Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory: Difference between revisions

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:::{{re|LondonIP}}: {{tq|According to [[WP:CRYSTALBALL]], we cannot make {{tq|unverifiable speculation or presumptions}}, and since the WHO’s [[SAGO]] has yet to draw any conclusions on COVID origins, and since SAGO is the supreme scientific authority on virus [[origin tracing]], we cannot claim a [[WP:RS/AC|academic consensus]] here.}} I agree with using SAGO in the future as our point of consensus, but why not stick with the WHO's prior report as the authoritative source until then? Sure, there are those opposed to the first report's conclusions, but to discard the WHO's official assessment on those grounds would be "unverifiable speculation or presumption". [[User:Bakkster Man|Bakkster Man]] ([[User talk:Bakkster Man|talk]]) 23:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
:::{{re|LondonIP}}: {{tq|According to [[WP:CRYSTALBALL]], we cannot make {{tq|unverifiable speculation or presumptions}}, and since the WHO’s [[SAGO]] has yet to draw any conclusions on COVID origins, and since SAGO is the supreme scientific authority on virus [[origin tracing]], we cannot claim a [[WP:RS/AC|academic consensus]] here.}} I agree with using SAGO in the future as our point of consensus, but why not stick with the WHO's prior report as the authoritative source until then? Sure, there are those opposed to the first report's conclusions, but to discard the WHO's official assessment on those grounds would be "unverifiable speculation or presumption". [[User:Bakkster Man|Bakkster Man]] ([[User talk:Bakkster Man|talk]]) 23:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
::::My main point is that this is a political and scientific controversy, and that [[WP:SCHOLARSHIP]] is not the only pertinent sourcing policy, and keeps high-quality new sources on the roster. About the [[WHO-convened global study of the origins of SARS-CoV-2]], it is clear from the newly created [[WHO Secretariat]] article and the reference it cites, that it was by the authority of the [[Director-General of the World Health Organization|WHO Director-General]] that it was convened, which makes [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/who-wuhan-tedros-lab/2021/03/30/896fe3f6-90d1-11eb-aadc-af78701a30ca_story.html his criticism of their report] all the more significant. [[Peter Ben Embarek]], the head of that mission is reported to have said they were [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/12/who-origins-embarek/ pressured investigation to drop lab-leak hypothesis], which is significant in terms of determining the credibility of the report and the veracity of its findings. The report is certainly not the {{tq|official assessment}} of the WHO as you put it, and the PRC has lambasted the WHO secretariat over this in its state media [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3150901/china-likens-us-hunt-covid-19-origins-lies-over-wmds-iraq], and in its public diplomacy channels, saying it hopes the WHO Secretariat and SAGO will {{tq|take the first phase of joint study as the basis}} [https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1914536.shtml]. [[User:LondonIP|LondonIP]] ([[User talk:LondonIP|talk]]) 00:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
::::My main point is that this is a political and scientific controversy, and that [[WP:SCHOLARSHIP]] is not the only pertinent sourcing policy, and keeps high-quality new sources on the roster. About the [[WHO-convened global study of the origins of SARS-CoV-2]], it is clear from the newly created [[WHO Secretariat]] article and the reference it cites, that it was by the authority of the [[Director-General of the World Health Organization|WHO Director-General]] that it was convened, which makes [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/who-wuhan-tedros-lab/2021/03/30/896fe3f6-90d1-11eb-aadc-af78701a30ca_story.html his criticism of their report] all the more significant. [[Peter Ben Embarek]], the head of that mission is reported to have said they were [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/12/who-origins-embarek/ pressured investigation to drop lab-leak hypothesis], which is significant in terms of determining the credibility of the report and the veracity of its findings. The report is certainly not the {{tq|official assessment}} of the WHO as you put it, and the PRC has lambasted the WHO secretariat over this in its state media [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3150901/china-likens-us-hunt-covid-19-origins-lies-over-wmds-iraq], and in its public diplomacy channels, saying it hopes the WHO Secretariat and SAGO will {{tq|take the first phase of joint study as the basis}} [https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1914536.shtml]. [[User:LondonIP|LondonIP]] ([[User talk:LondonIP|talk]]) 00:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
:::::Right, so until SAGO completes their report, the first phase of the joint study remains their official position. It might change, but we can't [[WP:CRYSTAL]] it. [[User:Bakkster Man|Bakkster Man]] ([[User talk:Bakkster Man|talk]]) 10:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
:: {{Reply to|Bakkster Man}} Here's what ''"our [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines|WP:PAGs]] rightly point out"'' (at [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Respect_secondary_sources|MEDRS]]): {{tqb|Scientists at Bayer ... were able to replicate results in only ~20 to 25% of prominent studies they examined; scientists from Amgen ... were only able to replicate 6 of 53 high-impact publications.}}
:: {{Reply to|Bakkster Man}} Here's what ''"our [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines|WP:PAGs]] rightly point out"'' (at [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Respect_secondary_sources|MEDRS]]): {{tqb|Scientists at Bayer ... were able to replicate results in only ~20 to 25% of prominent studies they examined; scientists from Amgen ... were only able to replicate 6 of 53 high-impact publications.}}
:: As the [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist#About_fact-checking|RSVETTING]] essay usefully notes: {{tqb|Newspaper editors will expect reporters to check their own facts and they'll fire them if they don't and reporters know this.}}
:: As the [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist#About_fact-checking|RSVETTING]] essay usefully notes: {{tqb|Newspaper editors will expect reporters to check their own facts and they'll fire them if they don't and reporters know this.}}
:: More important to this page, however, we've got a 5-month-old [[Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory#Origins_of_COVID-19:_Current_consensus|consensus]] here that {{tq|pandemic origins}} aren't an '''''{{tq|academic topic}}'''''.
:: More important to this page, however, we've got a 5-month-old [[Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory#Origins_of_COVID-19:_Current_consensus|consensus]] here that {{tq|pandemic origins}} aren't an '''''{{tq|academic topic}}'''''.
:: What all this means: We welcome contributions from editors who trust academic publications AND those who give more credence to [[Wikipedia:Verifiability#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source|respected mainstream newspapers]]. –[[User:Dervorguilla|Dervorguilla]] ([[User talk:Dervorguilla|talk]]) 05:58, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
:: What all this means: We welcome contributions from editors who trust academic publications AND those who give more credence to [[Wikipedia:Verifiability#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source|respected mainstream newspapers]]. –[[User:Dervorguilla|Dervorguilla]] ([[User talk:Dervorguilla|talk]]) 05:58, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
:::{{re|Dervorguilla}} {{tq|More important to this page, however, we've got a 5-month-old [[Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory#Origins_of_COVID-19:_Current_consensus|consensus]] here that {{tq|pandemic origins}} aren't an '''''{{tq|academic topic}}'''''.}} This seems to be a misinterpretation of our consensus point 2, which is that it's not [[WP:BMI]] requiring [[WP:MEDRS]] sourcing. Unless you're referring to point 1, and suggesting that it's not an academic topic because it's a conspiracy theory. [[User:Bakkster Man|Bakkster Man]] ([[User talk:Bakkster Man|talk]]) 10:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)


== February 1, 2020 Teleconference ==
== February 1, 2020 Teleconference ==

Revision as of 10:15, 24 October 2021



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

EcoHealth Alliance and Furin Cleavage Site

As new info about the lab leak theory comes out, it seems a lot of the focus has been on the types of work that the EcoHealth people were performing or proposing to perform in Wuhan. Should a new "EcoHealth" wiki subsection under "Release of a genetically modified virus" be added to more explicitly explain how Ecohealth's genetic modification studies could have lead to the existence of genetic code in the lab that were similar to that of Sars-Cov2?

https://nypost.com/2021/09/22/wuhan-scientists-wanted-to-release-coronaviruses-into-bats/

--70.191.102.240 (talk) 21:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a more reliable source than the NY Post? Bakkster Man (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Telegraph, The Times. fiveby(zero) 22:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
EcoHealth didn't do any genetic modification studies... And these sources are not reliable for the claim that they did. If this info were covered by more reputable sources (with reputation for fact checking scientific claims), all it would show is that these projects have been proposed, not that they were undertaken. The WIV did other genetic modification studies, and we already have a section about that. About how unlikely it is that this had anything to do with the pandemic.
In particular, I'd also like to point out there is a flagrantly irresponsible scientific error in how the above sources (NYPost, Telegraph, Times, which themselves are known to be extremely biased news sources) interpret this document. To be fair. The Times reports it better, but not well. They insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild. That is not what EHA proposed.
They wanted to do controlled lab experiments in high level biosafety conditions, and then use that information to create vaccines and then test those vaccines on bats, before putting the most effective vaccine into bats in the wild. How is that not exactly what we would want them to do? To help eradicate the most human-worrisome bat viruses? In my opinion, that's exactly what we want them to be doing.
From this grant, it's clear that they wanted to use a protein-based subunit vaccine [5] (page 3 paragraph 2). Which again, could not cause this pandemic, and in fact is how we are solving it. The vaccine in this case, would be just protein. It cannot recombine, it cannot create novel viruses, it cannot splice in the wild. It's just protein, no RNA. So it can only create antibodies in the bats, and help them avoid becoming infected with coronaviruses. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:58, 22 September 2021 (UTC) (edited 08:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC))[reply]
Err...not sure what you're on about. The answer to the question "is there a more reliable source" is yes, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. fiveby(zero) 02:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shibboleth is arguing that these are not appropriate sources for reporting on the scientific aspect of this question; because they make some basic scientific errors. In any case, if the only sources which report this are news sources, it might not be ideal as news sources are fine for politics and news (their usual area of expertise), but not quite for complex science like this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is consensus that The Daily Telegraph is generally reliable. Some editors believe that The Daily Telegraph is biased or opinionated for politics. ... The Times is considered generally reliable. (WP:RSPSOURCES.) @Shibbolethink: If you reread those articles, you can see that the authors' motives really aren't that malevolent; at least, they're not seeking to insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild. Nobody wants to harm these cute little sky pups! –Dervorguilla (talk) 08:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We already knew the WIV was synthesizing chimeric coronaviruses, as they published about it in at least one manuscript. And as we discuss in this article (correct me if I'm wrong) What else does this add? I'm not opposed to well-sourced inclusion of non-controversial facts from The Times. The only novel element (that they wanted to create vaccines based on the spike protein) is reported explicitly incorrectly in 2/3 of these sources, and so clearly that is probably not what we should include. There might be something novel in them wanting to experiment with the cleavage sites, but as far as I can tell, that isn't described in sufficient detail in any of these sources. Overall this is about a theoretical grant proposal. I would describe it as flimsy and this reporting as sensational. It's grasping at every reason to suspect the WIV, without any actual material evidence of wrongdoing or of having conducted any of the proposed experiments. Many people have proposed many things that they have never done. Elon Musk wants to put dogecoin on the moon and describes himself as "CEO of Dogecoin". We don't mention either of these things in his article. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 08:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And I would boot Ebright from the article for this, but that is personal opinion and OR. I think Bakkster Man has the correct approach below. fiveby(zero) 15:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do note, generally reliable does not mean every single article is de facto reliable. Not to mention that the political football of a lab leak can reasonably be considered to apply towards why someone would consider the Telegraph to be potentially unreliable here. Nor does source reliability depend on "malevolent motives", see WP:RSBREAKING, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:SCIRS (particularly Popular press section). While WP:MEDPOP doesn't directly apply here (not biomed information), I think it's also valid to note The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles. All that is to say, if these news sources misrepresent the grant proposal (likely because they author misinterpreted them) per other reliable sources (as Shibboleth says), then the information about the EcoHealth grant proposals in these news articles would be unreliable. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, if someone were to read about EcoHealth in anyone of these biased articles and come to wikipedia to see an unbiased version, there would basically be no information here to explain anything about weather of not virus was actually released into the caves. They'd have to rely on the incorrect reporting. 70.191.102.240 (talk) 22:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Telegraph made a mistake on a pretty crucial detail, as noted by The Intercept, and the Archive page history shows some corrections have been made. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"They [meaning Whipple and other authors] insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild." Interesting comment. Compare "Gallery of Winners," Society of Editors, 2021:

Winner: Science Journalist of the Year. Tom Whipple, The Times ... ‘Whipple produces essential journalism for the pandemic ...’

