zlacker

The whole point of the present article is that the "current consensus" has been astroturfed, and is based on no evidence whatsoever. If you allow me to get more cynical, several journalists have now written about how (1) natural origins was initially popularized as a "consensus" view by just a few scientists on Twitter an effort to smear Tom Cotton. Due to the political valence, this messaging caught on with journalists.

(2) The correspondence of the authors behind the initial Lancet article which dismisses non-natural origin investigations as conspiracy theory (seeking to build the consensus view and much cited by the above jornalists) has been obtained by FOIA. It reveals the authors engaging in conspiracy and collusion: the managing editor bypassed the normal editorial process, the authors decided not to have some people sign so the statement would look less partisan and chose wordings that they knew were not supported by evidence, in particular deciding to ignore concerns about the very unlikely codons at the furin cleavage site. Moreover, none of the authors declared conflicts of interest. (And still, after much outcry, only one has made such a declaration.)

In short, any consensus for a natural origin is very much artificial and should be considered irrelevant.