This piece by Dan Rather is a good example of the motivated reasoning that has poisoned the discussion over covid origins, and ironically a very unscientific approach. Whether science is under attack or not should have zero bearing on investigating how the pandemic started.https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1406611921256828930 …
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We know we're about 1/5 for iatrogenic pandemics in the 20th century; we know the base rate of lab accidents is high; we know this all happened in a surveillance society where any tracks leading to an alternate source would be retrospectively visible to the authorities.
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So Stewart is in fact applying scientific principles in his hypothesis—in this case Occam's Razor. Check out the novel virus lab down the street from the novel virus spreading event, he says, and don't let political or social considerations derail your inquiry. That's science.
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If millions of people died because research into preventing a pandemic created the conditions for starting one, that is the most important lesson we could learn from covid. Getting the answer right, one way or the other, is the only way to prevent this all from happening again.
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I'm not asking anyone to believe the evidence we have right now is adequate. But I wish commentators like Rather would stop conditioning their beliefs on the consequences of one answer or the other being right, and stop attacking the question itself as somehow harmful.
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The one thing that science is supposed to be best at—updating beliefs based on new evidence—is something we've consistently failed at all through the pandemic. The mantra of "believe the science" revealed itself as just an argument from authority dressed up in a lab coat.
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Stewart's entire body of "compelling circumstantial evidence" is the names are familiar. Full stop. Natures occum's razor is far more plausible, especially when compared to SARS' origin. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/15/lab-leak-theory-doesnt-hold-up-covid-china/ …pic.twitter.com/wqDiktbaQA
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I mean, Wuhan is an NYC-sized city that, because of the Yangtze, is in the trade and animal migratory paths from Hunan, and specializes in SARS because the 2003 outbreak was regionally next door. You can read the circumstantial evidence multiple ways.
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It took almost fifteen years to nail down the bat reservoir for SARS, so fruitless conjecture in the absence of actual information isn’t helpful. What /would/ be helpful is simply recognizing that, lab origin or not, we need better int’l governance of BSL-4 labs and research.
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