What do you think is being served here? Is the line that Sanford is supposedly correct that there are natural reservoirs that protect viruses against GE, but SARS2 was intelligently designed by mad commies bent on destroying the West, so was not a true zoonotic spillover?
SARS type coronavirus has been on the radar as a human threat well before the pandemic. One way or another, some form of human coronavirus infection was overdue and had precedent. From a >2013< paper:
Here we report whole-genome sequences of two novel bat coronaviruses from Chinese horseshoe bats (family: Rhinolophidae) in Yunnan, China: RsSHC014 and Rs3367. These viruses are far more closely related to SARS-CoV than any previously identified bat coronaviruses, particularly in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein. Most importantly, we report the first recorded isolation of a live SL-CoV (bat SL-CoV-WIV1) from bat faecal samples in Vero E6 cells, which has typical coronavirus morphology, 99.9% sequence identity to Rs3367 and uses ACE2 from humans, civets and Chinese horseshoe bats for cell entry.
Cell entry studies demonstrated that three newly identified SARSr-CoVs with different S protein sequences are all able to use human ACE2 as the receptor, further exhibiting the close relationship between strains in this cave and SARS-CoV. This work provides new insights into the origin and evolution of SARS-CoV and highlights the necessity of preparedness for future emergence of SARS-like diseases.
We have known for some time that 1) the natural reservoir of SARS type coronavirus is characterized not by static preservation but by pervasive variation, and 2) that this reservoir poses a threat of mutational adaptation to human hosts and epidemic spillover. The pandemic was the realization of this threat, but even if you take the pandemic entirely off the table it makes no difference - SARS type coronavirus demonstrates that Sanford’s rescue device of natural reservoirs preserving against GE is indefensible.
In order for the zoonotic origin of SARS2 to be true, a natural reservoir for SARS2 or its immediate predecessors must exist. So all proponents of the zoonotic origin necessarily predict that a natural reservoir exist.
By “natural reservoir”, he means the original animal host from which the human pandemic spilled over. @Giltil is also a devoted proponent of the belief that COVID-19 was manufactured by Chinese scientists.
You seem to have forgotten that you were talking about natural reservoirs where viruses are preserved from GE. No-one has predicted there is such a natural reservoir for SARS2, because no-one (except you and Sanford etc) considers GE to be valid.
In other words, he has not a clue. Sanford tacitly admits he has no idea of how viruses are preserved from his own genetic entropy.
I do not think he gives a hoot. He isn’t trying to alleviate human suffering. He is only interested in epidemiology as a prop for sermons on the fall of creation.
Then he has no evidence that there is an inexhaustible pool of mutations with effects invisible to selection that entails all, or any organisms are headed towards inevitable extinction due to their accumulation. Literally zero. His entire case is build around an extrapolation from Kimura’s curve, which has nothing to do with “functional specificity communicated via language or code.”
The “code” in “genetic code” is a metaphor, not literal. Code requires an abstraction. None of the steps in biology are abstract.
Utterly false. Its predecessors may already be extinct in bats. It seems odd that you don’t appear to understand the meaning of the French word “reservoir.”
This. The failure to apply his alleged findings to clinical research speaks volumes. What could possibly be a greater demonstration of the truth of these religious beliefs than using them to alleviate human suffering?
This is not true. Sanford offers several hypotheses for why RNA viruses may be less prone to GE in some natural reservoirs. For example less replication and higher fidelity.
That assumes religion must be concerned with alleviating human suffering in the first place. I don’t see why that would be the case. If a religion was concerned with human suffering, it would support the position that the religion is a nice thing. But that does not demonstrate that it is true.
He does not even attempt to supply any evidence. Is it really necessary to explain that without replication there is no transmission, and that fidelity would itself be degraded by GE? Besides, we have known for decades that natural reservoirs are characterized by variation and therefore not fidelity.
As I and others here have pointed out, natural reservoirs are not a prediction of GE. Natural reservoirs are the antithesis of GE.
That such a self contradictory model has been embraced by much of the creationist community is testament to desire for narrative over observation. It gets worse. It is held that genetically perfect viruses were originally created to benevolent purpose, and at the fall the “controls”, whatever they might be, came off. Conforming to the original benign purpose is then the apex of functional information. Yet Sanford uses virulence as a proxy for peak function and intact information, and loss of virulence as an indication of information loss. They put it in the very title of their paper. They cannot define information because they are wildly inconsistent to a degree that confusion may be the intentional object.
Now I’m curious. Why would there be less replication? Why would there be higher fidelity? And would these be sufficient to save the virus from GE? Show your work.
Why less replication in natural reservoirs? Probably because too much viral replication would be harmful to the host. Why higher fidelity ? I don’t know. But the fact that you don’t know the why about something doesn’t mean that the thing doesn’t exist. Some futur research might allow to find it.
That would depend on the particular values, but the general rule is lesser the replication and higher the fidelity, the lesser GE.
