From National Review:
Ranking Dem Derails Covid-Origins Hearing by Smearing Witness as Racist
By ARI BLAFF
March 8, 2023 12:04 PMRather than trying to get to the bottom of how the pandemic began, Representative Raul Ruiz (D., N.M.) spent his allotted time during Wednesday morning’s hearing on Covid’s origins berating one of the witnesses over a book he wrote ten years earlier on the human genome, implying that the book was motivated by racism.
Ruiz, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, used his opening statement and much of his first round of questioning to argue that his Republican colleagues had compromised the panel’s efforts to investigate Covid’s origins by calling Nicholas Wade as a witness.
Nicholas Wade was the genetics reporter for the New York Times’ excellent Science section for the first decade of this century. He waged gallant war for years on the Race Does Not Exist conventional wisdom that sprouted, so far as I can tell, from entrepreneur Craig Venter’s disingenuous speech at the 2000 White House Rose Garden ceremony celebrating the Human Genome Project. But, as I repeatedly noted, even with the bully pulpit of the New York Times to report on the flood of new genomics findings, one man can’t stand against the dumb ideas of the zeitgeist.
Here’s Wade’s May 5, 2021 article in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on the wet market vs. lab leak theories.
“Today’s hearing marks a concerning step down the path of letting extremism get in the way of an inquiry that should be led by science and facts,” Ruiz said.
As the Republican chairman of the committee pointed out when introducing him, Wade has edited the two most prominent science journals in the world, Nature and Science, and led the New York Times’ science coverage for years. In his current role as an independent journalist, Wade established himself as one of the foremost authorities publicly examining the possibility of a lab leak and calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into Covid’s origins.
Wade also authored the 2014 book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, which examines the genetic basis of race and how varying environments shape human development.
Wade’s work on that book should disqualify him from being called as a witness in the hearing, despite his decades-long career and expertise, Ruiz argued.
“When House Republicans announced this hearing with their slate of hand-picked witnesses, I was alarmed to see someone who wrote a book applauded by white supremacists,” Ruiz said, explaining that he sent a letter to his Republican colleagues insisting that they disinvite Wade, “so as not to give legitimacy to a man of such discredited, unscientific and harmful views. These views are dangerous and have no place in a hearing examining the origins of a pandemic that has disproportionately and overwhelmingly communities of color in the United States.” …
Representative Kweisi Mfume joined Ruiz in smearing Wade as a racist, claiming that Wade’s theory about Covid’s origins are “steeped” in racism.
“I’m a bit appalled that this hearing now gets layered over with the issue of race in a very strong way with the presence of Mr. Wade. And Mr. Wade I have read your book and I’m appalled by it,” Mfume said.
“You’ve got an opinion, which is fine, but it’s steeped in this theory that minorities are so genetically different that they are culpable in some sort of way and I don’t like that at all,” he added.
In other words, The Science proves that blacks aren’t culpable in the slightest way for their behavior, which is due solely to Whiteness, which must be abolished.
The transcript from Yahoo:
During a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Wednesday about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rep. Kweisi Mfume called out one of the witnesses, Nicholas Wade, over his book “A Troublesome Inheritance” and the praise it received from white supremacists.
Video Transcript
KWEISI MFUME: However, I must go back to what my ranking member said, that I am a bit appalled that this hearing now gets layered over with the issue of race in a very strong way with the presence of Mr. Wade. And, Mr. Wade, I have read your book, and I’m appalled by it. And I would hope that giving you this platform does not paint or taint the issue that we’re trying to get to and deal with here.You’re not a physician. You are not a physician’s assistant. You’re not a scientist. You’ve never done a peer-reviewed paper. And yet, you’ve got an opinion, which is fine, except that it’s steeped in this conspiracy theory that, somehow or another, minorities are so genetically different that they are culpable in some sort of way. And I just— I don’t like that at all.
In your book, “The Troublesome Inheritance,” you talk about a number of different things. And David Duke talks about it, and says that he really endorses your position on Blacks and Jews. The book was championed by the infamous white supremacist Jared Taylor, John [Derbyshire], and Steve Sailer. The book has been promoted on a neo-Nazi forum that is linked to almost 100 racially-motivated attempted murders over the last five years.
And it troubles me that— and I’m going to ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman— that the “New York Times” piece for which you wrote actually said that your theory has come off at the wheels, particularly when you talk about East Asians and their genetic makeup. I’d like to ask that the David Duke statement and the copy from his website be entered into the record. And I’d like that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks these things annually, and their assessment, which is similar, be added to the record.
— Without objection.
KWEISI MFUME: Now, I got to tell you, I spent five terms in this body. I was so troubled by what I saw in the streets with bias and hate crimes that I actually gave up my seat in the Congress, and I went back to work in community groups. I ended up being the president of the NAACP, so that nationally I could work against this sort of thing. It is repulsive. And so here I am back again hearing the issues that drove me out of here to begin with.
And I don’t want to take away from this hearing. I don’t want to take away from what I said earlier, that we’ve got to go down both paths. But it just burns me that I would know that I’m doing that on a forum where somebody with these sort of beliefs is also a part of.
– I do think that Mr. Wade deserves the opportunity to take two minutes to respond to the accusations made. But I do want to get back to the topic at hand, which is the origins of COVID-19.
NICHOLAS WADE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry for this distraction from the work of the committee. I’m sorry, too, that [INAUDIBLE] did not like my book. I am not a racist. I don’t have anything in common with the views of white supremacists. Just because—
KWEISI MFUME: They love you, though.
NICHOLAS WADE: Just because David Duke likes my book–
KWEISI MFUME: All of them love you.
NICHOLAS WADE: I mean, maybe he likes–
– Mr. Mfume, would you please let him respond? He did not interrupt you.
KWEISI MFUME: I didn’t know that he got time to respond.
– Chairman’s decision.
NICHOLAS WADE: It seems a not very good argument that David Duke likes my book. Maybe he likes many things. That doesn’t mean to say they’re all wrong. I did not write my book for him. I’d also like to make the clearest possible distinction between writing about the biology of race, which is a purely scientific issue, and racist statements, with which I have absolutely no sympathy. My book is explicitly anti-racist. I stress the fact that we are all variations on the same human genome, which I think is a very important and unifying fact. I– I think the arguments made against the book were for entirely political reasons.
My [INAUDIBLE] member referred to the 120 scientists who attacked my book in science. Well, there’s a nice story about Einstein. Someone told him that 100 scientists had written a book saying he was wrong. And he replied, well, if I were wrong, one would have been enough. That’s how science works, not on the number of people against it. It works on facts. And those letter writers had no good point to no mistake in my book. So I don’t think their criticism should be taken carefully. I’m sorry for the disruption and unhappiness this issue has caused, and let’s get back to the issue of the of the hearing, Mr. Chairman.
For my views on Wade, see:
NYT Review of ”A Troublesome Inheritance”
The Strange Evolution of Eugenics—Taki’s Magazine
Charles Murray on Nicholas Wade’s ”A Troublesome Inheritance”
