A British author and former science editor of The New York Times was the subject of Democratic ire Wednesday when he testified during a congressional hearing on the origins of COVID-19.

Nicholas Wade, who said he believes the virus originated in a research lab in Wuhan, China, came under fire by Democrats on the House coronavirus subcommittee for a controversial book he authored in 2014 {snip}

“A Troublesome Inheritance” argues there are three genetically identifiable races and that recent human evolution has led to racial differences in economic and social behavior.

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On Wednesday, subcommittee Democrats attacked Wade in an attempt to delegitimize the hearing {snip}

“The notion that people of different racial or ethnic groups are more successful or intellectually superior to another because of predisposed genetic makeup is grossly inconsistent with the consensus of scientific and medical scholarship,” said ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.).

“These views are dangerous and have no place in a hearing examining the origin of a pandemic that has disproportionately and overwhelmingly harmed communities of color in the United States,” Ruiz continued.

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Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), a former president and CEO of the NAACP, criticized Wade’s book as well as his lack of experience as a researcher or physician.

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Wade contended the attacks against him were a distraction and said his past work was legitimate.

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“My book was vigorously attacked by obscurantist academics who want everyone else to believe that there is no biological basis to race, and my book was as welcome to them as pictures of the Earth from space are to flat earthers,” he added.

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