Human beings are pattern seeking creatures. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that allowed our ancestors to survive in a world that was quite dangerous to them. If you mistake a series of shadows in the tall grass for a tiger ready to emerge and have you for lunch, you take action to avoid your imminent and painful death. If it turns out to not have been a tiger, you may feel sheepish, but you get to procreate. If you saw that same pattern of shadows in the grass but didn’t take action, and it turned out to actually be the aforementioned tiger, you don’t get to procreate.
Our ancestors are essentially the most cautious, the most paranoid and the most likely to form something from randomness they experience in the world. This evolutionary adaptation persists and only through the scientific method can we discern whether our intuitions are right or wrong. We may see a face in the moon, or two people playing cards, but we now know this is an optical illusion. We may see the face of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, but if we analyse it, it’ll just be a grilled cheese sandwich with a cool pattern. I often wonder why people assume it’s Jesus and not Charles Manson.
When something as devastating as the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 makes an appearance in the world and begins infecting humans at alarming rates and causing serious illness and death, we want answers to how this came to be. Our normal pattern seeking brains will take the available information and quickly create a plausible scenario that just feels right. One of the most persistent ones is that this virus came out of a lab; either as a creation of human minds as some kind of bio-weapon or a mistakenly escaped virus which perhaps was not being created for such nefarious means, but is now on the loose.
If we want to separate possible candidates for truthfulness from rubbish, we need a method, and the method that’s been working quite well for hundreds of years now is the scientific method. Allow me to demonstrate:
- SARS-CoV-2 was created by man in a lab as either a bio-weapon or for some other purpose, but it is not a naturally occurring evolutionary mutation of other coronaviruses.
This is a hypothesis; a guess. In order to give it some validity, we must design experiments to test this guess of mine. We’ll run the experiments, collect the data and see what the evidence tells us. If the experiments support the hypothesis, we can then share it with others and have them re-run the experiments precisely as I did and they should get the same results. Over and over again. If the experiments do not support the hypothesis, we need to design new experiments and try again. If every experiment we try fails to support the hypothesis, we need to discard it.
Importantly, even if we find supporting evidence that supports the hypothesis, and others get the same result when they try it, if any evidence is found by others trying different experiments that refute the hypothesis, it must also be discarded. This is how we make progress. This is how we learn.
So, what is the evidence to support this hypothesis of a man-made virus?
- There isn’t any. None. Zero.
Is there any evidence refuting this hypothesis?
Yes there is. Lots.
What do we do as individuals who don’t possess the know how and/or the means to devise experiments and run tests? What if we don’t trust those scientific types who may have ulterior motives? What if they’re all in on it? That’s our cautious, paranoid, pattern seeking ancestors talking. But fortunately, there is something we can use. It’s called Occam’s Razor.
The Razor is a wonderful concept and I’ll just give you my version of it since it’s easy to use and comes in handy all the time. Whenever you’re unsure which of several possible answers may the right one, or at least close enough to being right, choose the simplest, most direct one that requires the fewest assumptions and raises the fewest additional questions. I will again demonstrate:
Was SARS-CoV-2 created by scientists, or did it evolve naturally?
We know throughout the course of history that every pathogen ever detected was a product of natural selection and evolutionary adaptations.¹ ² We know there are already existing coronaviruses; in fact, common colds are caused by coronaviruses and also by rhinorviruses.³ We know that SARS and MERS were caused by coronaviruses that adapted and made the jump from their host animals to humans. ¼
So the simplest, most direct conclusion to where CoV-2 came from is that it is just one more naturally evolved pathogen like countless others, including other coronaviruses.
For it to have been created in a lab, we’d need to make some assumptions and ask some questions. We’d have to assume someone, or some group of someones decided to try to do this. Who sponsored them? Why were they doing this? What was their intent? Where did they get the money? How did they keep others from knowing what they were doing? Did they tell anyone about their work? How were they able to modify existing viruses and avoid detection? Did they create it from scratch or start with an existing virus? Did it escape or was it intentionally released? Who benefits from its release?
