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.) Pinker bet against this.

Both men are good friends of mine. Rees is a pessimist with whom I have often agreeably disagreed; Pinker is an optimist with whom I have often competitively agreed. At the time the bet was made I would have gladly taken up Pinker’s side myself. Biotechnology does more good than harm, I still think. But I now believe Rees has won: Covid is exactly what he predicted.

Take a look at Rees’s original justification on the Long Bets website: ‘Biotechnology is plainly advancing rapidly, and by 2020 there will be thousands – even millions – of people with the capability to cause a catastrophic biological disaster. My concern is not only organised terrorist groups, but individual weirdos with the mindset of the people who now design computer viruses. Even if all nations impose effective regulations on potentially dangerous technologies, the chance of an active enforcement seems to me as small as in the case of the drug laws.