Are there any credible conspiracy theories?

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322973#Comment_120322973

Ah cool. Dodging my actual points to complain then.

No it it not sealioning to ask people why they believe something or to clarify something. It is not sealioning to point out when a question is being avoided or dodged.

I will not be addressing any more tangents about sealions.

Big Bag of Chips

@King MobAs has been warned on other threads in this forum persistent repeating of the same line of questioning is classed as harranguing. If you've asked the same question 3 or 4 times and have not received an answer you deem satisfactory then you're not going to receive an answer you deem satisfactory.

Move on.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319312#Comment_120319312

When Covid emerged, the conspiracy theories started from day 1 that it was manufactured in and deliberately released from a lab in China. That did it's own collateral damage. Early on, it was naturally difficult to talk about lab leak anywhere without that association.

I remember when lab leak equaled "man-made and deliberately released"

Even the Trump administration became confused over this when they made their claims it came from a lab, disagreeing then agreeing with intelligence at the time.

Pompeo’s claims, made in an interview with ABC’s This Week, represented an escalation in rhetoric. He had previously said the US was looking into the possibility the virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China.

On Sunday, Pompeo said: “There is enormous evidence that that’s where this began,” later adding: “I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”

At one point, the secretary of state appeared confused over whether he was claiming the Sars-CoV-2 virus (which causes the Covid-19 disease) was deliberately engineered or escaped as the result of a lab accident.

“Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point,” he said.

But when he was reminded that US intelligence had issued a formal statement noting the opposite – that the scientific consensus was that the virus was not manmade or genetically modified – Pompeo replied: “That’s right. I agree with that.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-laboratory

You're painting a narrative of "suppression" that wasn't really there. People just didn't know for sure, and too often accidental lab leak became associated with the silly conspiracy theories floating about.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324807#Comment_120324807

And this is a another blow against this conspiracy theory's credibility

It doesn't make sense for the US government to engage in suppression of the idea when top White House people and the president himself are suggesting it.

Did the suppression only start when Biden came into power?

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324807#Comment_120324807

Of course there was suppression of credible lab leak theories, to deny it is simply rewriting history. Yes there were extreme conspiracy theories like deliberate release but that was never proposed by any scientists (Was it proposed on boards?). What was proposed was twofold: that collecting bat coronavirus samples from remote bat caves and bringing them back to labs in densely populated cities was dangerous, and that modifying bat coronaviruses to study if they got more infectious to humans was highly dangerous, both highly credible sources of a pandemic and not conspiuracy theories.

What is abundently clear is that when concerms were raised by prominent virologists in late January about a possible "engineered virus", a meeting was hastily convened by Fauci and the outcome of that meeting was the Proximal Origins paper which was authored within days, followed by a statemnet of support of Chinese scientists. Both documents, in particular the latter, labelled proponents of a lab leak as "conspiracy theorists", which effectively shut down debate withing the scientific community. It later transpired (from FOIA requests) that the prime mover behind both documents was Peter Daszak, the very person funding the Wuhan lab with NIH funds.

There are very few scientists who discussed credible lab leak publicaly from early 2020 to mid 2021, and why would they when to do so would result in being labelled a conspiracy theorist. You also had the all major social media companies blocking and deleting posts on credible lab leak, that is not suppression? The US government meeting weekly with social media companies to propose banning posts and posters. That's not suppression?

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325594#Comment_120325594

But the examples you keep pointing to of "suppression" "by labeling people conspiracy theorists" have either been misrepresented by yourself, or leave the possibility of a lab leak open.

We've also seen that the US government doesn't have any control over twitter or any other social media, as Twitter just said no to this alleged censorship. Nor have they the control over the various organisations needed to engage in this kind of cover up or censorship.

There are also a lot of very vague terms in your statements like "effectively shut down debate".

I think that "effectively" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

And of course this is all with the complete editing out of reality the flood of conspiracy theories coming out at the time, some expressed by the president of the US government that is also behind the cover up.

