If his hypothesis is correct, it might provide a useful evolutionary lesson for the future of virus and other pathogen research. It might even mean we need poli

If his hypothesis is correct, it might provide a useful evolutionary lesson for the future of virus and other pathogen research. It might even mean we need policies to deal with the consequences of such a conclusion. But please let me elaborate before downvoting, in two parts. First "baseless assertion" : To begin, what does "originate" in a lab signify ? It does not say either way whether "chinese scientists did it on purpose or out of negligence", nor the opposite. It just says, it was somehow born there, and when it got detected, it had already freakishly high power of infection and transmission human-to-human, way out of the generally measured probability envelope for such a thing in such a short time. What MIGHT have happened is an instance of what is called island pressure, originally called Foster's rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule). In short, isolated environments are pressure cooker for evolution. Here's a possible (baseless) hypothesis : some relatively inoffensive SARS variant genetically engineered to study gain of function, as per the CDC/Wuhan contract from Fauci, might have gotten out of a secure container inside the lab, or out of an animal during manipulation, in a minor lapse of protocol. Mind you, It didn't get out of the lab at that moment. It might then have jumped-to-and-fro among the human and non human fauna, evolving as it went, until it became strong enough, within that enclose environment. THEN and only then it was enough for safety protocols to fail a second time, in a minor way, considering how easily it transmits, for the virus to get out in the world. Also, the scientific method is by definition the invention of baseless assertions (hypotheses), and then their very methodical verification, to gain useful knowledge. Now the answer to "why give it oxygen" ? Hardly anybody finishes to explain the sentence "it originated in..." in the US public sphere with "due to effects of evolution", save some off-the-mainstream guys like Brett Weinstein. I have the hypothesis, born out of my european ignorance, that it was because some part of Trump's and Republican's electorate do not believe in the concept of evolution itself, and would not like it spread by their representatives. Still, I would give it oxygen, as indicated at the start, because if true we'd need to develop some policy to deal with that. It might go anywhere on the spectrum from much stringent safety protocols when dealing with gain of function to a complete prohibition of such research.