Replace the word “evidence” with “opinion” or “theory” and your sentence makes sense. There is no evidence backing it up and that is by design.
By “design”?
Oooooohhh.
In other words, @Magiver is saying, “I haven’t read any of the papers regarding the origins of covid-19, nor have I read anything about coronaviruses nor have I read anything about viruses nor have I read anything about infectious diseases nor have I read anything about the definition of a scientific theory. Therefore, scientists don’t have evidence. On the other hand, the FBI and energy department have tons of evidence for all to behold. It’s obvious!”
You’re not going to put words in my mouth. Unless you have proof that contradicts what I sad there are no animals from the market showing the disease. That was not an accident. China made sure of that. Even the most humble of nations would have preserved evidence for study.
The seriousness of what China did and the reasons behind it completely escape you.
There are many incidents of lab leaks and I don’t think in any of those cases we’d consider the pathogens anything other than “natural”.
They were naturally occuring pathogens, they were stored in a lab, they were accidentally released from a lab.
Please, tell us more about the reasons behind ‘’‘it’‘’?
Is anybody else suspicous at the heretofore unknown sequencing being found, then its removal from the database shortly after?
Generally the destruction of evidence is considered a self-serving process designed to hide information that is considered detrimental to the party who engaged in the process.
Apparently the Nefarious Ones never figured that after they’d made the sequencing data public, others might download it and investigate further.
No one is saying the Chinese are models of open inquiry and that they’ve wholeheartedly cooperated with scientists looking into Covid-19 origins. We’ve been obliged to work with what data we have, which while not totally excluding a lab leak, mostly points to natural spillover, centered on the wet market.
I too would love to know “the reasons behind it”. 
Let’s not quibble. A lab leak is not a “natural” event.
This isn’t the first time there was a whistleblower with data suddenly scrubbed from the internet or denied by the Chinese. I know of three times. Two were leaked from the Chinese CDC. One helped the americans write their papers showing many positive samples coming from a very specific part of the wet market. The second one is this one. The third was a concerned customer who took pictures of wild animals prior to the outbreak in the very same part of wet market where the suspected illegal animals were and all the positive samples are.
The Chinese keep insisting that humans brought the virus to the wet market where it became a superspreader and infected animals. The location of the animals was in the back of the west-hand side of the market. Humans infecting those animals is much less likely than the other way around.
The problem is one of framing. By excluding it as a “natural” event you get to paint those who think it plausible as belonging to the same camp as those who think it was “man-made”. That’s not helpful and is a tactic that has been used in discussions previously.
Three scenarios for you
a) Lab brings a virus to their facility from which it escapes and infects others
b) Lab worker collecting virus in the wild is infected and brings it back to their home city and infects others
c) Market traders bring infected animals to a market in a far-off city from which they infect others.
All are perfectly reasonable scenarios for starting a pandemic. They all need human intervention to make it happen but all seem to me to belong in the bucket of “natural”
Might as well argue that since humans are imperfect, all accidents are “natural” events.
No, I wouldn’t go that far. Personally I don’t think the labelling of “natural” in this case is helpful at all for the reasons I gave above but if you are going to use it in this case then I don’t think the lab leak of a wild virus is any less “natural” than the transporting and storage of infected wild species into a crowded market situation.
Perhaps we just drop that term completely? The virus is highly likely to be not a man-made entity and it came to infect humans by an unknown accidental pathway.
I’ve never met anyone in real life who seriously means “man-made” when they say “lab leak”.
When I say say “lab leak” I mean only that. Just in the same way that other pathogens have escaped from labs in the past. No bio-engineering or weaponising implied at all.
Can we at least all agree that no one still participating in this thread is advocating for a theory that the virus was a bioengineered weapon or otherwise knowingly released for nefarious reasons? It so, then perhaps we can end the repeated use of that strawman in the debate.
It would be great if everyone took “lab leak” to mean exactly (and only) that.
However, you might want to direct your comments at crowmanyclouds.
Their comment at 574 seems to suggest that those using the term “lab leak” are using it as code for comething more sinister. Are they directing it at people in this thread? I hope not, it is very unhelpful otherwise as it just perpetuates an extremely fringe point of view.
Usually it’s the conspiracy whack jobs and demagogues who use the crutch of the straw man. Guess we can see now that it’s an equal opportunity offense.
You aren’t saying that I’m using a straw man are you? I can’t quite detect who your target is here.
I’ve been very careful to make the distinction between the two concepts of “lab leak” and “man made”.
@Magiver, agreed?