
Apr 7, 2022 • 30M
COVID-19: Lab Leak Or Natural Leap?
How politics stymied scientific research into the true origins of the coronavirus.
Banished is a show about our reassessment of the many people, ideas, objects and even works of art that conflict with modern sensibilities. What can we learn about our present obsession with cancel culture by examining history, and what might it mean for freedom of expression? And how do we reconcile opposing points of view without turning on each other? For subscriber-only content, visit http://banished.substack.com.
In February 2020, The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, published a statement by more than two dozen scientists condemning the hypothesis that COVID-19 had leaked from a Chinese lab — effectively halting scientific inquiry along those lines. But a handful of researchers refused to rule out the so-called “lab-leak” theory and soon found themselves shunned and ostracized by their colleagues.
Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and then-postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, was one such researcher. This week on Banished, host Amna Khalid talks with Chan about the politicization of science.
COVID-19: Lab Leak Or Natural Leap?
Can’t wait to listen. Just finishing up her book Viral. Between her work and Katherine Ebans work in Rolling Stone we’ve finally got some quality investigations on this.
Y'know what? She claims there is no evidence either way, and then her last statement is that years from now people will reveal what they know and are currently afraid to say. I'm sorry, but that assumes people 'know' things about a lab leak. Look - that could be true, but everything about that theory has the word 'could' in it. And that is the nature of conspiracy theories. Again, that's not a reason to stop asking questions. And if that lab was doing dangerous stuff, maybe it should be stopped - whether a leak happened or not. Meanwhile, get vaccinated and try to live your lives, folks.