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It's frustrating that people make the argument that the lab leak theory is "politically convenient" and that it "played into various conspiracy theories" and th

It's frustrating that people make the argument that the lab leak theory is "politically convenient" and that it "played into various conspiracy theories" and then go on to list ridiculous things that no one here is arguing. A lot of people look at covid, which was first seen in wuhan, and think "hmm, it seems like there's a good chance it came from the lab in wuhan that studies coronaviruses." You don't have to involve politics at all for it to be easy to believe.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
You have to ignore all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely. Just as someone might want to believe the moon is made from cheese. It looks a bit like it, after all. But to believe that, you have to ignore all that scientists have uncovered about the moon.
- xyzzy123 4y ago
  What data makes this extremely unlikely? Worobey and Pekar are hardly convincing.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Just google it. There's enough out there, but you don't want to believe the experts even though you don't know the science. There is no signature of manipulation in the Genome. Zero sign of it being "recombined". Experts just don't see a clear way it could have happened. Just the inability to say it's impossible and will never happen is seen as confirmation of the hypothesis. Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis often believe the researchers have somehow enhanced the virus. The only way we actually know to do this is through evolution in lab animals. And even then it's pretty damn hard. Maybe multiple industrial-scale facilities could evolve a threatening Virus. At horrendous cost. Maybe. And even China couldn't hide that.
    - tripletao 4y ago
      The most likely research-origin scenario is either a naturally-evolved novel virus collected and accidentally released by the WIV, or a chimera of multiple such viruses. No genomic evidence could distinguish that from natural spillover. For example, here's David Relman back in 2020: > This argument [that SARS-CoV-2 must be natural since it doesn't use a known backbone] fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117 The WIV had the world's largest effort to collect novel sarbecoviruses from nature, often from remote caves that no other humans would routinely visit; so I don't see any reason to discount that possibility.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        You don't see the reason because you think like a computer scientist. Having two NPM packages whose versions interfere with each other is often called "dependency hell". But it is way worse for proteins in a Virus. In order to make a pandemic Virus the components must be finely tuned to each other. That is only possible through massively parallel evolution. A lab can't do that. When a lab combines Viruses, it's mostly to learn the individual contributions of the proteins. These Viruses are way less "fit" overall.
        tripletao 4y ago
        Except that we're currently discussing an article about researchers who achieved gain-of-function in a laboratory recombinant of a pandemic virus? Their chimera has the immune escape of omicron, with most of the mortality of the Wuhan wild type. The decrease in mortality compared to the Wuhan wild type is both statistically insignificant and irrelevant regardless; the correct comparison is against natural omicron, since that's the only natural virus with the omicron spike's immune escape properties. A subsequent BU press release denies that the research involved gain of function, with bizarre arguments including the fact that since it's never been tested in humans (good?) we can't know it's actually more lethal in humans. This is obviously wrong, as many people have pointed out. For example, here's Marc Lipsitch at Harvard: https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582574061062098946?cxt=HHwWhMDUxaiut_YrAAAA https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582574061062098946?cxt... My