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Revision as of 15:22, 26 July 2021 editProcrastinatingReader (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers, Template editors28,756 edits →"Versions" section -- what exactly is this theory?: new sectionTag: New topic← Previous edit Revision as of 15:44, 26 July 2021 edit undoBakkster Man (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users4,264 edits →"Versions" section -- what exactly is this theory?Next edit →
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but "the lab leak theory" is the stuff in ] right? Basically, if I understand correctly, the theory spread under this name is that a natural zoonotic virus found its way into a lab somehow (perhaps by workers collecting samples), possibly was altered through some scientific stuffs (like "gain of function research"), and accidentally someone walked it out of the lab and it made its way into the wider world? The "bioweapon theory" isn't actually the "lab leak theory" right? ] (]) 15:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC) Correct me if I'm wrong, but "the lab leak theory" is the stuff in ] right? Basically, if I understand correctly, the theory spread under this name is that a natural zoonotic virus found its way into a lab somehow (perhaps by workers collecting samples), possibly was altered through some scientific stuffs (like "gain of function research"), and accidentally someone walked it out of the lab and it made its way into the wider world? The "bioweapon theory" isn't actually the "lab leak theory" right? ] (]) 15:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
:Broadly speaking, I'd consider any theory in which the virus was not '''deliberately released''' as ''a'' "lab leak theory". Meaning, potentially, a bioweapon which accidentally released would be a "lab leak", but not necessarily as credible of one as the others. The challenge is, lacking strong epidemiology of the early outbreak, much of the supporting evidence cited to support a lab leak refers to the laboratory's activities and potential markers of such in the virus genetics. So we can't adequately describe any individual theory without explaining each and how they differ, which does make it challenging. ] (]) 15:44, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

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Origins of COVID-19: Current consensus

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

Sources

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

Scholarship

Journalism

Editorials from scholars

Editorials from journalists

Conflicting redirects

COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis and COVID-19 lab leak theory redirect to two separate pages. That can't be right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jikybebna (talk • contribs) 08:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Jikybebna, I agree, that will need to be fixed, if/when this survives AfD and the merge discussion.--Shibbolethink 21:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
After I wrote that comment, someone redirected both pages to "misinformation". Not exactly what I had in mind but it's better than when they were pointed at different pages. Jikybebna (talk) 22:27, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Unblanking

Following this discussion , I am unblanking this page. Pinging involved admins CambridgeBayWeather, ToBeFree, HighInBC and DGG. Courtesy pings to involved editors: Arcturus, Jweiss11, Extraordinary Writ and Jclemens, Loksmythe, Hobit, SmokeyJoe, Robert McClenon, 力, Goszei, Adoring nanny, Almaty, Forich, Terjen Empiricus-sextus, My very best wishes, Kashmiri, SMcCandlish, Drbogdan Geogene, Dream_Focus, and Guest2625. I have also written an essay on why Misplaced Pages should have a page on this hypothesis, regardless of whether it is proven or disproven in the end. Happy editing. CutePeach (talk) 11:20, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: just to make it more clear, we're talking about Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2021 June 7 -- RoySmith (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Hi CutePeach, you have restored the discussed text, with exactly one modification: Removing the maintenance templates. Which part of "this particular draft isn't worth restoring" and "write a new article" in the closure is unclear? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:28, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

@ToBeFree:, this version of the article is different to the deleted one . I was just about to start making improvements and then it got blanked again. Whatever happened to Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is a work in progress? Some of the sections in the body need rewriting for style and clarity, but otherwise the article is largely faithful to the sources cited.