–Dervorguilla (talk) 07:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I feel this Intercept bears mention in the article (also previously posted by 2.96.240.198). Given there was a proposal to add Furin Cleavage Sites(FCS) to SARS-related coronaviruses. The proposal was not funded, but it clearly demonstrates there was an existing idea to modify viruses in this fashion. It was noted from the beginning of the pandemic how unusual the FCS site was High Tinker (talk) 12:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Noted by the popular press and conspiracists, maybe, but the idea has long been dismissed in scientific circles. The very recent Holmes et al. paper ([6]) pretty much puts the nail in the coffin:

The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation. Although the furin cleavage site is absent from the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020), this is unsurprising because the lineage leading to this virus is poorly sampled and the closest bat viruses have divergent spike proteins due to recombination (Boni et al., 2020; Lytras et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). Furin cleavage sites are commonplace in other coronavirus spike proteins, including some feline alphacoronaviruses, MERS-CoV, most but not all strains of mouse hepatitis virus, as well as in endemic human betacoronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (Gombold et al., 1993; de Haan et al., 2008; Kirchdoerfer et al., 2016). A near identical nucleotide sequence is found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-1 (Gallaher, 2020), and both SARS-CoV-2 and HKU9-1 contain short palindromic sequences immediately upstream of this sequence that are indicative of natural recombination break-points via template switching (Gallaher, 2020). Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 2).

  • Now, it's already long agreed that when newspapers and scientific journals disagree, the scientific journals (being written by experts and reviewed by their similarly qualified peers) have priority, since Wikipedia is a mainstream academic work, not a newspaper. If, in time, scientists think there's anything that this changes, then surely we'll find acceptable sources which say so. I don't know why the insistence on citing so many newspapers: I wouldn't write a simple work for university in the topic I'm studying using newspapers as sources; much less for actual hard sciences... Again, WP:BESTSOURCES is the pretty much best advice that can be given; and you're in luck, since most papers on this topic are available free of charge via Pubmed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:57, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not a nail in a coffin. An WP:OPINION. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:06, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, a WP:SECONDARY review paper published by competent scientists in a credible journal. A far cry from the mere opinions of Wade or Deigin. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:09, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We're discussing a story reported by The Telegraph, The Times and The Intercept, not the articles from Wade or Deigin. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:12, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever, none of these are scientific journals. (If they were relevant to the topic I write about) I wouldn't cite them in my own work, so why on Wikipedia? You're trying to build up a false equivalence between these and legitimate scientific journals. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please WP:AGF. I have not seen anyone here try to build up a "false equivalence" between these news organisations and scientific journals. We can include this story from these new sources about the furin cleavage site (FCS), which your Holmes et al paper says is subject to "recurrent speculation", and we can give his explanation as to how it is also consistent with natural origins. The speculation about the FCS go back to Wade and Deigin's articles, which were covered by many secondary sources curiously missing from this article, but these Telegraph, Times and Intercept articles now push it [further] above the threshold of notability and dueness for coverage in this article. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I just added a mention of it in the article? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thank you. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, why is this going into the bio-weapon section? The articles from The Telegraph, The Times and The Intercept do not imply the FCS would have been inserted into a CoV backbone to create a bioweapon. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RandomCanadian: You may have misread Wales's statement that mainstream media are more relevant than mainstream "academic work" here.

Wikipedia already has an article on misinformation as well as one on investigations, that already make clear ... that a lab leak hypothesis was suggested and investigated yet also considered unlikely ... —PaleoNeonate – 22:07, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

This is not entirely clear to me. What I mean is: the consensus in the mainstream media (which is the relevant media for this, rather than MEDRS sources, as it is a social/geopolitical question, as opposed to a medical question) seems to me to have shifted ... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

–Dervorguilla (talk) 06:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo Wales' opinion is no more important on this matter than anyone else's. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Shibbolethink: Yet Ryan treats Wales as a reputable authority on this question. Which means we can too.
Maybe we could help fix this page's mountain of text problem and the associated brain drain if we stop treating ourselves as reputable authorities. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The CNET article only establishes that Wales' opinion is likely DUE for the Wikipedia coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic article. I'm not sure how it would be relevant here in actually establishing what sources are reliable. This CNET reporter's opinion does not make Jimmy Wales an expert on coronaviruses. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Shibbolethink: OK, this is "how it would be relevant here in actually establishing what sources are reliable." Ryan published a video showing that

In May 2021, a request for comment was opened on the MEDRS page to determine if "disease and pandemic origins" are "a form of biomedical information." Around 70% of the respondents opposed the idea.

You supported it (at 0:02/0:18). So did more than one other "expert on coronaviruses." You lost 3:7.
According to Ryan, Wales then weighed in on how the lab leak debate should be covered. He did so by stating:

the consensus in the mainstream media (which is the relevant media for this, rather than MEDRS sources, as it is a social/geopolitical question, as opposed to a medical question) seems to me to have shifted from "This is highly unlikely" ... to "This is one of the plausible hypotheses".

It looks like around 70% of the Wikipedia community would concur with Wales's opinion and 30% would dissent.
Many of the dissenters do seem have a more intense interest in this matter, though, which is wholly understandable. –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:26, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don't mischaracterize my position. I voted that some aspects of pandemic origins were BMI, and that others were not. In the future, if you ever reference this again, please do so using the actual wikipedia archives instead of a screengrab by a journalist. Thanks.
Wales didn't respond to the RfC. Don't put words in his mouth. You're hypothesizing about how he would have responded.
It appears you may ultimately be misunderstanding the RfC results. One aspect was that many participants acknowledged BMI was an unnecessary angle, as WP:SCHOLARSHIP already preferences scientific publications over the news media over matters of science. So the question became "which are questions of science and which are questions of politics?" and we are still arguing about it to this day. Another aspect was that some parts of pandemic origins would be covered by BMI, while others would not. It was not a simple straw poll and nobody "lost." That's not how wikipedia WP:CONSENSUS works. I would urge you to re-read WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:WIN.
You also appear to misuse WP:DUE here, which actually relies on the overall coverage of the topic in many multiple sources, and asking the question "how often does X appear in articles about Y?" Where X is Jimmy Wales' opinion and Y is the Lab Leak theory. In that context, Ryan's article is one data point, in a non-topic relevant outlet, an article that is wholly focussed on Wikipedia. It's due for the Wikipedia coverage article. It has nothing to do with how we determine source reliability.
Overall, this is straying further and further from the topic at hand, and is veering into WP:FORUM territory about my personal opinions and Wikipedia's overall coverage, which has nothing to do with whether the EHA content is any more DUE here... I'm gonna step back and do something else productive. Please don't tag me any further. Thanks — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 07:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I do find the Intercept coverage to be more balanced (I'll leave it to others to confirm whether or not it's accurate). I appreciated the context of other scientists pouring cold water on the FCS idea, essentially that if that was the goal of an intentional genetic engineering plan they picked a really poor FCS among the available examples. Which is the context, if/when the information is added to the page, we should be including. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The "FCS is poor" argument doesn't really stand up to even cursory examination. Why is it so effective at entering human cells? Why is it so highly conserved in all virus variants? do you really think humans make optimal decisions all the time? High Tinker (talk) 17:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've re-arranged the sections a bit, because the difference between "accidental release of deliberately engineered virus" and "deliberate release of ..." are meager and usually focus on the same supposed evidence to support the "deliberately engineered virus" section, so it makes sense to merge them together. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Even if it is authentic, as it appears to be, the DARPA proposal does not prove the lab-leak hypothesis, nor does it come close to changing the consensus view that the pandemic started from a natural source." [7]
    I would say this The Atlantic article is by far the best source to come out about this so far. It would be a good roadmap for inclusion, as this is becoming more and more DUE. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:14, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do they cite their source for claiming no change in consensus? It seems that is just the opinion of a few they have talked to? Is anyone surveying a large pool of scientists? We have quotes from other scientists that have changed position. 2600:1700:8660:E180:B0A0:1C2A:1977:A77F (talk) 22:58, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We also have quotes from scientists who say quite the opposite. So, instead of taking what individual editors think, we just follow the most reliable sources; and these point in one direction - that the consensus has not changed, and that the consensus is that a lab leak was and remains extremely unlikely (even more unlikely given the recent findings noted in the section below, it would seem). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:12, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If we have scientists saying opposite things, then dont we by definition not have consensus? 2600:1700:8660:E180:B0A0:1C2A:1977:A77F (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, if the vast majority of scientists are saying one thing (as evidenced by publications in scientific journals), then we do not give equal credence; because, although many statements of fact made in Wikipedia can be reliably sourced as being disputed by somebody somewhere, Wikipedia is written from a mainstream perspective. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the consensus in science journals before a month ago was a natural origin. Due to recent events many notable scientists have changed to "unsure". So far we have one article in the atlantic claiming to know that the consesus of all science has not changed. They cite no source for this. Was a poll taken? 2600:1700:8660:E180:69CE:BC4:C894:5E63 (talk) 07:27, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The statement you're making to the opposite is not supported by available evidence (you have not provided any scientific paper on the subject). Nor is it consistent with usual Wikipedia practice, which is to wait for evidence that the consensus has changed and not treat this as some form of breaking news story. The best I can do is point to this recently published (less than two weeks ago, which in the realm of scientific publications in medicine/hard sciences is basically like yesterday) review paper on the subject which is still very clearly in line with previous scientific writings on the issue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From that paper: "No epidemic has been caused by the escape of a novel virus, and there is no data to suggest that the WIV—or any other laboratory—was working on SARS-CoV-2, or any virus close enough to be the progenitor, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic." The theorists are claiming that the breaking news DARPA grant (authenticity unproven at this point) demonstrates that the lab had the capability and could have been working on FCSs in CoVs. But I agree that it is worth waiting and keeping an eye out for new publications from Edward C. Holmes et al discussing the DARPA grant. 70.191.102.240 (talk) 18:00, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RandomCanadian and 70.191.102.240, re: Holmes et al., "Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review". This source's lead author had two known potential conflicts of interest:

Declaration of interests
E.C.H. is an honorary visiting professor at Fudan University (Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center) ... and, from 2014–2020, was a guest professor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention...

