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The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

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Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#561

Post by ScottBurson »

gonehome wrote: post #326
followtheplot wrote: post #294

"... proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence." "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities." This is a fantastic article, but amazingly almost all of it is year-old news. Most of this was known in March 2020, and nearly all of it by the end of 2020. How does it take so long for the trut…

What bothers me about it is not only did it take a long time for the “truth to win”, but mainstream media orgs actively suppressed it because of tribal stupidity. It was used as an example of “fake news”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/technology/biden-reality-... > “ Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republ…

Yes, the NYT seems to have lost the ability to treat both sides of an argument skeptically. Disappointing.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#562

Post by Too »

searine wrote: post #493
flavius29663 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are right, except sars-cov-2 happened to appear 500 meters away from said lab...

Maybe the reason the lab exists there is because wild coronaviruses appear in that region. Which ever way you frame it, it is correlation, not causation. Poor evidence at best.

Circumstantial evidence is a better term. Judging the article the number of such pointing to the lab are piling up and should be hard to ignore, while those pointing in other directions are still very few.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#563

Post by Too »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #349

If it did escape from the lab, I cannot help but think about how fateful of an event lead up to it... A tech accidently knocking over a beaker? A tiny rip in a bio-suite thrown in a trash, missed the can, and picked up and put back on the shelf by another worker? A leaking containment vessel, known to need replacing, but still worked "good enough"? An animal infected with the virus, handled by someone who wasn't awar…

Bio-suite? According to article the lab was BSL-2 - "the biosafety level of a standard US dentist’s office"

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#564

Post by IIAOPSW »

gonehome wrote: post #421
IIAOPSW wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

> "There are maybe one in a dozen proponents of the lab theory that are legitimately interested in these questions. For the remaining 11 out of 12, the Wuhan Lab theory is just a belief that they wear in public to signal "China bad"." > "Don't give them legitimacy or talking points. Being honest about the lab theory in the face of people who will use your words dishonestly is a fools errand. Don't be the fool who thi…

>We should give a shit about the truth independent of tribal affiliation

We should, but the reality is we don't. (the general we, not the specific you and me). There would be far more people (in the West) accepting the natural origin theory if the virus started in the EU or US. People give a shit about "the truth"^{tm} only when it suits them.

Some people in China have done some really spurious gene sequencing studies to try and prove the virus actually started anywhere-but-China. Their theory of "it must have started outside of China" is just as much motivated reasoning as "it must have been a malicious/incompetent act by China". Of course everyone involved really pretends to give a shit about the truth. Anyone who actually cares about the truth knows better than to wade into that cesspool. Being earnest in this context only results in you getting covered in shit.

>As the sister reply to your comment suggests, there should be consequences for negligence that leads to a global pandemic killing millions.

That really gets to the heart of it. Was it negligence, or was it just a thing that could have happened at any of the BSL labs with some small probability? What exactly is the mistake rate in similar labs around the world? Was it really more likely to have happened in WuHan, or is that just where the cosmic dice landed? There's this pervasive assumption in your comment and others that the virus escaping a Chinese lab must have been due to the incompetence of the Chinese government. Yet the Chinese governments response to the virus was more serious and more competently executed than almost anywhere else. They practically reopened months ago. How do you square that circle?

When someone is only looking at theories which have someone to blame, they aren't really being disinterested seekers of truth. Trying to explain the nuance of "there is some evidence it might have escaped a lab but that by itself doesn't necessarily imply anyone is at fault" isn't worth my time. Additionally explaining the difference between "I don't reject the lab theory" and "I believe the lab theory" also isn't worth my time. I already know 11 out of 12 aren't really listening / digesting the nuance. The only thing I can say that won't get lost in translation is "it evolved in bats, full stop".

