Evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 hasn't naturally evolved

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

The lead author of that paper is Kristian G. Andersen.

Kristian G Andersen

"Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Andersen and other scientists consulted the NIH and NIAID about the possibility of a lab leak.[2][3][4] Andersen was the lead author of the scientific paper The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,[5] published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, which concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus".The authors were criticized for failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest."

Anderson works for Scripps Research:

Scripps Research

"Grants and contracts provide funding for a significant portion of the institute's research. This revenue is derived primarily from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In addition, grantors include, among others, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Juvenile Diabetes Association.

Gifts from individuals and private foundations provide an important source of funding for Scripps Research. Private foundations that have provided support include the ALSAM Foundation, Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, W.M. Keck Foundation, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ellison Medical Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Harold L. Dorris Foundation.

The establishment of the Scripps Florida campus was made possible by a one-time $310 million appropriation of federal economic development funds and by the Florida State Legislature and by an economic package provided by Palm Beach County.[40]"

Imagine my surprise as i research the authors and find the same old fingerprints all over the funding of their research.

The authors make a bold statement which you don't expect in a scientific publication. They exclude the lab-leak scenario by arguing conveniently that it is improbable without much justification. I have already discussed this above.

Obviously other scientists have a very different idea of what is probable and what is improbable. Already reflected on the paper I have linked and in other papers that circulate.

Furthermore they are making a case where SARS-CoV-2 already existed prior to causing a pandemic for which there is no evidence at all. Something I have myself argued here several times.

The authors of the paper are not taking into their account the history of coronaviruses and in particular OC43 likely caused the Russian 'Flu' Pandemic back in 1889-1890 and they are proposing a very unlikely scenario when at the same time they consider the lab-leak improbable.

The links that I have provided above are very good reads. Is there any evidence that SARS-CoV-2 existed prior to the pandemic? None.

The two scenarios I see the most fit are natural selection before zoonosis occured and transmission to humans and of course the lab-leak hypothesis.

a reply to: Asmodeus3

Have you seen this, reported on MSN of all places so you know it's bad.

Paxlovid causes blood clots

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: Asmodeus3

Have you seen this, reported on MSN of all places so you know it's bad.

Paxlovid causes blood clots

Yes I am aware about this.

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

The lead author of that paper is Kristian G. Andersen.

Kristian G Andersen

"Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Andersen and other scientists consulted the NIH and NIAID about the possibility of a lab leak.[2][3][4] Andersen was the lead author of the scientific paper The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,[5] published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, which concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus".The authors were criticized for failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest."

Anderson works for Scripps Research:

Scripps Research

"Grants and contracts provide funding for a significant portion of the institute's research. This revenue is derived primarily from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In addition, grantors include, among others, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Juvenile Diabetes Association.

Gifts from individuals and private foundations provide an important source of funding for Scripps Research. Private foundations that have provided support include the ALSAM Foundation, Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, W.M. Keck Foundation, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ellison Medical Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Harold L. Dorris Foundation.

The establishment of the Scripps Florida campus was made possible by a one-time $310 million appropriation of federal economic development funds and by the Florida State Legislature and by an economic package provided by Palm Beach County.[40]"

Imagine my surprise as i research the authors and find the same old fingerprints all over the funding of their research.

The same guy who was caught in the Fauci emails exclaiming the virus "looks engineered".

Anderson did not say that the virus "looks engineered" in any e-mails to Fauci. Fauci did not say that the virus "looks engineered" to Anderson, either.

The links suggested are, once again, related entirely to funding. Yet to do something such as engineering takes more than just money. There are chemicals, human resources, equipment, prior scientific knowledge of the processes required, and the biggest thing, lots of time to work with generations and generations of living organisms.

While there is a link in the funding of grant money, all these other requirements are not evident, and there have been at least two international investigations to try and find them.

a reply to: chr0naut

He goes on to say "the unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features look engineered.”

He adds that after discussions with colleagues, they "all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change."

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

The lead author of that paper is Kristian G. Andersen.

Kristian G Andersen

"Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Andersen and other scientists consulted the NIH and NIAID about the possibility of a lab leak.[2][3][4] Andersen was the lead author of the scientific paper The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,[5] published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, which concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus".The authors were criticized for failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest."

