Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 25, 2021, 02:39:52 PM
B Devil,

I have "unrolled" the Twitter thread with this expert goes into great detail why the "smoking gun" claim is wrong


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1391507230848032772.html

Thank you professor.  I have some homework to do!  Not sure I'll get to it before my tee-time this afternoon.  ("tee" time, er, not "tea time".)

OK, so there's some disagreement among scientists.  In my opinion, that means more investigation is worthwhile.

If it is NOT worthy of investigation, then why this letter in Science magazine:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1.full

"Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks."

"Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as

I seem to be the kiss-of-death for this topic...hope I don't kill this thread a 2nd time.

Back to the science...

What about the furin cleavage site?  The junction between the S1 and S2 proteins appears to have been man-made.  Nobel-prize winning biologist David Baltimore called the furin cleavage site a "smoking gun" that the virus was man-made.  Is this not enough evidence to at least warrant an investigation?

Now, what can be done if the lab-leak hypothesis proves true?  First, if the gain-of-function research led to the lab-release (and admittedly there is only circumstantial evidence for lab-release at the moment) then there are some obvious changes that need to be made.  First, the BLS safety rating of such research needs to be increased.  Dr. Shi's lab was--according to her own published work--operating on coronaviruses at BLS2 and BLS3.  (Interestingly, the only pictures of Dr. Shi being released right now to the press show her in a space suit, i.e. BLS4 equipment.)

Second, other questions abound.  What other mutations of SARS2 did the WIV find? Where are they now? Have they been destroyed? Is gain of function research still ongoing? 

A full investigation means that the records of experiments need to be available to the investigative team.  Researchers have been denied access to these records.

Finally, I sent the Nicholas Wade article to a friend of mine (Ph.D. in analytic chemistry, 30+ years in the biological imaging industry) and he found the article to be sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation.  Here is Wade's article, fyi.

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

I'm also going to ping two other microbiologist Ph.D. friends with the same.  I'll report back what they say. 

Here's some food for thought.  A thought-provoking essay from Bari Weiss' substack:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-new-furies-of-the-oldest-hatred

There's plenty of bad behavior to go around. In a world of 7 billion people you'll find plenty of idiots doing stupid things, defiling mosques as well as synagogues.  But the gist of the piece traces out major portions of anti-semitism, and how it has taken root in the U.S., mentioned by LennG in a prior post.

Oh boy, we're back to "He started it, not me!" 

If you ever fall into the black hole of trying to unwind a play-by-play analysis of "who started it" when it comes to a conflict involving Israel, you will find yourself on a journey in time going past the crusades and into pre-Roman history.  Unless you plan to get a Ph.D. in history, there's no way to comprehend all the back-and-forth violence on this issue that's been pretty much non-stop for a century.

AZ is nice.

I've been to all 50 states, lived in 7 states in the US and in Wash. DC, lived overseas, and traveled to 40+ countries.  I have voted with my feet and live north of San Diego, along the coast.  You can pretty much enjoy the outdoors year round.  Except for a couple of hours yesterday morning when we got like 0.10 inch of rain.

I like the idea of central CA coast, too.  Want to visit there more.

Runner up location is Sydney Australia.  Wonderful place, just like San Diego.

Worse place to live in the U.S.: Philadelphia.  Worse place to live overseas (from my experience): Jakarta/Mumbai.

I noticed that my post on the Lab Leak Hypothesis thread appears to be the last post before a bunch of threads were locked.  I hope what I said there wasn't out of bounds.

Regardless, thank you to Mighty and all the moderators who try their best to keep the forum open in whatever version they think will serve the intended community best.  I know you can't meet all our idiosyncratic preferences simultaneously.  I understand that and appreciate that. 

OK, so I actually read the whole Nicholas Wade article this morning.  Took me like 45 minutes.

This thread needs to redirect to the theory, and the science, if we are truly interested in science.  Wade claims, multiple times, that his article does NOT comprise proof.   Rather, he proposes two (main) hypotheses on the virus origin, lab-escape theory versus natural evolution.  (A third theory is also noted as possible but unlikely at the end of Wade's article, that the virus jumped directly from bats to humans.)  Then the article contrasted evidence in favor of each.  He uses Occam's razor (implicitly) to argue for the unintended lab accident theory of origin as opposed to natural evolution origin.

I found argument #3, the presence of the furin cleavage site, the most riveting, along with Baltimore's assertion that it was "smoking gun" evidence that SARS2 was engineered.

Wade's article is a rationally-written step-by-step analysis.  This is not Donald Trump-driven say-what-you-want-and-label-it-truth-after-the-fact vitriolic election-stealing conspiracy theory. 

I think one can rationally disagree with Wade's analysis, and Wade admits that the lab-escape hypothesis is just that, it's not proof.  But the call to action from the article is to get more information from what happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

Here's a contrarian view to think about.  We're on page 6 of this topic and it's relatively civil.  It has not descended into a shouting match.  I doubt that the amount of back-and-forth here would have been possible in most places I visit.  So congratulations to the many posters here who have stated arguments and stayed on topic.

Proves that Giants fans are just 100% superior to all other fans.

It is interesting to view this thread late-in-the-game.  Like most political discussions it seems very long in opinions and very short in facts.  How about investigate the facts first, then debate the opinions?

What precisely is in the new law?  Some say the new law is an improvement, some say it makes things worse.  The presence and/or prevalence of voter fraud in recent elections, or not, is irrelevant to whether the new law is an improvement, or not.  In the same vein, I don't care if traffic accidents have gone up or down recently in my neighborhood. If there is a new law to address that issue, and it's good/bad on its own merits, then I will be for/against it.

So is the following quote that I read today true? Or not?
"
On Election Day in Georgia, anyone in line by 7 p.m. gets a ballot. The new law requires an extra Saturday of voting, while specifying early voting hours: The minimum is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but counties may run 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. In metro areas,

Quote from: Chris on June 01, 2012, 06:37:33 PM

Quote from: gregf on June 01, 2012, 06:15:54 PM
I read about that, but didnt see the series. Whats it called?

Greg, it was called - aptly - John Adams. It was on HBO, starring Paul Giamatti. Excellent!

I would say greatest and my favorite would be Washington. If anyone is interested, His Excellency is a recommended read.

Greatest in my lifetime - kind of like the tallest midget - would be Clinton.

Thumbs up on that series.  There's a great scence in which we see Ben Franklin playing chess in a bathtub in France.  (He's not alone, of course.)

1 vote for Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.  The philosophical father our our country.

When Jerry Reese retires, maybe he can become President.  But I hope he just stays GM for a long time.

Great analysis.  It also nicely highlights that this play wasn't simply earned on the playing field but also on the practice field and in the film room.

This place is great, thanks to all! 

I'm late to the discussion, but would like to see more well-informed posters from other teams like [pardon spelling] Leviathan from the Cowboys, and CapitalD56 from the Redskins.  There were also some other really good posters (one from the Titans?) that I haven't seen around much.  I enjoyed their perspectives.  Hope to see more growth without any change in the quality level.