Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#381

Post by jeduehr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #367

jeduehr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't they do the same for the SARS-CoV-1 leaks that happened in Beijing over a decade ago, then?

Is everyone forgetting china tried to sweep that under the rug initially?

Source?

As far as I know, the government may have tried, but the scientists themselves were not down with it.

This sort of culture of the openness of science is why the Chinese government distrusts scientists inherently. And also why Shi Zhengli has maintained an extremely consistent story with the pandemic despite the government's changing its story like 3 times. Also why they've since silenced her. They don't trust their own citizens, and definitely not their own scientists.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#382

Post by ergocoder » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:33 AM UTC

avmich wrote: post #196

> 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab It's not necessarily a Chinese lab where the leak originated from (hypothetical, of course). It could be a Russian lab - there are arguments for Novosibirsk Vector biology center as the origin of the leak.

Unfortunately, we probably will never know because we can't perform any credible investigation. China will never allow that.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#383

Post by ergocoder » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

didibus wrote: post #190

I'm going to jump to the next step... So what? Does it really matter where the virus emerged from? What changes would we make if it came from bats by nature's own doing? Or of it came from wet markets? Or if it leaked from a research lab?

Yes, you don't do a postmortem after an incident?

It's just so strange that people are parading around saying "so what?".

We don't want to learn from a mistake?

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#384

Post by jeduehr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #369

jeduehr wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....I presented a lot of extremely detailed arguments backed up by references in my original post and you just dismissed them by saying they "cherry pick" data. How is that true about anything I said regarding S/NS ratios, molecular clock analysis, the mosaic nature of the virus, the presence of O-linked glycans, the promiscuity and non-species specific nature of the spike protein, etc. You conducted the mother of al…

Your arguments are not arranged in any sort of logical way against the hypothesis I discussed which set this whole chain off. I examined the one that you claimed refuted it, and failed to see how it applied. If you apply it to my statement, we could actually discuss it, but until you do that I'm lost by what you're supposedly proving with it. >I'm not going to make new ones until you provide some actual factual respo…

You spend an awful lot of time attacking me and not very much time attacking my arguments. That's not very scientific of you. I said I had no way to know you were actually a virologist, which I didn't. It isn't really important to the discussion though, as I said. Can we talk about this like adults? Thanks.

I'm only gonna address the science in your post from here on out. I want to make it clear I never insulted you or attacked your character, I only said I had no way to know you were a virologist and only could go off of your word.

I get your hypothesis now that you have fully stated it.

And here are some questions that need answers.

Where did they get the virus? It's not anything like any coronavirus we know of before SARS-CoV-2 emerged in humans, it's 1200 away from RATG-13.

What experimental question were they trying to answer? We already know that the furin cleavage site is necessary for some aspects of pathogenicity, but not the ones canonically thought important (cell entry for SARS-1 for example, since furin doesn't actually cleave SARS-1 or MERS). Why would they test a random unrelated coronavirus' site? Why not try the SARS-CoV-1 site? Or the MERS site? Why was it a furin site in the first place? And why did they do it on the weirdly promiscuous SARS-2 ACE2 and not in a virus like RATG-13?

Re: cleavage site, I go into extreme detail about how possible it is for cleavage sites to evolve in nature here and here:

-https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

-https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26757881

It's really not that unusual for a cleavage site to evolve in nature, and especially not when we consider that furin cleavage sites are mutagenicity islands. It absolutely could have evolved from recombination with a distantly related coronavirus that has an extremely similar site.

Also, the cleavage site isn't even that long. Short stretches of nucleotides like that, upwards of 15-30 nucleotides, can absolutely evolve over the course of 50-70 years. Happens literally all the time. In influenza it happens on much shorter time scales. I provide evidence to that effect in the above posts.

Yes I actually address the idea of using recombinatorial cloning to make SARS-CoV-2 at several points in my post.

Nothing about the furin cleavage site makes it more likely to be unnatural than it is natural?

And so far, I don't see any compelling reason to believe that anyone would take a completely undiscovered and undescribed virus out of nature, not describe it or publish on it at all, and then start inserting random furin sites into it from random other coronaviruses.

