In Episode 219 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. Alina is a Canadian molecular biologist specializing in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Matt is a British science journalist who has written countless bestselling books on subjects ranging from evolution, to innovation, to genomic science.
They are the co-authors of an electrifying new book titled “Viral” that grapples with the mystery of how Covid-19, a virus whose closest known relatives live in bats residing in subtropical southern China, somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometers away in the city of Wuhan, while leaving none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create. Instead, nearly two years into this pandemic we’re presented with a trail of evidence that increasingly points towards the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the so-called “Lab Leak Hypothesis” as the most plausible source of the outbreak.
This is a critically important conversation to be having and Matt and Alina have made an invaluable contribution to it by working tirelessly and at great risk to themselves and to their careers in order to bring clarity to many of the facts and much of the evidence in support of the lab leak hypothesis—a theory that was consistently attacked and discredited by various actors, both wittingly and unwittingly, in the earliest days of the pandemic.
We normally release the second half of our episodes for our subscribers only, but because of how important this conversation is and because of how much Matt and Alina have sacrificed in order to educate us all on the origins of Covid-19, we thought it was only right to do as much as we can to share as much of their work as possible.
If you enjoy today’s episode, please take a moment to write us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider being a premium subscriber, if you haven’t already. There's no commitment. You can cancel at any time and the entire library of Hidden Forces subscriber content going all the way back to Episode 1 becomes instantly available to you, including the transcripts, and rundowns, to this episode and every other episode we’ve ever done.
You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed
Write us a review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas
Episode Recorded on 11/09/2021
Engineering Society and the Human Experience | Michael Sacasas
The Threats to US Dollar Hegemony | Daniel McDowell
Does the Fed Have Any Idea What It’s Doing? | Jeff Snider & Brent Johnson
How to Manage Risk in the Coming Recession | David Rosenberg
Is the Banking Crisis Over or Has It Just Begun? | Jeff Snider
What the Bailout of SVB Means for the Fed's Fight Against Inflation | Steven Kelly
How Our Brains Model Reality & the True Nature of the World | Iain McGilchrist
What’s Happened to Consensus Reality? | Jon Askonas
What Pre-WWII France Can Tell Us About America in 2023 | Jonathan Kirshner
How to Balance Legitimacy & Power in a Fractured World | Sir Paul Tucker
The 1990s and the Cancellation of the Future | Chuck Klosterman
The Effect of China’s Reopening on Global Growth & Inflation | Shehzad Qazi
What Comes After Secular Stagnation? | Barry Eichengreen
How Sanctions and Export Controls Weaponize Global Trade & Finance | Agathe Demarais
Navigating the Converging Worlds of Macro & Geopolitics | Roger Hirst & Jacob Shapiro
Turkey-Syria & the New Geopolitics of the Greater Middle East | Joshua Landis
What Is Silvergate Capital & Why Does It Matter? | Edwin Dorsey
Are We Headed Towards a Monetary Breakdown? | Jeff Snider
Why You Should Care About the Twitter Files | Renée DiResta
How Much of Crypto Is a Criminal Conspiracy? | James Block
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The emPOWERed Half Hour
NABOR® TALKS
U.S Property Podcast
Aligned Money Show
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money