Meryl Nass published an article this week in which she emphasized a critical need to ban Gain of Function research and called doing so “the most important thing President Trump is doing right now”
If one thing has been made clear over the past few years - or indeed throughout history, especially relating to scientific inquiry - it is that arguments based on such terms as , “… is over 50 years old”, “is widely known”; “it seems grossly ignorant”; and “Here's the thing”, are inherently weak, insubstantial, and lacking support in reason and fact. They merit little if any consideration in scientific discussion, and most likely merit complete dismissal. There is no place in real science for such unserious debate. Every single scientific advancement of note ever made was once subject to such vacuous criticism. Science is not governed by votes or insults.
Science-oriented or not, it's unproductive for debate and moving a question/issue forward.
Incidentally, I was a judge for a high school debate competition a few weeks ago - Team Policy event specifically, which involves two sides and a team of two on each side in a highly structured format spanning 90 minutes or so, with a 5-judge panel, scoring guides, etc.
The students were fantastic in their command of protocol and discourse and stayed entirely focused on the issue at hand (which related to U.S. export to Central American countries of pesticides banned for use here but not in the CA countries). In fact, if they engage in any ad hominem or otherwise go off-protocol, it can result one side being automatically disqualified.
I understand that things can get heated when people are passionate about a topic. Consequently, I try to give a wide berth for that, because I am imperfect, very direct, and understand this e-context isn't always ideal.
However, as the dialogue with Dr Nass and my exchanges with John Beaudoin earlier this week illustrate, when one side gets personal (or is IMMEDIATELY or ONLY personal) it's over and that side forfeits.
The real loser, as you're suggesting, is scientific inquiry and (I would add) collaborative sense-making.
Heck, let's call it intellectual competition - because that's what it is. Competition of ideas is GOOD and necessary. I don't understand the resistance thereto.
Just show the world a test tube of "SARS-CoV-2" that when opened - or dropped & smashed on the floor - will infect the people standing around in the same room.
I, for one, love that people believe a manmade thing escaped from a lab and sped around the world but insist that manipulating death data in a spreadsheet is near impossible.
Unlike most lab leak proponents, Dr. Nass at least brings up one of the most important yet almost always ignored issues that disqualifies lab-engineered pandemics: “Here's the thing. You can't necessarily tell which bugs you created will reproduce and take off in the world--most don't. So you do trial and error, design them, AND THEN YOU TEST THEM. Some will work.”
Ahh, so you just have to test your GOF bugs to see which ones will “work.” Now why didn’t I think of that?! Ok so next time I whip up a batch of nasty little GOF potential pandemic pathogens (PPP’s) in my garage (you can do that now ;-)) I’m just gonna “test” them so I can pick out the “working” pandemic champion. I hope Dr Nass can enlighten us as to said test protocol, because I haven’t figured one out yet. What kind of test tells me which one will “take off in the world?” Seriously. Such a test is an impossibility. A few dead monkeys or rats ain’t going to cut it. There are countless unfortunately complex confounders that come into play the second an entity potentially capable of reproducing meets Mr Real World. It’s a far cry from lab specimen possessing sequences “known” to enhance pathogenicity to viable real world pandemic causing pathogen necessarily capable of surviving and spreading great distances. If in fact a virus capable of producing a pandemic were to exist, the probability that it was honed to viable fitness by natural selection is infinitesimally greater than the probability it was created through GOF.
Yes, that's why I asked her what she meant by AND THEN YOU TEST THEM.
I infer (from the all-caps) that she means test them by "leaking" or "releasing" them into the human population.
With respect to SARS-CoV-2, I don't understand the proposed timeline for the leak/release, or the dynamics. I wish I knew what sequence of events Dr. Nass is proposing.
Where it comes to acute respiratory illnesses, the published clinical efforts intended to demonstrate that transmission of the symptoms of illness from a sick person can occur to a well person have all failed, from 1918 to 2024.
These illnesses are not contagious.
Influenza of course exists. However, it’s not contagious nor is it infectious (the latter follows from the former).
