Martin <me@address.invalid> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:09:21 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In article <dg6kpgp42ohg7hvkf304ggs83gkl7qea16@4ax.com>, Roderick
>>> Stewart
>>> <rjfs@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>> I stopped using 'doze many years ago. However IIUC people are now
>>>>> having 'doze 11 inflicted upon them, along with it trying to dictate
>>>>> what sorts of machine the mere user is 'allowed'.
>>>>>
>>>>> The good news is that other OS's exist. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>
>>>> If Microsoft doesn't either relax their system requirements for Windows
>>>> 11 or extend their support for existing Windows 10 installations, 2025
>>>> might be the year I'm finally pushed over the edge and decide to abandon
>>>> Windows entirely. I'm ready when they are.
>>>
>>> I always thought it was a poor OS and a PITA to use. So only ever used it
>>> when it was unavoidable. Until Ubuntu's impact on the experience of newbies
>>> to Linux I could understand why many preferred doze - particularly when
>>> habituated to it by work requirements or school. But from a few years after
>>> the impact of Ubuntu I've become baffled why so many stay captive to doze.
>>> Maybe it is acclimatisation and the need to have 'industry standard'
>>> software as driven by the way MS behave wrt application software. Which has
>>> often made information transfer hard to do between platforms.
>>>
>>> I guess the reality is that well over 90% of desktop/laptop computer users
>>> are actually simply users of Word/Excel/etc with no real grasp of more
>>> general computing let alone programming. Trained at school or office, not
>>> educated about computing more generally. Magic box effect. Similar to
>>> 'phone' users who have no idea how it works provided they know how to use
>>> it and the 'apps'.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>
>> And that’s exactly how a computer to be used as a tool to get run of the
>> mill tasks done should be. A general phone/computer user should worry about
>> how their device works about as much as how they worry about how their TV
>> works. And as to programming, that’s utterly irrelevant to most of the
>> population.
>>
>> What most Microsoft detractors fail to understand is that no other
>> operating system has come close to being properly manageable by a central
>> IT department. If you are an organisation that has hundreds or thousands of
>> desktop machines you need an OS that is manageable at scale.
>
> +1

Seems another German state is having a crack at an enterprise scale roll
out

https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/22/open_source_germany/

From the department of If At First You Don't Succeed Try Try Again comes
news that a German state is to have a crack at shifting thousands of PCs
from proprietary software to an open-source alternative.

In this instance, it is the north-German state of Schleswig-Holstein that
is aiming to ditch proprietary code, including Microsoft Office, in favour
of open-source software. According to open-source productivity platform
LibreOffice, 25,000 PCs will be running its wares by the end of 2026.

In an interview, digital minister for the region, Jan Philipp Albrecht,
explained while LibreOffice would be the locally installed option, in the
longer term the expectation was that most work would be done within the
browser.

Albrecht, however, did not commit to a date to replace Microsoft Windows,
although he said that a number of Linux distributions were in the running.
The high bar set by the Redmond team for the Windows 11 hardware
requirements was cited as a factor.

Observers would be forgiven for a feeling of déjà vu. After all, didn't the
German city of Munich attempt this very thing a few short years before?
Yes. It did.

By 2013, the Bavarian city was trumpeting its independence from the big,
bad proprietary code-slingers. And, in 2014 it was even rolling its own
groupware cloud before performing an abrupt about-turn and scurrying back
into the welcoming arms of Microsoft.

Albrecht insisted that the Munich experience would not be repeated in
Schleswig-Holstein, and that a phased approach would be taken. Systems
would be run in parallel before eventually being transitioned once
departments and workers were ready.

He also sounded a realistic note and pointed out that the costs would
probably end up being around the same. However, he did expect that the
shift to open-source would bring forth greater flexibility and security.
And, perhaps most importantly, greater digital sovereignty.

The Register contacted Microsoft for its take on the plans and will update
should the Windows maker respond.

