Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Archive 3

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Scientific background section needed

Whether this article stays, or is merged, or deleted, we should add a "scientific" background section as we've done at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. This is necessary for the following reasons:

1. Readers can't understand or evaluate the lab leak concept on scientific terms if the concept isn't introduced within the context of current scientific understanding and consensus on the virus' origins.
2. The scientific background text that derives from SARS-CoV-2 is the most carefully written and researched text that we have on this topic at Wikipedia.
3. There have been a number of articles that have popped up trying to discuss this topic in a manner that relies on the popular press rather than scientific literature. Forcing these articles to include the actual science is the best defense against misinformation.

I've tried to start this but the task is quite daunting because transclusion isn't simple. User:Yadsalohcin, User:RandomCanadian, I believe you may have helped with the transclusion process in the past, and User:Diannaa you had suggestions about how to do this without violating copy / attribution requirements. -Darouet (talk) 06:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Transclusion is not an appropriate solution, because the full section there is not relevant enough for here. Writing actual prose is fine. You can attribute just by giving the title of the page and saying to check its page history for attribution. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I've always liked {{Excerpt}} for article transclusions. Prevents duplicate effort writing and maintaining. I know of no copyright issues with this well-used template. Maybe consider a version of the following code:

{{Excerpt|Investigations into the origin of COVID-19|Scientific background|subsections=yes}}

There may be other pieces we can transclude too. Or in the long run, maybe we have other articles transclude this one. I'm undecided, just throwing out ideas. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:10, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That section is way too long and only a few paragraphs there are relevant background. It would be better to summarise the relevant parts here and then add a {{main article}} at the top of the section to go to the full one. See: Wikipedia:Summary style ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I agree that a background section is necessary. I think transclusion could be fine, as long as it were not overly long. But a summary is also fine, as long as it doesn't over-emphasize one or another points in the original article in a way that is WP:UNDUE.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Scientific background section WP:UNDUE?

What is the Scientific background section about? Is it the scientific background of this hypothesis or scientific background about COVID-19 origins? To me it looks like it is the scientific background of what we know about COVID-19 origins and therefore WP:UNDUE, especially as an entire section. Most sources covering the lab leak hypothesis already acknowledge that the virus has a natural reservoir and we don’t need an entire section about it. I could say the same thing about the scientific section of the investigations article. If we have a scientific background here, it should be on the hypothesis, just like on Solutrean hypothesis, and other hypothesis pages. Francesco espo (talk) 00:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Francesco espo raises a good point. ProcrastinatingReader, Novem Linguae and Shibbolethink, please can you make a policy based argument on why we are including this WP:UNDUE content? CutePeach (talk) 06:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach - you're arguing that what scientists know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should receive little to no coverage at this page, which is supposed to be about one idea of the virus' origins. If we follow your advice, the article will perfectly mislead readers: omit the scientific consensus on SARS-CoV-2 origins as WP:UNDUE, and therefore present the opinion of a fringe or extreme minority without the counterbalance of the fields of biology, virology, infectious disease ecology, etc.

WP:DUE requires that we present views according to their weight. Since we're talking about a scientific issue - the origin of this virus - we need to reflect all scientific views proportionally to their acceptance by scientists. That means we can write an entire article about the lab leak idea, but most viewpoints expressed are going to be highly skeptical ones by scientists who explain why the idea is "extremely unlikely." Part of any such explanation is showing why a natural zoonosis is far more likely. Everyone wins in the end, since readers who come to learn about this topic will learn a lot about SARS-CoV-2 ecology and origins. -Darouet (talk) 07:00, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

You say natural zoonosis is far more likely, which is a problem. You must distinguish between the origins of zoonotic virus and the origins of the human virus, and how the former became the latter. The hypothesis is focused on how the former became the latter through a possible laboratory or occupationally acquired infection.

If there was a scientific consensus, we wouldn't even have this page. Any proclaimed scientific consensus is based entirely on the WHO report commissioned by the WHO DG who has critiqued its findings. The "scientific consensus" claim doesn't belong here or any other article on Wikipedia.

WP:DUE pertains to the subject of the page, and the subject of this page is the lab leak hypothesis, and our readers expect us to cover the subject accordingly. CutePeach (talk) 07:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: WP:DUE pertains to the subject of the page, and the subject of this page is the lab leak hypothesis, and our readers expect us to cover the subject accordingly. DUE applies both to the existence of the page, and how we cover it in the article. Just because we agree it's DUE to have its own article, doesn't mean the content on the page can't be UNDUE. The relevant sections of the policy follow:

Extended content

WP:DUE: Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements and use of imagery. In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained. How much detail is required depends on the subject. For instance, articles on historical views such as flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief. Other minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view to avoid misleading the reader. WP:GEVAL: While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar ones. Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.

I hope that makes the policy concerns more clear, so we can all be on the same page of why we describe the mainstream view first, and the level of acceptance of the lab leak theory. Note the main goal above: "avoid misleading the reader". Hopefully that puts us on the same page to have more fruitful discussion on how extensive the descriptions of the mainstream and minority views are, and which aspects of each require which kind of treatment. There are definitely aspects of a lab leak which have significantly more acceptance as a possibility (WHO-evaluated possibility: collection of a relatively unchanged bat virus) than others (intentional development of a bio-weapon). Bakkster Man (talk) 12:30, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, there is no need to quote the entire text from WP:DUE and WP:GEVAL here, as we all know those policies already. It seems like your argument to describe the mainstream view first is like arguing that we first describe The Christ in Messiah in Judaism, with an entire introductory section. Even as a Catholic, I can’t agree to that, and I don’t agree with your above interpretation of WP:DUE WRT this page. The purpose of this page is to describe the lab leak hypothesis, based on what reliable sources tell us, and to do so as accurately as possible. As I have said in my reply to ProcrastinatingReader below, I am not opposed to providing contextual information where it is relevant, for WP:BALANCE, and now that I think about it, the best section for that would be in the footer, titled "Reception". WP:GEVAL is not a relevant policy here, as this page is about the lab leak hypothesis and not about COVID-19 origins in the general. Your constant referral to the Natural origins hypothesis as the "mainstream" view - when investigations are still ongoing and evidence for either hypothesis is lacking - may require us to take this to ArbCom, as per DGG’s suggestion. I request a policy based WP:THIRD opinion from JPxG or SMcCandlish, or anyone else on this page. CutePeach (talk) 10:52, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach, It is a WP:CANVAS violation to selectively ping users who may be sympathetic to your side, rather than a neutral criteria such as "all users who have edited in the last 72 hours." That's also not WP:THIRD, which is a specific process involving uninvolved users who have not interacted with this content or its editors. What you have asked for is a POV opinion. Please do not do this again. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 11:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

It's not canvassing since we're already part of the discussion. But Shibbolethink is correct that persons already part of the discussion can't do WP:THIRD. Which isn't binding anyway. I also agree this is a good dispute for ArbCom to address, as part of a long series of DUE, FRINGE, and PoV conflicts over similarly "real-world-heated" disputes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:33, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Darouet, very good points, I agree. We must cover what is covered in articles about the lab leak hypothesis in secondary sources, in proportional weight to how those sources cover it. And you'll see if you glance at the sources section on this talk page, most secondary sources also cover the scientific consensus (that this theory is unlikely) and a quick primer on what we know about the virus' origins, before delving deeply into the theory itself and how it fits into that picture. We are mirroring what is covered in secondary sources about this topic. So this background section is the essence of WP:DUE.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 10:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

For the reader: I think the scientific background provides useful contextual information to introduce what is known about the virus's origins. And as a practical and social matter, I doubt you'd be able to write an article like this without Wikipedia controversy if it were excluded. An article solely explaining the lab leak would be unacceptable to many. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, yes, agreed that this is one of the main ways in which we avoid this article becoming a POVFORK.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 10:17, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I’m sorry but that is not a policy based argument. This article is about a specific hypothesis - and we are having to rewrite it from scratch because two WP:NOLABLEAK advocates appended "or TNT" to their "Delete" votes in the MFD - and now they insert "Scientific background", supposedly to provide what you call useful contextual information to introduce what is known about the virus's origins.

If we wanted to "introduce what is known about the virus's origins", we would provide information that is relevant in context to the lab leak hypothesis, as what is "known" and "not known" on COVID-19 origins is a matter of dispute between scientists. When mentioning the "smoking gun" claim about the Furin Cleavage Site that Nicholas Wade’s BOAS piece attributed to David Balitmore [1], then we should also provide his later clarifications from newer sources [2][3], so as to provide a WP:BALANCE of WP:OPINIONs, and not what is "known". When we mention Mike Worobey’s analysis of the Wuhan maps in NPR [4], then we should also mention the reported map data errors in the WHO’s report as reported by Eva Dou in WaPo [5] [6]. In this way the information is actually contextual.