You are asking if the idea of the virus being deliberately released was proposed here. If this is a serious question, then you are demonstrating that you have had your head buried in the sand for the last few years. (This was the conspiracy theory hinted at by Trump and Pompeo BTW.)

If this is not a serious question, then you are deliberately feigning ignorance of the sheer volume of conspiracy claims.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325594#Comment_120325594

There are multiple components

Man-made v natural

1. It was deliberately man-made - conspiracy theorists day 1 and some scientists over time (several of whom walked back on this)
2. It was natural - consistent consensus of scientists and experts

Wet market v lab

1. Wet market - Initial theory, a significant number of scientists and experts
2. Lab - FBI and dept of energy

Released on purpose from lab v accidental release from lab

1. Released on purpose - conspiracy theorists day 1
2. Accidental or incidental - FBI, dept of energy

The general consensus was that, like SARS, MERS, etc it jumped from animals via host to humans and is a natural virus. There is little consensus in scientific community that it was man-made.

Whether that took place at the wet market or lab has changed. With more traction towards the lab recently.

Your view that it was "suppressed" is not very convincing.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325662#Comment_120325662

Paging @The Nal

The Nal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325994#Comment_120325994

Urgh, that ones been to to, err, death hasnt it.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325769#Comment_120325769

I'm not addicted to conspiracy theories and am an occasional visitor to boards, so will take your word that posters have proposed that the Chinese government deliberatley released the virus. Trump and Pompeo did not suggest this, they clearly said they believed the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan and that intelligence supported this, without ever disclosing the intelligence.

Please stop misrepresenting what I have said. As a scientist, I am interested in the science and believe strongly in scientific debate and that scientists should not be silenced. Labelling fellow scientists as conspiracy theorists because they disagree with you is not scientific, especially when those doing the labelling are acting in their own self interest. All suggestions of lab leak, including credible ones, were labelled as "conspiracy theories" from ealry 2020 to mid 2021. To deny this is rewriting history or frankly based on ignorance.

Yes, the US government can censor the media, they have a history of doing such, and yes social media companies generally comply. When the FBI show up at your door people generally pay attention. The difference with Twitter is when Musk took over he told them to get fcuked. It's staggering that you can't grasp this distinction, and are still stuck in black and white thinking as if the US government was the CCP. While no doubt there are elements within the US government that would like CCP like control, fortunately the US is still a democracy and it is difficult to suppress things over time.

In my opinion, and it's an opinion I have held since early 2020, the theory that SARS2 was either a natural virus collected by the WIV from a cave in Yunnan and leaked from their lab, or a lab modified virus that leaked from their lab is not a conspiracy theory. Do you agree with this statement?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326024#Comment_120326024

The US is pretty rubbish at censoring their media. Also the US is not the world.

I've listened to countless radio shows, TV interviews, during the entirety of Covid where scientists and experts discussed the possibility of lab leak. Most didn't rule it out. Didn't notice any suppression or "silencing".

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325987#Comment_120325987

Where is your evidence there was a scientific consensus? The Proxinal Origins paper? Was there a survey of all scientists I missed to establish this consensus? Most scientists are private individuals and generally don't give an opinion, especially if giving an opinion gets you labelled a conspiracy theorist and banned off social media.

I would say the vast majority of scientists would have said "I don't know" to the equestion of origin.

Cheerful S

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1633128532833599488

There appears to be a new conspiracy theory for the masses. I dont believe anything US officials have to say about this.

I believe rogue actors are responsible, just as they were involved in 9/11. Anyone who hates Russia can be part of the pro-Ukranian group though.

When they identify the boat's registration and who owned and crewed it, they will certainly be able to identify the individuals. Being silent about the crew and releasing as little information as possible, trying to keep lid on it, know something withheld for security reasons.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326764#Comment_120326764

Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. It's lacking a lot of details, so I'm skeptical about it.