On 22/11/2021 14:02, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 09:19, Spike wrote:
>> On 21/11/2021 22:35, Java Jive wrote:
>>> On 21/11/2021 21:49, Indy Jess John wrote:

>>>> It is interesting to see that I found reference to Wuhan being a "secure
>>>> laboratory" and not one where foreign scientists have free access which
>>>> has been your position.  There is currently no way of telling whether
>>>> the evidence was false then or is false now,

>>> Bollocks, that's another piece of conspiracy theory paranoia. Let me
>>> remind you again of what Peter Daszac was saying in May 2020:

>>> BBC Inside Science, 7/5/2020
>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hvt6

>> Ah, the BBC. That bastion of unbiased reporting. Not.

> Whereas Spike who has yet to produce any relevant *EVIDENCE* to the
> lab-leak origin is more reliable than the BBC? No, this is just trying
> to shoot the messenger because you don't like the message.

I don't have to 'provide the evidence', as it forms that part of your
'balance' that you wish to ignore. Which isn't scientific, of course.

>>> "I've been working with Chinese scientists for fifteen years'

Blah blah.

>> That's the fallacious argument of an appeal to authority. Or trumpet
>> blowing,

>> Could you find references from the BBC that include scientific evidence
>> that does /not/ agree with the benign view of the WIV?

> I've already linked to two ambivalent reports by the BBC.

So you're saying that you might have your 'balance' wrong.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:24, Spike wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 13:59, Java Jive wrote:
>
>> What is it about the phrase still quoted above that you have such
>> difficulty in understanding the meaning of? I said the balance of
>> scientific evidence is firmly against a lab-leak, that doesn't imply
>> that there was no evidence at all.
>
> Whose 'balance'?

The balance of appropriately qualified scientists who have examined the
issue.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:29, Spike wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 14:02, Java Jive wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 09:19, Spike wrote:
>>> On 21/11/2021 22:35, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 21/11/2021 21:49, Indy Jess John wrote:
>
>>>>> It is interesting to see that I found reference to Wuhan being a "secure
>>>>> laboratory" and not one where foreign scientists have free access which
>>>>> has been your position.  There is currently no way of telling whether
>>>>> the evidence was false then or is false now,
>
>>>> Bollocks, that's another piece of conspiracy theory paranoia. Let me
>>>> remind you again of what Peter Daszac was saying in May 2020:
>
>>>> BBC Inside Science, 7/5/2020
>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hvt6
>
>>> Ah, the BBC. That bastion of unbiased reporting. Not.
>
>> Whereas Spike who has yet to produce any relevant *EVIDENCE* to the
>> lab-leak origin is more reliable than the BBC? No, this is just trying
>> to shoot the messenger because you don't like the message.
>
> I don't have to 'provide the evidence', as it forms that part of your
> 'balance' that you wish to ignore. Which isn't scientific, of course.

You hold a belief that that runs counter to the balance of scientific
evidence on the issue, a good deal of which has been presented to you,
and therefore the onus is on you to justify your beliefs. Stop this
childish and dishonest whingeing and let's see *EVIDENCE*, put up or
shut up.

>> I've already linked to two ambivalent reports by the BBC.
>
> So you're saying that you might have your 'balance' wrong.

No, I'm saying that you're deliberately ignoring what has already been
presented to you. Stop this childish and dishonest whingeing and let's
see *EVIDENCE*, put up or shut up.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:16, Spike wrote:
>
> Well, I'm waiting for someone to cite a 'well-founded work of an
> authority' in this matter.

TRANSLATION: I've been given lots of evidence but am dishonestly
ignoring it.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:23, Spike wrote:
>
> On 22/11/2021 14:18, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> On 22/11/2021 09:18, Spike wrote:
>>>
>>> On 21/11/2021 17:49, Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>>> https://skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
>
>>> That group runs a blacklist of scientists that don't toe their line.
>>> What is it that they are afraid of?
>
>> They debunk people like you that propagate dishonest conspiracy theories.
>
> Name one.

Spike.

