Thanks for admitting you have no argument.

It's based on circumstantial evidence and probabilities, same as the opinions you posted, except untarnished by personal interest and desire to CYA. You're again proving me right, most spillover events are small scale affairs because viruses that jump the species barrier are not well adapted to infect humans. A virus that jumps the barrier perfectly adapted to humans is extremely unlikely. You're not defending science, you're taking a stand against science by trying to declare without any evidence a lab leak to be debunked. This is completely unscientific, as the basic position in science should be "I don't know" until good evidence comes along. You are not defending the so-called "global scientific fraternity", you are defending corrupt stooges that put corporate pharmaceutical profit before health and safety. People willing to run the risk of creating pandemics to make a buck.

All RNA viruses mutate rapidly, so why don't we face pandemics every year then? Why is jumping the species barrier so rare? The odds of a virus somehow magically developing ALL the mutations required to perfectly infect human beings while infecting another animal are really, really small. That kind of ability is gained gradually, not all at once. There is no evidence for a zoonotic origin, all that you quote are OPINIONS, opinions from experts in fields with a vested interest in the virus being zoonotic because if not, they would face more oversight in their work, lose public confidence and receive a lot less grant money. So not impartial and neutral opinion. You're the one spreading lies that you've unquestioningly accepted from authorities.

The viruses you mention are all great examples of what I described as the usual zoonotic emergence, it is not concentrated in one place, the virus first jumps the species barrier and is poorly adapted to infecting humans, limiting its spread. Traits that are the opposite of what was seen with SARS-CoV-2. The Wuhan lab is THE lab for coronavirus research in China. It's not just a small lab, it's where most coronavirus research occurs and has one of the if not the largest collection of coronaviruses. To this day, no scientific data exists to support a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2.

If there were any smoking gun proving a lab leak, everyone knows it would be wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the South China Sea at this point. China is an authoritarian communist regime, it would never, ever allow such evidence to surface, for it would then be blamed. Meanwhile, there is also no evidence supporting a natural origin which isn't highly speculative and debatable. There is no smoking gun on either side of the issue. Why the lack of smoking gun makes the "lab leak" a conspiracy theory and doesn't make the natural origin less credible is curious... the kind of double standard that is typical of motivated reasoning. And a cursory look at circumstantial evidence (which is all we have) makes it look really bad for a natural origin: * In a natural origin scenario, you should see many foyers of the epidemic at points of interaction between the animals it came from and humans... you don't see that here, the pandemic had one and only starting point in Wuhan, a large city which just happened to home the biggest Coronavirus lab in the world * In a natural origin scenario where a virus jumps the barrier between species, the virus should at first be really inefficient at infecting human beings as it's a function that should take a lot of mutations to acquire well. In this instance, the virus went right out the gate perfectly adapted to infect human beings, like its long mutational process to gain that function had occurred in a closed setting rather than in nature, you know, like in a lab. * Plus, Wuhan is located something like 1 000 km away from the animal reservoir of the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, which seems like an unlikely place for the sole foyer of an epidemic to occur. * We have documentation (from grants and the like) proving that gain of function research on coronaviruses to make them more likely to infect human beings were going on at the lab in Wuhan. Without any direct, concrete evidence, with only circumstantial evidence to go by, it's looking like the lab leak is more likely. The fact that some scientists now basically admitted they launched a campaign to discredit the lab leak without any data to justify it, when their own correspondance reveals they didn't think it impossible when they made that campaign, is even more curious and damning. I guess no one wants people to find out they have blood on their hands. If you want to play the game of "guess the motive", I would say a lot of scientists and technocrats dream of changing the world, they think it would be better if individuals had a lot less freedom and the "experts" (they are a part of) could restructure the whole of society "for the greater good". The last thing these supports of technocracy want is for these same "experts" to be blamed for a pandemic that killed millions, or for their lockdowns to be viewed as the biggest public health mistake of the past century, for that would undermine the public's confidence in the "experts" and make them even less willing to agree to yield their freedom to the "experts" and their demands.

Very easy to actually. * Ignore data that doesn't fit the narrative. * Use peer review to block any paper that contradicts the narrative. * Draw unjustifiably strong conclusions from partial data. * Decree that this is the consensus. * Intimidate, harass and censor any scientist that disagrees. Congrats, you've just made "science" lie.