Talk:Origin of SARS-CoV-2

A questionable consensus

The following sentence and the mobillized sources are worth discussing: "The scientific consensus is that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting". This sentence is based on Andersen et al. using RaTG13, the closest known virus to SARS-CoV-2, but which has been exclusively studied by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is therefore no possibility for the rest of the scientific community to verify the information transmitted about it. Second, for Latinne et al. this is a paper that was primarily written by members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the EcoHealth Alliance, which has funded research on bat coronaviruses in that lab. But most importantly, RaTG13, again unverifiable to the rest of the scientific community, is used. So there is a problem in the diversity of sources cited here, but more generally, in the verifiability of the scientific information itself. Hence the calls in the press and Science to be able to verify this information.CyberDiderot (talk) 17:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

CyberDiderot, yes, and we accurately describe the hinderance of China into the investigation. The consensus is still that it was a zoonotic origin - there is no current evidence that is widely accepted and agreed with to suggest otherwise. The scientific consensus among all scientists is that it was likely zoonotic - even if there are a few who insist it wasn't based on flimsy evidence and illogical leaps of faith. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have misinterpreted the statements regarding RaTG13 as the sole justification either for this sentence, or the majority consensus view. RaTG13 is just the most similar to SARS-CoV-2 of many similar CoVs found in bats. We also don't claim that RaTG13 is the ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, it's also possible the ancestor virus is undetected. If you can point to a particular item you think remains unclear, I can clarify the article. Bakkster Man (talk)

WP:RS/AC says: A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view.... Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Could you point to where the cited sources make any direct claims about zoonotic origin being the scientific consensus? I have not been able to find that claim supported anywhere in the sources. Stonkaments (talk) 00:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:NOLABLEAK has plenty of MEDRS papers saying that the zoonotic origin is the most likely and that "scientific evidence does not support this accusation of laboratory release". I have not been able to find any MEDRS source which disputes this. Younes et al., Rev Med Virol say that "Researchers proposed two hypotheses for the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2: (1) Natural selection may have occurred in an animal host before transmission to mankind; and (2) natural selection of viruses may have occurred in humans after zoonotic transmission." Osuchowski et al., Lancet Respir Med similarly say " The most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 is natural selection of the virus in an animal host followed by zoonotic transfer." This letter in the Lancet is more explicit, saying "Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11, 12"; although, given the lack of conflicting MEDRS sources, I'm not even sure it's necessary . RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've just done a big search for further recent papers about COVID origins. There's nothing as in-depth as previously. The few papers I could find only repeat the same things as previously. [1] says "SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in the human population from a zoonotic spillover event."; so that's rather clear that this is the favoured position. This simply says "SARS-CoV-2 was originated from zoonotic coronaviruses and confirmed as a novel beta-coronavirus [...]" as an unequivocal statement of fact (whether we should do that is a bit more questionable - at least it lends more support to the idea). Other relevant articles mention the zoonotic origin as a matter of fact or very high likelihood without explicitly saying that it is "thought" of that it is a consensus. Of about 100 articles I could find running a query "covid AND origin" on Pubmed (limited to MEDLINE journals, reviews and systematic reviews, from 2021 only) - of which I read more than the abstract (or part thereof) for about a tenth of that, only one mentioned anything but the zoonotic origin (and what it did mention was the man-made theory, which it clearly marked as bollocks). As to your WP:OR criticism of papers by Andersen, ..., I'll note that that is entirely beyond our remit. One criteria for determining the reliability of sources is their use by other sources (WP:USEBYOTHERS), and the paper by Andersen et al. which you're referring to seems to be extremely well cited, more than 1000 times. Your claims about conflicts of interests and RaTG13 are all common talking points of lab leak proponents, but they don't change anything as far as MEDRS are concerned. Again, I failed to find any source which disputes that the origin of the virus is anything but zoonotic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I’m not seeing an explicit statement that a consensus exists in any of those, most likely =/= consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The letter in the Lancet is just that, although of course it needs to be judged as a primary, opinion piece (though it's from subject experts - since we include the letter about "further investigations", we might as well include this one). I'm not seeing any statement that there is a scientific (as opposed to political or otherwise) dispute over this, either. There are the calls for further investigation reported in the press, but that's already mentioned. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The Lancet letter was published in February 2020 and was clearly politically motivated (former NY Times science reporter Donald McNeil says that, at that time, "the screaming was so loud that it drowned out serious discussion"[2]). If that's the only source making a direct claim about the scientific consensus, I believe statements regarding a scientific consensus in the article need to be removed/revised. Stonkaments (talk) 14:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

That's a WP:SELFPUB piece (on medium, a self-publishing site) from a journalist. Anyway, as said, I still haven't seen a source which says that the preferred hypothesis is not zoonotic origin. If there is a legitimate dispute over which hypothesis is the favoured one, you should be able to cite MEDRS papers which argue that the lab leak is more likely. Otherwise this is just a minor quibble over wording. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:41, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't dispute that most scientists believe zoonotic origin is more likely—I agree with that. But I think calling zoonotic origin the scientific consensus is a step too far (per WP:RS/AC). I would support some variation of the suggestion below ("Most research published up until X has supported the theory that it is a zoonotic virus..."). Stonkaments (talk) 15:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Strangely enough I agree... But only that we shouldn’t be saying "scientific consensus” when there doesn’t appear to actually be one yet... The vast majority of work on the subject is still in progress and from what I’ve seen pretty much all sources treat currently published findings as preliminary. We can say something along the lines of “Most research published up until X has supported the theory that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting” but we shouldn’t get ahead of our skis. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

We could remove "consensus" if it really poses problems to use that particular word. Although, given what MEDRS say, we'd need to write something like "The vast majority of scientific research finds the current evidence supports a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Do we need to split the statement? There does appear to be consensus that there was not deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome, as per the WHO-China report. By extension, there appears to be consensus that the virus descends from a natural virus, with the exact pathway for the evolutionary gap and precise point of zoonosis being up for debate. Given this, I'd suggest it's only the "arose from bats in a natural setting" that's not yet fully settled (as growth in lab culture is not a "natural setting"). I suspect we can find a clear, concise way to explain this. For reference, here's the current language in the Investigations section: There are multiple proposed explanations for how SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into, and evolved adaptations suited to, the human population. There is significant evidence and agreement that the most likely original viral reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 is horseshoe bats, with the closest known viral relative being RaTG13. The evolutionary distance between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is estimated to be between 20 and 90 years, which each origin hypothesis attempts to explain in a different way. These scenarios continue to be investigated in order to identify the definitive origin of the virus. Better synchronizing these two paragraphs should be done. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm taking a stab at rewriting this, as we have two sentences in the lede which duplicate each other and depend mostly on older references. One thing I'm reconsidering from above is whether a lab leak would be considered zoonosis. The zoonosis article doesn't include lab culture, so I'm hesitant to make that connection now. So I think we need to go more with the 'emerged from an animal-borne virus' or similar. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Most sources say, without qualification, that COVID is either A) zoonotic or B) very likely zoonotic. We can alter the text to avoid the use of consensus if there are no sources which describe this as such (although many state "it is believed", "it is thought", ...), but we certainly shouldn't sacrifice the factual accuracy of the text because of that. A proper summary of the sources could be the sentence I proposed, "The vast majority of scientific research finds the current evidence supports a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Take a look at the current wording. Room to improve, I'm sure, but I think it's an improvement from before. We could add a sentence to the first paragraph about "zoonosis as a natural setting", and with the period between it and the sentence about the consensus I think that avoids any confusion about what exactly is uncertain. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

How about simply removing this sentence: "The scientific consensus is that the virus descends from an animal-borne virus." It essentially repeats the sentence that follows ("SARS-CoV-2 has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, suggesting it emerged from a bat-borne virus."), only with the more fraught wording of "the scientific consensus", and "animal-borne" versus "bat-borne" virus, which is more confusing to my ear. Stonkaments (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Strong disagree on changing the wording from "consensus." I think the sources are clear that it's a consensus. Even most of the scientists who wrote the letter to Science arguing for more investigation have admitted they believe zoonosis is the most likely scenario. We are betraying the reality and caving to non-RS if we remove the idea of consensus. There was a consensus early on, and it has not changed because there has been no new data.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:27, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Physiologically, there can no longer be a consensus since the pillars of zoonotic theory have fallen:

1) After 15 months and 80,000 animals tested, no intermediate host was found, SARS1 requested 4 months, MERS 9; 2) Ralph Baric admitted that himself could manipulate a virus with seamless technologies, not allowing anyone to verify if it is artificial; 3) With the last 3 doctoral theses of WIV students coming to light that demonstrate the presence in their archives of various unpublished sars-related backbones and their pioneering works with seamless technologies the same signatories of the letter for Science have revealed that they're no longer able to support natural theory with greater conviction; 4) The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other.

Francesco espo (talk) 00:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, first off this talk page is not the place for these discussions, it's the place for conversations about RS and what merits inclusion in the article. But since you so nicely numbered your points, I want to dispel some of the confusion. There are quite a few things you just said that are not true. I have a PhD in virology and have spent a great deal of time looking into those questions for academic and non academic purposes. But you don't have to listen to me, there are RS that back up my claims. For one, SARS1 took 1.5 years to find in civets and then a further 1 year until 2005 to connect to bats. Secondly, it took them much less time with MERS because the government of Saudia Arabia wanted much more to find the culprit animal so they could restore tourism to the country. They did a massive scale zoological review of every livestock animal, something China has not signaled any interest in doing. We need China to open its borders. But more to the point, there are two things that make the SARS1 and MERS situations distinct from SARS2:

A) Those two viruses have very high penetrance (meaning pretty much everybody who gets the virus gets sick)

B) Those two viruses had initial outbreaks with much lower case counts (which makes it easier to contact trace)

A and B make the epidemiological investigation process much easier. Makes it easier to trace to patient zero and find the suspect animal reservoir. Also worth saying that China hasn't allowed in international investigators to do that kind of sampling. As far as I can tell, no one is actually looking at the moment. Maybe internal Chinese scientists? But still very unclear. The way the Chinese government has locked down this work, and restricted the movements of Shi Zheng-li and other scientists in China, I doubt anyone is looking at the moment. Also worth saying it took 20-odd years to find Ebola (it should be quicker with SARS1) but experts absolutely have not said a natural reservoir should already have been found. That would be wild. Thirdly, I would love to see your sources on point 3, because I don't believe it is true from my knowledge of the subject. They may have had viruses in the freezer they hadn't published yet, but I have seen no evidence that they were conducting gain of function research on those viruses, such as manipulating backbones to make pandemic-potential viruses etc. That would be huge news, if so. Thirdly, several signatories of that letter have come out and said they do not believe equal weight should be given to the two possibilities, that they still believe the zoonotic theory is the most likely, but that they do think further investigation is warranted. I blame shoddy wording in that letter. But the authors do not believe what you've said they believe. To reiterate, this really is not the place for this discussion, but it grinds my gears to leave misinformation unanswered. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, FE’s point 3 is really two points, 1 which is that there were possible unpublished SARS-related backbones (Clade 7896), and 2 that they did pioneering work with some seamless technologies. These claims are not extraordinary, and are supported by primary and secondary sources, but there may be some WP:SYNTHESIS in putting them together, which he must be made aware of as a new editor. With the right sources, we can give them careful mention with WP:INTEXT attribution where they are WP:DUE, and I see that Bakkster Man has created a Sandbox for that [3].

You made a few good points worth discussing but before that, but please first reread the New York Times article you cited [4] and strike your comments saying several signatories of that letter have come out and said they do not believe equal weight should be given to the two possibilities and the authors do not believe what you've said they believe.. You should also reread the Science letter [5], as it clearly crititizes the WHO report in how the two theories were not given balanced consideration, concluding that We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. As the authors of the New York Times article say, the Science letter did not come down in favor of one scenario or another, and several of the signatories think it is more likely than not that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from an animal reservoir rather than a lab, which they correctly attribute as opinion, rather than fact. These scientists, regardless of their expert opinions, are making a stand for the scientific process, so I agree with CyberDiderot, that regardless of our WP:OPINIONs, we should adhere to WP:V and not proclaim a consensus where there isn’t one.

The only scientists who went back on their position were those who signed The Lancet letter proclaiming the lab leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory [6], including the eminent lead signatory Charles H. Calisher [7], who it turns out wasn’t even the author and should not have been put as the lead [8] [9], and the renown Bernard Roizman, [10]. There is also W. Ian Lipkin, who didn’t sign The Lancet letter but is listed as a coauthor of the Andersen et al letter in Nature and he made his [new] position very clear in this Spanish language RS [11] and this nonn RS [12] which was covered by the aforementioned WSJ article. The Andersen letter is dated and has lost some support, so it carries less weight than the newer Science letter, which has garnered more support, and represents a shift in consensus. With that said, neither the Science letter nor the Nature later constitute a consensus statement on which origin hypothesis is more or less likely, and we shouldn’t cite them as such. Nor do any other sources, medical or otherwise, constitute a consensus statement on any particular origin hypothesis. The only consensus is that there is no consensus.

What we have here is a scientific controversy which has shaken the entire scientific community to its core [13]. I don’t think Wikipedia editors - even with our PHDs and MSs - should allow our POVs to get in the way of covering this topic with a NPOV. CutePeach (talk) 09:38, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The only thing that latter showcases is that you should stop interpreting it, in this case not only because of the usual concerns with primary sources but also because both A) some of its signatories later clarified their stance (which, in either case, if you read the letter correctly) was never "lab leak likely" but rather "WHO investigation not thorough enough") and B) your interpretation of it is ostensibly wrong (see this in the Guardian, which says is explicitly; or this and this in Nature - which confirms what "most scientists" still think; or even the recent paper in Lancet Resp Med (cited elsewhere), which shows again that even new publications from after that letter still strongly favour a zoonotic origin. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: You're conflating "balanced consideration" with "equal weight". The latter incorrectly presumes the request was not to "more thoroughly rule out the unlikely possibility". Bakkster Man (talk) 12:48, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: What basis do you (or FE) have in saying that the Wuhan institute was doing pioneering work with some seamless technologies? Because I have seen no such evidence. And in particular, many people cite the "No see'm" technology as plausibly used in the virus, but this is not possible given the presence of the very restriction sites that necessarily would have to be absent for such technology to work. I have not seen any paper or evidence that WIV was experimenting with other "seamless" approaches to genetic engineering, or in fact that they were doing any genetic engineering of coronaviruses before the pandemic whatsoever. Please, if you have such evidence, I would love to see it.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: please put that Guardian article in the sandbox. There may also be articles from other sources with alternative POVs. We want to avoid source bias and WP:POVSOURCING.

@Bakkster Man: can you explain the context of your comment? Where did I conflate "balanced consideration" with "equal weight"?

@Shibbolethink: by pioneering work with seamless technologies, I was referring to PMID: 27170748, and I wasn’t referring to Golden Gate, Gibson Assembly or any other No See’m techniques, because we can’t possibly know what they were doing with the undisclosed viruses the WIV collected over the years. Talking of No See’m techniques, there are Sep 2020 statements from Baric to RAI [14], which were covered by multiple secondary sources that are more reliable than your Reddit post in the context of including what reputed scientists are saying. I don’t mean you any disrespect and I will try to read your Reddit post over the weekend to understand your POV, but we will still need to back it up with reliable sources, not all of which have to be medical. You can see the statements from DGG in this Arbitration thread to that effect [15], and I intend to place my vote soon in the RFC at WP:BMI on the application of MEDRS to this topic, calling for a new RFC in SARS-COV-2. I am in insider in the PH FDA, and I know a few details about the Dengvaxia controversy which are not in the press, and which could make for very significant changes to our article, but I just can’t do it. It's the same for the Ringworm affair and other controversies where science and politics are interwoven. CutePeach (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: I think you'll find I haven't used my reddit post as citation anywhere on wikipedia in article space, as it is not an RS. I like it that way. It's an opinion piece, with lots of RSes linked throughout. But it is still an opinion piece. I also have never suggested it be used in this way. Where in the article you linked do you see any "pioneering work with seamless technologies?" I don't see anything of the kind in that article. Just typical run of the mill virological techniques that everyone was using in 2016. I see basic restriction enzyme cloning, introduction of mutations to avoid early termination, etc. They literally had to insert mutations to make it work in a unidirectional coding, how can that be described as "seamless?" They had to mutate it to insert cloning sites at the point where ligation occurs to make it work. That's a seam. That is something we would notice in the SARS-2 genome if anyone had tried to engineer SARS-2. We would notice unusual cloning sites in places they shouldn't be. And as far as I know, no one has found any such sites in the SARS-2 genome. This method could not have been used. As an aside, Golden Gate cloning is not pioneering. It was invented in 2008 and truly "perfected" in 2012, but it was "pioneered" in 1996. It also is not truly "seamless" (it has certain requirements that make it noticeable in these genomes). It is "quasi seamless" because it still has to be put in between two known restriction sites that are preserved in the process, and it incorporates the overhang sequences of the other plasmids used in the process. This would not work for SARS-CoV-2, and it is not a viable explanation for SARS-2's genome, because the areas that people point to as "engineered" (AKA the furin cleavage site) do not have the restriction sites in the proper locations necessary for such a technique to be used. It also does not have any of the "recognition sequences" we would see if such a technique was used. See this quick check I just did on the earliest known sequence of SARS-2. It only has two of the known Golden Gate enzymes anywhere near where they need to be, and they are in the wrong places. If you tried to use Golden Gate cloning on this, it would do two things that make this extremely difficult: A) chop up the genome into little bits, and B) not insert the intended gene fragment in the proper location. In fact, when a group of scientists used this technique to rebuild SARS-Cov-2 infectious clones from scratch, they had to use specific other plasmids which contained those sites. And it did not create the virus genome, it created pieces of the genome across many different plasmids. That's what you'd have to do. And it's why this technique could not be used to engineer SARS-2 in any way. As an aside, I also don't even see any gain of function work there (unless you consider inserting GFP a GOF worth mentioning, which would be kind of missing the point). Basically, in order for your suppositions here to be correct, you have to believe WIV was inventing whole new methods of genomic engineering, hid it from everyone, and used it to make really dangerous viruses without any oversight, whistleblowers, leakers, etc. That is a conspiracy theory. You're literally alleging that a conspiracy was conducted to perform dangerous research in secret.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:37, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I realise you didn’t suggest we use your Reddit post as a source. I do want to read it as I value your opinion and I want us to improve the level of dialogue here in general. I am a public health professional in a developing nation with over 1.2m cases so I will only have time to read it on the weekend. Thanks! CutePeach (talk) 18:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: I appreciate your efforts to elevate the discussion here. And of course, your public health duties come first. Let me know if you have any questions about anything in that post, I'm happy to talk about it. It hasn't been updated to reflect the many new conspiracy theories being formed every day about genetic modification, but most of it holds true. You can trawl through my comment history for more up to date stuff if you're curious... Anyway, thanks for the dialogue and stay safe. I think it's important that we talk about these things in a rational and methodical way. As an aside, several of my closest med school friends have returned to the Philippines recently, and they are very concerned about the vaccination rate and which vaccines have been used. They of course are also concerned about Duterte's campaign to use SinoVac before it was approved by any international agencies. Overall a very unjust state of affairs, and my country is partly to blame. We bought up so many doses of the highest efficacy vaccines, which was truly an unjust move. I feel for every PH citizen (and Indian citizen, for sure) who has to die as a result.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: can you explain the context of your comment? Where did I conflate "balanced consideration" with "equal weight"? I can. This is the chain of conversation I saw, with emphasis.

• Francesco espo 4) The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other.
• Shibbolethink Thirdly, several signatories of that letter have come out and said they do not believe equal weight should be given to the two possibilities, that they still believe the zoonotic theory is the most likely, but that they do think further investigation is warranted. I blame shoddy wording in that letter. But the authors do not believe what you've said they believe.
• CutePeach You made a few good points worth discussing but before that, but please first reread the New York Times article you cited and strike your comments saying several signatories of that letter have come out and said they do not believe equal weight should be given to the two possibilities and the authors do not believe what you've said they believe.. You should also reread the Science letter, as it clearly crititizes the WHO report in how the two theories were not given balanced consideration, concluding that We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.

Hope that clarifies why I interpreted the comment as conflating the two concepts, regarding 'what the Science letter's authors believe'. Perhaps it's more clear to state that We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously is not the same as equal weight must be given to both hypotheses, nor is until we have sufficient data the same as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:35, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: I understand you now. My remark to Shibbolethink still stands. Signatories saying they believe the "zoonotic theory" to be the most likely does not support Shibbolethink’s prior claim that they do not believe equal weight should be given to both origin theories in an investigation. There is minimal differentiation between equal weight, and balanced consideration, in the context of the subject of this page. If this page was named simply Origins of COVID-19, then I’d understand why you want to draw the distinction between them, but this page is called Investigations into the origins of COVI-19, and we shouldn’t be describing things the way we are. My comments are in line with other editors in this conversation and others, and we should neither be calling accidental natural origins "zoonotic theory", nor should we be proclaiming a consensus where there isn’t one. Genetically modified crops also have natural origins, and we know better than to confuse them with Heirloom plants. We need to improve the level of dialogue here with proper scientific terms. CutePeach (talk) 18:04, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Now seems like a good time to remind you, CutePeach that "scientific consensus" does not mean (A) "what most scientists think" it means (B) "what is most commonly referenced and written in the consensus of the relevant scientific literature." What most scientists in a relevant discipline think can help us determine B, but it is not a replacement for B. WP:NOLABLEAK has a metric ton of WP:MEDRS that show most virologists, when publishing in peer reviewed journals, write that the zoonotic theory is most likely. It's also supported by several society statements (from WHO, etc) and other consensus-gathering sources. Secondary sources like this recent nature article are clear, the lab leak is a minority view. And, also worth saying, that wp:SCICON is very clear about minority views. They should not be given equal weight, only proportional weight.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:11, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The reminder that scientific consensus does not mean "what most scientists think" should be kept in mind by all editors of this page. Terjen (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: Signatories saying they believe the "zoonotic theory" to be the most likely does not support Shibbolethink’s prior claim that they do not believe equal weight should be given to both origin theories in an investigation. This seems to be the root of the misunderstanding/miscommunication. I did not read Francesco espo's comment as referring to the investigations being given equal weight, he appeared to be suggesting the Science letter suggested the hypotheses themselves and their likelihood should be given equal weight (the "no evidence" comment notwithstanding). And those are two very different things, which Shibbolethink was trying to clarify: the Science letter's calls for a balanced, open, and thorough investigation are not the same as suggesting the lab origin hypothesis was equally likely. I'm certain the authors differ in their estimates of likelihood, hence why we shouldn't make assumptions.