>>> Science is controlled through funding. It goes in one of two ways:
>>>
>>> "So, Professor James. we're offering you an open-ended grant for your
>>> research centre to prove that a trace gas is warming the planet".
>>> "Thanks, I'll get the team on it right away".
>
>> I wouldn't have thought my quote above could possibly be misinterpreted,
>> but given your dishonest determination to do so, let me try again: after
>> the 'climategate' debacle concerning the global warming findings of the
>> CRU, denialist oil millionaires the Koch brothers funded Berkeley Earth
>> to investigate the findings of the CRU, presumably in the hope that they
>> would expose some sort of fraud, bad science, or whatever. However,
>> Berkeley Earth, instead of finding against the CRU, actually *confirmed*
>> the CRU's findings.
>
> The programmers notes were damning.

Except that, not only the above, but, I forget now, is 6, or 7, no 8,
independent inquiries since have found otherwise (yes, it's Wikipedia,
tough shit if you don't like it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Inquiries_and_reports

>> So the CRU were cleared by a scientific investigation funded by
>> denialist money, and as it is often said, "He who pays the piper calls
>> the tune!", that could be seen as being worth rather more than being
>> cleared by an investigation that was funded otherwise.
>
>> And note the good correlation between CO2 and temperature rise.
>
> The Vostok ice core shows four glacial/intergalcial periods. In every
> one, the CO2 lagged the temperature rise by hundreds to thousands of years.

Which is *EXACTLY* as predicted and explained by climate science. Look
up Milankovic/Milankovitch cycles

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:18, Spike wrote:
>
> On 22/11/2021 14:24, Pamela wrote:
>>
>> The fact we can't simulate the Earth's climate down to the last atom
>> doesn't mean can't run useful models.
>
> Rubbish.

Where is your *EVIDENCE* for this claim stated as though it were fact?

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:25, Spike wrote:
>
> On 22/11/2021 14:25, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> I can't know until you provide some, we're still waiting for your
>> *EVIDENCE*!
>
> You already have evidence, it's in your claim that you think there's a
> balance.

FALSE! Despite being challenged times beyond counting to do so, you
have yet to provide any relevant and convincing *EVIDENCE* to support
your claims for a lab-leak origin of covid; stop this childish and
dishonest whingeing, and give *EVIDENCE* to support your claims; put up
or shut up.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:25, Spike wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 14:30, Java Jive wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 11:03, Spike wrote:
>>> On 22/11/2021 10:24, Incubus wrote:
>>>> On 2021-11-21, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>>> No, and it's increasingly likely that no one origin will be proved, so
>>>>> we have to go with what is supported by the *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE*, not
>>>>> what flies in the face of it.
>
>>>> Science doesn't assert facts based on "balance of evidence",
>>>> particularly when other outcomes have deliberately been ignored.
>
>>> In the case of the WIV, there is science supporting both sides, as Java
>>> Jive repeatedly admits.
>
>> But the *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE* is firmly against a lab-leak origin, as
>> you will not admit.
>
> Whose balance?

Already answered elsewhere in thread, the balance of scientists in the
field.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 15:01, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 14:13, Robin wrote:
>>
>> But "accept that the issue won't be clarified" does not equate to
>> "believe as an article of faith that it was the wet market and dismiss
>> the mere possibility of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory".  The
>> latter strikes me as more reminiscent of the Supreme Sacred
>> Congregation than of a "desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to
>> meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to
>> dispose and set in order".
>
> The *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE* is firmly against a lab-leak origin.  There is
> in effect little or no reliable *EVIDENCE* for the WIV being the source
> of the leak and, despite repeated requests to do so, Spike, Incubus,
> Indy Jess John, and others have yet to come up with anything even
> remotely convincing in support of this belief, what little produced
> being either historically irrelevant or 'conspiracy theory' in nature.
> Moreover, there is an audit trail that shows that the very first reports
> that the origin was the WIV were put about by a Chinese defector funded
> by Trump supporters, and almost the entirety of its history since can
> easily be understood as being the result of the ...
>     Garbage In => Garbage Out
> ... echo chamber amplifier of social media, often fomented by
> politicians  -  particularly right-wing ones in the US who are still
> sore at losing the presidential election and keen to blame anyone but
> themselves  -  which a few scientists have then taken seriously enough
> to write papers on, but the only ones that I know of supporting a
> lab-leak have been disproven since by subsequent findings.  So we're
> left with the fact that there is in effect little or no still upstanding
> evidence supporting a lab-leak origin of covid-19, and certainly nothing
> convincing.  Therefore to persist in believing it is to believe in
> conspiracy theories, and it's noticeable that of the people we know best
> who are doing so, they also believe in and/or have argued long and hard
> in favour of others.
>

Pleased don't associate me with "belief" one way or the other. I abhor
fundamentalists on both sides of debate.

