3 ms·
Hmm, dunno, I thought it was a great article, with the main takeaway being that GoF research is unequivocally and inarguably dangerous AF, should be halted ASAP
by indigodaddy 5y ago
Hmm, dunno, I thought it was a great article, with the main takeaway being that GoF research is unequivocally and inarguably dangerous AF, should be halted ASAP, if not forever then for a long period of time where we can proverbially have a breather such that the scientific community can engage in an official reassessment/reexamination upon its safety and viability.
- fer 5y agoIt's great to oversee certain hypotheses, but as a whole it's largely clickbait, IMO. Aside from what I said, for example, GoF research generally introduces silent mutations at about the same rate as natural evolution, because it's experimental evolution after all. Likewise, such research often implies loss-of-function, due to uneven selection pressure (unless you do GoF in humans, which isn't really needed in a pandemic scenario). But on the other hand, he raises the point of the low level of silent mutations, which is more a case of genetic modification than GoF, and doesn't even mention the possible loss-of-function. So even though the lab leak is plausible, she's using arguments that contradict each other, knowing that at least one of them is invalid (most certainly the GoF one).