zlacker

>>datafl+(OP)
We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plenty of calls for China to do all of that. If covid is the result of Chinese negligence, the reaction and conflict across the planet over what to do about it is going to be absolutely terrible.

And let's not even begin to think what will happen if there were to be evidence that this was an intentional release.

>>Mounta+Ud
Um, we could stop doing gain-of-function research for one. This would be a pretty important datapoint on that risk analysis.

>>bpodgu+lf
I agree that gain-of-function research is very much playing with fire, but who is "we" that could stop doing gain-of-function research? The worst outcome, in my opinion, would be that all of the cautious ethical scientists stop doing gain-of-function research, organizations stop publishing safety guidelines because after all who needs safety guidelines when the research itself is illegal, and the only remaining people doing gain-of-function research are either irresponsible (grad student who doesn't know or doesn't care, and definitely doesn't have the equipment to do it safely) or nefarious (bioweapons research).

I see somewhat of a parallel with security research for computers -- you can try to ban it, and it will probably reduce the total research volume, but it will also decrease the level of openness and harm mitigation of the research that does remain.