ErnestScribbler

ACX recently posted about the Rootclaim Covid origins debate, coming out in favor of zoonosis. Did the post change the minds of those who read it, or not? Did it change their judgment in favor of zoonosis (as was probably the goal of the post), or conversely did it make them think Lab Leak was more likely (as the "Don't debate conspiracy theorists" theory claims)? I analyzed the ACX survey to find out, by comparing responses before and after the post came out. The ACX survey asked readers whether they think the origin of Covid is more likely natural or Lab Leak. The ACX survey went out March 26th and was open until about April 10th. The Covid origins post came out March 28th, and the highlights on April 9th. So we can compare people who responded before the origins post came out to those who responded after[1]. We should be careful, though, since those who fill out the survey earlier could be different than those who filled out later, and this could create a correlation which isn't causal. I used a Regression Discontinuity Design on the time of the response to see if there was a break in the trend of responses right at the time the Covid post went up. Figuratively, this compares respondents "right before" the post to "right after" so can help assuage the confound fears. I find that the post made readers more likely to think that the origin was indeed zoonosis. And this is highly significant. Here are the results, in charts. Analysis Here is the number of responses over time, with the timings of the posts highlighted. We'll mostly just need the timing of the Covid origins post, which is around response 4,002. I'm assuming that readers who responded to the survey after the post went up have read the post before responding. This is the post engagement data[1] which shows within a few days of posting, most views of the post already took place. The ACX Survey asked respondents what they thought about Covid origins. I substracted 3 from the questionnaire response