[tripletao]

I'd tend to agree that Baltimore initially overstated the significance of the FCS, though his updated position seems close to my own. I'd certainly agree that whatever Kary Mullis saw wasn't a physical glowing raccoon, that megadoses of vitamin C won't cure cancer, etc. That's basically my point, though. Prestige--personal, institutional, or otherwise--is no guarantee of quality.

It's not meaningless either, and in general I'd also place higher weight on a paper in a major journal than on a random Twitter thread. As to COVID origins in particular, I believe major journals have published unusually poor-quality work. This continues an unfortunate pattern set in past biosafety incidents (1977 flu, Sverdlovsk, etc.), of dismissing the possibility of an unnatural cause until the evidence was incontrovertible.

The math in the Worobey papers isn't really that inaccessible, and I'd consider some of it as good work if it weren't so grossly oversold. I agree there's no definite evidence for any origin of SARS-CoV-2, and I don't think the article linked here adds much. I do think revelation of the DEFUSE proposal did, and that UNC's and the EHA's prior silence on that is inexcusable.

Definite proof may never come, but for now the American government continues to fund high-risk virological research. That seems terrifying to me. Reckless agricultural practices also continue to risk novel pandemics (in the West too; our use of antibiotics on healthy animals may get remembered as a crime against humanity). The risk of reckless virological practices is additive to that though, and much more easily controlled, simply by defunding. I therefore believe it deserves attention now.

[ricksunny]

>in general I'd also place higher weight on a paper in a major journal than on a random Twitter thread.

The Alina Chan archetype would beg to differ. The journal gatekeeping on tbis topic has been off the charts.