# GE of the coronavirus doesn't make sense

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382>\
**Category:** Conversation\
**Tags:** Science, Society\
**Created:** [March 14, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382 "2021-03-14T15:10:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/1 "2021-03-14T15:10:14Z")

</div>

I was thinking about this (and other) threads we had not too long ago:

> [@The Mystery Of India's Plummeting COVID-19 Cases](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-mystery-of-indias-plummeting-covid-19-cases/13156):
>
> Last September, India was confirming [nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day](https://twitter.com/COVIDNewsByMIB/status/1306459331144151040?s=09). It was on track to overtake the United States to become the country with the highest reported COVID-19 caseload in the world. Hospitals were full. The Indian economy nosedived into an [unprecedented](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-27/india-enters-recession-with-back-to-back-contraction-in-gdp)recession. But four months later, India’s coronavirus numbers have plummeted. Late last month, on Jan. 26, the country’s Health Ministry confirmed a record low of [about 9,100 new daily cases](https://twitter.com/COVIDNewsByMIB/status/1353954055995887616) — in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. It was India’s lowest daily tally in eight months. On Monday, India [confirmed](https://twitter.com/COVIDNewsByMIB/status/1356143216232292353) about 11,000 cases. “It’s not that India is testing less or things are going underreported,” says [Jishnu Das](https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/0031Q000021vmDOQAY/jishnu-das), a health economist at Georgetown University. “It’s been rising, rising — and now suddenly, it’s vanished! I mean, hospital ICU utilization has gone down. Every indicator says the numbers are down.”

And I got the impression that some of the Genetic Entropy proponents around here might be suspecting that Genetic Entropy constitutes a good explanation for India’s purported “plummeting COVID-19 cases”, or declines in the rates of deaths and hospitalizations reported in different countries all over the world.

Before going on, let’s remind ourselves that GE is the idea that there is relatively constant, and vast(the overwhelming majority) class of mutations with deleterious fitness effects _so small they are effectively invisible to natural selection_, and that these will pretty much always predominate on net effect such that, through mutation accumulation the mean fitness of all carriers in the population will inevitably slowly decline, until mean reproductive rate drops below 1.0, in which case the population size will decline and the species eventually goes extinct.

Okay. Now let’s look at the Corona virus. The most genetically divergent strains are something on the order of about 50 mutations different from each other, and in the area of 15-30 mutations different from the first identified variants making the rounds back in december 2019 or thereabouts. A few tens of mutations in total are separating the different strains.

That means, if you think Genetic entropy is causing the declining Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, that a Coronavirus carrying approximately 30-50 mutations of _effectively invisibly small fitness effects_, is decreasing it’s fitness from whatever it’s ancestral value was back in end 2019, to values below 1.0.

Now obviously that does not make sense. How can ~50 mutations of **invisibly small fitness effects** (_s_ ≈ -0.00001 or less?) add up to a fitness decline so significant that the virus is supposedly going extinct?

It seems to me the most obvious explanation is that more widespread implementation of precautionary measures is what is taking effect. There’s just no sense saying the virus is somehow succumbing to a fitness decline due to mutation accumulation, when (first of all), the variants now known to dominate in most places are radically more infectious than when the pandemic began, and when we’re only dealing with such a small number of total mutations. It simply doesn’t add up to think of this as the result of GE.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thoughtful](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/thoughtful/32/9230_2.png) [@thoughtful](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/thoughtful)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/2 "2021-03-14T17:54:18Z")

</div>

> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> And I got the impression that some of the Genetic Entropy proponents around here might be suspecting that Genetic Entropy constitutes a good explanation for India’s purported “plummeting COVID-19 cases”, or declines in the rates of deaths and hospitalizations reported in different countries all over the world.

I don’t remember that. For my part, I suggested they may have reached an immunity level where it’s circulating slowly until they reach herd immunity. That may be the case in Florida as well, along with the kind of climate right now the virus doesn’t do well in - we may see a slight summer peak around the country again when everyone is inside with air conditioning.

I don’t think we’ll see the effects of GE for several years. I believe Sanford and Carter were saying the effects weren’t significant for several years, in fact there was a higher second peak with the Spanish Flu, IIRC? Also, coronaviruses mutate more slowly than the flu?

