Similarly, the lab leak theory—one of the more widely accepted and plausible contrarian views—also doesn’t survive careful scrutiny. It’s easy to think it’s probably right when your perception is that the disagreement is between people like Saar Wilf and government bureaucrats like Fauci. But when you realize that some of the anti-lab leak people are obsessive autists who have studied the topic a truly mind-boggling amount, and don’t have any social or financial stake in the outcome, it’s hard to be confident that they’re wrong.
This is a very poor conclusion to draw from the Rootclaim debate. If you have not yet read Gwern’s commentary on the debate, I suggest that you do so. In short, the correct conclusion here is that the debate was a very poor format for evaluating questions like this, and that the “obsessive autists” in question cannot be relied on. (This is especially so because in this case, there absolutely was a financial stake—$100,000 of financial stake, to be precise!)
This is a very poor conclusion to draw from the Rootclaim debate. If you have not yet read Gwern’s commentary on the debate, I suggest that you do so. In short, the correct conclusion here is that the debate was a very poor format for evaluating questions like this, and that the “obsessive autists” in question cannot be relied on. (This is especially so because in this case, there absolutely was a financial stake—$100,000 of financial stake, to be precise!)