
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Does it matter if COVID was a lab leak?
Here's an argument against: not many people still argue that lab leaks are impossible. People were definitely doing dangerous work with viruses; Chinese biosafety protocols were definitely mediocre. Maybe the Wuhan Institute had bad luck, and one of the viruses there escaped. Or maybe they had good luck, by sheer coincidence no viruses escaped, and an unrelated pandemic started nearby.
A good Bayesian should start out believing there's some medium chance of a lab leak pandemic per decade. Then, if COVID was/wasn't a lab leak, they should make the appropriate small update based on one extra data point. It probably won't change very much!
I did fake Bayesian math with some plausible numbers, and found that if I started out believing there was a 20% per decade chance of a lab leak pandemic, then if COVID was proven to be a lab leak, I should update to 27.5%, and if COVID was proven not to be a lab leak, I should stay around 19-20%
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-learning-from-dramatic-events
By Jeremiah4.8
129129 ratings
Does it matter if COVID was a lab leak?
Here's an argument against: not many people still argue that lab leaks are impossible. People were definitely doing dangerous work with viruses; Chinese biosafety protocols were definitely mediocre. Maybe the Wuhan Institute had bad luck, and one of the viruses there escaped. Or maybe they had good luck, by sheer coincidence no viruses escaped, and an unrelated pandemic started nearby.
A good Bayesian should start out believing there's some medium chance of a lab leak pandemic per decade. Then, if COVID was/wasn't a lab leak, they should make the appropriate small update based on one extra data point. It probably won't change very much!
I did fake Bayesian math with some plausible numbers, and found that if I started out believing there was a 20% per decade chance of a lab leak pandemic, then if COVID was proven to be a lab leak, I should update to 27.5%, and if COVID was proven not to be a lab leak, I should stay around 19-20%
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-learning-from-dramatic-events

32,100 Listeners

2,117 Listeners

2,675 Listeners

26,250 Listeners

4,272 Listeners

2,447 Listeners

2,271 Listeners

893 Listeners

292 Listeners

4,170 Listeners

1,627 Listeners

314 Listeners

3,820 Listeners

576 Listeners

682 Listeners