SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

DID INTERNATIONAL POLITICS DEFEAT SCIENCE? – FROM THE TELEGRAPH:   Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.  An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.  The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.  But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.  Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: “These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons.”  This requires a major congressional investigation, something we won't get with the Democrats in control.  If this year's midterms work out the way we hope they will, maybe then we can start to learn the truth.  Scientists should stay out of politics, and be protected from politics.  President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation – the famous "industrial-military complex" speech – warned of the impact of federal grants on scientific results.  He was talking about the interaction of science with government and politics.  His words were ignored. 

January 11, 2022