The paradox haunts the scientists. They all see evidence pointing toward lab escape, saying the virus’s characteristics are “exactly what was expected by engineering,” musing that both evolution or engineering are “really rather plausible,” and “we can’t prove whether this is natural or escape.” Rambaut, the most reserved of the group on the question, at one point says, “I literally swivel day by day thinking it is a lab escape or natural.” However, these thoughts become confused once they learn that key officials like Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH and Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIAID, funders like Jeremy Farrar of Wellcome Trust, and even Nature magazine don’t want to hear that evidence, afraid it might “feed” conspiracy theories.

The scientists therefore end up having frankly schizoid conversations, alternately denouncing and embracing their own observations. Even in the relative safety of a private Slack chat, it appears these well-heeled, influential scientists felt pressure to engage in political virtue-signaling, to a degree that influenced their work. …

In any case, it’s in reply to Garry’s prompt about these early Cotton stories that the Twitter-conscious Andersen wrote the following:

As for Fox News — Tom Cotton is trending with COVID-19 on the Twitters at the moment. I gotta say — the guy isn’t totally wrong. (although, of course, the reason why they’re doing this has nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with they [sic] China commentary, so obviously wrong).

[These conversations will vindicate a lot of people, including Cotton, and not just on the origin of the pandemic. It will also vindicate those tried to argue on a number of scientific and policy issues during the pandemic, only to have their speech suppressed by executive branch agencies in covert orders to social-media platforms. There is a unified-field theory of outrageous conduct in pursuit of lies, and it rests entirely on these bureaucrats and functionaries. — Ed]