However, the "Scientific background section" as it is now gives the impression - falsely - that there is already an accepted scientific consensus on all aspects of the origins of this zoonotic virus and the mechanism by which it spilled over into humans. Do you see such a section in Anthropocene or any of the other hypothesis pages JPxG mentioned here [7]? CutePeach (talk) 12:28, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: if this article is a WP:POVFORK then that would imply it presents the POV of only one group of scientists and editors, which is not something I have advocated. We should provide alternative POVs for WP:BALANCE, where they are WP:DUE, using WP:INTEXT attribution. I am writing a draft on the similarly notable DuPont PFOA dumping scandal adhering to the same principles, and I don’t anticipate any problems with that. CutePeach (talk) 12:28, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: I made some significant changes to the section of text you added. You say you're not advocating that we present "the POV of only one group of scientists", yet your addition left a bare claim of A third group from the Broad Institute, including Alina Chan, Shing Hei Zhan and Benjamin Deverman published a preprint, which they submitted to a number of journals, but was rejected among other non-neutral writing which I attempted to clean up. Per the above citations to WP:DUE, I shouldn't have to explain why that needed to be fixed (and requires additional fixes). And, more to the point, it should be readily apparent why your edits could easily be perceived as POV pushing. Two out of three claims lacked peer review, and there was no mention made to the alternate explanations of the things the authors claimed. Consider more thorough initial edits and/or self-tagging the section as needing expansion if you hope to avoid the perception that your edits are pushing a POV. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

It's clearly not a PoV fork; it's a WP:SPINOFF (or WP:SPINOUT - we shouldn't have two pages on that, which forms a WP:ADVICEFORK :-).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:33, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, my POVFORK concerns are mostly alleviated, seeing the direction recent edits have taken. This should be a SPINOFF article, but there's some point (about which there's probably some disagreement where exactly that threshold is) where we would have so little framing relative to other explanations that it could become a POVFORK. That's the thing I'm hoping we can avoid, and some of the above comments seemed to be potentially pushing us in that wrong direction. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, some previous revisions and drafts had legitimate POVFORK concerns but that is also not a current concern with the current article for me. —PaleoNeonate – 21:38, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

• Scientific background should be renamed to something else. The information there is valid and should be in the article. Dream Focus 12:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I Support a "Background" section. Oppose a "scientific background" section, because the rest of the article is equally scientific so the distinction is undue. Also, in the background section where we describe the degree of uncertainty and the quality of the evidence, I oppose any use of the following terms: "consensus", "vast majority". If pressed to produce an adjective for the natural origin, we can go with "the explanation favored by most experts on coronaviruses", or "the prevailing hypothesis given the limited evidence", instead. Forich (talk) 03:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, as before, I don't really see much of a difference between those options and any "consensus wording" except I wouldn't use weasel-y terms like "given the limited evidence." It's not really fair to characterize the natural origin as having "limited evidence," for example.

We have a great deal of evidence for the natural origin (similar viruses found in animals, a phylogenetic lineage building over time, etc). When compared to investigations into the origins of Ebola ([8] , SARS-1 ([9] [10]), etc. this is actually pretty good. It's the beginning of a natural lineage tracing, with very similar sequences recently discovered in bats [11] (narrowing in on the phylogenetic path the virus evolved through), and a reasonable timeline for emergence ([12] [13]). It really isn't "limited evidence." I would say we have "extremely limited evidence" for the lab leak origin (all circumstantial, inferential, based on supposition), but the same cannot be said for the natural origin.

I also don't think these are competing hypotheses, as we've discussed before. Right now, the natural origin is explaining how the virus evolved to its current state genetically and zoologically (further casting doubt on any artificial genomic engineering, etc), but the "accidental leak of a natural virus" is just supposition based upon guesses. It's only that the WIV is in Wuhan. I know of no other actual "evidence." And it isn't incompatible with a naturally evolved virus.

All of which to say, we should probably use phrasing like "The prevailing hypothesis favored by most experts is that of a natural origin in bats." That's what our high quality RSes are telling us, from the list at the top of this page. Also, it doesn't bother me at all if we say "Background" instead of "Scientific background." Tomato tomato.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:12, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't like "Scientific background" as a heading; all of the background information we provide in a "background" section should be scientific. If need be we can have a "background of mass-media coverage" section separately. That said, this article absolutely must include some background on what COVID is and why people are concerned with its origins. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I concur with 力 and with Forich.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:33, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:, its a pleasure editing collaboratively with people like you. I can understand where you are coming from, and I value that you have trained in science and know much more than all of us in these areas. I've presented my points before that some areas of the origin have lots of evidence and are considered conclusive, while some other areas have limited evidence. It's hard to summarize the status of the evidence for the origin as a whole, and we should be careful. I'll try not to nitpick too much on it, maybe your proposals are the best compromise. Bakkster Man and Alexbrn are also excellent editors to get the correct picture of the evidence in the medical literature, I trust we'll be ok. Forich (talk) 02:31, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: Appreciate the shoutout, and back at you. As I've said elsewhere, in a topic as potentially contentious and disputed as this one the most productive course of action is collaborative consensus, and I'm grateful to have you participating. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Apparent pre-adaptation

It appears strange since the studied virus was first extracted from infected humans. It was obviously adapted enough to be transmissible among humans and there's nothing suspicious about that. The search for the animal origin is still ongoing and it's expected that years may be needed to discover that source. —PaleoNeonate – 18:28, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

This section definitely needs a lot more work. The question to answer is "why did the pandemic spread so quickly from first identification?" There's two answers. One is that it was circulating and adapting to humans undetected (possibly because it wasn't causing severe illness due to the lack of adaptation, or just because mild to moderate symptoms are common) long enough to adapt before it was noticed, another is that it adapted in lab culture. Thing is, the latter explanation has only one peer-reviewed study making the claim (and it was a computer modeling study), while the former has lots of reliable sources. It shouldn't be hard to make that clear, but it might require more of a hatchet being taken to the section. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, note that apparent "pre-adaption" is not the same thing as "adaptation", and note also the term "apparent", as none of the studies cited propose it as definite, and it is not being proposed as such. As Bakkster Man explains correctly, there are several possible explanations for this pre-adaption, one of which is a lab leak, which is what this page is about. This is not a controversial point and is accurately cited in the previous version of this article, using the WHO-convened report, which is a WP:PRIMARY source, so we can’t use it in this version. I am reinstating the MIT Technology Review and Boston Magazine pieces describing Chan’s preprint and I remind you of Colin's prior advice regarding pre-prints [14]. Based on this prominent reliable sources, Chan et al is WP:NOTABLE and WP:DUE in this subsection, and we should not use a reason that Colin described as a red-herring to remove it. CutePeach (talk) 11:12, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I have WP:UNDUE concerns about the "apparent pre-adaption" section. I was waiting to see if it improved, but I am not seeing that so far. We may want to think about removing the section. Do we really need 4 paragraphs about 1) an idea that was edited out in peer review, 2) a primary study, and 3) a preprint? –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

To echo Novem Linguae, I think this section is wholly undue and based now on improper citations. We cannot have information which depends almost exclusively on preprinted, it runs counter to the ArbCom sanctions. Preprints are not reliable, news reports about preprints are even worse. It’s a game of telephone with unverified and unreviewed findings. We need experts (scientists acting as peer reviewers and summarizers in literature reviews) to tell us how to contextualize these findings. At the moment, neither are included in the sources of this section. If and when better sources are used, it would make sense to include.

There may be some quality sources regarding the pre-Huanan market spread and how it relates to the virus circulating asymptomatically or sub clinically in Hubei province, such that the virus had time to adapt and overcome the “hill” of a new host’s immune system/factors. Much of this is theory based on insufficient evidence, but it has more backing (genetics, epidemiology, contact tracing) than the lab leak version which is almost entirely supposition. As far as I can tell, that is not included very well in the current version. We probably need to thoroughly add that view sourced to RSes and bring RSes for the other views, to become DUE, or delete as UNDUE. Just my 2 cents. —Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Among recent sources I read about it, although not MEDRS and appeared to be plausible coverage, was https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/in-hunt-for-covids-origin-new-studies-point-away-from-lab-leak-theory "The claim that Sars-CoV-2 was suspiciously well adapted to humans at the beginning of the pandemic also finds little support. It infects a wide range of species – including cats, dogs, mink, tigers and lions – and if anything has become better adapted to humans over the pandemic, in part through further alterations to the spike protein." and it continues. If things have no support, it may not even be WP:DUE. However, at least we have such mainstream sources that say it's not credible, meaning that it received some media attention. —PaleoNeonate – 20:38, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Novem Linguae and PaleoNeonate you have just spent a year blocking the creation of this article and now that it is here you want to delete its most important section. I think it would be better for you instead to propose how to improve the section based on the sources provided or to offer some new sources that describe this premise. The high affinity of the hACE2 noted by Petrovsky and the post-outbreak genetic stability noted by Chan is very central to the hypothesis. Shibbolethink this page is not about the natural origins hypothesis, the writing of Antonio Regalado and Rowan Jacobsen for MIT Technology Review and Boston Magazine on the lab leak hypothesis are more WP:DUE here than your personal opinions about the hypothesis. Even if the lab leak hypothesis will be disproven, it will be a part of history and we need to describe it for our readers that need to know how things went in any case. --Francesco espo (talk) 01:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

WP:DUE says we must discuss this topic relative to the mainstream view, and WP:GEVAL indicates we can provide that mainstream rebuttal with similarly strength sources. Which, given the current section, is pretty weak. If it's critical to the theory, bring better sources. If they exist, you find them. Don't throw junk at the wall, and insist others find a way to make it stick. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

No Bakkster Man, this page is about the Lab Leak Hypothesis in specific, not COVID-19 origins in the general, so your proposed application of WP:NPOV’s WP:DUE and WP:GEVAL sections is at odds with the policy’s WP:POVDELETION clause. Wikipedia has all sorts of pages on hypotheses using sources a lot less reliable than ours, and providing WP:BALANCE is not a must in their own pages where the consensus described by RS to be in flux [15]. If you’ve read the MIT Technology Review article, you will know that Jonathan Eisen’s provided an WP:OPINION we can cite for WP:BALANCE, which I have included in the reinstated text. Please don’t misapply WP:PAGs to this page. This is not a warning, just friendly advice.