RoySmith, were you aware that this version of the draft was published as an article? Unblanking was clearly alluded to in the deletion review. CutePeach (talk) 12:25, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The deletion review was of a draft. This misreading of the close, and the above ping list heavily loaded with wiki-friends, all smells pretty bad. Alexbrn (talk) 12:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
That revision has way too many issues for it to be reasonable to expect people to vet for policy compliance. It also has the problem of being exhaustingly repetitive on quotes and for omitting a lot of details. I also agree that a new draft should be started. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Ah. I looked at the timestamps and noticed that, as you can verify in Special:Diff/1009196063/1034189301 (2021-02-27 equal to today), the restored revision of the article already long existed at time of the deletion review (2021-06-07). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
@ToBeFree: did the deletion review of the draft have any bearing on this related article? Once we hear back from RoySmith on whether he knew about this article and what Jweiss11,SmokeyJoe and DGG meant about removing the redirect, can you please decide on whether we move this article back to draftspace or unblank it? I have pinged the above editors, not because they are my wiki-friends, but because they have expressed interest in building an encyclopedic entry on this notable topic. CutePeach (talk) 13:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm in two minds about this. On one hand, I'd say a MfD discussion usually doesn't affect a different mainspace article about the same topic as the discussed draft. On the other hand, the exact restored revision did exist during the latest discussion, that discussion happened less than a month ago, and the usual approach to create an AfD discussion about this would probably exhaust the community's patience (IDHT/FORUMSHOP). 😐 The whole situation isn't ideal. The easiest way out of the mess is to write an entirely new article about the topic from scratch, here in mainspace. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
.... which would be a recipe for a fringey WP:POVFORK. Alexbrn (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
...to which a normal response would be improvement or a proper AfD discussion leading to a general result about the topic, not the current content. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
But there's a consensus (at DRV) that the page may exist at that title. I agree with that opinion. I also think restarting in mainspace is better, because in draftspace it's usually just like-minded people working on it, and thus the end product is more slanted on something contentious like this, and then people will call for it to be deleted. That is, in my mind, a procedural wrangling. If it's stubbified and then expanded collaboratively, it's more likely to be NPOV. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
That outcome mentions a "new draft", in bold. Alexbrn (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
I used the word "draft" as well above, but meant the actual definition of the word (ie starting all over again), and not as a shorthand for "the draft namespace". I suspect Roy used it in the same way. The close adds: There was a running thread about the proper use of mainspace vs draft vs userspace vs POVFORK for controversial new article; I don't see any particular consensus there, which in turn means I'm not going to make any statement about where such a new attempt should be written. Draftspace is also not mandated by any policy, for anything, about anything.
@Alexbrn: this revert with the summary POVFORK indicates that you fundamentally disagree with the consensus established at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2021 June 7 and will not accept any article at this title. You cannot simply ignore a community consensus as closed by an uninvolved administrator. If you think it's a POVFORK, gain consensus for your view at WP:AFD. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
@ToBeFree:, I am confused. If this is the text of the deleted draft , then this article is a much improved version, and shouldn’t be affected by the outcome of the MfD. From my understanding, the deletion review was a review of procedure, not the outcome of the MfD. I can start a new article but I just want to understand our predicament better. CutePeach (talk) 13:48, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
There has never been consensus for a standalone article, this is dealt with in the misinformation article and the investigation article, where it makes better sense per WP:NOPAGE. There is no reason to single it out as the one "hypothesis" that needs a special standalone article, and many reasons why this would be a bad idea. Alexbrn (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Let's carry on with the version pointed by RoySmith above. On a related but different note: What ever happened to the OP of the first draft, ScrupulousScribe? Forich (talk) 00:16, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Forich, I think he was indef'd for sockpuppeting. Looks like that was on Feb 19, 2021. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:43, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Stop blanking the page. Multiple editors are working in good faith to get this article into shape, and legislative-style negotiation over non-public drafts is not how we best do things. The topic in general is clearly encyclopedic, and the material we have so far is very well-sourced, so it's simply a matter of polishing out any accidental or (at least in theory) intentional WP:OR or WP:POV-pushing that could be present, and keeping this within WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE limits.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:05, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Verifiable vs Non-verifiable Claims

