Talk:Wuhan Institute of Virology

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MEDRS again

This edit[1] (repeated by ScrupulousScribe) splices a suggestive non-sequitur into the middle of a paragraph and edits text text to misrepresent a MEDRS source, which does not say the bat origin is "most likely", but that it is the case. Editors are reminded that WP:V is a core content policy, that WP:SYNTHESIS is prohibited and that this topic is subject to special sanctions. Alexbrn (talk) 16:21, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no consensus above that WP:MEDRS is applicable for a matter unrelated to Wikipedia:Biomedical information, and there is also no consensus on that particular MEDRS source being WP:BESTSOURCE, given the way it contradicts other sources. It is clear that Jshin47 is a new user, and we should be welcoming to him, and any other editors who wish to offer a more nuanced point of view. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 16:36, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

As I said, WP:V is a core policy. There is in fact consensus that WP:MEDRS applies, but even it it didn't an academic peer-reviewed secondary source is still supreme in comparison to lay sources and tweets. Alexbrn (talk) 16:45, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no consensus that MEDRS applies. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 16:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I, for one, think we should use high-quality scientific sources (for this subject, that would be WP:MEDRS sources) for scientific claims, such as the origins of SARS-CoV-2. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:55, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

And there are others, such as I, who believe that while MEDRS should normally apply, the Chinese government has made it as such that there are no MEDRS sources to determine the origin of the virus. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Consensus is not a vote, and WP:CLUE is relevant. If we allowed every outbreak of WP:PROFRINGE grutching to unseat established WP:PAGs, Wikipedia would descend into nonsense. If in doubt, double check at WT:MED. Alexbrn (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Something that the BBC calls the "biggest scientific controversy of our time" (not a WP:PROFRINGE grutch) should require a much clearer approach for establishing how WP:PAG applies here. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 17:53, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

We use serious sources, not silly hyperbolic journalism. Alexbrn (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Even generally-decent mainstream journalism is prone to false balance about scientific controversies — quoting one person from each side of a debate, or quoting people in such a way that they appear to be two sides of a debate, when in fact their views are only separated incrementally. On some topics, mainstream journalism is the best source material we have to work with and so we can't say much anything about whether the balance is false, but that's not the case here. XOR'easter (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

The BBC is a decent mainstream reliable source, right? They have covered the issue, as have The Times, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and many others. For as long as editors like you and Alexbrn continue to conflate legitimate scientific inquiry, as reported by the likes of BBC, with disproven conspiracy theories, as promulgated by the likes of Li-Meng Yan, this issue remains disputed. There is most certainly not a consensus in favor of continuing to conflate the issues, and omit key details about such inquiry from the article, as it currently does. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Weren't you just recently topic-banned (and then unbanned) from Covid? I'd suggest the issue be handled with care. Fact is, those theories are considered by MEDRS and high quality sources (WP:BESTSOURCES - its not simply because something is "reliable" that its an ok source: if better sources contradict lesser ones (and scientific journals vs mainstream press is the prime example) then we go by the best available sources). In this case, there is no serious MEDRS-level source which claims that those conspiracy theories have any grounding in anything but thin air, therefore we report what the best sources say, so no, the conspiracy bullshit does not go in. I've removed the tag since its an issue which was just discussed (and has been perpetually discussed) earlier with consensus that the current content was way too much and you re-inserting it feels a bit like WP:DEADHORSE... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:18, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

As was pointed out by myself and others, the scientific journal (MEDRS source) does not contradict the mainstream reliable sources, and addresses only known conspiracy theories (relating to bioweapons). There was also no agreement in the above discussion that that journal is WP:BESTSOURCES, specifically because it failed to address any alternative lab origin theory other than bioweapons. And since you are new to the conversation, let me also remind you that there is also no consensus that MEDRS even applies to something that clearly does not classify as Wikipedia:Biomedical information. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 00:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Even if MEDRS wasn't required for this article, applicable MEDR sources would still be better than MEDPOP. In this situation, we have a hypothesis (lab leak) that has been cultivated primarily by laypeople, with the opinions of a handful of scientists (of varying credentials) thrown in to provide (seemingly) mechanistic legitimacy. We don't need MEDRS to describe entirely layperson-designed scenarios, which don't include scientific assertions. But as soon as you introduce an "expert" analysis that attempts to explain how the scenario could have occurred, you need rigorous MEDRS to rebut (or support) the claim. And when a particular mechanistic claim does not have abundant MEDRS, it is not DUE: it is clearly disregarded by the scientific community and therefore should be omitted from the article. So, while the "lab leak theory" as a general concept may be acknowledged here, any supporting details inspired by a hypothetical mechanism cannot be included. This would of course include the opinions of random scientists. JoelleJay (talk) 02:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

JoelleJay, If I understand you correctly, you consider "supporting details" of the theory to be WP:UNDUE, especially when it makes a mechanistic claim. However, I would like to understand whether you would make any differentiation between the claim that COVID-19 was possibly created as a bioweapon, to the claim that it was possibly subject to gain-of-function research? That's like me asking whether you think we should merge the Biological warfare article into Gain of function research article, or visa versa, as a dual-use section, and I would expect a pretty clear answer. Also, I do not think Marc Lipsitch, David Relman and Richard Ebright are "random scientists", and they are of the opinion that the theory should be considered and the possibility investigated. Just yesterday Forbes published an interesting piece on the subject of this differentiation, quoting Ebright (and also Filippa Lentzos). Most reliable sources make the differentiation. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 06:57, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I meant "supporting details" for the accidental lab leak hypothesis, not for distinguishing it from the intentional release scenario which is entirely separate and discounted. It doesn't matter whether I personally make a distinction between bioweapons research and GOF DURCs; the possibility that WIV was engaged in either with this virus is not being entertained enough by the scientific community to be DUE at this time. That the popular media has picked up on the topic is unfortunate but unsurprising, given the hyperbole generated by the 2011 pause on funding. Having a handful of scientists whose statements can be aligned with alarmist news reports doesn't mean the scenario has gained widespread acknowledgement among the thousands of other experts, whose relative silence on the matter carries far more weight. If we went by what experts quoted in the lay media say, our articles on TCM and AYUSH therapies would be full of nationalist woo bullshit. JoelleJay (talk) 05:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

If we want to use non-WP:MEDRS to discuss the gain-of-function conspiracy theory, a useful source may be PMID 33442004, which is some commentary by Angela Rasmussen on the "often contradictory and sometimes outright ridiculous conspiracy theories that spread faster than the virus itself". This is already used at the Gain-of-function article. Excerpt:

A favorite version of the laboratory-origin stories relies on the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered for gain-of-function studies that were also previously performed with bat SARS-like coronaviruses to understand cross-species transmission risk (Nat. Med. 21, 1508–1513; 2015). The irony is that those gain-of-function studies provided valuable information about the biology of SARS-CoV-2. Gain-of-function research is also subject to intense scrutiny and governmental oversight, precisely because of the high risk involved in conducting it safely; thus, it is extremely unlikely that gain-of-function research on hard-to-obtain coronaviruses (such as bat SARS-like coronaviruses) could occur under the radar.

This doesn't make any biomedical claims, but also does not mention the Wuhan lab specifically. Alexbrn (talk) 09:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

break

One point here keeps getting repeated, and is wrong. The best MEDRS does not "just" rebut the "bioweapon" claim, but lab construction in general ("conspiracy theories regarding the construction of SARS-CoV-2 in a secret laboratory in Wuhan") without even mentioning bioweapons. Alexbrn (talk) 07:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

No, that is based on your interpretation of it. And also, it is not the "best" MEDRS, as you claim. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 07:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

No intepretation, a direct quotation. As a MEDLINE-indexed, reputable-published, review article, PMID 32945405 is the best MEDRS (on this topic). As it says: "The genomic and bioinformatic analyses of the aforementioned studies, as well as the results of previous studies, confirm that the virus originated in bats and this way put an end to all conspiracy theories regarding this issue". Alexbrn (talk) 08:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The paper you selected, and the comment you selected from it, does not discount other lab origin scenarios, particularly the one relating to gain-of-function research. It is irrelevant to the subject at hand, and making any inference from it in relation to lab origin scenario involving GoF research, is original research. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 08:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

What part of "confirm that the virus originated in bats and this way put an end to all conspiracy theories regarding this issue" is hard to understand? No inference necessary; to the contrary, interpreting this to mean in some way "it was maybe made in a lab!" requires interpretative contortions. Alexbrn (talk) 08:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Its not hard to understand, but no one said the virus didn't originate in bats. This was pointed out by other editors above, such as Forich, as it is pretty clear the paper doesn't make the necessary differentiation. It would be better for you to leave this discussion to other editors like JoelleJay, who seems to have a better grasp of the science than you do, so that we can reach a consensus and agree on content changes. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 08:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Nice attempt at WP:OWNERSHIP. As Forich wrote (15 Jan): "we have to follow Wikipedia rules, and it looks like a strong MEDRS against the lab leak". I agree with that. Wikipedia's purpose is to reflect reliable, relevant sources. We also know from RS that the gain-of-function "story" is a favourite one among the conspiracy theorists. Alexbrn (talk) 08:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not ownership. You have taken up considerable time to push your POV, and JoelleJay, who shares your POV, makes stronger and more direct points that I feel would enable us to reach a consensus. If you are going to quote Forich, you should also include his others on the matter, such as his "benevolent interpretation" comment (also Jan 15). Your MEDRS source is irrelevant for the reason given, and the applicability of MEDRS is also in question. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 08:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but threatening "It would be better for you to leave this discussion to other editors" is classic WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. WP:FOC. The business of editing Wikipedia is fundamentally quite simple: find the best sources, then summarize them. We're doing that with the lab leak and all the best sources are aligned: it's a remote possibility & conspiracy theory. When and if the sources change, Wikipedia can follow, but until then we're sound. Alexbrn (talk) 08:51, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have gatekeepers and you are not in charge of determining what sources are considered best, and which policies apply where and when. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 08:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Gatekeepers? I didn't write "It would be better for you to leave this discussion to other editors". Wikipedia policies apply throughout the project, unless you want to invoke WP:IAR. But some policies are non-negotiable, such as WP:NPOV. There was already a lengthy process on this Talk page of finding the five or six WP:BESTSOURCES on the virus' origin.[2] If we stick to summarizing those, NPOV will be safe. Alexbrn (talk) 09:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The lengthy process you mention above did not result in a consensus, as you did not address the concerns brought up by editors (like Forich) with the sources you selected, just like you didn't reply to Forich's debate conclusions in WP:RS/N. Unless you find a MEDRS source that makes the clear distinction between origin theories relating to gain of function research and bioweapons, and rules them both out unequivocally, then MEDRS as a policy isn't even applicable here. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 09:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't need to find a MEDRS source to address concerns that don't exist in the realm of MEDRS, but in the realms of WP:FRINGE. I'm not making any claim beyond the sources we already use. All that's necessary is to reflect WP:MEDRS and uphold WP:FRINGE when discussing conspiracy theories, or even plausible but unaccepted ideas. Alexbrn (talk) 09:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

If you want to continue deleting contributions as you did with the contributions from Jshin47 and Aettius, then as per WP:REMOVE, you must provide reasons for doing so. You could have just fixed the problem, as per WP:PRESERVE, by adding the sources. If you believe that MEDRS applies here, then you need to find a MEDRS source to support your position, and gain consensus. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 12:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I gave edit summaries. The core problem is with NPOV, and the way to "fix" undue airing of fringe theories is to remove them from the encyclopedia. Alexbrn (talk) 12:50, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Alexbrn that removing NPOV violations is often a valid way of dealing with them. WP:PRESERVE does not mean that all material ever added to the encyclopedia has to stay. Alexbrn has been doing a lot of work to find applicable MEDRS-compliant sources, so I don't see how you can fault them there. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Guest2625: Do you think this material should be reinstated, from your recent removal of material? It's a statement of fact, sourced, and tangentially relevant to WIV.

