Was the Coronavirus Intelligently Designed?

A major controversy is arising in scientific communities about which is the correct origin story for SARS-CoV-2.

For nearly a year, the “official” story of the scientific “consensus” was that the coronavirus that has killed 3 million people and crashed economies around the world was the “zoonotic” story: that the virus jumped from a bat or other mammal in a Chinese wet market in Wuhan, China. Those who disagreed and alleged that the virus came from a virology lab in Wuhan were dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” who are anti-science. The dismissive attitude is exemplified in this paragraph from The Scientist, “Depoliticizing Science” by Bob Grant:

Throughout the past year, science and fact have been kicked around the halls of power, with representatives of the US populace debating the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (no, there is not sufficient evidence to say it originated in a Chinese lab), a suggestion that the US Centers for Disease Control has been inflating COVID-19 death tolls (it has not), and unhinged conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and his mind-tracking stake in vaccines against the disease (I mean, come on).

Using the Association Fallacy, Grant lumps Republicans in with anti-vaxxers and conspiracy nutcases. After all, it’s only conservatives who “politicize science,” right? – that’s the mainstream media’s default position. Now, at least on the question of the origin of the virus, Grant may have to eat his words.

Bombshell Report Awakens Scientists

Nicholas Wade, a former science reporter for Nature, Science and the New York Times, and no slouch when it comes to investigative reporting, concluded after a lengthy investigation that the virus most likely originated in that Wuhan virology lab.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: the political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.

In what follows I will sort through the available scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened, and provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.

Popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson picked up on Wade’s report, contending that he had “all but proved” the case for a lab leak. If it had stopped there, that would be one reporter’s opinion. On the heels of that article, 18 scientists from labs all over the country, including Caltech, Harvard and MIT, wrote to Science Magazine, “Investigate the origins of COVID-19.” Then, H. Holden Thorp, the Darwinist editor of Science, agreed to print their letter, even though he remains unconvinced of the lab-origin story. In his blog post today (May 13), Thorp said,

H. Holden Thorp, editor of Science (AAAS)

I am asked frequently whether Science has a position on various things: Is all COVID-19 transmission airborne? Is phase separation important in cell biology? Are there parallel universes? In general, Science’s role is to provide a forum for these issues to be hashed out by others and for the editors to remain as neutral as possible while qualified experts generate consensus. Eventually, consensus emerges and Science takes a position on behalf of the community: Yes, life got here by natural selection [sic]. Yes, the universe is expanding. Yes, human activity is contributing substantially to climate change [sic].

But while consensus is emerging, the human beings who work at Science have their own opinions. And for this inorganic chemist who has been writing about virology for a year, my opinion is that the zoonotic origin of COVID-19 is far more likely, but good science requires that the laboratory escape idea be rigorously investigated before being ruled out. 

Conservative media jumped onto the story. National Review headlined, “Science Letter Breaks ‘Chokehold’ on COVID-Origin Narrative, Says Lab-Leak Theory ‘Viable’.” Even Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams tweeted support for Thorp’s reluctant decision print the scientists’ letter and to give the lab-origin theory a chance. Conservatives have been the main ones questioning the consensus, alleging that WHO (the World Health Organization) was in cahoots with China to cover up the lab-leak theory. Liberals have tended to side with whatever the “experts” have said, including popular epidemiologist Anthony Fauci, who has laughed off the lab-leak theory.

Importance of an Unbiased Design Inference

As a developing story, no firm answer is yet possible, and CEH is not taking a position yet. 0n March 17, a team published in Nature Medicine its conclusion that “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” That certainly has been the position of WHO and the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control). But the letter to Science from distinguished scientists means the debate is on.

As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.

T-shirt sold by the AAAS, publisher of Science.

Whether “transparent, objective, data-driven” conclusions without conflicts of interest ever come about, this debate is really an exercise in design detection. The virus either jumped naturally from an animal, or it was designed to do so. That opens up an important sub-question: did China spring this virus on the world on purpose, or was there an accidental leak at the lab? That question will be even more difficult to answer. The first possibility conjures up images of evil “intelligent design” by the Chinese communists (design, remember, can be good or bad). The latter possibility suggests extreme carelessness. Note that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) forbade travel out of Wuhan within China, but allowed travel outside the country, quickly spreading COVID-19 to the rest of the world. That policy by the CCP looks horrendously suspicious. Pursuing a design inference will, therefore, also include studying the motivations of parties involved.

