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lab leak debunking #10000
June 3rd, 2024 12:11Here's something I bet you've heard about once a week for some time: "Was COVID from a lab? Just asking questions!"
Like most "just asking questions" things, this keeps getting brought up long after the questions have been answered. Sometimes that's because the goal wasn't really to ask questions but to push an agenda. Other times people just don't understand or don't trust the answers, or have followed some of the answers but then stopped updating their knowledge. I don't know which explanation is true for the latest fear-mongering op-ed in the New York Times by Alina Chan—which, like all such pieces, is presented so as to give a false impression that Dr. Chan either speaks for most researchers, or has put together evidence nobody else noticed.
This series of posts by Phillipp Markolin, summarizing a longer article that they link to, is the best I've seen lately about why most researchers don't think there's any real doubt about the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) having evolved and spread naturally. It's technical, and Markolin does a decent job of boiling it down some, but I think it's possible to make it a little easier to follow for laypeople—so I'll try to do that here. (Standard disclaimer: my credentials are only that I've read enough about molecular biology in school to understand the gist of what Markolin is saying, and to see that it's consistent with what other scientists are saying, and that Chan's arguments do not take it into account.)
( Read more... )
Like most "just asking questions" things, this keeps getting brought up long after the questions have been answered. Sometimes that's because the goal wasn't really to ask questions but to push an agenda. Other times people just don't understand or don't trust the answers, or have followed some of the answers but then stopped updating their knowledge. I don't know which explanation is true for the latest fear-mongering op-ed in the New York Times by Alina Chan—which, like all such pieces, is presented so as to give a false impression that Dr. Chan either speaks for most researchers, or has put together evidence nobody else noticed.
This series of posts by Phillipp Markolin, summarizing a longer article that they link to, is the best I've seen lately about why most researchers don't think there's any real doubt about the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) having evolved and spread naturally. It's technical, and Markolin does a decent job of boiling it down some, but I think it's possible to make it a little easier to follow for laypeople—so I'll try to do that here. (Standard disclaimer: my credentials are only that I've read enough about molecular biology in school to understand the gist of what Markolin is saying, and to see that it's consistent with what other scientists are saying, and that Chan's arguments do not take it into account.)
( Read more... )
