesting", I'm not arguing that this circumstance gives validity to one hypothesis over another.

>>incrud+c2
In the past, we have seen...

So we have prior evidence...so we give more weight...

The investigators should examine all possibilities, of course.

Repeating the most “exciting” theory on Opinion News night after night...

>>Touche+81
> It's perfectly normal and good...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

>>mellin+73
We have prior evidence for both lab escapes and gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses (in Wuhan, no less).

Assigning weights to these circumstances can be done arbitrarily, to the point where the lab escape hypothesis becomes the most plausible one:

https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

>>incrud+H4
Sure, when you get the evidence let me know.

Speculate all you want.

I’ve never heard of the escapes. Perhaps we watch different news sources and you spend a lot of time reading different stories.

I’ve got 55 years of hearing about viruses jumping from animals so my priors are different.

AIDS, SARS, swine flu,...

By the way, the last thing I want to be shown is some random sight on the Internet as evidence. Climate change deniers live by these sites

>>incrud+f
Please don't perpetuate flamewars either. This just makes things worse.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note these:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

$TOPIC -> Trump -> Hitler is a textbook example of what that last guideline is asking you not to do. We're trying for an end state other than default internet hell.