12 ms·

I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned -

I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it. Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why. Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.

mikeyouse 5y ago
Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
  - fn-mote 5y ago
    > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
    - mattcwilson 5y ago
      I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      > The first step is understanding. This is a slogan with no logical value. > Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. Except we do understand. It seems to me that you are lacking is basic scientific knowledge. Virus mutates naturally and become more virulent due to evolution. > For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it". We can control our hands, we can't control viruses in nature.
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      The problem is, there's no real clinical benefit that comes out of gain of function research. Virologists claim that there is, but they can't point to examples of where it helped us actually treat or prevent something. Basically they're creating bigger and bigger fires and claiming that doing so somehow helps firefighters. Next we'll have nuclear weapons researchers claiming that higher yields are good to know about so we can work out how to protect against stronger explosions.
arcticfox 5y ago
> Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. What? The risks for each of those, even the nuclear power plant operation, are extremely limited and localized. GoF research has potential near-extinction levels of risk. Nuclear weapons are the ony thing on remotely the same tier IMO. It's not to say that GoF is not a good idea, as clearly there is potential benefit. But to compare it to the risks of driving a car is apples to radioactive oranges.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Stupid GoF research has those risks. Totally eliminating a research methodology because of possible bad actors is just like how nuclear energy was delayed for decades because of green ooze.
  - Ygg2 5y ago
    With all respect to nuclear threat. It doesn't self replicate.
  - jtc331 5y ago
    It’s not just about bad actors. It’s that the techniques (serial passaging) aren’t even controllable in the sense that we don’t know what will result. GoF is often not lab engineering and the outcomes are not predictable and the range of possible danger is almost infinite. Even from perfectly well intentioned actors.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      Not knowing the result is the point. You develop novel viruses that you may not be able to imagine and then study how they impact an organism. This is useful.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, but you are contradicting yourself Nuclear accidents cannot be [1] limited and localized, and also [2] at the same tier as GoF (...since GoF outcomes are certainly not [1]).
mardifoufs 5y ago
I don't have any particular opinion on fauci and 2 years ago I'd have agreed on pretty much everything you said. The issue though is not necessarily the GoF research by itself. If the scientists involved did not try to completely silence everyone, cover their tracks and basically stonewall any potential investigation, I wouldn't see the problem. From my point of view, you simply cannot assess the risk when the main party involved in taking and being responsible for said risk has proven itself to be so shady. We all know that there areinherent dangers to this type of research, but we can't account for human deception and tribal wagon circling on top of that. The proponents of GoF could've come clean, been transparent and welcomed the scrutiny considering the insane magnitude of the situation. But they have not! Even if it turns out that this is purely zoonotic, the trust is rightfully broken imo. Maybe research should continue, even on GoF, but consequences should now be clear. The article details such a long pattern of deliberate obfuscation, gaslighting and outright manipulation that it's becomes impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, considering that we went through the biggest pandemic of the past century during which most people have seen their lives literally dictated by arbitrary (and very low) risk thresholds that authorities have decided to follow... it would be a bit rich to now just say that we have to live with the risks of scientists fucking up and that we have to let the pros handle it. Yes screw ups happen, but asking billions of people to just live with the consequences won't work. Again, 2 years ago I'd have said that we need to take the risk because it can have tremendous benefits. But as much as appealing to "commoners" might sound lazy, there's still something deeply wrong when we see a much stronger and visceral reactions/consequences to maskless "karens" than we do to the individuals involved with orgs like the EcoHealth alliance. Yes it's maybe a populist take, but at some point the elitism becomes so blatant that even populism makes sense
jazzyjackson 5y ago
> Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Didn't feel like it.
- macintux 5y ago
  We had a vaccine candidate within a few days as I recall. That's miraculous.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    That was mostly due to advances in mRNA technology, no? Moderna was able to design the vaccine in days mostly because of it's RNA tech, not because it was prepared for a coronavirus pandemic.
    - macintux 5y ago
      Definitely mRNA advancements played a huge role, but it certainly sounds like coronavirus research played its part. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/01/26/moderna-covid-vaccine-science-fast/6555783002/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/0...
      - wbl 5y ago
        All that was needed was knowing spike is a target.
voldacar 5y ago
The tail risk of taking viruses and deliberately making them more dangerous is not even comparable to the tail risks of flying, driving, or (imo) operating nuclear power plants. This is either a profoundly ignorant statement or just disingenuous. Like seriously, this is a mind boggling statement you just made
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
This is missing basic understanding risk management. Parent is solely focused on probability, when what really matters is outcome. Lets say that for every 10 years: 1) p of lab leak is 0.002% vs 2) p of nuclear accident is 0.03% Although (2) is much more probable, from a risk management perspective, (1) is unacceptable because risks compound over time and critically, the domain of outcomes are vastly less localized and certain than (2).

mikeyouse 5y ago

Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.

TeeMassive 5y ago
Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
- fn-mote 5y ago
  > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
  - mattcwilson 5y ago
    I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > The first step is understanding. This is a slogan with no logical value. > Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. Except we do understand. It seems to me that you are lacking is basic scientific knowledge. Virus mutates naturally and become more virulent due to evolution. > For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it". We can control our hands, we can't control viruses in nature.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    The problem is, there's no real clinical benefit that comes out of gain of function research. Virologists claim that there is, but they can't point to examples of where it helped us actually treat or prevent something. Basically they're creating bigger and bigger fires and claiming that doing so somehow helps firefighters. Next we'll have nuclear weapons researchers claiming that higher yields are good to know about so we can work out how to protect against stronger explosions.

arcticfox 5y ago

> Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. What? The risks for each of those, even the nuclear power plant operation, are extremely limited and localized. GoF research has potential near-extinction levels of risk. Nuclear weapons are the ony thing on remotely the same tier IMO. It's not to say that GoF is not a good idea, as clearly there is potential benefit. But to compare it to the risks of driving a car is apples to radioactive oranges.

R0b0t1 5y ago
Stupid GoF research has those risks. Totally eliminating a research methodology because of possible bad actors is just like how nuclear energy was delayed for decades because of green ooze.
- Ygg2 5y ago
  With all respect to nuclear threat. It doesn't self replicate.
- jtc331 5y ago
  It’s not just about bad actors. It’s that the techniques (serial passaging) aren’t even controllable in the sense that we don’t know what will result. GoF is often not lab engineering and the outcomes are not predictable and the range of possible danger is almost infinite. Even from perfectly well intentioned actors.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    Not knowing the result is the point. You develop novel viruses that you may not be able to imagine and then study how they impact an organism. This is useful.
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but you are contradicting yourself Nuclear accidents cannot be [1] limited and localized, and also [2] at the same tier as GoF (...since GoF outcomes are certainly not [1]).

mardifoufs 5y ago

I don't have any particular opinion on fauci and 2 years ago I'd have agreed on pretty much everything you said. The issue though is not necessarily the GoF research by itself. If the scientists involved did not try to completely silence everyone, cover their tracks and basically stonewall any potential investigation, I wouldn't see the problem. From my point of view, you simply cannot assess the risk when the main party involved in taking and being responsible for said risk has proven itself to be so shady. We all know that there areinherent dangers to this type of research, but we can't account for human deception and tribal wagon circling on top of that. The proponents of GoF could've come clean, been transparent and welcomed the scrutiny considering the insane magnitude of the situation. But they have not! Even if it turns out that this is purely zoonotic, the trust is rightfully broken imo. Maybe research should continue, even on GoF, but consequences should now be clear. The article details such a long pattern of deliberate obfuscation, gaslighting and outright manipulation that it's becomes impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, considering that we went through the biggest pandemic of the past century during which most people have seen their lives literally dictated by arbitrary (and very low) risk thresholds that authorities have decided to follow... it would be a bit rich to now just say that we have to live with the risks of scientists fucking up and that we have to let the pros handle it. Yes screw ups happen, but asking billions of people to just live with the consequences won't work. Again, 2 years ago I'd have said that we need to take the risk because it can have tremendous benefits. But as much as appealing to "commoners" might sound lazy, there's still something deeply wrong when we see a much stronger and visceral reactions/consequences to maskless "karens" than we do to the individuals involved with orgs like the EcoHealth alliance. Yes it's maybe a populist take, but at some point the elitism becomes so blatant that even populism makes sense

jazzyjackson 5y ago

> Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Didn't feel like it.

macintux 5y ago
We had a vaccine candidate within a few days as I recall. That's miraculous.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  That was mostly due to advances in mRNA technology, no? Moderna was able to design the vaccine in days mostly because of it's RNA tech, not because it was prepared for a coronavirus pandemic.
  - macintux 5y ago
    Definitely mRNA advancements played a huge role, but it certainly sounds like coronavirus research played its part. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/01/26/moderna-covid-vaccine-science-fast/6555783002/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/0...
    - wbl 5y ago
      All that was needed was knowing spike is a target.

voldacar 5y ago

The tail risk of taking viruses and deliberately making them more dangerous is not even comparable to the tail risks of flying, driving, or (imo) operating nuclear power plants. This is either a profoundly ignorant statement or just disingenuous. Like seriously, this is a mind boggling statement you just made

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago

This is missing basic understanding risk management. Parent is solely focused on probability, when what really matters is outcome. Lets say that for every 10 years: 1) p of lab leak is 0.002% vs 2) p of nuclear accident is 0.03% Although (2) is much more probable, from a risk management perspective, (1) is unacceptable because risks compound over time and critically, the domain of outcomes are vastly less localized and certain than (2).