7 ms·

If COVID turns out to be an accidental lab release of a virus that went through gain-of-function experiments, Rees wins. Otherwise, Pinker wins. However, a con

by gojomo 6y ago

If COVID turns out to be an accidental lab release of a virus that went through gain-of-function experiments, Rees wins. Otherwise, Pinker wins. However, a consensus on the true origin of COVID may not be reached for years (or decades).

monoideism 6y ago
What if Covid was just released through bat research? Given the proximity of two bat research facilities to Wuhan, accidental release of a wild virus into human population seems much more likely than a gain of function scenario.
- gojomo 6y ago
  That'd also count as a 'bioerror'. But, what makes you think those Wuhan labs weren't doing gain-of-function research? Or even: inadvertent gain-of-function selection, via other research methods? See the proud tweet about testing ">50 novel" "bat SARS-related CoVs" against "human cells", and using "recombinant viruses/humanized mice to see SARS-like signs, and showing some don’t respond to MAbs, vaccines" that's linked in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370869 )
ivalm 6y ago
There is no evidence it is from lab, while it likely originated from bats, pangolins have very similar virus extant in the wild. The burden of proof is heavily on showing that it was released from the lab, Pinker wins by default.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  The US state department has said that they have intelligence that tells them that it originated in a lab, but do not believe the release was deliberate. Now, I take that with a grain of salt, state agencies are known to sometimes say what they need to to further their agenda. But it is worth noting. I've seen a few interviews and articles by evolutionary microbiologists who have examined some of the genetic and behavioral traits and found several that indicate that it evolved under selective pressures of being in a controlled environment like a lab. I don't have links to them, but I'm sure they can be found with an internet search, once you wade through the mountains of bullshit that you're sure to pull up when you do. Two behavioral traits I noted were the significantly lower number of cases that are thought to have been spread outdoors and the propensity of the virus to move across different tissues, a trait that is deliberately selected for in lab testing of viruses because it enables ease of testing in different scenarios. So there is evidence is came from a lab, but so far no proof that the public is privy too.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    No, just fake news [0]. At any rate, there are pretty good actual genetic studies, honestly what you would expect from a natural virus [1, 2] [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/coronavirus-origins-misinformation-yan-report-fact-check-cvd/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/coronavir... [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.24.391763v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.24.391763v1.... [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241
    - Closi 6y ago
      I can see the articles, but personally can’t help but be a little suspicious. The coronavirus pandemic, which started from a coronavirus in bats swapping species, started in the same city that happened to be actively researching the ability of coronaviruses from bats to swap species. This doesn’t mean it was “non-natural genetically”, but I don’t see how we can eliminate it happening in the lab as a possibility, particularly considering if it was true there would be a large incentive to perform a cover up. I mean personally I believe it starting in the lab is the more obvious answer applying Occam’s Razor.
      - betwixthewires 6y ago
        I agree with you, but I don't see Occam's Razor applying here. There really is no more likely point of origin with just a cursory look at the situation. There's a bio testing lab at the point of origin, but there are also numerous examples of viruses jumping species. Looking at the behavior of the virus and the arguments of some evolutionary geneticists (and I'm not well versed in genetics so I'm trusting their credentials here) changes things a bit of course.
        Closi 6y ago
        My logic for Occam's Razor is that if you see someone dead on the floor it's most likely they died of a heart attack. If you see someone dead on the floor and they are next to an open bottle of poison, they most likely died of a heart attack. Now maybe statistically it's more likely that someone just happened to have a heart attack next to an open bottle of poison, but Occam's Razor isn't to select the most likely answer, it's to select the simplest answer. The simpler answer is that he ingested poison, rather than he had a heart attack near a bottle of open poison. If a pandemic involving a bat-virus swapping species starts in a city then it was probably just a virus jumping species. If that city happens to be doing active research on how much bat-viruses can swap species, then I think Occam's Razor can apply. Obviously there is no objective truth to Occam's Razor, and what I think is the simplest explanation may differ from what you think is the simplest explanation.
- gojomo 6y ago
  There is plenty of suggestive evidence the pandemic arose from a lab escape. Novel natural bat SARS-like coronaviruses have been found in caves hundred of miles from Wuhan... but are brought to Wuhan for study. Here – https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1197631383470034951 https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1197631383470034951 – an expert on the topic & scientific collaborator with a Wuhan lab describes research he was proud of in November 2019: > we’ve made great progress with bat SARS-related CoVs, ID’ing >50 novel strains, sequencing spike protein genes, ID’ing ones that bind to human cells, using recombinant viruses/humanized mice to see SARS-like signs, and showing some don’t respond to MAbs, vaccines... Lab accidents leading to investigator infection & escape are distressingly common. So why should "wet market vendor" or "wildlife trader" or "farmer" be a more presumptive index-case than "researcher modifying bat coronaviruses searching for those that are most dangerous in humanized animal models"?
  - ivalm 6y ago
    See sister reply, it’s all basically FUD.
    - gojomo 6y ago