“Flu vaccines” are a multi decade fraud. They don’t help, because these illnesses aren’t caused by airborne, submicroscopic, infectious particles termed “viruses”. In this sense, there’s no scientific evidence for their existence. Every “pillar” that is claimed to show that they do exist is also fraud.
Given the basic premises of the pathology of the postulated agent, SARS-CoV-2, are fundamentally the same as never-identified “influenza viruses”, it is reasonable to expect the same, real-world correlates, ie none.
It doesn’t exist independently of a computer sequence database.
“Covid19”, the new illness, does not exist. “Vaccines” against the non-existence, claimed cause of the illness, are illogical and do not have any beneficial effects.
I did not expect that they would. All mRNA- and DNA-based injections were expected to trigger a range of illnesses, dominated by autoimmune disorders and other toxicities arising from the nucleic acids inherently as well as from other components such as lipid nanoparticles.
Finally, it’s illogical to be concerned about “gain of function” research in this field, because there’s no starting point to modify.
GOF does exist as a fairly routine molecular biological technique, accompanied by its opposite, Loss of Function. These are endpoints observed after editing a genetic sequence of a known gene, who’s mechanism of action and role in health and disease we’re trying to understand.
I agree where it concerns the things I've learned or read about. When you say, "Influenza of course exists," you mean the collection of symptoms we think of as influenza, yes?
As far as I can tell, it seems the answer to "Can scientists gain function in a thing by altering the structure of the thing?" is no. Function is lost and/or cannot be sustained.
Yes, influenza is a real illness, which varies tremendously in its presentation and symptoms. It’s simply not infectious in nature nor contagious.
Exactly what it is is not known. I’ve speculated on my Substack that it’s a consequence of losing control of the complex, lifelong, dynamic equilibrium of managing airway surface liquid. When that’s disrupted, we go through an acute response then a healing sequence.
On Gain (or Loss) of Function, it’s a well recognised technique in molecular biology, used to probe and try to understand the function of genes and gene products.
I agree it’s not possible to add complex functions like transmission & hijacking cellular functions to sequences not associated with any of these things.
If one thing has been made clear over the past few years - or indeed throughout history, especially relating to scientific inquiry - it is that arguments based on such terms as , “… is over 50 years old”, “is widely known”; “it seems grossly ignorant”; and “Here's the thing”, are inherently weak, insubstantial, and lacking support in reason and fact. They merit little if any consideration in scientific discussion, and most likely merit complete dismissal. There is no place in real science for such unserious debate. Every single scientific advancement of note ever made was once subject to such vacuous criticism. Science is not governed by votes or insults.
Agreed.
Science-oriented or not, it's unproductive for debate and moving a question/issue forward.
Incidentally, I was a judge for a high school debate competition a few weeks ago - Team Policy event specifically, which involves two sides and a team of two on each side in a highly structured format spanning 90 minutes or so, with a 5-judge panel, scoring guides, etc.
The students were fantastic in their command of protocol and discourse and stayed entirely focused on the issue at hand (which related to U.S. export to Central American countries of pesticides banned for use here but not in the CA countries). In fact, if they engage in any ad hominem or otherwise go off-protocol, it can result one side being automatically disqualified.
I understand that things can get heated when people are passionate about a topic. Consequently, I try to give a wide berth for that, because I am imperfect, very direct, and understand this e-context isn't always ideal.
However, as the dialogue with Dr Nass and my exchanges with John Beaudoin earlier this week illustrate, when one side gets personal (or is IMMEDIATELY or ONLY personal) it's over and that side forfeits.
The real loser, as you're suggesting, is scientific inquiry and (I would add) collaborative sense-making.
Heck, let's call it intellectual competition - because that's what it is. Competition of ideas is GOOD and necessary. I don't understand the resistance thereto.
Just show the world a test tube of "SARS-CoV-2" that when opened - or dropped & smashed on the floor - will infect the people standing around in the same room.
Why is resolving this 'mystery' taking so long?
Enuf already.
The pretense of complexity is amazing
I, for one, love that people believe a manmade thing escaped from a lab and sped around the world but insist that manipulating death data in a spreadsheet is near impossible.
