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1. 2021-02-06 07:55 Andrew Rambaut open
   The way to do it may be to leave them with a couple of very specific things that they need to prove if they are to turn out to be right - the major one is that a live virus, collected from the wild, that was SARS-CoV-2 or near-identical to itwas in a lab in Wuhan in November 2019. Then just let them obsess about that whilst everyone else moves on. The problem at the moment is that they say all these vague notions about passaging and engineering that seem plausible to people who don't know what is required.
2. 2021-02-06 08:00 Robert F. Garry open
   Yes indeed that---is--- it! It's #2 aka Relman - and the pure essence of a conspiracy theory - they have the progenitor and are keeping it a secret because they don't want the world tp know they f'ed up and released it or they are hiding their super secret bioweapons program.
3. 2021-02-06 08:26 Kristian G. Andersen open
   No point in spending time explaining it's _not_ a lab escape - just keep reiterating the data supporting it's all natural evolution. Then combine that with three main things (1) lab escape proponents have not put forward a testable hypothesis, (2) the lab hypothesis comes down to a single 'fact' - this happen in Wuhan (that really is all there is toit), and (3) - and while I hate this part, it's effective - they're amateurs. It's not a nice look to be the person calling other scientists idiots, but they are - so I have no issue hammering on #3 these days.
4. 2021-02-06 08:29 Kristian G. Andersen open
   The only viable version of the "lab escape" hypothesis that's left, is the one we mention in PO1 - that somebody had the virus at the WIV and popped it into tissue culture. But as we say, that would look identical to natural emergence -no point for scientists trying to figure out if that could have happened, since it's not a scientific question - it lies with intelligence.
5. 2021-02-06 08:35 Andrew Rambaut
   Exactly - that was my point 3.
6. 2021-02-06 08:36 Andrew Rambaut open
   But that is not the hypothesis they are proposing.
7. 2021-02-06 08:42 Andrew Rambaut open
   But in the end you are never actually trying to convince these people, just make their arguments seem daft.
8. 2021-02-06 08:42 Kristian G. Andersen open
   Do they have an actual hypothesis?
9. 2021-02-06 08:43 Kristian G. Andersen open
   "just make their arguments seem daft" Excatly

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