Yes, John Schneider is a crank and a fool with a predilection for conspiracy theories. Why do you ask?
It is beginning to look like the virus that causes COVID-19 has been around for some decades now, lurking inside bats and pangolins, already equipped with the biological tools needed to infect human beings. The evidence comes from the ability to detect the number of times the virus has undergone “recombination” with the DNA of other viruses. “‘That [evidence] means SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in bats for decades’, Boni says. ‘What’s more, one of the older traits that SARS-CoV-2 shares with RaTG13 and other close relatives is its receptor-binding site, the genetic mechanism that enables the virus to recognize and bind to receptors inside the human lung. The receptor binding site was not acquired by recombination from another virus,’ he explained. ‘That’s something that just exists in bats—and in pangolins, it turns out. It’s just a trait of these specific bat coronaviruses that they can also infect humans.'” Link.
But not so long ago Schneider was trying on Facebook to peddle to a working biologist — a biologist whose scientific training and day-to-day practice makes his opinion on such matters count — the credibility of a conspiracy theory stemming from the right-wing fever swamps. An attempt to discredit Dr. Fauci, this conspiracy theory held that the virus escaped from a lab near Wuhan that was engaging in Gain of Function experiments on viruses. ‘The connection between the start of the pandemic in Wuhan and the presence there of a lab performing Gain of Function experiments on viruses is EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS!!!‘ he breathlessly announced to the world on a Facebook page. One can just hear the conspiracy theorist say in their nasally tone: “Now is that a coincidence? I don’t think so.”
If asked, Mr. Schneider doubtlessly would have denied he was intending to spread the conspiracy theory (of course not!). Instead, he would likely have adopted the usual vile right-wing tactic of saying he was just raising questions. But those of us who have had the misfortune of suffering repeated exposure to Mr. Schneider’s online screeds can smell a concern troll a thousand miles away.
This article also presents evidence that the virus arose from natural selection, and not from human intervention.
Maybe the virus came from bats or pangolins living near Wuhan and brought to a wet market in that city. Maybe it had infected a researcher studying bats and viruses in a cave thousands of miles from Wuhan; perhaps the researcher, infected without symptoms, went to Wuhan to talk to fellow researchers in the labs there and ended up infecting people unknowingly. Whatever happened, it is beginning to look like the connection between the start of the pandemic and the Wuhan labs is rather tenuous, not some Frankenstein’s monster cooked up and let loose by the evil and careless Asians existing in the fevered imaginations of the right-wingers Schneider hangs out with.
Update May 28, 2021: So now the Washington Post and others are treating the ‘originated from gain of function experiments conducted in the Wuhan lab’ hypothesis as a serious possibility, and not just another conspiracy theory circulating among the wackos. So perhaps John Schneider will be redeemed after all! Maybe he isn’t just another poster child for Dunning-Kruger making a total fool of himself trying to argue with a biologist who does know what he is talking about (and who still regards the lab hypothesis as highly unlikely, though of course still a possibility). Maybe he isn’t just another crank addled by breathing in too many fumes from the right-wing fever swamps.
Might it be?
Could it be?
Pause…
Nah.
For this to happen, of course, the papers I linked to above will have to be wrong. The COVID-19 virus would not have been circulating in the wild among bats for decades, already possessing the ability to infect humans. Scientific papers can be wrong. Will John Schneider, Protestant Theologian who lives to own all the liberals, be vindicated after all? Stay tuned!
Update June 11, 2021: Nope, it doesn’t look like John Schneider, Protestant Theologian who lives to own all the liberals, will be vindicated after all: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-03/lab-leak-covid-origin. It appears after all that he is a fool and a crank with a predilection for conspiracy theories generated by breathing in too many fumes from the right-wing fever swamp.
Update February 27, 2022: Yep, John Schneider is a fool and a crank with a predilection for conspiracy theories generated by breathing in too many fumes from the right-wing fever swamp. New studies confirm that COVID-19 originated naturally.
Update March 02, 2022: Corrected a wrong date. Tried to improve a convoluted sentence.
Fuck you, John Schneider, for spreading the ‘gain of function’ conspiracy theory, a product of the right-wing fever swamp. This theory helped place my Thai and Chinese in-laws and ex-boyfriends in danger. You don’t help spread conspiracy theories like this unless you are sure they are true — and here you were wrong.
Fuck you and kindly go to hell. Die slowly and die painfully.
cliffengelwirt 
Leave a comment