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Comment by mohanmcgeek | Hacker News Reader

So argument must be dismissed/accepted not based on its merit but based on who is making it?

From the start, the problem with these lab arguments was that they were made by people who had zero evidence. Making up a plausible story and speculations are not evidence.

The bottom line is we will never know, since China is not exactly a free country were potential eye witnesses can be interviewed freely. The market theory was always more likely and more dooming for China, though. It's easy to beef up the control of bio labs, it's way harder to close down all animal wet markets. Officially, China claims they have done the latter but I've heard that they continue to exist all over China.

Nobody asked people to take the lab leak theory at face value. If it's on shaky foundations, it could have been easily refuted. But the way in which it was supressed only added credence to the view.

I don't understand what you mean by "suppressed", I've seen countless mentions of the lab theories on HN, other social media, and news sites. These theories have been around from the start and have always been considered less likely than the wet market hypothesis, as the linked articles also argue. But even if you were right, you should never believe a theory just because it cannot be easily refuted or because you feel it is suppressed. It's trivial to come up with theories that are hard to refute or cannot be falsified at all. Theories can also be suppressed for all kinds of reasons that have no bearing on their truth. If there is a lack of positive evidence for a theory you need to remain agnostic or at the very least try to obtain realistic probability estimates.

Firstly, I would prefer if you didn't dictate what I should believe in and what I shouldn't. I'm fully capable of analysing the information that I have and form my own opinion and it's alright even if it turns out to be wrong.

Secondly, it was suppressed in the way that news media and Twitterati were labelling everyone considering this theory as a possibility to be racist because some racists they know also shared the same views.

It's the other way around. The problem with the natural development theory is there's no evidence for it. Meanwhile lots of evidence was discovered and collected by internet based investigators. At this point the overwhelming preponderance of evidence supports the idea that it came from the Wuhan lab.

"The market theory was always more likely and more dooming for China, though"

No, the most likely possibility from day 1 was that a novel coronavirus emerging right next to a lab doing experiments on novel coronaviruses came from that lab. It was always nonsensical to claim otherwise.

No, but the context within which they are making the argument, and the reason why they are making the argument, must be considered.

I'm not sure how you would know what their reasons were unless you're some kind of mind reader.

The other side just engaged in, labelling, name calling and ad hominem attacks which is what added credence to this theory in the first place..

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