Recently, I had a very unsettling experience: I found myself agreeing with some of the worst people on planet earth. Donald Trump. Tucker Carlson. Scott Adams. The editors of the Daily Caller and (shudder) the Gateway Pundit.
While most of what these people say and do is just plain terrible, they seem to have gotten one very big and important issue right: they’ve challenged the until-recently-ubiquitous belief that the COVID-19 virus is of “natural” origin, which is to say that, like so many terrible diseases of the past, COVID (allegedly) originated with animals and migrated over to humans. Indeed, for a brief time, this little animal, called a Pangolin, was thought to be the Typhoid Mary of COVID.
But now it seems more plausible that the real villain of the piece wears a lab coat and works in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a repository of extremely dangerous viruses very conveniently located exactly where the pandemic began, in Wuhan, China — after some sort of lab accident brought one of the viruses the lab had been studying out of the lab and into the human bloodstream. Even worse, the virus that was inadvertently released to the world could have been a sort of supercharged superspreader, genetically modified to be more dangerous than the original virus found in bats. They do that sort of thing at the lab, despite the obvious risks.
Naturally, the WIV has denied that their lab played any part in spreading the virus to the human population. But so far the “natural” animal-to-human explanation of COVID’s origins isn’t holding up all that well. Scientists have tested some 80,000 animals of taken from Wuhan’s wet markets only to find no trace of the virus in any of them.
Right now there’s precious little real evidence to back either theory here, the “natural” animal-to-human explanation or the “lab leak.”
Both are plausible enough theories, but until very recently the mainstream media seemed to be interested only in the “natural” explanation, dismissing the “lab leak” theories as “conspiracy theories” or just plain bunk.
Why is that? Well, to an embarrassing degree it seems to have been a least in part a result of the distaste they felt for the most vocal supporters of the “lab leak” hypothesis — whom, to be fair, tended to be right-wing ideologues eager to blame China for accidentally or (in some versions of the story, purposefully) spreading the deadly virus which has now killed more than 3.5 million people around the world.
Proponents of the natural hypothesis have continually dismissed the idea of a lab leak as just so much nonsense, a “debunked” theory pushed by China-hating ideologues and conspiracy theorists.
In some ways they are acting like Bizarro World versions of MAGAheads who devote their political energy to “owning the libs.” On both sides of this issue, we find activists and academics and journalists who seem less interested in getting it right than they are in scoring points against their political adversaries. It’s a politics built on spite, in which one’s political virtue is defined by the difference between, say, Trump’s beliefs on COVID and your own. Some, as Jonathan Chait noted in New York magazine,
simply took Donald Trump’s bait, answering the former president’s dissembling with false certainty of their own.
It is not too early to grapple with the failures of the media, which reflect the wider struggles of trying to fairly convey the truth in an atmosphere deformed by misinformation. Rather than meet lies with truth, the media often met it with other lies. …
It is true that most of these outlets were more faithful to the truth than Trump, whose gusher of lies vastly exceeded whatever false claims trickled out of the liberal media. But Trump is not the right standard for journalists. And those who chose to follow the ethos of moral clarity, at the expense of objectivity, misled their audiences.
One of the most striking and discomfiting excuses for erthe media’s failure comes from the NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who, in an interview on CNN ,put the blame not on the journalists themselves but on Trump and secretary of state Mike Pompeo:
[B]oth suggested they had seen evidence this was formed in a lab, and they also suggested it was not released on purpose, but they refused to release the evidence showing what it was. And so because of that, that made this instantly political. It was example 1000 when the Trump administration learned, when you burn your own credibility over and over again, people are not going to believe you, especially in an election year.
But the issue isn’t whether Trump’s a liar; of course he is. But you can’t just dismiss what he’s saying because of his penchant for untruth; the job of the journalist is to independently assess whether there is any truth to his assertions. Trump’s dishonesty cannot be an excuse for media failures.
On his substack, Matthew Yglesias deconstructs what he calls, variously, “the media’s lab leak fiasco” and a “genuinely catastrophic media fuckup,” concluding that “this is a case of a smallish group of reporters and fact-checkers proclaiming a scientific consensus where none ever really existed.”
In the past several weeks, the once-largely dismissed lab leak theory has become more palatable to those in the press, in part due to several detailed and carefully argued pieces setting forth convincing arguments for, at the very least, looking more carefully at the case for the lab leak. (The piece that won me over was this one by former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade; there is also a smart piece by novelist and essayist Nicholson Baker in New York magazine.)
