Much like their unethical Republican colleages, Democratic representatives in the House discard an evidence-based worldview in favor of power and popular perception
Good point about the hearing. Grilling Peter Daszak like that was a travesty. All about politics, a public spectacle. I feel for the guy.
On the other hand, I think it would be helpful if Peter Daszak told more about what was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It looks like they were doing research that could have caused the pandemic. Adding a furin cleavage site. Passaging the virus through mice with human lung tissue. Doing this work at BSL-2.
I have seen no evidence of any wrongdoing by Peter Daszak, either criminally or civilly. Nor anyone else. And there is no evidence that a backbone virus was in the Wuhan Institute of Virology's 150,000 virus collection.
But a lab leak does seem far from being ruled out. It puzzles me why Peter Daszak ruled it out so quickly.
there are actually very few unknowns about what experiments were done at the WIV; and there is sufficient evidence to exclude that any type of gain-of-function research (or any other genetic engineering, tinkering or lab lab experiments) could have created the virus.
It is however a bit of a long argument to make, because one has to really explain and educate in detail about some very technical aspects about virology; such as viral recombination, coronavirus biology, and general virology.
I tried my best to explain to non-experts why scientists can rule out that this virus was somehow unnatural or lab created. It is a long read but worth it to really get to the bottom of these controversies and suspicions very quickly.
Good point about the hearing. Grilling Peter Daszak like that was a travesty. All about politics, a public spectacle. I feel for the guy.
On the other hand, I think it would be helpful if Peter Daszak told more about what was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It looks like they were doing research that could have caused the pandemic. Adding a furin cleavage site. Passaging the virus through mice with human lung tissue. Doing this work at BSL-2.
I have seen no evidence of any wrongdoing by Peter Daszak, either criminally or civilly. Nor anyone else. And there is no evidence that a backbone virus was in the Wuhan Institute of Virology's 150,000 virus collection.
But a lab leak does seem far from being ruled out. It puzzles me why Peter Daszak ruled it out so quickly.
Hi John,
there are actually very few unknowns about what experiments were done at the WIV; and there is sufficient evidence to exclude that any type of gain-of-function research (or any other genetic engineering, tinkering or lab lab experiments) could have created the virus.
It is however a bit of a long argument to make, because one has to really explain and educate in detail about some very technical aspects about virology; such as viral recombination, coronavirus biology, and general virology.
I tried my best to explain to non-experts why scientists can rule out that this virus was somehow unnatural or lab created. It is a long read but worth it to really get to the bottom of these controversies and suspicions very quickly.
If you are curious, this is probably the best one can do for now: https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/treacherous-ancestry