Can't we find a less biased source for this arguable claim? –Dervorguilla (talk) 03:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't look like anything disqualifying to me. We don't have much better sources for this, and "potential conflict of interest" does not translate on a 100% basis to "actual conflict of interest", especially when this has undergone peer-review in a reputable journal. As for the source being allegedly biased, one can easily compare to existing similar sources and see that they do not stand out in either tone or language, so that seems like making a hill out of a mole to me. And it isn't a particularly good objection: high-quality sources probably do have their biases, but analysis of the other elements of the source which impact its reliability and suitability for use on Wikipedia (i.e. its coherence with existing research in the field; it being published in a reputable journal and having undergone editorial and peer review; it being published by experts in the field) certainly allow us to cite it without much fuss. In fact, due to being rather recent, and all of the previously listed factors, it probably is one of the best sources we currently have. Claims to the opposite seem like straw grasping at best: what else would you cite, currently available, that is a "better source" than this? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:55, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As the OP here, I'd like to first apologize for this becoming somewhat of a forum/battleground. I'm unfamiliar with wiki guidelines on drafts in talk pages, but I think it would be worthwhile for us to construct a(some) draft(s) of a section or just a paragraph. Then perhaps we can vote on which version is most acceptable for inclusion. If you do not believe there are any notable theories that notably feature EcoHealth Alliance, please directly comment below this comment. I will attempt to start a draft below this comment thread, please feel free to edit or add information. 70.191.102.240 (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EcoHealth's Relations to FCS Insertion Theory - Draft

"In September of 2021, a rejected 2018 grant was leaked to the press which described experiments proposed by EcoHealth Alliance scientists and collaborators. No evidence exists that any of the proposed experiments were ever conducted, and a spokesman for the EcoHealth Alliance has stated that they were not. One proposal included the synthesis and release of a protein-based (non-infectious) coronavirus vaccine into bat caves in Southern China, to reduce the overall burden of viruses on the wild bat population. Another involved furin cleavage site modification in non-human pathogenic bat coronaviruses in the laboratory, to determine which spike protein would make the best bat vaccine. Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2, as it lacks a viable virus backbone."

Per WP:FRINGE we do not assert things like this that are so woefully without evidence. Not without describing how unlikely/impossible it is for SARS-COV-2 to be made in a lab. We must give the different theories in this article WP:DUE weight based upon the support they have in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Or at the very least based upon the weight of evidence they have in favor, as published in all WP:RSes. Nothing about these grants shows that these techniques could have created SARS-COV-2, and as pointed out in the Atlantic article, there is no known or substantive reason why anyone would have engineered SARS-COV-2 the way it exists. With such a poor cleavage site. Overall, there is zero scientific evidence that SARS-COV-2 could have been made in a lab, and this grant does not change that. The techniques used in this grant could not have been used to make SARS-COV-2. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:58, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Im confused why we need to validate the theory here? It is a theory and it has been well covered in the press. Why do we need to explore the intricacies of what is claimed? Why cant we say say that the theory is woefully without evidence? We could model this after 9/11 conspiracy theories? 70.191.102.240 (talk) 00:46, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Adding four generally reliable news sources: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Engber and Federman emphasize that "good-faith investigations of these matters have proceeded in the face of a toxic shroud of secrecy." More mainstream sources support this viewpoint than contradict it. The McKay article adds further support to its being a significant aspect of our topic.
As required by policy (DUE and BALASP), our contributor is fairly representing this specific aspect. –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That can be added, but not in any way which suggests this is supportive of the idea that the virus was engineered in a lab; since that particular version of the lab leak theory is the sort of unfounded speculation which is rejected unanimously by higher quality sources and that is indeed a conspiracy theory. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:00, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Whether the virus was or wasn't manipulated before being accidentally leaked is just a matter of WP:OPINION at this point. No "high quality" source can determine this definitively, as I and other editors have said in previous discussions. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even if you are right, if it's a matter of controversial opinion, that still brings us to WP:NPOV, which suggests using WP:BESTSOURCES, which in this case are pretty much WP:SCHOLARSHIP/WP:MEDRS; and that brings us to the same outcome: we should describe the idea that the virus was genetically manipulated (as opposed to the idea the virus could possibly have escaped, unnoticed and unmodified, from a lab) as basically a refuted conspiracy theory. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:53, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Dervorguilla and fiveby that The Telegraph, The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic are reliable sources and I concur with Bakkster Man and High Tinker that The Intercept's coverage is the most neutral, and I concur with you and Shibbolethink that contrary WP:OPINIONs should be added for NPOV. I find the Holmes et al argument about which FCS the WIV may have used to be a bit like arguing which weapon OJ may have used, and a very poor rebuttal overall, but I am fine with adding it if that's all we've got. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP considers those sources more reliable than others. I think that The Telegraph was irresponsible and The Intercept is in over it's head. fiveby(zero) 19:55, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are you okay with "Many Scientists, including Peter Daszak, claim this is a conspiracy with no evidence." covering this? Could this be worded better? 70.191.102.240 (talk) 17:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not “many scientists,” it’s the scientific consensus of relevant experts.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:52, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Whipple, Tom (22 September 2021). "US 'Rejected Funding for Bat Coronavirus Project at Wuhan Lab'". The Times. London. In describing experiments involving the construction of 'chimeric coronaviruses', as well as the regular sampling of viruses from bat caves, the leaked documents will increase scrutiny on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the idea that the pandemic may have originated in a laboratory.
  2. ^ McKay, Betsy (25 September 2021). "Covid-19 Panel of Scientists Investigating Origins of Virus Is Disbanded". Wall Street Journal. Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider biosafety research ... EcoHealth Alliance's president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June.
  3. ^ Lerner, Sharon; Hibbett, Maia (23 September 2021). "Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research". The Intercept. The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses ... Peter Daszak and Linfa Wang, two of the researchers who submitted the proposal, did not previously acknowledge it.
  4. ^ Engber, Daniel; Federman, Adam (22 September 2021). "The Lab-Leak Debate Just Got Even Messier". The Atlantic. Even as a natural origin remains the most plausible explanation, these discoveries, taken as a whole, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that good-faith investigations of these matters have proceeded in the face of a toxic shroud of secrecy.

Is this new?

Good morning all. I don't follow the edit of this article, but I wonder if the news in the Telegraph today "Revealed: Wuhan and US scientists planned to create new coronaviruses - Before Covid pandemic erupted, group submitted proposals to mix genetic data of related strains and grow completely new sequences" "... grant application submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), leaked last month, reveal that the international team of scientists planned to mix genetic data of closely related strains and grow completely new viruses. ... The Darpa proposals, leaked to the pandemic origins analysis group Drastic," is new[1] Regards to all, Springnuts (talk) 07:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See #EcoHealth Alliance and Furin Cleavage Site above. What's new in the article is the anonymous source from the WHO commenting on the DARPA proposals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fiveby (talk • contribs) 13:00, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like an interesting bit to include in the wiki article:

Explaining the proposal, a WHO collaborator, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "This means that they would take various sequences from similar coronaviruses and create a new sequence that is essentially the average of them. It would be a new virus sequence, not a 100 per cent match to anything.
"They would then synthesise the viral genome from the computer sequence, thus creating a virus genome that did not exist in nature but looks natural as it is the average of natural viruses.
"Then they put that RNA in a cell and recover the virus from it. This creates a virus that has never existed in nature, with a new 'backbone' that didn't exist in nature but is very, very similar as it's the average of natural backbones."
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other.

2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Missed that it was an anonymous "WHO collaborator" and is not an ...anonymous source from the WHO.... fiveby(zero) 18:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, looks like theyre described in another paragraph as "A genetics expert working with the World Health Organisation." Hard to know how intimate that role would be. 2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC (talk) 18:53, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other. It's an interesting circumstantial suggestion by this source that they believe it indicates evidence of manipulation, though it's odd that they reference RaTG13 (not announced until much later) when one would expect multiple such 95% similar viruses would be identified if this were the case. Just me, or does this come across as motivated reasoning? Just pushing the boundary of where the deception started without actual evidence (also worth noting, the source seems to suggest a weird burden of proof, and calling any alternate explanations "misinformation"). Bakkster Man (talk) 19:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They also mentioned the Laos BANAL strains in the article. "So far the closest naturally occurring virus to Sars-CoV-2 is a strain called Banal-52, which was reported from Laos last month and shares 96.8 per cent of the genome." 2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC (talk) 20:08, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is the anonymous source suggesting the BANAL strains were previously undisclosed discoveries used to create SARS-CoV-2? It doesn't appear they are. Instead they seem to be saying "we wouldn't be able to detect if it happened", and even though there are natural viruses which seem to match the genetic hallmarks the source suggests this research would result in (I'm not a virologist, but isn't phylogenics a lot more about sequences themselves than "averages"?), this is being put forward as evidence for manipulation instead of for the vast undiscovered variety in nature. I'm not opposed to noting that proponents are pointing to these details to support their arguments, but I'd like to see something with a bit more rigor if we're going to go into details of what is and isn't possible. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:19, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good question, I've read elsewhere on the internet that there were samples collected in Laos in 2017 (by whom im not sure). I've also seen people state that all samples are not always sequenced and published. Hard to know. But as you say Its not discussed in this article. 2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC (talk) 20:33, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is unsubstantiated rumor and speculation without any basis in evidence. It does not surprise me at all that this IP was rangeblocked today after making this and other edits. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:10, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, phylogenetics is comparing base by base, aligning each base of the genome to see how similarly the two viruses have evolved. It's a lot more than "%" identical. It's also comparing the actual amount of the genomes that are 100% identical discrete chunks, or very highly similar, and where it may have just shifted! Very different! And occasionally, it's done comparing the amino acids that result from those base triplets (AKA codons)! And how similar those amino acids are electrochemically! — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:10, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
extremely motivated reasoning. And clearly not a person who has expertise with viral genetics. As previously described, "only" is not a word often used when comparing two viral genomes that are 5% divergent and 30kb in length. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:08, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EcoHealth in relation to origin investigations

If we decide to mention EcoHealth in the lab leak theory page, it might be interesting to mention how divisive affiliations with the organization has become. Nice new Science article on the subject concerning The Lancet COVID-19 Commission.

