Talk:Wuhan Institute of Virology

Topic code	Area of conflict	Decision linked to
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=aa}}	politics, ethnic relations, and conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=crypto}}	blockchain and cryptocurrencies	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=kurd}}	Kurds and Kurdistan	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=mj}}	Michael Jackson	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Michael Jackson
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=pw}}	professional wrestling	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=rusukr}}	the Russo-Ukrainian War	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=sasg}}	South Asian social groups	Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=syria}}	the Syrian Civil War and ISIL	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=uku}}	measurement units in the United Kingdom	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
{{Wuhan Institute of Virology|topic=uyghur}}	Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghurs

Science Journal claims this is not a conspiracy

How about? Can we finally introduce this topic on Wikipedia without being accused of being conspiracy theorists? Is it enough to be wp:medrs? Can you accept the opinion of Ralph Baric and Marc Lipsitch or even they are conspiracy theorists?

"Investigate the origins of COVID-19 | Science" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1 Francesco espo (talk) 21:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Science journal didn't claim anything, its a "letter" (akin to something like letters to the editor in a newspaper) by people who are already well known for pro-"lab leak" views. Nothing changes here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:20, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

This is categorically false, almost none of the authors had publicly manifested their predisposition for a laboratory theory and if you read well they have not done so even now, they have simply illustrated how it is valid as much as the zoonosis hypothesis and should be considered and investigated. These researchers are at the top of virology and genetic engineering, if you don't approve their opinion you are blatantly trying to censor the debate. Francesco espo (talk) 21:51, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

It's a letter to the editor, it's not due unless other sources attach significance to it. If you can find reliable sources that consider this letter a "big deal", then please link them. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:56, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The New York Times covered the letter: [1]. I'm not sure why this article would be the one to discuss such a letter, though. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 22:00, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree, given the NYTIMES coverage, it's probably due at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, but not here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

力, it's still just a letter - even less compelling than the Great Bullshit Declaration. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's a letter, and the theory of evolution is a theory. What we have is a continuing stream of scientists in the field of virology publishing in prestigious outlets that there is no conclusive proof of the origin of COVID infections in humans, and that we should investigate a lab leak as a potential cause. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 22:14, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

A letter with 19 authors does not a concensus make. There must be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of researchers who have published research regarding COVID-19, given that it has infected at least 160 million people. It's obvious that this is still contentious and Wikipedia needs to wait for the dust to settle. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

It's a theory, an hypothesis, communicate it will not do any harm to anyone, could only push to have an international investigation to reach a consensus and define what was true and what was false. I repeat, this is the Gotha of Virology, if you don't take in consideration their words you are voluntarily waiting or hoping that this path will not be followed, maybe causing a damage to entire humanity: if this pandemic has been caused by an antropic error and we don't push together to investigate every scenario we could make this happen again. Please, think on it seriously, it's the right time to not commit the errors of the past. Francesco espo (talk) 22:34, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Ignoring the authors and their known prior activities, the letter is off topic here. If it goes anywhere, it is in the investigations article. As for "this is not a conspiracy theory", I'll point to the material recently added elsewhere about Bannon and the American far-right (Qin, Amy; Wang, Vivian; Hakim, Danny (20 November 2020). "How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 30 April 2021.), and to stuff which you already know about, such as the pretty much unanimous consent of MEDRS (which, if they even mention it [see here], say that the theory has, at the very best, "no evidence"). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:53, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

See also this (published by an anti-misinformation site run by Cornell University), which explicitly calls the lab leak a conspiracy; and the paper by Hakim et al. (who makes a valid point that "believers of conspiracy theories criticise sciences when scientific evidence argues against their beliefs", identifying this as a clear issue of ideology and not science, before describing that "we are now facing over‐critical communities which, unfortunately, are not very knowledgeable."). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

