Also, zoonotic transfer happening naturally in any particular time and place is extremely unlikely, even in places where the conditions are optimal.

I always thought this was a good test for whether someone can apply Bayesian reasoning. It turns out not many can, including a lot of highly educated people.

Without hard evidence to contradict it, lab leak should have always been the default hypothesis. That it hasn’t is a case of political propaganda winning out over basic statistics.

Bayesian reasoning is that your prior is a 99.999% chance that the virus is natural, as all other viruses are.

The probability that a virus would crop up in Wuhan out of all cities in China is 1/70.

Feel free apply Bayes' formula.

Case in point.

Where's the part with the virus being collected and brought to a lab in Wuhan where gain of function research was done prior to the outbreak? Feel free to include that in your formula.

There is no evidence SARS-COV-2 was being studied.

There are markets and farms where zoonotic transfer could hypothetically occur all over China (not only in big cities) and all over the world. Zoonotic transfers of diseases that are highly contagious and severe to humans are rare in the context of the entire world and all of human history. It happens, but not often. The odds of it happening in Wuhan specifically in a period of a few months are extremely low. Does anyone deny that?

That doesn't mean it's impossible. When it does happen, it has to happen somewhere, after all.

Except that we have another explanation that is demonstrably not extremely unlikely: a safety incident at a lab with a recent history of safety issues.

If you want to try to convince me that zoonotic transfers of diseases like Covid aren't rare, or that WIV was in fact extremely unlikely to have a safety incident, I'm all ears. I've never seen anyone even attempt to do either. Instead, the obvious statistical conclusion is simply hand-waved away.

Your prior should be that it was just like the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak which happened in a different city without this research lab and also involved in a spillover in wet market of a virus whose closest known relative was found hundreds of miles away in bats (in close to the same area that RatG13 was found).

At this point can we not just state plainly, the whole denial argument is predicated on politics?

Which one do you mean by “the denial argument”? (and why do you use that term instead of something unambiguous like “lab leak” or “zoonotic origin” hypotheses?)

As to which of the two hypotheses is more predicated on politics, I think there are more generally left-leaning people who are swayed by the lab leak (circumstantial) evidence, than there are right-leaning people who are swayed by the zoonotic origin (circumstantial) evidence. This perception may be mistaken, but assuming I’m correct, this would suggest that the zoonotic origin hypothesis is more likely to be predicated on politics.

Edit: typo