Looking again at the Science letter, emphasis added: Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident. This seems to best sum up the intended meaning of 'balanced consideration', a more equal number of pages spent on the topic in the report. Maybe you read the original comment of "The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other" differently than I did, but I agree with Shibbolethink that these two statements are different enough so as to be misleading. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is accurate to say that the intermediate host was found within 4 months with SARS COV 1. Animals infected with the virus were found shortly after that virus began to spread, but an animal was not confirmed to be the host until years later. With respect to SARS-COV-2, a number of animals have been found that have been infected with the virus, but none of them have yet to be confirmed to be an intermediate host. Dhawk790 (talk) 01:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment It's true that the scientific consensus is still that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin, and RandomCanadian summed this up well:

This letter in the Lancet is more explicit, saying "Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11,12"

That consensus is not dubious. -Darouet (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

While I agree this remains essentially the consensus (with the WHO report being the item that will be the primary determinant until something significant changes), it would be nice if we could find a more recent source similar to this one from March 2020. I don't want to stop citing this letter without a good replacement, but do find it potentially problematic because it appeared to be part of the chilling effect that limited the legitimate investigations and discussions on the topic. It's partly why, up until the WHO report was released, we made zero mention of the theory as anything but a conspiracy. So our view of the consensus has, at least, changed somewhat since this letter. So again, while I don't disagree with our conclusion on the mainstream view, a more recent source validating the view would be beneficial by being a cleaner, more recent reference. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other. This is not what the letter says. There's a significant difference between there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident and "there's no evidence", and between balanced consideration and "equal weight". Particularly the latter, weight in investigation (including access to raw data) is different from wikipedia WP:DUE weight. The Science letter is calling for what we all want, more conclusive data on the topic. But that letter alone doesn't really change the way we can write about the topic given WP:V. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, sorry if my paraphrasing is wrong, but i have to disagree with your reading of the Science letter. The letter says two theories were not given balanced consideration, which i have paraphrased to mean that both theories must be given equal weight in an investigation. The main point of the letter is to say that the WHO investigation is not credible if it cannot get an access to the data, and the WHO Mission chief said it was not even an investigation, yet this page is titled investigations. How do you propose that we cover the WHO investigation-not-an-investigation in Wikipedia? Is Wikipedia’ definition of DUE different to the standard English definition? Francesco espo (talk) 22:14, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, your paraphrase is wrong. The Science letter says that further investigation is required, and that the attention given to one theory was not sufficient, not that both theories must be given equal weight (that's wishful thinking). Given that some signatories of that letter came out later to say that while they support further investigations, they still agree that a zoonotic origin is most likely, and that their words have been misinterpreted by groups spreading misinformation, it's no surprise that we should treat this as a WP:PRIMARY source and give it very little weight overall, especially when we have better sources (review papers in prestigious journals) which say otherwise. After all, we follow, not lead, the consensus of sources. If that means we're out of date, that's fine, cause we are more concerned with verifiability rather than truth. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

There is no "scientific consensus" that the virus has zoonotic origin. This notion is patently false. The closest one could argue is that "preliminary conjecture has favored a zoonotic origin".

Most of what needs to be said in this discussion was all covered in CutePeach's first comment above. To add, beyond seamless techniques it's no secret whatsoever that Z Shi, Baric and their collaborators were well-versed in serial passaging. This is discussed in this article in Nature [16] in the methods section, the protocol being described here [17]. And yes these are primary sources, as is to be expected considering the circumstances. So indeed it's not at all difficult to imagine a scenario where human epithelial cell lines could have been used 'in vitro' to get a human-adapted SARS-like CoV to bind to ACE-2, be cleaved by human furin etc. This would have been in line with the other research being done by this group. It may be the less likely, but recognition of this possibility is certainly not "misinformation".KristinaLu (talk) 10:49, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

References

A bizarre lack of information regarding the lab leak theory

Given the fact that the origin of the virus has not been determined, it is extremely strange that this article focuses primarily on the theory of natural origin. As of right now there is very little evidence regarding a natural origin, and a growing body of circumstantial evidence pointing to an accidental lab leak. An extremely well researched article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ should be sourced, together with other material, to expand the section of the article regarding the lab leak theory. To do otherwise is to signal a strong political bias towards a narrative which has next to no supporting evidence. Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

my apologies, please replace all uses of the word theory with hypothesis Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article isn't as strong as other sources, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. We have (and cite) higher quality sources to explain the theory. We also have many sources indicating it is a minority opinion (even though the minority has good rational reasons for their perspective). As such, WP:GEVAL applies in how we explain the theory (and how much text we use to do so). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is led by a board of accomplished science and security leaders which informs their editorial staff. The article I linked was written by Nicholas Wade who was a writer and editor for the journals Nature and Science. Surely the article is just as valid as propaganda publications like the China Morning Post, mainstream news organizations like ABC news, CNN, Yahoo News, and speculative science entertainment magazines like Popular Science, all of which are referenced in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Nicholas Wade is known for a dubious book on race and intelligence, and has no relevant expertise in virology. His piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal which has no relation to virology and which is not cited much even in its actual field of expertise, is basically an unedited copy of a self-published piece originally on Medium. We have far better sources, like the WHO report and serious academic journals (Nature Medicine and the like) which describe the lab leak as extremely unlikely and not supported by evidence or prior epidemic outbreaks of coronaviruses (SARS, MERS). So no, Wade is not a credible source and we don't WP:FALSEBALANCE. We describe the lab leak for what it is: a minority viewpoint with little backing in academic sources which has gained political attention. See also this recent piece which seems to put the dots on the i's correctly in highlighting the political nature of this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I will also add this article from Nature, which provides a good summary. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01383-3 Dhawk790 (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The question is what more do you want there to be said than what is already in the article? The article already details that the lab leak is considered a valid, if less likely, hypothesis, which appears to be the consensus. If the circumstantial evidence in the Bulletin report is included then it would be justified to included the other circumstantial evidence about the virus potentially not even having originated in Wuhan. Above you can see a discussion about the potential of including that evidence and you can see that it was rejected based on the same criteria that is currently being used to justify the exclusion of some sources, like the Bulletin. There is an ongoing discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biomedical_information) about whether the criteria for what is allowed to be included should be expanded. Depending on the conclusion of that discussion, we may see more evidence for and against the lab leak hypothesis and for and against other potential origin points for the virus included.

EDIT: It is also worth noting that South China Morning Post is not state media. It is an English language paper published in Hong Kong. It's founding occured during the Qing dynasty. That is a common mistake, I think because it has China in its name. If you review their articles, you will find that they are frequently critical of the mainland government. Dhawk790 (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment: SCMP has been bought by the Alibaba Group. With that and recent political climate in Hong Kong, one can see it has turned more and more into a mainland mouthpiece. Sgnpkd (talk) 20:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the article is missing the following information regarding the lab leak hypothesis:

1) The place of origin. The two closest known relatives of the SARS2 virus were collected from bats living in caves in Yunnan, a province of southern China. If the SARS2 virus had first infected people living around the Yunnan caves, that would strongly support the idea that the virus had spilled over to people naturally. But this isn’t what happened. The pandemic broke out 1,500 kilometers away, in Wuhan. Beta-coronaviruses, the family of bat viruses to which SARS2 belongs, infect the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis, which ranges across southern China. The bats’ range is 50 kilometers, so it’s unlikely that any made it to Wuhan. In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation. If the bat viruses had infected some intermediate host, then you would need a longstanding population of bats in frequent proximity with an intermediate host, which in turn must often cross paths with people. All these exchanges of virus must take place somewhere outside Wuhan, a busy metropolis which so far as is known is not a natural habitat of Rhinolophus bat colonies. The infected person (or animal) carrying this highly transmissible virus must have traveled to Wuhan without infecting anyone else. No one in his or her family got sick. If the person jumped on a train to Wuhan, no fellow passengers fell ill.

2) Natural history and evolution. The coronavirus spike protein, adapted to attack bat cells, needs repeated jumps to another species, most of which fail, before it gains a lucky mutation. In the case of SARS1, researchers have documented the successive changes in its spike protein as the virus evolved step by step into a dangerous pathogen. After it had gotten from bats into civets, there were six further changes in its spike protein before it became a mild pathogen in people. After a further 14 changes, the virus was much better adapted to humans, and with a further four, the the epidemic started. But when you look at SARS2, the virus has changed hardly at all, at least until recently. From its very first appearance, it was well adapted to human cells. Researchers led by Alina Chan of the Broad Institute compared SARS2 with late stage SARS1, which by then was well adapted to human cells, and found that the two viruses were similarly well adapted. “By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV,”. Even those who think lab origin unlikely agree that SARS2 genomes are remarkably uniform. Baric writes that “early strains identified in Wuhan, China, showed limited genetic diversity, which suggests that the virus may have been introduced from a single source.” A single source would of course be compatible with lab escape, less so with evolution. The uniform structure of SARS2 genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature. The hallmark of lab cultures is uniformity.

3) The furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site sits in the middle of the SARS2 spike protein. Of all known SARS-related beta-coronaviruses, only SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site. All the other viruses have their S2 unit cleaved at a different site and by a different mechanism. A string of amino acids like that of the furin cleavage site is much more likely to be acquired all together through a process known as recombination. Recombination is an inadvertent swapping of genomic material that occurs when two viruses happen to invade the same cell, and their progeny are assembled with bits and pieces of RNA belonging to the other. Beta-coronaviruses will only combine with other beta-coronaviruses but can acquire, by recombination, almost any genetic element present in the collective genomic pool. What they cannot acquire is an element the pool does not possess. And no known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, the class to which SARS2 belongs, possesses a furin cleavage site. Bat SARS-related beta-coronaviruses don’t need a furin cleavage site to infect bat cells, so there’s no great likelihood that any in fact possesses one, and indeed none has been found so far. A predecessor of SARS2 could have been circulating in the human population for months or years until at some point it acquired a furin cleavage site from human cells. It would then have been ready to break out as a pandemic. If this is what happened, there should be traces in hospital surveillance records of the people infected by the slowly evolving virus. But none has so far come to light. According to the WHO, the sentinel hospitals in Hubei province, home of Wuhan, routinely monitor influenza-like illnesses and “no evidence to suggest substantial SARSCoV-2 transmission in the months preceding the outbreak in December was observed.” So it’s hard to explain how the SARS2 virus picked up its furin cleavage site naturally, whether by mutation or recombination. That leaves a gain-of-function experiment. For those who think SARS2 may have escaped At least 11 gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

4) Security and safety of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology: The state of readiness of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology considerably alarmed the State Department inspectors who visited it from the Beijing embassy in 2018. “The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable of January 19, 2018.

5) Dr. Zhengli Shi's experiments on humanized mice: Dr. Zhengli Shi's work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify that for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.) “Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice." It continues “We will use S protein sequence data, ingectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.” What this means is that Dr. Zhengli Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people. The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein. It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The article cites all of its sources. If the credibility of the article us undermined by the fact that Nicholas Wade published a controversial book then the information concerning the lab leak hypothesis can be cited directly from the sources listed in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comments:

1 is already presented on this page: The proximity of the laboratory to the initial outbreak has led some to speculate that it may be the entry point. RaTG13 was sampled from bats in Yunnan (located roughly 1,300 km (810 mi) away from Wuhan), and there are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province.

2 and 3 are not explanations exclusive to the lab theory. The 20-90 year evolutionary gap could be explained by undiscovered animal viruses and as yet undiscovered human adaptation (for instance, in a single immunocompromised individual [18]). Same with the furin cleavage site, lack of detection of a similar furin cleavage site to date in a betacoronavirus does not mean it is impossible to evolve naturally (see: [19]). But these are all reasons why we depend on secondary sources collecting primary studies, instead of listing every single paper that ever comes up with a possibility.

4 depends if you have a reliable source and the change won't give undue weight. Right now, nearly equal text is given to the four hypotheses the WHO evaluated (which is a significant rebalance from the WHO's report, which spent very little time on the lab hypothesis). I'd suggest that it's best to maintain that, meaning either adding additional weight to the other hypotheses, or pulling other potentially relevant info from the lab paragraph. The other three hypotheses have other details which have been summarized for brevity, and WP:NPOV means we should treat all four similarly.

5 is purely speculative, disputed by other sources, and has the same level of detail concerns as #4.

While credibility is certainly part of it, giving equal weight to the four hypotheses means we need to be selective about what we present about each of them. That the lab leak has a similar quantity of text (despite the mainstream view being that it's the least likely explanation) should be appreciated as something of a rarity, pushing for greater weight to be given to some theories would likely end up with those the mainstream considers most likely to get more weight (not the lab hypothesis) per WP:GEVAL. As a new editor, you would be well served by reading the policies and guidelines to better understand whether your recommendations are suitable for wikipedia or not. You may also consider editing pages on other topics first, to get a better understanding in a less contentious environment. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Why declare a "consensus" on the origin, given that all options are still open

Pre-break

As a scientific researcher (not a virologist), I feel puzzled to understand the hurry that Wikipedia editors have in declaring the virus to have a zoonotic origin.

Partly, this phenomenon is fueled by the unexplainable hurry that Andersen et al., 2020 had in trying to defend the zootonic origin immediately in March 2020. Then, the dominant segments of the international community (including WHO), arguably and justifiably fearing that a man-made likelihood would ignite racial biases, released bold statements in defending such premature hypotheses of a natural origin.

However, recent investigations by multiple expert bodies raise several questions on the hypotheses by Andersen et al., 2020. Especially, the work based its judgement on a series of assumptions that to date are not validated despite considerable research efforts during the last year (e.g. traces of intermediate hosts, etc).

When we talk about the likelihood of an event, we should be aware of the axioms of probability. Following Bayesian principles, a prior probability (i.e. natural origin hypothesis) should be altered following new observations (i.e. deriving a posterior probability).

My question for the Wiki editors is: one year after the publication by Andersen et al., - are there any new supportive evidences to validate its assumptions, or - are there more evidences to the contrary, i.e. that sampled evidence does not validate its assumptions?

As the question was retorical (it is obvious that researchers have now more questions and doubts given new data), then, at least the article should also alter its pitch. E.g. in the tone: The origin of the virus was initially thought to be zoonotic, but further recent evidences fell short in validating the initial assumptions. As such, the true origin of the virus outbreak remains unknown and diverse investigations are either planned, or ongoing.

In addition, personally I feel the pitch of the current article is a bit childish in essense. Because the virus can be both zoonotic and released from a lab, e.g. one possible likelihood out of many: a researcher taking a sample from a bat violates the safety protocols and gets infected. In that sense, stating the origin as "either zoonotic or conspiracy" seems uncomprehensible. The article does not differentiate a core concept: the biological origin of the virus (hypothesis: a bat virus), from the origin of the outbreak independent on the origin of the virus (hypothesis: a natural bat virus accidentally infecting a lab staff in Wuhan).

2003:C0:6F31:7E57:745F:555:D36D:8B88 (talk) 21:33, 31 May 2021 (UTC) — 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:745F:555:D36D:8B88 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The above is all WP:OR. You can claim to be whoever you want, but here on Wikipedia we rely on reliable sources. Papers published in peer-reviewed journals by virologists and experts in infectious diseases seem to agree that the virus very likely has a zoonotic origin. We report that. That this happens not to be the point of view of some politicians and that it is being promoted unduly (by cherry-picking [circumstantial, at best] "evidence" to fit a conclusion: the anti-scientific method) is misinformation, and you appear to have fallen prey to it. Researchers asking for more thorough investigation (including to more thoroughly determine a likely zoonotic origin, ex. [20]) does not change that. In any case, we follow, not lead, the reliable sources, and so far I haven't found a single credible paper which argues for the lab leak. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:58, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian Why did you revert the statement attributed to Biden, cited to Reuters? Your edit comment makes no sense in this context. It is relevant for the Biden Administration section that he has stated his national security staff does not believe there is sufficient information to assess one theory to be more likely than the other. It is not stated in wikivoice. Terjen (talk) 23:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: The problem is that while Biden's statement is notable (and I left it there), the reasons behind it make it so that too much text is being spend describing this. See WP:UNDUE, particularly the bit about WP:PROPORTION - we can mention the reports without giving them too much attention. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:17, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian We can condense the sentence to reduce the text while restoring their attributed significant viewpoint that there is insufficient evidence to determine either hypothesis to be more likely. Terjen (talk) 00:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian Having addressed your concerns about spending too much text, I suggest reintroducing the sentence as "stating his national security staff says there is insufficient evidence to determine either hypothesis to be more likely." Terjen (talk) 20:12, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

 Done Terjen (talk) 01:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

On the other hand, it appears we give this way too little weight given its coverage in WP:RS press. Terjen (talk) 00:59, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: The problem with that particular suggestion is that the popular press are reporting a (notable, but political) view which is very much at odds with that of the scientific literature, which is mostly giving short shrift to it. Hence we need to balance the coverage of science vs politics, and ideally not unduly report the view of politicians (who are not qualified to do such things) on scientific matters. We can mention the most significant events (objections to WHO report, letter in Science, Biden) without quoting them for opinions. Note that if we quote Biden saying that there's not enough evidence, we also need to quote scientists saying that the evidence we do have points to a natural origin entirely consistent with previous outbreaks. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

We could follow with a viewpoint based on e.g. this NYT article on President Biden’s call for a more rigorous investigation, with scientists cautioning against expecting an answer in the three-month time frame, and although becoming more open to expressing uncertainties about the origins of the virus, still noting the lack of direct evidence for a lab leak. Terjen (talk) 01:52, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not really sure that you are fully aware of the scientific discourse regarding the origin of the virus. The world's top-most scientific authorities recently sent a letter to the Science Magazine (published May 2021, link https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1) asking for an investigation on the origin and stating that "Yet more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.". The authors are leading scientists from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Yale, including the world's most knowledgeable experts on coronaviruses, and Science is the ultimate scientific venue. Please explain to the readers, what do Wiki editors know better than the experts in the field, given that you jumped into the conclusion of a zoonotic origin? Because, there is NO consensus among the scientific community in 2021 on the origin, contrary to the initial beliefs in 2020. At the current shape, this article is pure POV, unless it is rewritten from scratch to balance its tone in the form of "The scientific community has not reached a consensus on the origin of the virus".

P.s.: The letter of the scientists is not an isolated opinion letter, but came as a consequence of several research papers questioning the virus' origin. For an instance: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000240

2003:C0:6F31:7E57:9595:5CD6:5CFE:6A9C (talk) 08:25, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Thought I'd point out this opposing essay, written in response to the one you've cited. [21] Bakkster Man (talk) 12:06, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

A response to a scientific work is fine, and a healthy way of treating disagreements through scientific argumentation. What is not fine, is WP taking a side on the discussion (fanatically supporting the zoonotic version), while the experts have not reached a consensus. I assume there is no sane editor here, independent of his/her seniority that pretends to have the expertise of arguing against the 18 respected scientists from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. (top-most authorities in the field) who leave the leak version on the table, and heavily criticize the WHO investigation as biased. 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) 13:11, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to step back and figure out which facets of this question we're discussing, because it's easy to talk past one another. If we're talking about 'fanatical support', specifically meaning going to the extent of stating there has been no meaningful science performed or rational reason to believe the lab leak is possible/likely, then we probably agree. If we're talking about whether the majority of scientists believe that the virus was most likely natural in origin (even if that turns out to be wrong), and whether such a significantly held majority opinion is notable even though inconclusive, then we might disagree.

One of my major concerns (in both directions) is not overstating people's actual opinions, by reading something else into them. We've seen it with the recent Fauci comments, we've seen it with the Tedros comments, and we seem to be seeing it now with Baric and the Science letter: “I really believe that the genetic sequence for sars-CoV-2 really points to a natural-origin event from wildlife”.[22] I've found it better to discuss specifics, like what should actually change on the article, rather than broad strokes like "the Science letter is a monolithic opinion, the signers are the top in their field, and it was based on a particular paper in BioEssays" that don't appear to accurately reflect the sources. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The specifics would be: rephrase all sections where the zoonotic origin is qualified as being the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. Change to a smoother pitch, e.g. "While many scientists believe a zoonotic origin is the most likely outcome, others have declared that both a lab leak and a zoonotic spillover are viable options." 2003:C0:6F31:7E13:6D15:D6AC:83A6:6D0D (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The paper by Deigin (from that Twitter group) and Segretto is about a view (possible "genetic manipulation", involving furin cleavage sites [present in many other natural viruses]) widely held to be discredited by most relevant experts (Deigin does not appear to have any valid scientific credentials in any case, and is aslo part of a Twitter group who've been actively promoting misinformation about the origin of COVID...). The paper in Bioessays is, as the journal name implies, an essay and not a review paper, so a rather weak source for an exceptional claim. In addition, the claim it makes, that of genetic manipulation, had already been ruled out before it was even published by Andersen et al. (an influential paper cited by more than 1400 fellow scientists), see this (written by three [micro-]biologists), which explicitly (like many other more recent sources, including the WHO report) states:

In a Nature Medicine study, Kristian Andersen et al. 18 categorically refute the idea that the virus has been engineered, based on the comparative analysis of coronavirus genomic data. [...] Other epidemiologists have also publicly discredited theories that the virus emerged from a laboratory environment, although it cannot be ruled out entirely, highlighted by the active discussion triggered by the Nature Medicine study on PubPeer 20 and elsewhere.

So, the "paper" you cite is not really a credible paper (as I was saying, "there are no credible papers") nor can it be cited to support anything but the opinions of its authors (since it is an essay), whose view is not significant enough and is already discredited anyway. As to the Science letter, you're not giving all of the context behind that one, either (some signatories, such as Baric, support a more thorough investigation [to make all this nonsense distraction stop?] while also agreeing that the origin is most likely zoonotic). Also, per the same FEBS paper I was just citing:

Whether the now-infamous seafood market is the site that ‘patient zero’ or the index case became infected remains inconclusively known, but the scientific consensus on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is that, like other coronaviruses, it evolved naturally and was transferred to humans via an animal.

This is also in agreement with many more recent reports in the press (scientific or popular), for example:

• Taylor, Adam. "Analysis | The Wuhan lab-leak theory is getting more attention. That's because key evidence is still missing". Washington Post.
• Beaumont, Peter (2021-05-27). "Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far". The Guardian.
• Maxmen, Amy (2021-05-27). "Divisive COVID 'lab leak' debate prompts dire warnings from researchers". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-01383-3.