Why would it be a "conspiracy theory for the masses"? If true, it's a negative for Ukraine/US relations, undermining trust between the two. Also a nice gift for Russian propaganda.

Cheerful S

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326821#Comment_120326821

German investigation claims there were six crew members. The boat was registered and rented in Poland. According to the investigation, a truck with explosives arrived at the port and loaded them onto the vessel.

Apparently, US intelligence received this German information suggesting a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack.

Based on this, we know that it was a secret operation that Germans have somehow gained knowledge of and are sharing now.

As of now, there are two versions of what happened here, one by Seymour Hersh, and this one now. Either way, it was not the Russians blowing up their own gas lines. 

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326024#Comment_120326024

But again, if you are pretending to not know about the flood of conspiracy theories that were being spouted here and else where, you are feigning complete ignorance. If you genuinely didn't know, then you weren't paying attention to the actual issue of what was and wasn't labeled conspiracy theories.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326821#Comment_120326821

Also weird for the US media and intelligence to report on this. You'd think they'd censor it or something.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120327726#Comment_120327726

As I already said I'm not addicted to arguing about conspiracy theories, it would be a waste of my valuable time. This thread asks the question "are there any credible conspiracy theories" and recent events confirm that a lab leak of SARS2 was never a conspiracy theory, even though there were many, including many sccientists, who painted it as such. The actual conspiracy is that those who spread this disinformation were possibly (probably) acting on their own behalf to deflect attention from their funding and collaboration with the lab in question.

Read this statement which was published by Lancet in March 2020. "The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data".. are they having a fcuking laugh? Any Chinese scientist who tried to be open and tranparent was sent to reeducation camp at best or disappeared. "We stand together to strongly condemn the conspiracy theories that Covid 19 did not have a natural origin".. How dare they appoint themselves as the truthtellers and accuse their fellow scientists in this manner, the arrogance dripping off this statement is staggering.

So what if there were conspiracy theories being sprouted, nobody sensible would give credibility to this virus being released deliberately or developed for military purposes. What matters is that at least 7 million people have died and tens of millions have been harmed, and we still have resistance to aggressively pursuing where this virus originated. If the CCP wanted to clear up the question of lab leak, they would put the WIH database back on line that was taken off line in late 2019. The fact they won't tells you they have something to hide.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120327975#Comment_120327975

But it's not a waste of time especially when you are trying to a scenario out of its context (one flooded with conspiracy theories) to construct a conspiracy theory of your own.

Just because you aren't interested in the extreme conspiracy claims it doesn't mean they didn't exist or weren't flooding twitter.

Pretending that they didn't exist so you can claim what you do doesn't make your conspiracy theory very convincing.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120327989#Comment_120327989

What conspiracy theory am I constructing?

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328021#Comment_120328021

This behavior is something I keep pointing out.

Conspiracy theorists are ignoring and downplaying the giant pile of false claims to claim: "see we were right all along."

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328042#Comment_120328042

Stop deflecting and answer the question (see how that works).

What conspiracy theory am I constructing?

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328059#Comment_120328059

My point is that you are downplaying or ignoring the conspiracy theories that were being spread both at the time or now. Or you simply arent aware of it because you didnt do any research.

If you want to suggest a conspiracy about what was and wasn't labeled a conspiracy theory maybe you should educate yourself on what conspiracy theories were being rightly labeled first.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328120#Comment_120328120

I don't think you understand what a conspiracy theory is.

Maybe start there.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326928#Comment_120326928

Seymour Hersh's one has been torn to pieces. He's gone down a total rabbit hole in recent years.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328134#Comment_120328134

Weird. I thought the accusation was I was addicted to conspiracy theories.

I know full well what conspiracy theories are thanks.

And as someone familiar with them and actually familiar with the torrents that were being thrown out around covid, your conspiracy theory is detached from the actual reality of events. I suspect this is deliberately the case so the the theory can be presented as more credible than it is.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326349#Comment_120326349

Three years of following this debate on and off. It's obvious there's a clear consensus that it was zoonotic in origin, aka that it jumped from animals as opposed to being man-made. There aren't that many scientists or experts who've supported the man-made theory and as mentioned several of those key proponents walked their views back.

