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Passion guided by reason's avatar

Yes, I too noticed:

> "It's one of those things that keep being flogged because people want someone to blame. We have trouble accepting that it is most likely the result of our increasing incursion into wild spaces. ... But people are impatient and so come up with this emotionally satisfying theory then demand that people who doubt it prove a negative."

Which reflects a lack of self-reflection. The theme "it's the fault of humankind in general because we keep intruding on wild spaces" is exactly one of those emotionally satisfying theories, validating an existing narrative to which the speaker is often already attached.

Another tell is that when you say that you (and the WHO) wants more investigation before concluding the cause, that's paradoxically labeled as being "impatient" for somebody to blame. Treating it as already known to be zoonotic and blaming it on humankind's infringement on wild spaces is not "impatient".

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Regarding your latter point, there was a TED talk about how people handle dissenting opinions through three common attributions:

(1) Ignorance - they will agree with me if told the truth

if telling them fails, then

(2) Stupidity - they cannot comprehend the truth or

(3) Malevolence - they know the truth but have nefarious intentions

but leaving out:

(4) Difference - they may have a good faith different understanding of things, which could have elements of truth (ie: we might be at least partially wrong ourselves)

I've noticed how common things fit into that pattern of 1-3, and how important it is to keep #4 in mind, to have some humility - "I have reasonable confidence in my current opinion, but I _could_ still turn out to be wrong, to large or small degree".

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Erica Etelson's avatar

This tidbit got amazingly little coverage: https://twitter.com/uniofoxford/status/1402235212478791687?lang=en

It doesn't prove the lab leak hypoethesis but it certainly casts doubt on the wet market hypothesis IMO.

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