So I suggest you go read that (and look for scientific papers on PubMed, not Twitter) before arguing for false balance based on an extremely dubious paper. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

In addition the whole thing about an "engineered" furin cleavage site (as promoted in that essay you cite) is bollocks, see Talk:Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2#Rarity_of_Furin_Cleavage_Site_is_inaccurately_described_here for some credible sources on that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:30, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Yet several of those papers claiming the lab leak origin at not peer reviewed, plus their authors are known cranks who advocated against masks and vaccines. See here.--49.195.5.107 (talk) 12:01, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect, the BioEssays journal is peer-reviewed. Personal allegations against scientists outside their technical work are not an argument we should seriously consider. Especially, given that the Science letter authors are the most respected scientific authorities in the field. 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) 13:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC) — 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Reviewed or not, it's an essay which argues for a discredited position. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

David Gorski has a look at the lab leak idea on Science-Based Medicine [23]. The start of the article is great:

whenever there is a major outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic of infectious disease, one conspiracy theory always—and I do mean always—arises. That conspiracy theory is that the causative microbe was developed in a laboratory and/or escaped a laboratory. HIV, H1N1, the original SARS, Ebola virus, every single one of them gave birth to such conspiracy theories.

Read the whole article. This is how real experts handle that sort of stuff, and this is the attitude Wikipedia should take. Use Gorski as a source, ignore all the ignoramuses, be they named Biden or Wade, and all those people who have nothing except opinions. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

See also WP:ARSEHOLES - opinions are just that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I’m not sure “Here! Just use this relatively obscure blog!” is the appropriate response to this... Science-Based Medicine =/= science based medicine. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:21, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

SBM isn't "obscure" AFAICS. Although, as I've said, we should use better sources if available (recognising that many of them do not waste their time with this shit). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:28, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Thats why I said “relatively obscure.” I don’t mean to hate on them but its just a very odd response to say "Use Gorski as a source, ignore all the ignoramuses, be they named Biden or Wade, and all those people who have nothing except opinions.” I don’t care how great Gorski is thats just not right and not how things are done here. I would also note that the vast majority of what Gorski writes on the blog is explicitly presented as his opinion, its just not on the same level as good peer reviewed work (whether it be by Gorski et al or anyone else). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I broadly agree. He's presenting the skeptic's point of view, which is not necessarily the same as WP:NPOV or the majority's point of view. And, as I've suggested elsewhere, it can be viewed as being in opposition with the WHO study we have (as of late) cited as indicative of the majority view, not in agreement with it. At least, for the quote it's used for. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

"From the very beginning, the general scientific hypothesis has been that, while it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab, it’s far more likely that it had a natural origin." seems to be in broad agreement with the WHO report, at least as a conclusion. Of course, we have better sources than Gorski for that, and the rest goes better in the article about misinformation to debunk the misinformation, as I've said. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:50, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Note that I didn't say it couldn't be used as a source which was WP:NPOV, only that the the two weren't so synonymous that we could pick any quote from the article and claim it was WP:NPOV. Notably the "in essence, a conspiracy theory" quote proposed at COVID-19 misinformation.

Otherwise, I think we agree: we have better sources than Gorski for that. We have good WP:SCHOLARSHIP to cite for most of our claims, and Gorski's debunking is most useful for the context surrounding the who/what/when/where/why of misinformation spread, leaving those strong MEDLINE secondary sources to describe what is actually misinformation. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

not how things are done here Actually, ignoring laymen's takes (Biden and Wade are laymen) when we have sources written by scientists working in the field the article is about is exactly how things are done here. Of course, if there are sources which are even better than Gorski, we should use those, but we should not use pieces written by people who are not professional medical scientists, since they are worse than Gorski. Science-Based Medicine is categorized as a reliable source in WP:RSP, and they are experts on medical fringe topics, which this is. Wade is just an expert on writing books the scientists he quotes in them disagree with, and Biden is just someone who was more popular than a <accurate but very unencyclopedic expletive deleted> last year. Why anyone would be interested in what they think on this subject is beyond me.

Also, Gorski analyzes exactly those sources that fervent lab-leak proponents, fervent the-lab-leak-idea-is-plausible proponents, fervent the-lab-leak-idea-is-not-fringe proponents and fervent fence-sitting proponents have been pushing here for weeks. What he writes is not just a soundbite, like an out-of-context Fauci quote some journalist decided to amplify. It is a thorough analysis of the most crucial sources on the lab leak idea, and that makes it better than the usual boring, shallow, superficial show-of-hands crap which will tell you only who likes the idea and who does not, and maybe how much they like or dislike it, but ignores the actual reasoning behind the positions. Quoting the reasoning will be useful to those readers who are smart enough to decide based on reasoning instead of just following or opposing whatever the majority says, following or opposing whatever the Republicans say, or whoever else, depending on one's taste.

The "it's just the skeptic POV" reasoning is a trope everybody who edits fringe articles knows well: "homeopathy does not work? that's just what the skeptics say!" Skeptics are just scientists who look at fringe ideas instead of ignoring them. Dismissing them because they can be pigeonholed as skeptics is just a red herring. Reliable source is reliable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:20, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I believe that we are facing a couple of orthogonal arguments that overlap in the previous posts, which is a good indication of the complexity of the issue. The first reaction I see is avoiding the direct opinion of a large number of scientists that ask for a thorough investigation and state that a leak is a viable option. This reputation of these 18 leading scientists is in my understanding a clear argument in that "there is no clear consensus on the origin of the virus by the scientific community".

The second point I find problematic is trying to give a false sense of "a majority of scientists" supporting the zoonotic nature. The correct statement would be that "initially there were more scientists supporting the zoonotic option compared to those opposing it", however, we are referring to a very small minority of voices compared to the whole spectrum of relevant scientists in the world (few dozens of supporters, fewer opposers, and the absolute majority undeclared). What is interesting to see that the recent trend is for more opposers to raise their questions, given that the arguments of the supporters do not clearly hold as more data coming out.

The third point is asking for "publications" in support of a lab leak. Such a line of reason is flawed because we cannot have a team of virologists drawing conclusions on a potential leak from a lab without access to the site, analyzing local samples, etc., which China is denying access to. Raising questions is the most that doubters can do in the absence of an investigation.

The last point is trying to frame opposers, or doubters, as "discredited" individuals, fools, or crazy conspiracists. The ironic point is that such non-scientific personal allegations are done by the side which fanatically believes to be the "holder of ethics and truth". It is clear that the nervousness arises because the long-believed zoonotic "truth" is being seriously questioned in the last two months, by all stakeholders, scientists, activists, politicians, supranational organizations, etc.

The bottom line is: There is no scientific consensus on the origin of the virus, and to date very little is known on the exact details of the spread of the virus. Wikipedia should reflect this and not fanatically support a zoonotic origin, which unlike in 2020, does not anymore convince the scientific community in 2021.

2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) 14:34, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

"large number of scientists" - 18 is not a "large number"; and that statement would also be inconsistent with the lack of scientific papers which view the lab leak favourably. "The third point is asking for "publications" in support of a lab leak." - yes, exactly, see WP:V and WP:VNT (and avoid your personal WP:OR criticism). "There is no scientific consensus on the origin of the virus" - outright wrong; again, see the cited sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Could you please share what is your personal threshold for the smallest number of top-scientists that qualify for your definition of a significant cohort? 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:745F:555:D36D:8B88 (talk) 17:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on you to show that there is a "significant amount" of scientists who disagree with the consensus statement. That can only be done by presenting verifiable, peer-reviewed papers which show that this is actually seriously disputed within the scientific community, not by making WP:SYNTH as to what is a significant number (especially not when some of the signatories of that letter don't even agree that a lab leak is likely, ex. Baric). As I've said, all of the sources I have found say that the scientific consensus is a natural, zoonotic origin, as with previous CoVs. If this were truly disputed, it should be trivial for you to find credible sources in quality journals which put forward a contrasting view. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:24, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The 18 scientists among the most respected authorities in the field and the top institutions are in my understanding a "significant amount" of scientists. The letter co-signed by all of them states that "Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable.". As a result, either we deduce that there is no consensus on the origin of the virus, as these scientists explicitly claim; or we have to accept they are an irrelevant part of the scientific community (despite being top professors and researchers at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, etc.). As they further iterate "We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.". I see two options i. you and/or other editors apparently are more informed and knowledgeable than these top scientists and have done a better screening of the related publications, or ii. that the related work does not conclusively support your stance. In any case, it is of paramount importance to highlight the fact that the community has not reached a consensus on the origin of the virus. Attempts to shortcut a conclusion at WP are really hard to comprehend. 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) 19:24, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The alternative conclusions are that A) you are trying to take one (WP:PRIMARY) letter and use it to override all of the other sources on the topic; B) you are disregarding sources which don't fit with your narrative (for example, the documented reactions from some signatories saying that they believe a natural origin to still be the more likely hypothesis, and that their signing of the letter was more a call for further, more thorough investigations); C) you are not able to produce a WP:SECONDARY review paper which agrees with this assessment because it doesn't exist and D) you are full well aware of our policies against soapboxing, and you are doing it nonetheless. Since we, on Wikipedia, are biased, towards academic, peer reviewed litterature, and since you have failed to provide sources which disagree with the fact that a natural origin is still the scientific consensus, well then it is not possible to change the existing article text in that aspect. Again, it should be trivial, if they exist, for you to provide us a peer-reviewed review paper which makes clear that a lab leak is a serious hypothesis and not merely an "extremely unlikely but not ruled out yet" one. Failing that, you can go right back to other sites. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:33, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Ignoring all your personal allegations and moving to the point: Does this letter express the stance of a relevant segment of the scientific community? If yes, then why twist the fact that the scientific community has not reached a consensus? I do not deny the existence of opposing views and publications on all sides (admittedly few more peer-reviewed on the zoonotic side). However, opposing views are at the core of any disputed theory with no consensus and no evidence to support any version. I do not comprehend why should we give you more publications (although I actually gave one above), only because you do not fancy considering the explicit stance of 18 top scientists in the field as relevant. A significant fraction of the scientific community is not accepting the consensus on the zoonotic version anymore in 2021, as these top scientists *explicitly* stated in the Science letter. Should we reason a consensus by our personal and amateur analyses of virology publications, or agree to use directly the explicit statements of a relevant part of the scientific community which explicitly deny that a consensus on the zoonotic origin is reached. 2003:C0:6F31:7E57:A506:11F9:ECEA:43E4 (talk) 19:50, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Take a moment, and read all the previous comments, where the concerns about that letter (including it being a primary source, and so on so forth) are already addressed; and where reliable sources which explicitly state what the scientific consensus is are provided. I'm not going to reply further until your comments show evidence that you've actually done that, rather than being evidence that you're not listening. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:00, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I have already read the above comments, but they do not directly target the point. You and other peers defended the zoonotic origin and cite papers supporting that stance. The existence of zoonotic supporters (scientists and editors) is not the dispute here. What we argue is whether there is only one view (zoonotic) that is shared by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, or whether there are two, or more. The science letter is a direct primary source by a fraction of the community that categorizes more than one option as viable. It is direct support for the argument that the community (by its own explicit declaration) has not reached a consensus. As it is evident that a consensus has not been reached, I propose rephrasing the article from a one-sided "zoonotic fan-club" pitch, to a more balanced and accurate tone, e.g. "While many scientists believe a zoonotic origin is the most likely outcome, others have declared that both a lab leak and a zoonotic spillover are viable options."

2003:C0:6F31:7E13:6D15:D6AC:83A6:6D0D (talk) 20:51, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that there are not two competing views. What is argued is that one of these views falls under WP:FRINGE (i.e., it is a view which significantly departs from the consensus of experts within the relevant field). See this for more details and how we need to handle this. In short: politics = fine, can be mentioned, due to notability; science = care taken to not unduly legitimise a small minority opinion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:53, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Our disagreement is then rooted in your characterization of 18 top scientists as promoters of WP:FRINGE, by "supporting a view that departs from the consensus of the experts in the relevant field". However, WP:FRINGE is not applicable as there is no consensus in the first place, from which to depart. As these scientists define the notion of "field experts" by virtue of their prestige and expertise, then by definition they cannot depart from themselves. 2003:C0:6F31:7E13:6D15:D6AC:83A6:6D0D (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@2003:C0 For what it's worth, I'm also a scientific researcher at a R1 university in the US, and the talk among my friends and colleagues (professors, research scientists, post docs, in a variety of scientific fields; very smart left-leaning people with PhD's, though no virologists) is that the lab leak is plausible. Some think lab leak is more likely, and some think zoonotic is more likely (I'm in the zoonotic camp, but barely). Lab leak is simply not a fringe idea anymore. RandomCanadian, you would be well-served to just go any science department at the nearest university and ask around; I think you would be surprised at what you hear. We see a dichotomy: scientifically minded laypeople tend to dismiss the lab leak because it was outside the overton window until recently, but actual scientists with PhD's are open to the idea, because they know the messy and uncertain way that science and the academic system works. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 22:50, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Then your friends propably also think it plausible that HIV, H1N1, the original SARS, Ebola virus were lab-leaked? It does not matter what your friends believe when they sit in their armchairs. It does not even matter what the people who actually look at the evidence and are actually competent to look at the evidence believe. Only the results of their investigations matter. The better the job they do, the less their beliefs will influence those results. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

No, professors and research scientists that I know do not find it plausible that those other viruses are lab leaked. They do find it plausible that SARS-COV2 was lab leaked. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 01:13, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

When your friends are finished strutting and boasting their perfectly ordinary and boring academic accomplishments which make them par with a few Wikipedia editors (or maybe it is you who is doing the boasting for them), you can tell them that as soon as they do actual science which shows that the lab leak is plausible, publish it in an academic journal, and get it accepted as mainstream, Wikipedia can use their results. Until then, bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Hob, I know you are doing your best to combat misinformation. That is an admirable goal. There is a lot of misinformation surrounding covid19, and there are a lot of obnoxious anti-science people who latched onto the lab leak theory for the wrong reasons. But you're on the wrong side on this one; currently the scientific consensus is that lab leak is a plausible hypothesis (not certain, not most likely, simply plausible). Now I'm sure you have all sorts of wikipedia policies to counter whatever I say, perhaps by redefining "scientific consensus" in some wikipedia legal manner, or playing games about which sources count in wikipedia and which don't. I'm not equipped to argue with you about this; surely you know more about wikipedia than me and would easily win. But I've been honest with everything I've said here so far. I ask you to take a moment and honestly think about your position in light of all of the new information that has come out over the last several months. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Except that's already what is in the article: the lab leak is possible, but deemed unlikely by scientists. I don't see what else needs to be changed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:17, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

You mentioned "all sorts of wikipedia policies", but you do not seem to understand that they are there for very good reasons. A scientist's opinion is always based not only on scientific expertise, but also on personal political, religious, and ideological motives and on what the media choose to tell them. Your IP address shows that you are in the US. At the moment, the US media are permanently firing against China, using the lab leak idea as a weapon. (As an aside, I despise authoritarian governments like the Chinese one, but the reasoning used against them should be sound.) So, how can you know that the reason your friends think like that is purely scientific and not influenced by the peculiar US parochialities? Do you know what scientists in other countries think? Scientists' opinions are simply not reliable enough as sources for Wikipedia. Remember, they are something that needs to be filtered out by scientific methods! That is why Wikipedia demands secondary scientific sources instead of just people who are equipped with academic grades, but get the same media-preselected information as everybody else, answering "what is your take on this" questions.

There is a consensus about anthropogenic global warming. I guess you heard the number 97% at some time. That was one of several studies looking into the question. It was determined not by asking scientists what they think, but by looking at what scientific studies said. This is how scientific consensus is determined. Also, this article is called Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and not Opinions on the origin of COVID-19.

We have good sources for "possible, but unlikely", but "plausible" is vague. Is something plausible if it is "possible, but unlikely"? Or does it need to be more than a distant possibility? You sounded as if you are using the second definition. The word "plausible" is not good enough to convey an exact meaning. So we will keep the "possible, but unlikely" wording, as RandomCanadian says. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Your misunderstanding of that letter is still apparent. Supporting further investigations is not fringe. Using a letter, which some of the signatories said themselves is being used for misinformation by people promoting the lab leak, to argue that the lab leak is not "extremely unlikely", is misleading, AND fringe under the sense of the policy. As for your WP:OR of what constitutes consensus and what does not, it is irrelevant, since we do not allow original research. There are sources, from after that letter, given here, from reputable popular and scientific newspapers (Guardian, WaPo, Nature) which explicitly describe the current position as that of a consensus. That you think it isn't one, is, as I have said, irrelevant, since per WP:NPOV, only the opinions of sources matter. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:56, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

We have reliable sources backing that some influential scientists have found the WHO-China report's dismissal of the lab leak hypothesis difficult to accept and have become more willing to voice an undecided position on the origin of the virus. Such as this recent article by Carl Zimmer in New York Times. Terjen (talk) 23:15, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

That brings us back to WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:SCIRS (or MEDRS, nearly same thing) and the description given at WP:MEDFAQ ("Why can't I use articles from the popular press?" - replace medical with "scientific" or "biomedical" and the same concerns still apply). There is a tension between academic sources and the popular press. How we deal with that is a difficult question, but policy suggests we should give precedence to academic sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:23, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

In this case, it's not really a concern that readers may make incorrect medical decisions based on scientists' assessment of the origin of the virus. New York Times science journalist Carl Zimmer is well qualified to take the pulse on the scientific community. Terjen (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS sources (in this case, review articles in high-quality journals) are what are needed to determine the scientific consensus. There's no reason to put popular press articles above MEDRS sources, particularly when the popular press is expressing views that are explicitly contradicted by the highest-quality MEDRS sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Please submit your strongest WP:MEDRS source that as required by WP:RS/AC directly says there is a scientific consensus. Terjen (talk) 20:15, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

There are many sources which say that explicitly. The strongest source among those already identified (I haven't found anything so far which contradicts this) would be the article in Nature by Maxmen et al. (a reputable scientific publisher). The alternative would be asking us to prove a negative (that there are no papers which dispute this). Alternatively, we can also make clearer the distinction between scientists and politicians (as reported here - interesting read). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:40, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Hold on: The Maxmen article in Nature does not directly say there is a scientific consensus, as required by WP:RS/AC. It mentions consensus twice, but these refer to consensus in strategies for health management and consensus among powerful countries. For us to state there is a scientific consensus, it should be trivial to provide solid articles explicitly stating it. If not, we shouldn't be among the first to make the claim. Terjen (talk) 21:19, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

A sampling:

• a few scientists believe that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulations of SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses... Most researchers agree that bats or pangolins are the primary reservoirs of coronaviruses, but the transmission route of SARS-CoV-2 to humans from this primary reservoir is still under study [24]
• All human CoVs have zoonotic origin and are capable of transmission among mammalian hosts; however, most CoVs originate in bats and are transmitted to humans through domestic animals (Forni et al., 2016; Su et al., 2016). Thus, bats are considered the natural host and primary reservoir of human CoVs (Cui et al., 2019). [25]

Worth noting, it appears that most sources simply leave the possibility of a lab origin unmentioned unless specifically countering such claims, suggesting such claims of majority perspective are accurate (as WP:RS/AC suggests). I'd be interested if a similarly strong source contradicting the claim that those favoring the lab hypothesis as likely (not merely 'viable' or 'possible') were a minority could be found. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:56, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

There is no mention of consensus in the samples. Per WP:RS/AC "any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors." Terjen (talk) 21:28, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

If we interpret that to mean the source must say the word 'consensus' explicitly, then I'm not opposed to "most"/"few". Bakkster Man (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

reply to the preceding comment by Terjen

Conspiracy theories and speculations about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are not quite as innocent as they might seem. In addition to fuelling existing political tensions and racist bigotry, the active promotion of the lab leak by some "aggressive proponents" has lead to the bullying of scientists (including the creation of attack pages, subsequently speedily deleted, here!) and to more difficulties in collaborations (already difficult) with Chinese ones... We ought not to give these people more credence than what they have in academic sources. The article by Zimmer, nevertheless, also makes clear (in it's header, at that) that while scientists support more thorough investigations (which kind of scientist would not?), they also still agree that "the so-called lab leak theory is unlikely". So, we have multiple sources, from a broad spectrum (newspapers to WP:PRIMARY letters to WP:SECONDARY reviews to in-depth investigations like that by the WHO) saying that scientists A) support investigations (the WHO report also supports this!) [not necessarily related to the lab leak, see for ex. [26]) but B) do not consider the lab leak to be likely. I don't know what more we need to make an accurate article which satisfies NPOV - scientists agree that the matter needs further investigation, but that a lab leak is not a likely scenario (hence, it is still fundamentally at odds with the prevailing view within the scientific community - as evidenced by the quotes from many scientists - so gets treated under WP:FRINGE (which is a broader definition than that of the regular meaning of the word "fringe")). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:41, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The intention of WP:Fringe is to avoid that Wikipedia becomes the validating source for non-significant subjects or a forum for original research, which doesn't restrict us from representing other significant views than what some may consider the "prevailing" one. The Carl Zimmer article substantiates undecided as a significant viewpoint among scientists: "After long steering clear of the debate, some influential scientists have lately become more open to expressing uncertainties about the origins of the virus. If the two most vocal poles of the argument are natural spillover vs. laboratory leak, these new voices have added a third point of view: a resounding undecided." The article documents a range of views rather than a consensus, including quoting Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki stating "There’s so little evidence for either of these things, that it’s almost like a tossup." Terjen (talk) 01:49, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

You are proposing to ignore a perspective supported clearly by a significant segment of the scientific community by an explicit letter, and instead propagate a consensus stance, only because it serves a subjectively perceived social good. However, advocating anti-fringe for the sake of a social justice warrior's agenda is not in line with scientific rigors of truth above all. It is very evident and well supported that the community has no consensus on the origin of the virus. Automated dry replies of the form "No, that is not true.", ignoring the explicit content of a letter by 18 top scientists do not help this dicussion. Furthermore, you are misreading the letter at Science, which explicitly states that "We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.". On the contrary, you imply that the letter states a leak is extremely unlikely, which in my reading of the letter is incorrect.

