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Can you explain how "similar to" becomes "identical" in your retelling?

There are a number of details about it which are the same as the plans from 2018. I don't think it's reasonable to think the plans of scientists don't get revised as they work. And as soon as the virus starts spreading, even in test mice in the lab, it will start to mutate. So it is entirely possible that what leaks from a lab is a natural mutation off of an engineered virus.

Trying to use difference in details in this case to sow doubt isn't reasonable in my opinion because it's details that are realistically impossible to nail down.

I personally find it quite unsurprising that researchers in virology might be researching future scenarios that seem like a future possibility.

This is an interesting line of thinking. We can have all the evidence imaginable that scientists did a thing that caused a pandemic, but since they were trying to predict the next pandemic you just dismiss the evidence as meaningless.

It seems like the standards applied in this discussion by some are essentially that nothing short of irrefutable proof even qualifies as evidence.

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