Some pieces — including “fact check” pieces devoted to trashing the lab leak theory — have been taken down or quietly revised as a result of this broader reconsideration. Looking back through much of the nonsense written over the last year or so in order to put down the lab leak theory, it’s hard not to cringe; the authors sound so certain about things we’re still nowhere near certain about.
Science is ever-changing; it’s contentious; it’s open to change when there’s new evidence or a new theory that explains the old evidence better. Scientific arguments, like political arguments, are rarely settled for good, and they’re definitely not settled by ignoring half the scientists out there because you’re not a fan of Donald Trump.
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@Surplus : your scenario is credible, but is only a scenario. We have 0 proof it come from a mine instead of a lab, which is the point quite a lot of people now do. It’s every bit as much a theory as the lab break theory.
Remember that the fact that incident is exploited don’t mean it didn’t happen ; and biological security is something important which could be helped by a – very unlikely – actual investigation of what happened.
(Occam’s razor also mean that the main goal of the propagandists here isn’t war with China either ; more simply, it’s a way to reject responsibility away from America and Trump)
My understanding is that the lab thing is being reconsidered because 1) We haven’t found the clear point of original from an animal yet. (Though Covid’s ability to spread undetected makes that harder than normal.) 2) The Chinese government has been stonewalling attempts to investigate the lab. (Authoritarian governments reflexively stonewall all investigations, because hard facts are the natural enemies of authoritarian regimes.) 3) The fact that many of the worst U.S. right-wingers were supporting the lab-leak theory evidence-free lead to it being reflexively denied when it was at least worth investigating.
As others above me have said, none of this means it didn’t jump from animal to human (in the wet market, or elsewhere), but definitely worth fully investigating. The press certainly could have done better, but the main blame should go to authoritarians and would-be authoritarians in China and the U.S., who both want to claim things evidence-free and not be challenged on them.
As I always say, just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean everyone is NOT out to get you.
The virus isolated from that copper mine in 2012 is a closer match to SARS-CoV-2 than any other virus sample that was taken pre-pandemic, and caused identical symptoms to COVID-19 in the infected miners. There can be little doubt that the virus from that mine is our culprit. The only argument is “via the lab in Wuhan, which did receive samples from that mine” or not, but there’s no evidence for the lab’s involvement, and as others have pointed out, evidence against the virus having been engineered in any way.
It’s not like we didn’t all have some doubts and questions. (Confirmation Basis FTW!) However, should it come to pass that it came from the lab and various world governments want to blame and get something from China over it, I will not support any US Conservatives or their various counterparts throughout the world in this.
They were actively fighting against any efforts to stem the tide, speaking out against masks and social distancing, wanting to basically do nothing and let the chips fall where they might, I.E. let people die through sheer carelessness, in every sense of the word carelessness. They were part of the problem and have no right to take the moral high ground and point fingers at someone else.
TLDR: If you aid and abeit the so-called enemy, the best you can expect from me is some sort of plea bargain, not a pat on the back and my undying support.
Hi, I’m a virologist and a long-time reader of this blog.
And… what the hell?
No, it has not become more plausible that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab.
There has been no new evidence to support this hypothesis. It is extremely unlikely from the outset. SARS-CoV-2 was not artificially engineered or manipulated in any way, either deliberately or by accident. The only bat coronavirus that we know was being grown in cultures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the SARS-like RaTG13. That virus is similar to SARS-CoV-2, but it is *not* the parent virus. Coronavirus experts estimate that the lineages of these two viruses diverged several decades ago.
The only “lab leak” scenario that makes sense is what Crip Dyke described: if someone at WIV was taking samples from wild animals, growing them in culture, and then got infected with the cultured virus.
There are many reasons that this is unlikely, but probably the most telling one is that we *haven’t* found a virus similar to SARS-CoV-2 from animal samples yet. That means the ancestral virus probably came from somewhere we haven’t yet taken samples from, and that means it wasn’t from the caves where researchers at WIV were collecting samples for sequencing.
The WHO investigators, for their part, have talked at length with researchers from WIV and have found nothing suspicious or untoward. They still believe that the virus almost certainly has a natural (i.e., non-“lab leak”) origin. They think it is likely that we will find the origin, but it will take time and a lot more sampling, just like it did with SARS. There is an hour-long uncut interview with three of the WHO investigators, available here, for anyone who is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kRxmEgzbQ
Scientific arguments, unlike political arguments, are almost always settled for good once sufficient evidence has been found. In this case, we need to be patient and continue to investigate the origin of the virus, and that investigation is going to require more sampling and sequencing and genetic investigation, and not the FBI/CIA-style police sleuthing you’d see on a crappy TV drama. It will take collaboration and open cooperation, and kicking up dust about conspiracy theories is not going to help.
