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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 2603:800c:3101:d064:4c5c:71ac:11cb:6bf6 (talk) at 20:25, 17 January 2022 (→‎The Telegraph article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.



Origins of COVID-19: Current consensus

  1. There is no consensus on whether the lab leak theory is a "conspiracy theory" or a "minority scientific viewpoint". (RfC, February 2021)
  2. There is consensus against defining "disease and pandemic origins" (broadly speaking) as a form of biomedical information for the purpose of WP:MEDRS. However, information that already fits into biomedical information remains classified as such, even if it relates to disease and pandemic origins (e.g. genome sequences, symptom descriptions, phylogenetic trees). (RfC, May 2021)
  3. In multiple prior non-RFC discussions about manuscripts authored by Rossana Segreto and/or Yuri Deigin, editors have found the sources to be unreliable. Specifically, editors were not convinced by the credentials of the authors, and concerns were raised with the editorial oversight of the BioEssays "Problems & Paradigms" series. (Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Feb 2021, June 2021, ...)
  4. The consensus of scientists is that SARS-CoV-2 is likely of zoonotic origin. (January 2021, May 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, WP:NOLABLEAK (frequently cited in discussions))
  5. The March 2021 WHO report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should be referred to as the "WHO-convened report" or "WHO-convened study" on first usage in article prose, and may be abbreviated as "WHO report" or "WHO study" thereafter. (RfC, June 2021)
  6. The "manufactured bioweapon" idea should be described as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. (January 2021, February 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, July 2021, July 2021, July 2021, August 2021)
  7. The scientific consensus (and the Frutos et al. sources ([1][2]) which support it), which dismisses the lab leak, should not be described as "based in part on Shi [Zhengli]'s emailed answers." (RfC, December 2021)
  8. The American FBI and Department of Energy finding that a lab leak was likely should not be mentioned in the lead of COVID-19 lab leak theory, because it is WP:UNDUE. (RFC, October 2023)
  9. The article COVID-19 lab leak theory may not go through the requested moves process between 4 March 2024 and 3 March 2025. (RM, March 2024)

Last updated (diff) on 15 March 2024 by Novem Linguae (t · c)


Lab leak theory sources

List of good sources with good coverage to help expand. Not necessarily for inclusion but just for consideration. Preferably not articles that just discuss a single quote/press conference. The long-style reporting would be even better. Feel free to edit directly to add to the list. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Last updated by Julian Brown (talk) 23:43, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]  ·
Scholarship
For the relevant sourcing guideline, see WP:SCHOLARSHIP. For a database curated by the NCBI, see LitCoVID
[edit]  ·
Journalism
For the relevant sourcing guideline, see WP:NEWSORG.
[edit]  ·
Opinion-based editorials written by scientists/scholars
For the relevant sourcing guideline, see WP:RSOPINION.
[edit]  ·
Opinion-based editorials written by journalists
For the relevant sourcing guideline, see WP:RSOPINION.
[edit]  ·
Government and policy
Keep in mind, these are primary sources and thus should be used with caution!

References

Frutos source

This source [5] states that the lab leak theory is wrong based on a statement by Shi Zhengli that all workers at the WIV tested negative. That's akin to stating that the theory is wrong because Shi said so. Therefore, I've removed it. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2but only on SARS-CoV in published and openly displayed international collaborations (Cohen, 2020). Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2Adoring nanny (talk) 21:36, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, your disliking one sentence from a NCBI source is not adequate reason to remove. Your quote is selective and not representative of the entire source, either. VQuakr (talk) 21:55, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that this particular "logic", if one wants to use that term, appears to be a pattern for Frutos.[6] WIV staff members have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 and were reported negative (Cohen, 2020). The Cohen source Frutos is referring to is this one [7]. The logic Frutos is using amounts to "Shi said that all WIV staff and students tested negative. Therefore, all WIV staff and students tested negative." Adoring nanny (talk) 01:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Repeating yourself doesn't make what you're saying true. Though regardless, I'm unclear on why you think that what you say makes the source unreliable/unusable. VQuakr (talk) 03:06, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After thinking about this a bit, I have a suggestion which may be better than my original idea of removing Frutos. What about treating it per WP:WIKIVOICE? Chan argues extensively in [8] that Shi cannot be trusted. We have one scholar trusting Shi, while another explicitly says she cannot be trusted. The question is relevant to the lab leak theory, so we should cover it. Adoring nanny (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We should not be using non-scholarly non-peer reviewed sources to shape how we view scholarly sources. per WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:SCHOLARSHIP, peer-reviewed publications in expert-edited journals are how we determine what should and should not be in wiki-voice. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:33, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, how would you suggest handling the Frutos papers? Do you believe that Shi's statements that LL is false should gain WikiVoice status because Frutos accepts them? Adoring nanny (talk) 18:31, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Frutos' paper is an acceptable source for (most) statements in Wikivoice, not only because it is a peer-reviewed, secondary source, in a reputable journal, but because it also agrees with the mainstream viewpoint (as acknowledged even by the leak proponents). Chan is in the distinct minority and is not appropriate counter-balance, especially not if it is a non-scholarly non-peer-reviewed book. Frutos' arguments obviously are not limited to the mere strawman you have chosen to attack here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:07, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Frutos' arguments obviously are not limited to the mere strawman you have chosen to attack here. Other than the "strawman" part, this is correct. Here is the conclusion of his argument: Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2.(emphasis added). Here Frutos is stating something he has no way of knowing. The most that he could reasonably state is that he has not observed any evidence. Adoring nanny (talk) 15:50, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"currently", "observed" "known" are all implied. It would be meaningless and unscientific to declare that "no evidence could exist." And this is why Frutos (and others) do not do this. There's a reason we attach publication dates to journal articles...
The level of critique in this thread is not productive and will not get us very far. We are not peer-reviewers. We summarize what the WP:BESTSOURCES say. And many sources say this, not just Frutos. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:08, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, based on y'all's insistence that we say exactly what the source says, I've added[9] a more complete description of Frutos' reasoning. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All scientists' opinions should be dated and attributed. I disagree about WP:SCHOLARSHIP being the WP:BESTSOURCES on this topic, as we all know the Chinese government has a gag order in effect on Chinese publications, and we also know that they aren't cooperating with the WHO on further studies. Since this is a political controversy, scientific opinion alone is not an adequate representation of accepted knowledge on the origins of this virus, and there is an undue WP:WEIGHT issue with presenting scientist opinions as consensus. On the limits of scholarship, it took a candid conversation between Peter Palese and Chi-Ming Chu to uncover the [man made] origins of the 1977 Russian flu. LondonIP (talk) 02:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That you wish to ignore the better sources as well as Wikipedia policy and instead give false equivalence to your preferred ones is your own problem and not Wikipedia's. That this is a political controversy does not mean that suddenly non-academic sources get the same weight as proper ones. See WP:MAINSTREAM. This is not a "popularity contest in low-quality publications". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @LondonIP: Frutos and colleagues argue (in passing) that many people who still question the zoonotic-emergence paradigm are trying to cause trouble for China: The origin of SARS-Cov-2 is still passionately debated since it makes ground for geopolitical confrontations and conspiracy theories besides scientific ones. This (rather formulaic) prefatory verbiage likely made it easier for the journal's politically sophisticated editorial board to publish their article, which includes a potentially sensitive mention of the 2004 Beijing lab leak:

    Another hypothesis is the accidental infection of laboratory staff working on naturally occurring Sarbecoviruses. Accidents happen and have already been reported during the SARS epidemic in Taiwan, Singapore and China. ... It happened in Beijing in 2004 ...

    As a warranted compromise, you could add Frutos's information to our article, along with appropriate neutralizing language (like, there is today no evidence that such an accident had happened with SARS-CoV-2). –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:38, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dervorguilla: there is certainly no evidence that an accident happened with SARS-CoV-2, but that's obviously because there hasn't been any serious investigation, which the paper fails to mention. I don't see any good use for this paper, but we can add it for that statement. LondonIP (talk) 02:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note this has been queried at WP:RS/N. Alexbrn (talk) 08:43, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Duly closed. There was no good reason to start a new discussion there which duplicates the one here. I've left a short notice that this is already under discussion here, and those interested can likely find their way back... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, to be fair, it is always acceptable to escalate legitimate disputes to relevant noticeboards. But no one should be surprised when those discussions just further confirm the consensus of the talk page. And no one should be surprised when content disputes with obvious answers are looked down upon. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said at RSN (permalink). —PaleoNeonate – 23:21, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • copying what I said at the other page:
Though we do not presently have an article on him, Frutos is a notable scientist, as shown by his citation record in Google, and an expert in the general subject field, and has published other articles on the origin of Covid19 and similar viruses. The journal is Infection, Genetics and Evolution, published by a major scientific publisher, and meting the criteria for notability of scientific journals. There is no reason not to use the paper as a reference. To say on WP that the paper made an unjustified statement, we would need another similarly reliable source saying so. The several steps in the analysis above (i.e, F in his paper made use of a paper by C that reported a statement by S that may possibly not have represented S's true opinion) amounts to Original research. The paper is open access, so anyone who wishes to make judgements can read it for themselves. That's why we have the policy WP:V. DGG ( talk ) 02:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 02:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They have dismissed the theory based in part on Shi's emailed answers" This sentence is POV, based on implication, context, placement, and wording. This concept, as far as I know, does not exist in secondary RSes. It should not be added to the article, as it creates a very obvious perception of doubting the claims of scientists. We do not describe in detail everything Frutos uses to say X, because that would be UNDUE. We don't do it for any other part of his argument, so we should not do it for this part of his argument, simply because some Wikipedia users disagree with Frutos on it. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:48, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE

Quoting directly from the Frutos source[10]: Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2but only on SARS-CoV in published and openly displayed international collaborations (Cohen, 2020). Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Based on the above, a statement that scientists have rejected LL based in part on Shi's emailed answers is simply following the source. Given the chorus of users above who insist that we should do exactly that, I find the revert message here [11] difficult to understand. What is "POV" about sticking to the source? Adoring nanny (talk) 12:47, 27 December 2021 (UTC) corrected Adoring nanny (talk) 13:22, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is PMID:33744401 again right? Where are your words "Shi" and "email" there? Incidentally, talking of sticking to sources, I see it also says the "failure in identifying the virus and the reservoir species in the natural environment facilitated the development of conspiracy theories linking SARS-CoV-2 to genetic engineering". Our article should be including this knowledge and putting the prior lab leak fruitcakery firmly to bed. Alexbrn (talk) 12:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Cherrypicking the C word from Frutos et al to describe all lab leak scenarios would violate WP:NPOV. The matter will only be put to bed when China cooperates with the WHO for further studies, instead of pressuring them to drop it. LondonIP (talk) 03:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's why we have the following sentence in the article: According to emailed statements by Shi Zhengli in July 2021, her lab has not conducted any unpublished gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses, and all WIV staff and students tested negative for the virus in the early days of the pandemic. I believe this to be an encyclopedic summary of the content you have provided. The sentence on Frutos' thought processes, however, includes selective details which create an unwarranted POV. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The source clearly states the reason for the logical inference. Other part of the article discuss logical inferences. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Logical inference is another way of saying WP:Original research. The relevant core policy is WP:V. Alexbrn (talk) 13:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's Frutos' inference, not mine. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:17, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Except it's not in the source. Alexbrn (talk) 13:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Wikipedia, we condense and paraphrase. Therefore, the article should not say "Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2". Instead, I wrote a shortened, paraphrased version of that, which included the most critical information, namely that Frutos bases his conclusion on Shi's emailed answers. By doing it this way, it also encompasses the fact, stated elsewhere in Frutos' paper, that he bases a part of his conclusion on the fact that Shi wrote that WIV students and staff had tested negative. It is routine and normal for us to condense lengthy portions of papers down to their paraphrased essence. To quote WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE, The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words. That is what I have done.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
stated elsewhere in Frutos' paper, that he bases a part of his conclusion on the fact that Shi wrote that WIV students and staff had tested negative Where does it say this in the source? Could you provide a quote? Additionally, where does it say the other parts of what he uses to make his inferences? Because we should include those other reasons as well. We should not selectively include certain reasons and exclude others, simply because you find certain reasons to be insufficient. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But staff members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology have all been tested negative indicating that no accident occurred there (Cohen, 2020) Adoring nanny (talk) 13:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
you seem to be omitting a great deal of other reasoning that goes into this statement in context. For example:
    • One must remember that SARS-CoV-2 was never found in the wild and that RaTG13 does not exist as real virus but instead only as a sequence in a computer
    • This hypothesis has been considered as “extremely unlikely” by the official WHO investigation team
    • Therefore, although a laboratory accident can never be definitively excluded, there is currently no evidence to support it.
It does not rest solely on the fact of negative test results. And so we should not include only that part of the picture to the exclusion of these other parts. And, frankly, I do not think it would be WP:DUE to include all of these, so we should probably not include any of them or, indeed, any philosophizing about why Frutos et al wrote what they wrote. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hence my correction above -- "based in part" Adoring nanny (talk) 14:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RfC about how we should use the Frutos source

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... - it is obvious that there is clear consensus against including this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:37, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Should the article include the sentence They have dismissed the theory based in part on Shi's emailed answers. See this revision for an example.[12] Adoring nanny (talk) 14:15, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No. It's selectively quoting the source to point out the things we don't like about it. It fails to mention all the other parts of Frutos et al's reasoning, focusing only on the one part some users on this site dislike. As such, it's WP:OR and fails NPOV. We cannot "peer review" our sources and introduce our own editorializing of what we find "trustworthy" and "not trustworthy" in their reasoning. We should, instead, report what they say, in an accurate and proportionate summary. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 14:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The proposed quote "based in part on Shi's emailed answers" is accurate. And it's a seven-word summary of two portions of the paper which take a combined 50 words. That's proportionate. That said, if you can find a shorter wording that gets the essential point across, I would not object. "Partly based on Shi's statements" is 5 words, for example. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The question is not "is the quote accurate?" (and I would argue that it is still WP:OR to choose to word it this way)
The question is whether it is selectively chosen in order to push a POV. Wikipedia's guidelines are based on the result, not on the intention. If it creates a POV picture which distorts the source, then it should not be used. Several editors here agree with me that it does. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. You dug up one source of the Frutos source, looked where that source got its info, and want to include this specific piece of sleuthing? That is not something WP:OR would condone. It is also cherry-picking: as explained above, there are other reasons, and selecting just one of those for mention because it allows you to cast doubt on the data is WP:TEND. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. An amazing feat to perform WP:OR and then to cherry-pick from it Facepalm Facepalm. Alexbrn (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes The Frutos source[13] we use to dismiss the Lab Leak theory is a multi-author article in a good journal. Therefore, it is the best kind of source. Per Frutos, Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied having carried out engineering and gain of function experiments on SARS-CoV-2 but only on SARS-CoV in published and openly displayed international collaborations (Cohen, 2020). Altogether, these elements indicate that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a man-made origin of SARS-CoV-2 Also per Frutos: But staff members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology have all been tested negative indicating that no accident occurred there (Cohen, 2020) The Cohen source Frutos is using to reach his conclusions is this one, about Shi's emailed answers: [14]. Therefore, "based in part on Shi's emailed answers" is a paraphrase of Frutos' reasoning. Per WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE: The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words. The phrase based in part on Shi's emailed answers is therefore a concise summary of our source's published reasoning. This is precisely the type of paraphrasing we are expected to do to.
Accusations above miss the mark. I did not "dig up" the Frutos source. It is already cited 8 times in the article, including for the sentence where I inserted Frutos' reasoning. Nor is the insertion WP:OR. Quite the opposite. It is a paraphrase of one of Frutos' stated reasons why the scientific community reached the conclusion it did. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:53, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Novem Linguae's statement below both refutes the accusation of WP:CHERRY and points the way to an additional reason for inclusion. If we include one reason, why not include another? As Wikipedia editors, it is not for us to decide whether or not a reason is "small". We determine that by sourcing. [15]