I didn’t feel like commenting on it when I made the thread linked below, but I was sort of curious if anyone would pick up on it… When I read more molnupiravir after seeing the headline, it seemed like the kind of antiviral that Sanford and Carter were advocating would be helpful especially in a pandemic. If it continues to do well in trials, that might be better evidence of GE than anything we’ll see in the immediate future. But that’s only if I understood its mechanism of action correctly. ☺ If not, then I’m sure someone will correct me.

> [@Molnupiravir Shows Promise as COVID-19 Therapeutic in Phase 2a Trial](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/molnupiravir-shows-promise-as-covid-19-therapeutic-in-phase-2a-trial/13334):
>
> Today’s presentation described findings from the secondary endpoint of reduction in time (days) to negativity of infectious virus isolation in nasopharyngeal swabs from participants with symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, as determined by isolation in Vero cell line culture. At day 5, there was a reduction (nominal p=0.001, not controlled for multiplicity) in positive viral culture in subjects who received molnupiravir (all doses) compared to placebo: 0% (0/47) for molnupiravir and 24% (6/25) for placebo. Of 202 treated participants, no safety signals have been identified and of the 4 serious adverse events reported, none were considered to be study drug related. In addition to the ongoing clinical studies, Merck has conducted a comprehensive nonclinical program to characterize the safety profile of molnupiravir. This program included assays such as Big Blue and PIG-a designed to provide a robust measure of a drug or chemical’s ability to induce mutations in vivo . Animals were ad…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Giltil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/3 "2021-03-14T18:08:19Z")

</div>

> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> Okay. Now let’s look at the Corona virus. The most genetically divergent strains are something on the order of about 50 mutations different from each other, and in the area of 15-30 mutations different from the first identified variants making the rounds back in december 2019 or thereabouts. A few tens of mutations in total are separating the different strains

According to the analysis of S&C, the accumulation of point mutations within the H1N1 virus occurred at 14,4 new mutations / year, which is close to what we saw this year for the coronavirus.

> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> That means, if you think Genetic entropy is causing the declining Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, that a Coronavirus carrying approximately 30-50 mutations of _effectively invisibly small fitness effects_ , is decreasing it’s fitness from whatever it’s ancestral value was back in end 2019, to values below 1.0.
> 
> Now obviously that does not make sense. How can ~50 mutations of **invisibly small fitness effects** ( _s_ ≈ -0.00001 or less?) add up to a fitness decline so significant that the virus is supposedly going extinct?

The number of accumulated mutations in one year is probably to small to have a clear visible effect on fitness. But if the coronavirus go on to accumulate ~ 20 mutations / year, I would bet that in 10 years, after having accumulated 200 mutations, a reduction in fitness will be seen.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/4 "2021-03-14T19:03:19Z")

</div>

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> I don’t remember that. For my part, I suggested they may have reached an immunity level where it’s circulating slowly until they reach herd immunity. That may be the case in Florida as well, along with the kind of climate right now the virus doesn’t do well in - we may see a slight summer peak around the country again when everyone is inside with air conditioning.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that you weren’t thinking along those lines. At least my post here above does not apply to you then.

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> I don’t think we’ll see the effects of GE for several years.

Trying to put on a hat here and see this from the perspective of someone who believes in GE, I believe that makes much more sense than to say (given what I’ve stated above) that the virus is currently succumbing at any measurable level to GE.

This does raise a question about when exactly a GE proponent would expect it to take measurable effect, and in turn this has implications for whether GE is actually a practically testable scientific hypothesis.

> I didn’t feel like commenting on it when I made the thread linked below, but I was sort of curious if anyone would pick up on it… When I read more molnupiravir after seeing the headline, it seemed like the kind of antiviral that Sanford and Carter were advocating would be helpful especially in a pandemic. If it continues to do well in trials, that might be better evidence of GE than anything we’ll see in the immediate future. But that’s only if I understood its mechanism of action correctly. 😌 If not, then I’m sure someone will correct me.

Again here I think we need some way to distinguish the putative predictions of GE from those of canonical evolutionary theory. I think there are many population geneticists who would agree that there is definitely such a thing as a mutation rate that is too high, and that it is possible such a rate of mutation can be instigated with drugs. It is not enough to merely say that there is _some_ circumstance under which mutation accumulation will cause fitness decline because mutation rates can be made artificially high with drugs.

