10 Comments
May 28Liked by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Great, invaluable in fact and much appreciated, I don't use the usual social media. I found you via a excellent commentator "BillyJoe on the excellent Neurologica blog Steven Novella runs.

There is a typo in the citations. "Bat calls are destinct" should be, of course, 'distinct'. That is in the "Social Lives of Bats" section. Like 911Truther grand conspiracies I expect this one to run for ever; I lost friends over that one and will on this one too. I am not going to enter into phony 'debates' mostly though.

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Baric also testified he does not believe research showing a market origin for #SARSCoV2 holds up, due to genomic evidence pointing to earlier start date (Oct. 2019) for pandemic. The research has a "major problem" with its timeline, he told Congressional investigators. /5https://twitter.com/KatherineEban/status/1785639498883166611

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Not really, Philip's dates look fine to me.

Are you just clarifying something Baric said or supporting it, it isn't clear to me? My impression is that you are trying to introduce some 'factoid' you think counters what Phillip is saying? Could you clarify if I am wrong? And apologies in advance for the tone of this comment. Which is rather dismissive, I am sick and tired of this topic. "SARS-CoV-2 was an animal-to-human spillover event that occurred in the western section of the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in late 2019. This is no longer a scientific controversy. Unfortunately, it’s still a cultural controversy." That was in a recent email from Paul Offit. It is correct.

There is however a major problem with the deflection and general s**t show that the congressional investigators, including the democrats, are running regarding the theatrical and irrelevant inquiry. Which is not inquiring into anything that really matters.

There is no reason and no real evidence to give any earlier date. Other than, of course, than it encourages a 'lab leak' grand conspiracy theory. I also point out, that on this one, just like 911Trutherism, nothing will ever be good enough. For example. If we did or had found an animal sample, dated correctly and so on, in the Huanan market, Cargo Cult scientists would be saying something like "Well the virus does jump from humans to animals too..."; which is true in fact, White tailed deer in Pa are full of Alpha strains still as of 2024-05-28 . That is, what many, including the excellent Steven Novella and others call, confusingly and wrongly, a 'smoking gun', that is a direct animal sample of some unspecified kind: there is no such thing really, since any physical or empirical evidence can now be pretzeled into some grand conspiracy theory.

Excuse the long reply and also the rather pointed refusal to pretend we are having a 'sciency discussion' we aren't.

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the comparison to the 911 truthers is not fair. The 911 truthers believe that the US gouverment conspired to kill thousands of innocent Americans purposely. No one is saying that Covid was started purposely. There were risky experiments going on - and the US gouverment was involved in the fundling - and tried to hide the involvement - and tried to silence the lab thesis as "crackpot conspiracy theory".

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The comparison was not meant to be exact obviously.

There were no risky experiments being conducted really. Depends what you mean by 'risky'. There was no attempt to hide anything either., don't be ridiculous Though the recent Kangaroo courts in Congress were designed to make the gullible think there was. That comment alone shows you know nothing about the actual science, process or really what was being done. None of it, we know for sure, had, anyway any connection to the SARS-CoV-2 virion.

Stopping research and work into virus origins and 'hot spots' is way more 'risky' in my view. Which is what was already going on during the Trump years, foolishly closing research for no reason.

In fact the congressional circus you have so much time for is a very thinkly veiled attempt to vindicate Trump's actions during the early pandemic. In fact to scapegoat the few people who knew about the impending risks, were studying them and in fact had warned about them many times.

People like you in fact, disgust me with your lazy, idle thinking and scapegoating and your pretentions to 'science'. Cargo Cult science I call it. I shouldn't maybe say that, but since that is the phony outrage tone being introduced against good scientists, I will make an exception. As I said, that is the last response you get from me. I will comment in support of Phillip's excellent and clear and thorough work though. He will go far as they say: one smart cookie.

Since you know so much about it what do you think of the far more pressing 'experiment' we are conducting with high intensity chicken farming and, in China, wild animal trafficking of animals known to be reservoirs of virions?

