I think the parent is arguing that lab leak is plausible, even if it wasn’t certainly the cause. GoF is foolish if you think the lab leak was remotely plausible.
Most folks had no idea about the sort of GoF being done, and the attitude of many researchers (highly dismissive of risks) should worry us a lot.
We should also be more worried about zoonotic transmission too, and press harder to ban wet markets.
I don't think these conclusions compete, that’s the point; the actual fact of the matter regarding origins doesn’t much affect the weight of the damning evidence.
> GoF is foolish if you think the lab leak was remotely plausible.
Even if you don’t think the lab leak was the source of COVID-19 virus, we know for a fact that lab leaks occur even at the highest level security facilities.
I’m not sure about gain of function research one way or the other, I’m just commenting that leaks will happen.
There's a couple of probability distributions we don't know. And whether this leaked in Wuhan or not doesn't affect them.
1. What's the probability distribution and damage distribution of GoF research lab leaks? It's not zero-- it likely has enormous long tail risk. But:
2. What's the probability distribution and damage distribution of not knowing as much about how gain of function happens in the wild? Because nature is doing some of these GOF experiments on its own, without much effort at containment.
Most folks had no idea about the sort of GoF being done, and the attitude of many researchers (highly dismissive of risks) should worry us a lot.
We should also be more worried about zoonotic transmission too, and press harder to ban wet markets.
I don't think these conclusions compete, that’s the point; the actual fact of the matter regarding origins doesn’t much affect the weight of the damning evidence.