Posted on 04/20/2020 6:14:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
here is an interesting article from the Chapel HIll guy. He is one that would be an expert to try to find answers
So it did escape from a lab? Can Wapo make up their minds here?
It “escaped” accidentally on purpose .....
Your question obviously addresses a critical issue - regulation of potentially dangerous research. That said, regulatory rules are not enough to prevent unethical ‘scientists’ from doing unethical ‘research’.
The problem is that there’s not much honor left in the scientific community - at least as regards biomedical research. It’s full of people hyping their findings, fudging data, and crawling all over one another for funding and ‘fame’.
Manipulating a viral genome is no longer ‘science’. Molecular biology research and recombinant DNA/RNA technology has become like cooking, and pretty much anyone with access to standard molecular biology lab equipment and supplies can do it. It’s not science. Science asks questions, and tests hypotheses.
What we now have in ‘science’ are ‘wannabe famous’, ambitious, and unethical people who are doing genetic manipulation in a ‘gee whiz, let’s see what happens, then we can publish it’ manner. Generally all this does is lead to a lot of worthless research that doesn’t advance general knowledge or contribute significantly to scientific progress - but uses up a lot of money that could be spent on better purposes and better research. That’s bad enough, but this kind of ‘research’ can also be destructive.
It actually angers and sickens me.
It’s only a matter of time until a really lethal pathogen escapes one of these labs by design.
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