To date, no artificially bred virion or one with enhanced properties as it were or pathogen of any kind has ever escaped a lab. ZERO. In fact it is almost impossible, and hasn't been done yet, to even get a GMO plant to survive, either by accident or design in the wild. There are some cases which have 'returned to type'. Some polio virions have done that. If you want to discuss this aspect of the biology, I am happy too. I am not discussion it as 'evidence' for or against the 'lab leak' though.

A strain of flu, which had, evolved in the 'wild' previously and burnt out, did escape from a Russian lab a couple of decades ago. And shouldn't have of course.

Since statistical evidence alone give empirical certainty that SARS-CoV-2 's proximate origin was in the Huanan market. With about a 10 MILLION to one odds on. In fact in my view, stonger than that. Again ask me if you wish to amplify.

There is nothing of scientific interest in your comments though you think there is. My interest is in the conspiracy theory, so your remarks are of interest: not in the way you think though. They are of interest in the sense that you and your false and motivated beliefs are the subject of a rational inquiry on my part: this is a 'conversation' that is inherently one sided as a result and it is both patronizing and unfair to you for me to continue.

It is not a dispute about the science of the proximate origin of SARS-CoV-2. Which, if you understood half of what Phillip is saying, you would know was the Huanan Market. Period.

The reality is, and even Phillip doesn't actually go this far, is that the lab leak theory is not only nonsense but nonsense on stilts.

To see clever clogs scientists like Matt Ridley talking it up, and being 'Popperian' about it all, shows how weak some of our institutions are now. That is another matter. I write mainly in case a third party is interested. I don't want to clog up Phillip's pages though. So unless you have a specific question you would like me to address regarding the real science I outlined, that is good day from me.

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if Baric, the expert for Bat Corona viruses, does not believe that Covid started at the sea food market, how can you claim that there is no scíentific controversy about the origin?

Also Andersen doesn't claim that the case is settled.

Worobey and Markolin's claims that there is no scientific controversy are quite lonesome claims in the scientific community.

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No they are not, here, though I mentioned Offit you ignored that. That is clear statement from a very centrist and cautious individual with the necessary knowledge.

There is a certain cohort, Steven Novella and others who, as good empiricists, keep options open, standard caveats. We could say it about anything and everything actually. Should new evidence show up we would condider it kind of thing. Same goes for Loch Ness monster and the Cookie monster as the wicked engineer of SARS-CoV-2 .

It is really confusing for the public though.

I am here to support Phillip in his endeavor not to bandy a pointless back and forth with the ignorant: which frankly you clearly are. Don't try to speak for community either.

Anderson doesn't think there is any option for the PROXIMATE origin other than Huahan, period. The question was more open at one time, unecessarily in my view, but is not closed.

But that is it for me, I don't have time to waste on comments sections and social media. I have no doubt that in five years 2/3 of the public will still think the virus was a lab event. I couldn't care less actually, what do they know? However I am duty bound to defend the community involved here and really, the truth in a sense. So good day to you.

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This is a great article, that I'll need to reread to really absorb. I hope you'll take "Zimmer-esque" (after Carl) as a compliment. The main lines I take away from a quick read are that

(1) Nature does its own gain-of-function research, it's called evolution. It has been doing so for a billion years, on a scale far beyond what we could imagine

(2) Even at the scale of bacteria and even viruses, there's a lot more genetic mixing than we thought even a few decades ago. Viruses have a lot of sex (metaphorically)!

(3) Human directed gain-of-function research isn't something unique or sinister, we're just trying to anticipate what nature might do next, at much smaller scale. We're not so smart that we can match the scale of the natural experiments.

(4) 1-3 make some people uncomfortable.

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I’ll have to re-read with more focus and maybe do some deep dives to get a better grasp on some of these concepts. But it seems like your case has more to do with the engineering and manufacturing of a virus from scratch. Just because the genetic material is messy and structured haphazardly would that necessarily mean it wasn’t in the lab to begin with?

Also, wouldn’t these same evolutions happen with gain of function research? Especially in a lab with a larger variety of related but disparate viruses that could utilize recombination?

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Thank you

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