DR REDFORD AND OCCAM’S RAZOR
OCCAM’S RAZOR OR THE LAW OF PARSIMONY
A philosophical and scientific rule of logic that requires one to chose the simplest of competing theories over the more complex. Or: causes or entities which explain a theory should not be multiplied unnecessarily. William Hamilton: “cut away extraneous material”
THE CAUSE OF COVID 19.
The world is still reeling from the effects of the Covid19 pandemic. We are all certain that we never want this to happen again. But to do accomplish that goal we must make a valid assessment of just how the pandemic started to be able to address the issues that may have contributed to the outbreak, and then the missteps that somehow permitted the disease to spread and become a worldwide pandemic.
There are some facts we know with certainty. The Covid 19 disease is caused by a “novel” virus, a corona virus known as SARS Cov-2 (severe acute.respiratory syndrome ). This virus or a very similar one is known to infect bats which inhabit caves in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province. The first reported cases of this new disease were detected in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province in north central China in December 2019.
How did this new virus, (which is genetically 96% similar to the virus which infects bats in Yunnan caves) move from bats in southwestern Yunnan Province, nearly 1000 miles to infect citizens in Wuhan in north central China?
We also know that Chinese officials and others were less than transparent and dragged their feet when the disease broke out in Wuhan in December 2019. They let the disease fester a month befor the government reported anything to the WHO. It took more than six weeks before the Chinese government finally notified the WHO formally. The WHO organization (burdened as it is with leadership with ties to China) resisted calling the outbreak a pandemic-which would have mobilized world respponse—first terming it an “emergency” on January 30th 2020, and then finally on March 11 2020 it finally termed the outbreak a pandemic. Such stalling and foot dragging by the WHO and the nations involved must be addressed in any future circumstances.
The vicious attacks on some heroic Chinese physicians and scientists who were sanctioned (and jailed) by their government for speaking to news outlets attempting to alert the world to the dangers of the health crisis. Others Chinese scientists were prevented from publishing their data.
But the ultimate and perhaps most important question is how did the virus move the nearly 1000 miles from one end of China to the other?
COMPETING HYPOTHESES AND POLITICIZING SCIENCE
One hypothesis is that bats in southern China caves carrying the virus somehow infected other host animals. Some claim these host animals may have been Pangolins, others suggest Civet cats as potential carriers of the virus. It was during this period of transmission that the virus evolved into one that could infect humans. These infected animals are then hypothesized to have been caught and transported live to Wuhan many miles north where they were housed in a ‘wet market” where live animals are kept in cages until purchased for slaughter and prepared for consumption. It was during this period that the virus infected a worker or customer and then passed the virus on to others in Wuhan precipitating the epidemic and then the pandemic.
The second hypothesis is the following: Scientists at the Wuhan Virology Lab which is only a stones throw from the Wuhan wet market where the outbreak occurred is the source of the virus. The virologists in the WVL have studied and collected viruses from the Yunnan caves since the 2002-4 SARS outbreak. Virologists there have been, under contract, altering viruses genetically to try to understand how they might evolve to infect humans. It is possible that one of these workers tipped over a vial, contaminated him/herself and unknowing walked across the street for a lunch beak of civet cat burger and unknowingly infected several people in the wet market, precipitating an epidemic and pandemic.
DR ROBERT REDFORD’S OPINION
Dr. Robert Redfield, BS, MD was the 18 Director of CDC, and is/was a medical researcher working in virology, immunology and clinical research. He is co-founder of the Institute of Human Virology, Univ. Maryland, School of Medicine, and is best known for clinical research in HIV, virology, and the AIDS pandemic. Redfield became Director of CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) in January 29, 2020. He left that post in late 2020.
Recently, March 26, 2021, in an interview with CNN, Dr. Redfield stated that his belief was that the most likely hypothesis for the cause of the Covid 19 outbreak was that the SARS Cov-2 virus was accidentally released from the Wuhan Virology lab after genetic manipulation.
Dr Redfield, in the face of overwhelming pressure from China to submerge this hypothesis as unlikely, “went with the science” and the logic. Logic and the law of parsimony (Occam’s Razor) posits the simplest explanation over the one with multiples of causes. The simplest most likely hypothesis is the one that Dr. Redfield supports.
This does not prove that Redfield's hypothesis is the correct or valid one. It does not prove it to be true. All it says is that it is more likely than the other one needing so many ad hoc additions to support its contention. Though you woud not know that based on the reporting by the media, the Biden government and WHO agencies, and the talking heads who all seem to suggest that the Redfield hypothesis is “not likely”, or has “no basis in fact”, etc. These comments are the “less scientific” than the one opined by Redford who has followed logical protocol to reach his opinion.
Both hypotheses are unproven neither supported by direct observation or experimental evidence. We do not know which one is true. Those who support the more complex hypotheses, the one the Chinese support, have a greater burden of proof than Redfield, not the other way around.
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