I'm Not Quite Sure What Nate Silver's Defending Here

I still think it's worth noting the public holds this view quite strongly despite a *lot* of effort to convince them otherwise. People have a strong instinct on this one, I think because (big coronavirus lab in Wuhan + China being shady = lab leak) is intuitively pretty legible. https://t.co/jSJ2z3xaQL

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 16, 2023

But it sure sounds like he's defending this:

6/ thing I've read came in this email from a @tpm reader a couple weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/DTyPURXlbn

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 16, 2023

8/ That's really the best you can say about it: it's weird. A silly and highly self-referential and self-glorifying obsession dressed up to look like a serious thing. The only productive role one can take in it is popping up occasionally to make fun of people who've decided ...

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 16, 2023

"A silly and highly self-referential and self-glorifying obsession dressed up to look like a serious thing." Besides, "instinct" in Silver's tweet is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Way more than the context and "analysis" will bear.

This is how I feel about the moon landing. Intuitively, with no knowledge of science or engineering, it seems like people couldn't really land a rocket ship on something that far away. That gives the theory that the moon landing was faked some credence in my book.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) March 16, 2023

There's that, too.