this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

sigh I know you've probably either already made up your mind or you're not arguing in good faith, so I'm not gonna engage any further except to say that it's entirely possible for a virologist to do research on zoonotic viruses. Just because it's a bat virus doesn't mean it stays a bat virus.

Also, there are probably billions if not trillions or quadrillions of individual COVID viruses out there. Each time a new one's made, there's a chance for it to mutate into something else. It's totally possible for a virus to evolve similar features in separate environments. I believe the term, "convergent evolution" applies here, and you can find examples larger than viruses in plants and animals, where even separate species can sometimes evolve the same features independently from one another. Carcinisation is an extreme example of this.

[–] Ropianos@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Just so you know, not only them are reading your response. I appreciate your response.

And as someone that isn't working in the field, I have to admit that it is very illogical that they would conduct gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in a country previously hit by a coronavirus outbreak while violating safety standards. Obviously that's hindsight but shouldn't this be very obviously a bad idea? It's not like the existence of a virus like COVID-19/sarscov-2 was completely unexpected.

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