Beyond that I'll leave you to educate the likes of the Washington Post
who only last week hadn't realised that "lab leak" was not fit to be
taken seriously.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/18/coronavirus-origins-wuhan-market-animals-science-journal/

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

In article <fcac94b7-9bb1-1986-4319-47c8583c650a@outlook.com>, Robin
<rbw@outlook.com> wrote:
> All perfectly fair for a scientific theory. But I wonder if that's the
> right "scientific" analogy. Suppose you had a tumour. Its presentation
> and the tests to date show there is a 95% probability it is benign and
> a 5% probability it is aggressively malign with less than 1% chance of
> 5+ years survival. If malign, treatment gives an 80% chance of 5+
> years survival. Would you want further, non-lethal investigation to
> seek to establish which it is? Or would you settle for the 95%?

Since I know tests can also give false +ve results, or imply the wrong
'cause' in the mind of a medic I'd ask for more information about that test
and any potential further ones. Some 'tests' can be invasive or have their
own risks.

Add to that my experience of medics: I'd probably doubt *anything* they
told me until I'd found out more for myself. Medical doctors are NOT
scientists. I've encountered some shocking examples who nearly killed my
wife, for example. Mis-diagnosis is more common that people may assume.

FWIW in the past I *have* had a test result that was said might mean
cancer. However rather than follow what they said, and because of my actual
medical history - which the tester didn't know, I went to a different
specialist. They gave a totally different diagnosis which actually fitted
my medical history, not just the one test.

So attempts at 'analogies' can be rather dubious over-simplifications.
Depending on contexts of this kind they can lead people to misunderstand or
misrepresent what the science results actually tell those who can study it
correctly.

Our views on something like climate change aren't based on 'one test' that
gives a '96%' probability. But on many different sets of experimental data
and its analysis. Plus various scientists seeking to replicate or find
checkable possible misleading factors in previous examinations, etc.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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In article <ee79a37f-b9a6-0453-fb4e-e986b10a9042@outlook.com>, Robin
<rbw@outlook.com> wrote:
> > So we have to go with what the science tells us at the moment, which
> > is that the origin was least likely to be a lab-leak, and most likely
> > to be via the wet-market.

> But "accept that the issue won't be clarified" does not equate to
> "believe as an article of faith that it was the wet market and dismiss
> the mere possibility of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory".

However you can potentially 'but' that back with...

Basing your views on the existing evidence isn't the same as assuming the
things you state above. The scientific approach is that new evidence can
also be gathered and assessed, and if this indicates a new conclusion, that
can be taken onboard. As things stand IIUC the general weight of the
scientific examinations is that covid didn't come from a lab, but
from route like a wet market, etc.

The alternative doesn't need to be 'dismissed', but the would need
suitable *evidence* from a process whose science can be examined if
anyone wants it to be taken seriously or displace the 'wet market'
(or similar) conclusion. i.e. matter of evidence, etc, not of
assertions of what might be 'possible' or via bluster on usenet.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 15:18 22 Nov 2021, Spike said:
> On 22/11/2021 14:24, Pamela wrote:
>> On 17:15 21 Nov 2021, Spike said:
>>> On 21/11/2021 13:49, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 21/11/2021 08:10, Indy Jess John wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I am not a climate denialist either, just someone who thinks the
>>>>> drivers of climate are a bit more complicated than what is
>>>>> currently modelled, and look forward to further research which
>>>>> might explain why the start of each ice age has been preceded by
>>>>> a couple of centuries of abnormally high temperatures, even
>>>>> before mankind evolved.
>>>>
>>>> For a non-climate-denialist, you've sure wasted a lot of
>>>> everyone's time here in the past putting forward denialist
>>>> arguments, most of which you could easily have debunked for
>>>> yourself by suitable research online.
>>>
>>> There isn't currently enough computing power on the planet to
>>> model the climate, due to its being a chaotic system, the
>>> components being numerous and not all being known, and the level
>>> of their inputs are not known either. The current models, which
>>> run a tiny subset of the contributors to the climate, have
>>> predicted nothing, and AFAICT have never even 'predicted' past
>>> climate. Clouds, for example, are not modelled - a set of standard
>>> conditions for cloud effects is assumed, and which, given their
>>> far greater effect on the climate than trace gasses, is
>>> astonishing.
>>>
>>> Please don't quote Wikipedia in any response you might feel the
>>> need to make.
>>
>> The fact we can't simulate the Earth's climate down to the last
>> atom doesn't mean can't run useful models.
>
> Rubbish.