There are two related but separate bits of misinformation here. The first, which is implied by the phrase "lab leak", is that the virus accidentally leaked from the lab. The second, which was the original misinformation from the YouTube conspiracy theorist who started it all in January 2020, is that the virus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that was purposely released by the Chinese government. Both appear to be misinformation, but only the second starts with a conspiracy theory. The first is often combined with another conspiracy theory -- that the Chinese government and the WHO conspired to cover up the accident. Thus, any "not a conspiracy theory" claim must specifically be about the bioweapon or the coverup actually being true, because those are the conspiracy theories. Claims that the accidental leak is actually true don't count, because the lab leak theory is misinformation but not a conspiracy theory. And even if someone proves it was an accidental leak there would remain a bunch of people who continue to believe the bioweapon and/or coverup conspiracy theories. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:19, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The natural jump hypothesis has no direct evidence either. Neither theory has anything other than circumstantial evidence. Your persistent insistence on this page that only one of those two hypotheses is a conspiracy is a clear violation of WP:POV that doesn't represent current scientific consensus. Further, your insistence on doing so in wikipedia voice clearly violates WP:VOICE. A conspiracy isn't something that only has circumstantial evidence; it also has to be considered fringe by all mainstream scientific sources. That's not at all the case here as evidenced by the well-covered Nature letter, which noted that both “theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable.”

Also, your recent edit that the theory was "unfounded," in Wikipedia's voice, is a clear violation of WP:VOICE. Put it in a source's voice or don't say it. Marcus Aurelius 18:47, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

That was a legitimate summary of the content of sources listed here. "Therefore, although a laboratory accident can never be definitively excluded, there is currently no evidence to support it."; "Despite these massive online speculations, scientific evidence does not support this accusation of laboratory release theory."; "Conspiracy theories about a possible accidental leak from either of these laboratories known to be experimenting with bats and bat CoVs that has shown some structural similarity to human SARS-CoV-2 has been suggested, but largely dismissed by most authorities.". That, in essence, boils down to "nothing to support this". Thanks to Hemiauchenia for finding the better word. A letter is a WP:PRIMARY piece for the opinion of its authors, and seeing that multiple of them have since put some qualifications to their remarks, it's certainly not enough to change anything. We follow what the WP:BESTSOURCES say, and given they unanimously support a zoonotic origin, then we state that as such, without giving WP:FALSEBALANCE to a theory that is clearly more political than scientific. If the academic sources judge the existing evidence is enough to strongly support a natural origin (as many do say explicitly), then we report that, not whatever might be the opinion of some editors. FWIW, it took a whole 14 years before there was definitive direct evidence for the origin of SARS ([2]). We're similarly in no rush here, despite the political implications (which we already report). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

"It changes nothing" is wrong. The editor of Science has given a nod to potential papers discussing a topic that was previously and tacitally taboo. This would probably result in journals better ranked than Bio Essays, to tackle the lab hypothesis Forich (talk) 00:32, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

"The editor of Science has given a nod to potential papers discussing a topic that was previously and tacitally taboo"... That is your interpretation of the source, not what it says. Your (or my) opinion doesn't count. Calling for "further investigations" (which is the main point of the letter) is not new nor particularly ground-breaking. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:37, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

It also makes 0 reference to the WIV, meaning that it is no appropriate for this page anyway, the place to have this discussion is elsewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:25, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Here is the source. H. Holden Thorp from Science says But while consensus is emerging, the human beings who work at Science have their own opinions. And for this inorganic chemist who has been writing about virology for a year, my opinion is that the zoonotic origin of COVID-19 is far more likely, but good science requires that the laboratory escape idea be rigorously investigated before being ruled out. China should allow for a dispassionate examination of the data and allow scientists to do what they are trained to do. I thank the Letter writers for their contribution and hope their words will be heeded.. He also said: In general, Science’s role is to provide a forum for these issues to be hashed out by others and for the editors to remain as neutral as possible while qualified experts generate consensus. It's clearly a nod to open the discussion, how can anyone interpret these quotes differently?. Forich (talk) 02:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, that WIV is not explicitely mentioned is a hair-splitting argument. If the words used were "laboratory escape" referring to a pandemic that started in Wuhan, it is disingenuous to object to the statement not implictely refers to "laboratory escape [in Wuhan, from a Laboratory located in Wuhan]". Give us a break here. Forich (talk) 02:18, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's a novel synthesis as the WIV is not explicitly mentioned by the source. I think that previously an implicit concensus was come to that the WIV article was not the place to litigate the credibility of the lab leak allegations, and that this was to be done at COVID-19 misinformation and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and I for the most part agree with that. This article should be about the lab itself, not hypothetical suppositions surrounding it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:28, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion between scientists and further investigation is not the same as saying the topic was "taboo" or something else. Per the source you give, "The goal of Science’s Insights section is to be the best place for scientists to talk to each other about science." We can report (at the appropriate article, not here) the call for further investigation without unduly comparing both hypotheses. One is the prevailing view, the other is supported by a small minority, and a letter in Science does not change that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:31, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

