William of Ockham Was a Pretty Sharp Guy, and So is His Razor

The Wall Street Journal looked Behind Closed Doors: The Spy-World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak. It's an eye-opening investigation, and that's a gifted link, so click away. Excerpt:

The U.S. was deep in the grip of the pandemic in May 2021 when Biden ordered an urgent study by the intelligence community into Covid’s origins, which he said should be completed in 90 days. The effort became known as the “90-day sprint.”

At that point, the question of the virus’s origins was dividing the scientific community. The debate came down to two prominent theories. The zoonotic theory held that the Covid virus, like other deadly pathogens before it, had jumped to humans from an infected animal, possibly as a result of China’s extensive wildlife animal trade. The other scenario, known as “lab leak,” was based on the idea that the virus had escaped from a research facility, such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducted coronavirus research.

The debate over the virus’s origins was politically divisive. Then-President Trump said in May 2020 that he had evidence that the virus had emerged from a Chinese lab but insisted that the information was too sensitive to disclose. Trump’s critics said the White House was trying to divert attention from its management of the response to the pandemic.

Those two theories have also divided the scientific community. In February 2020, more than two dozen scientists published a statement in the medical journal Lancet, calling the lab leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory that would jeopardize global cooperation in the struggle against the virus. One of the authors was Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that has worked extensively on coronavirus research with the Wuhan institute.

The article's pretty long, so I wouldn't blame you if you skipped over to Jim Geraghty's Morning Jolt for a summary. He was one of the early adopters of the lab leak theory years ago. He's not gloating through.

As I noted in February, those of us who find the lab leak the most plausible explanation “won the argument in the realm of public opinion” in the United States and then “nothing happened. There have still been few real consequences for the Chinese government, and certainly no consequences commensurate to unleashing a plague.”

Biden has not spoken publicly about the origin of Covid-19 since August 27, 2021. After receiving the report from the intelligence community, Biden issued a three-paragraph written statement, “We will do everything we can to trace the roots of this outbreak that has caused so much pain and death around the world, so that we can take every necessary precaution to prevent it from happening again. . . . The world deserves answers, and I will not rest until we get them.

Bold added.

Roll Call is reporting that Joe Biden's search for Covid's origins has taken him to the residence of Bill and Connie Neville, Christiansted, Virgin Islands, for a six-night fact-finding mission, where I am sure he is not resting, because he said he wouldn't back in 2021. (The New York Post has details of the current locus of his investigation: Biden again staying at St. Croix home of wealthy 'friends'.)

Also of note:

  • They may have to change their name. Jerry Coyne is a rather strident atheist; if you go to his website "Why Evolution is True", for example, you'll see a number of links plugging his 2015 book Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible.

    So you'd think that a group called the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" (FFRF) and he would get along. In fact, he is on their Honorary Board of Directors!

    But they're now fighting, Jerry's mad, and I'm amused. Read Jerry's blog article: The FFRF removed my piece on the biological definition of “woman”. Summary: Jerry's "guest blog" piece claiming "biology is not bigotry", defending the sex binary, briefly appeared and was subsequently taken down. And an abject apology from FFRF co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker to those who experienced "distress". Jerry's comment to that:

    But it’s the last six paragraphs of the FFRF’s post where they explain why they took down my piece. It is because it caused “distress” and “did not reflect [the FFRF’s] values or principles.” I’m not sure what values or principles my piece failed to reflect. Does the FFRF think that sex is really a spectrum, that there are more than two sexes in humans, or that the most useful definition of biological sex doesn’t involve gamete size? I don’t know, nor do they say.

    As for my words causing “distress,” well, I’m sorry if people feel distress when I explicate the biological definition of sex or estimate how few people fail to adhere to the sex binary. But this is all material not for censorship but for back-and-forth discussion, especially on a site called “Freethought Now!” (Should it be called “Freeethought Not!” instead?)

    It's a little kludgey, but maybe they could change their name to "Freedom from Any Distress-Causing Thoughts Foundation".

  • Trouble in Trumpville Already? Jonah Goldberg's column is titled "A MAGA Schism" and I hate that because I never can pronounce that stupid word with only one vowel. But some folks are mad that advocates of H1B rule-loosening might have Trump's ear. (The unshot one.)

    Up against the nationalists is Team DOGE, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Again, it’s a shorthand. I’m sure there are DOGE fans who believe we should gut the H-1B visa program. In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking Ramaswamy was one of them given that when he was running for president he vowed to “gut” the program he used 29 times when he was a CEO of a pharmaceutical company. That’s the thing about Vivek: He never fails to tell his target audience what it wants to hear. But now that his target audience isn’t primary voters but Elon Musk, the Count Dracula to his Renfield, he’s saying something a bit different.

    I'm on Team H1B myself. But I'm prepared to be disappointed.

  • Hey, let's look back at … Good for George Will, who's prepared to get a chuckle out of recent history: Thanks for the laughs, 2024, you ridiculous year. (alleged free link). A two-paragraph sample:

    Illinois’ legislature passed a bill renaming some “offenders” as “justice-impacted individuals.” Five crime-busting Mississippi cops arrested a 10-year-old for peeing behind his mother’s car. He was sentenced to three months’ probation, with drug tests at his probation officer’s discretion. Embracing today’s rule “Never miss an opportunity to criminalize something,” an Ohio legislator, incensed not by the rioters but by their excuse for rioting, proposed legislation making it a felony to plant a visiting team’s flag at the center of Ohio State’s football field. Elsewhere in education, Chicago’s teachers unions (a.k.a. the city’s government) pronounced it “misogynistic” to report that 4 in 10 Chicago public school teachers (median salary: $95,000) were “chronically absent.”

    Brooklyn’s PS 261, where the “Arab Cultural Arts” program is funded by Qatar, had a map of the Middle East with Israel omitted. An Amnesty International report this year began: “On 7 October 2023, Israel embarked on a military offensive …” One wonders why. The New York Times reported that on Oct. 9, 2023, “senior administrators at Harvard University” removed the word “violent” from the description of Hamas’s attacks because a dean explained that it “sounded like assigning blame.”

    George is 83; as I said yesterday about Thomas Sowell; I can't imagine I'll be cranking it out at his age. And I have zero expectations I'll ever be that good.