[beerpls]

“scientists who believed a lab leak idea was plausible couldn't muster up an argument that would hold up under peer review”

Scientists work with covid viruses, scientists accidentally contract virus when one of a thousand technical protocols accidentally slipped, scientists unknowingly spread virus.

I worked in a clean lab for years with, presumably, much lower tolerances than you would want at a lab studying deadly viruses. We had leaks all the time even with protocols in place. Scientists are smart, they aren’t perfect and make mistakes.

Now realize that publicly stating your lab had a protocol failure of this magnitude and you face career death, the possible eradication of your lab and it’s connections, etc.

You’re saying no lab leak claims “held up under peer review” and it’s “not supported by facts”. I’m not sure if you get this, but if this did leak from a lab then there would probably be zero way to trace that without speculation. You’re not going to go find a covid virus with a time stamp and location of where it came from or where it moved. How on Earth would one ever prove this?

I have a feeling that your terms of proof a priori make it impossible to ever conclude a lab leak was the cause…

[wolverine876]

So because we can't support it with facts, therefore ... it's true? In a way, it's an honest rendition of conspiracy theorizing.

[fsh]

From what I've read, their work on novel bat coronaviruses mainly consisted of sequencing samples, since culturing the viruses in the lab is notoriously hard. How are you going to infect yourself with a tiny, denatured sample used for sequencing? It would probably be quite a challenge to do this intentionally.

[Zetice]

Just to be clear, I'm not commenting on if the lab leak theory is plausible or not, I'm commenting on how none of these folks were willing to go "on the record" about it in a way that would have to stand up to the level of scrutiny they know would come.

[beerpls]

“ Now realize that publicly stating your lab had a protocol failure of this magnitude and you face career death, the possible eradication of your lab and it’s connections, etc.”

From my previous comment.

It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising that these researchers wouldn’t say it happened even if they had strong evidence it did.

The downsides are obviously not good for them nor their careers in any way. God forbid they themselves could be found connected to the responsibility and would inevitably become a scapegoat.

And if they did come out and nothing happened to them - what positives would occur? “Reforming safety protocols”? All that would do is create more red tape in the future and inhibit research even more.

I think you should better evaluate the context of what a scientist in that position would face and think. You really quickly see there’s a lot of grey area, and we can’t think very highly of our typical standards of proof.

Of course, i’m not saying “absolutely it was a leak”. Simply that you’re holding the theory to such high standards of proof as to be, imho, unreasonable.