Table 1 actually does have a reference in the text, but it doesn't seem to be helpful. I think the major point of unclear methodology is the period over which those deaths are summed, since the lineage has continued to circulate since reintroduction:

> The human H1N1 lineage caused pandemic and endemic influenza from 1918 to 1956, then disappeared entirely around 1957 only to reappear in relatively low-level pandemic form in 1977. It has continued to circulate endemically in humans up to the present time (2009).

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2862331/

Michaelis's Table 1 says "1977-1979", but 700k seems too high for that; so the table seems misleading or wrong to me. Perhaps they're actually counting deaths from descendant lineages up to present--if a terrorist reintroduced smallpox, would you not blame them for every death until it was re-eradicated, even if that took many years? That might be what Burke meant by "over the ensuing years", though in that case it should have increased since 2009. That seems more plausible to me, if anything low.

It seems most likely to me that no one has calculated very rigorously, and the reviewers did back-of-the-napkin calculations similar to those I've just done and decided it was close enough, within the usual uncertainty (rigorous estimates in countries with good statistics are often ranges over 5:1 or more). I agree their failure to explain their methodology is bad, and I won't provide numbers in future without this context.

The calculation you provided earlier seems to be only for the period immediately around 1977, not including descendant lineages in subsequent years. I'd guess that's the reason for the apparent inconsistency, since almost all the death comes later.

So after all this, do you at least agree that (a) many people died, (b) the research accident caused those deaths, and (c) that's bad? I absolutely agree it's (almost surely) not 700.000k; but can you agree it's not zero?

> Humans predict the future? That sounds like magic. Are you sure that's true? Are we talking about prior probabilities or palmistry?

I assume you don't think weather forecasters are magicians? Or almost any human activity involves aspects of prediction--I cross the street because I predict that the barking pit bull might attack me, or I choose an item from the restaurant menu that I predict I'll enjoy eating.

So I don't see what's abnormal here. I don't think this dorm-room epistemology serves much purpose beyond distracting from the practical and serious topic at hand.

> Note that it doesn't make sense for a prior to be "your prior" or "my prior".

I think the possessive is just an acknowledgement that the right answer is disputable, and reasonable people may end up with different numbers. I'd tend to agree there's an EA-adjacent tendency towards misleading quantification, but the concept of a prior here seems fine to me.

> Not at all. Besides which the thread started when you used the term "prior probability" without understanding what it means.

So are you saying the 1977 flu doesn't infect humans, or that it didn't leak from a lab? I'm not sure what you mean here. I also think you've confused me with user
rich_sasha, since I didn't mention prior probability until you did.