An open letter to the authors of “The proximal origin of
SARS-CoV-2”
I am concerned about the unqualified use of the word “any” in the last sentence of the second last paragraph of “The proximal origin of
SARS-CoV-2” [1]
“However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”
As a matter of logic, the article only truly considered scenarios involving genetic engineering from known genomes all of which, including RaTG13, are assumed to be authentic. However the conclusion is much stronger than this — that any type of laboratory-based scenario is not plausible under any circumstance.
It appears you have implicitly excluded from consideration scenarios where a laboratory held either SARS-CoV-2 or some other near progenitor in its library of specimens. While there is no scientific evidence that they did, neither is such a possibility implausible. The evidence for the plausibility of the existence of other unpublished sequences is the publication of the sequence for RaTG13 itself — in 2020, a full 7 years after it was collected or a full 3 years since the sequence of its RdRp gene was published (although that assertion is slightly questionable, since the earlier publication was not referenced in the latter). It is well known that the sequence of RaTG13 was published at around the same time that another group of scientists noticed [2] the near identity of the SARS-CoV-2 RdRp sequence with the earlier partial publication, indicating the decision to publish may have been, in some sense, forced.
While I understand that in the normal standards of scientific discourse one does not demur on the intellectual integrity of one’s colleagues, in this particular case it seems that the following qualification (inserting the words “involving genetic engineering from known backbones” after the word “scenario”) would be more responsible since it excludes from consideration knowledge which is unknown to science (e.g. the truth of whether a laboratory did hold such specimens), and does not necessarily pass judgement on your scientific colleagues. It merely states the only justifiable claim of your analysis: that genetic engineering from known backbones is implausible.
Hence:
“However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario involving genetic engineering from known backbones is plausible.”
This statement stills smuggles in an implicit assumption that the published RaTG13 genome is authentic, but for the purposes of this post its truth will be stipulated since nothing of consequence changes based on the actual truth of this statement.
As a sceptic who happens to believe (rather than know) that a laboratory based scenario is not unlikely [3], my concern is that if the scientific community falls down too strongly on the side of Wuhan Denialism, then we risk losing a lot of ground in the larger culture wars if it becomes proven by investigative journalism or whistle-blowers that, actually, a laboratory release was involved.
This is not a call for you to support the laboratory-based hypothesis. It is a call for you to be more precise in your assertions about what Science actually knows.
[1] Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med 26, 450–452 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9
[2] Liangjun Chen, Weiyong Liu, Qi Zhang, Ke Xu, Guangming Ye, Weichen Wu, Ziyong Sun, Fang Liu, Kailang Wu, Bo Zhong, Yi Mei, Wenxia Zhang, Yu Chen, Yirong Li, Mang Shi, Ke Lan & Yingle Liu (2020) RNA based mNGS approach identifies a novel human coronavirus from two individual pneumonia cases in 2019 Wuhan outbreak, Emerging Microbes & Infections, 9:1, 313–319, DOI: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1725399
[3] use of double negative, intentional
update: updated ‘lab release’ to ‘laboratory-based’ in last paragraph to match terminology used in referenced article.