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> proving or refuting a plausible story about a synthetic biological weapon made by specific peoople in specific laboratories is a matter of espionage and inves

> proving or refuting a plausible story about a synthetic biological weapon made by specific peoople in specific laboratories is a matter of espionage and investigation, not of scientific evidence. Okay, fair enough, we'll call it forensic evidence. Either way, the arguments stand on their own merits. You can't dismiss a prosecutor's entire argument as "anti-defendant propaganda". The only people who would ever go to the trouble of building a case are the ones who believe the defendant to be guilty. Call it science or call it forensics, but the same principles of evidence and truth apply. Evaluate the argument on its merits.

HelloNurse 6y ago
From a purely scientific side, the "principles of evidence" show a plausible story, competing with less extraordinary and also plausible options (like similar viruses mutating in similar ways, or transfer of genome portions in some other way than the few simple ones discussed in the article). The article contains apparently knowledgeable reflections about what is possible or more or less likely, not actual evidence; true evidence would have to be of a more forensic nature, and it would increase the usefulness of this theory from a way to irritate China to a way to find useful information about therapy and vaccines. From a more literary and psychological angle, the evidence of disregard for alternative explanations, if not bad faith, is strong enough to discredit the article and place it on the spectrum of more or less intentional falsehood between completely delusional crackpot pseudo-research and completely deliberate poisonous PR effort.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  You probably need to just read the paper. It has very cold professional and neutral tone, lots of verifiable links and references. I mean, it really does not matter in what faith it is made, as soon as it checks out.
  - HelloNurse 6y ago
    I fail to discern a "cold", "professional" or "neutral" tone. Scientific jargon is not enough: there is a lot of cherry-picking, fallacious reasoning and "because I say so". > The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals. > the RaTG13 virus also diverted the attention of both the scientific field and the general public away from ZC45/ZXC21 > It is believed that the researchers of that laboratory were being punished for having disclosed the SARS-CoV-2—ZC45/ZXC21 connection. > This finding further substantiates the suspicion that the reported sequence of RaTG13 could have been fabricated > Even if we ignore the above evidence that no proper host exists for the recombination to take place and instead assume that such a host does exist, it is still highly unlikely that such a recombination event could occur in nature. > Importantly, this, and the other recombination event described below in section 1.3 (even more impossible to occur in nature), would both have to happen to produce a Spike as seen in SARS-CoV-2. > Strikingly, consistent with the RBM engineering theory, we have identified two unique restriction sites > Once the restriction sites were successfully introduced, the RBM segment could be swapped conveniently using routine restriction enzyme digestion and ligation. Although alternative cloning techniques may leave no trace of genetic manipulation (Gibson assembly as one example), this old-fashioned approach could be chosen because it offers a great level of convenience in swapping this critical RBM > The striking finding of EcoRI and BstEII restriction sites at either end of the SARS-CoV-2 RBM, respectively, and the fact that the same RBM region has been swapped both by Dr. Shi and by her long-term collaborator, respectively, using restriction enzyme digestion methods are unlikely a coincidence. Rather, it is the smoking gun proving that the RBM/Spike of SARS-CoV-2 is a product of genetic manipulation. Regarding links and references, how many are other papers from the same group, sock puppets, irrelevant material, bad research that remains a preprint for good reasons, and so on? For example: 8. Segreto, R. & Deigin, Y. Is considering a genetic-manipulation origin for SARS-CoV-2 a conspiracy theory that must be censored? Preprint (Researchgate) DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31358.13129/1 (2020). 20. Singla, M., Ahmad, S., Gupta, C. & Sethi, T. De-novo Assembly of RaTG13 Genome Reveals Inconsistencies Further Obscuring SARS-CoV-2 Origins. Preprints, 2020080595 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202008.0595.v1) (2020).
    - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
      Socket puppet? R. Segreto is not a sock puppet. Preprint, because big scientific magazines deny her article for potentially political reasons.
- jkhdigital 6y ago
  You clearly didn't read the paper very closely. The authors spend multiple pages looking at possible pathways for the observed genetic features to have emerged naturally, and provide arguments against each of these scenarios. You may contest their arguments as weak or insufficient, but it is dishonest to characterize this as "disregard for alternative explanations". > completely delusional crackpot pseudo-research I find that the more adjectives and adverbs you need to make a statement, the more desperate your argument has become.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    The thing is that I guess many people feel uncomfortable of seeing anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is considered right-wing agenda and such, yet they fail to realize that this is not about anti-China conspiracy, it is about issues of lab bio-safety on global scale. I mean, a good scientist should not be concerned about the political repercussions of finding the actual source, but only with what it really was. My personal belief is that you should should hide the truth, even for noble reasons, like it happened with N95 masks in March-April. No one gained anything from that.
    - jkhdigital 6y ago
      Yeah man, this entire comment thread is a trip. Mass downvoting of any comment that doesn't parrot the line that this is a politically-motivated conspiracy theory. I have faith that enough rational individuals can see through the chaff and decide for themselves, and hopefully the truth will eventually emerge.