In January 2021, a WHO team went to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus. The WHO tweeted that "all hypotheses are on the table as the team follows the science in their work to understand the origins of the COVID19 virus." Arcturus (talk) 14:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Note. This text is from the source and could be added to the deleted section I mentioned above: WHO, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, said late Thursday on Twitter that its team plans to visit hospitals, markets like the Huanan Seafood Market linked to many of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities like the Wuhan Center for Disease Control. Arcturus (talk) 14:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

"All hypotheses"? Which means what? Bat virus, bat virus via pangolin, lab-leaked bat virus, bioweapon by China, bioweapon by US, bioweapon by Liechtenstein, virus by 5G, virus by unicorn snot, virus by Daleks, virus by grey goo made by Greys, and so on? Tweets have that character-limit problem, which can lead to ambivalence, and they should not be used when it does.

This has been gone long enough. There has been no working argument for treating the lab leak idea as reasonable, there has only repetion, strawmen, repetition, and repetition. Drop it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, twitter is not good. We should use a source like this instead [3]. It has this statement; WHO said the 13-person team will meet Covid-19 survivors, visit the seafood market linked to the early outbreak and the spend time at the Wuhan Institute of Virology - which is at the heart of theories that Sars-Cov-2 escaped from a lab. The WHO is visiting the lab in connection with its attempts to identify the origins of this pandemic, and you don't think that fact deserves a mention in an article about the lab? Extraordinary. Arcturus (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Has the WHO said that the purpose of the visit to the lab is to investigate the lab leak theory? -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Not according to the source I've identified. I don't know if it's mentioned elsewhere. Arcturus (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The whole thing is ridiculous, as if, even imagining there was some kind of State-ordered cover up, if would be busted by a no-doubt mild-mannered team of WHO scientists ("did the virus come from this lab?" / "no" / "oh, okay then"). Alexbrn (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

You could be right, but that doesn't matter. We should just follow the sources. If a RS like The Telegraph reports that the WHO team are visiting the Institute to investigate the origins of Sars-Cov-2, then that is highly relevant in an article about the Institute. Arcturus (talk) 17:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

If the WHO doesn't say it's visiting the lab to investigate the lab-leak theory, then we shouldn't in any way imply that it is. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

We say what the source says. Readers can then make up their own minds. Arcturus (talk) 18:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

If we put in text that implies the WHO team is visiting the WIV in order to investigate the lab-leak theory, then that's misleading. We should allow the reader to make up their mind, but that doesn't mean we should imply something that isn't true (or which the WHO hasn't stated). -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

"All theories are on the table" is so vague as to indicate ineptness from whoever is managing the WHO social media. In any case, it does not indicate anything about which "theories" these might be. Simply because WHO might be visiting the lab does not imply they are investigating it as a possible origin (linking the mentions together as to imply it is clearly WP:SYNTH) - as far as we know, they might simply be visiting the lab to get up-to-date information from the local virologists (a far more benign aim, no? In any case, neither of these two hypotheses go in because they are not found in any WP:RS). Re-inserting the NPOV tag despite this discussion having just been had and resolved (and then starting yet another one on the same subject) shows an unwilligness to move on. Because the outcome is not what you want does not mean the discussion needs to be repeated fifty times until the desired outcome is attained. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not synthesis if the link is done by the source. Nevertheless, I suggest we include the following statement, sourced to The Telegraph; As part of their investigations into the origin of Sars-Cov-2, an investigation team from the WHO will visit the Institute. The text can be edited and modified accordingly, when the visit is complete. This simply states a (highly relevant) fact and draws no conclusions as to the purpose of the visit. Arcturus (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I'd like to weigh in a bit. About a year ago we were having this discussion because there was a preprint on BioRxiv from pretty serious researchers stating the lab leak hypothesis should be considered. It was rejected because It's a preprint and not MEDRS. All my claims were dismissed as being fringe and therefore no change was made regarding the "conspiracy theory" language used. It's been a year now and I'm pretty concerned to see it didn't move an inch, even with the BBC, the Bulletin of Atomic scientists, credible scientists now saying it's likely and a few papers on the subject. I think it's time for the gatekeeping to stop. I'll leave this paper [4] I found, pretty easily, on the subject. It's from a credible scientist in a peer reviewed journal (Bioessays) and in my opinion is eligible for MEDRS. It cites specifically the WIV for gain of function and lab leak. I'm gonna leave you with the proverbial I told you so. I probably won't come back again for a while because I recall the discussion being quite toxic around here. Thanks. Feynstein (talk) 03:13, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I will add that with the history of the subject here, the recent discussions (those I read) and the recent developments in very mainstream and peer reviewed publications like the BBC, AP, BioEssays, etc. I consider this page to be a perfect example of WP:STONEWALL. There's clear evidence of systematic bias at this point if anyone is still rejecting the lab leak hypothesis as fringe. And since there's a power imbalance between the gatekeepers and the editors who feel this page is problematic, no progress is being made. It feels like there's always a roadblock to inconvenient narratives eh? https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-55404485 Good night. Feynstein (talk) 06:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

(EC) That (clearly non-MEDRS) source has already been discussed. The authors of the article are a staff scientist in a mycology lab and an entrepreneur with an MBA–very, very far from experts in viral evolution. This paper could not possibly be used to demonstrate even minor scientific support--it even says so itself: Almost all scientific papers published to date purport that SARS‐CoV‐2 has a natural origin, and the only published paper considering possible a lab origin[1] focuses on serial passage as the technique that could justify SARS‐CoV‐2 special adaptation to human cells. The paper they reference here is another Bioessays piece by Karl Sirotkin and Dan Sirotkin of "Karl Sirotkin LLC". Karl once managed genetics databases for the NCBI, and is now retired. Dan is his son, whose academic career seems to have ended with a bachelor's in poli sci and who now writes a prison stories-turned-COVID conspiracy blog wherein he promotes the likes of Zero Hedge. That Bioessays is publishing articles by people with zero subject-specific expertise and zero or minimal institutional affiliation is a bad sign for its journalistic integrity. JoelleJay (talk) 06:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: It's peer reviewed. Both of them. Your opinion on their integrity is your own. We're not here to debate on whether a paper was written by the Janitor of the scientists son or not, we're here to show it to our readers because leaders in the field deemed them good for publication. Those are both peer reviewed papers in credible journals, our readers deserve to know about them. This is truly shameful and as I just said is Stonewalling. Especially since the new "PubMed" criteria. Which is completely arbitrary. And since there's STILL the mention that the lab leak is a conspiracy theory. It makes all of us editors laughing stock to the public eye at this point. People get here and see this nice propaganda style discourse and just leave because it looks like it's edited by the CCP's ministry of truth. I'm really disappointed. Feynstein (talk) 06:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: You state the authors are a "staff scientist" and an "entrepreneur". Actually, they are a microbiologist and a bio-informaticist. They are highly qualified and their findings are worthy of discussion. Their findings may even be worthy of inclusion in this article. You should pay more attention to content (and the fact that it's peer reviewed) rather than trying to disparage the authors. And you're even trying to badmouth BioEssays. Astounding. Arcturus (talk) 15:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Arcturus, "staff scientist" describes her professional position, not her field: it is highly relevant that she does not run her own lab. That she's a "microbiologist" means literally nothing since that is an extremely wide field--she's a fungus microbiologist, she has zero published background in virus microbiology or the far more relevant fields of viral genetics and evolution or structural biology. Deigin is not a bio-informaticist by any stretch of the imagination unless you've found some source contradicting his own LinkedIn and Youthereum bios, the first of which very clearly demonstrates his involvement in pharma was exclusively marketing/operations-oriented. So NO, they are not highly qualified in the field their paper is in, and Deigin is not qualified in any scientific field. JoelleJay (talk) 21:54, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: Just to be clear, your subjective opinion on the credibility of the authors is not a valid argument regarding the inclusion of a peer-reviewed paper. Certainly not as per WP policies. Feynstein (talk) 22:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Feynstein I am responding to the claim that the authors are qualified. Their actual article can be dismissed as non-MEDRS since it is a primary source. Anyway, if the credentials of the authors don't matter then why does anyone bring them up? Why are people belaboring the status and prestige of, e.g., Ebright or Relman if the only parameter we should assess is their articles' content? It's inconsistent to apply notions of credibility in one direction but ignore it in the other. JoelleJay (talk) 22:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

JoelleJay Simply because I find your description of the first author simplistic, demeaning and dishonest. Shoving her off as a "fungus specialist" doesn't remove her evolutionary biology and genomic expertise. Scientist in a general field do it all the time. I was just making sure this was subjective because as a scientist I don't see her that way. It shouldn't be used as an argument because of that.Feynstein (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

How is it dishonest? She works at a post-doc level in a mycology lab doing techniques very far removed from those described in the paper. It's not clear she has done any evolutionary genetics applicable to coronaviruses; most of her published work appears to be related to carbon acquisition strategies among mycoheterotrophs and their mycorrhizal specificity, although she hasn't published anything in the last nine years. The most relevant technique I can see from her 4(?) 8 other publications (none only one first-author, so I can't actually tell what her technical contributions are) is routine fungus-specific barcoding for identifying fungal species. So she is likely familiar with standard alignment packages and can interpret BLAST output, I guess? And presumably she has some background in phylogenetic reconstruction, although she doesn't offer any evaluation of those in the paper. The analyses she does give seem to rest on the probability of particular sequences appearing naturally, but she does not justify whether a particular statistical observation is anomalous within coronavirus genetics.

details

Is it actually relevant that, e.g., "only 5% of arginines are coded by CGG in SARS‐CoV‐2 or RaTG13, and CGGCGG in the new insert is the only doubled instance of this codon in SARS‐CoV‐2."? She also doesn't explain how it's mechanistically more plausible (than natural insertion) that RmYN02 could have mutated SPAARV from ZC45 TASILR when doing so means realigning such that the preceding consensus NS residues are removed by shifting them into a non-consensus location, which then makes the whole domain even more divergent from ZC45. Why is this alignment interpretation more correct than the alignment all the other coronavirus researchers have arrived at? There is no exploration of the mutational effect from the requisite substitutions (several of which are very much non-conservative), not even a mention of consulting AA substitution matrices/BLOSUM-type software.

