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What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me.

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanations. I know the issue is politicised and that's wrong as Ecohealth alliance from the US sponsored this research so there is no "single country at fault" - no need to avoid topics. It's not "chinas fault" it's more like, what on earth was the US based Ecohealth alliance doing with this research, why so many previous lab leaks with little attention, what is the history if the Wuhan lab, whats the actual facts about Gain of Function research etc. All topics that the press is not looking into for some reason. On Ecohealth alliance: “ It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432

TacticalCoder 5y ago
I'm no virologist but of all the places on earth we are supposed to believe that, by cheer coincidence, the outbreak happened in that one city that happens to do research and have patents on lab-modified bat viruses and that it doesn't have anything to do with that lab. I mean: you seriously cannot make that up.
- kossTKR 5y ago
  That fact alone is what makes this even more absurd to me. I know about probability math, - the fact the these virologists seemingly just discard that factor is twilight-zone territory to me.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    What does the phrase "I know about probability math" mean in this context? It sounds like you're implying that you have a probablistic model for this scenario, if so I would be very interested to see it.
- Pepe1vo 5y ago
  To be fair, the reason the lab is in that place is precisely because it's close to a place where zoonoses has occurred multiple times. Kind of like how we don't blame lighthouses for shipwrecks. That being said, from what I've read it appears that a lab escape is a very real possibility. Though I doubt that we'll ever find out
  - lumost 5y ago
    There doesn't appear to be any relation between the labs founding and zoonoses in the local region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology
  - sharken 5y ago
    Your point about the lab is great, it's just very hard to dismiss the idea that a lab error was at fault. But i too think it all too likely that we won't be any wiser about the origins. Though it would be great if a timeline could be established, i don't remember seeing a good explanation on Covid in Italy being discovered in 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2 https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...
    - prox 5y ago
      I believe that Italy origin story was not credible. Snopes goes with Wuhan as the origin.
  - amayne 5y ago
    "Wuhan is ~1000km away from SARS spillover zones. Its human population was even used as a negative (no SARS) control group." Via @Ayjchan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327680456220672?s=20 https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327680456220672?s=20
    - XorNot 5y ago
      This is maybe 12 hours drive, depending on roads and traffic. 1000km is not a huge distance of migration to a major city.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
johncena33 5y ago
Of course certain virologists would be eager to dismiss lab leak hypothesis. Just think about the implication of this hypothesis turns out to be true. Virologists have very strong conflict of interests. If these people have any integrity they'd refrain from commenting.
- fumbly 5y ago
  What's particularly significant and hasn't much been commented on yet is that Ralph Baric, the leading American collaborator of the bat coronavirus research at Wuhan, has signed the letter. He also (according to the OP) declined to comment further. That seems more like integrity.
- bbatha 5y ago
  Lab leak does not necessarily imply the virus was engineered. Indeed there is reasonable evidence for the former and little, but not none, for the later.
  - 1024core 5y ago
    There is evidence that some parts of the virus were engineered. See, for example, the Furin cleavage site.
    - midlightdenight 5y ago
      Could you post links to this evidence? I can only find sources saying that the Furin cleavage site doesn’t rule out engineering, or sources saying the Furin cleave site could be naturally occurring. Sounds like we don’t know yet.
      - hilbertseries 5y ago
        Here’s some evidence that it is naturally occurring from a virologist. https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/1394247714024660994 https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/13942477140246609...
syshum 5y ago
>>I know the issue is politicized This is becoming more and more common, Pure Science is almost never practiced anymore. The Hard sciences like Immunology, virology, general medicine used to be some what insulated from politics however in the last few years all sciences are no longer data driven. You form a conclusion then find the facts that fit your narrative, and if your narrative is not the "correct" one you better not release your facts...
- franciscop 5y ago
  Is it? Since the beginning the science has been in conflict with politics (or the Church, or the Kings/Emperors before democracy). Notable political/social opposition to the sciences are well documented. Couple of examples: doctors washing their hands was a controversial issue [2] and how being able to eat "higher-class" food killed thousands of Japanese, who rejected eating other food even when it was known it was killing them [3]. [1] https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what-story-galileo-gets-wrong-about-church-and-science https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what... [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/handwashing-once-controversial-medical-advice https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/handwashi... [3] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-edo-tokyo-navy-beriberi https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e...
  - throwaway316943 5y ago
    I think neither is exactly true. Like any endeavour that requires patronage, scientists have to sing for their supper. The combinations of scientists and patrons vary across time and space with some being more amenable to pure science and others breeding corruption. Like everything it is much more complex upon closer inspection.
    - franciscop 5y ago
