My initial statement wasn't for or against - it was that the method of argument isn't going to work on many people here on Hacker News, not because we're a bunch of antivaxxer conspiracy theorists, but because we're predominantly a bunch of people who work with logic, day in day out.

Things like:

> the authors have very explicitly stated on numerous occasions

... appeal to authority, and then fails to mention even one of those occasions, instant ignore

> First, the fact that multiple strains of the virus were found directly in the market is a very strong indication that there were multiple spillover events at the market. Second, it has now been established that wild animals that are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 were being sold at the market during the time period when the outbreak began.

This feels like an attempt at causing a "baffled by BS" response, something HN is particularly immune to - though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you're simply trying to use the correct nomenclature. In reality, you've not said anything here that contradicts anything I've said - multiple spillovers simply indicates that an animal reservoir existed before or concurrently to the initial outbreak period - it doesn't give any evidence for or against any particular primary source. If the unfamiliar terminology doesn't cause people to instantly skip, the lack of new insight will.

> Third, the concentration of cases at and around the market, but not around the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Generally speaking, I wouldn't expect there to be a large number of cases of a disease spread at or near a facility that deals with the testing of viruses and has strict containment protocols. Don't know about you, but I would hope they know how to wash their hands 99.9% of the time - I would hope a virus finding its way out of the campus or shared between professionals would be an extremely rare event.

That said, it would be interesting to see a side-by-side study, with the same statistical techniques, of a similar type of lab. There have been other lab leaks every few years, but as the paper points out, the large amount of attention brought about by the pandemic means a lot more data about this leak than we usually get.

> People who have followed the scientific investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 over the past 2.5 years know that the lab leak theory was always highly unlikely

... and it's exactly this intuition that stokes skepticism. Because if something was always considered unlikely, that's rarely the basis for sound science.

> Their theories are becoming more convoluted and contrived as the evidence rules out each version of the theory

Again, this statement suffers from low sample size, lack of examples, and uneven evaluation. A supporter of your POV presents a new hypothesis? Tries to find evidence to support or refute it? That's great! Science at work. A supporter of the Lab-leak theory presents a new hypothesis? It's just an absurd convoluted and contrived new theory because they couldn't get their last one to work.

And again, people skip over it, because the bias is obvious, and it doesn't come close to answering the question that laypeople are searching for answers to - i.e. where did SARS-CoV-2 originally come from.

Anyway, hopefully this has helped you see why a rational rejection of your arguments in this particular space is not evidence of tinfoil hats clinging to irrational conspiracy theories. By all means, bring your faith. Bring some evidence too, and many of us would love to join you. But without the evidence, a certain assured opinion is not going to help you here.