Essay Grading: F

When grading Daszak's Guardian essay, it's important to remember that the Celebrity Scientist author isis:

promoted

• advertised (self & Org-wise) as a Wworld-leading expertorld-Leading-Expert - the best-of-the-best science intellects on - selected in the planet.original Backedtop ten origin-hunters - on-the-planet
• backed personally by millions of millions-of-dollars in (taxpayer) funding &- researchthe resources,visible hecream-off-the-top isof what your Non-Profit Org, the ironically-named EcoHealth Alliance raked-in a whole pipe-line of (95% US tax-payer funded, tyvm Tony) - trusted to use that money for the benefit of human kind
  
• backed by access to state-of-the-art Bat Lab facilities  (the most-expensive kind - with horrific cruelty to animals, btw)  (holy grail: cross the Rubicon to engineered, humanly contagious bat-viruses (to get more funding!))
• entrusted with representing the World Health Organization on behalf on-behalf-of us us-all to understand the origin of a disaster that altered the course of humanity (killed millions whilst precipitatingcatapulting draconianhumanity restrictionsinto ona allfuture-gone-bad humanBlade-runner freedoms.unreality).
  

Hell!  That's an awful lot of world-leading-intellect force there, Pete.  But the best argument you've got is: Ignore the Conspiracy Theorists - Scientists KNOW Covid wasn't created in a lab

Now,On any report card, it's important to say something positive, so if the goal was to create a fog of fog-of-irrationality to cover up the origins of Covid & spread CCP disinformation, then i'd have to give you AA+ for effort (t.hough Though theTHE Guardian deserves part of the credit as the mainstream mega-platform promoting you).  But the audaciousness you showed, your social-media push - that was all top-notch

But if it's meant as an academic argument, then even if it was written by a Year 10 student,  you couldn't in all honesty give it a pass mark.  Here's a recap as to why:

You've provided no evidence to support your contention that Richard Dearlove's call to investigate a lab-origin makes him a crackpot conspiracy theorist.  

A barrage of immature name-calling doesn't make it so, Pete, i'm sorry.   It's unscientific.  It only diminishes you.  If that's the best that you, one of our (supposedly) brightest scientific minds can muster, in the world's moment of need, then that's very disturbing. 

Your use of the pejorative term Conspiracy Theorist four times (like it means something) in the one article (& dozens of more times in other writings) betrays a lack of substance.  

Your labeling of a call to investigate the possibility of a lab-origin by Dearlove & Sorensen (& other researchers) as an outlandish claim equivalent to saying Covid came from aliens,  is nothing more than a silly Strawman.

Your only evidence to support your case is that Scientists just know.   But no explanation of how they know.  The WIV database was taken down & we haven't even had the investigation yet!  If one of the chief investigators is claiming it's a foregone conclusion even before it's happened, then straight-away we can deduce that the WHO Investigation is a sham. 

The implications of that are frightening: our world-leading experts, that we pay for, rely on - they are happy to betray us, & every principle of science (& ethics) in order to commit a global, academic fraud.  Why?  To protect a totalitarian regime - & their own self-interests.

At Formosa Hut we have this Golden Rule:

When a person resorts to irrational name-calling in a discussion about details - they are revealing their insecurity.

For example a homophobe might be insecure about their own sexuality, or a racist about their personal value as a human.  The language used in emotive outbursts is always revealing.   It was this rule that first alerted us to something odd going on with THE Science Community.   Why on earth are you demonizing people for stating the obvious?  In Daszak's case, for example, he can't stop using the term Conspiracy Theorist to attack his opponents & accusing them of being devoid of  logic and reason.

Therefore, using Golden Rule theory, Pete, you are conspiring to cover-up the origin of Covid, & logic is your greatest insecurity. 

You see logic as your enemy.   Logically, the WHO Investigation would include a deep-dive into what was going on at the Bat Lab, right-next-door to where the outbreak occurred.  Logically, you would not be part of the investigation due to your massive conflict of interest regarding WIV.  Logically, WIV wouldn't have shut down their database of bat-viruses (which is meant to be internationally accessible) if there was nothing to hide.  Logically, you wouldn't be ruling out a lab-event before it had even been examined.  Logically, you wouldn't be lauding a closed, totalitarian regime as open & transparent, when everyone knows they're not.

None of this would really matter - you'd be one more scientist with a COI-tainted viewpoint - who's way more interested in their next funding check than they are in the truth.  What's frightening, though, is the platform you have (MSM + WHO), from which to spread your disinformation - the immense power that entails - including the power to force people across the globe to comply with this fake reality.