Transcript of Matt Ridley’s lecture at NIH

This transcript is based on automatically generated subtitles of the Youtube version of the recording.

Jay Bhattacharya’s introduction

[I’d like to welcome] you all to the inaugural lecture in the scientific freedom series.

It’s essential in to study in the study of science to seek truth.

It involves complex scientific questions where uncertainty remains, perspectives differ, and the public conversation can quickly become divided.

There’s value in platforming freedom of discussion within science, where credible voices can examine evidence, ask hard questions, and engage thoughtfully with one another.

My role in this series is not to render judgment or to adjudicate among competing theories. My objective is simple. It’s not to declare definitive truth, but to foster rigorous, open, and non-judgmental discussion. It’s by making room for good faith inquiry guided by evidence, curiosity, and respect.

I recognize that many people may not agree with every perspective shared here. In fact, I guarantee you [we/you?] won’t.

Uh that’s not only expected, but it’s part of the process.

Some of the most important advances in science come from challenges uh to our assumptions.

I encourage listeners to approach these conversations with an open mind and a willingness to hear viewpoints that may not align with their own.

Today’s topic, the origins of COVID-19, is one of those scientific inquiries that has resulted in intense debate, differing interpretations of evidence, and at times deeply held and conflicting perspectives.

It’s important for us that we acknowledge the complexity of the question and the reality that uncertainty still remains.

Some researchers support the hypothesis of natural spillover, similar to what we saw with SARS-CoV-1, where virus crossed from animals to humans. Others have explored the possibility of a lab leak, and that’s the viewpoint you’re going to hear today. An inadvertent spillover from the course of research conducted for different scientific purposes.

These aren’t trivial per distinctions, and they are not easy conversations to have, but they’re necessary for us to advance as scientists and to make good decisions about uh what we should do in science policy going forward.

Uh if the origin stems from a natural spillover, we must deepen our understanding of zoonotic transmission and strengthen surveillance of human animal interface. If a lab-associated incident played a role, we must carefully examine research practices, biosafety protocols, and systems of oversight.

And and and actually, we probably should just do both.

In um either case, the goal is the same: to reduce risk and protect public health.

There’s another dimension that’s equally important. Trust in scientists, public trust in science. Science depends on public trust. The uh uh the the activities that we do, all our all of our work at the NIH is supported by the public. And so, it’s absolutely vital that we maintain this public trust.

Uh many scientists felt hesitant to discuss certain hypotheses, including the one you may hear today, in uh out of concern that doing so could impugn their integrity and uh and harm the the broader scientific enterprise. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The kind of discussion you that we will have today actually advances public trust because it shows models scientists engaging with each other in good faith in ways that advance the interest of the public. We don’t need to show that we agree with one another. We know we what we do need to show is that we are engaged with another one another in good faith, engaging with the evidence uh and advancing our knowledge together.

This lecture series then is a step toward fostering this that kind of dialogue. And in that spirit, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome today’s speaker, Lord Matt Ridley.

Matt Ridley is a British science writer whose work spans evolution, genetics, and the origins of human society. He was educated at Oxford University, where he conducted scientific research on evolution before starting his career as a science journalist at The Economist, serving as a science editor, Washington correspondent, and American editor, then full-time editor. He then served in the House of Lords for a for for a decade or more. Over the past decades, he’s written extensively on evolutionary biology, the role of evolutionary thinking in uh understanding human behavior, culture, and innovation. His books, which include The Red Queen, anyone else uh read The Red Queen by him? I absolutely love that book. If you haven’t read it, please do. Um The Origins of Virtue, Genome, Nature vs. Nurture, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything has been translated into more than 30 languages and received numerous accolades for science communication.

Um more recently, he turned his attention to the origins of COVID, uh writing a a a a book the bestselling book Viral: The Search for the Origins of COVID-19, which he co-authored with Alina Chan.

In it, he examines competing hypotheses about SARS-CoV-2, first how how it infected first humans, and then he explores the scientific debate around the natural spillover and possible lab leak.

We invited Matt here not because we expect unanimity of views, but because we value thoughtful engagement with complex questions. This exactly the kind of discussion that this series is meant to encourage.