If you would like to open a WP:ARE to gain clarification on the application of WP:DUE and WP:GEVAL, as well as the use of WP:PREPRINTS in this page, I will be sure to make a statement there. I see you haven’t objected to RandomCanadian’s inclusion of Dalgleish’s preprint, just like you didn’t object to their inclusion of a Wikivoice statement about pangolins in COVID-19 pandemic, despite my requests for you to check it [16]. In that case, the claim there was false, and does not match our position on Pangolin CoVs in SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19 investigations. If you simply agree with others when they disagree with me without checking their claims, that could give the appearance that you are forming a WP:FACTION and that is not good for our collaboration.

I actually agree with RandomCanadian’s inclusion of Dalgleish paper here, even though paper hasn’t actually been published yet and is technically not even a preprint, but that’s fine because SBM is a reliable source - just like the MIT Tech Review, which is cited 104 times on Wikipedia [17]. I do think we need to qualify Gorski’s comments as being based on comments Dalgleish made to the Daily Mail, which is apparently not a reliable source - so we have to be mindful of the possibility they have misquoted him. I think we should only provide information about the hypothesis from our reliable WP:SECONDARY sources and let our readers make up their own minds about things. CutePeach (talk) 13:01, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

You're clearly not reading WP:DUE thoroughly enough. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man did you read my entire reply here in the seven seconds between my posting it and your revert of my edit? Please can you read my reply above and explain why we include the Dalgleish paper but exclude the Chan paper, when they both have the same status under WP:PREPRINT? Please self revert. Tagging ToBeFree and DGG. CutePeach (talk) 13:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Arbitration case opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#CutePeach. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:29, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Very well, I would like the above tagged admins to see the exchange above and I will make my WP:ARE statement tomorrow. CutePeach (talk) 13:35, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not endorsing the Dalgleish paper's content, I just found it provided more context. But I don't disagree it can and should follow the same rules regarding preprint status and consensus. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Okay, well I'm glad you follow my logic, and I do wish you would have given it a few seconds or a minute before reverting. As you will see tomorrow, human pre-adaptation is mentioned in the WHO report, but we can't use it as it is a WB:PRIMARY source, yet there are few WP:SECONDARY sources more suitable than this MIT Tech Review piece. Like I said in my complaint to TwoBeFree [18], all of this WP:BRD is highly vexatious. I am very disappointed in you. CutePeach (talk) 14:11, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to disappoint, but what else do you expect from such a contentious topic of discussion? Particularly when attempting to add content sourced primarily by pre-prints to an article under Discretionary Sanctions?

PS: did you still intend to rewrite the NIH SRA paragraph for the Investigations article, or did you intend to ignore it and not let other editors know? Bakkster Man (talk) 14:20, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: It now looks like CutePeach may — in this current dispute, at least — have been trying to find an acceptable solution by using a combination of responsive editing and good-faith discussion. (The governing policy here would be WP:EDITCONSENSUS.) –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

We'll see what AR/E says, but I would have been more apt to see a good-faith attempt if the response to an edit comment reminding of a requirement to get consensus before re-adding material had been heeded. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:40, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, CP's take on my edits is misleading and inaccurate, as always. I didn't add Deiglish's preprint. I don't even link to it. I added a short description, and then criticism of it, all based on independent sources, as required for an article which deals with "notable bullshit". Their persistent targeting of me and others now seems like deliberate harassment, and you know where I'm heading next with this... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

WP has an interesting policy that looks like it's meant to address such perceived "targeting" (HA#NOT): There is an endemic problem on Wikipedia of giving "harassment" a much broader and inaccurate meaning.… Editors do not own their edits … and any other editor has a right to track their editing patterns. --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:40, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

In the interest of continuing to build consensus, I thought it might be helpful to further clarify my concerns:

1. While WP:DUE specifies circumstances where its requirements are relaxed in a narrowly-focused article like this, it very much still applies. The policy even helpfully describes the kinds of circumstances that justify relaxed scrutiny. I think it will benefit us more to discuss those details of where and how it's applicable or not, than with claims that it has no place informing this article's writing.
2. This article was created to describe a valid, scientific theory in greater detail than more broad-based articles. As such, we should still follow our policies of WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:PREPRINTS (and not, it should be mentioned, WP:MEDRS). If we're treating it as valid science, we should use at least the minimum level of scrutiny on the science (that being peer-review). To do otherwise would suggest the idea is instead WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE (and that this article is a WP:POVFORK), neither of which I think is correct (with some notable exceptions of highly flawed, politically motivated pre-prints; see Li-Meng Yan‎).

Hopefully this gives us a more productive line of discussion than might get bogged down when linked to a content dispute. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:33, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, per WP:SOURCETYPES policy. –Dervorguilla (talk) 01:17, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Dervorguilla....but scholarly sources are preferred. And PREPRINTS is perhaps the most clear part of this. They are not even RSes.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:04, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Did Alina Chan submit the preprint for publication at a journal? If so, what was the result? Forich (talk) 03:59, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It seems that this still needs work. I noticed that the text didn't correspond to the first citation and its scope so rewrote it, but then it's unclear if it's WP:DUE, considering that the source doesn't push the idea that a lab leak is likely because of apparent pre-adaptation. It instead advocates for a circulation model paradigm, like various other sources that mention that the virus was likely simply already circulating in populations as a less lethal form earlier than previously suspected... —PaleoNeonate – 23:51, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Scientific consensus in the lead

This is important and sources exist, but help is welcome to express and source it properly. I have restored it but am not too happy with the current citation batch I hastily used... —PaleoNeonate – 19:47, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed ad nauseam in many previous discussions on other pages - and the Hakim paper fails verification for this claim, so I have tagged it accordingly. There is no consensus on the origins of the virus, and even the WHO Report - which some here claim represents scientific consensus - has been critiqued by the WHO Director General, the US and 13 other governments, and the European Union. Scientific consensus follows - not precedes - proper investigation.

Furthermore, the blanket statement Some scientists, despite misgivings, agree that more investigation into the origins is warranted also fails verification and requires more citations. Most scientists, including those most vocally against it - like Angela Rasmussen - agree that more investigations including it are warranted [19] [20]. CutePeach (talk) 14:34, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure its valuable quibbling about wording, as long as both views are represented. We have no way or proving "most",, but also no way or disproving it, so either wording is likely to be in error. The woding "some" does in many cases seem like waffling, but it's better than making judgments. DGG ( talk ) 18:14, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

So some sources that mention this consensus are: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/27/did-covid-come-from-a-wuhan-lab-what-we-know-so-far https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/covid-origins-australias-role-in-the-feedback-loop-promoting-the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory

As for the above, there are valid reasons for this consensus. Virology and epidemiology weren't born last year and patterns that were long expected were met, etc. Also, Wikipedia is not into false balance reporting and controversy-fomenting by gallop, there are policies about this. Reliable sources also put things in perspective, which perspective is the one WP must reflect. User:PaleoNeonate/Userboxes/Brainwashing^[Humor] —PaleoNeonate – 20:55, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Adding, IRT to a comment in the next closed thread: "This document ... examines the probability that each claim is true to allow the reader to make his or her own conclusions." we hear that all the time and it's not what Wikipedia is about. —PaleoNeonate – 20:58, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, you are offering an article from The Guardian with a claim of scientific consensus in favor of one hypothesis, when we have articles from other sources challenging that claim, including a few new ones just today. I was just reading this article in The Atlantic [21] from today about this very page - and talk page - which refers to the lab-leak hypothesis as an emblematic example of the challenge of trying to fact-check online information when scientific consensus is in flux or has not yet formed. This is why we have Wikipedia:Neutrality of sources. CutePeach (talk) 13:54, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

This is rather vague and does not contradict that most consider a fully natural origin as the most likely, which is mentioned by many sources. You already know this, why the constant urgency to question that despite many sources also highlighting that nothing changed technically, other than public opinion, and that of some scientists that it's also worth investigating other than the natural source? Not-MEDRS but also relevant here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/covid-origins-australias-role-in-the-feedback-loop-promoting-the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory "The broad consensus is that it is possible but unlikely that the coronavirus leaked from the lab." —PaleoNeonate – 14:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

There are only two valid options:

1. Stick to journal sources only on this question. There, there is a consensus.
2. Include news sources. There, there is a dispute on what the scientific consensus is. eg Vanity Fair's investigative piece: The scientific consensus had been smashed to smithereens. [22].

You can find any number of reliable news sources that make statements one way or the other. You can't just pretend the others don't exist. I think option #1 is probably more tenable and accurate. So long as you want to use news sources though, I don't see what's wrong with CP's argument. Then you'd have no policy-based rationale to exclude the RS that claim the contrary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I think the issue here is: "what was Vanity Fair referring to?"

