Origin myths and science: why are there such opposite opinions on Covid-19, vaccines, climate change, gender, etc?

If recent polls are to be believed, most Americans believe that Covid-19 emerged in Wuhan in a virology lab, yet most scientists believe it emerged from a wet market. Why such a split?

If you prefer more scientific language, was it a lab experiment that went wrong and was intended perhaps for biological warfare, or did the virus make a cross species (zoonotic) leap to humans from a different species? Tell me your answer to that question and there's a good chance I can predict whether you would vote Democrat or Republican. It's much the same with vaccines, gender diversity, climate change and evolution.

Why do humans fall into two irreconcilable tribes on scientific questions? Because opinions about science show narrative storytelling at work, where one tribe can live with randomness and ambiguity (i.e. science) and the other perceives a threat, seeks reassurance and then someone to blame. For simplicity, I'm going to call that second group "conservatives."

Depending on which analysis you read, 77%-84% of scientists support the natural (zoonotic) hypothesis for Covid-19, not the lab leak hypothesis. For them, it's the concept of a Patient Zero, when the viral "genesis" first occurred in a human, creating the "Most Recent Common Ancestor" (MRCA) of the virus. OK, that does sound complicated. But, for the others, it's a virus created by humans in a lab. Simple! (In related news, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes that RSV originated in a government science experiment in 1955; this too has been rejected by scientists, but that's not to say that lab leaks haven't occurred, because they have.)

In narrative terms, what we have here is an Adam and Eve story (and The Fall that followed). I'm generalizing of course, but scientists see a random aspect in these zoonotic leaps, rather like how human life is itself rather a leap, when one plucky sperm manages to find the reclusive egg. Conservatives struggle with this but they also reject the idea that Covid-19 could have originated from humans invading nature, destroying wildlife habitat and selling wild animals at wet markets. For them, the easier scientific narrative is the human lab leak. They were (and are) anti-China, so it was easier to follow Trump's lead and blame China, and the same applies to Ebola's zoonotic leaps, because many are racist toward Africa. (In China, by the way, surveys indicate that a majority accept the state's argument that Covid-19 originated outside the country, either in the U.S. or Europe - it would seem that the U.S. and China are the most given to rival conspiracy theories.)

But, conservative views like these are widely held outside the U.S., so it can't only be anti-Chinese (or anti-Western) sentiment. It's also similar to conservatives' skepticism about vaccines and climate change and evolution and they are worldwide too and they often follow official state propaganda.

Essentially, these are all origin narratives, or origin myths if you prefer, and they are abstract and complex. The arguments fall along the same lines as Covid-19. With vaccines, especially mRNA vaccines, they are singled out by believers as cutting edge innovations, whereas conservatives think they are a Frankenstein monster. With climate change, believers think humans are directly responsible, whereas conservatives prefer to think it's all fiction. With evolution, scientists believe humans are descended from apes, whereas religious conservatives prefer to think humans are the creation of a divine God. In each case, the Origin Myth selected by conservatives is the easier, simpler one that provides humans with agency. It's really just a form of denial, which then leads to blaming others, and from there to full-0n conspiracy theories.

Covid-19 and other pandemics, gender diversity, climate change, and how human life originated are all such complex and humbling - even overwhelming - worldwide "events" that conservatives have trouble accepting the mainstream scientific narratives because intuitively they think this is just bad storytelling. Too complicated!!! It is why it's almost impossible to make good movies or TV shows about these subjects unless filmmakers use the horror genre to blame other people - secret Chinese and Russian bio-labs, scientists covering up vaccine side effects, climate scientists and evolutionary biologists predicting the sky will fall, and so on - because that is what audiences want. Heroes and Villains stuff really.

I mean how satisfying is it when a random, microscopic virus mutated in a Wuhan wet market and we learn that nature is unpredictable? How satisfying is it when we are told that an mRNA vaccine only produces a spike protein and that you can't catch the disease from it? How satisfying is it to confront gender dysphoria? How satisfying is it to be told our use of gasoline and meat is ruining the planet? How satisfying is it to be told we are descended from apes and that it's just a theory, after all, not a fact? Conservatives want to punish people for these "theories" and they need villains: China, the WHO, Dr. Fauci, doctors, trans people, environmental scientists, etc. Ambiguity and randomness messes with conservatives' sense of order, agency and urgency.