i think you may be misinterpreting what that means...

a coin flip here is 50 50. saying lab origin is "most likely" means DOE estimates there is a greater than 50% chance covid came from a lab.

that's the bottomline conclusion. the "low confidence" they have in the evidence involved is factored into this bottomline assessment of likelihood.

this doesn't mean they're saying 'hey we think there's a 65% chance it came out of a lab cuz this guy we just talked to holding a cardboard sign was really convincing'.

they're weighing all sorts of shit. like all the ins and out of...

well...pandemics throughout history pretty much all came through zoonosis...but...there have been quite a few lab leaks since wwii...and these last 20 years...wow...pretty wild access to the source code of life these lab coats got now...this gain of function stuff's pretty sci fi...oh and what's that...Shi wanted to add FCS's to bat coronaviruses in 2018...and sars-cov-2 is the ONLY bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage spike? hmmm...

...wait, you're telling me she was going to remote caves and collecting as many bat coronaviruses as she could find and freezing them? and then resurrecting them whenever she liked? to do what?! to try to infect mutant mice with humanoid lungs? why? to try to make the viruses capable of infecting humans? whoa, crazy shit, man. wait...what was that proposal of Shi's rejected in 2018 again? oh...so basically she was interested in trying to make sars-cov-2...before it even existed?

Shi must be pissed them raccoon dogs beat her to the punch.

that study is flimsy btw. and the atlantic article you linked was published BEFORE the pre-print of the paper was even released. so it was a PR rollout...and the scientists involved...well..let's say a good number of them have been engaging in motivated reasoning in this space since early 2020. and btw, the NYT changed their original headline on the raccoon dog paper to reduce the 'WOW finally proof of zoonosis!' vibe.

if you want to get into the arguments, go for it. important to remember that what happened happened in china. and china's control of information re:Wuhan have made an objective, thorough investigation impossible. china's incentives here are important to consider.

the raccoon dog paper, hm is there something there? i don't think so, the virus was not IN the animals, was mixed in samples. and mysteriously these wet market sample genomes surface online. there's no way of knowing, but yes, the conclusions of the paper further china's interests in diverting attention away from the gain of function that was going on in the Wuhan labs. Worobey's other papers on the Wuhan wet market have been poked full of holes, problems with methodology. Same with the two origins claim.

So...the jury's still out...what do you think?