Were they referring to the consensus that the virus was extremely likely not engineered or the consensus that the virus likely has a natural origin or the consensus that the lab leak and related ideas are conspiracy theories?

And, further, what qualifies them to assess that consensus? Per WP policy as cited in the recent ArbE, for scientific theories, we need to assess them via topic-relevant reviews published in reliable peer-reviewed journals. MEDRS, while probably not binding in this case, helps us see that the best quality sources available for biomedical topics are these journal articles I mentioned, but also statements of consensus from medical and governmental regulatory bodies.

These are what we cite to determine the consensus in the relevant articles. Including this one. I see nothing wrong with that... And I don't think that Vanity Fair piece invalidates that. If one surveys the sources provided in the Sources section at the top of this talk page, it's easy to see that even most journalistic sources agree that "most scientists" believe the natural origin explanation is "more likely."--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:53, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I noticed that at current time there is no mention of consensus left, but it's still expressed in "likely" terms, which seems acceptable. —PaleoNeonate – 18:07, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, yes, I think there is a view commonly held by some editors of this page that "consensus" is too strong a word, that it somehow diminishes the % of scientists who disagree. But it cannot be argued that such views are anything but a minority opinion. I would urge those editors to find evidence that a significant portion of virologists or biosecurity experts believe the lab theory is anything other than "unlikely, but possible." I have not been able to find such evidence, personally. But it is impossible to prove a negative, so we are left with this compromise. As long as we clear what the mainstream view is based on RSes, I'm satisfied...--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:49, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Why does the article omit the fact that ZC45 and ZX21 are Chinese military bioweapons?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

It also omits the fact that RaTG13 was not deposited in Genbank until much later, when the story with NIAID and EcoHealth Alliance was unfolding. 2A00:1FA0:6A4:6D4F:9143:7422:433A:F080 (talk) 18:27, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a high quality reliable independent secondary source to back up the claim that these viruses are "Chinese militery bioweapons?" Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

It says so on Genbank, it is no secret(?). RS and PS are of course also describing them, including WP:MEDRS level. 2A00:1FA0:6A4:6D4F:9143:7422:433A:F080 (talk) 18:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Provide a link, please. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

You mean besides those https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology/Archive_3#Shortlist? As for genbank link it is in this VERY article. 194.154.66.55 (talk) 18:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't see any statement in those sources describing these viruses as military bioweapons. I see one source describing theories that have spread online that some believe these to be military bioweapons. That is not the same thing. We already have content in this article describing those theories.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it does. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MG772933 "Submitted (05-JAN-2018) Institute of Military Medicine Nanjing Command, Nanjing, Institute of Military Medicine Nanjing Command, Nanjing, NO. 293 East Zhongshan Road, Nanjing, JangSu 210002, China" and linked paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30209269 194.154.66.55 (talk) 18:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

That is nothing. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Not according to WP policy. Also, aside from Military command isolates: why there is no info when RaTG13 was submited? And BY WHAT it was submited? It was submited by CAS Biosafety Lab. Without drawing any conslusions this must be mentioned. Do we have to peer review this article too? Again, the ZXXX isolates are bioweopons, that was never a conspiracy theory. There are peer reviewed WP:MEDRS articles that mention that outright even. As for "some online sources" that is not enough for this article, as you must now. 2A00:1FA0:6A4:6D4F:9143:7422:433A:F080 (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Again, the ZXXX isolates are bioweopons, that was never a conspiracy theory. This seems to be clearly contradicted by the paper you cited: To further understand the evolutionary relationship between SARS-CoV and its reservoirs, 334 bats were collected from Zhoushan city, Zhejiang province, China, between 2015 and 2017. To further explore the evolution of SL-CoV from Zhoushan, two complete genomic sequences of the representative bat-derived CoVs were generated by sequencing several overlapping amplicons. Specifically, sequences were generated from the following samples: SL-CoV ZXC21 (MG772934) bat that was extracted from a sample procured in July 2015, and SL-CoV ZC45 (MG772933) bat that was extracted from a sample procured in February 2017. The paper you cited describes these as naturally-circulating viruses collected from bats in the wild, making the bioweapon claim sound a lot like a conspiracy theory... So you'll need to provide a proper citation for the claim. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, what is your point? "Naturally-circulating" in one cave virus can still be used as a bioweapon. I mean, that is what it was used for, further research in human chimera viruses. The facility is after all known to be bioweapon virus research center, just like chem. weapons facilities in Russia (GosNIIOKhT). 2A00:1370:812D:9F38:495:493E:B897:7031 (talk) 22:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Institute of Military Medicine Nanjing Command. A military-owned facility does not a bio-weapon make. Donald Trump was treated for COVID at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but that doesn't make him a bioweapon. You need a source that isn't WP:SYNTH, let me know if you find one. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Is Ebola also a military bioweapon? It was discovered and identified by scientists at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:16, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

The Trump comment was hilarious, ;) Forich (talk) 20:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe Trump is a bio-weapon, he sure makes me sick XD ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲 talk 20:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Not that I have a lot of confidence that someone's going to have a reliable source for this claim, but let's not get into WP:NOTAFORUM territory. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:44, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

What, my anecdotal evidence doesn't count as a reliable source? *starts screaming bias* ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲 talk 20:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MEDRS Barh et al (2020) from sources section is low quality?

• Barh, Debmalya; Silva Andrade, Bruno; Tiwari, Sandeep; Giovanetti, Marta; Góes-Neto, Aristóteles; Alcantara, Luiz Carlos Junior; Azevedo, Vasco; Ghosh, Preetam (1 September 2020). "Natural selection versus creation: a review on the origin of SARS-COV-2". Le Infezioni in Medicina. 28 (3): 302–311. ISSN 1124-9390. PMID 32920565.

This paper was published in a mediocre journal (Le Infezioni in Medicina, Q3 in Scimago rankings) from Italy. Its main author, Debmalya Bahr, has a background in biotechnology and bioinformatics. He has good recent publications in computational bioinformatics platforms, which seems to be his expertise. He is not a virologist or epidemiologist. The paper is written in a mediocre english, and its conclusions are not tightly linked to their premises and review of evidence. It has received only 2 citations by the Google Scholar metric.

For the above reasons, I propose we rely as little as possible on this paper as a source for wikipedia. To clinch on it being, technically, a MEDRS and ignore its flaws would go a bit in the WP:Gaming direction, in my opinion.Forich (talk) 20:16, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: If you look beyond the first author, you will see that the other authors are molecular geneticists and biologists (and bioinformatics isn't exactly entirely unrelated, either, especially if this involves reporting on analysis of genomic sequences [which is covered by bioinformatics]). It's also not the job of Wikipedia editors to be peer-reviewers. If you have issues with this particular journal (which, I note, is published by the University of Salerno and is MEDLINE-indexed), you're free to go to RSN. Mind telling where in the article this is currently cited? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:34, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, I would say it's borderline which is probably why no one has used it as a source yet as far as I can tell. I agree with RandomCanadian that its authors actually probably do have expertise in this topic, given their training and its relation to the topic at hand. But I also agree with you that the journal is not particularly well known and the paper is not heavily-cited, and we should take that into account. I agree with RC, though, that we should not be using critique of the paper itself (its use of English, its logic/reasoning, etc.) as that is not our job here. Personally I thought it was as good if not better than most news-based RS pieces we have listed.

That's why I call it "borderline" as a scholarly-source. I wouldn't personally use it as a citation for anything controversial, and I would always bundle it with a higher quality source for even non-controversial claims, if possible. Overall, I think it only helps us establish the overall sense of the field by content experts.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:00, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

It's a review article, in a MEDLINE-indexed journal, and the journal title translates to "Infections in medicine". It's WP:MEDRS and also in the correct field. We're trying to disqualify MEDRS sources now? I think that might be a step too far, personally. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:33, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

The English seemed perfectly fine to me. It's a review article in an academic journal that specialises in infectious diseases, with eight co-authors who have credentials in biology. It's also one of the most comprehensive pieces of literature we have, prior to which we were citing primary sources. None of its conclusions actually seem contentious and I see no exceptional claims made.

It's also one of the few such journals in Italy, all of which are roughly comparable.[23] Given also that all Italian journals are Q3 in rankings, and Q1 journals are predominantly British or American, I'd argue there's a bit of a WP:Systemic bias issue if we start excluding Italian journals. (Not to mention these rankings aren't necessarily a measure of reliability.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:02, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Now that we have a substantive reason for the removal... There are two main studies that analyse the lab leak theory AFAIK. There's the WHO report, and there's this Nature Medicine report, both of which are primary sources with limited discussion in reviews (the latter more than the former, mostly due to age). The argument RC is making is that the latter deserves no mention in this article? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:22, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

The argument I was making is that the paper isn't notable enough for us to single it out like that, and that in its current shape, it's inclusion was basically just selected quotes. I would not object if there was a better way to include this, as I've written on your talk page. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:31, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

For everyone else, see continued discussion here. Any policy-based objections to the argument there? Aside, on the note of the "current shape" of things, now would be a good time to remind ourselves of the WP:NOTPERFECT policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:30, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Not necessarily an endorsement, but this has the advantage of being open-access, in a decent journal, of being a review, it makes no extraordinary claims and interestingly it describes the narratives that conflict with the most plausible scenarios "conspiracy theories" (with quotes). —PaleoNeonate – 21:42, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory in the lead

Should we include the statement "the idea has been described by some researchers as a conspiracy theory" in the lead?