Anderson works for Scripps Research:

Scripps Research

"Grants and contracts provide funding for a significant portion of the institute's research. This revenue is derived primarily from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In addition, grantors include, among others, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Juvenile Diabetes Association.

Gifts from individuals and private foundations provide an important source of funding for Scripps Research. Private foundations that have provided support include the ALSAM Foundation, Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, W.M. Keck Foundation, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ellison Medical Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Harold L. Dorris Foundation.

The establishment of the Scripps Florida campus was made possible by a one-time $310 million appropriation of federal economic development funds and by the Florida State Legislature and by an economic package provided by Palm Beach County.[40]"

Imagine my surprise as i research the authors and find the same old fingerprints all over the funding of their research.

The same guy who was caught in the Fauci emails exclaiming the virus "looks engineered".

Anderson did not say that the virus "looks engineered" in any e-mails to Fauci. Fauci did not say that the virus "looks engineered" to Anderson, either.

The links suggested are, once again, related entirely to funding. Yet to do something such as engineering takes more than just money. There are chemicals, human resources, equipment, prior scientific knowledge of the processes required, and the biggest thing, lots of time to work with generations and generations of living organisms.

While there is a link in the funding of grant money, all these other requirements are not evident, and there have been at least two international investigations to try and find them.

You have misunderstood what it was said by Grenade.

I am referring you to the reply by Grenade again and to my reply to him and the replies to you earlier. I couldn't reply directly to your message earlier today but I have written there replies in response.

originally posted by: Asmodeus3
Answering one by one the questions.
For some reason I can't reply to your text directly. It has happened before.

You have made a series of arguments. One in relation to mutations. To determine the origin of a given virus one must know which viruses are genetically compatible. Genetic similarities and antigenic similarities as well as the virus genome are what determine potential candidates.

A good example and model for coronavirus zoonosis is OC43 which is genetically very similar to bovine virus BCoV. The jump was very likely made in around 1889 from cattle and this coincides with that Russian 'Flu' Pandemic. There is actually clinical data that I have linked above

sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

And here from the journal of virology.

journals.asm.org...

And here

ec.europa.eu...

It explains well how coronaviruses jump from humans to animals. Note that natural selection after zoonosis isn't considered and no evidence exists that natural selection after zoonosis occured in both cases of OC43 and SARS-CoV-2. If zoonosis has happened and it hasn't been a result of a gain of function research.

OC43 is not SARS-CoV-2. Nor is it closely phylogenically related, other than being a coronavirus.

We do not have any knowledge that OC43 did not exist in human populations prior to the 1800's and we cannot say for certain that there was a zoonotic transfer from bovine source about that time. They are un-evidenced assumptions upon which some theories are built.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Asmodeus3
Answering one by one the questions.
For some reason I can't reply to your text directly. It has happened before.

You have made a series of arguments. One in relation to mutations. To determine the origin of a given virus one must know which viruses are genetically compatible. Genetic similarities and antigenic similarities as well as the virus genome are what determine potential candidates.

A good example and model for coronavirus zoonosis is OC43 which is genetically very similar to bovine virus BCoV. The jump was very likely made in around 1889 from cattle and this coincides with that Russian 'Flu' Pandemic. There is actually clinical data that I have linked above

sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

And here from the journal of virology.

journals.asm.org...

And here

ec.europa.eu...

It explains well how coronaviruses jump from humans to animals. Note that natural selection after zoonosis isn't considered and no evidence exists that natural selection after zoonosis occured in both cases of OC43 and SARS-CoV-2. If zoonosis has happened and it hasn't been a result of a gain of function research.

OC43 is not SARS-CoV-2. Nor is it closely phylogenically related, other than being a coronavirus.

We do not have any knowledge that OC43 did not exist in human populations prior to the 1800's and we cannot say for certain that there was a zoonotic transfer from bovine source about that time. They are un-evidenced assumptions upon which some theories are built.

It is quite clear from the articles I have linked and the scientific publications that OC43 didn't exist before the 19 the century and came into existence at the end of the 19th century. I have three very good links. It will be good if you read them. It's very close to bovine virus BCoV, and the jump was made from cattle to humans around 1889 which coincides with the pandemic of 1889

There is clinical evidence that you seem to ignore and you somehow suggest that the virus existed before. There is no evidence for it just as there is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 existed prior to late 2019.

