Back in 2021 Matt Ridley teamed up with Alina Chan to publish a book promoting the lab leak conspiracy theory about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. (See my summary of a review here.)
Yesterday (March 25, 2025) Michael Shermer interviewed Matt Ridley on The Michael Shermer Show podcast. The reason for the interview was to promote Ridley's new book Birds, Sex and Beauty: The Extraordinary Implications of Charles Darwin's Strangest Idea but Shermer started off the interview by asking about Ridley's previous book with Alina Chan. At 2 mins he asks,
Before we get into the new book, do you want to take a victory lap for your previous book. I mean the lab leak hypothesis is looking more and more like you called it years ago.
It's all downhill from there. I have lost all respect for Michael Shermer. It's a shame that this podcast is hosted on the Skeptic magazine website.