Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfoun

[George Herold]

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 5:12:39 PM UTC-4, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:06:35 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

Despite the deference to "scientists," I didn't see any scientific
arguments, merely "scientists" speculating, and their speculations
being tossed around non-scientifically by non-scientists.

ISTM it's a forensic matter rather than scientific. If China were
a free country, we'd simply scour their labs' collections for traces
of the Wuhan Scourge. If it's not there, the lab's excluded. And
we'd look at personnel records too, maybe, to find the first cases.
However, China won't allow it.

Absent that, it's entirely possible this group -- known to have been
studying coronavirus reservoirs in the wild -- collected SARS-CoV2,
then lost control. Or synthesized something, or collected, then
modified something wild, etc. Or that none of that happened.

There are manifold possibilities that can't be excluded -- it's a
mystery.

The NYU Shanghai prof's Twitter thread is full of gaping holes.


Cheers,
James Arthur

I agree. Say James, what news sources do you read? I find most news
almost impossible to read, because of the 'slant' of the source.
It's not that the 'slants' have gotten worse, but my tolerance is
much lower. (grumpy old man complex)

George H.

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 14:54:44 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 1:38:59 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

The problem now is too little observation, too little reliable data,
and too many opinions and simulations that are having gigantic
consequences.

Nonsense, as usual. You've also said there's too much news coverage.
We have a pandemic on a globe with 7.8 billion inhabitants
and you pronounce a finding of 'too many opinions'?

There are death projections that cover a 20:1 range. Some people say
it will be with us for 18 months, only stopping when have a vaccine in
mass production. Some people want to go back to work in two weeks.
Some want to go back now.

Some people suggest a second, bigger case surge in the fall. One big
name simulated a bouncing-ball curve of infections, multiple declining
peaks.

We are just now starting to get some antibody data.

The follow-up books, a year or so from now, will be fun.

Oh, you have some supporting data and a good model that predicts that?

You don't think anyone will write books about this? You don't think
they might be fun? Barry's book about the 1918 epidemic is great
reading.

Me, I'm predicting a practical vaccine for 'a year or so from now'. That's
my idea of fun.

New cases seem to have peaked, and faded way down, in the places where
it started earliest. Look at the JHU new-case curves. Lots of european
countries are below 1/10 of peak now. It may well be gone before a
vaccine is available or useful, like most colds.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:07:13 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
<fizzbintuesday@that-google-mail-domain.com> wrote:

Winfield Hill wrote:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say

I didn't know you had to be a scientist to determine that. But it was a
lab if a food market is a lab.

Amazing how ancient people in the middle east figured out that some
things are not safe to eat and the Chinese still haven't.

The Japanese discovered a lot of sanitary stuff before bacteria were
imagined.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 14:12:33 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:06:35 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

Despite the deference to "scientists," I didn't see any scientific
arguments, merely "scientists" speculating, and their speculations
being tossed around non-scientifically by non-scientists.

ISTM it's a forensic matter rather than scientific. If China were
a free country, we'd simply scour their labs' collections for traces
of the Wuhan Scourge. If it's not there, the lab's excluded. And
we'd look at personnel records too, maybe, to find the first cases.
However, China won't allow it.

Absent that, it's entirely possible this group -- known to have been
studying coronavirus reservoirs in the wild -- collected SARS-CoV2,
then lost control. Or synthesized something, or collected, then
modified something wild, etc. Or that none of that happened.

Maybe they just transported some bat virus from a cave for research
purposes, and it infected a lab tech and got loose.

There was a guy on NPR this morning, a bat collector who does crawl
into caves and traps bats and takes varuous iccky samples to look at
their viruses. Bats host huge ranges of viruses that apparently do
them little or no harm. Like another virus I could name.

There are manifold possibilities that can't be excluded -- it's a
mystery.

The NYU Shanghai prof's Twitter thread is full of gaping holes.

Shanghai resident Assistant Professor? Of course he is an objective
expert.

Cheers,
James Arthur
--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 15:25:58 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
<ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 5:12:39 PM UTC-4, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:06:35 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

Despite the deference to "scientists," I didn't see any scientific
arguments, merely "scientists" speculating, and their speculations
being tossed around non-scientifically by non-scientists.

