> it doesn't

It does.

> Nobody seems to care about ECS

You only even know the term ECS because scientists are in fact talking about it.

> the Guardian

Are a newspaper and therefore misrepresent everything (if not literally then at least a lot of stuff). Did you know the Guardian's nickname is "Grauniad" because of its early reputation for frequent typographical errors, including misspelling its own name as "The Gaurdian"?

> the only thing that can shift their view is by showing that the experts actually aren't expert at all.

I doubt it, you're still reacting like the stuff the newspapers are publishing is representative of the domains of discussion despite me already referencing the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. (In fairness, it got that name precisely because of how rapidly people, or at least how fast Michael Crichton, forgot how bad newspapers are at reality).

> we'd expect to see some sort of post mortem where they collectively study why so many bold predictions were made that they later recanted. No such reflective learning process has ever happened.

Indeed. But, Gell-Mann amnesia effect. People keep trusting newspapers. It's the newspapers who keep getting stuff wrong, and it isn't merely science where they get things badly wrong in their reporting. Look at what the newspapers say about your area of expertise.

You do have an area of expertise, I assume?

Look at what any of those newspapers say about your area of expertise. Are the newspapers wrong? Are they "wet pavements cause rain" level wrong? It happens.

> Then when it's pointed out that this isn't true using archival evidence

There are archives of scientific publications, not just newspapers. This backs up what the scientists are saying and not what the newspapers are saying and have previously said (one case I saw "live" about a decade ago, climate scientists said one thing, then a UK tabloid said basically the opposite but claimed to be quoting them).

> the claim changes to be that journalists were - inexplicably, as a group - engaged in a vast conspiracy to s/warming/cooling/g in everything scientists said.

More that they make stuff up and are works of fiction that are at most loosely inspired by reality.

> This claim is implausible, it's also literally a conspiracy theory, except one with no motive

Newspapers are paid in proportion to the drama not the factuality.

> and no proof that it's real.

Except for all the published archives of all the scientific journals reproduced in most university libraries.

> "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin ... Scientists from multiple countries .... overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife"?

Literally none of what you're quoting there says it's impossible for a virus to leak from a lab. It says the evidence in this case is that it almost certainly didn't, not that it couldn't. Those are importantly different things, especially given what else the conspiracy theories at the time were trying to claim.

> A consensus of people and institutions like that is worthless.

You must consider that to have been a good argument, but I don't see why.