zlacker

No, this was the sleight of hand by the media. Almost all people dismissed as conspiracy theorists said most likely lab escape doesn’t mean genetically engineered. But straight away that’s how it was reported in the media. Basically twisting words and lying. Shameful.

>>zpeti+(OP)
Tangentially related, I have another comment from a separate post observing some additional media (NYT specifically) sleight of hand WRT the Damore "memo":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254877

>> [Damore] argued that biological differences and not a lack of opportunity explained the shortage of women in upper-tier positions.

> This is an unfortunate way of characterizing Damore’s argument. It’s technically true in that Damore IIRC was arguing that there was more variation among men than women (more men at the top and at the bottom but fewer in the middle, but Google hires from the top hence more men). So yeah, technically biological differences, but when the average person hears that they’re going to assume he was arguing that women in general are dumber than men in general or some such. That said, this also represents much more earnest coverage of Damore considering the initial coverage overtly lied on many accounts (calling it an anti diversity screed, claiming he sent it as a memo to the company, etc).

>>zpeti+(OP)
I doubt if there's little doubt if you go with the lab theory that this virus wasn't genetically modified to be more virulent to humans (or possibly some species similar to humans). I think the big one is whether it was a lab accident, which seems like the most likely scenario barring jumping species naturally which still seems to be the most likely scenario.