Pangolins, Bats, Zionism, and Patriarchy

An Equity-Based, Gender-Nonconforming, Anti-Colonialist, Zero-Carbon Investigation into the Origins of COVID

Graphic by Robert Graboyes (with AI assist)

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Practically every terrible idea eating away at America’s soul originated with some academician whose philosophy gelled while writing his PhD dissertation. Below, we’ll discuss (1) How academe has grown noxious; (2) How stilted research degrades society; (3) How the dissertation process stilts research by confining students within walls of orthodoxy; and (4) How the problem can be fixed. We’ll illustrate these points with a fable about a student researching the origins of COVID.

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THE FOCUS OF INFECTION

Universities are society’s contaminated water pump—the focus of infection saturating the soil beneath one institution after another with hatred for Jews, Israel, Asians, whites, males, capitalism, egalitarianism, federalism, individualism, patriotism, religion, open discourse, constitutional norms, due process, personal responsibility, financial achievement, civility, Western Civilization, and objective science. University research percolates into politics, government, journalism, business, technology, law, medicine, K-12 education, entertainment, sports, religion, and the military. These institutions bow to intricate, ever-shifting academic fetishes and catechisms—CRT, DEI, ESG, intersectionality, oppressor/oppressed hierarchies, microaggressions, safe spaces, cultural appropriation, subjective truth(s), hate speech, scientific fundamentalism, land acknowledgements, and byzantine linguistic do’s and don’ts. Universities regularly offer radicals a heckler’s veto over who can speak on campus and what they can say. During COVID, academe pressured tech platforms, journalists, and bureaucrats to suppress legitimate paths of inquiry and override constitutional rights.

The national mood is primed to strike at this long march through the institutions. Academe’s “Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up” moment came shortly after Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel, when the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT couldn’t muster a coherent opinion on whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated campus rules of decorum. Today, love-struck professors make goo-goo eyes at CEO Brian Thompson’s (alleged) cold-blooded murderer.

In July, AEI scholar Max Eden suggested that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance aspire to do for universities what Henry VIII did for Catholic monasteries, mentioning some specifics. Slash research grants. Plunder endowments. Rescind tax breaks. Prosecute civil rights violations. Defund and dismantle DEI. End student-loan profligacy. Alter accreditation requirements and appoint new accreditors to oversee them—thereby enabling new institutions to challenge long-established schools. (Henry VIII removed monastery roofs to make them uninhabitable—a splendid idea for my alma mater, Columbia University.)

But it’s crucial to strike at the central mechanism by which academicians impose ideological conformity—the doctoral dissertation.

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THE GUILD IS THE GLUE

Universities can act as intellectual internment camps because graduate education resembles a medieval guild, indentured servitude, Hollywood’s studio system, baseball’s reserve clause, or Industrial Age company stores—wielding power by making it ruinously costly for underlings to go elsewhere. The academic bar on the door is that doctoral studies typically consist of two radically different processes, structurally welded together:

1. COURSEWORK: For two or three years, students take perhaps 20 classes, transforming them from novices into experts. They proceed in lockstep through lectures, exams, papers, and projects. Like a crowd crossing a street, this collectivity protects students from slothful or tyrannical professors.

2. DISSERTATION: The dissertation is a solitary undertaking, with no set schedule or classmates for protection. The supervising committee can arbitrarily slow or block the student’s progress and impose ideological or methodological conformity with little means of redress for abuses. Complaining to the dean is like telling Vito Corleone that Michael Corleone isn’t treating you fairly.

This guild-like power exists because, generally, coursework and dissertation must be completed at the same institution, and a student doesn’t really know until after coursework whether he and his university are a good fit for dissertation-writing. By then, it’s too late to transfer, for most new schools would require transfers to retake coursework and comprehensive examinations. It’s like telling a disgruntled high school senior, “You’re welcome to transfer to another school, but you’ll have to repeat 10th and 11th grades when you get there.”

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TOWARD SCHOLASTIC FREE AGENCY

Reform is conceptually simple: end the presumption that classwork and dissertation occur at the same university, and minimize the costs of transferring between the two stages. When baseball shifted from reserve clause to free agency, players could seek better deals from other teams—simultaneously giving their current teams powerful reasons to treat them better.

At the start of coursework, a typical doctoral student is green and naïve, with only a vague sense of the subject matter and scholars in his or her department and elsewhere. During coursework, the student becomes expert in all these factors, by which time it’s too late to move on. Let’s explore the dynamics through a fable about a doctoral student studying COVID’s origins.

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NOTA BENE: I HAVE ZERO IDEA HOW COVID ORIGINATED

Zoonosis versus Lab-Leak. Graphic by Robert Graboyes (with AI assist).

There are two competing theories of COVID’s origin—zoonosis and lab leak—and I HAVEN’T THE FOGGIEST NOTION WHICH, IF EITHER, IS TRUE. I crafted my fable around this issue because it’s emblematic of everything wrong with politicized science (and because pangolins and bats are cool).

