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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]

#171

Post by fabbari »

throwaway326429 wrote: post #131
mjirv wrote: 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…

> 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!! This statement is a distraction from the main question. The question is: conditional on being in a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, what is the probability that the virus arose through purely natural processes, vs. the probability that it escaped from a lab. I am not equipped to assess the biological evid…

There is something about this way of reasoning that seems faulty to me.The reason the Wuhan laboratory was studying coronaviruses in the first place is that there is a large reservoir of the virus in the area. In other terms: diamonds are hard to find, but where you find diamond mines you also find diamonds, ergo: diamond mines must create diamonds.

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

#172

Post by ss7pro »

waspleg wrote: post #163
sandworm101 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, and this is a really crazy theory, they were studying it in China because it was a local virus that they were worried might one day infect humans. Maybe they were studying which changes would make it most dangerous because they wanted to be ready if those changes happened naturally. Honest hard work can sometimes look like evil plans, and not every coincidence is the result of conspiracy.

Why give a government with modern day concentration camps, forced organ harvesting, and military occupation of free countries like Hong Kong the benefit of the doubt on biological weapons research gone awry?

C'mon Hong Kong belongs to China and always was. It was just leased to UK and this lease had ended in last century. China just wanted to reap benefits of Being Kong economy this is why they given them such a huge autonomy . They can change it anytime as this is their property. If someone would follow your logic Hawai is also US occupied country ...

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

#173

Post by MiroF »

pmayrgundter wrote: post #144
jkhdigital wrote: post #127

Here's the Cliff Notes version of the argument in this paper: 1. SARS-CoV-2 has a number of unique and unusual genetic features, when compared to close relatives, many of which explain its high virulence and infectivity among humans. 2. A series of research papers published by a group of virologists, dating back a little over a decade, demonstrate (1) a progressively increasing understanding of viral features which m…

Good summary, thanks! Related to the origin hypotheses, the hypothesis of zoonotic outbreak from a wet market in mid-Dec no longer seems as relevant. It was first laid out in a widely disseminated paper in The Lancet [1, see Figure 1B], but since then retrospective wastewater analyses from Italy[2], Spain[3], Brazil and others[4] have found it was circulating much earlier. "The Italian National Institute of Health lo…

> Related to the origin hypotheses, the hypothesis of zoonotic outbreak from a wet market in mid-Dec no longer seems as relevant

Perhaps in your mind, but this is not at all a fair representation of the general scientific consensus - most still hold the weight of the evidence leans towards a November '19 origin in Wuhan

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

#174

Post by anoncareer0212 »

dahfizz wrote: post #160
mjirv wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth clarifying that she was not responding to this paper specifically, just to general arguments of the type “this must be man made because it has so many features that make it well-suited to spread in humans.” The fact that researchers in Wuhan were studying (some of?) these features is stronger evidence when combined with the location. However, it also seems reasonable that features of viruses researchers s…

> However, it also seems reasonable that features of viruses researchers study because of their likelihood to increase human transmission would show up in a naturally occurring virus with a lot of human transmission. You are letting language get in the way here. Researchers at Wuhan weren't studying "features" of viruses, they were studying what happens exactly when you insert X amino acid at Y location and how that…

The line of thinking is seductive, believe me, but that's the thing about circumstantial evidence - it is very likely that there is a coronavirus infectivity research station next to a massive source of bat coronaviruses, that was in fact why the lab was there!

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

#175

Post by chris_wot »

jkhdigital wrote: post #127

Here's the Cliff Notes version of the argument in this paper: 1. SARS-CoV-2 has a number of unique and unusual genetic features, when compared to close relatives, many of which explain its high virulence and infectivity among humans. 2. A series of research papers published by a group of virologists, dating back a little over a decade, demonstrate (1) a progressively increasing understanding of viral features which m…

That’s a heck of a lot of steps to get to that conclusion.

There is a massive amount of misinformation around COVID-19. Check out this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_...

All the things that the article posits have been looked into and the conclusion from most of the scientific community is that it is extraordinarily unlikely that this came from a lab in Wuhan.

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

#176

Post by aaron695 »

thinker912345 wrote: post #123
zenhack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for the OP, but for myself: I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. But sometimes when you get some out-there questionable sounding stuff research, and you spend a minute googling, you quickly find out that the journal the thing is published in is chaired by the author and itself has no credibility, the author is selling some form of snake oil di…

> I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. A "background check" does not change this fact, nor does your point actually negate the comment you are responding too. No one here is arguing that you must listen and believe everything that someone has written in a paper, but things must be proven and disproven. "Background checking" in any form is not science. It…

Do you think pagerank works?

Do you think it's unscientific?

Should we look at websites in random order after a search?

Don't confuse the fact h-index has significant issues with the idea it is useless.

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

#177

Post by jkhdigital »

calf wrote: post #135
jkhdigital wrote: post #127

Here's the Cliff Notes version of the argument in this paper: 1. SARS-CoV-2 has a number of unique and unusual genetic features, when compared to close relatives, many of which explain its high virulence and infectivity among humans. 2. A series of research papers published by a group of virologists, dating back a little over a decade, demonstrate (1) a progressively increasing understanding of viral features which m…

I feel step 4. is just a more specific detail of step 2, and the critical tricky piece of their argument is step 3 because that's the step that synthesizes steps 1 and 2. I imagine that the rebuttals would try to show that step 1 or 3 do not hold.

Right, in the conclusion they refer to "means, timing, agent and place" which seems to frame this like one would prosecute a criminal trial in the absence of "smoking gun" physical evidence. If the researchers at the heart of all this were located far from the epicenter of the outbreak, then you'd need to find a good explanation for why it started where it did, which is why I think it should be mentioned as a distinct point of evidence.

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

#178

Post by chris1993 »

noxer wrote: post #98
jimbob45 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if he is correct? Or what if it would be exactly the other way around? We simply don't know because no one is "allowed" to do that kind of research. We found genetic reasons why some type of cancer are more common in some people. We see all kind of other differences that are genetically. Form hairs on the head to the foot shape and toes. Differences between people are obvious. So how likely is it actually that t…

There's no accepted definition of intelligence so how could he be correct [0]? He's using a culturally defined comparison which unsurprisingly places him on the winning side. If you make comparisons on the basis of race (which is a social construct[1]) where the result demonstrates "racial superiority" then it is racist.

It's social and cultural influences all the way down.

[0]http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/what-intelligence.html [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)

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

#180

Post by chris_wot »

thinker912345 wrote: post #123
zenhack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for the OP, but for myself: I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. But sometimes when you get some out-there questionable sounding stuff research, and you spend a minute googling, you quickly find out that the journal the thing is published in is chaired by the author and itself has no credibility, the author is selling some form of snake oil di…

> I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. A "background check" does not change this fact, nor does your point actually negate the comment you are responding too. No one here is arguing that you must listen and believe everything that someone has written in a paper, but things must be proven and disproven. "Background checking" in any form is not science. It…

The reliability of those who write papers is fairly important. How do I know that data hasn’t been falsified? How do I know what is correct?

There are reasons why some publications are treated more seriously than others. Reputation is very helpful for the layman. The very fact that most scientists have said they feel it was a natural outbreak speaks volumes to me. This paper is just a vast chain of speculation, and I think it needs to be treated with a great deal of caution.

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