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Note that this is based on studies by Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions [1] that has not yet been peer reviewed. Occam's Razor says that the

Note that this is based on studies by Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions [1] that has not yet been peer reviewed. Occam's Razor says that the Wuhan Institute of Virology known for studying coronaviruses must have played a part. [1] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1

OscarCunningham 5y ago
It's kind of strange that China would be biased about this. Why is it worse for them if the pandemic escaped from a lab rather from the animal markets they were repeatedly warned might cause a pandemic? They bear all the blame either way.
- modernpink 5y ago
  I suppose they would think it better to be thought of worse for bad eating habits than it is to be incompetent at abiding by international standards for conducting science, or even to have maliciously released a bioweapon.
alevskaya 5y ago
Occam's razor does not mean every coincidence is meaningful - that's just pareidolia. The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Something that most professional biologists like myself has have been trying to stress.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  The difference is - humans now has the capability to create viruses. And it's obvious that covid is created by humans. You just need to look at its generic code to figure that out.
  - crest 5y ago
    Citation needed!
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    Do you have a link for that? Last time I read a preprint claiming that, it was about a few (4?) parts that covid-19 has that are equal to parts of of other virus. But the matches were very short and some of them not even consecutive parts. It's very easy to get matches by chance comparing all the genome of covid-19 with all the genome of other virus, and if you allow holes in the matches it's even easier.
    - jtc331 5y ago
      I found that unconvincing also. However the fact that the matching parts are in the furin cleavage site (which has never been seen in a coronavirus) did at least bump claim up to “this could plausibly be interesting”.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      My understanding is that in general on average DNA across things is very similar. Specifics are different, but lot of material is shared even across species. And then take fact that there is essentially 4 characters with million pairs to read surely some random data will collide.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Lots of people looked at it, and they did not conclude that.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I have always wondered if this wasn't a deep-state operation by USA to make China look bad. Would make perfect sense right? Collect some samples, make a virus, release in Wuhan. Then blame China on it to lessen their soft-power... Exactly type of evil stuff that USA is well known for... Like toppling democracies, assassinations and funding terrorism... Sounds to me like most realistic and simplest explanation knowing the sides involved.
- walkhour 5y ago
  I wish this was better explained to the public like myself. Every now and then someone comes along and says: "there's no evidence the virus was engineered in a lab". But what would the evidence look like? For example, is it possible to replicate a zoonotic crossover in a lab so that both hypothesis (zoonotic and lab leak) are equally probable? > The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Do you however give a positive probability to a lab leak? In what range does the probability lie according to most biologist? Is it more 20%, 2% or 0.2% that the lab leak is the correct hypothesis?
  - 8note 5y ago
    I'd suggest that a wet market is a lab for replicating a zoonotic transfer. Put a lot of immune compromised animals together with humans, and nature will find a way
floitsch 5y ago
Occam's razor states: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Given that viruses have multiple times spread from animals to humans this would be the simplest explanation, favored by Occam's razor. That said, the scientific community has not ruled out a lab leak. The Atlantic generally has very good articles on where the investigation stand, and how different people interpret the probabilities/coincidences. For example https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak... Given that China is not really interested in any conclusion on this topic (except if the virus was imported from a different country) we will probably never know.
twoslide 5y ago
Your comment is factully incorrect. The article cites three studies, only one of which (Gao et al) is based in a Chinese institution. The other two have lead authors at University of Arizona [1] and UC San Diego [2]. Note that [1] is specifically titled "The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence" Mischaracterizing the evidence and/or article really doesn't strengthen the "Occam's razor" argument. [1] https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 [2] https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
You have linked to only one of the three preprints and used it to claim that all three preprints are from Chinese labs. These are the author names from the three preprints: The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence Authors: Michael Worobey; Joshua I. Levy; Lorena M. Malpica Serrano; Alexander Crits-Christoph; Jonathan E. Pekar; Stephen A. Goldstein; Angela L. Rasmussen; Moritz U. G. Kraemer; Chris Newman; Marion P. G. Koopmans; Marc A. Suchard; Joel O. Wertheim; Philippe Lemey; David L. Robertson; Robert F. Garry; Edward C. Holmes; Andrew Rambaut; Kristian G. Andersen Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events Authors: Pekar, Jonathan E.; Magee, Andrew; Parker, Edyth; Moshiri, Niema; Izhikevich, Katherine; Havens, Jennifer L.; Gangavarapu, Karthik; Malpica Serrano, Lorena M.; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Matteson, Nathaniel L.; Zeller, Mark; Levy, Joshua I.; Wang, Jade C.; Hughes, Scott; Lee, Jungmin; Park, Heedo; Park, Man-Seong; Ching Zi Yan, Katherine; Tzer Pin Lin, Raymond; Mat Isa, Mohd Noor; Muhammad Noor, Yusuf; Vasylyeva, Tetyana I.; Garry, Robert F.; Holmes, Edward C.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Worobey, Michael; Wertheim, Joel O. Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market Authors: William J. Liu, Peipei Liu, Wenwen Lei, Zhiyuan Jia, Xiaozhou He, Linlin Liu Weifeng Shi, Yun Tan, Shumei Zou, Xiang Zhao, Gary Wong, Ji Wang, Feng Wang, Gang Wang, Kun Qin, Rongbao Gao, Jie Zhang, Min Li, Wenling Xiao, Yuanyuan Guo, Ziqian Xu, Yingze Zhao, Jingdong Song, Jing Zhang, Wei Zhen, Wenting Zhou, Beiwei Ye, Juan Song, Mengjie Yang, Weimin Zhou, Yuhai Bi, Kun Cai, Dayan Wang, Wenjie Tan, Jun Han, Wenbo Xu, George F. Gao, Guizhen Wu Online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 In the linked pdfs you can see the affiliations of the preprints. The first two are researchers from universities in the US, UK, Australia and EU countries. The last one is researchers from Chinese institutes. Bottom line: the article is not based on studies by "Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions" as you say. Also, please don't abuse Occam's Razor as a tool to shut down curious discussion.

