Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  I didn't say much about the pandemic during the pandemic, even here in my hobby blog. I don't believe I've even commented on the much discussed question, for example, of whether Dr. Fauci was a national deliverer or a fraud.   Now I can and will say though: he might have been both. But for purposes of narrowing the field a bit, let's discuss the respect in which he might have been a fraud.  Fauci did a good deal during the pandemic to persuade Americans that Covid-19 had its origin in China's wet markets -- places where fresh (newly dead) animals are sold for food in open air settings.  But the diaries help make it clear that he did not believe this to be the origin.  He understood that the real origin of Covid-19 had a very likely tie to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in Wuhan, China.  Comer and Jordan say, "Excerpts of emails we are making public today reveal that Dr. Fauci was warned of two things .... the potential that COVID-19 leaked fr...

The "wet markets" of the Peoples' Republic of China have received a fair amount of abuse, via allegations that they are responsible for the rise of the destructive coronavirus... there is a self-congratulatory social media meme, "we don't eat bats over here." So presumably "they" are at fault "over there." Indeed, a September 2019 article in a peer-reviewed journal concluded, in more august scientific language, proposed " biological behavioral surveillance in high-risk geographic areas in order to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence." That apparently means somebody should keep track of what's going on in the wet markets of emerging countries and crack down on practices that might enhance risks. The same study identified "serological evidence of bat coronavirus spillover in rural communities in Southern China."  Here's a link to the source for those quotes:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/...