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Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

• forgotmypw17 6y ago
  .
  • alphabettsy 6y ago
    Did anyone do the same with research for other countries? I’d be willing to bet the US and European research also mirrors features of COVID-19.
• delbarital 6y ago
  Rootclaim, an Israeli startup, claims Covid-19 SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a Chinese lab and was released was released by accident. They are offering to bet $100,000 on the accuracy of our analysis. Here you can find information about the challenge: https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge Personally, I think their logic is doesn't work and I would like to see someone credible challenges them.
  • BEEdwards 6y ago
    You can't prove a negative though. The burden of proof is on them.
    • whammywon 6y ago
      I wonder if that's why they're making the bet.
      • wsdookadr 6y ago
        It could be a direct application of Cunningham's law: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." In other words, a curiosity that begs to be proven wrong. We have a saying over here.. "A fool throws a pebble in a pond, and ten wise men can't recover it".
      • dathinab 6y ago
        Yes, it's a common approach to trick people into believing things: 1. Open a public "bet" or similar 2. Make it so that you can always wiggle yourself out of the bet (on nitpicking and legalese) 3. If someone challenges you wiggle yourself out hope that person sues you and then use nitpicking and legalese to win the court case about that proof of you being wrong not being applicable for the bet 4. Then claim that the court agreed with you that you have right with your bet (which isn't what the court case was about but people don't know and sometime don't (want to) understand). There had been some case of this pattern in Germany wrt. to (I think) vaccines and autism. If I remember correctly (I might not) their trick was to require a single scientific paper formulated in a way so that if you paper has other papers it refers to it's no longer eligible for that bet and in turn to win the bet you would have to do multiple large case studies from scratch in cram them into one massive paper covering multiple topics and the joint conclusion. I.e. it's not very feasible.
    • akyu 6y ago
      >You can't prove a negative though. You definitely can prove a negative.
      • chillacy 6y ago
        For some limited definitions of prove maybe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
    • khyryk 6y ago
      To be pedantic, you can't actually prove anything, positive or negative, outside of the realm of logic and mathematics.
  • FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    Fuck off, antisemite.
• sam_goody 6y ago
  Where do they offer $100K to anyone who debunks their hypothesis? How can someone "prove" it is Zoonotic in origin, to "win" the bet? Is this a false challenge; Someone may be able to prove that this started in a lab, but no one can prove the opposite. Free publicity. As an aside, it looks like they list "No whistleblowers" and "No reported infections at WIV" as increasing the odds it is not Zoonotic, which makes no sense.
  • delbarital 6y ago
    You are right. The way they structure their challenges is different. Basically it's a debate between the two parties and judges with the relevant domain-knowledge will decide who is right. I think this is the most unscientific way to judge a claim, but I think that it's possible that the a group of people with enough knowledge in epidemiology and biology will be able to win this competition.
  • nomy99 6y ago
    I guess the only way to really prove it is to find covid-19 in an animal and then expose it to the human with the antibodies to it and measure the response?
  • VectorLock 6y ago
    They describe it here: https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge >Since there is no lab test or clear-cut way to determine whether a Rootclaim analysis is correct, we have to rely on outside expert judges. I haven't been able to find any place where it says who the judges are for this challenge.
• chris5745 6y ago
  For those interested, the specific breakdown is on this page [1]. I don’t know what good will come of this discussion, unless all countries are willing to discontinue gain-of-function research if this claim is found to be true. However that’s a lot of “ifs” and there is too much opportunity to simply place blame, which won’t help anyone. [1] https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/what-is-the-source-of-covid-19-sars-cov-2 https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/what-is-the-source-of-cov...
  • DevKoala 6y ago
    It used to be banned here. The ban ended in 2017 https://id.elsevier.com/ACW/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.jbs.elsevierhealth.com%2Faction%2FconsumeSsoCookie%3FredirectUri%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.thelancet.com%252Faction%252FconsumeSharedSessionAction%253FJSESSIONID%253DaaaGSe2DysK6O-IChYMAx%2526MAID%253DJ7%25252F8ZydxoIkeKP8bqCTlMA%25253D%25253D%2526SERVER%253DWZ6myaEXBLF7C%25252B0zm%25252FX%25252BaQ%25253D%25253D%2526ORIGIN%253D726925785%2526RD%253DRD%26code%3Dnull https://id.elsevier.com/ACW/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.jbs...
    • wffurr 6y ago
      That link just redirects to thelancet.com.
      • DevKoala 6y ago
        Actually, I don’t know about you, but now that link redirects to the FBI.GOV :/ This was the original link https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... If you Google “lancet ban on gain function” the first link is gone now.
        • kossTKR 6y ago
          what!? why does that link redirect to fbi.gov??
• pengaru 6y ago
  They're probably receiving >$100k worth of attention by making this claim so... I'd like to see more zeroes in the wager.
  • omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
    Or just the ability for others too wager against them based on their conclusion. If they think they have a 99% chance of being correct, then let people put 1,000 up against their 100,000.
    • delbarital 6y ago
      Good point
  • delbarital 6y ago
    The reason I posted it here is because I think they don't get enough attention from people from the industry who understand biology, statistics and reasoning. They are using the fact that no one challenges them as an evidence that their claims are true.