"Instead, Keusch asserts, Sachs’s decision reflected his own biases. “Anybody who had a connection to EcoHealth became persona non grata,” Keusch says. “I had a long email to Jeff, which said you’re conflating expertise, collaborations, or connections with conflict of interest.”"

"Last month, Sachs says, his concerns about conflicts broadened beyond Daszak to other task force members. On 10 September, he learned details of an NIH grant to EcoHealth, “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” which was released following Freedom of Information Act requests from The Intercept. Keusch and three other task force members are listed as co-investigators. “None of them reported this involvement with the EcoHealth Alliance grant, though they had been asked to do so,” Sachs says. “In these circumstances, I ended the task force.”"

https://www.science.org/content/article/fights-over-confidentiality-pledge-and-conflicts-interest-tore-apart-covid-19-origin-probe

2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 (talk) 23:18, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like content more applicable to the EcoHealth page or to a page about the commission than to this page. We must determine if it is WP:DUE here, per WP:RSUW. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is WP:DUE here insomuch as RS report it as advancing the lab leak theory, or at least making it more plausible. Alexander Kekulé has some good quotes in this N-TV piece. LondonIP (talk) 22:54, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Accidental vs deliberate release of genetically modified virus

Should we be lumping these two separate theories together in the same subsection? They are two very different claims, and as far as I can tell, sources treat the two theories very differently—accidental release is seen as plausible (albeit unlikely) and generally worthy of further investigation, whereas deliberate release (aka bioweapon) is seen as a completely unfounded conspiracy theory that nobody in the mainstream views as deserving serious consideration. Lumping them together gives the false impression that both theories are equally discredited, especially because only the first paragraph in the section covers claims of deliberate release ("Plandemic" and Li-Meng Yan). I propose restoring my recent edit, which separated the bioweapon theory into its own subsection, with a link to COVID-19 misinformation#Bio-weapon which covers it in more detail. Stonkaments (talk) 17:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Doesn't the article already separate the two bits according to their plausibility? i.e. "Accidental release of a natural virus" (possible but unlikely) vs "Release of genetically modified virus" [one way or another] (deemed implausible and in some variants an outright conspiracy theory)? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • While the wording to distinguish the two is a bit confusing, I think we need to make clear that there really isn't anyone advocating that a laboratory intentionally released the virus in their own backyard. The way the WHO presented it was "intentional engineering for release". Basically, a politically-correct term for a bioweapon (intended to be released on purpose, but not in Wuhan) distinguishing it from traditional laboratory modification (the intent being never to release outside their controlled environment). I suppose the allegations of plans to genetically engineer an inoculating virus to release into bat caves muddies this a bit, and would could require further clarification that wasn't required earlier in the year. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think a "deliberate release" section is WP:DUE for this article. We have the word "leak" in the title, and it implies only one thing. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 20:41, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that this is really the article about a proposed laboratory origin, with the word "leak" having been chosen because it was the WP:COMMONNAME. I'd rather see us rename the article to be more broadly inclusive of these scenarios (if we think it's a significant enough issue to justify) than to split it further. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:03, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your suggestion, but I would still like to find a new section for the FCS speculation, as bioengineering does not equate to bioweaponry. This is becoming like Counterpart, with one side blaming the other of a deliberate release, and the other side discounting it as a conspiracy theory, without either side knowing what happened (till the end, but I don't want to spoil it for you, or make any inference to this). This controversy should also cover the Chinese side, and how they perceive this interest as "US politicisation" of the scientific method, as reported in numerous reliable sources. Historians will probably call it the "Covid lab origins controversy". 2.96.240.198 (talk) 00:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, we shouldn't conflate bioengineering in general with the specific motives of bioweapon development, but on a quick scan of the article I don't see us making that claim. Is there a bit in specific you're concerned about? Bakkster Man (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see the section has since been renamed to "Principle Claims", so this is not an issue anymore. I still think the Version section lacks clarity, as even if we agree that this article covers all possible lab origin scenarios, the "Accidental release of a natural virus" vs "Release of a genetically modified virus" presents as a false paradigm. I think this article would benefit from an overhaul, or at least an overhaul discussion. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 01:11, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would propose different sections at the minimum, both have myriad secondary sources discussing them. Scientific opinion also differs considerably - as you said Stonkaments; the lab leak is seen as plausible, if unlikely, whereas the manufactured bioweapon is teetering on tinfoil-hat-wearing ludicrousy. Dividing the two seems the best way of confronting such an issue. VF01 (talk) 12:11, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Weasel word

I agree with Yodabyte's removal of the WP:WEASEL word "far". If some scientists believe this theory is "far" less likely than another, then their WP:OPINIONs should be attributed to them, and not made as a statement of fact in the WP:VOICE of Wikipedia. Alternatively, we can use the WHO report's "extremely unlikely" descriptor, and give the whole story behind that. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to attribute what is the consensus position among relevant scientists. Too much attribution is a sign of bad NPOV writing; and in this case it would be putting the position of qualified scientists into WP:UNDUE doubt based on false equivalence with that of journalists and non-experts. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are many qualified scientists, various experts across different fields, and mainstream journalists who believe the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is likely a lab leak, or at least 50/50 origin came from a laboratory. Regarding the removal of the word "far", it obviously should not be included in the lead. The WIV article includes the following phrase "scientific opinion [is] that an accidental leak is possible, but unlikely", so these two related articles have an obvious discrepancy and the word "far" should not be included in the text. Yodabyte (talk) 08:07, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are many many qualified scientists, various experts across different fields, and mainstream journalists who believe the moon landing was faked and that vaccines cause autism. But in both leads, we communicate the scientific consensus in appropriate language, which describes these as not very likely. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 09:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with RandomCanadian. It’s NPOV and in compliance with FRINGE to include “far.” — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Remove "far" is my vote. 70.191.102.240 (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC) [8] 70.191.102.240 (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • How convenient. This is not a vote, and if the best you can come up with is self-published nonsense from somebody with no background in virology, then it can safely be disregarded. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree there was support for including the word "far" throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021. However with new information and data published (much of it from scientists) since May/June 20221, the word "far" should not be included in the lead. Also, as another user User:Aeonx has pointed out, "most scientists" is inconsistent with cited references and unlike "many" implies an unambiguous polled majority. The word "most" should be altered and changed in the lead to "many" for purposes of accuracy and in line with reliable sources. More evidence is needed that the virus had a natural origin due to inadequate data. China has unfortunately been very secretive and hasn't cooperated with legitimate investigations (including WHO) so an accurate determination of origin cannot be made as of October 2021. Yodabyte (talk) 04:39, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To quote @RandomCanadianfrom another talk page: ""There is consensus within the scientific community to consider that SARS-CoV-2 has not been engineered and is a naturally occurring virus." (Frutos et al., 2021 - or even the Nature article, which is indeed a reliable source; or this recent article which is unequivocal: "To be clear, most scientists think animal spillover is the most likely explanation because that's where most new diseases come from.") and in the excellent sources template, which I think is at the top of this talk page or at least most related ones. We don't need a poll (a primary source) if we have secondary sources which tell us otherwise, nor do we second guess reliable sources because the scientific mainstream is different from the popular opinion mainstream. As the last page I link explain, this is not a popularity contest. If you think that "most" is inappropriate, you're free to present an actual acceptable source which contradicts this." "far more" is consistent with the state of the consensus of relevant experts. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 10:59, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the question at the heart of this is how are scientists able to conclude that a natural origin is more likely (or for that matter much more likely) when they are working with a scarcity of data due to China being very secretive and hiding data and not cooperating with legitimate investigations (including WHO, etc.)? Yodabyte (talk) 19:49, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And the answer is "not our problem", since criticising scientists is not the job of Wikipedia editors. See WP:VNT, or if you want something more eloquent, WP:FLAT. China being secretive is not evidence of anything: Hussein' regime was also secretive, and, yet, there were no WMDs in Iraq... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
First, you completely ignored my relevant question. Second, to compare WP:FLAT with a scenario that has a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction (i.e. accidental lab leak), is completely absurd. Third, I don't really understand the WMD comparison - yes there were no WMD found but there was also no evidence supporting WMD in Iraq besides CIA/U.S. propaganda and false claims made by Hussein himself because he wanted to make enemies believe he had them. Regarding the origin of COVID-19 there is actually a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to an actual accidental lab leak. Yodabyte (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
According to scientists who have relevant qualifications, there is not "a lot of evidence", there's only the fact that the virus was first detected in a city where there was a virology lab. We follow the scientific mainstream, as per the pages I already linked, and thus your questions don't matter because scientists don't take them seriously. Whatever you or I think is irrelevant if it is not substantiated in quality sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:40, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Many "scientists who have relevant qualifications" disagree. Here are two from a NYT article (there are many others including Richard Ebright and David Relman):