Can pull on countless articles, but this recent one sums up the current position pretty well

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162845/what-does-the-science-say-about-the-origin-of-the-sars-cov-2-pandemic

"The Wall Street Journal added to that debate this week when they reported that the U.S. Department of Energy has shifted its stance on the origin of COVID. It now concludes, with "low confidence," that the pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.

The agency based its conclusion on classified evidence that isn't available to the public. According to the federal government, "low confidence" means "the information used in the analysis is scant, questionable, fragmented, or that solid analytical conclusions cannot be inferred from the information."

And at this point, the U.S. intelligence community still has no consensus about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Four of the eight intelligence agencies lean toward a natural origin for the virus, with "low confidence," while two of them — the DOE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — support a lab origin, with the latter having "moderate confidence" about its conclusion."

"But at the end of the day, the origin of the pandemic is also a scientific question. Virologists who study pandemic origins are much less divided than the U.S. intelligence community. They say there is "very convincing" data and "overwhelming evidence" pointing to an animal origin.

In particular, scientists published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science in July 2022, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen, who contributed to one of the Science papers, says the DOE's "low confident" conclusion doesn't "negate the affirmative evidence for zoonotic [or animal] origin nor do they add any new information in support of lab origin."

"Many other [news] outlets are presenting this as new conclusive proof that the lab origin hypothesis is equally as plausible as the zoonotic origin hypothesis," Rasmussen wrote in an email to NPR, "and that is a misrepresentation of the evidence for either."

Most scientists are private individuals and generally don't give an opinion, especially if giving an opinion gets you labelled a conspiracy theorist and banned off social media.

I'm referring to virologists and related experts who have given their opinion.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328169#Comment_120328169

A very biased article that presents the arguments for natural spillover and makes no attempt to balance it by interviewing those who outline why a lab leak (whether a natural virus that was collected in the wild, or a virus that came from gain of function research). Note the dismissive tone after mentioning that two US government agencies favor lab leak.. "but at the end of the day the origin of the pandemic is also a scientific question" implying the DOE and FBI conclusions are not based on science. The DOE ffs has more experts in the revelvant fields (molecular biology, genomics, virology, computational biology) than any other entity on the planet, they have a huge research group focussed on biological pathogens and biological warfare.

So what is this "overwhelming evidence" of natural spillover at the wet market they reference? The problem with the Worobey papers are they rely entirely on data provided by the CCP, about as untrustworthy a source yoiu could ask for in terms of uncovering the truth. The CCP have demonstrated zero interest in discovering the source of the pandmeic, who would anyone trust what they say? Even if there were a cluster of cases at this market, there is also little question there were earlier cases, and there is also little question that the data is doctored and incomplete, as you would expect from a totalitarian regime.

There is no "overwhelmng evidence" for natural spillover or lab leak, but the circumstantial evidence in favor of lab leak is quite compelling. The closest progenitor to SARS2 was in the lab, had been collected from a cave in Yunnan along with hundreds of other samples of bat virus. They were conducting gain of fucntion experiments to insert human adapted RBDs into bat coronavirus backbones (this is published). Qhat other experiments were being run and unpublished? We don't know because they took down their entire database in late December and it has never been restored...

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,etc.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328134#Comment_120328134

There is of course the possibility that this was deliberate misinformation. One government “source” leaks him detailed information, parts of which can be refuted, thus discrediting the idea the US were involved in destroying the destroyed pipeline they promised to destroy.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120329568#Comment_120329568

The CT'ers are just hairsplitting, no surprise there, obsessing about 'made' really. No different with the roots of Holocaust Denial which tend to obsess about individual words in documents, one of the paleoDeniers was some loser lunatic named Rassinier, who the old deniers loved to quote as having found an error in a report - sure enough, there was a misplaced semicolon.