  • dash2 6y ago
    Yeah, the problem with this startup is that the high-minded Bayesianism of their model is going to run up against the crass incentive to make exciting, media-friendly claims. Their track record doesn't seem that rigorous either, they just list a few (like 5) cases where evidence has later supported them: https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record
    • meowface 6y ago
      Their track record seems neither compelling nor skepticism-worthy, I think, often because a lot of their conclusions lined up with already widely accepted hypotheses (e.g. that MMR vaccines don't cause autism and that MH17 was shot down by DNR), and a lot of the controversial things naturally remain unknown. The most interesting - where public opinion was against and Rootclaim was for, and it was later shown Rootclaim was far more likely to be right - seem to be the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman [0] and that MH370 vanished due to pilot suicide [1]. I think where the rubber would meet the road is if they're ever shown to be correct about the Syrian chemical attacks [2], where they draw the opposite conclusion Bellingcat did, and of course about the COVID-19 origin. If they do turn out to be right about those, that would grant them major credibility points, I think; though the conclusions there may never be known one way or another. If they are right about COVID-19, it would also make me view Bret Weinstein with a lot more credibility, since he's been advocating the likelihood of the lab leak hypothesis for a while. [0] https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#barry_and_honey_sherman https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#barry_and_h... [1] https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#MH_370 https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#MH_370 [2] https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#syrian_chemical_attacks https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_track_record#syrian_chem...
• benjohnson 6y ago
  The Chinese sure acted like it was a possibility that it came from their own lab - their initial reaction was to downplay and cover up.
  • verroq 6y ago
    The local governments downplay anything and everything to not look bad so I don’t think that is a particularly strong claim.
  • dboreham 6y ago
    No other government downplayed and covered up?
    • CyberDildonics 6y ago
      What is this even supposed to mean or imply here?
    • goldcd 6y ago
      Ouch, my drink just came out of my nose.
    • major505 6y ago
      Brazil didn't covered up, but it sure downplayed. Actually is still in the downplay process.
    • mhh__ 6y ago
      That's slightly different depending on the country i.e. we have Trump on record confessing about doing both to woodward over the phone but it's not like it came from a US lab.
  • alphabettsy 6y ago
    Using this logic isn’t it likely it came from the US? Simultaneously saying it’s nothing and China did it seems suspicious.
    • 6y ago
• adamnemecek 6y ago
  I’m also convinced that that is the case.
  • delbarital 6y ago
    There are many people that are convinced this is the case, however, most scientists with the relevant domain knowledge claim that the virus was naturally mutated.
    • thelittleone 6y ago
      Got some sources to support this assertion?
• jMyles 6y ago
  Oh 2020. It's a crazy thing to say out loud (or even to type), but there is substantial doubt about the origin story of this virus in mainstream scientific circles. The National Academy of Sciences published an opinion piece from a reputable scientist containing fairly strongly worded (for PNAS, anyway) conjecture regarding a possible laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2. [0] (you might recognize Relman's name from his work on identifying the human gut microbiome.) This is particularly strongly worded for this publication: """ Some have argued that a deliberate engineering scenario is unlikely because one would not have had the insight a priori to design the current pandemic virus (3). This argument fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory. Alternatively, the complete SARS-CoV-2 sequence could have been recovered from a bat sample and viable virus resurrected from a synthetic genome to study it, before that virus accidentally escaped from the laboratory. """ 0: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246
  • mytailorisrich 6y ago
    These sorts of conjectures of what might be possible are exactly on the same level as me writing that it is possible that the virus could have been developed in an American lab and planted in Wuhan as part of a CIA plot. The realm of what is 'possible' is extremely large. This is exactly a reason why serious people without an agenda tend not to play this conjecture game and stick to evidence-based facts.
    • jMyles 6y ago
      Are you seriously suggesting that Dave Relman (and the National Academy of Sciences) has an agenda here beyond scientific curiosity and a desire to find the truth? What has he to prove and to whom? I'm as distrusting of establishment forces as anyone (and heck, maybe that's part of what predisposes me to take this more seriously), but everything about this seems genuine to me. And while I don't think he's entirely above reproach, I think he's a really good guy and someone who is unlikely to mislead or engage in the kind of undue speculation you're talking about.
• stanrivers 6y ago
  For what it is worth, they say there is an 81% probability, based on their analysis, that it was a lab leak. That is not the same thing as "claims COVID-19 originated in a lab" - so I think the title is a little misleading - which is probably why the title actually seems to be "What is the source of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)?"
  • delbarital 6y ago
    From their Twitter account: "Probably our most surprising finding to date: COVID-19 has likely originated in a lab. A probabilistic analysis shows the proximity to a major coronavirus lab and anomalies in the genetic code are too unlikely for SARS-CoV-2 to have developed naturally. " https://twitter.com/Rootclaim/status/1343207878325383168 https://twitter.com/Rootclaim/status/1343207878325383168
    • cassianoleal 6y ago
      Which is a lot more acurate than the title of this posting. The posting says the startup "claims COVID-19 originated in a lab", whereas the Twitter post says it "has likely originated in a lab." There's an important distinction between fact and likelihood of fact.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • mytailorisrich 6y ago
      The problem here is that "anomalies in the genetic code" is, I believe, their claim, not fact, but presented as a fact along with established facts, which may be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to spread essentially 'fake news'.
