if you called someone crazy at some point for suggesting this as a possibility, it is time to pause and reflect
There's a difference between outright rejection and calling BS on obviously conclusion-driven argument from people playing politics.
Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
201–210 of 494 posts
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#202I don't endorse this guy since he's a little too political for my taste but it's the best ELI5 of the situation I can find for everyone.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#203Reminder that the NIH and NIAID (which Fauci leads) systematically undermined oversight processes meant to flag dangerous research for additional review. See https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/04/nih-gain-of-function-anth...
Is the Daily Caller a reliable source?
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#204If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck
The difference is that I'm guessing 99% of people reading this (myself include) have no idea what a duck is, let alone how it quacks.
Merely the amount of "gotcha!"-ing that happens as the news-pendulum swings from each side of this debate suggests to me that this in large part driven by emotions and tribalism rather than solely an honest desire for the truth.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
The specific claims here that are most compelling to me are: "The grant proposal very specifically is concerned with using the WIV1 and SHC014 backbones, nothing related to SARS-CoV-2." The counterargument is "Well, they could have altered the proposal when they pursued funding elsewhere." The takeaway is that it is not likely this specific proposal was funded elsewhere, leading to SARS-CoV-2. "If they actually carri…
> "Well, they could have altered the proposal when they pursued funding elsewhere." It isn't as simple as altering the proposal. You're speculating a very large and hidden process using sequences that were kept perfectly secret and have not been leaked, with virus backbones that would take considerable effort to create but which were never shared publicly (and kept perfectly secret before SARS-CoV-2 happened before t…
... but then you'd have to explain the infection geography in humans with two events. Not saying it's not possible, but lining it up with what's known epidemiologically speaking is different.
Also, I'm not sure why the lab leak hypothesis is suddenly trickier. They had all sorts of samples.
Labeling this all as "mental gymnastics" as in the article, or "a dagger in the heart of the lab leak hypothesis" is just the sort of motivated analysis confirmatory bias that caused all this in the first place. I'm not sure how arguing that SARS-CoV-2 involved two spillover events with crossover from multiple species is less mental gymnastics than "a lab had multiple samples".
Honestly I'd like to see more dispassionate discussion of this. That Nature piece is shameful.
At some level I don't care if it was a lab leak or not but I wish there wasn't this level of motivation behind both sides.
In any event, the grant proposal should raise a lot of red flags regardless. What bothers me often is this implied assumption that if the lab leak hypothesis is false, everything else is fine. It's all fine that a plausible biosecurity failure scenario was ridiculed, that major research groups clearly lied about and tried to cover up conflicts of interest, that we can trust these (GoF) lines of research are safe, that we can just trust the authority figures to not cause another pandemic, etc. etc. etc.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#2061. There is no viral backbone anyone knows of which would have been used in this research 2. There is no spike protein anyone knows of which would have been used in this research 3. The PRRAR furin cleavage site is not one humans would have tried it is unlike any other known furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses 4. There are now many known related sarbecoviruses which have been found with furin cleavage sites 5. Furi…
There is a nearly identical RBD in the wild. But... without the furin cleavage site. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28649716
And you know what, northern Laos where the RBD was found, and south Yunnan, where the well documented sars outbreak happened (which presumably led to the discovery of ratg13), share a border with each other
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
A rejected proposal does not mean research does not happen. It means they were unable to get funding from DARPA. It does not necessarily mean they were unable to get funding from "somebody". And yes we do have reason to believe this type of research caused the pandemic.
As an academic, ain’t no way research from an unfunded grant proposal is happening… The problem with your second statement is that we all of these posts and articles are attempts to throw evidence to support something you have already decided is true. More bad/non evidence does not make an argument and continually citing bad evidence that doesn’t prove your point reduces the credibility of the argument you are making…
As a non-academic: huh?
The claim wasn't that the research was unfunded, just unfunded by DARPA.
To your second point, bad/non-evidence of essentially __everything__ is why the internet is the way it is today. You're saying "fake news is fake" which isn't really saying anything at all.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#2081. There is no viral backbone anyone knows of which would have been used in this research 2. There is no spike protein anyone knows of which would have been used in this research 3. The PRRAR furin cleavage site is not one humans would have tried it is unlike any other known furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses 4. There are now many known related sarbecoviruses which have been found with furin cleavage sites 5. Furi…
> 1. There is no viral backbone anyone knows of which would have been used in this research > 2. There is no spike protein anyone knows of which would have been used in this research > 3. The PRRAR furin cleavage site is not one humans would have tried it is unlike any other known furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses I believe what you mean to say here is that there is no published literature describing these things…
I have a little long bet going that in 10 years, Peter Daszak's name will be on the same lists as the world's worst mass killers.
Imaging writing this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7159294/
and then being forced to disclose this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215723/
4.5 million dead so far. More than Pol Pot, less than Leopold II. There's still time.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
A rejected proposal does not mean research does not happen. It means they were unable to get funding from DARPA. It does not necessarily mean they were unable to get funding from "somebody". And yes we do have reason to believe this type of research caused the pandemic.
As an academic, ain’t no way research from an unfunded grant proposal is happening… The problem with your second statement is that we all of these posts and articles are attempts to throw evidence to support something you have already decided is true. More bad/non evidence does not make an argument and continually citing bad evidence that doesn’t prove your point reduces the credibility of the argument you are making…
Ok, as another academic: this happens all the time. People use funds from one grant to subsidize other research. I've heard a colleague refer to it "as using one project to pay the bills of another project."
It's all also a moot point in that just because the grant wasn't funded from DARPA doesn't mean it wasn't funded. And if it was funded, it doesn't mean we would know who funded it.
Not trying to be conspiratorial, just trying to point out the funding on this grant or lack thereof doesn't mean anything about it happening or not happening. It just means the researchers were interested in it happening.
Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. We can do two things at a time. Investigation of origins does not block anyone from making and following policies to stop the spread. 2. I don't know about you but I have lost more than 1.5 years of my life to this. World around me has changed fundamentally in many ways. Just for closures sake I would like to know why this happened to me.
2. It has more to do with your country’s government than the source of the virus, hence my comment Even if you knew would anything change? I’m not advocating for ignorance, rather that it’s impossible to know conclusively without full cooperation and it’s in the interest of all parties to deflect
Why put a murderer in jail? It won't bring the victim back.