HelloNurse 6y ago

From a purely scientific side, the "principles of evidence" show a plausible story, competing with less extraordinary and also plausible options (like similar viruses mutating in similar ways, or transfer of genome portions in some other way than the few simple ones discussed in the article). The article contains apparently knowledgeable reflections about what is possible or more or less likely, not actual evidence; true evidence would have to be of a more forensic nature, and it would increase the usefulness of this theory from a way to irritate China to a way to find useful information about therapy and vaccines. From a more literary and psychological angle, the evidence of disregard for alternative explanations, if not bad faith, is strong enough to discredit the article and place it on the spectrum of more or less intentional falsehood between completely delusional crackpot pseudo-research and completely deliberate poisonous PR effort.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
You probably need to just read the paper. It has very cold professional and neutral tone, lots of verifiable links and references. I mean, it really does not matter in what faith it is made, as soon as it checks out.
- HelloNurse 6y ago
  I fail to discern a "cold", "professional" or "neutral" tone. Scientific jargon is not enough: there is a lot of cherry-picking, fallacious reasoning and "because I say so". > The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals. > the RaTG13 virus also diverted the attention of both the scientific field and the general public away from ZC45/ZXC21 > It is believed that the researchers of that laboratory were being punished for having disclosed the SARS-CoV-2—ZC45/ZXC21 connection. > This finding further substantiates the suspicion that the reported sequence of RaTG13 could have been fabricated > Even if we ignore the above evidence that no proper host exists for the recombination to take place and instead assume that such a host does exist, it is still highly unlikely that such a recombination event could occur in nature. > Importantly, this, and the other recombination event described below in section 1.3 (even more impossible to occur in nature), would both have to happen to produce a Spike as seen in SARS-CoV-2. > Strikingly, consistent with the RBM engineering theory, we have identified two unique restriction sites > Once the restriction sites were successfully introduced, the RBM segment could be swapped conveniently using routine restriction enzyme digestion and ligation. Although alternative cloning techniques may leave no trace of genetic manipulation (Gibson assembly as one example), this old-fashioned approach could be chosen because it offers a great level of convenience in swapping this critical RBM > The striking finding of EcoRI and BstEII restriction sites at either end of the SARS-CoV-2 RBM, respectively, and the fact that the same RBM region has been swapped both by Dr. Shi and by her long-term collaborator, respectively, using restriction enzyme digestion methods are unlikely a coincidence. Rather, it is the smoking gun proving that the RBM/Spike of SARS-CoV-2 is a product of genetic manipulation. Regarding links and references, how many are other papers from the same group, sock puppets, irrelevant material, bad research that remains a preprint for good reasons, and so on? For example: 8. Segreto, R. & Deigin, Y. Is considering a genetic-manipulation origin for SARS-CoV-2 a conspiracy theory that must be censored? Preprint (Researchgate) DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31358.13129/1 (2020). 20. Singla, M., Ahmad, S., Gupta, C. & Sethi, T. De-novo Assembly of RaTG13 Genome Reveals Inconsistencies Further Obscuring SARS-CoV-2 Origins. Preprints, 2020080595 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202008.0595.v1) (2020).
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    Socket puppet? R. Segreto is not a sock puppet. Preprint, because big scientific magazines deny her article for potentially political reasons.
jkhdigital 6y ago
You clearly didn't read the paper very closely. The authors spend multiple pages looking at possible pathways for the observed genetic features to have emerged naturally, and provide arguments against each of these scenarios. You may contest their arguments as weak or insufficient, but it is dishonest to characterize this as "disregard for alternative explanations". > completely delusional crackpot pseudo-research I find that the more adjectives and adverbs you need to make a statement, the more desperate your argument has become.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  The thing is that I guess many people feel uncomfortable of seeing anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is considered right-wing agenda and such, yet they fail to realize that this is not about anti-China conspiracy, it is about issues of lab bio-safety on global scale. I mean, a good scientist should not be concerned about the political repercussions of finding the actual source, but only with what it really was. My personal belief is that you should should hide the truth, even for noble reasons, like it happened with N95 masks in March-April. No one gained anything from that.
  - jkhdigital 6y ago
    Yeah man, this entire comment thread is a trip. Mass downvoting of any comment that doesn't parrot the line that this is a politically-motivated conspiracy theory. I have faith that enough rational individuals can see through the chaff and decide for themselves, and hopefully the truth will eventually emerge.