Many questions in science generate additional questions. Why was China experimenting on dangerous viruses? Why were the lab’s safety standards so careless? Were the Chinese creating novel viruses for biological warfare? Did Tony Fauci authorize U.S. taxpayer funds to support so-called “gain-of-function” experiments on viruses in Wuhan? Those dangerous experiments are outlawed in the USA, but Tucker Carlson alleges Fauci inserted a loophole in the law to allow experimentation in the Wuhan lab.* Why did he say on TV in 2017 that the world could expect a major pandemic within a few years?

*Senator Rand Paul is pointing the finger at him, claiming that Fauci could be culpable for the entire pandemic (WND). Nicholas Wade also suggests that either Fauci, as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), or NIH director Francis Collins granted the exception to the ban on gain-of-function research. It appears that they wanted the Wuhan Institute of Virology to go ahead with research performed under low standards that could never be done in the United States. And yet this research has been called highly dangerous by other virologists.
Update 5/14/2021: Francis Collins admitted today funding went to Wuhan but denies it was intended for gain-of-function research (WND).

We leave the answers to those questions to others more qualified to investigate them, but consider the enormity of the consequences if the lab-leak theory is proven beyond reasonable doubt. The culpability for deaths of millions and the suffering of uncounted millions more of businesspeople who lost their livelihoods during the pandemic is immeasurable. There is no one to blame if this was an unfortunate natural “jump” of a virus to humans. If it was designed to happen, though, the finger-pointing begins, and heads will roll (figuratively speaking). Some proponents of the lab-leak theory believe China should pay reparations to the world.

Rarely has the importance of design detection been so consequential. This is a story to watch. Read Wade’s article. If indeed China sprang this virus on the world by design—even if it was partly by mistake—the suffering all people have experienced for the last year around the world could have international repercussions.

The answer comes down to using the inference to intelligent design correctly without interference from the parties involved. Imagine the money and political pressure the parties involved could summon to keep from being found out. The world deserves to know if this pandemic was the result of chance or intelligent design.

William Dembski’s design filter is a method for assigning causation to unknown phenomena.

Communists don’t care; people are just pawns in their game. Millions dead; no concern. The State is all the matters. Communist dictators killed well over 100 million people in the 20th century. The current communist regimes (Cuba, North Korea, China, Venezuela) care nothing about the suffering of their own people, while the dictators live in luxury. We must never forget. If China is implicated, the world must make them pay, because they will never volunteer to admit culpability. They can be expected to do anything they can to interfere with any conclusion that implicates them. Once again, a correct scientific answer requires integrity by investigators. Facts are facts.

How could this happen? How could the media let the “natural emergence theory” persist unquestioned for a year? Here are the two concluding paragraphs of Nicholas Wade’s investigative report.

Another reason, perhaps, is the migration of much of the media toward the left of the political spectrum. Because President Trump said the virus had escaped from a Wuhan lab, editors gave the idea little credence. They joined the virologists in regarding lab escape as a dismissible conspiracy theory. During the Trump Administration, they had no trouble in rejecting the position of the intelligence services that lab escape could not be ruled out. But when Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of National Intelligence, said the same thing, she too was largely ignored. This is not to argue that editors should have endorsed the lab escape scenario, merely that they should have explored the possibility fully and fairly.

People round the world who have been pretty much confined to their homes for the last year might like a better answer than their media are giving them. Perhaps one will emerge in time. After all, the more months pass without the natural emergence theory gaining a shred of supporting evidence, the less plausible it may seem. Perhaps the international community of virologists will come to be seen as a false and self-interested guide. The common sense perception that a pandemic breaking out in Wuhan might have something to do with a Wuhan lab cooking up novel viruses of maximal danger in unsafe conditions could eventually displace the ideological insistence that whatever Trump said can’t be true.

And then let the reckoning begin.