OC43 is a good model of understanding how coronaviruses jump from animals to humans and may cause pandemics or epidemics. OC43 and SARS-CoV-2 share a lot of common disease characteristics and have very similar infection fatality rates.

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

He goes on to say "the unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features look engineered.”

The entire text of the e-mail is posted in this article and is clearly written before any in-depth genomic analyses were done by Anderson and his colleagues.

He adds that after discussions with colleagues, they "all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change."

But you are misconstruing that comment about evolutionary theory, as an admission that they had already done the analyses. Which from the text of the letter, they hadn't.

The comment also is diametrically at odds with the previous comment in the letter about the normalcy of the phylogeny of the virus.

Viral Posts, Pundits Distort Fauci Emails

All-in-all, Anderson has been consistent in his official expressions, after the in-depth analyses, that he believes the virus had an undeniable natural origin.

a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

nypost.com...

Does the report definitely prove that a lab leak didn’t happen? No, it does not. Does it mean we shouldn’t consider a lab leak a possibility? No, it does not,” he tweeted.

“However, as the report concludes, it is extremely unlikely, given much more likely competing hypotheses.”

It looks that Andersen made statements that he couldn't support or wanted to support together with his colleagues i.e that the virus looks like it had been engineered, before writing the paper linked above and again here

www.nature.com...

The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 where he and his colleagues decided that it is improbable for SARS-CoV-2 to have been engineered. Not much evidence is given. Their paper is questioned highly by the paper I have linked which finds it highly probable.

Even more strange is the fact that Andersen and co authors examine the possibility that natural selection in humans happened after zoonosis..
In a few words the virus was already with us for a long period of time undetected as it was not pathogenic and then it became noticeable due to having become pathogenic.

There is simply no evidence about this and no much discussion or papers supporting this it's very very unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 existed prior to late 2019. No evidence exists and the burden of proof is on them. Of course there is nothing.

The authors of my link directly contradict the statement that SARS-CoV-2 could not have find from a lab.

There are others too but I would like to make another thread.

Luc Montagnier the Nobel Prize Winner for the discovery of HIV also supported the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was probably engineered.
It was branded irresponsible and a conspiracy theorist...

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

No, he did not say that the SARS-CoV-2 virus "looks engineered" or anything definitely of that sort.

He did, on several occasions, definitely say the diametric opposite, that it is extremely unlikely that it was engineered..

originally posted by: Asmodeus3

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

nypost.com...

Does the report definitely prove that a lab leak didn’t happen? No, it does not. Does it mean we shouldn’t consider a lab leak a possibility? No, it does not,” he tweeted.

“However, as the report concludes, it is extremely unlikely, given much more likely competing hypotheses.”

It looks that Andersen made statements that he couldn't support or wanted to support together with his colleagues i.e that the virus looks like it had been engineered, before writing the paper linked above and again here

www.nature.com...

... where Anderson flat-out said that the least likely possibility, of all the hypotheses presented, was that the virus had been engineered in a lab.

Troll much?

The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 where he and his colleagues decided that it is improbable for SARS-CoV-2 to have been engineered. Not much evidence is given.

Ah, so you admit some evidence is given in that paper.

Enough, at least, to disregard the 'lab origin of SARS-CoV-2' hypothesis?

Their paper is questioned highly by the paper I have linked which finds it highly probable.

And yet Anderson's paper is regarded more highly than the disputive paper you re-posted, several times.

Even more strange is the fact that Andersen and co authors examine the possibility that natural selection in humans happened after zoonosis.
In a few words the virus was already with us for a long period of time undetected as it was not pathogenic and then it became noticeable due to having become pathogenic.

Yes, that is one of the two likely hypotheses. It comes from the fact that the bat coronavirus zoonosis happened at least 50 to 70 years in the past, and also with the human specificity of ACE-2 and furin bonding. One possibility is that the virus was hosted in humans for all those decades before becoming virulent.

There is simply no evidence about this and no much discussion or papers supporting this it's very very unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 existed prior to late 2019. No evidence exists and the burden of proof is on them. Of course there is nothing.

Of course there is no definitive evidence. There is, however, a body of evidence supportive of its likelihood, and which is mentioned in Anderson's paper.

