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

minervanett.no

101–110 of 494 posts

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

#101

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.

This is bad logic. Suppose some state sponsored lab actually did create a hybrid virus (not terribly hard, as demonstrated by the controversial ccr5-binder/flu fusion which was generated in Australia iirc) what would be the evidentiary standard you would use to judge that this 1) could be or 2) was the case, of course, assuming you could not have access to the state's lab logs?

Or would you throw up your hands and say "it's unprovable"?

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

#102

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…

Biology, and the universe in general, aren't always intuitive.

I'm also completely flabbergasted that you take 1 person's opinion, despite it being the opposite of the opinions of a general educated scientific community, and you take that one person's opinion more seriously.

And apparently you are not a historian, either, because we've had viruses spread in humans in the past. I don't see how this being a naturally-made virus is crazier than it being man-made. In fact, it's crazy if it is man-made.

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

#103
post #79

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 chance of a virus like SARS-CoV-2 suddenly arising is fairly low

I don't know if misleading is the right word, but this isn't the whole story and could in fact mislead people. What we should be taking from this breakout is that although potentially not that likely, they are becoming more and more likely. What's bothering me is all this focus on the wrong things. We need to already be preparing for the next spillover event for the next virus, but that isn't even close to being on the table, much less discussed or even mentioned. We shouldn't and can't be treating this as a singular event, but many are.

I learned this from the below article:

http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-man-who-saw-the-p...

>> Are spillover events more common now than 50 years ago?

> Yes. EcoHealth Alliance, an NGO, and others, looked at all reported outbreaks since 1940. They came to a fairly solid conclusion that we’re looking at an elevation of spillover events two to three times more than what we saw 40 years earlier. That continues to increase, driven by the huge increase in the human population and our expansion into wildlife areas. The single biggest predictor of spillover events is land-use change—more land going to agriculture and more specifically to livestock production.

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

#104

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…

Nobel laureate James Watson insists black people are genetically stupider than white people and Watson made arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the 20th century along with Crick. Even Nobel laureates are humans prone to mistakes.

[deleted]

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

#106
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'm curious as to why this was downvoted so much. This chap seems legit (I checked), so he's not one of these "instant Internet experts." He's probably not in line for a Nobel in medicine, anytime soon, but he does seem to fit his description.

I don't see much in his breakdown that is inflammatory.

I am not qualified to judge it on its merits, though, so maybe he puts forth some kind of bad science.

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

#107
Its likely that Viruses like COVID-19 have come and gone over time, and been completely unnoticed.

The difference being now that we have much older and elderly populations, often with chronic health conditions and deficiencies, kept alive 'artificially' by modern healthcare.

For example, approximately 50% of COVID deaths are to people in nursing homes. Without this population, the virus would be put down as regular influenza/pneumonia, albeit an unusually virulent strain.

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

#108

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…

Luc Montagnier is the guy who claimed to invent a way to teleport DNA using electrical signals. His paper was so bad, so stupid and and ignorant, I initially took it for satire. It might be the worst research paper I've ever read, and it was universally mocked by everyone except supporters of homeopathy.

Speaking of which, he also buys into the homeopathy thing. Yes, he did important work on HIV, but given his overall track record, his support of COVID conspiracies should make you less credulous, not more.

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

#109

Do viruses closely related to SARS-Cov-2 do all the "unusual" things it does? Do they cause brain damage, reproductive damage, anosmia without congestion, strokes, and unusual clotting activity? If not, I would be reassured by someone explaining to me how a natural pathogen could pick up all these features at the same time.

[deleted]

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

#110

> 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 that the virus was not artificially engineered.

Artificially engineered isn't really the question; the questions are 'is this a lab escape?' and 'if this is a lab escape, did the virus work so well on mammals pre-experiment?'.

The scientists have a massive incentive not to believe that the virus is a lab escape until the evidence is overwhelming. This is a global disaster, if it was a lab escape there will be dire consequences for the funding and regulation of level 4 biosecurity centres and potentially global trade & travel for countries that have them.

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