      • meowface 6y ago
        I disagree, I don't think it's presented as a fact. They have a detailed analysis on the page. Click the "More" links under the "Chimera" and "Furin cleavage" topics. No idea how credible that analysis is, but it seems to me like it's done in good faith.
• yabones 6y ago
  I don't see any _new information_ here, it's all stuff we've known for months. To me, this is just a conspiracy theory wrapped up with 'probability charts'. Unless I'm missing something, is there any non-circumstantial evidence that this is true? All I've seen for the past year(!) is "it's not a coincidence that these two things happened in the same place" - which isn't science.
  • jMyles 6y ago
    Circumstantial evidence is a part of some scientific analysis, especially as it edges up against forensic science. It is part of divining what type of experiment or investigation is indicated to unearth direct evidence. From the opinion piece in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences I linked elsewhere in this thread: """ An investigative process should be transparent, collaborative, international, and, to the extent possible, devoid of political interest. Recent, productive scientific collaborations between the United States and China, for example, provide hope that such a process can be achieved. But the kind of effort required will need to expand far beyond what’s taken place so far, and nations other than the United States and China will need to be involved. Conflicts of interest by researchers, administrators, and policymakers on all sides must be revealed and addressed, and all relevant global constituencies must be included. """
  • peteradio 6y ago
    Its pretty irritating to me that any theory of conspiracy must outright be rejected in the english language because "Conspiracy Theory" has somehow come to mean undoubtedly wrong. And the same thing with "Circumstantial Evidence", somehow in common english language has come to mean not very good evidence. Guess what, eye witness accounts of the accused murderer at the scene is circumstantial evidence, but damn if its not pretty devastating evidence coupled with the bloody clothes!
  • dash2 6y ago
    I disagree that "it's not a coincidence that these two things happened in the same place" isn't science. It's a valid argument. In fact it's not unlike a p value. The null hypothesis is "covid came from animals". Under the null, the probability of getting this lab is very low - since there are many large cities in Asia. (The article has more details about e.g. the distance of Wuhan from wild bat populations.) I don't say that the argument is enough to be persuasive on its own.
• MattGaiser 6y ago
  > When you see a reliable public betting challenge with real stakes, you can be very confident the claim is true at a probability that is significantly above 50% (assuming 1:1 odds are being offered). This makes the assumption that the overall stakes are even. What if Alex Jones puts up 100K that boiled frog eyes cure COVID? He could be absurdly wrong, but the additional credibility offered by this may let him sell a million dollars more of boiled frog eyes. The problem is, there is going to be virtually no research on whether boiled frog eyes are a cure for covid, so it is next to impossible to challenge the claim and made all the more difficult by the potential for human error and the risk involved noted in the challenge.
  • stevenwoo 6y ago
    The assumption the writer makes about correlation of odds and probability is nonsensical - betting houses change the odds regularly so they make money based on essentially random bettors current intuition.
    • weare138 6y ago
      Exactly, like under the 'WIV lab procedures' section it states: Probabilistic Estimates: Labs with lax security and procedures are conservatively estimated as 2x more likely to produce a lab escape. However, since the reports are not very reliable, this is reduced to 1.5x. There's no explanation or methodology presented as to how they derive these probabilities based on articles they found in the news and most of their assertions rely on this inexplicable methodology. Another example of just how nonsensical their conclusions are, under the sections 'WIV disassociation' and 'Chinese response' they again rely on news articles to conclude China's response merits suspicion and therefor must be covering up the source of COVID. This assertion is just illogical and fatally flawed. While China may have motivation to cover it up if that were the case, scientists in other countries who have obviously spent a great deal of time examining COVID and concluded it's zoonotic wouldn't have motivation to cover it up. Yet this obvious logical deduction is not factored into their conclusions or even merits a mention.
      • 6y ago
• FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  Everyone here who has not spent at least three full hours of their life looking deeply into Dr. Shi Zhengli and the papers she wrote about her virus research over the past ten years and dares to suggest this wasn’t created in a lab should commit suicide immediately to prevent harming anyone else with their own stupidity. Fuck each and every one of you smoothbrained reddit loving faggots.
• iridium_core 6y ago
  Even if COVID wasn't man-made, could the eventual outcome have been any better for China? 1. Authoritarianism is glorified and justified with lockdowns, arbitrary rules, and tracking. 2. European societies which 'just aren't authoritarian enough' are plunged into chaos. 3. The economic problems of China caused by tariffs are forgotten. 4. The necessity of mail-in ballots assists the deposal of an Anti-Chinese American president, replaced by one who has corrupt business dealings with China.
• typenil 6y ago
  I really like the way they lay out the probability factors that contributed to their conclusions - it's easy to follow, at least. I'm glad they put money behind it, but dislike that they're expecting $10,000-$100,000 in risk from submissions. They hyped up the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, but - as far as I can tell - that challenge didn't require the applicants to take on such risk. I get that they want to stem the tide of low-quality submissions, but doing it this way really takes the wind out of their James Randi spiel. With the paranormal challenge, you could say "the lack of applicants indicates they know the claim is false." With this, the lack of applicants could just as easily indicate a lack of funds/risk tolerance.
• rsa25519 6y ago
  They update their likelihood of lab origin from 1.4% to 42% solely based on the virus originating in Wuhan. They use fancy words like "evidence" but I don't even see a clear reference to Bayes.
