Science Counterpunch

What happens when fringe anti-vaxxers move from fleecing online communities to the highest halls of power?

This week on Science Counterpunch, we’re joined by Dr. Dan Wilson, molecular biologist and creator of the Debunk the Funk YouTube Channel, to dissect how anti‑vaccine narratives became mainstream—and why so many institutions seem unprepared to stop them.

Dan walks us through his journey from being conspiracy‑curious as a teenager to becoming a meticulous science communicator, explaining why teaching the scientific method matters more than just throwing facts at people. We unpack the rise of COVID co...

In this episode of Science Counterpunch, we welcome epidemiologist, MacArthur Fellow, and lifelong AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves to talk about what happens when politics is at odds with public health.

Gregg was on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic with ACT UP in the 1990s, helping force institutions like the NIH and FDA to accelerate research and expand access to lifesaving treatments. Later, he brought that same activist-scientist playbook to South Africa, confronting deadly AIDS denialism at the level of government policy.

What happens today in the US not only echoes but in many...

Ancient aliens. Lost Ice Age civilizations. Atlantis hidden under the pyramids.

Pseudo-archaeology is having a moment—and it’s not just harmless fun.

In this episode of Science Counterpunch, we step into the ring with archaeologist Flint Dibble and science YouTuber Kayleigh Dunning to break down how conspiracy history took over the internet—and what it takes to fight back.

We talk about the rise of viral pseudo-history pushed by figures like Graham Hancock, why “secret knowledge” narratives spread so easily online, and how social media incentives reward myths over evidence.

But this i...

You can’t fact-check your way out of a system designed to amplify lies.

This week on Science Counterpunch, we’re joined by cognitive psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky to dissect the machinery of modern disinformation. We explore why falsehoods leave a cognitive footprint — and why even highly educated people can fall for propaganda and reason themselves into nonsense.

We dig into:

* The psychology of “sticky” misinformation

* Why intelligence isn’t immunity

* How social media architecture supercharges conspiracy thinking

* What the EU’s Digital Services Act gets right about platform power...

Protest isn’t radical. Silence is.

This week on Science Counterpunch, we’re joined by Colette Delawalla, clinical psychology PhD candidate and founder of Stand Up for Science, for a furious, clear-eyed breakdown of how American science is being dismantled in real time—and why scientists can’t afford to stay “above politics” anymore.

From mass purges at federal agencies and frozen clinical trials to banned words lists and regime-sanctioned pseudoscience, Colette lays out how the Trump administration has turned science into a political weapon. This isn’t abstract policy debate: patients lose hope, researchers lose careers...

This week on Science Counterpunch, we step into the ring with one of the most uncompromising voices in online science communication: Dave Farina, better known as the creator of Professor Dave Explains.

Dave joins Sam Gregson and Philipp Markolin for a no-holds-barred conversation about the modern pseudoscience economy: how misinformation spreads, why it pays so well, and how grifters, influencers, and political actors exploit distrust in science for profit and power. From antivax propaganda and flat-earth cults to billionaire-backed “anti-establishment” narratives, we break down how the science denial ecosystem works—and why it’s more dangerous than ever.

What do vaccines and climate science have in common? The same political actors, media ecosystems, and financial interests have worked to discredit both.

In this inaugural episode of Science Counterpunch, Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. Michael Mann go head-to-head with the modern anti-science machine—petrostates, plutocrats, propagandists, performative media, wellness grifters, and the platforms amplifying them.

We break down the tactics: gaslighting, false balance, “freedom” rhetoric, debate traps, and the weaponization of uncertainty. More importantly, we ask what it costs when societies can no longer agree on basic facts.

