- Last year, 27 scientists signed an open letter condemning “conspiracy theories” suggesting that Covid-19 didn’t have a natural origin. Now, three of them since contacted by the Journal say that on further reflection a laboratory accident is plausible enough to merit consideration. Others continue to deem it too unlikely to justify investigation.
“I’m convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to a lab, they started to work with it…and some sloppy individual brought it out,” said Bernard Roizman, a University of Chicago virologist and one of the signers. “They can’t admit they did something so stupid.”
So this is basically admitting what many of us have been saying , which is that people hate Trump, Trump hates China, therefore, China can't be the bad guy. Enemy-of-my-enemy is a really unproductive way of thinking, and what miffs me and lots of the other folks on here is how obvious it seems when all the facts are considered as a whole.Some scientists say another factor [n their change in attitude] has been a toning down of U.S. government rhetoric on the subject in recent months.
Political parties exist so that people can feel their interests are represented without their having to personally investigate every single issue. Demagoguery exists for the same reason, except instead of putting their trust in an organization people put their trust in an individual. "We're against everything Trump says" had plenty of people do an about-face on the Trans Pacific Partnership, for example, and made a whole lot of people give a shit about Net Neutrality when every vaguely-online hipster screaming at the top of their lungs for three years did nothing. I get it. Thinking is exhausting. There's other shit going on in your life. Polarization is hard to let go of. But maybe we're starting. Maybe we can start letting go of the football team and focus on the game.
Spot on, but it's all the more shameful when it's scientists who are engaging in the self-delusion. Thinking is hard, and it's literally what scientists do for a living. There's a parallel backstory here that is less reported where many scientific institutions felt that their Chinese scientists were being unfairly targeted for IP theft for things that would normally be considered regular sharing of scientific information (collateral damage in the trade war). I worked with one of these scientists. One day the FBI raided our lab. It was scary, and it put my lab director on the war path (totally off topic, but probably many of these scientists are guilty of nefarious activity, FWIW). This created a situation where lots of scientists thought that Trump was fomenting racism to make a political statement (and probably he was). Therefore, any suggestion that covid was the "fault" of Chinese scientists seemed like part and parcel of Trump's race baiting (and it probably was). The trouble, obviously, is that just because you're an asshole, and just because you have ulterior motives, doesn't mean you're wrong, per se.
Been there done that got the inclusivity seminar. On the one hand? We gotta get China into the WTO because trade is going to end history for the last man. On the other hand? Any expert will tell you that China's basic intelligence apparatus is "lean on ex-pats." So since there was no smoking gun on Wen Ho Lee, he was completely exonerated, and since there was plenty of evidence that he was super-friendly and helpful to a whole bunch of super-friendly, helpful state actors for decades well then obviously being friendly with Chinese intelligence operatives is A-OK!