Thread by @Ayjchan

New article on the origins of covid by Nicholas Wade who writes for @nytimes does not pull any punches: "the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: they were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true."
medium.com/@nwade_44486/o…

On the Proximal Origin @NatureMedicine correspondence, Nicholas Wade says "this was another case of poor science... Dr. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know."

"... grounded in nothing but two inconclusive speculations, convinced the world’s press that SARS2 could not have escaped from a lab."

Although minor fact-check, this needs to be corrected if anyone reading is in contact with Wade: "The genomes of almost 3,000 beta-coronaviruses, the class to which SARS2 belongs, have been cataloged. And none possesses a furin cleavage site."

There are other betaCoVs with FCSs.

I want to put a disclaimer here: I don't agree with some of the scientific analyses shared by Wade in his article. But I respect his right to express his own opinion of how plausible lab vs natural origin is, and the factors leading up to a possible lab leak of SARS2 / COVID-19.

Nicholas Wade says "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities."

But I still think even experts who think this virus must be 100% natural make some good points, and that there is a good chance this virus did not emerge via research activities.

There is no direct evidence for either natural or lab origins. So intermediate host theory, bat-to-human theory, lab theory are all speculative. How can we rule out any as implausible without gathering more information?

Except for #PopsicleOrigins which can be dismissed IMO.

If I had to write an essay on the circumstantial evidence pointing to a natural origin, I actually think I could do a pretty good job of it without having to straw man any lab origin arguments.

I just push hard on lab origins because there're too few doing this important task.

There are at least 2 scientists who imo can make a very robust argument for natural origins, but neither one has decided to author (put their name on) letters or papers addressing the origin, or made the mistake of putting out poorly substantiated public statements.

I think it's healthy to have doubts about your own hypotheses, especially when no direct evidence is available. There are moments when I wonder if I haven't given the other hypotheses enough consideration. And I hope people on the must-be-natural side sometimes have doubts too.

The priority now should be gathering more information and evidence. There are lots of people worldwide who each know a different little piece of the puzzle. If there's an international investigation, we can put all the (still available) pieces together and see what we can find.