This would probably result in journals better ranked than Bio Essays, to tackle the lab hypothesis sounds like WP:CRYSTAL to me. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:45, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed sentence change

I propose changing the following sentence:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation about the origin of the virus.

to the more neutral sentence:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratory has been the focus of controversy.

This change removes the undue weight of the word conspiracy theory. The lab origin hypothesis, which is discussed in the next two sentences, is not a conspiracy theory. As has been discussed across the talk pages, it is a minority hypothesis (what wikipedia calls fringe). Also, it should be noted that both the animal origin and lab origin hypotheses are founded on letters to science journals. If you follow the citations of the animal origin hypothesis it always leads to Anderson's Nature letter The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" (March 2020). The Science letter "Investigate the origins of COVID-19" (May 2021) is no different in terms of correspondence weight than Anderson's letter; however, Anderson's letter (although dated) is cited by thousands of papers, and therefore, the current majority position. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:38, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

See archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for discussions about this. [3] Guess what the results of all those discussions were, before looking it up. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Consensus changes. The Science article came out 14 May 2021. Anderson's letter was published on 17 March 2020. Time for a new discussion of this sentence. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:49, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Not really, no. It is as much a tinfoil conspiracy now as it has ever been. ValarianB (talk) 12:01, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

"the laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation about the origin of the virus." Let's for a moment say that you're correct at that the lab leak is somehow not just the view of a small minority (who overstate the strength of poor circumstantial evidence and speculate about sinister motives to promote it) [note that I'm not conceding that at the moment, just using it to show how your requested change would still be nonsensical]. That would still leave all the nonsense about the virus having been manufactured and voluntarily released from it (which is well and truly debunked, see quotes below).

Quotes about theories of man-made virus or voluntary release

Frutos, Roger; Gavotte, Laurent; Devaux, Christian A. (18 March 2021). "Understanding the origin of COVID-19 requires to change the paradigm on zoonotic emergence from the spillover model to the viral circulation model". Infection, Genetics and Evolution. doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104812. ISSN 1567-1348. "The selection of SARS-CoV-2 through successive passages in cell culture was refuted (Andersen et al., 2020). Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2but only on SARS-CoV in published and openly displayed international collaborations (Cohen, 2020). Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2." "There is consensus within the scientific community to consider that SARS-CoV-2 has not been engineered and is a naturally occurring virus. Therefore, it is simply impossible to voluntarily release an engineered virus which does not exist. There is thus no voluntary release (Calisher et al., 2020)."

So no. The lab would still have been subject to conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation. And proponents of the "benign lab leak" as they like to call it are still engaging in misinformation by overstating their case for it, publishing junk papers in junk journals, and cherrypicking "evidence" to support their pre-conceived conclusions (instead of looking at the whole of the evidence and trying to come to conclusions based on that). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:21, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, using people's opinions as a replacement for actual evidence, sometimes with the justification "they are experts", sometimes just "they are scientists", sometimes even "they are science journalists", sometimes "they wrote a letter to a top scientific journal". All worthless. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Actual evidence = WP:OR, other peoples interpretation of evidence = WP:RS. Ar85ar (talk) 02:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Seeing as how you think "somebody says so" is evidence, You are wrong. My evidence? I say so. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:50, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think "somebody says so" is evidence, I'm saying "somebody 'reliable' says so" is the grounds for being included in Wikipedia. What Hob Gadling described - and called 'worthless' - is the WP:RS policy. Ar85ar (talk) 04:13, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

There's a handy overview of the best sources at WP:NOLABLEAK. We should deffo stick to those (or any other similar golden sources which are published). Alexbrn (talk) 04:46, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theory" is not appropriate to describe mainstream speculation that the virus originated at this laboratory

Something to consider, that I didn't see explicitly spelled out already:

Please see this link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/05/13/1024866/investigation-covid-origin-wuhan-china-lab-biologists-letter/amp/

And this: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/24/us-should-dig-deeper-into-theory-that-covid-originated-in-a-wuhan-lab-ex-clinton-official-says.html

Imagine if the society of civil engineers called for an investigation into 9/11 controlled demolition theories. Or if a bunch of tenured political science professors called for an investigation into "Q Anon". Either situation would be absurd. Those are conspiracy theories. The lab leak hypothesis is not comparable.

We were never certain that it started in the seafood market. Until now it was the most prominent theory, and we still don't know the truth. The alleged vector (pangolin? seafood? etc.) was never proven; the "wet market" explanation was just that, a theory.

Only when something is universally accepted as true, can you call fringe takes "conspiracy theories". We're not there yet.2600:1012:B010:7C59:B589:189A:D86B:F067 (talk) 05:55, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Have you read the article? It says "conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation" (per the sources at WP:NOLABLEAK, the lab leak theory is either "extremely unlikely" or has "no evidence" to support it). You also seem to be quite a bit behind on the academic literature. The pangolin is unlikely to be the intermediate host; and current research seems to accept that the wet market was a likely an event which boosted the spread of the virus, but was not the origin. See Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2#Reservoir_and_zoonotic_origin. The Science letter is just a WP:PRIMARY source, as already discussed on other pages. Anyway, all of this would be entirely off-topic and UNDUE here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Bill Gates and his microchips and 5G conspiracies are a far cry from the lab leak hypothesis and should not be mentioned immediately before "unfounded speculation". How on earth can we continue to say this is unfounded speculation? A level 4 research center for coronaviruses isn't a KFC and there isn't one on every corner...but there just happens to be one down the street from where this started? A government that is currently being accused of committing genocide against their Muslim minority while giving the world a rosy portrayal of these camps, and isn't being transparent in all of this (even per WHO, their "collaborator"), and would be extremely incentivized to lie and blame a natural source to avoid what would likely be trillions of dollars in liability to other countries and a loss in reputation that would imperil their goal to be a superpower, and this is "unfounded"? The intelligence service of another country is in alignment with a nontrivial number of unaffiliated and prominent scientists, and says they have evidence that directly refutes the WHO report (November cases)? A president who is less openly hostile to China and by all accounts never "blamed China" (not the other guy, but the current US president) and until now accepted the natural origin theory, now wanting to "get to the bottom of all of this"? And it is "unfounded"??

If you read that someone is "addicted to Netflix and derelict in their career", you get a single impression of sloth. Here, with "conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation" combined, the reader is left with the impression that it's all lunacy. "Hey reader, Gates's microchip endeavor, the 5G whatever, and the lab leak are all of the crackpot theories, but here is the working theory that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt" (it in fact hasn't been and is also "unfounded speculation"). That is another issue with that last paragraph--nothing in science is ever "confirmed" or "proven", but instead is "highly replicated" or has "strong evidence". You seem to understand this, by the way you phrased your response. It is not right to say the updated report "confirmed" prior conclusions, especially after what has been disclosed recently. We still refer to highly replicated science as a "theory", because there always is the potential for further refinement--Newtonian physics was superceded by the "theory" of relativity, which has been remarkably resilient, but still doesn't explain everything. Thankfully, we had a "theory" of evolution, because epigenetics brought Lamarck back. All of that language is a nod to the perpetual incompleteness of science.