GE is the claim that natural evolution is impossible because fitness decline until extinction is the inevitable fate of all natural populations under their normal ranges of rates of mutation, as natural selection is powerless to prevent the accumulation of mutations of invisibly small deleterious effects.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/5 "2021-03-14T19:31:55Z")

</div>

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> When I read more molnupiravir after seeing the headline, it seemed like the kind of antiviral that Sanford and Carter were advocating would be helpful especially in a pandemic.

Sanford and Carter conflated mutagenic drugs as applied to individual case management, to somehow being a tool to bring about accelerate the attenuation of virulence at the population level. The course of viruses replicating in ones body, and what circulates in a population, are dramatically different scenarios.

Such drugs have long been investigated, well before the pretentious posturing of Sanford and Carter, who have contributed no insight or anything of value to lessen misery or save lives. Of the over [ten thousand preprints available](https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181) concerning COVID now available, tell me how many pay any credence to Genetic Entropy?

We can identify the exact gain of function mutations in coronavirus which appear to be correlated with increased morbidity, contagion, and escape. Why is it we never get from the likes of Sanford and Carter any identification or list of specific deleterious mutations, for instance stipulating what substitution at what position is deleterious because it results in less host affinity or other function?

Does Sanford really think that epidemiology is some sort of passing fancy that you can just waltz into and tell thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to investigating viral disease that they have missed the big picture? He is a plant biologist who has published less than a handful of papers relevant to epidemiology, which he himself states was really about Genetic Entropy, and having next to no influence or citation in the field. If Sanford had any competence or serious interest in making a contribution, he would not be off writing books on paleoanthropology and promoting drivel about the math of lifespan decay on the creationist speaking circuit.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:10am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/6 "2021-03-15T01:10:50Z")

</div>

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> For my part, I suggested they may have reached an immunity level where it’s circulating slowly until they reach herd immunity.

If GE is correct, there’s no need for herd immunity.

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> I don’t think we’ll see the effects of GE for several years.

I am positive that we will never see any effects of GE, because there is no evidence that it exists.

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> I believe Sanford and Carter were saying the effects weren’t significant for several years, in fact there was a higher second peak with the Spanish Flu, IIRC?

I believe that S&C were fudging the definitions of strains and subtypes throughout.

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> Also, coronaviruses mutate more slowly than the flu?

So do we, but they claim that we are undergoing GE, so that’s irrelevant.

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> When I read more molnupiravir after seeing the headline, it seemed like the kind of antiviral that Sanford and Carter were advocating would be helpful especially in a pandemic.

Yet, they, being part of an organization with a $2M/year budget, aren’t lifting a finger to do any science. Why is that?

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> If it continues to do well in trials, that might be better evidence of GE than anything we’ll see in the immediate future.

I don’t see how it could ever be evidence of GE.

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> According to the analysis of S&C, the accumulation of point mutations within the H1N1 virus occurred at 14,4 new mutations / year, which is close to what we saw this year for the coronavirus.

H1N1 is a subtype. There is no entity called “the H1N1 virus.” That is the main technique they are using to fool you (and maybe themselves).

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> The number of accumulated mutations in one year is probably to small to have a clear visible effect on fitness.

Several have already had a clearly visible effect. They increase fitness, which is why they are displacing virus lineages lacking them. This is all neutral and Darwinian evolution happening right before our eyes.

> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> This does raise a question about when exactly a GE proponent would expect it to take measurable effect, and in turn this has implications for whether GE is actually a practically testable scientific hypothesis.

Indeed. It clearly isn’t a scientific hypothesis.

> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> It is not enough to merely say that there is _some_ circumstance under which mutation accumulation will cause fitness decline because mutation rates can be made artificially high with drugs.

It certainly has nothing to do with the hypothesis of GE.

> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> Of the over [ten thousand preprints available](https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181) concerning COVID now available, tell me how many pay any credence to Genetic Entropy?

And why aren’t there any authored by S&C? What could be a more dramatic demonstration?

> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> If Sanford had any competence or serious interest in making a contribution, he would not be off writing books on paleoanthropology and promoting drivel about the math of lifespan decay on the creationist speaking circuit.

