But that doesn’t explain why the mainstream media, foreswearing any independence of thought or bloodhound instinct, joined in to insist that a negative had been proved and the matter was now closed. It doesn’t explain how the media went into complete collective overdrive in assailing any hint that it could be otherwise. The New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, the Guardian, the Daily Beast, the Poynter Institute’s “PolitiFact,” and many more news organizations jumped on the can’t-be-true thesis. Why? It seems to be a product of desperate fears on the part of growing numbers of Americans that someone somewhere may be harboring sentiments of racism or xenophobia, as defined with broad abandon by those with such fears. Thus, the lab-leak hypothesis couldn’t possibly be right because that might energize underlying anti-Chinese sentiments. But what happens to science or even just normal human cognition when avenues of inquiry are closed for fear of bad thoughts somewhere?