1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"
2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab
3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]
[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...
There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.
My personal feeling is that these statements are true:
* The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of gain of function research and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural research sample and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by an animal/person who traveled to the wet market.
Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual's own calibration for what is likely or unlikely will probably come into play more than evidence in the short term and possibly long term as well. I can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to answer the question either way though.
Sometimes its wrong to present "both sides" like that. Like pretending the evidence against the moon landings is equal to the evidence for the moon landings. But if you're going to be wrong, this is probably the best kind of wrong.
For example, I have seen a lot of comments that the closest natural COVID reservoir is 500 miles away, that sounds like a lot! But the average tractor trailer can cover that in a day no problem, so our heuristic needs to include how many trucks are moving between those areas, how many have come in contact with wildlife or are transporting it, etc. Since it only takes one transmission the problem rapidly becomes too complex.
Fortunately the answer has no bearing on decisions being made in the here and now, so we can afford to wait and let experts do their jobs and hope we take the right steps long term if it was something that could have been avoided.
We can emphatically not expect the experts to do their job. Those cited as having the most expertise (virologists who undertake gain-of-function research, symbolically under the auspices of HHS’ toothless P3CO regulation framework) have the most to lose from a finding that the pandemic’s source was a lab leak. They lose all the grants and public financial support, not to mention endure unending public scorn that will haunt the their careers for the duration.
For evidence that the relevant, oft-cited scientists act precisely this way, one need no more than to look at @BlockedVirology’s retweets: https://twitter.com/blockedvirology
Scientists are human - I would highly recommend disabusing oneself of the notion that they might act contrary to overwhelming human incentives in as weighty a context as investigating the origins of the greatest pandemic in a century.
The only alternative in the face of this embedded conflict of interest in our (society’s) ability to credibly investigate the pandemic’s origins is for technically-minded individuals (who don’t run multimillion dollar virology labs) to avail themselves of the findings gathered to date on the origins (there’s lots! Just need to take a look, the contributors to the above feed are a good place to start), and advocate to their representatives for a credible & even-handed origins investigation.
Failing that, expect no origin beyond all reasonable doubt to be credibly identified in our lifetimes.
Just look at public health people, epidemiologists. Folks like Andrea Sant, Michael Osterholm, David Topham, etc.
These folks criticize GOF all the time, and are a big part of the group that helps write regulations to make Virology research safe.
But you know what these same virologists also don't believe? That SARS-COV-2 was cooked up in a lab.
That should tell you something.
Science is adversarial, and virology is no exception.
That's why when consensus exists about something, you should respect it. There is quite a large consensus about this one.
Respecting a consensus is reasonable. That having been said, I would be interested to hear what the virologists to whom you refer think about Ralph Baric's work. Ralph Baric is a very well-known virologist specializing in corona virology. His group synthesized quite a few SARS-CoV variants, a number of years before SARS-CoV-2 made its appearance. While there's no proof that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab, there are quite a few studies describing the synthesis of different SARS-CoV variants, some quite dangerous.
From one of many papers on which he was a co-author (https://www.pnas.org/content/113/11/3048.full):
"Using the SARS-CoV infectious clone as a template (7), we designed and synthesized a full-length infectious clone of WIV1-CoV consisting of six plasmids that could be enzymatically cut, ligated together, and electroporated into cells to rescue replication competent progeny virions (Fig. S1A). In addition to the full-length clone, we also produced WIV1-CoV chimeric virus that replaced the SARS spike with the WIV1 spike within the mouse-adapted backbone (WIV1-MA15, Fig. S1B)"
EDIT: jeduehr, given your background in virology, I would be interested in any technical critique you may have regarding the Yuri Deigin article referenced in my post below.
Baric makes Chimeras. CoV-2 in comparison to the other closely related viruses in nature, is a mosaic. Lots of little changes all over the genome, not big copy and pastes.
See here for more detail on that distinction: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpbagf