Wuhan wager: the $400 ‘bio bet’ that predicted the pandemic

At the end of this month, one of the world’s most renowned scientists will send $400 to a charity to settle a wager with another of the world’s most renowned scientists. We don’t yet know who will win, but it is likely to be the wrong person, in my view. The money will probably come from Cambridge, England, not Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The two scientists involved are Lord (Martin) Rees, the Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society, of Cambridge University, and Steven Pinker, the Harvard linguist, neuroscientist and author of many bestselling books. The subject of the bet, agreed in 2017, is Rees’s prediction that ‘bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six-month period starting no later than Dec 31 02020’. (The five-figure date format is an affectation of the Long Bets website.)