Thread by @ReusVisser

Checking up up on Stefan Lanka's silly project to "disprove all of virology", I found brief videos on an YouTube channel by "independent scientist" Igson Negrin, is a Lanka fan who has approached the CDC and Ulrike Kammerer by email with this request. 1/n youtube.com/channel/UCWN8-…

As you may recall, Lanka has claimed that all viruses are non-existent (including SARS-CoV-2), and that he can "prove" this by a simple "control experiment." Any genome can be assembled, he claims, from any set of genetic material. There's one issue. 2/n integralworld.net/visser203.html

Stefan Lanka has not yet done that simple experiment. Obviously, he lacks both the expertise and the laboratory access to perform it. And he argues, it wouldn't help if he would do that experiment, because he is an "outsider", who would not be believed from the start (true). 3/n

So Igson Negrin has now taken up the task to approach professional virologists and request them to do this "simple control experiment." Here's the email he has sent to the CDC and to Ulrike Kammerer (main author of the Corman-Drosten Review Report. 4/n. integralworld.net/visser194.html

Now, one can say much about this infamous team that tried to take down the Corman-Drosten PCR test protocol, but at least they believe in the existence of viruses and viral genomes. Well, most of their team members, some are true virus denialists. 5/n integralworld.net/visser199.html

But Kammerer is not that far into the rabbit hole, as is Stefan Lanka. Read here what Negrin writes to her on August 17th. "From one set of data collected for the assembly of one genome in virology it is possible to assemble all the genomes of all 'viruses' at the same time." 6/n

Negrin optimistically continues that it is very easy to perform this "quick and elegant control experiment" and that it will cost 0 Euro. He states that he expects a reply from her in one day, and will also let the world know if she did not or did not respond to him in time. 7/n

This is, of course, beyond any bounds of professionalism and sanity. Even if taken seriously, it would take some time and money for a lab employee to assemble any virus from any data, if that would be feasible at all. Of course it isn't. The burden of proof is fully on Lanka. 8/n

If Stefan Lanka would perform this "experiment" himself, and publish a decent paper about it, explaining his methodology, it would be ground-breaking. Soon, other scientists would flock together and try to replicate (or disprove) his results. That's the way science works. 9/n

But Stefan Lanka is just not up to this task, apparently. As I have explained before, on purely theoretical grounds his claim is baseless. It is like saying: you can write any book with the same alphabet! That is true, indeed, but trivial in the extreme. Books still exist. 10/n

To be honest, it would be a nice "control experiment" to try to falsify his claim - so that it is finally put to rest. It would also refute his extravagant claims about his own expertise in this field - considering that he is a virologist who no longer believes in viruses. 11/n

It would also be interesting to Ulrike Kammerer's response to this strange and rather rude request/threat from independent scientist Negrin. This is what was posted online by another Lanka-fan, who goes by the name "wartime", next to Negrin's email. 12/n

https://twitter.com/wartime171717/status/1428103041232875531

The same message has been sent by Negrin to world-class Dutch virologist @MarionKoopmans - who was part of the team that designed the first PCR test for SARS-CoV-2. Will she do this simple control experiment which refutes all of virology and costs 0 Euro? You know the answer. :-)

It is fairly obvious from the above that Lanka, Negrin and company have no clue about how genome assembly actually works - and the same goes for their audience. It is not a matter of piecing nucleotides together until you have the genome, the genome emerges from the data. 14/n

It is like opening a book and reading a few sentences. Pretty soon you recognize what book you are reading. The fact that all books use the same alphabet is totally irrelevant. Claiming otherwise exposes one's ignorance. Stefan Lanka excels in spreading this utter nonsense. 15/n

@threadreaderapp unroll

On Telegram Igson Negrin claims that even Reiner Fuellmich is now seeing the "truth" that there is no virus at all, apparently after having interviewed a virus denialist. He urges Stefan Lanka to finally publish the results of his control experiment. 16/n t.me/igsonnegrin/301

As we have seen, Stefan Lanka himself is unable to do his own "control experiment", but at least he can share his protocol, so real scientists can execute them. Of course, this protocol will not work in practice, because genomics simply doesn't work in a piece-by-piece way. 17/n

So the real question is for Stefan Lanka to specify how he wants to run his "control experiment". Take all the As, Cs, Ts and Gs from a RNA extraction data set and build the genome of his liking? Or follow the protocols of science and let the data generate the true genomes? 18/n