Zoonotic theory holds that the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) resulted from a confluence of genes from pangolins and bats in Wuhan’s wet market; lab-leak theory suggests the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, then conducting gain-of-function research on viruses. Initially, academics insisted with near-certainty that the origin was zoonosis and that the lab-leak theory was an unhinged right-wing conspiracy theory. Government agencies, press, and tech platforms tried mightily to marginalize and silence lab-leak proponents. Several years later, the FBI and Department of Energy concluded that evidence pointed more toward a lab leak, while other agencies stuck with zoonosis. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, said in 2023:

“Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”

The increasingly red-pilled Jon Stewart ridiculed his fellow progressives’ undoubting zeal for zoonotic theory:

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ASSUME THE POSITION: AN ACADEMIC FABLE

Our student (“K_”) begins coursework in Epidemiology in 2017, with a vague interest in studying pandemics and superficial familiarity with the professors in his department. He completes coursework and passes comprehensive exams in early 2020, just as COVID emerges. Three years of coursework and outside readings have given him a solid understanding of zoonosis and gain-of-function. K_ believes his data strongly support the lab-leak theory. He sends his advisor, Professor A_, a dissertation proposal titled:

“The Genesis of SARS-CoV-2: Contamination Risks in Gain-of-Function Research.”

A_ calls K_ into his office and looks blandly displeased. He says, “Scholars overwhelmingly agree that COVID’s origin is zoonotic. Lab-leak theory is primarily the fever dream of right-wing conspiracy theorists. … Of course, if you think you can make the case for lab-leak, give it a whirl. But be warned that the other members of your committee (Professors B_, C_, D_, and E_) will be even less favorably inclined than I toward your explanation. Your case will have to be incredibly compelling.” He offers K_ some readings on zoonosis and suggests he “rework” his proposal.

K_’s thoughts go through three stages:

1. I’m new here, and perhaps A_’s contempt for the lab-leak theory is valid.

2. My committee members are all dogmatic ass-clowns who will never award me the PhD if I argue lab-leak.

3. I wish I could transfer to another university where scholars are open-minded, but I can’t, so I’d better play A_’s game.

Some weeks later, K_ submits a new proposal:

“The Genesis of SARS-CoV-2: Pangolins, Bats, and the Dynamics of Multi-Species Zoonotic Transfer.”

A_ says, “Much better. We look forward to working with you.” Over the next two years, K_ writes chapter after chapter, with all five committee members offering suggestions/demands.

• A_ says, “It’s important to mention that lab-leak theory derives partly from anti-Asian sentiment. Include some references on racism in scientific research.”

• B_ adds, “Professor A_ is right, and the problem really is the conspiracists’ colonialist, anti-Chinese rhetoric. I’m especially concerned about lab-leak enthusiasts at Israeli universities; it’s impossible to ignore that country’s ideology as a source of lab-leak conspiracy-mongering.

• C_ notes the disparate impact of COVID on different demographic populations, suggesting yet another motive behind criticism of zoonosis.

• D_ insists that the improbable merger of pangolin and bat genes is related to climate change.

• E_ suggests a few additional bells and whistles, some of which reflect her role as the university’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Soon, the committee approves K_’s revised proposal, now titled:

“Pangolins, Bats, Zionism, and Patriarchy: An Equity-Based, Gender-Nonconforming, Anti-Colonialist, Zero-Carbon Investigation into the Origins of COVID.”

After two years, K_ has his PhD in hand and interviews for positions at various universities. He can’t tell interviewers, “I don’t believe a word of this bullcrap dissertation, but it was the only way they would award me the degree.” Instead, he goes full Team Pangolin in defending what he wrote. Perhaps some intellectual Stockholm Syndrome has led him to believe his dissertation. Once hired, in pursuit of tenure, he will write one paper after another arguing for zoonosis. K_ becomes an acclaimed scholar, persuading policymakers around the globe to ignore the foolish, hate-filled claims of lab-leak conspirators.

In contrast, imagine a world where K_ could have walked out on his dissertation committee’s stultifying demands and transferred to a more sympathetic, open-minded university. A world where students could do the same in every field and where upstart universities could offer doctoral students refuge in an atmosphere of honesty and heterodoxy.

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THE DISSERTATION PROCESS VISUALIZED

For those who have never navigated a PhD program, this video gives a pretty good idea of what it’s like. Machacek Zlamaljelito R-, shown several times in the video, resembles a fairly typical dissertation chair.

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Robert F. Graboyes is president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. An economist, journalist, and musician, he holds five degrees, including a PhD in economics from Columbia University. An award-winning professor, in 2014, he received the Reason Foundation’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism. He publishes Bastiat’s Window, a Substack-based journal of economics, science, and culture. His music compositions are at YouTube.com/@RFGraboyes/videos.