WIV staff members have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 and were reported negative (Cohen, 2020)

And

Furthermore, these experiments were conducted on viruses phylogenetically distant from SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 and no gain-of-function experiment was done on either SARS-CoV-2 or RaTG13

The fact that Frutos makes similar statements in a different article, which we also cite, is straight-from-the-source evidence that Shi's emailed answer are a key part of Frutos' reasoning. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. In my opinion, the sentence before it Scientists have said that RaTG-13 is too distantly related to be connected to the pandemic's origins, and could not be altered in a laboratory to create SARS-CoV-2 adequately summarizes the scientific argument. In my opinion, it is not beneficial in this particular instance to highlight a small piece of how they arrived at that conclusion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:59, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No I can find no way to square the suggested sentence with policy. XOR'easter (talk) 16:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, seems like classic WP:CHERRY – why highlight this particular piece of evidence? In any case I looked at the source[16] cited in that revision of the article and can't find support for this claim. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - Other than the previous synthesis and cherry picking objections, this would violate WP:YESPOV, attempting to editorially frame facts as particular opinions or claims. —PaleoNeonate – 18:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • NO - (randomly invited to participate by a bot) - This is WP:OR and WP:POV. Jojalozzo (talk) 00:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, unless cited to another reliable source making the critique. Picking this particular item to highlight from this source seems like a violation of WP:PROPORTION and all sorts of other WP:NPOV concepts. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:35, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Paris Group

I'm surprised we don't mention anything about the Paris Group and the series of open letters they published. LondonIP (talk) 03:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is surprising. They have not had anything published in a peer reviewed journal, and the way the article works this pretty much rules them out. I believe the article needs rewriting and restructuring so that such views were included; but I don't think that's going to happen. Springnuts (talk) 12:34, 29 December 2021 (UTC).[reply]

This is a repackaging of DRASTIC to make it more legitimate... We already discuss these events in this article (at a surface level, as is appropriate for a more general article), and we also discuss it in more depth in the DRASTIC and Peter Daszak articles, as is appropriate for more specific article spaces. These minute details about who is in the paris group and w/e are WP:UNDUE as I have seen them in extremely few, if any, legitimate publications, and even then, mostly in opinion pieces. Maybe this is the first in a kind of legitimate publication (I would describe Undark as "on the edge") — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure the relevance of an editor's opinion that something is a "repackaging" of something else "to make it more legitimate". Adoring nanny (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's relevant because we already have versions of this content in the DRASTIC article and elsewhere, just not labelled as "the Paris group." It has very little to do with the actual lab leak theory itself, and much more to do with the Investigations of the origins, and with the people in this story, Daszak and DRASTIC. It's clearly very appropriate for those pages, and based on this source could probably be expanded on those pages. But nothing about this has anything to do with the actual theory of the lab leak. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm getting at is that if you want to treat DRASTIC and the Paris Group as the same entity, this could be supported if you have WP:RS saying that they are. Similarly for the idea that the name "Paris Group" is a "repackaging" with the intent of making them "more respectable". Absent that, it could be WP:OR. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to put that text into the article. WP:OR applies only to article text. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the fact that DRASTIC leaked the DEFUSE proposal. I'm not sure anything else would be particularly WP:DUE here. The theory itself is not changed by these letters. The letters are political about Daszak and the EHA, and the WHO. I'm not sure they have much to do with formulating the theory itself. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:35, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the Paris Group, and the four open letters they published. LondonIP (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What do the four open letters have to do with the lab leak theory itself? — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Because they mention the theory and were covered in multiple secondary sources? A big part of this theory is the incredible resistance of the Chinese government to investigate it, helped along by certain scientists and journals [17] [18]. We should probably also mention the struggle it took to create (and unblank) this very page [19] [20]. LondonIP (talk) 22:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is already mentioned at the appropriate page: Wikipedia coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such content would be WP:UNDUE here, as the vast majority of articles primarily about the lab leak hypothesis do not mention wikipedia. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:01, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chronological?