original quote is from David Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford who I wouldn't expect to "think like a computer scientist". Laboratories have been enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens for literally decades now, as measured by reproduction rates in vitro, mortality in their lab animals, and other similar metrics, and publishing in the open literature. For example, here's Relman asking Baric a question back in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s If you were really unware that labs are successfully enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens, then a Google Scholar search for Baric will find many examples. Anyways, even if you believe (quite falsely) that laboratory gain-of-function on such pathogens is impossible, that doesn't exclude a research-related origin for SARS-CoV-2. That could be a naturally-evolved virus, but one that was sitting harmlessly in a remote cave until the WIV sampled and accidentally released it. The WIV sampled remote areas that no other humans routinely entered, so it's possible in that scenario that the lineage would have died out in bats (or other zoonotic hosts) if the WIV hadn't released it into humans. Nobody is asserting that genomic evidence shows SARS-CoV-2 to be natural anymore. Even the strongest proponents of zoonotic origin have moved on, to more complicated epidemiological and phylogenetic arguments like Pekar's paper.
- themoonisachees 4y ago
- noptd 4y ago
  >all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely. Please, do share.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Why did the lab in Wuhan study coronaviruses? Is it that there are convenient natural reservoirs nearby?
- Jtype 4y ago
  nope. hundreds of miles away actually.
- tripletao 4y ago
  It is not. In the words of Dr. Shi herself: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province. https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli%20Q%26A.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.scien... Coronaviruses are basically everywhere, as are bats. The greatest abundance of sarbecoviruses is far from Wuhan, though. The closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in Yunnan and surroundings, near Kunming or Pu'er, and now in Laos.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I'm not really familiar with Dr Shi or your source (seems a bit obfuscated via archive.org), but it does seem like a very sober and careful analysis from an expert. Also, she says what I always assumed was the case: > Scientists from around the world have overwhelmingly concluded that SARS-CoV-2 originated naturally rather than from any institution.
    - tripletao 4y ago
      An expert indeed; Dr. Shi discovered the bat virus ancestors of SARS-1. Her subsequent research at the WIV is the matter of controversy here, as to whether that could have caused the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The interview is with Science, the well-known academic journal. That journal seems to have reorganized their website recently and broken my old link, so I used archive.org instead of hunting down the new URL. So Dr. Shi is obviously going to say the pandemic is of natural origin. Even if she personally believes otherwise, she's under the physical control of the PRC government, and would suffer grave consequences if she went against their official story. My point is that not even she thinks spillover in Wuhan is likely, though. The idea that the WIV was situated in Wuhan because of an abundance of nearby sarbecoviruses is bizarrely common, but it's neither anti-lab-origin nor pro-lab-origin, just wrong.
somewhereoutth 4y ago
Unfortunately the politics makes it comforting to believe (even though all the evidence points to natural origin - explained at length here and elsewhere). It is so much easier to believe that the bad thing was made by bad people somewhere else, instead of confronting the reality that in fact we did it with our ever greater encroachment on the last remaining natural reservoirs - and will do it again, probably soon.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