I believe this is undue weight. The statement has two sources. One is a paper arguing against the spillover model, which, to my non-specialist knowledge, puts it outside current mainstream scientific views on the origins of the virus (compare with mentions of "spillover" in this Nature News article). The other dates from February, before recent developments such as the release of the WHO report and sustained criticism of the February 2020 Lancet statement by other scientists, for example in the BMJ.

I'm unconvinced that there's a strong enough weight of sources to support keeping a statement calling the lab leak theory as a whole a "conspiracy" in the lead. (To clarify, I'm not referring to related conspiracy theories, such as bio-weapon conspiracies, or arguing this information should be removed from the article body.) It seems to contradict the tone of recent output from science magazines, such as this June explainer in Nature News ("Most scientists say SARS-CoV-2 probably has a natural origin, and was transmitted from an animal to humans. However, a lab leak has not been ruled out, and many are calling for a deeper investigation into the hypothesis that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)") or this July editorial in The Scientist ("there is not yet enough concrete supporting evidence for either the lab-leak hypothesis or the zoonosis model to lead a reasonable person to conclude that one or the other is the true origin of SARS-CoV-2. There’s no clincher for the zoonotic hypothesis, either in the form of a clear intermediate animal host or a definitive genetic link between bat coronaviruses and the pathogen that gave rise to a global outbreak. Similarly, the lab-leak hypothesis lacks evidence that decisively traces the origin of SARS-CoV-2 back to the WIV or any other laboratory.") And, of course, you've got the head of the WHO saying back in March that "although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation ... all hypotheses remain on the table".

I'm aware of the no-con outcome of the February RfC on a very similar issue, although the scope of my question is narrower. Jr8825 • Talk 04:49, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I think this issue here is: do these minority viewpoints warrant inclusion, or are they too fringe? The minority viewpoints being 1) Researchers who label the lab leak claim a conspiracy theory, and 2) Scientists who do not agree that a natural origin is the most likely.

Because the entire sentence at question is: The idea has been described by some researchers as a conspiracy theory, with most scientists agreeing that a natural origin is the most likely.

We're already representing an even smaller minority viewpoint by specifying that not all scientists agree on the natural origin being most likely, only most. Therefore we should also represent the opposing minority viewpoint that some researchers call it a conspiracy theory. ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲^(talk) 06:09, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

The statement that "most scientists [agree] that a natural origin is the most likely" is heavily cited and based on excellent sources which say "most". I don't agree that it's somehow representing the minority who hold a different view, it's simply a sourced sentence on the current consensus – saying "all" scientists would be unsupported. And regardless, neither minority view should be treated with equal validity. My argument is we should only retain the second part of the sentence, because that's the only part which has a strong enough weight of sourcing to deserve to be in the lead. Jr8825 • Talk 06:27, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, a quick Google search ("lab leak" "conspiracy theory" scientists OR researchers) shows there is an abundance of WP:SIGCOV of scientists/researchers calling it a conspiracy theory.

Probably the most notable being "Writing for The Lancet, the same group of researchers who in February 2020 described the lab leak idea as a baseless conspiracy theory said that they haven’t changed their minds." The Daily Beast referencing [1] The Lancet in a July 2021 article.

It definitely warrants inclusion per WP:BALANCE. ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲^(talk) 08:35, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@FormalDude: I mentioned The Lancet letter in my above comment as it's since been reported that other scientists have criticised it, particularly following the discovery that the main organiser failed to disclose a conflict of interest. I think the article's Timeline section does a decent enough job of covering this. Could you provide some other examples of scientists calling the lab leak theory (as a whole) a conspiracy theory? I'm ready to change my mind if I'm wrong about the relative weight of this description. I've read a cross-section of the sources above, but I haven't read them all – I've just gained the impression that there's be a shift among scientists (not just politicians/journalists) this year, which means that while the claim that the lab leak theory was a "conspiracy theory" may have had due weight if we were writing this lead last year, it might not now. Bear in mind that a quick Google search is an imperfect test, particularly in this case as the word "conspiracy" has been levelled pretty extensively at the misinformation surrounding COVID, and I suspect not all of these labels were being applied by scientists (or they were being directed as particular claims made by politicians or social media posts without evidence). Jr8825 • Talk 11:01, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Per bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1656:

• Science magazine reports: “Scientists ‘strongly condemn’ rumors and conspiracy theories about origin of coronavirus outbreak,” quoting Daszak as saying, “We’re in the midst of the social media misinformation age, and these rumors and conspiracy theories have real consequences, including threats of violence that have occurred to our colleagues in China.”
• New York Times depicts the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a victim of “conspiracy theories”
• The science magazine Undark reports that the lab leak is a conspiracy theory “that’s been broadly discredited”

Per coronavirusblog.uk/The%20Lab-Leak%20Hypothesis.pdf

• Vincent Racaniello, a professor at Columbia and a co-host of a podcast called This Week in Virology, said on February 9 that the idea of an accident in Wuhan was “complete bunk.”
• Racaniello’s dismissal was seconded by a group of scientists from Ohio State, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of North Carolina, who put out a paper in Emerging Microbes and Infections to quiet the “speculations, rumors, and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin.”
• One of the paper’s authors, Susan Weiss, told the Raleigh News & Observer, “The conspiracy theory is ridiculous.”

Per doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(21)00938-6

• Unless you have evidence that they were working on viruses very closely related to the one that 'escaped', then that's where it becomes conspiracy theory.

Per dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3763542

• I hasten not to add, because of any conspiracy theory that the virus was deliberately introduced into Wuhan.

Per journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/mSphere.00669-20#B19

• Some may verge on the unbelievable, such as the conspiracy theory that gain-of-function research conducted on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses in 2015 is connected to the emergence of COVID-19 that made it to British tabloids

––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲^(talk) 11:24, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Regarding your comment on this source. I guess your criticism is about the content in 4.3, but how is this incompatible with spillover? They're discussing means of control, not disputing the means of transfer, right? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks for sharing these. I skim read all of them and I think there are issues with the way you're presenting them here.

• BMJ: you're cherry-picking this article, as it's written on the premise that it "was considered a debunked conspiracy theory, but some experts are revisiting it amid calls for a new, more thorough investigation" (past tense) and objecting to the label. Both the NYT & Undark (May & June 2020) are presented on a timeline to juxtapose them with a softening of tone in 2021.
• Nicholson Baker: not a subject-matter expert, but published in The NY Magazine. Again from Jan 2021 (before the shift in scientific views, according to sources such as the BMJ article). Baker quotes the peer-reviewed paper from Ohio, Penn & NC universities as using the phrasing "currently no credible evidence" (not the same thing as calling it a conspiracy theory). Only two individual scientists applied the "conspiracy theory" label in an unqualified manner: Weiss, one of the authors, in a separate newspaper interview, and Racaniello ("bunk"), who doesn't seem to have been involved in the paper.
• New Scientist: I don't have access through this paywall.
• Ciuriak SSRN paper: misquoted/misinterpreted, as the "conspiracy theory" he's referring to is the idea that the virus was deliberately introduced at the 2019 Military World Games (section 2.3, p.6), if you read the surrounding sentences it's clear he's not discussing the lab leak theory generally.
• ASM paper: again referring to a related conspiracy theory, the idea that "gain-of-function research ... is connected to the emergence of COVID-19". It does not explicitly call this article's subject generally a conspiracy theory. Jr8825 • Talk 12:36, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Jr8825, arguments about it being called a conspiracy theory in the past don't really make sense here, because we are also putting this claim in the past tense. We also already have a sentence about how some commentators have walked back their criticism. Should we just contextualize this better? Because it is absolutely accurate to say that some scientists have described some versions of the lab leak conspiracy theories. We don't need to say that they're calling the whole thing a conspiracy theory, although I believe we have pretty good sourcing on that, personally. I am willing to compromise on that.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:14, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, it's probably undue in the lede. I think it would be more reasonable to mention that it used to be widely referred to as a conspiracy theory, or refer specifically to the discredited elements relating to a lab leak that remain accurately described as a conspiracy theory (Bannon-funded bioweapon preprints, etc). The more relevant item for the lede seems to be noting it as a minority scientific view relative to mainstream, leaving the conspiracy theory label history for a longer section below. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:14, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: your comment reminded me that the following sentence used to be in the lead: "It was subsequently widely dismissed as a conspiracy theory". I think this is better as it places it before the WHO report/mid-2021, but doesn't have a definite end date. I went ahead and made a bold edit to restore this text while removing the statement I had issue with in the final paragraph, combining the cites for both. I think it's a good compromise, do other editors agree? Jr8825 • Talk 15:25, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, Yes, I think this is a fine compromise.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:15, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Due in some form and indeed important to make sure that we don't describe all claims as such, or the few scientists supporting it as conspiracy theorists in Wikipedia's voice, —PaleoNeonate – 17:45, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I support that text as a compromise. ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲^(talk) 19:13, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Impact of reported bias in 'established scholarship'

Most WP readers understand that this lab-leak hypothesis is far from accepted academic scholarship. So (per GEVAL policy) we need to describe this idea in [its] proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world. Those may (and generally should) differ.

