![]() While Trump uttered opinions and hinted at dark secrets, Cotton had asked for evidence to falsify a hypothesis. Tom Cotton had brought up the lab leak theory and added, “Now, we don’t have evidence that the disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question and see what the evidence says.” Trump’s statement was part of an intermittent and mostly unsuccessful attempt by Republicans and conservatives to shift the conversation on COVID-19 to China’s responsibility for the disease. But that’s what he did in awkward situations. Since Trump never asserted certainty on the matter, it’s fair to ask why a president would bandy about speculative theories on such a life-and-death question. We know, finally, that in April 2020, as the pandemic was ratcheting up its fatal course, then-president Donald Trump claimed to have seen evidence that the initial COVID-19 infections were the result of a leak from the Wuhan virology lab. That’s what it does in awkward situations. We know, too, that the Chinese regime has persistently lied about and obfuscated the subject. ![]() We know that the first cases appeared in China, specifically in the city of Wuhan-where there happens to be a lab specializing in virology. It begins with our abysmal ignorance about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. I happened to be re-reading Popper when the controversy about a possible Wuhan laboratory spill staggered, zombie-like, out of its grave. The tribal mind inclined to magic-that “charmed circle of unchanging taboos.” While this was a very ancient way of organizing humanity, Popper observed that it had provided a model for the totalitarian systems of the 20 th century in their revolt against the open society. New information entailed the corruption of morals the highest duty of those in authority was to freeze social relations in place. The second type of community, which Popper sometimes called “tribal,” considered its laws and customs to be part of an immutable cosmic order and condemned innovation as a crime against the hidden forces that upheld that order. Its preferred political vehicle was liberal democracy. The institution that propelled and sustained the open society, Popper believed, was modern science. ![]() By multiplying knowledge, it sought to adapt to a changing world and improve the conditions of life. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, the great philosopher Karl Popper posited two general types of communities.
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