Seriously? Is this the quality of discussion HN is regularly becoming? You want me to make an assumption? Is that how you operate in conversation - assumptions to fill in the gaps when something isn't clear?
You realize that their saying "natural" or "unnatural" completely changes what they're saying to the polar opposite, right?
So now clarity is pedantic?
Seriously?
If HN had subreddits there'd be one similar to /r/WatchRedditDie
There are arguments from improbability in the article that rely on implicit assumptions that are obviously wrong once made explicit, akin to a creationist arguing for the improbability of the human genome's complexity as though it arose like a shuffled deck of cards.
"Serious virologists" isn't proof.
Which virologists think it's natural, and which think it's unnatural?
Now lets see the data and thorough reasoning by each, and see the rebuttals of each for their opposition's reasoning, etc.
Until this is laid out clearly it's all shallow discussion - that no one should blindly trust or believe.
The above is the scientific process, method.
There clearly isn't consensus yet.