The more assumptions and questions a possible answer raises, the less likely it is to be true.
Finally, I’ll leave with you one of my favorite thinking experiments: You’re not entitled to your own opinion. Your opinion is only as good as the logic, evidence and reason behind it. If you can’t support it, you should probably keep it to yourself or much better, discard it. For more on this concept, check out this cool post.
Update:
Since the original post, I’ve engaged in a further discussion of this topic and I wanted to add what I think is a critical piece to not only this particular matter, but useful anytime we find ourselves contemplating a hypothesis for a vexing question. That of falsifiability.
Carl Sagan beautifully illustrates this concept with his Dragon in my Garage tale. To paraphrase, Sagan claims he has a fire-breathing dragon in his garage and invites you over to see it. Upon arrival, you see an empty garage. When you tell Sagan as much, he claims the dragon is there, but invisible. Being naturally skeptical, you ponder the matter and suggest sprinkling flour on the garage floor to see the dragon’s footprints as he moves about. Sagan tells you that won’t work, as the dragon levitates.
With furrowed brow, you suggest spray painting the dragon to see his outline. Sagan tells you that won’t work, as the dragon has skin to which nothing can adhere. Determined to see this dragon, you suggest using infrared to measure the dragon’s fiery breath. Sagan tells you that won’t work, because his breath is heat-less.
For every physical test you suggest to confirm the presence of this dragon, Sagan has a reason why it won’t work. Yet he persists in claiming the dragon is there. So is it?
No. Sagan has created protections around his premise that prevent it from being tested and falsified. This is pseudoscience and utter nonsense. It is a common tactic employed by believers in ghosts, gods, demons and Young Earth Creationists. Learn to recognize it so you won’t be fooled.
Specific to the lab-created coronavirus hypothesis, I give you this lengthy, detailed and esoteric genetic analysis of CoV-2 which I don’t have the requisite knowledge to fully comprehend or refute. Perhaps you do:
Lab-made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy through the lens of gain of function research
This article is a great way to dazzle one with data, but I want to draw your attention to the conclusions and see if you can spot the invisible dragon:
“The main problem with such evidence [of man-made manipulation] is that even in a lab-made virus it simply may not exist. Basically, a good genetic engineer can create a synthetic virus that would be indistinguishable from a natural one. Moreover, often researchers deliberately introduce some synonymous mutations into their designs so that later they can discern their strain from natural ones. But if the creators choose not to reveal these markers, it is impossible to distinguish them from natural mutations.”
The author has gone to great lengths to create a plausible scenario where SARS-CoV-2 could have been genetically engineered, and props to him for all the research. But it’s fairly obvious he’s trying to persuade readers, and perhaps himself, that this is what happened. As I wrote initially, there’s no evidence that it did, and the author knows this, so he creates the unfalsifiable argument: a “good” genetic engineer can create the virus in such a way that no one could tell.
To give him some credit, he doesn’t go full blown truther as he states:
“Let me be clear: this does NOT prove that CoV2 was synthesized in the laboratory. Yes, as we have seen above, from a technical standpoint, it would not be difficult for a modern virologist to create such a strain. But there is no direct evidence that anyone did this, and strange coincidences cannot pass for circumstantial evidence.”
In that he is absolutely correct. His lengthy analysis of plausibility does not prove anything. It’s certainly possible, but it’s also possible the CoV-2 virus was seeded here on Earth by aliens, who disguised themselves in such a way as to make them impossible to see, or detect in any way with any of our instruments. There’s no evidence of this, but with 100’s of billions of planets orbiting 100’s of billions of stars in an ever-expanding universe, it’s certainly possible.
This last statement brings me to my final point. Anyone who makes a claim or assertion bears the brunt of providing evidence to support it. If that claim is extraordinary, as mine is about aliens, I’d propose extraordinary evidence is required. Ordinary evidence won’t do.
Stay skeptical my friends.
¹ Evolution and emergence of Pathogenic viruses; past, present and future
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