Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Archive 34

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Unclear origin but lab leak possible

This is a nice review in the BMJ from July 2023 discussing new findings and positions. https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1556

We should probably soften our wording here. The cause is unknown and various organizations have various positions on what is most likely. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The current consensus section at top of this page is clear that there is no consensus whether the lab leak theory is considered minority scientific opinion or conspiracy theory. If you want to revisit that then have at it. TarnishedPath^talk 05:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes I read that. The consensus is based on 3 year old sources and that was a reasonable position 3 years ago. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

We keep going round the same point; "it" is not a conspiracy theory (the plain proposition), but it has given risen to an enormous ecosystem of conspiracy theories as soon as any flesh is put on it. Are are we wanting to say that yes it might have been made by the Americans in Fort Detrick (i.e. the Chinese version of the story)? That BMJ piece also gets suckered in the the 'sick workers' misinformation[1] and commits several of the fallacies actual virologists have subsequently complained about (like the 'too much of a cooincidence' line), so is a poor source.

For an even more up-to-date source on Pubmed, perhaps we could consider PMID:37697176 which has (my emphasis)? :

While the American, Australian, and Chinese claims were all theoretically possible, as mentioned, they have now been discredited as there are no good data to support them, and we have to look elsewhere for the “origins” of the new virus. Luckily, here, the evidence is plentiful. A substantial body of knowledge, supported by a great deal of data, favours the original hypothesis of most informed experts: that the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus occurred, like its predecessors, as a result of the well-documented processes of mutation within animal reservoirs followed by cross-species transmission to humans.

Bon courage (talk) 08:05, 19 March 2024 (UTC); 09:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah the journal you cite has an impact factor of less than 1.[2] and has been only around for 20 years. The BMJ has an impact factor of 107 and been around since 1840.

About the sickness of workers the BMJ says "allegedly sick with signs of a respiratory illness" and "It concluded that, although several researchers were “mildly ill” in autumn 2019, “they experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with covid-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to covid-19.” Two of the three researchers named told Science5 that the accusations were “ridiculous,” with one denying being unwell and another pointing out that they work mainly on bioinformatics and not with live viruses."

Not sure you read the BMJ piece... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, okay they do go on to disclaim it. But I'm not sure this BMJ editorial adds anything to what we already say. We have scholarly sources going into more depth on the various lab leak narratives. Bon courage (talk) 09:44, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of the age it's my understanding that new RfCs are required to revisit the results of previous RfCs? TarnishedPath^talk 09:24, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

But to do what? We're not going to say "it" is a conspiracy theory (whatever it is), and we already say a leak is a theoretical possibility. We say there is zero evidence. We say that's it's a magnet for conspiracy theorists and racists. We even go into the weeds about the US spooks. What are we not saying? Bon courage (talk) 09:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The BMJ supports "Many virologists, epidemiologists, and other infectious disease experts still say that all available evidence points to SARS-COV-2 spilling over to humans from an animal host, most likely at a wet market in Wuhan." rather than most so added that. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

There's been some recent research on that. It's "most".[3] ~~ Bon courage (talk) 09:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Interesting "77% probability to a zoonosis, 21% to the lab-leak scenario" making this one of the two main hypothesis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Doc James, the most scientist bit has been discussed here many, many times before and I believe there is consensus on this. TarnishedPath^talk 10:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

With Bon courage’s source I agree. The lab leak is viewed as less probable currently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I am unclear, what is the suggested edit. Slatersteven (talk) 10:01, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposing toning down "highly controversial" to simply "controversial" based on experts feeling that the lab leak hypothesis has a 21% probability based on Bon courage's source.[4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

