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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]

#381

Post by bananaface »

sudosysgen wrote: post #282
chrisco255 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there often a trade-off between virulence and infectiousness in viral transmission? See "A transmission-virulence evolutionary trade-off explains attenuation of HIV-1 in Uganda" https://elifesciences.org/articles/20492

That trade off is made by evolution. I don't see why scientists in a lab would make that trade off in a gain of function analysis - you can just make it more infectious and keep (likely increase) the level of virulence. Since evolution isn't involved in the proposed mechanism, I see no reason why such a trade-off would occur.

That's not completely true. Some of those pressures still apply to artificial viruses once they're released. Highly dangerous viruses get quarantined, and viruses that produce symptoms quickly (and don't transmit asymptomatically, or have a shorter window) are more obvious. Both of those properties reduce real-world transmissability, which is all that actually matters.

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

#382

Post by jiofih »

fanimalmanimal wrote: post #70
jiofih wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper is presenting a handful of smoking guns all at once.

If you’re an expert in this field and can elaborate, I would love to read more. I’ve read the paper, but as a layman it’s difficult to discern why something is a “smoking gun” vs nature at work.

I’m not an expert. The entire content of the paper is the exposition of a series of four published studies, with Wuhan researchers involved, that took a coronavirus and enhanced its ability to infect the human respiratory system, through the mechanisms we are seeing in action now. They argue that these characteristics are known to be originated in the lab, from these previous papers.

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

#383

Post by jkhdigital »

zxcmx wrote: post #350
sudosysgen wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The issue is that there would have to be gain-of-function research to reduce virulence and (maybe, it's not entirely clear) to increase transmissivity. There is no evidence for that AFAIK, and I don't understand why a lab would do a gain of function experiment and reduce function instead.

Assume it's academic research. Introducing feature X (regardless of effect) allows you to study X. You do it to learn more about X, not because you particularly want to engineer something more virulent or lethal.

Yes, exactly, which is discussed in the paper. The goal of gain of function research isn’t about “let’s make viruses that do crazy shit,” it’s a method of hypothesis testing. When you can successfully add (or remove) stuff then you can test hypotheses that would otherwise not be testable.

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

#384

Post by Aeolun »

addicted wrote: post #134
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…

This is the same stuff that causes conspiracy theories around airplane crashes. The conspiracists go “It must be a conspiracy because there are like these 6 redundant safety mechanisms and the odds of them all failing at the same time are extremely low”. But the answer is obvious. If the 6 redundant mechanisms hadn’t failed, the plane wouldn’t crash. So as long as the odds of failure of each redundant system is not 0…

Is this often the case? I have the feeling that in most aircraft crashes it’s always a major structural failure, or pilot error/confusion.

Not often do I hear that all 6 redundancies failed at the same time.

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

#385

Post by jmull »

This article is poorly argued.

For example, in their point 1 they feel that since an aspect of the virus is well-adapted for humans it was not the result of evolution. However, viruses jumping between species happens naturally... because an aspect of the virus happens to be well-adapted for the new host species.

In fact, in this argument they seem to misunderstand the fundamental mechanism of evolution: a random aspect of a replicating organism provides an advantage in an environment, allowing the organism to thrive. For any random aspect that provides an advantage there might be thousands, millions, or more that do not. The existence of a particular unlikely successful aspect is not an argument against natural evolution. We expect many successful aspects to be highly unlikely.

Another example is in the conclusion:

> Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong

I think they rather significantly overstate how “parsimonious” their explanation is, but setting that aside, they scarcely address the alternative. In this article they address ways in which the virus might have been created by scientists, but do not address the ways in which the virus could have evolved naturally. You can’t conclude X is more likely than Y if you only consider the likelihood of X but not Y. So, e.g., they would need to survey the science around how viruses evolve and jump species naturally and show how it does not explain this virus.

There are plenty of more flaws in this article. But I’ll stop here. It’s probably pointless to argue with reason anyway, since the people putting forward this kind of nonsense already don’t care about reason.

Anyway, if this is the best case that the virus was artificially created, we can probably all rest assured it was not.

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

#386

Post by tomhoward »

ALittleLight wrote: post #308
madriffsin wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop with these posts where we dig through someone's post history and accuse them of shilling/being paid trolls if they hold a constant view that differs from our own? If you disagree with something you can debate it without having to resort to such nasty, underhanded tactics.

I don't think looking at someone's post history qualifies as "nasty, underhanded tactics". That user's post history is a nearly uninterrupted string of defending China (occasionally interrupted to attack India or the US on matters related to China). If noticing unusual posting patterns is bad for some reason, perhaps you should explain why. I read your current post as an insult and think an explanation would be both…

The HN guidelines specifically forbid these kinds of comments and explain the correct course of action if such conduct is suspected:

Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#387

Post by orwin »

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…

Luc Montagnier should not be taken seriously[0]. I'd say than every "theory" he follows make me distrust them. I think he is even an antivaxx now[1].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier#Research_on_ele...

[1]https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/27/luc-montagnier...

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

#388

Post by jkhdigital »

matwood wrote: post #357
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…

Thanks for the summary. It feels a bit like the intelligent design argument for God. It has these features, we can’t imagine them randomly coming together, so it must have been designed. Add that humans really want to ascribe motive and reason to events, when sometimes it really is jus chance.

You’re missing step 2: a group of virologists published research showing (indirectly, over time) exactly how one might create a chimeric virus with the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2. The argument is not “we can’t imagine them randomly coming together”, the argument is “these virologists had the experience and knowledge to put them together, and have been doing so for years in their experiments”

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

#389

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

sudosysgen wrote: post #373
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce virulence compared to what? SARS-1? But they are not talking about SARS-1, they actually were talking about some other random bat viruses, which have zero virulence in humans.

Au contraire, you would expect random bat viruses to be incredibly virulent in humans.

Really? How is that? Proof? Link?

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

#390

Post by briandear »

tasogare wrote: post #236
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.

Yeah sure the racist hypothesis of Chinese people eating bats is far more likely than a virus escape from a Wuhan lab with known protocol defects that worked on coronaviruses. /s

It’s not racist to say Chinese eat bats. That’s simply a fact. If it helped this virus, that’s another debate.
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