      Sister reply only seems to address the Yan report & malicious/military engineering - nothing about more generic lab escape. In particular, your NatGeo link's description of constant natural discoveries, and continuing searches for natural origins, is totally consistent with the most trivial & non-malicious lab escape scenario: (1) lab interested in this topic collects hundreds of novel natural strains that wouldn't normally cross from bats to human; (2) lab accident infects researcher; (3) researcher infects community. Isn't Peter Daszak, author of the tweet I quoted, a domain expert? We now know, from the pandemic, that a bat-related SARS-CoV2 virus that's highly transmissible in humans actually exists, somehow. There are human-staffed error-prone labs that specifically search for those kinds of viruses in bulk – for example, sending people deep into rarely-visited bat caves, collecting strains, then replicating (& remixing!) those strains to test them against human (and 'humanized') tissue for pathogenecity & treatment-resistance. Given those plain facts, what makes you think some other bat-human (pangolin-human?, something-else-human?) contact should be presumed a more likely route into humans than something involving a lab researcher? Until there's more evidence, why aren't they all live hypotheses?
- tristanj 6y ago
  The pangolin intermediate host theory, which has been heavily promoted by Chinese state media, has been invalidated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7405773/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7405773/ https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200708/Research-sheds-doubt-on-the-Pangolin-link-to-SARS-CoV-2.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200708/Research-sheds-do...
- himinlomax 6y ago
  While I agree it's unlikely it came from the lab, as the dreadful, disgusting wet markets have been known to be a risk for those pandemics for a long time and are more likely source, you can't just dismiss it out of hand. We certainly can't trust the communist dictatorship to clear up the issue with their aversion for openness and fondness for censorship.
- jl2718 6y ago
  I disagree. It’s easy to prove natural origin through a phylogenic tree, and that information is impossible to protect from the public. So now tell me what publicly-available evidence would guarantee to exist to prove lab origin.
  - rozab 6y ago
    Well we know it had some natural origin, nobody is claiming the virus is synthetic. The question is whether it was inadvertently spread to humans through the actions of scientists, rather than pure serendipity. We also know that the Wuhan lab was studying samples of novel coronavirii found in wild bats. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/chinese-lab-conducted-extensive-research-on-deadly-bat-viruses-but-there-is-no-evidence-of-accidental-release/2020/04/30/3e5d12a0-8b0d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/chinese-lab...
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  So far, the scientists say that the "escaped from lab" scenario cannot be dismissed : https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-is-being-seriously-questioned https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-is-be...
hyko 6y ago
There already is a consensus on the true origin of SARS-CoV-2.
- gojomo 6y ago
  Where?
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Among the scientific community.
    - gojomo 6y ago
      Which? Links?
    - tomp 6y ago
      Should we make “appeal to science” an official logical fallacy? Maybe a subtype of “appeal to authority”...
      - hef19898 6y ago
        No.
      - DangitBobby 6y ago
        You want to make deferring to the experise of the people most qualified to provide an informed opinion a logical fallacy?
- nradov 6y ago
  There is no consensus yet. We should keep an open mind. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246
  - hyko 6y ago
    I am keeping an open mind, which is why I refer to a consensus and not a fact. We have reasonable evidence that this is likely not a synthetic virus: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 Given that, we have to think about prior probabilities: what is more likely, and requires fewer assumptions? i.e. that the virus emerged via the bountiful natural mechanisms that evolution has bestowed upon the world (and that have wrought pestilence upon humans many times), or via those channels plus a mistake in a lab in Wuhan? It seems like a key part of the theories around the Wuhan Institute of Virology is that the virus emerged in Wuhan; in fact, we do not know where the virus emerged in humans. There's evidence that the virus was in Italy in December 2019: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article Obviously it would be a bit of a leap to link that to the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, a BSL4 facility. It is an entirely possible theory, but it cannot and will not become the consensus view of scientists without some real evidence. The consensus view among virologists is that the virus originated in bats, where it either spread to humans directly or through an intermediate host. A painstaking effort to identify the source is underway: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03165-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03165-9
imoverclocked 6y ago
This line of reasoning is seemingly missing the idea that we were prepared and informed about the epidemic before relevant groups were disbanded and it spread so widely. Also, gross incompetence with handling public policy is almost indistinguishable from malice. ie: The origin of the virus might not matter if the bioerror is considered to be the incompetent handling of the event. Given how many people are dying everyday in the US, I think we have definitely reached Rees’s bioerror definition.
- imtringued 6y ago
  That's just mangling the definition of bioerror until one side loses or wins. At that point the bet is about what the judge thinks instead of what the bet is actually about. Since the bet is now up to the judge the smartest decision would be to decide against the ambiguous argument to encourage future betters to avoid making more ambiguous bets.
  - imoverclocked 6y ago
    > By "bioerror", I mean something which has the same effect as a terror attack, but rises from inadvertance rather than evil intent. I don’t think it’s a stretch. In an optimistic view, the current administration could be said to have inadvertently allowed things to get so bad. In a more pessimistic view, there is malice involved.
    - jdauriemma 6y ago
      Agreed. I think the burden of proof would be on the person alleging an "inadvertent" mishandling of COVID when there's plenty of direct and circumstantial evidence to the contrary: blatant denialism, ridicule of basic preventive measures, assertions that the virus would "disappear," withholding of crucial information early in the outbreak, the list goes on. All of these intentional steps were taken by high US government officials, including the president.

