<story><title>Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn&apos;t be ruled out</title><url>https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/1021030/coronavirus-leak-wuhan-lab-scientists-conspiracy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eightysixfour</author><text>I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between &amp;quot;engineered&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;leaked.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of &amp;quot;we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus,&amp;quot; but there&amp;#x27;s no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.&lt;p&gt;My personal feeling is that these statements are true:&lt;p&gt;* The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of gain of function research and it leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural research sample and it leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by an animal&amp;#x2F;person who traveled to the wet market.&lt;p&gt;Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual&amp;#x27;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.</text></item><item><author>loveistheanswer</author><text>Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that:&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;2. It&amp;#x27;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&lt;p&gt;3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;future-perfect&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;18260669&amp;#x2F;deadly-pathogens-escape-lab-smallpox-bird-flu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;future-perfect&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;18260669&amp;#x2F;deadly...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Bukhmanizer</author><text>My personal feelings are that all 3 are possible, but approximately 0.0001% of people will actually consider the likelihood of each one, but rather, most will choose whichever one is most convenient and comfortable to believe in.&lt;p&gt;Of course as an Asian person, whatever people believe in will have a direct impact on me. I remember after 9&amp;#x2F;11, the amount of awful things that were said and done to the Sikh population in my city. It didn’t matter they had literally nothing to do with the attacks. People were angry and wanted someone to blame.</text></comment>
<story><title>Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn&apos;t be ruled out</title><url>https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/1021030/coronavirus-leak-wuhan-lab-scientists-conspiracy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eightysixfour</author><text>I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between &amp;quot;engineered&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;leaked.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of &amp;quot;we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus,&amp;quot; but there&amp;#x27;s no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.&lt;p&gt;My personal feeling is that these statements are true:&lt;p&gt;* The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of gain of function research and it leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural research sample and it leaked.&lt;p&gt;* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by an animal&amp;#x2F;person who traveled to the wet market.&lt;p&gt;Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual&amp;#x27;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.</text></item><item><author>loveistheanswer</author><text>Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that:&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;2. It&amp;#x27;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&lt;p&gt;3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;future-perfect&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;18260669&amp;#x2F;deadly-pathogens-escape-lab-smallpox-bird-flu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;future-perfect&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;18260669&amp;#x2F;deadly...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Buttons840</author><text>I like this presentation of evidence. Rarely do you see such a short acknowledgement that there are multiple contradictory theories, each having some evidence, and making no attempt to pick which theory is correct.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes its wrong to present &amp;quot;both sides&amp;quot; like that. Like pretending the evidence against the moon landings is equal to the evidence for the moon landings. But if you&amp;#x27;re going to be wrong, this is probably the best kind of wrong.</text></comment>