Someone I particularly admire, the law professor Victoria Sutton, just shot herself in the foot with this egregiously thinly-argued lab leak piece. Another reason people should stay in their own goddamned lane. open.substack.com/pub/profvict... - ThreadSky

wendyorent.bsky.social • 6 days ago

Someone I particularly admire, the law professor Victoria Sutton, just shot herself in the foot with this egregiously thinly-argued lab leak piece.
Another reason people should stay in their own goddamned lane. https://open.substack.com/pub/profvictoria/p/the-lab-leaks?r=cbt0&utm_medium=ios

Comments

rdmorris.bsky.social•5 days ago

This was not written for us.

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

Wow.
The discussion on why she thinks it "likely" to have been lab leak never gets further than "just as plausible as the competing theory."
And from this she moves to "let the sanctions begin."
Um, WHAT?
1/2

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

I suppose she could mean sanctions for non-cooperation w/ releasing data, which - sort of fair, but that's not the way she sounds. It sounds like sanctions for accidentally releasing this plague upon the world. On the basis that it's "just as plausible as the competing theory."
Again, WHAT?
2/2

peterdaszak.bsky.social•6 days ago

Shoddy piece of writing - riddled w/ inaccuracies in almost every para (they didn't even bother to spellcheck "EcoAlliance"). Full of innuendo without support.

It's not evidence of a lab leak that Republicans investigated things - they do that exactly to produce this sort of article!

zachhensel.bsky.social•5 days ago

"Second, a Patient-Zero was found early in the 2003 SARS investigation, and yet China has not yet identified a Patient-Zero for COVID-19."

W🎩?

peterdaszak.bsky.social•5 days ago

Wow - that's nailed 'em!

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

A leading professor who’s a supposed expert on laws surrounding pandemics and bioweapons should be embarrassed to have written something this bad.

peterdaszak.bsky.social•6 days ago

I’ve seen a lot of comments, quotes & articles from bisecurity/legal academics that get the basic biology/virology damningly wrong. The legal arguments depend by definition on these virological facts, so misunderstanding or misconstruing them nullifies their arguments.

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

Why don’t they see that.

peterdaszak.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think in some cases they don’t think it matters because they’re so fixated on complex legalities of bio weapons etc. & in other cases they don’t care about or don’t understand the virology (which is equally complex). It’s why for legal issues most of us use lawyers… the reverse should also apply!

wendyorent.bsky.social•5 days ago

Exactly what I was thinking.

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

The worst part is that at the end of the piece Sutton is calling for punishment for the true subject-matter experts. “Let the sanctions begin!”

Embarrassing. And dangerous for the innocent people she’s implicitly targeting.

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

She may be referring to Chinese experts-it’s hard to say. Or to all of China. Or to all virologists involved in proving the zoonosis argument

but it’s all wrong any way you slice it.

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

I thought she was talking about sanctions on China. Surely people should be a little bit more precise when advocating punitive sanctions.

benfpiercephd.bsky.social•6 days ago

"the lack of accidental releases to show there was none related to COVID-19, should have been produced by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) upon investigation."

Just....what?

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

I particularly love how all the explosive cases of Covid in the area of the Wuhan Lab was just ignored.

Oh, wait…

There
weren’t any!

hypoautonomic.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think they mean accident report logs of some sort? The next part is also WTAF?

“Second, a Patient-Zero was found early in the 2003 SARS investigation, and yet China has not yet identified a Patient-Zero for COVID-19”

They think an index case in Nov 16 2002 is “patient-zero” ???

shoguncheney.bsky.social•6 days ago

While I get what you're saying, at this point.what does it matter? COVID happened, it's over and we're in rebuilding mode. It doesn't really matter where someone thinks it came from.

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

If you read through to the end of the piece she's advocating for imposing sanctions.
On the basis of her conclusion that the lab leak origin is "likely" because it is "just as plausible as the competing theory."
So yes, it matters. If people are gonna act on it like this, it really matters.
1/2

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

I may agree w/ you that it shouldn't matter. We know we have to prepare for naturally-caused epidemics. And we know we have to be careful when researching infectious pathogens.
But here in the word world we're actually living in - yes, it still matters.
2/2

wendyorent.bsky.social•5 days ago

Lab leaks happen, and they’ve caused sickness and sometimes
death. But never have they involved a release of a novel pathogen. Because no one knows how to tweak a pathogen to make it human-adapted and transmissible. She doesn’t begin to understand that.

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

I lack the expertise to evaluate that vs her arguments that is possible.
I *know* I lack that expertise. So here I confine myself to observing that her argument doesn't hold up.
Others I generally rely on, who do have the right expertise, tell me zoologist is far more plausible, & I believe them.
1/

kathmarval.bsky.social•5 days ago

What I do know is that "likely enough to justify sanctions" isn't supported by "just as plausible as the other explanation."
Which is a mistake a legal expert should NEVER make. I have the right sort of expertise to say that.
2/2

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

I’m sorry it matters very, very much Blaming innocent experts in China or outside matters. Misunderstanding the science matters. Passing on arrant lies matters. Preventing the next pandemic matters.
It all matters.
And btw Covid isn’t over.

shoguncheney.bsky.social•6 days ago

All anyone of us have are theories. No one has a smoking gun. The vast majority of people who believe in a lab leak don't think it was intentional, but accidental. That doesn't make the researchers any less innocent. The pandemic is over. Yes, COVID still exists, and probably will always exist, but

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

Since you’ve shown you don’t understand the science, perhaps best not to comment further.

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

Not true. It is overdetermined that Covid was a zoonosis. It had been proven over and over again from
Many perspectives. All lab leakers have is allegations and misrepresentations, no facts at all. No evidence At all. No logic at all.

shoguncheney.bsky.social•6 days ago

With vaccines and prior infections we've built herd immunity to the point where it isn't a shadow of what it was 5 years ago.

There are much more important things than being outraged about theories of why COVID happened.

wendyorent.bsky.social•6 days ago

Dear Shogun Cheney. Here’s a place where YOU need to stay in your lane.

shoguncheney.bsky.social•6 days ago

Yeah you're not going to get anyone to agree with you by saying arrogant, condescending shit like that. I wasn't even disagreeing with you about the cause for COVID. Just that it's been 5 years and raging about what someone thinks cause was is pointless.

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