Please note that I have replaced "Wuhan Institute of Virology" with "a lab in Wuhan, China” as most proponents of the lab leak hypothesis do not implicate the WIV directly, such as Richard Ebright in this Counterpunch article . If we are going to mention the WIV, it should be in the main body of the article, where the connection is properly explained. CutePeach (talk) 15:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Most sources do, however. This article isn't about the promoters of the lab leak theory, it's about the RS coverage of it. WIV should be mentioned in some way, if not in the opening sentence. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:18, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Well said, —PaleoNeonate – 20:07, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
PaleoNeonate, ProcrastinatingReader, agreed. We cannot diminish what most RSes say, which is that the WIV is the primary location implicated in this theory. It's what WP:DUE tells us to do.--Shibbolethink 20:17, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Some issues

Let's consider this version. Expansion would require including who promotes and promoted it, resulting in a similar article to the content at the misinformation article and perhaps information on the investigations one, both already more complete (and would be redundant)... —PaleoNeonate – 15:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

There can be overlap on content between articles; in fact, there often is. It doesn't help (per current consensus #1) we have no agreement on the best article for some of this information, and some of those articles can probably be trimmed with a link to this article. The misinformation article is 95k chars of readable prose, which is near the limit of WP:SIZERULE
That being said, legitimate content has consistently been removed from those two articles, not due to fringe reasons or NPOV concerns, but simply because it (apparently) doesn't fall within scope. On the former, it's usually Alexbrn who removes citing "this article is about misinformation, which that is not". On the latter, it's usually others who say the added content is not relevant enough to the subject of the article. So a lot of information can be added here that doesn't fit within the others. If this article shouldn't exist, the case needs to be made at AfD, not by sheer force. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Were you aware of the various previous incarnations that were deleted per consensus? Also, although one review closer supported it above, the closing statement was for a draft article. But with the current stub, we at least don't sport a huge misinformation article in mainspace... —PaleoNeonate – 15:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Note: I sound like complaining above, but if an article was to eventually exist, it definitely needed WP:TNT so I thank you for your initial restart, —PaleoNeonate – 23:26, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Motivations

The article mentions Trump and allegations of racism, but missing is the attempt to sanction China in hope to offset a monumental domestic management failure, —PaleoNeonate – 15:59, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I added something along those lines. If you know of other sources feel free to add. Separately, a list of good articles (scholarly and media) would be helpful in expanding the article, as I believe a lot has been lost over time. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
I think the source of most of the problem is the absence from this article of the elephant in the room: the bait-and-switch pushed by right wing media that takes tentative support for the possibility of a lab leak and turns this into a plea for false equivalency between the zoonotic and lab origin hypotheses. Lab origin has, as far as I can tell, virtually no serious support: all the available genetic and other evidence points to a zoonotic origin, and a lab origin is implausible for a number of reasons. Wuhan is a logical place to be studying a novel zoonotic coronavirus, and a leak from the lab as the origin of onward transmission has not been definitively ruled out - if it is even possible to do so. I think it's important to separate virus-origin with pandemic-origin here, especially with the disinformation being published by NewsCorp in Australia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.240.157 (talk • contribs)
I consider this covered at current time. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 19:42, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Merge proposal

As a central discussion, broader than the proposed merge to a specific article, exists now at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, any arguments for and against merging, redirecting, deletion or any other measure should be placed there. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

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.

COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis --> Investigations into the origin of COVID-19

This article is totally redundant with the coverage of the topic at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, as well as Wuhan Institute of Virology and COVID-19 misinformation. Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 should be the main article that discusses the lab leak claims, and there is no need for a second article that duplicates the coverage, especially with the current two paragraphs the article has now. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support Merge. Agreed. I think the very nature of the Investigations article tells us that it will have the exact same DUE/UNDUE requirements as this new article, and therefore will very likely duplicate entirely the contents. And where it does not duplicate, it will very likely become a POVFORK, serving as a slightly less frequented article to hang POV statements. This is a bit analogous to the relationship between CIA Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory and John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories. And it takes only a quick glance over the former to see how messy of a situation that is, full of POVFORK-type inclusions and FRINGE content not properly contextualized with the mainstream view. I think we should avoid that fate at all costs.
For an example of this done well, I would point to Moon landing Hoax Claims section of the Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories article. This second set is a situation where the notability and DUE nature of any content in one article should mirror exactly the other, and so they are the same article, one a subsection of the other. If we are to do an expansion of this section of the Investigations article, with careful attention paid to NPOV and RSUW, then I think that would be much preferable to an independent article.--Shibbolethink 20:25, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose merge/delete A lot of reliable sources are now covering this, so the situation has changed. There is enough valid sourced information to make an article. I started at Dream Focus 20:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

