We're Not Afraid of the Lab-Leak Theory

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Dear NR Friend,

As you might have heard, it's now okay to entertain the theory that the COVID-19 virus may have escaped from the Wuhan lab.

This is baffling to us here at NR, since we have been writing about the theory, at length and in detail, since April.

No, not April as in two months ago — April as in more than a year ago, when what would be the long taboo against the lab theory was already being enforced.

Go ahead and take a moment and look at this extensive April 3, 2020, post from Jim Geraghty on why we had to take evidence that the virus came from a lab seriously.

(Go ahead and take another moment if necessary — it's long.)

Jim's piece got noticed. An article in The New Republic was titled, "Why Conservatives Believe a Chinese Lab Created the Coronavirus," with a sub-headline that sniffed, "The conspiracy theory sprung from an amateur YouTube video. Then, the National Review picked it up."

The New Republic went on to note, "The media personality who jumped farthest down this rabbit hole was not a Fox host or a Breitbart hack, but the center-right [sic] blogger Jim Geraghty of the National Review."

Yes, indeed — and that's why Jim should take a bow, and why we are asking you to chip in to help in our latest fundraising drive.

The sneering, high-handed dismissal of the Wuhan lab theory is high on the list of media failures of the past several years, although, admittedly, it has lots of competition. Once again, the narrative was set by a few key outlets and opinion-makers on dubious or erroneous grounds, and then the bogus orthodoxy was enforced by cable-news hosts, Twitter mobs, and social-media companies.

Until just last week, Facebook was censoring posts supporting the lab theory, even though it was always plausible and, if anything, had gotten stronger in recent months.

Because the narrative is so all-powerful, it's absolutely essential that conservatives push back, and not with click-bait or other tripe, but with substantive, fact-based, persuasive argument that fair-minded people can't dismiss easily.

That's what NR has done on the origins story for a full year, whether it was defending Tom Cotton's initial, amazingly prescient comments on the lab, slamming the WHO for its complicity with China, pushing back against the truly absurd notion that the lab theory is racist, or calling for a U.S. investigation worthy of the name.

To give you a loose idea of how much we've covered this story, you can take a look at the (inevitably incomplete) list of our articles and blog posts.

All through this, Jim was pounding away on this story, providing the best, most up-to-date information. He told you what you needed to know and what you weren't hearing elsewhere or what was being actively suppressed elsewhere.

I hazard to say that if you have been reading Jim over the past year and a half, you have been better-informed on the lab than if you have been reading anyone any place else.

That's not to say that Jim is a science writer; he's not. But he was on to this before almost any of the big-time science writers (indeed, a reporter covering COVID for the New York Times was still insisting last week that the lab theory is racist).

As I always note in these appeals, National Review doesn't have a sugar daddy and never has, and serious opinion journalism isn't a lucrative business.

That's why if you value what we do and think it's essential to have a rigorous, principled, and undaunted outlet like NR on the playing field, we ask that you contribute any amount to our drive that seeks to raise $50,000 in five days.

Literally every dollar helps, and we welcome $5 donations as well as $1,000 contributions.

We live in an age of superstition and enforced conformity, and I submit to you that on the origins debate, NR and especially Jim Geraghty have shown how to defend rationality and independent thinking against an overweening, insufferable conventional wisdom.

Please help if you can, and thanks for reading.

Rich

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