{"id":9941,"date":"2021-08-30T12:46:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T16:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=9941"},"modified":"2021-08-30T12:46:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T16:46:07","slug":"gain-of-function-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=9941","title":{"rendered":"Gain-Of-Function Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been over a year and we still don\u2019t know the origins of COVID-19. Barring the leaking or release of Chinese records, we likely never will. Consensus has converged on one thing, though. Just about everybody now admits\u2014despite earlier, strenuous, and probably disingenuous<\/a> denials of the possibility\u2014that it\u2019s at least as likely that the pandemic resulted from a lab leak as it is that it resulted from the virus jumping between species naturally. Many believe that Occam\u2019s Razor points strongly at the lab leak as being more likely but it\u2019s hard for those of us who aren\u2019t virologists to make a scientifically informed judgment.<\/p>\n

I do think it\u2019s reasonable, though, for the man-on-the-street to have an opinion on a related question: Should we doing gain-of-function research in the first place? It\u2019s a matter of considerable controvery<\/a> even in the scientific community. There are three salient facts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The cost of a lab accident in human lives could be huge or even existential.<\/li>\n
  2. Lab accidents are frighteningly common.<\/li>\n
  3. As far as I can see, no one can point at any concrete advantages that have accrued from the research.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To the extent that those three statements reasonably reflect reality, it\u2019s hard to reach any conclusion other than that such research should be ended immediately. To be sure, that would be asking those who do such research to give up their research programs and maybe even their life\u2019s work but if the choice is between that and another pandemic like COVID-19, it\u2019s an easy choice.<\/p>\n

    Sadly, far from suspending or even slowing down such research while we examine the risks and benefits, the US federal government under the leadership of Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins has removed some of the safeguards previously put in place and are proceeding apace. When Collins was asked why he removed safeguards he replied that he was \u201cnot able to fully reconstruct\u201d the details. That sounds like political speak to me.<\/p>\n

    On a question like this, I\u2019m not willing to accept \u201ctrust the experts.\u201d If you can\u2019t spell out why this research isn\u2019t<\/i> an existential threat then you should stop doing it. Full stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It\u2019s been over a year and we still don\u2019t know the origins of COVID-19. Barring the leaking or release of Chinese records, we likely never will. Consensus has converged on one thing, though. Just about everybody now admits\u2014despite earlier, strenuous, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9942,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9941\/revisions\/9942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}