[FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!

[Marcus Daniels]

As a ballpark the receptor binding domain is 211 residues, so 20^211, however only a small part of it seems to be actively evolving. [1]  (see Table 1)

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.10.986398v1


From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of David Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Monday, April 20, 2020 at 3:49 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!

I do not believe that any of the "theories" about the origin have any purpose other than to point fingers, place blame. One reason for this would be to advance other arguments — typical conspiracy nonsense, Another would be to identify a government or a lab or any entity with deep pockets.  You can't sue a wet market.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwAR1vyx1SqreXoeVgFVKBIayEWGOgZn5IbXmx3-V4nsrWiIlrYvYHQW2TuLA

There is discussion in here about the kind of mosaic it is, and the nearest identified variants for different parts.  I find this interesting as a question in evolutionary dynamics of either convergence or recombination.  The question of how “hard” an engineering problem it is to find non-local optimizers for various biding problems if you happen not to have templates in the same basin of attraction is an interesting question to me in methods of protein biochemistry.  The question of what level of sophistication we currently imagine is in use around the world is a potentially interesting question of sophistication versus availability of method, also practical if one works in threat defenses.


It would be nice to believe that scientists are ethical people, and if the virus originated in a lab, and if there was a block of information about the virus, those aware of that information would find some way to smuggle it out, at least to WHO.

davew


On Mon, Apr 20, 2020, at 3:23 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

My main concern would be about their priorities:   We should figure out
what to do about this rather than who to blame for it.  If the original
source were a lab that changes little right now compared to if it were
a market.

On 4/20/20, 1:51 PM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣"
<friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com<mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:

   You can't *objectively* tell. That's the whole point. But what you
can do is check your impressions against those of others. My personal
impression is that this "article" is complete bullshit. I feel
*certain* that at least some of the people here, if they read the whole
article, will conclude the opposite.

   I won't list my bullshit triggers the article sets off. Bullshit
replicates exponentially faster and more efficient than its debunking.
So my debunking would be lost in the wind. But I can point to 1 easy
step you can take:

     https://smmry.com/https://project-evidence.github.io/#&SM_LENGTH=10<https://smmry.com/https:/project-evidence.github.io/#&SM_LENGTH=10>

   Play around with the length. It's interesting.

   On 4/20/20 1:12 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Thanks for that link/reference.   I appreciate that there ARE
such things as "influence operations" and Schneier's description is
helpful, but I guess I'm still not clear on how I can tell objectively
that "project evidence" is up to that.   To build my own strawman that
maybe you can bolster up to more of a steelman:


1. I have a gut reaction to it that says "this feels like the
kind of conspiracy-theory the trolls-I-know-to-hate are likely to be
hatching".

2. The EPSTEIN thing is weird... I guess if they'd just removed
the reference and not referenced it, THAT would have been even more of
a hint that they were up to no good.

3. The tone of the introduction, etc.  seems a bit "protest too
much"

4. The sheer bulk of the material without obvious additional
organization feels like a "dogpile" technique (ro maybe as you suggest
"baffle-em-with-bullshit" or TL;DR ?


I guess what I was asking for is whether you found any specific
elements or if there is a more specific (than my lame list above)
structural thing to question.   I *didn't* follow the myriad references
and validate them, and I *don't* have a broad enough understanding of
the field to estimate how biased their list of articles is... if they
are blatantly cherry picking or what?


When publication like this was much harder, the volume of
material was small enough that it seems like traditional journalists
could possibly keep up with more in-depth analysis?


I suppose rather than asking YOU if/how you have done its, or if
I should go search for other critical analysis of this "project"...


   --
   ☣ uǝlƃ

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