This is frontline testimony from s...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

“Murderer! Murderer! Smug murderer!” The threatening calls from an unknown conspiracy theorist followed Peter Daszak down the seemingly endless hallway of the US Capitol building. Some of his detractors were trying to get him rattled—any reaction, really—holding their phones to his face so they could blast it out to their followers. Also there: Emily Kopp, working for the anti-biotechnology activist group USRTK. S...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

On March 4, 2023, while doing unrelated research, Dr. Florence Débarre randomly came across a new set of FASTQ files (a text file of nucleotide base sequences) on the GISAID database. Curious, she started investigating. Less than two weeks later, another viral information cascade would ignite the lab leak media universe ablaze again. This time, instead of the usual manufactured pseudo-events and trope-laden stories, a...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

“I was always the ‘zoonati’ they could talk to.” Professor Stuart Neil, a virologist from King’s College London, chuckled about his perceived diplomatic role for DRASTIC and some other lab leak proponents. “I intrinsically thought this was an interesting story,” he said, remembering how he became intrigued by various ideas of how SARS-CoV-2 could have come about via a research-related accident ever since the Moji...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

“Disgusting,” he said, ripping me out of my thoughts. He showed me a meme where Zhengli’s head had been photoshopped onto a bat, her face distorted with an open mouth to reveal vampire's teeth, and the whole frame colored in blood red. I shuddered involuntarily. The dehumanization was not subtle. “I really hate what they did with her ears here; it makes her look...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

Independent and interdisciplinary science is important. When evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey, a professor at the University of Arizona, got involved in the search for the origins of COVID-19, he had no idea what he got himself into. With a “soft spot for wild theories,” at least according to a former colleague, and a track record of tackling hotly debated theories around dangerous viruses, the...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

A river of black drew a line through the darkening sky. Above the silver and gold ornaments on the pagoda’s crimson roofs at Wat Khao Chong Pran, the river flow turned southeast towards the fields. Rationally, I knew that the cave housed around two and a half million horseshoe bats, but observing a seemingly never-ending flood of hectic creatures fly out for mo...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

Heavy breaths followed a claustrophobic chase around the hotel room. Peter Daszak was doing his workout run from the showers through the bedroom to the antechamber and back, again and again and again. The Chinese hosts in Wuhan had placed him in quarantine for two weeks, and the pressure, isolation, and restrictions were difficult to deal with at times. He was an outdoor...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

“They got a police escort to get us shoe shopping, and I basically wore a wedding dress… There are even photos in Pakistani newspapers… and I just thought, if I can give a talk wearing this, I can give a talk in anything.” Alice Hughes laughed wholeheartedly while I shook my head in giddy disbelief. It was a good day, which we both needed...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

I got interested in the lab origin controversy at an odd time in my life. After having spent a decade in biological labs for my research, I gradually developed an interest in systemic approaches to understanding biology. There are just too many moving pieces in a biological system to capture all, or even just the most relevant, causative molecular mechanisms of complex phenomena...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

The hollow sound of our footsteps echoed through the boundless darkness; a solemn silence had befallen us, like in a temple. Our cave guide held up a single old gas lamp, the only source of light. The flickering flame instilled the unmoving stone walls and pillars with life. Salt crystal veins grew over some walls, pure white, like frozen spiderwebs on a frosty...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

“Without a harmonious and stable environment, how can there be a home where people can live and work happily?” Xi Jinping's words on New Year’s Eve in 2019 were intended to reign in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. For months, the city has been in a renewed battle for its soul against the oppressive and subversive influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Tens o...

Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information.

A disturbingly dry cough broke the silence of the Malaysian night; the pigs resting under the mango trees had been uneasy that day. Loud, whooping breaths filled the backyards of small farmhouses. Pig farming had been a family business in the villages of Bukit Pelandok and Sikamat, and for the Foochow Chinese, it was a source of pride and good income. While most...

With the GOP ramping up voter manipulation efforts for the general election, the “gain-of-function lab leak” myth is back in full swing

Yesterday, the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic announced in a grandstanding letter the public interrogation of Dr. Peter Daszak, President of the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance.

This announcement is the second one this week, following an earlier such proclamation addressing the editors-in-chief of the flagship scientific journals Nature, Science, and TheLancet.

The announcements were coordinated with multiple right-leaning news outlets such as Fox News and the Washington Times, who...

The lab leak hypothesis is dead, but the lab leak myth will never die.

A new paper makes the rounds in the media by claiming a risk assessment score sheet can determine the "unnatural" nature of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. A stark contrast to the scientific consensus on zoonotic spillover.

Over the years, we have seen many such probabilistic, Bayesian, or “common sense” analyses from various sources and all of them were of dubious quality and distributed by dubious actors with a very limited grasp of scientific evidence. However, this does not mean that alte...