  • meowface 6y ago
    They discuss it here: https://www.rootclaim.com/inside_the_calculation#how_does_the_bayesian https://www.rootclaim.com/inside_the_calculation#how_does_th...
• sedlich 6y ago
  Looks like we can do nothing but wait for the WHO analysis outcome...
• major505 6y ago
  I still think is a bioweapon. Is not deadly enouth to kill an entire population, but enouth to cause panic. The time that the virus stays incubated, already transmiting, but with not sympthons, is like is was designed to break quarentine protocols. That sayed, if it is a bio weapon, I also think it got out by accident. The lab that in Wuhan alread have problems with employes selling animals that should be euthanized. So I think is something like Chernobyl. Someone made a stupid mistake, but fear of repercutions, delay action that could avoid the spread of the virus.
• bearbin 6y ago
  Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground). My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help dealing with this crisis at all. It is certainly interesting to know where it did originate, and that knowledge could inform a debate on the future of (respectively) wet markets and animal husbandry practices, or BSL facilities, but these don't strike me as particularly emotionally charged topics, and in any case the posts I'm referring to don't mention these debates... Anybody care to explain why you would respond so strongly to claims of lab origin?
  • haunter 6y ago
    I'm also curious about that. HN has very strong opinions about China especially about the Xinjiang re-education camps and/or the organ harvesting in China YET for some reason can't believe that the same country would lab make a virus like this. idk I'm just an outsider
    • ladyanita22 6y ago
      Political ideology I guess
    • baby 6y ago
      We can’t just entertain every complot theory
    • TurkishPoptart 6y ago
      Bret Weinstein, who has a Ph.D in biology, claims it's highly likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was man-made, rather than naturally occurring. So it's definitely possible it was a test that went wrong (and let's be honest, the Chinese government has a less than stellar safety record).
      • nyolfen 6y ago
• gandutraveler 6y ago
  Likelihood of covid originating from lab has always been 50-50, due to the fact that China has not allowed any impartial outside investigation on this. They even imposed trade restrictions on countries like Australia that demanded. What's sad is we may never know.
  • ketamine__ 6y ago
    That is what is behind it? I thought the cause was something less childish.
    • jtbayly 6y ago
      It's only childish if the virus wasn't lab originated. If it was from a Chinese lab, then the best defense is a good offense.
  • yibg 6y ago
    How does this make the likelihood 50-50? Not knowing the probability of something doesn't make it 50-50.
• andbberger 6y ago
  This analysis is obviously garbage, but links to a much better post https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
• dash2 6y ago
  I want to appeal the flag! This discussion is interesting, and there are relatively few loons.
  • fsflover 6y ago
    Same here, but the vouch option is just not there fore some reason. Strange.
    • dang 6y ago
      It only appears when a submission is [dead].
  • meowface 6y ago
    Agreed; even outside of the COVID-19 topic, I'm a big fan of this style of clear Bayesian arguing and think a lot of HN users would be interested in it. I have no idea how strong the actual analysis is, here, but the format is refreshing. I wish all arguments about everything ever had a page like this; ideally with Wiki-style features like forks and suggested edits or something like that. At the moment I think they just rely on comments rather than something like a Wiki, but the overall model seems really appealing. And, also, with respect to the COVID-19 topic, here people can actually argue about explicit and delineated claims rather than jumping into politics, which I think is way more interesting and productive. If I were dang (and I know I'm very much not) I'd keep the thread open but enforce a strict rule that all comments should be directly related to this page and not derail into the usual heat and noise.
  • dang 6y ago
    Alright, we'll try turning the flags off for the time being.
• alphabettsy 6y ago
  What if it turns out to be like the Spanish Flu where we got the origin wrong and most of this conjecture is meaningless because the premise is faulty?
• neonate 6y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20201230204459/https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/what-is-the-source-of-covid-19-sars-cov-2 https://web.archive.org/web/20201230204459/https://www.rootc...
• Mizza 6y ago
  One of the main claims that the Chinese turncoat is making is that the bat virus which is used as a reference and hypothetical source for where Covid-19 evolved from (RaTG13) is _also synthetic_. I haven't seen any media try to verify or disprove this claim. Does anybody know any more about this?
• wrnr 6y ago
  I've only read this [1] before, and its not a bad story, but I wonder how sure you can be without knowing every corona virus strain in the region, it can still be from a strain we haven't sequenced. Also, it is more likely a something like this gets discovered in a major city vs some rural backwater, because they have more educated doctors there and more patience to detect a pattern. [1] https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
• vernie 6y ago
  Why is it relevant that they're Israeli?
• sargun 6y ago
  Unfortunately, I do not have the chops to debate against this, but the political ramifications would be immense. The bet (https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge) requires that (a) you have $100k (b) are able to successfully debate it. I won't put $100k against this, but I'll put $10k against it, because "the truth" is worth it. I'll pool $10k into a $100k stake behind a debate team that can debate this (and validate that this is actually refutable). This is valid until 2021-03-01.
  • purplecats 6y ago
    why that date
    • consumer451 6y ago
      Not gp, but to me it seems common and smart to put an expiration date on all financial offers. That's the simplest explanation at least. This rootclaim.com process is new to me, there could certainly be other explanations. Kudos to purplecats for making that offer as well, assuming this whole thing is on the up and up. edit: below was my post when it was first upvoted, prior to edit. > Not gp, but to me it seems smart and common to put an expiration date on financial offers. > Kudos to purplecats for making that offer as well.
      • phkahler 6y ago
        >> it seems common and smart to put an expiration date on all financial offers. And all contractual obligations including thing like NDAs. Maybe it's a number of years, but never enter one for a lifetime. Ever.
      • sargun 6y ago
        It’s to avoid wasting time, to create a sense of urgency, and to avoid putting myself in an awkward situation where I have to say no due to changed circumstances.
        • 6y ago
• skinkestek 6y ago
  One thing I wonder is: How did the UK virus suddenly get 17 mutations at once if it's not a new engineered release by someone? I'm not a biologist, but that part had me wondering. Any biologists here who want to explain for a layman?
  • mschuster91 6y ago
    Not a biologist, this is not a biological question per se - all viruses and bacteria mutate over time during replication. It's a question of statistics rather... When you have 100 infected individuals and a virus that mutates in 1% of infected people (note: this is a random number, no idea what the actual mutation rate of coronavirus is), you'll end up with one mutated version. When you have 100k of infected people, you'll end up with 1k mutations that are spreading out and (essentially) self-selecting. And when you hit 1M of infected people... it's 100k mutations. That is why it would have been important to keep infection rates down until there's a vaccine - because it is more than likely now that there's a strain of coronavirus somewhere that has a different spike protein and so is not caught by the existing vaccines.
    • skinkestek 6y ago
      But how did one new strain suddenly amass 17 previously unseen mutations? Normally we should have sampled a number of strains with fewer of the same mutations, shouldn't we?
      • jng 6y ago
        Not an expert here, but there probably are many other strains out there with fewer mutations (and some with more). Most of them residual because they don't provide a clear advantage. The reason we know about this 17-mutation one is that this specific one turned out to have such an advantageous infectivity that it's displacing all other strains and becoming the dominant one.
        • skinkestek 6y ago
          Thanks. That would make sense, if it was the 17th mutation that (possibly together with the rest of the mutations) gave it this advantage.
• nl 6y ago
  This is nothing more than cheap (effective!) content marketing for the prediction platform (rootclaim) that it is on. I ran a large forecasting research project for 4 years so know this field quite well. The "willing to bet" thing seems nonsense - there are no bet resolution criteria stated anywhere I can see. They seem to be using a "Superforecaster"-like method of breaking down a prediction into smaller parts, and trying to work out the liklihood of each. But their approach for doing it is crazy. The "escaped from lab" odds increase the most because they guess (and it is a guess) that the Wuhan lab does "20% of the gain-of-function research in the world" That only makes anything resembling sense if they can establish that C19 is caused by gain-of-function research - but they haven't done that. The whole hypothesis chain is full of this weak reasoning. For example the "lab dissociated itself from bat research" claim uses an unreferenced article by Miranda Devine in the NYPost as a source. Devine is an Australian columnist who left Australia after being forced to apologise for making up a story that a 9yo boy with dwafism was running a scam[1]. If this site was being honest in their approach they'd include that as evidence her claims on this story might be made up too. Edit: and in (sarcasm) astonishing news, they also think the Syrian chemical attacks weren't carried out by the Syrian regime[2]. [1] https://junkee.com/miranda-devine-apology-quaden-bayles/271526 https://junkee.com/miranda-devine-apology-quaden-bayles/2715... [2] https://www.rootclaim.com/claims/who-carried-out-the-chemical-attack-in-ghouta-on-august-21-2013-8394 https://www.rootclaim.com/claims/who-carried-out-the-chemica...
• newdude116 6y ago
  Please don't take this as science. This is a marketing gag. I am not a virologist but not far away from it. It is well possible that the virus escaped from a lab. But never claim maliciousness for something that can be easily explained by stupidity. When working with Chinese in the lab I experienced them as never working very clean (e.g. with radioactive stuff). "There is some weak evidence regarding lax security and procedures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology." No, there is actually strong evidence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep... This alone shows the guys don't know what they are talking about. There is no evidence that the virus was artificially altered (But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). This being said, it seems to me that Corona COULD be used as a weapon. China is coping much better then the EU or the US with the virus. We know this now. How about 3 more viruses in the next three years? Will the west survive this? While I STRONGLY believe that China is not really to blame for the outbreak, I am sure the development has raised eyebrows in China.
  • dash2 6y ago
    The article puts a high probability on an accidental escape, and a very low probability on a deliberate bioweapon. So you seem to agree.
