Hacker News Reader

Comment by sanxiyn | Hacker News Reader

We can't "fully" dismiss accidental release idea, but we can pretty much dismiss it, because sequence (we now have sequence from outside of China, it's not under Chinese control) strongly suggests natural and not artificial origin (see my other comment).

If we are to argue "artificial to look like natural", that's premeditated release, not accidental release.

View on HN

Not sure how plausible it is, but the article does claim the virus's creation could be part of a red-teaming exercise gone wrong, which would be consistent with a naturally-selected genome wouldn't it?

Could you link to an article or journal that strongly suggests it's natural over artificial based on the sequencing, please.

The evidence that it's natural is based on similarities to a common ancestor, RaTG13. Googling "RaTG13" will turn up results suggesting it's natural over artificial.

What is truly bizarre is that the gene sequence of this common ancestor RaTG13 was only released in late January 2020 by Shi's lab in Wuhan – the same lab in question regarding the leak.

For the moment, I am hesitant to trust any research premised on analysis of RaTG13.

First, RaTG13 is not an ancestor, it's a sibling. Next, the evidence is based on ratio of amino acid changes to silent changes, not based on similarity.

Yes – sibling, not ancestor. Regardless, the analysis is premised on the RaTG13 genome, and I am somewhat skeptical of analysis based on RaTG13.

I think accidental release of a naturally evolved virus is still a plausible hypothesis. To discount it as "conspiracy theory" seems to be wishful thinking.

I will continue to monitor findings on this until more conclusive, non-RaTG13 derived evidence is available.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com