by gojomo 6y ago

monoideism 6y ago

What if Covid was just released through bat research? Given the proximity of two bat research facilities to Wuhan, accidental release of a wild virus into human population seems much more likely than a gain of function scenario.

gojomo 6y ago
That'd also count as a 'bioerror'. But, what makes you think those Wuhan labs weren't doing gain-of-function research? Or even: inadvertent gain-of-function selection, via other research methods? See the proud tweet about testing ">50 novel" "bat SARS-related CoVs" against "human cells", and using "recombinant viruses/humanized mice to see SARS-like signs, and showing some don’t respond to MAbs, vaccines" that's linked in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370869 )

ivalm 6y ago

There is no evidence it is from lab, while it likely originated from bats, pangolins have very similar virus extant in the wild. The burden of proof is heavily on showing that it was released from the lab, Pinker wins by default.

betwixthewires 6y ago
The US state department has said that they have intelligence that tells them that it originated in a lab, but do not believe the release was deliberate. Now, I take that with a grain of salt, state agencies are known to sometimes say what they need to to further their agenda. But it is worth noting. I've seen a few interviews and articles by evolutionary microbiologists who have examined some of the genetic and behavioral traits and found several that indicate that it evolved under selective pressures of being in a controlled environment like a lab. I don't have links to them, but I'm sure they can be found with an internet search, once you wade through the mountains of bullshit that you're sure to pull up when you do. Two behavioral traits I noted were the significantly lower number of cases that are thought to have been spread outdoors and the propensity of the virus to move across different tissues, a trait that is deliberately selected for in lab testing of viruses because it enables ease of testing in different scenarios. So there is evidence is came from a lab, but so far no proof that the public is privy too.
- ivalm 6y ago
  No, just fake news [0]. At any rate, there are pretty good actual genetic studies, honestly what you would expect from a natural virus [1, 2] [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/coronavirus-origins-misinformation-yan-report-fact-check-cvd/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/coronavir... [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.24.391763v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.24.391763v1.... [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241
  - Closi 6y ago
    I can see the articles, but personally can’t help but be a little suspicious. The coronavirus pandemic, which started from a coronavirus in bats swapping species, started in the same city that happened to be actively researching the ability of coronaviruses from bats to swap species. This doesn’t mean it was “non-natural genetically”, but I don’t see how we can eliminate it happening in the lab as a possibility, particularly considering if it was true there would be a large incentive to perform a cover up. I mean personally I believe it starting in the lab is the more obvious answer applying Occam’s Razor.
    - betwixthewires 6y ago
      I agree with you, but I don't see Occam's Razor applying here. There really is no more likely point of origin with just a cursory look at the situation. There's a bio testing lab at the point of origin, but there are also numerous examples of viruses jumping species. Looking at the behavior of the virus and the arguments of some evolutionary geneticists (and I'm not well versed in genetics so I'm trusting their credentials here) changes things a bit of course.
      - Closi 6y ago
        My logic for Occam's Razor is that if you see someone dead on the floor it's most likely they died of a heart attack. If you see someone dead on the floor and they are next to an open bottle of poison, they most likely died of a heart attack. Now maybe statistically it's more likely that someone just happened to have a heart attack next to an open bottle of poison, but Occam's Razor isn't to select the most likely answer, it's to select the simplest answer. The simpler answer is that he ingested poison, rather than he had a heart attack near a bottle of open poison. If a pandemic involving a bat-virus swapping species starts in a city then it was probably just a virus jumping species. If that city happens to be doing active research on how much bat-viruses can swap species, then I think Occam's Razor can apply. Obviously there is no objective truth to Occam's Razor, and what I think is the simplest explanation may differ from what you think is the simplest explanation.
