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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Here's a scientist explaining the various covid origin hypotheses going around, and which one is correct:

https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

The press likes to stir things up because emotional people follow their stories more and make them more popular. But this is definitely putting the cart before the horse. Stirring up a mob almost never ends well.

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This is nothing but a bunch of appeal to authority and presumption masquerading as compelling argument. People propagate and buy it simply because it's long winded, neatly organized, and presented by someone claiming to be an authority.

This guy has a PhD and never heard of gain of function research?

I don't think that's an accurate representation. Can you link where he says he never heard of gain of function research?

I can’t link to an absence of a thing. I looked through his link and I didn’t see any mention of gain of function research. Maybe I missed it because that thread is completely schizophrenic, but I did look.

It's interesting that you dismiss it because it's completely schizophrenic, and yet mizzack dismisses it because it's neatly organized and long.

And yes, he does talk about gain-of-function. His background is in high risk biocontainment viruses, and his PhD was specifically focused on Ebola-, Hanta-, and Flavi-viruses.

I said it’s schizophrenic because of its format which is more a consequence of the modern web than any particular person. Why did he say gain of function couldn’t be applied to a pre-existing virus and result in a highly infectious corona virus?

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