There is a section called chronological and a section called timeline, and then there are various dated events given in other sections. The arrangement seems haphazard. Sennalen (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it could probably do with a combination/rewrite. Do you have any thoughts? Never a bad time to start a draft. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:37, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This speaks to the need for a rewrite, that Springnuts noted above. The lead is ok, but the main body of the article is a mess, and diverts from the norm that you'd see on any other article about a theory. LondonIP (talk) 19:20, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think step one is fully dividing scientific content from media commentary. Sennalen (talk) 05:20, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a draft. Basically I just tried to group related claims. Sennalen (talk) 06:55, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I like this draft. I will make a few comments there. LondonIP (talk) 20:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just had a look at the revision draft lede, and I like it. Thank you. Springnuts (talk) 06:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with the draft too. But some merging would be needed as the article has changed in the meantime. Not sure how that works. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing no objections, I would suggest bulk replacing ASAP before it diverges more, then people can evaluate if any of the missed changes need to be replayed. They have been fairly minor. Sennalen (talk) 19:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"No evidence" vs. "Unclear"

Regarding this revert [21]

Per The Atlantic[22], which is cited in the paragraph: We don’t know whether that work was ever carried out Adoring nanny (talk) 10:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Courtesy link: Special:Diff/1063636858 –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:52, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but what is the advantage of one kind of diff over the other? Adoring nanny (talk) 19:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't a diff in the OP of this section. The first link is the article's history. VQuakr (talk) 20:41, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Atlantic also notes that there's no evidence. Good revert. VQuakr (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Claims and counterclaims section title

How about just titling the section "claims"? The section content would still include rebuttal per WP:EVALFRINGE, but I don't think there's a need to mention that in the section header. VQuakr (talk) 20:50, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. I tend to agree that my section title is still WP:IMPERFECT. I would like to see more people weigh in here. In any case, my edit did not remove any counterclaims. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:03, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To me [23] was potato/potahto. VQuakr (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not neutral to use "claim", which implies doubt, for one side and "rebuttal", which implies certainty, for the other. See WP:SAY. That's also why I think my "claims and counterclaims" is still imperfect. Per that policy, "claim" is not a neutral word. But here we are at least using it for both sides. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Rebuttal" means "Contradiction". But since I don't have an opinion on that diff anyways it's something of a distraction from the subject of the OP. VQuakr (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WIKIVOICE

Moved to correct talk page

Regarding this revert [24]. Per WP:WIKIVOICE, do not state disputed information as fact. Therefore, the revert is wrong. For example, here[25], which is cited in the article, it says The most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 is natural selection of the virus in an animal host followed by zoonotic transfer.(emphasis added) That's not an absolute statement. Nor should we make one. Similarly here [26]: "It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. (emphasis added) Again, it's not an absolute statement. Even the Frutos source does not make an absolute statement. So the absolute statement in WikiVoice is just plain wrong. Adoring nanny (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The full sentence is "SARS-CoV-2 appears to have originated in bats and was spread to humans by zoonotic transfer.", emphasis added. We already address your concern with the word "appears"; we don't need to further dilute it because as written, it is indeed a statement of fact not an opinion per WP:WIKIVOICE ("Avoid stating facts as opinions."). VQuakr (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, "appears to have" modifies to "originated in bats". The way it is written, "was" applies to "spread to humans by zoonotic transfer." When we introduce the new verb in the indicative mood, it is no longer modified by the "appears to" That's the problem. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I take no exception to removing the word "was". VQuakr (talk) 21:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Doh. I have this whole thing on the wrong talk page. I'll try again later. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops! Feel free to cut'n paste move the entire thread over. VQuakr (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Copied to Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Further contributions should be made there. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:20, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proven lab leak

Unclassified military documents have proven it leaked from the wuhan lab of Virology and that the US funded the research for it. 2601:47:4381:A20:4954:32C8:55A7:C331 (talk) 20:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't provide a link to this "proof". Bakkster Man (talk) 20:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Telegraph article