      The cases I've shared were not about patronage (maybe Galileo, unsure), but about third parties categorically denying the science it based on their social/political thinking.
908B64B197 5y ago
> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist Would be interesting to dig further into who is funding their research.
- jrockway 5y ago
  That sounds like the worst of the Internet in action. You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? I guess that's pretty popular, but I have to say I don't care for it. Many people are still in the bargaining stage of COVID response -- if we find that some person made this virus and released it into the wild, we just send them to prison and the problem goes away. That's a very human reaction to the problem, but unfortunately it doesn't actually work. We have to clean up this colossal mess regardless of whether it was man-made or not, and we have to reckon with the millions that died and will never come back. Finding someone to blame is just a distraction, and I imagine that many people want to move past that distraction and eradicate the disease. The learning can come later when we're collectively more calm. I doubt that anyone was funded to create SARS-CoV-2 and then try to suppress discussion about it on Twitter. I think the "unfollow me if you think it's man-made" is just a short-circuit to avoid flamewars and distraction. It probably isn't a belief against doing a blameless postmortem so that we can handle things like this better in the future.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? No, what I was getting at is that they might have a financial incentive to discredit the lab escape theory. For instance, some of this researcher's funding or his institution's funding might be from CCP-backed entities. > We have to clean up this colossal mess regardless of whether it was man-made or not, and we have to reckon with the millions that died and will never come back. Finding someone to blame is just a distraction, and I imagine that many people want to move past that distraction and eradicate the disease. The learning can come later when we're collectively more calm. This, trying to push the idea that fighting the virus or investigating the outbreak theory are mutually exclusive, is also a rhetoric I would expect to be pushed from the party responsible for the outbreak. Truth is, why obstruct investigation efforts and try to hide the facts if the origin of the virus is natural?
SECProto 5y ago
> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " Take a similar situation, imagine you were a structural engineer a decade ago and you tweeted "If you think 9/11 was an inside job because jet fuel can't melt steel beams, please unfollow me" or an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" - whether the particular issue they've mentioned is true or false doesn't actually matter. They're trying to avoid the confrontationalists/conspiracy theorists following them/replying to their tweets. They're pretty much tweeting "don't @ me"
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" That's a pretty bad analogy. It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Follow the money trail.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    The analogy isn't really working, but the core is valid nonetheless: when an idea has few valid examiners and thousands of nutjob followers and they all want to talk to you, perhaps the latter even more than the former, then you'll eventually accept the risk of perhaps missing out on one of the few gems rather than suffering through the endless repetitions of all the others.
  - SECProto 5y ago
    > It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. The tweet was talking about the virus being engineered in a lab, not the possibility it escaped from a lab. Their opinion on the possibility of lab leak seems [1] quite reasonable to me - they believe it's possible but unlikely, and link to more info. > You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Sure - do you have more info on his sources of grants etc? [1] https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1391777097434152963 https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1391777097434152963
hayst4ck 5y ago
There are 2 concrete distinct ideas, but many are conflating both of the ideas. It results in it being very hard to have a conversation because it's unclear which idea people are talking about. Idea 1: SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab Idea 2: SARS-CoV-2 was in/around/related to WIV and escaped Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists. Idea 2 is an idea that there is a considerable body of circumstantial evidence supporting and is certainly the most likely origin in my estimation. > why these weird rumors about Gain of Function research that no one seemingly looks into etc. You can read one such yourself: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by combining a human immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus system with cell lines expressing the ACE2 molecules of human, civet, or horseshoe bat. Later down on the paper it describes the process by which they did the combination. Our own American scientists said this process would likely result in biomarkers that were not found in the circulating virus (my layman, not expert, understanding).
- isaacremuant 5y ago
  Idea 1 wasn't debunked: https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... It's a long read but a worthy one. Exploring all the options better than the NYT article. The lack of biomarkers is not proof either way.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  What do you mean by "engineered in a lab?" No one believes that anyone just typed a sequence into their computer and created it from whole cloth. On the other hand, the WIV has recently published papers about creating new coronaviruses by combining a gene from one virus with the rest of another virus, as well as other types of modifications to existing coronaviruses. They have active grants to continue with this type of research. They also have acknowledged performing this work in BSL-2 labs, which would not be secure enough to contain SARS-CoV-2 if it were to have been the result of one of these experiments.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
throwkeep 5y ago
> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " There were a lot of them on twitter, and frankly, they disqualified themselves from the adult table. They've chosen politics over science.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  Social media is designed around social proof and validation. Plenty of otherwise rational people crave the support and affirmation of endorsing “correct” thinking while also attacking the “incorrect” thinking.
  - JPKab 5y ago
    I always wondered why people used the phrase "dunk on" when referring to Twitter. Then I witnessed the purely and obviously performative nature of the bulk of these kinds of user's statements. Even ones who claim to be activists will ignore any good faith questions, because every second they spend engaging in meaningful dialogue doesn't allow them to sit there and attack others for points from their followers.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Isn’t that tweet pretty clearly aimed at people who were already concluding that it was engineered in a lab? That’s a lot different than saying we should investigate the origins of the virus.
  - kodah 5y ago
    If a scientist is telling people to unfollow them because those people believe it's a possibility that they don't want ruled out without evidence; that is the very definition of being a child. In fact, maybe they shouldn't have credentials at that point. If someone is telling people who already only believe that conclusion then that makes sense. It's important to ask people that do this stuff to be very specific about their motivations in the moment, document them, and hold them accountable at a later date when the dust settles.
riyadparvez 5y ago
I am always surprised how the virologist community have sacrificed their integrity. From the article titled "Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab"[1]: > But that was before he learned more about COVID-19 and related coronaviruses, which have features already seen in nature. "There are lots of data and lots of evidence, as well as previous examples of this coming from nature," he said. "We have exactly zero evidence or data of this having any connection to a lab." [1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientis...
- mistermann 5y ago
  Surely epistemology and logic must be part of scientific curriculum, no? Maybe some scientists don't take it seriously.
  - brippalcharrid 5y ago
    I don't think that people are doubting the virologists' epistemic ability; it's the fact that their reasoning seems to be motivated by a desire to deflect blame away from the NIAID/CCP/virology field which is the problem.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      Is that (motivated reasoning) not a textbook failure of epistemic ability though? I mean, I suppose from a pragmatic standpoint (the world as it is) it's starting to get into the realm of enlightenment, but if friggin' scientists can't think clearly, then perhaps their new found "five star", god-tier status in society should be knocked down to four or four and a half stars.
      - brippalcharrid 5y ago
        I was being way too generous; wilful blindness would be closer, and it's combination of people - making a conscious decision not to think the unthinkable ("work in my scientific sub-discipline has caused a disaster") - attempting to avoid particular repercussions for their field, such as a world-wide ban on gain-of-function research (plenty of scientists would want to avoid what they might see as a disproportionate knee-jerk reaction from lay members of the general public which hindered work in a field that they believed to have great promise for the future, and they might believe that this decision should be in the hands of experts). - trying to prevent the loss of sources of funding for virological research and the resulting impact on their career and finally, and most importantly - being moved by a misplaced sense of humanitarian responsibility to try to prevent the escalation of geopolitical tensions between superpowers ("virologists the world over have a vital role to play at this present moment in standing shoulder to shoulder in heading off the looming threat of war"). If I were cynical, I'd think that recent changes to reporting on the subject were as much a result of changes to the occupancy of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as they were to evidence that has come to light over the last few months.
throwawaysea 5y ago
> It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York The controversy around Peter Daszak goes deeper. First off, he was the only American on the WHO team that visited Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) earlier this year. Per the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-china-hunt-covid-origins-11616004512 https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-china-hunt-covid-origins-11...) the WHO rejected three different nominees from the Trump administration and instead chose Daszak. That seems suspicious to me, because Daszak's prior work with WIV means there is a clear conflict of interest, and it puts the WHO's judgment into doubt since it would seem like a convenient pick for the CCP, given how tightly they managed the WHO's visit and subsequent report. Furthermore, Daszak's name appears as an author on a WIV paper that concerns coronavirus research (https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/6/3253.full.pdf https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/6/3253.full.pdf), and the text within suggests WIV was actively performing gain of function research with SARS-like (SL) viruses: > "We recently isolated a bat SL-CoV strain (WIV1) and constructed an infectious clone of another strain (SHC014); significantly, these strains are closely related to SARS-CoV and capable of using the same cellular receptor (angiotensin-convert-ing enzyme 2 [ACE2]) as SARS-CoV" Note that EcoHealth's grant was omitted from the oversight process concerning research involving dangerous pathogens (https://news.yahoo.com/hhs-board-never-approved-wuhan-155055142.html https://news.yahoo.com/hhs-board-never-approved-wuhan-155055...). Per this article, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright said that NIH and NIAID "systematically thwarted — indeed systematically nullified — the HHS P3CO Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review." - While all of this could just be strange coincidence, incorrect speculation, or reasonably explained with more information, it has all the markers of something that deserves scrutiny and transparency. I feel like everyone who was and still is quick to shut down the lab leak possibility is acting against the spirit of open inquiry and thwarting the best understanding that we could have from this entire saga.
