More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins • Hacker News Board

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#211

Post by throwaway316943 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

franciscop wrote: post #159

syshum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I know the issue is politicized This is becoming more and more common, Pure Science is almost never practiced anymore. The Hard sciences like Immunology, virology, general medicine used to be some what insulated from politics however in the last few years all sciences are no longer data driven. You form a conclusion then find the facts that fit your narrative, and if your narrative is not the "correct" one you bett…

Is it? Since the beginning the science has been in conflict with politics (or the Church, or the Kings/Emperors before democracy). Notable political/social opposition to the sciences are well documented. Couple of examples: doctors washing their hands was a controversial issue [2] and how being able to eat "higher-class" food killed thousands of Japanese, who rejected eating other food even when it was known it was k…

I think neither is exactly true. Like any endeavour that requires patronage, scientists have to sing for their supper. The combinations of scientists and patrons vary across time and space with some being more amenable to pure science and others breeding corruption. Like everything it is much more complex upon closer inspection.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#212

Post by titzer » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #21

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #8

As it takes longer and longer to find any evidence in nature a lab leaking is becoming the most likely source.

That is an argument from ignorance logical fallacy. The inability to find something has no bearing on whether it exists or not and thus has no bearing on the probability of an inverted outcome. Dark matter/energy also frequently fall into this sort of argument. There is no evidence that they do exist, which does not suggest the absence of their existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

> The inability to find something has no bearing on whether it exists or not

Bigfoot has entered the chat.

> Dark matter/energy...There is no evidence that they do exist,

Except there is plenty of evidence for dark matter. It's stuff that has observable mass and is found in countless galaxy rotation curve studies, gravitational lensing, etc.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#213

Post by Ericson2314 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #206

tristanj wrote: post #25

Not surprising at all considering Wuhan Lab scientists admitted on video they were bitten by bats and they had lax to no safety standards. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4102619 > A video released two years before the start of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic shows Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists being cavalier toward protective equipment and being bitten by bats that carry deadly viruses such as SA…

Unfortunately, there is a big gap between the viruses found in nature, and SARS-Cov-2 that bit humanity on the ass. We have not found an "evolutionary trail", so to speak between the two. You would think that if something evolves from A to B, that you'd find variants interpolating the two stages. In natural evolution, that's always the case. But in the case of SARS-Cov-2, this new virus magically appears in Wuhan.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaTG13#Phylogenetic we're not hopelessly lost though? It seems like no matter what the "origin" is, just chasing around Hubei sequencing animal droppings is going to allow us to refine the above nicely.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#214

Post by hayst4ck » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

There are 2 concrete distinct ideas, but many are conflating both of the ideas. It results in it being very hard to have a conversation because it's unclear which idea people are talking about.

Idea 1: SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab

Idea 2: SARS-CoV-2 was in/around/related to WIV and escaped

Idea 1 was widely debunked by American scientists.

Idea 2 is an idea that there is a considerable body of circumstantial evidence supporting and is certainly the most likely origin in my estimation.

> why these weird rumors about Gain of Function research that no one seemingly looks into etc.

You can read one such yourself: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/

  we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by 
  combining a human immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus 
  system with cell lines expressing the ACE2 molecules
  of human, civet, or horseshoe bat.

Later down on the paper it describes the process by which they did the combination.

Our own American scientists said this process would likely result in biomarkers that were not found in the circulating virus (my layman, not expert, understanding).

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#215

Post by throwaway316943 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #170

Pepe1vo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the reason the lab is in that place is precisely because it's close to a place where zoonoses has occurred multiple times. Kind of like how we don't blame lighthouses for shipwrecks. That being said, from what I've read it appears that a lab escape is a very real possibility. Though I doubt that we'll ever find out

I've heard this a number of times now, but is it actually true? I find that argument hard to corroborate and there are other parsimonious explanations, like WIV was located in Wuhan because Wuhan is a major world city with high quality institutions of higher education.

It’s a pretty flimsy lie that incidentally tries to paint Wuhan as an unsophisticated backwater. It smacks of uninformed spin.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#216

Post by jrockway » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #210

jrockway wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like the worst of the Internet in action. You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? I guess that's pretty popular, but I have to say I don't care for it. Many people are still in the bargaining stage of COVID response -- if we find that some person made this virus and released it into the wild, we just send them to prison and the problem goe…

> That sounds like the worst of the Internet in action. You disagree with someone's off-handed remark on social media, so you want to remove their funding source? It's not about removing, it's about finding who they are speaking out for.

But you all are so quick to assume that people have a financial agenda rather than their own thoughts. Like maybe people just think things and say them, and it's not all some propaganda campaign.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#217

Post by midlightdenight » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #202

bbatha wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab leak does not necessarily imply the virus was engineered. Indeed there is reasonable evidence for the former and little, but not none, for the later.

There is evidence that some parts of the virus were engineered. See, for example, the Furin cleavage site.

Could you post links to this evidence?

I can only find sources saying that the Furin cleavage site doesn’t rule out engineering, or sources saying the Furin cleave site could be naturally occurring. Sounds like we don’t know yet.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#218

Post by matt_kantor » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

franciscop wrote: post #159

syshum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I know the issue is politicized This is becoming more and more common, Pure Science is almost never practiced anymore. The Hard sciences like Immunology, virology, general medicine used to be some what insulated from politics however in the last few years all sciences are no longer data driven. You form a conclusion then find the facts that fit your narrative, and if your narrative is not the "correct" one you bett…

Is it? Since the beginning the science has been in conflict with politics (or the Church, or the Kings/Emperors before democracy). Notable political/social opposition to the sciences are well documented. Couple of examples: doctors washing their hands was a controversial issue [2] and how being able to eat "higher-class" food killed thousands of Japanese, who rejected eating other food even when it was known it was k…

Don't forget about Galileo.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#219

Post by throwkeep » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

> What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. "

There were a lot of them on twitter, and frankly, they disqualified themselves from the adult table. They've chosen politics over science.

Re: More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins

#220

Post by riyadparvez » Mon, May 17, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

kossTKR wrote: post #112

What i find weird is the extreme and very unscientific agression among certain virologist: "If you think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, please unfollow me. " https://twitter.com/macroliter/status/1390720308265508871 Then you have other academics in the comments saying nothing is certain yet, and other prominents labs like Gupta Labs at Cambridge and Bloom Lab from Seattle saying there could be multiple explanati…

I am always surprised how the virologist community have sacrificed their integrity.

From the article titled "Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab"[1]:

> But that was before he learned more about COVID-19 and related coronaviruses, which have features already seen in nature. "There are lots of data and lots of evidence, as well as previous examples of this coming from nature," he said. "We have exactly zero evidence or data of this having any connection to a lab."

[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientis...