[cookiecaper]

> No matter what anyone tells you, there is zero evidence that any part of the virus is engineered (and it isn't even entirely clear what such evidence would look like, in general!).

I'm not a biologist so I don't really know what any of this means, but there seems to be debate around the presence of a "furin site" [0], which apparently could have emerged naturally, but also could have been artificially spliced in the course of gain-of-function research. Is that how GOF research is normally conducted? I don't really know anything here, but at least some people believe there are genetic markers indicating potential lab manipulation, thus adding another datum in the long list of circumstantial evidence.

[0] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1266805310313967617.html

[svara]

Yeah, that's why I wrote "no matter what anyone tells you". I am a biologist, and I can say for sure that that's a complete red herring. Of course it could have been added in the lab, but that's literally true for any genetic sequence. It doesn't mean anything. The logic here is 1) new coronavirus is new 2) ??? 3) therefore, it's probably engineered.