2003:C0:6F31:7E13:9595:5CD6:5CFE:6A9C (talk) 11:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

You, on the other hand, look like exactly all of the other lab-leak SPAs, and you are also engaging in WP:OR by interpreting a WP:PRIMARY source (the letter). WP:PRIMARY explicitly says "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.". We prefer WP:SECONDARY sources, and these say that 1) the scientific consensus is still "natural origin" - sources already provided above - and 2) that the letter is being misused by aggressive proponents of the lab leak (such as you and your Twitter friends) - quote: "Nonetheless, some aggressive proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis interpreted the letter as supporting their ideas.". In addition, many note that all of this diplomatic finger-pointing is needless distraction from the actual problem, which is dealing with the virus right here right now (where it came from is actually a purely "academic" debate now - it won't help with fighting it), preventing future zoonotic viral outbreaks (these happen all the time. Recent example: Influenza A virus subtype H10N3), and improving biosecurity rules - all measures which require collaboration. Reliably sourced statements from high-quality secondary sources, and not selective context-less reading of primary sources, is what is required. Until you've demonstrated a willingness to look for better sources and stop engaging in WP:OR, I'm not going to feed into your feedback loop (nor tolerate your ad hominems - calling my a "social justice warrior" implies a lot more things about you than you might think). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:34, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I never supported the lab leak theory in any of my statements or comments (although supporting it is as honorable as opposing it IMHO, as long as it serves the truth), I just insisted that scientists believe it to be a viable hypothesis. However, your expressed opposition to one side of the argument makes you biased and unqualified to treat this topic impartially. I find the remaining personal insults unworthy of any further consideration.

Instead, I have the right to demand (sadly not from you anymore) that the truth about the scientific community's lack of consensus be reflected in this article. The sources on the divide of the scientific opinions are crystal clear. Demanding more sources is pure idiocy and POV. By definition, there can be no consensus after the publicly expressed disagreements of the most respected experts in the field. We cannot re-interpret the meaning of consensus to fit our POV. Please accept it and save our precious time. 2003:C0:6F31:7E13:E5AE:EE25:F808:60 (talk) 14:00, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

By definition, there can be no consensus after the publicly expressed disagreements of the most respected experts in the field. We cannot re-interpret the meaning of consensus to fit our POV. Which viewpoint do you believe is being disagreed with by the letter, and where in the letter was it expressed? The value and necessity of meaningful investigation, the likelihood of the multiple unconfirmed possibilities, or both? On a related note, have you considered creating an account? Bakkster Man (talk) 16:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

To clarify my point: There is no consensus in ruling out a lab leak as a fringe theory, or as an extremely unlikely hypothesis that is discredited by scientists. For a segment of the scientific community, it is a viable hypothesis that deserves serious consideration and consequently further investigation. In contrast, the current article version in a bold manner gives the impression of the leak as a discredited fringe theory with no support in terms of its viability from serious scientists.

The letter is not very long (4 paragraphs) and can be read in the blink of an eye

P.s.: I deleted an account years ago when WP started to be time-consuming :( This intervention broke my self-oath of not interfering, to the bad luck of RandomCanadian ;) 2003:C0:6F31:7E13:E5AE:EE25:F808:60 (talk) 18:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, then please create a new one, it is simple and it helps communication and warnings to be issued. Forich (talk) 22:57, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, when I'm referring to the lab leak being 'fringe', I'm referring to WP:FRINGE/ALT. This doesn't mean it's ruled out, only that it's adherents are a minority. And when I say adherents, I mean those who believe the lab origin is not merely possible, but likely. And not even all the signers of the Science letter even fit that definition of an 'adherent', as Ralph Baric signed specifically regarding the thoroughness of investigation: Baric had also signed Relman’s letter in Science, but he told me that his concerns had been with the W.H.O.’s failure to conduct a thorough, transparent review of biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “I really believe that the genetic sequence for sars-CoV-2 really points to a natural-origin event from wildlife,” he said.[27]

Of course, that distinction is difficult to get right and make clear. I do think the article is better now than it was a few months ago, but that doesn't mean there isn't still room for improvement. But the first question is, do we agree that belief that the lab leak origin is a likely origin is a minority opinion among scientists? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

That the lab leak origin is a viable and serious hypothesis is an explicit stance by a "segment" of the scientific community. Whether this "segment" represents the majority, or the minority of "opinions" is for me hard to assess. In particular, as a serious on-site investigation has not been conducted, the lack of empirical evidence in support of the original zoonotic hypothesis (e.g. the failure of finding any intermediate host carrying the exact SARS-COV-2 genetic information despite tens of thousands of sampled animals, etc.) is making the number of doubters increase on a daily basis. My very personal assessment is that while in 2020 most scientists assumed the virus has a natural origin, in 2021 a critical mass of scientists apparently has doubts. 2003:C0:6F31:7E13:E5AE:EE25:F808:60 (talk) 19:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

We agree on "viable and serious", so all we disagree on is whether the article as written current does that. If you compare to the start of the year, I'd argue we do a much better job of that (in part because, at the time, it wasn't agreed that an accidental lab leak was "viable and serious"). So now it's the tough job of assessing the sources to verify what we're writing is credible. Like you said, while it's hard to assess prevalence, most credible sources say the opinion that natural origin is more likely is the majority. If that changes, then we will change (like when the WHO published their report giving "viable and serious" investigation into an accidental lab leak).

I'd like to propose an alternate explanation of the change we're seeing publicly in statements. It may not be an increase in 'doubters' of a natural origin, and instead because there's no longer an implied connection to the loudest, most conspiratorial voices in the room (ie. Trump) that had a chilling effect last year. The NYT found some who felt that way: Some scientists attributed the shift in part to the fact that the more extreme proponents of a lab leak hypothesis, like Mr. Navarro, had drowned out the more measured discussions of how lab workers could have accidentally carried the virus outside. And like anything, we need to be able to source it reliably. So the same as I wouldn't ascribe that motivation to all the people speaking out, we also can't ascribe it to failure to find the animal source. Not without a source. Hope that helps clarify things, and let me know if you have any specific items you think could be improved (supported by sources). Bakkster Man (talk) 20:29, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

We don't "interpret" consensus. We "report" what reliable, secondary sources say and what they say about consensus. Recent scientific papers and newspapers, as cited multiple times above, note that the scientific consensus is still a zoonotic origin. Hence we report that, per WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, while leaving a minor mention of alternative scenarios, per WP:FRINGE and WP:DUE. End of. The only arguing that should be there is about the credibility of sources and how to accurately represent the subject based on the credible sources. Everything else is a waste of everyone's time. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

On a lighter note, RandomCanadian sounds like he would watch the first chapters of the Lost TV series and conclude with a serious face that there is consensus on why those people are in the island.  :) On a serious note, we are witnessing an interesting case in which the scientific sources overstate the confidence of their results and the news sources do the contrary. It is a rare turning of events because normally scientists will say "taking cofee is correlated to health metrics in this tiny sample of people" and news sources will say "Scientists find that consuming cofee extends life". Forich (talk) 21:55, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

watch the first chapters of the Lost TV series and conclude with a serious face that there is consensus on why those people are in the island. Not necessarily problematic, so long as it's reliably sourced and we update if/when the majority opinion changes. Exactly what WP:FRINGE/ALT says, btw: should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective. ;)

Maybe reframing things away from 'scientific consensus' to 'mainstream perspective' will be more palatable, at least for some. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:RS/AC is very clear on this: "A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." Editors' determination that the majority opinion is X, in the absence of sources directly saying "the majority opinion is X", constitutes WP:OR. Stonkaments (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

the scientific sources overstate the confidence of their results and the news sources do the contrary By using the word "overstate", you are saying that your own opinion is in between. Put more neutrally and taking you out of the picture: the scientific sources are more confident about the zoonotic origin than the news sources. Wikipedia editors can think what they want, but Wikipedia articles take the position of the more reliable sources. They do not reflect the position of the editors who happen to write the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

What is the strongest WP:RS directly substantiating the claim of scientific consensus per WP:RS/AC? Terjen (talk) 04:05, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

This states it directly, as quoted above. There are then reliable newspapers which echo this. If I look through enough academic papers I might find some which make this statement too (but that's a time consuming exercise), but many of them simply don't mention anything but a natural origin scenario so this makes me think of the scenario at WP:FRINGELEVEL where "Fringe theories may be excluded from articles about scientific topics when the scientific community has ignored the ideas." and also WP:FALSEBALANCE ("plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship"). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The provided source is from June 2020, while the letter of the 18 renowned scientists, stating that the leak is a viable and serious hypothesis, was released on May 2021. How can a one-year old publication be used as a proof of consensus, while there exist an explicit consensus-disrupting declaration that is less than 1 month old? 2003:C0:6F22:6318:4DC0:7EF:B535:FEB6 (talk) 11:41, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Could we look at removing the term "conspiracy theory" from this article? Saying this implies that some avenues of investigation are inappropriate. Valid hypotheses should treated with more respect. 2601:844:4000:F910:E8E4:1C40:DCB:D45A (talk) 12:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

You've been given sources, recent ones at that (in addition to scientific papers), which explicitly state what the scientific consensus is, and some which also explicitly state that some theories, such as the claims the virus is man-made, are conspiracy theories. You are not allowed to interpret primary sources to claim that there is no such thing, per WP:NOR and WP:PRIMARY. The only references to "conspiracy theory" I see in this article are:

1. "A number of conspiracy theories have also been promoted about the origins of the virus.[17][20][21]"
2. "Nonetheless, in the context of global geopolitical tensions,[46] the origin is still hotly debated,[47] and, early in the pandemic, conspiracy theories spread on social media claiming that the virus was bio-engineered by China,[48] amplified by echo chambers in the American far-right.[49] Other conspiracy theories promoted misinformation that the virus is not communicable or was created to profit from new vaccines.[50]"

Both of these seem correct. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The consensus claimed by a paper in 2020 does not imply that there is still a consensus in 2021, by pretending that nothing has changed in the scientific opinion between 2020 and 2021. The correct formulation would be that "Until June 2020, existing sources indicated a consensus on the zoonotic origin of the virus among the scientific community. In contrast, recent declarations in 2021 by leading field scientists consider a lab leak to be a viable and serious hypothesis." 2003:C0:6F22:6318:8D4D:4AEF:DE89:7EC3 (talk) 14:38, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The page does not refer to the possibility of an inadvertent lab leak as a conspiracy. I've cleaned up the one paragraph from 'bio-engineering' to 'bio weapon' specifically to ensure that this is accurately reflected and can't be confused. The conspiracy theories the article refers to (Winnipeg Lab source, biological weapon, non-communicable, designed to sell vaccines) are not the "viable and serious hypothesis" you're referring to. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:42, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The paper titled "COVID-19 breakthroughs: separating fact from fiction" published 5 June 2020 in the FEBS Journal was proclaimed offered by RandomCanadian in response to a request for the strongest WP:RS directly substantiating the claim of scientific consensus. It explicitly states "the scientific consensus on the origin is SARS-CoV-2 is that, like other coronaviruses, it evolved naturally and was transferred to humans via an animal" but also that the virus emerged from a laboratory environment "cannot be ruled out entirely." Unfortunately, reviewing research related to the origin of the virus is not a primary focus of the paper, but limited to a single section and only a few sources. Instead, the paper discusses a range of topics such as using Ibuprofen to manage symptoms, the protective role of nicotine, whether SARS-CoV-2 linger on surfaces, the effect on ethnic minorities, impact on children, and variation in mortality rate. Is this paper really the best we have to substantiate a scientific consensus? Terjen (talk) 22:12, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: I never said it was the strongest, I said it was one source among many, and I've also given many recent newspapers which confirm this. Quote-mining scientific papers isn't my forte, and it's a time consuming process. However, in the absence of sources which explicitly dispute the presence of a consensus, we're stuck with those which do say there is one, personal interpretations of primary sources to the contrary notwithstanding. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:21, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

You responded with this paper upon my request for the strongest WP:RS. If there is a consensus among scientists, it should be trivial to substantiate it. Terjen (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Re "in the absence of sources which explicitly dispute the presence of a consensus, we're stuck with those which do say there is one." No, if we only have weak sources suggesting there is a consensus, we're free to ignore them and avoid making claims about a consensus. Terjen (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the Guardian, NYT, or Nature or scientific journals, "weak sources". WP:FRINGELEVEL says that if scientific sources ignore an hypothesis, it's likely that it isn't the prevalent one. This, very recent paper, in Lancet Resp Med, has "The most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 is natural selection of the virus in an animal host followed by zoonotic transfer." This is entirely consistent with the lab leak being a fringe theory, as per the sources (in the post just below) which explicitly say that there is a scientific consensus. If you disagree, start a bloody RfC so we can get stop talking past each other. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:09, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

My primary concern is not the lab-leak hypothesis, but that we shouldn't present the origin question as settled science. However, regarding WP:FRINGELEVEL saying that if scientific sources ignore a hypothesis it may be excluded, even the article you offered upon my request for the strongest WP:RS doesn't ignore the lab-leak hypothesis, but states that it "cannot be ruled out entirely." Terjen (talk) 00:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok, final reply about the IP's OR definition of "consensus". Free to look at these, recent sources, which say it explicitly:

• Taylor, Adam. "Analysis | The Wuhan lab-leak theory is getting more attention. That's because key evidence is still missing". Washington Post.
• Beaumont, Peter (2021-05-27). "Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far". The Guardian.
• Maxmen, Amy (2021-05-27). "Divisive COVID 'lab leak' debate prompts dire warnings from researchers". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-01383-3.

There are others, recent and older, which show that despite the politics this hasn't changed at all in the scientific community. In any case, consider this a final warning about engaging in WP:OR. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:51, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Empty sentimental threats in the absence of arguments, cannot stop anyone from asking the truth to be written impartially. As I repeated multiple times, there is no ultimate consensus on the origin of the virus among the scientific community, because the finest members of the research community (18 elite-most scientists from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, etc.) have recently openly declared (see cited Science letter) that both a leak and a zoonotic spillover are viable hypotheses. Citing outdated publications from 2020, or random collections of opinion articles at newspapers as a proxy of an alleged consensus, cannot overrule the explicit declaration of scientists themselves. Imagining a consensus of a scientific community, against the explicit declaration of the most important elitary segment of this very same community makes no sense. 2003:C0:6F22:6318:8D4D:4AEF:DE89:7EC3 (talk) 16:17, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to join this rather spirited discussion -- but I must say that you seem to be reading what you want to read in that Science letter (which offers opinion only, no evidence). In actual published data, scientists have been saying the same thing all along -- that all evidence to date indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was not purposefully manipulated, and the notion that the pandemic resulted from a laboratory accident is not necessary to explain the pandemic. The media, on the other hand, have followed the opinion pendulum back and forth, from logic to fringe and back again. DoctorJoeE ^{review transgressions}/_{talk to me!} 16:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment DoctorJoeE and sorry for having to witness emotionally loaded comments. I agree with you that a significant segment of the scientific community has actually expressed opinions, or published articles in favor of a zoonotic origin of the virus. What we disagree is on whether there is a full consensus by the community that the zoonotic origin as the only viable hypothesis, as the article portraits. The letter I cited explicitly state that both hypotheses, zoonotic or lab leak, are viable hypotheses that should be taken seriously and investigated. As a result, the question is whether this explicit declaration of an important segment of the research community, make the consensus argument still hold (i.e. can a community have a consensus if its most notable members publicly disagree)? Why is this important at all: because if a scientific consensus on a zoonotic origin does not exist and the lab leak is now considered as a viable hypothesis (hypothesis means an open option, as long as we know more), it should not be treated at this article as a fringe and discredited theory with links to conspiracy. 2003:C0:6F22:6318:8D4D:4AEF:DE89:7EC3 (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

whether there is a full consensus by the community that the zoonotic origin as the only viable hypothesis, as the article portraits Why should anyone take you seriously when you can't even bother to correctly reproduce what the article is saying? It does not say, and did not when you wrote the above, that the lab leak idea is "not viable", it says it is "extremely unlikely". When something is not viable, it cannot be extremely unlikely at the same time, only impossible. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Are we referring to the same letter. Citing "Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable." and "We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.". You are misreading the letter, in the section you refer to the authors criticize the WHO report that deduced a leak as "extremely unlikely" without a thorough consideration. I think you owe me an apology for jumping into aggressive language, instead of investing 60 more seconds to read the letter. 2003:C0:6F1E:B606:A481:48C2:80CC:AF51 (talk) 14:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I guess you are talking to me and not to the other IP, and I guess you are the same person as the other IP. Therefore I added one more colon to your indentation to make that clearer.

I was not talking about any letter, I was talking about "the article". By which I mean the Wikipedia article Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, the Talk page of which we are on. You could have inferred this from the fact that I said "the article" and not "the letter". You had written whether there is a full consensus by the community that the zoonotic origin as the only viable hypothesis, as the article portraits. So, you claimed that the Wikipedia article Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 said that the zoonotic origin is the only viable hypothesis, didn't you? I explained to you that it does not, and you can check if by clicking on the link Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and searching for the word "viable". Now you are talking about some "letter" I was supposed to have been talking about. Well, I wasn't. In case you still have not got it, I was talking about the Wikipedia article Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I implied the Science article, i.e. the letter, assuming that the context was derivable from the previous thread exchanges but sorry about the confusion in case you read only my latest comment in isolation. In that case, unless you have any point against my summarization of the letter, then I believe your concern is addressed. 2003:C0:6F1E:B606:A481:48C2:80CC:AF51 (talk) 17:30, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Still does not make any sense. Is there anybody who says "there is a full consensus by the community that the zoonotic origin as the only viable hypothesis"? The letter doesn't, the Wikipedia article doesn't. None of the editors here does. But you claim that there is disagreement about this question. Where do you get that? The lab leak has always been considered viable, but extremely unlikely, by the consensus. That is still the case. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:38, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

See this ANI thread for further action. @DoctorJoeE: Your sum-up seems about almost an indirect quote of thie first paper I list here, "Other strategies, more speculative than those listed above, have been used to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020). The evidence indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was not purposefully manipulated (Andersen et al., 2020). Moreover, the notion that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020) is not necessary to explain the pandemic."... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello; I've been lurking here for a while and find the discussion on consensus interesting, so I decided to create an account. I wanted to note that there have been two very recent articles that explicitly address this, (both from today). As a quote from a prominent scientist: '“We can’t even begin to talk about a consensus other than a consensus that we don’t know,” said David Relman, a Stanford University microbiologist. “We have nothing like the amount of data we need.”' https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-bats-china-wuhan/2021/06/02/772ef984-beb2-11eb-922a-c40c9774bc48_story.html And as a take-away 'The scientific consensus had been smashed to smithereens.' https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins Sorry about the formatting. Chvko (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Welcome, Chvko! The two relevant quotes (as I see them) from those two articles are as follows:

WaPo: Many scientists say the most likely path is that the virus spread in nature and jumped from animals to humans. But that belief is largely based on how other coronaviruses have originated, not what is known about this case.

VF: There are reasons to doubt the lab-leak hypothesis. There is a long, well-documented history of natural spillovers leading to outbreaks, even when the initial and intermediate host animals have remained a mystery for months and years, and some expert virologists say the supposed oddities of the SARS-CoV-2 sequence have been found in nature.

These aren't the only sources making such evaluations, of course, but it helps to include them here for ease of discussion. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I believe the most relevant quotes are the ones that Chvko highlighted (welcome!). That is two more solid sources disputing the existence of any scientific consensus at present. The Vanity Fair article also provides additional context for how problematic the notion of scientific consensus has become in this politicized debate: In April 2021, in an editorial in the journal Infectious Diseases & Immunity, Shi resorted to a familiar tactic to contain the cloud of suspicion enveloping her: She invoked scientific consensus, just as the Lancet statement had. Stonkaments (talk) 02:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

A big source of confusion is that the word "origin" is an umbrella term. If we break down its components, one can arrange them in order of how fast evidence comes up regarding it, after an epidemic. This is more or less the order:

1. The causative agent is discovered
2. The index case is epidemiologically traced
3. A likely reservoir is discovered by genomic analysis
4. A likely evolutionary history is reconstructed from molecular genetic analyses
5. The intermediate host is discovered
6. The actual animal that hosts the inmediate virus ancestor of the virus is found in the wild

The word consensus can be safely applied to parts 1-3 above. Lots of uncertainty remain for part 4. Parts 5 and 6 are total mysteries, still. But this is normal in most epidemics. What word best summarizes the whole origin? I do not know. Forich (talk) 20:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

In addition, the content of the article is confusing because the title refers to the "origin of COVID-19" and the first sentence states the "origin of SARS-CoV-2", which in my understanding are orthogonal concepts: the former questions "how was the first human infected?" and the second "how did the virus evolve?". If such orthogonal questions are raised, even opposing hypotheses can funnily co-exist, e.g. the origin of SARS-CoV-2 can be a natural evolution, while the origin of COVID-19 can be a lab leak from that natural virus? This highlights the need for editing the article from multiple angles. 2003:C0:6F1E:B606:3D8B:135E:DBC:48EA (talk) 21:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: 2. The index case is epidemiologically traced Is it actually the case that there is consensus on this? I was under the impression that one of the major reasons why we don't have a clear resolution to resolve the lab question is the lack of a definitive index case. From the article: The earliest human cases of SARS-CoV-2 were identified in Wuhan, but the index case remains unknown. This doesn't mean particular details can't be evaluated for likelihood or ruled out, but I think it's worthwhile to confirm that there is not yet an index case identified. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can see, 1. is obvious; 2 is not solved yet and likely won't be for a while; there is a rather clear consensus for 3 (likely reservoir = bats); I'm seeing papers about 4 ([28][29][30], so I guess that is also pretty much consensus. So that leaves 5-6. 6 took 14 years for SARS-CoV... Anyway, my two cents is that there will likely be some more time before we get a definitive answer on this, so likely we'll be dealing with disruption related to this, for a while... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree with RandomCanadian, but since the pangolin evidence was found to have holes I would be cautious in calling it consensus. This is my best effort to summarize part 4: According to the WHO report, one of these reconstructed steps was that RaTG13 was found to have 96.2% genetic similarity with SARS-CoV-2. However, they qualify that by saying "Although SARS-CoV-2 is closely related to RaTG13, only one of the six critical amino acids sites [in the RBD of the S protein] is identical between the two viruses. A second step was that pangolin viruses were found to have some of the parts needed to complete the evolution, but the WHO summarizes the results from this line as inconclusive by saying "Although some researchers thought these observations [similar amino acids to the RBDs of pangolins] served as evidence that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in the recombination of a virus similar to pangolin-CoV with one similar to RaTG13, others argued that the identical functional sites in SARS-CoV-2 and pangolin-CoV-GDC may actually result from coincidental convergent evolution". Andersen summarized the advances on the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, in this tweet: "The 'natural' version of this actually has a lot of evidence to it by now - we continue to see more and more of the pieces that make up the puzzle of SARS-CoV-2's evolutionary origin. The problem is - it's a big puzzle.". If the puzzle is big and the main reconstructed steps have not been conclusive determined, we should be cautios to say that a lot of progress has been made on this front, in my opinion.. Forich (talk) 22:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man:, good point. I used index case as the first identified patient, which is well-known who he is (dec 8 case according to WHO, or Dec 1 according to primary sources). As far as we know, he is the most likely candidate to have been infected by the animal source. On your point I've seen molecular clock studies that use a "root" case, which is previous than the index case. That would be what you are thinking, in case of a single introduction point, and tracing the clock of the variability observed in december, it is hypothetized that the index case from Dec 8 does not coincide with the root case, which probably happened late November 2019 or a few days earlier. That root would still be unknown, and therefore you are absolutely right. Forich (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: You're right, index case just means first identified in a given population. That could be the first human ever, or just the first for a given localized cluster. But I think we agree, in this case we're talking about the global 'root' case, not just the currently identified Wuhan index case. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Using curated information from news sources in Investigations into the origin of COVID-19

In this blog post I wrote a proposal of how to curate the information reported by top news outlets on the lab leak hypothesis. Please read and comment. If the RFC on using RS is approved, I will post the selected pieces of information that I believe is realiable and due of inclusion in this entry. Forich (talk) 18:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

At the ending the blog post says "When a news sources qualifies the extent of agreement on the scientific community, it can only be used if a) it cites a stronger source or b) it is attributed to the opinion of a particular scientist that represents that position." It is unclear from the writing whether this is your opinion/recommendation or wp policy. Terjen (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: That is taken from WP:RS/AC. This is the quote:

A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. Editors should avoid original research especially with regard to making blanket statements based on novel syntheses of disparate material. Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus.