• june11 6y ago
  I wish more people would watch this [0], might not be true but damn does it seem convincing. Seems pretty obvious that it was lab originated, even if it isn't manufactured. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU
• sradman 6y ago
  The Chimera section claims: > Pangolins and bats don't usually cohabitate, making this somewhat unlikely in nature. Horseshoe bats are nocturnal animals that roost in caves during the day but sometimes practice perch feeding at night [1]: > The other strategy is known as perch feeding: Individuals roost on feeding perches and wait for prey to fly past, then fly out to capture it. Pangolins [2] and palm civets [3] are nocturnal and arboreal. The bat viral RNA sequences come from anal swabs of netted animals so they are primarily gastrointestinal infections. All of these animals are found in the Lancang/Mekong [4] catch basin. Bat guano seems like a good vector for the virus. Gain-of-function experiments require two viral isolates that recombine during passage. The lab theory assumes that the RNA sequence of the original viral isolates were never shared. I find this scenario unlikely but I am open to changing my mind based on evidence. SARS-1 is evidence of a very similar zoonotic scenario. Humans that encounter bat guano in this region also seem like a good host for a recombination event. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_bat#Diet_and_foraging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_bat#Diet_and_foragin... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin#Behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin#Behavior [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_palm_civet#Feeding_and_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_palm_civet#Feeding_and_d... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong
  • frombody 6y ago
    SARS-CoV-2 itself is not a recombinant of any sarbecoviruses detected to date, and its receptor-binding motif, important for specificity to human ACE2 receptors, appears to be an ancestral trait shared with bat viruses and not one acquired recently via recombination. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4
    • sradman 6y ago
      Exactly, "detected to date". The animal surveillance programs were inadequate at the time of the outbreak and have since been defunded and shutdown altogether.
  • DoingIsLearning 6y ago
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Leary 6y ago
  The article asserts: "Based on the underlying genetic structure, we have already established that, if COVID-19 was the result of a lab escape, it was from gain-of-function research. " This claim is illogical and does not stand. For example, a lab could have stored naturally occurring viruses that were then later leaked. If the article is asserting that the virus could only have resulted from gain-of-function research, then why bother assigning a probability to it being naturally occurring.
• Barrin92 6y ago
  Good lord is this startup trying to draw attention to themselves with this analysis by spinning up bogus stories? Just look at this: However, Wuhan stands out for housing the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of only a few labs engaged in gain-of-function research. How does this imply causality? Why do they not consider the simple alternative, that a location that specialises in gain-of-function research of coronaviruses has the highest concentration of people who are able to DETECT novel coronaviruses with a much higher likelihood? If the virus originated in a city that has no lab specializing in these viruses, how would they ever have distinguished it from pneumonia? The coexistence of the lab and the outbreak of the disease leads them to raise their estimate from 1.4% to 42%(!) lab made chance although it does not establish cause at all and does not even consider this inherent bias in sensitivity to detection.
  • incrudible 6y ago
    > Why do they not consider the simple alternative, that a location that specialises in gain-of-function research of coronaviruses has the highest concentration of people who are able to DETECT novel coronaviruses with a much higher likelihood? If the virus originated in a city that has no lab specializing in these viruses, how would they ever have distinguished it from pneumonia? SARS has a distinct clinical pathology different form ordinary pneumonia. Physician Ai Fen was the first to identify pneumonia cases in Wuhan as SARS, based on her clinical experience. This was then publicized by colleague Li Wenliang. Only later was the virus identified as distinct from previous SARS viruses by virologists.
    • Barrin92 6y ago
      Okay, but the exact same logic applies? Doctors who are experts in disease detection likely reside close to clusters that study said diseases and have high populations and access to modern technology. Put it very concretely, say patient 0 was infected in a village a hundred miles away, is asymptomatic like most patients, travels to Wuhan, infects someone, that person is the officially first detected case.
      • incrudible 6y ago
• beloch 6y ago
  Caveat Emptor. 1. This isn't the product of researchers. It's the product of an algorithm that also happens to be a product that is being advertised. From the "About Rootclaim" page: "Proven probabilistic inference models – The model breaks down highly complex issues into small questions that are each answerable by humans, and then uses these answers to reach mathematically indisputable conclusions. Openly crowdsourced evidence and claims – Anyone can impact an analysis by contributing evidence, rational explanations, past examples and statistics. Unlike polling or voting, a strong claim by one person can beat many widely supported weaker claims." 2. Reputable researchers publish before going to the media. Would this analysis pass peer review? 3. The company is a startup, and is looking for press. 4. Like many conspiracy theories, this claim is not easily falsifiable. No matter how transparent the Wuhan Institute of Virology tries to be, as an institution associated with the Chinese government, accusations of a coverup will be nearly impossible to conclusively refute. International trust in anything related to the Chinese government is currently very low.
  • qualifiedai 6y ago
    >>"International trust in anything related to the Chinese government is currently very low" - there is a long track record leading to this low trust. Based on this we should place a very low prior belief in what ccp says
    • loopz 6y ago
      Who to trust then?
      • qualifiedai 6y ago
        No one can be trusted 100%. That's the whole point of the linked analysis. You assign certain probability ranges (based on facts, past track record, research results, etc.) to various events and then mathematically infer the probability of event in question.
  • incrudible 6y ago
    > Like many conspiracy theories, this claim is not easily falsifiable. The claim that the virus originated in nature and spread through unknown intermediaries to humans in Wuhan, of all places, is equally hard to falsify. Previous outbreak of SARS could be traced to bats in Southern China, MERS could be traced to camels. The hypothesis that the virus escaped from a lab that hosted samples from Southern China is at least plausible.
• qualifiedai 6y ago
  change the title to reflect that they claim that it was an accidental leak. Or just use the page title: "What is the source of COVID-19?"
