zlacker

>>option+(OP)
I like Carl Bergstrom's take on this:

I have reason to believe that if the outgoing administration claims to have reason to believe something but refuses to provide the evidence behind it, they are lying.

https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1350292056782954498

Here's a very serious, legitimate review of the possible origins of SARS-CoV-2: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5

Unfortunately, from my experience, most people are going to believe what they want to believe, based more on political affiliation more than anything else, and the empirical facts don't register too strongly.

>>raphli+r3
That paper is really frustrating - it seems to be written for laypeople like us, but conflates the theory that humans made a containment mistake and COVID escaped from a lab so (we should make research safer) with "COVID is an intentionally engineered bioweapon, so we should stop researching."

And the most critical claim in the paper is not substantiated in any way:

> Gain-of-function research is also subject to intense scrutiny and governmental oversight, precisely because of the high risk involved in conducting it safely; thus, it is extremely unlikely that gain-of-function research on hard-to-obtain coronaviruses (such as bat SARS-like coronaviruses) could occur under the radar.

Or substantiation is hinted at but never delivered:

> This work produced some of the strongest corroborating evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally emergent pathogen, as serological surveys demonstrated that people living in close proximity to colonies of bats had antibodies to bat SARS-like coronaviruses. The NIH has since set impossible conditions for restoring the grant, ensuring that this research will never resume.

Maybe the next place to go is learning more about the initial results from the EcoHealth Alliance grant referenced in the above quote. Still, it's a pretty unsatisfying review.

[edit, fixed typo: containement -> containment]

>>bertmu+O7
Thank you for writing this, I was just about to start writing up something similar. The linked paper might be 'serious' in tone but the claims are not convincing.

One of the best articles I have seen on the lab-made hypothesis is here:

https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...

If you want to go down a more skeptical route, closer into conspiracy theories and Chinese politics, you can read some of the writings on this site:

https://nerdhaspower.weebly.com/blog/scientific-evidence-and...

Please, when reading these, keep your scientist hat on and evaluate the claims with an open mind.

That being said, if anyone has links to rebuttals of some of the key ideas behind these articles, or further evidence of natural origin beyond the Andersen et al Nature paper, please link it, I'd very much like to change my mind.