gojomo 6y ago
There is plenty of suggestive evidence the pandemic arose from a lab escape. Novel natural bat SARS-like coronaviruses have been found in caves hundred of miles from Wuhan... but are brought to Wuhan for study. Here – https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1197631383470034951 https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1197631383470034951 – an expert on the topic & scientific collaborator with a Wuhan lab describes research he was proud of in November 2019: > we’ve made great progress with bat SARS-related CoVs, ID’ing >50 novel strains, sequencing spike protein genes, ID’ing ones that bind to human cells, using recombinant viruses/humanized mice to see SARS-like signs, and showing some don’t respond to MAbs, vaccines... Lab accidents leading to investigator infection & escape are distressingly common. So why should "wet market vendor" or "wildlife trader" or "farmer" be a more presumptive index-case than "researcher modifying bat coronaviruses searching for those that are most dangerous in humanized animal models"?
- ivalm 6y ago
  See sister reply, it’s all basically FUD.
  - gojomo 6y ago
    Sister reply only seems to address the Yan report & malicious/military engineering - nothing about more generic lab escape. In particular, your NatGeo link's description of constant natural discoveries, and continuing searches for natural origins, is totally consistent with the most trivial & non-malicious lab escape scenario: (1) lab interested in this topic collects hundreds of novel natural strains that wouldn't normally cross from bats to human; (2) lab accident infects researcher; (3) researcher infects community. Isn't Peter Daszak, author of the tweet I quoted, a domain expert? We now know, from the pandemic, that a bat-related SARS-CoV2 virus that's highly transmissible in humans actually exists, somehow. There are human-staffed error-prone labs that specifically search for those kinds of viruses in bulk – for example, sending people deep into rarely-visited bat caves, collecting strains, then replicating (& remixing!) those strains to test them against human (and 'humanized') tissue for pathogenecity & treatment-resistance. Given those plain facts, what makes you think some other bat-human (pangolin-human?, something-else-human?) contact should be presumed a more likely route into humans than something involving a lab researcher? Until there's more evidence, why aren't they all live hypotheses?
tristanj 6y ago
The pangolin intermediate host theory, which has been heavily promoted by Chinese state media, has been invalidated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7405773/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7405773/ https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200708/Research-sheds-doubt-on-the-Pangolin-link-to-SARS-CoV-2.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200708/Research-sheds-do...
himinlomax 6y ago
While I agree it's unlikely it came from the lab, as the dreadful, disgusting wet markets have been known to be a risk for those pandemics for a long time and are more likely source, you can't just dismiss it out of hand. We certainly can't trust the communist dictatorship to clear up the issue with their aversion for openness and fondness for censorship.
jl2718 6y ago
I disagree. It’s easy to prove natural origin through a phylogenic tree, and that information is impossible to protect from the public. So now tell me what publicly-available evidence would guarantee to exist to prove lab origin.
- rozab 6y ago
  Well we know it had some natural origin, nobody is claiming the virus is synthetic. The question is whether it was inadvertently spread to humans through the actions of scientists, rather than pure serendipity. We also know that the Wuhan lab was studying samples of novel coronavirii found in wild bats. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/chinese-lab-conducted-extensive-research-on-deadly-bat-viruses-but-there-is-no-evidence-of-accidental-release/2020/04/30/3e5d12a0-8b0d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/chinese-lab...
BlueTemplar 6y ago
So far, the scientists say that the "escaped from lab" scenario cannot be dismissed : https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-is-being-seriously-questioned https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-is-be...