Ordinary nonexperts are expected to view established scientific scholars as having potential conflicts of interest. Economic and commercial interests may color [their] objectivity.... The integrity of the field requires disclosure.... Reader[s] may then judge and ... make allowance for the impact of the bias. (APA, Full Disclosure of Interests Form.) Arguably, our withholding information about the general public's beliefs could (for better or worse) undermine this well-established system.

But what's the most objective way to describe the beliefs of the wider world? (High-quality mainstream polls?) Should they go in the lead? –Dervorguilla (talk) 02:48, 31 July 2021 (UTC) 03:10, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it's already agreed that we don't base our coverage of controversial subjects on opinion polls (i.e. "not a popularity contest") or on what the ordinary public might think about a topic – although, if you ask, I agree that we should strive to make the language plainly comprehensible for those who might not be familiar with the topic. I also note that the only polls which are so far mentioned seem to be coming from one particular country (as does much of the political drama and newspapers coverage), highlighting possible issues of WP:BIAS. I wouldn't be necessarily opposed if there are polls from other places which show a different or similar situation, but that should also ideally come with secondary analysis of the reason behind and/or relevance of the numbers (otherwise, they're just unannotated statistics). As for the claims about perceived conflicts of interests, unless there's something tangible in multiple sources to back it up (there's maybe one example in this instance, and it only concerns one researcher, not the whole of the scientific scholars in the relevant field), we shouldn't entertain positions which essentially sum up to WP:FLAT-like "The scientific establishment (peer-reviewed journals, universities) are trying to suppress the Truth™"... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:40, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with everything RandomCanadian said. I'd also add the following point: you can be correct about unreliable scientists, biased experts and up-their-own-arses academia – but the only thing opinion polls are authoritative on is the extent of popular ignorance. It's got a mention in the body, but definitely doesn't belong in the lead. Jr8825 • Talk 04:53, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Dervorguilla: I'm not particularly happy with you splitting my comment out from the above thread into a new separate (and probably dead-end) subsection on its own. I was responding directly to RandomCanadian's point above, following your original comment, and your following comment was responding to this one. I don't mind you refactoring and renaming the section to redirect its focus, but my comment belongs in the context of the thread. Jr8825 • Talk 20:20, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I have restored the original format. Dervorguilla, if you wish to re-focus on a specific concern (seems a bit early for that), you're free to do so (at the bottom of this section), but not by adding headers which obfuscate the original flow of the discussion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:32, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: Many people do question the value of public-opinion polls for determining the public's beliefs – including their "ignorance". But let's move on.

The APA form further requires that authors also carefully consider disclosure where circumstances could suggest bias *against* a ... facility or person. And the article now states that some "scientists have said that they dismissed ... the lab leak theory ... as a result of perceived polarization resulting from Donald Trump's embrace of the theory." We unabashedly describe a (belatedly) acknowledged conflict of interest. Our readers now get to make allowance for the impact of the bias.

This well established system works most effectively if such information is readily available (like in the lead). –Dervorguilla (talk) 05:56, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with your point about bias affecting the science. The bias of "RS" is always present on Wikipedia, precisely because we follow them. We still need to continue following them though, and trust in the eventual self-corrective behaviour of peer-review/scientific consensus, which is already emerging in this case. I think your concern is a philosophical/epistemological one that's really beyond our scope here, and the solution – providing readers with opinion polling – is worse than the problem. Not least because there's a high chance of WP:SYNTH in presenting such primary source data. WP:RS works on the assumption that we treat experts as authorities within their fields. Again, I think RandomCanadian did a good job of pointing to the most appropriate essays. Jr8825 • Talk 06:10, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Bias is unavoidable, but our job here is to correctly reflect what the most reliable sources are saying, not to promote a false equivalence between journalists and scientists (it is not, either, to have an epistemological argument about this - concerns about policy, if you wish to engage on that, should be dealt with on the relevant pages). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:32, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Conspiratorial

@Aeonx: this has been reworked since by another editor, but the context of the cited source ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/technology/how-anti-asian-activity-online-set-the-stage-for-real-world-violence.html ) was anti-Asian sentiment by conspiracy theorists on social media. —PaleoNeonate – 18:04, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and my edit was acknowledging the fact that anti-asian sentiment and conspiracy are not the same thing and that there was no reliable source with evidence of conspiracy[24] in regards to that point. Aeonx (talk) 01:28, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Gain of function

@My very best wishes: [25] If one can do gain-of function research (this is actually a legitimate research), and do not leak anything then what does it have to do with the subject of this article, which is about a lab leak? And secondly, what does Rand Paul being Rand Paul have to do with this article? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:23, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeh, I tend to agree, this is a separate and important sub-controversy, but it is arguably not about the "lab leak". My very best wishes (talk) 18:29, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, it is essentially the explanation for why some people think the origin is more likely to have been a laboratory than the natural environment. To wit: if the COVID-19 genome shows signs of this kind of research (as some allege), then it's a strong indicator that the pathway to humans was through laboratory experimentation rather than a natural spillover. Thus making it a slightly more specific version of the general lab leak of a natural virus, which proposes certain 'fingerprints' left on the genome that could be identified and provide evidence.

It's also worth noting that a number of the advocates for the GoFR origin are members of The Cambridge Working Group, which opposes this type of research and calls "for all work involving potential pandemic pathogens to be halted". Such a scenario of amplifying the danger ("pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host range") of a collected virus, losing control, and ending up in a pandemic is the thing they've been warning about. Whether they're the ones most familiar with the techniques and able to see the dangers, or falling prey to the pitfalls of motivated reasoning, we won't know until a definitive origin is identified. Either way,

I would argue that it's a very notable (and distinct) theory: both regarding senators who (officially) do not know what they're talking about and the scientific opinions of some researchers. Given that their opinion on the origin is based on what they interpret as evidence of this kind of research, it would be difficult to write a comprehensive article on the topic without directly addressing these claims. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

A virus, possibly engineered in a lab or possibly not, and then leaked, intentionally or unintentionally, falls within the scope of this article certainly. But abstract discussions about gain of function research (outside the context of this specific leak theory), or misinformation spread by US senators, is better discussed in other articles IMO. I feel the Rand Paul nonsense is best kept in COVID-19 misinformation. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:18, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this article should focus on the sources (particularly scientific) drawing a link between perceived genomic evidence of GoFR and the human origin. But that requires a more delicate touch than merely removing the section entirely. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think your arguments are convincing. Although not exactly on the subject, this is definitely related and should be included - as a separate section and, yes, together with claim by Rand Paul. Just rewrite this better, which probably requires more space. I think this WaPO fact-checking get it right [26] Meaning there was indeed a gain of function research in 2017: "For instance, in 2017, WIV published a study that said researchers had found a coronavirus from a bat that could be transmitted directly to humans. WIV researchers used reverse genetics to deliberately create novel recombinants of wild bat coronavirus backbones and spike genes, then tested the ability of these chimeric (man-made) viruses to replicate in — not just infect — a variety of cell lines. ... The article, under its list of funders, included: the National Institutes of Health." This is the paper: [27] (yes, this is definitely "a gain of function" research as it say Recombinant viruses with the S gene of the novel bat SARSr-CoVs and the backbone of the infectious clone of SARSr-CoV WIV1 were constructed using the reverse genetic system described previously) However, they say those are viruses more closely related to SARS-1. OK. Now, according to disclosure by WIV, "none of the virus samples used to conduct these experiments were or could have been transformed to be the new coronavirus that causes the disease covid-19." Can we trust a disclosure by WIV? I would say yes, sure, because the viruses from this paper could hardly be used for such purpose. Moreover, $600,000 allocated to WIV though EcoAlliance were not designated for any gain of function research, Fauci said. But is not it the same grant as in 2017 [28]? Probably yes, but one can not say anything for sure without looking at the actual budget of the grant and the actual expenses. Let's trust Fauci. All of that probably needs to be explained on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Essentially the same information also currently appears at Gain-of-function research where it's given even more detailed coverage. Seems fairly unduly weighted there too. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:13, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

When I included this, I think I did explicitly say that a rewrite might be required. I haven't gotten around to doing that, though anybody is free to take the initiative and complete that task: the section on deliberate engineering (as one of the various versions of the lab leak) is still WIP, but if you look at it and look at the differences with the section at the misinformation article, you might have an idea how I was planning on doing this: feel free to improve if you think there's a better format. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:18, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps this belongs to another page. I posted my comments there, Talk:Gain-of-function_research#Gain-of-function_studies_of_SARS. However, I am not that much familiar with the subject, so you are more than welcome to correct me and disagree. My very best wishes (talk) 00:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I think briefly mentioning Rand Paul in this article is WP:DUE, if we can get a source that spells out what I suspect: that Rand Paul is a big lab leak proponent, and that he is going on and on about gain-of-function research and Dr. Fauci as a way to advocate for the lab leak idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:23, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

