Dr. Francis Collins and Theistic Evolution

[Jipsah]

My point is that you were falsely told that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. The evidence suggests otherwise.

I always like this "Common Source" headline: "Deadly Radiation Leak Traced To Gas Station Next Door To Nuclear Plant".

Occam's Scissors, right?

 

[Jipsah]

The virologist, Shi Zhengli, said in a rare interview that speculation about her lab in Wuhan was baseless.

Well there ya have it, a completely unbiased opinion from someone who has no reason to offer anything but a completely disinterested and unbiased report.

But China’s habitual secrecy makes her claims hard to validate.

Wait, what? I mean, dang, if you can't trust the CCP to shoot straight, who can you trust?

 

[sfs]

Well there ya have it, a completely unbiased opinion from someone who has no reason to offer anything but a completely disinterested and unbiased report.

You seem to have missed the point rather badly, which was that the someone in question hadn't disappeared if she was giving interviews. No claims have been made about the accuracy of her interview.

Wait, what? I mean, dang, if you can't trust the CCP to shoot straight, who can you trust?

I don't think you need to convince anyone here that the Chinese government ranks pretty low as a source of reliable information.

 

[The Barbarian]

I always like this "Common Source" headline: "Deadly Radiation Leak Traced To Gas Station Next Door To Nuclear Plant".

Occam's Scissors, right?

It would make sense if the Gas Station had lots of radiation sources. Just like Wuhan having lots of viruses endemic in various animal populations.

 

[Jipsah]

It would make sense if the Gas Station had lots of radiation sources. Just like Wuhan having lots of viruses endemic in various animal populations.

I’ll still use the scissors

 

[Diamond7]

Occam's Scissors, right?

Do you mean Occam’s Razor, a philosophical and scientific heuristic that suggests simpler explanations are generally preferable to more complex ones. You have to really understand something to give a simple explanation.

 

[Jipsah]

Do you mean Occam’s Razor, a philosophical and scientific heuristic that suggests simpler explanations are generally preferable to more complex ones. You have to really understand something to give a simple explanation.

Maybe not. If you have a choice of a deadly virus coming from a farmer's market or a virology lab where gain of function research is being conducted, which is the simplest choice? That's where old Bill Ockham's hair cutting implements come in handy.

I mean, if some tech at the Wuhan lab got contaminated, he'd have been certain to (A) tell his bosses, go through X days decontamination, then be sacked and possibly shot, and the bosses would have told the CCP bosses,who'd have released the embarassing news to the world, devil take the consequences, right? Or (B) would the tech have cleaned up the mess, taken a shower, grabbed some anti-viral pills out of the dispensary, amd gone home?

I'm betting B. Plus I never a single Chinese person (and I know a bunch of them, it was Chinese friends who dragged me kicking and screaming through Calculus and Physics so I could become a World Famous Engineer (except the World Famous part) who you couldn't persuade to eat a bat if he was drunk and there was a $1000 bet riding on it. The whole "I just got off work, honey, want me to stop off and get few bats for supper on the way home?" thing is about the least likely yarn I've ever heard.

 

[Diamond7]

Chinese friends who dragged me kicking and screaming through Calculus and Physics so I could become a World Famous Engineer

Same with my son. We got a China foreign exchange student that had studied math sense he was 12. Both my son and the exchange student got a degree in engineering. My other son has an associate degree in engineering.

 

[sfs]

Maybe not. If you have a choice of a deadly virus coming from a farmer's market or a virology lab where gain of function research is being conducted, which is the simplest choice? That's where old Bill Ockham's hair cutting implements come in handy.

You need to fill out the context more if you want to draw sound conclusions here. The choice is on the one hand a deadly virus coming from a wet market, a kind of market that is strongly suspected of having been the source of multiple previous outbreaks of deadly viruses, including the first SARS coronavirus, a kind of market that China was under strong pressure to shutter because of the danger of zoonotic viral escape, and a kind of market that China had falsely claimed was no longer in operation. The alternative is a virology lab where the SARS-CoV-2 virus wasn't housed, as far as any evidence presented to date shows. Given those choices, you then have to look at the evidence: where were the first cases clustered? Where were early environmental samples of the virus found? The answers are 'around the market' and 'at the market'. Given that information, most epidemiologists have concluded that the market is substantially more likely to have been the source.

Plus I never a single Chinese person (and I know a bunch of them, it was Chinese friends who dragged me kicking and screaming through Calculus and Physics so I could become a World Famous Engineer (except the World Famous part) who you could persuade to eat a bat

? Who has suggested that eating bats had anything to do with the origin? If the origin was the market, it came through an intermediate host -- just as SARS did years before.

 

[Diamond7]

? Who has suggested that eating bats had anything to do with the origin?

The "bat women" went into the mine to get the virus from the bats. She said there are even worse virus lurking in the shadows.