You're not proposing merging, defined at WP:MERGE as A merger is the process of uniting two or more pages into a single page. It is done by copying some or all content from the source page(s) into the destination page and then replacing the source page with a redirect to the destination page. You're saying the page is redundant to existing ones, and you're proposing effectively deleting it. So I don't understand why nobody wants to open an AFD? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:08, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Because an AfD implies the topic is not notable, which is incorrect. There would be a lot of kneejerk AfD votes that would go "!keep obviously notable" without even addressing the deletion rationale. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Well, according to the first sentence of WP:N, "notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." Isn't this the subject of the discussion? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:20, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Many people at AfD's don't actually properly read the deletion rationale, and AfD's are only actively attended by a relatively small number of users. A AfD is likely to devolve into a long contenious discussion, similar to that seen for the MfD essays on this topic, which is something I am trying to avoid. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Don't think either are true. AfD regularly deals with arguments based on NPOV/BLP/OR/other policies, successfully and as the primary venue. It has a reputation of doing so with high participation and wide diversity in policy arguments, the discussions are widely advertised, close after 7 days, and provide conclusive judgement. The merge process is plagued participation issues, is a poorly organised system, and discussions remain open for indefinite periods of time. No matter, I am happy to oblige and make a procedural nomination myself, and hopefully we can get a firm conclusion to this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Okay, I've started Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:01, 18 July 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.

"Accidental lab leak of a natural virus" vs "accidental leak of a modified virus" vs "intentional bioweapon"

We need to include all three of these in this article, because all of these, except 'intentional bioweapon' are easily described as part of a "lab leak" in the common vernacular. The bioweapon theory must be differentiated from this hypothesis, so it merits a small inclusion in this article as well.

We cannot continue to muddy these terms any further, and when we discuss them here, we really need to be very specific. Or else this article descends into the fate of basically every other COVID-19 origins article, namely arguing past each other for paragraphs and paragraphs. Differentiation of these things is key, and including discussion of all of them is key. See also a similar discussion at the COVID-19 wikiproject.--Shibbolethink 21:02, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Those are very different things. Option 1 implies zoonotic/natural origin of the virus. In fact, all pathogens ever leaked from labs (even labs involved in bioweapons programs in the USSR) had natural origin. There is a huge confusion in publications about this with regard to COVID-19. My very best wishes (talk) 00:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree quite strongly with Shibbolethink in this matter. jp×g 02:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Noting my agreement too. If we're going to have an article on this, we must make the difference clear (as, however, is also already done, if a bit clumsily, at COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_lab_origin). There's likely also something that can be found on the confusion between the different hypotheses itself - there's this where the author writes that

The risk of conflation is not simply due to the audience’s inattentiveness. It also results from how the lab-leak theory has previously been reported. Until recently, it was itself categorised as a conspiracy theory. In early March 2020, for instance, a widely circulated open letter published in The Lancet condemned as “conspiracy theories” all hypotheses suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t have a natural origin. This meant it was lumped together with the idea that the virus was deliberately created as a biological weapon. In turn, this creates problems when politicians later try to rehabilitate the lab-leak theory: if one supposed conspiracy theory turned out to be credible, some might wonder whether other related conspiracy theories might be credible too.