Akiko Iwasaki: In March 2021, the W.H.O.-China team released a report that dedicated only four out of 313 pages to the possibility of a lab leak, without any substantial data to back up their conclusion that it was highly unlikely...Dr. Iwasaki said “There’s so little evidence for either of these things, that it’s almost like a tossup.”...Dr. Ian Lipkin said he was dismayed to learn of two coronavirus studies from the Wuhan Institute of Virology that had been carried out with only a modest level of safety measures, known as BSL-2. In an interview with The Times, Dr. Lipkin said this fact wasn’t proof in itself that SARS-CoV-2 spread from the lab. “But it certainly does raise the possibility that must be considered” he said.[9] Yodabyte (talk) 22:01, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • And did those same "scientists with relevant qualifications" bother to get their words published in peer-reviewed publications, similar to those I've already listed (Frutos et al.; Holmes et al. mentioned by Shibboleth; the other ones listed at WP:NOLABLEAK)? We grant more weight to secondary sources, especially review papers which are more likely to reflect the consensus of other sources, than to random doctors quoted in the press (who are in effect primary sources in this instance). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:25, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:FLAT. A few detractors does not shift a consensus. Plus many have said the recent developments of more similar coronaviruses found in nature than RATG-13 pretty convincing evidence of a natural origin... Plus it's not like anyone is calling it "solved," they're just saying what is and is not more likely. Finally, the existence of a possibility of something being hidden is not enough to disregard the consensus opinion. If that were the case, then we would need to re-write the entirety of the JFK conspiracies article as there may be some information the CIA isn't telling us yet, even though they released troves of documents. Something could still be out there! — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:28, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That is a poor comparison, has the Chinese government released troves of documents? Yodabyte (talk) 00:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is supposed to be a summary of the best sources on the topic; not a place for editors to substitute their original hypotheses on the topic to those of high-quality sources. If you can't substantiate your arguments with reliable, peer-reviewed scientific papers (or other similar high-quality sources), then you're wasting everyone's time, and should stop before it reaches the point where you might be accused of ignoring it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't ask you, I posed the question to Shibbolethink who made a comparison to JFK conspiracy theories, which didn't make sense. Just like your Iraqi WMD comparison earlier also made no sense. Yodabyte (talk) 01:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the WMD comparison isn't mine; it's present in this source (scroll to the bottom) from back in May. And it makes perfect sense: absence of evidence is not evidence of wrongdoing; and you simply contradicting all of our comments without good supporting sources or reasoning is rather a bad argument in the pyramid of disagreement..., and really suggests you should WP:DROPTHESTICK and move on. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:39, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Remove far, per WP:UNDUE. RandomCanadian's most recent source is indeed "unequivocal": this Harvard (History of Science) professor supports more likely, not far more likely. Most scientists think animal spillover is the most likely explanation ... What do we do when evidence suggests that a claim might be right ...? Here it's helpful to distinguish between two forms of the lab-leak theory. (See POV statement template for further guidance.) –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:16, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Holmes et al. review has also very clear language that "Although the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be entirely dismissed, and may be near impossible to falsify, this conduit for emergence is highly unlikely relative to the numerous and repeated human-animal contacts that occur routinely in the wildlife trade." "Most scientists think X is most likely" is coherent with both "more likely" and "far more likely"; but in this case the better source (an actual scientific paper) suggests that the second of these is more accurate. So stick with what is already in the article instead of making much ado about practically nothing (one word), especially when you're taking only one source in isolation to support your point. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See also LitCovid (maintained by NCBI) for papers on this specific subject. You will find stuff like [10] (arguably, an opinion from one scientist, so not too useful here, although an interesting read); [11]; [12], all very recent, and which all head in the same direction as the Holmes paper and previous sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:22, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Holmes et al. discloses its principal author's relationships with China CDC and Fudan as possible influences that might lead him to support certain findings. Most scientific associations would therefore call this article a biased source for those findings.
RandomCanadian's most recent source, Wang et al., is also an "actual scientific paper" by professional scientists published in a peer-reviewed journal, Cell Research (Shanghai); and its authors explicitly state that they have no potential conflict of interest. Their study concludes:

Before the pandemic, Wuhan was already at a risk of importing SARS-CoV-2 through cold chain cargoes from other parts of the world ... Origin-tracing progress has long been hindered by politicization, unfounded slander, and [the] widespread laboratory leakage hypothesis. It is high time to start the real global search...

Unlike journalists, most professional scientists might thus appear to believe that an accidental origin in some other country is more likely than one in their (or their colleagues') country. Oreskes offers a reason for this apparent logical incongruity:

When people don't know how to fix their mistakes—and are perhaps embarrassed or ashamed—they may try to cover them up...

A Harvard History of Science professor made this pertinent observation, in a Scientific American (Policy) article helpfully cited by RandomCanadian. –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:26, 15 October 2021 (UTC) 21:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Holmes et al is written by many authors, and the very slimly described possible COI of one of them does not invalidate the entire paper. The vast majority of contributing authors have no connection to China. Nor does it invalidate the fact that they are coming to the same conclusion as many multiple other MEDRSes, as described in WP:NOLABLEAK and at the top of this page in the sources template. This: Unlike journalists, most professional scientists thus appear to believe that an origin in some other country is more likely than one in their (or their colleagues') country. is not supported by the sources. Holmes et al also concludes China is the most likely origin. Wang et al is in the minority here, and that's why we aren't reporting that aspect of the paper in wikivoice. But they agree a natural origin is most likely, even if they disagree that Hubei province is the likely origin. Your statement about scientists believing the origin is outside their own country is wrong. We have most scientists (e.g. Shi Zhengli) still maintaining Southern China (or just outside it) is the most likely origin. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 09:52, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Shibbolethink: Your reply concerning Wang et al. ("Tracing the Origins") is helpful, and I've clarified my comment accordingly. The context there is (a) accidental lab leaks and (b) that particular paper, as viewed through Oreskes's history-of-science lens. Concerning Holmes et al.: Holmes lists himself as the principal author, and he discloses relationships that, if known to others, might be viewed as a conflict of interest. None of his colleagues disclose any possible opposing (or balancing) influences. We can still include this article as a source, though, per NPOV#Bias in sources policy. –Dervorguilla (talk) 23:11, 15 October 2021 (UTC) 02:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot unilaterally declare that a source is POV biased and therefore excluded due to COI (in wikipedia terms), which are different from any author declaring a COI in a statement, which is true of many many RSes on Wikipedia. In order to do that, you would need the consensus of editors to agree in an RfC or a WP:NPOVN post. You, as an individual editor, are not a unilateral authority on this. And I disagree that A) being from China, B) being a scientist, or C) working for the Chinese CDC, are enough of a conflict of interest that it precludes the source from being used. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 03:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Remove as per Dervorguilla. LondonIP (talk) 23:41, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can we trust the assessment of scientists given the small amount of data available?

A few editors here are very insistent that "mainstream" scientists believe the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is probably natural, but if those scientists are making that conclusion with minimal data and substantial circumstantial evidence points to an accidental laboratory leak, isn't this an issue? What am I missing here, I am genuinely confused. Yodabyte (talk) 22:07, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would say you are missing the fact that it is not our job to peer review scientists' assessments and disregard them based on our own opinions of the evidence. It is only our job to figure out what type of source it is, what it says, and whether it is the mainstream or minority viewpoint (or WP:FRINGE). That is the extent of our job. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 00:21, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is duplicative of the above, to which I have now merged it. And what you are arguing is WP:OR. As has been already pointed to you multiple times, we don't care whether the scientists are making that conclusion with minimal data, with substantial evidence, or with total disregard for reality, if there are no other scientists who are criticising them for this in sources of similar quality, then, as far as we are concerned, the scientists are right. Again, verifiability, not truth and WP:MAINSTREAM are useful reading. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:21, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

POV dispute

Tagged statement (Most scientists have remained skeptical of the idea, ... believing that a natural origin is far more likely.) as POV (signifying that it may not be entirely without bias), to attract editors with different viewpoints and additional insight. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:47, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why are we relitigating this statement that we have litigated so many times in so many different articles, and always come out with consensus in favor of keeping it? The sources have not changed. It is many different WP:MEDRS articles saying this, many WP:NEWSORG saying this, and very few Wikipedia:NEWSORG articles disputing it. Per WP:FRINGE, we report what the WP:BESTSOURCES say. Not what we feel in our heart are the "more accurate" sources. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 09:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm done with this WP:IDHT. Yes, we're not "without bias", and I'm going to point to WP:YWAB once more. Now, if you don't like it, you're free to post neutrally-worded messages on the relevant Wikiprojects, but not to relitigate via tag an issue which has already been under discussion for days, weeks, months, ... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:20, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Disputes can leave people "disillusioned with the project" and cause them to abandon editing Wikipedia altogether, as Ryan mentioned. So I hope you're not really "done with this", RandomCanadian. I'm finding no consensus here or elsewhere that "far more likely" isn't a violation of NPOV, though; so let me suggest a compromise solution.
•The purpose of [the POV statement] template is to attract editors with different viewpoints to edit articles that need additional insight. Let's try it for a week and see whether it does indeed broaden participation. Otherwise it gets removed.
Alternatively, we could try the weaker POV check inline template. –Dervorguilla (talk) 01:40, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The other, [and only acceptable] solution is, as has been persistently asked, to provide sources of equal quality to those provided for the counter. Except for your own personal objections that there is "no consensus" on this, you haven't provided such sources (none of the few sources in this whole section state anything resembling that, the only links are obvious original conclusions). So I am indeed "done with this" (with arguing with you) until you can comply with that requirement, which as you already know is covered by the most basics policies of Wikipedia, and which I have no reason to repeat once again. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:14, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, no I don't think we should have the tag at all. I agree we have consensus that the tag should not be placed from the above discussion. This is the status quo, to have no tag. If you disagree, you could escalate the dispute, or wait for other uninvolved editors to participate and see if they agree with you. To me, this seems an improper use of the "POV" tag to label something that is pretty clearly a fair summary of the sources, but that is an unpopular opinion among a very vocal minority. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 03:11, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink: The sources have reportedly changed:

In the early days of the pandemic, experts largely felt that the most likely explanation was that the virus jumped directly from animals to humans ...
In February 2020, a group of 27 prominent scientists penned a forceful letter in The Lancet condemning any "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." ...
ABC News reached out to all 27 ... Of the 12 who replied, one now believes a lab leak is more likely and five more said a lab leak should not be ignored as a possibility. Four others stood by their stance in the letter ...

  1. Folmer et al., ABC News [2] –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:25, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So still (mostly US) newspapers. Inappropriate for scientific information. And even the newspapers is not saying that what was true "in the early days" is not true anymore: "should not be ignored as a possibility" does not mean that it is "likely"; and of course the fact is we have no clue what the other 15 who didn't reply think (maybe they think nothing at all has changed and the question is just obvious politicking? impossible to know...). Anyway, WP:FLAT, as Shibboleth linked, is again appropriate: science is not done by counting votes, and news media are poor sources when they conflict with scholarship. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:28, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Still a case of WP:RS/AC. You need statements talking about the consensus of the relevant scientific community. It isn't sufficient to have the opinions of N people in the scientific community. Also note Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus. -- there aren't any reviews suggesting the consensus has changed, but there are several vice versa. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And what is the relevant scientific community? If every scientist stayed in their own lane, Frances Arnold would not have won a Nobel Prize. Scientific consensus on the origins of the virus will not be formed by virologists alone, but also biosafety, biosecurity and geopolitical experts. Many scientists like David Relman have until we have sufficient data, investigators must take both hypotheses seriously, a position echoed by scientists like David Sanders, who say doesn’t think there’s enough evidence yet either way to take a stand on Covid’s origin. There clearly isn't a consensus here. LondonIP (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Until those scientists bother to have their expert opinions put up to the rigours of peer review in reputable journals instead of in newspapers (or in opinion letters to the editor), their opinions are not relevant for judging scientific consensus, because scientific consensus is not formed by giving sound bites to the media, or counting how many scientists have done so (and of course, entirely ignoring the entirely unrepresentative selection you give...). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:44, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is essentially the WP:FLAT argument. We're not saying "stay in your lane" we're describing the "slow and conservative" nature of this project. If this were 1491, we would describe the universe with the Earth as its center. If this were 1860, we would describe the solution to puerperal fever as fixing "bad air". It does not matter what a few outlying individual scientists say. It matters what has been published in the pages of reputable topic-relevant reliable source academic journals. These review articles and professional body statements are how we determine consensus. As has been explained numerous times in these talk pages. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 09:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Biomedical sources: RandomCanadian has helpfully provided a comparatively "representative selection" from the LitCovid biomedical database.
  1. Loeb[3] (in Veterinary Record) supports more likely, not far more likely.

