[archibaldJ]

> ...this is candid scientific study and discussion of upmost importance.

Maybe it is not. Lots of discussions & discourses are going on in another thread actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476300

As a Chinese myself I appreciate this paper and the bravery of Yan putting herself in the spotlight in the name of science for this somewhat controversial claim with geopolitical implications. I'm no virologist so I can't comment on the claims that the sequence blast indicates the Orf8 protein of ZC45/ZXC21 share 94.2% identity with SARS-CoV-2 Orf8, and that no coronaviruses (discovered so far) share more than 58% identity with SARS-CoV-2 on this protein, etc, as well as the significant of these claims in supporting their thesis.

But after reading myriads of comments on HN and skimming through the paper a few more times, I have to admit the paper itself is not particularly interesting. It may even appear to some as a poorly written scientific paper, or in the words of djaque's, "a political hit piece cosplaying as a scientific article".

And now I find this whole thing much more intriguing from a meta perspective i.e. reading and making sense of people's reactions to the paper, their comments, perspectives, etc.

[wensheng]

oh, thanks. That post is also flagged.

HN community are extremely liberal. When they see Steve Bannon name, they automatically reject the paper. I wouldn't trust the comments, even if they claim they are subject experts here.

[archibaldJ]

I think what's interesting is the tone of the paper, and how people react to it differently.

It has occured to me in written Chinese, sentiments often get easily "embedded" in words v.s. in English. (i.e. perhaps a feature of logographic languages?) English expressions on the other hand are easier to stay "neutral".

When I first read the paper I actually found the articulation to have a "neutral" tone to it. But after knowing that it is afflicted with Bannon and realising that the paper implies of all scientists & researchers in the world, only those backed by an anti-CCP advocacy organization, are willing to do serious research to expose the cover-up (assuming there is one!), the words in the article now gives off an odd vibe. It is now a partisan piece.

[wensheng]

I didn't notice the tone, but there must be some of it. I think the author tried their best to sound neutral but if they strongly believe what they believed it, it's unavoidable for letting personal opinion slip in. I once asked one of the author - nerdhaspower, to remove such words as "中共" from his site because they show confirmation bias. He refused. But in this paper, they did a much better job.

I don't believe the paper implied what you said. The first reference for example, also a well-written paper, is from a Harvard researcher, who has nothing to do with the organization.