And it's not at all common for scientists to suddenly jump into entirely different fields, especially as a primary author. That kind of behavior, particularly from people (excepting students) who have very few (or zero! yikes!) publications in any field is one of the biggest red flags when evaluating author credibility. JoelleJay (talk) 02:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Lab construction of the virus is a conspiracy theory per the best sources, the BioEssays source are not RS for such claims; MEDRS would be needed (i.e. review articles or better). Alexbrn (talk) 07:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: So you're using sources as a basis to disprove other sources? That's new. Also pretty biased, as in confirmation bias. Are your "best sources" review articles? I didn't seem to recall they were. My position still hold. You're outright dismissing anything that's not MEDRS (in your view btw, from my past discussions here last year, it was agreed that peer review was MEDRS) so that they have zero weight. And then you bring in your two articles and use their definition to dismiss the whole hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. Even if clearly mainstream sources at this point are saying it's not. Do you know what sophistry is? Feynstein (talk) 07:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

This whole thing you're all doing is a huge WP: STONEWALL. There's no denying it. It's simply illogical to still call it a conspiracy theory. With the amount of proof that's now available I would have had a field day last year. I'm very serious with my Stonewall accusation. This is very problematic and I hope you find a way to fix it. Otherwise we're all looking bad. I'm going now, I'll respond tomorrow. Good night. Feynstein (talk) 07:28, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• As a general principle on Wikipedia we use the best sources, and the use of primary sources to undercut stronger, secondary sources is forbidden by WP:MEDRS. Any previous idea that "peer review means MEDRS" was obviously a silly WP:LOCALCON. We don't override the WP:PAGs just because it suits the agenda of WP:PROFRINGE editors. To get a better understanding of MEDRS I recommend WP:WHYMEDRS and maybe WP:MEDFAQ. Your "stonewall" accusation is about behaviour, and raising it here is disruptive. Take it to AIN or stop it. Also, learn to WP:INDENT your posts as a courtesy; this page is hard enough to follow as it is. Alexbrn (talk) 07:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• @Alexbrn: I don't like indent it makes it difficult for me to follow the conversation. Sorry. And yes, if you guys don't change your behaviour I will be raising it to whoever it takes, the general behaviour around this topic is disgraceful. Feynstein (talk) 14:12, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• • Does anyone object to the text I mentioned above being included in the article? If so, why? Here it is again; As part of their investigations into the origin of Sars-Cov-2, an investigation team from the WHO will visit the Institute. Arcturus (talk) 12:28, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    I object. How is it relevant if they will go there? Maybe they plan to visit the loo there? Will they look out of the window too? And try to observe a sack of rice falling over? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    It's relevant because it's being covered by reputable sources in their reporting of this significant issue - the issue being that the WHO are investigating the source of the outbreak. Arcturus (talk) 12:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    WP:VNOT probably, unless we can put something non-meaningless. Alexbrn (talk) 12:58, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    There's no concensus about this and I support it's inclusion. It is relevant to the institute, specifically in it's COVID part. You're using your own subjective impression and your interpretation of the editor's intent to block progress on this page. Arcturus If you include this part and it gets reverted I will revert it back in place, 2 v 1 as of right now. Alexbrn is partaking in edit warring at this point. Quoting policy like its second nature to him. This is harmful to the encyclopedia. Feynstein (talk) 14:08, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    An invitation to start edit-warring is probably sanctionable. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    This is not an invitation to edit warring, this is adding common sense reliable source fact about this institute (That the WHO will be visiting it during it's investigation). You doing what you're doing now is edit warring. I'm opening the gates bud, your shift is done. Feynstein (talk) 14:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

    I'm supporting the original editor who raised this point and not doing it myself because I know it's pointless and will lead to a revert from whoever's keeping the gate up today. I'm actually edit-peacekeeping ;-) Feynstein (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

There's not much to say at the moment about the WHO team's visit to the WIV. Wikipedia is new a newspaper, so there's no pressure to immediately insert this news item into the article. If there's something more substantial to add later, we can do so. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Hi again bud. I propose we at least change the phrasing towards the lab leak hypothesis, at this point the WHO visiting WIV, the clearly MEDRS paper by Segreto [5] and multiple mainstream publications talking about it seriously pushed it off the WP:FRINGE. Btw, I still don't agree with the need for this information to be considered as per Wikipedia:Biomedical_information. It pretty much gets into the medical ethics part: "Discussions about the ethics of a treatment, publication, set of rules or practices, or the handling of an event do not constitute biomedical information. Some issues in medical ethics (e.g., how to handle requests from a delusional patient) are frequently discussed in biomedical sources, but ethicists can also be used as sources." May I remind everyone about WP:GAMING. If people generally agree I will be making that change so that the bioweapon theory is identified as a conspiracy theory but not the accidental leak. Feynstein (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, yes, and per WP:FRINGE/PS "Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective. Such theoretical formulations may fail to explain some aspect of reality, but, should they succeed in doing so, will usually be rapidly accepted. For instance, continental drift was heavily criticized because there was no known mechanism for continents to move and the proposed mechanisms were implausible. When a mechanism was discovered through plate tectonics, it became mainstream.": This particular article can't be dismissed by anyone as fringe. Feynstein (talk) 16:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree about the Segreto paper being MEDRS, as I explained in an earlier discussion on this topic. Besides the criteria that Alexbrn has pointed out (e.g., reviews vs. primary research papers vs. essays), the authors are not subject-matter experts (one is a botanist and the other an entrepreneur). The lab-leak theory remains fringe. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

In addition to those points, the Segreto and Deigin paper has been cited only four times on Google Scholar, which scrapes as much as possible, and the only detailed commentary is a preprint that doesn't buy the conclusion. Wikipedia should not be citing papers that the scientific literature itself has all but ignored. XOR'easter (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

break 2

The six relevant WP:MEDRS are listed here. I checked recently and there's been nothing new of equivalent quality published since this list was made. The recurrent problem on this topic is that we've had WP:PROFRINGE editors wanting indulging in WP:POVSOURCING rather than disinterestedly finding the WP:BESTSOURCES and using those. Why make it complicated? Alexbrn (talk) 17:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This looks like a sleight of hand to dismiss a legit paper that would make this article more WP:NPOV. Thucydides411 Do you remember our discussions last year? I can't point to any specific one but you said something like a peer-reviewed paper would make it non-fringe. I would like you to look at her university bio [6], actually read the paper, what it says and tell me seriously she's a botanist again. She's clearly an evolutionary biologist within the reasonable scientific community as per WP:FRINGE/PS. Are you guys trying to WP:GAME the process by moving goal posts with new policies that violate WP:FRINGE/PS now that the hypothesis surfaced into mainstream publications like the BBC? I assume you're not, but it would be quite disappointing if you were. Those reviews/primary/essays criterias look pretty arbitrary to me, and it seems like they weren't there last time we spoke bud. Would you like me to escalate to conflict resolution? Or maybe behaviour stuff to see if this is WP:STONEWALLING. This discussion has been going on for a while and a concensus wasn't reached. Two people were even suspended in the process, I'm thinking out of frustration from the inflexibility of gatekeeping editors around here. Feynstein (talk) 17:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, yes, Segreto appears to be a botanist. Her papers appear primarily in journals like the American Journal of Botany and The Bryologist. I don't see what previous publication record she has in virology, much less coronaviruses. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:59, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Personalized comments and a failure to focus on content is another aspect of the trouble here, and why there have been blocks. Please WP:FOC. Alexbrn (talk) 17:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Are you seriously saying that the list you guys made up is a concensus? There's only two people (that seem to both agree with it) discussing the articles in the list. Doesn't seem remotely legit to me. Btw, since you brought this up, at this point I will consider you using WP:PROFRINGE to describe other editors on this clearly mainstream hypothesis to be problematic regarding WP:NPA. Thanks. Feynstein (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

We have had WP:PROFRINGE editors yes; they have been blocked. You can read what the admins said to confirm that has been a problem. Hopefully there will be no continuation and we can WP:FOC. That list of sources is the current MEDRS on this topic, yes. If any more are discovered, it would be good to know about them. Until then, we simply follow these good sources. Alexbrn (talk) 17:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Why do you consider Segreto's paper not part of this list, do you have a reference to discussions on this matter? There's plenty of stuff going on here and it would help me greatly. Feynstein (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Feynstein: in your own words, what is it precisely that you regard as a clearly mainstream hypothesis? Could you give a succinct statement of that? Then it would be easier to evaluate the relevant evidence. Newimpartial (talk) 17:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: When refering to mainstream I'm talking about general RS sources. The BBC and AP having articles about it makes it clear. However, in the scientific litterature I already made it clear that as per WP:FRINGE/PS this hypothesis can't be considered fringe anymore. "Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective. Such theoretical formulations may fail to explain some aspect of reality, but, should they succeed in doing so, will usually be rapidly accepted. For instance, continental drift was heavily criticized because there was no known mechanism for continents to move and the proposed mechanisms were implausible. When a mechanism was discovered through plate tectonics, it became mainstream". Can we have a concensus about this so that the discussion can proceed? Feynstein (talk) 18:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That's why I think the part in this article where everything is labeled as "consipiracy theory" to be factually innacurate. Feynstein (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. What part of the everything that the article has labeled as "conspiracy theory do you regard as mainstream? Surely not literally everything that is mentioned there?. Newimpartial (talk) 18:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I consider this sentence The laboratory has nevertheless been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories, widely rejected by the scientific community, about the origin of the virus.[8][9][10] to be factually innacurate and should be revised in a way that says the lab leak hypothesis is not part of such conspiracy theories. We could agree on such phrasing. Something like While some scientists think the lab could have had an accidental release (citations), it has nevertheless.... Feynstein (talk) 18:22, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

So you are saying that, whatever conspiracy theories there might be, at least one version of the accidental release hypothesis is not FRINGE? And what are the sources supporting such a version of the accidental release hypothesis? Newimpartial (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This one, precisely[7]. That editors around here seem to discard on the basis of author credibility and some made-up non-concensus policy about respecting a list of pre-approved papers that one side agreed to be MEDRS. Feynstein (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That is a preprint, so surely we can wait for peer review? This seems to be a whole lot of excitement about nothing. Once there are reliable sources for a non-CT version of laboratory origin, then the article can say so. At the moment, there don't seem to be any. 18:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh but this is not a preprint my friend. It's legit peer-reviewed:BioEssays. Btw I don't recall subjective credibility review of authors by editors on WP to be standard practice for inclusion in our articles. Feynstein (talk) 18:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Here [8] you can see for yourself how thorough it is. Feynstein (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

If it isn't a preprint, then what is it doing filed under "Early View"? I thought that was what that section was for. Newimpartial (talk) 18:52, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Journals release their approved papers on COVID before they come out in the regular issue. Which is usually physically printed. If everyone waited for journals to actually print their stuff there wouldn't be a vaccine right now. Once it says "first published" or "published" it means it's not a preprint anymore. And contrary to what Alexbrn seems to say, it is a primary source because it uses genetic data from databases directly to check the hypothesis. It also does a pretty good job at litterature review and paper critique. That's why I'm claiming WP:STONEWALLING. Maybe if editors read the paper carefully, they'd find out it's a primary source. Feynstein (talk) 18:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

But MEDRS specifies that primary sources are not the standard of reliability on topics related to human health, secondary and tertiary sources are (in fact, this is also part of ordinary RS policy. So why would you want to show that this early-print paper* is primary? Newimpartial (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

*Also, I'm not convinced that the Problems & Paradigms series at BioEssays is legit peer-reviews. It seems to be soliciting more speculative interventions. Added Newimpartial (talk) 19:23, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It's a non-review paper written by people who aren't virologists. If we were looking to come up with a list of the best sources in the subject, this paper would never come up. The only reason it's being raised is because it supports a particular point of view. That's not how one goes about doing a literature review. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I'm not sure you get to decide who's qualified in a particular field or not. I'm a physicist and I released a paper on SEIRS Monte Carlo Simulation in epidemiology to approximate the number of asymptomatic cases. You considering this paper not MEDRS for spurious reasons is confirmation bias. Feynstein (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't fall into either categories in fact. I might have missed my point here. It uses data to critique other papers, so it's secondary in that sense. I also said it did a very thorough litterature review. On another note, I don't agree with the need for MEDRS on this one as per Wikipedia:Biomedical information "Discussions about the ethics of a treatment, publication, set of rules or practices, or the handling of an event do not constitute biomedical information. Some issues in medical ethics (e.g., how to handle requests from a delusional patient) are frequently discussed in biomedical sources, but ethicists can also be used as sources." Feynstein (talk) 19:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The Segreto paper indeed discusses the findings of multiple different publications, however, its primary focus is to synthesize those data to support its stated novel conclusion. Review papers survey the current knowledge on a topic and aim to provide an overview of its scientific consensus--without the intent of proving a new interpretation. The material this paper uses to demonstrate its hypothesis is also clearly not what "handling of an event" means. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