OscarCunningham 5y ago

It's kind of strange that China would be biased about this. Why is it worse for them if the pandemic escaped from a lab rather from the animal markets they were repeatedly warned might cause a pandemic? They bear all the blame either way.

modernpink 5y ago
I suppose they would think it better to be thought of worse for bad eating habits than it is to be incompetent at abiding by international standards for conducting science, or even to have maliciously released a bioweapon.

alevskaya 5y ago

Occam's razor does not mean every coincidence is meaningful - that's just pareidolia. The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Something that most professional biologists like myself has have been trying to stress.

peakaboo 5y ago
The difference is - humans now has the capability to create viruses. And it's obvious that covid is created by humans. You just need to look at its generic code to figure that out.
- crest 5y ago
  Citation needed!
- gus_massa 5y ago
  Do you have a link for that? Last time I read a preprint claiming that, it was about a few (4?) parts that covid-19 has that are equal to parts of of other virus. But the matches were very short and some of them not even consecutive parts. It's very easy to get matches by chance comparing all the genome of covid-19 with all the genome of other virus, and if you allow holes in the matches it's even easier.
  - jtc331 5y ago
    I found that unconvincing also. However the fact that the matching parts are in the furin cleavage site (which has never been seen in a coronavirus) did at least bump claim up to “this could plausibly be interesting”.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    My understanding is that in general on average DNA across things is very similar. Specifics are different, but lot of material is shared even across species. And then take fact that there is essentially 4 characters with million pairs to read surely some random data will collide.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Lots of people looked at it, and they did not conclude that.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  I have always wondered if this wasn't a deep-state operation by USA to make China look bad. Would make perfect sense right? Collect some samples, make a virus, release in Wuhan. Then blame China on it to lessen their soft-power... Exactly type of evil stuff that USA is well known for... Like toppling democracies, assassinations and funding terrorism... Sounds to me like most realistic and simplest explanation knowing the sides involved.
walkhour 5y ago
I wish this was better explained to the public like myself. Every now and then someone comes along and says: "there's no evidence the virus was engineered in a lab". But what would the evidence look like? For example, is it possible to replicate a zoonotic crossover in a lab so that both hypothesis (zoonotic and lab leak) are equally probable? > The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Do you however give a positive probability to a lab leak? In what range does the probability lie according to most biologist? Is it more 20%, 2% or 0.2% that the lab leak is the correct hypothesis?
- 8note 5y ago
  I'd suggest that a wet market is a lab for replicating a zoonotic transfer. Put a lot of immune compromised animals together with humans, and nature will find a way

floitsch 5y ago

Occam's razor states: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Given that viruses have multiple times spread from animals to humans this would be the simplest explanation, favored by Occam's razor. That said, the scientific community has not ruled out a lab leak. The Atlantic generally has very good articles on where the investigation stand, and how different people interpret the probabilities/coincidences. For example https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak... Given that China is not really interested in any conclusion on this topic (except if the virus was imported from a different country) we will probably never know.

twoslide 5y ago

Your comment is factully incorrect. The article cites three studies, only one of which (Gao et al) is based in a Chinese institution. The other two have lead authors at University of Arizona [1] and UC San Diego [2]. Note that [1] is specifically titled "The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence" Mischaracterizing the evidence and/or article really doesn't strengthen the "Occam's razor" argument. [1] https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 [2] https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

You have linked to only one of the three preprints and used it to claim that all three preprints are from Chinese labs. These are the author names from the three preprints: The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence Authors: Michael Worobey; Joshua I. Levy; Lorena M. Malpica Serrano; Alexander Crits-Christoph; Jonathan E. Pekar; Stephen A. Goldstein; Angela L. Rasmussen; Moritz U. G. Kraemer; Chris Newman; Marion P. G. Koopmans; Marc A. Suchard; Joel O. Wertheim; Philippe Lemey; David L. Robertson; Robert F. Garry; Edward C. Holmes; Andrew Rambaut; Kristian G. Andersen Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events Authors: Pekar, Jonathan E.; Magee, Andrew; Parker, Edyth; Moshiri, Niema; Izhikevich, Katherine; Havens, Jennifer L.; Gangavarapu, Karthik; Malpica Serrano, Lorena M.; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Matteson, Nathaniel L.; Zeller, Mark; Levy, Joshua I.; Wang, Jade C.; Hughes, Scott; Lee, Jungmin; Park, Heedo; Park, Man-Seong; Ching Zi Yan, Katherine; Tzer Pin Lin, Raymond; Mat Isa, Mohd Noor; Muhammad Noor, Yusuf; Vasylyeva, Tetyana I.; Garry, Robert F.; Holmes, Edward C.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Worobey, Michael; Wertheim, Joel O. Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market Authors: William J. Liu, Peipei Liu, Wenwen Lei, Zhiyuan Jia, Xiaozhou He, Linlin Liu Weifeng Shi, Yun Tan, Shumei Zou, Xiang Zhao, Gary Wong, Ji Wang, Feng Wang, Gang Wang, Kun Qin, Rongbao Gao, Jie Zhang, Min Li, Wenling Xiao, Yuanyuan Guo, Ziqian Xu, Yingze Zhao, Jingdong Song, Jing Zhang, Wei Zhen, Wenting Zhou, Beiwei Ye, Juan Song, Mengjie Yang, Weimin Zhou, Yuhai Bi, Kun Cai, Dayan Wang, Wenjie Tan, Jun Han, Wenbo Xu, George F. Gao, Guizhen Wu Online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 In the linked pdfs you can see the affiliations of the preprints. The first two are researchers from universities in the US, UK, Australia and EU countries. The last one is researchers from Chinese institutes. Bottom line: the article is not based on studies by "Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions" as you say. Also, please don't abuse Occam's Razor as a tool to shut down curious discussion.