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.