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What do you think of these quotes?: "“Some kind of threshold has been crossed,” said Alina Chan, a Boston-based scientist and co-author of the upcoming book “V

What do you think of these quotes?: "“Some kind of threshold has been crossed,” said Alina Chan, a Boston-based scientist and co-author of the upcoming book “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” Chan has been vocal about the need to thoroughly investigate the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab while remaining open to both possible theories of its development. For Chan, the revelation from the proposal was the description of the insertion of a novel furin cleavage site into bat coronaviruses — something people previously speculated, but had no evidence, may have happened. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University who has espoused the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab, agreed. “The relevance of this is that SARS Cov-2, the pandemic virus, is the only virus in its entire genus of SARS-related coronaviruses that contains a fully functional cleavage site at the S1, S2 junction,” said Ebright, referring to the place where two subunits of the spike protein meet. “And here is a proposal from the beginning of 2018, proposing explicitly to engineer that sequence at that position in chimeric lab-generated coronaviruses.” Martin Wikelski, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, whose work tracking bats and other animals was referenced in the grant application without his knowledge, also said it made him more open to the idea that the pandemic may have its roots in a lab. “The information in the proposal certainly changes my thoughts about a possible origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Wikelski told The Intercept. “In fact, a possible transmission chain is now logically consistent — which it was not before I read the proposal.” But others insisted that the research posed little or no threat and pointed out that the proposal called for most of the genetic engineering work to be done in North Carolina rather than China. “Given that the work wasn’t funded and wasn’t proposed to take place in Wuhan anyway it’s hard to assess any bearing on the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Stephen Goldstein, a scientist who studies the evolution of viral genes at the University of Utah, and an author of the recent Cell article, wrote in an email to The Intercept."

dekhn 5y ago
Are you a scientist? I was. I can tell you that all of those quotes require a great deal of inspection and you cannot take them at face value. At the very least, most scientists speak ultra-confidently about this beliefs (beyond their own internal level of confidence) because they've learned to use narrative techniques to make their beliefs sound true. Any scientist who is actively speculating that this funding is "strong evidence" rather than saying "it's logically consistent and seems more than coincidental" is just wrong. That's a big mistake a lot of the early folks who claiimed it was human engineered made. The evidence is not strong, but not strong enough to convince a rational person.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  There is a thing that you are full of. I'mma be polite but you are full to the brim of it. edit: Wow, flagged within one minute. That's not weird at all /s So I'll expand: The comment above is ridiculous for 7 reasons. Try to find them all.
  - dang 5y ago
    No need for sinister explanations—your comment broke the site guidelines egregiously, so users flagged it, entirely appropriately. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
      ... Egregiously? Really? Shit, what would a _mildly bad_ comment look like? It's also weird that you'd take issue with my comment and not the one I'm replying to. Did you read it? It's got literally 7 kinds of deliberately crafted misinformation.
      - dekhn 5y ago
        there's no deliberately crafted misinformation in my comment. It's a simple and straightforward evaluation of the reliable evidence we have so far.
        mandmandam 5y ago
        > Are you a scientist? Implying only scientists can have opinions based on evidence. > I was. Argument from "authority" (without evidence btw). > I can tell you that all of those quotes require a great deal of inspection and you cannot take them at face value. Hand waving. > At the very least, most scientists speak ultra-confidently about this beliefs Not true at all. > (beyond their own internal level of confidence) because they've learned to use narrative techniques to make their beliefs sound true. You're thinking of storytellers. > Any scientist who is actively speculating that this funding is "strong evidence" rather than saying "it's logically consistent and seems more than coincidental" is just wrong. That's not true, considering that "Peter Daszak, despite coming out forcefully against the lab leak theory, and purposely downplaying his involvement with the lab in so doing, and being inexplicably selected as a member of the WHO team to investigate the lab origin theory, completely neglected to mention having made this proposal a mere two years prior", as well as myriad other deliberate misinformation from Peter. > That's a big mistake a lot of the early folks who claiimed it was human engineered made. There was more than enough evidence to warrant an international independent inspection of both labs in Wuhan. Location alone was enough, without everything else. > The evidence is not strong, but not strong enough to convince a rational person. Implying rational people will come to the same conclusion as you, despite all the above. I say all this because you claim to be the rational scientist in the room, when actually there's so much smoke in the room that anyone saying there's no fire needs a strong head check. Smell the air: smells like smoke - and something else.
jayd16 5y ago
When someone is hawking a book and playing up the subject of that book, take it with a grain of salt.

dekhn 5y ago

Are you a scientist? I was. I can tell you that all of those quotes require a great deal of inspection and you cannot take them at face value. At the very least, most scientists speak ultra-confidently about this beliefs (beyond their own internal level of confidence) because they've learned to use narrative techniques to make their beliefs sound true. Any scientist who is actively speculating that this funding is "strong evidence" rather than saying "it's logically consistent and seems more than coincidental" is just wrong. That's a big mistake a lot of the early folks who claiimed it was human engineered made. The evidence is not strong, but not strong enough to convince a rational person.

mandmandam 5y ago
There is a thing that you are full of. I'mma be polite but you are full to the brim of it. edit: Wow, flagged within one minute. That's not weird at all /s So I'll expand: The comment above is ridiculous for 7 reasons. Try to find them all.
- dang 5y ago
  No need for sinister explanations—your comment broke the site guidelines egregiously, so users flagged it, entirely appropriately. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    ... Egregiously? Really? Shit, what would a _mildly bad_ comment look like? It's also weird that you'd take issue with my comment and not the one I'm replying to. Did you read it? It's got literally 7 kinds of deliberately crafted misinformation.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      there's no deliberately crafted misinformation in my comment. It's a simple and straightforward evaluation of the reliable evidence we have so far.
      - mandmandam 5y ago
        > Are you a scientist? Implying only scientists can have opinions based on evidence. > I was. Argument from "authority" (without evidence btw). > I can tell you that all of those quotes require a great deal of inspection and you cannot take them at face value. Hand waving. > At the very least, most scientists speak ultra-confidently about this beliefs Not true at all. > (beyond their own internal level of confidence) because they've learned to use narrative techniques to make their beliefs sound true. You're thinking of storytellers. > Any scientist who is actively speculating that this funding is "strong evidence" rather than saying "it's logically consistent and seems more than coincidental" is just wrong. That's not true, considering that "Peter Daszak, despite coming out forcefully against the lab leak theory, and purposely downplaying his involvement with the lab in so doing, and being inexplicably selected as a member of the WHO team to investigate the lab origin theory, completely neglected to mention having made this proposal a mere two years prior", as well as myriad other deliberate misinformation from Peter. > That's a big mistake a lot of the early folks who claiimed it was human engineered made. There was more than enough evidence to warrant an international independent inspection of both labs in Wuhan. Location alone was enough, without everything else. > The evidence is not strong, but not strong enough to convince a rational person. Implying rational people will come to the same conclusion as you, despite all the above. I say all this because you claim to be the rational scientist in the room, when actually there's so much smoke in the room that anyone saying there's no fire needs a strong head check. Smell the air: smells like smoke - and something else.

jayd16 5y ago

When someone is hawking a book and playing up the subject of that book, take it with a grain of salt.