I'm always awed by your insights, intellect and POV. Thanks for another great essay. May you become rich and powerful and wipe the biology bullshitters off the face of the sad science it seems to have become.
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
Your thoughtful post addresses some intriguing issues I've been puzzling over too. I hope to have the chance to discuss some of them. You have an unusually strong background to delve into them and have clearly put a lot of thought into your thinking.
For now let me just make one point. You say that it would be very unlikely for a coronavirus in nature to gain a furin cleavage site in a short period of time. But isn't that contradicted by the rapid evolution of variants of SARS-CoV-2 that we have seen in nature?
The Omicron variant had a huge number of mutations compared to the original SARS-CoV-2. Much more than the single insertion of a 12-nt sequence needed to form a furin cleavage site.
Where did these mutations come from? The leading theory seems to be that they evolved in a single person with chronic Covid-19. Indeed, one person thinks all the variants originated that way. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01047-4
That is consistent with the spread of the variants that we have observed. All seemed to have a single point of origin where they represented a leap from their nearest ancestor.
The other theory is that the variants arose in mice or some other animal which would mean that they did not show up on genetic tracking. But that raises the question of how so many mutations could have arisen in a short period of time in any animal.
Doesn't the arrival of so many variants so quickly in nature mean that a sarbecovirus with a furin cleavage site could have quickly popped up in nature even if we had never seen one before?
Can you help explain why the US owner operator of green fluorescent protein has gone to court rather than release what we all (of course) asume to be exculpatory evidence sitting right there in the emails? “On April 18, 2022, USRTK filed a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill […]The lawsuit, filed in North Carolina District Court in Orange County, seeks records for seven public records requests to the University of North Carolina, including: (1) emails between Prof. Ralph Baric, former Prof. Lishan Su or Ms. Toni Baric with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention or the EcoHealth Alliance, or others; (2) emails to or from Prof. Ralph Baric containing any of the search terms “DEFUSE” or “DARPA” or “DTRA”. UNC filed its reply brief on March 9, 2023. Case 22CV463.”
Excellent essay. Thanks. I really like the analogy of the furin cleavage site to green fluorescent protein, and the glowing green mice showing up near the lab that was working on just these things.
I'm always awed by your insights, intellect and POV. Thanks for another great essay. May you become rich and powerful and wipe the biology bullshitters off the face of the sad science it seems to have become.
On Point…!!
“…but still relatively easy, to weed out bullshit in physics…”
Maybe…
The Trouble with Physics-Lee Smolin
The Higgs Fake -Alexander Unzicker
Farewell to Reality-Jim Baggott
Science or Fiction-ofer Comay
Tired Light-Lyndon Ashmore
Fields of Colour-Rodney Brooks
Bankrupting Physics-Alexander Unzicker
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
― Lord Kelvin
Your thoughtful post addresses some intriguing issues I've been puzzling over too. I hope to have the chance to discuss some of them. You have an unusually strong background to delve into them and have clearly put a lot of thought into your thinking.
For now let me just make one point. You say that it would be very unlikely for a coronavirus in nature to gain a furin cleavage site in a short period of time. But isn't that contradicted by the rapid evolution of variants of SARS-CoV-2 that we have seen in nature?
The Omicron variant had a huge number of mutations compared to the original SARS-CoV-2. Much more than the single insertion of a 12-nt sequence needed to form a furin cleavage site.
Where did these mutations come from? The leading theory seems to be that they evolved in a single person with chronic Covid-19. Indeed, one person thinks all the variants originated that way. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01047-4
That is consistent with the spread of the variants that we have observed. All seemed to have a single point of origin where they represented a leap from their nearest ancestor.
The other theory is that the variants arose in mice or some other animal which would mean that they did not show up on genetic tracking. But that raises the question of how so many mutations could have arisen in a short period of time in any animal.
Doesn't the arrival of so many variants so quickly in nature mean that a sarbecovirus with a furin cleavage site could have quickly popped up in nature even if we had never seen one before?
From one biologist to another, thank you for calling bullshit with such eloquence and specificity. Excellent work.
Well said. You have a way with words!
Can you help explain why the US owner operator of green fluorescent protein has gone to court rather than release what we all (of course) asume to be exculpatory evidence sitting right there in the emails? “On April 18, 2022, USRTK filed a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill […]The lawsuit, filed in North Carolina District Court in Orange County, seeks records for seven public records requests to the University of North Carolina, including: (1) emails between Prof. Ralph Baric, former Prof. Lishan Su or Ms. Toni Baric with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention or the EcoHealth Alliance, or others; (2) emails to or from Prof. Ralph Baric containing any of the search terms “DEFUSE” or “DARPA” or “DTRA”. UNC filed its reply brief on March 9, 2023. Case 22CV463.”
Excellent essay. Thanks. I really like the analogy of the furin cleavage site to green fluorescent protein, and the glowing green mice showing up near the lab that was working on just these things.