• wuwuno 6y ago
  I've been saying it was an accidental release since mid December of last year. Everyone is focused on the genetics of the virus, but honestly that doesn't really tell us anything about how it was introduced into the human population. Frankly someone could have been legitimately studying the virus which was was circulating naturally in the bat community, with zero intention of trying to weaponize the virus, but anyone with access could have easily stolen some of the virus and deliberately infected themselves or someone else. I read an article on December 13 or 14 of 2019 about a 20 cases of a "strange new flu" circulating in Wuhan. When the Chinese publicly admitted they had a problem at the end of December, they said they only had a handful of cases. Finding 20 cases of a 'new flu' that has the same symptoms as the regular flu is impossible, there wasn't a test available for months, so the Chinese would have had no way to identify a 'new flu' at the time of infection. There is only 3 ways for the health officials to know they have a 'new flu' circulating based on cases: 1) There are significantly more cases of the flu circulating than during a peak year. 2) There are significantly more flu deaths relative to the number of patients. 3) The cases have significantly different symptoms than the regular flu. None of these situation was present for Wuhan during the early days of the virus. So that means the Chinese needed some other way to identify that they had a new flu circulating, and identify it with so few cases. Even when the COVID19 was peaking in China they still didn't have enough cases that would be significantly higher than the number of flu cases they would have during the same period. A deliberate release or an accidental lab release is the only real way to know that a 'new flu' is circulating, when there are so few cases, and symptoms that are identical to the flu. I believe the Chinese were studying the virus, and then due to an accident, or just sloppy lab work, even in China the lab techs are overworked and underpaid, someone got infected. Knowing human nature, the person who had the accident or was sloppy tried to cover up what happened, because they didn't want to lose their job. Unfortunately the person was infected, and maybe became ill, they also spread the infection into the community. At some point the person who originally got infected was forced to admit their mistake, either because they were sick, or because people they knew were getting sick, and trying to cover what happened became impossible. Once the Chinese government learned of the accident/sloppy lab work it would be really easy to do contact tracing and identify a handful of cases, it would also be really easy to tell the world that that virus started in the wet market, because those markets have already been idenified as a potential risk for a pandemic level virus. If you disagree with my opinion, that's fine but please explain how the Chinese could possibly know they had a new virus/flu circulating, with almost no data, cases, deaths, or novel symptoms. They knew because it was a accidental lab release, that's how they knew.
• epmaybe 6y ago
  As an aside: I particularly enjoyed the film Outbreak (Kevin spacey notwithstanding), it's a not totally unrelated plot to the linked theory. It's on Netflix!
• MilnerRoute 6y ago
  Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance researching the origins of pandemics, pointed out in April that nearly 3% of the population in China's rural farming regions near wild animals already had antibodies to coronaviruses similar to SARS. "We're finding 1 to 7 million people exposed to these viruses every year in Southeast Asia; that's the pathway. It's just so obvious to all of us working in the field..." https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296...
  • eloff 6y ago
    Yeah, I initially thought having a big bio lab in the city where the pandemic started, in a country with a history of managing security in their bio labs poorly, in a lab known for studying sars like coronaviruses, including gain of function research to better bind to human ace2 receptors was just too many coincidences. You have to admit it's believable. But then when you realize how many people in rural China have been infected with sars like viruses, you start to understand that the whole country is like the ideal breeding ground for a bat virus to adapt to spreading in humans.
    • Someone1234 6y ago
      The whole lab thing is people getting cause and effect mixed up, the lab is there because novel coronaviruses keep happening in that region, but because all people know is that COVID-19 is new (and none of the history) they immediately jump to that the lab specializing in this type of disease at the epicenter is too big of a coincidence to ignore (rather than it being there exactly because it is a common epicenter). It is like putting an earthquake lab in the middle of a seismically active area, then blaming the lab when an earthquake occurs.
      • sharken 6y ago
        The lab theory is better suited for a movie, as no hard evidence has been presented. Oddly enough, it seems the virus will end up transmitting the Chinese control over its people to several western countries. At least where I live a quite scary addendum to the current epidemic law has been presented. If passed, it will grant the possibility to test people at an event and fine those that won't comply.
