Decoding the Gurus

With the Trump administration’s newest political persecution of Anthony Fauci and three years after our first lab-leak special, now seemed like a useful time to return to the topic. Fortunately, you do not have to rely on our knowledge of viruses, as we have somehow managed to convince the same three esteemed virologists, Eddie Holmes, Kristian Andersen and Michael Worobey, to come back for an update.

Mike, Kristian and Eddie return and offer us their read on where the scientific evidence on COVID’s origins stands in 2026. They take us through the main lines of evidence and the often overlooked role of the wildlife trade, explaining why the lab-leak story remains so appealing, and how their own assessments have shifted as more evidence has emerged. We also discuss the standard claim that the media suppressed the lab-leak narrative while noting that coverage across both alternative and mainstream outlets remains heavily skewed towards it (and almost entirely detached from the research literature).

Finally, we end on a characteristically positive note by discussing the Trump administration’s attacks on science and the ongoing campaigns against high-profile scientists and public health figures. Our guests describe their experience of committing the heinous offence of following the scientific evidence and arriving at conclusions that contradict the preferred views of polemical politicians and prominent media pundits.

In short, this episode is our modest attempt to drag the topic back towards the science, while also focusing on the price paid by the people who actually conduct the research and care about the evidence. We are not neutral when it comes to the ongoing attacks on science and scientists and do not pretend to be.

• Our guests: Michael Worobey, Kristian Andersen, and Eddie Holmes
• Our previous interview with Worobey, Andersen and Holmes
• Lab Leak Fever with Philipp Markolin
• Our earlier interview with Stuart Neil on SARS-CoV-2
• Sam Harris, Alina Chan and Matt Ridley: Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab?
• Bad Boy of Science: Is the COVID Lab Leak Hypothesis Dead?
• Kristian Andersen on his early emails, released messages and changing assessment
• Kristian Andersen’s congressional testimony and document collection
• Kristian’s thread responding to the use of his Slack messages
• Michael Worobey on why his assessment changed
• WHO SAGO’s 2025 assessment of the origins evidence
• The July 2026 Senate release of the Slack messages
• Kevin Drum’s reading of the earlier Slack archive
• The current White House lab-leak page
• The July 2026 Fauci hearing
• Naomi Oreskes on scientific integrity and “ethical pessimism”
• Nature: Climate scientists report online attacks
• Alwine et al. on the harms to scientists, research and pandemic preparedness

• Andersen, K. G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W. I., Holmes, E. C., & Garry, R. F. (2020). The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, 26(4), 450–452.
• Crits-Christoph, A., Levy, J. I., Pekar, J. E., et al. (2024). Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cell, 187(19), 5468–5482.
• Holmes, E. C. (2024). The emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Annual Review of Virology, 11(1), 21–42.
• Liu, W. J., Liu, P., Lei, W., et al. (2023). Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at the Huanan Seafood Market. Nature, 631(8020), 402–408.
• Pekar, J. E., Magee, A., Parker, E., et al. (2022). The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2. Science, 377(6609), 960–966.
• Pekar, J. E., Moshiri, N., Lemey, P., et al. (2025). Recently reported SARS-CoV-2 genomes suggested to be intermediate between the two early main lineages are instead likely derived. Virus Evolution, 11(1).
• Pekar, J. E., Lytras, S., Ghafari, M., et al. (2025). The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. Cell, 188(12), 3167–3183.
• Temmam, S., Vongphayloth, K., Baquero, E., et al. (2022). Bat coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 and infectious for human cells. Nature, 604(7905), 330–336.
• Worobey, M., Levy, J. I., Malpica Serrano, L., et al. (2022). The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Science, 377(6609), 951–959.
• Xiao, X., Newman, C., Buesching, C. D., Macdonald, D. W., & Zhou, Z.-M. (2021). Animal sales from Wuhan wet markets immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific Reports, 11(1).
• Zhou, H., Ji, J., Chen, X., et al. (2021). Identification of novel bat coronaviruses sheds light on the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses. Cell, 184(17), 4380–4391.

• Ackerman, G., Behlendorf, B., Baum, S., Peterson, H., Wetzel, A., & Halstead, J. (2024). The origin and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic: An expert survey (Technical Report 24-1). Global Catastrophic Risk Institute.
• Alwine, J., Goodrum, F., Banfield, B., et al. (2024). The harms of promoting the lab leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 origins without evidence. Journal of Virology, 98(9).
• World Health Organization. (2025). Independent assessment of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 from the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens.
• Venter, M., Manuguerra, J.-C., Watson, J. M., et al. (2026). COVID’s origins: What we do and don’t know. Nature, 650(8103), 829–833.

We endure the ravages of time to deliver you this exhausted Supplementary Material. Bowed but never broken, the decoders persist.

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 2hr 20 mins)

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Supplementary Material 53

00:23 Introduction: Matthew the Succulent's Post-Holiday Report

02:15 Pickle Ball Injuries & Bouldering Curses

07:40 They Won't Let You Talk about Middle-Aged Sports Injuries

08:37 New AI Models

09:31 Cory Doctorow, Trevor Noah, and Confirmation Bias

23:45 The Glorious Past and the Terrible Present

28:28 The Horror of Tinned Asparagus

30:26 The Collapse of Industries & Stores

36:16 Negativity Bias

37:11 AI Prompting 101

44:30 AI and Research Applications

50:28 Nigel Farage vs Count Binface

59:10 Nigel Farage Knighted on Russia Today

01:02:53 Hasan's Advice for Ukrainians

01:07:51 Russian Apologetics

01:13:32 Vlad Vexler and soft Anti-Vaxx rhetoric

01:19:35 Guru Red Flags

01:23:48 Bret Weinstein in 2020 on Vaccines

01:28:53 Gary vs Piers Morgan

01:30:58 Piers Morgan being a blustering idiot about Elon Musk

01:36:55 Gary's Pitch

01:41:55 Alternative Tax Proposals

01:46:18 Matt and Chris' Economics

01:47:22 Gary's Wealth

01:52:07 Piers the sleazy liar

01:55:25 Gary is the best inequality economist in the UK

01:57:08 Gary's Predictions

02:00:40 Gary is Very Tired

02:07:14 A message from anyone else to finish?

02:14:25 Final Takeaways

02:16:55 Matt attempts to wrangle another holiday

Links

• The Verge: China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance
• What Now? with Trevor Noah: Why Google, Apple & Big Tech Keep Making Everything Worse — Cory Doctorow and Trevor Noah
• Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of general psychology, 5(4), 323-370.
• Count Binface on BBC Morning Live — full interview
• Count Binface on Newsnight
• Hasan offers Ukraine his advice to “give peace a try”
• Report on polling from Ukraine in 2025 that does not show what Hasan claims
• Report on more recent polling that still does not show what Hasan claims
• Vlad Vexler tweets about vaccines
• Bret’s Tweets in 2020 on Vaccines (and here)
• Chris noting Bret’s anti-vaccine rhetoric in 2020 (see the comments under the tweet)
• Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: Ukrainian views on exchanging Donbas for security guarantees
• Decoding Academia 34: Matt and Chris’ Economics
• Piers Morgan Uncensored: “I’m QUITTING!” Gary Stevenson vs Piers Morgan on Wealth, Economic Growth & Elon Musk

Two absolutely shattered academic heroes heroically drag themselves through yet another supplementary episode to bring you the important guru news in between their restorative breaks.

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 32 mins)

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

00:00 Introduction

02:13 Eliot Paisley's Anatomy of an Optimiser

08:52 Eric Weinstein wants a University Position and a Stipend

16:09 The Failure of the Anti-Woke Quasi Universities

19:19 Gary is Knackered Again

20:45 Gary is the best inequality economist in the world

24:36 How do I make a Documentary?

33:04 The End of the Year Approaches

37:44 Public Accountability

40:13 The Neurodivergent Trump Card

40:59 A clarification on bailiwicks

42:43 Tucker Carlson & Chris Cuomo discuss Russian Apologetics

48:53 Ukraine is selling weapons to Mexican Cartels

54:54 Civility Porn Judo

56:09 When Hasan met Prof. Jiang

01:01:37 Conspiracy Theory Buffet

01:07:24 Looking Good by Comparison

01:11:21 Comparing Epstein Conspiracies

01:24:03 Agreeable Conspiracism

01:27:13 Outro and Piers Morgan Invite

Links

• Eric Weinstein appeals to billionaires on Twitter
• Elliot Paisley: Chris Williamson Is A Slave
• Gary’s Economics: My Documentary is Coming Out THIS WEEK!! – why you should watch it
• The Times: Gary Stevenson: I want a wealth tax on the super-rich — like me
• News Nation: Tucker & Chris Cuomo: The FULL Conversation
• Hasan Debates Professor Jiang On His Wild Predictions | HasanAbi Archive

In this Decoding Academia episode, we venture into comparative psychology, focusing on a fascinating line of work by Fumihiro Kano and colleagues on social intelligence and theory of mind in great apes. By showing apes short videos and tracking where they look, researchers examine whether they expect others to act based on what they have seen, what they know, or what they falsely believe. This approach offers a remarkable window into the evolutionary roots of human social cognition or, alternatively, the most elaborate way yet devised to explore what a chimp thinks of a man in a chimpanzee costume.

We discuss what this kind of research might reveal about social intelligence across species: whether apes understand intentions, knowledge, and false beliefs; how their abilities compare with humans, dogs, and other animals; and why studying minds without language requires ingenuity, caution, and tolerance for participants who may simply decide the whole enterprise is beneath them.

There is also some discussion of the usual complications: small samples, difficult data, flexible analyses, replication, and the gap between a beautifully designed experiment and a result we should treat as settled fact. But the main story is the genuinely intriguing attempt to study Theory of Mind beyond humans.

Along the way, we discuss chimpanzee costumes, zoo life, dogs, and the disturbing possibility that crocodiles may be running more sophisticated cooperative hunting operations than most university committees.

*The full episode is available on Patreon (57 mins)*

00:00 Introduction

03:57 Chimpanzee Theory of Mind & Eye Tracking

13:03 Attention, Grabbing and Orientation

24:03 The Role of Memory in Anticipation

26:10 Revenge of the Researcher

31:21 Statistical Concerns

43:44 Comparative Psychology Thoughts

49:13 Non-climbing Tigers and Cooperative Crocodiles

51:20 Matt's New Friends and Outro

Relevant papers for the episode:

Kano, F., & Hirata, S. (2015). Great apes make anticipatory looks based on long-term memory of single events. Current Biology, 25(19), 2513-2517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.004

Kano, F., & Call, J. (2017). Great ape social attention. In Evolution of the brain, cognition, and emotion in vertebrates (pp. 187-206). Tokyo: Springer Japan.

We return for Part 2 of our coverage of “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new geopolitical prophet, secondary-school sage, and proud owner of an ever-expanding box of educational props. Having already treated us to multiple maps, chess pieces, and a sealed metal case of predictions, Jiang is back with more predictions, more props, and even higher-level insights.

This time, we get the dramatic unveiling of a fresh batch of forecasts, including the forthcoming U.S. civil war, AI surveillance states, a grand bargain with China, the Greater Israel project, and the coming East Asian conflict. During all of this, we pause to consider Jiang’s status as a Beijing-based geopolitical commentator who manages to be just critical enough of Chinese surveillance to sound daring, but yet is most reliably focused on predictions of imminent Western collapse, American hubris, and the doom of the U.S. empire.

But the real journey begins when Jiang sets the geopolitics aside and invites us into Plato’s Allegorical Cave, updating it for the modern era by linking it to Korean television melodramas. Out come ominous black blocks, stacked into a metaphorical tower of global control: the military-industrial complex, the financiers, the World Bank, the WTO, the media, Hollywood, schools, universities, and culture itself. What started as “predictive history” devolves into an Alex Jones-style conspiratorial rant about international financiers, globalist bankers, controlled media, and brave alternative truth-tellers seeing through the mainstream lies.

The alternative media occupies a Schrödinger-like position in Jiang’s system: corrupted and controlled when it suits his narrative but also brave and rebellious when it is giving a platform to people like Jiang. Stephen Bartlett, meanwhile, fulfils his podcasting duty as a perfectly crafted avatar of the Diary of a CEO audience: curious, credulous and very receptive to the message that the system is rigged, the shadows are fake, and you, dear listener, are one of the brave truth-seekers with the courage to listen and look behind the curtain.

Finally, we also reach Cosmic Jiang. The bankers are at war with the tech bros. Reality is consciousness. Matter is vibration. We are all fragments of God returning to Source. Hermetic philosophy explains Plato. Kabbalah explains the Middle East. Israel is trying to force the hand of God. The world will end; paradise will return. It turns out all of that geopolitical analysis was actually just a sideshow...

So join us for the conclusion of Professor Jiang: a masterclass in massive domino-based reasoning, geopolitical dressing on bog-standard conspiracy theory, and the enduring appeal of intellectual junk food.

Sources

• Diary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!
• Mehdi Hasan vs. “Professor” Jiang
• Professor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison – The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang Xueqin
• Professor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolution
• The National Security Strategy of the United States Document

On Decoding the Gurus, we regularly get to hear a lot of truly “high-level” ideas, but the much-requested subject of this episode’s decoding is up there with the best of them. We are talking, of course, about “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new overly confident online guru, now that Jordan Peterson is indisposed. Jiang Xueqin is a secondary school teacher who has found an online audience thirsty for his particular style of confident bullshit, and he is more than ready to roll out his “predictive history” analyses on command.

Be prepared for some serious professorial cosplay as Stephen Bartlett, from Diary of a CEO, spares no expense in his endless quest to indulge every modern online crank, offering a grab bag of props as well as his usual thoughtful pauses and awe-inspiring requests for definitions. Thrill as the honorary professor performs as a grand seer and geopolitical strategist, complete with a tabletop world map, wargame prop pieces, whiteboard flowcharts, coloured chess sets, and a dramatic metal briefcase full of sealed predictions.

So get ready to experience his hit-parade of forecasts (Trump's 3rd term, endless war with Iran, eventual U.S. “loss”) along with his trademark conspiratorial mélange of real-ish facts, misstatements, and domino-chain inevitabilities. The end of Part 1 is a sign of things to come, featuring Jiang's post-apocalyptic advice on how the good people can rebuild society with the help of prophets and visionaries (AKA gurus) and soothe yourself with the knowledge that we are all ultimately just a God-derived fractal consciousness anyway.

Sources

• Diary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!
• Mehdi Hasan vs. ‘Professor’ Jiang
• Professor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison– The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang Xueqin
• Professor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolution
• The National Security Strategy of the United States Document

We exercise good faith and grapple with the ever-versatile context window in this unintentionally thematic episode.

Supplementary Material 51

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 18 mins)

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Jordan Hall's Suspicious Semiotic Parasites

08:52 A New Covenant for the American Republic

14:33 Dave Rubin's support group after Jubilee

14:52 Dr. K vs 20 Depressed People

20:05 The Fifth Column Welcomes Batya Ungar Sargon (Again)

21:18 Anti-Semitism isn't really an issue on the Right

25:39 Moynihan agrees that Tucker Carlson is a Leftist

30:40 I don't really know what he has said...

37:38 When Taylor Lorenz met Brad Palumbo

41:24 Taylor is a Good Faith Person who is often misrepresented

44:32 Was Taylor cheering on the killing of healthcare CEOs?

51:16 Suggesting Targets or Providing "Context"

57:48 The Victimhood Pose

01:01:01 Selective "Understanding"

01:06:41 The Moral Grandstanding Escape Hatch

01:12:10 Strategic Ambiguity across the Spectrum

01:15:22 The Connecting Theme!

Links

• Jordan Hall discussing his neo-Nazi interview with David Fuller: Sensemaking, Gatekeeping & the Propertarians, Jordan Hall
• Sensemaking & Gatekeeping: Talking with Fascists
• Jordan Hall’s Markdown Tweet
• Dave Rubin Clip of him coping over his Jubilee Performance
• Batya Ungar-Sargon and the Status Revolution (Members Only #328)
• Brad CONFRONTS left-wing star journalist Taylor Lorenz!!
• DTG- Jordan Hall: Sensemaking, or the superficial pitter-patter on the neocortex?
• Taylor Lorenz: 'Somebody needs to do it'

In this Gurometer edition, Matt and Chris feed Iain McGilchrist into the sacred instrument to see where exactly refined country-parish-minister vibes land when combined with galaxy-brained hemispheres, civilisational decline narratives, decorative scholarship, and the other features of guruosity.

