the probability of a global pandemic starting in China has increased incalculably
I think in order to make an intellectually honest critique you actually need to calculate it. I mean it is all about numbers now: if the prior probability of a pandemic occurring around 2019 in Wuhan is sufficiently high then I am wrong.
any ‘successful’ pandemic is, simply by existing, evidence of a laboratory leak.
Well, it is though. If I tell you that a pandemic happened but that its spread was slow and it only affected a small portion of the world, versus if I tell you that it infected the entire planet within say a week, the latter is evidence of an engineered virus in the probabilistic sense.
labs do not randomly generate gain-of-function research, they track the most potentially dangerous pathogens
Imagine you hire a security person to guard a VIP. The VIP is shot dead in a particular city at a particular time with a particular type of bullet.
You check the guard’s notes and find a description of that exact place and time and that exact type of bullet with the note “this looks like a potential assassination opportunity!”
The guard protests that he’s just good at doing his job (predicting threats). He does not randomly generate plausible threats!
I think in order to make an intellectually honest critique you actually need to calculate it. I mean it is all about numbers now: if the prior probability of a pandemic occurring around 2019 in Wuhan is sufficiently high then I am wrong.
Well, it is though. If I tell you that a pandemic happened but that its spread was slow and it only affected a small portion of the world, versus if I tell you that it infected the entire planet within say a week, the latter is evidence of an engineered virus in the probabilistic sense.
Imagine you hire a security person to guard a VIP. The VIP is shot dead in a particular city at a particular time with a particular type of bullet.
You check the guard’s notes and find a description of that exact place and time and that exact type of bullet with the note “this looks like a potential assassination opportunity!”
The guard protests that he’s just good at doing his job (predicting threats). He does not randomly generate plausible threats!
Do you suspect him of foul play?