- swader999 5y ago
  This article does a thorough examination of the origination, covers your points on Daszak well. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
cheeri0 5y ago
There's [plenyu of blame to go around. May I ask why you wouldn't blame China at all if the virus leaked from their lab in Wuhan?
mike00632 5y ago
If you want people to take seriesly the idea of COVID-19 coming from a lab then be scientific about it and offer up some ways to make it falsifiable. Otherwise it's simply not scientific, and almost everyone here pushing that theory is ignoring the evidence against it or modifying the conspiracy to fit the facts that contradict it. It's not constructive right now. The hypothesis that COVID-19 came from an animal, namely a bat, in Wuhan China is independently suggested by multiple areas of science (genetics and epidemiology). It's also in line with similar outbreaks that happened in the past. The science of this is about as "unsettled" as the the theory of evolution vs creationism.
- snet0 5y ago
  I politely recommend you do more research into the subject. It won't change your conclusions, but the state of affairs is very much not settled. Also, here's your falsifiability: when it can be shown that the virus is zoonotic in origin, the other theories of its origin are falsified. I do not believe that the virus was engineered in a lab at this point, but turning this into tribe warfare will not help anything. Saying that the opinion you disagree with is unscientific and comparing it to creationism just shows you aren't looking to have an actual conversation.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    The initial probability of "novel new virus" is not "it was made in a lab / escape a lab".
  - mike00632 5y ago
    Falsifiability would be something like: we know what the genetics of lab-made viruses look like; they have certain base pair signatures; therefore if this virus were made in a lab it would have those signatures. A real scientist with close knowledge of the virus and the lab offered this.
YeBanKo 5y ago
Every time another "expert" or an academic says that it's not worth investigating, because it is too political, I treat it as a litmus test if the person is full of shit and should not be allowed near public policy decision. Even if they are an expert in the field, does not mean they are "street smart". Everything can be and is politicized. Even local news about a petty theft or changes to a small park ends up being very political in the media or some local discussion board (looking at Nextdoor). If it crosses the border, it becomes international politics. There are existing cases when coronaviruses leaked from the labs before and it is a known concern: [1], [2] The debate on the risking of such research has been going on for years [3] and in 2014 the US even paused funding selected gain-of-function research [4]. It happened before more than once, denying that it could have happened again in 2019, because there are no evidence, is simply lazy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Why it matters? Because only in 2016 China adopted national guidelines for treatment of lab animals [5]. Knowing what happens critically important to make sure it does not happen again. Any system, that wants to adapt needs to analyze and find root cause of the mistake. Take rules and regulations in Aviation, all decisions about safety are driven by experience and past mistakes. If something is a pilot's mistake, then either there is a safeguard added, protocol or training altered, or everything above; but it's not customary to downplay or avoid highlighting human error. It is a common-sense approach used in any area, from aviation to military to sea navigation, etc. Either actors learn or the system learns by eliminating actors. Only in case of virus research, humanity is an actor that either needs to learn or ... And I don't understand, why it is so important not o blame Chinese government? Do we not want to blame the Soviet government for the handling and the fallout of Chernobyl? Or those, who made risky decisions while operation the plant? If it is leaked from the lab, amend must be made to the facility, protocols, guidelines. Nevertheless, if it turns out that it is someone's gross negligence, the person or group of people should be reprimanded. The US industrial farming can be a culprit of another "pig" or "chicken" flu or something more deadly. I would not be surprised, if some industrial farm with a string of sanitary and animal rights violations breeds a new virus. In this case, I want them to be reprimanded; if a state has loose regulations to prevent it, I want that state to be reprimanded by the federal government. And I would expect the US to take financial loss and pressure from the international community as an incentive to learn from mistake. [1] SARS escaped Beijing lab twice (2004) https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20040427-03 https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-... [2] https://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_09_24/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_09_24/en/ [3] Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research (2015) https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787 https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat... [4] http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf [5] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/china-finally-setting-guidelines-treating-lab-animals https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/china-finally-settin...
dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
> "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " You'd believe scientists should know better that it's not about "China is guilty, they should pay for their crime" at all but "Let' us understand the origins so that we might prepare and protect ourselves better for another pandemic outbreak."

