zlacker

It is reasonable & responsible to downplay theories that get constructed in absence of sufficient and meaningfully qualified evidence.

>>WarOnP+(OP)
GP didn’t say “if you thought there was insufficient evidence before, you have some reflecting to do!”

>>dabble+d1
I'm advocating a principle that applies well to the OP.

>>WarOnP+P6
Then your comment would make more sense as a response to the OP.

If anything it seems like you would agree that in the absence of evidence humility is appropriate. People who acted like only fringe conspiracy theorists would even consider lab origins should reflect on their overconfidence and arrogance. It’s not a slam dunk either way and probably never will be, if i had to guess.

>>WarOnP+(OP)
Such as the theory, presented often without evidence, that Sars-Cov-2 came from an imaginary population of bats in Wuhan?

>>iammis+oP
I mean, if it's a random comment on the Internet that makes a claim without presenting evidence, yet evidence does exist and is readily available, I don't have much of a problem with that. After all, you just made the claim that the theory is often present without evidence without actually presenting evidence of that claim. The real question is what evidence exists, not what evidence may or may not be presented with every online comment you may come across.

>>iammis+oP
there is a lab called "Wuhan Coronavirus Research Lab" in the epicenter of coronavirus pandemic ground zero, and there is evidence of lab members seeking (and getting) grants in the US for dangerous gain-of-function research in the last few years, doesn't it make you stop and think?

>>iammis+oP
Its fine to call someone crazy if they're posting about some coverup about bats without any evidence too, no?

>>jayd16+gW
Except there was no bat coverup. The american media bought into that theory without any evidence while simultaneously castigating and ridiculing the lab leak one. The coverup of the lab leak theory in the press was thus in plain sight.

>>WarOnP+(OP)
Ok, but to play in this space for a second: toward the beginning of the pandemic when these theories were flying left and right, where exactly was the "sufficient and meaningfully qualified evidence" to assert that it had natural origins?

Is the default to simply assert that, because it is biological, it naturally evolved? In the modern era we're in, I'm not convinced that is a sensible default.

The most sensible default is to say we don't know, and all reasonable possibilities are being explored. That is not the same as saying that its reasonable and responsible to downplay a completely reasonable theory; for all that's holy, the virus was first discovered in the same city as China's only L4 biohazard lab studying human pathogens, literally that evidence alone is enough to say the lab-leak theory is "reasonable". Not a smoking gun! But REASONABLE and not worthy of downplay.

>>iammis+oP
The evidence is that every other coronavirus ever studied was zoonotic. It's still the most reasonable explanation. This story doesn't really move the needle.

>>015a+ZY
> Is the default to simply assert that, because it is biological, it naturally evolved?

Unless you’re a creationist, then yes?