Nate (and you, dear reader) should know better than this. What a person is willing to say under oath (or in a peer reviewed paper) is what they're able to defend. What they say in slack chats or emails is completely different, and not in any way beholden to anything approaching the same level of rigor.
It should matter, a lot, that even a group of scientists who believed a lab leak idea was plausible couldn't muster up an argument that would hold up under peer review. If these folks couldn't do it, maybe there's a reason; it's simply not supported by observations/facts.
Nate (and you, dear reader) should know better than this. What a person is willing to say under oath (or in a peer reviewed paper) is what they're able to defend. What they say in slack chats or emails is completely different, and not in any way beholden to anything approaching the same level of rigor.
It should matter, a lot, that even a group of scientists who believed a lab leak idea was plausible couldn't muster up an argument that would hold up under peer review. If these folks couldn't do it, maybe there's a reason; it's simply not supported by observations/facts.