Of course, how much weight is DUE for this is another question, but sources exist is what I'm saying. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

There are actually two additional lab leak related theories which are not captured, ref:. The first being a deliberate infection of a natural virus. The second, somewhat a variation of the accidental lab leak of a natural virus but implying not so much a "leak" but rather indirectly the relocation of collected of live bats and bat-related samples to Wuhan by the WIV contributed to a natural spillover event in Wuhan indirectly; inadvertently aided by the WIV. For all these five different theories, it is important to weight the RELATIVE evidence of each and every theory against it's alternatives, rather than simply to weight scientific publications sprouting WP:RS. There is for example, overwhelming improbability of the spillover event occuring at the wet-market which the PRC blamed; especially given limited sale of bats and the immediate coverup of other facts by the WIV and PRC; for example around the mis-sequencing of samples and access to WIV databases. Whilst many lab leak theories either are (or border on) being unsubstantiated conspiracies it's no less ridiculous than the wet-market story which somehow still remains in WP mainspace despite being completely unsubstantiated... PRC information operatives at play perhaps? Aeonx (talk) 13:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

"The first being a deliberate infection of a natural virus." Is there a reliable source you can point to which considers this a credible possibility? Bakkster Man (talk) 16:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I could and the nature article I referenced already includes this as one of the possibilities. However I'm not going to. Why? Because I loathe to descent this talk page into a discussion about what is and isn't WP:RS and what is/isn't WP:DUE before we've even established the various scope and aspects that are reported. As I already mentioned, all of these ideas are theories, so you're question about credibility should first be clarified. What is credible when it comes to limited information and the possible presence of deliberate cover-up and misinformation?

There are ongoing issues that seem to mean that some totally ludicrous and in-credible origin stories about Wet-Market exist in mainspace and I dare say the same standard of credible WP:RS has not been followed, instead relying on news reports and PRC reporting, which we know is historically manipulative. Aeonx (talk) 21:56, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

"news reports and PRC reporting"? I didn't know that American WP:NEWSORG (such as CNN, WSJ, NYT, WaPo, et al.) - the same kind of sources that have been reporting on the lab leak in a more positive light than serious scholarship - were "PRC reporting": you might want to make sure your arguments actually make sense and are not just vague insinuations and subtle personal attacks? Misplaced Pages is neither a battleground nor a debating society. On the other hand, you're always free to suggest additional scholarly sources (the same kind on which much of this is based) to improve the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:10, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment. Here is why this is really important, among other things. In response to claims that a virus of natural origin accidentally escaped from a lab, Chinese representatives respond essentially this: "No, this virus is of natural origin. Therefore, it did not escape from any lab" This is nonsense, an intentional misinterpretation. When combined with refusal to cooperate with WHO, this sounds to me almost as a self-admission of guilt. My very best wishes (talk) 14:04, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
    When I hear the same stupid shit again and again, then, when someone suddenly proposes something that sounds like the same stupid shit at first but is actually a different stupid shit, sometimes I do not notice it and respond as if it were the first stupid shit. This could be what happened to the Chinese representatives here. We should not construct articles around your original research which ignores Hanlon's Razor. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:30, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

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 Misplaced Pages.
  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: Misplaced Pages: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)

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)

Scientific background section WP:UNDUE?

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 Misplaced Pages.
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:
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, Misplaced Pages 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)
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 Misplaced Pages 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 , then we should also provide his later clarifications from newer sources , 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 , then we should also mention the reported map data errors in the WHO’s report as reported by Eva Dou in WaPo . 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 ? 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)
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)

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)

