Slack / Private Message Drop — page 955

[2021-06-21 11:18:07] [Robert Garry] Marcia McNutt sent a long email about climate change. Basically everyone is on it that's quoted in the WashPost piece except Angie for some reason. So, it's the weather plus the attacks on science and scientists - I put up one of my emails in the WashPost thread - it has a not so subtile dig for Relman's benefit. [2021-06-21 12:43:35] [Andrew Rambaut] I can ping him on his slack and suggest he stays off email [2021-06-21 13:04:18] [Kristian Andersen] Thanks Andrew - yeah, that might make sense. Just not helpful - especially because he's wrong. [2021-06-21 17:12:03] [Andrew Rambaut] Uggh.... ```Thanks for the note Andrew. Public discourse and Twitter in particular surrounding "lab leak" has become increasingly toxic. I hope you're surviving the Fauci FOIA sniping. I wrote today's message to the group imagining it will get FOIAed. I do see this rooting issue as pretty critical. If root is parsimonious with RaTG13 or other outgroups it would suggest market as Huanan market outbreak as secondary foci. Or at least that's my take. But would be good to have a fully rigorous assessment of root and on top of this epi implications of different rootings. (edited) 10:12 I've had a sparsely running DM with Kristian about origins since last summer, though I largely hadn't been paying much attention to it until things blew up recently.``` `I wrote today's message to the group imagining it will get FOIAed.` [2021-06-21 17:14:09] [Kristian Andersen] I don't think Trevor is thinking right... Does he understand the _actual_ issues with the type of rooting he mentions? We have come a long way since the days of parsimony and I don't necessarily think this needs to go to Cladistics. [2021-06-21 17:14:12] [Andrew Rambaut] My reply about the rooting: ```But I don't really see any of this as relevant other than some interesting epi and timing - it looks to me that the ideas we had right at the beginning that this was live animal population in markets, starting multiple chains of infection until 3 of them really kicked off. The evidence of live animals in these markets seem conclusive that here is a hugely explanatory hypothesis. The lab-escape idea is a non starter unless there was actually evidence of 'lab-capture'. Anyone can see that escape has prior. The problem is without evidence that SC2 was in the lab in the first place just asserting it was is a non-starter. There are vastly more ways that live viruses can reach markets in Wuhan over nearly 2 decades than the chance that a few scientists found one in a bat (let alone cultured and stored in secret without sequencing it). Jesse, Fred and the others are going to make a huge fuss but there will never be anyway of scientifically getting evidence to support their idea - it basically requires documentary evidence which will not exist either way (either it doesn't exist or it was destroyed).``` [2021-06-21 17:18:54] [Andrew Rambaut] [thread - ID: 2021-06-21 17:18:54] @Eddie Holmes Eddie - will you take control of the document again? I have been over it and removed some of the added waffle, tried to tighten it up a bit. Need to stop it wandering again. But I think it is looking really good. [2021-06-21 17:19:05] [Kristian Andersen]