"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show....Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: 'These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons.'"[27] Reputable source, should be reflected in the article. Stonkaments (talk) 06:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • For the people who can't access the full text, it's available at the Internet Archive --Thereisnous (talk) 07:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not particularly new information... And many of the included email participants waited for more data, and when more data was available, decided the zoonotic origin was more likely. As is described in this article, and demonstrated elsewhere. [28]
    Any mention of this would have to include the fact that most of these scientists revised their belief once they encountered more data/info. And now believe the lab theory is not very likely (e.g. Andrew Rambaut who coauthored a letter declaring the lab leak was very very unlikely, essentially a conspiracy theory).
    Personally, I don't believe this information is particularly WP:DUE for this article. It's tabloid level, sold as a "gotcha" when people debating whether or not something is true before deciding is not particularly notable. We can avoid the entire issue of how to describe their position fairly (and avoid WP:BLP issues of misquoting or mischaracterizing). It's maybe noteworthy for the wiki pages of these people, but I don't see how this is very DUE here. If we included every single notable person's opinion, this article would be endless. We only include very few notable opinions where relevant. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 20:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also covered in the Intercept [29]. Seems Collin's email about fox news might be relevant to the COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Chilling_effects section. The Intercept seems to suggest that Fauci didnt want serial passage to be mentioned in the proximal origin paper: "Several of the scientists on the email chain ended up co-authoring the Nature Medicine paper with Andersen and Garry. In a February 4 email, which House Republicans presented as a response to a first copy of the draft, Fauci wrote: “?? Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice.' The early draft has not been made public, so we don’t know what, exactly, sparked Fauci’s reaction. But his words, which refer to the process of passaging a virus in “humanized” laboratory mice — or mice that have been genetically modified to express receptors for human ACE2, an enzyme that occurs in the lungs — do not appear in the published paper." 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
According to The Intercept, the letter was released on Tuesday. The opening paragraph of The Intercept is even more explicit than The Telegraph. ON TUESDAY, REPUBLICANS on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a letter that paints a damning picture of U.S. government officials wrestling with whether the novel coronavirus may have leaked out of a lab they were funding, acknowledging that it may have, and then keeping the discussion from spilling out into public view. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for my ignorance, what is the significance of the day? 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I believe adoring nanny is trying to say this is new information.
Specific redacted letters have been released in full text, which would maybe be new content for individual BLP articles. (even then I am doubtful) But as for this article, that individual people have all done similar things is not particularly new when we already knew scientists were discussing this early on. The actual FOIA request and return happened even prior to last July. These emails have been out since before then, in redacted form. See: [30] [31]
it's identical to the story about Kristian Andersen. Some scientists were debating about the lab leak theory early. Then they decided it wasn't really all that meritous and threw weight behind the zoonosis theory. Is that really notable enough for this article? Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of news headlines. And it definitely is not a tabloid repository. Why is it relelvant that some scientists early on thought it was plausible, and then later decided it wasn't?
if we include this at all, we basically should just say that: "Early on, scientists such as Andrew Rambaut, Kristian Andersen, and Jeremy Farrar, discussed the possibility of the laboratory leak idea with Fauci, debating its merits over email. Ultimately, These scientists determined the zoonotic origin was the most likely scenario." And when I write out that sentence, I think to myself, "Is this really worth putting in a wikipedia article about the lab leak?" And personally, I think the answer is "no." We even know that Fauci considered the lab leak idea early and then dismissed it. [32]
I don't think the fact that different scientists were emailing each other about the lab leak in early 2020 is notable enough to include in an article like this. See also WP:RECENTISM and Wikipedia:NEWSPAPER especially this part: Even when an individual is notable, not all events they are involved in are. For example, news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overly detailed articles that look like a diary. Not every facet of a celebrity's life, personal details, matches played, or goals scored is significant enough to be included in the biography of a person. To analogize, every tiny incident about the lab leak is not notable here.
Many tabloids are running this as "they stifled the truth to avoid hurting science" or "they are covering up the real origin for political reasons." But A) the most reputable sources don't say this, (e.g. runs contrary to WP:BESTSOURCES), B) it would be a WP:BLP violation to put that in wiki-voice, and C) the actual emails don't really bare that out. It's just yellow journalism, which makes sense given that this is basically a year-old story being rehashed to get clicks. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 21:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed its a bit wishy washy to rely on hand notes taken of quasiprivate emails between people obviously thinking about things with opinions in flux. My main takeaway of anything new revealed here is the description of serial passage, it seems most lab leak theory focus has been on manual genetic insertions. Perhaps could throw a sentence somewhere to explain the difference? 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is there really a difference, for the purposes of this article? Both are often described as "gain-of-function research". Both are intentional modifications. And neither could have created SARS-CoV-2, as described by many many many experts on this topic. I would say sure, a brief mention could be warranted. But only if it is contextualized in the mainstream view of how it is not a plausible origin per WP:FRINGE and these mainstream academic sources saying as much: [33] [34] etc all available at WP:NOLABLEAK and news sources such as: [[35] — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned in the email chain, there seems to be a possiblity that a serial passage expirmient could have accidentally introduced a furin cleavage site? Has anyone published a study looking into this? 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 02:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