That's saying all our climate models are not useful.

What does your favourite dictionary of latin expressions for logical
fallacies say about "reductio ad absurdum"?

On 15:29 22 Nov 2021, Spike said:
> On 22/11/2021 14:02, Java Jive wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 09:19, Spike wrote:
>>> On 21/11/2021 22:35, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 21/11/2021 21:49, Indy Jess John wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It is interesting to see that I found reference to Wuhan being a
>>>>> "secure laboratory" and not one where foreign scientists have
>>>>> free access which has been your position.  There is currently
>>>>> no way of telling whether the evidence was false then or is
>>>>> false now,
>>>>
>>>> Bollocks, that's another piece of conspiracy theory paranoia.
>>>> Let me remind you again of what Peter Daszac was saying in May
>>>> 2020:
>>>>
>>>> BBC Inside Science, 7/5/2020
>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hvt6
>>>
>>> Ah, the BBC. That bastion of unbiased reporting. Not.
>>
>> Whereas Spike who has yet to produce any relevant *EVIDENCE* to the
>> lab-leak origin is more reliable than the BBC? No, this is just
>> trying to shoot the messenger because you don't like the message.
>
> I don't have to 'provide the evidence', as it forms that part of
> your 'balance' that you wish to ignore. Which isn't scientific, of
> course.

Oh dear. Is that what passes for debate?

On 22/11/2021 16:06, Robin wrote:
>
> On 22/11/2021 15:01, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> On 22/11/2021 14:13, Robin wrote:
>>>
>>> But "accept that the issue won't be clarified" does not equate to
>>> "believe as an article of faith that it was the wet market and
>>> dismiss the mere possibility of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory".
>>> The latter strikes me as more reminiscent of the Supreme Sacred
>>> Congregation than of a "desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness
>>> to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness
>>> to dispose and set in order".
>>
>> The *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE* is firmly against a lab-leak origin.  There
>> is in effect little or no reliable *EVIDENCE* for the WIV being the
>> source of the leak and, despite repeated requests to do so, Spike,
>> Incubus, Indy Jess John, and others have yet to come up with anything
>> even remotely convincing in support of this belief, what little
>> produced being either historically irrelevant or 'conspiracy theory'
>> in nature. Moreover, there is an audit trail that shows that the very
>> first reports that the origin was the WIV were put about by a Chinese
>> defector funded by Trump supporters, and almost the entirety of its
>> history since can easily be understood as being the result of the ...
>>      Garbage In => Garbage Out
>> ... echo chamber amplifier of social media, often fomented by
>> politicians  -  particularly right-wing ones in the US who are still
>> sore at losing the presidential election and keen to blame anyone but
>> themselves  -  which a few scientists have then taken seriously enough
>> to write papers on, but the only ones that I know of supporting a
>> lab-leak have been disproven since by subsequent findings.  So we're
>> left with the fact that there is in effect little or no still
>> upstanding evidence supporting a lab-leak origin of covid-19, and
>> certainly nothing convincing.  Therefore to persist in believing it is
>> to believe in conspiracy theories, and it's noticeable that of the
>> people we know best who are doing so, they also believe in and/or have
>> argued long and hard in favour of others.
>
> Pleased don't associate me with "belief" one way or the other.  I abhor
> fundamentalists on both sides of debate.