Daszak

Regarding this removal. It's inevitable that Daszak is going to be covered in this article in some form or another. The two main events driving a resurgence of the theory are: the WSJ report, and the Daszak mess. The coverage of him is not exactly favourable in sources. Although there's no consensus of any intentional wrongdoing, the sources do agree that The Lancet report at the time stigmatised discussion on the issue and appears dodgy. I don't see how total exclusion of that content is justifiable, really. Naturally it'll need tweaking for NPOV as it was written by one user; I tried to copyedit it slightly but I'm not familiar with all of the sources on that issue so perhaps people could try do that rather than delete? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The issue has been handled relatively well at Daszak's own biography. But turning this article into a raft of absurd accusations against Daszak would be highly inappropriate: effectively suggesting that the lab leak idea has merit because we should somehow doubt one of the world's top experts on this topic. Daszak's work remains the consensus on this issue because virologists and infectious disease ecologists know their stuff and agree with him. For our purposes, journal article publications by other scientists overwhelmingly support Daszak's scientific work and publishing. -Darouet (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Those two pieces of correspondence in journals (not peer reviewed) are criticised by investigative journalists. Scientists don't have a monopoly on conflict of interest allegations, and it remains a well covered aspect of the issue in reliable sources and is quite central to the theory. Which policy allows for the removal of one paragraph of well sourced unflattering content? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Interestingly, the coverage on his own article (Peter_Daszak#COVID-19_pandemic) takes a similarly negative tone: The letter has been criticized by Jamie Metzl for embodying "poor science", and by Katherine Eban of Vanity Fair as having had a "chilling effect" on scientific research and the scientific community by implying that scientists who "bring up the lab-leak theory... are doing the work of conspiracy theorists". According to emails obtained by FOIA, Daszak was the primary organizer of the letter, and had communicated with colleagues while drafting and signing the letter to "conceal his role and creat the impression of scientific unanimity.". It also caused controversy since Daszak did not disclose that his EcoHealth Alliance group had an existing relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with some alleging that this was an apparent conflict of interest. In June 2021, The Lancet published an addendum in which the April 2020 letter's authors were asked to update their competing interest disclosures. As the only author to do so, Daszak listed his cooperation with researchers in China. So you'll have to explain the problem here? You don't think those things (eg a letter producing a "chilling effect" on the discussion of this article's subject) are things that should be mentioned here? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I think the topics you mention (the "chilling effect" of the letter, and the later COI statement) are absolutely notable on this topic. Regarding the original diff mentioned, it had some serious NPOV/OR/WTW issues ("objective evaluation of a lab origin by the scientific community was halted" and "small group of researchers who were funded to study pandemic causing viruses" both being problematic, and that's just the opening sentence). Important topic, definitely needed a rewrite from what was originally there. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Well, I didn't write it. While I agree it needed copyediting for tone at minimum, I think as a rule it would've been better to do that than full removal. I attempted to correct some of it and I think that was a reasonable base for further modifications. I just think it's less likely to be a testing editing process to try build on others' contributions rather than delete, unless there is absolutely nothing to build on (such as in the most recent section I removed). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I removed another paragraph, but that one should stay, agree with Bakkster Man. There are two things here. (a) there was indeed a COI as a matter of fact (this is nothing special, a lot of people have COI with regard to something). (b) a letter by scientists (basically an opinion letter) was criticized by people who disagree - this is fine to include if properly worded. My very best wishes (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I'll add that the notable (and out of the ordinary) item was not the COI itself, but the lack of disclosure until the following year. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:49, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
True. Things like that can be even regarded as a scientific misconduct which undermines his credibility on this issue. My very best wishes (talk) 19:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
I'll write more on this later - sorry for delay - but this article is about the lab leak idea, not about how one of the leading researchers on this topic can't be trusted. Such a focus would become a coatrack and a mechanism for implying, but not arguing outright, that we should discount the science on SARS-CoV-2, and one of its leading scientists. If any part of this is mentioned, we can note the allegation very briefly, and then note why it's the case that this doesn't seem particularly relevant to scientists interested in or studying the origins of SARS-CoV-2. There's a ton written about the political motivations of the attacks on Daszak and that should receive more prominent mention, as it helps explain the lab leak idea in the larger context of scientific consensus on the issue. -Darouet (talk) 07:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
It's covered in the context of the investigation, by several reliable sources. It's noted as having a chilling effect on the investigation, by several reliable sources. The effective derailing of an investigation is clearly (according to several reliable sources) an important event to be noted in the article of that investigation. It's the reliable sources that decide what is relevant to a topic. There is nothing unreliable in the slightest about The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Conversation, an investigative journalist at Vanity Fair, etc. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:48, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I generally agree. To cover the history, we should mention the alleged chilling effect of the letter as described in the sources we have, and the renewed openness after the WHO report was published. One sentence on the Daszak COI disclosure is worth noting in the context of the letter, I wouldn't suspect anything more or less to be likely to be appropriate. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
this article is about the lab leak idea, not about how one of the leading researchers on this topic can't be trusted absolutely, —PaleoNeonate – 20:06, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Text copied from SARS-COV-2 main article to here

