March 2022, ScientificAmerican.com 77Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
theory can expand to endanger en-
tire groups of people and categories
of scientific research—jeopardizing
both lives and lifesaving science.A LONG TAIL
scientists no longer debate the
fact that greenhouse gas emissions
from the burning of fossil fuels are
changing Earth’s climate. Although
this scientific consensus on climate
change was established 20 years
ago, it has never stopped influen-
tial politicians from calling climate
change a hoax. Climate denial is
a well-organized disinformation
campaign to confuse the public
in pursuit of a clear policy goal—
namely, to delay climate mitigation.
The markers of conspiratorial
cognition are universal, whether
the subject is climate denial, anti-
vaccination propaganda or conspir-
acies surrounding the origin of
SARS-CoV-2. It is critical to help
the media and the public identify
those markers. Unlike the over-
whelming evidence for climate
change, however, a zoonotic origin
of SARS-CoV-2 is likely but not yet
conclusive. This is not a sign of ne-
farious activity and is, in fact, en-tirely unsurprising: It took 10 years
to pin down the zoonotic source of
SARS-CoV-1. The Zaire Ebola virus
has never been isolated from bats,
despite strong serological evidence
that they are the likely reservoir.
Plausible routes for a lab origin
do exist—but they differ from the
engineering-based hypotheses that
most lab-leak rhetoric relies on.
The lab in Wuhan could be a relay
point in a zoonotic chain in which
a worker became infected while
sampling in the field or being acci-
dentally contaminated during an
attempt to isolate the virus from
a sample. Evidence for these possi-
bilities may yet emerge and repre-
sents a legitimate line of inquiry
that proponents of a natural origin
and lab-leak theorists should be
able to agree on. But support for
those claims will not be found in
self-sealing reasoning, quote min-
ing of e-mails or baseless sugges-
tions. Ironically the xenophobic
instrumentalization of the lab-leak
hypothesis may have made it hard-
er for reasonable scientific voices
to suggest and explore theories
because so much time and effort
has gone into containing the fall-out from conspiratorial rhetoric.
Lessons from climate science
show that failure to demarcate con-
spiratorial reasoning from scientif-
ic investigation results in public
confusion, insufficient action from
leadership, and the harassment of
scientists. It even has the potential
to impact research itself, as scien-
tists are diverted into knocking
back incorrect claims and, in the
process, potentially ceding them
more legitimacy than warranted.
We must anticipate that this
type of dangerous distraction will
continue. Scientists identified
with COVID research are suffering
abuse, including death threats.
When the Omicron variant emerged,
so did nonsensical conspiracy
theories that it, too, was an escaped,
human-altered virus, originating
from the lab in South Africa that
first reported it. One can only
assume that further variants may
likewise be blamed on whichever
research lab is closest to the loca-
tion of discovery. We are not
doomed to keep repeating the mis-
takes of past intersections of sci-
ence and conspiracy should we
choose to learn from them instead.IN THE LAB:
The Wuhan Insti-
tute of Virology
in China, shown
here in a 2017
photograph, has
been a leader
in infectious dis-
ease research
for many years.
Some scientists
identified with
COVID research
have been
harassed by
proponents
of SARS-
CoV-2 conspir-
acy theories.