(I don’t see any particular reason to trust this somewhat random professor more than the what seemed to me quite sane and exceptionally well-conducted Rootclaim debate. The linked tweet thread seems quite cursory and a lot of its content was indeed covered in the Rootclaim debate. I do still appreciate the links, since additional sources and takes seem good on the margin)
Ok, that’s definitely interesting (in the sense that it’s an implicitly registered prediction). Though conditional on that him arguing for it being a lab leak is also a bit less evidence.
I cite and contextualise the news article in my post (see second half of sec. ‘Misrepresentation of evidence’) Ebright is cited in Butler’s news post on Nature also referred to by Roko. The post is a brief summary of a debate on the usefulness of GoF research, and makes some other points, among which:
-Barich arguing that the project was funded because not so risky as to fall under the moratorium;
-”Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population.” Natural coronaviruses were already able to bind to human receptors, that’s arguably why GoF research was conducted in the first place.
In light of this, I don’t think the news article is worth a significant update toward the lab-leak hypothesis: if anything, it shows that it was known since 2013 that coronaviruses could infect humans without host animals.
Roko’s argument and the Rootclaim debate are both low-quality. For a stronger case for COVID coming from a lab, you can see Prof Richard Ebright.
(I don’t see any particular reason to trust this somewhat random professor more than the what seemed to me quite sane and exceptionally well-conducted Rootclaim debate. The linked tweet thread seems quite cursory and a lot of its content was indeed covered in the Rootclaim debate. I do still appreciate the links, since additional sources and takes seem good on the margin)
Ebright was warning about gain-of-function applied to Wuhan coronavirus in 2015.
Ok, that’s definitely interesting (in the sense that it’s an implicitly registered prediction). Though conditional on that him arguing for it being a lab leak is also a bit less evidence.
I cite and contextualise the news article in my post (see second half of sec. ‘Misrepresentation of evidence’)
Ebright is cited in Butler’s news post on Nature also referred to by Roko. The post is a brief summary of a debate on the usefulness of GoF research, and makes some other points, among which:
-Barich arguing that the project was funded because not so risky as to fall under the moratorium;
-”Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population.”
Natural coronaviruses were already able to bind to human receptors, that’s arguably why GoF research was conducted in the first place.
In light of this, I don’t think the news article is worth a significant update toward the lab-leak hypothesis: if anything, it shows that it was known since 2013 that coronaviruses could infect humans without host animals.
Some amount of binding to some human receptors doesn’t mean a virus can infect humans. When something can infect humans, people say that instead.
Also, you’re not using those words correctly. Perhaps you mean “without evolution in an intermediate host”—which was, of course, never found.
Most of the sources he cites are also referred to in my article, which of his points do you find the strongest that are not already addressed here?
I linked to a thread on twitter, but what I was pointing at was not primarily the thread but the person. He also wrote replies to many arguments.