zlacker

>>BellLa+(OP)
I could be missing something but this isn't exactly the smoking gun the title makes it seem. I'm sure there are proposals, plans and applications for all types of things. What I'm waiting for, perhaps naively, is strong evidence, revelated an independent investigation, that there was some foul business going on here. Until I see that, I'm more inclined to rely on the word of experts who have no connection to any of this. A novel aspect of a viral genome isn't enough for me to leap to the conclusion that it's human made.

>>chrsw+t8
There must have been something about the title that changed, so I'm responding to something that's maybe a bit different with context. However...

Some other sites' coverage of this highlighted some of the grant content a bit more prominently. I agree it's not quite a smoking gun, but the content of the grant that was discussed was eerily similar to what's been put together by investigating organizations. It's akin to if you were trying to solve a burglary and concluded "if this happened, the suspects would have done A, B, D, and H", and then later you found some emails sent back and forth by the suspects saying "hey how about we do A, B, D, and H?" It's not proof they actually did it but it's about as close as you can get to a smoking gun without it being a smoking gun.

The timing is also uncanny.

I don't want to miscommunicate the extent to which I think the grant proposal proves anything, as I don't think it does, but it blurs the moral difference so much that I start to find myself wondering why as a society we shouldn't react with some things as if it did. That is, I don't think it rises to some level where I would say it definitely proves beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone did anything, but I do think it compels some deep reflection about the scientific-media-authority-academic-funding complex.