But concerning the relevant part of the paper - the argument that a laboratory-release hypothesis is plausible in the case of SARS-Cov-2 - the argument is surely primary? Newimpartial (talk) 19:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

You might want to explain that point further for me. It's not biomedical information, so it's not like you're going to find a litterature review on the efficacy of a certain drug. That's why I don't understand how "an argument" could ever be made to be secondary. Other editors only have papers that don't specifically talk about this issue anyway. It's always some side note in the middle of a paper describing the virus. Feynstein (talk) 19:27, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

But a "side note" in a paper that documents the consensus in the field is more SECONDARY, and more reliable, than an original argument, which is what the section of the paper in question appears to be. Newimpartial (talk) 19:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Just wanted to add -- that it's always a "side note" is in fact further evidence the hypothesis does not enjoy mainstream scientific support! JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Looked back at sources 8-9-10 and there's only one that's WP:MEDRS in them. But it's from may 2020 and doesnt even says conspiracy in it's main text. Removing that sentence right now, as per the WP:MEDRS requirement. I will discuss further with you after work. Feynstein (talk) 19:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Just so that we are clear: the claim that there is a non-CT laboratory release scenario is subject to MEDRS, but the claim that there are conspiracy theories alleging a laboratory release is not subject to MEDRS. Just as the referring to the hypothesis that JFK was killed by an alien implant as a "conspiracy theory" is not an MEDRS claim, but claiming that it is possible that assassinations can be carried out using alien implants would be subject to MEDRS. Newimpartial (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Well then, change it so that it explicitly states the bioweapon release conspiracy theory. Otherwise saying "regarding the virus origin" is MEDRS bud. You remove the part after the coma and we're clear. Feynstein (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Just so we're clear this: widely rejected by the scientific community, about the origin of the virus is MEDRS af. I'd be in my right to revert your edit and make it so it respects an overriding policy. Feynstein (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

{{tq}Almost all scientific papers published to date purport that SARS‐CoV‐2 has a natural origin, and the only published paper considering possible a lab origin[ 1 ] focuses on serial passage as the technique that could justify SARS‐CoV‐2 special adaptation to human cells.}} What part of this statement gives you the impression that the lab origin is not a fringe view? It's been kicking around in the lay media since the start of the pandemic, surely there would be more scientific investigations into the lab origin than these two BioEssays conjectures by people with zero relevant background (and half of them lacking any science background whatsoever)? Why aren't legit viral geneticists with tenured research positions offering detailed mechanistic hypotheses in support of the lab leak? JoelleJay (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The observation that the conspiracy theories concern the origin of the virus are not MEDRS claims. The sentence in question does not concern CTs that the Institute is a reptoid front, or Batman's Wuhan hideout, or whatever else. Also, do the reliable sources on the CTs actually restrict themselves to the bioweapon theory? That isn't what I've seen. Newimpartial (talk) 20:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: You're edit warring at this point mate, you reverted 2 of my edits. Those are legit concerns regarding WP:MEDRS policy. Whenever you talk about the origin of the virus you need to be MEDRS. I agree with the first part. Please no more reverts. Feynstein (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

And you are disrupting consensus per BRD. But no, I can state that "conspiracy theorists have stated that big pharma is covering up the causation of Autism by vaccines" and that is not a MEDRS claim, it is a statement of fact about a conspiracy theory. By contrast, "Big pharma is covering up the causation of Autism by vaccines" does contain a MEDRS claim, namely "Autism is caused by vaccines". That last bit is covered by MEDRS, and so is "SARS-Cov-2 might have been released from a laboratory". But the conspiracy claims are not. Newimpartial (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It would be a great place to add that paper we're discussing isn't then. Just so, you know, people know the lab leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory. As I already said per WP:FRINGE/PS. Or maybe phrase it in a way that doesn't require MEDRS. Like "allegations have been made regarding the institute...". Feynstein (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

But besides that paper, what RS do you know about - even non-MEDRS - that people know the lab leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory? Without relevant sources, that sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, but of course. I'll simply use those already mentionned above. [9] [10] [11] [12] And most shockingly [13]. "Those scientists who argue that the possibility of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology should also be included as part of any investigation are curious about this apparent silence. "I find it very unlikely that such investigations would not have already occurred," Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, told me. "It's a serious risk to resume life as usual without knowing where a dangerous human pathogen came from." Clearly fringe eh? Feynstein (talk) 20:54, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That quote doesn't really say anything about the plausibility of the lab-release hypothesis, does it? I reviewed the whole article carefully, and the oblique reference to scientists who argue that the possibility of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the only relevant bit, and that certainly is not an assertion that such a position is mainstream, scientifically viable, or not FRINGE. Is that the state of all your journalistic sources? Newimpartial (talk) 21:22, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It does, as per WP:FRINGE/PS. "Within the scientific community" do you remember? Maybe check the other ones. If you think this is still fringe there's really nothing I can do for you. especially if you add that peer-reviewed paper to the lot. Feynstein (talk) 21:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This quote from the first BBC article I gave you sums up what I actually think of the subject: Dr Lucey still believes that Sars-Cov-2 is most likely to have a natural origin, but he does not want the alternatives to be so readily ruled out."So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source," he said. "So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations."Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? "Not everything that's done is published," Dr Lucey said. So yeah, no animal source yet eh? And you have batwoman saying it came from outside of China, ruining her reputation in the process since we know this is clearly a conspiracy theory. Feynstein (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

And what do you make of the evidence from Italy in October and November? :p Newimpartial (talk) 22:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Can we carry on with the discussion now that we've established it isn't a conspiracy theory? I nearly lost a day's worth of work on a turbofan engine part inspection replying to all this internet nonsense. If you decide to do so, you'll have to excuse me if I don't answer until somewhere around tomorrow evening EST. Feynstein (talk) 22:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you feel we've established it isn't a conspiracy theory. We have reliable sources saying that it is, and the relevant passage from FRINGE, relies on weak evidence such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence, seems to apply. Views that are expressed within the scientific community but by scholars whose expertise is in a different field do not make a perspective less FRINGE, viz. Climate change denial. Support for "alternative explanations" for Sars-Cov-2 clearly still must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea, and that includes FALSEBALANCE and whitewashing.

You also still haven't given any real support for the idea that the Problems & Paradigms series at BioEssays is subject to meaningful peer review. The prima facie evidence is to the contrary. Newimpartial (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: You've got to point to me your evidence that's not from the first wave of the pandemic. No biological host has been found and the current narrative within China and Batwoman is that it came from imported fish or something (which would have sparked epidemics elsewhere, seeing as it was already very evolved to infect humans) making it look like she might be covering stuff up. This makes those older paper pretty out there scientifically. You should read Segreto's paper bud, we're not talking about "weak statistical evidence" here. Did you ever read a scientific paper or you're just assuming? Scientists in a global field do cross into closely related sub-fields all the time. And even out of fields. As I said elsewhere, I'm a physicist and I worked on a paper about SEIRS Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulations in epidemiology in order to estimate the number of asymptomatic cases in a global population based on hospitalisations and deaths. I happen to know about system dynamics and Monte Carlo Simulations enough in another field for it to be legit and pretty useful. Your argument is dishonest at best, her previous papers about evolutionary biology and genomics shows she knows what she's talking about. You should give them a read ;-). And now you're questionning the quality of that BioEssays serie's peer review? You should bring this up to WP:RSN instead of waving arguments like that. As far as I'm concerned if it's not in the predatory journal category there's nothing you can say about it that's not purely speculative. But I want to know, do you think Dr. Lucey from the first BBC article is a fringe scientist? This is clearly a minority view (depending on your definition of minority I guess there's a bunch of biologists who think it could have happened), but it's not fringe at all. You're helplessly clutching at this subjective fringe label of yours to feed your confirmation bias. I demonstrated that this view is at least RS legit because you asked me to do it. If it's RS legit it's by definition not fringe. There's no distinction between MEDRS and RS fringes mate. Get over it. Feynstein (talk) 00:32, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but what I think is that you lot are very much against Trump or something. And since he was the first to officially come up with this you can't accept it becoming more and more mainstream by the day. Look, I'm really no fan of his. Absolutely not. But you got to get over this particular bias of yours. Not everything he said is objectively wrong. Feynstein (talk) 00:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I might me wrong is the most accurate thing I've read the as saying on this Talk page. But the idea that the lab-release hypothesis is becoming more and more mainstream by the day is (rather hallucinatory) SYNTH on your part. I am not attached to the early hypotheses of SARS-Cov-2 origins, nor am I inclined to shift my views to oppose any perceived political enemies. But you really are misreading WP:FRINGE. It simply does not imply that anything that scientists are quoted as saying, or even anything scientists publish with peer review, is therefore to be treated with the respect of an Alternative Theoretical Formulation (which is still less than the FALSEBALANCE you are asking for, by the way). By the most charitable possible interpretation, the lab-release hypothesis falls somewhere between pure Pseudoscience and Questionable Science, with the precise evaluation depending on what version of the "theory" and what degree of certainty (e.g., "we don't know with absolute certainty that it didn't escape from a lab") we are talking about. But no matter where they fall on that spectrum, these "hypotheses" are clearly on the FRINGE half of the spectrum and are much less well-supported than the more conventional hypotheses. We therefore cannot, per WP:NPOV, present them with FALSEBALANCE. And we have reliable sources stating that at least some of these are Conspiracy Theories, a fact that is also DUE to mention. Newimpartial (talk) 01:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Glad this is out of the way then. I'm not asking for balance, mind you, it's clearly a minority alternative view. What I'm saying is that, as a position, and as a theory of origin, let's say, the accidental release of a (possibly mutated in vitro, or close relative of Ratg13 and such, or even undocumented gain of function studied) virus shouldn't be dismissed as fringe. You read what Dr. Lucey said didn't you? As of right now there should have been an animal found or traces of human passage and evolution found. There's absolutely nothing of the sort. And yes, with every day that passes without any indication of that being found, the accidental release hypothesis becomes more mainstream. And yes, I agree that it is much less well documented than any other. It does pop up here and there whenever a scientist says: "No stone should be left unturned" or something like that, they're probably refering to this in a way that isn't damaging to their reputation. There has been enormous push back from gate keeping virologists who fear losing funding for gain of function research. There's no doubt it would be an enormous game changer in the field. Did you see how BBC journalists investigating the cave where Ratg13 was found always seemed to encounter an unfortunate roadblock? That's weird eh? The circumstancial pile of evidence is growing by the day also. All of this is why, as stated in WP:Fringe with minority views, the softest version of this hypothesis should be introduced within a properly balanced statement, being carefully crafted not to give undue weight. Btw, any paper by Batwoman regarding the origin should be removed from MEDRS. If we're going into credibility, she's lost it all with her statement about contaminated foods. And no, you don't get to peddle a real "fringe" theory like that. It's as if people around here find the narrative pushed by a totalitarian police state more credible than the one pushed by the US government. I really find it funny, no kidding. Feynstein (talk) 03:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Meh, since it's evident you guys won't move an inch I'll just go back into hiding for a while. Maybe the WHO team will have done precisely nothing to find the origin and we'll all still be stuck in this stupid ideological standoff. Maybe at some point people will realize that's what actually happened. Zoonitically transmitted viruses don't simply blink into existence in a city of 11M people. Cya all. I'll be back for a definitive told you so someday. Feynstein (talk) 03:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I really wonder why editors are still stubbornly saying it's Fringe at this point. It's now definitely RS, but they moved the goal post somehow even with a peer-reviewed paper. One can really wonder about good faith I think. Feynstein (talk) 20:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It's also very weird how the US national security adviser is a conspiracy theorist all of a sudden[14]. I think at this point mostly people in line with the CCP's ministry of truth still believe it is a conspiracy theory. But that's irrelevant here since it's my own opinion. Feynstein (talk) 21:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

There were a number of conspiracy theorists in that administration, and scarcely any scientists. What was your point again? That a White House official with no scientific credentials is a RS on viral origin? Or that the New York Post is a reliable source? Newimpartial (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh no, I simply said this was my own opinion, hence the NYP article. Why are you focusing on this? Weren't you supposed to check the RS sources above? Feynstein (talk) 21:29, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Definitely. Moreover, Wikipedia:Biomedical information is an explanatory supplement, not a policy or guideline; it has not been vetted to the extent that WP:MEDRS itself has, so zooming in to details of its phrasing is usually beside the point. But if we go ahead and do that, the relevant part of the paper isn't a question of ethics, so an exemption for discussions about ethics doesn't apply. XOR'easter (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Citation from WP:MEDRS "Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information.[1] For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge". And when you follow the trail to Wikipedia:Biomedical information you find out it's part of an ethical debate, or at least not part of "what is" biomed info. Feynstein (talk) 19:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll be back for a definitive told you so someday. I know that one. Creationists use it too, and several other pseudoscientists too. They cannot convince anyone now, so they claim it will happen some time soon. Poppycock, of course.