I would edit that to:

> If Sanford had _ **any real belief in his competence** _ or serious interest in making a contribution, he would not be off writing books on paleoanthropology and promoting drivel about the math of lifespan decay on the creationist speaking circuit.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/7 "2021-03-15T13:44:45Z")

</div>

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> When I read more molnupiravir after seeing the headline, it seemed like the kind of antiviral that Sanford and Carter were advocating would be helpful especially in a pandemic. If it continues to do well in trials, that might be better evidence of GE than anything we’ll see in the immediate future. But that’s only if I understood its mechanism of action correctly.

It is good that you included that qualifying statement, as there is very big and unjustified assumption at play.

That an antiviral drug’s efficacy is due to inducing mutation does not validate GE. The thesis of GE is that the relentless accumulation of _slightly deleterious mutations_ over multiple generations results in ultimate collapse. The object of mutagenic drugs is to riddle the replicating viruses with as much lethal damage as quickly as is possible without killing the patient. The intention is to reduce the viral load by _highly selectable mutation_. If the mutations were not selectable, by the time GE caught up the patient would likely be long gone.

The objection to GE is not based on the idea that mutational collapse cannot happen. It can due to selectable mutation, and as such inbreeding is a concern in conservation in small populations. But as @Rumraket has explained repeated, there is no justification for Sanford’s distribution of fitness effects of mutations. Sanford downplays selection on the deleterious end, does not consider that a significant proportion of mutation is likely completely neutral, and dismisses positive mutation.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsterncardinale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dsterncardinale/32/9144_2.png) [@dsterncardinale](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dsterncardinale)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/8 "2021-03-15T13:45:15Z")

</div>

The only thing I have to say about the idea of genetic entropy and viruses, after all the ink spilled and hours spent on the topic, is this: “haha, no.”

The key thing from GE is that deviation from some “optimal” genome must on net be negative. Which means results like [this](https://www.genetics.org/content/184/1/221) should be impossible.

And don’t get me started on that H1N1 paper. El Oh El.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsterncardinale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dsterncardinale/32/9144_2.png) [@dsterncardinale](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dsterncardinale)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/9 "2021-03-15T13:46:26Z")

</div>

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> The number of accumulated mutations in one year is probably to small to have a clear visible effect on fitness. But if the coronavirus go on to accumulate ~ 20 mutations / year, I would bet that in 10 years, after having accumulated 200 mutations, a reduction in fitness will be seen.

The problem is that this logic applies not just to SARS-CoV-2 in humans, but the ancestral virus in bats. It didn’t _poof_ into existence in the fall of 2019. That same viral linage had been replicating and mutating for millennia before then.

And then there are human viruses that have been around for longer. HIV. Polio. No GE there. Weird.

And organisms with larger genomes, large population sizes, and short generation times, be they bacteria or mice.

The hard part with GE isn’t picking out one case where it _should_ apply in the future; it’s explaining away all the cases were it _doesn’t_ in the present.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/10 "2021-03-15T15:18:30Z")

</div>

> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> The objection to GE is not based on the idea that mutational collapse cannot happen. It can due to selectable mutation, and as such inbreeding is a concern in conservation in small populations.

Would you and @thoughtful agree that stated even more simply, error catastrophe is a real, documented phenomenon, but GE is the hypothesis that error catastrophe is inevitable for any population?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/11 "2021-03-15T16:34:31Z")

</div>

Those look like fair representations to me.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsterncardinale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dsterncardinale/32/9144_2.png) [@dsterncardinale](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dsterncardinale)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/12 "2021-03-15T16:34:39Z")

</div>

> [@Mercer](#):
>
> error catastrophe is a real, documented phenomenon

I wasn’t the subject of the question, but fwiw, I would dispute this. Mathematically, it _should_ exist. It’s easy to model it. But in practice…I’m not convinced it’s ever actually been demonstrated.

And before anyone runs off to link Crotty et al. 2001, lemme tell you about all the _other_ stuff ribavirin does that weren’t controlled for. I wrote up a [long-ish thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/bu4h6t/no_error_catastrophe_has_never_been_demonstrated/) on this question not too long ago. I agree with [Summers and Litwin (2006)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317512/) when they say

> While a detailed critique of the literature in this field is beyond the scope of this commentary, we find that, in general, experimental support for error catastrophe is marred by the failure to propose or test alternative explanations for the results and by inadequate precision in the data.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/13 "2021-03-15T18:33:20Z")

</div>

> [@dsterncardinale](#):
>
> I wasn’t the subject of the question, but fwiw, I would dispute this. Mathematically, it _should_ exist. It’s easy to model it. But in practice…I’m not convinced it’s ever actually been demonstrated.

