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Then you don't understand viral evolution or genomic epidemiology. "Gain of function" genomes just aren't that viable. Modifying genomes always means the virus

Then you don't understand viral evolution or genomic epidemiology. "Gain of function" genomes just aren't that viable. Modifying genomes always means the virus becomes less effective in most ways - except one. It's so much not like "programming" it isn't even funny. Posing "Gain Of Function" experiments as the origin of Sars-Cov-2 also forgets to answer the question of what exactly the starting genome was. At the very least it was completely unknown outside that mystery lab. And there is zero signature anything has been done to it despite natural selection. And when we're talking evolutionary experiments, now you need to explain a couple thousands of hosts (and mice don't really cut it, ferrets and upwards more probably...) at the very minimum, if not hundreds of thousands, which are a lot harder to hide. Biology is really hard. That's why it took millions of hosts to finetune Sars-Cov-2 to the menace it eventually became. That's not going to happen in a lab any time soon because we don't have the tools. We have tools to assemble and modify some genes, but the chance of actually creating a pandemic that way, accidentally or intentionally is next to zero. Yes, it is out of the question that Wuhan researchers created Sars-Cov-2 through "Gain Of Function research, especially related to those "papers" that are often cited to spread this misinformation.

rleigh 4y ago
I don't think it's me spreading baseless misinformation, it's you. Take a long hard look at what you wrote, what I wrote, and then think critically about the problem from all of the angles. I have a degree in Molecular Biology and a PhD in immunology, and I've worked in infectious disease research. Most of what you wrote is dangerous and inaccurate nonsense.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  What exactly you think is wrong with my reasoning? Just throwing a PhD around gets you nowhere with me, you might as well invoke some Pokemon cards. "Gain of Function" experiments involve viral particles that sometimes aren't even infectious to actual living hosts any more, hard to believe they are viable as "practical" diseases. In my practical understanding, maybe you have some new groundbreaking and unpublished methods of inventing completely novel but extremely viable viruses from scratch, laboratories have to take in a virus before they leak it. That's still the part of the "lab leak hypothesis" that is the sketchiest. Sars-CoV-2 has no known remotely immediate ancestors in any database. Meaning the supposed laboratory X had to do everything in secret before they knew it had to be kept secret. And there was some secrecy after the fact, but the typical Chinese face saving idiocy doesn't buy you the liberty to claim anything you want. Also there is no "designing" of diseases without a sophisticated and large scale industrial process, and it's hard to believe China would chose anything like SARS-CoV-2 for that... There have been some experiments around making a virus more adapted to one host species or integrating some novel proteins. That's about it. All the experiments concentrate on single aspects of a virus because evolving a complete virus is just so combinatorically complex (and pointlessly dangerous). If a lab passes a bat virus through Human cell cultures, yes, it gets more adapted to Human cell cultures, but less virulent. Most genetic manipulation will also result in a virus that loses lots of its function. It is virtually inconceivable that a lab takes in a virus that is incapable of infecting Humans (or causing a pandemic) and then leaks a virus that is capable of infecting Humans and causing a pandemic. There is nothing in that lab selecting the particles for their "pandemic potential", and we know that "pandemic potential" is a trait that virus rarely achieve. If Sars-Cov-2 DID "leak" from a lab, my opinion is that it did so without any intentional modifications. And then there would still be the question where did they find it and when would it have reached Humans without help.

rleigh 4y ago

I don't think it's me spreading baseless misinformation, it's you. Take a long hard look at what you wrote, what I wrote, and then think critically about the problem from all of the angles. I have a degree in Molecular Biology and a PhD in immunology, and I've worked in infectious disease research. Most of what you wrote is dangerous and inaccurate nonsense.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
What exactly you think is wrong with my reasoning? Just throwing a PhD around gets you nowhere with me, you might as well invoke some Pokemon cards. "Gain of Function" experiments involve viral particles that sometimes aren't even infectious to actual living hosts any more, hard to believe they are viable as "practical" diseases. In my practical understanding, maybe you have some new groundbreaking and unpublished methods of inventing completely novel but extremely viable viruses from scratch, laboratories have to take in a virus before they leak it. That's still the part of the "lab leak hypothesis" that is the sketchiest. Sars-CoV-2 has no known remotely immediate ancestors in any database. Meaning the supposed laboratory X had to do everything in secret before they knew it had to be kept secret. And there was some secrecy after the fact, but the typical Chinese face saving idiocy doesn't buy you the liberty to claim anything you want. Also there is no "designing" of diseases without a sophisticated and large scale industrial process, and it's hard to believe China would chose anything like SARS-CoV-2 for that... There have been some experiments around making a virus more adapted to one host species or integrating some novel proteins. That's about it. All the experiments concentrate on single aspects of a virus because evolving a complete virus is just so combinatorically complex (and pointlessly dangerous). If a lab passes a bat virus through Human cell cultures, yes, it gets more adapted to Human cell cultures, but less virulent. Most genetic manipulation will also result in a virus that loses lots of its function. It is virtually inconceivable that a lab takes in a virus that is incapable of infecting Humans (or causing a pandemic) and then leaks a virus that is capable of infecting Humans and causing a pandemic. There is nothing in that lab selecting the particles for their "pandemic potential", and we know that "pandemic potential" is a trait that virus rarely achieve. If Sars-Cov-2 DID "leak" from a lab, my opinion is that it did so without any intentional modifications. And then there would still be the question where did they find it and when would it have reached Humans without help.