I might be wrong, but what I think is that you lot are very much against Trump or something. That one is new. It is using the fact that a notorious pathological liar, fraud, and fantasy-prone conspiracy theorist supported an idea, to argue that those who oppose that idea do that because he supported it. (The accusation "You are very much against Trump" sounds like "you are all round-earthers!" to me.) So, exactly because he is not credible, somehow his support becomes a bonus! That is quite a feat. I encountered this logic only once before, using Trump too, and I don't quite know how to handle it yet. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:42, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems like admins are encouraging bullying around here, perfect, even when I would be in my right to remove those comments as per WP:NPA I get reverted. Here's my answer anyway

@Hob Gadling: WP:NPA bud, you're being clearly bad faithed. Not excluding an accidental lab leak is RS at this point, only not MEDRS. "So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source," he said. "So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations." Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? "Not everything that's done is published," Dr Lucey said.[15] If you think Dr. Lucey here is also a conspiracy theorist then go ahead and write to him. Plus there's at least one peer-reviewed paper we've been discussing all along, so please regarding your clear WP:NPA please kindly stop. Feynstein (talk) 14:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Please don't be silly. Not excluding an accidental lab leak is not a phenomenon and cannot be "RS" because it is speculation. If an accidental lab leak occurred, or if an accidental lab leak were not provable but were the most likely scenario, those are claims that RS and MEDRS could support. A few interviewees saying "we can't rule out that this could possibly have happened" first, do not meet any RS requirements and second, don't actually make a claim that this article could contain, even if it were DUE to do so. Newimpartial (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I just pointed out two bad arguments of yours. NPA is about attacking people, not about attacking their reasoning. Even people who are right sometimes use bad arguments, so, pointing out that your reasoning is bad has nothing to do with the truth value of the position you are defending. If I had concluded that you must be wrong because your reasoning is bad, that would be an instance of the fallacy fallacy. Therefore, Lucey cannot offer any help here. (I also did not compare you to flat-earthers, especially since you said Look, I'm really no fan of his. Absolutely not. It's just that being "very much against Trump" is pretty much the default position for everybody who cares about truth, so feels like a very weird accusation.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: You sure compared my argument to one that would be made by a flat earther or a creationist. No scientist in his right mind would ask to "have an open mind" about this theory. Yet this is precisely what Dr. Lucey did for the lab leak hypothesis. Your comparison to anything flat earth related is pure sophistry. Probably falling in the "moral equivalence" type of stuff. The arguments you made were of no help to the discussion as they didn't adress any of the topics discussed earlier. Feynstein (talk) 22:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I am sorry that you do not understand how reductio ad absurdum works. This is what happened:

• You used two specific arguments. Also, others we do not need to concern ourselves with here.
• I showed you that with the same two specific arguments, people can and have defended ideas that are obviously wrong.
• Therefore, those two specific arguments are bad reasoning.
• From this, nothing else follows. It does not follow that your view is similar to flat earth, and it does not reflect on you as a personal attack.

For this logic, it does not matter that you have other arguments too. There is no point in repeating whatever Dr. Something said.

All that "moral equivalence" and "sophistry" nonsense is just your misunderstanding of that simple logic.

If after this explanation, you still do not understand, and if you continue inventing new misinterpretations, I will give up and not bother to respond. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Problematic sentence

I'm starting a new thread because it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks this sentence "The laboratory has nevertheless been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus" should be removed from the article. Newimpartial seems to have reverted that edit from Guest2625. Let's start a new discussion since it was brought up in the MEDRS again thread and probably needs its own space. Feynstein (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This is a sourced statement, does not require MEDRS, and as I stated in my edit summary, I expect that a good deal of the traffic to this page over the last year related to these conspiracy theories, so it seems beneficial to readers for this information to be included prominently. Newimpartial (talk) 22:35, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

There's at least one of those that isn't a conspiracy theory, as per Dr. Lucey's quote "So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source," he said. "So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations." Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? "Not everything that's done is published," Dr Lucey said.[16]. Since the contested sentence is non-MEDRS, I don't see why it shouldn't be deleted, or unpacked using this particular quote. And probably Segreto's paper. Seriously, talking about origin conspiracy theories in that all-encompassing manner doesn't have it's place here. May I remind everyone here that no zoonotical host has been found to date and that it undermines the mainstream idea. It also seems like the mainstream theory is unfalsifiable around here, it holds even if it isn't anything near being empirically proven. I wanted to add that, as I previously said per WP:FRINGE/PS "Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective". Since Segreto's paper is objectively from within the scientific community it should be included as non fringe. Contrary to what Alexbrn thinks, he doesn't get to make up new policies. Where not talking about climate change here, which has been studied since the 70's, we're talking about a virus that emerged not even a year ago. Feynstein (talk) 22:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Once again, the sentence you are objecting to would be true (and reliably sourced) even if there were a non-conspiracy theory lab leak hypothesis - which so far, there just isn't. The quasi-publication of one dubiously researched paper in a partially curated section of a semi-relevant journal most certainly does not put the lab-leak hypothesis within the scientific community in the sense of the section of WP:FRINGE you are trying to invoke. That section is intended to cover the accumulation of anomalous results that "don't fit the scientific consensus" prior to a possible shift in the explanatory paradigm, not the announcement of speculative results by non-specialists which this instance represents, and which is reflected most clearly in Climate change denial. Newimpartial (talk) 23:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

"The quasi-publication of one dubiously researched paper in a partially curated section of a semi-relevant journal": "Quasi-publication" : not a thing. "Dubiously researched": on what grounds are you making this assertion. Do you have any knowledge in genomics methodology? Or even scientific methodology at all? Or do you have a paper clearly addressing what the author raised in it? "Semi-relevant journal": its impact factor is 4.725. By comparison "Virology" is 2.819. This proves to me the subjectivity of your argument. And finally, for a concensus to be made in science litterature it takes more than a few boldly assertive papers. Or it would require definitive empirical evidence, which there is for climate change. The kind of derogatory language you're using doesn't make your argument better. Unless you have evidence that this peer reviewed paper is bollocks, other than general subjective assertions, you can't qualify it as a conspiracy theory, which you still do for some reason. I wonder why. And then you didn't even consider what Dr. Lucey said, at all. Do you think he's also a conspirationniste? Feynstein (talk) 00:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh and to complete my argument. Is there any definition within policy that defines "Scientific Community". I think at this point that the author is at least a member of the "microbiology" community. Unless you have any clear definition within WP:FRINGE That addresses this definition or its extent, it's still your subjective point of view. I say she's part of the relevant scientific community. At this point I would even consider any evolutionary biologist to be qualified enough to have an opinion on the subject. But I'd agree to narrow it down to microbiology, just for you. Feynstein (talk) 00:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

One or two mictobiologists' opinions can never be invoked to suggest that an argument is not FRINGE; as I'm saying, that is not what within the scientific community in FRINGE - which you have referred to out of context - means. And I am not saying that paper is participating in a conspiracy theory; I am saying it isn't enough to affect the reliable sources that document the existence of conspiracy theories based on the lab-release hypothesis. That is all. Newimpartial (talk) 01:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any knowledge in genomics methodology? Or even scientific methodology at all? Do you have formal background in genomics? How confident are you that you are properly assessing the quality of the Segreto publication and the credentials of its authors? How many scientific paper review processes have you gone through in bio as either submitter or referee? If you're going to introduce some hierarchy in the weight of individual editors' opinions based on their degree and background or how many papers they've published or whatever, well, all I can say is you are not going to come out on top in this discussion. It's a good thing for you, then, that by and large it doesn't matter what type or level of education editors here have when it comes to following Wikipedia policy. It doesn't take a PhD in genome engineering to recognize the Segreto paper falls far below the sourcing standards used for other scientific claims about the origin. MEDRS insists on secondary sources because it aims to summarize scientific consensus -- and this means consensus of experts in their subfield. These are examples of people who are not experts in viral genetics/engineering, viral evolution, viral epidemiology, or viral structural biology: a post-doc with an h-index of 4 whose only experimental publications are in mycoheterotrophic symbionts; a person with zero scientific publications; a doctoral candidate in genome engineering (regardless of whether they work with coronaviruses); basically, anyone who doesn't run a lab involving one of those four subfields. The Segreto paper literally says they could only find one other paper in the whole SARS-CoV-2 corpus alleging a lab origin scenario (the other BioEssays article, coauthored by this guy)--there is no possible interpretation of this beyond "the lab origin is not covered enough in-depth in scientific literature for Wikipedia to treat it as a mainstream alternative hypothesis". JoelleJay (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: A peer reviewed paper is objectively not simply an opinion. There's the scientific method and overall methodology backing up the hypothesis. Would you be willing to tell me how I've taken "within the scientific community" out of context? Do you have an actual definition or precedent backing up your interpretation within Wikipedia? Oh, ok so now you're separating the two concepts, that's progress. Why don't we simply use what you just said conspiracy theories based on the lab-release hypothesis. It would suit me to rephrase it that way. Feynstein (talk) 02:07, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Rephrasing the current sentence so it referred to the lab-release hypothesis rather than The Laboratory would make no appreciable difference in terms of the content of the conspiracy theories. As far as FRINGE is concerned, the passage you are referring to continues, Alternative theoretical formulations may fail to explain some aspect of reality, but, should they succeed in doing so, will usually be rapidly accepted. For instance, continental drift was heavily criticized because there was no known mechanism for continents to move and the proposed mechanisms were implausible. When a mechanism was discovered through plate tectonics, it became mainstream. In other cases an alternative theoretical formulation lacks significant evidence to show its validity, but when such evidence is produced, the theory can become mainstream. Such examples of this are the existence of Troy, the Norse colonization of the Americas, and the Big Bang Theory. None of these examples would have been regarded as alternative theoretical formulations at a time when they were proposed only in single one or two papers and were unaccompanied by plausible alternatives to generally-accepted explanations in their respective fields. WP:TOOSOON represents a principle that also applies in such cases, so even if your deepest suspicious were to turn out to be 100% correct, that still wouldn't be an argument to bend the rest of this article now to allow for a future possibility that is so far outside the professional consensus in the field. Newimpartial (talk) 02:32, 5 February 2021 (UTC) - three words added. Newimpartial (talk) 16:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I'm thinking more about "The laboratory has nevertheless been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories based on the hypothesis that the virus was accidentally leaked from the lab" or something, I'd have to think about phrasing, but you get the idea. Why didn't WP:TOOSOON apply to Anderson's "proximal origin of sars-cov-2" released on March 17th last year? "Basic research involving passage of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in cell culture and/or animal models has been ongoing for many years in biosafety level 2 laboratories across the world27, and there are documented instances of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV28. We must therefore examine the possibility of an inadvertent laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2. In theory, it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 acquired RBD mutations (Fig. 1a) during adaptation to passage in cell culture, as has been observed in studies of SARS-CoV11. The finding of SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses from pangolins with nearly identical RBDs, however, provides a much stronger and more parsimonious explanation of how SARS-CoV-2 acquired these via recombination or mutation19.". It's weird how this was used as legit proof that the virus didn't leak but it finally turned out the pangolin samples had only been exposed to the virus in a market instead of being spillover agents. It was the lone opinion of some scientist at the time, yet it was and probably is still around here somewhere. Not to mention the fact that it was first pointed out in this particular paper... Which is definitely MEDRS... Maybe we could use it, knowing the pangolin stuff is wrong, only the first part of his argument remains, which is, surprise surprise, the accidental lab leak. Sniff, do you smell double standards? Feynstein (talk) 03:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• And look what I got here... huh, a second peer-reviewed paper [17] Feynstein (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