.

As you can see, the rule does not say explicitely that MEDRS are required for Academic Consensus, but in practical terms it does says so, because it first says that "reliable sourcing that directly says..." is required, and at the end it says that "Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature can help clarify academic consensus". The part in which individual opinions can also be included sourced on plain RS, even if non-MEDRS is my own interpretation of the "Otherwise" connector in the quote. Forich (talk) 22:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The statement in the blog post puts additional requirements on news sources as a special subset of reliable sources, but this doesn't follow from WP:RS/AC. Terjen (talk) 23:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

"A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." - unless the Guardian, Nature, NYT, and the like are not reliable sources, then your objection holds no water, per the sources already provided. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me but I am getting lost on what is the disagreement. Suppose we have three scenarios:

1. "According to Systematic Review A, all virologists hold position X"
2. "According to NYT, all virologists hold position X"
3. "According to NYT, virologist B holds position X"

Which of these do you think is a good execution of Wikipolicy and which isn't? Forich (talk) 04:53, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Assuming the word "all" can stand in for other, similar words:

1. This would be the ideal option - scientists expressing themselves on views that are prevailing within their field of expertise. At that point, I would hope that attribution is not required, especially because I would assume that no. 2 would also be met.
2. In the absence of number 1, this would be the second best option, assuming that the journalists have done their job right (if, for example, a piece being used to support this is simply some random quotes from scientists, pieced together, that could pose problems). Again, depending on how many newspapers are reporting this, but if there are many reputable sources which independently repeat the same thing, it can be taken for an uncontroversial statement and not require attribution.
3. This is trickier. If the source is quoting the scientist directly, we can simply say "Virologist B holds position X". This then becomes an issue of whether mentioning the opinion of one scientist is DUE or not; and what the view specifically is (views held by tiny minorities, or views which are otherwise disputed by the relevant academic community, should not be quote-mined like this: we should instead rely on secondary sources). Of course, this analysis is in respect to this article. If, say, we're writing an article about Virologist B, and his views are prominent enough that they get mentioned in the press, it might be easier to mention them there as notable views of that person. With the grain of salt of WP:ARSEHOLES, i.e. everybody has opinions and we shouldn't cite scientists' own statements for opinions well outside their topic of expertise.

In short, 1>2 (but 2>0 if 1 not available), and 3 is a case-by-case analysis. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Media coverage section

I've been thinking about this topic, and am currently wondering if we should add a section to the end of (or after) Investigations for something along the lines of press/media. A lot of these conversations/debates are clearly notable, and I think we've mostly been putting off inclusion as part of fighting the broader NPOV/V fight for what gets said in the bulk of the article about the origins themself. Put another way, we've been so focused on why certain sources are unreliable/UNDUE citations for the scientific investigation, we've had a blind spot on their notability relative to the public/press attention itself. I think a section like this would help us in both directions: give DUE weight to notable news coverage, and relieve some of the pressure on covering the sources. The Wade article, WaPo timeline, Vanity Fair's coverage, Gorski, continued skepticism, the overall shift in how the lab was covered, etc. Not as a dumping ground, but addressing the media coverage of investigations and public perception of them that doesn't fit in the SARS-CoV-2 or Misinformation articles. Thoughts? Bakkster Man (talk) 16:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I second adding a section that documents the overall shift in media coverage on the origin of the virus, including media criticism/self-reflection on the change. Terjen (talk) 19:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Unless we have reliable sources reporting on the media's change of coverage (going from one to the other extreme), I'm afraid such a thing would be WP:OR. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:09, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Obviously. So we base it on WP:RS. Terjen (talk) 23:27, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: Well, as I was subtly hinting at, you're free to either A) propose sources here or B) make some additions yourself based on sources you find RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

In addition to the sources I linked in my first, there's this meta-look from the New Yorker, and this Nature article might help (and might be a RS for our wording on mainstream scientific opinion). There's also an article from The Hill we use in the Misinformation article used for this purpose.

But I'm also thinking simply making space for these sources, where they're notable without trying to act like they're reliable for the topic overall. And before I write a chunk of text, I'd like at least a thumbs up that it's a reasonable direction. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I haven’t read Forich’s second blog yet but enjoyed the first one. I agree with Bakkster Man’s proposal to create a press/media section and we could perhaps call it Society and culture similar to what we have in Gain of function research. Here are a few more sources to pick from: [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36]. CutePeach (talk) 05:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Interesting proposal, I've seen similar sections of "Controversy" in other articles, it can lead to a healthy "let's agree to disagree" venue. It can include the nuances without a priori condemming them, and every position can be presented without attaching reason or emotion, just observed behavoir: A thinks the sky is blue, B thinks the sky is red, C thinks the sky is yellow Forich (talk) 19:06, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Everyone feel free to participate in a sandbox version here: User:Bakkster Man/COVID Media Sandbox. Bottom section is for basically raw links that might be useful, top section for putting together content to copy into the article. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Questions about references 1 and 2, general disinterest of authors

Reference 1: Is the WHO report of Spring 2021. Wasn't this report done by 17 Chinese appointed scientists and 13 others? I don't have anything against folks from China, but are they at all free to speak out as scientists? Wasn't this group denied access to the WIV for all but one part of one day? Didn't China, for example, refuse the USAs 3 suggested representatives, to instead get the only USA person who was funding the WIV? I'm not knowledgeable on WP:Policies, but I would think there *should* be something allowing much more explanation of the circumstances behind this report. I'm not saying there is or is not such a policy, but I'm saying there should be, and maybe WP:Ignore Rules should be applied. I do not have personal confidence in this report based upon the circumstances behind how it was conducted.

Reference 2: Is a Scripts Research News Release/Announcement. Once again I'm not an expert on WP:Policies, but this does not appear to be peer reviewed, and I dont see an author cited (sorry if I missed this). I look at the myriad of WP:Policy-Objections thrown up to the numerous articles and users who are merely saying a lab leak was possible (accidental, not definite lab-leak but a possible lab-leak) and don't understand why the policies applied to this reference seem different. Scripts Research includes Kristian Andersen. But I would submit that emails show Mr. Andersen is not a disinterested party. I do not have personal confidence in this reference. Discussion on issues with this reference should be included.

General Disinterest of Virologists: In the past few weeks there have been a large number of primary source documents (mainly emails) released reflecting on how the "scientific consensus" alleged on Wikipedia was reached. These have been widely discussed in the media. I see what to me are clear attempts to game the system. As but one example, emails show the original author of a document discussing with 2 other "scientists" how they should NOT include their signatures so it will appear they were NOT involved. My point is not about one particular quote in an email, but in general many of the individuals involved in the "scientific concensus" certainly seem to not be acting as disinterested parties. As I've said before I'm not an expert in WP:Policies, but I feel there *should* be much more inclusion of this issue.

Application of "peer reviewed research" to "scientific consensus." There was a recent letter in the journal Science (not peer reviewed) from 18 scientists (including Baric who I give a lot of credit to) asking for further research into this area, and much media coverage of it. I do not understand the objections to considering this letter even though it was not "peer reviewed." These are opinions, not allegations of facts that can be "reviewed." (Journal letters alleging specific scientific facts should be questioned more.) This letter shows that "scientific consensus" is a myth. Consensus is done by considering people's opinions and these 18 people's opinions are clear. To the extent there is a WP:Policy that mandates this letter be ignored when considering if their is "consensus", WP:Policy should be changed.

Number of Policies Cited and Users Blocked I read through this Talk page as a whole and feel that it is much more about citing WP:Policies in an effort to shut down disagreement than improving the encyclopedia. I see the same pattern in other pages about this subject. While I agree with some of these policies, they seem to be used in situations where they are not relevant, or used against one position while being ignored for the opposite position. I also see a large number of blocked users along with talk page opinions reverted and unsupported allegations. As but one example, consider the number of users who are referred to as "obvious" sockpuppets."

Overposting by a few users I count the number of posts by one or two particular people on this page and related pages. I know these people are going to object and object again no matter what. Bat woman Shi could defect with a video of lab worker patient zero accidentally needling themselves and the WP:Policies would start flying. I don't know if there is a policy against overposting (although I've seen this type of claim on this very subject) but perhaps there should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:5C4:4301:217C:79A1:7ADA:52C3:9A7F (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Delete sections transcluded from Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

Our entry is growing in size. I suggest we delete the two sections transcluded from the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 entry, integrating the few paragraphs related to the origin of the virus: 1. Reservoir and origin 2. Phylogenetics and taxonomy Terjen (talk) 22:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Two concerns, and an alternate proposal. First is that this page isn't that big relatively speaking. Second is that duplicating content makes it harder to maintain (which is why we transclude in the first place), and makes the text on this page larger.

The good news is we can shrink how much we transclude, without deleting it. The Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2#Phylogenetics and taxonomy already excludes the final two paragraphs (and all the sub-headings) in the transclusion. If there's a place we agree that the transclusion for each section can be trimmed back, we can do that relatively easily. How much are you suggesting we trim? I'm only seeing the last two Phylogenetics and taxonomy paragraphs that would make sense to remove. Maybe the graphics as well? Bakkster Man (talk) 23:37, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

When it comes to integrating the few paragraphs related to the origin of the virus, I don't favor keeping the content in sync between the two pages, but cutting the cord so that each evolves independently, eliminating the maintenance concern. Terjen (talk) 23:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Evolving independently means more maintenance (not less), and potentially a less coherent encyclopedia. The SARS-CoV-2 page would continue to maintain their sections, and now this page also needs to maintain a similar section. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Is any of the content from the Phylogenetics and taxonomy section really essential for a discussion of the origin of COVID? It seems like the whole section can be skipped, so readers can get to the meat of the entry. We're already linking to the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 page. Terjen (talk) 23:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue that the first three paragraphs (sans image) give some solid context into understanding the origin investigations (even though we don't yet cover the FCS/ACE2 info here). But I'm interested in hearing what others have to say. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

The origins of COVID are both a scientific and a political issue. Investigations are particularly a political one. Maybe cutting down the amount transcluded would be okay (also in line with WP:SUMMARY); but I don't think removing it entirely does any good. Some scientific matters (FCS/ACE/...) are particularly relevant to the controversy, and readers should be able to have the whole context here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

The default position should be keeping this material - readers come here seeking to learn the origin of the virus. The worst thing we could do with this article is begin removing the results of scientific investigations into SARS-CoV-2. -Darouet (talk) 07:33, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

We're not talking about deleting material from Wikipedia. You can find exactly the same content at Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2#Reservoir and origin and Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2#Phylogenetics and taxonomy. It's just transcluded here, but could just as well be linked. Terjen (talk) 07:48, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

It’s transcluded so people can read it. And your posts below show that you don’t understand the material you want to remove from this article. -Darouet (talk) 08:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

In light of the curse of knowledge consider the readers we may expect coming to the page curious about the origin of the virus, many of them non-scientists. I doubt most of them will get much out of the phylogenetics and taxonomy section. They shouldn't be expected to learn that SARS‑CoV‑2 is a member of the subgenus Sarbecovirus (beta-CoV lineage B); Having an RNA sequence approximately 30,000 bases in length; or that its furin protease recognizes the canonical peptide sequence RX[R/K]R↓X where the cleavage site is indicated by a down arrow and X is any amino acid. Terjen (talk) 00:39, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

That can be fixed with judicious use of noinclude or includeonly tags. Although the genetic lineage of the virus (it being in the same subgenus as SARS-CoV, and in the same lineage as MERS) is a relevant piece of information, me thinks. But the specifics can be worked out with more detail either through a discussion over at SARS-CoV-2 or via the regular editing process. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:51, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I think a case can be made that the subgenus and stuff are only relevant here if we're presenting information about the origin relative to them. Which, at this time, would basically just be to debunk lab origin theories that aren't currently mentioned. But yeah, just more use of the noinclude tags. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:07, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The scientists have spoken, the pandemic was not a lab accident, an accident made possible by scientists (gain of function is the scientific jargon for such research), because if that was the case how could then the ignorant populations rely on science to get over the pandemic? unsigned comment by 141.255.1.145

• Agree with Terjen’s proposal to remove the transclusion of sections from SARS-COV-2 as it gives the appearance that the scientific investigations have resulted in a scientific consensus on all aspects of the origins of the virus, which is not the case. CutePeach (talk) 05:34, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Not my reason for proposing deleting these sections. Besides, the Phylogenetics and taxonomy section doesn't give any obvious appearance of a scientific consensus on origin. Terjen (talk) 05:52, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Understood. Agree that Phylogenetics and taxonomy are okay. I was referring to the other aspects, and the previous "scientific consensus" title, which was misleading. CutePeach (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Although, to be clear about my position: People that come here to learn about the origins of SARS-Cov-2 shouldn't be fed an off-topic review of what research has revealed about the phylogenetics and taxonomy of the virus. Terjen (talk) 03:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Phylogenetics and taxonomy are the study of the origins of species in biology. That is exactly what people are coming here for. -Darouet (talk) 07:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Not really, it's already covered on the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 page. Terjen (talk) 07:53, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Not really? What are phylogenetics and taxonomy if not origin? -Darouet (talk) 08:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - I strongly oppose reducing transcluded materials. Before those sections were transcluded, this article was just a place to host conspiracies about biological warfare. By adding those sections, people who come here wanting to learn about the origins of SARS-Cov-2 (I think it’s safe to say that’s most readers here) learn what scientific investigations into the virus origins have revealed so far. That’s the greatest service this article can provide.

There are further reasons to keep the transclusions in full. Those transcluded sections are carefully written by many editors and are effectively the strongest and best supported text and material in this article.

Furthermore, this one particular Wikipedia page, more than any other, comes the closest to giving credence to conspiracy theories about the virus’ origins. This article has been the target of nonstop IP and sock puppet editing. By removing transcluded text we’re just sliding this article further away from scientific knowledge of the origins of this virus.

We need to keep these transcluded sections. -Darouet (talk) 01:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with colleagues Bakkster Man and Darouet. WP:AINTBROKE. Ain92 (talk) 10:34, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Recent news (06/06/2021) worth considering?

FWIW - seems recent news (06/06/2021) may be worth considering - and may help improve the article by better supporting (or otherwise) some of the current content in the main article - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Please explain the improvement you think this opinion piece would make (especially since it's behind a paywall), and then provide a reliable source we could actually cite. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: (and others) - Thank you for your comment - and suggestion - seems the article supports text in the main article concerning gain of function studies (ie, "intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality", in the words of the WSJ article) conducted by virologists at the Wuhan Virology Laboratories - apparently - a consequence of this genetic manipulation is a unique genetic sequence (ie, a "rare double CGG" segment that is not known to occur naturally) - according to the WSJ article, this genetic sequence appears in the February 2020 research papers published by virologists from the Wuhan Laboratory, detailing the genome of the coronavirus, but not clearly noted - afterwards - this genetic sequence was discovered in the published research of the Wuhan virologists by other virologists who have published their observations - seems this news information supports the "lab-leak" notion - whether this information can be used in the main article may be another matter - after all - the WSJ is behind a paywall, and is not WP:MEDRS - hope this helps in some way - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 02:26, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Why we would want to source this red-flag claim to the WSJ when we have far better scientific sources which say time and time again how there is no evidence of laboratory manipulation is beyond me. The scientific sources take precedence per WP:SCHOLARSHIP and/or MEDRS. Ex. of a relatively recent one which specifically addresses this claim [37]: "Some linked the presence of the least preferred CGG codons in the SRAS-CoV-2 furin cleavage sites as a “proof” of engineering. A codon being least preferred does not mean it should never exist and this CGG codon present in SARS-CoV-2 is for instance present at a higher rate in MERS-CoV. The lower presence of CpG (intrachain Cytosine-Guanosine dinucleotide linked by a phosphate bond) in human pathogens has been shown to be a selective process. [...]" RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you *very much* for all the comments, including the cited reference (new to me, and very interesting of course) - they're *greatly* appreciated - no problem whatsoever - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 11:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

The linked opinion piece [38] is a litany of conspiracy theories that might be publishable in the opinion section of a newspaper, but never in a scientific journal article. Drbogdan, please only bring higher-quality sources for discussion here. -Darouet (talk) 15:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Darouet: - Thank you for your comments - Yes - I fully understand your point - and *entirely* agree with you in this day, time and purpose of course - nonetheless - being open-minded to some extent may be worthy at times - I'm reminded of the classic example that may have turned the notion on its head - some years ago, thousands (maybe millions) wrongly believed the sun revolved around the Earth, based on the official "higher-quality" sources of the day afaik - seems only a very few, in unofficial "lesser quality" sources, correctly thought otherwise - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:45, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: Wikipedia is not a [[WP:CRYSTALBALL]. Stop trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:39, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: Thank you for your comments - Yes - I *entirely* agree with the points you may be suggesting as well - your suggested points, however, were not my original intentions - I agree with you that presenting text in the main article supported by the very best available reliable sources, regardless of any particular WP:POV, may be the better road in this instance of course - iac - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 12:25, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Later discussion

@Bakkster Man: See my edit summary and also the related subsection at Talk:Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2#Nucleotide_skewness_of_SARS-CoV-2. As I've also said, I'm not convinced the "lab leak via GOFR" is included in the "accidental lab leak" (I've added a short description, based on the given source, here, for what appears to be the lab leak scenario that "hasn't been ruled out") - the language in other sources isn't quite precise enough (since it doesn't mention GoFR directly), but they seem to agree that deliberate manipulation has been ruled out, and GOFR appears to me to be clearly "deliberate manipulation". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:49, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, a topic totally worth hashing out. I'd like to break it down into three parts:

1. Is GoFR a widely accepted contributor in the lab leak hypothesis? First off, I think a big issue is that "gain of function" appears to be a charged term, which the two sides of the discussion phrase differently depending how it suits their point of view. An old news article in Nature describes the current US moratorium on GoFR: The US government surprised many researchers on 17 October when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is also asking researchers who conduct such ‘gain-of-function’ experiments on influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to stop their work until a risk assessment is completed — leaving many unsure of how to proceed. But there seems to be a question around whether virus studies incidentally or intentionally result in a gain-of-function: Some researchers are confused by the moratorium’s wording. Viruses are always mutating, and Casadevall says that it is difficult to determine how much mutation deliberately created by scientists might be “reasonably anticipated” to make a virus more dangerous — the point at which the White House states research must stop. The government says that this point will be determined for individual grants in discussions between funding officers and researchers. This makes it harder for us, because it means many sources avoid the term altogether (WHO-China report, most notably), and when they do it's hard to discern which use they meant: research with the intentional result being gain-of-function, or research where an inadvertent gain-of-function may occur. I usually prefer to avoid the term if possible, and might reword the content differently if that's the only remaining concern.
2. What did the WHO say? The WHO statement describing the scenario says: SARS-CoV-2 is introduced through a laboratory incident, reflecting an accidental infection of staff from laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses. We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome. Distinctly lacking much detail ("laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses" can be construed narrowly or broadly very differently), only explicitly ruling out intentional development of a bioweapon. Their Figure 5 on page 119 (Schema for introduction of SARS-CoV-2 through a laboratory incident) and includes the icon for "Evolution" in the laboratory, but not "Adaptation, transmissibility increase". My read is that the WHO didn't explicitly rule out recombination and evolution in the lab, though the diagram makes things a bit more confusing. Did they intend to communicate that they ruled out and/or didn't consider any adaptation in the lab environment as a possibility, or did they leave it out so as not to give an unintended impression that such gains were intended in WIV research? It would be helpful if we had another source confirming the WHO study's intentions, rather than just another researcher's impression. I'm hesitant to jump straight to firm conclusions without that.
3. Is this a minority view that's not mainstream accepted, but notable for inclusion here? This is where WP:PARITY comes in. Given that this is one of the few locations (only one?) on the encyclopedia discussing the minority view, there is room to describe adherents' view per their own sources even if they're weaker than the mainstream sources (as expected), so long as we follow the other guidelines of WP:FRINGE (placed in context with mainstream, etc). WP:PARITY even goes as far as to say articles about fringe topics needn't even be peer-reviewed (though only this peer reviewed source was proposed by me, both because this article is on Investigations broadly rather than the lab leak specifically, and because PARITY suggests not suddenly jumping from peer-reviewed sources to non-reviewed (especially where reviewed sources exist). The Kaina source is clearly weaker than Frutos, but that doesn't necessarily mean excluding Kaina when speaking in sufficient depth on the topic to place its limited acceptance in context relative to mainstream. This is the direction I would prefer we go, rather than outright removal. Place Frutos immediately following Kaina, and possibly following up with the WHO's finding of no serological evidence for infection of researchers.

I'd be interested to get some outside expertise on some of these details, perhaps through WP:VIRUS, if you think they'd be helpful. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

If you're interested you can leave a message for Shibbolethink. I tried running a search through PubMed specifically for GoFR in the context of COVID ([39]), but once I filter out the unrelated items and/or bollocks sources, I only have this (whatever you want to call it - it's not a review paper) and this editorial (both in journals from the American Society for Microbiology). The first one has this interesting bit:

The second hurdle may be even more daunting. The United States, in particular but not exclusively, is experiencing a resurgence in conspiracy theories and extremist behavior in the context of COVID-19. [...] Some may verge on the unbelievable, such as the conspiracy theory that gain-of-function research conducted on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses in 2015 is connected to the emergence of COVID-19 that made it to British tabloids (17),

The other has this:

In recent months, the argument was raised that SARS-CoV-2 may have accidentally escaped from a high-containment laboratory in Wuhan, China (10). At this time, the scientific consensus is that the virus emerged as a zoonosis whereby it jumped from an animal host, possibly bats or pangolins, to humans (11), and arguments about a laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2 are more akin to a conspiracy theory than to a scientifically credible hypothesis. In the very unlikely event that SARS-Cov-2 had emerged by accidental escape from a lab, however, that would be a great cause for concern because the Wuhan facility was state of the art and presumably operating with a high degree of care.

Not too helpful for gain of function, but it does say what the scientific consensus is, in case any body had doubts about that. Are these citeable in the article? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

The only other non-bullshit source I could find through google scholar (same query) was a piece by Rasmussen in Nature Medicine, [40], but that's already cited at COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_lab_theories (where the ideas now seem to be correctly separated). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:46, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

My primary hesitance on each of these three sources (at least, as far as using them to support completely excluding the Kaina paper) is their being prior to the WHO report, which I think we agree changed how willing at least some scientists were to talk about even the possibility (however unlikely) of a lab origin. The first one especially was pretty closely in the shadow of the Nature letter that seemed indicative of the apparent trend of not wanting to give it even a bit of air (lest it be seized on by others to drive a narrative), which the WHO report and change in US administration seems to have changed (not the evidence or likelihood, just willingness to discuss). The gold standard would be either the WHO, one of the involved authors, or a systemic review coming through with a definitive "this is ruled out because...", but I'm not expecting that soon.

I will give a ping to @Shibbolethink: to check our work above. I know just enough about the topic to know that I'm beyond my capability to interpret with high certainty, so additional input will be useful. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I'll add a quick clarification. I think each of the three sources you linked would have uses, particularly for providing context around GoF and the like. Especially the dual-use nature, with past WIV research helping to mitigate the pandemic's effects through increased early understanding. It's only complete exclusion of Kaina (on this page where the lab leak is discussed in enough detail to give that context, unless we add a specific lab leak page...) that I disagree with. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:05, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

That was also my concern. The few papers we have that expressly address these are mostly from before, with only Frutos et al. being more recent than the WHO report. The lack of more papers on the subject does speak volumes, but there's not much we can do with that... I don't know how we can frame Kaina in respect to Frutos, because I'm afraid simply comparing the positions of the two would be false balance. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:07, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, my original thought on the four possibility descriptions was to basically give the overview of the rationale behind each. And this one was always the one most likely to have fringe sources to explain the arguments in favor (natch). It does bring up the opposing pulls of false equivalence and fringe notability. I think a big part is just the problem of how we phrase acceptance, assuming GoF is 'notable enough'. And, more importantly, it's affected by whether we have a standalone article on the leak theory, or limit it to this one. I don't think it's NPOV to both oppose the standalone article and oppose the inclusion of notable (and peer-reviewed) claims by adherents in this article as well. I know which of the two sides I'd rather bend regarding a standalone article, too. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi (@Bakkster Man: @RandomCanadian:) yes completely agree GoFR is mutually exclusive with "Accidental lab leak." And more specifically, that gain of function research must be intentional. Could phrase it as "Accidental leak after deliberate manipulation" but all of those theories (as espoused by Yuri Deign and Nicholas Wade et al) involve arguments about making the virus more human-tropic or transmissible. That's why it's become a moving goalposts game full of no-true-scotsman. One conspiracy theorist will say the manipulation was to create a bioweapon, another will say it was just scientists "playing god." But they both mean the same thing: deliberate genetic engineering.

And that, specifically, is what has been so thoroughly debunked by publications by Rasmussen, Andersen, and others as detailed in WP:NOLABLEAK. Suffice it to say, you cannot, as a virologist, "accidentally" cause gain of function in the course of an experiment. You control the variables, so how would that happen? Either you are introducing random mutagenesis (via radiation or chemicals or just passaging) to alter the viral genome, hoping to see a change in function (gain or loss), or you are deliberately mutating it in specific areas to cause same. Either way there is a deliberate act, and specifically a deliberate "selection" of which mutants will be allowed to survive from that mutagenesis. The selection and the mutagenesis both require deliberate intervention that alters the course of nature. If it were happening without any scientific intervention (or intention) whatsoever, then it is more apt to call it a natural mutation that would have occurred without any experimentation involved, and therefore it isn't GoF, because it's a natural change. Does that make sense? This is based on the National Research Council and NIH definition, which is what is important re: scientific funding:

any selection process involving an alteration of genotypes and their resulting phenotypes is considered a type of Gain-of-Function (GoF) research, even if the U.S. policy is intended to apply to only a small subset of such work.

More specifically, if we are including any deliberate alteration of the virus, then we are absolutely beholden to the consensus among scientists that it is extremely extremely unlikely if not close to impossible. Because of the viral genome, its' synonymous/non-synonymous ratio, molecular clock findings, codon usage, poor quality protease site usage, etc. As detailed in the article above. If we are talking about accidental leak of a wild natural virus, then the argument becomes about probabilities: who is more likely to contract the virus, a group of scientists with PPE who visit a cave once a year, or the guano harvesters, farmers, etc. who interact with the zoonotic reservoir without any protection every day of their lives? And if it is the former, then how is the coverup possible, without any notable leak? And so on with the dual sequencing, etc etc. There are a lot of holes in this theory anyway, but they are all inductive reasoning. Especially given the fact that the virus is just as, if not more, likely to have emerged outside of Wuhan rather than within the city. Those arguments are what are convincing to virologists, but not convincing enough to make an investigation unnecessary. As I said, they are "inductive" rather than "deductive."

And to be clear, the only people who are saying "the virus was engineered" are the fringe sources who, per my reading of MEDRS and UNDUE and FRINGE, should not be included outside of the Misinformation article. Whereas "it is possible (though unlikely) the virus was a natural virus that leaked accidentally" is a more mainstream minority view, in my reading of the situation. I believe that is also what RSes are saying from what you've linked and what our articles currently say. I have yet to find a MEDRS of high quality that has any sort of notable virology consensus or plurality saying the virus was engineered. Just old nobel winners who've always been contrarians, and modern day contrarians who are not virologists.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:51, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I appreciate that context, specifically that 'gain-of-function' refers specifically to intent. To make sure I understand, your read on the WHO report would be that their path in the figure did not consider GoF in the lab pathway, with the mutations referring only to very limited mutations unavoidable while grown in culture (presumably independent of all other viruses, no recombination)? And thus, the explanation of the WHO hypothesis should not include the Kaina paper because it would conflate two very different explanations? Bakkster Man (talk) 23:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: ahhhh, so I understand where the confusion is. My reading of that figure on page 119 and the overall report is that they were including any acts of "passaging" or "adaptation" or "facilitated evolution" in their description of the lab theory, but specifically not intentional "genetic engineering."

They do use the red arrow instead of the blue arrow there in that figure, which I think is just meant to denote "facilitated" evolution and adaptation inside cell culture. But their use of "adaptation" vs "evolution" is fraught because, molecularly speaking, those are the same thing. One cannot be differentiated from the other.

I suppose, in summary, I would agree with you that they specifically excluded GoFR from their analysis given its extreme improbability based on the genomic evidence. They are specifically using the GoFR definition of "deliberate engineering" which would exclude the mutations that occur as a part of any cell culture adaptation.

See that's what we call it: "Cell culture adaptation" when we take a wild virus and grow it on cells in a dish in the lab, even though we are doing nothing other than growing it, without any (intentional) selection pressures. That would not be GoFR, since it isn't intentionally altering a genotype or putting the virus inside an animal it doesn't normally infect, it just happens as part of the process of growing the virus in cells it would infect anyway. But it is blurry, because you could theoretically adapt the virus to a cell line in another species which would make it transmit better in that species, and then you are doing GoFR. But that's not what they're talking about here. I would say they excluded GoFR, but included lab leak involving a cell-culture-adapted virus. (And to be clear, this virus has no such adaptations, hence why that is also extremely unlikely as the origin).--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:50, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink and Bakkster Man: This in Nature could be used for mentioning some of the theories (depending on how much detail is really needed here) without having to cite a dubious publication. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:04, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this article very accurately represents the state of the field, in my humble opinion! As usual, even though Nature News and Science News are not peer-reviewed, they are a better summary of the state of things than typical news sources. I've found their "News Explainer"s to be extremely trustworthy and usually worth the read.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:49, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Very good source, nice finding RC. It is so good we can use it in its entirety to write a "Lab leak hypothesis" page based on it. Forich (talk) 22:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

References

There are a confusing variety of uses of " engineered. The original weird right wing theory was that it was deliberately engineered to be used for biological warfare and the release was a deliberate event. The reason I call this weird or fringe is not biological, but political--no nation would deliberately try to harm an enemy by using an uncontrollable agent which the would release first in their own territory with a susceptible unprotected population. I don't think anyone has ever waged warfare in this fashion. It's like spreading smallpox among the natives by releasing a supply of germ-laden blankets in one's own country in the hope that it would spread to the outsiders. The subsequent, still unusual theory is that they had engineered it for germ warfare, and intended to use it or germ warfare, but had by some mishap released it in the wrong country. This is conceivable. That the Chinese government would deliberately decide to engage in germ warfare is within the range of possibilities. That they would have dones o now seems unlikely.-- there's no such emergency. I can imagine them wanting to use it to destroy the Uighurs, but they seem to be doing so without using such untested methods. That the Chinese government would deliberately it to be used for possible biological warfare someday just in case is very possible: I see no reason why they wouldn't be trying to prepare some such agents (tho tI'd think the uncontrollable spread of flu viruses would make them a poor choice when there are so many other possibilities); many other nations, including the major English speaking countries, have prepared such weapons. In that case it could have been a lab leak from a weapons lab.

But the lab leak theory in its usual form is that they were deliberately engaging in gain of function research with flu viruss, and this one escaped control. This is a reckless thing to do, but all countries with the capability have probably done such experiments, and lab accidents do happen.

There's also a variant, in that they had isolated a strain, either a mutant from another lab strain or a strain form the wild, and were maintaining it for routine study or storage, and an accident happened. This is not an inherently reckless thing to do--it's part of their necessary function But it is a known very dangerous thing to do such work, and whatever precautions they were taking might have failed. Their precautions might have been the best possible, or sub-standard. This could have happened anywhere, and in the nature of human error will probably happen again somewhere (even tho this event wlll undoubtedly increase the level of precautionary measures everywhere). DGG ( talk ) 21:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Broken list-defined citations

There were a bunch of broken references in this article, because something is apparently up with the list-defined references that should be being included from Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 to go along with the section that is excerpted from there. My attempt to fix it didn't work, so I've manually copied the refs over as a stopgap (diff), but if someone better with excerpting could fix it properly that'd be great. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Malicious leak?

Why isn't there an item in the proposed explanations relating to a possible malicious leak from the Chinese government? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:13F0:8110:3848:EB59:6F01:1760 (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Because it's ruled out, per WP:RS. Bakkster Man (talk) 23:02, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

if WP:RS sources rule it out, where are the citations? there are none here. cuz I'll bet if we look at them they'll just be opinion. 2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7 (talk) 07:06, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The citation is at the end of the sentence where we make the claim (and that source cites their source). Please be sure to read the article carefully prior to providing criticism. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I propose a change of wording to remove ambiguity: Is the article suggesting that the scenario was eliminated via evidence (which evidence would be easy to summarize and include), or is it suggesting that the scenario was a priori ruled out for consideration and therefore the cite says nothing about it? The way it's worded now is weasel words. 2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7 (talk) 06:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Daszak conflict of interest

Is not clearly stated in the Lancet section. Regardless of whichever the truth is, if a certain taskforce is led by someone with conflict of interests, the coverage of that taskforce SHOULD be mentioned clearly in the text. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 03:06, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Daszak's position is already clearly mentioned. Whether some want to infer a conflict of interest from that is entirely up to the reader, but without solid sources to back this up (and with the concerns of WP:BLP in mind), I'm not sure there's much to be done here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Only if one is willfully ignorant of widely published sources on conflict of interest can the current section on Lancet be interpreted as adequate. The original dismissal of the lab leak theory was spearheaded by himself without clearly disclosing his conflict of interest - as had become the norm lately in highest tier journals. And the current section on the Lancet team pretty much implies his preconcieved conclusion, again without clearly stating his own conflict of interests. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 04:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

“I have no conflicts of interest,” said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth alliance, which has worked with Shi’s team since 2003, in an email. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.175.106.86 (talk) 04:55, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

We already spent over 100 words on Daszak's conflict of interest higher up in the article, in the World Health Organization section, at the end of the fourth paragraph. I do not see a need to repeat it further down below. starship.paint (exalt) 05:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion of Peter Daszak in the team stirred controversy. Daszak is the head of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies spillover events, and has been a longtime collaborator of over 15 years with Shi Zhengli, Wuhan Institute of Virology's director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. While Daszak is highly knowledgeable about Chinese laboratories and the emergence of diseases in the area, his close connection with the WIV was seen by many as a conflict of interest in the WHO's investigation. When a BBC News journalist asked about his relationship with the WIV, Daszak said, "We file our papers, it's all there for everyone to see."

References

See above. starship.paint (exalt) 05:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Starship.paint. Think I was completely missing the forest for the trees, here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:46, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

"U.S. Report Found It Plausible Covid-19 Leaked From Wuhan Lab"

>The study was prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-report-concluded-covid-19-may-have-leaked-from-wuhan-lab-11623106982

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-report-concluded-covid-19-may-have-leaked-wuhan-lab-wsj-2021-06-07/

205.175.106.86 (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Nature: "The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know"

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.175.106.86 (talk) 03:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Mention in the lede that the joing WHO-China investigation has been criticized by other countries.

Currently, the page cites the joint WHO-China investigation's founding in the lede uncritically, and in my opinion presents its finding as the truth, without mentioning that they gave been heavily criticized by many other countries, including the EU, the US, the UK, Australia, New Zeland and others. It should be removed from the lede or the qualifications added, something along the line of "the investigation has been criticized by several other countries for its incompleteness and lack of access to data and samples."Eccekevin (talk) 06:33, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eccekevin: I agree the investigation was hamstrung from the outset as described here, specifically the investigation was

"to identify the zoonotic source of the virus.” The natural-origin hypothesis was baked into the enterprise

The research target of the investigation was decided from the outset, not to mention Peter Daszak was a member of the team, very much not a neutral/disinterested investigator. High Tinker (talk) 09:24, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eccekevin: Agree with this. EyeTruth (talk) 00:12, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The lead is supposed to be a summary of the most important information. That the WHO investigation was criticised on political grounds is relevant to the investigation, but I think it isn't a defining characteristic, important enough to be mentioned in the lead. Calls for further investigations (which are not all criticism of the WHO report) seem to be the far more relevant thing to report. And without the use of weasel words like "many"? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The idea that is was criticized on political grounds is entirely your interpretation. In reality, most of the criticism is quite technical and has to do with the lack of access to samples and data. I think it's unnecessary to mention all the countries, but if you're against many we can use several. Nonetheless, it is fundamental to include (and the users above indeed agree) such qualification, hence it gives the impression (by leaving the results in thede lede without any further context) that they are widely accepted or have gone uncriticized. Eccekevin (talk) 02:11, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Several is still the same thing as "many", so not an improvement. The main country to criticise it and make calls for further investigations was the USA (and sources do report this in that context: [41]), so if we're going to put it in the lead might as well mention them, since that's the point of a lead. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:16, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Australia did too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.143.179.120 (talk • contribs)

the current "Laboratory incident" section is crap

it says: "A final scenario is the introduction of the virus to humans through a laboratory incident. "A" final scenario? gain of function is one incident/scenario which needs its own clear discussion, and lab-leak is another incident/scenario which needs its own clear discussion, and both may have occurred, and that's not to mention considering military research or intentional release which should be discussed; saying "ruled out" should get a {by whom?} style critique. ... Deliberate bioengineering of the virus for release has been ruled out, with remaining investigations considering the possibility of a collected natural virus what happened to gain of function NOT for release? inadvertently infecting laboratory staff during the course of study." 2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7 (talk) 07:17, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

You can help improve it. WP:BOLD. EyeTruth (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Except that this article is locked to non-registered editors. There is nothing to be bold about when long discussions on this talkpage with widely supported sources leads to nobody actually changing the main text. 2601:602:9200:1310:60E1:7F9E:14BC:FB2B (talk) 11:27, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

my comment above did that, unless you disagree or don't understand it, in which case you can help to improve this discussion 2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7 (talk) 06:11, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7: See relevant discussion above: Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Later discussion Bakkster Man (talk) 13:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I am un-linking the WHO report from this section, since it is a primary source. It will remain in the citations.KristinaLu (talk) 11:56, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm curious why you think the report's description of what they evaluated is inappropriate for a section describing and delineating the theory being investigated from others? WP:PRIMARY seems to suggest that such a use here is reasonable, and more importantly if you were to challenge its use as a primary source I'd expect the challenge to be over the final evaluation instead of their description of 'we didn't consider these possibilities' (though one of the two excluded possibilities was based on another study, making it secondary for this decision). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:12, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Administrator Noticeboard request for talk page protection

Notification of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Requesting page protection for Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 Bakkster Man (talk) 14:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Fanatically shoving the zoonotic origin as if it is the forgone scientific consensus

Pretty much the above subtitle. This WP article does exactly what WP articles shouldn't do. As it stands, this article deserves an Outdated template until it has been cleaned up. EyeTruth (talk) 00:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

You're free to take a look at the talk page archives and see that this has already been discussed a few times. You're also free to take a look at what high-quality sources (also other good sources not included there: [42]; [43]) are saying about this. You're also free to look for such similar sources so that the content can be updated if necessary. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:49, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not here to argue whether it was a lab leak or not. WP should reflect the scientific consensus. If institutions are calling for investigations into the lab leak theory, then WP should reflect that ambiguity. The zoonotic origin is currently not a forgone conclusion, even though it's widely accepted as the more likely. There are ongoing investigations. There are enough bread crumbles for the lab leak theory to be a valid line of inquiry, regardless of whatever really happened. The article should reflect that ambiguity in its lede. This recent Nature article sums it up nicely: although the current evidence are iffy, they are enough to motivate serious inquiry. Also, the link you provided is just a whole lot of primary sources (or is that the preferred in this corner of WP?). On a side note, please leave my subtitle be, and I've shortened it. EyeTruth (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The link is a list of secondary, review papers in academic journals. See WP:SCHOLARSHIP "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a paper reviewing existing research, a review article, [...]". The Nature article I've already linked to (if you didn't notice), and what it does say is "Most scientists say SARS-CoV-2 probably has a natural origin, and was transmitted from an animal to humans." (before going in more detail on this) - sounds like a consensus to me. It then goes on to describe some of the common lab leak arguments and provides balanced scientific thinking on the matter. In short, as the article is saying, the lab leak is "possible but unsubstantiated and unlikely". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:43, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't become scientific consensus just by most scientists having an opinion. Scientific consensus is predicated on evidence, which so far is lacking. We should wait for the scientists to declare a consensus, rather than base it on our own analysis. Terjen (talk) 22:52, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Let's not duplicate the discussion with the previous thread about consensus. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

No need to go down that path. Just avoid opinionating that "Most scientists say" sounds like a consensus to you. Terjen (talk) 00:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the article is clear from the beginning that zoonotic origin is not a foregone conclusion. Are there parts of the article I missed that state it as inescapable fact? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Brilliantly said. There are now so many scientists - Fauci, Rees, Redfield and many others - who agree on the possibility of a lab leak. On the other hand this wiki seems to be still stuck in 2020, because a handful of holdout editors still keep the lab leak scenario portrayed as unlikely. 183.83.147.38 (talk) 10:29, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Where does Fauci say the lab leak theory is anything but "possible, but unlikely" ? I have seen no such statement. And that is the stance we portray in this article.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Guys don't bother fighting wikiactivists here. Giving them primary scientific sources are not enough for them to bother updating this article from the conflict-of-interest driven narrative. You aren't going to change anybody's of these activists opinions if they can't even be bothered to read Nature articles directly on this subject. 2601:602:9200:1310:60E1:7F9E:14BC:FB2B (talk) 11:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Talk page warning issued to 2601:602:9200:1310:60E1:7F9E:14BC:FB2B for the above comment. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

That the scientific community does not have a consensus is evident by the explicit statements of the leading scientists in their Nature letter. There is a confusion that is used by promoters of the zoonotic origin, in using secondary sources that state a scientific consensus. The problem there is identifying "a consensus". Is the consensus a matter of self-declaration (i.e. the Nature letter), or is the consensus a majority vote on publications. For the latter, an apple to apple comparison is not possible, because it is hard to believe within limits of human intelligence that scientists could write articles proving a lab leak without an investigation on site. All the mess is caused from the now-debunked original paper by Andersen et al. which prematurely supported a zoonotic origin with rather "childish" assumptions of the type "if the virus would have engineered than it MUST have been engineered this way". The others reasonable scientists who apparently had questions were marginalized in expressing their feelings under the fear of being framed as racists. As a result, we see a pattern, on one hand the zoonotic promoters publishing and creating a premature hypothesis which has serious gaps, while the other majority of serious scientists raising questions, yet not publishing papers supporting a leak given no investigation and data. In my assessment, the second is the right scientific stance: you do not publish conclusions without data based on vague assumptions as Andersen et al., or the WHO report with a COI authorship. WP is stuck in between, supporting the premature zoonotic conclusion, and blindly rejecting any reasonable voices that claim the leak to be a viable hypothesis. It might end up being incorrect, but at the moment is a viable hypothesis. It is not a discredited fringe theory by no standard and very serious people (top scientists at the Nature letter) are calling it a hypothesis. Few WP editors can continue to push for the article to be in the current state of misery with regards to the equal treatment of the matter, but I think that is changing. (Redacted) Intelligible.Machine (talk) 22:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

"Viable" or "possible" does not mean "likely". Your characterisations are obviously and quite clearly deliberately economical with the truth, and you obviously haven't read the article, since nowhere does it say the lab leak is impossible. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Viable means likely by all definitions. Notice the term likely is not a synonym for a probability higher than 0.5. The current article does not treat the lab leak as a viable/likely hypothesis, instead clearly implies that hypotheses outside the zoonotic one are fringe conspiracies, see first paragraph. The truth is that although a large number of scientists "firmly assume" a zoonotic origin to be likely, there are yet no scientific evidences clearly proving it. That is echoed by the Science magazine letter (cited above) by the leading coronavirus scientists that supports a lab leak as a viable hypothesis in a direct and unambigous manner. Why would the best scientists support the likelihood of a lab leak hypothesis if a scientific consensus (or evidences) was as clear as the WP article implies? Another issue arises when WP editors, who in 2020 expressed opinions in calling a lab leak a fringe and discredited theory with conspiracy links, resist in 2021 to accept the leak as viable. I believe the dilemma is: scientific consensus vs. editor consensus for interpreting a dynamically-paced stream of reliable sources which are quickly diverting from the original "firm assumptions" on a zoonotic origin. Unless editors unite in rejecting a characterization of the lab leak as a conspiracy, and alter the article accordingly, I suspect the objections at the talk page will steadily increase. Intelligible.Machine (talk) 22:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Whatever "viable" means, there are plenty of (secondary, peer-reviewed) sources (as opposed to primary opinion letters) which attest to scientists (even Fauci et al., despite cherrypicking to the contrary) saying it's unlikely, so we have no reason to start looking for dictionary definitions. Again, where in the article does it say that a lab leak is a conspiracy theory? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:52, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

We should stop treating the lab leak as a conspiracy theory. It has been called a viable hypothesis by many prominent scientists (Science letter and Anthony Fauci the most notable) and is being taken seriously by many government agencies and the WHO. At this point, those that keep trying to call is a conspiracy theory blatantly have an agenda. You, RandomCanadian, have kept calling it a conspiracy theory many times.Eccekevin (talk) 00:41, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Where did I call the particular "accidental lab leak of a natural virus" a conspiracy theory? Where in the article is it being described as such? We should treat it as a "plausible but currently unaccepted theory". If you keep insisting that the article says its a conspiracy theory, without being able to substantiate this, I'll have a hard time believing that there's an actual problem. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:47, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Classified report with early support for lab leak theory reemerges as focal point for lawmakers digging into Covid-19 origins

The report, which was issued by researchers at the government-backed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in May 2020, found that it was possible that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, according to four people familiar with the document, at a time when that line of inquiry was considered politically taboo.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/politics/covid-lab-leak-theory-classified-report/index.html

2601:602:9200:1310:60E1:7F9E:14BC:FB2B (talk) 11:31, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible. Plus apparently - The report also found that virus might have developed naturally in the wild ... Multiple sources cautioned CNN that the document doesn't offer any "smoking gun" that proves one theory over the other. starship.paint (exalt) 14:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

"experts at the time" and highly biased treatment of WHO report reception

Normchou has altered the text of the lead to give a highly biased presentation of the WHO report's global reception [44]. Reading Normchou's text, a naive reader would conclude that "experts at the time" (in the past) believed that SARS-CoV-2 had a zoonotic origin, therefore implying that they no longer do. That is grossly false.