I wasn't, though I think you are being too generous to the side of the
debate that in its support has little evidence anyway and certainly none
at all that has been produced here.

> Beyond that I'll leave you to educate the likes of the Washington Post
> who only last week hadn't realised that "lab leak" was not fit to be
> taken seriously.
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/18/coronavirus-origins-wuhan-market-animals-science-journal/

That's a rather one-sided summary of the article, which, while in the
interests of impartiality rightly mentions conflicting views,
nevertheless majors on the conversion of a scientist who previously had
been inclined to give prominence to the lab-leak origin but now thinks
it unlikely. Even the headline tells you that:

"Prominent scientist [Michael Worobey] who said lab-leak theory of
covid-19 origin should be probed now believes evidence points to Wuhan
market"

As part of its very proper impartial presentation, the article cites
Jesse Bloom against Worobey:

"Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center in Seattle, said the quality of the data from China on
early coronavirus infections is too poor to support any conclusion.

“I don’t feel like anything can be concluded with high or even really
modest confidence about the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, simply
because the underlying data are so limited,” Bloom said. He contends
that genetic evidence from early virus samples points to the market as a
superspreader event, but not as the location of the first set of
infections.""

It was this same Jesse Bloom that I have already quoted twice in this
thread as suggesting that the virus outbreak must have begun sometime
before the first accredited known cases, perhaps even as early as early
October, who stated that his results did not favour any particular
origin, and who claimed when giving the results of his analysis of these
early samples originating from China that they bore some evidence of
being made hard to find. However, the original WP report of his
findings are linked from the article above, and in it we now read:

"Robert F. Garry, a Tulane University virologist who co-wrote an
influential March 2020 paper saying SARS-CoV-2 was a natural virus and
not engineered, took issue with the new Bloom paper. Among his
criticisms: The key data from the China study, a list of mutations seen
in the virus sequences, has remained available to researchers in an
appendix.

He said Bloom found the same mutations.

“Jesse Bloom found exactly nothing new that is not already part of the
scientific literature,” Garry wrote in an email. He called the Bloom
paper “inflammatory.”

And what of David A. Relman, the other scientist polled in the interests
of impartiality for an opposing view in both these articles? As far as
I have been able to discover, he has been entirely consistent over a
long period of time in saying that the origins of the outbreak need to
be fully investigated, with which no-one would disagree but as we know
it has only been partially investigated and now is unlikely to be more
fully investigated. I have not been able to find any research by him
relevant to even covid-19, let alone its origins, so, while his expert
views should certainly be acknowledged and listened to, AFAICT he hasn't
himself actually produced any evidence one way or the other.

Which leaves us pretty much where we were before: if possible, more
research is needed and should be done, but if and until it is, the
majority scientific view is firmly against the lab-leak claim.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 22/11/2021 10:28, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> In article<sneh1i$qaj$1@dont-email.me>, Indy Jess John
> <bathwatchdog@OMITTHISgooglemail.com> wrote:
>> On 21/11/2021 16:28, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>>> Even the Linux file manager works pretty much the same way as the
>>> Windows one, so if I decided to change my main system tomorrow I'd
>>> hardly have to learn anything new.
>>>
>> A quick proof of the pudding -
>
>> I have a friend who has a home laptop she doesn't use a great deal, but
>> it does allow her to keep in touch by e-mail and to buy online tickets
>> for events or travel, and to write letters. It ran Vista.
>
>> When Microsoft declared the end of support for Vista, she asked me what
>> she should do, and I said I would upgrade it for her. She dropped the
>> laptop off at my house so that I could do that.
>
>> I dumped off all her personal files (usefully defaulted to "My
>> Documents" "My Music" etc, so nothing complicated there) to a pen drive.
>> Then I installed Linux Mint, which wiped the disc of Vista, and then I
>> configured it to look exactly like the Vista desktop she was used to,
>> and ...
>
> [snip]
>
>> I gave it back to her simply saying I have updated it, and even a couple
>> of years later she still thinks she is running "upgraded Vista". I
>> haven't disillusioned her.
>
> Interesting. :-)
>
> I've never tried doing that to anyone because I'd probably not get it right
> because it is so long since I've used doze and I'd not 'fake it' well
> enough.
>
> Jim
>
It wasn't too difficult. I photographed the screen view of the desktop
on the laptop she left with me so that I knew where the icons were and
what they were called, and before I dumped anything off I tried each of
them so that I knew what each of them did and where they stored anything
saved.

