Lab leak hypothesis and the value of free speech
“If all of mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind ... may possibly be true.”
This is one of the central arguments on the importance of free speech from philosopher John Stuart Mill’s famous essay “On Liberty,” and it is just as relevant in 21st-century America as it was in 19th-century England. Look no further than the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis.
The hypothesis that COVID-19 was leaked from a virology lab in Wuhan, China was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory, racism against the Chinese and the invention of President Trump and his supporters. Critics of the hypothesis asserted that the emergence of the virus in a region that also housed a virology lab was simply a coincidence. Yet, evidence makes this dismissal seem premature at best.
Sen. Tom Cotton from Arkansas thought the lab-leak hypothesis might be worth exploring. He was one of the first prominent figures to question the wet market origin of the virus, which resulted in him being attacked by numerous media outlets, including in a recently corrected article in the Washington Post.
Cotton is a politician, so one could be forgiven for questioning his motives and being wary of politicking. But some experts who had the knowledge and credentials to investigate the origin of the virus also raised the possibility of a lab leak early on.
Alina Chan, a molecular biologist, began investigating the origin of the virus at the outset of the pandemic. She co-authored a paper published in May 2020 that argued for at least considering the possibility of a lab leak, and she was vocal about her findings on Twitter.
But,“as soon as her paper got picked up by the media, luminaries in the field sought to censure her,” Rowan Jacobson of Boston Magazine reported. Chan was not being censored by any governmental power; it
In this Feb. 23, 2017file photo, Shi Zhengli works with other researchers in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. Did the novel coronavirus escape from this lab?
was coming from her peers in the scientific community.
Some scientists offered useful criticism, but others dismissed her based on semantics. Razib Khan, a geneticist and writer, interviewed Chan about her findings. For doing so, he was accused of being xenophobic and peddling in conspiracy theories.
Yuri Deigin, a biotech entrepreneur, published a Medium article in April 2020 that went into great detail about the legitimacy of the hypothesis, which paved the road for others to come forth with their own skepticism that the virus’ emergence had nothing to do with the Wuhan lab.
During a June 2020 interview with Bret Weinstein, Deigin expressed surprise that established scientists quickly dismissed the hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, not because they were skeptical about the hypothesis, but because they wouldn’t even consider it as a possibility.
For Weinstein, the coincidence was enough to take the hypothesis seriously, and he and his wife, Heather Heying, both evolutionary biologists, went so far as to make their case on a January 2021 episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
These stories provide an illustrative case to consider Mill’s approach to free speech and the merits of viewpoint diversity, especially now that enough evidence has emerged, albeit circumstantial, to prompt the Biden administration to launch an investigation into the origin of the virus.
Granted, Mill was making his arguments before the existence of the internet. The sheer volume of information that is accessible today warrants concern about disinformation, but the lab-leak hypothesis was always plausible, thus worthy of consideration.
The initial dismissal of the hypothesis makes it clear that governments aren’t always the biggest threat to free speech. In this case, the scientific community, the news media, and social media were silencing the minority opinion. The media listened to scientists on one side of the debate when, in light of the evidence, they should have remained agnostic.
To be sure, concerns persist that exploring the hypothesis may lead some to blame the Chinese people—and blaming people who had nothing to do with the situation would indeed be a mistake.
But there is a difference between
acts committed by institutions and acts committed by individuals. One would not blame the American people for the 2008 global financial crisis; likewise, one should not blame the Chinese people for the spread of COVID-19.
Publicly expressing doubt in a time of uncertainty may strike some as unwise and liable to result in a reduced trust in science, but trust also suffers when we silence people who have credible evidence. And the origin of COVID-19 is an important question as we consider how to prevent such a global travesty from happening in the future.
An open exchange of opinions on the matter is a crucial component of accomplishing that goal.