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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]

#401

Post by jryle70 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #363
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying bats weren't sold/used as food in Wuhan? What's racist about suggesting someone eats bats? Mammalian flesh is a common food source across human cultures. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_as_food

Bats are not really eaten as food in China. Maybe eaten as part of traditional medicines or rarely in specific rural areas but that's about it. The videos of people eating bats that surfaced following the beginning of Covid-19 were from Indonesia. The way this misinformation has spread is indeed based on racism (Chinese are 'barbarians' who have 'barbarian' eating habits and they should change them and eat like 'norm…

> Now, (fruit) bats eaten as food in West Africa is a major vector of the spread of Ebola.

And maybe one day we can conclusively say bats play no roles whatsoever in the spread of Covid-19, like we are able to say confidently about bats and Ebola. We aren't at that point yet, dismissing bats as a factor is a disservice to science.

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

#402

Post by newacct583 »

ryandrake wrote: post #242
newacct583 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point of "consensus". The value of having a scientific consensus of trusted sources is precisely that we don't have to all individually read random conspiracy nonsense and come up with counterarguments on our own. We can trust the experts. So if you come by with a theory that isn't supported by those experts, the burden is on YOU to convince people, not me. Now I know you're going to come right bac…

> The value of having a scientific consensus of trusted sources is precisely that we don't have to all individually read random conspiracy nonsense and come up with counterarguments on our own. We can trust the experts. This sounds like a priesthood. Don’t consider evidence from rando papers. Instead, simply trust the consensus view of these certain, special people who have been blessed as truth-knowers and wear the…

And this sounds like a description you read in a comic book somewhere.

You missed some elements: that "priesthood" isn't a unified block, it's a gaggle of independent thinkers (some of them my friends and family) with a thousand year history of argumentation, refutation, and adjustment of theory. The "priesthood" gets it right, eventually, every time. Yeah, I'll trust that "priesthood".

Unreviewed papers pushed by conspiracy nuts on the internet, on the other hand, don't exactly have that record to back them. They demand that non-experts "read it for themselves" precisely because they can't convince anyone who matters.

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

#403

Post by matwood »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #396
matwood wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in other words, you choose to disregard all of this evidence.

No, but other similar viruses have already risen out the same general conditions in China before. The evidence to say that this one is different is going to need to be very compelling. Circumstances are not enough.

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

#404

Post by mytailorisrich »

jryle70 wrote: post #401
mytailorisrich wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bats are not really eaten as food in China. Maybe eaten as part of traditional medicines or rarely in specific rural areas but that's about it. The videos of people eating bats that surfaced following the beginning of Covid-19 were from Indonesia. The way this misinformation has spread is indeed based on racism (Chinese are 'barbarians' who have 'barbarian' eating habits and they should change them and eat like 'norm…

> Now, (fruit) bats eaten as food in West Africa is a major vector of the spread of Ebola. And maybe one day we can conclusively say bats play no roles whatsoever in the spread of Covid-19, like we are able to say confidently about bats and Ebola. We aren't at that point yet, dismissing bats as a factor is a disservice to science.

Discussing whether bats play a role as vector or reservoir of the virus is not the same as making thinly-veiled racist comments on a culture or as spreading misinformation on a culture.

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

#405

Post by [deleted] »

snowwrestler wrote: post #398
murgindrag wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I were to make a bioweapon, I would think about long-term impact. (1) Millions disabled is far worse than millions dead. (2) Attacks can come in multiple pieces. The first virus might do damage to make people especially vulnerable to the second virus. If I can protect my population against the first one /or/ the second, my people are safe. My opinion is it's just a matter of time before we see bioweapons, and…

Infectious bioweapons are a horrible idea in a highly connected world for the reason we can all plainly see: they don’t respect national borders. It is an old-fashioned notion of a weapon that only made sense when there was little exchange between the citizens of states in opposition, like the U.S. and USSR. China, for whom international trade is a crucial part of their strategy, would not work on an infectious disea…

[deleted]

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

#406

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

pldr2244 wrote: post #291
refurb wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting argument. I guess one critical piece of data would be - is the probability of Covid-19 originating from wet markets the same across all of China? If every wet market had the same probability, then yeah, it's odd that the alleged wet market is one of thousands, but just happened to be next to the bio lab in Wuhan. But if the probability was unevenly distributed and such a virus originating was hi…

Interesting. But also to GP’s point, I never thought of that perspective. It is quite unsettling to realise the strangeness of odds that it occurred right next to the Wuhan lab...