Per my comments above and the discussion there, I've copied text and sources (but have not transcluded) from Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2#Reservoir and origin to this article, COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis#Scientific consensus on likely natural zoonosis from bats. I or other editors might copy additional material, and possibly modify it slightly, from that article into into one in order to contextualize the discussion about a possible laboratory origin with strong scientific references.

Per User:ProcrastinatingReader, I am copying rather than transcluding, so that we can decide what to include at a more granular level. I'm hesitant to take this approach because it can be used to shift text away from what scientific editors have added at SARS-CoV-2 and towards a pro-leak viewpoint that is right dismissed by most scientists. Nevertheless I'm adopting the copying approach in the hopes that we can avoid that pitfall. -Darouet (talk) 12:01, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

You can see the diff of the copying here . -Darouet (talk) 12:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That seems like a good start to me. There's probably more that can be added, but there are editors better versed on the science than me. Perhaps Novem Linguae? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, looks good to me. I'm sure some other people will take a crack at it too :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Furin cleavage site

There needs to be some discussion of the genetic arguments that COVID-19 was designed here, I think? Specifically arguments such as Nicholas Wade's arguments about the furin cleavage site? I haven't looked into this in enough depth to want to write the whole thing unassisted, but my brief analysis has suggested that MEDRS sources are pretty clear that Wade (and others) are simply incorrect here regarding the importance of the CGG codon, and the text will need to make that clear. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree that we should include a discussion of it, but only where it is covered (and how it is covered) in reliable secondary sources. Examples from the sources list at the top of this talk page:
We need those secondary RSes to tell us how to frame our discussion of the Wade piece and couch it in the mainstream scientific view that they source from other primary sources (scientists, articles, etc). Sorry, I want to make clear I think you probably agree with me on this, just wanted to put it out there. :) --Shibbolethink 23:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
You forgot the paper by Frutos, which explicitly addresses the claims about the "uncommon" codons and many others; and there's also the discussion that was had here for sources about the FCS. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
RandomCanadian, Ah yes thank you, that is an important source I forgot they talked about it as well. Agree Frutos et al. should be in the mix here. Here's the link: .--Shibbolethink 00:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Problems with the Who investigation

We should quote exactly what those involved said. What I wrote in a different draft I think explain the situation well:

WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated: "Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts". The WHO team investigating the virus's origin were not allowed to do a full audit of the Wuhan lab. He later stated it was "premature" to dismiss the lab leak as the origin of the virus.

Over two dozens experts signed an open letter calling for a proper investigation in China specifically to determine if a lab leak happened from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Their complaints about the previous investigation was that China was given veto power over who was allowed to be on the investigation team. Peter Daszak, who has a long-time collaboration with the Wuhan lab, was on the team. Other complaints were that they weren't allowed to enforce international protocols, they weren't allowed to demand access to records or samples at the lab, nor talk to any key personnel there.

Former CDC director Robert Redfield stated he believes COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab. He also states the WHO were compromised.

The WHO-China investigation team did write in their report: “The closest known CoV RaTG13 strain (96.2%) to SARS-CoV-2 detected in bat anal swabs have been sequenced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. Such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.”

References

  1. "The WHO's leader said its investigation into whether the coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab was not 'extensive enough'". www.msn.com.
  2. "The WHO's Chief Says It Was Premature To Rule Out A Lab Leak As The Pandemic's Origin". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-07-19.
  3. "What happened in Wuhan? Why questions still linger on the origin of the coronavirus". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
  4. Exclusive: Former CDC director believes COVID-19 came from Wuhan lab, retrieved 2021-06-15
  5. "WHO-China report on coronavirus's origin conflicts with declassified US intelligence". Washington Examiner. 2021-03-30. Retrieved 2021-06-21.