Blame thinking is easy. Wouldn't it be great if we could just fix all our future problems by finding the people who do the wrong thing and punishing them until there's no more sinners left. The alternative of a fundamentally random universe where bad things happen for no reason is a bitter pill to swallow.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#565

Post by IIAOPSW »

pbourke wrote: post #416
IIAOPSW wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

> What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Is this a serious question? How about, if this is true the US government should not be funding any research like this in China. How about, the research must be done at BSL-4 instead of 2/3 as noted in the paper. How about, we need to massively step up our surveillance efforts on the current state of respiratory viruses going forwar…

>How about, we need to massively step up our surveillance efforts on the current state of respiratory viruses going forward. Something like the Seattle Flu Study at national scale. This last point is true regardless of the origin story for SARS-CoV-2.

You literally just proved my point. The origin story isn't actually all that relevant to preventing future pandemics.

At the very least, people are concerned with the origin story far above and beyond its practical importance. It is at a point where you can safely assume that anyone preoccupied with the origin story is mostly interested in tribal shit-slinging.

>How about, if this is true the US government should not be funding any research like this in China.

Do you have a short list of countries the CDC shouldn't cooperate with? What exactly is your criteria? What change could China possibly enact that would get it off this list?

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#566

Post by IIAOPSW »

RC_ITR wrote: post #411
IIAOPSW wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below the surface level question of "did it escape a lab" is the question of why that matters to people. Both escaping a lab and evolving naturally in the wild are in essence freak accidents. A roll of the cosmic dice. A bristling array of implausibilities. What difference does it make that we got unlucky in this way as opposed to that way? Would the logical conclusion from the "escaped a lab" theory be that China sh…

I know you’re trying to be high minded, but yes if it escaped from a lab, China should stop doing independent unsupervised virology. Full stop. EDIT: If a kid crashes a car, you sure as hell are going to make them take more driving lessons before letting them drive again. And hearing them then say “it was a cosmic accident, why should anyone be allowed to drive” is not going to absolve them of negligence

China isn't a kid. People crash cars all the time and go back to driving the next day. There is absolutely such a thing as legally recognized non-negligent car accidents. Your example doesn't at all support your point.

Edit: Should any nation do "independent unsupervised virology". I've heard people in this very thread say that the lab theory, if true, means we should "stop funding this research in China". I take that to mean no longer having a CDC outpost that cooperates with them. So which one is it. should we cut the CDC out of there completely, or should we not let them be independent and unsupervised? The lab origin theory can't imply both at the same time.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#567

Post by gonehome »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #564
gonehome wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There are maybe one in a dozen proponents of the lab theory that are legitimately interested in these questions. For the remaining 11 out of 12, the Wuhan Lab theory is just a belief that they wear in public to signal "China bad"." > "Don't give them legitimacy or talking points. Being honest about the lab theory in the face of people who will use your words dishonestly is a fools errand. Don't be the fool who thi…

>We should give a shit about the truth independent of tribal affiliation We should, but the reality is we don't. (the general we, not the specific you and me). There would be far more people (in the West) accepting the natural origin theory if the virus started in the EU or US. People give a shit about "the truth"^{tm} only when it suits them. Some people in China have done some really spurious gene sequencing studie…

> “That really gets to the heart of it. Was it negligence, or was it just a thing that could have happened at any of the BSL labs with some small probability? What exactly is the mistake rate in similar labs around the world? Was it really more likely to have happened in WuHan, or is that just where the cosmic dice landed? There's this pervasive assumption in your comment and others that the virus escaping a Chinese lab must have been due to the incompetence of the Chinese government. Yet the Chinese governments response to the virus was more serious and more competently executed than almost anywhere else. They practically reopened months ago. How do you square that circle?”

This is precisely why the truth matters and learning about the origins is important.

The cover up and lies out of China don’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a “cosmic dice” situation, but it doesn’t inspire confidence. The false PR about it having to have originated outside of the country makes it look even worse.

Maybe their response was more serious and competent because they had a better understanding of what they were dealing with? They also suppressed information - it wasn’t until the doctor went public that we began to learn the truth of its severity.

