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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

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.
      - ncn 6y ago
        I understand where you’re coming from. However couldn’t the even simpler explanation be that viruses frequently travel from bats to other species, this lab is in this city because there are a lot of bats with viruses there, and the thing that they are there to study ended up happening?
        Closi 6y ago
        I agree that’s a high possibility totally, I just don’t see how we can exclude the other possibility as confidently as everyone else seems to. Also, I think doing active research on something that can jump species and is highly contagious in a city would massively increase your risk of it jumping species in that city. That risk is increased if the lab is known for poor controls and was flagged as a risk, as the one in Wuhan was in the us cables. Additionally if a researcher did get infected, there is a high chance that they would be asymptomatic and wouldn’t even know it was them. The only “proof” that it wasn’t from the lab is the dna analysis, but that only proves that the research wasn’t altering the genome / that there was bio-engineering, there is still loads of research you can do without playing with the genome.
- gojomo 6y ago
  Your [0] link mainly refutes one specific theory, of Li-Meng Yan, about intentional military engineering. It does not refute the wider range of possibilities where a lab escape was part of the path from nature to human circulation. (When that article points out things like "Scientists have yet to find the direct parent of SARS-CoV-2 in feral beasts", or that with regard to some specific Chinese-military-catalogued viruses Yan fingered, "bat coronaviruses were circulating in wild bats and could have been discovered by anyone", it's saying things very consistent with the chance that this could be a wholly natural virus that was carried to Wuhan & then escaped into that urban environment via lab collection then escape. There were a lot of researchers carrying novel natural strains from caves back to labs!) Your links [1] & [2] are interesting but seem to include no opinion or reasoning for or against a lab escape or lab-enhancement, either way.
DarthGhandi 6y ago
> So there is evidence is came from a lab No there isn't, none whatever. The state department released internal cables saying the lab in Wuhan was poorly staffed, that was from years ago. What else have they claimed besides that? You've really done a number on the meaning of the word here. Literally no evidence.

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.
    - ncn 6y ago
      I understand where you’re coming from. However couldn’t the even simpler explanation be that viruses frequently travel from bats to other species, this lab is in this city because there are a lot of bats with viruses there, and the thing that they are there to study ended up happening?
      - Closi 6y ago
        I agree that’s a high possibility totally, I just don’t see how we can exclude the other possibility as confidently as everyone else seems to. Also, I think doing active research on something that can jump species and is highly contagious in a city would massively increase your risk of it jumping species in that city. That risk is increased if the lab is known for poor controls and was flagged as a risk, as the one in Wuhan was in the us cables. Additionally if a researcher did get infected, there is a high chance that they would be asymptomatic and wouldn’t even know it was them. The only “proof” that it wasn’t from the lab is the dna analysis, but that only proves that the research wasn’t altering the genome / that there was bio-engineering, there is still loads of research you can do without playing with the genome.
gojomo 6y ago
Your [0] link mainly refutes one specific theory, of Li-Meng Yan, about intentional military engineering. It does not refute the wider range of possibilities where a lab escape was part of the path from nature to human circulation. (When that article points out things like "Scientists have yet to find the direct parent of SARS-CoV-2 in feral beasts", or that with regard to some specific Chinese-military-catalogued viruses Yan fingered, "bat coronaviruses were circulating in wild bats and could have been discovered by anyone", it's saying things very consistent with the chance that this could be a wholly natural virus that was carried to Wuhan & then escaped into that urban environment via lab collection then escape. There were a lot of researchers carrying novel natural strains from caves back to labs!) Your links [1] & [2] are interesting but seem to include no opinion or reasoning for or against a lab escape or lab-enhancement, either way.

DarthGhandi 6y ago

> So there is evidence is came from a lab No there isn't, none whatever. The state department released internal cables saying the lab in Wuhan was poorly staffed, that was from years ago. What else have they claimed besides that? You've really done a number on the meaning of the word here. Literally no evidence.