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New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:38 pm
by jimbob
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7358766/
The origins and global spread of two recent, yet quite different, pandemic diseases is discussed and reviewed in depth: Candida auris, a eukaryotic fungal disease, and COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), a positive strand RNA viral respiratory disease. Both these diseases display highly distinctive patterns of sudden emergence and global spread, which are not easy to understand by conventional epidemiological analysis based on simple infection-driven human- to-human spread of an infectious disease (assumed to jump suddenly and thus genetically, from an animal reservoir). Both these enigmatic diseases make sense however under a Panspermia in-fall model and the evidence consistent with such a model is critically reviewed.
However the great exemplar of the emergence of a new pandemic disease of considerable virulence and pathogenicity was the Spanish Flu Pandemic 1918–1919. That pandemic has been analyzed in great detail by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (1979), and the astute and engaged reader of all that evidence is left with only one conclusion—the Spanish Flu disease came from Space on a massive scale, and killed tens of millions before the advent of air travel.
~

The italics are the authors' own

I'm not entirely sure I completely agree with that italicised phrase

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:48 pm
by bob sterman
WTAF?????

Why on earth (excuse the pun) would it be so similar in structure to SARS-CoV-1 if it fell on us from space?

How did this get into Advances in Genetics???

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:58 pm
by jimbob
Oh it gets better - follow up and down from this particular tweet:

https://twitter.com/BrunaLab/status/130 ... 94816?s=20

A screenshot of this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7340401/
This current volume is, in many ways, a 2020 update to the important 1999–2000 compendium by Sir Fed Hoyle and Professor N. Chandra Wickramasinghe's “Astronomical Origins of life: Steps towards Panspermia.” The emerging new paradigm of biology that connects life on Earth with the wider cosmos is covered in considerable depth showing that terrestrial biological evolution is best understood as a cosmically derived habitat and an interconnected genetic system. The various chapters here discuss all aspects of this interconnectedness, particularly relevant now in this time of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) as the human race reacts to the many microbes and viral pathogens that arrive regularly from space.
There's a beautiful conversation about "Sir Fed Hoyle" and how the comet carrying the "R" hasn't yet crashed to Earth.

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 5:51 pm
by basementer
I was in the audience at Hoyle's 1979 lecture "Comets: a matter of life and death". He was arguing, with supporting stats, that the spread of early and contemporary pandemic diseases was too rapid and too widely disseminated to be explained by air travel and person to person spread.

I see that that, and the whole series of Milne lectures, has been published (under the title "The Universe Unfolding") so in principle one could examine his argument and his figures in detail rather than just asserting that it's a silly idea.

Hoyle was not in a position to consider the phylogenetic data of a viral pandemic, because DNA sequencing had not been invented. People who are retreading his argument now have no excuse for ignoring it.

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:34 pm
by bob sterman
Given that SARS-CoV-2 has been traced to cave dwelling bat populations - presumably somewhat protected from cometary dust by virtue of being underground a lot of the time. This can only mean the cosmological origin of SARS-CoV-2 is really...

Alien Space Bats!!!

Image

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:07 pm
by Bird on a Fire
bob sterman wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:34 pm
Given that SARS-CoV-2 has been traced to cave dwelling bat populations - presumably somewhat protected from cometary dust by virtue of being underground a lot of the time. This can only mean the cosmological origin of SARS-CoV-2 is really...

Alien Space Bats!!!

https://i0.wp.com/darkworldsquarterly.g ... 1024%2C702
Nah, bats come out at night, which is when the stars and comets and stuff come out. If anything they're more vulnerable to space than the rest of us.

Interesting that ignoring genetics is considered an 'Advance in Genetics' these days, though.

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:18 pm
by Gfamily
bob sterman wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:34 pm
Given that SARS-CoV-2 has been traced to cave dwelling bat populations - presumably somewhat protected from cometary dust by virtue of being underground a lot of the time. This can only mean the cosmological origin of SARS-CoV-2 is really...

Alien Space Bats!!!

Image
There's a fleeting resemblance to Cummings, it has to be said.

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:21 pm
by jimbob
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:07 pm
bob sterman wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:34 pm
Given that SARS-CoV-2 has been traced to cave dwelling bat populations - presumably somewhat protected from cometary dust by virtue of being underground a lot of the time. This can only mean the cosmological origin of SARS-CoV-2 is really...

Alien Space Bats!!!

https://i0.wp.com/darkworldsquarterly.g ... 1024%2C702
Nah, bats come out at night, which is when the stars and comets and stuff come out. If anything they're more vulnerable to space than the rest of us.

Interesting that ignoring genetics is considered an 'Advance in Genetics' these days, though.
Hey, one of the other papers linked had the keyword "Lamarkian evolution"

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 10:05 pm
by Bird on a Fire
jimbob wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:21 pm
Hey, one of the other papers linked had the keyword "Lamarkian evolution"
Lamarckian evolution is making a bit of a comeback, as it does seem to be (in particular, limited ways) possible, for instance via various epigenetic mechanisms, and control over mutation rates. Lamarck was hampered by having no idea of how inheritance actually worked - as was Darwin, whose proposed mechanism (the blending inheritance of 'gemules') is now laughably wrong, as well as making inheritance by natural selection incredibly difficult (which, to be fair, he recognised). If only he'd opened that manuscript from Mendel.

So there are legitimate reasons for referring to it in a non-cranky way.

As an aside, I think we should stop naming concepts after people who've been dead for centuries. Our understanding of how natural selection works is now a long way from what Darwin wrote, so calling it "Darwinian" is a bit anachronistic, and the same applies to Lamarckian evolution. It should just be called "inheritance of acquired characteristics", which hopefully stops people getting a mental image of a giraffe stretching its neck (which wasn't even one of Lamarck's examples!).

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:25 am
by Bird on a Fire
I think this theory needs further discussion. To this end, the mods are working towards creating a new subforum, Panspermia Arena.

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:58 pm
by Martin Y
Won't people get it mixed up with the gladiator p.rn subforum?

Re: New theory for origin of SARS-COV-2

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 10:26 pm
by Bird on a Fire
We certainly hope so.