No particular strong feeling on "highly", but the 21% presumably doesn't include the LL proponents who think the virus was a bioweapon, that it was engineered not to affect Jews, or that virologists should be executed for their supposed role in it. The point is LL is a lot more than just entertaining a possibility, it's also a whole morass of some of the most disgusting and stupid ideas possible. Bon courage (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yah definitely. And all those things you mention are full blown conspiracies. But diseases do sometimes escape labs ala Marburg virus outbreak. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes it has happened. The issue here is that in order for this particular virus to have escaped that lab it would have to had been there in the first place and there is zero credible evidence of that. The evidence we have been presented in the past has been along the lines of 'employees of the lab were amongst the first to get infected from the virus' as if it is of some significance that people living in an area in which they work would catch a highly communicable disease that's going around. TarnishedPath^talk 10:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The evidence is more that they were known to be working with that family of viruses. The sickness bit had no support. Though it is a super common family of viruses. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 or any plausible ancestor virus was in any lab prior to the pandemic. But there were lots of bats: so the 'zoonosis in the lab' (or zoonosis via lab-worker fieldwork) scenario is one at the more respectable end of things that has been discussed.

The problem with this Wikipedia article is that is splices together the extreme fringe Alex Jones-esque topic with the more respectable bare hypothesis (it's possible it might have 'come from' a lab). It would be much better to hive off the 'covid origin conspiracy theory' material and put the respectable stuff in the Origin of COVID-19 article. But this is how the lab-leak proponents on Wikipedia seem to like it. Why, is a puzzle! Bon courage (talk) 12:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Sennalen was doing a great job of trying to balance things out before she got site banned for her troubles - Palpable (talk) 06:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Getting an arbitration block for disruptive/fringe editing across multiple topics[5] (including this one) speaks of an idea of "doing a great job" which is at odds with the Wikipedia community. Bon courage (talk) 08:28, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Their current situation suggests otherwise. TarnishedPath^talk 09:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The DEFUSE proposal is a lot more than just "working with that family of viruses". They described an uncanny number of features of SARS-CoV-2 in 2018. A recently FOIA'd draft even suggested saving money by doing some of the work at BSL-2 in Wuhan.

Yet the current article doesn't even have a sub-sub-section for DEFUSE. - Palpable (talk) 06:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but this is just lore among LL pushers. A proposal for something else that's didn't happen is not relevant to reality. Bon courage (talk) 07:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The article should classify all DARPA baaed theories as strictly conspiracy based. There is zero evidence ANY of this work was performed.

j 184.182.203.105 (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

"Project DEFUSE was a rejected DARPA grant application, that proposed to sample bat coronaviruses from various locations in China.[136] The rejected proposal document was leaked to the press by DRASTIC in September 2021."

Add "One conspiracy theory focuses on Project DEFUSE that was..."

184.182.203.105 (talk) 11:49, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

@DocJames: @Colin: iff you guys are taking an interest in improving this article I can try to contribute.

For an quantitative-minded overview of the evidence I strongly recommend the Bayesian analysis from physicist Michael Weissman [6]. I think Weissman doesn't allow enough space for unknown unknowns, but his well-referenced breakdown of the evidence is useful whether you agree with his numbers or not. - Palpable (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

More Bayesian wank on .. Substack. Seriously? Bon courage (talk) 15:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

That's a remarkably juvenile criticism, based entirely on the URL.

The actual article is a long and careful analysis by a senior physicist who has a side interest in statistics education. So far, one result of his investigation [7] has been published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society and it sounds like there is more to come. - Palpable (talk) 16:23, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

A retired physic professor with no expertise in biomedicine self-publishing on substack is never going to be of interest to Wikipedia. And the bayesian stuff is just a way to lend a science-y veneer to ignorant suppositions fed into the process (this guy seems to think SCV2 was 'pre-adapted' to humans, for example). If his properly published works gets any serious interest get back to us. Bon courage (talk) 16:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, I would encourage anybody with a serious interest in this topic to read Weissman's analysis.

It is a carefully reasoned review of the scientific evidence, and whether you agree with the conclusions or not it will improve your understanding of why many reasonable and intelligent people suspect research involvement.

It is also refreshingly free of the insults and mudslinging that have driven most people away from this topic. - Palpable (talk) 17:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

That's a remarkably juvenile criticism, based entirely on the URL. You may want to familiarize yourself with WP:SELFPUB. Editors are correct to immediately label Substack as unreliable. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm familiar with SELFPUB (and the special Gorski exception). This is the discussion page, it is fine to share articles that would not be considered RS in article space.

