[wakawaka28]

There could be liars or foreign agitators among the anti-vaxxers. That's why scientists need to be extremely aboveboard, because if they can't be trusted then people will turn to charlatans. I am against mRNA vaccines and skeptical of some others, but I'm not against well-established vaccines in general.

>It’s bad for their personal reputations that they were caught lying, but their lies don’t change the underlying facts.

If your job is to advise the country about how to conduct research and how to deal with a pandemic, it's not just reputational damage. The lockdowns virtually destroyed the economy and cost more than WW2. Fauci lied about not doing gain of function research and the media has his back.

[peter422]

The guy in the OP paid somebody $100k to beat him a debate using a self-defined empirical system, which somebody did, and the original guy now believes the lab leak theory even more.

Honestly I think I’d prefer if it were a lab leak, since that seems easier to prevent in the future, sadly for me I think the overwhelming evidence points otherwise. A quest for the truth isn’t real if the truth can only be one thing.

But look I’m not going to convince you, your faith is your own and I hope it serves you well.

[wakawaka28]

It's not faith, it's many years of research. I don't care if you roll your eyes at that. You're not smarter than me, I assure you.