ISTM it's a forensic matter rather than scientific. If China were
a free country, we'd simply scour their labs' collections for traces
of the Wuhan Scourge. If it's not there, the lab's excluded. And
we'd look at personnel records too, maybe, to find the first cases.
However, China won't allow it.

Absent that, it's entirely possible this group -- known to have been
studying coronavirus reservoirs in the wild -- collected SARS-CoV2,
then lost control. Or synthesized something, or collected, then
modified something wild, etc. Or that none of that happened.

There are manifold possibilities that can't be excluded -- it's a
mystery.

The NYU Shanghai prof's Twitter thread is full of gaping holes.


Cheers,
James Arthur

I agree. Say James, what news sources do you read? I find most news
almost impossible to read, because of the 'slant' of the source.
It's not that the 'slants' have gotten worse, but my tolerance is
much lower. (grumpy old man complex)

George H.

No, the slants are extreme lately. You can read the first paragraph of
a news report and predict which camp it came from.

There must be a new Recommended Insults appendix to the NY Times Style
Book.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:06:35 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Anyway, latest genetic analysis on extant virus samples from China exclude the whole city of Wuhan as the origin. They're zooming in on Guangdong as the origin, and possibly as early as September.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-outbreak-september-not-wuhan-1498566

 

[speff]

On Saturday, 18 April 2020 18:59:03 UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:06:35 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Anyway, latest genetic analysis on extant virus samples from China exclude the whole city of Wuhan as the origin. They're zooming in on Guangdong as the origin, and possibly as early as September.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-outbreak-september-not-wuhan-1498566

If it has natural origins with an intermediate animal, GD makes a lot more sense than Wuhan because they're far more into weird stuff there.

“The Cantonese will eat everything on four legs except the table.”

Wuhan is more boring- their famous dish is just spicy noodles.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[whit3rd]

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:45:37 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

> There are death projections that cover a 20:1 range.

From folk with credible models, and for the same region and time period?

Some people say
it will be with us for 18 months, only stopping when have a vaccine...

"it" being... half a hundred things. Active sickness? Travel restrictions? Gathering
discouragement? Viable virus residues? Hospital staff wearing hazmat gear?
Some of those, yes; some of them, no. #shrug

One big
name simulated a bouncing-ball curve of infections, multiple declining
peaks.

Yeah, that can happen. So, a simulation can show that happening. #shrug

You don't think anyone will write books about this? You don't think
they might be fun? Barry's book about the 1918 epidemic is great
reading.

So is Betty MacDonald's _The Plague and I_, about TB. Not fun,
exactly.
We ought not anticipate such writing, though, rather we should let authors
surprise us.

 

[Ricky C]

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 6:45:37 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

New cases seem to have peaked, and faded way down, in the places where
it started earliest. Look at the JHU new-case curves. Lots of european
countries are below 1/10 of peak now. It may well be gone before a
vaccine is available or useful, like most colds.

Not very likely. While the EU may be doing better most of the world is not.. John literal not only doesn't understand math, he doesn't even understand numbers.

The world figures show over 1.5 million current cases growing by 53,000 each day. So every day we have more and more transmission. I don't understand why Larkin can't understand that we are still on the up ramp side of things across the world.

Even in the US we have 600,000 active infections, growing by around 30,000 each day. This isn't dropping currently.
Even the rate of new infections isn't dropping.

What Larkin seems totally incapable of understanding is that the infection rate is not dropping off anywhere because that is the natural path of the infection. It is dropping off in some places as a result of the measures they are taking to prevent the spread of the disease.

Even when Larkin focuses on "lots of european
countries", he is cherry picking a few that suit his ideas. The UK is not dropping at all. Germany is still around half the peak values. Italy is half. Spain is no less than half, likely more (rather spiky data). The Swiss have managed to get their new infection rate down to around a quarter. The French are headed in the right direction, but they are nowhere near a tenth unless he is looking at a single day with a very high reported number which is obviously a reporting glitch. That doesn't qualify as "lots" of countries.

So while Larkin usually cherry picks data, in this case he is just plain lying through his teeth.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:04:26 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:45:37 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

There are death projections that cover a 20:1 range.