I am not particularly skilled in Linux, but I have got a couple of
different Linuxes I tinker with now and again with two different GUIs,
so I knew how to get a Linux OS to make a reasonable impression of being
a Vista one. Then it was just a matter of calling the icons her
existing names, putting them where she expected to find them on her
screen, and linking them to the functions she expected them to do.

When I gave it back to her it looked familiar and she just used it as
she always had.

Jim

On 22/11/2021 19:03, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 16:06, Robin wrote:
>>
>> On 22/11/2021 15:01, Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>> On 22/11/2021 14:13, Robin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> But "accept that the issue won't be clarified" does not equate to
>>>> "believe as an article of faith that it was the wet market and
>>>> dismiss the mere possibility of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory".
>>>> The latter strikes me as more reminiscent of the Supreme Sacred
>>>> Congregation than of a "desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness
>>>> to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider,
>>>> carefulness to dispose and set in order".
>>>
>>> The *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE* is firmly against a lab-leak origin.  There
>>> is in effect little or no reliable *EVIDENCE* for the WIV being the
>>> source of the leak and, despite repeated requests to do so, Spike,
>>> Incubus, Indy Jess John, and others have yet to come up with anything
>>> even remotely convincing in support of this belief, what little
>>> produced being either historically irrelevant or 'conspiracy theory'
>>> in nature. Moreover, there is an audit trail that shows that the very
>>> first reports that the origin was the WIV were put about by a Chinese
>>> defector funded by Trump supporters, and almost the entirety of its
>>> history since can easily be understood as being the result of the ...
>>>      Garbage In => Garbage Out
>>> ... echo chamber amplifier of social media, often fomented by
>>> politicians  -  particularly right-wing ones in the US who are still
>>> sore at losing the presidential election and keen to blame anyone but
>>> themselves  -  which a few scientists have then taken seriously
>>> enough to write papers on, but the only ones that I know of
>>> supporting a lab-leak have been disproven since by subsequent
>>> findings.  So we're left with the fact that there is in effect little
>>> or no still upstanding evidence supporting a lab-leak origin of
>>> covid-19, and certainly nothing convincing.  Therefore to persist in
>>> believing it is to believe in conspiracy theories, and it's
>>> noticeable that of the people we know best who are doing so, they
>>> also believe in and/or have argued long and hard in favour of others.
>>
>> Pleased don't associate me with "belief" one way or the other.  I
>> abhor fundamentalists on both sides of debate.
>
> I wasn't, though I think you are being too generous to the side of the
> debate that in its support has little evidence anyway and certainly none
> at all that has been produced here.
>
>> Beyond that I'll leave you to educate the likes of the Washington Post
>> who only last week hadn't realised that "lab leak" was not fit to be
>> taken seriously.
>>
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/18/coronavirus-origins-wuhan-market-animals-science-journal/
>
>
> That's a rather one-sided summary of the article, which, while in the
> interests of impartiality rightly mentions conflicting views,
> nevertheless majors on the conversion of a scientist who previously had
> been inclined to give prominence to the lab-leak origin but now thinks
> it unlikely.  Even the headline tells you that:

I offered no "summary" so I regret your accusing me of being one-sided.
I stated the plain fact that the WP (like many others) did not treat
"lab leak" as a "conspiracy theory".

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On 22/11/2021 15:46, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:23, Spike wrote:

>> The programmers notes were damning.

> Except that, not only the above, but, I forget now, is 6, or 7, no 8,
> independent inquiries since have found otherwise (yes, it's Wikipedia,
> tough shit if you don't like it):

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Inquiries_and_reports

MRDA

>>> And note the good correlation between CO2 and temperature rise.

>> The Vostok ice core shows four glacial/intergalcial periods. In every
>> one, the CO2 lagged the temperature rise by hundreds to thousands of years.