You have to ignore all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely. Just as someone might want to believe the moon is made from cheese. It looks a bit like it, after all. But to believe that, you have to ignore all that scientists have uncovered about the moon.

xyzzy123 4y ago
What data makes this extremely unlikely? Worobey and Pekar are hardly convincing.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Just google it. There's enough out there, but you don't want to believe the experts even though you don't know the science. There is no signature of manipulation in the Genome. Zero sign of it being "recombined". Experts just don't see a clear way it could have happened. Just the inability to say it's impossible and will never happen is seen as confirmation of the hypothesis. Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis often believe the researchers have somehow enhanced the virus. The only way we actually know to do this is through evolution in lab animals. And even then it's pretty damn hard. Maybe multiple industrial-scale facilities could evolve a threatening Virus. At horrendous cost. Maybe. And even China couldn't hide that.
  - tripletao 4y ago
    The most likely research-origin scenario is either a naturally-evolved novel virus collected and accidentally released by the WIV, or a chimera of multiple such viruses. No genomic evidence could distinguish that from natural spillover. For example, here's David Relman back in 2020: > This argument [that SARS-CoV-2 must be natural since it doesn't use a known backbone] fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117 The WIV had the world's largest effort to collect novel sarbecoviruses from nature, often from remote caves that no other humans would routinely visit; so I don't see any reason to discount that possibility.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      You don't see the reason because you think like a computer scientist. Having two NPM packages whose versions interfere with each other is often called "dependency hell". But it is way worse for proteins in a Virus. In order to make a pandemic Virus the components must be finely tuned to each other. That is only possible through massively parallel evolution. A lab can't do that. When a lab combines Viruses, it's mostly to learn the individual contributions of the proteins. These Viruses are way less "fit" overall.
      - tripletao 4y ago
        Except that we're currently discussing an article about researchers who achieved gain-of-function in a laboratory recombinant of a pandemic virus? Their chimera has the immune escape of omicron, with most of the mortality of the Wuhan wild type. The decrease in mortality compared to the Wuhan wild type is both statistically insignificant and irrelevant regardless; the correct comparison is against natural omicron, since that's the only natural virus with the omicron spike's immune escape properties. A subsequent BU press release denies that the research involved gain of function, with bizarre arguments including the fact that since it's never been tested in humans (good?) we can't know it's actually more lethal in humans. This is obviously wrong, as many people have pointed out. For example, here's Marc Lipsitch at Harvard: https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582574061062098946?cxt=HHwWhMDUxaiut_YrAAAA https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582574061062098946?cxt... My original quote is from David Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford who I wouldn't expect to "think like a computer scientist". Laboratories have been enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens for literally decades now, as measured by reproduction rates in vitro, mortality in their lab animals, and other similar metrics, and publishing in the open literature. For example, here's Relman asking Baric a question back in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s If you were really unware that labs are successfully enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens, then a Google Scholar search for Baric will find many examples. Anyways, even if you believe (quite falsely) that laboratory gain-of-function on such pathogens is impossible, that doesn't exclude a research-related origin for SARS-CoV-2. That could be a naturally-evolved virus, but one that was sitting harmlessly in a remote cave until the WIV sampled and accidentally released it. The WIV sampled remote areas that no other humans routinely entered, so it's possible in that scenario that the lineage would have died out in bats (or other zoonotic hosts) if the WIV hadn't released it into humans. Nobody is asserting that genomic evidence shows SARS-CoV-2 to be natural anymore. Even the strongest proponents of zoonotic origin have moved on, to more complicated epidemiological and phylogenetic arguments like Pekar's paper.
themoonisachees 4y ago
noptd 4y ago
>all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely. Please, do share.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Why did the lab in Wuhan study coronaviruses? Is it that there are convenient natural reservoirs nearby?

Jtype 4y ago
nope. hundreds of miles away actually.
tripletao 4y ago
It is not. In the words of Dr. Shi herself: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province. https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli%20Q%26A.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.scien... Coronaviruses are basically everywhere, as are bats. The greatest abundance of sarbecoviruses is far from Wuhan, though. The closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in Yunnan and surroundings, near Kunming or Pu'er, and now in Laos.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I'm not really familiar with Dr Shi or your source (seems a bit obfuscated via archive.org), but it does seem like a very sober and careful analysis from an expert. Also, she says what I always assumed was the case: > Scientists from around the world have overwhelmingly concluded that SARS-CoV-2 originated naturally rather than from any institution.
  - tripletao 4y ago
    An expert indeed; Dr. Shi discovered the bat virus ancestors of SARS-1. Her subsequent research at the WIV is the matter of controversy here, as to whether that could have caused the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The interview is with Science, the well-known academic journal. That journal seems to have reorganized their website recently and broken my old link, so I used archive.org instead of hunting down the new URL. So Dr. Shi is obviously going to say the pandemic is of natural origin. Even if she personally believes otherwise, she's under the physical control of the PRC government, and would suffer grave consequences if she went against their official story. My point is that not even she thinks spillover in Wuhan is likely, though. The idea that the WIV was situated in Wuhan because of an abundance of nearby sarbecoviruses is bizarrely common, but it's neither anti-lab-origin nor pro-lab-origin, just wrong.

somewhereoutth 4y ago

Unfortunately the politics makes it comforting to believe (even though all the evidence points to natural origin - explained at length here and elsewhere). It is so much easier to believe that the bad thing was made by bad people somewhere else, instead of confronting the reality that in fact we did it with our ever greater encroachment on the last remaining natural reservoirs - and will do it again, probably soon.