TacticalCoder 5y ago

I'm no virologist but of all the places on earth we are supposed to believe that, by cheer coincidence, the outbreak happened in that one city that happens to do research and have patents on lab-modified bat viruses and that it doesn't have anything to do with that lab. I mean: you seriously cannot make that up.

kossTKR 5y ago
That fact alone is what makes this even more absurd to me. I know about probability math, - the fact the these virologists seemingly just discard that factor is twilight-zone territory to me.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  What does the phrase "I know about probability math" mean in this context? It sounds like you're implying that you have a probablistic model for this scenario, if so I would be very interested to see it.
Pepe1vo 5y ago
To be fair, the reason the lab is in that place is precisely because it's close to a place where zoonoses has occurred multiple times. Kind of like how we don't blame lighthouses for shipwrecks. That being said, from what I've read it appears that a lab escape is a very real possibility. Though I doubt that we'll ever find out
- lumost 5y ago
  There doesn't appear to be any relation between the labs founding and zoonoses in the local region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology
- sharken 5y ago
  Your point about the lab is great, it's just very hard to dismiss the idea that a lab error was at fault. But i too think it all too likely that we won't be any wiser about the origins. Though it would be great if a timeline could be established, i don't remember seeing a good explanation on Covid in Italy being discovered in 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2 https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...
  - prox 5y ago
    I believe that Italy origin story was not credible. Snopes goes with Wuhan as the origin.
- amayne 5y ago
  "Wuhan is ~1000km away from SARS spillover zones. Its human population was even used as a negative (no SARS) control group." Via @Ayjchan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327680456220672?s=20 https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327680456220672?s=20
  - XorNot 5y ago
    This is maybe 12 hours drive, depending on roads and traffic. 1000km is not a huge distance of migration to a major city.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

johncena33 5y ago

Of course certain virologists would be eager to dismiss lab leak hypothesis. Just think about the implication of this hypothesis turns out to be true. Virologists have very strong conflict of interests. If these people have any integrity they'd refrain from commenting.

fumbly 5y ago
What's particularly significant and hasn't much been commented on yet is that Ralph Baric, the leading American collaborator of the bat coronavirus research at Wuhan, has signed the letter. He also (according to the OP) declined to comment further. That seems more like integrity.
bbatha 5y ago
Lab leak does not necessarily imply the virus was engineered. Indeed there is reasonable evidence for the former and little, but not none, for the later.
- 1024core 5y ago
  There is evidence that some parts of the virus were engineered. See, for example, the Furin cleavage site.
  - midlightdenight 5y ago
    Could you post links to this evidence? I can only find sources saying that the Furin cleavage site doesn’t rule out engineering, or sources saying the Furin cleave site could be naturally occurring. Sounds like we don’t know yet.
    - hilbertseries 5y ago
      Here’s some evidence that it is naturally occurring from a virologist. https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/1394247714024660994 https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/13942477140246609...

syshum 5y ago

>>I know the issue is politicized This is becoming more and more common, Pure Science is almost never practiced anymore. The Hard sciences like Immunology, virology, general medicine used to be some what insulated from politics however in the last few years all sciences are no longer data driven. You form a conclusion then find the facts that fit your narrative, and if your narrative is not the "correct" one you better not release your facts...

franciscop 5y ago
Is it? Since the beginning the science has been in conflict with politics (or the Church, or the Kings/Emperors before democracy). Notable political/social opposition to the sciences are well documented. Couple of examples: doctors washing their hands was a controversial issue [2] and how being able to eat "higher-class" food killed thousands of Japanese, who rejected eating other food even when it was known it was killing them [3]. [1] https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what-story-galileo-gets-wrong-about-church-and-science https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what... [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/handwashing-once-controversial-medical-advice https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/handwashi... [3] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-edo-tokyo-navy-beriberi https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e...
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  I think neither is exactly true. Like any endeavour that requires patronage, scientists have to sing for their supper. The combinations of scientists and patrons vary across time and space with some being more amenable to pure science and others breeding corruption. Like everything it is much more complex upon closer inspection.
  - franciscop 5y ago
    The cases I've shared were not about patronage (maybe Galileo, unsure), but about third parties categorically denying the science it based on their social/political thinking.

908B64B197 5y ago

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist Would be interesting to dig further into who is funding their research.

jrockway 5y ago
That sounds like the worst of the Internet in action. You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? I guess that's pretty popular, but I have to say I don't care for it. Many people are still in the bargaining stage of COVID response -- if we find that some person made this virus and released it into the wild, we just send them to prison and the problem goes away. That's a very human reaction to the problem, but unfortunately it doesn't actually work. We have to clean up this colossal mess regardless of whether it was man-made or not, and we have to reckon with the millions that died and will never come back. Finding someone to blame is just a distraction, and I imagine that many people want to move past that distraction and eradicate the disease. The learning can come later when we're collectively more calm. I doubt that anyone was funded to create SARS-CoV-2 and then try to suppress discussion about it on Twitter. I think the "unfollow me if you think it's man-made" is just a short-circuit to avoid flamewars and distraction. It probably isn't a belief against doing a blameless postmortem so that we can handle things like this better in the future.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? No, what I was getting at is that they might have a financial incentive to discredit the lab escape theory. For instance, some of this researcher's funding or his institution's funding might be from CCP-backed entities. > We have to clean up this colossal mess regardless of whether it was man-made or not, and we have to reckon with the millions that died and will never come back. Finding someone to blame is just a distraction, and I imagine that many people want to move past that distraction and eradicate the disease. The learning can come later when we're collectively more calm. This, trying to push the idea that fighting the virus or investigating the outbreak theory are mutually exclusive, is also a rhetoric I would expect to be pushed from the party responsible for the outbreak. Truth is, why obstruct investigation efforts and try to hide the facts if the origin of the virus is natural?

SECProto 5y ago

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " Take a similar situation, imagine you were a structural engineer a decade ago and you tweeted "If you think 9/11 was an inside job because jet fuel can't melt steel beams, please unfollow me" or an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" - whether the particular issue they've mentioned is true or false doesn't actually matter. They're trying to avoid the confrontationalists/conspiracy theorists following them/replying to their tweets. They're pretty much tweeting "don't @ me"

ekianjo 5y ago
> an astronaut tweeting "if you think we didn't land on the moon, please unfollow me" That's a pretty bad analogy. It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Follow the money trail.
- usrusr 5y ago
  The analogy isn't really working, but the core is valid nonetheless: when an idea has few valid examiners and thousands of nutjob followers and they all want to talk to you, perhaps the latter even more than the former, then you'll eventually accept the risk of perhaps missing out on one of the few gems rather than suffering through the endless repetitions of all the others.
- SECProto 5y ago
  > It's not like a lab leak is an extremely unlikely possibility at all. The tweet was talking about the virus being engineered in a lab, not the possibility it escaped from a lab. Their opinion on the possibility of lab leak seems [1] quite reasonable to me - they believe it's possible but unlikely, and link to more info. > You should rather check who is funding the people who are making certain statements like that. Sure - do you have more info on his sources of grants etc? [1] https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1391777097434152963 https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1391777097434152963

hayst4ck 5y ago

There are 2 concrete distinct ideas, but many are conflating both of the ideas. It results in it being very hard to have a conversation because it's unclear which idea people are talking about. Idea 1: SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab Idea 2: SARS-CoV-2 was in/around/related to WIV and escaped Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists. Idea 2 is an idea that there is a considerable body of circumstantial evidence supporting and is certainly the most likely origin in my estimation. > why these weird rumors about Gain of Function research that no one seemingly looks into etc. You can read one such yourself: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by combining a human immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus system with cell lines expressing the ACE2 molecules of human, civet, or horseshoe bat. Later down on the paper it describes the process by which they did the combination. Our own American scientists said this process would likely result in biomarkers that were not found in the circulating virus (my layman, not expert, understanding).

isaacremuant 5y ago
Idea 1 wasn't debunked: https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... It's a long read but a worthy one. Exploring all the options better than the NYT article. The lack of biomarkers is not proof either way.
cameldrv 5y ago
What do you mean by "engineered in a lab?" No one believes that anyone just typed a sequence into their computer and created it from whole cloth. On the other hand, the WIV has recently published papers about creating new coronaviruses by combining a gene from one virus with the rest of another virus, as well as other types of modifications to existing coronaviruses. They have active grants to continue with this type of research. They also have acknowledged performing this work in BSL-2 labs, which would not be secure enough to contain SARS-CoV-2 if it were to have been the result of one of these experiments.
- throwawaysea 5y ago

throwkeep 5y ago

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " There were a lot of them on twitter, and frankly, they disqualified themselves from the adult table. They've chosen politics over science.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
Social media is designed around social proof and validation. Plenty of otherwise rational people crave the support and affirmation of endorsing “correct” thinking while also attacking the “incorrect” thinking.
- JPKab 5y ago
  I always wondered why people used the phrase "dunk on" when referring to Twitter. Then I witnessed the purely and obviously performative nature of the bulk of these kinds of user's statements. Even ones who claim to be activists will ignore any good faith questions, because every second they spend engaging in meaningful dialogue doesn't allow them to sit there and attack others for points from their followers.
tshaddox 5y ago
Isn’t that tweet pretty clearly aimed at people who were already concluding that it was engineered in a lab? That’s a lot different than saying we should investigate the origins of the virus.
- kodah 5y ago
  If a scientist is telling people to unfollow them because those people believe it's a possibility that they don't want ruled out without evidence; that is the very definition of being a child. In fact, maybe they shouldn't have credentials at that point. If someone is telling people who already only believe that conclusion then that makes sense. It's important to ask people that do this stuff to be very specific about their motivations in the moment, document them, and hold them accountable at a later date when the dust settles.

riyadparvez 5y ago

I am always surprised how the virologist community have sacrificed their integrity. From the article titled "Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab"[1]: > But that was before he learned more about COVID-19 and related coronaviruses, which have features already seen in nature. "There are lots of data and lots of evidence, as well as previous examples of this coming from nature," he said. "We have exactly zero evidence or data of this having any connection to a lab." [1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientis...

mistermann 5y ago
Surely epistemology and logic must be part of scientific curriculum, no? Maybe some scientists don't take it seriously.
- brippalcharrid 5y ago
  I don't think that people are doubting the virologists' epistemic ability; it's the fact that their reasoning seems to be motivated by a desire to deflect blame away from the NIAID/CCP/virology field which is the problem.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Is that (motivated reasoning) not a textbook failure of epistemic ability though? I mean, I suppose from a pragmatic standpoint (the world as it is) it's starting to get into the realm of enlightenment, but if friggin' scientists can't think clearly, then perhaps their new found "five star", god-tier status in society should be knocked down to four or four and a half stars.
    - brippalcharrid 5y ago
      I was being way too generous; wilful blindness would be closer, and it's combination of people - making a conscious decision not to think the unthinkable ("work in my scientific sub-discipline has caused a disaster") - attempting to avoid particular repercussions for their field, such as a world-wide ban on gain-of-function research (plenty of scientists would want to avoid what they might see as a disproportionate knee-jerk reaction from lay members of the general public which hindered work in a field that they believed to have great promise for the future, and they might believe that this decision should be in the hands of experts). - trying to prevent the loss of sources of funding for virological research and the resulting impact on their career and finally, and most importantly - being moved by a misplaced sense of humanitarian responsibility to try to prevent the escalation of geopolitical tensions between superpowers ("virologists the world over have a vital role to play at this present moment in standing shoulder to shoulder in heading off the looming threat of war"). If I were cynical, I'd think that recent changes to reporting on the subject were as much a result of changes to the occupancy of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as they were to evidence that has come to light over the last few months.

throwawaysea 5y ago

> It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York The controversy around Peter Daszak goes deeper. First off, he was the only American on the WHO team that visited Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) earlier this year. Per the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-china-hunt-covid-origins-11616004512 https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-china-hunt-covid-origins-11...) the WHO rejected three different nominees from the Trump administration and instead chose Daszak. That seems suspicious to me, because Daszak's prior work with WIV means there is a clear conflict of interest, and it puts the WHO's judgment into doubt since it would seem like a convenient pick for the CCP, given how tightly they managed the WHO's visit and subsequent report. Furthermore, Daszak's name appears as an author on a WIV paper that concerns coronavirus research (https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/6/3253.full.pdf https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/6/3253.full.pdf), and the text within suggests WIV was actively performing gain of function research with SARS-like (SL) viruses: > "We recently isolated a bat SL-CoV strain (WIV1) and constructed an infectious clone of another strain (SHC014); significantly, these strains are closely related to SARS-CoV and capable of using the same cellular receptor (angiotensin-convert-ing enzyme 2 [ACE2]) as SARS-CoV" Note that EcoHealth's grant was omitted from the oversight process concerning research involving dangerous pathogens (https://news.yahoo.com/hhs-board-never-approved-wuhan-155055142.html https://news.yahoo.com/hhs-board-never-approved-wuhan-155055...). Per this article, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright said that NIH and NIAID "systematically thwarted — indeed systematically nullified — the HHS P3CO Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review." - While all of this could just be strange coincidence, incorrect speculation, or reasonably explained with more information, it has all the markers of something that deserves scrutiny and transparency. I feel like everyone who was and still is quick to shut down the lab leak possibility is acting against the spirit of open inquiry and thwarting the best understanding that we could have from this entire saga.