Iain McGilchrist Gurometer

00:27 Introduction

01:00 Iain McGilchrist Reactions

04:40 Galaxy Brain-ness

06:39 Cultishness

08:28 Anti-Establishmentarianism

11:39 Grievance Mongering

14:30 Self-Aggrandizement and Narcissism

17:21 Cassandra Complex

19:54 Revolutionary Theories

20:48 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit

24:10 Conspiracy Mongering

25:08 Excessive Profiteering

26:10 Moral Grandstanding

27:15 Overall Score

28:47 Bonus Round

33:04 Guru Binary Scores

37:18 Outro

We become highly effective at exploiting the gap between salience and relevance as we universalise semiotic capability and listen to more brave renegades talking about how amazing they are. Join us, won't you?

Supplementary Material 50 (Full Episode: 2hrs 23 mins)

00:24 Introduction

02:07 British People Struggling with Compliments

04:53 Matt loves SOME episode titles

08:42 Nachos Pronunciation

10:13 Brett Weinstein vs Michael Tracey

29:08 Brett pivots to his Anti-Vaxx Hits

42:32 The Hug Box World of Podcasting

45:55 When Eric met Joe (again)

47:29 Eric and Rogan re-litigate Sean Carroll's criticisms

55:55 Eric's insatiable desire to be linked with Epstein

01:14:36 Eric Weinstein is a Construct

01:16:36 When Ana met Candace

01:18:18 Useful Idiots and Shameless Propagandists

01:19:59 Ryan Grim's reaction to being in Iranian Propaganda Videos

01:26:22 Zeteo gets to the bottom of the Iranian Casualty Figures

01:30:24 Ana and Candace's Hug Session

01:36:31 A horse named shoe?

01:47:26 The Holocaust Media Industry

01:53:48 Jimmy Dore makes the Religious Pivot

02:01:39 The Brave Renegade Narrative that Never Gets Old

02:12:57 Horseshoe Populism

02:16:23 Jordan Hall x AI Instructions

02:21:46 Agent Hall infecting your Mattrix

Links

• The Romesh Ranganathan Show: Tom Davis On Success, Setbacks & Being a Dad
• FULL PANEL: Should we abolish all podcasts? Michael Tracey, Bret Weinstein, Lauren Southern
• Joe Rogan Experience #2503 - Eric Weinstein
• https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/candace-owens-tate-brothers-visit-russia-kremlin-touts-thaw-rcna348311
• Candace Owens x Ana Kasparian
• Financial Times - How China is breaking apart a people and its culture
• Zeteo: Where Did the 40,000 Iran Protests Death Toll Number Come From?
• Ana Kasparian repeating anti-semitic conspiracies about 9/11
• More fun tweets from Ana
• The Young Turks: Tucker’s 9/11 Documentary Raises Some HUGE Questions
• Jimmy Dore has tapped into God after stopping smoking Pot
• Jordan Hall Decodes AI

The Decoders wrap up cult season by dissecting a titan of the cult scene, the founder of Scientology, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard or L. Ron for short. A prolific science fiction author, L. Ron founded an alternative self-help movement and then developed it into his cosmic self-help 'religion' of Scientology.

Scientology has now been the subject of multiple documentaries and even a fairly detailed South Park parody episode, so it feels like many are aware of the general 'deal' of Scientology. But how about L. Rob Hubbard as a guru... how many people have actually taken the time to sit down and just hear the guy out? Here at DTG HQ, we are all about the good-faith deep dives, so we decided to devote some time to analysing a 1966 Rhodesian TV interview with L. Ron Hubbard, in which a friendly Scientologist interviewer (not identified as such) politely tees up Hubbard to explain Scientology.

So join us to find out how L. Ron invented a “workable science,” a “religion of religions,” and a self-help machine that raises IQ, fixes life problems, and proves life after death. By modern standards L. Ron can seem a bit quaint, but because of that, he serves as a useful primer in the core techniques of Guru manipulation, including narcissistic invented biographies, disdain for materialism, a persecution complex, flattery of followers, and anti-establishment disparagement. All of the classics are on display!

So get ready to wake up to your true potential, process your engrams, and so forth.

Links

• Source Material Interview: Interview with L. Ron Hubbard in Zimbabwe
• Behind the Bastards: L. Ron Hubbard Series
• Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (Documentary)
• My Scientology Movie: Louie Theroux