I sincerely hope that Dave learns from his commenters on this issue, and I would hope that future posts on this topic are written with more clarity and an alignment with current scientific thinking. For this current post, however… I remain disappointed and baffled.
First off, there still isn’t much evidence that this virus was created in a lab. It was studied in a lab. But there are tons of corona viruses in the wild. We have no need to create one.
Also, we can in fact dismiss what known liars say. They are not credible. We only have to pay attention when credible sources say things.If it’s true, then it’s simply one case where a known liar wasn’t lying. Until such time, we can and should continue to ignore known cranks, liars, and frauds.
I saw floated many times in medical circles that it was a misfired AIDS virus vaccine development, in the same way adenoviruses are used for some of the coronavirus vaccines, not a bioweapon. I just didn’t trust the source because even though he was a Nobel Laureate and expert in the field, he also, uh, holds questionable beliefs that cast doubt on his ability to be an expert. Not the racist ones, as far as I know, mind.
Thank you so much, invivoMark.
I do my best to understand important subjects, but there’s still a huge gulf between a dilettante like myself and an actual expert. I really, really appreciate you sharing your wisdom here.
Was it made in a lab, no proably not.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/05/27/the-ny-times-doing-what-it-does-best-waffling/
@invivomark https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin-chaos-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322
Which part of this article sounds like nonsense to you? This lab was mutating the virus to see what it would evolve into, which is typical of this kind of research. Not to make a bio weapon but in hopes of preventing the next outbreak. The shortcomings of this lab were well-known.
@Surplus : you described an unproven theory, and you should have a ton of doubt about it, even if you suppose that political efforts to cover other problems didn’t factor in. (as in, not that the article is entirely false, but more that it might have been influenced)
You try too much to be definitive. No, we have no fucking idea of where the virus come. We only have hypothesis
@invivoMark : “Scientific arguments, unlike political arguments, are almost always settled for good once sufficient evidence has been found.” That sentence is either wrong or meaningless, and make me doubt your whole post because it’s unlike most scientists I have discussed with.
Scientific arguments can last for decade* after most people have think sufficient evidence have been found. Not that often, but sometime, it end up that the sufficent evidence were misleading. There’s tons of publications who are basically “can we test again that theory for the 27807th time ?”, and no scientist contest that they are useful.
And politics and culture factor ALL. THE. FREAKIN. TIME. in science. Especially in sociology and soft science, but you’re a fool if you think that political ideas and cultural bias don’t factor in biology or physics. Sciences aren’t neutral ; they try to be, but thinking you will be neutral to theses bias is why they succeed to filter into our knowledge in the first place.
*and I didn’t say “for centuries” mostly because there’s almost nothing in science that wasn’t heavily altered on the last centuries.
I’m not convinced this isn’t more of the “we can’t be SURE cigarettes cause cancer” or “we still have doubts about climate change” playbook. Anymore science is just something to be skewed for political ends, and scientists’ aversion to stating anything in certain terms makes that easy.
@Ohlmann,
Yes, it’s true, most things in science eventually get settled. There are many counterexamples, of course, which get amplified in the news, making everything in science seem like it’s in doubt constantly. But science is characterized by progress: we have more knowledge now than we did a decade ago. For instance, there is little doubt that the original SARS virus was a bat coronavirus that ended up in civets before transmitting to humans.
It’s bizarre to me that you say that you “doubt [my] whole post,” and yet you don’t point out any fact you think I got wrong or any conclusion you disagree with. Is your whole strategy to undermine my credibility and to hope that my statements go away? Anybody is welcome to watch the interview with the WHO investigators and judge whether I accurately interpreted the scientific consensus.
My expertise is in human herpesviruses. I got my PhD studying Epstein-Barr virus. It’s a very different virus from SARS-CoV-2, but I’m very familiar with how viruses are genetically manipulated in labs, and how to characterize virus genetics. I don’t particularly care if you doubt my credentials, but if you’re going to disagree with me about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, get ready to learn a thing or two.
@invivoMark
Thank you.
If it’s not to much to ask, would you be able to comment on some of the technical claims that Wade makes in his eassy? I know you probably have better things to do but I’ve seen other people falling for his eassy and not enough stuff debunking his claims, heck I found him convincing too before I looked him up.