    It was more likely a spillover event...

  2. Frutos et al. (in Environmental Research) is paywalled; but in that same issue, Hassan et al. seems to contradict far more likely:

    The rapidly evolving data on mutations and various strains of SARS-CoV-2 makes it vulnerable to firmly assert whether SARS-CoV-2 results from a zoonotic emergence or from an accidental escape from a laboratory (Sallard et al., 2021; ...).

  3. Wang et al. (in Cell Research [Shanghai]), tells researchers worldwide not to draw conclusions about origins yet.
In aggregate, our cited policies and sources (and common sense) don't appear to allow far more likely. But they do allow more likely. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:09, 17 October 2021 (UTC) 06:14, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yet again more selective quoting/misrepresentation of sources. Wang et al. is clearly not mentioning the lab leak as the thing not to draw conclusions on. In fact, it explicitly says: "The origin-tracing progress has long been hindered by politicization, unfounded slander and widespread laboratory leakage hypothesis. It is high time to start the real global search for sarbecoviruses in the potential locations to identify the origins"... You don't start a "real global search" by seriously considering something which has hindered the process. Loeb is one veterinarian's opinion (not an expert on viruses), which I explicitly marked as "interesting read but not very useful for our purposes". Now, Frutos, I don't know what is not clear, but "Origin of COVID-19: Dismissing the Mojiang mine theory and the laboratory accident narrative." is not a title that leaves much open to interpretation; and in the other paper ([13]) Frutos spends time discussing each "variant" of the lab leak, before coming to the conclusions that (of the Mojiang Mine story) "This narrative on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 can be dismissed. Not only there is no evidence to support it but there is evidence against it."; (of a leak from the WIV lab) "Nevertheless, it is simply not possible for a virus which does not physically exist, for a virtual sequence in computer, to escape from a laboratory and trigger an epidemic."; (of deliberate engineering) "These are only unsubstantiated accusations and a narrative based on a virtual scenario.". And if Frutos is claiming some uncertainty, reading the whole paper will show that theory he is putting forward is the "circulation model", not anything related to the lab.
And the whole of the above, again, ignoring better sources (such as reviews of which you already know the contents of - listed at WP:NOLABLEAK for your convenience, as usual), like the Holmes paper (which is definitely on the "fare more unlikely" side); and others. Selectively quote mining for sentences that can be misinterpreted, and using newspapers for topics where they contradict scholarship ("generally reliable" means just that, and not [excuse the irony] "divinely revealed truth": some sources are simply better than others); is not helpful; and is actively leading me to think I'm wasting my time here. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:30, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Would editors be open to a compromise of changing the wording to something like "much more likely" rather than "far more likely"? Multiple editors have expressed their opinion that "far more likely" does seem a little too strong, whereas simply "more likely" may be a little too weak—so maybe we can split the difference? Stonkaments (talk) 12:52, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"much more likely" is fine with me. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RandomCanadian: About source 1- Loeb's interviewee represents himself as an epidemiologist (with research interests in bat-transmitted viruses), not a "veterinarian".

Professor James Wood OBE is a veterinary epidemiologist, with research interests in emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, especially bat transmitted viruses in sub-Saharan Africa ...

You may want to reflect on whether your expressed concern about the source being a "veterinarian (not an expert on viruses)" is allowed under BLPTALK standards.
About source 2- Please reread my statement. Do you really see "selective quoting/misrepresentation of" Frutos et al. (or any other work)?
About source 3- Your concern as to Wang et al. is understandable. Their article is easy to misinterpret. It mentions lab leak just twice: In spite of the widespread hypotheses/“theories” of laboratory leakage ... it is unlikely a laboratory product ... The origin-tracing progress has long been hindered by ... widespread laboratory leakage hypothesis. As you can see, though, they're talking about accidental leakage of a laboratory product. For whatever reason, these scientists (all in China) don't bring up our posited accidental leakage of a natural product. We owe it to them not to read their silence on this issue as implying that they're somehow "skeptical". They may just have chosen their words carefully. –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:27, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re. 1 : Might have read quickly, but what I said is certainly not a BLP violation, and this trivial error is not substantial to my criticism that it still is the opinion of only one person, and reported as such in the source.
Re. 2 : Yes, picking odd sentences out of context is "selective quoting/misrepresentation", whether it is merely an unintended consequence of a lack of rigour, or otherwise. And with the Wang paper, it is rather obvious, denial notwithstanding: "draw[ing] conclusions" is entirely out of context how you presented it. The full relevant paragraph is:

In spite of the widespread hypotheses/“theories” of laboratory leakage, we agree with the analysis on the genome of SARS-CoV-2 that it is unlikely a laboratory product.7 Therefore, to trace the origins of SARS-CoV-2 as a zoonotic virus, it is crucial to learn from history. First, the progenitor of the virus, which has strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2, must be found from a geographically and ecologically relevant animal before drawing conclusions. Second, origin tracing must not rush to a conclusion before accumulating sufficient evidence. Third, the fact that the location of the first outbreak might not be the place of origin must be kept in mind.

Clearly, this is more about not drawing conclusions about the natural reservoir of the virus than it is about not drawing conclusions as to whether it came via lab or otherwise. Not only that, but temporarily ignoring point 3 below, the fact that, of course, authors point out that "the location of the first outbreak might not be the place of origin" clearly puts their view into context...
Re. 3 : We expressly can't "read" anything from their "silence on this issue". If they don't mention "this" issue, then they're not a useable source for "this" issue (they might of course be useable for other stuff); whether their words were just intentionally careful or otherwise, since doing so would be rather obvious WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. Not much more to add than this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:43, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re 1- Thank you for acknowledging your error (asserting that the source isn't an expert on viruses). Professor Wood, a veterinary epidemiologist, is head of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge. He thus speaks with greater institutional authority than any scholar we've yet cited. And he says more likely.
Re 2- It looks like you're still misreading my statement. You appear to think I was quoting Frutos et al. I cited Hassan et al., not Frutos et al.
Re 3- Thank you for concurring. –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:10, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re. 1 And this is not Wikiquote; and whether Cambridge is ranked among the top universities does not grant more authority to Wood: he is still one person giving an opinion. They might be an acceptable source for their opinion, and of course if we were seeking to rebut some conspiracy claim, an opinion from a recognised scholar would be sufficient, but here we're trying to make a summary of the scholarly publications on the matter, which is a different thing than merely rebutting nutjobs.
Re. 2 You also quoted (two words) from Wang et al. (as you clearly mention them as your source: Wang et al. (in Cell Research [Shanghai]), tells researchers worldwide not to "draw conclusions"), and I've demonstrated that the two word quotation was indeed well out of context. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:38, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it generally considered far more likely? Seems that it may be more useful to explain to the reader why, rather than just a bare statement. My understanding (which may be wrong or incomplete) is that:

  • Many more opportunities for infection occur outside the lab than by researchers working with viruses. I think Linfa Wang mentioned 3-4 orders of magnitude more chances outside the lab.
  • Nature is much better at creating new viruses than any lab.

Don't see any text in the article discussing this or supporting far more likely. fiveby(zero) 15:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Stonkaments: I don’t think much more is any better supported than far more. This is a political and scientific controversy, and no consensus has been declared by political or scientific bodies, so we should not declare such a consensus here. See also Havana syndrome. LondonIP (talk) 21:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A related POV question

About a week ago, a contributor provided a representative selection of 4 biomedical publications from the LitCovid database, which seemed (at first sight) to "all head in the same direction as the Holmes paper and previous sources". He later added a most helpful supplementary source. To summarize my analysis:

1. Loeb, in Veterinary Record (London), supports more likely:

It was more likely a spillover event occurred...

2. Frutos et al., "Origin of COVID-19" (18 September 2021), in Environmental Research (New York), is clarified by Frutos et al., "There Is No ‘Origin’ to SARS-CoV-2" (6 October 2021)[4]. The latter doesn't really seem to support much more likely:

• There is no determined origin, i.e. spillover or laboratory leak, to SARS-CoV-2.
... Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have indeed carried out gain of function experiments, but only on SARS-CoV ... and not on SARS-CoV-2. There is currently no evidence to support the claim for genetic engineering of SARS-CoV-2.

3. Wang et al., in Cell Research (Shanghai), does support much more likely.

We agree with [Andersen et al.'s] analysis ... that it is unlikely a laboratory product.

4. Wu et al., in Cell Discovery (Shanghai), doesn't say anything that would support either description.

My conclusion: Judging from the sources provided, we can no longer represent "most scientists" as believing that a natural origin of SARS-COV-2 is much more likely. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC) 06:55, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/05/wuhan-us-scientists-planned-create-new-coronaviruses-funding/
  2. ^ Folmer, Kaitlyn; Salzman, Suzy; Pezenik, Sasha; Abdelmalek, Mark; Bruggeman, Lucien (14 June 2021). "Nature-Based or Lab Leak? Unraveling the Debate over the Origins of COVID-19". ABC News.
  3. ^ Loeb, J. (October 2021). "'SARS‐CoV‐2 most likely of natural origin'". Veterinary Record. 189 (7): 263. doi:10.1002/vetr.1023. [Woods] said it would be wrong to rule out a scenario whereby the virus, having been sampled from wildlife and investigated in a lab, then 'escaped' by infecting a lab worker. However, he added that it was more likely a spillover event occurred...
  4. ^ Frutos, Roger; Pliez, Olivier; Gavotte, Laurent; Devaux, Christian A. (6 October 2021). "There is no 'origin' to SARS-CoV-2". Environmental Research. 204. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2021.112173. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have indeed carried out gain of function experiments, but only on SARS-CoV ... and not on SARS-CoV-2. There is currently no evidence to support the claim for genetic engineering of SARS-CoV-2.
My conclusion - Judging from the sources above, and those referenced in numerous discussions on Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, we can continue to represent "most scientists" as believing that a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 is "much more likely". This is the same argument as "Can we say "highly likely?" on that other talk page, but with different clothes on. There has been no contrapositive, and no countering evidence provided, that would shift this assessment or indicate that a shift has actually occurred. The above sources are not the best available. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:09, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
on 1. I'd point out that the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) congress was held September 4-7, before the Darpa information was leaked, has James Wood commented on this? 2 was last updated 17 September 2021. 3 and 4 were published September 29, and presumably written before the the 23rd Intercept article. 2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 (talk) 16:25, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
None of that matters. We're not going to give credence to newspapers or activists groups over scientists, now or any time of the day or night. Science is slow to change, and Wikipedia follows, certainly not preempts, that change. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:42, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Okay buddy. 2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 (talk) 17:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:CRYSTAL. You're arguing we ignore policy. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:22, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also see WP:1AM: In general, whichever side has the most reliable sources and follows those sources the closest prevails. and The problem is that for every case where the one is upholding policy, there are at least a hundred cases where he only thinks he is. The newer you are, the more likely it is that you are wrong about this. Having more than one or two editors who all misunderstand Wikipedia policy doesn't happen very often... — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is it also wikipedia policy to completely ignore many credible sources that discuss ecohealth's possible ties to a lab leak? There is a whole section for "Renewed media attention". 2600:387:1:811:0:0:0:47 (talk) 00:23, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What text would you like to insert? Suggest some and we can workshop it to make sure it's WP:NPOV and WP:DUE. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 00:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I believe if we put our heads together we can come up with a fair, accurate and unbiased summary of this Talk:COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#EcoHealth's_Relations_to_FCS_Insertion_Theory_-_Draft 2600:387:1:811:0:0:0:47 (talk) 00:45, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I explain above, almost none of that content is WP:DUE or WP:NPOV. It essentially says: "Daszak is wrong, lab leak theories have all this new evidence that EcoHealth did experiments, and there was a coverup." That's not encyclopedic, and it certainly isn't DUE.
Here's a more NPOV version:

"In September of 2021, a rejected 2018 grant was leaked to the press which described experiments proposed by EcoHealth Alliance scientists and collaborators. No evidence exists that any of the proposed experiments were ever conducted, and a spokesman for the EcoHealth Alliance has stated that they were not. One proposal included the synthesis and release of a protein-based (non-infectious) coronavirus vaccine into bat caves in Southern China, to reduce the overall burden of viruses on the wild bat population. Another involved furin cleavage site modification in non-human pathogenic bat coronaviruses in the laboratory, to determine which spike protein would make the best bat vaccine. Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2, as it lacks a viable virus backbone."

And some sources to support it: [14] [15] [16] [17] and others — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:17, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shibbolethink's 4th source - South China Morning Post (HK) - says: Documents from a purported whistle-blower ... have started another frenzy over bat virus research in China. His 2nd source - Engber, in the Atlantic - explains why:

The Intercept published ... documents ... that describe experiments on hybrid coronaviruses that some experts consider risky, carried out in Wuhan with the support of EcoHealth...

His 3rd source - Kormann, in the New Yorker - treats the "risks" aspect as significant to this topic:

...The team “does not mention or assess potential risks of Gain of Function (GoF) research.” That is, the group didn’t have a plan for the event that their experiments created a novel, pandemic-ready virus. Reviewers within DARPA “were really shocked” by the “irresponsible” nature of the proposal, and its lack of consideration for the risks that gain-of-function research would entail...

Per NPOV#BALASP we ought to mention this aspect too. –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:11, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no support in the references for Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2, as it lacks a viable virus backbone. The Health Feedback link is from March and concerns RaTG13. fiveby(zero) 11:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Health Feedback source is about more than RaTG13. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 12:57, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I see, "Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2" is an understatement, as I have found absolutely nothing in support of such a theory. None of the papers above, or of the reviews listed under NOLABLEAK that everybody knows of, suggests this is even a possible route: they're pretty darn unanimous that SARS-CoV-2 was not "deliberately engineered", either at the FCS or elsewhere. Frutos (back in March) spends a good bit debunking specifically the claim about the FCS, as does Holmes in the more recent review. We should not spread misinformation about this by confounding which variants of the lab leak are plausible and which were and remain conspiracist nonsense. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"as I have found absolutely nothing in support of such a theory." If you have time please read the telegraph article. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/05/wuhan-us-scientists-planned-create-new-coronaviruses-funding/ 2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 (talk) 18:14, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The key word here is "in scientific papers". The funding proposal was rejected, as you also already know... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:40, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The work describes generating full-length bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are thought to pose a risk of human spillover. And that’s the type of work that people could plausibly postulate could have led to a lab-associated origin of SARS-CoV-2 from Bloom.[18] You need a source that specifically mentions the DARPA proposal if you want to talk about what most scientists think could not have happened. fiveby(zero) 18:55, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well there are sources which explicitly talk about the FCS (the supposed target of the never-happened DARPA proposal), and they say it was not engineered. A funding proposal which was rejected, which has so far no mention in actual scientific publications as being relevant to the topic, is not a reason to consider these sources outdated. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:26, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RandomCanadian: We customarily do "give credence to newspapers over scientists". And this is based on common sense. Most educated people (scientists included) tend not to trust even a well-established scientist's important new discovery until it's been replicated; but we understand that a reporter at a well-established news outlet can't risk making important false statements of fact. (The Reliable sources checklist essay is helpful here.) –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:12, 21 October 2021 (UTC) 06:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is a complete misunderstanding of WP:BESTSOURCES/WP:SCHOLARSHIP and a preferring of an essay over a guideline/policy... We aren't citing individual edge-case scientists making wild claims that are unsupported. We are citing the consensus of large groups of scientists as assessed by numerous academic review articles. Big difference. We also know that newspapers, even science desks, tend to often misunderstand or misinterpret scientific findings. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:14, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mandatory phdcomics link for why we wouldn't/shouldn't cite news reporting of a "new discovery" (in addition to the good points by Shibboleth). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Dervorguilla: We customarily do "give credence to newspapers over scientists". Strongly disagree.
  • Per the essay WP:SCIRS: A news article should therefore not be used as a sole source for a scientific fact or figure, nor should they be considered when describing what aspects of a field the relevant experts consider interesting, surprising, or controversial. Editors are encouraged to seek out the scholarly research behind the news story; good quality science news articles will indicate their sources.
  • Per the guideline WP:MEDPOP: The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles.
  • And per the policy WP:SOURCES: If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science.
If you're aware of places where we're prioritizing news articles when they conflict with secondary, peer-reviewed science, please correct it because that's not how WP works. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bakkster Man: To be precise, Wikipedia gives credence to newspapers over biomedical scientists, more often than not.
See, for example, the MEDPRI guideline. In the biomedical field, most papers reporting results of in vitro experiments are given no credence at all—because >¾ can't be replicated.
Not so for most articles in respected mainstream newspapers (per SOURCES, which is policy).
The biggest exception? Any newspaper article that gives credence to ("touts") those scientists' unreplicated findings. –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:58, 22 October 2021 (UTC) 08:10, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Dervorguilla: You appear to be misinterpreting WP:MEDRS as well. The issue of replication is solved by using secondary scientific sources, such as meta-analyses, review articles, and official statements of scientific organizations. The guideline explicitly directs us not to use news media for biomedical claims: Note that health-related content in the general news media should not normally be used to source biomedical content in Wikipedia articles. (News sources may be useful for non-biomedical content, such as information about "society and culture" – see WP:MEDPOP.) Once again, I have no idea where you're getting the idea that we should be giving deference to the news media over peer-reviewed science (especially secondary sources of it) for scientific information. You appear to be interpreting WP:PAGs backwards on this. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:12, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(←) @Bakkster Man: To the contrary. Perhaps you've misread my comments, which are all about biomedical scientists (7 places) and their typically unreplicated findings (4 places). Scientists like, let's say, Shi Zhengli, and her in vitro findings:

her team published a paper in Cell Research showing that remdesivir and chloroquine inhibited the virus in vitro, and applied for a patent for the drug in China...

Our bio cites Shi team's letter, Bloomberg News, and the New York Times. Why? See MEDRS:

The pills were invented by Dr Archibald Foster and released onto the market in 2015. This is not biomedical information, and it only requires ordinary RS.

This guideline would (by reasonable analogy) let us use general news media for claims about Shi's inventing or (inadvertently) releasing any noteworthy viruses. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:54, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dervorguilla: Perhaps we are miscommunicating. My concern is the broadness with which you said We customarily do "give credence to newspapers over scientists". Outside of narrow, non-scientific claims this is not the case. I'll clarify my concerns with your latest analogy.
Regarding unreplicated findings, the solution is using secondary WP:SCHOLARSHIP sources, not news sources. Our WP:PAGs rightly point out that news media are likely to amplify unreplicated primary studies, and your suggestion that journalists can't risk making important false statements of fact is not proven out in actuality. If anything, the sensationalism of "Study finds thing cures cancer" makes news media less reliable than even the original primary scientific sources, let alone the secondary science that's our gold standard.
Following your reference to WP:MEDRS, I'd like to point out two things. One is that the comparison between a public release of a medication where details are not in dispute and speculation about an undisclosed scientific experiment and its consequences is so divergent as to be pointless. For clarity, the difference is that the former is non-scientific info, the latter is scientific info. And WP:PAGs are clear that we have different sourcing requirements for the two.
Second is that your WP:MEDRS citation directly disagrees your original point. Per WP:RS: Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics. Full stop, we should be in agreement, news media should not be "given credence" over scientific sources regarding scientific information.
Now, we might have a discussion remaining on how we source 'scientific consensus', and whether journalistic sources are reliable relative to academic letters. But I hope this puts the broader "credence" question to bed. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:17, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dervorguilla and Bakkster Man, I am glad you have come to an agreement. Now about that discussion on how we source "scientific consensus", I’d like to point out that COVID-19 origins​​ is both a political and scientific controversy, so WP:SCHOLARSHIP is not the only pertinent sourcing policy. According to WP:CRYSTALBALL, we cannot make unverifiable speculation or presumptions, and since the WHO’s SAGO has yet to draw any conclusions on COVID origins, and since SAGO is the supreme scientific authority on virus origin tracing, we cannot claim a academic consensus here. We should instead describe this as the political and scientific controversy it is, providing full context for our readers and allowing them to draw their own conclusions. We did not claim a scientific consensus on the cause of the 2001 anthrax attacks till the investigation into it were completed, nor do we claim a consensus today on the cause of Havana syndrome and on the many other ailments of unknown cause. If we must go to an RfC over this, perhaps Chetsford, Snow Rise, and Mikehawk10 can help with writing a WP:RFCNEUTRAL statement, given their experience with the recent President of Venezuela RfC. LondonIP (talk) 22:11, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Except we are not making unverifiable speculation or presumptions. We are reporting what the existing high-quality sources (like the review papers by qualified scientists) are saying. This being a political controversy does not mean that the scientific mainstream gets to be thrown under the bus. There are plenty of sources (including even from lab leak proponents) which quite correctly indicate that the existing consensus is that this is of natural origin. Scientists are unanimous that this was certainly not engineered in a lab (hence we report it as a fact). We correctly report that there is some controversy about the virus possibly having been a natural sample which was escaped through laboratory manipulation, although again we report that most scientists say this is quite unlikely. There are again plenty of sources for this second point. None has been presented to put either of these assertions into doubt. There's not much to add here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:21, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Scientists are unanimous that this was certainly not engineered in a lab" If I can find one scientist that says that it might be engineered, will you stop repeating this? 2600:1700:8660:E180:DCE6:34BB:7444:AB26 (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to add WP:MAINSTREAM. Mainstream scientists (as opposed to individual dissidents and people with no relevant qualifications), as evidenced by their publications in reputable journals (like the sources you are already aware of). "Unanimous", of course, I should have said "near unanimous"; or more likely, as reported by Frutos et al. back in March: "There is consensus within the scientific community to consider that SARS-CoV-2 has not been engineered and is a naturally occurring virus." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@LondonIP:: According to WP:CRYSTALBALL, we cannot make unverifiable speculation or presumptions, and since the WHO’s SAGO has yet to draw any conclusions on COVID origins, and since SAGO is the supreme scientific authority on virus origin tracing, we cannot claim a academic consensus here. I agree with using SAGO in the future as our point of consensus, but why not stick with the WHO's prior report as the authoritative source until then? Sure, there are those opposed to the first report's conclusions, but to discard the WHO's official assessment on those grounds would be "unverifiable speculation or presumption". Bakkster Man (talk) 23:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My main point is that this is a political and scientific controversy, and that WP:SCHOLARSHIP is not the only pertinent sourcing policy, and keeps high-quality new sources on the roster. About the WHO-convened global study of the origins of SARS-CoV-2, it is clear from the newly created WHO Secretariat article and the reference it cites, that it was by the authority of the WHO Director-General that it was convened, which makes his criticism of their report all the more significant. Peter Ben Embarek, the head of that mission is reported to have said they were pressured investigation to drop lab-leak hypothesis, which is significant in terms of determining the credibility of the report and the veracity of its findings. The report is certainly not the official assessment of the WHO as you put it, and the PRC has lambasted the WHO secretariat over this in its state media [19], and in its public diplomacy channels, saying it hopes the WHO Secretariat and SAGO will take the first phase of joint study as the basis [20]. LondonIP (talk) 00:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so until SAGO completes their report, the first phase of the joint study remains their official position. It might change, but we can't WP:CRYSTAL it. Bakkster Man (talk) 10:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bakkster Man: Here's what "our WP:PAGs rightly point out" (at MEDRS):