From folk with credible models, and for the same region and time period?

One of them is possibly credible. We just don't know which one.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Doe]

Not getting enough attention...

--
Winfield Hill <winfieldhill yahoo.com> wrote:

Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!peer02.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn
From: Winfield Hill <winfieldhill yahoo.com
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfounded, Scientists Say
Date: 18 Apr 2020 12:06:14 -0700
Organization: Rowland Institute
Lines: 7
Message-ID: <r7fj3602eaj drn.newsguy.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: pcfc06bd2c6bfd79507cbd98de39c9c3a7609940083c15d2f.newsdawg.com
User-Agent: Direct Read News 5.60
X-Received-Bytes: 751
X-Received-Body-CRC: 1302565358
Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org sci.electronics.design:590662

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[John Doe]

"Tom Del Rosso" wrote:

Winfield Hill wrote:

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say

I didn't know you had to be a scientist to determine that. But it
was a lab if a food market is a lab.

Amazing how ancient people in the middle east figured out that
some things are not safe to eat and the Chinese still haven't.

lol

 

[John Doe]

John Larkin wrote:

"Tom Del Rosso" wrote:

I didn't know you had to be a scientist to determine that. But
it was a lab if a food market is a lab.

Amazing how ancient people in the middle east figured out that
some things are not safe to eat and the Chinese still haven't.

The Japanese discovered a lot of sanitary stuff before bacteria
were imagined.

Could be, but the Japanese aren't the Chinese.

Yes, I know "they all look alike".

The Japanese realized how useful branding is. Something the Chinese
haven't figured out even though they have had more than enough time.

 

[John Doe]

George Herold <ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

Despite the deference to "scientists," I didn't see any
scientific arguments, merely "scientists" speculating, and their
speculations being tossed around non-scientifically by
non-scientists.

ISTM it's a forensic matter rather than scientific. If China
were a free country, we'd simply scour their labs' collections
for traces of the Wuhan Scourge. If it's not there, the lab's
excluded. And we'd look at personnel records too, maybe, to find
the first cases. However, China won't allow it.

Absent that, it's entirely possible this group -- known to have
been studying coronavirus reservoirs in the wild -- collected
SARS-CoV2, then lost control. Or synthesized something, or
collected, then modified something wild, etc. Or that none of
that happened.

There are manifold possibilities that can't be excluded -- it's a
mystery.

The NYU Shanghai prof's Twitter thread is full of gaping holes.

I agree. Say James, what news sources do you read? I find most
news almost impossible to read, because of the 'slant' of the
source. It's not that the 'slants' have gotten worse, but my
tolerance is much lower. (grumpy old man complex)

Racist!
Given the Internet, getting news from the source is much easier
nowadays. Like directly from courts and legislatures. I was watching
C-SPAN long before the Internet, but now it's super easy. Access to
court proceedings not very difficult.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 6:33:27 AM UTC+10, blo...@columbus.rr.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 4:13:47 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 12:46:22 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On 18 Apr 2020 12:06:14 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say

These days, you can find scientists to say most anything.

No scientists trusts a scientist's words, rather we trust the data.
The 'say almost anything' phrase suggests that you've been finding
scientists entertaining hypotheses that aren't in agreement. That's normal,
and wouldn't surprise anyone with a good elementary school science
education. It's not noteworthy.

When a scientist, in this case, says a claim is unfounded, it means the
claim alone is worthless, absent a supporting observation; that doesn't
mean the claim is right or wrong, it means it's untested.

The dramatic-form 'he said, she said' squabbling is irrelevant in science. The
resolution will always come from observations, not words and syllables.

Science is a funny thing. When it flies airplanes and fires guns and heals people....the funny thing is....pretty much every one believes in science. The problem is when "scientists" make grand pronouncements , that funny enough , have huge political ramifications, with no proven anything....It is pretty much should be treated as bunk. And that data you talk about....It is usually twisted and distorted to drive an agenda.

It difficult to twist or distort data. Somebody else can go out and measure the same thing, and the two sets of data had better agree - within the limits of observational accuracy.

