We ran a post on Wednesday on a tweet by RawStory reporter Matthew Chapman, who claimed that people who are most adamant about finding the origin of COVID-19 can't actually articulate why:
The weird thing about these people who insist — adamantly insist — that the "COVID origin debate" is so important is that they can't articulate a reason why.
— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) December 26, 2023
What consequence, exactly, would lab leak being true have on our public health policy? https://t.co/Ex0Km8Jbl2
The Washington Post famously ran a piece in 2020 headlined, "Tom Cotton Keeps Repeating a Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory That Was Already Debunked." That conspiracy theory was that COVID escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China that was performing gain-of-function research. Fifteen months later, the Post stealth-edited its headline to read, "Tom Cotton Keeps Repeating a Coronavirus Fringe Theory That Scientists Have Disputed."
Even Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler had a change of heart:
NEW #FactChecker --> Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible https://t.co/TfRw3x5mwW
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) May 25, 2021
Didn't he mean to say "the fringe Wuhan lab-leak conspiracy theory"?
The whole discussion was brought up yesterday by Nate Silver, who weighed in again:
A Republican politician brought up a theory that probably was true and would later be endorsed by the Biden administration (which takes the LL possibility very seriously), so somehow it's his fault? Why do people make such transparently bad arguments on this issue? pic.twitter.com/x127PiF3WQ
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 28, 2023
So that's the reason the lab leak talk became "toxic." Because of folks like Cotton fueling conspiracy theories.
Is the epistemic closure really that bad? People just can't ever admit that the other side that represents half the country can make a good point sometimes? That their side might be right often, most of the time, but nobody is going to bat 1.000? It's kind of depressing.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 28, 2023
Cotton simply raised the possibility of a lab leak. The media decided to dismiss it as a conspiracy despite the evidence that existed at the time because it came from someone they didn't like.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 27, 2023
That's evidence of a problem with how the press operates, not what Cotton said. pic.twitter.com/yrXGEh6p6x
A lot of it stems from the mentality that asserts that nothing can be true or even important enough to take seriously until Democrats or “mainstream” media decides that it is. I’ve watched this for decades, literally since the 1970s.
— Ken Gardner (@KenGardner11) December 28, 2023
What he's really saying is "it was presented by a person and in a way that irresponsibly appealed to my outgroup so naturally my ingroup was forced to reject it aggressively."
— John Lund (@AttilaTheLund) December 28, 2023
Tribalism is deadly to society.
— $8 Bartemy (@BartemyS) December 28, 2023
It fosters a false dichotomy that the other tribe could not possibly be correct about something.
Nobody - and I mean nobody - consistently makes more facially absurd arguments on this hellsite than Issac. It's uncanny.
— Most Tweeters Don't Post Replies Like This (@NotMostTweeters) December 28, 2023
Partisans don't often make sense.
— Andrea E (@AAC0519) December 28, 2023
Gotta blame literally anyone other than China 👍
— Barren Wuffett (@_barrenwuffett) December 28, 2023
China will never be held responsible for millions of deaths worldwide.
It’s that old, condescending and repulsive idea that ordinary people can’t handle the truth, so elite “experts” need to manage the diet of information the plebes are allowed to consume.
— CindyHoedel (@CindyHoedel) December 28, 2023
To be fair, Isaac Bailey is extremely good at one thing in particular and that’s making the worst possible argument you could think of. It’s an art.
— Chris Henry (@Chens89) December 28, 2023
A U.S. senator shouldn't have brought it up? You mean a Republican U.S. senator.
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