I read Baker's 'House of Holes' in 2014 and enjoyed it a lot. At least among a certain set, he's a well-known & respected author (here's a NYT review of House of Holes [0]). It's perfectly intelligible for a book about sex to be whimsical, raunchy, and intellectually serious all at once. He's also written a pacifist take on the Allies' involvement in WW II [1].
I agree that neglecting to include a bio was a strange choice. But, as Jim Geraghty at National Review points out today [2], The venue (New York Magazine) is what puts this hypothesis into the mainstream. Conservatives have been suggesting this was a possibility for a long time, but a NYM piece (potentially) legitimizes the idea to a very different audience:
> Baker is pretty blunt about the fact that many scientists have had these suspicions, or at least concerns, since the beginning of the pandemic, but didn’t want to speak publicly about the possibility of a lab accident while the Trump administration was touting the same idea... New York magazine reaches a different audience from National Review, and it is good that a more left-of-center audience will be exposed to all of the evidence and arguments about this possibility. The possibility of a lab accident should not be seen as another crackpot conspiracy theory in a year full of them.
I agree that neglecting to include a bio was a strange choice. But, as Jim Geraghty at National Review points out today [2], The venue (New York Magazine) is what puts this hypothesis into the mainstream. Conservatives have been suggesting this was a possibility for a long time, but a NYM piece (potentially) legitimizes the idea to a very different audience:
> Baker is pretty blunt about the fact that many scientists have had these suspicions, or at least concerns, since the beginning of the pandemic, but didn’t want to speak publicly about the possibility of a lab accident while the Trump administration was touting the same idea... New York magazine reaches a different audience from National Review, and it is good that a more left-of-center audience will be exposed to all of the evidence and arguments about this possibility. The possibility of a lab accident should not be seen as another crackpot conspiracy theory in a year full of them.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/books/house-of-holes-nich...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Toibin-t.htm...
[2] https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/the-wuhan-lab-leak-hy...