Fair enough!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![T\_aquaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/t_aquaticus/32/1249_2.png) [@T\_aquaticus](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/T_aquaticus)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/14 "2021-03-15T19:07:48Z")

</div>

> [@dsterncardinale](#):
>
> I wasn’t the subject of the question, but fwiw, I would dispute this. Mathematically, it _should_ exist. It’s easy to model it.

Graur used that model to estimate the functional fraction of the human genome:

> [@](#):
>
> For the human population to maintain a constant size from generation to generation, an increase in fertility must compensate for the reduction in the mean fitness of the population caused, among others, by deleterious mutations. The required increase in fertility due to this mutational load depends on the number of sites in the genome that are functional, the mutation rate, and the fraction of deleterious mutations among all mutations in functional regions. These dependencies and the fact that there exists a maximum tolerable replacement level fertility can be used to put an upper limit on the fraction of the human genome that can be functional. Mutational load considerations lead to the conclusion that the functional fraction within the human genome cannot exceed 15%.  
> [Upper Limit on the Functional Fraction of the Human Genome | Genome Biology and Evolution | Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/9/7/1880/3952726)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsterncardinale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dsterncardinale/32/9144_2.png) [@dsterncardinale](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dsterncardinale)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/15 "2021-03-15T20:11:09Z")

</div>

> [@T\_aquaticus](#):
>
> Graur used that model to estimate the functional fraction of the human genome:

He’s since issued a correction to that paper based on [this work](https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/12/4/273/5762616), on which he was a reviewer.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thoughtful](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/thoughtful/32/9230_2.png) [@thoughtful](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/thoughtful)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/16 "2021-03-16T00:15:53Z")

</div>

> [@dsterncardinale](#):
>
> And before anyone runs off to link Crotty et al. 2001, lemme tell you about all the _other_ stuff ribavirin does that weren’t controlled for. I wrote up a [long-ish thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/bu4h6t/no_error_catastrophe_has_never_been_demonstrated/) on this question not too long ago. I agree with [Summers and Litwin (2006)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317512/) when they say
> 
> > While a detailed critique of the literature in this field is beyond the scope of this commentary, we find that, in general, experimental support for error catastrophe is marred by the failure to propose or test alternative explanations for the results and by inadequate precision in the data.

Ok, have you read about molnupiravir and do you think this also true for it?

> [@Mercer](#):
>
> Would you and @thoughtful agree that stated even more simply, error catastrophe is a real, documented phenomenon, but GE is the hypothesis that error catastrophe is inevitable for any population?

I would agree I think, but so far I’ve only seen the first clause agreed to by a few scientists - those that say mutations should be embraced by using these sorts of anti-virals. At one time I quoted an article that said something similar to error catastrophe can _ **almost** _ happen.

> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> The intention is to reduce the viral load by _highly selectable mutation_ . If the mutations were not selectable, by the time GE caught up the patient would likely be long gone.

I didn’t notice that mechanism in anything I read about this drug. Feel free to show it is the case.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Giltil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 7:20pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/17 "2021-03-16T19:20:34Z")

</div>

> [@dsterncardinale](#):
>
> The hard part with GE isn’t picking out one case where it _should_ apply in the future; it’s explaining away all the cases were it _doesn’t_ in the present

Explanations exist for how RNA viruses may have resisted GE.

> [@The new Ebola outbreak weakens an argument often put forward against genetic entropy of RNA viruses](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-new-ebola-outbreak-weakens-an-argument-often-put-forward-against-genetic-entropy-of-rna-viruses/13403):
>
> Bases on theoretical analyses and experimental data, Sanford claims that RNA viruses such as Influenza or Ebola tend to degenerate through genetic entropy during outbeaks. Critics of this thesis often argue that such a thing is impossible because RNA viruses have existed in their natural reservoir for too long. However, this objection only works if the genetic entropy of RNA viruses occurs at the same rate in all hosts and in the various environments in which the viruses exist. But as we have seen in a previous thread ([Influenza may be in evolutionary stasis in its natural reservoir after all](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/influenza-may-be-in-evolutionary-stasis-in-its-natural-reservoir-after-all/13010)), there are evidences that influenza viruses may be subjected to less genetic entropy in their natural biotic or abiotic reservoirs than during outbeaks in humans. Now, new very surprising data from the recent Ebola outbreak in Guinea indicate that the virus may lay dormant in survivors of previous outbreaks, offering a new mechanism by which RNA viruses can resist GE. Guinea\_2021\_EBOV\_Virologic…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 7:20pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/18 "2021-03-16T19:20:37Z")