Scientists at Bayer ... were able to replicate results in only ~20 to 25% of prominent studies they examined; scientists from Amgen ... were only able to replicate 6 of 53 high-impact publications.

As the RSVETTING essay usefully notes:

Newspaper editors will expect reporters to check their own facts and they'll fire them if they don't and reporters know this.

More important to this page, however, we've got a 5-month-old consensus here that pandemic origins aren't an academic topic.
What all this means: We welcome contributions from editors who trust academic publications AND those who give more credence to respected mainstream newspapers. –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:58, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Dervorguilla: More important to this page, however, we've got a 5-month-old consensus here that pandemic origins aren't an academic topic. This seems to be a misinterpretation of our consensus point 2, which is that it's not WP:BMI requiring WP:MEDRS sourcing. Unless you're referring to point 1, and suggesting that it's not an academic topic because it's a conspiracy theory. Bakkster Man (talk) 10:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

February 1, 2020 Teleconference

It seems a lot of people changed their views after this meeting. Might be interesting to mention improtant people like Kristian Anderson that changed their mind following it. [21] 2600:1700:8660:E180:DDAB:3CAE:89A4:5D33 (talk) 15:18, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Daily Mail is not a reliable source, see Wikipedia:DAILYMAIL. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:35, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How about USA Today High Tinker (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's an opinion piece, not a news article. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:53, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The things the person reports on are actual events, reliably reported, seems like you just read the byline and then decided that was a valid reason to discard it. High Tinker (talk) 18:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Actual relevant events should ideally be sourced to actual relevanr sources and not to opinion pieces. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@High Tinker: Article maintenance in a contentious topic like this is exhausting enough as is, without having to sift through which suggestions that fail a sniff just in case it might not actually be bogus. An opinion piece isn't WP:RS for anything but the author's opinion, and if that opinion is WP:DUE for inclusion we can probably find good reliable newsworthy reporting on it (see WP:REDFLAG). I'll read through reliable news if you have them, but I don't have time for editorials. At least make a strong case for inclusion before being upset it's not included yet. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:21, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bakkster Man: I was just trying to assist by providing an article from from a more reliable source, I didn't start this thread, no need to get hot under the collar. High Tinker (talk) 19:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@High Tinker: You didn't provide a reliable source, though. I'm just explaining why I'm not going to waste my time digging through sources we likely wouldn't cite in the article to try and find a reliable source for this week's "bombshell" breaking news. If you don't like my explanation, then either bring a proper source to begin with, or don't suggest my reasoning for dismissing it is invalid. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the first paragraph of the wiki article "Some versions of the theory, particularly those alleging human intervention in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, are based on misinformation or misrepresentations of scientific evidence". 2600:1700:8660:E180:FDA6:EC45:77B0:7390 (talk) 07:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In any narrative of events, Andersen would figure prominently in the text: "Dr. Andersen has reiterated this point of view in interviews and on Twitter over the past year, putting him at the center of the continuing controversy over whether the virus could have leaked from a Chinese lab." Gorman, James; Zimmer, Carl (June 14, 2021). "Scientist Opens Up About His Early Email to Fauci on Virus Origins". The New York Times. fiveby(zero) 16:02, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Mojiang miners and Sick WIV workers as a claim

An editor objected to me adding this edit to the DRASTIC page, due to the sources not contextualising and crediting this claim to that group, so perhaps it belongs here instead? 217.35.76.147 (talk) 14:17, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RandomCanadian and Forich, since you opposed my request to decrease the protection of this page, can you assist in editing this section? Assuming you think it is WP:DUE of course. LondonIP (talk) 15:53, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shibbolethink was the one who reworked it last on that article. It probably needs to be mentioned somewhere, although whether we need to mention DRASTIC explicitly (were they the only ones to argue for this? they're certainly not the only group to have been spreading the lab leak theory) is a slightly different question. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it has to mention DRASTIC, but TheSeeker268 is the one credited with finding the theses before the group even formed (and who knows how long it will even last). The main claim is that some miners are alleged to have died from a SARS-like illness, which taken together with the finding that RaTG13 was also collected from the same mineshaft in Mojiang, leading to Fauci to urge the Chinese government to share more information. I just noticed that we are missing a section on the intelligence about sick WIV workers that Fauci also mentions in the same call on China about the Mojiang miners, which was even more widely reported and also denied by the Chinese gov. LondonIP (talk) 17:02, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, as long as it's WP:NPOV, and well-sourced content balanced with the mainstream view. I personally have no issue with including this. Why don't you write a draft, @LondonIP, and we can all edit it together here on the talk page before coming to a consensus in favor of its addition. That is typically the best way to make controversial alterations. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC) Formerly 217.35.76.147 21:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't reviewed the specific text under dispute, but I do think the Mojiang miners stuff should be mentioned here in some form or another. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Muller and Steven Quay

Not sure what to do with this. Argument for lab leak in WSJ opinion section. Mentions Kristian Anderson twice, kind of interesting. Dont feel like it would be considered for inclusion in the wiki article except for the fact that it is in itself a "theory".

In an influential March 2020 paper in Nature Medicine, Kristian Andersen and co-authors implied that a host animal for SARS-CoV-2 would soon be found. If the virus had been cooked up in a lab, of course, there would be no host animal to find.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-coronavirus-lab-leak-virology-origins-pandemic-11633462827 2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC (talk) 21:04, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The original paper is here. Per Nature Medicine's description of content types The Correspondence section provides a forum for discussion or to present a point of view on issues that are of interest to the readership of Nature Medicine. Correspondences should not contain new research data, nor should serve as a venue for technical comments on peer-reviewed research papers, which would be considered Matters Arising. A Correspondence is generally 800-1000 words; it is limited to one display item and up to 10 references. Article titles are omitted from the reference list. Correspondences are initially screened for general interest, and may be returned to the authors if the topic, angle or content is deemed not to be of high interest to the journal’s readership or when the topic has already been covered in other pieces. Nature Medicine receives a very high volume of correspondence and the editorial team reserves the right to return submissions to authors without further feedback. After screening, correspondences are edited for concision and clarity, and additional changes may be requested from the authors. Correspondences may be peer-reviewed at editorial discretion. It's a POV of a particular set of scientists, and not due in my view. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure why you're quoting Nature Medicines's correspondance policy, but yes it is a POV and also a theory. 2600:8804:6600:C4:54D7:A17D:6585:8FCC (talk) 22:14, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, COVID-19#cite_ref-NM-20200317_64-1? Not sure you are reading very carefully. fiveby(zero) 22:28, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Andersen paper is one of the highly cited papers on COVID (over 1600!); and its conclusions are in line with subsequent papers (which I have added to the sentence Fiveby mentioned). It might be POV in the strict sense of the term (as it presents a "point of view"), but it is the scientific consensus on the matter, and it is also backed up by other similar or better sources, so this is a clear case of the proper application of WP:YESPOV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:14, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See also [22], which explicitly mentions the Andersen paper RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:16, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RandomCanadian: This source just says it's one of the articles that attracted the most buzz on social media (almost as much as a 2005 paper suggesting that chloroquine inhibited SARS). –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it still attracted over a thousand citations from other scholarly papers, so you can't exactly claim it is entirely unsignificant... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
RS say the Anderson et al letter was highly influential throughout 2020 and early 2021, but was later criticised for its non-scientific a priori argument, and one of its authors no longer stands by it. There are enough RS discussing this letter and the influence on the media and scientific community, making it independently notable enough for its own article. Another influential letter is the now infamous Calisher et al letter, which is reportedly connected to the first letter, by way of Jeremy Farrar. I would be happy to help in writing articles on these two letters. We should not rely too much on this Muller/Quay oped, as it contains a mistake. LondonIP (talk) 13:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

US Government involvement

In an April 2020 interview with Politico, former acting CIA director Michael Morell said that if the virus had leaked from a Wuhan lab, then the U.S. would shoulder some of the blame since it funded research at that lab through government grants from 2014-2019.

In more recent news stories, the NIH is alleged to have funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, through EcoHealth Alliance, which they previously denied. There have been a number of RS reporting on this ever since The Intercept broke the story on Sep 7, and Vanity Fair said yesterday that conflicts of interest resulting from U.S. government funding has hampered America’s investigation into COVID-19’s origins. There are a number of threads woven into the story, including the EHA grant report allegedly submitted two years late to NIH, also reported by The Intercept, which EHA has denied (see VA addendum).

What do we think about adding a section on possible US Government involvement in this saga? LondonIP (talk) 22:41, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New section sounds good, this seems to be a growing subject. Might be a good place to also mention the February 1, 2020 Teleconference. 2600:1700:8660:E180:DCE6:34BB:7444:AB26 (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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