This article doesn't misstate any of these new developments--it omits them completely, while implying (with language not typically used in science) that the natural origin theory is the undisputed truth, that all other explanations are fringe lunacy, and that it is dangerous to even dissect those "fringe and conspiracy" theories. Since these glaring problems aren't being addressed, the article is getting the scorn it deserves.2600:1012:B001:1054:2880:67D3:29D4:9875 (talk) 16:36, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Re. Biden - see [4]. In short, further "calls for investigation" do not shift the balance in any way. As for theories being "superseeded", that's all fine, but on Wikipedia, we are academically conservative and we follow the consensus of the existing high quality sources, we don't lead it in a new direction. See Wikipedia's role as a reference work. Academic sources consider the lab leak as an extremely unlikely hypothesis, so that is how we describe it. We can describe political developments, of course, but that doesn't change the scientific aspect of this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:48, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

So let's describe political developments! We should say what you just said: "Though the lab leak hypothesis has been said to be 'highly unlikely', there have been calls for investigation by world leaders and a small number of scientists after unconfirmed American intelligence reports said that three laboratory workers at the institute became sick enough to be hospitalized in November 2019, though the sources said they could not identify their illness. President Joe Biden said that there was broad internal disagreement amongst America's intelligence agencies over the most plausible source of the virus." We should have something like that in the article. I appreciate that you found a spelling error in my response which was written on my phone on the toilet and trust that you are also being thorough (without being pedantic) with this article, but I think you may have a blind spot and not appreciate the ramifications of what the article lacks in its present state.2600:1012:B001:1054:2880:67D3:29D4:9875 (talk) 17:31, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Y Partly done I've added something about it, though of course this goes in hand with my comments about scope and not having the space to provide a full context here. The subsection already links to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 (where the calls for investigation and the WHO report are covered to much more depth) and to COVID-19 misinformation (where the misinformation is also described to more depth). See WP:SUMMARY for why we should only give a summary here and link interested readers to the more complete articles. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:04, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The present article that supersedes the old one satisfies my concerns. Thanks.2600:1012:B001:1054:2880:67D3:29D4:9875 (talk) 18:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I have absolutely no trust in anyone opposing the lab leak hypethesis over here [5]. Editors will keep saying it's fringe even if investigators actually find the petri dish that contained the virus. That's how stupid our self righteous team over at the fringe noticeboard is. RandomCanadian read that Time article, that's precisely what I told you back in February. No one listened. Feynstein (talk) 01:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Stop casting aspersions about "no trust". If you think that my opposition to the inclusion of the lab leak is because of Trump, you're mistaken. A Time article is clearly MEDPOP (especially when it can't even summarise its sources properly: the WHO report concluded that a lab leak was "extremely unlikely" - it didn't rule it out [as pointed out by the report itself and by reactions to it, further investigations of multiple things are still needed]: that doesn't change its status as a FRINGE theory, if you ask; it also uncritically describes Cotton and the Yan paper. In brief, entirely unusable for any scientific claims), and I have been abundantly clear on what acceptable sources are for claims about a scientific topic. The lab leak can be mentioned for what it is in relevant articles. Which is not here, since it would bring RECENTISM and UNDUE weight on one topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
  • @RandomCanadian: It wasn't about including something in the article, it was about why most of you guys still believe it's fringe. I don't know if you noticed how many mainstream media articles are popping up nowadays about it. [6][7][8] And still quote MEDRS and stuff. Quoting policies won't make us look better to our readers. There's a lot of people saying WP turned woke and is not reliable anymore. Precisely because of political stuff like what is said in the Time's article. Bonne journee bud. Feynstein (talk) 17:10, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/wuhan-lab-staff-sought-hospital-care-before-covid-19-outbreak-disclosed-wsj-2021-05-23/