A lot of their measures (fever tents, mandatory isolation) play to the strengths of an authoritarian society.

Without knowing the truth it’s hard to evaluate the level of negligence. The western media should not be participating (wittingly or not) in the CCP’s disinformation.

> “Trying to explain the nuance of "there is some evidence it might have escaped a lab but that by itself doesn't necessarily imply anyone is at fault" isn't worth my time”

I’d argue this is the only thing worth your time. The truth absent political tribalism is the thing that can persuade people. Nuance is important, it helps make you more persuasive, even when the people you’re trying to persuade are mostly driven by motivated reasoning.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#568

Post by hkmaxpro »

ximeng wrote: post #122
novaRom wrote: post #66

There is an interesting peer reviewed paper published last month with analysis of existing facts about the origin of covid-19. A part from their conclusion: More than a year after the initial documented cases in Wuhan, the source of SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be identified, and the search for a direct or intermediate host in nature has been so far unsuccessful. The low binding affinity of SARS-CoV-2 to bat ACE2 studied to…

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... Here is a paper that states that the furin cleavage site appears naturally in a number of viruses. I looked into these lab origin theories for the furin cleavage site last year. The problem with it being a laboratory insertion was that although performing an insertion is relatively easy once you know what to insert, generally it’s beyond current science…

The Wu and Zhao paper [0] you cited is based on this paper [1] by Zhou et al, whose conclusions were questioned by this preprint [2].

In fact, the paper [3] cited in the top comment has the following response to the Wu and Zhao paper you cited:

> The recent acquisition of the FCS by SARS-CoV-2 via a natural insert was proposed by Wu and Zhao (2021) on the basis of the existence of FCS in other, more distant Betacoronaviruses with different loop positions to SARS-CoV-2 and the existence of a partial natural insert in the same region in RmYN02 (Zhou et al. 2020a). The reliability of the conclusions of Zhou et al. (2020a) has been questioned by Deigin and Segreto (2020), who particularly challenge the claim that RmYN02 has an insertion around the site of the FCS insertion in SARS-CoV-2 and instead point to a two amino acid deletion in RmYN02 at that locus. Therefore, RmYN02 should not be used as evidence of the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2′s FCS until its claimed insertion is properly validated.

Disclaimer: I’m no biologist/virologist.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612...

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.023

[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.00627

[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-021-01211-0

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#569

Post by [deleted] »

lamontcg wrote: post #427
novaRom wrote: post #66

There is an interesting peer reviewed paper published last month with analysis of existing facts about the origin of covid-19. A part from their conclusion: More than a year after the initial documented cases in Wuhan, the source of SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be identified, and the search for a direct or intermediate host in nature has been so far unsuccessful. The low binding affinity of SARS-CoV-2 to bat ACE2 studied to…

> "Furin cleavage sites naturally occur in coronaviruses" > https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... They exist in the human HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-OC43, MERS-CoV and appear to have evolved independently at least 6 times in betacoronaviruses. Furthermore while this article claims that the furin cleavage site has not found in any sarbecoviruses, that is now outdated information: > "Evidence for SARS-Co…

[deleted]

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#570

Post by 40four »

rlpb wrote: post #424
40four wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the bat population is local to Wuhan is a misconception. The bats from which the gain of function research studies are being done were collected from Yunnan province 800 miles away, not locally in Wuhan. They still have not been able to identity any animals in the market, bats or civets, that would explain the natural spillover hypothesis.

I'm not trying to claim otherwise. My point is that an underlying connection, if one exists, would make the gp's Occam's Razor argument moot.

Fair enough. I was mostly trying to point out there is no ‘local’ bat population tied to coronavirus. I appreciate you’re trying to look at it with critical thinking though.

I don’t know the reason that lab is located in Wuhan specifically. But if you want to find the answer, I think you have to look into who funded the research.

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