Intelligent Design vs. The Missing Link (or the Virus Gnomes)

The raging debate over the covid lab leak theory reminds me of the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate, with the lab leak theory playing the role of ID and the natural origins theory playing that of Evolution.

There is a huge difference, however. Here we have a strong candidate for the Intelligent Designer: “Bat Woman” Shi Zhengli, and her team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Madam Shi has both capability and opportunity. She has a long history of engaging in the genetic engineering of viruses, with the specific goal of increasing and evaluating their virulence in humans (“gain of function research”). As her monicker demonstrates, this includes a specialization in modifying viruses found in bats, which even the evolutionists acknowledge is the original source of covid. There is recent evidence that she had (almost certainly uniquely) access to the raw material (bat viruses from a cave 1000+ miles from her lab) that a modern day Dr. Frankenstein could combine with other genetic material to produce covid.

There are reputable scientists who have recently released a paper claiming that covid-19 was created in a lab. I do not have the expertise to evaluate their claims, but I think it is beyond cavil that Shi had the ability to do what they claim.

Against this we have the evolutionists, who at this stage remind me of the South Park Underpants Gnomes:

Bats.????Covid-19!

Or to use an evolutionary metaphor, they have a huge missing link problem. Despite intense efforts, they have yet to identify the intermediate species between bats deep in a cave and humans in Wuhan. They have hypothesized such a link (or links) and asserted that their hypothesis is truth. This is unscientific. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but unless and until the chain of transmission can be demonstrated, the hypothesis remains only that, and the longer we go without identifying the chain the less likely it is that it ever existed.

In stark contrast, the entire possible causal chain in the lab leak hypothesis is known, and extremely plausible, and there is circumstantial evidence that it indeed operated.

Right now, in my opinion the burden of proof is on the Evolutionists. They have far less evidence on their side than the Intelligent Designers.

I of course use the term “Intelligent Design” sarcastically, but not in the way that you might think (to cast aspersions on the lab leak hypothesis, given the low scientific standing of Intelligent Design Theory). No, the sarcasm relates to what Shi (and other scientists around the world) are designing: these are smart people, but how intelligent is it to create deadly pathogens that can escape into the human population–as even defenders of that research acknowledge is a possibility?

And of course, one of those defenders is none other than Dr. Anthony “The Dervish” Fauci. In 2012 he said thus:

In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario – however remote – should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?

Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky

What are these supposed benefits? Well, the Underpants Gnomes again come to mind: ???

Supposedly the idea is that we can get ahead of nature by creating deadly things that nature might produce through evolution and create cures in advance.

OK. I’ll bite. Name one cure produced by this type of research. Just one.

I have never seen a defender or advocate of this research point to a single example.

And indeed, it seems wildly implausible that this is very likely at all. What are the odds that nature would produce something so similar to what is produced in the lab by Dr. Shi or anybody else that a hypothetical vaccine for the Frankenstein creation would work on the evolved virus? Look at flu vaccines. They are frequently useless because the specific strains of virus they target happen NOT to be the one that crops up in a given year. Vaccines are not like hand grenades or horseshoes. Close is not good enough. A miss is as good as a mile.

Covid vaccines are very specifically targeted. The hysteria over covid variants is due in large part to concern that a vax that works on one variant won’t work well on other, very closely related ones.

But we are to believe that a vaccine (which again, has never been developed in reality) to treat a lab-created virus will be efficacious against another one that evolved independently?

So maybe GOF research creates the most deadly strain of pathogen, could–in theory–give us a defense against that specific or very closely related strains. But what good is that if other really deadly (if not quite so deadly) pathogens evolve, against which the unicorn vax is useless? And what are the odds that the most deadly pathogen would evolve naturally?

That is, how can (in Fauci’s words) you really “get ahead of the threat”? This is an especially valid question for evolutionists (whose ruling model is one of random variation plus natural selection): what are the odds that a threat that is created in the lab will help deal with a threat that evolves by a random process? Gain of Function seems to presume some sort of viral teleology. Which is to say, that nature acts by intelligent design that mirrors what is done in the lab. Human Intelligent Designers can “get ahead of” nature’s Intelligent Designer.

Ironic, eh?

So, GOF basically means create something really deadly that is unlikely to evolve naturally and which is also unlikely to permit developments of vaccines against what evolves naturally. This means that the odds of GOF research producing something that will protect against naturally occurring pathogens is vanishingly small.

But the risk of a lab leak is real, and non-trivial–as historical experience demonstrates and even Fauci acknowledges.

So how is this risk-reward trade-off intelligent?

This whole line of research seems to represent exactly the kind of scientific hubris that Mary Shelly wrote about two centuries ago. The “get ahead of the threat” rhetoric seems like propaganda intended to gull people into accepting Dr. Frankensteins pursuing their hubristic ambitions.

I am open to persuasion, which would have to take the following form. A rigorous calculation of the probability that a given GOF research effort will make it possible to accelerate meaningfully the development of a vaccine or therapy against a naturally evolved pathogen vs. a calculation of the probability that the pathogen created by this given effort will escape the lab.

Until I see such a demonstration, I will conclude that GOF should be banned, and its Dr. Frankenstein practitioners relegated to other, more benign tasks.