In the same journal, written by a bioinformatics (i.e., database software) person and his son (no apparent qualifications in any field of biology). BioEssays is apparently publishing articles by people with no expertise in virology (or even biology, in the case of one of the two authors here, as well as on the previous BioEssays paper you linked to), which raises questions about their reliability as a journal. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Maybe it should be raised over at WP:RSN. I did a quick search on problems with this journal and the only thing I've found is that Segreto's twitter account has been suspended. And I've also found two mainstream articles that came out today about this... And they don't dismiss the hypothesis, quite the contrary. Wow this is huge. Washington Post and daily telegraph! [18] [19] Feynstein (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

The popular press is not reliable for biomedical claims. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:06, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless?

It's not clear to me how this sentence:

• The laboratory has nevertheless been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus.

flows with the proceeding content. It reads as a hang on sentence. What is this "nevertheless" referring to? As it currently is written the sentence makes no sense and should be removed. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Actually, the whole paragraph is confusing. What is this "topic of controversy"? Also what are these "conspiracy theories"? Have these things been defined in the article anywhere? I read this article just wanting to know what kind of virus research the institute does and when the lab was built.--Guest2625 (talk) 05:21, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

There's clearly traffic here based on the possibility the WIV is the source of the Pandemic. Read this [20] if you have any doubt about it. Feynstein (talk) 12:21, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The sentence was written by me as an attempt to reduce the length of content taken on conspiracy theories (before a decision was reached to do some dramatic cutting, nearly half of the article was spent on [presenting, then rebutting] conspiracy theories, which was clearly UNDUE). "Nevertheless" refers to the fact that despite the high safety standards mentioned in the preceding sentence, the conspiracies still abound. It could maybe be rewritten. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Thing is, I have a peer-reviewed paper here [21] who says at least one of those "conspiracy theories" is not a conspiracy theory. We still disagree wether it's MEDRS or not, but since it is clearly RS it should be used, as I previously said, to separate the conspiracy theories from the now non-fringe accidental lab leak hypothesis. Feynstein (talk) 15:32, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Edit: At least two peer-reviewed paper talk about it[22]. Feynstein (talk) 15:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Neither of the BioEssays sources are suitable for use. We really want review articles or better (see WP:MEDRS). Alexbrn (talk) 15:56, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Well then this sentence has no place in the article since it uses RS sources while talking about the origin of the virus.As I said, double standards. Unless we unpack it so that there's a clear difference between bio-weapon conspiracy theories and now RS accidental lab-leak hypothesis (which those two papers + the bbc article constitute legit RS sources) I'm very much against it's current phrasing and will continue to argument until we reach a concensus about how we can achieve that. Again, you don't get to make up policy on the spot and have double standards Alexbrn. Feynstein (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The sentence in question does not talk about the origin of the virus, it talks about conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus. These are two different things, in terms of the required sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 16:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we don't need MEDRS to note the existence of a conspiracy theory, but to debunk said theory even weaker sources can be used per WP:PARITY. So in fact it's kind of true that Wikipedia has a double standard: WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims (e.g. anything non-trivial in the realm of biomedicine) requires the very best sources. Rational rebuttals of conspiracy theories can be sourced much more liberally. This is a feature, not a bug, and gives us neutral, respectable article - and is why Wikipedia has the reputation it does for keeping misinformation at bay. Alexbrn (talk) 16:29, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Again, it's NOT a conspiracy theory. It's not an exceptional claim in any sense of the term. We have those two peer-reviewed papers, we have Dr. Lucey who says a lab might have been working on an unpublished virus, and we even have this Nature paper: Basic research involving passage of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in cell culture and/or animal models has been ongoing for many years in biosafety level 2 laboratories across the world27, and there are documented instances of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV28. We must therefore examine the possibility of an inadvertent laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2.In theory, it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 acquired RBD mutations (Fig. 1a) during adaptation to passage in cell culture, as has been observed in studies of SARS-CoV11. The finding of SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses from pangolins with nearly identical RBDs, however, provides a much stronger and more parsimonious explanation of how SARS-CoV-2 acquired these via recombination or mutation19. [23]. We know now in hindsight that the pangolin samples were exposed post-hoc to the virus and they all came from the same smuggling operation, disproving the pangolin as an intermediary host and going back to bats. Leaving only his first hypothesis on the table. You're WP:GAMING the system here with your appeal to WP:PARITY and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Feynstein (talk) 16:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I have an idea. As per WP:PARITY you should be able to prove to me that BioEssays is a predatory journal or that it's peer-review process is flawed. If you can manage this I'll leave you all alone. I will require references though, your subjective views aren't worth anything. Feynstein (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not a predatory journal and there is no special reason to query its peer review. But the two articles repeatedly being raised are not review articles which, per WP:MEDRS, we need for any claims in the realm of biomedicine. Alexbrn (talk) 16:59, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: "Yes, we don't need MEDRS to note the existence of a conspiracy theory, but to debunk said theory even weaker sources can be used per WP:PARITY.". Ok there seems to be a misunderstanding. What theory are you refering to in this sentence? Feynstein (talk) 17:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

No particular theory, it is a general statement. But it applies to the conspiracy theories regarding the construction of SARS-CoV-2 in a Wuhan lab, which is why it is relevant here. Alexbrn (talk) 17:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I just caught up on this reply. Oh so that blanket statement is your personal opinion, good. Let's carry on with the conversation down there then. Feynstein (talk) 17:45, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem I have with it is that the references used are getting old and they're framing the accidental lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. Which I demonstrated it is not, multiple times. Maybe you could have a go at this article by Michael Shermer[24] in Scientific American in order to get your definitions straight. (Yes, I'm used to dealing with 5G conspiracies and Electrosensitivity with my background). It is, in fact, falsifiable. The problem right now is the mainstream theory is becoming unfalsifiable by the day since Chinese autorities are not releasing anything on the subject, for god knows why. Oh yes, maybe because it's a totalitarian police state. Anyway, still doesn't unpack the "older" view that the accidental lab leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory. Feynstein (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

From good source we assuredly know it is a conspiracy theory. PMID 32945405, which is a review article in a MEDLINE-indexed journal (and so WP:MEDRS), refers to "conspiracy theories regarding the construction of SARS-CoV-2 in a secret laboratory in Wuhan, China", and later says "The genomic and bioinformatic analyses of the aforementioned studies, as well as the results of previous studies, confirm that the virus originated in bats and this way put an end to all conspiracy theories regarding this issue". So in lieu of new sources, as far as content complying with Wikipedia's polices goes, it's: case closed. Alexbrn (talk) 17:05, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I'll be damned! Look at that, there's no mention of the accidental leak theory. Only the bio-weapon made in a secret lab conspiracy theory, just like I've been telling you all along. "Such expressions deconstruct rational thinking when one tries to identify the causality of a phenomenon, reinforcing conspiracy theories about new biological weapons or secret and uncontrollable forces.". Let's use this paper then and quote it directly. I'm going to have a field day with this one. :-) Feynstein (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

* Note: There's an absence of reference on one side AND a reference on the other side, don't try to sophistry your way out of there by invoquing the "lack of negative evidence fallacy". Feynstein (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The bioweapons one is one variant of the "conspiracy theories regarding the construction of SARS-CoV-2 in a secret laboratory in Wuhan" yes, but "all such theories" are debunked. We have other sources on other variations of the conspiracy theory, but these would probably be undue. All we need to say is it came from bats, not a lab, like the conspiracy theories say. This is already covered at the COVID-19 misinformation article, where it is more appropriate in any case.

Good, another place to tackle the WP:STONEWALL. All such theories are not "debunked" as Dr Lucey noted, there's still no animal that was found for spillover. Feynstein (talk) 17:25, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

If the good source says the evidence puts "an end to all conspiracy theories regarding this issue", Wikipedia reflects that. This doesn't have to be complicated. Alexbrn (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Which the accidental lab leak is explicitly and demonstrably not a part of. With Dr. Lucey's comment and both peer-reviewed papers mentioned here. It's really not that complicated in fact. I agree that the bio-weapon one is a conspiracy theory, as mentionned in the last paper. Do you have any evidence that says we should consider the accidental lab leak within the phrase "an end to all conspiracy theories regarding this issue" or is this just your personal opinion? Feynstein (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I say, just follow the source. Conspiracy theories have a habit of morphing into new variants to try and evade debunking. The source says lab construction is a conspiracy theory (now debunked), so Wikipedia does too. At the COVID-19 misinformation article there's a bit more on this, for example how some favour the "gain-of-function" story and so on. Alexbrn (talk) 17:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Good progress, so we both agree that they might have been working on a virus we don't know about, that wasn't part of a gain of function thing (which Segreto is the first paper who attemps to debunk this view with site‐directed mutagenesis) that might have been accidentally released in the city? Knowing that zoonotic spillover doesn't tend to happen in a city of 11M people which limits wildlife interactions. Btw the COVID-19 misinformation only mentions Bio-weapon and Swine stuff. Huh, interesting. So your assertion that this is a conspiracy theory is unwaranted then. Feynstein (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with anything, except that we follow the good sources. By them, we know that lab construction is a conspiracy theory, and that has been debunked, and that the virus came from bats. Most of what you're saying bears no relation to the good sources. Alexbrn (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Can I just point out, Feynstein, that your presumption of any consensus that the virus hopped the species boundary in the city of Wuhan appears to be a straw man argument? I certainly don't see that stated as fact in this article. Newimpartial (talk) 18:05, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Noted, still weird since there would have been human samples of the virus from when it was not well adapted to human-human transmission. And there would probably be a trace from that from Yunnan province to Wuhan, 1200km away from eachother. Feynstein (talk) 18:09, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Cough, Cough "Dr Lucey still believes that Sars-Cov-2 is most likely to have a natural origin, but he does not want the alternatives to be so readily ruled out."So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source," he said. "So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations." Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? "Not everything that's done is published," Dr Lucey said.". And then serial passage, which wasn't ruled out by the nature paper "Proximal origin of sars-cov-2" and advanced directly here.[25]. Huh, so it seems like serial passage doesn't fall into conspiracy territory because it's not a "construction". Feynstein (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Btw, do you know anything about evolution? Do you know how easy it is to force a natural spillover in a lab? Viruses generate billions of replicates. One small slip in rhibozome RNA reading and it's a done deal buddy... When they're talking about bio-weapon they're talking about stuff like CRISPR. I'm not sure you understand that very well anb it might be the cause of our misunderstanding. Feynstein (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea who "Dr Lucey" is. Sounds like another unreliable source. We don't want unreliable sources here, especially being used to complicate or debunk the good sources we know about. Alexbrn (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

