Fauci E-mails and Honesty

[ohio jones]

I just saw on FB (so it must be true) that Fauci now recommends wearing face masks over your eyes so you can't read his leaked emails.

[Soloist]

I just saw on FB (so it must be true) that Fauci now recommends wearing face masks over your eyes so you can't read his leaked emails.

Yeah I saw that email where he was telling Trump to do that so the Dem's couldn't find him.

[temporal1]

I just saw on FB (so it must be true) that Fauci now recommends wearing face masks over your eyes so you can't read his leaked emails.

Yeah I saw that email where he was telling Trump to do that so the Dem's couldn't find him.

STOP THAT.

[Josh]

Fauci knew early on the virus came from a lab. He had to decide if he will reveal it came from the lab and if he did , it would make him complicit. Or he could lie and blame bats. He rallied scientists to blame the bats. He pointed the finger away from the lab as an origination point of the virus.

In point of fact, there is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE regarding the virus' origin one way or the other. That is why scientists have been calling for more investigation.

"Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so."

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Then why was the mainstream narrative so strong that there was "ACTUAL EVIDENCE" that the virus could not have been manmade?

Right down to it being on fact checking sites, Facebook censoring posts questioning the origin of the virus, and so on?

[Ken]

Fauci knew early on the virus came from a lab. He had to decide if he will reveal it came from the lab and if he did , it would make him complicit. Or he could lie and blame bats. He rallied scientists to blame the bats. He pointed the finger away from the lab as an origination point of the virus.

In point of fact, there is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE regarding the virus' origin one way or the other. That is why scientists have been calling for more investigation.

"Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so."

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Then why was the mainstream narrative so strong that there was "ACTUAL EVIDENCE" that the virus could not have been manmade?

Right down to it being on fact checking sites, Facebook censoring posts questioning the origin of the virus, and so on?

There are two separate issues related to the origin of the coronavirus.

1. Whether or not it was a wild virus that accidentally escaped from a lab. Virology labs cultivate hundreds of wild viruses for study. That is routine and not unusual. I've done cheek swabs and cultivated microbes (bacteria not viruses) in HS science labs. This is standard HS science. The lab escape theory is something that actual rigorous investigation could determine. Early contract tracing is either going to point an arrow at a specific lab, or it is going to point an arrow in some other direction. It seems the Chinese are foot-dragging on this.

2. Whether or not the virus was man-made. This is a completely separate question from whether or not it escaped from a lab. I'm not a virologist but from what I have read, it is appears that there is no legitimate evidence to suggest it is a man-made virus despite the fact that there are lots of conspiracy theories floating around social media to that effect.

I don't actually have an opinion on either of these two questions. Although I think #1 is more plausible than #2. And I don't actually know what the "mainstream media consensus" was on these two topics, or if there even was one at any point. It hasn't been something I've really followed. I do know that the media has pushed back against wild unsupported social media claims in the form of fact checks and such. At least when those claims are introduced into the wider discussion by prominent politicians and such. But that isn't the same as saying there was a consensus.

[Bootstrap]

Then why was the mainstream narrative so strong that there was "ACTUAL EVIDENCE" that the virus could not have been manmade?

Right down to it being on fact checking sites, Facebook censoring posts questioning the origin of the virus, and so on?

Actual evidence that it could not have been? Really? Which sources are you quoting? Specific quotes from specific sources, please? Vague references to generalities are pretty meaningless.

I would have thought this is closer to the mainstream narrative. Before this May, they were saying it couldn't be ruled out, but is implausible. Now some are saying both explanations are plausible, and an investigation is warranted.

Either way, I don't think this backs the claims people have made about Fauci and his emails.

An article published in Nature Medicine in March 2020 found that SARS-CoV-2 “is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” The authors, who analyzed genomic data, said that the virus likely originated through “natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer,” or “natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer.”

The authors said an accidental laboratory release of the naturally occurring virus can’t be ruled out, but they “do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

But on May 14, 2021, the journal Science published a letter from 18 scientists calling for “more investigation” to determine the pandemic’s origin. “Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” they wrote. “Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.”

The earliest known human cases of the disease occurred in late 2019 in Wuhan, China. Chinese officials reported an outbreak of mysterious pneumonia cases to the WHO on Dec. 31, 2019.

Updated, May 21: We updated this item to add that some scientists say more investigation is needed into the origin.

[Bootstrap]

How many of you dug through these emails? there are three different sets of emails and the vast majority are fairly benign...

There are some large block redactions that are of interest...

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... emails.pdf
https://www.icandecide.org/ican_press/i ... r-release/

The interesting thing is that the emails released by ICAN actually don't say what they claim they say... I looked at multiple of their examples and was unable to locate any of their examples. If anyone else wants to try and find the claims they make... feel free to show them to me but don't just quote news sites... go to the source.

This is important.

We are surrounded by a sea of politicized character assassination. A LOT of the claims we hear are false claims intended to tear people down for political purposes or other less than sterling purposes. If we want to avoid being useful idiots to worldly factions, we really should slow down and look at the evidence before repeating these things.

If honesty is what we are after, as the thread title implies, this is basic honesty.

[silentreader]

I keep thinking I remember reading way back that a sample of the virus was transported from a lab in Western Canada to the lab in Wuhan some time in 2019. Did that actually happen, or was I dreaming?

[ohio jones]

I keep thinking I remember reading way back that a sample of the virus was transported from a lab in Western Canada to the lab in Wuhan some time in 2019. Did that actually happen, or was I dreaming?

Here's an article from a year ago: Canadian scientist sent deadly viruses to Wuhan lab months before RCMP asked to investigate

Apparently that set of samples contained viruses other than coronavirus, but there does seem to be cause for concern about the way it was done.

[silentreader]

I keep thinking I remember reading way back that a sample of the virus was transported from a lab in Western Canada to the lab in Wuhan some time in 2019. Did that actually happen, or was I dreaming?

Here's an article from a year ago: Canadian scientist sent deadly viruses to Wuhan lab months before RCMP asked to investigate

Apparently that set of samples contained viruses other than coronavirus, but there does seem to be cause for concern about the way it was done.

Thanks OJ, that's probably what I remember, so there probably was no coronavirus involved in that episode.
Interesting though that a year ago they freely talked about gain-of-function research being done on viruses at the Wuhan labs.
The other thing I find interesting is that the MSN News feed used to have 3 or 4 click-bait articles every day on "Dr. Fauci says...." or "Dr. Fauci said...." and now all of a sudden there is no mention of Dr. Fauci, or at least he is not quoted. So whether the whole e-mail thing is a smoking gun or not, it seems some people are attempting to distance themselves from him.