Talk:Neil Ferguson (epidemiologist)

March 2020

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

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Laboratory test kit for 2019 novel coronavirus

• ... that professor Neil Ferguson and his team believe that significantly more people in China have been infected with the 2019 novel coronavirus (test kit pictured) than has been reported?

Ferguson’s team calculates that, by 31 January, there were at least 24,000 new cases a day in Wuhan, which calls into question the current fall in case reports, which number around 3000 a day. This could also mean that total case numbers in China may now be as many as a million. [1]

• Reviewed: Li Lanjuan

Created by Philafrenzy (talk) and Whispyhistory (talk) and Qwfp (talk). Nominated by Whispyhistory (talk) at 20:18, 16 February 2020 (UTC).

• This article is new enough and long enough. The image is in the public domain but does not add much to the nomination. The hook facts are cited inline, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright issues. A QPQ has been done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the test kit picture adds a lot to the hook. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:00, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Epidemiologist?

What, really, is requiered for someone to be called an epidemiologist? Mathematical biology doesn't sound like it covers the whole field. --Hjordmån (talk) 04:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

He is widely known as an epidemiologist and a professor of mathematical biology in the Division of Epidemiology, Public Health, and Primary Care of the Medical School at Imperial College....and uses mathematical models in infectious disease epidemiology. He does more than enough epidemiology to be called an epidemiologist. Whispyhistory (talk) 05:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

POV editing

I have concerns about Magnovvig (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)'s recent edits to this article, specifically misrepresentation of sources to cast Ferguson's research in a poor light, unsupported by the sources.

1. In this edit Magnovvig misquoted the source by substituting "One of Ferguson's models predicted that 65,000 people would die from swine flu" for the source's "one of Ferguson's models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu". There's a very clear difference in meaning in that edit.
2. In the same edit, Magnovvig asserted "This latterly caused some embarrassment to Health Secretary Matt Hancock during BBC Today on 16 April 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." The source says nothing about "embarrassment", nor does it describe its context as "while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." The embellishment is clear editorialising.
3. In this edit, Magnovvig selectively quoted Streek as saying "the authors assume that 50 percent of households where there is a case do not adhere to voluntary quarantine ..." The source actually quotes Streek as saying "In the - really good - model studies by Imperial College about the progress of the epidemic, the authors assume, for example, that 50 percent of households in which there is a case do not comply with the voluntary quarantine ..." Magnovvig's deliberate omission of Streek's preface puts a spin on the quote you employed and places the paper in a much worse light that Streek's actual words did.
4. Having mentioned criticism of Ferguson's work, Magnovvig failed to make use of the Business Insider source's quotes from Tim Colbourn and Stephen Griffin, which were favourable to Ferguson's study.

WP:BLP is clear that "Contentious material about living persons ... that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing." --RexxS (talk) 20:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm very concerned about your use of three forums (my talk page, the WikiProject medicine page, and this page) for browbeating me.

In this instance, there are no quotes on wiki, and wikipedians are somewhat free to interpolate. The model influenced policy, did it not? That is why the House of Lords had their post-factum inquiry. Or do I mistake their thrust. The model itself was taken from "can die" to "will die" somewhere between abstract theory and dictated policy and concrete practice. That is the reality of what transpired, and the raison d'être for the Lords inquiry. Please, let us not split hairs. Ferguson for a time was in the jump seat of the bus. Lesser men would not have survived a call that was wrong by *two orders of magnitude*.

No it is not. It is an accurate picture of what transpired in the interview. Wiki forces us to summarise fifteen minutes of radio into one sentence. Are you naive or just a hack? What other reason is there to think that a radio host drags up some event from more than a decade earlier?

If 20,000 deaths over two months and the PM being at death's door is not "raged", for heaven's sake what is?

It is standard practice in academic circles to couch language in a shit sandwich; I'm just cutting to the chase. Wiki forces us to brevity, remember? And it's Streeck, if I'm not mistaken.

This is an article about Ferguson, and that is a red herring. If I want to write about Tim Colbourn and Stephen Griffin or any other character who appears in the Business Insider article, I'll do so on their pages. What you seem to be saying here, if I'm not mistaken, is that you buy into Argumentum ad verecundiam.

Ferguson is a big boy and more than able to fend for himself. Remember that lesser men would not have survived a call that was wrong by *two orders of magnitude*. Only because you have more seniority in this forum than me and can use it to silence me, I will back off my edits on this subject so as to ensure that there is no repetition. I'm dismayed by your use of three fora to browbeat me. This might be termed abuse of process by an impartial observer. Magnovvig (talk) 07:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

For good measure: @RexxS: Magnovvig (talk) 07:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Magnovvig: I strongly resent your imputation of my actions here and you need to rethink whether you benefit from making unfounded accusations against an uninvolved administrator enforcing the BLP policy. You've been around long enough to understand what our policy says about misinterpretation of sources, and you have no excuses for failing to comply with it. Wikipedia has zero tolerance for such behaviour. --RexxS (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not browbeating you, and your claiming that I am is a personal attack. Please strike your attack on me.

Wikipedians are not free to put spin on sources. There is a big difference between a model that predicts that deaths could rise to 65,000, and a model that predicts that deaths would rise to 65,000. That is not splitting hairs, and your edit deliberately misrepresents the source.

"This latterly caused some embarrassment to Health Secretary Matt Hancock during BBC Today on 16 April 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." is not an accurate picture of what the Business Insider source states. Anyone can read the source you used to see that is the case. You embellished what you read there to reflect your own POV and that's not acceptable. Strike your personal attack on me there.

Steek's comment was not made "in academic circles", but in a newspaper interview. He was asked for an example of a model containing an untested assumption. Your selective quotation gives a very different interpretation of Streek's criticism of the report that he otherwise found "wirklich gut" – as is apparent from a full reading of the source.

You are utterly mistaken. There's no red herring. Our article is indeed about Ferguson, but "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." You cherry-picked the critical comment about one of his models from the Business Insider source, but didn't report that the source also contained quotes favourable to Ferguson's work.

If you don't demonstrate that you're prepared to abide by our policies on NPOV and NPA, I'll take steps to see that your editing privileges here are curtailed until you do. --RexxS (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2020 (UTC)