And supporting the out-of-the-lab thesis on the origin of Covid19, if only unintentionally, this absurdly bad article and mostly fatuous comments from the Unz Review, which claims that the virus was created and released by a bunch of dirty NeoCon Jews plus the horrible Steve Bannon intent on war with China.
Yes, there may be dirty NeoCon Jews intent on war with China, but that is not the relevant question. What's relevant is:
(1) Are there people creating dangerous pathogenic viruses in the lab?
And if so,
(2) Are they creating dangerous pathogenic corona viruses with spike protein genetically engineered to increase infectivity and virulence, i.e., viruses that would look just like Covid19.
To which the answer, in both cases, is yes.
Related questions of interests include:
(3) Was such gain-of-function research on pathogenic viruses being conducted in China?
And if so,
(4) Was such work conducted in collaboration with scientists from the US, the UK and other Western countries with US Funding provided, directly or indirectly, by Fauci's National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases?
To which the answer in both cases is yes.
None of this means that Covid19 came from the lab, but it establishes:
First, that Covid19 could be, and in light of other evidence, almost certain is, a lab construct;
Second, that Covid19 could have been released from the lab into the human population in many possible accidental or deliberate ways, including collusion between US and Chinese agents intent on promoting the New World Ordure.
Related:
CanSpeccy: Blaming America for China's Covid lab leak?
ZH: Emails Reveal How Influential Articles That Established COVID-19 Natural Origins Theory Were Formed
"None of this means that Covid19 came from the lab"
ReplyDeleteOutside of mathematics, the word "proof" has a very limited and loose meaning, at least compared to its rigorous meaning in mathematics.
I've heard scientists claim they don't know what either fact or proof means in science. They claim these are legal terms which don't apply to science. I agree. I think it is a damned shame so many people have been taught to equate fact and proof with science and the results and conclusions of science.
In the law, there is, in a civil case, guilt by a preponderance of evidence. In a criminal case, guilt is established by "proof beyond any reasonable doubt." Both involve a judgment call. Human judgment is quite frail and fallible.
Science is better than that, though, but these days within the scientific community an awareness of some degree of ever-present uncertainty.
I don't like the way things get twisted around against scientists, forcing them into a kind of relativistic position of saying, "Well, we don't know for sure, so maybe you're right," to people who are almost certainly wrong. As here.
I like the American Pragmatist C.S. Peirce's convergence theory of truth:
"Peirce's convergence theory of truth is an intuitive and reasonable account of truth. ... In accord with the pragmatic maxim, Peirce realized that the practical consequences of true claims are that they tend to bring inquiries to fruition and settle opinion."
https://revistas.pucsp.br/cognitiofilosofia/article/viewFile/44166/29401#:~:text=Abstract%3A%20Peirce's%20convergence%20theory%20of,and%20reasonable%20account%20of%20truth.&text=In%20accord%20with%20the%20pragmatic,to%20fruition%20and%20settle%20opinion.
It is not true scientific opinion is converging on the theory Covid19 originated "naturally" and was transferred to humans "naturally".
It is converging on the theory of a lab origin. It would have converged here a lot sooner if we didn't have officials high in government running interference, spreading confusion and chaos.
Ha! The many times married Charles Sanders Santiago Pierce who was held in high regard by the many times married Bertrand Russell.
DeleteAs both were analytical philosophers, I assume they both believed (1) that women give pleasure, (2) that pleasure is good, and (3) therefore one should be married as often as possible, or at least as many times as one can afford.
For Peirce, that meant ending his days, flat broke, begging the baker for day-old bread and living in a shack.
Russell who wrote more and more readable books that Peirce lived in reasonable comfort even with Mrs. Russel the Fourth.
But as for the truth about Covid, come'n man, we have to listen to what the science says. And fortunately we have the MSM to report to us exactly what the science says.
But if you really want to take a bleak realistic view, we surely don't know nothing definitely no how, other than, perhaps, "I think therefore I am," or whatever it was that Descartes said.
The idea that with accumulating experience we know more and more certainly what the truth is seems plausible, but is not necessarily correct. Think of Lord Kelvin who remarked at the close of the 19th century:
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
Then, BAM, two years before Sir William Thompson, First Baron Kelvin died, Einstein published his take on relativity.
Now, hardly a day goes by without some physicist verifying Einstein's theory. Yet were it not for the fear of being the only one not to see the Emperor's clothes, almost everyone would reject the theory of relativity, according to which, as one popular account put it, things fall to the ground "because mass bends time."
Personally, I can hardly wait for someone to prove relativity totally wrong. Likewise the insane block universe that Einstein endorsed only weeks before his death.
But as a practical matter, yes, beliefs both general and scientific converge on particular conclusions as relevant evidence accumulates, unless and until a totally new perspective emerges.
And because humans have to act, the conclusion to which the accumulating evidence points is accepted not as merely probable but as the actual truth -- until for example, the ice that looked good enough walk on, cracks and dunks the rash believer in the convergence theory of truth in the creek.
The problem today is that we no longer have much personal experience of reality. Mostly what we know, or think we know, is based on patterns of colored pixels on a video monitor. Thus, humanity's innate epistemological assumption, that experience is a reliable source of knowledge, is invalidated.
DeleteRather, our experience is mostly bullshit manufactured by the owners of the media to screw us all.