> It wouldn't be hard, from a technical or scientific point of view, to give access to the labs' files to an independent commission of inquiry.
And if those files are shared, and nothing is found, you'd just move the goalposts, and claim the data was doctored.
Supposing the lab was not at fault - what incentive is there for anyone to attract a bunch of media attention, and possibly lose face, in order to vindicate themselves in an inquiry that won't actually change anyone's mind?
> That's what democracies do, but obviously not communist dictatorships.
Democracies also hold inquiries over and over again until they get the political results they want. How many Benghazi commissions have we had, by now? [1] How many people changed their mind thanks to them? [2]
> And if those files are shared, and nothing is found, you'd just move the goalposts, and claim the data was doctored.
Really? That's what you're going for?
Would you be insulting me the same way if the suspicion was on, say, a private laboratory in the United States? Would you imply that I'm a conspiracy theorist nutjob if I were to demand an inquiry? Should we stop all trials because there's always some people who refuse to believe the verdict even it was reasonable when the trial was obviosly fair? How is this situation different?
It seems to me that you're the one who's exhibiting the same kind of denial and mental gymnastic as the average 911 or JFK truther.
I'm not a biologist, I'm an engineer with training in industrial safety and I've studied industrial accidents long before this happened. Industrial accidents happen. They happen less and are less deadly in industries where risk is taken seriously and where open access to information and public oversight is present. The debate on gain of function research that has been revealed to have happened before this pandemic, whether such research happened in Wuhan or not, shows to me that not only was risk not taken seriously enough by the virology community as whole, but that open debate and oversight was almost entirely absent.
And if those files are shared, and nothing is found, you'd just move the goalposts, and claim the data was doctored.
Supposing the lab was not at fault - what incentive is there for anyone to attract a bunch of media attention, and possibly lose face, in order to vindicate themselves in an inquiry that won't actually change anyone's mind?
> That's what democracies do, but obviously not communist dictatorships.
Democracies also hold inquiries over and over again until they get the political results they want. How many Benghazi commissions have we had, by now? [1] How many people changed their mind thanks to them? [2]
[1] Ten.
[2] To a rough approximation, zero.
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