and obfuscate the work here, the work that we re doing, the where that our u.s. government and close we are doing. to be clear, these are both significant developments. although, upon further review, they re not necessarily as cut and dry as the headlines first appeared. as we mentioned, the energy department as low confidence in its theory. the fbi has moderate confidence in its own. and it is by no means the consensus view among u.s. technologists agencies. in fact, according to that same wall street journal report, quote, for at the u.s. government agencies, along with national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and to, you are undecided. the also been multiple epidemiological studies that conclude the evidence points instead to the virus emerging from a so-called wet market in wuhan. these are markets where live animals are sold, sometimes slaughtered for food, and where pathogens can pick up steam and
pandemic. for example, twitter labeling it as disputed or misleading really was, i think, a mistake in retrospect. it s clear now the lab leak is at least plausible, even if not the most likely view. but not insane. we but with the fewer of the theory demonstrates is that how broken this form of political discourse has become, especially when it comes to discussing covid-19. right? there is some set of facts about the world that we both need and want to know. they then end up picking up some ideological valence because of whatever role those facts play in culture where arguments. it s gonna like what happened with ivermectin. remember this? we spent a lot of time on this. initially, there were some doctors across the world, not the most doctors, but there were some. and then, a bunch of folks on the political right who said that this anti-parasitic drug, which is used all over the world, it can be used as a horse dewormer, also a human
all looked at this, and when i first looked at the motive jumped out at me because there was no authenticity to the story, it does not make sense that a guy is going to murder his wife and his son to distract from a financial crimes investigation. i mean, this guy is a lawyer, he would take the hit on the financial crimes. it is a much more defensible scenario than this. i m hearing all of this murmuring, you re talking about, it i want to go here because i hear you talk about it. i will talk about your point, as the prosecution team and the defense, talk to me about this. because what is jumping out, in theory, is emotive issue. it was in the middle of all of this, and the idea of the minutiae, the devil being in the details, but is the devil in the details helpful to this case? i think it is, because this is someone who is a true narcissist. who puts his interest above everyone s, his son, his wife, look who he was
think of it as quote just off, separate, chinese research versus american research. that s another thing that s fueled some of the right-wing focus on this. is that you can relay some of this in theory, at the hands of anthony fauci, in the sort of public health establishment, which they re also excited to do. right. and that s because the purpose of this, right, is, just to go back to the original sort of thinking here, it s like, sars came out of china. right? they started with, you think, animal to human transmission. we got kind alexei, globally, with sars. it s sort of burned itself out in a way that, had it been more like covid, could ve been way more destructive. the idea was, like, we should be working with these, but we all have a shared interest year to figure out how these pathogens get transmitted, how we block them, how we trace them. and we re gonna work together to, like, create a network of information sharing to study that. yeah. you know, that s what happened over
pandemic, from masks to vaccines, school closures, social distancing, the origins of the virus itself had become indistinguishable from the larger culture war. fox news and right-wing media in particular van with these latest lab leak headlines because they fit their culture war narrative perfectly. first, because it is, in their view, a story about the chinese government, which has become the number one enemy in their moral cosmology. also because it allows them to take potshots at more traditional media outlets, which fox says, we re too eager to dismiss and shut down the lab leak theory. now, i have to say, there s a kernel of truth to the idea that some folks were too quick to shut down the lab leak theory in the early days of the pandemic. for example, twitter labeling it as disputed or misleading really was, i think, a mistake in retrospect. it s clear now the lab leak is at least plausible, even if not the most likely view. but not insane. we but with the fewer of the theory d