205.175.106.86 (talk) 23:51, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Based on "the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report."; for which "A National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the Journal's report but said the Biden administration continued to have "serious questions about the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, including its origins within the Peoples Republic of China.""... Also, "The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed a range of views about the strength of the report's supporting evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed "further investigation and additional corroboration."" - this means this is, at best, a relatively weak source (at worst, it would be anything ranging from SYNTH speculation [the closest to a link with COVID we have is "A State Department fact sheet released near the end of the Trump administration had said "the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.""] to politicking and misinformation). This wouldn't really go in this article anyway. Also please avoid raising the same discussion at multiple talk pages? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:37, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, after looking here, it appears that China has a large and active program of biological weapons, and Wuhan is a part of it. This is the only official level-4 facility in China (although the source suggests there could be other undisclosed/hidden level-4 facilities). It does not mean that they actually worked with COVID-19 or produced it, only that they technically could, including genetic engineering of course. My very best wishes (talk) 02:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Any mention of that would likely need more sources (and better sources than a think-thank). As for genetic engineering (in regards to COVID), academic sources flatly reject that, many based on the analysis by Andersen et al.. Also the relatively recent (only a few months) review in Rev Med Virol. about conspiracy theories (of which genetic engineering is but one among many) and in Infect Genet Evol.. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I saw these studies. They only show that COVID-19 is related to other viruses and has a natural origin, just as all viruses and bacteria that were weaponized in the Soviet biological weapons program, for example. What people did in these old programs to develop biological weapons was merely an artificial selection, plus technology for delivery. This can not be detected or "rebutted" by bioinformatic analyses. These studies prove nothing. My very best wishes (talk) 03:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Without a source that says that it is more than utter bollocks, the best we can describe it as is, unsurprisingly, per WP:V, as utter bollocks. The Andersen paper seems to directly contradict that artificial selection could not be detected - it makes clear that the known features of the virus are signs of natural evolution, and that "the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

First of all, I personally agree with you that unnamed intelligence sources during Trump administration deserve zero trust, but it was so widely published in mainstream press that it needs to be mentioned on the page. Second, I am only trying to explain what exactly these scientific studies say and what they do not. The researchers found no signs that the virus has been genetically manipulated or that it was produced in the lab. Yes, sure. But it is widely known that all pathogens that were used in Soviet biological weapons program, for example, were not genetically manipulated. Actually, they even did not do selection, but just selected the most pathogenic strains (and extracted a "stronger" virus from bodies of people who died from the virus in the lab). Some of these strains were stolen from Western labs and transported by Aeroflot pilots. Maybe they are doing genetic engineering right now? I have no idea. I would be surprised if they do not. Now, Biden just requested new reports by intelligence [9]. Somehow I also have zero trust here, even if they find anything because this administration is even trying to block release even the Full Memo On Trump Obstruction Decision. My very best wishes (talk) 14:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: This in the Guardian puts forward a lot of information about politics, and also makes an interesting link with the Iraq war ("intelligence reports", UN-body investigation, ignoring experts). As I said in the section below, a few sentences about calls for investigation might be warranted, but we must not unduly promote it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Lab Leak Again

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Lab Leak Again --Guy Macon (talk) 04:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Lab leak hypothesis, and Graham and Baric (2020)

Graham and Baric say this about the lab leak hypothesis: Nevertheless, speculation about accidental laboratory escape will likely persist, given the large collections of bat virome samples stored in labs in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility’s proximity to the early outbreak, and the operating procedures at the facility (Zeng et al., 2016). Transparency and open scientific investigation will be essential to resolve this issue, noting that forensic evidence of natural escape is currently lacking, and other explanations remain reasonable. This contradicts the article's claim sourced to it, During the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation about the origin of the virus. Graham and Baric use the word "speculation" but not as a pejorative. The article uses "unfounded speculation," which is a pejorative. The article also fails to explain why, according to Graham and Baric, this is an "issue" that needs to be "resolved" through "transparency". It just dismisses tt all as a "conspiracy theory" instead. This is not NPOV. Geogene (talk) 03:56, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

That's misleading WP:CHERRYPICKING, since you must have deliberately left out this, which comes right before the portion you are quoting:

Anderson cites these genetic and biological data as strong evidence against deliberate generation, and the arguments are compelling. It is noteworthy that many early COVID-19 cases had not visited the Huanan wet market, suggesting that either the index cases occurred earlier and were not identified or that these sites were not major sites of epidemic expansion. How, then, did the virus emerge? Anderson et al. cite multiple lines of strong evidence that argue, instead, in favor of various mechanisms of natural selection, either in an animal host before the virus was transmitted to humans or in humans after the zoonotic transmission event(s). These possibilities will be reviewed below. Nevertheless, speculation [...]

