Wuhan Lab Theory Is a Media Warning Wuhan Lab is a media company that makes documentary short films for documentary filmmakers. It’s about 80% of the way through making a film with the title “4G Probe” (watch the teaser trailer here), and while researching its subject, it found that many of the people involved in the 4G Project had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during the 4G project. The film follows the stories of four people affected by the 4G project, and how they struggle to find justice against the government.
A few days ago, a fellow by the name of Yang-Chen Cheng discovered a “media theory” that states that the sociological status of a person’s body is inherited from one’s social background, and that rich people have more beautiful bodies than poor people. This theory was published on his blog (http://blog.udn.com/chenyangchen/), and it made waves on Weibo and Qingnianbao. Because it was a media theory, and because Yang-Chen Cheng was a young celebrity, it spread like wildfire on the Internet.
Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, April 17, 2020
Photo:
Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
On what basis did the media dismiss the lablek theory for months when there was no evidence or logic to dismiss it? We are bad journalists, was the impassioned response from the media this week in a number of print and online outlets, as well as on National Public Radio.
In the press, we rejected the laboratory theory because of its appeal to authority: If the anti
Donald Trump
The press officers laughed at him, and that was enough for us. We rejected it because of the fallacy of ambiguity: Chinese is a word that can refer to a racial category. It was therefore racist to think that the virus leak could have come from a Chinese laboratory.
We are biased when it comes to accessibility: Instead of being guided by the evidence – or lack thereof – we took the position of public figures whose political, cultural and social status we wanted to emulate. More insidiously, we have relied on an illusion, sometimes called imaginary security: The question remains: this is not the kind of title that attracts clicks. A title that looks like this: The lab leak proves once again Trump’s incompetence.
Unfortunately, the question of Covid’s origin not only remains open, but in all likelihood will not be definitively answered until the Chinese government provides its own data, and it has shown itself to be inclined to do so. The hypothesis of a laboratory leak has a disturbing implication. In nature, the giant scale of natural selection is a sufficient mechanism to explain how a virus adapted to bats can mutate and become contagious to humans. If it escaped from the lab, how could such a virus have infected people? Experiments with functional expansion were a controversial practice among virologists long before Covid. In the past, there have been numerous reports of the accidental release of dangerous viruses from high-security laboratories. The SARS virus has been isolated six times since it was first identified in 2003. It is believed that the 1977 global flu pandemic resulted from the spread of a sample collected in an unknown laboratory in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, thanks to Beijing’s insistence, the question of Covid’s origin will only be resolved in the near future on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Where is China’s 1000 page report on the outbreak, full of data? China is home to the world’s leading experts on bat viruses. It must embrace science. The fact that he made no findings is in itself circumstantial evidence.
In almost every profession – law, medicine, engineering, science, architecture – the fight against prejudice is essential. It should be noted, however, that members of these professions often seem to adapt to a media culture that aims to create bias in their dealings with the press. The scientists who were the subjects of articles rejecting the laboratory leak theory were the most likely to model the preferred norm of the media: If Mr. Trump supports this, I’m against it.
Or consider the way the press viewed the Steele case, whose unclear sources and lack of documentation were turned into a basis for belief. Compare that to the refusal of most of the media to acknowledge Hunter Biden’s laptop, the revelations of which continue to be published by the New York Post, backed up by simultaneous reports of suspicious activity by the US government filed with banking regulators.
All persons named and quoted in Post’s documents were free to dispute the authenticity of the data, including the Bidens. Dat weigerden ze ten stelligste. De meest recente onthullingen omvatten wat duidelijk en gemakkelijk verifieerbaar bewijs lijkt te zijn dat vicepresident Biden op 16 april 2015 tijdens een privédiner in Washington een ontmoeting had met een vertegenwoordiger van een Oekraïens gasbedrijf waarvan een jonge heer Biden deel uitmaakte van de raad van bestuur.
Een ander voorbeeld, hoewel minder ernstig: Om het vooroordeel te vermijden dat ongeïdentificeerde vliegende voorwerpen ofwel voorwerpen ofwel vluchten zijn, introduceerden overheidsonderzoekers de term ongeïdentificeerde luchtverschijnselen. In de tussentijd.
The New York Times
Vorig jaar werd de reden om aan te nemen dat de regering in het bezit is van buitenaardse artefacten gegeven door ambtenaren met een veiligheidsmachtiging die geen specifieke kennis van het bezit van buitenaardse artefacten door de regering bevestigden.
Tientallen jaren geleden zat ik in een andere baan naast een journalist die zijn bronnen belde, kennelijk niet om te weten wat zij wisten, maar om citaten aan te bieden die hij hun in de mond legde. Ik betwijfel of hij het meende – in sommige opzichten was hij een goede journalist – maar hij liet zijn bronnen weten welke lijn zij moesten volgen om hun kansen om geciteerd te worden zo groot mogelijk te maken. Niet alle journalistieke instellingen zijn vandaag de dag in staat partijdigheid te produceren, maar er is genoeg om ons zorgen te maken. Dit is in strijd met wat wij altijd hebben beweerd te doen. De noodzaak om clicks aan te trekken en abonnees te prikkelen is reëel, evenals de afwezigheid van prikkels in verband met de onrechtmatige daden en oneerlijke praktijken die in andere beroepen een zakelijk motief vormen voor het nastreven van wat wij objectiviteit plachten te noemen.
Het bewijs dat het coronavirus mogelijk ontsnapt is uit het Wuhan Institute of Virology heeft Fauci en de andere Wuhan Covid ontkenners ingehaald, hoewel de verdenkingen vanaf het begin duidelijk waren. Beeld: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
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Verschenen in druk op 29. Mei 2021.
