Meta question: If you think there is a 1 in 1000 chance that you are wrong
I don’t think that credence is well thought of that way. Attempts to change my mind might change my credence even if they don’t change it to me thinking that a natural origin would be the most likely.
I don’t trust Seymour Hersh’s anonymous sources more than 70⁄30, even when The New Yorker publishes his pieces.
My own beliefs don’t rest on a single piece. I don’t think that anyone should hold credence that is as high as mine just because they read this article.
Like, what are the odds that the anonymous sources are members of the intelligence community who are saying it now as part of the [CIA’s, NSA’s, whatever’s] current political strategy relative to China?
Is that’s the CIA position they could have just changed the official CIA position and say “We uncovered new evidence and now believe that the lab leak theory is more likely” there would have been no reason to tell a story about how they overruled their own analysts to hide the lab leak theory. The story as it stands damages the reputation of those agencies and I think “The CIA does what’s good for the CIA” is a good heuristic to think about their actions.
I don’t think that credence is well thought of that way. Attempts to change my mind might change my credence even if they don’t change it to me thinking that a natural origin would be the most likely.
My own beliefs don’t rest on a single piece. I don’t think that anyone should hold credence that is as high as mine just because they read this article.
Is that’s the CIA position they could have just changed the official CIA position and say “We uncovered new evidence and now believe that the lab leak theory is more likely” there would have been no reason to tell a story about how they overruled their own analysts to hide the lab leak theory. The story as it stands damages the reputation of those agencies and I think “The CIA does what’s good for the CIA” is a good heuristic to think about their actions.