Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

minervanett.no

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 494 posts

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

#71

Post by chrisco255 »

maest wrote: post #39
chrisco255 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

In many aspects we rely on multiple and competing opinions from various experts. It's not unheard of to go see half a dozen or more experts for treatment recommendations from various experts on a disease. Covid is a novel virus, so nobody has any more than 6 months or so of experience with this particular virus. So first of all, the rush to consensus is a mistake for a novel virus. Secondly, ascertaining the origin of a virus is not something that you garner from consensus. It takes serious investigative work that may take years.

So, again, consensus is just a way to cast complex, nuanced topics as flat, solved for things. That's not the case in most scientific subjects.

#2 is not what remains. You can engage with the arguments and the logic. Even as a layperson.

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

#72

Post by jmcgough »

The argument is identical to arguments supporting intelligent design, that because it evolved in an unlikely or complex way, it must have been intentionally created.

There's a reason we haven't seen a virus like this in a century - because it's so unlikely that a new virus will appear in any given year with both a high rate of transmission and a high fatality rate.

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

#73

Post by robbiep »

cameldrv wrote: post #67
robbiep wrote: post #31

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 a…

I'd say that the "Proximal Origins" paper makes a very weak case especially given what we now know. The essential argument is that it's more likely that the RBD came from a lineage that includes the Pangolin-CoV than that it was designed by a human. That does seem reasonable. They suggest that the virus was the result of a recombination event. However, that recombination could have occurred artificially at the WIV. T…

So you've got a situation where the natural reservoir of the viruses is geographically proximal to a lab that was set up to specifically study these diseases. It's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream

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

#74

Post by hnick »

cryptica wrote: post #35

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 sprea…

It has happened before multiple times, so clearly it can happen.

This feels like confusing weather and climate, and working backwards from a conclusion.

The evolutionary chance to make a single virus so well suited to human hosts is probably very small. If you take a single event and work backwards it seems very unlikely.

But in aggregate over time, it'll happen fairly regularly, hence the warnings.

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

#75

Post by cameldrv »

robbiep wrote: post #73
cameldrv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that the "Proximal Origins" paper makes a very weak case especially given what we now know. The essential argument is that it's more likely that the RBD came from a lineage that includes the Pangolin-CoV than that it was designed by a human. That does seem reasonable. They suggest that the virus was the result of a recombination event. However, that recombination could have occurred artificially at the WIV. T…

So you've got a situation where the natural reservoir of the viruses is geographically proximal to a lab that was set up to specifically study these diseases. It's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream

The bats that carried RaTG13 are 1000 miles away from Wuhan. It's unclear how it would have migrated to Wuhan given that horseshoe bats do not live near Wuhan.

On the other hand, the one thing we know for certain is that RaTG13 was present in Wuhan and was brought there by researchers at the WIV.

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

#76

Post by auslegung »

emsy wrote: post #10
belltaco wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because normal people are not equipped to deal with the cherrypicking and manipulative narrative that these kinds of "evidence" papers show. Take the 5G conspiracy for example, 100+ cell phone towers attacked, and workers setting up attacked as well. Lots of testable assertions made, none backed up with any kind of evidence.

But this could very well be a result of priming people for a consensus (or its opposition) I’m too young to judge but it wasn’t always like this or was it?

Yes, things have always been this way and if you really want to see just how long, look at speeches and other “news” from Ancient Greece.

The significant difference today is how quickly and widely falsehoods can be distributed and redistributed, and how many different sources this can happen to. Pre Internet, if I started telling my friends about this thing called QAnon, how far and how quickly could it really spread? Not far and not quickly. Today however it can spread across the world in a day and be picked up by every major news outlet. It’s disturbing, and we should all be very concerned.

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

#77

Post by jmcgough »

theknocker wrote: post #58
bshoemaker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's exhausting to debunk idiots & those operating in bad faith (often both); it takes several orders of magnitude more work to respond and debunk that unicorns don't exist than it does to post that they do.

Consensus should be determined by science, not the other way around. Otherwise, what is the point of science? edit: "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." t. redditadmin.txt

This isn't just about science. Conspiracy theorists and unethical people with agendas use documents like this to support their beliefs, and it becomes impossible to refute them. In the age of social media, misinformation and conspiracy theories can cause real damage.

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

#78

Post by modzu »

cryptica wrote: post #35

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 sprea…

why should viral "behavior" be "intuitive" in any sense at all? (unless of course youre a bioligist of the requisite experience). here is one idea that might reframe your intuitons: viruses are so small there are billions of them on you right now. intuitions about the behavior of such tiny things, even outside your body, are tough. does a piece of paper block them or are they small enough to pass through the pores of the paper? any idea? and what happens to them inside your body? your intuition ought to break down by now unless you have good mental models of the biological process.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_virome

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

#79

Post by mjirv »

Epidemiologist Ellie Murray said it better than I could, so I’ll just quote her: “Yes, the chance of a virus like SARS-CoV-2 suddenly arising is fairly low. That’s why we have so few pandemics!!

But conditional on being in a pandemic the chance that the virus that arises to cause it is like SARS-CoV-2 is super high!!

There’s no conspiracy, just statistics”[0]

That said, the fact that the outbreak started so close to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is certainly suggestive that it escaped from the lab, though that doesn’t mean it was necessarily “man made.”

[0]https://twitter.com/epiellie/status/1281960135796101120?s=21

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

#80

Post by voldacar »

autokad wrote: post #26
droopyEyelids wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree normal people aren't well equipped. But when you phrase it that way, you make it sounds like the professionals are well equipped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI

I remember when I saw a headline that said gene researchers say there is no way the virus was made in a lab. I'm like oh this should be interesting, they must have done some sort of dating on the mutations. maybe there are markings biologists can look at that are telling signs of natural vs man-made. or compared genomes to ... And there 100% undeniable argument: the virus effects bats and people researching bio weapo…

>you really that narrow minded and completely devoid of imagination? you think labs are only for making bio-weapons?

It wouldn't even have to be bio-weapon related. It could just be a genetically altered virus (routine in gain of function research) that escaped a lab due to an accident or carelessness, and was later covered up with the whole wet market story. People who disdain the idea that the virus could be man made are almost always attacking the hypothesis of a deliberate bio-weapon release, which is such a straw man.

Post reply on HN