Thread by @drg1985

US Department of Energy (DoE) report on COVID origins & FBI director on Fox news has set cat among pidgeons again -so is a #lableak now more likely now?

No - and demands to investigate lab-leak narratives neglect basic principles of scientific inquiry; a thread 🧵

So first thing to note is the DoE report is classified, but concludes with "low confidence" - what does that mean in practice? That its unreliable, and not a basis for an analytical conclusion. Note that the report didn't change any other intelligence outfits minds either..

This togethers implies that any ostensible evidence DoE marshal is somewhat underwhelming; not surprising when steady evidence has accumulated since 2020 all pointing to the conclusion that the virus emerged from animal spill-over, with not a shred of solid evidence otherwise..

All of this points to COVID-19 emerging from Wuhan wet markets, with not a shred of evidence for anything else; people like @MichaelWorobey and @angie_rasmussen has done stellar work on that, see this recent thread for an outline -

This shouldn't surprise us: Consider two hypotheses: (a) COVID arose naturally (b) COVID was engineered / leaked from a lab. Here we invoke our good friend William of Ockham; as I wrote for @guardian in 2021, (a) requires WAY fewer assumptions than (b)

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Should scientists investigate lab-leaks? Sure, IF they can eliminate natural origins as an explanatory hypothesis, finding some smoking gun that renders benign roots a non-starter. That simply hasn't happened, with cascades of evidence since supporting natural origins hypothesis

Simply put, #lableak currently lacks explanatory power and evidence. Demanding it gets special consideration is akin to insisting Egyptologists take seriously the idea that aliens built the pyramids, despite a much more plausible and evidence-based explanation already existing.

Theodore Woodward once said to his students that "when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras", reminding them to eliminate the obvious before proceeding to the exotic. With lab leak narratives as they stand, this is more like hearing hoofbeats and thinking unicorns

This is why scientists are for the most part frustrated with lab leak narratives: not because they're afraid of the truth, because such demands completely misunderstanding the scientific method. Comments here are enlightening.. theguardian.com/world/2023/feb…

You might also ask how the DoE / FBI director might get it so wrong, if they did. The former is a department concerned with nuclear weapons and energy, no inherent virology experience. The latter is a Trump appointee to the FBI, opining on Fox news. No further comment.

The FBI have a bad history of getting science wrong too. I wrote in Irrational Ape / Good Thinking how they sent thousands of innocent people to prison (at least 32 to death) based on a completely pseudoscientific technique. It's pretty awful, especially when they'd be warned

And yes, China are probably covering things up - authoritarian regimes often refuse to be forthcoming on their slip ups and underplay their culpability. But that STILL doesn't make a lab leak more likely, and @PeterHotez has a nice bit on this here

To conclude, lab leak narratives are not supported by the evidence. But if evidence ever emerges for them that nullifies the natural origins theory, you can bet scientists will be the first ones to make it clear. It's just makes no sense to demand they look there first.

..as a postscript, this has been bugging me for ages and @ENirenberg wrote something unpublished on this. We actually worked out that all possible lab leak scenarios were... really unlikely. Maybe worth revisiting...

..Because some of you asked, I did a @YouTube version of this as an experiment. Feedback welcome, will try to post more on there in case twitter implodes...