Morning Belz, May 25

Lab escape, again.

The report in the Wall Street Journal about Wuhan lab workers going to the hospital in November 2019 is coming under scrutiny, and, at least by some smart people, found wanting.

I think it’s important to clarify that we don’t know if the coronavirus originated in, and escaped from, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It can’t be proven. It can’t be disproven. The problem, as I see it, is that many people back in the spring of 2020 said any suggestion of lab escape was a “conspiracy theory.” This is what I believed back then, because the consensus was so overwhelming and we all have only so many hours in a day to “do our own research.” Here are several examples of that consensus. Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator, came in for especially intense criticism. A Washington Post headline back in February 2020, when all of this was very new, said, “Tom Cotton keeps repeating a conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” But it hadn’t been debunked! It still hasn’t. And if you go back and look at what Cotton was saying, it doesn’t sound totally unreasonable.

Now, very serious scientists say, “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.” That’s more or less what Cotton was saying more than a year ago, and he was pilloried.

It’s frustrating, for me, as a news consumer, that every single issue has to be weaponized and politicized, and in such a sloppy way. Not that Cotton is innocent on that front, but come on!

And some people are saying, “So what? What difference does it make if it escaped from a lab?” It’s important to know the truth for its own sake. And perhaps to interrogate what happened so it doesn’t happen again. I also think that the Chinese government, and the U.S. government (also involved), and the global virology community should be held accountable for any mistakes they made. Maybe they made none, and the virus did in fact jump from bats to humans, or whatever the latest natural theory is. But we should find out. And the ranks upon ranks of people who lined up to discredit anyone who suggested it may have been otherwise, without evidence, and with fake certainty, should be made to feel embarrassed.

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It’s the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder — Strib
Nice explainer of Musk’s Starship, space tech in general — Nautilus
A disused mine in southwest China may offer clues on virus — WSJ
Children tell of neglect, filth, fear in US asylum camps — BBC
Tables turn on border crisis: GOP vocal, Dems quiet — NYT
Florida passes bill to ban “deplatforming” by tech giants — Verge

Quote
“ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.” — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

About: I send this email most weekdays in an effort to stay informed and in touch.I was a newspaper reporter for 14 years, most recently at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I explained why my family left Minneapolis here. Now we live just outside Chattanooga and I work on Scuffed News. Please share this newsletter with anyone you think might enjoy it. And please consider supporting this work with your money on Patreon.