What? Well, let me quote him ANOTHER time! "Dr Daniel Lucey is a physician and infectious disease professor at the Georgetown Medical Centre in Washington DC and a veteran of many pandemics - Sars in China, Ebola in Africa, Zika in Brazil." from [26]. Do you need me to copy what he said again or you're good? Feynstein (talk) 18:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

So he's a physician whose last publication was 15 years ago and whose expertise is in the immune response side of infectious diseases? He's not (or at best no longer is, it seems he did have some pubs from the 80s and 90s that weren't clinical case reports) a practicing scientist, let alone an expert in viruses. So his opinion on the validity of the serial passage idea is not representative of scientific consensus or even a large-minority perspective, and therefore not DUE. JoelleJay (talk) 20:03, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Wait wait wait... are you telling me you people don't know the difference between "actual" manipulation and serial passage? Do you know anything about genetic algorithms? They work the exact same way. You simply have to infect different animals (like a pangolin or civet) that have the ACE2 receptor and are known spillover animals and you keep the specimens that show the symptoms and caracteristics you want to have. Rince and repeat enough times and you've got yourself a pandemic-ready virus! Feynstein (talk) 18:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a news source, not usable here for anything biomedical. Let's stick to the MEDRS and keep it plain and simple. Alexbrn (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, well then, you better make sure the bio-weapon and accidental leak theories are unpacked in this sentence mate if you're into using non-MEDRS to assert that. Otherwise this [27] and this [28] are both legit articles that don't qualify as MEDRS but should be used in the sentence to unpack it. Feynstein (talk) 18:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why you keep raising unreliable sources. The fine distinction between different grades of conspiracy theory isn't one made by the best sources: to them, all lab construction theories are covered. So let's just keep to the good sources we have, and keep it simple without indulging in the lore of the conspiracists. Alexbrn (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)\

@Alexbrn: Dude! You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about when you're talking about lab construction! Omg I can't believe I actually had an argument with someone who doesn't know the difference between guided natural evolution by serial passage and ACTUAL genetic manipulation of the likes of CRISPR gene editing. Are all of you conspiracy white knights over at fringe noticeboard like that? Holy cow... man that sucks I lost so much time over this gosh. I'll talk to you when I'm done work, I don't have time to deal with you anymore, I'm going straight to the dispute resolution noticeboard and people who actually know at least basic evolutionary biology and are able to make that distinction. Feynstein (talk) 18:56, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: They do serial passage ALL THE TIME. Whenever you have a sample of live viruses you HAVE to move them around the lab and each time you do so and they create new replicates the ones that don't die are usually different from the ones that die. Simply by keeping the "live" viruses from dish to dish you're forcing evolution. And then have you noticed how there was no transmission outside? Maybe it's because the virus evolved inside eh? How's that for a stretch? But you cannot know because evolution has no memory of past iterations. I mean... come on. You really thought I was talking about actual construction? Like bio-weapon style? Is it because you have NO CLUE what we're talking about here? Can you at least admit your mistep here and explain to me how what I just explained to you (basically keeping the virus alive) constitues a "construction"? Feynstein (talk) 19:27, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to point to my earlier comment, which you might have missed. JoelleJay (talk) 20:03, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: Wrong link Feynstein (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Oops, fixed now. JoelleJay (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I'll answer here if you don't mind. Do you have formal background in genomics? How confident are you that you are properly assessing the quality of the Segreto publication and the credentials of its authors? I don't and never claimed I had. My point was that ad hominems aren't arguments. You don't know what's my background, I don't know what's yours, we shouldn't be discussing papers on the merit of their author. And even their content to a certain extent, as I've been discussing with people who don't know that serial passage isn't "construction" of a virus in the moving nucleotides around meaning of it. I think this particular point has been the root of the misunderstanding here. People don't know you can evolve a living thing that copies itself in the trillions simply by generally choosing the specimens you like repeatedly. How many scientific paper review processes have you gone through in bio as either submitter or referee? Do medical physics count? I used to do dosimetry algorithms. I know about radiobiology if you want to know. Still never claimed anything on that matter. It's a good thing for you, then, that by and large it doesn't matter what type or level of education editors here have when it comes to following Wikipedia policy. It does matter if you're doing the very same thing to the author of a paper, which was the point that people tried to make. They shouldn't unless they can "verify" their credentials to be judging someone, which they can't because it's the internet. And for the rest of your argument you're still going about discrediting her work based on her personal merits. You also talked about referencing: the bibliography is 68 papers long. I think it's longer than my master's thesis at this point XD. I'm going to add on a personal note that I worked on a paper about SEIRS Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulations based on HIV and SARS modelling in epidemiology. It was aimed at estimating the number of asymptomatic cases by non linear optimization of the transfer matrix on hospitalisations and deaths numbers. I have NO experience in epidemiology. I have extensive experience of system dynamics though. The maths were clear and similar to stuff I do (and pretty easy to be honest) so that I could bring in my knowledge of Monte Carlo Simulations into this field to help. Do you think it's totally out there simply because I'm a physicist or there's a value to this work? You can believe me or not it's irrelevant, my point is that I don't like gatekeepers that say the kind of stuff you say. Do you imagine if we would have told people like me to stop doing this because we're not epidemiologists? We would have run out of people like them that were better off doing more important stuff. Anyway I didn't mean any personal harm to you if this is how you understood it. I just get angry when people erase the experiences of others based on subjective opinions. Feynstein (talk) 01:37, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

we shouldn't be discussing papers on the merit of their author. But we do need to evaluate author credentials. MEDRS specifically emphasizes citing experts in the field, which is a quality that can be largely assessed by any editor just by looking at an author's professional position and publication record. For more nuanced cases, editors with familiarity in the subject may be needed to evaluate how qualified the author is in that subject.

What MEDRS says about experts

Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; The Wikipedia community relies on guidance of expert reviews Although significant-minority views are welcome in Wikipedia, such views must be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. Additionally, the views of tiny minorities need not be reported. A general narrative review of a subject by an expert in the field can make a good secondary source covering various aspects of a subject within a Wikipedia article.

I've been discussing with people who don't know that serial passage isn't "construction" of a virus in the moving nucleotides around meaning of it. I think this particular point has been the root of the misunderstanding here. In order for us to make a distinction between a lab leak where the virus was genetically engineered, underwent guided positive selection for human adaptation via serial passage, gained adaptations through non-guided serial passage, or was wholly WT and just stored without serial passage, we need strong secondary MEDRS explicitly discussing these scenarios and how they are viewed by the majority of experts. Two primary speculative studies claiming any of those are possible are not enough for us to single them out as "not conspiracy theories". If our current MEDRS just use a blanket designation of "conspiracy theory" for "lab leak hypotheses", then that is what we report. If MEDRS say the genetic manipulation theories have been debunked, but don't mention serial passage (or cover it very minimally as an aside), then we report what they say about genetic manipulation without mentioning serial passage at all. Otherwise, it is synthesis and undue to interpret which particular scenarios MEDRS are or are not calling "conspiracy theories". JoelleJay (talk) 03:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

break 3

What JoelleJay says; this is the policy-compliant way with the sources that exist. Can we close this now? It's going nowhere. Alexbrn (talk) 05:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: @JoelleJay: We can close it after you both look at what I found in the Washington Post [29] and the daily telegraph [30] that came out yesterday and today specifically talking about the WIV and the particular discussion we're having. I think those two are game changing. Now I said to an admin that I will only be replying once to a conversation here per day in order to lower the disruption I brought so if you want to have a quicker discussion I invite you both to my talk page to discuss the implications of this. Everyone is invited of course. It's BYOB of course XD Feynstein (talk) 15:25, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Those are both opinion pieces, so neither is reliable for facts per WP:RSOPINION. I wouldn't call that game changing. Newimpartial (talk) 15:29, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Opinion pieces in the lay press? Sadly, those are not MEDRS compliant. The idea behind MEDRS is to steer our medical articles toward reflecting a scientific consensus. WP:ABIAS states, Scholars and scientists decide what is "true" for Wikipedia. And the way we make sure our articles reflect scientific consensus correctly is by following MEDRS. In a nutshell, MEDRS requires certain types of journal articles (review articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses), national or international health agencies (CDC, NHS, WHO), or textbooks. Papers on studies/experiments (primary source) are out, and all lay press is out (non-experts cherry picking and interpreting studies). –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: The sentence discussed here uses non MEDRS sources to point out "conspiracy theories" about the origin of the virus. It's one of my points. The other point is the MEDRS paper they're using to dismiss all theories in the same manner specifically talks about "virus construction" which refers to stuff like CRISPR gene editing and not Serial passage. A distinction some editors can't make for some reason. The latter can't be dismissed until a host is found because it is basically forcing evolution in the direction you want, leaving no trace in the genome whatsoever. And since we know the virus was already well adapted very early in the Pandemic [31] it could well have been a studied virus that inadvertently infected someone in the lab. Or an infected animal sold to a market by a research assistant or something. Feynstein (talk) 02:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Remove confusing paragraph

This paragraph:

The WIV has been a topic of controversy since the start of reporting of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists such as U.S. molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright, who had expressed concern of previous escapes of the SARS virus at Chinese laboratories in Beijing and had been troubled by the pace and scale of China's plans for expansion into BSL–4 laboratories, called the Institute a "world-class research institution that does world-class research in virology and immunology" while he noted that the WIV is a world leader in the study of bat coronaviruses. The laboratory has nevertheless been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus.

is not understandable. The "controversy" and "conspiracy theories" have not been defined. Also, it is not clear why the reader is being told that Ebright is "concerned" and why he thinks the lab is "world-class". If this paragraph is about some conspiracy nonsense why waste space on it in this article. The paragraph should be removed. This topic perhaps can go in the misinformation or investigation article. As it stands, this is all incoherent material that is being hung randomly onto this article. Also, removal will halt this endless circular conversation on this talk page. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't have any trouble understanding that paragraph. It is also not necessary to define precisely what the conspiracy theorists have said about the WIV for it to be DUE to mention that conspiracy theories have in fact been disseminated in relation to it. Newimpartial (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

The distinction between man-made virus (a virus made by inserting genomes line by line) and a natural origin virus that evolved artificially is made in this RS source. They call it "not-natural serial passage" and explain why it is a relevant distinction. If this gets traction we should start to see primary sources and reviews covering it in the next months. Forich (talk) 16:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Sure, when or if MEDRS review articles come out giving substantial weight to scenarios involving the WIV, we may include that info. JoelleJay (talk) 19:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Are there any good sources that suggest a laboratory recombination event is plausible? The bioweapon "theory" is kind of absurd, but an accident may be plausible. Sloorbeadle (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sloorbeadle: Yes there are, it's the whole point of this discussion. It's been getting mainstream traction lately because no intermediate host has been found yet and the WHO's investigation team is riddled with conflict of interests. To be fair it would probably mean defunding to a whole bunch of institutes, it would be in the best interests of big wigs in virology to keep it as it is. But truth always comes out eventually. [32] [33] [34] [35] Feynstein (talk) 02:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Jesus Sloorbeadle (talk) 04:23, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Sloorbeadle, note that none of those is actually MEDRS. It's been getting mainstream traction in the lay media, but so far there are no MEDRS sources demonstrating anything more than tiny-minority support for lab passage ideas. That a handful of scientists of varying expertise in virology have been vocal does not override the vast majority who do not consider it plausible or even worth mentioning. JoelleJay (talk) 19:40, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: The very same majority that can't do research right eh? Maybe it's because stuff don't go boom when you guys mess up XD. Jk. But really, this is something medicine and biology need to address and quick if they want to keep the public's trust. Feynstein (talk) 01:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, wonderful idea! To solve the replication crisis and make science more reliable, let's be less strict! Is this some sort of homeopathy, curing like with like? "This is not reliable enough, let's use less reliable sources, dilute them, and the whole thing will become more reliable!" --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

What is the scientific consensus?