If you skim the analysis you will find that it is packed with supporting links, many of which are RS. - Palpable (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If's the usual rubbish that forms the lore of the LL cultists, busily citing each other on Substack. Honestly, who reads this rubbish!? Bon courage (talk) 06:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, part of it has been published in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Proximity ascertainment bias in early COVID case locations.

I don't blame you for being sick of this debate, but if you can't accept new evidence, you have no business gatekeeping here.

For those who want to understand the topic, I still recommend Weissman's analysis. - Palpable (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any point reading substack for the purposes of editing this article. As to the published article, let's see if it gets picked up by any relevant secondary sourcing. Bon courage (talk) 15:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bon courage: I really wish you would make an attempt to engage with people on talk pages in a way that did not involve calling them cultists and rubbish and wank -- it's extremely unpleasant to read, and it actively drives people away from the conversation. jp×g🗯️ 07:48, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

My disdain is not for "people on talk pages" (and I'm not "calling them" anything), but rather for very poor sources being pushed (blog posts). Bon courage (talk) 16:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes but in the real world Weissman is a subject matter expert in statistics who has published on COVID origins in a respectable stats journal. - Palpable (talk) 17:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

He's a retired physicist. Experts on "statistics" are in any case not qualified to make assessments about any biomedical priors they invent to feed into their processes, and this is of no interest since it's in a blog post. As to the published source I wrote "as to the published article, let's see if it gets picked up by any relevant secondary sourcing". Bon courage (talk) 18:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Send a bottle of wine to Gorski and he should be able to pound out something you like pretty quickly. - Palpable (talk) 18:44, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean? Bon courage (talk) 18:46, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Just a reminder of the flexible quality standards for sources here. Enjoy your article. - Palpable (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

If anything here is out of kilter with WP:CONSENSUS and/or WP:PAGs by all means raise it directly, rather than making odd comments about wine? Is this some kind of trolling? Bon courage (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize that would be such a touchy subject. - Palpable (talk) 18:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

You were notified this was a WP:CTOP. I'm going to disengage now because your contributions just look unproductive. Bon courage (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Frankly you seem a little thin-skineed for a guy who goes around flinging accusations about racist conspiracy theories all the time. But I'll strike the reference to wine. - Palpable (talk) 19:08, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

"Of the 1138 experts invited to participate, 168 provided usable data—a pretty low response rate" - not that many experts. Graham Beards (talk) 12:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

What kind of source is this BMJ article? The journal classifies this as a "feature" and Mun-Keat Looi is the BMJ's "International Features Editor". Other "features" on the BMJ are here which seem a mix of UK medical politics and social healthcare concerns. Isn't this a bit more like a magazine article, albeit in a magazine for doctors, than what MEDRS might call a "review". And this article, which is now nearly a year old, was explicitly written in response to the theory being "in the news" again, such as a Sunday Times investigation and a BBC podcast and US "intelligence". On the matter of what the scientific consensus is, the article mentions Michael Worobey, who is themselves a researcher into Covid origins, so might not be independent enough to be a great source for what the consensus is, and cites what they told The Economist, which last time I checked, wasn't a medical journal. So the article is fine for what it is, but it seems to be a tertiary source, based on stuff the author found on the internet, by a non-expert "science" feature writer. -- Colin°^Talk 14:23, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a "feature" which I assume is a kind of news/editorial piece, and not peer-reviewed. Not a terrible source (considering some we've been offered) but not a review article and I don't think it really offers anything new in the mix.

An interesting source is this[8] podcast in which three virologists (Worobey, Andersen & Holmes) talk to two academic about LL, but probably not suitable for use here? Bon courage (talk) 14:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Can we include this podcast as a source in the article? Seems important to include the views of the scientists studying this most closely. 2600:8804:6600:4:4980:DCD1:EEA7:32F2 (talk) 18:06, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so; I think it's a superb source for anybody wanting to understand LL, but we really want more independent/secondary sourcing here for 'accepted knowledge' on this topic. Bon courage (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

This recent Risk Analysis paper suggests that the Lab Leak possibility is rather more likely than the zoonotic one. Strobilomyces (talk) 20:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

That's a primary study which generally fail WP:MEDRS. Graham Beards (talk) 21:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

As noted at the top of this page:

• There is consensus against defining "disease and pandemic origins" (broadly speaking) as a form of biomedical information for the purpose of WP:MEDRS.

