Yuna Sakashiro(...) I promise I'll stop posting links to scientific articles as soon as Artie adds science to the list of things not to discuss in Offtopic. (...)

Iwao KishiroThis isn't science, that's pseudoscience made from bullcrap conspiracy theories akin to the people who believe 5G causes cancer or that Bill Gates released COVID-19, with masks storing microchips to track you. Then again people are wondering on why pandemic is still going on!

Oh wait, I forgot! There's no pandemic, it's all conspiracy theory to control us. /sarcasm

Light-HawkI was a little busy at the time Yuna posted the article so I didn't get a good look at it. Also I'm no scientist so a lot of what I did see didn't make much sense to me at all. That said I did notice the article appeared to be peer reviewed and was written by about a dozen scientists/professors from several universities around the world and had a few dozen studies/sources/references to back it. I'll be the first to acknowledge I may have completely misread what little I saw but what else am I missing? Why is it being jumped on as if Yuna posted a random anonymous conspiracy thread from some sketchy deepweb site with nothing backing it? The article has since been removed from the chat here and I don't remember where/what it was all about to find it again. I'm not taking a side in this argument, I'm just trying to figure out what's up.

Light-HawkI was a little busy at the time Yuna posted the article so I didn't get a good look at it. Also I'm no scientist so a lot of what I did see didn't make much sense to me at all. That said I did notice the article appeared to be peer reviewed and was [claimed to be] written by about a dozen [probably fake, impersonated, or disreputable (like a doctor who believes in alien blood cures) 'scientists/professors' from several universities around the world and had a few dozen studies/sources/references to back it make it look legit.

Burstar or somethingA paper suddenly appearing now, years later, saying this sequence is terrorism

Yuna Sakashiro

Iwao KishiroThis isn't science, that's pseudoscience made from bullcrap conspiracy theories akin to the people who believe 5G causes cancer or that Bill Gates released COVID-19, with masks storing microchips to track you. Then again people are wondering on why pandemic is still going on!

Oh wait, I forgot! There's no pandemic, it's all conspiracy theory to control us. /sarcasm

Hmm, whom to believe? A bunch of professors from University of Oregon, Michigan State University, University of South Florida, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who put their names and reputation on the line? Or some anonymous furry nutcase on a gamers forum who thinks science is just a capitalist conspiracy to slander the People's Republic of China? Tough choice...

Yuna Sakashiro The paper says no such thing. This shows that the only conspiracy theory here is the one that you made up in your own head: that a bunch of professors from universities all over the world conspired to accuse Moderna of terrorism. No such thing happened. The paper merely says "Hey, we found this nucleotide sequence in the BLAST database, and we have no idea why it shows up in this virus but not in any other known coronavirus, please review." This is exactly what scientists are supposed to do when they make observations they can't explain: publish the findings and debate them with peers. Hence the OA.

Burstar or somethingAnd, you conveniently sidestep the 2 years to essentially do a google search for a gene sequence.

Just for yucks, I did some BLAST searches myself, and after doing a number of them I concluded that this result was not easy to come by. I had to search the sequence patented by Moderna versus SARS-CoV-2 with the “loosest” parameters that allowed for the least degree of similarity; otherwise there were zero matches, largely because stricter parameters only find longer stretches of sequence similarity. That’s why I now rather suspect that the investigators searched the sequence for SARS-CoV-2 versus every sequence ever patented by Moderna, and the best they could come up with was this short 19 amino acid match, after which, even though it was the reverse complement and not even on the strand that codes for the protein, started searching other Moderna patents for the same 19mer and found a few more hits.
{...}
Whoever initially found this 19 nucleotide sequence did a lot of work to find it. Yet, this is the best they could come up with as slam dunk “evidence” that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered by Moderna, to the point where they have to do serious contortions make such a short stretch seem nefarious?

Yuna SakashiroNone of the authors of the paper was suggesting that the proprietary sequence was inserted by Moderna. Even the Wuhan lab leak theory does not suggest this. In that sense the vitriolic reactions to the paper reveal more than the paper itself. That's some next level trolling right there.

Yuna Sakashiro

Burstar or somethingAnd, you conveniently sidestep the 2 years to essentially do a google search for a gene sequence.

I don't. In fact that's why I find this one so fascinating. The sequence fulfills three criteria at once: too long to be a random point mutation, absent from any other known virus, and proprietary. It's basically impossible to find by chance, you have to know where to look.

David Gorski, MD, PhD, editor of Science-Based Medicine (pro vax, anti lab leak) has peer-reviewed the paper. He writes:

Just for yucks, I did some BLAST searches myself, and after doing a number of them I concluded that this result was not easy to come by. I had to search the sequence patented by Moderna versus SARS-CoV-2 with the “loosest” parameters that allowed for the least degree of similarity; otherwise there were zero matches, largely because stricter parameters only find longer stretches of sequence similarity. That’s why I now rather suspect that the investigators searched the sequence for SARS-CoV-2 versus every sequence ever patented by Moderna, and the best they could come up with was this short 19 amino acid match, after which, even though it was the reverse complement and not even on the strand that codes for the protein, started searching other Moderna patents for the same 19mer and found a few more hits.
{...}
Whoever initially found this 19 nucleotide sequence did a lot of work to find it. Yet, this is the best they could come up with as slam dunk “evidence” that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered by Moderna, to the point where they have to do serious contortions make such a short stretch seem nefarious?

There you have it. A conspiracy against Moderna. Gorski confirms the match, but he has no clue how the authors found it, and that drives him bonkers. That's the irony here: In order to explain these findings away, you have to come up with your own conspiracy theory. None of the authors of the paper was suggesting that the proprietary sequence was inserted by Moderna. Even the Wuhan lab leak theory does not suggest this. In that sense the vitriolic reactions to the paper reveal more than the paper itself. That's some next level trolling right there.

Burstar or somethingYou see that this quote literally proves the point I'm making right?

Yuna Sakashiro

Burstar or somethingYou see that this quote literally proves the point I'm making right?

What it proves is that the paper is factually correct.