[alevskaya]

In the absence of any concrete scientific evidence for a lab leak (and an enormous amount of real, arguably dispositive, evidence against it), I see this doubling-down of articles attacking the character of anyone peripherally involved in work on coronaviruses. There's nothing at all new here.

A lot of people weren't even on this site back then... but this is exactly like watching the "ClimateGate" scandal play out here on HN over a decade ago, and in fact even involves some of the key players like Matt Ridley! Now, over a decade later, it turns out some messy dendrochronological paleoclimatology did not in fact represent a conspiracy invalidating the entirety of climate research and global warming is an even clearer threat.

In another decade we're going to have a much better understanding of horseshoe bats, asian animal markets, and coronavirus evolution... and not a single one of the breathless accusers involved in these screeds will ever apologize for flogging conspiracy.

Yeah, science is messy, scientists are flawed humans, desperate for money and generally terrified of bad PR and the mob. But the entirety of viral reverse genetics can't be thrown into an ill-defined "GOF" bucket. What constitutes acceptable risk and GOF in these areas has been an active debate in virology for as long as I can remember, and the quality of this dialogue is not going to be aided by this circus.

[bondarchuk]

Consider the alternative history where we had always decided that GoF research is not worth the risks. There is a very real possibility that in that universe, we wouldn't have had the coronavirus pandemic with (checks) around 6 million casualties (and counting, and countless other negative effects for billions of people). You need A LOT of high quality results from successful GoF research to make up for that. I'm not familiar with the field at all, but I highly doubt you could point at the complete accumulated body of research resulting from all GoF research everywhere and say that it was worth it.

[simulate-me]

What is the evidence against a lab leak? As far as I know, they've not been able to find the an ancestor of COVID-19 in any natural reservoirs prior to the pandemic. Also mentioned in the article is research being done that indicates the virus was spreading weeks / months before the infamous wet market. From what I've seen, there is very little evidence of a natural origin, and a lot of circumstantial evidence of a lab leak.

[Terr_]

> As far as I know, they've not been able to find the an ancestor of COVID-19 in any natural reservoirs prior to the pandemic.

Careful, this wording implies "if we evolved from apes why are the apes still here" logic.

Actual "ancestors" have all been dead for a bajillion of their generations. All we can hope to find are cousins, outside of some rare time-capsule situation.

[simulate-me]

Ancestors of the COVID-19 haven’t been dead for a million years though. If COVID-19 has natural origins, then the ancestors should still exist in nature and thus should the discoverable. Given that the ancestors must exist somewhat close to humans for transmission to occur, it’s not unreasonable to expect them to be found given the intense amount of resources dedicated to the search.

And again, I was asking for specific evidence of a natural origin. Evolution has plenty of evidence even without living common ancestors between primates and humans.

[Terr_]

> Ancestors of the COVID-19 haven’t been dead for a million years though.

Please read more carefully. I did not say "years". I said "their generations". The average virus generation is very very short.

> If COVID-19 has natural origins, then the ancestors should still exist

Again, you persist in confusing ancestors with relatives.

Insofar a particular viral-particle or sequence can even be considered "alive", they will "die" as a mandatory part of reproduction, kicking off millions of slightly-different descendants.

It's as if you're holding a fresh-caught salmon and insisting that you ought to be able to find its wild ancestors somewhere in the water. No, it doesn't work like that.

> Evolution has plenty of evidence even without living common ancestors between primates and humans.

That is true, but when you say "we should be able to find a living common ancestor", that's idiotic because that means finding AN IMMORTAL CREATURE 4+ MILLION YEARS OLD.

[tloup]

I thank you very much for your comment, you summed up my thoughts pretty well.