Palpable (talk) 05:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

But MEDRS is pertinent to anything biomedical (which you forgot to mention). In any case, the is just primary research doing the making-up-numbers thing with a mathematical veneer, like the rootclaim thing which came out with bizarre probabilities.[9] Pseudosience basically. We won't be going there without reliable sourcing. Bon courage (talk) 08:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This study appears to be an attempt to get headlines to say "covid came from a lab" without actually scientifically demonstrating that. 2600:8804:6600:4:C85E:667E:14B1:53B (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

If it helps this discussion, BBC Science Focus magazine has a rather good appraisal of the the article, quoting respected scientists.

• Leach, Noa (March 15, 2024). "COVID-19 more likely originated from a lab than animals, bold new study claims". BBC Science Focus. Some scientists are trying to get closer to the truth about how the COVID pandemic started – but others question whether that's possible.

In summary: no new evidence, as before anything is possible, dressed up speculation. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Shouldnt this be called a conspiracy theory?

I mean, supposedly and by definition a conspiracy theory is a theory that there has been a conspiracy, which this topic falls right under since the argument is that there was a conspiracy to either engineer or at least hide the origin of the virus. Kasperquickly (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Depends on which version you mean. Slatersteven (talk) 16:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If you just assert "it's possible it may have come from a lab" that's not a conspiracy theory. But beyond that, nearly all the narratives that have been woven very much are conspiracy theories. About the only 'respectable' hypothetical narrative is that lab workers got accidentally infected while handling bat samples in the lab or out in the field, before travelling 15km to the local seafood market where they infected others. And it's debatable whether that scenario counts as a 'lab leak' anyway. Bon courage (talk) 17:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I believe the only possible strict/literal laboratory origin scenario that does not include claims of a conspiracy would be an accidental infection via a sample that had not yet been analyzed where no record would have yet been generated, or failure to discover records of an analysis during investigations. I don't think I've seen this proposed by LLers. Given this and the scenario Bon courage has listed above being the only non-conspiratorial scenarios, it seems safe to label the lab scenario category in general as a conspiracy theory. 2600:8804:6600:4:C85E:667E:14B1:53B (talk) 23:58, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I would be willing to bet money that this specific question has been asked and discussed more than ten times over the course of this talk page's history (there are three failed RMs in the header on that issue alone), so whatever the article says is the result of quite a lot of yelling, and indeed some cyberblood was drawn in the form of sitebans and noticeboard threads. It is probably not a great idea to relitigate it, but I can't stop you if you really want to. jp×g🗯️ 07:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

this sounds like a threat ? Kasperquickly (talk) 08:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Since a admin has placed a one-year moratorium on page move requests (i.e. renaming) running from 5 March 2024, editors kicking off about this are at risk of sanctions. So seeing it as a threat is wise. Bon courage (talk) 08:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Conspiracy stand-alone section

Perhaps it would be useful to move all theories that rely on conspiracies into its own section? This way the few proposals that dont wont have to be associated with the craziness. 2600:8804:6600:4:B803:97C2:78FF:BEFA (talk) 01:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Removed Kialo link in external links

I removed a link to a Kialo discussion on this topic from the external links. It doesn't seem to meet any of the points under WP:ELYES or WP:ELMAYBE. Also, given it's user-generated content it doesn't seem suitable for linking on a contentious topic link this. Unsurprisingly the weightings given to the arguments on Kialo don't accord with the reliable sources in the article and skew towards promoting a lab leak. JaggedHamster (talk) 14:56, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks like that recently-created {{Kialo arguments tree}} is being spammed all over the Project. I have nominated it for deletion. Bon courage (talk) 15:10, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

