RE: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson calls out Google for funding Wuhan bat research
I still have an open mind about the source of the pandemic. From what I can tell, it may or may not have been a lab leak. I have seen some reports that it may have already been in circulation in Italy and the Pacific North-West during the 2018-2019 flu season, which means it might not have even originated in Wuhan.
But... the mere possibility that it might have been a lab leak should end all efforts at "gain of function" research. I knew it was going on before the pandemic, but I trusted that all labs had adequate safety protocols. In retrospect, that was extremely naive.
It's especially concerning to me that US funds (from tax payers and pseudo-private corporations, like Google) were apparently funding military research in other countries.. and knowing how our government and large corporations operate, I'm sure that China isn't the only place.
What always upsets me about these kinds of scenarios is the utter disrespect for science. And I know you are one who greatly appreciates science, which I believe is reflected in the fact that you are remaining open-minded. It often seems that open-mindedness has somehow become a hippy-thing, or a conspiracy theory-thing. But I was taught that the first rule of scientific inquiry is: seek to disprove your own theory!
If you succeed, then you move on to something else. But if you cannot disprove yourself, then give your theory to your colleagues, and ask them to disprove it. If they cannot, then you have a sound hypothesis with which to proceed with experimentation and research.
What I see today is, "I have the facts, and I will fight you tooth and nail if you try to disprove me!" Look at Fauci saying that if you disagree with him, you are disagreeing with science. WHAT HUBRIS! It's abhorrent arrogance, and has nothing to do with science.
The scientists here in Italy have also said that they began to see the symptoms of this coronavirus as early as September 2019. So I am open to the idea that it may not have come directly from the Wuhan lab. So I move to the next theory, which is that it is nevertheless lab-originated because the gene sequence is not natural, and this explains your Steem Link concerning the deleted files from Wuhan. Even French virologist and Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine, Luc Montagnier, said COVID-19 was man-made, and now they want to "cancel" him. These people cannot say they respect science, but rather politics and personal agendas.
Not only are tax-payers funding these monstrosities, but now tax-payers are funding the experimental therapies that they are calling vaccines to deal with these monstrosities. As human beings, we have the right to be outraged, but we also have the responsibility to remain open-minded.
I especially agree with your first couple of paragraphs, which is that dogma has come to replace science in so much of popular culture. It's like the term "Science" has been unknowingly redefined as a sort of religion by so many people, and "scientists" are the new shamans and fortune tellers. In the US, I think this has become a major social problem in the last few decades. Sometimes I feel like we're living through the prelude to that Star Trek episode where a centuries-old computer has taken on the role of a god to generations of people in a society that has forgotten how the machine works.
So it's like today, only that instead of a machine, we have forgotten how science works! Powerful analogy!