If you have an hour, I recommend you watch this. (The keynote topic begins around 15:20 into the podcast but the discussion preceeding is also worthwhile.)
Update: The video no longer loads, but you can still view it here. Again, start it at 15:20.
If you don’t have an hour, I recommend you make it. It’s your introduction to this: Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research
If you hear anyone claim “we know the virus didn’t come from a lab”, don’t buy it — it may well have. Labs around the globe have been creating synthetic viruses like CoV2 for years. And no, its genome would not necessarily contain hallmarks of human manipulation: modern genetic engineering tools permit cutting and pasting genomic fragments without leaving a trace. It can be done quickly, too: it took a Texas BSL4 lab less than 2 months to create a synthetic clone of CoV2.
This puppy may appear at first glance to be a long, technical slog, but stick with it. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll be angry, mind you… but not disappointed.
Some interesting comments by the historian Niall Ferguson about Covid-19, most notably the difference between Australia and New Zealand vs. English speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere and the economic policies in response to the pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3s6pzmmvEg
Thanks Ed. My wife and I find nothing finer to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon than to watch John Anderson and Niall Ferguson on the big screen. John is an excellent interviewer and Niall always brings an interesting perspective to subjects. We appreciate the heads up on the interview.
I personally don’t believe that the Chinese intentionally created Covid-19 in a lab. I compare the Chinese flu to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that (allegedly) kicked over a lantern and started a barn fire that led to the destruction of a sizeable portion of the City of Chicago back in 1871. By the time the ashes cooled, over 300 people had died and 100,000 were homeless. The fire covered over 2000 acres within the city.
I believe they name it the butterfly effect where if a butterfly flaps its wings while hovering over a flower in Brazil, somehow that can set off a tornado in Texas. While there are various explanations to the effect, I’m convinced that small insignificant events can lead to major catastrophes.
When I was in high school, one of our favorite pastimes was drinking around a bonfire near a creek or river in a remote area on Saturday nights. . (We were all under 21, legal drinking age in 1966.) We played a game named ”What’s the worst thing that can happen?” We’d imagine situations where, say, a guy lights a campfire, a spark starts a grass fire, and before the evening was over, we had the fire consuming the city of Swift Current, the gas tanks at the CO-OP bulk plant exploding, etc. etc.
If it’s true that the Covied-19 virus started in a bat cave, how did bat # 1 get it?? My guess is that it ate that damned butterfly! Should we blame the Chinese for not stopping Covid on time, of should we blame the butterfly??
Which brings us back to the Big Bang theory……..
intentionally create….in one direction or the other….is the purpose of the lab
Belief has squat to do with anything. Facts are what counts my friend…
Watch the video…. You may learn something..??
Thanx for the Link Kate, well worth the time
The open question here is: Did China develop and release a pandemic virus in order to sow worldwide panic which would, in turn, result in a disruption in the world order (particularly in economic and military affairs) in order to gain political advantage.
The sequence of events leading up to this current pandemic event gives rise to a suspicion that China: a well known international bad-actor, has committed what is tantamount to an act of war. I am one of those who is very suspicious of China based on the well known big three criteria of detective work: means, motive, and opportunity.
If the Chinese Communist political system has a psychological profile it would be pathological narcissism. They believe themselves to be superior in every way to other political systems. They are completely unrestrained by what we would call a conscience. They lust for worldwide political, economic, and military domination. They easily have the technological sophistication to develop a biological weapon and, based on their treatment of their peasant class and, particularly their Muslim peasant class, would not hesitate to weaponise them by infecting them and shipping them to all points on the globe in order to start a pandemic.
The above is the charge. There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence to support it. The standard of proof is based on a “preponderance of evidence.” If they feel themselves innocent, then they should mount a defence. However, up to this point, all they have done is obstruct and obfuscate. Their hostility to any investigation is, to me, only further evidence of guilt.
China is too powerful to be ever put on trial but they they need to be treated as a rogue nation.
BTW, the video you link to, I think, tacitly supports the Epoch Times investigative report: The Origin of the Wuhan Virus.
Thanks for the link.
blackfox, yes the question is not the origin of the actual virus, but the intent of it’s release. The origin is a bot, and could have been transported from it’s far away cave, to the lab, and then worked on, or it could have been engineered. But how, or more importantly why did it get out, intentionally or inadvertently?
An engineered virus set free would be considered an act of war. How many want to go there?
OWG; that’s my biggest worry. Economic collapse, historically, is generally followed by armed conflict on a massive scale. This might be the outcome yet.
When the western world demands reparations, moves it’s manufacturing elsewhere, renounces it’s debt to China, and sues the PRC,
all of which will likely happen, the PRC will respond with belligerence and maybe even War.
Whether this Chinese Virus is accidental or not, the Global Pandemic is definitely China’s fault.
It was interesting that they found the Sana Clara wanting…. I watched the Hoover Inst interview, the interviewer had done very little subject research…..(Rush Job) he asked when does the peak flatten….No it was also a rush job done with volunteers for ~ 200k… I am sure those doing serious RD studies want consistent Standards …What I found unusual was how they used the study into the Data rate plot… resulting in a spike
Interesting that they work in a small world of expertise…Yep the world is too small and you keep running into the same people..
Wish they would fix the lip sync.. It fucks up the whole thing
Testing helps the serious RD folks, but to the Joe-Six- pack society it’s like Catholic Confession… You get a snap shot of you past behavior & forgiveness… Could be dead in 6 days if you don’t smarten up
The video calmly raises questions to which I would like answers, but which we are unlikely to get due to the Chinese Communist Party. After watching, the most plausible origin seems to be human engineering at the Wuhan lab, and then accidental release. As the pandemic has unfolded, the CCP watching the western european and north american self-destructive policy reaction must be very pleased with the result.
China has been systematically collecting and working on viruses for some time! Their disregard for the pandora’s box syndrome has led to this!! My gut feeling is the virus escaped the lab accidentally , whether it was engineered or not!
(I feel it was engineered with thoughts of having a vaccine ready– this to be sold to the world for money and CCP prestige)–but it got out by chance!
The Chinese Communist party is striving for world dominance, so put 2+2 together and what do you have! And our Government admires them!
Are these two stereotypical academics or what? Maybe we should call it the Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farah Fowler Show. They even have their own little home made flag. Sure, the information they have is valuable and pertinent, but man are they pompous.
They’re not just pompous–they’re boring, using 50 words to make a point when 5 are sufficient. I eventually switched it off.
Falacious headline in the G & M this weekend
Covid-19 leaves economies and supply cchains straing …
Well, no, government actions (or is it inaction) leaves economies and supply chains straining.
The world over, governments illustrated their incompetence (with a few exceptions) by being totally unprepaired and panicked into ill-thought out policies
Recommends doing dangerous lab work on a ship. How about an island? They sink less often.
A quick look at the Wikipedia entry on pangolins told me that they are nocturnal and sleep in hollow trees and tunnels. Sounds like they are likely to share sleeping quarters with bats from time to time, so it doesn’t seem too far fetched that viruses might be exchanged in the wild.
Saskatchewan lock-down joke: Corona virus is a GMO inadvertently made by a Roundup manufacturer (they initially wanted to call it Canola virus)
Thanks for the “Lab-made? …” link. Considering how many corona variants have been engineered the last two decades, it takes a fair bit of imagination to think that Covid-19 came from a wet market.