"Right next to" being 14 km away, on the other side of a major metropolis.

Nobody knows where the outbreak actually began, though. Wuhan was just the first place it was detected. It could easily have begun somewhere in the countryside, only taking off when an infected person went to a major city. Just look how long it circulated undetected in the US - for more than a month - before anyone noticed.

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

#407

Post by rvnx »

snowwrestler wrote: post #398
murgindrag wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I were to make a bioweapon, I would think about long-term impact. (1) Millions disabled is far worse than millions dead. (2) Attacks can come in multiple pieces. The first virus might do damage to make people especially vulnerable to the second virus. If I can protect my population against the first one /or/ the second, my people are safe. My opinion is it's just a matter of time before we see bioweapons, and…

Infectious bioweapons are a horrible idea in a highly connected world for the reason we can all plainly see: they don’t respect national borders. It is an old-fashioned notion of a weapon that only made sense when there was little exchange between the citizens of states in opposition, like the U.S. and USSR. China, for whom international trade is a crucial part of their strategy, would not work on an infectious disea…

Not a proof at all. It just shows that it can't be a planned release.

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

#408

Post by cstross »

curiosity42 wrote: post #348
sudosysgen wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but is the theory is that one experiment, in the context of a gain analysis, was made in order to see how the virus might evolve to be much less severe? Why would a gain analysis try to find ways in which a virus could be made weaker? I don't doubt that an accidental release is feasible, though very very unlikely, but why would an experiment make a less severe virus in the first place?

If I were to make a great bio weapon that would do the maximum damage, I will have these attributes: 1. Spread it easily; 2. Don't kill the ones who spread it most easily (the young); 3. Be lethal enough to overwhelm the system. And so I have the Covid-19. Of course it is all post-fact analysis. but it also answers your question of why would an experiment make a less sever virus in the first place - to address the bi…

You missed out one critical element of a highly contagious bioweapon: you have to be able to protect your own population. Otherwise it's a self-own.

(This is why nobody has really used bioweapons in warfare to date, with the exception of some questionable reports that the USSR had a really lethal weaponized smallpox strain on some of their ICBM warheads, as a balance-of-terror multiplier.)

While this doesn't prove that COVID19 isn't a bioweapon, it strongly suggests that it got loose long before whoever designed it anticipated. Unless, of course, it was developed by the world-leading Vietnamese biological warfare institute (hey, look at their fatality figures)! (That was sarcasm, by the way.)

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

#410

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

wsc981 wrote: post #364

A while ago (18 June) former biology professor Bret Weinstein said the same in a Joe Rogan podcast [0], that there are several indications that seem to point out the virus is engineered. One of the most interesting point he brings up, at least from my perspective, was the following: - Bats are outdoor animals - As such a corona virus that mainly targets bats should have little trouble spreading outside - However if a…

The "spreading indoors" argument that Bret Weinstein made was mind-numbingly stupid. I know he has a degree in biology, but this is just embarrassing.

He's making an argument that this virus has been selected in a lab for a specific transmission mechanism. That means that the virus would have to have undergone many generations of animal-to-animal transmission in a lab. There's no reason why a virus would adapt to transmit well if it were being studied in cell culture - because there's no transmission involved.

So Weinstein's theory requires a large-scale operation in which scientists keep large numbers of animals in the lab, and allow them to periodically come into contact in order to possibly infect one another. This has to go on for many generations, with the researchers constantly bringing in new animals to be exposed, until the virus "forgets" how to transmit outdoors. Where does Weinstein suppose this massive research operation occurred? The people he's alleging did this research are well known (and highly respected) scientists who publish their research in top international journals like Nature. Why did they keep silent about this massive research program, and how is it that none of their international colleagues had any idea about it?

Meanwhile, there's an obvious reason why the virus might transmit better indoors than outdoors: many respiratory viruses do. That's one of the explanations for the existence of "flu season" - people spend more time indoors during the winter. Indoors, people are closer to one another and there isn't as much air circulation.

You don't have to invent completely unsupported theories about scientists carrying out large-scale, secret animal infection experiments in order to explain why a respiratory virus might transmit better indoors than outdoors. But Bret Weinstein is doing that, because he likes attention. I was on his side in the whole Evergreen saga, but now that he's become a celebrity, it's gotten to his head and he's saying stupid things to get attention.

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