The authors of my link directly contradict the statement that SARS-CoV-2 could not have find from a lab.

There are others too but I would like to make another thread.

Luc Montagnier the Nobel Prize Winner for the discovery of HIV also supported the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was probably engineered.
It was branded irresponsible and a conspiracy theorist...

Montagnier also claimed that there are sequences from HIV in the SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant sequence. This is discoverable and trivially testable, and there are no such common sequences (the online Basic Local Alignment Search Tool can be used to verify this).

Montagnier looks less credible when any what he says is easily debunked by any biology graduate.

originally posted by: karl 12
a reply to: Asmodeus3


Also, according to theLancet Commission, COVID-19 may have escaped from U.S. bio lab:

I don't believe it escaped. Harvard Professor Lieber allowed China to take it.
www.justice.gov...
Obiden had him released this year!

12 million killed world wide from covid and the vax but none of the left wing anti trumpers?
what's up wit dat? i think we've been lied to. can the virus just affect the mind?


and none of them have trans 6 yr olds taking blockers?

while we are on the subject of unnatural,

you hear a lot of activists telling everyone they need to affirm the kids choice or be labeled terrorists but i don't see any step up to say,

my kids were all born wrong, the rest i had aborted!

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Asmodeus3

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

nypost.com...

Does the report definitely prove that a lab leak didn’t happen? No, it does not. Does it mean we shouldn’t consider a lab leak a possibility? No, it does not,” he tweeted.

“However, as the report concludes, it is extremely unlikely, given much more likely competing hypotheses.”

It looks that Andersen made statements that he couldn't support or wanted to support together with his colleagues i.e that the virus looks like it had been engineered, before writing the paper linked above and again here

www.nature.com...

... where Anderson flat-out said that the least likely possibility, of all the hypotheses presented, was that the virus had been engineered in a lab.

Troll much?

The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 where he and his colleagues decided that it is improbable for SARS-CoV-2 to have been engineered. Not much evidence is given.

Ah, so you admit some evidence is given in that paper.

Enough, at least, to disregard the 'lab origin of SARS-CoV-2' hypothesis?

Their paper is questioned highly by the paper I have linked which finds it highly probable.

And yet Anderson's paper is regarded more highly than the disputive paper you re-posted, several times.

Even more strange is the fact that Andersen and co authors examine the possibility that natural selection in humans happened after zoonosis.
In a few words the virus was already with us for a long period of time undetected as it was not pathogenic and then it became noticeable due to having become pathogenic.

Yes, that is one of the two likely hypotheses. It comes from the fact that the bat coronavirus zoonosis happened at least 50 to 70 years in the past, and also with the human specificity of ACE-2 and furin bonding. One possibility is that the virus was hosted in humans for all those decades before becoming virulent.

There is simply no evidence about this and no much discussion or papers supporting this it's very very unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 existed prior to late 2019. No evidence exists and the burden of proof is on them. Of course there is nothing.

Of course there is no definitive evidence. There is, however, a body of evidence supportive of its likelihood, and which is mentioned in Anderson's paper.

The authors of my link directly contradict the statement that SARS-CoV-2 could not have find from a lab.

There are others too but I would like to make another thread.

Luc Montagnier the Nobel Prize Winner for the discovery of HIV also supported the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was probably engineered.
It was branded irresponsible and a conspiracy theorist...

Montagnier also claimed that there are sequences from HIV in the SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant sequence. This is discoverable and trivially testable, and there are no such common sequences (the online Basic Local Alignment Search Tool can be used to verify this).

Montagnier looks less credible when any what he says is easily debunked by any biology graduate.

There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has been with us prior to the pandemic. This is a speculative and highly unlikely scenario which apart from Andersen I don't think anyone else is entertaining or considering to be true. And yourself of course...

You claimed that there is evidence of this hypothesis that Andersen and his colleagues made. There isn't any I am afraid. None exists...

The main hypothesis is natural selection in the host animal before zoonosis and not natural selection in humans after zoonosis. This is the only view entertained by other scientists for which there is still no proof. The second hypothesis is the lab-leak scenario which is also considered by a good number of scientists.