• throwawaysea 6y ago
  I have not read or analyzed this startup's claims, and don't know if they're substantial or worthwhile. However, I'm glad to see that this possibility is being given some attention. Such possibilities should be seriously considered because a lot of truths first begin as exploratory speculation. To attack someone for speculating is to disagree with truth seeking. There are numerous other past incidents where governments and corporations covered up past accidents and atrocities and only admitted the truth when it was undeniable. For example Union Carbide initially denied there was a huge gas leak that ultimately became the Bhopal disaster. The USSR denied there was a serious nuclear accident at Chernobyl until brave voices within their country spoke up. The US has numerous questionable practices revealed by Wikileaks or Snowden. All of these and other incidents were initially trivialized and dismissed by naysayers who were anti-truth or on the side of the perpetrators. Those seeking the truth were written off as crazy conspiracy theorists. We shouldn't let that happen in 2020. With that in mind, I am surprised that no one in this conversation has mentioned Zero Hedge yet. Earlier in the year, Zero Hedge wrote about the possibility that the virus may have originated in a particular Wuhan lab (which was close to wet markets, and advertised research involving bats and coronaviruses). Zero Hedge received a lot of criticism from those who politicized this topic or were anti-Zero Hedge for other reasons. Just like with those other disasters I named above, the critics insisted that there is absolutely no possible way this virus originated from a lab. The same critique then extended to Trump and became further politicized when he correctly suggested halting inbound flights from China as a precaution. The focus on Trump poisoned civil discourse around the coronavirus. In the middle of all this chaos, Zero Hedge was banned from Twitter for "doxxing" researchers at the Wuhan lab (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter-zero-hedge-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter...) although if you look at the actual Zero Hedge article in question, the researcher they named listed his contact information publicly, as he's the public face of the lab (so there's no doxxing). Zero Hedge later wrote an article covering the extremely biased attacks they were subject to from news media outlets (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/zerohedge-suspended-twitter https://www.zerohedge.com/political/zerohedge-suspended-twit...), which is worth reading if you're into truth seeking. Embarrassingly, Twitter ultimately reversed their "permanent ban" of Zero Hedge (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-zerohedge/twitter-restores-account-of-financial-market-website-zero-hedge-idUSKBN23K0H8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-zerohedge/twitter...) but the damage was done. Remember, we have no reason to believe the Chinese government's claims about the virus. They sought to oppress initial reports of the coronavirus, which delayed the world from knowing about it and being able to take the necessary actions (banning travel from China to their countries). The WHO was complicit in this by blindly relaying the CCP's claim that SARS-nCoV-2 does not transmit between humans (https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152), and in refusing to investigate the Wuhan lab themselves (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-world-health-organisation-inquiry-will-not-visit-wuhan-laboratory-kqbvw0tw8 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-world-health-...). And it is remarkable that after all these months of secrecy and denial, the scientists at this lab are only NOW (in December 2020) saying they are open to a visit and probe into the lab - after any evidence would be scrubbed (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55364445 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55364445). This is obviously an underhanded offer given that the Chinese government just recently sentenced the Chinese journalist who challenged the government's early coronavirus narrative to 4 years in prison (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/world/asia/china-Zhang-Zhan-covid-convicted.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/world/asia/china-Zhang-Zh...). All that is a long way of saying: please don't politicize this topic. Let's allow the open discussion, investigation, and research into the possibility that this virus originated from a lab or any other source.
• 015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
  It's remarkable how little discussion there is about where SARS-CoV-2 actually came from. Yes, there is some. But it's a tiny fraction of the overall amount of digital ink that has been spilled over this during the past year. The potential cost of a new virus is so enormous that measures reducing the probability of its occurrence, even marginally, are ridiculously cheap bargains even if they're expensive in absolute terms. But we need to know what really happened in order to take the right measures. I admit that I do find the lab-escape hypothesis plausible. I'm not certain of it, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points in that direction. Perhaps one reason this hypothesis hasn't been publicized more is that those most qualified to assess it aren't eager to learn that some of the research they do is insanely dangerous, and that members of their profession may have committed a screwup of world-historical proportions.
• rcpt 6y ago
  Even if covid came out of a wild animal market the simple fact that "gain of function" research on coronaviruses was getting funded in the first place should be be cause for concern.
  • frombody 6y ago
    The US government pulled funding for this, but coronavirus research was allowed to continue because they secured funding before the ban. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-made-coronavirus-triggers-debate-34502 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-made-coronavi... Incidentally, most of Ralph Baric's research ended up in Wuhan with Zhengli-Li Shi and his team, where their research continued. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
• newintellectual 6y ago
  Rather than following the data and logic, many twist themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize that it’s all natural. They’re doing Beijing’s propaganda work without even getting a paycheck.
• newintellectual 6y ago
  https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/09/alina-chan-broad-institute-coronavirus/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/09/alina-chan-br...
• joaomacp 6y ago
  Many people are asking for the truth to come out, for China to be cooperative on investigations, etc. I would say "be careful what you wish for". Imagine it did come out that it was an accidental lab-leak. Public opinion around the world would be super critical of China. The US would have to step in, demand certain investigations and lab inspections from China, who would of course disagree. This could very well be World War 3 brewing. Sometimes it's better for these things to stay silent.
  • thinkingemote 6y ago
    China has had lab leaks from viral research labs before a few times. However these were all for existing viruses (Sars, bird flu), and it didn't spark much controversy. Mostly because the external impacts were low. The impacts were low because they were identified in the community and isolated etc in time. I doubt it was an accidental leak but if it was then it doesn't follow how how labs have dealt with leaks before. Leaks have happened in other countries too but I don't the consequences.
• a0-prw 6y ago
  It would be very interesting to do this same study earlier than December 2019, since quite a lot of bood from donors in that month tested positive already Serologic testing of U.S. blood donations to identify SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies: December 2019-January 2020 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... So maybe the lab theory is true and it was a leak from a US lab
• cecja 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKYUxOQj5OA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKYUxOQj5OA
• geekraver 6y ago
  Doesn’t the cumulative error from all of these adjustments just mean garbage comes out the other end? This whole thing seems more like clickbait to give the company publicity.
  • jeffe 6y ago
    For approximations based on multiplying numerical estimates, the overall standard deviation (or error) of the final result is proportional to the square root of the number of estimates. So yes more adjustments will increase the error, but probably not as badly as one might think.
• jeffe 6y ago
  A more statistically rigorous assessment of the odds of a lab based origin places the likelihood at 6%-55% [1]. However it understandably does not account for circumstantially suspicious behavior from China, which I would argue provides a significant signal. [1] https://zenodo.org/record/4057129 https://zenodo.org/record/4057129