It's not being "spammed" but linked at a few places at once where it's likely very useful for many readers and usually more useful than the other external links in that section. I'm not surprised it was removed here; the argument map aims to just neutrally show all the arguments from all sides and in a way that is transparent, overseeable, and scrutinizable. I don't see why it would not be a useful resource here. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:31, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Because it's just a site where any joe-know-nothing can create an account and write whatever ignorant statements they want. It seems to have spammed into multiple articles. Bon courage (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

No, claims need to be accepted by debate moderators. If arguments are coherent, relevant and reasonable, they can get included. This is the antidote to ignorant-statement-making in the conventional linear writing that can't be scrutinized and without their relational structure and context visible. I'm not saying these can be useful resources on all articles, just some such as this one. Are you saying Wikipedia is "just a site where joe-know-nothing can create an account and write whatever ignorant statements they want"? Prototyperspective (talk) 16:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia, with its massive number of moderators and 864 admins, is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. User-generated sites don't fare well here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I know but you don't seem to understand that I'm not arguing about whether or not it's a reliable source. It can often be a useful resource. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:52, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I fail to see how opinions from people unrelated to SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan Institute of Virology, virology in general, genome engineering, etc. are useful to this article. Wikipedia is very fussy about anything medical WP:MEDRS. If you wish to read those arguments yourself and use them to debate a case on this talk page, that might be OK, assuming you can find RS to back them up. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:07, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

These are not opinions but arguments extracted from sources like The New York Times or studies. They are just all integrated into one structured map.

…are useful to this article Yes, agree – that's why it is not and cannot be a reference here but is just a useful resource in the EL (that by the way nearly nobody looks at anyway and is contextualized as providing insights about what arguments there have been in the public debate, not as providing information from a select authoritative source). Prototyperspective (talk) 17:17, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

These are not opinions but arguments. Arguments are presentations of opinions. sources like The New York Times. I just looked and very little is sourced to anywhere. Some is sourced to this article. Citogenesis O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

If the majority of lab leak theories are conspiracies, why is MEDRS relevant to this article? 2600:8804:6600:4:2012:A971:5473:A6A4 (talk) 14:37, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

To make sure we reflect reality? Slatersteven (talk) 14:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for additional Admin

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.

---

Reading the talk threads, it seems to me that editor @Bon courage has disproportionate impact on this talk page. Others have commented on the tone used by @Bon courage when speaking to other editors as antagonistic. I agree. It's my suggestion that an additional admin who has not yet contributed would be more helpful for improving this article. The professionalism of @Bon courage, at least on this talk page, seems to be hampered by their ambiguous, unnecessary references to popular opinion, such as in comments like " The hot take on LL at the moment is that it was a ruse sold to the sheeple, and that those who have truly taken the red pill can see LL for the lie it is (as there was no virus)." This type of engagement would not be tolerated in less senior editors or admins, and suggests an abuse of privilege. There are minor editors here trying in earnest to inform the public's encyclopedic search for whether sars-cov-2 and similar viruses may have been tied to laboratory research, and whether it may have accidentally escaped. Thus is a subject which has been given better consideration in the wiki pages covering the earlier SARS outbreaks. We may not like the conclusions the public draws on the information presented, but, for example, if there is a source that can substantiate that any research on sars like viruses was being done on animal vectors in laboratories in Wuhan, that is relevant information and should be provided, if not here then in the pertinent articles. UserSwamp (talk) 13:34, 7 April 2024 (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.

DRASTIC

Now that the main phase of the pandemic is in the rear view window, it's clear to me that the lab-leak advocacy group DRASTIC doesn't pass WP:SUSTAINED, and could adequately be covered in a few sentences in this article. Most of the sources in that article don't even mention DRASIC, but merely debunk claims made by its members. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Good points made here. Perhaps we should prune most if not all mentions of this group. 2600:8804:6600:4:4980:DCD1:EEA7:32F2 (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and redirected the article here.[10] The contents of the DRASTIC article are already covered pretty much in their entirety in this article already, so I don't feel there is need to merge content. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:36, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

excellent work, That page was likely set up by one of the member of that group anyway. 2600:8804:6600:4:4980:DCD1:EEA7:32F2 (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree the DRASTIC article was hugely duplicative. good redirect — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)