Your claims fail at every level as you have taken the view that SARS-CoV-2 existed for a good period of time in a benign form before the pandemic started and evolved to be pathogenic. No evidence exists. The hypothesis made in this paper you linked doesn't qualify as evidence. So no I am not admitting there is any evidence in the paper but just speculation.

You say at the bottom of your reply that there are only two hypotheses but this is your own opinion. Clearly many other scientists do entertain the idea of a lab-leak. Proof of this is the paper I have linked and other papers online.

No Montagnier wasn't debunked by anyone. This is just your own take just as the other opinions you have on this issue which are mainly unsubstantiated.

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

He goes on to say "the unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features look engineered.”

He adds that after discussions with colleagues, they "all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change."

The other member conveniently disregards what Andersen and his colleagues have said originally that they all finding the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. This is a very good hint that signals the possibility that it might have been engineered which is that my link discusses extensively.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: chr0naut

So he did say it?

No, he did not say that the SARS-CoV-2 virus "looks engineered" or anything definitely of that sort.

He did, on several occasions, definitely say the diametric opposite, that it is extremely unlikely that it was engineered..

You are conveniently disregarding the part where Andersen and his colleagues have said that they find the genome of SARS-CoV-2 inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. This is a very good hint that the virus may have been engineered. The idea of course is entrained in my article which discusses the possibility of the virus being a result of a gain of function research outcome.

In his paper Andersen says something else and it had brought up the hypothesis that the virus existed already among us for a good period of time. For which of course there is no evidence and I can't see anywhere anything remotely touching on this area or claiming that the virus existed already prior to the pandemic. It's more likely that had been engineered than it was with us for all these years.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Asmodeus3
Answering one by one the questions.
For some reason I can't reply to your text directly. It has happened before.

You have made a series of arguments. One in relation to mutations. To determine the origin of a given virus one must know which viruses are genetically compatible. Genetic similarities and antigenic similarities as well as the virus genome are what determine potential candidates.

A good example and model for coronavirus zoonosis is OC43 which is genetically very similar to bovine virus BCoV. The jump was very likely made in around 1889 from cattle and this coincides with that Russian 'Flu' Pandemic. There is actually clinical data that I have linked above

sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

And here from the journal of virology.

journals.asm.org...

And here

ec.europa.eu...

It explains well how coronaviruses jump from humans to animals. Note that natural selection after zoonosis isn't considered and no evidence exists that natural selection after zoonosis occured in both cases of OC43 and SARS-CoV-2. If zoonosis has happened and it hasn't been a result of a gain of function research.

OC43 is not SARS-CoV-2. Nor is it closely phylogenically related, other than being a coronavirus.

We do not have any knowledge that OC43 did not exist in human populations prior to the 1800's and we cannot say for certain that there was a zoonotic transfer from bovine source about that time. They are un-evidenced assumptions upon which some theories are built.

I think your line of argumentation has become absurd as you now suggest that we don't know anything about the history of all viruses that existed and caused pandemics. They may have existed long before they have caused disease, as you claimed. But there is no evidence for this hypothesis in any of the given viruses discussed such as OC43 or SARS-CoV-2 or any other virus.

As before I will emphasize that there is nothing into this and I haven't come across scientists who entertain this idea. They all regard it as a novel virus that has come as a result of natural selection in the animal host before zoonosis.

Interestingly there are two references on the paper you have linked (and I have done so sometime ago) about natural selection after zoonosis. But there are many more who have discussed the lab leak theory. Three of them are in the paper I have linked and others on different papers and articles.

Strangely enough you have called the findings afton the Journal of Biology as speculative when infect there is clinical evidence and molecular analysis. So it's better if you reconsider what is likely to be true and what is just a hypothesis.


journals.asm.org...

Molecular clock analysis of the spike gene sequences of BCoV and HCoV-OC43 suggests a relatively recent zoonotic transmission event and dates their most recent common ancestor to around 1890. An evolutionary rate in the order of 4 × 10−4 nucleotide changes per site per year was estimated. This is the first animal-human zoonotic pair of coronaviruses that can be analyzed in order to gain insights into the processes of adaptation of a nonhuman coronavirus to a human host, which is important for understanding the interspecies transmission events that led to the origin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak.

Clearly the above describes natural selection before zoonosis and the emergence of OC43 to coincide with the Russian 'Flu' Pandemic.