{"id":16470,"date":"2024-04-29T12:05:18","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T11:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=16470"},"modified":"2024-04-29T12:05:18","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T11:05:18","slug":"podcast-china-covid-19-and-the-viscount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2024\/04\/29\/podcast-china-covid-19-and-the-viscount\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast: China, COVID-19 and the Viscount"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" title=\"Embed Player\" src=\"https:\/\/play.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/31029048\/height\/192\/theme\/modern\/size\/large\/thumbnail\/yes\/custom-color\/edebeb\/time-start\/00:00:00\/playlist-height\/200\/direction\/backward\/font-color\/040404\" width=\"100%\" height=\"192\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/spilling-cup-of-103258394\">Listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from just \u20ac5 p.m.) on Patreon.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cassandra-voices-podcast\/id1728086643\">You can also listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from \u20ac15 p.a. for all episodes) on Apple Podcasts.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Did COVID-19 originate from a pathway connected to China\u2019s trade in wildlife-for-consumption, or did laboratory activity trigger the pandemic? Where do things stand with the so-called <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-57268111\">Lab Leak Hypothesis<\/a><\/span>? One thing is for sure: in this pressing matter, one of the hardest combined attitudes to take is to be both engaged and polite.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Many <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/lab-leak-proponents-rutgers-accused-defaming-and-intimidating-covid-19-origin\">combatants<\/a><\/span>, previously capable of professional comportment, have descended into bare knuckle insults of the kind academe has not seen since the world decided one must be on the Left or the Right, or that one should comport oneself responsibly in the face of a Cold War that may become hot. Are you on the right side of history, or involved at all? You are either ready for flak, in this situation, or keep your head down.<\/p>\n<p>Many scientists with an opinion worth sharing are choosing not to do so.<\/p>\n<p>They might be wise. After all, some of this fighting has gotten dirty. Where some engaged in respectable debate before, rivals are now trying to cancel and professionally immolate one another. Direct exchange rather than article or book writing now makes up the majority of this discourse. Peer-reviewed articles on either side of this exchange have been few. Before you say \u2013 \u2018That\u2019s because there\u2019s no evidence for the lab-leak\u2019, or \u2018That\u2019s because there\u2019s no evidence for the wet market\/ zoonosis\u2019, consider this: the Chinese government most likely had insight, and most likely destroyed evidence related to one or the other.<\/p>\n<p>Viscount Matt Ridley, our interviewee here, has been both interested and engaged with the question of the virus origin since the start. He has been so without lapsing into <em>ad hominem<\/em> jibes. Though he has lapsed into Twitter exchanges of fire, his manner throughout has been civil. He stands with <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/yurideigin.medium.com\/sars-cov-2-is-precisely-the-virus-wiv-was-hunting-for-in-2019-b93b6c996136\">scientists<\/a><\/span>, skilled researchers and a majority of the public in thinking that COVID-19 resulted most probably in a misadventure connected to a Chinese lab.<\/p>\n<p>This does not mean he is correct.<\/p>\n<p>Why is it important to point this out? In a context where both sides of a highly contentious argument disagree over all but the smallest of premises, the question of decency \u2013 and its cousin attributes honesty and responsibility \u2013 does come to the fore. Decency is also a cousin of openness by the way, and as we encircle in our conversation, China\u2019s rulers have been anything but open. Therefore, take a listen to this exchange, and a look at Matt Ridley and Alina Chan\u2019s book, as a start about posing this question for yourself. For all of us who lived through the pandemic, and in memory of those who didn\u2019t, asking questions about its origins remains a primary part of the aftermath.<\/p>\n<p>Read Luke Sheehan&#8217;s account of his time in China, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lilliputpress.ie\/uncategorized\/post-china-post-5-by-luke-sheehan\">published by<\/a><\/span><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lilliputpress.ie\/uncategorized\/post-china-post-5-by-luke-sheehan\"> The Lilliput Press<\/a><\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from just \u20ac5 p.m.) on Patreon. You can also listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from \u20ac15 p.a. for all episodes) on Apple Podcasts. Did COVID-19 originate from a pathway connected to China\u2019s trade in wildlife-for-consumption, or did laboratory activity trigger the pandemic? Where do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,13,28],"tags":[501,1609,1967,1974,1981,5318,5319,5717,5718,5719,5722,5984,5985,5986,6882,7298,8174,8922,9873],"class_list":["post-16470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid19","category-podcast","category-science","tag-and","tag-china","tag-covid","tag-covid-origins","tag-covid-19","tag-lab-leak-debate","tag-lab-leak-hypothesis","tag-luke-sheehan","tag-luke-sheehan-cassandra-voices","tag-luke-sheehan-china","tag-luke-sheehan-matt-ridley","tag-matt-ridley","tag-matt-ridley-cassandra-voices","tag-matt-ridley-orgin-of-covid","tag-origins-of-covid-19","tag-podcast","tag-science","tag-the","tag-viscount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}