Scientific American - USA (2022-03)

76 Scientific American, March 2022

tists. The anti-GMO organization

U.S. Right to Know honed its FOIA

tactics against food scientists be-

fore turning its sights on virolo-

gists. Despite e-mails clearly show-

ing virologists considering but ulti-

mately rejecting various claims

about SARS-CoV-2 being engi-

neered, lab-leak proponents tend

to  selectively quote messages. They

cast virologists as either never hav-

ing given lab scenarios fair consid-

eration or—on the other extreme—

believing in a lab origin all along

and deliberately lying about it. Peo-

ple who push conspiracy theories

often toggle between opposing

claims as the rhetorical need arises.

Another e-mail-centered theory

turned on the idea that the WIV

had originally housed viruses close-

ly related to SARS-CoV-2, presum-

ably including the natural virus

from which it had been engineered.

The theory further held that the

WIV suspiciously delayed publica-

tion of a paper that had been sub-

mitted in October 2019 until 2020.

At some point after the paper’s sub-

mission with the “true” sequences,

the argument went, the WIV halted

its publication and altered the se-

quence information in furtherance

of the cover-up.

Another FOIA effort was mar-

shaled to reveal the discrepancy

between the “real” sequences sub-

mitted to the journal and those

that were pawned off on the unsus-

pecting public. Unfortunately for

this conspiracy claim, the FOIA re-

sults revealed that the submitted

paper’s sequences were exactly

what the scientists publicly said

they were. The self-sealing nature

of conspiratorial reasoning being

what it is, however, some propo-

nents of the lab-leak hypothesis

remain undeterred and believe the

“real” sequences must exist in some

as yet undocumented draft created

before the submitted version.

The self-sealing dynamic can

produce even more elaborate epi-

cycles to resist falsification. Until

earlier this year, the closest known

relative of SARS-CoV-2 was a virus

called RaTG13, which is known to

have been held by the WIV in a col-

lection of bat swab samples. RaTG13

is more than 96 percent identical

to SARS-CoV-2. It is likely that this

virus genome was sequenced from

a swab taken in 2013 from bats in

an abandoned mine shaft in Moji-

ang, a county in China’s Yunnan

province. RaTG13’s centrality to

many lab-leak claims stemmed

from its putative role as the “back-

bone” from which SARS-CoV-2

was allegedly engineered.

Being closely related to SARS-

CoV-2 and being present in the lab

at the WIV made RaTG13 a perfect

candidate for a precursor that was

engineered into SARS-CoV-2. In the

short time since the pandemic took

hold, however, several related virus-

es have been discovered that are

closer in sequence to SARS-CoV-2

over much of the genome. More-

over, despite being related to SARS-

CoV-2, RaTG13 has been found to

occupy a separate phylogenetic

branch. SARS-CoV-2 is not descend-

ed from RaTG13; rather the viruses

share a common ancestor from

which they diverged an estimated

40 to 70 years ago, meaning it could

not have served as a backbone for

an engineered SARS-CoV-2.

Rather than accepting this con-

trary evidence, some lab-leak advo-

cates resorted to self-sealing rea-

soning that deviates from standard

scientific practice: They began to

argue that RaTG13 was not a natu-

ral virus itself but rather had been

edited or in some way fabricated

in  an effort to hide the “true” back-

bone of SARS-CoV-2 and thus its

engineered nature. The virus from

Laos showing that SARS-CoV-2’s

RBD and the efficiency of its bind-

ing to human receptors are not

unique—providing strong support

for a zoonotic origin—is thus rein-

terpreted to mean that the WIV

obtained and used a similar but so

far secret virus from Laos to design

SARS-CoV-2. This ad hoc hypothe-

sis is accompanied by the expecta-

tion that the burden is on the WIV

to prove it did not have that secret

virus—a reversal of the expected

burden of proof that runs counter

to conventional scientific reasoning.

Such pivots are potentially im-

mune to further evidence. Just as

there are effectively unlimited

“gaps” between transitional fossils

that are exploited by creationists,

so, too, are there effectively unlim-

ited potential natural viruses from

which SARS-CoV-2 must have been

engineered that have been kept

hidden by the WIV. Or else unnatu-

ral viruses the WIV might have

engineered to make SARS-CoV-2’s

features seem naturally evolved.

More and more relatives and

antecedents of SARS-CoV-2 are

bound to be discovered, and adher-

ents of  the lab-leak hypothesis will

face a  stark choice. They can aban-

don, or  at least qualify, their belief

in genetic engineering, or they

must generate an ever increasing

number of claims that these rela-

tives and antecedents, too, have

been fabricated or engineered. It is

likely that at least some people will

follow the latter path of motivated

reasoning, insisting that secretive

Chinese machinations or an unnat-

ural manipulation of biology is

responsible for the virus’s origin.

Motivated reasoning based on

blaming an “other” is a powerful

force against scientific evidence.

Some politicians—most notably

former President Donald Trump

and his entourage—still push the

lab-leak hypothesis and blame Chi-

na in broad daylight. When Trump

baldly pointed the finger at China

in the earliest days of the pandemic,

unfortunate consequences fol-

lowed. The proliferation of xeno-

phobic rhetoric has been linked

to a striking increase in anti-Asian

hate crimes. It has also led to a vili-

fication of the WIV and some of its

Western collaborators, as well as

partisan attempts to defund certain

types of research (such as “gain of

function” research) that are linked

with the presumed engineering

of SARS-CoV-2. There are legiti-

mate arguments about the regula-

tion, acceptability and safety of do-

ing gain-of-function research with

pathogens. But conflating these

concerns with the fevered discus-

sion of the origins of SARS-CoV-2

is unhelpful. These examples show

how a relatively narrow conspiracy

Stephan
Lewandowsky
is a professor
of cognitive science
at the University
of Bristol in England.
His research focuses
on disinformation
and people’s attitudes
toward science.
Peter Jacobs
is a climate scientist
and a strategic
science adviser
in the Office of
Communications at
the nasa Goddard
Space Flight Center.
The views expressed
are his own and
do not necessarily
represent those
of nasa or the
United States.
Stuart Neil is a
professor of virology
and head of the
department of
infectious disease at
King’s College London.
His research group
studies the interaction
between the human
immune system and
pathogenic viruses,
including SARS-CoV-2.