There is a strong suspicion the coronavirus is an escaped specimen from a Chinese lab.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf
An Indian scientist has purportedly discovered HIV inserted into the coronavirus. If true, this is pretty conclusive evidence the virus is humanly engineered, i.e. intelligently designed.
So, herein lies the conundrum. According to popular imagination, ID is both bad science and false (remember, good science is the falsifiable sort ;). If true, then it should not be possible to detect intelligent intervention in the genetic code.
Yet, this recent news item purports to be exactly that: identification of intelligent intervention in the genetic code.
Please explain this to me like I am 5: how can ID be both bad science and false, yet at the same time it is possible to identify intelligent intervention in the genetic code? If we can do so for the recent past, why can’t we do the same for the distant past?
Thanks!
Need to separate two questions.
1) Can it be done?
and
2) Have IDists done it?
That seems to overstate what I find in the report that you linked.
I’ll wait for the biologists to comment further on that.
That’s your misunderstanding of science. That we might be able to identify one specific case of design does not in any way show that we have a consistent theory of how to identify design.
It seems to me that the converse line of reasoning is more straightforward: if we could reliably distinguish between viruses that resulted from genetic engineering and those that didn’t, we should conclude that we are distinguishing between viruses that are intelligently designed and those that are not. The fact that we can detect the presence of intelligent design in nature is what allows us to determine that most of non-human nature wasn’t intelligently designed at all.
If it turns out to be the case, it’s not designing anything. It’s inserting a HIV sequence into a coronavirus sequence – genetic engineering. The sequences, HIV or coronavirus, are not humanly designed.
PS plural of virus is viruses.
Please explain this to me like I am 5: how can ID be both bad science and false, yet at the same time it is possible to identify intelligent intervention in the genetic code? If we can do so for the recent past, why can’t we do the same for the distant past?
I strongly doubt this story since there would be no reason for a human to create such a Franken-virus. It’s not weapons grade so why?
For the sake of argument lest’s assume this was artificially created in a lab. Any inference is based on external knowledge above and beyond the virus itself. We know the identity of the designers as human. We know the designer’s capabilities and limitations. We have a rough time line and location. We know of a physical mechanism the designer can use to insert strands of DNA into an genome. We recognize the inserted strand as having an external origin. All those are critical factors in a design inference.
With the claim of design in all of biological life we have zero external information. We don’t know the designer. We don’t have a timeline or a location. We don’t know the designer’s capabilities and limitations. We don’t have a physical mechanism for the construction of an entire genome. We don’t have any information on why a genome is configured the way it is. In short we have zero information beside life itself.
Unless and until some of that external information about biological life is uncovered all ID has is idle speculation.
Indeed! 😉
Kantian Naturalist,
How do you determine that something is not designed?
Which of these options best describes the origin of the genetic code?
a) evolved with some help from intelligent design
b) was totally designed from its inception
The same way you determine something did not evolve.
OMagain,
At this level they are both unfalsifiable?
A question for EricMH:
I notice that the paper you linked was written by a biologist. It was not written by an ID scientist.
What does this say about ID as science?
Sure.
Pick a thing. Anything at all. A porcupine.
Did it evolve? I can make a good case. Ancestors in the fossil record seem to show it had precursors etc.
Was it designed? You think you can make a good case. But you have nothing specific like the evidence I can provide. Nonetheless, I can’t prove it was not designed so therefore the possibility always remains.
That you don’t see any imbalance in each options probability is telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference
Have a read. Then ask yourself:
again.
You are forgetting about the invisible pink unicorn option. Falsify that!
First of all, if this is true we are not talking about ID but about id – unless you think that God may have inserted the HIV into the virus?
We should apply a Bayesian approach and consider the prior probabilities of natural and human causes. Depending on the conclusions about the likelihood of natural mutations (something I cannot comment on because I’m no virologist) we would arrive at posterior probabilites for human intervention and natural processes.
If the posterior probability of human action is higher than that of natural causes, I would conclude that some humans in some lab have done this, and I could follow this up by investigations into the who, when, where and how of these human activities. I would draw the conclusion that the intelligent design was done by humans in particular, because my prior probability of humans being able to do this is virtually 1, unlike my prior probability for Divine action which is pretty much zero, so this would always result in a very high posterior probability of human intervention.
You, on the other hand, could not draw that conclusion, because as an ID-er you don’t want to rule out that all this might have been done supernaturally by a Divine entity that doesn’t need a lab for something like this. You could still draw the conclusion that it was intelligently designed, but you couldn’t differentiate between human and Divine action. Your Bayesian prior probabilities for both human and Divine capabilities would be 1, so the posterior probabilites for each would be the same too. You would have no more reason to accuse the Chinese government than to accuse God for inflicting this upon us.
Going back to ID in general, especially for things originating before humans were around with the required capabilities, my prior probability of Divine intervention in Nature is much lower than that of natural processes. It is in fact zero. Therefore, natural processes will always win out as the more likely explanation (even if we don’t know the details – but here both alternatives are equally weak because we would not know the details of how the Divine did it either).
You might argue that setting the prior probability for Divine intervention to zero is an unwarranted restriction on science, but, as per above, by setting it higher one will in many cases not be able to rule out Divine intervention, in fact make that more likely, which then simply becomes a God of the Gaps explanation. This would then provide a satisfactory (to those who hold to the higher prior probability) answer to various scientific questions, and there would be no incentive for further research into natural causes. Why do research on questions that have already been answered?
In my view this would be an unacceptable block on scientific progress. One that is definitely not warranted by any record of success of the Divine explanation, of which to my knowledge there are none.
OMagain,
Sure you can create a story with fossils. Where the grand claims of evolution fails is at the molecular level.
What supports your grand claim that evolution fails at the molecular level?
faded_Glory,
How would you demonstrate that your prior probability is measured and not arbitrary?
What is the prior probability of human DNA being the result of known natural processes?
I would argue that you do not have a way to determine this mechanistically. We know a mind can account for complex sequences and so your argument fails as we can test a mind using humans as test beds.
Prior probabilities are estimates, not measurements. You are free to pick your own.
Your ‘mind’ story always fails on the same point: we have zero evidence of minds that can design anything without also having a physical body (the need for which instantly causes an infinite regress). The prior probability of a disembodied mind is zero if we base our estimate on the available evidence. If you base it on wishful thinking you might arrive at a different number.
We can use human minds as a test for human designed things. We can’t use the unknown powers of a disembodied supernatural mind to test for anything.
“Bill is too willfully ignorant to understand it” =/= “fails at the molecular level”.
Note that the manuscript in question has already been withdrawn by the authors.
I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility that the HIV sequence recombined naturally.
Eta – for example. Note that Coronaviridae are mentioned on p2 as involved in probable between-virus HGT.
I think the Bayesian approach is not helpful here, because the prior probabilities are not determined, at least not by evidence. What I’m seeing is creationists looking at three possibilities – human design, divine creation, and natural evolution. Then they assign divine creation a probability of 1, evolution a zero, and human design perhaps 0.5 (because humans themselves were divinely created!)
But when we examine how these prior probabilities were determined, we discover they are based on unquestionable foregone posterior probabilities.
In high school, I had a math/gym teacher who went strictly by the book. The answers were in the back of the book, and one of those answers was in fact wrong (probably a misprint). I found it hilarious watching the math teacher desperately trying to get the problem to fit the answer. Like a creationist, he could not deal with the possibility that the answer might be wrong. When the posterior probability cannot be changed, the priors can’t be useful.
Flint,
I was attempting to outline how I would approach answering EricMH’s question, and why I might conclude id (not ID) in the corona virus example. I have little doubt that EricMH will disagree with some or all of my reply.
