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Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
@BillyBostickson
Jul 17, 2021 • 13 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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1. Some useful, albeit not fully developed, critiques of:

“The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review"

zenodo.org/record/5106841

have just been published here:
researchgate.net/publication/35…
by members of DRASTIC & others
@angoffinet @BahulikarRahul @MonaRahalkar @gdemaneuf
2. A refreshing contrast to the so-called "expert reactions" found here, including from one of the authors of the review (Prof David Robertson)!

"expert reaction to a preprint reviewing the evidence on the origins of SARS-CoV-2"

sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reactio… Image
3. Peter Gutierrez points out in his response that 4 of the authors of “The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review”, also wrote “Proximal Origin of SARS-COV-2”.

His critique focuses on:

1. RaTG13

2. Enhanced adaptation to the human host

news-medical.net/opinion/7fa9d1… ImageImageImage
4. As to be expected, Sydney University and its iconic virologist, Eddie Holmes, who is "not available for interview", are crowing over this biased review
sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/n… ImageImageImage
This review contains elementary errors as exposed here:
1.
one of the authors (Stuart Neil) then claimed
"Didn’t N501Y come up in ACE2 TG mice too?
Image
Professor Neil failed to respond
You will have to dig into the answers here

A thread with papers to educate Stuart here:
ImageImageImage
Which he didn't take kindly to

I guess it was his way of admitting he was wrong about N501Y? Image
Again Prof Neil, one of the authors of the review continues to embarrass himself. I am starting to think that the flawed N501 claim was actually written by him.
Image
Wrong again, "Prof"
ImageImage
He just can't admit his error, so I have to remind him
Image
A further elementary error in the review paper

The Straw Lab Fallacy

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More from @BillyBostickson

Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
18h
22. Biased Sampling distorts Geography!

They use a dataset skewed toward Yunnan & Laos (p. 16), leading to phylogeographic models that place SARS-CoV ancestors far from Wuhan & Guangdong (p. 12).

This sampling bias undermines the reliability of their geographic inferences.
23. Neglecting Alternative Hypotheses

No SARS-CoV-like viruses near emergence sites?

They completely overlook non-bat reservoirs, like civets or pangolins, which could explain local circulation (p. 15).

This omission weakens their claim of distant ancestor origins (p. 12).
24. Inconsistent Molecular Clock Rates

The paper misuses variable NRR-specific clock rates, which give inconsistent SARS-CoV ancestor dates (e.g., 1944–2014 for SARS-CoV-2, p. 9).

Without any validation of bat-specific rates, this approach has no rational grounding (p. 14).
Read 8 tweets
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
21h
5. Why did they resort to using the POW model?

To show that :

"our inferences of the time of the ancestors of human SARS-CoVs and their closest bat sarbecoviruses are UNBIASED"
6. Captain Obvious Strikes Again (1)

"we show that the ancestors of SARS-CoV-1 & SARS-CoV-2 likely circulated in horseshoe bat populations 100s to 1000s km away from the sites of the emergence of these viruses in humans & as recently as one to six years prior to this emergence"
7. Captain Obvious Strikes Again (2)

"Our findings indicate that there would not have been sufficient time for the direct bat virus ancestor to reach the locations of emergence of the human SARS-CoVs via normal dispersal through bat populations alone"
Read 12 tweets
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
21h
1. Last sick joke of the Zoonati?

Fragments of human SARS-CoVs share recent common ancestors with bat viruses

SARS-CoV-like viruses have circulated in Asia for millennia

Ancestors of human SARS-CoVs likely circulated in China & Laos

Ancestors traveled unexpectedly fast
2. No Pangolins allowed!

There is insufficient temporal signal when calibrating a molecular clock using tip dating with sarbecoviruses sampled from bats & pangolins, likely as a consequence of limited sampling across space & time.

Therefore, we used SARS-CoV-1 genomes!
3. Definitely no pangolins!

As sampling locations of SARS-CoV-1, 2 & pangolin sarbecoviruses likely do not represent where their direct bat virus ancestors circulated, we EXCLUDED their locations from phylogeographic analyses to avoid the IMPACT of dispersal of non-bat hosts!
Read 24 tweets
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
May 4
1⃣ Virological 🦠 Whistleblower 😮‍💨?

"I worked with researchers in this space - virology + combatting future pandemics - in the decade before the pandemic".
2⃣ One Fact

"The one fact that the last 5 years never readily disclosed is that the core ideology of this community of researchers was fundamentally divided"
3⃣ Lab based creation of super-viruses

"About half of the researchers, including many leading virologists whose names appeared in the news, believed and argued passionately for the lab-based creation of super-viruses and super-bacteria"
Read 12 tweets
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
Apr 23
1. The Second Lab Leak

Turning and turning in the petri dish,
The scientists cannot hear the warnings;
Genes recombine; the barriers cannot hold,
Evil virology is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
2. The Second Lab Leak

The best lack critical thinking, while the professors
Are full of furious bias.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the cover up is now banned?
Lab Leak! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Human Folly
Troubles my sight:
3. Somewhere in Wuhan

somewhere in the cell lines of a Chinese laboratory
A shape with pangolin body and the head of a bat,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its long tongue, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant molested bats.
Read 6 tweets
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture
Apr 22
🧵As promised, here is my counter critique & rebuttal of some points made by @gadboit about the Pangolin Papers Hypothesis.

His theory seems to be that SARS-COV-2 emerged like Aphrodite, from BANAL BAT viruses, possibly with some FCS tweaking & no Pangolins coronaviruses needed.
🧵1. Introduction

@gadboit claims BANAL-52’s 96.8% similarity and natural recombination outweigh my lab + PangolinCoV hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2’s origin.

However, my evidence shows PangolinCoV signatures, WIV lab work & recombination are stronger.

researchgate.net/publication/39…
@gadboit 🧵2. @gadboit claims BANAL-52’s 96.8% similarity & ACE2 binding make it closer to SARS-CoV-2 than PCoVs (~91%) & that PCoV features could come from bat CoVs.

But GD PCoV’s RBD (97% identity) needs no mutations for hACE2, unlike BANALs.

See Wrobel et al:

nature.com/articles/s4159…
Read 28 tweets

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