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The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

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Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#31

Post by robbiep »

This seems to me to be a dangerous paper. It's effectively an opinion piece, pre-published, requiring a high degree of domain expertise to even read, with a clear conclusion in the title that you can see being used to deflect attention from the massive job the world has at hand (not that we shouldn't ask hard questions)

Why am I qualified to comment? Well, I’m a medical doctor (which frankly means jack shit for the ability to parse this paper) but got there through a major in biochemistry and molecular biology (which is a partial toolkit).

Unlike their paper on Biovacc-19 (0) it has not been accepted or submitted for publication yet (not enough to rule it out immediately because there is an increasing trend to pre-publication with the rate of research publications in this space as well as problems with traditional publication methodologies)

Without going too far the dissection, I would just point out that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that SARS-CoV-2 is natural in origin, this nature article describes this well (1).

Worth specifically responding to is their claim that

The co-receptor dependent phagocytic general method of action for infectivity and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be specifically related to cumulative charge resulting from inserts placed on the surface of the Spike receptor binding domain, right next to the receptor binding motif.

Inserts placed is a poor choice of descriptor in my opinion. The Fox Newsification of research findings. Well, you can see the 4 additional amino acids that give rise to the change in isoelectric point in the spike protein in the nature article, and much greater minds than mine have dissected this genetically and decided that such a mutation is possible through evolutionary methods alone.

They specifically say they disagree with the findings of the nature paper so to go on any longer risks drawing my bow in this area further than I am comfortable, but I would sum it up by saying that in science it is always good to have dissenting voices (such as with climate science for all the good that that does), but with just how fraught the world stage is at the moment I don't believe this dissenting voice deserves much attenion

[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#32

Post by lemmsjid »

etangent wrote: post #2

That evidence looks weak IMO, but it's frustrating that the current culture in science isn't "present the best argument for your position no matter how crazy it is" but rather "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right."

I think there's a two way problem. The current state of public discourse on science in the U.S. is very skewed from scientific consensus. For example a YouGov poll found that 49% of Americans think that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab.

This kind of skew between public perception and scientific consensus can create a siege mentality, because it's easy to find someone who has been convinced by some media subculture that something is self-evidently true in spite of reams of evidence to the contrary. As in the vaccination-autism connection situation, all it can take is one scientific study, subsequently debunked, to give an entire movement the validation they need to completely ignore an enormous consensus with plenty of data to back it up.

BTW (need to add this disclaimer on the internets, I often forget) I'm not disagreeing with you, just riffing off your comment with some more thoughts.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#33

Post by bamboozled »

etangent wrote: post #2

That evidence looks weak IMO, but it's frustrating that the current culture in science isn't "present the best argument for your position no matter how crazy it is" but rather "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right."

How many times has a single scientist been chastised by the broader scientific community at first and then their original idea finally accepted as the truth?

Sometimes ideas initially can seem crazy because they're unfamiliar I guess.

I suppose in this case, I oppose this idea because it sounds kind of scary.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#34

Post by abeppu »

dagav wrote: post #25
belltaco wrote: post #7

Lets throw them a bone and say they're right, what do we do next? What actions do or can we take? Secure the labs? Shouldn't that be done regardless?

At least if it was someone's "fault" we could push for reparations

At this point, who could actually pay reparations on a scale that would be even within an order of magnitude of the damage done?

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#35

Post by cryptica »

When Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier suggested that COVID-19 could be man-made, I started taking this view more seriously. Now seeing additional papers coming out supporting this, the case is getting stronger.

I'm not a biologist but I do find it strange that COVID-19 is so infectious in humans. How can a virus which supposedly 'naturally evolved' in a totally unrelated animal species (bats) be so well adapted to spreading between humans? Intuitively, that doesn't make sense.

