I'm deeply skeptical of any 'science' that happens to perfectly fit an ideological narrative. Imagine the exact same thing with the opposite agenda, trying to show the virus didn't even start in China. In fact we don't have to imagine, there was literally a scientific-looking paper published as a pre-print which did just that [1]. Long story short the "theory" was that corona-virus actually came into China via imported frozen food (subtext: everything bad is a foreigners fault).
I know the seafood theory is bullshit nationalistic motivated reasoning. But I don't know how to refute the actual paper per se. I'm not a biologist. If for patriotic reasons I were predisposed to believe the sea food theory, and both scientists and the media were telling me the seafood theory is true, I might never notice how blatantly bullshit it is. Using the format of an academic article makes bullshit highly non-obvious.
So the lab leak theory. We have this thing that is very convenient to people predisposed to believe certain 'patriotic' things. The media seems to be picking it up out of no where for 'reasons that are surely free of agenda'. Some very academic looking articles have been published promoting the theory. If the 'science' going on here is actually just non-obvious bullshit mixed with nationalistic motivated reasoning, will I recognize it? Will you?
I know the seafood theory is bullshit nationalistic motivated reasoning. But I don't know how to refute the actual paper per se. I'm not a biologist. If for patriotic reasons I were predisposed to believe the sea food theory, and both scientists and the media were telling me the seafood theory is true, I might never notice how blatantly bullshit it is. Using the format of an academic article makes bullshit highly non-obvious.
So the lab leak theory. We have this thing that is very convenient to people predisposed to believe certain 'patriotic' things. The media seems to be picking it up out of no where for 'reasons that are surely free of agenda'. Some very academic looking articles have been published promoting the theory. If the 'science' going on here is actually just non-obvious bullshit mixed with nationalistic motivated reasoning, will I recognize it? Will you?
1. https://europepmc.org/article/PPR/PPR241540
Some context: https://www.firstpost.com/health/in-preprint-of-new-research...