And a few sentences before: "In light of social media speculation about possible laboratory manipulation and deliberate and/or accidental release of SARS-CoV-2, Andersen et al. theorize about the virus’ probable origins, emphasizing that the available data argue overwhelmingly against any scientific misconduct or negligence (Andersen et al., 2020)." I.e., in other words, the existing evidence does not support any allegation of misconduct (deliberate engineering) or neglicence (accidental release). Also consistent with other studies, such as those mentioned at WP:NOLABLEAK. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

You're cherrypicking, because if the "existing evidence" were adequate, then further transparency would not have been needed. And this is the inherent problem in MEDRS sourcing: if journalists at the world's best newspapers can't be trusted to interpret technical/scientific literature correctly, then why should we believe that a bunch of anonymous Wikipedia editors could do better? Geogene (talk) 04:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's your own WP:SYNTH. Even if somehow you can twist this to not explicitly say what it does (you don't need a PhD in virology to figure out the meaning of that paper), you'd still need to find an equivalent source which actually argues for the lab leak. Calling for more investigation is not "arguing for the lab leak", in any case. Such a source does not exist, hence per WP:NPOV we report the lab leak correctly as a fringe theory (in more details in other articles) which has gained some notability in the popular press. That some media seem to have recently taken up a very shoddy piece of "intelligence report" (see this for something that broadly lines up with my previous criticism of this, here - in short, and I'm going to pick a quote from there, the recent WSJ piece "is garbage, and has more red flags than a Chinese National Day parade.") is entirely irrelevant for purposes of NPOV. We use the WP:BESTSOURCE for controversial claims, and we can leave the media to their field of expertise, which is reporting events, not science. You're also ignoring all of the other scientific papers (not cited directly here because WP:CITEBOMB isn't helpful) which say basically the same thing, i.e. "SARS-CoV-2 very likely has a zoonotic origin, like previous outbreaks, and there is no convincing evidence to the contrary, although it can't be definitively ruled out" RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

SYNTH is what you're defending here. No, I'm not going to go have a look at WP:NOLABLEAK, because that's nothing but some WP editors' self-published blog. Geogene (talk) 04:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Calling for more investigation is not "arguing for the lab leak", in any case No, but it is inconsistent with "unfounded speculation" and "conspiracy theories". If it was unfounded then more investigation wouldn't be called for. Geogene (talk) 04:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

More investigation can also be about the many things which still aren't yet known, such as the intermediate host, the original animal reservoir (which took 14 years to find with SARS), ... Assuming it's about the lab leak is confirmation bias. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly clear what "this issue" is. Here is the quote again: Nevertheless, speculation about accidental laboratory escape will likely persist, given the large collections of bat virome samples stored in labs in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility’s proximity to the early outbreak, and the operating procedures at the facility (Zeng et al., 2016). Transparency and open scientific investigation will be essential to resolve this issue, noting that forensic evidence of natural escape is currently lacking, and other explanations remain reasonable. Geogene (talk) 04:56, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't go here, because going into enough details about calls for investigations would put UNDUE attention on that aspect here, since this is an article about the lab, not about geopolitical tensions that have been crudely heightened because of COVID. The relevant page is Investigations into the origins of COVID-19, which as you will see already has a significant paragraph on the thing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:35, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Why doesn't it go here, considering that WIV is now a geopolitical point of contention between China and the United States? [10]. Geogene (talk) 14:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Because this article is about the lab, not the geopolitical contention about it. We must also make sure not to focus coverage of the lab on only one aspect (COVID-19) of its history. Already a significant portion of the page is spent on that. We can maybe add a sentence or two about investigations in Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#COVID-19_pandemic (I see not even the WHO report is mentioned), but going into a long parenthesis about calls for investigation and intelligence reports would be dubious at best, misleading at worst, and certainly UNDUE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

