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If you want to argue like that there's also this publication from Italy claiming that the first antibodies were detected in September 2019. The comment above s

If you want to argue like that there's also this publication from Italy claiming that the first antibodies were detected in September 2019. The comment above says I would just do X, and bringing up RaTG13 and BANAL-52 as an argument as if it's all trivial. They share 96.2% and 96.9% similarity with sars-cov-2. There are seemingly unrelated animals sharing that much. The linked study also doesn't mention any of that. I'm not going to argue one way or the other, but I'm starting to get really annoyed at people posting random studies they half understand to argue one way or the other. Covid-19 discussions hackernews(or reddit for that matter) are like the Joe Rogan of nerds. It's ridiculous, people here should know or act better. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/

timr 5y ago
One strain of BANAL (52) has a high DNA sequence similarity to SARS-CoV2. Nonetheless, RaTG13 is closer overall (as you can see in the phylogenetic analysis in the paper I posted), and there are enough differences that you have to make complex assumptions about how multiple viruses crossed over evolutionary time. Possible? Yes. Parsimonious? Not necessarily. Also, nobody reasonable is arguing that BANAL-52 is not evolutionarily related to SARS-CoV2. Of course it is. But that could be true even if it were a precursor of some virus that was later engineered in a lab. To fully convince me of a natural origin hypothesis, you'd have to find a virus in an animal reservoir that had a highly similar RBD with a furin cleavage site -- or something within a few point mutations of a furin cleavage site. Also, a high degree of homology across the remainder of the genome.
neffy 5y ago
I'm fine with people posting random studies that I can read and form my own opinion on. This isn't ridiculous. This is the process of science.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  I’m actually not fine with people posting random studies and then also making random claims from undereducated interpretation. That’s not the process of science, mostly because in the process of science you’re expected to be educated first before you can enter a discussion, otherwise you’re not discussing heavily niche subjects with peers you’re just introducing noise and that drowns out the actually useful educated niche. As a layman that is trying to find what the actual, educated in virus research and virus forensics folks are discussing and saying, this sort of undereducated claim is more noise for me to try and sift. It’s very annoying and a waste of my time.

timr 5y ago

One strain of BANAL (52) has a high DNA sequence similarity to SARS-CoV2. Nonetheless, RaTG13 is closer overall (as you can see in the phylogenetic analysis in the paper I posted), and there are enough differences that you have to make complex assumptions about how multiple viruses crossed over evolutionary time. Possible? Yes. Parsimonious? Not necessarily. Also, nobody reasonable is arguing that BANAL-52 is not evolutionarily related to SARS-CoV2. Of course it is. But that could be true even if it were a precursor of some virus that was later engineered in a lab. To fully convince me of a natural origin hypothesis, you'd have to find a virus in an animal reservoir that had a highly similar RBD with a furin cleavage site -- or something within a few point mutations of a furin cleavage site. Also, a high degree of homology across the remainder of the genome.

neffy 5y ago

I'm fine with people posting random studies that I can read and form my own opinion on. This isn't ridiculous. This is the process of science.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
I’m actually not fine with people posting random studies and then also making random claims from undereducated interpretation. That’s not the process of science, mostly because in the process of science you’re expected to be educated first before you can enter a discussion, otherwise you’re not discussing heavily niche subjects with peers you’re just introducing noise and that drowns out the actually useful educated niche. As a layman that is trying to find what the actual, educated in virus research and virus forensics folks are discussing and saying, this sort of undereducated claim is more noise for me to try and sift. It’s very annoying and a waste of my time.