From TPM Reader N.B …
I wanted to comment with a slightly different perspective on your recent discussion of the “lab leak” theory of the origins of COVID: The FBI is terrible at molecular bioscience.
A really key high-profile example of this was the 2001 anthrax mailing investigation. There were so many questions surrounding the FBI investigation that the National Academies of Sciences were commissioned to review the scientific approaches used by the FBI, which culminating in a 2008 report (summarized here🙂 **I was a postdoc in the lab of one of the scientists on this panel and therefore have a particular memory of this episode. To keep the format of the other letters you received from scientists: I am a biochemist and microbiologist, not a virologist**…
This report was extremely critical of the FBI and concluded that the scientific approaches used by the FBI were so flawed that the evidence and conclusions they drew from it did not support their claims. After the FBI reviewed the report, they presented additional forensic evidence to the scientists leading to the review of the report.
I would be very surprised if the FBI is any better at this now and the scientific questions surrounding the origins of COVID are much more complex than those of the anthrax mailings. Unless they have unrevealed forensic evidence to base their assessment on, I would assume their science is rubbish.