> Which is *EXACTLY* as predicted and explained by climate science. Look
> up Milankovic/Milankovitch cycles

Milankovich cycles have been debunked by the believer community, FWIW,
probably due to their inconvenient truth.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:53, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:25, Spike wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 14:25, Java Jive wrote:

>>> I can't know until you provide some, we're still waiting for your
>>> *EVIDENCE*!

>> You already have evidence, it's in your claim that you think there's a
>> balance.

> FALSE! Despite being challenged times beyond counting to do so, you
> have yet to provide any relevant and convincing *EVIDENCE* to support
> your claims for a lab-leak origin of covid; stop this childish and
> dishonest whingeing, and give *EVIDENCE* to support your claims; put up
> or shut up.

You already have *EVIDENCE*, it's in your claim that you think there's
a balance.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:54, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:25, Spike wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 14:30, Java Jive wrote:
>>> On 22/11/2021 11:03, Spike wrote:
>>>> On 22/11/2021 10:24, Incubus wrote:
>>>>> On 2021-11-21, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:

>>>>>> No, and it's increasingly likely that no one origin will be proved, so
>>>>>> we have to go with what is supported by the *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE*, not
>>>>>> what flies in the face of it.

>>>>> Science doesn't assert facts based on "balance of evidence",
>>>>> particularly when other outcomes have deliberately been ignored.

>>>> In the case of the WIV, there is science supporting both sides, as Java
>>>> Jive repeatedly admits.

>>> But the *BALANCE OF EVIDENCE* is firmly against a lab-leak origin, as
>>> you will not admit.

>> Whose balance?

> Already answered elsewhere in thread, the balance of scientists in the
> field.

So a one-sided balance, then.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:32, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:24, Spike wrote:
>> On 22/11/2021 13:59, Java Jive wrote:

>>> What is it about the phrase still quoted above that you have such
>>> difficulty in understanding the meaning of? I said the balance of
>>> scientific evidence is firmly against a lab-leak, that doesn't imply
>>> that there was no evidence at all.

>> Whose 'balance'?

> The balance of appropriately qualified scientists who have examined the
> issue.

So there's some scientists for a natural cause, and some for a lab leak.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:36, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:29, Spike wrote:

>> I don't have to 'provide the evidence', as it forms that part of your
>> 'balance' that you wish to ignore. Which isn't scientific, of course.

> You hold a belief that that runs counter to the balance of scientific
> evidence on the issue, a good deal of which has been presented to you,
> and therefore the onus is on you to justify your beliefs. Stop this
> childish and dishonest whingeing and let's see *EVIDENCE*, put up or
> shut up.

>>> I've already linked to two ambivalent reports by the BBC.

>> So you're saying that you might have your 'balance' wrong.

> No, I'm saying that you're deliberately ignoring what has already been
> presented to you. Stop this childish and dishonest whingeing and let's
> see *EVIDENCE*, put up or shut up.

You already have *EVIDENCE*, it's in your claim that you think there's
a balance.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:37, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:16, Spike wrote:

>> Well, I'm waiting for someone to cite a 'well-founded work of an
>> authority' in this matter.

> TRANSLATION: I've been given lots of evidence but am dishonestly
> ignoring it.

You already have *EVIDENCE*, it's in your claim that you think there's
a balance.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 15:48, Java Jive wrote:
> On 22/11/2021 15:18, Spike wrote:

>>> The fact we can't simulate the Earth's climate down to the last atom
>>> doesn't mean can't run useful models.

>> Rubbish.

> Where is your *EVIDENCE* for this claim stated as though it were fact?

The *EVIDENCE* is in the fact that the models have been unable to
predict anything with any accuracy or over any significant timescale,
and are highly unreliable due to their very limited capabilities.
Haven't you noticed that 'the models' have dropped out of the narrative,
in the same fashion as polar bears? They've outlived their usefulness.

--
Spike

On 22/11/2021 22:52, Spike wrote:
>
> You already have *EVIDENCE*, it's in your claim that you think there's
> a balance.

Stop trying to lie your way out of this and give *EVIDENCE* to support
your claims; put up or shut up.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk