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This is a horrible Twitter thread. He leads off with an immediate ad hominem against Nicholas Wade, complete with an accusation of racism. He then states, fal

by JPKab 5y ago

This is a horrible Twitter thread. He leads off with an immediate ad hominem against Nicholas Wade, complete with an accusation of racism. He then states, falsely, that it isn't possible to engineer a virus without telltale markers, ignoring more modern techniques which don't leave telltales. He also conflates engineering a virus with the argument of it leaking. The thread reeks of cognitive dissonance and cherry picked straw men, but the disgusting racism smear on Wade was just wrong. And I'm not even going to dig into the out of the gate comparison he used with climate deniers. Deeply insulting, and in bad faith. I also forgot to mention that he deliberately ignored the humanized mice being the location of the serial passage work, and straw manned a "petri dish". Completely misrepresenting the fact that was most crucial. In the future, using a Twitter account with locked comments is inadvisable. He blocked comments for a reason.

tootie 5y ago
It's not an ad hominem, it's an attack on his credibility. He does not assert it's impossible to engineer a virus without markers he points to two reviewed studies saying known techniques will leave telltales. Like I said, it's evidence against lab leak but not conclusive. His entire argument is very straightforward. Zoonotic origin is highly plausible, has caused previous SARS outbreaks, has no evidence against it. Lab leak is possible, though it has no precedent and there's evidence that makes it less likely. There's no conclusive evidence for either. The balance of evidence and history leans heavily to zoonotic. There is absolutely nothing anyone has said in this thread that he didn't directly address nor anything that weakens his argument. Anyone on the lab leak train right now is basing it purely on bias.
- JPKab 5y ago
  Saying that a lab leak of a SARS virus has no precedent is completely inaccurate. There was a lab leak of SARS1 in 2004 which infected a lab worker and the people he came in contact with. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-beijing-lab-twice-50137/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-anal...

by JPKab 5y ago

tootie 5y ago

It's not an ad hominem, it's an attack on his credibility. He does not assert it's impossible to engineer a virus without markers he points to two reviewed studies saying known techniques will leave telltales. Like I said, it's evidence against lab leak but not conclusive. His entire argument is very straightforward. Zoonotic origin is highly plausible, has caused previous SARS outbreaks, has no evidence against it. Lab leak is possible, though it has no precedent and there's evidence that makes it less likely. There's no conclusive evidence for either. The balance of evidence and history leans heavily to zoonotic. There is absolutely nothing anyone has said in this thread that he didn't directly address nor anything that weakens his argument. Anyone on the lab leak train right now is basing it purely on bias.

JPKab 5y ago
Saying that a lab leak of a SARS virus has no precedent is completely inaccurate. There was a lab leak of SARS1 in 2004 which infected a lab worker and the people he came in contact with. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-beijing-lab-twice-50137/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-anal...