[throwaway3699]

Conspiracy theories sometimes turn out to just be conspiracies. That's why we need to be able to talk about them.

I'm not qualified to say if the lab leak has any credence, but it wouldn't be the first time the powers at be have been wrong. Just look at the classic "WMDs in the Middle East" rhetoric that lead us to war.

[kelnos]

I don't think the WMD thing was anyone being wrong; rather it was a deliberate lie to justify a war that was wanted for other reasons.

But agreed in general; I think there's a lot of political opposition on the left to the lab-leak theory, in no small part because Trump pushed so hard to blame the Chinese for the virus while in office. Even if unlikely, a lab leak is far from impossible as a cause, and we should talk about it and explore it until evidence conclusively rules it out.