</div>

> [@thoughtful](#):
>
> > [@Mercer](#):
> >
> > Would you and @thoughtful agree that stated even more simply, error catastrophe is a real, documented phenomenon, but GE is the hypothesis that error catastrophe is inevitable for any population?
> 
> I would agree I think, but so far I’ve only seen the first clause agreed to by a few scientists - those that say mutations should be embraced by using these sorts of anti-virals.

My question was general, not specific.

Sopecifically, I fail to see why antivirals that target the viral RNA polymerase are in any way relevant to GE. We already know that increasing chain termination or increasing substitution mutations attenuates viral pathology, because _ **RNA viruses, including both influenza and coronaviruses, do this naturally.** _

It’s a feature, not a bug; understanding this is sufficient to recognize the inherent absurdity of GE. It’s telling that those promoting GE ignore this.

The relevant entities are called defective interfering (DI) particles. This is so old that there is a Wikipedia page explaining them:

> **[Defective interfering particle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defective_interfering_particle)**
>
> Defective interfering particles (DIPs), also known as defective interfering viruses, are spontaneously generated virus mutants in which a critical portion of the particle's genome has been lost due to defective replication or non-homologous recombination. The mechanism of their formation is presumed to be as a result of template-switching during replication of the viral genome, although non-replicative mechanisms involving direct ligation of genomic RNA fragments have also been proposed. DIPs wer...

and far older because _ **I did a first-year lab rotation in 1979** _ doing RNA fingerprinting (this was before routine sequencing) of DI particles generated by infectious bronchitis virus of chickens, the first coronavirus ever isolated.

As for “embracing” mutations, DI particles have long been considered and tested as clinical interventions with little success AFAIK.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsterncardinale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dsterncardinale/32/9144_2.png) [@dsterncardinale](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dsterncardinale)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 7:27pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/19 "2021-03-16T19:27:52Z")

</div>

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> Explanations exist for how RNA viruses may have resisted GE.

1. Influenza’s mutation rate doesn’t differ between hosts.

2. In order for that explanation to work, they’d have to be dormant _except_ for human outbreaks.

I mean, we can do the math on this. Sanford’s central claim is that deviation from some optimal state is, on net, negative. We have the mutation and substitution rates, and the genome sizes, along with reasonable approximations of the population sizes. So its pretty simple to calculate how long it would take for the population to sample every possible mutation, at which point no amount of selection, recombination, or (for influenza) reassortment can save it.

This has been done experimentally as well (eg Springman et al., 2010 “Evolution at a High Imposed Mutation Rate”), and across the board what we see contradicts Sanford’s claims.

Also, bacteria, mice, etc…they hanging out dormant as well? What’ the excuse there?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thoughtful](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/thoughtful/32/9230_2.png) [@thoughtful](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/thoughtful)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382/20 "2021-03-17T18:04:19Z")

</div>

> [@dsterncardinale](#):
>
> Also, bacteria, mice, etc…they hanging out dormant as well? What’ the excuse there?

It’s almost as if this topic has never been discussed, and no one has ever given these issues a thought…

> [@Mercer](#):
>
> opecifically, I fail to see why antivirals that target the viral RNA polymerase are in any way relevant to GE. We already know that increasing chain termination or increasing substitution mutations attenuates viral pathology, because _ **RNA viruses, including both influenza and coronaviruses, do this naturally.** _
> 
> It’s a feature, not a bug; understanding this is sufficient to recognize the inherent absurdity of GE. It’s telling that those promoting GE ignore this.

Ditto on this.

Sort of laughing, because I’m sure that you guys (meaning those who are not creationists) don’t like repeating the same explanations… obviously neither do I… But what’s funniest to me is we’re literally the same forum users who have had these conversations before and probably within the last 6 months. So it’s laugh or cry for me today.

Sure haven’t learned my lesson on not getting involved in GE conversations. 😅 But if anyone wants to answer the other parts of my post regarding topics not discussed before I would be happy.

[Next page](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/ge-of-the-coronavirus-doesnt-make-sense/13382.md?page=2)