This is still missing (I noticed the hidden text marking its former location). Is anyone intending to work on a rewrite? I think it warrants at least a passing mention and a wikilink, as it came up in some of things I read today, including this editorial in The Scientist (already listed in the Sources section above). I think coverage of notable political claims within the US, and their rebuttal by scientists, are appropriate for this article (I'm not in the US, so I don't know the ins and outs). The science is also beyond my expertise, so it's better if someone else took this on. Jr8825 • Talk 05:25, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I still think this section is a problem. As copied it's about misinformation, not about this theory. It's focused on Rand Paul's problems, which is just COVID-19 misinformation. It explains nothing about GOF. The sections all being equivalent in length makes it seem like there are three equally competing theories under the "lab leak" name. I feel it needs rewriting from scratch, but that's largely outside my area of expertise. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for adding this, I think it was an important missing piece of information, but I agree it needs a rewrite and probably deserves less attention than now . The paragraph from the misinformation article is too centred on the US political controversy of whether the US National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research, why is mostly irrelevant. The paragraph needs to summarise what the type of research possibly is, whether it's likely or unlikely to have occurred at the WIV at all (US funding aside), and whether that has anything to do with the likelihood of a lab leak. Jr8825 • Talk 15:21, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

I added it because there seems to be consensus for it in the #"Versions" section -- what exactly is this theory? section above. I am fine with a rewrite, I just wanted to get something to start us off. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Bold lead additions

• Special:Diff/1036845612. I invite others' comments, whether or not the changes are reverted in the first instance. Jr8825 • Talk 01:46, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

The WHO Report

Real quick, two thoughts about the WHO report:

• I am not convinced that the WHO report should be avoided as a source or downweighted because it is primary. The nutshell at WP:MEDRS states Ideal sources for biomedical material include literature reviews or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published secondary sources (such as reputable medical journals), recognised standard textbooks by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from national or international expert bodies. Neither the nutshell nor WP:MEDORG mentions that statements from international expert bodies need be discarded or downweighted because they are primary.

Here's a relevant quote from WP:MEDORG: Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include [...] the World Health Organization. The reliability of these sources ranges from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature.

• I would be in favor of downweighting the Director General's statements he made about the WHO report, because his statements were not included in the final, peer-reviewed report. They are a single person's statements, as opposed to statements that went through a careful drafting, peer review, and consensus process.

–Novem Linguae (talk) 07:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: regarding "downweighting", I don't see the need to minimise his statements because as head of the WHO they're at the very least politically significant (his ordering of a further investigation into a possible lab origin is just as notable as Biden's instruction to US intelligence agencies). However, even if others disagree with me here and decide his comments should be minimised because they're not authoritative, I think we should distinguish between what he said was his own personal opinion ("I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough" and the issues about data sharing, which he was simply relaying from the scientists involved in the report ("In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data", which also echoes comments by other scientists involved in the study, according to the Reuters report. Jr8825 • Talk 00:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Side discussion about name of WHO report

The short title for that joint report (not "WHO report") is the 2021 Joint WHO-China Study Team report (or Joint WHO-China Study]). –Dervorguilla (talk) 08:53, 2 August 2021 (UTC) 09:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Dervorguilla, we actually had an RfC about this back in June, you can see the results and the link to the RfC on the Template:Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus). The outcome was to use "WHO report" so Novem Linguae is absolutely right about this usage.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 09:43, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I see that you did start an RfC back in June, which you withdrew after 4 days (and 9 comments). You said something about a WP:SNOWBALL in favor of option B. –Dervorguilla (talk) 21:16, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Dervorguilla, Yes, that's correct. It then stood on the talk page for a month with no further dissent/concerns. Editors who typically are "pro-leak" and "anti-leak" agreed on this. This is precisely the situation WP:SNOWBALL is intended for.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:32, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: Closing discourages people from continuing to post comments... (WP:CLOSE) No one "agreed" (or disagreed) on this closure. –Dervorguilla (talk) 23:06, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Dervorguilla, I never closed the discussion. It got archived. In fact, when withdrawing, I said: "I'm withdrawing and leaving this open so as not to ruffle any feathers unnecessarily."

I would also direct your attention to WP:RFC, where it says: "There are several ways in which RfCs end: 1) The question may be withdrawn by the poster (e.g., if the community's response became obvious very quickly). In this situation, the editor who started the RfC should normally be the person who removes the [template]." It also says: "Anyone who wants to have more comments on the topic can restart an RfC that has ended...For example, the original poster of an RfC might withdraw it, but someone else may have become interested in the topic in the meantime and restart it." This is exactly the scenario in this RfC, except nobody cared enough to restart it.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I correctly said that you withdrew the RfC after 4 days. I then erroneously said that you closed the discussion. You left it open, not closed. My error. –Dervorguilla (talk) 02:08, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Better coverage of the science

I wrote some comments here about coverage of science in this article. It seems a bit lacking, to me. We give a lot of space to the allegations (c.f. "Claims and rebuttals" section), but no weight to the main scientific sources that cover this theory and their discussion on why they think it's a "remote possibility". As I said there, It's certainly more informative to the reader than just repeating how some ideas are "baseless"; I can't speak for every reader but personally when I'm learning about something I like to know how the conclusions were reached, rather than just taking them for granted.

There are a few review studies, which should be safe to use. The most comprehensive source seems to be the WHO report, which is unfortunately a very long primary source with no review articles, but WP:MEDREV seems to permit discussion with intext attribution. It's a bit outside my area of expertise, but we have at least one virologist and several other editors with relevant experience. Is this something we can work on? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, Yes I agree. I think we could add more info on the known viruses circulating in bats, the molecular clock analyses, the diversity of genomes present in the samples collected at the Huanan market indicating widespread circulation in Wuhan, etc. which are part of why virologists are so skeptical of these theories.

I know we hate citing User essays, but I actually think some of the coverage on this over at WP:NOLABLEAK is pretty good, and could be translated here (with more robust sourcing and attribution) for this purpose. I also think we cover it okayish at the SARS-CoV-2 article.

Inclusion of such content here, with appropriate sourcing, would make this article a lot more robust and less like we're beating a dead horse without providing any actual evidence from RSes to substantiate the claims. Off the top of my head, the best people to quote would be Danielle Anderson (from the Bloomberg piece), Angela Rasmussen (from her op ed), Polly Hayes (from The Conversation), and Peter Knight (also from The Conversation). All those sources are in the list at the top, sorry I'm too lazy to link them here again. That may not be what you had in mind, but it was what I read in your comment anyway. I think the stuff from those articles I linked above could be provided with INTEXT attribution and go a long way.

FWIW, there is also a forthcoming Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting article with some quotes from relevant scientists on these topics (including myself, so I would never add it as a source). FAIR is reliable for attributed quotes per WP:RSP. I'll let you know when it gets published and put a little section here on this talk page disclosing the COI and that I think it might be useful, but that I intentionally won't add anything from it, to avoid accusations of COI.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:02, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Those would be fine too. I was under the assumption that the general media isn't covering the scientific details too thoroughly (at least not the parts that don't make for attractive headlines) since the average reader probably doesn't care about the underlying virology. Generally I had in mind the use of journal articles or appropriate comments from scientists actually discussing, well, the science, rather than just pure speculation or "calling for investigations". Journal wise, if I understand correctly, I think this review covers all known sources at the time, and since then (AFAIK) the only relevant analysis was the WHO report (relevant pages: 118-120).

Looking forward to that article! ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:19, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I think the Op-Eds I mentioned are really beneficial for exactly the reasons you describe. These are subject matter experts, publishing in an editorially reviewed venue, discussing these issues and talking about the underlying science. For example, I think those The Conversation pieces are really useful for this. Since there's no peer review, they are only reliable for attributed quotes. I think making sure they are DUE will be important, but the scientists I mentioned have been quoted as experts in other venues, so that helps.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:36, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

If you want non-attributed sources for this, then absolutely I think journal articles are the way to go. The Hakim piece and the Frutos et al piece (in March 2021) both provide counter-arguments, so maybe we should lay those out better. I would consider both of these more reliable than the Barh et al piece.

