This is not true! Virologists have insisted publicly and privately that all explanations—including lab leaks—should be investigated. Just like the CDC and anti-vaxxers, if anything they have been too willing to entertain conspiracists.
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The idea they would need to cover up a lab leak to retain the position of their discipline is incongruous with the actual existence of past lab leaks. It's much better for them if they can report it and show how well it can be dealt with.
mar 30, 2025, 3:55 pm • 8 0 • view
More like Sara Straw-man, amirite?
mar 30, 2025, 3:54 pm • 1 0 • view
The claim it's plausible that that virologists would not care much about whether a deadly virus would escape from a virology lab says an awful lot about the people who keep trying to argue that.
mar 31, 2025, 12:14 am • 0 0 • view
I often visualize a fuming Hobbes deconstructing faulty arguments
mar 30, 2025, 3:54 pm • 0 0 • view
one of my friends said that considering the history of war and governments we shouldn't give viral labs presumption of good faith on anything, which, ok, fair, but... I don't think we did! virologists treated the lab with HELLS OF suspicion!
mar 30, 2025, 3:53 pm • 3 0 • view
The real question has always been what the people insisting it’s a lab leak gain from the insistence. And it turns out there’s a huge overlap between “COVID-19 was a conspiracy” people and “Jesus will come again if only we make sure there’s a nuclear war in the Valley of Megiddo” people. So.
mar 30, 2025, 7:47 pm • 0 0 • view
And all virologists now agree that they don’t know conclusively how COVID originated. They only state the balance of probabilities
mar 30, 2025, 3:51 pm • 2 0 • view
And why would virologists suffer if the truth really was an accident? Like, that lab, sure; but the entire field? Other public institutions can be rotting with “bad apples” and somehow they persist.
mar 30, 2025, 3:56 pm • 2 0 • view
It was never the motte, it was always the bailey!
mar 30, 2025, 3:52 pm • 0 0 • view
it is disappointing but not surprising people think this; at the time I was reading article after article saying "we don't have enough evidence yet, please let's investigate it rather than declare conclusions now" and these folks interpreted it as "they are just denying the lab leak theory" somehow
mar 30, 2025, 3:59 pm • 3 0 • view