> Daszak effectively silenced debate over the possibility of a lab leak with a February 2020 statement in the Lancet. “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin,”

Regardless of what you think about the lab leak hypothesis, this statement is deeply concerning. Resorting to name-calling ("conspiracy theorist!") as opposed to logically assessing the merits of a statement does not sound like a scientific approach. (Not pointing at any particular wing of the political spectrum - I have seen this from all sides unfortunately.)

> Filippa Lentzos, codirector of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College, London, told the Wall Street Journal, “Some of the scientists in this area very quickly closed ranks.”3 She added, “There were people that did not talk about this, because they feared for their careers. They feared for their grants.”

This is also concerning. I wonder how many different scientific fields are experiencing something similar - people staying silent to receive grant money?

I understand what you’re saying and I agree that dismissing it out of hand is obviously the wrong approach - but this does feel like it meets the bar to be a “conspiracy theory”, in that people theorise that the dominant answer for something is wrong, and the true answer is being covered up by powerful groups of people.

Galileo said "the earth is spherical and revolves around the sun, contrary to what's been taught (that the earth is the center of the heavens)". The powerful group called the Church said that's wrong and condemned him and shunned him.

A proper scientific discourse would be to be open to new theories, and let people who guess those theories come up with evidence.

Then again many people on Twitter who are convinced it's a lab leak that's been covered up just yell and scream as well ("It's China and they're cagey, they're hiding something, which mean the lab leak theory must be true!"), which is not how you prove a scientific theory...