As you've said re: the WHO primary source, I don't think we have to restrict ourselves to journal articles, because we can use attribution to couch these things in the voices of the scientists who have said them.It would be entirely appropriate to quote the expert-voice op-eds then.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:42, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the suggested journal + author op-ed approach. I wanted to add my voice to that building consensus and also to suggest that it might lead to minor problems down the line—other editors may try to add opinion sources in the future, and we should be clear we're using these for authoritative layperson explanations of attached MEDRS sources. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:11, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Firefangledfeathers, agreed, that is something we need to be very careful about. We need to represent views in proportion to their "mainstream"-ness in the highest quality sources, per WP:DUE. And there is clearly a difference between including attributed opinions of notable experts (credentialed scientists) and including opinions from journalists and other lay people with no formal training in this topic. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:24, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like Shibbolethink has given us a great blueprint above, by mentioning concepts to cover and sources to use. Maybe one of us can get it started, and then Shibbolethink and others can proofread it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you think the undue weight tag on that section now resolved? What are the remaining issues? Jr8825 • Talk 00:53, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

(Ping Shibbolethink) Jr8825 • Talk 00:55, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, thanks for the ping :) Personally I think there's undue weight on the BSL2 vs 4 section. But I haven't done the leg work of finding the best sources on that part of it. It may be a large part of that FAIR article I mentioned, as it happens. But I believe there are other WP:RSes that address it. Just don't have time to find em right at this moment. I definitely think the Pre-adaptation section is now no longer undue!--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:58, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, I'm going to move that tag down to the safe procedures section then, so it's clearer which section we need to work on next. Thanks for your work. Jr8825 • Talk 01:18, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

One good bit of that was removing the SYNTH on the BSL-stuff. I don't think the French language version of the Sallard article makes that point; while the other two sources used to report it where clearly not being appropriately used. Now there's still the "safety procedures at the WIV", which is still pretty one-sided (there's surely a boatload of discussions about this at the WIV talk page, see Talk:Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#Add_in_foreign_scientist's_testimony as the most recent example). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:41, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah we're definitely missing the perspective of plenty of virologists on this. Lipkin, interestingly enough, has also conducted work with a BSL3-adjacent virus (Kunjin adjacent to WNV) that is itself handled at BSL2 because it lacks the neurovirulence of its pathogenic cousin. But that fact isn't easily found in a relevant secondary RS to my knowledge, so I'm not saying we should include it. Just noting it as an example of why other virologists likely do not agree. Using BSL3-related viruses that are themselves less human irulent at BSL2 is a pretty widely established practice and has been for decades. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:58, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

VOA News and claims of improper PPE

Are there better sources for this claim? Because VOA has had controversies in recent times about independence from political influence, especially during the trump administration... See: [29] [30] [31]. That last one is a controversy over an overtly puff piece interview with one of the chief promoters of the lab leak theory (Guo Wengui), in their news section. About this interview, Mark Feldstein, Chair of the department of Broadcast Journalism at UMaryland, said it "was a colossal and unprecedented violation of journalistic professionalism and broadcast industry standards" and that "There had been a grossly negligent approach" to pre-interview vetting and failure to "corroborate the authenticity of Guo's evidence or interview other sources." [32][33][34]

Is this really the sourcing we want for a controversial claim like this? I think it was added in good faith, because the editor probably, like me, didn't know all this back story about VOA. I used to think they were the exception to the "propaganda agencies never die, they just become accepted" rule of thumb.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:58, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I've re-written the paragraph and merged the sentences together. The VOA citation is now not-strictly-necessary, so can be removed if you feel strongly enough about it. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:11, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Balaram P in Current Science

@RandomCanadian: @Shibbolethink: @Bakkster Man: @Dervorguilla: I was working through the sources listed at the top of this page, and found additional coverage of Wade's piece not already discussed in this thread in Balaram, P. (10 June 2021). "The murky origins of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic" (PDF). Current Science. 120 (11): 1663–1666. Please review page 1664 and share your thoughts. One thing to note is Balaram's comment that "Baltimore, the 1975 Nobel laureate, one of the high priests of molecular biology and the co-discoverer of the enzyme reverse transcriptase, central to the RT-PCR diagnostic for SARS-CoV-2, is not a voice to be easily dismissed." Jr8825 • Talk 20:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, Since this is a journal with an impact factor of 0.756, not edited by virologists or biosafety experts and not even peer reviewed (I believe "Commentary" is Current Science's Op-Ed)....I don't think we should trust it to get extremely controversial claims right. I don't even think this journal is MEDLINE indexed (AKA it won't show up in Pubmed [35], typically a HUGE red flag).

It's an opinion piece published in a non-topic-relevant journal, with an extremely low impact factor. The author actually was the editor of this journal until 2013, and I think oversees the current editor [36]. To me, it seems as though he just never stopped writing editorials for this journal, even after retiring. He has no expertise in virology of any kind. He has not published articles about viruses [37]. He is not recognized as an expert on these topics.

For all of these reasons, I don't think this paper should be considered reliable for this controversial content.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:14, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: Thanks for clarifying, much appreciated! Jr8825 • Talk 21:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, no problem happy to help :) --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: As noted by Shibbolethink, Balaram's commentary is an "opinion piece". Moreover, it mentions those who marshal data, but whose analyses are consigned to what are dismissively termed as ‘low impact’ journals. And we're supposed to be citing established authorities here. For these, try WHO or the European CDC. The Joint WHO-China Study report cites many sources that are both current (2021) and reliable (at least in the view of that definitively mainstream intergovernmental organization). –Dervorguilla (talk) 22:50, 4 August 2021 (UTC) 00:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

In addition to agreement with the above comments about he source strength, I think it's worth noting that we never really doubted whether Baltimore (or his views on the topic) was notable or credible or not. The reason we moved away from listing prominent adherents in the first place was to avoid giving the mistaken impression that they were either more or less numerous than we have reliable sources to indicate (an extension of the whole 'what is mainstream/consensus' discussion). In other words, it was never a sourcing issue to begin with, so the quality of this source for this information is a bit moot. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• Do any of you editors realize how it may appear that you are deliberately excluding sources that don't fully agree with your preconceptions? You are rejecting entirely the views of Padmanabhan Balaram, a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, but have no problem citing a David Gorski blog post in Science-Based Medicine 4 times. I don't know where all of you are from (I'm guessing it's not India, the world's second most populous country), but COVID-19 is global, and the totality of knowledge does not stem solely from Western journals above an arbitrary Impact Factor. I'm not saying Balaram's views need to granted undue weight, nor even mentioned at all, but you should all be conscientious of your own potential biases and the risks of creating a walled-garden by biased selection of sources, and/or perpetuating systemic bias. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:13, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Animalparty, the issue is how we are using the source, not what country it comes from. We have different standards for scholarly journals vs news pieces (Balaram vs Gorksi), precisely because WP:SOURCETYPES and WP:SCHOLARSHIP tells us these types of sources are granted different weights. We are more strict with sources which are granted more deference.

The biggest difference is that Balaram is an Op-Ed by an expert in an adjacent field (but not this one), whereas SBM is a journalistic outlet with an editorial board, publishing news-based pieces. Our view of SBM is based on the consensus summarized at WP:RSP. Importantly, no one has said "Current Science should not be used." I've argued the review from the journal should be cited (for non-disputed content), precisely because it is written by an expert in this topic. However, when it contravenes the consensus of experts, it should be presented as a minority view and in due weight to the coverage of the author/views in independent sources. I'd also like to point out that I personally have described the review much more favorably than the paper published by the Sirotkins, who are americans.

Be careful that in accusing others of bias, you do not attribute malfeasance where simple disagreement may exist.

If you think we are not representative of the community as a whole, you are free to bring this question to WP:RSN. If you do, my suggestion would be to state the facts as neutrally as possible, not drag content disputes into it, and be succinct. Such posts are typically the most successful at RSN. I am not telling you anything you do not already know, as someone with more than 10x as many edits as I have. But this is precisely why I find your comment so troubling. Why argue that other editors are biased when it would be simpler and easier to just broaden the discussion to the relevant noticeboard?

If you think the wikipedia community or the consensus of its editors as a whole is biased and it would not be a fair discussion, then there is nothing I can do to help you. WP:YWAB applies. Out of curiosity, do you also think calling "ivmmeta.com" unreliable is a systemic bias? See: [38] [39] [40] [41] --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I think calling ivmmeta.com unreliable is due to its inherent unreliability as a self-published, non-reviewed, and anonymous source whose methodology has been criticized by experts in evidence-based medicine, but its rightful exclusion as a source is not a systemic bias. But I think it's a fair concern in general that editors be vigilant against being more permissive (less skeptical) of sources that support their own views, even if they are majority views. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Animalparty, As long as we aren't using SBM to support claims that run counter to the consensus of the published literature, I don't see the issue.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

While I share the concerns regarding Science-Based Medicine (unlike some editors), I don't think using this source addresses that problem. I'm not going to discount Balaram P the way I would discount ivmmeta.com, but it's not a source I would rush to use. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

WSJ and CNN Exclusives on US Intelligence

Please add this WSJ to the claims section: https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228

CNN exclusive: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/05/politics/covid-origins-genetic-data-wuhan-lab/index.html

ImmaculateMeddler (talk) 21:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

It's definitely interesting. But I do think just waiting for the full report from the IC after ~40 more days would be better potentially (assuming the spooks declassify it). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, agreed. We are otherwise basically just doing WP:RECENTISM. If anything, we should just transclude the section from the Investigations article on this. Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

That WSJ article (the same as before) was already discussed elsewhere, including at RSN. I could repeat a summary of the main points, but I don't think that will be necessary... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:08, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Add WIV to background section

We need a sentence introducing WIV in the background section. See the rationale and hidden note I provided in this edit summary. Jr8825 • Talk 13:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Isn't that the sentence you edited? The theory is founded upon circumstantial evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is close in proximity to the pandemic's early outbreak in Hubei, China, and suspicions about the secretiveness of the Chinese government's response to the pandemic. Is there a particular clarification you're suggesting? Bakkster Man (talk) 13:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not referring to the lead, I'm talking about the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis#Background section. We don't actually properly introduce the WIV in the article body. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a long introduction, but not mentioning what it is and its location is an oversight. The note I left in the text is where I think this might fit in. Jr8825 • Talk 14:21, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Got you now, I agree. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:35, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I added a few sentences for now, and will try to expand on it later. Seems like it could warrant a dedicated sub-section? Stonkaments (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)