More on the NY Times’ Take on the Lab Leak Theory

Ed already wrote about this earlier today but I had a few additional thoughts. First, it is galling to see the NY Times post an opinion piece five years later claiming the author (and implicitly all journalists) were misled about the lab leak theory. As Ed pointed out, we knew many of the things mentioned in the piece in 2020 or at the latest by early 2021. So why has it taken so long to get to this point?

The obvious answer is the correct one in this case: The whole thing became political. With President Trump and some conservatives, like Sen. Cotton, leaning into the lab leak theory, there was a knee-jerk reaction in the media that whatever they were saying must be wrong and should be ridiculed. That impulse did not serve the media (or the country) well in this case.

The comments on this article are instructive about how that works and the fact that for many people it’s still the focal point of their thinking. One of the top comments says this:

I would mostly agree with Ms. Tufekci, except, 

I also know that most proponents of the lab leak theory are ignorant political hacks who wish to distract us from the disgraceful and incompetent response to the outbreak by the Trump administration. 1.2 million casualties, compare that to the Australian or Japanese response.

A competent response would be the same whether the origin was a lab leak or natural.  In truth, the lab leak theory is not probable, it’s being pushed for political reasons, so I can understand why scientist may wish to discuss it in hushed tones.

So in this person’s view it’s scientists vs. “ignorant political hacks” using this as a distraction from Trump’s failure. I’m always amazed when people trot out this talking point about 1.2 million deaths. It’s always to make this same political point, i.e. that President Trump’s failures killed them all. What they always forget is that the number of deaths under Trump’s presidency was about 350,000. The rest happened under President Biden’s tenure. Biden, as you may recall, ran on doing a better job shutting down the virus if elected.

I’m not going to shut down the country.

I’m not going to shut down the economy.

I’m going to shut down the virus.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 30, 2020

It’s hard to argue that Biden succeeded but people like the commenter above seem not to have noticed. All blame goes to Trump no matter who was in the Oval office.

Of course it’s certainly fair to complain about Trump’s handling of the pandemic. The US response wasn’t one of the world’s best in terms of the final death toll relative to our population size. But if there was a better way to handle this, why didn’t President Biden implement it in his first year in office? In trying to pin this all on Trump, the author of that comment demonstrates he is one of the ignorant political hacks he’s supposedly against.

Zeynep Tufekci, the author of the NY Times’ piece, responded to this comment directly, pointing out that it wasn’t just partisan hacks who thought the lab leak was credible. Lots of scientists weighed in and were told to shut up.

But there WERE many highly credible scientists, some with lifelong service in public health, who also tried to raise the possibility in a very responsible way, from early on! They were hoping to fix things going forward rather than focus on blame. They were not listened to! They were attacked!  

Some of the same people who misled us attack them and painted even those well-meaning legitimate scientists as conspiracy theorists — lifelong scientists and biosafety advocates. They weren’t amplified in mainstream publications! 

I have interviewed more than one heartbroken scientist who was vilified and ignored simply for calling for better biosafety and refusing to mislead the public, and hope to write about their sad experience in the future.  

Because of this atmosphere of silencing, most regular people don’t know how many scientists and experts actually suspected lab leak. I hear from them all the time, though.

Silencing those responsible voices is exactly the dynamic that empowered those who would weaponize this topic to try to destroy legitimate science and public health. We need to fix this, however unpleasant.

The main reason it has taken so long for many to fairly reassess the lab leak theory is that the people against it are doing exactly what they accuse proponents of the lab leak of doing, i.e. putting politics first and science/evidence second. If your first response to this topic is “but Trump…” you are part of the problem. 

Speaking more broadly, groupthink and cultural cognition happen on both sides of the aisle. That’s not something people on the left are good at recognizing. They always see groupthink operating on the right but can’t see or admit that the same thing is happening on their side all the time. And sometimes that really matters, as in this case, where it has blinded a lot of people to evidence the lab leak is a very plausible explanation for what happened.