According to the released documents, Kristian Andersen had warned Fauci that the virus may have been engineered in a lab, noting that he and several other high-profile scientists “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory." This goes directly to the heart of the lab leak vs. zoonosis question. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And do you know how Andersen feels about it now? Perhaps in relation to this: [36] — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 04:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Shibbolethink: many experts yes, but some experts like Ralph Baric say not, and that we can't know what created what, without access to the laboratory records. What this email leak shows is that even though these scientists thought a lab leak was possible, they said it was fringe, because of politics. Please stop evoking WP:FRINGE just because you don't agree with Baric's view. Scientists may disagree with each other, but Wikipedians must remain neutral, and our opinions do not matter. See WP:NOTREDDIT. Francesco espo (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that I don't agree with Baric's view, it's that he's in the minority, as demonstrated by the many many review articles published in reliable topic-relevant journals and peer-reviewed by experts. That's what FRINGE tells us to figure out. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are mistaken on two accounts. Baric's view is not a minority view, snd there are other reputed scientists who have made comments in the same vein, including David Baltimore, Alexander Kekulé and Simon Wain-Hobson [37]. Secondly, this is not something that can be settled by scholarly papers [38], as Colin said in a previous discussion. Thirdly, I see that Baric's paper is still being cited, so I've tagged it as FV and will remove it unless you can show how it supports the claim. We should continue this discussion on the GoF page to clean up the COVID section there. LondonIP (talk) 02:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've specifically sourced it to the claim it verifies. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The takeaway here is that the mismatch between what the scientists were saying privately and what they wrote publicly destroys their credibility. If they privately say X, then three days later say that X is a conspiracy theory, without mentioning at the time that they initially favored X but changed their mind because of Y, that calls their honesty into doubt. Surely, if they themselves initially believed X, it would be more honest to say that they rejected X because of Y, not to say that X is a conspiracy. Coming up with a reason for the change at a later time doesn't eliminate the initial lie. Given that Andersen lied with his "conspiracy theory" claim, and has yet to come clean about that, I don't lend much credence to his NYT interview.
Furthermore, the reason Andersen gives for coming to his "conspiracy" conclusion does not itself support the conclusion. The existence of FCS in other coronaviruses points to Z being possible. However, it does not rule out LL.
The NYT even gave him a chance to come clean, asking him if he had any regrets. He didn't mention any. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is entirely original research, and is fine for theorizing but has no place in the article. Frankly, it may constitute a BLP violation. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to put the "liar" part into the article based on present sourcing. You asked me for my take on it, and I gave it to you.
As currently written, the lead fails to provide any context to understand that political motivations played an important role in scientists' handling and discussion of the lab leak theory. This context is clearly DUE and necessary for an accurate representation of how the lab leak came to be dismissed by some as a conspiracy theory early on in the pandemic. Stonkaments (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Stonkaments, I agree with you and just made an attempt[39] at supplying said context, at least in part. It is likely to take a long slog to get something along these lines to be stable in the article. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:02, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What sources do you have that say this? Do they outweigh the sources that we have that don't say this? — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have contextualized the views of these scientists in their current opinions, as is required by BLP. We cannot assume malice in this situation, as doing so would be OR, and frankly some of the comments on this section border on BLP violations. We cannot go around stating that scientists were lying or covering up something when we do not have evidence. People are allowed to change their opinion, and the fact that scientists are willing to do so in the face of new evidence is the hallmark of good science. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
latest edits adding Kristian G Andersen wiki link is directed to the footballer. 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also the dates are wrong? should be 2020? were any emails sent in 2019? 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"near the beginning of the pandemic" implies also early 2020, but I'm just going to say "Early in 2020" the emails were sent. Will fix both, thanks for the heads up — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:46, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Should we start a page for Kristian? suprised he doesnt have one. 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I am surprised he does not have one. I haven't reviewed the notability criteria for professors/scientists in a while, but I would hazard a guess that he meets them handily. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:51, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There was one created by ScrumptiousFood but DGG moved it to Draft:Kristian G Andersen. There is also Draft:Robert F. Garry. I think they both meet both NPROFF and GNG at this point. LondonIP (talk) 01:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Adoring nanny, should we not trust the scientists on why they state their view has changed? Why not? We have RSes which directly state the reasons why some scientists now believe in the zoonotic theory: [40] [41] [42]. Is there any RS which directly states they changed their mind for other reasons? As I've said, this is a BLP issue. Misrepresentation of their views or stating there is malfeasance without evidence is a problem. We have to be very careful when discussing the views of living persons. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, starting with the very piece under discussion here. I've quoted a key portion above near the beginning of this section. The piece is even more explicit when it says Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: “These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons. In light of BLP issues, IMO the best response, based on current sourcing, is not to state why they changed their public positions. We do have sourcing for the "they lied" point of view, but it's not overwhelming. It's not enough to say in the article that they lied. But it is enough that we shouldn't give their reasons in WikiVoice, either. If you want to have a WP:WIKIVOICE "describe the controversy" discussion, you could include both their ostensible reasons and Ridley. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think all of this needs to be unpacked in the body, with a better summarisation in the lead. LondonIP (talk) 02:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, it supports the idea that RIDLEY believes this. Not that it is true. We do not have sourcing for "they lied." We have sourcing for "Matt Ridley thinks they lied." The mere existence of a single person who questions these motivations is not enough. Statements of opinion do not trump our BESTSOURCES. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's more than just Ridley. See the lead quote form the Telegraph article above. We also do have this from The Intercept: “Neither Drs. Fauci or Collins edited our Proximal Origins paper in any way. The major feedback we got from the Feb 1 teleconference was: 1. Don’t try to write a paper at all — it’s unnecessary or 2. If you do write it don’t mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists,” Garry wrote on Wednesday. and “However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular,” Fouchier wrote. How to handle those quotes is certainly an interesting question worth exploring. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's Robert Garry and Ron Fouchier, who we don't currently mention. They also don't mention the scientists we do have. We would need to couch these as attributed quotes to those persons, if we were to use them at all. They have no bearing on the current content we have for 3 other scientists. Unless there's a connection that's spelled out in these sources that I'm not seeing...any use of these quotes to frame those other scientists would be original research. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 14:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also important to say, you seem to have taken Garry's quote out of context. The intercept added this: "After publication, Robert Garry clarified his previous comments to The Intercept: “One thing that could be misconstrued is that neither Dr Fauci or Dr Collins suggested in any way that we not write the Proximal Origin paper. Likewise, neither one suggested that we not mention the possibilty of a Lab origin. These were comments from others in emails after the call.” The story’s sub-headline has been updated to reflect Garry’s clarification that the advice did not come from NIH officials but from others following the call." Any mention of Garry's quote would have to include this part as well. And any mention of Fouchier's quote would have to include the other part of his quote, where he says the discussion is worth having: “Given the evidence presented and the discussions around it, I would conclude that a follow-up discussion on the possible origin of 2019-nCoV would be of much interest,” wrote Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus MC Center for Viroscience in the Netherlands, on February 2..
And once we get too long, it becomes UNDUE. So it's a balance. I would err on not including these at all, given that they require so much context to become applicable. That's a great indication that we're approaching COATRACK territory. We only have one article from The Intercept (already a biased source, though considered generally reliable for news). The RSP entry for The Intercept reads: Almost all editors consider The Intercept a biased source, so uses may need to be attributed. For science, editors prefer peer-reviewed journals over news sources like The Intercept. I'm not sure these scientists' comments are DUE once we already have a few sentences about this episode, and any use of them would need to be attributed to the Intercept as quotes from others. So it becomes really long. We are not building an article that describes in detail the correspondence of scientists about the lab leak theory, and we do not need a laundry list of what each and every scientist has said about it. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 14:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's actually a term for what The Intercept has done here, and it would be best described as "media junk" or "yellow journalism." There's a reason few, if any other sources have acknowledged this outside of The Intercept, Telegraph, Daily Mail, etc. The RSP entries for these sources show that there is belief in bias or opinion from these sources. Anything beyond basic facts likely needs to be attributed. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 14:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure the relevance of an editor's opinion that this is "yellow journalism". I see both are green at WP:RSP. Bias is allowed per WP:YESPOV. And I don't see any allegation that either source might be unreliable for quoting emails. Adoring nanny (talk) 15:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"green" is not all that matters at RSP. Read the specific entries and see that these sources (particularly The Intercept) should be attributed. This is also exactly what YESPOV tells us to do. The only reason the current content in the article that we're discussing is probably fine in WikiVoice is that I added an NBC piece from June. NBC does not have this stipulation. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This bit about Trump in the lead should probably be moved, tweaked or the opinions of the sciensts included? The idea that the virus was released from a laboratory, either accidentally or deliberately, appeared early in the pandemic. The theory gained popularity through its promotion by political figures such as US president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party, as well as its dissemination in American conservative media, fomenting tensions between the United States and China. It was subsequently dismissed as a conspiracy theory.[11][12] It reads as if Trump and conservative media alone made it up to antagonize china, but now we now see scientist were telling government officials that it looked like it may have been engineered. It might be worth explaining that "it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory" by the same scientists that first raised the possiblity to the government? 2603:800C:3101:D064:4C5C:71AC:11CB:6BF6 (talk) 19:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it should. The way it reads now is completely misleading and does a disservice to our readers. I have tried to fix it twice, but I don't really keep up on this page or the subject well enough to fashion a retort without a ton of effort, and a man has to pick his fights in this life. Le Marteau (talk) 19:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Le Marteau: existing phrasing does not say or imply that Trump & co invented the theory. Emails that were private at the time obviously didn't impact public perception. Respectfully, attempts at improvement should probably be left to those the do keep up with the subject and talk page; the change you repeatedly added isn't verifiable. VQuakr (talk) 19:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My two edits to the material in question over the course of a day to rapidly changing text was not "edit warring" any more than were your two edits to that same material over the course of a day. And of COURSE the way it reads implies the theory had a Trumpian genesis... you're saying it does not is myopic. Le Marteau (talk) 19:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@VQuakr:It strongly suggests that trump is a conspiracy theorist. 2603:800C:3101:D064:4C5C:71AC:11CB:6BF6 (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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