Since the Telegraph article provided by editor Feynstein above is paywalled, I thought out of courtesy to everyone here to provide the following concluding quote:

In a significant change from a year ago, a growing number of top experts – including (ordered alphabetically by last name) Drs Francois Balloux, Ralph S Baric, Trevor Bedford, Jesse Bloom, Bruno Canard, Etienne Decroly, Richard H. Ebright, Michael B. Eisen, Gareth Jones, Filippa Lentzos, Michael Z. Lin, Marc Lipsitch, Stuart A Newman, Rasmus Nielsen, Megan J. Palmer, Nikolai Petrovsky, Angela Rasmussen and David A. Relman – have stated publicly (several in early 2020) that a lab leak remains a plausible scientific hypothesis to be investigated, regardless of how likely or unlikely.

We informed and obtained consent from each expert for their inclusion in this list.

Perhaps things are not the same as a year ago. --Guest2625 (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Scientific consensus is reflected by the content in MEDRS review articles, not by lay media listing a small number of scientists (of varying relevant expertise) whose "support" sometimes amounts to the standard hedging statements made about everything in science. JoelleJay (talk) 19:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I will use what I wrote on Alexbrn's talk page to show you how one of the MEDRS sources was misrepresented by editors. Quote starts now --- Let me do a rundown for you of the 4 papers you guys selected for MEDRS, it might take a bit of time because biology lingo is absurdly complex. This article [36] says "Furthermore, a few important points related to the “conspiracy theories” such as “laboratory engineering” or “bioweapon” aspects of SARS-CoV-2 are also reviewed." and "The authors, taking the references of published articles on zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 and based on their own analysis, suggested that the SARS-CoV-2 could have originated either through “natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer” or “natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer”. They rejected the possibility of “laboratory release” or the “SARS-CoV-2 acquired RBD mutations during adaptation to passage in cell culture” [40]. Nevertheless, it was claimed that the mutations in RBD are possible during adaptation to passage in cell culture [41]. However, Andersen et al. suggested that, nearly identical Spike-RBD of Pangolin-CoV with the SARS-CoV-2 supports a recombination or mutation event in the development of SARS-CoV-2 Spike-RBD probably from Pangolin-CoV [40]. It was previously reported that, insertions and deletions near the S1/S2 of Coronavirus Spike can occur due to natural evolutionary process (or prolonged passage or sub-culturing) [42-44]. However, in order to generate such virus through passage, a “progenitor virus with very high genetic similarity” needs “prior isolation” [40]. Introduction of a polybasic cleavage site specific to hACE2 requires repeated sub-culturing of this virus in cell culture or animals with hACE2. But neither such progenitor virus nor sub-culturing based polybasic cleavage to hACE2 has “previously been described”. Hence, Andersen and colleagues concluded that SARS-CoV-2 is not generated or released/escaped from laboratory [40]. Thus, according to these authors, without prior knowledge in public domain, we may not precisely identify the origin of SARSCoV-2. The authors finally concluded that “although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here” (Figure 1B).". Clear as day here, prolonged passage or sub-culturing. In this particular case, for this particular subject, I think editors should read the papers carefully. Feynstein (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd suggest replacing "conspiracy theories" with "minority hypotheses," which conveys the information without derogating it. JoshuaNeilRubin (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@JoshuaNeilRubin: To be fair there were actual conspiracy theories regarding the bioweapon stuff, Bill Gates and the great reset and whatnot. The chosing of words in the articles is kinda weird though, you don't see that often to use such strong words so early about a thing we have no clue about. Any thesis supervisor would hit you with a ruler for writing like that. Anyway I agree that we must at least unpack the sentence for it to express the legit minority view discussed in the paper above. Feynstein (talk) 00:56, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Problems with safety at the lab

Hi again all, since you don't seem to like other users adding stuff about safety concerns, I'd like you to write your reasons for reverting edits, here. Btw one of you should have opened a new section here for courtesy. Feynstein (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven't seen any reliable source documenting problems with safety at the lab. There was an opinion piece by Josh Rogin that claimed, based on snippets of US diplomatic cables, that there were safety problems. Rogin refused to publish the context of these snippets, but the full cables were obtained through a FOIA request and showed that Rogin's characterization of them was misleading. A general request by US diplomats for continued support for a US training program for staff at the WIV was misconstrued as a statement about safety problems at the lab. In any case, Rogin's opinion piece is not an RS for statements about the safety of the lab, and I don't think this conspiracy-theory material should be included in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I think this one is[37]. It quotes both cables directly, and Washington Post's piece, meaning it's a secondary source. Which gives it more weight. I saw on WP:RSP that most editors consider it a partisan source, I will check if the claims of partisan source is about international stuff or not. If the concern is mostly about internal US politics I honestly can't see any problems with it. It's actually pretty solid. Feynstein (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

*Quick complement: it has indeed been used in the context of the pandemic regarding Iran's response, it seems like it's reliable in that case.Feynstein (talk) 16:56, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

The National Review is nowhere near being a reliable source for anything related to the origins of SARS-CoV-2, or for assessing the safety of BSL-4 labs (in China or anywhere else). Jim Geraghty, in particular, has been writing conspiracy-theory articles sourced to things like YouTube videos: [38]. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:27, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: From your article "There’s no proof the coronavirus accidentally escaped from a laboratory, but we can’t take the Chinese government’s denials at face value" which seems about right. Then he goes on reporting on the video itself. Btw your article has nothing to do with what I gave you, he's literally quoting the cables and WaPo's opinion. This is a legit secondary source buddy, whatever you say about it. You told me the cables did not report about safety, but they actually did. Did you lie to me? Would you prefer me to quote the cables directly then if Jim Geraghty is a problem to you? We can verifiably say that he's not lying in this article, what do you want more? Feynstein (talk) 22:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Geraghty "goes on reporting" about a conspiracy-theory video on YouTube that's full of utter nonsense. That should raise a million red flags about using the National Review for any claims about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

We have high standards for sourcing here - specifically, MEDRS. We've been through this many times. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Of course we have high standards, especially if we know what is said in the article is true. We could probably reference both the national review article and the cable itself[39] it's pretty clear at this point there were safety concerns. Or, if you object, we could only reference the cable itself from the FOIA website, the one from january 2018 goes into more detail. I wonder though, why did you tell me "FOIA request and showed that Rogin's characterization of them was misleading" when in full context it says (I can't copy paste for some reason) that "While the lab is ostensibly fully accredited, its utilization is limited by lack of access to specific organisms and opaque government review and approval processes. As long as this sitution continues, Beijing's commitment to ... infectious disease control ... especially in relation to highly pathogenic viruses remains in doubt." and then "... noted that the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory" (safety explicitely named here) and continues saying "... the ability to undertake productive research despite limitations on the use of the new BSL-4 facility is demonstrated by ..." and then goes on talking about the ACE2 protein study they were doing. You know, the one that made the virus fully adapted to human transmission as soon as it took off in Wuhan. Anyway these are quotes we could easily add to the article, keep me in touch of what you think. Also, can you put into context your interpretation of the "misrepresentation" you claimed so that I know it wasn't a bad faith lie? Thanks! Feynstein (talk) 16:15, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The National Review is not reliable at all for this claim, and no, we're not going to cite primary documents. You give your own analysis of the memo, which is neither here nor there. My own reading of it is very different. The reason the memo argues that "Beijing's commitment to ... infectious disease control ... especially in relation to highly pathogenic viruses remains in doubt" is because Chinese regulators are being overly strict, not allowing the lab to work on Ebola, for example. This is exactly opposite to how it was portrayed by Rogin and the National Review - as if the worries were about lax safety standards, not overly strict standards. The statement that they have a shortage of technicians is used to explain why they are not running the lab at full capacity. The memo does not claim that the lab is running unsafely. This memo was written two years before the BSL-4 lab actually opened, so the lack of technicians to run the lab at full capacity is not surprising. But regardless, neither Rogin nor Geraghty is qualified to analyze BSL-4 lab safety, and Wikipedia editors such as you and I are also not presumed to be qualified. We would need strong sourcing to make any claims about the safety of the lab. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this is the same country that produced the first illegally genetically engineered humans (the twins). If you think there are no reasons to doubt the competency of the lab technicians, or any other lab for that matter then you are sorely mistaken and will likely suffer for your poor judgement. There is no limit to human incompetence and arrogance for which we will see the consequences first hand eventually. If not us then our progeny.

The culture in China is not conducive to transparency and that should be an impetus to be all the more skeptical regarding the evolution of sars-cov-2.

You should not cherry-pick sources and rely on "strength" of a source simply by virtue of it's endorsement by profit-seeking mainstream views. This is completely absurd, when there are independent researchers raising legitimate questions and reaching different conclusions.

At the risk of being deemed to be appealing to emotion, I feel like I'm living in soviet russia and it's not pleasant. Sloorbeadle (talk) 11:57, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Nature source

Removed Since I don't think there is anything in it that is particularly about this lab, and since clearly the addition is being contested on this talk page (and the claims are, per the discussion above, apparently contested). If you wish to include it, then please gain consensus for this change and include material which is within the WP:SCOPE of this article, which does not deal with BSL-4 facilities in China in general, but only the WIV. If there's nothing in the source specifically about the WIV, then including it here, especially in light of it being contested, is WP:SYNTH and probably falls foul of WP:NPOV (and having a "party X says A, party Y says B" digression would just be needless verbosity over what is a minor point) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:02, 9 February 2021 (UTC).

The content that the editor RandomCanadian wishes to remove is the following:

Some worries were raised in the construction of the lab. Molecular biologist Richard Ebright was worried about the rapid pace and scale of China's expansion into BSL–4 laboratories. Tim Trevan, founder of a biosafety and biosecurity consulting firm, noted that an open culture was necessary for keeping a BSL-4 lab safe, and it was not clear to him if such a culture existed in China.

This content directly deals with the Wuhan lab. It provides a proper balance to the discussion of the biosafety and biosecurity of the new facility being built for the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This content balances the previous paragraph and reflects the structure of the Nature article. Also, below is the Nature article's content from which the above sentences is derived:

But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says. Nature 542, 399–400 (23 February 2017)

Note that the above quote says the singular "the Chinese lab" not the plural "the Chinese labs". This paragraph is in reference to the new facility being constructed for the Wuhan Institute of Technology. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:59, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Note on procedure

• Note per Wikipedia:General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019#Application notes, material removed from COVID-19-related articles for credible reasons should not be replaced without consensus. Alexbrn (talk) 06:04, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  Not that I disagree with the principle, but where is the community discussion establishing that section has any legitimacy in consensus? Special:Diff/957951138 does not link. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 06:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  Here. Alexbrn (talk) 06:43, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  No, not that but the subsection. Anyway, found it here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 06:48, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  That said, Editors are reminded that the onus is on the editor seeking to include disputed content to achieve consensus for its inclusion. Any content or source removed in good faith and citing a credible policy-based rationale should not be reinstated without prior consensus on the article's talk page. is effectively a topic-wide consensus required restriction. I don't think any admin is actually enforcing that, it's certainly not mentioned on any notices, so I'm not sure any of that has any de facto effects. Seems to have been policy carved out and forgotten about. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:01, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  I think if an admin came across what's been going on in this article recently, a lot of sanctioning could happen. Alexbrn (talk) 08:10, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  I'm trying to keep my stress levels down but am available to investigate any issues if they are explained (briefly). I left some messages at a couple of user talk pages recently. My strategy would be to warn and only sanction if problems are repeated. Johnuniq (talk) 08:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)