Also the fact that the WHO has kept changing its story about this virus from the beginning is not reassuring at all. At this stage, as crazy as it is, I'm inclined to believe the conspiracy theorists because the official version comes across as even crazier.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#37

Post by autokad »

newacct583 wrote: post #22
etangent wrote: post #2

That evidence looks weak IMO, but it's frustrating that the current culture in science isn't "present the best argument for your position no matter how crazy it is" but rather "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right."

> "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right." Isn't that the whole point of science? Big claims require big proof. What standard are you proposing be used instead? Or are you leaning on the "better" in that sentence in the sense of coercion? As in, you're saying that arguments without overwhelming evidence that contradict established consensus…

the papers make a lot of specific arguments. if you have evidence against those arguments, you can say this point is wrong, here is the evidence against it, therefore that claim is likely wrong. Thats science.

Your method comes off as: thats not the consensus, thus you are wrong.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#38

Post by kirse »

i_cannot_hack wrote: post #9

> A Norwegian virologist has made claims about the non-natural origins of the new coronavirus. These claims were, reportedly, in an earlier draft of the paper, and Dr Sørensen has since repeated them to Norwegian press. > The final version of the research paper, which has undergone peer review and been accepted for publication in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery, doesn’t actually make any claims about whe…

The scientific community widely agrees

One has to wonder how a "Fact Check" site can make an assertion like this without any provided list of references. What exactly does "widely agree" even mean? Was there some sort of statistical polling they did to establish that? Exactly what percentage of the scientific community constitutes "widely" anyways?

In fact, this website appears to enjoy using the word "widely" within articles to make all sorts of broadly generic assertions without any numerical/statistical basis.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Afullfact.org%20...

Obviously this has nothing to do with conclusion of the paper, but this "many scientists agree" lingo that shows up in various places (Wiki articles, fact-check sites, news, etc) can really be used to push a narrative without any sort of rigor. Personally I look forward to the day where I get to meet the "they" in "you know, they say..."

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#39

Post by maest »

chrisco255 wrote: post #30
maest wrote: post #11

This is a really big claim, so some background checking: The paper was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics[0] (this accepted version is materially different from the original link posted here). Only thing I could find about Birger Sorensen's was his Linkedin page [1a] and the Immunor page where he's listed as the Chairman [1b]. Angus Dagleish looks legit, although it's notable that he did stand for Parlia…

Why do the background checking? Why not just consider the arguments on their merits alone? That's what science is.

I disagree. Or rather, I don't think this is about doing science.

In many aspects of our lives we rely on the advice of experts. Personally, as I am not a trained biologist, I am unable to reliably decide if the arguments here are right or wrong. I also believe the vast majoriy of people are in a similar position.

As a result, the only options are to look at:

1. The scientific consensus.

2. The legitimacy of the people making the claims.

It's too early for 1, so 2 is what remains.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#40

Post by contravariant »

newacct583 wrote: post #22
etangent wrote: post #2

That evidence looks weak IMO, but it's frustrating that the current culture in science isn't "present the best argument for your position no matter how crazy it is" but rather "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right."

> "your arguments better agree with the established consensus unless you have overwhelming evidence that you are right." Isn't that the whole point of science? Big claims require big proof. What standard are you proposing be used instead? Or are you leaning on the "better" in that sentence in the sense of coercion? As in, you're saying that arguments without overwhelming evidence that contradict established consensus…

For the sake of argument, something like Einstein's special relativity had little to no evidence backing it up, but was still accepted simply because it provided a more elegant explanation of several concepts. Of course it also had a few weird, testable, consequences that where later confirmed experimentally.

All this is just to illustrate that it's not always easy to prove something right away with large amounts of experimental evidence. However if we consider the 'elegance' of a theory proof then we've abandoned subjectivity. It is a bit of a limitation of experimental science that it cannot determine the prior probability, which therefore must be assessed by evaluating the theory itself, which can only be done by experts, who are fallible.

When little to no experts seem to accept a theory then it's usually a bad sign though.

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