What you just described, compartmentalizing POV, is better known as a POV fork. The current geopolitical controversy is probably the most notable thing that has ever happened at this otherwise obscure lab, if so it should be the bulk of the article. Geogene (talk) 15:02, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

POVFORK is trying to have different content about the same issue in different articles. WP:SUMMARY is what I'm referring to. Each article should focus on its scope. The scope of this article is the Wuhan lab, not COVID-19 and theories thereto related. We mention these because the laboratory has gained tremendous attention (notability) because of COVID-19. We don't put excessive weight on it here, however, because there are other, more suitable articles where the issue can be explained to a more appropriate extent and with sufficient context on pages which deal with these theories and the investigations into the origins of COVID. In all cases, all sections on all articles must conform to WP:NPOV and accurately depict these calls as being in support of an hypothesis which falls under WP:FRINGE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

If the scope of this article is the lab itself, not COVID-19, why is it calling the lab leak theory a "conspiracy theory"? Putting aside the fact that several MSM sources and even Politifact have now retracted the "conspiracy" label, that's delving into current events of the virus.141.156.238.241 (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The WIV is a world class institute of virology, and not merely an "obscure lab". It's a shame that there are less sources that discuss the work of the institute separate from the pandemic. I think "unfounded" is POV, as other virus leaks have happened from laboratories in the past, sometimes with serious spread. I think "unsubstantiated" or "uncorroborated" are less POV alternatives. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The WIV is a world class institute of virology, and not merely an "obscure lab". Which didn't even have an article until January 26, 2020 [11]. The edits were an improvement. Geogene (talk) 21:18, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

"A small number of virologists"

Where is the source for "a small number of virologists have called for further investigation"? Have virologists been polled on that? Geogene (talk) 15:40, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Do we have reliable sources for more than the 18 who wrote the Science letter? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:44, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

If you want the content added, then the onus is on you to provide the sources. Geogene (talk) 15:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Would you object to "...and a group of 18 virologists..."? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:46, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Only if those are known to be the only 18 virologists that believe an investigation is needed. Geogene (talk) 15:48, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Rather than me having to show that there are no other virologists calling for investigation, the onus is now on you to show that further language should be added. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:07, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Further language? You're the one that modify "virologists" with "a small number of". That's adding information to the article through greater specificity. You need sources for that information. Otherwise it's just an unsourced statement with political implications. Geogene (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I share RandomCanadian's view that the existing language obfuscates the limited number of "scientists with relative expertise" (thanks Darouet) that are noted in the sources. Since the present language is disputed I can either:

1. Remove the sentence entirely with the onus on you to build consensus for inclusion, or
2. Specify the number as a compromise to your objection to "small", until we find reliable sources that mention more scientists.

Which would you prefer? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:34, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)See [12]. There are a grand total of zero credible papers I have found so far which describe the lab leak as anything but (at best) "possible but very unlikely and so far unsubstantiated" [I have found uncredible papers for all sorts of things, ex. [13], but that doesn't mean we must false-balance stuff]. Yes, there was one letter in Science calling for further investigations. Using this to equate the number of virologists and politicians is misrepresenting the sources, when most sources report that the issue is heavily politicised despite overwhelming scientific consensus. "A number of politicians and scientists" implies that both of these are equivalently divided, when that is not the case. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:47, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

There are a grand total of zero credible papers I have found so far which describe the lab leak as anything but (at best) "possible but very unlikely and so far unsubstantiated" That isn't the same thing as saying there is no need for an investigation. Geogene (talk) 15:49, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

There already is a very large, international, and collaborative ongoing WHO investigation into the origins of the virus.

It is false to state that all 18 authors of this letter [14] in Science are "virologists:" you can verify this fact by looking up their bios, but in the letter they describe themselves as "scientists with relevant expertise." -Darouet (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification about "virologists". There being an investigation (more than one, really) does not contradict the quoted language from RandomCanadian. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:35, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Firefangledfeathers - thanks. I support the wording proposed by RandomCanadian. -Darouet (talk) 17:05, 28 May 2021 (UTC)