At the beginning of trying to engage with prominent virologists over the origin possibilities of SARS2 I was confused why they were making the easily spottable & fallacious “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” argument. (1/n)
(2/n) I was confused how they were convinced that consistency with natural evolution meant it precluded a laboratory leak. I was confused too they conclude this was “not a purposefully manipulated virus” when it was possible it could have been.
(3/n) I was confused why they would downplay and never engage with other scientists that called attention to peculiar strains of evidence like a furin cleavage insertion site using an unlikely CGG CGG back-to-back codon usage.
(4/n) still, I thought, I’m not a virologist. Sure, I understand evolutionary biology, and sure I have worked on modeling viral replication kinetics during my PhD, but I figured maybe I was missing something that these experts understood, but that I didn’t.
(5/n) but then I saw the weaknesses of their assessments. Glaring weaknesses! Establishing a likelihood based of arguments of precedence only -ignoring the precedence too of lab leaks-... the same illogical statements kept popping up. It just didn’t make sense. Aren’t they smart?
(6/n) It is hard to argue with an “expert” when you are essentially left with two options: either they aren’t as smart as you would hope, or they are being purposefully duplicitous. So, are virologists like KAG not that smart, or playing at something else?
(7/n) well, now we have a few lines of evidence. Unfortunately they leave open the possibility that both are simultaneously true. The first piece of evidence is the blocking game. @BlockedVirology has documented this phenomenon incredibly dutifully throughout.
(8/n) I was blocked by KAG about a month ago. Even then I thought, maybe he is sincere, frustrated, and views my scientific inquiries as annoying, conspiratorial, and simply a nuisance. I was never rude or combative.
(9/n) but now we have even stronger evidence that something is afoot, beyond the e-mail b/n Andersen and Fauci revealing that privately, he had at least at one point (and w/ conflicting chronologies) considered lab leak & found the virus w/ features inconsistent w/ evolution
(10/n) this evidence I am referencing is the mass-delete of over 4000 tweets, almost half of all of his public Twitter output. I don’t think the optics of that can be understated. This is a damning destruction of potentially incriminating output.
(11/n) without delving further into a more conspiratorial line of speculation lest I be considered ‘a loon’ I think it is worth pondering for the sake of science, a profound possibility.
(12/n) is it possible at the behest of a US funding agency, US researchers misled the public & were rewarded in grant $ for this service? It looks possible. That alone is not good, and should be handled with transparency to dispel even the perception of a quid pro quo arrangement
Throughout this I have seen how political my chosen profession may be. I’ve seen researchers that make illogical claims then receive massive grant infusions. It only makes sense from a few angles, (and really, help me if any of them are good, b/c I am having trouble seeing how)
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