I would be particularly interested to see if EricMH would consider the possibility of Divine design in this case, and if not, why not.
Something worth noting – the evolutionary history of this virus is currently opaque. But if elucidated, it would rely on phylogenetic methods which IDists do their darnedest to discredit.
Also, identification of the insert as ‘HIV’ relies on sequence identity. Of course there’s nothing to stop sequence identity going via a computer and test-tube synthesis, but it is still a form of ‘common descent’ rather than ‘common design’.
According to this report the virus received these HIV like inserts from pangolins.
nCoV-2019 Spike Protein Receptor Binding Domain Shares High Amino Acid Identity With a Coronavirus Recovered from a Pangolin Viral Metagenomic Dataset
The virus source has been identified as a wild animal market in Wuhan which had endangered pangolins for sale.
China’s latest virus outbreak exposes perils of exotic wildlife trade
I agree with KN on this and the basic premise is what is used to test for GM organisms the world over. Some markets forbid, or yet to approve, certain GM organisms, e.g., fish, soy, corn, etc. and given the demand for identification of these modified organisms industry has responded and deveopled test kits for this purpose.
Leading the World in GM Fish Detection
and
https://www.eurofins.com/scientific-impact/scientific-innovation/examples-of-our-scientific-innovations/leading-the-world-in-gm-fish-detection/
the development of these test kits are premised on knowing ‘native’ genome(s), how humans develop GM organisms (what tools are in the tool kit), and the sequence(s) original source. for example in detection of one variety of GM salmon is dependent on knowing the GR sequence of chinook salmon.
The same appleis to the detection of salmon which have been modified through less invasive means, e.g.. heat shocking eggs to prevent extrusion of the polar body, than insertion of foreign DNA for that purpose.
As has been pointed out to EricH, and others repeatedly, the complete lack of any calibration standards for their speculation(s) of a disembodied mind interacting with the genome(s) of living organisms, past and present, result in nothing more than wishful thinking on their part and the purposeful ignoring of the difficulties in demonstrating that disembodied minds exist let alone interact, in some unknown and undetectable means, to manipulate physical medium.
another article that might interest some on sex determination (and manipulation) and ploidy initiation in a number of fish species. The line of sexual determination in fish is quite plastic, protandry and polyandry in native populations, e.g., clownfish, sheepshead, and the ‘artificial’ production of gynogens have been known, and exploited, for many years by aquaculturists.
PLOIDY INDUCTION AND SEX CONTROL IN FISH
https://scinapse.io/papers/1515835089
To all:
In the thread immediately preceding this one, “Questions for Eric Holloway,” Eric has engaged in diversionary tactics, rather than answer the questions. Most notably, he has attributed to me a concern opposite of one of the main errors I have identified in a published article of his. Do you believe that it is a coincidence that someone who is always telling us that he doesn’t have time for this blog, when confronted with easy questions that he does not want to answer, finds time for an OP posing a question that he thinks his adversaries do not want to answer?
Good catch! It is also quite instructive to read the comment section.
@Eric
Answer: ID is bad science and false, because IDers are too easily suckered into believing something is Designed.
Just to reiterate because apparently there is a lot of confusion online about this :
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the premise of this thread (that the coronavirus responsible for the current outbreak is a product of human engineering) is actually true.
The linked article was incredibly sloppy and has been rightfully withdrawn. Here is a brief twitter thread explaining why the conclusion of the withdrawn manuscript is likely unfounded:
That’s literally an infinity more then you can. And so the fossil story win by default as you simply cannot even provide a “story” of your own.
Care to prove me wrong? What, according to Intelligent Design, do fossils show?
Absolutely! There is a reason flu, and other viruses, originate in China. The culture conditions are perfect: close association between people and multiple species of farm animals, swine, ducks, chickens, etc, provide ideal conditions perfect for circulating viral strains to jump between species.
