For the sake of argument, something like Einstein's special relativity had little to no evidence backing it up, but was still accepted simply because it provided a more elegant explanation of several concepts. Of course it also had a few weird, testable, consequences that where later confirmed experimentally.

All this is just to illustrate that it's not always easy to prove something right away with large amounts of experimental evidence. However if we consider the 'elegance' of a theory proof then we've abandoned subjectivity. It is a bit of a limitation of experimental science that it cannot determine the prior probability, which therefore must be assessed by evaluating the theory itself, which can only be done by experts, who are fallible.

When little to no experts seem to accept a theory then it's usually a bad sign though.

Einstein's special relativity had lots of evidence backing it up in that existing (Galilean) relativity was completely at odds with electromagnetism. The speed of light is constant, Newton was wrong.

In this situation there is no smoking gun to prove it was made in a lab.

I don't disagree but as this article shows you can probably find a few smoking guns if you look hard enough. However this would be evidence to support a theory that on the face of it doesn't seem to be give that good an explanation. Certainly not as good as the natural outbreak of a coronavirus pandemic, which was considered likely enough to fund the lab involved with the supposed creation of the virus. Asking for more smoking guns is not really all that helpful, in my opinion, when the theory itself is still rather shaky.

I guess this still boils down to 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence', but interpreted differently from the way the comment I replied to was using it (which implied that it meant you'd need more proof if you went against the current consensus).

> Einstein's special relativity had lots of evidence backing it up

Yes, it immediately solved several outstanding anomalies. GP should have brought up Einstein’s general relativity as something that had little evidence to back it up initially.

The paper is presenting a handful of smoking guns all at once.

If you’re an expert in this field and can elaborate, I would love to read more. I’ve read the paper, but as a layman it’s difficult to discern why something is a “smoking gun” vs nature at work.

I’m not an expert. The entire content of the paper is the exposition of a series of four published studies, with Wuhan researchers involved, that took a coronavirus and enhanced its ability to infect the human respiratory system, through the mechanisms we are seeing in action now. They argue that these characteristics are known to be originated in the lab, from these previous papers.

> Isn't that the whole point of science?

No, Carl Sagan's famous "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is certainly not the whole point of science. At best it's merely a useful heuristic for judging how much effort to put into researching a particular claim.

Trying to use that argument as the basis for science is highly problematic because how do you know what constitutes an "extraordinary claim" ? Claims can only be evaluated against the current state of scientific knowledge, which is itself in a state of constant evolution and which has also undergone and will continue to undergo many revolutions.

The core of science is the use of repeatable methods which can be verified by anyone (so very similar in spirit to open source software). The gold standards for such methods are random controlled experiments and rigorous mathematical proofs. However in many fields these methods aren't available and weaker ones must be used. Then you can certainly get into much discussion on the strength of the methods used as well as the interpretations of the results.

You're picking on my hyperbole, not my point. I agree with everything you wrote. It's not relevant to this topic.

the papers make a lot of specific arguments. if you have evidence against those arguments, you can say this point is wrong, here is the evidence against it, therefore that claim is likely wrong. Thats science.

Your method comes off as: thats not the consensus, thus you are wrong.

You're missing the point of "consensus". The value of having a scientific consensus of trusted sources is precisely that we don't have to all individually read random conspiracy nonsense and come up with counterarguments on our own. We can trust the experts.

So if you come by with a theory that isn't supported by those experts, the burden is on YOU to convince people, not me.

Now I know you're going to come right back and tell me why, this time, after the last thousand tries, the consensus really is wrong and the conspiracy nuts are actually believing in a REAL conspiracy this time. And again I'll rely on my general sense of statistics to tell me who to trust.

> The value of having a scientific consensus of trusted sources is precisely that we don't have to all individually read random conspiracy nonsense and come up with counterarguments on our own. We can trust the experts.

This sounds like a priesthood. Don’t consider evidence from rando papers. Instead, simply trust the consensus view of these certain, special people who have been blessed as truth-knowers and wear the right robes and hats.

And this sounds like a description you read in a comic book somewhere.

You missed some elements: that "priesthood" isn't a unified block, it's a gaggle of independent thinkers (some of them my friends and family) with a thousand year history of argumentation, refutation, and adjustment of theory. The "priesthood" gets it right, eventually, every time. Yeah, I'll trust that "priesthood".

Unreviewed papers pushed by conspiracy nuts on the internet, on the other hand, don't exactly have that record to back them. They demand that non-experts "read it for themselves" precisely because they can't convince anyone who matters.