[Eisenstein]

'Common sense' says that the thing which has occurred periodically throughout human history (plagues and epidemics) completely naturally and is occurring around the same period after the last one ('Spanish' flu of 1918-20) would have the same causes as those before it, but with accelerated time frames due to ease of travel and population density.

[stormfather]

There have been plenty of lab leaks in history too.

[Eisenstein]

There have been more cases of 'almost epidemic but for action by health officials' with SARS and avian flu etc which makes it 'common sense' that these things occur pretty frequently and would be happening more often naturally if not for luck and structures in place to mitigate them. Those structures also happened to be dissolved by the US leaders in charge at the time, which seems to fit the puzzle.

So, 'things happened before' are heavily tilted towards 'nature did it' in any case.

[stormfather]

So tell me, looking at history, of all outbreaks that have occurred within 20 miles of a biolab studying the same disease family, how many were zoonotic versus lab accidental?

[Eisenstein]

My common sense doesn't have that information on hand. Sounds to me like 'common sense' is a terrible way to try to investigate complicated things, eh?

[randomperson01]

from the WHO in 2006, page 236 on SARS: "the risk of a laboratory source is potentially greater"

  https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/207501

[Eisenstein]

That's great. I am countering the notion that evidence is not required because it is 'common sense'.

[stormfather]

Actually you just said that common sense would indicate a natural origin, which was, at least in the case of SARS, just refuted.

[Eisenstein]

No, I am saying that relying on 'common sense' is stupid because it can take you in any direction you want since you aren't going past a surface level evaluation. You just proved it by having to dig a little to try and refute my 'common sense' take.