Offit’s strawman arguments poorly deflect Kennedy bioweapons warning - analysis

When critiquing an argument a commonly used logical fallacy occurs when the critic attacks an exaggerated form of an argument or attacks an argument that was never made. This technique is very convenient since it gives the critic the luxury of attacking the argument he wants and not the argument that was actually made.

This type of logical fallacy is called a strawman argument — like punching a straw man instead of a real one, it’s an easy target, but its defeat is a cheap victory. Dr. Paul Offit, Professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, used it quite well in his article “RFK Jr. and ‘Ethnically Targeted’ Viruses” to avoid dealing with the serious issue Kennedy raised.

Offit was writing in response to the now-famous claim made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that COVID targeted certain ethnic groups more than others. For this claim, RFK Jr. was labeled a racist, and demands were made for him to be censored. Members of the House of Representatives even wanted him banned from testifying at a committee hearing about — of all topics — censorship. 

Amidst the flurry, Kennedy provided the source for his claim — which indeed shows that the mechanism by which COVID enters the cells is more prevalent in some ethnicities than others. Offit does a great job of explaining the study, what it shows, and what it doesn’t, namely that while COVID does differentiate based on ethnicity, it is clinically irrelevant because other factors are much more significant such as age, health profile, and immunity.    

The discussion should end here — Kennedy’s claim was supported by evidence. Instead, Offit criticizes Kennedy with two strawman arguments. First, that Kennedy said that COVID was more dangerous to different ethnic groups. Second, that Kennedy claimed the study showed COVID originated in a lab 

RFK Jr., when talking informally at a press event, was explaining his concern that biological weapons could be produced where instead of a virus targeting everyone equally, it could be designed to target specific populations based on their ethnic and genetic makeup — an obvious advantage for a weaponized virus.

As an example to support his concern, Kennedy mentioned that “there is an argument that [COVID] is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately.” He was clearly referring to the makeup of the virus, that it had a mechanism to attack based on ethnicity. 

This was the point he was making, and this was the point the study showed. 

He was talking about the mechanism, aspect, or ability to program a virus to target different ethnic groups which was present in COVID. He was not making a claim about the clinical outcomes of COVID based on ethnicity. 

A side point worth noting is that the Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr Rachel Levine who, as part of the Biden Administration’s vaccination campaign said that data show “ethnic minorities” were more likely to test positive, be hospitalized, and die from COVID. 

Though the Assistant Secretary would probably attribute this increased risk to institutionalized racism and not genetics, it was nevertheless mainstream public health officials who claimed COVID clinical outcomes differed based on ethnicity.

Strawman argument #1: Kennedy was making a clinical assessment about who suffered more from COVID. In reality, he was claiming that mechanisms exist for viruses to target certain ethnic groups.

Strawman argument #2: Kennedy claimed the same study showed that COVID originated in a lab and could therefore be used as a bioweapon. Offit then goes on to dismiss the suspicion as a “false belief” and merely a “cultural controversy.” 

The study did not address the origins of COVID and Kennedy never claimed it did, so refuting the made-up claim that he did is classic strawman argumentation.

Sadly, the most disappointing part of the criticisms of Kennedy's statement was that they missed the main point he was trying to make — scientists and governments must take seriously biomedical gain-of-function research that modifies viruses to make them more transmittable.

The evidence that COVID was the result of a laboratory experiment has persuaded many experts in mainstream public health circles including Robert Redfield, CDC director when COVID emerged.

In an interview, Redfield said, “There is evidence that this virus was manipulated to be highly transmissible among humans” and that it was most likely “caused by science and not a natural spillover.”  

Recently it’s been revealed that even the scientists who in early 2020 publicly dismissed the possibility, privately acknowledged their doubts and suspected COVID had a laboratory origin.  

Far from being a false belief, one would expect Offit and other public health officials, regardless of their views on masks, lockdowns, and vaccines to take seriously the valid possibility, expressed by their colleagues, that COVID originated from authorized medical research and resulted in millions of deaths.

Kennedy’s warning that biotechnology already exists to alter viruses and can be used to commit genocide of historic proportions should be heeded and not falsely picked apart using logical fallacies.

Warning: This article contains information about COVID-19. To better protect yourself from government-sponsored misinformation please visit Frontline News' Frontline Pedia.