Uh please uh
join me in welcoming Matt Ridley.

[applause] [applause] I see he usually comes out right immediately, but it doesn’t actually work out sometimes. Oh, no, there he is. How are you, Matt? Welcome.

Ridley’s talk

Thank you, Jay.

[opens paper]

Introduction

Opening slide (Book covers)

Ladies and gentlemen, let me say what an enormous honor it is to give this lecture today in defense of scientific freedom, and I pay tribute to Jay Bhattacharya’s courage in championing this issue and indeed in inviting me.

Uh In what follows, I have relied heavily on my co-author, Alina Chan, but if I get anything wrong in the next hour, it’s my fault, not hers.

I’m going to explain why I changed my mind, why I went from dismissing the lab leak hypothesis to concluding that it was not just probably, but almost certainly, correct.

This was not driven by motivated reasoning. Quite the reverse. I am pro-science, pro-biotech, pro-genetic engineering. Indeed, that was one of the topics on which I spoke most often in the House of Lords.

Although I am a professional writer, I do have some relevant expertise in this matter. I have a PhD in biology, I wrote a bestseller on genomics, and I was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee of the House of Lords.

But even if I had no expertise, as a human being who experienced the pandemic, I and everybody else has a right to investigate this question.

This is not something where scientists should say, “Stay in your lane.”

And I am frankly dismayed by how the WHO, most of the scientific establishment, including some of the NIH, and the science journals, plus most of the mainstream media, and some of the intelligence community, not only failed to investigate this issue properly, but were reluctant even to discuss and debate it.

If a plane crashes, we do our best to find out why and share the lessons.

This thing killed a hundred thousand times as many as a a typical plane crash.

As you will hear, by far the most important discoveries about what happened were made by amateurs working in their own time and on their own dime.

Slide 1 (Why does it matter)

So, it’s worth, I think, starting with the question, why does it still matter six years on?

I think it matters for several reasons. Because we do owe it to those who died to find out why. Uh we need to understand that last pandemic. Uh we need to explain why the virus was unusually infectious for a virus that had just intruded into the human species for the first time.

Uh we need to prevent the next pandemic by learning lessons from the last one.

And importantly, if we shrug our shoulders and say we never know we may never know how this happened, that sends a message to bioterrorists that they can do this and get away with it.

Attribution is deterrence. Not that I’m implying this was an incident of bioterror, but I think the next one possibly could be.

Slide 2 (Talk outline)

In my talk, I’m going to cover the following topics:

the outbreak,
the market,
the bat viruses,
the connection with Laos,
the lab,
the furin cleavage site,
the DEFUSE proposal,
and some loose ends.

1. The Outbreak

Slide 3 (1. The Outbreak)

We’re talking about a coronavirus.

Slide 4 (Coronavirus phylogenetic tree)

There are four kinds of coronavirus, alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.
There are four coronaviruses that cause versions of the common cold and are endemic in human species, two alphas and two betas. There are two coronaviruses that have caused brief and lethal outbreaks in human beings in the current century, and there is one that has caused a pandemic. It is a close cousin of SARS. It is in the group known as SARS-like beta coronaviruses, or sarbecoviruses.

What is the natural habitat of sarbecoviruses?

Slide 5 (Horseshoe bats image)

It is the guts of one genus of bats, the horseshoe bats, which live only in the old world, not in the new world, are highly gregarious and tend to live in natural caves.

Slide 6 (How did the virus get from bats to people?)

So, the question we have to ask ourselves is, how did a bat virus get into people?

And ignoring possibilities like frozen food, which are not very plausible, I think there are four plausible routes.

The first is that it was a repeat of SARS in which an intermediate mammal host caught the virus and that infected people.
The second is that the intermediate host was actually a person who went into a cave and got infected.
The third is that the person was a scientist and
the fourth is that the scientist took the virus back to a lab and did research on it.

Slide 7 (A coincidence of place…)

And the reason we need to take that last possibility seriously at the very start is because of the extraordinary coincidence of place and time.

In all the many thousands of cities in China and the next to the 40,000 food markets in China, this outbreak happened in the very city where research on SARS viruses was occurring more than anywhere else in the world.

That is quite a coincidence.