The media’s culpability in suppressing the lab leak hypothesis is obvious. But a larger share of the blame falls upon science journal reviewers & publishers - the “scientific establishment.
They shut down discussion & discredited viable alternatives.
unherd.com/2021/06/beijin…
These prestigious, influential journals should be providing a forum for pulsating debate as experts explore and test theories, especially on something as contentious and fascinating as the possible origins of a global pandemic.
The opposite, in this case, happened.
It appears that @Nature had made it very clear what the boundary of what Dr. @EricRWeinstein calls the Gated Institutional Narrative is:
Be warned, for Thou shalt not speak of the lab leak hypothesis.
The grant makers, the NIH, the science journals, the scientist experts - all of their incentives to tell the truth are misaligned.
It’s a giant racket, and they, like all bureaucrats have only one goal - to maximize the potency of the bureaucracy.
This I find particularly egregious on @Nature’s part - not disclosing that the genome offered as the closest known one to SARS-CoV2 had a name change.
Why? One could guess. The change obscured an important connection.
Only two possible choices: Negligence or maliciousness?
So there were personal & institutional interests to protect.
But there might be something else. Just like in Hollywood, the need to appease Chinese commercial interests might be at play here.
China is the biggest national sponsor of publishers that produce these journals (!!)
Corporate links to China compromise output and distort agendas, especially when investigating something as sensitive as the origins of covid19.
The epistemic role of science journals and the publishing process today should absolutely be questioned in light of this.
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