Just as importantly, most scientists agree with the WHO report's conclusions, and as documented in the reference that Normchou removed [45], most commentaries by scientists indicate that they received the report positively. The Nature news summarizes in this way:

The question of the pandemic’s origins has been politically fraught from the start. Many researchers say that the team did an excellent job of synthesizing the available evidence under difficult circumstances.

But Normchou's lead text would only indicate that people are skeptical of the report. That's misrepresenting the response of the scientific community almost entirely. We shouldn't mislead readers about this issue. -Darouet (talk) 19:07, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Firm Agree. @Darouet: That is an inappropriate characterization of the state of the literature given that the scientific consensus has not changed. even if the popular press view has softened on the theory, consensus among relevant experts has not. Also worth saying, this is not the first time Normchou has been warned about using weasel words and inserting a pro-leak POV into this article. How many times before it goes to ANI?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:59, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink Please don't threaten with ANI over such a minor issue. Besides, it could easily WP:BOOMERANG: Just in the past day, you inserted WP:OR into the article by changing the terminology used in the cited source. Terjen (talk) 22:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Terjen, you were the one that started changing the terminology for your own OR reasons, so the boomerang could as well head in your direction. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:01, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian I am not litigious so no. Besides, my change from inferred to surmised is consistent with the cited source. You were the one to change it to presume, deviating from the cited source. However, it was actually @Darouet who first injected WP:OR with a change to 'inferred'. I have reviewed the history, and it seems like expected is a reasonable stable compromise, avoiding making assumptions about how the scientists came to their opinions; Alternatively, the term used in the cited source: surmise. Terjen (talk) 00:35, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Comment: It was I who altered Darouet's problematic summary, which stated that The WHO investigation was praised by researchers. Note the cited Nature article already in the introduction has statements like "makes a reasonable start", "many questions yet to be answered", "much remains to be done", "details in the report were helpful, but didn’t include much new information", "challenges remaining", and "this is just a very first step". When deep into the article it says the team did an excellent job under difficult circumstances, it's hardly praise of the report or its accuracy, but rather an indication the investigation was constrained. Indeed: We shouldn't mislead readers about this issue. Terjen (talk) 22:17, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: I just bypassed the whole thing, and changed it to "echoing the scientific consensus..." which is consistent with the other MEDRSes we have on the subject. The consensus was already that the leak was unlikely. And then we can avoid all these weasel words, avoid the fact that the AP is an RS, not a MEDRS and so probably shouldn't be used to depict scientific consensus.... and the fact that the source uses this word "surmised" which is a lot more charged than the other sources we have. I would be very surprised if you could find a lot of MEDRSes that say there is "no evidence" to support a zoonotic origin. Because that is simply not the case.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:28, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

"Proposed explanations" section is highly imbalanced

The "Proposed explanations" section of this article, while helpful in some regards, is not written nearly as carefully as the text that's transcluded from Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. A reader of that carefully written article can, in the section "Reservoir and origin," find 5 paragraphs dedicated to information leading scientists to believe the virus is the result of a natural zoonotic spillover.

One last paragraph of the section states,

Politicians and some scientists have made unsubstantiated speculation that the virus may have accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This has led to calls in the media for further investigations into the matter. Many virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote. The WHO–China joint study report from March 2021 stated that such an explanation is extremely unlikely.

So, just one out of five paragraphs dedicated to this "lab leak", and the paragraph explicitly states that this is considered a "very remote" possibility by virologists.

By contrast here at "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19," after transcluded text, we dedicate equal time to each scenario in "Proposed explanations". Worse, we don't tell readers in these sections that scientists view the zoonotic spillover options as far more likely, and a lab leak (or cold chain transmission) as far less likely. Effectively, readers are being miseducated.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that this article, instead of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, is probably a magnet for editors who aren't scientists, but who strongly disagree with the scientific consensus on the origins of SARS-CoV-2. That is a very parsimonious explanation of why we do so much worse than Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in writing on this issue. But we need to reflect the views of scientists here just as well as at Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. There are some concrete changes we can make to "Proposed explanations" and I'll hope to work on that in the coming days. I hope others can help. -Darouet (talk) 19:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

As one of the editors who led the effort to add the section, I think your concerns are reasonable. I'd like to both give some context on the rationale behind it, and talk through how we think we can improve the article's handling of the topic overall.

I do think there's value in providing a neutral overview of these four hypotheses, primarily based about how they were investigated in the WHO report. That was the goal of the section, providing a neutral and dispassionate look at the theorized explanations so there was a common definition of what means what (not just what does 'lab leak' mean, but also 'cold/food chain') ahead of our discussion of the evaluations. Is this the best solution? Probably not, but I think it's better than what we had before where there was minimal explanation of what the WHO categories means. I think it's particularly important regarding differentiating the 'lab leak' the WHO evaluated, and the 'lab manufacturing' of the even less accepted ideas. IMO, the bare description of the hypotheses should remain (with edits as needed), and it's the presentation and structures around it which would be best to adjust in order to better frame the discussion.

I think the concern of context is a valid one. I had hoped the prior/following sections would be sufficient context, but if consensus is that it's not, then it should be fixed. My big concern is with either leaning too heavily on the single WHO report, or getting good quality sources to be confident in our evaluation. Maybe I'm overly concerned, and maybe it's fine to make a note only on the lab section that most consider it unlikely. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Rename into "Investigations into the origin of SARS-CoV-2"

The current label is not correct, because the article is not about the origin of the disease (COVID-19), but about the origin of the virus SAR-CoV-2. It is also not about the etiology of COVID-19, but about the genesis of SARS-CoV-2. The article should sail under the correct flag. What are the opinions here ?--Empiricus (talk) 19:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree with this fully, thanks Empiricus. -Darouet (talk) 20:03, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I propose "Investigations into the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19" to include the fact that the origin of the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan is also a significant component of what a reader associates with the origin. Forich (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think any change is necessary, both for consistency with the main article (COVID-19 pandemic) and for the fact that this isn't really a necessary improvement (the current title is both unambiguous, naturally flowing English, precise, and concise. See WP:CRITERIA and also bear in mind the well known "if it ain't broken don't fix it". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:50, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi RandomCanadian - unless the scope of this article changes, I think we’re going to have to change the title, either now, or eventually. The reason is that, simply put, this article is about the origin of the virus, not the disease. Of course those two things are closely linked, but they’re also very different. The origin of the disease, specifically, would be a discussion of pathophysiology and epidemiology. -Darouet (talk) 21:32, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

"into the origins of the' COVID-19 pandemic" is all the change that's truly constructive if you really insist, although it's not actually necessary because the title as is is clear enough, and long enough too. The suggested solution is one to a non-existent problem. I don't think any reader would be surprised to find the information about this under the current title. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:12, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I prefer the current title. SARS-CoV-2 is not as succinct as COVID-19. A reader looking for this article is unlikely to type that and is not as likely to know what that is. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:18, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Joint-WHO-China investigation, keep its official and accurate name

The joint WHO-China investigation is officially called "Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)" and is refered as such by the media. And yet, some user keep removing the China part. Please leave its official name, as it is here and on other pages. Eccekevin (talk) 23:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

It keeps getting changed because edits which alter it usually have the negative side-effect of altering significant enough amounts of content elsewhere in a controversial enough manner that they get reverted. Now that the latest edit has managed to fix this without having to "fix" the rest of the article, it's likely going to stay stable. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:35, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Leading biologist dampens his ‘smoking gun’ Covid lab leak theory

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/leading-biologist-dampens-his-smoking-gun-covid-lab-leak-theory 205.175.106.86 (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

EU joins Biden’s call for fresh probe into coronavirus origins

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-president-joe-biden-call-investigation-origins-coronavirus/ 205.175.106.86 (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Background reading regarding potential zoonotic spillover

A few papers I've come across. I want to help improve the article. Let me know if the below is usable. I'll post some notes.

Here's what I found:

2019 (notably, before first COVID-19 cases were reported): "Human-animal interactions and bat coronavirus spillover potential among rural residents in Southern China"

They surveyed many residents in rural China, and found that nine (0.6%) of them tested positive for bat coronaviruses (among other signs of apparent spillover such as SARS-like symptoms). They also examined how frequently residents were coming into contact with various animals, including bats. 8 out of 9 of those who tested positive for such viruses were working in crop production, i.e. farming. This background information may be helpful to understand what sort of environment that SARS-CoV-2 probably crossed over from, or at least other novel viruses related to it.

A 2020 paper cited the above. It included two of the same researchers.

2020: "A strategy to prevent future epidemics similar to the 2019-nCoV outbreak"

2021: Timing the SARS-CoV-2 index case in Hubei province

For that I'll just leave a choice quote:

Our results highlight the unpredictable dynamics that characterized the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The successful establishment of SARS-CoV-2 postzoonosis was far from certain, as more than two-thirds of simulated epidemics quickly went extinct. It is highly probable that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Hubei province at low levels in November 2019 and possibly as early as October 2019, but not earlier. Nonetheless, the inferred prevalence of this virus was too low to permit its discovery and characterization for weeks or months. By the time that COVID-19 was first identified, the virus had firmly established itself in Wuhan. This delay highlights the difficulty in surveillance for novel zoonotic pathogens with high transmissibility and moderate mortality rates.

The high extinction rates we inferred suggest that spillover of SARS-CoV-2like viruses may be frequent, even if pandemics are rare. Furthermore, the same dynamics that characterized the establishment of SARS-CoV-2 in Hubei province may have played out all over the world, as the virus was repeatedly introduced but only occasionally took hold. The reports of cases in December 2019 and January 2020 in France and California that did not establish sustained transmission fit this pattern.

If none of the above is suitable to improve the page, I hope I've at least introduced editors to some interesting information concerning the origins, or maybe invited somebody to point me somewhere better for it... good day. --Chillabit (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Guardian quote

@Eccekevin: Have you read the article in question, or are you confusing it with some other piece? I don't know what's wrong with the Guardian article, but the following quote:

Biden also revealed that two of the 18 US intelligence agencies lean towards the theory it jumped from an animal species to humans and “one leans more toward” the lab theory, suggesting a striking lack of clarity. Meanwhile, outside of US intelligence circles, the broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event.

Does not make any mention of gain-of-function whatsoever. This is clearly referring to a lab leak in general. Nor do the few preceeding paragraphs. The only, single mention of gain-of-function is the following (emphasis added):

But wasn’t there a World Health Organization mission to Wuhan to study the origins of Covid-19?

There was indeed. But the terms of reference of that mission, agreed with China, were to study the potential animal origins of the coronavirus, a fact that was well known to the US and other countries.

It did not include provisions for an audit of the WIV laboratory or to look into so-called “gain of function” research at the lab into viruses, which the Chinese are unlikely to have agreed to. During that mission to Wuhan, researchers spent just three hours at the lab.

However, in public comments team members were sceptical of the lab leak theory after their visit, on the basis of what they were allowed to see – although that does not rule other material having been hidden.

As you can see, the mention of GoF has nothing to do with which version is unlikely. It's not clear which version of the lab leak team members were skeptical of, but assuming the usage is the same as before in the same article, and bearing in mind the actual conclusions of the report, this is referring to an unspecific (accidental) lab leak scenario, and the fact that, "outside of US intelligence", scientific experts remain in agreement that the most likely explanation is natural zoonosis (thus, that the lab leak is unlikely compared to that), makes it clear that this is a useable source for the specific claim it is being used to support. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:05, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Where does this article say that most scientists consider it "unlikely"? The first quote never mentions the lab theory, it only mentions a natural origin. As said before, a natural origin is not exclusive with a laboratory accident. Anthony Fauci said: “It is entirely conceivable that the origins of Sars-Cov-2 was in that cave and either started spreading naturally or went through the lab.”. Additionally, Nature also states that In theory, COVID-19 could have come from a lab in a few ways. Researchers might have collected SARS-CoV-2 from an animal and maintained it in their lab to study.

Hence, saying that a quote saying that "natural source is likely" can be interpreted as "laboratory accident is not likely" is a false dichotomy and WP:SYNTH. Most scientists agree that it evolved naturally, but whether the jump from animal happened in a wet market, in nature, or in a lab is still under investigation. Eccekevin (talk) 06:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Summarizing is not synthesis. When we have multiple sources which describe the lab leak as unlikely, and when the vast majority of scientific sources are focused on a zoonotic origin where the lab leak is not necessary (see also Occam's razor) Other strategies, more speculative than those listed above, have been used to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020). The evidence indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was not purposefully manipulated (Andersen et al., 2020). Moreover, the notion that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020) is not necessary to explain the pandemic. [46], it's clear that a proper summary of the sources ought to have us indicate that it's first and foremost unlikely. Selectively quoting Fauci (who also said that natural origin is more likely, and which in the quote you give is using "or" (most often exclusive in normal language), not "and", to link the two theories) and Nature (which, a few sentences later, has, describing the whole bunch of plausible lab leak scenarios: "There is currently no clear evidence to back these scenarios, but they aren’t impossible.") isn't helpful to provide an accurate picture to our readers. It's only helpful to misinterpret the status of the lab leak. We ought not to do that, cause that would be actual misinformation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:31, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but the issue is that a lot of what you're saying is SYNTH. For example, some of the sources that you quote the lab leak as a virus originating in a lab while others are speaking of a natural virus which then was collected and spilled over to humans in the lab. Also, Ockham's razor is just a logical tool, but has no relevance in science since it is not based on evidence. Currently, all the sources point to the fact that we can probably rule out deliberate bioengineering, but they also all state that it is not possible to rule out the nature-to-lab leak (which is what Fauci is talking about) with genetic analysis, hence only an investigation can do.Eccekevin (talk) 21:41, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Most sources, especially serious scientific ones, consider that a virus which was deliberately manipulated in a lab is ruled out. So, no, they're clearly speaking of the "accidental release of a natural virus", and I'd be extremely surprised if they were speaking of another lab leak hypothesis. If you're not sure, see this, which is clearly speaking of "another hypothesis is the accidental infection of laboratory staff working on naturally occurring Sarbecoviruses" when it is saying that "this hypothesis has been considered as “extremely unlikely” by the official WHO investigation team" and that "although a laboratory accident can never be definitively excluded, there is currently no evidence to support it." This is how it is also reported in the press, with most reputable outlets noting how the "most likely" origin is zoonotic and that a laboratory leak (yes, the accidental one, not the conspiracy nutjob nonsense) is unlikely according to most scientists. The only SYNTH I see is trying to dispute this using context-less quotes. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

References

No serious research can ruled out the possibility of an artifical virus. 2021 there are several virologists who have independently come to the same conclusions that there is nothing in nature in the range of the so-called beta coronaviruses that would be comparable to SARS-CoV-2 and that, because of the charge states of these particular gene sequences, it would be quite unlikely that such a sequence would form naturally, as this would contradict the laws of physics. Reverse-genetic engineering for Corona-Virus manipulation is a common technique.. It is known from many independent sources that in September 2019, extensive data of the virological database of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan was deleted; the databases (16 !) also wehre no longer accessible at all. Not even for the WHO team. That furthermore data on coronaviruses of the research group of Shi Zhengli have been published in the journal Nature, which later turned out to be inadequate and contradictory. In the protected area of the database (for which mach used to need a password - now inactive) were also many previously unpublished corona viruses. So it only needs a publicly previously unknown Corona virus to have been used. Nobody can exclude Reverse-genetic engineering under these circumstances. Especially since it is common known that there is preventive biological military research on GoF all over the world - not only in China also in the US. These scientific results are not publicly available. State secrets.

If you observe the reaction of China -they build a massive protective wall around the WIV (similar to here in Wikipedia !). Databases deleted / inaccessible; no WHO investigation on this, artificial Virus propagated as a conspiracy theory, no further data released, wrong data published, manipulation of the WHO team, results, exclusion of laboratory thesis in general. What is totally illogical - if there is 100 % a zoonotic origin - then they could have allowed a transparent investigation without any problem - because it is absolutely impossible. But they did not. They do not want clarification ! Why ? --Empiricus (talk) 08:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

"No serious research can ruled out the possibility of an artifical virus" - wrong (and not just because of the grammar). We don't care what you think - we have reliable sources, many of them scientists in peer-reviewed journals, which rule out such an origin and describe it, plain and simple, as a conspiracy theory. As are your claims about a deleted database. Your claims about a "law of physics-violating sequence" are pure nonsense - there are plenty of such genes in the human genome (9701 matches for a sequence of at least 4, and then you have weird stuff like the "champion in the human genome": NP_001171491.1 protein BEAN1 isoform 1, whose sequence contains the following: RHRHRHHRHHHHHHHHRRRRHR ...) - and also conveniently ignore that if it did violate the law of physics, you couldn't make it work even if you engineered it: (same as previous) "Indeed. If it truly “violates the laws of physics” to have four positively charged amino acids all in a line next to each other in a protein, then it would be utterly impossible to engineer a nucleotide sequence that could encode such a protein, because translation would fail!"!

You also conveniently ignore the presence of analogs to some crucial COVID genes in multiple other natural CoVs, strongly suggesting that there was selective pressure and that such features likely evolved many times independently. Of course none of that rules out a natural sample being collected and escaping the lab, although that defies probability and assumes unnecessary complications: it is much simpler for the virus to spread outside of the lab to one among hundreds of thousands of people routinely in contact with wild bats in rural China than for it to somehow evade, undetected, safety protocols in one: i.e., as I was quoting above, "is not necessary to explain the pandemic".