Unlike most lab leak proponents, Dr. Nass at least brings up one of the most important yet almost always ignored issues that disqualifies lab-engineered pandemics: “Here's the thing. You can't necessarily tell which bugs you created will reproduce and take off in the world--most don't. So you do trial and error, design them, AND THEN YOU TEST THEM. Some will work.”
Ahh, so you just have to test your GOF bugs to see which ones will “work.” Now why didn’t I think of that?! Ok so next time I whip up a batch of nasty little GOF potential pandemic pathogens (PPP’s) in my garage (you can do that now ;-)) I’m just gonna “test” them so I can pick out the “working” pandemic champion. I hope Dr Nass can enlighten us as to said test protocol, because I haven’t figured one out yet. What kind of test tells me which one will “take off in the world?” Seriously. Such a test is an impossibility. A few dead monkeys or rats ain’t going to cut it. There are countless unfortunately complex confounders that come into play the second an entity potentially capable of reproducing meets Mr Real World. It’s a far cry from lab specimen possessing sequences “known” to enhance pathogenicity to viable real world pandemic causing pathogen necessarily capable of surviving and spreading great distances. If in fact a virus capable of producing a pandemic were to exist, the probability that it was honed to viable fitness by natural selection is infinitesimally greater than the probability it was created through GOF.
Yes, that's why I asked her what she meant by AND THEN YOU TEST THEM.
I infer (from the all-caps) that she means test them by "leaking" or "releasing" them into the human population.
With respect to SARS-CoV-2, I don't understand the proposed timeline for the leak/release, or the dynamics. I wish I knew what sequence of events Dr. Nass is proposing.
Where it comes to acute respiratory illnesses, the published clinical efforts intended to demonstrate that transmission of the symptoms of illness from a sick person can occur to a well person have all failed, from 1918 to 2024.
These illnesses are not contagious.
Influenza of course exists. However, it’s not contagious nor is it infectious (the latter follows from the former).
“Flu vaccines” are a multi decade fraud. They don’t help, because these illnesses aren’t caused by airborne, submicroscopic, infectious particles termed “viruses”. In this sense, there’s no scientific evidence for their existence. Every “pillar” that is claimed to show that they do exist is also fraud.
Given the basic premises of the pathology of the postulated agent, SARS-CoV-2, are fundamentally the same as never-identified “influenza viruses”, it is reasonable to expect the same, real-world correlates, ie none.
It doesn’t exist independently of a computer sequence database.
“Covid19”, the new illness, does not exist. “Vaccines” against the non-existence, claimed cause of the illness, are illogical and do not have any beneficial effects.
I did not expect that they would. All mRNA- and DNA-based injections were expected to trigger a range of illnesses, dominated by autoimmune disorders and other toxicities arising from the nucleic acids inherently as well as from other components such as lipid nanoparticles.
Finally, it’s illogical to be concerned about “gain of function” research in this field, because there’s no starting point to modify.
GOF does exist as a fairly routine molecular biological technique, accompanied by its opposite, Loss of Function. These are endpoints observed after editing a genetic sequence of a known gene, who’s mechanism of action and role in health and disease we’re trying to understand.
Thanks for your comments, Mike.
I agree where it concerns the things I've learned or read about. When you say, "Influenza of course exists," you mean the collection of symptoms we think of as influenza, yes?
As far as I can tell, it seems the answer to "Can scientists gain function in a thing by altering the structure of the thing?" is no. Function is lost and/or cannot be sustained.
Yes, influenza is a real illness, which varies tremendously in its presentation and symptoms. It’s simply not infectious in nature nor contagious.
Exactly what it is is not known. I’ve speculated on my Substack that it’s a consequence of losing control of the complex, lifelong, dynamic equilibrium of managing airway surface liquid. When that’s disrupted, we go through an acute response then a healing sequence.
On Gain (or Loss) of Function, it’s a well recognised technique in molecular biology, used to probe and try to understand the function of genes and gene products.
I agree it’s not possible to add complex functions like transmission & hijacking cellular functions to sequences not associated with any of these things.