Thread by @HeatherEHeying

The mainstream narrative on the search for SARS-Cov2 origins reads like the dystopian endgame of a postmodern world. It’s anti-scientific, anti-reason, and anti-human. Humanity can do better, and we must. [thread 1/12]
wsj.com/articles/who-c…

The WHO’s verdict on SARS-CoV2 origins was arrived at by a show of hands, an informal vote in which how individuals voted was visible to all.

Guess what, though. Reality doesn’t care about democratic norms. Reality is what it is, regardless of what people think about it. 2/

“The team members said they didn’t have the mandate, expertise and access to investigate a potential lab leak.”

My god. And then they voted on whether lab leak was a plausible explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV2 in a show of hands in front of their Chinese counterparts. 3/

“The WIV is at the center of assertions by the Trump administration that the pandemic virus could have come from a lab”

Fixed it for them: the WIV is at the center of assertions by independent scientists and other observers that the pandemic virus could have come from a lab. 4/

Attempting to taint this hypothesis by calling it “assertions” and by associating it with a polarizing political figure runs counter to journalistic integrity, and to scientific investigation. 5/

“It soon became evident to foreign officials & scientists tracking the mission that the team’s itinerary was partly designed to bolster China’s official narrative that the government moved swiftly to control the virus.”

And yet, outside of this article, we hardly hear this. 6/

During the WHO commission’s visit, Chinese authorities provided only their analysis—not raw data. The Biden administration has “urg[ed] Beijing to release all relevant data,” but it hasn’t happened. When asked directly for some data, “The Chinese side refused.” 7/

“’Sometimes emotions have run really high,’ Thea Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the…team, told reporters in Wuhan. ‘I am a scientist & I trust data….I don’t just trust what anyone tells me.’”

Then maybe you should demand actual data before coming to a conclusion. 8/

“People think you can just waltz into a country, any country, and say ‘I want to see the books,’ ” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the team who took part in the WHO’s SARS investigation. “I don’t think diplomacy works that way.” 9/

“The WHO should have the ability to march in & investigate something that is affecting the world,” said [a] senior political adviser to previous WHO director-general...“If they can’t really investigate outbreaks, then you’re just left with whatever the government tells you.” 10/

Waltzing vs. marching. Surely the fact that the world has just spent a year in economic freefall from a pandemic whose origin is actively contested warrants a bit of marching. The WHO should obviously have this authority, and the world depends on it doing its job. 11/

“’It’s just a great coup by China,’” said Daniel Lucey, a clinical professor of medicine”

Also a great coup for anti-scientific rhetoric passing itself off as science.

Who wins? Well, China presumably wins. And postmodernism wins. And we all lose. /end