hyko 6y ago

There already is a consensus on the true origin of SARS-CoV-2.

gojomo 6y ago
Where?
- hef19898 6y ago
  Among the scientific community.
  - gojomo 6y ago
    Which? Links?
  - tomp 6y ago
    Should we make “appeal to science” an official logical fallacy? Maybe a subtype of “appeal to authority”...
    - hef19898 6y ago
      No.
    - DangitBobby 6y ago
      You want to make deferring to the experise of the people most qualified to provide an informed opinion a logical fallacy?
nradov 6y ago
There is no consensus yet. We should keep an open mind. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246
- hyko 6y ago
  I am keeping an open mind, which is why I refer to a consensus and not a fact. We have reasonable evidence that this is likely not a synthetic virus: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 Given that, we have to think about prior probabilities: what is more likely, and requires fewer assumptions? i.e. that the virus emerged via the bountiful natural mechanisms that evolution has bestowed upon the world (and that have wrought pestilence upon humans many times), or via those channels plus a mistake in a lab in Wuhan? It seems like a key part of the theories around the Wuhan Institute of Virology is that the virus emerged in Wuhan; in fact, we do not know where the virus emerged in humans. There's evidence that the virus was in Italy in December 2019: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article Obviously it would be a bit of a leap to link that to the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, a BSL4 facility. It is an entirely possible theory, but it cannot and will not become the consensus view of scientists without some real evidence. The consensus view among virologists is that the virus originated in bats, where it either spread to humans directly or through an intermediate host. A painstaking effort to identify the source is underway: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03165-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03165-9

imoverclocked 6y ago

This line of reasoning is seemingly missing the idea that we were prepared and informed about the epidemic before relevant groups were disbanded and it spread so widely. Also, gross incompetence with handling public policy is almost indistinguishable from malice. ie: The origin of the virus might not matter if the bioerror is considered to be the incompetent handling of the event. Given how many people are dying everyday in the US, I think we have definitely reached Rees’s bioerror definition.

imtringued 6y ago
That's just mangling the definition of bioerror until one side loses or wins. At that point the bet is about what the judge thinks instead of what the bet is actually about. Since the bet is now up to the judge the smartest decision would be to decide against the ambiguous argument to encourage future betters to avoid making more ambiguous bets.
- imoverclocked 6y ago
  > By "bioerror", I mean something which has the same effect as a terror attack, but rises from inadvertance rather than evil intent. I don’t think it’s a stretch. In an optimistic view, the current administration could be said to have inadvertently allowed things to get so bad. In a more pessimistic view, there is malice involved.
  - jdauriemma 6y ago
    Agreed. I think the burden of proof would be on the person alleging an "inadvertent" mishandling of COVID when there's plenty of direct and circumstantial evidence to the contrary: blatant denialism, ridicule of basic preventive measures, assertions that the virus would "disappear," withholding of crucial information early in the outbreak, the list goes on. All of these intentional steps were taken by high US government officials, including the president.