China’s ‘Batwoman’ still studies animal-borne coronavirus amid claims lab was in on cover-up

When alarmed health care workers sent samples of what appeared to be a new virus to China’s “batwoman” for urgent testing late last year, the renowned virologist admitted she was …

nypost.com

 

[sfs]

The "bat women" went into the mine to get the virus from the bats. She said there are even worse virus lurking in the shadows.

Leaving my question unanswered: who has suggested that eating bats had anything to do with the origin of the pandemic?

 

[Diamond7]

Leaving my question unanswered: who has suggested that eating bats had anything to do with the origin of the pandemic?

I do not know, you tell me where you got the idea people were eating bats. The disease comes from the feces they leave behind. The first people to get sick were in the mine cleaning up the feces after them. This goes back to the bronze age. The mine was for copper and you mix tin with the copper to make brass. Sometimes for weapons of war.

 

[sfs]

I do not know, you tell me where you got the idea people were eating bats.

I've never had the idea that people were eating bats. You really should read the threads you're responding to.

 

[Diamond7]

You really should read the threads you're responding to.

You should look at who you are responding to. In this case your conversation was with Jipsah.

 

[sfs]

You should look at who you are responding to. In this case your conversation was with Jipsah.

Thanks, but I was already clear on the the cast of characters. @Jipsah attempted to refute the idea that Chinese people eat bats. Which was pretty odd, because no one at all has claimed that Chinese people do eat bats or that eating bats had anything to do with the origins of covid. Which I pointed out. And at that point, you popped into the conversation to make the following contributions:
1) an irrelevant statement about bats and covid that had nothing to do with eating bats;
2) a suggestion that I thought that people were eating bats;
3) a suggestion that I didn't know who I was responding to.

I'm not going to respond to you any further on this thread, since you seem to have no idea what's going on.

 

[Jipsah]

tell me where you got the idea people were eating bats.

The market sells them as pets?

 

[Jipsah]

The alternative is a virology lab where the SARS-CoV-2 virus wasn't housed, as far as any evidence presented to date shows.

And the Chinese government has said so themselves, and why would they lie?

where were the first cases clustered? Where were early environmental samples of the virus found? The answers are 'around the market' and 'at the market'.

I'm pure there were ample opportunites to find virus samples anywhere else yiu cared to look in Wuhan, or anywhere else soon thereafter.

Given that information, most epidemiologists have concluded that the market is substantially more likely to have been the source.

Plus it's the politically smart thing to say.

? Who has suggested that eating bats had anything to do with the origin?

Dunno. I kind of assume that if there are people at the market selling bats then somebody is also buying them. If so, why? Housepets? Their decorative qualities? Bat fanciers? Children's playthings? Experimentation at the local Virus Works? I'm keen to know.

If the origin was the market, it came through an intermediate host -- just as SARS did years before.

Feral ducks?

 

[Diamond7]

@Jipsah attempted to refute the idea that Chinese people eat bats.

We had a Chinese foreign exchange student and he said they eat everything in China. Although when I was in Hong Kong it seemed like all they ate was vegetables.

In East Asia, specifically southern China, bats are sometimes eaten and can be found in some markets. Specific bat species eaten in China include the cave nectar bat, Pomona roundleaf bat, Indian flying fox, and Leschenault's rousette.

 

[sfs]

And the Chinese government has said so themselves, and why would they lie?

They would absolutely lie, just as they lied about whether live animals were being sold at the market. However, they'd previously made public the viruses they were working on. Since they had no way of knowing that this one would escape, they would have had no reason not to include it as well. That hardly settles the matter, but it does mean that we evidence for one lie and not for the other, so we should look at other evidence before leaping to conclusions.

I'm pure there were ample opportunites to find virus samples anywhere else yiu cared to look in Wuhan, or anywhere else soon thereafter.

Generally, going by the actual evidence rather than what you imagine is a better route to sound conclusions. At this point, you're not using Occam's Razor: you're trying to argue away evidence that disagrees with your preferred conclusion.

Plus it's the politically smart thing to say.

Right -- falling back on conspiracy theorizing is just you applying Occam's Razor. Besides being offensive, your response is also irrelevant: independent of what they say to the public, most people in the field (including me) have concluded that the weight of evidence strongly favors an origin in the market.

Dunno. I kind of assume that if there are people at the market selling bats then somebody is also buying them. If so, why? Housepets? Their decorative qualities? Bat fanciers? Children's playthings? Experimentation at the local Virus Works? I'm keen to know.

As far as I know, no bats were being sold at the market -- the concern has always been about the sale of potential intermediate host animals that could carry coronaviruses, not with the sale of bats.

Feral ducks?

No, raccoon dogs, masked palm civets, Amur hedgehogs, Malayan porcupines, or hoary bamboo rats, all of which are known to have been present at that market. Probably others were there as well.

 

[Diamond7]

Since they had no way of knowing that this one would escape

If they did not know then they were ignoring what the experts were saying. It looks like an accident. It does not look intentional, but maybe they are very good at a cover up.