As most news outlet document (ex. recent editorial in Guardian, though there are better sources for this too), the shift has been primarily political and not scientific. You're free to suggest how to improve coverage of that. Spouting conspiracy theory nonsense is unlikely to do you any good, though. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:21, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Your explanation pattern with the "conspiracy theory" is the well-known China KPC propaganda logic. China has built a Chinese wall around the virus and the Lab (WIV) and you build it here in Wikipedia. Who is "we" ? and hwo you know this: "If it truly “violates the laws of physics” to have four positively charged amino acids all in a line next to each other in a protein, then it would be utterly impossible to engineer a nucleotide sequence that could encode such a protein, because translation would fail!" (your consultants ?). Time has passed because the global consensus has changed 2021. There is no consensus of more than 10 million scientists worldwide (where ?), only of some virologists. Three scientists have already distanced themselves from the Lancet Statement (laboratory thesis=conspiracy theory). Those who still believe represent 2021 a dogmatic fring theory. (The circumstances for this letter have the potential for a real conspiracy theory). To falsify hypotheses without investigation, to know the result in advanced is simply unscientific ! Of course, the G7 states (including your Canada / Primeminister !), which today call for an independend investigation, also represent conspiracy theories according to your fring opinion. Sorry, but your position is outdated. --Empiricus (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

If something violates the laws of physics, it's just not possible for it to work (unless the current laws of physics are wrong), whether you've engineered it or nature did it for you. Anybody making the claim that something that exists "violates the laws of physics" is either A) full of shit or B) got to write a big physics paper about it. The source is the same as that linked for the previous statement (here). I've gone to great lengths to make a difference between the conspiracy theory ("artificial virus", as you call it) and the "plausible but currently unaccepted" theory ("accidental lab leak of a natural virus"). If you keep trying to misrepresent my words and act like you're not hearing what I say, and if you keep making personal attacks by claiming that I'm spreading propaganda (you'd also have to look up the NYT, Nature, the Guardian, etc...: all mainstream news/scientific outlets which report that a lab accident is possibly but unlikely, and that most scientists think a natural, zoonotic origin is far more likely - are they also "spreading "well-known China propaganda"?), you're likely to get yet another topic ban for the disruptive nature of your lack of good faith and your fact-free opinion writing on the subject. "We" is the Wikipedia community - the one whose rules (civility and respect are not something that you can ignore), policies (WP:NPOV) and guidelines (WP:FRINGE/WP:RS) you ought to start following, ASAP. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:45, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Related Draft

I've started a draft at Draft:China_COVID-19_Cover-up that may be of interest to editors of this article. I could definitely use help improving it. See also related discussion at [47].Adoring nanny (talk) 11:04, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

That's an egregiously POV piece, and it should not be published on Wikipedia. It's simply a POVFORK off of COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, meant to push the POV that China covered up the outbreak. It doesn't even get basic facts right: contrary to what the piece claims, China publicly announced the outbreak on 31 December 2019. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:28, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

It certainly is an interesting draft. The title might need some improvement though, it sounds too raw (maybe "Chinese attempts to suppress information about COVID-19" etc. would be better?). Great article though; do continue working on it! Even if it isn't accepted as an article for now, I'm sure it'll be accepted a few months down the line. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 14:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Biden remarks at G7

As covered by NBC news, Biden said that we haven't had access to the Wuhan lab to conduct an investigation and we still don't know if COVID is a natural development or a lab leak. Shouldn't this be included in the article?[48] 73.120.83.182 (talk) 14:51, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

We already have Biden's opinion on this, from when he called for a new investigation. Should would we include every subsequent thing he's said about it? No, that would go against WP:WEIGHT. Our job is to include his opinion as much as it is relevant to the topic, as shown to us by the most reliable encyclopedic unbiased sources on the topic. And his opinion doesn't hold much weight in those, because it isn't a scientific statement or policy judgment. It represents no new fact-based information or evidence. It is simply a politician saying more of what he has said before. So we only include his position a little bit, when it is extremely news-worthy. We include only the most pertinent times he's said something about it, to represent all the things he's said about it. That's what an encyclopedia is: a summary. Not a warehouse.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

"We already have Biden's opinion on this, from when he called for a new investigation" it´s a new statement of the G7 - this is a little difference. --Empiricus (talk) 20:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

That's also not what the IP was proposing. This is more justifiable for inclusion imo. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:39, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Statement by the G7, or by Biden while attending the G7? Reads like the latter. I think the bigger question is whether this should replace the previous Biden statement, whether it's actually substantively different from before (arguably, it's not much different than the WHO DG statement months ago: need direct access to know for sure), and how notable tracking every single statement on the topic is. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:43, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

No I think ES is right, this was a joint statement of the G7. This is distinct from what the IP was saying. I added a line in the International politicians' calls for investigations section to reflect. I would argue the G7 is significant enough to put here, although we may want to consider condensing this with the other calls for investigation in that section. i.e. maybe we should put which countries are in the G7, and then remove the individual statements from those countries (Canada, Germany, UK).--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:48, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

David Asher, should we even have this quote?

Here's the quote and the section:

You don’t normally go to the hospital with influenza, especially a cluster of people. This is the most probable source of the outbreak.

The issue is that people in China actually do go to the hospital for primary care. We have no evidence that these 3 researchers were actually inpatient hospitalized (just that they "went to the hospital"), no evidence that they had severe pneumonia, no evidence that they had any complications, and no evidence that any samples tested positive for SARS-COV-2 in any way. It is quite clear that David Asher is not an expert in hospital care in China, or any element of healthcare in China. He is an expert in economic and financial elements of international relations, as well as intelligence and global security. But none of these things have anything to do with hospital care in China or how unusual it is for people to seek care for an influenza-like illness in China. My humble opinion is that he is drawing a narrative and then fitting the facts to that narrative.

So, plainly, should we include this quote at all?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:20, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd support removal. I only see a similar statement being due if there's more RS coverage of that view, and the coverage would be more convincing if the view were attributed to someone with expertise. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:43, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd go even further and say that we have no evidence that any aspect of this story is correct. Anonymous intelligence officials have claimed that three WIV workers went to the hospital, but they haven't provided any evidence, and we have no way of knowing if what they're saying is true.

About David Asher, he's not an expert, and he has even claimed that CoVID-19 is a bioweapon. We should not be quoting his opinion on the WIV/hospital story. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:46, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

So this pretty much confirms the {{dubious}} tag that I put in. I've gone ahead and removed it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:21, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Revert on added WSJ article to lab leak section

@Shibbolethink just because it is mentioned earlier do you think it does not belong in the section about the lab leak theory? The "why?" section of your profile shows you hold strong personal beliefs against this theory. Can we trust you to be WP:NPOV in your editing? As a virologist defending other virologists of wrong-doing, you have a possible WP:COI. Wqwt (talk) 21:34, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

As to this ad hominem attack, my "POV" is that we should trust the scientific consensus. Which, in this case, is that the lab leak theory is unlikely. If that consensus changes, my "POV" very likely will as well, because such a change will likely only occur in the face of very convincing new evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Ask basically any academically-trained virologist, and they will say something similar. Does that mean we don't want people who know things about viruses to edit on Wikipedia? Wikipedia has a bias for science-based facts. I would urge you, in the future, to assume good faith and avoid personal attacks like this.

It is not just that it is mentioned elsewhere, it is mostly an issue of WP:WEIGHT. We must give due weight (not equal weight) to these theories based upon the amount of coverage in secondary peer-reviewed sources in the scientific literature. In this case, the Wall Street Journal does not have expertise in science and they are not experts on this topic. The relevant experts almost unanimously agree that the lab leak is possible, but extremely unlikely. So we give one mention of the WSJ evidence in this article, but give more coverage to content from peer-reviewed sources. This is as it should be, given WP:WEIGHT.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I removed this on the other article, so let's chime in here to avoid duplicate discussions. The claim that scientists have a COI is blatantly WP:FLAT and needs no further entertainment (see here). And, yes, we are biased towards science. See WP:Academic bias and then look up WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:SCHOLARSHIP for why the WaPo and the WSJ are not suitable sources for scientific topics. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:54, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

This is not my argument. See my reply to Novem Linguae below. Wqwt (talk) 03:51, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

So do you discount the WSJ article on a US intelligence investigation because it is not a scientific outlet? It does not make sense to expect a scientific outlet to break the news on a US intelligence investigation. Wqwt (talk) 04:02, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Wqwt. This argument seems weak when expanded to its natural conclusion. Should virologists stop editing articles on viruses? Should historians stop editing articles on history? Arguing that a person's profession gives them COI for the entire topic is too strict an interpretation of COI. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I did not say virologists have COI on editing about viruses, I said they may have COI when editing articles concerning investigations into fellow virologists, the kind that would be damaging to their whole profession (which is not that populous to begin with). This is not specific to the profession: I would be similarly mindful of COI of lawyers editing investigations into fellow lawyers, or historians editing investigations into fellow historians. Wqwt (talk) 03:50, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

If you have a problem with my editing in this or other related articles, why don't you bring it up to the appropriate noticeboard? I have nothing to hide. But let me tell you the thing that has always been said to me any time I thought about escalating my policy disputes... Be careful it does not WP:BACKFIRE.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I see the "threatening Wikipedia:BOOMERANG" "advice" is still well and alive. Wqwt (talk) 05:29, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Wqwt, I am another editor that thinks this COI argument is nonsense, and that if it weren't, this isn't the appropriate venue to discuss it. If you feel you have points about the WSJ content discussion that haven't been addressed, you may want to start again below with less conduct dispute mixed in. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 05:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Wqwt, what I would like to communicate to you, in the most civil possible terms, is that I appreciate your passion to change this article to what you believe to be a NPOV.

However, I also want to be clear that a pattern of casting WP:ASPERSIONS without evidence, or the more particular case of any user who displays a pattern of casting WP:ASPERSIONS without intending to follow through on any actual substantive evidence-based process, is on the wrong side of wiki policy. The most relevant policy I would cite to you is this: (1) COI accusations are not a trump card that can be used to WP:WIN arguments, and (2) Wiki has clear and rational guidelines on how to cite yourself if you're an expert on a topic. Why would that exist if it were an obvious COI to be an expert editing articles about topics in your area of expertise?

I'm an expert on high-level biosafety work conducted on highly pathogenic viruses, editing articles about the same. Also relevant to say that while my PhD was earned studying high-level biocontainment virology, my current area of research is brain tumors, and how we can use low-level biocontainment viruses to treat/cure them. So very unclear to me how editing these articles in the way I have been could provide me any financial or professional gain, except in an extremely roundabout and indirect way that would be far too broad to be fair. I have cited a paper I authored once in the section on ADE in COVID-19 misinformation, that's the only instance in recent memory I've been able to do that. But my PhD was 1/3 about ADE, and the paper is extremely relevant to its cited sentence, so I don't believe that was inappropriate in any way. As always, I am welcome to evidence-based and policy-relevant criticism.

Now, do I have any reason to believe that you, in particular, have a pattern of the aforementioned WP:ASPERSIONS behavior? No. Only this one instance, and you very well could go through the ropes and stake a claim at COIN. Frankly, I hope you do, because I personally believe it would clear me of any wrongdoing and I'd be able to cite that COIN entry in any future instances.

However, all in all, my friendly suggestion to you is to avoid the trouble, take this as a lesson in civility, and start over on the clean slate we're offering. You are very much welcome to make a policy-based, content-relevant argument, and I promise you I will examine it on its merits.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Fine. I will take your word for WP:WEIGHT and not having COI. Let's leave it at that. Wqwt (talk) 00:17, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

"deliberate bioengineering of the virus has been ruled out"

@RandomCanadian: What sources support the claim that "deliberate bioengineering of the virus has been ruled out" for both the bio-weapon conspiracy theory and accidental release from gain-of-function research? Numerous reliable sources contradict this, stating that the accidental release of a virus engineered via gain-of-function research is still a viable hypothesis.[49][50][51][52] Stonkaments (talk) 19:50, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Science source does not say that. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The citation provided (Andersen et al 2020)[53] says: "It is improbable [emphasis added] that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation..." That is very different from ruling out bioengineering definitively, and it should not be attributed broadly to "experts", as it comes solely from the conclusion of one primary source. I believe we should update the article to more accurately represent and attribute these claims. Stonkaments (talk) 20:02, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Buzzfeed source does not say that. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not eager to dig through your third and fourth sources, knowing the first two didn't check out. If you continue to contend that the sources state "that the accidental release of a virus engineered via gain-of-function research is still a viable hypothesis" by experts, could you please provide quotes? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:06, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Buzzfeed clearly discusses the gain-of-function hypothesis as viable, in comparison with the bioweapon theory which they note most experts dismiss as a conspiracy theory. They write: "More elaborate versions of the theory suppose that scientists at the WIV or another lab in the city were engaged in well-intentioned but risky 'gain of function' experiments, genetically modifying a bat coronavirus to study the changes that would make it more likely to infect people. Suspicion has fallen on Shi because she had earlier collaborated on related experiments run by Ralph Baric, a virologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Baric’s team spliced the spike protein from one of Shi’s bat coronaviruses, which it uses to latch on to the cells it infects, into another coronavirus that had been adapted to infect mice. Shi has denied running any similar gain-of-function experiments since that research was published in 2015. But secrecy surrounding research at the WIV and other labs means that speculation about this possibility continues." Stonkaments (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Mentioning the theory and stating that speculation continues does not equate to a statement that contradicts that the theory "has been ruled out by experts". Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:15, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

It's implied, no? When they discuss the bioweapon theory, they clearly say it is regarded as a conspiracy theory by most experts. The fact that they don't make the same statement about the gain-of-function leak theory implies that it does not have the same level of opposition from experts. Regardless, it appears that editors won't put much weight on any sources that aren't published scientific journals, so it's a moot point. Stonkaments (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Buzzfeed and Vox are not WP:RSes for matters of science, they are trumped by a consensus of literature sources. That Science letter-to-the-editor does not mention "gain-of-function," "engineering" or "deliberate" in any way. It does not support your claims here. The MedPageToday link is an opinion piece written by an Anesthesiologist, so not in any way a relevant expert. The burden is on you, Stonkaments, to provide evidence and gain consensus on the deletion of content you're putting forward, given that we have a small consensus from various editors contributing to that section. And the bar of this is high, given the many MEDRSes we have cited here to support the statement in question. So far, I don't think you've met that bar.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok, here's another source published in a scientific journal[54], which says: "The leak scenario involves researchers tinkering around with a virus, perhaps in gain of function experiments..." This clearly shows that accidental escape from gain-of-function research has not been ruled out. Stonkaments (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

That is one version of the lab leak theory. There are other versions. The fact that many versions co-exist does not mean that they have equal probability. Experts have largely ruled out that version, as shown by the sources we have in that section, and most of all, based on the many sources over at WP:NOLABLEAK. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

New Scientist also is not a very reputable journal, given its very poor stats on SciMago, so it would be WP:UNDUE for us to give it much credence, as per WP:RSUW. It's very very far from a MEDRS or high-quality RS. That article is basically an opinion piece. Honestly might as well be published in Medical Hypotheses. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:17, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:RS/AC: "A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources." Are there any sources that directly say that most experts have ruled out a virus engineered via gain-of-function research? Otherwise any such claim would be WP:SYNTH, and we need to attribute it narrowly to the individual sources making the claim. Stonkaments (talk) 20:19, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

From the WHO report: We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome. citing [55]. We've had this discussion before, several times. Worth noting two things: the text specifically says that it's deliberate bioengineering for release that was ruled out. Later discussion concluded that the diagram they presented for the scenario included only general viral mutations unavoidable with replication, not "Adaptation, transmissibility increase". I think there's room for us to either reword this to be more clear, or make a note or comment in the article or its code describing this so we can avoid repeating the discussion (at least, due to that lack of context in the article, someday we'll have actual new info to replace it). Bakkster Man (talk) 20:50, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

And this is exactly the "scientific consensus statement in RS" we need. The WHO, upon examining all of the evidence available to the, "did not consider" the hypothesis because it "has been ruled out by other scientists". Sure, people may disagree with that - and that's their right. But when the WHO (a RS) states in no uncertain terms that they believe the issue has a consensus among scientists such that they don't even need to go over it, then that's about the strongest source for a "scientific consensus" statement in WP voice you can get. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:58, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's significant that they only say that deliberate bioengineering for release was ruled out. The article previously included the wording "for release", but it has been lost in recent edits, so at the very least that should be restored (and probably clarified/reworded−I initially found the meaning of the phrase "for release" unclear without the additional context). Also, the latter half of the sentence ("with remaining investigations considering the possibility of a collected natural virus inadvertently infecting laboratory staff during the course of study") implies that only a natural virus lab escape scenario is being investigated, but that is contradicted by one of its cited sources (the New Scientist article), which discusses the gain-of-function lab leak possibility. Stonkaments (talk) 21:34, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

New Scientist isn’t really an academic science journal. As to whether any science articles have ruled out engineering - yes, this is the conclusion of the first major work on this topic, Andersen et al [56], which remains the authoritative work on the issue, cited approvingly and over 1,500 times. Surely if you’re arguing on this page about this topic you’re at least aware it exists. -Darouet (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I mentioned Andersen et al above. They did not in fact rule out bioengineering; they say: "It is improbable [emphasis added] that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation..." Stonkaments (talk) 21:49, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Stonkaments: see again Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Later discussion for discussion on the somewhat fuzzy middle ground of GoFR relating to the WHO report. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:48, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I should have read the sources I cited more thoroughly. Frutos et al. (recent review paper, after the WHO report) says the following three things, very clearly:

The only remaining rational option for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, is that of a naturally occurring virus circulating in the wild which came into contact with humans.

There is consensus within the scientific community to consider that SARS-CoV-2 has not been engineered and is a naturally occurring virus.

And

Considering that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally occurring virus, the main question is then to understand how such a virus can come into contact with humans and cause a major pandemic.

I think that seals the deal as far as "deliberate engineering" is concerned. Frutos is quite clear that the scenario found unlikely [but not ruled out] is the "accidental infection of laboratory staff working on naturally occurring Sarbecoviruses". He also spends quite a lot of time refuting many of the claims about deliberate engineering, under section 1.1. Unless you can find an equally good source (review paper focused on the origin of the virus in a reputable journal) which says otherwise, but given that my attempts so far (not much progress because it's a waste of time when we keep getting bombarded with Buzzfeed, WSJ and the like) haven't come up with anything promising, with most scientific papers giving short shrift or entirely ignoring any controversy about the topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:00, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the Frutos source is just prior to the publication of the WHO report, and I didn't see a direct reference to it on a quick search. Doesn't mean it's not a solid source that can improve a lot of our citations, though. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:08, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: For your convenience, here is a direct mention: (section 1.5) "This hypothesis has been considered as “extremely unlikely” by the official WHO investigation team" RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:18, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspect that was between preliminary findings and full report, hence the lack of a citation at the bottom. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the link; it's hard to keep up on all the separate threads of this discussion! This Nature article[57] was cited as a good, reliable summary of the current state of understanding, and they provide yet another example showing that the possibility of an engineered virus lab leak hasn't been ruled out. They say: "In theory, COVID-19 could have come from a lab in a few ways. Researchers might have collected SARS-CoV-2 from an animal and maintained it in their lab to study, or they might have created it by engineering coronavirus genomes....There is currently no clear evidence to back these scenarios, but they aren’t impossible." Stonkaments (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the Nature article is referring to claims made by others, not necessarily the WHO's evaluation. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I think that's right, but of course we mustn't rely solely on the WHO. If other scientists still consider the engineered virus lab leak hypothesis viable, and the WHO itself only ruled out deliberate engineering for release, that should inform how we present the information. Stonkaments (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

We should present the information in proportion to its presentation in scientific peer-reviewed literature. Over at WP:NOLABLEAK, you'll see that most scientific studies in reliable peer-reviewed well-regarded journals portray the GoFR theory as not worth considering. It doesn't matter what a small minority of non-virologist scientists think. This is analogous to climate change, where some non-climate-trained scientists have fringe theories, that we don't really cover in any considerable depth. that's what WP:RSUW tells us to do.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:23, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Stonkaments: I broadly agree. While the WHO is one of our most authoritative sources and the best starting place (IMO), if we have other strong (but contradictory) WP:SCHOLARSHIP sources then we shouldn't wikivoice this and instead move it to the WHO section. Maybe I've missed it in all the chaos around the topic, but I believe we've only got some non-virological journal articles (in vivo being the strongest IIRC) proposing this alternative. I'm somewhat hesitant to support adding a section on the idea if that's the best source we have and we'd have to make very clear that it's a WP:FRINGE view, but I'm not necessarily 100% opposed to it. If you think it could be well sourced, NPOV, and recognize FRINGE; I welcome you to start sandboxing it in a new section of User:Bakkster_Man/Origin Sandbox and I'll lend a hand to see if we can get it to a reasonable state for an RfC-type discussion. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Stonkaments, I think where we're getting confused here is the conflation of "ruled out" with "impossible." That's not really how scientific theories work. A theory can be, for all intents and purposes, be "ruled out" but still technically "possible." Basically nothing, no conspiracy, no absurd theory in science is "impossible." It's "possible" that aliens will land tomorrow and declare the entire human race to be an experiment into the efficacy of balogna in preventing Alzheimer's, but it isn't very probable. Likewise, the genetic engineering GoFR theory cannot be described accurately as "impossible," but our sources indicate it is so improbable, so extremely unlikely, that most relevant experts have ruled it out as not worth considering. That's why the article is written the way it is.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:17, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I see your point, and I agree with the distinction. But which sources are you referring to, that so strongly dismiss the GoFR theory? Because the only two sources cited in the article for the claim about bio-engineering being ruled out are: 1) The WHO report, which only rules out bioengineering for deliberate release; and 2) Andersen et al, which is quite dated at this point and merely calls the lab manipulation theory "improbable". Stonkaments (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

What about purple cows in Arkansas Frutos et al. (cited and quoted above)? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:31, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

They found no evidence for the GoFR theory. That is not enough to support the broad claim that experts have ruled it out, especially when other sources show that others have not ruled it out. Stonkaments (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Chinese government investigations

Our entry on the Chinese government here is mostly about false or misleading statements by Chinese officials. However, in China there have been multiple investigations into the virus, starting with the Chinese CDCs early investigation identifying the market as the source of the first major detected outbreak. More recently the Chinese government and Chinese scientists have been working with the WHO.

We should mention false statements etc. by Chinese officials, but our section on this topic should actually educate readers about what investigations the Chinese government has either launched or facilitated. Right now our article gives us little information on its ostensible topic. -Darouet (talk) 21:52, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree this section should be focused on proper investigation and leave the misinformation for that article. But that's all the more reason to keep the "see also:" link you removed. I reverted for that reason, and will look into wording of the section at a later time. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:57, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree on expanding the section of Chinese Investigations, the more information the better. Where are good places to look for that information (in English)? Forich (talk) 22:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

See also

I think our SA section needs a little work here. Right now it only has World Health Organization's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There's definitely more than just that one article that is relevant enough for See also. The relevant guideline is MOS:SEEALSO.

I propose adding the following:

• Zoonosis
• Laboratory-acquired infection

Thoughts? It's an accurate representation of the content of this article to include both, even if I personally think one is less likely than the other.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:00, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I also think adding COVID-19 misinformation would be appropriate, although I understand that may be more contentious. I say this because even if you believe the Lab leak theory is not misinformation, you'd be hard pressed to say that NO misinformation related to the origin has been circulating (videos of people eating bats, conspiracy theories about bioweapons, etc.)--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:04, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd agree only with Zoonosis. Let me also propose Emerging_infectious_disease. Forich (talk) 23:28, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Harvard scientist admits to Trump Derangement Syndrome on covid

I'll just leave this here: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/559050-harvard-scientist-says-trump-hatred-motivated

"A Canadian scientist and Harvard postdoctoral associate said colleagues might have feared vocalizing support for the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis out of concern that it would be viewed as showing support for potentially inflammatory views espoused by former President Trump.

Alina Chan is one of 18 experts who signed a letter in May calling for a thorough exploration into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Although Chan voiced her support for an investigation into the possibility of a lab leak early in the pandemic, she told NBC that experts were careful not to lean too close to views linked to the former president.

"At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins," she said.

Maybe you "we believe in science" stalwarts can figure out a way to weave it into your narrative :) 2603:8001:9500:9E98:0:0:0:9A7 (talk) 01:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)