Thread by @akoz33

The latest Illarionov blog post is important and short so I decided to translate it whole. The Russian original is here:
aillarionov.livejournal.com/1174592.html

It entitled “Questions about the “academic” statement of the bat-woman ShiZhengli” (deputy director of the Wuhan virology lab).

Here is Shi’a statement:

“The novel 2019 coronavirus is Nature punishing the human race for uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory,” she wrote.

“I advise those who believe and spread rumors from harmful media sources, as well as those who believe the unreliable so-called academic analysis of Indian scholars, to shut their stinking mouths.”
caixinglobal.com/2020-02-07/wuh…

Comments and questions
1. As a proof of her innocence, the scientist does not cite any evidence accepted y the scientific community. Instead, she “swears on her life”. This is an unusual style of academic reasoning.

2. Her explanation of the behaviour of the coronavirus is not scientific, but "moral and ethical" - "Nature punishes."

3. What “uncivilized life habits” is the virus researcher referring to?

4. From her explanations it follows that humanity (more precisely: the "human race") turned out to be "uncivilized." And for this the human race is being “punished." We have heard this argument more than once. Usually not from scientists.

5. What does it mean that humanity has turned out to be “uncivilized”? The horseshoe bats living in the caves of Yunnan did not come to humanity. It was humanity that come to the horseshoe bats. In the person of Shi Zhengli and her employees.

Should we conclude that if the learned Shi and her collaborators turned out to be "uncivilized", then now Nature is "punishing" the human race for their actions?
Or did Shi choose "Nature" (horseshoe bats) as an instrument with which to punish the "uncivilized human race"?

6. “Harmful sources in the media” is another unexpected moral and ethical judgement by an academic scientist.

7. As is well known, the analysis of Indian researchers was accurate, only not quite sufficient for their conclusions. The elements they found in the genome of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can be found not only in one virus, but in many.

The “stinking mouths” argument is not common in academic debate.

8. In recent years, Shi Zhenli has published many academic articles in serious scientific journals. The last - in February 2020. Why did she give up the language of science just at this point?

9. And now the main thing: why, instead of any scientific explanations demonstrating the differences between the coronaviruses created in the laboratory P4 of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has already led to the death of 150 thousand people

and infected more than 2 million, the deputy director of the P4 laboratory and the head of the P2 laboratory UIV uses exclusively moral and ethical argumentation?

One remark from me: the argument Shi uses it remarkably similar to that used by Pope Francis, who declared that the coronavirus is “Nature’s punishing mankind for global warming”. Now, the Pope of course is not a scientist but he is supposed to be a a Christian. Note that the

Pope did not refer to God or Jesus, only to Nature, just like Shi.
I think it’s pretty clear what this kind of argument tells us about Shi. What Pope Francis’ one tells us about him I will leave to others to decide for themselves.