LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- A new book, touted by its publisher as "tantalizingly close to a shaft that leads to the light" about the COVID-19 pandemic's origins, was just one trying to push the pseudoscientific lab-leak theory and exposed the hypothesis' weaknesses instead, said an article in the Los Angeles Times.
"What Chan and Ridley have done is place a conspiracy theory between hardcovers to masquerade as sober scientific inquiry," Michael A. Hiltzik, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, wrote in a story published by the Los Angeles Times Monday.
Matt Ridley and Alina Chan are co-authors of "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19," a book called by Hiltzik as a "laboratory-perfect example of how not to write about a scientific issue."
Hiltzik, who won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize with his partner for their investigative stories on corruption and bribes in the music industry, exposed that Chan is one of the leading exponents of the hypothesis that the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic leaked from a Chinese laboratory and Ridley is a leading climate change denier.
"The authors rely less on the scientists doing the painstaking work to unearth the virus' origin than on self-described sleuths who broadcast their dubious claims, sometimes anonymously, on social media," Hiltzik said.
"The shame of 'Viral' is that it promotes a groundless theory that threatens to lead policymakers, as well as members of the public, down the wrong road, to humankind's enduring detriment." Hiltzik concluded. Enditem
