Dr. Angela RasmussenVerified account

-Omits large context-dependent chunks of the state department memo -Says Stephen Morse is at Rockefeller (he's a former colleague at Columbia) -Implies that hamster adaptation of MHV is "gain of function" -Implies that reverse genetics systems are sinister and evil

-HEAVILY implies that Bruce Ivins is exemplary of biodefense researchers -Makes absolutely laughable claims that "a whole lot of government money" is causing researchers to do gain-of-function research just because -Invents new terms like "zoonoticist" and "natural-originist"

-Seems to think that furin cleavage sites are the ultimate determinants of pathogenicity -Doesn't get adaptive mutation AT ALL -Thinks that 96% identity means that only one chunk of the genome is different (RaTG13 is different throughout the genome)

-Treats that shitty snake preprint from last February as if it's a serious research paper when in reality it was a deeply flawed codon usage analysis done in silico -Engages in a WHOLE LOT of sinophobic jeering at wet markets, civets, and Shi Zhengli

-Uncritically parrots statements from very biased lab-leak proponents (Ebright) -Heavily criticizes long-disclosed COI from those who actually have done this work (Baric and Daszak) -Amplified conspiracy theories and called Yuri Deigin's Turner Diary-esque manifesto "lucid"

-Described the Baric lab's work as "the Anarchist's Cookbook" for gain-of-function -Calls the current regulatory environment a "climate of gonzo laboratory experimentation" -Says Ralph Baric's voice is "gravelly" when it's actually quite sotto voce

Baker is in no way qualified to write a deep dive about this topic unless it is regarded as the work of fiction this is. After all, this is the searing insight of a man who once published a entire collection of Literary with a capital L fantasies about people fucking trees.

"Yet too often, Baker’s search for the truth dissolves in his own prejudices and rampaging sense of moral superiority. “Baseless” is framed as a work diary he kept for three months in 2019, in which we are also treated to tidbits about his children, his wife, the two small...

"dachshunds they adopted from the Humane Society in Bangor, Maine; the weather; what he’s eating — potatoes, a granola bar, bean soup, yellow lentils and ginger, noodles, “a baked good from the cafeteria” and “a crunchy baked good”; as well as any number of grating maxims."

"His distortions, speculations and omissions outstrip any effort to note them all. Suffice it to say that in his view there is not a calamity anywhere in the world that was not caused by a United States government program."

"he muses that “Rabbit fever, Q fever, bird flu, Lyme tick disease, wheat stem rust, African swine fever and hog cholera all look, to my nonscientist’s eye, like unnatural epidemics that owe their outbreaks to the laboratory” — an American laboratory, that is."

My favorite zinger is this: "Baker concedes that “Americans individually have done good things,” a gesture followed by a banal list that includes “sunglasses,” “topiary,” “no-hitters” and “the midcentury New Yorker.” Yes, and also little baby ducks and old pickup trucks."