@Ohlmann
Uh what? Yeah that stuff your saying has some truth to it but it’s really common for “Both Sides” media reporting to make implausible or provably wrong ideas seem more credible then they really are, and yeah I think David is falling for that.
@.45
Actually, it’s exactly like that. Not everyone shares the peculiar habit of leaping directly to conspiracy theories to explain every not explicitly predicted occurrence, and sensible people recognized from the beginning that this is a perfectly ordinary epidemic, such as have happened innumerable times in the past and will undoubtedly happen innumerable times in the future.
@invivoMark
Cheers for the vid – been looking for it. Missus doesn’t like reading reports, and she’s one as (sadly) gets a fair bit of daily exercise by jumping to conclusions at times. (Living with someone who has PD cycles is many things, but never, ever dull)
@ invivomark
Thank you ever so much for that. I very much appreciate you sharing your expertise with us. You’ve explained everything so succinctly. It’s such a shame we live in a post-truth world.
There is unfortunately nowadays that trend of not just ignoring experts, but being proud of doing so. As if obstinate and self imposed ignorance is some sort of badge of honour and sign of ‘free thinking’.
But as @ Dali says, there is nothing even vaguely unusual or even unexpected about this pandemic. People have been warning to expect this for years. And it is panning out precisely as predicted.
To me it’s like when a plumber advises people that if they don’t fix their boiler it will explode. The plumber is ignored, and then when the boiler does explode, people say it must be terrorists. And, if we don’t address such nonsense this time; they’ll be saying the same thing about every inevitable future boiler explosion.
I can see the strength in @ autistic giraffe’s idea that there could be a bullet point debunking of the lab claims. Generally I don’t think one should even address conspiracy claims; it just gives them credence. But I guess when there’s so much at stake it might be handy to have a resource to point sceptics to.
Although would they take it on board? Such people have already shown they have herd immunity to facts.
@an autistic giraffe,
Yikes, there is a LOT that he has either got completely wrong (e.g., “In their laboratories they routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature”), or deliberately misrepresented (e.g., his scaremongering description of gain-of-function studies). Going line-by-line over every single error would take an article twice the length of his essay.
I’d start with the obvious, though. Wade says that it’s possible that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 could have been engineered through serial passage or creating a chimeric virus. Neither scenario makes sense.
There are available tools for quickly generating mutant or chimeric coronaviruses, and SARS-CoV-2 is not related to any of them. It wouldn’t make sense to create a new one (which, contrary to what Wade claims, is *not* easy (or cheap) to do), especially using one that hasn’t already been characterized or published. And SARS-CoV-2 could not have been made using any previously characterized backbone. And there would have been no reason to do the extra work to make a scarless (not “no-see-um” as Wade erroneously calls it) chimera.
I don’t have time right now to go much further, but it’s all a bunch of dreck, deliberate misdirection, and baseless conspiracy-mongering, and a shame to science journalists everywhere. If you have any specific questions, I’ll check this thread again tomorrow and see if there’s anything else I can offer.
@ invivoMark
Thanks. So the racist liar was lying?
One question about his stuff is he said that the fact that we haven’t found the animal between bats and humans yet is evidence it came from the lab since we found the animal quickly in the case of sars and mers, but I’ve heard that it really isn’t that surprising. Is this true? (i assume it is, but it would be nice for confirmation.)
This just proves how the “scientific consensus” can be easily influnced by power.
Yeah, I also don’t buy this. And on the contrary I’m disgusted with the media suddenly treating it as legit just because Biden said it, rather than Trump. And also disgusted with Biden for coming out publicly about the intelligence investigation, at a stage where there’s not much evidence, and when violence against Asian-Americans is still a huge problem.
@an autistic giraffe, @invivoMark
Thank you both for the further info and debunking.
@Surplus
I haven’t gotten a particularly strong impression of a new push for war with China, but I wouldn’t be surprised by anything TBH. And also I haven’t been following the news (or the activismosphere) as much as I ought lately.
Generally though I’ve noticed a tendency for Biden to say or do Trump-like BS, and the media not to really call him on it because, well… he’s not Trump, so you gotta hand it to him, right? /s
It’s there, but quietly, not in full view. There’s a reason Blinken met with Modi “off schedule” here in the UK a couple weeks back – and it weren’t to talk about the weather, or even the Indian VOCs.
@Threp
Thanks. Echoes of the Cold War and brinkmanship there. I guess the the chickenhawks must be feeling particularly confident in their own survival, to consider a hot war between nuclear superpowers during a pandemic.
What utter horseshit.