Why would they be doing that? Is it technically /possible/? Yes, but I see no reason why it is more likely than a natural emergence.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#385

Post by Igelau » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #358

clairity wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the american experiment in democracy was to make the government synonymous with the people. certainly that was pulled back a bit by the republican (as in republic, not the political party) elements by our founders, who were themselves 'elites' of the time. in china, the communist party is meant to be the same: a party of (all) the people. certainly xenophobia expresses itself acutely in mediopolitical contexts where…

I'm not sure where you got the idea that the American experiment is about making the government synonymous with the people. The American experiment was all about splitting the governmental power among different entities, keeping the government small and letting the people preserve freedom and power - while still being protected by the government. The constitution is a tool to prevent the government from overreaching…

> I'm not sure where you got the idea that the American experiment is about making the government synonymous with the people.

It's a common mistake to conflate the Gettysburg Address ("government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth") and the Preamble of the US Constitution ("We the people...")

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#386

Post by Igelau » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

refenestrator wrote: post #254

arcticbull wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not xenophobic to suggest the possibility of a lab leak because lab leaks happen regardless of who's doing the research; even at BSL-4 facilities, mistakes are made. And also because there were two separate SARS-CoV-1 leaks/outbreaks from Chinese labs which the PRC admitted to. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/

The fact that this particular theory reaches the front page of hacker news every week, despite zero evidence besides the existence of a lab.. hey, we're just asking questions, here, right? Frankly, it would be irresponsible NOT to provacatively suggest this thing we have no evidence of, repeatedly.

This comment is so encumbered by snark that it's not clear what you're even trying to say.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#387

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

loveistheanswer wrote: post #23

Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that: 1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural" 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a…

Any discussion at this point is unproductive because it’s too soon.

In the US, all things are aligned with Team A vs Team B. Better to collect data and present next year.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#388

Post by jeduehr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #268

jeduehr wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furin cleavage sites very similar if not largely identical to this one have also been found in nature, and have been generated in nature in very short spans of time (on the order of a few decades, which is what is suspected to have happened with SARS-CoV-2). I describe the evidence in detail in this detailed longform post I wrote on reddit a few months back: Hi, I have a PhD in virology focused on emerging viruses, a…

> Furin cleavage sites very similar if not largely identical to this one have also been found in nature I don't believe this is correct. There are no other examples of a CoV within the sub-genera Sarbecovirus of a species/strain that shows evidence of insertion of a polybasic furin cleavage site.

Hi, never said they had to be within the sub-genera.

Recombination can absolutely happen inter-genera and even inter-family.

There's some evidence that Ebola got its VP40 from bats, or vice versa. Meaning that an RNA virus somehow got its nuclear regulatory factor from a bat. We have no idea in science how that happened. But we know there is homology! I can't find the link at the moment, but when I do I'll add it here. It's not actually that important to my argument.

There are also examples of inter-family recombination in viruses that are much more down to earth.

See here: https://www.virology.ws/2016/10/27/genome-recombination-acro...

And you might be asking yourself, after reading that link "Why is it always bats?? Isn't that /suspicious/?" It's actually in keeping with everything we know about bats and their role as a viral reservoir. Lots of viruses cross paths in bats. See this other detailed post I wrote a while back: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gehvui/why_do_viru...

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#389

Post by voidfunc » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

refenestrator wrote: post #322

arcticbull wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but also, if the PRC didn't have a tendency of murdering it's dissenters and anyone who made them look bad. They're not exactly a shining beacon of transparency. If this was going down in New Zealand I'm not sure anyone would be speculating, and also WHO investigators would have been granted full access to the facility on day 1.

And we're up to the nub of it -- lots of people fundamentally think China is evil and this topic is just another battleground.

The Chinese government is definitely evil by western standards.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#390

Post by jeduehr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #369

jeduehr wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....I presented a lot of extremely detailed arguments backed up by references in my original post and you just dismissed them by saying they "cherry pick" data. How is that true about anything I said regarding S/NS ratios, molecular clock analysis, the mosaic nature of the virus, the presence of O-linked glycans, the promiscuity and non-species specific nature of the spike protein, etc. You conducted the mother of al…

Your arguments are not arranged in any sort of logical way against the hypothesis I discussed which set this whole chain off. I examined the one that you claimed refuted it, and failed to see how it applied. If you apply it to my statement, we could actually discuss it, but until you do that I'm lost by what you're supposedly proving with it. >I'm not going to make new ones until you provide some actual factual respo…

Also, important to say, if the virus emerged outside of Wuhan, nowhere near a lab, then this entire hypothesis falls apart because the only thing supporting it is the geographic proximity of Wuhan and the WIV.

See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...