Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?
There are at least a couple of suspicious points in this study:<p>First and foremost the central claim is that 5 potential restriction binding sites versus 2 means that SARS-CoV2 is non natural.  That does not necessarily follow.  Just as SARS-CoV2 is unusually infectious and damaging to humans it could just happen to have an additional 3 restriction binding sites.  So there is nothing inconsistent with natural selection of viral characteristics, only a comparison between wild and lab viruses.<p>Second, the evidence for the wet market origin is trivialized.  That argument points out that genetic drift is well characterized and the presence of two closely related SARS-CoV2 variants cultured from the wet market is extremely strong evidence that is where the virus initially appeared.  Both arguments make use of detailed genetic evidence, but the wet market argument based on genetic drift is quite robust while this alternative theory merely presents similarities while not ruling out natural selection.<p>Thirdly, this paper emphasizes the strong impact of the COVID pandemic and asserts that understanding the origins of the virus would necessarily aid in preventing future pandemics.  This does not clearly follow.  Especially if the virus had natural selection origins there is no clear and obvious way of systematically reducing risk.  Simply living or traveling where host populations like bats live could be enough to generate exposures and it is not simple to clear people off of rural habitations.<p>These second and third criticisms are not direct against the evidence and logic presented, but show a dangerous level of sloppiness in the research that makes this paper appear more like slanted analysis from someone with an agenda than a critical thinking scientist genuinely interested in the truth and therefore needing to consider alternatives and potential falsification of the hypothesis.