[michaelmrose]

If you see a flash of light in the sky and without further evidence exclaim that aliens have landed and are going to subjugate us and steal our women then you are a crackpot not merely because you are wrong but because you drew your conclusion with a faulty thought process.

If it later turns out that aliens HAVE landed but on a diplomatic mission not an invasion force you are still a crackpot who was partially right not by dint of sagacity but more or less by accident.

The lab story was usually promoted as part of a wider narrative where covid was either portrayed as a deliberate attack by the Chinese or the accidental release of a bioweapon a narrative designed not to explicate but to distract one from laying blame on the Trump administration for its incompetent response. It frequently mixed hypothesis, conjecture, and outright lies.

You can probably be forgiven for having not known there might be a useful hypothesis when it was largely being promoted by liars with corrupt motivation mixed with lies.