Rght-wingers do seem to be susceptible to stuff that claims to be science, but is actually propaganda. The book "The Bell Curve" comes to mind.

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

It was dismantled by some real scientists

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

who - amongst other things - looked carefully at the data that Hernstein and Murray had relied on, and found that it didn't support the story that "The Bell Curve" had built on it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Phil Allison]

Tom Del Rosso wrote:

--------------------

People always use the term "conspiracy theory" for any theory they don't
agree with, whether or not it has anything to do with a conspiracy.

** What idiocy.

The term refers to hypotheses of events that require and large number of persons be involved and yet silent on the fact - seemingly indefinitely.

Any believer is required to suspend disbelief about the extreme improbability of that actually being the case.

So far, no such hypotheses have ever proved correct - from flying saucers, flat earth and space aliens running the world and worse.

A lab accident, if it happened, is not a conspiracy.

** My god you are dumb.

The conspiracy bit relates to ALL those aware being complicit and silent.



..... Phil

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Phil Allison wrote:

Tom Del Rosso wrote:

--------------------

People always use the term "conspiracy theory" for any theory they
don't agree with, whether or not it has anything to do with a
conspiracy.


** What idiocy.

The term refers to hypotheses of events that require and large number
of persons be involved and yet silent on the fact - seemingly
indefinitely.

Any believer is required to suspend disbelief about the extreme
improbability of that actually being the case.

So far, no such hypotheses have ever proved correct - from flying
saucers, flat earth and space aliens running the world and worse.

A lab accident, if it happened, is not a conspiracy.


** My god you are dumb.

The conspiracy bit relates to ALL those aware being complicit and
silent.

That's not a conspiracy either. That's a dictatorial government telling
people what to do.

My god you are in need of therapy.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 6:34:52 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 13:06:40 -0700 (PDT), blocher@columbus.rr.com
wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 3:46:22 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On 18 Apr 2020 12:06:14 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say

These days, you can find scientists to say most anything.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Scientists are no different than musicians....He who pays the piper calls the tunes

They are as driven by emotion and ego as musicians too. The computer
simulations are all over the place.

Computer simulations are supposed to be all over the place. They are intended to demonstrate how different sets of assumption play out. Any computer model has to be a simplification of reality, and the interesting question is which set of simplifications are productive.

Scientists are quite as driven by emotion and ego as musicians - it's a theatrical profession - but what they produce is much more tightly constrained than musical compositions.

John Larkin is deeply ignorant about science, but at it's core it is a social mechanism designed to set up a coherent and cohesive view of the world. We've been working on the mechanism for the last couple of hundred years.

The Royal Society in London was the first one set up to formalise this process.

"The very first ‘learned society’ meeting on 28 November 1660 followed a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren."

So far it seems to be working out pretty well.

--
Bill Sloman, sydney

 

[John Doe]

"Tom Del Rosso" <fizzbintuesday@that-google-mail-domain.com> wrote:

> Phil Allison wrote:

<blather>

> My god you are in need of therapy.

lol

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 6:38:59 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020 13:13:42 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 12:46:22 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On 18 Apr 2020 12:06:14 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1836218/claim-that-covid-19-came-from-
lab-in-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say

These days, you can find scientists to say most anything.

No scientists trusts a scientist's words, rather we trust the data.
The 'say almost anything' phrase suggests that you've been finding
scientists entertaining hypotheses that aren't in agreement. That's normal,
and wouldn't surprise anyone with a good elementary school science
education. It's not noteworthy.

When a scientist, in this case, says a claim is unfounded, it means the
claim alone is worthless, absent a supporting observation; that doesn't
mean the claim is right or wrong, it means it's untested.

The dramatic-form 'he said, she said' squabbling is irrelevant in science. The resolution will always come from observations, not words and syllables.

The problem now is too little observation, too little reliable data,
and too many opinions and simulations that are having gigantic
consequences.

Sadly, the deficit in observation and reliable data describes John Larkin's situation, rather the science that he thinks he is commenting on.

The follow-up books, a year or so from now, will be fun. The good ones
will name names.

I doubt if John Larkin will feature as an example of ill-informed comment - there are too many other around, and Donald Trump's pratfalls will probably get pride of place.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney