There's some scientific arguments for lab origins of COVID-19 that are frankly well outside of my expertise and I can't comment on them.

But there IS a statistical component to their arguments that some are making, and that I CAN comment on.
Statistics is one of the trickiest fields of math, because it has strong interplay between the results you get, and how you state the problem. It's easy to create what seems to be some sort of statistical paradox or weirdness, but it's usually in problem misstatement.
And so there's an argument that says (more or less):

"the mutations to this virus are exactly and precisely what a lab would do to make this non-human virus very dangerous for humans."
And this makes it seem like an extremely unlikely mutation. And it IS an extremely unlikely mutation in the single mutation context. "What are the odds of this mutation happening"? Could easily be a billion or a trillion to one.
Well that sounds like damning evidence, doesn't it?

Sure until you consider that millions of natural viral mutations occur every day, day after day, year after year.
But if the odds are a trillion to one of this mutation occurring naturally, and I hand you a bucket full of ten trillion mutated viruses, suddenly the odds of this mutation actually occurring are pretty high (about 63% actually).
And in this case we have an absolute ridiculous selection bias. We have selected a virus which we know has a mutation dangerous to humans, and then we try to calculate the odds of it having a mutation dangerous to humans?

It's 100%. The odds are 100%.
This is of course way oversimplifying the complicated scientific arguments in favor of lab origins. HOWEVER, in my experience even the smartest scientists are capable of completely botching statistical arguments.
I want to add that I'm not saying I know this did not come from a lab.

I'm just saying, be careful with that statistical argument, Eugene.

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More from @thomasafine

27 May
Parnas' arrest certainly had the effect of shutting up Trump and allies, but I have a hard time believing it was intentional, considering the massive propaganda effort that was all but demolished with their arrest.
I could more easily believe that Barr worked to keep others from being arrested and/or investigated, and warned them off of traveling with Fruman and Parnas, so that they wouldn't be nearby when FruPar were arrested.
In which case, a more accurate description would be that Barr couldn't prevent their arrest, and so arranged to limit the collateral damage as much as possible. Part of that WOULD mean shutting down the propaganda effort.
Read 4 tweets
27 May
Working on some graphics.
Sadly it seems like 1/6 really didn't have the impact on our culture it should have. If you do an image search on 1/6 you don't get single image of the insurrection in the first screen.
Read 4 tweets
27 May
In the first part of the video, this doesn't seem revelatory - amounting to "it's the racists, stupid".

But it goes into a lot more detail after that, and there's a lot to unpack.
I would in particular say that how they're racist matters. Knowing it's the Great Replacement theory that is driving these people points for me to what sort of public education efforts can reach them.

The Great Replacement theory is pure zero sum game. "They win I lose."
I've written before about how zero sum game theories are generally the roadblock for lots of progressive ideas.

The good news is that this is solvable. If it wasn't, women would NEVER have gotten the right to vote in this country.
Read 10 tweets
25 May
Merrick Garland had two options in front of him. Two possible questions to pursue:

1. In a perfect world, how should the DOJ interact with legal requests regarding their internal processes?

2. In this real piece of shit of a world, what the fuck should be done about Barr?
Merrick Garland chose to answer question one, and ignore question two.

This is commendable. And disastrous.
A few days ago I tweeted about the need to contact our members of Congress to demand Congressional investigations into DOJ problems and/or demand an IG investigation at the DOJ.
Read 6 tweets
4 Mar
You know what would be awesome? If @SIRIUSXM dedicated a few channels solely to exploring this material.
Here's Bing Crosby singing with Duke Ellington in 1932.
archive.org/details/78_st-…
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4 Mar
I didn't really get how big the SpaceX Starship is until seeing SN11 being assembled.
And the fact that they're building these things so quickly underscores the fact that they basically expect them to blow up at this point. These are expendable test vehicles. When SN9 crashed, SN10 was already on the launch pad. SN11 is already assembled.
It was a super smart decision to make these things out of stainless steel. Seemed crazy at first. But if they can build these things super cheap, then they can afford lots more testing.
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