swader999 5y ago
This article does a thorough examination of the origination, covers your points on Daszak well. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

cheeri0 5y ago

There's [plenyu of blame to go around. May I ask why you wouldn't blame China at all if the virus leaked from their lab in Wuhan?

mike00632 5y ago

If you want people to take seriesly the idea of COVID-19 coming from a lab then be scientific about it and offer up some ways to make it falsifiable. Otherwise it's simply not scientific, and almost everyone here pushing that theory is ignoring the evidence against it or modifying the conspiracy to fit the facts that contradict it. It's not constructive right now. The hypothesis that COVID-19 came from an animal, namely a bat, in Wuhan China is independently suggested by multiple areas of science (genetics and epidemiology). It's also in line with similar outbreaks that happened in the past. The science of this is about as "unsettled" as the the theory of evolution vs creationism.

snet0 5y ago
I politely recommend you do more research into the subject. It won't change your conclusions, but the state of affairs is very much not settled. Also, here's your falsifiability: when it can be shown that the virus is zoonotic in origin, the other theories of its origin are falsified. I do not believe that the virus was engineered in a lab at this point, but turning this into tribe warfare will not help anything. Saying that the opinion you disagree with is unscientific and comparing it to creationism just shows you aren't looking to have an actual conversation.
- XorNot 5y ago
  The initial probability of "novel new virus" is not "it was made in a lab / escape a lab".
- mike00632 5y ago
  Falsifiability would be something like: we know what the genetics of lab-made viruses look like; they have certain base pair signatures; therefore if this virus were made in a lab it would have those signatures. A real scientist with close knowledge of the virus and the lab offered this.

YeBanKo 5y ago

Every time another "expert" or an academic says that it's not worth investigating, because it is too political, I treat it as a litmus test if the person is full of shit and should not be allowed near public policy decision. Even if they are an expert in the field, does not mean they are "street smart". Everything can be and is politicized. Even local news about a petty theft or changes to a small park ends up being very political in the media or some local discussion board (looking at Nextdoor). If it crosses the border, it becomes international politics. There are existing cases when coronaviruses leaked from the labs before and it is a known concern: [1], [2] The debate on the risking of such research has been going on for years [3] and in 2014 the US even paused funding selected gain-of-function research [4]. It happened before more than once, denying that it could have happened again in 2019, because there are no evidence, is simply lazy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Why it matters? Because only in 2016 China adopted national guidelines for treatment of lab animals [5]. Knowing what happens critically important to make sure it does not happen again. Any system, that wants to adapt needs to analyze and find root cause of the mistake. Take rules and regulations in Aviation, all decisions about safety are driven by experience and past mistakes. If something is a pilot's mistake, then either there is a safeguard added, protocol or training altered, or everything above; but it's not customary to downplay or avoid highlighting human error. It is a common-sense approach used in any area, from aviation to military to sea navigation, etc. Either actors learn or the system learns by eliminating actors. Only in case of virus research, humanity is an actor that either needs to learn or ... And I don't understand, why it is so important not o blame Chinese government? Do we not want to blame the Soviet government for the handling and the fallout of Chernobyl? Or those, who made risky decisions while operation the plant? If it is leaked from the lab, amend must be made to the facility, protocols, guidelines. Nevertheless, if it turns out that it is someone's gross negligence, the person or group of people should be reprimanded. The US industrial farming can be a culprit of another "pig" or "chicken" flu or something more deadly. I would not be surprised, if some industrial farm with a string of sanitary and animal rights violations breeds a new virus. In this case, I want them to be reprimanded; if a state has loose regulations to prevent it, I want that state to be reprimanded by the federal government. And I would expect the US to take financial loss and pressure from the international community as an incentive to learn from mistake. [1] SARS escaped Beijing lab twice (2004) https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20040427-03 https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-... [2] https://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_09_24/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_09_24/en/ [3] Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research (2015) https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787 https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat... [4] http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf [5] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/china-finally-setting-guidelines-treating-lab-animals https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/china-finally-settin...

dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago

> "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " You'd believe scientists should know better that it's not about "China is guilty, they should pay for their crime" at all but "Let' us understand the origins so that we might prepare and protect ourselves better for another pandemic outbreak."