There's a difference between "not enough for conviction" (meaning, more investigation needed) and the whole system (from authorities, mainsteam media to social network bans) turning against anyone who even dares mention the lab leak hypothesis.

Concepts like “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” are more about protecting people’s individual liberties than establishing a baseline about whether or not to believe something.

Individual liberty equalling counting for criminal law, not civil law nor morals in effect in a society or community. E.g. in a club in San Francisco you might be checked before entry to prove you do not possess a knife or gun. Whereas in a club on the beach near Rotterdam anything goes. In the case someone gets stabbed or shot in the club in San Francisco its unlikely they passed security. Whereas in the Rotterdam example such boundary does not exist.

That’s not quite right — they’re establishing a baseline to believe something worthy of depriving someone’s liberties over.

> I don't know how the law works where you live, but in my country, 'probably did it' isn't enough for a conviction. Even then, this isn't some spurious made up court trial, and the probabilities you're working with are easily inflated to suit the narrative you want.

One should not apply standards of a criminal trial to verification of a scientific hypothesis. The results can be quite disastrous as the case of Giordano Bruno can attest [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Ah yes, the weaponization of stigma. Want to shut down critical thinking? Use words like kook, nut, conspiracy theorist, racist, etc. You're basically gaslighting people.