If anyone has any interest in how easily microbes move between farm animals and their human caregivers read
Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats by Maryn McKenna
The book outlines the epidemiology that tracked various disease outbreaks through communities, social groups, families, and animals as well as presenting the case studies that documented how quickly antibiotic resistance developed but also how the pathogens moved from host to host.
Not completely analagous to a virus developing the ability to jump species but the basic scenario is the same, i.e., close human to animal contact with lots of exposure to fecal material and bodily fluids in their daily lives. Add the wildlife market, dead and alive, and you increase the scope and opportunity for development and transmission between species. Scary stuff on its own with no need to invoke a ‘Captain Trips’ scenario.
Those sequences are awful short for definitive analysis …
Real IDers need preciously little in order to be able to conclude Design!
But what if it were beyond the bounds of possibility???
So, the conclusion should be that coronavirus evolved, even if it ‘were beyond the bounds of possibility’?
This wouldn’t be anything new in the world of so-called evolutionary science where evolution is assumed even if it is beyond the bounds of possibility…
And where does ID stand?
And:
Who needs more proof that ID is false, and evolution is true science, even if evolution is beyond the bounds of possibility?
Even a 5 year old can see the obvious logic in the rejecting ID as false science and supporting evolutionary theory, which can never be wrong or impossible, even when it is impossible…
Got your answer, Eric? 😂
Look a bit odd, Tom, I agree.
Eric?
Then it would be beyond the bounds of possibility. Do you have any evidence to suggest that?
Does it matter?
Alan Fox,
For this communication we have sandbox or email…
Yes.
OMagain,
If all we had was fossils and no real understanding of cells then we would not be having this discussion. ID is about cellular complexity and functional information.
I wondered if that would happen.
There are reports, however, that drugs used to treat HIV are effective against the new virus.
The same was true for SARS, which is also a coronavirus. HIV drugs are used to treat a variety of non-HIV viruses.
Since ID supporters are so fond of the argument from “what we observe” or “following the evidence wherever it leads”, let’s have some fun with turning it around.
The Pro-ID Argument from Observation
1. All the living things that we observe use codes (such as the transcription and translation systems) to organize their metabolic activity.
2. Every code that we are familiar with is the product of an intelligent being.
3. Therefore, biological codes are the product of an intelligent being.
The Anti-ID Argument from Observation
1. All intelligently designed systems that we observe are allopoietic: they do not put energy into themselves in order to avoid an increase in entropy.
2. All living things are observed to be autopoietic: they expend energy in order to acquire energy that allows them to maintain themselves at far-from-equilibrium with their environment.
3. Therefore, no living thing is designed in the same way that all observed intelligently designed things are.
It’s not a discussion. Regardless of the input you have a limited selection of outputs.
If all we had were fossils, what would Intelligent Design have to say about them?
Is it? And where does that complexity come from?
Was the coronavirus designed?
If it was, well, your designer is a psycho.
If it was not, well, seems evolution can after all increase the functional information in a virus…..
Either way it does not look good for you. You might even have to get off the fence at some point…..
What?!
Have you switched sides?
I don’t think DI is hiring, but maybe you should ask EricMH…😉
How so? Elaborate, pls…
BTW: I’m giving you another chance… Please don’t disappoint by showing you are just another troll, like some of the usual suspects here… 😉
I remember getting a prescription for antiviral for shingles — the same medicine used to treat genital herpes. Going to the pharmacy was embarrassing.
I wonder if these could block transmission of the disease and stop epidemics.
I would like to inform everyone here, that recombination between different viruses is not at all unusual.
It is not at all unusual for a host to have multiple simultaneous viral infections, and for genes and gene-fragments to move horizontally between different viruses. Detecting fragments of HIV in coronavirus is entirely plausible.
The authors of the article EricMH references even state as much:
The origin of these inserts and the mechanism of their insertion into the coronavirus certainly merits further investigation, but on it’s face it is too early to start speculating that the virus was engineered. We’d need to know a lot more about recombination mechanisms and putative insertion hotspots, etc. etc.