Dream Focus 08:47, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

It has to be covered up to some point considering that it's among arguments used to dismiss the legitimacy of the official investigations. It's already covered in 3.4 Accidental release of a natural virus at the moment, however. There's an empty subsection about RaTG13, but it's also covered in the current Scientific background section (not a direct ancestor). —PaleoNeonate – 19:10, 20 July 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 . 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. Misplaced Pages 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 . 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 . 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 Misplaced Pages . 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 Misplaced Pages: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 , 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

Claims and rebuttals

Unfortunately this presentation invites typical WP:GEVAL: "foo says this but bar says that". It may be unavoidable but could be mitigated by formulating the paragraphs with care and avoiding to attribute the mainstream scientific view where possible (vs claims and public opinion, per WP:YESPOV). —PaleoNeonate – 19:22, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, agreed that it is risky. But it is similar to the approach taken at Moon landing conspiracy theories, which is also a heavily contentious article. I think if done well, it can make everybody happy. Because it puts the steel-manned arguments forward, and then knocks them down. But of course that will require very very delicate craftsmanship, agreed.--Shibbolethink 19:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate: That's what I'm trying to do with the #Deliberate genetic engineering subsection (to begin with). It probably needs to be done with the others too. Is the current format good? i.e. , "Somebody notably said X. Scientists say X is bollocks for reasons Y and Z". Or do you have better suggestions? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, and for things that are not discussed in reliable sources and are only supported by primary or dubious sources, they are likely simply undue and should be omitted. I spent a few hours reading a number of sources earlier today and noticed that no credible source presents such pro/con lists. Various mention the scientific consensus that a lab leak is considered unlikely, especially as a pandemic origin. We often find the standard "cannot be ruled out" or "more information is needed", etc, that conspiracists tend to transform into "yes" shows (and unfortunately even Fox News does this, misleading many, some sources mention this fact). As we know, that's not new and happens with ufology like cherry picking in a recent report, it happens with dubious medicines and pseudoscientific medicinal treatments, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 20:44, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Hmm for a better answer to your format question I'll come back later after having reread the current state of the article, I might also boldly copy-edit... —PaleoNeonate – 20:47, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Lancet IRT speculation

IRT Special:Diff/1034473522, the intended emphasis was not "more investigation needed", but that it was a call for legitimate scientific investigations by the scientific community, resulting from the widely disseminated unwarranted/hasty speculation. Another editor had also tagged it as primary, so maybe it can be left out for now... —PaleoNeonate – 19:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. A claim like that (which is contentious and concerns contentious stuff that has easily escalated to edit wars in the past) needs to be sourced with a high quality secondary RS which has a very close interpretation to the statement.--Shibbolethink 19:41, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I wasn't even aware when I originally inserted this source that a huge controversy was created around one of its authors. If used, it would need to be with a secondary source that mentions both this paper's position as well as how controversy was fabricated... —PaleoNeonate – 20:49, 21 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 . 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-theoryAs 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, Misplaced Pages 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 —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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages: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. .
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)

Another source from Github

UNRELIABLE SOURCE There's a clear consensus (four editors highlighting many issues and WP:REDFLAGS with the document) that this is not a usable source, even for a pro-leak POV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:41, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

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.


I just want to point out that there is this good Link to Github, which is a really nice summary of the lab leak hypothesis. May be good for some sources https://project-evidence.github.io/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.223.75.224 (talk) 22:17, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

The conclusion section is a good summary of this document. Looks like a list of pro-lab leak sources and arguments. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:50, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Just me, or do these look like primarily WP:SELFPUB circumstantial evidence, with not a bit of reliable WP:SCHOLARSHIP? Didn't dig too far because none of it was formatted clearly enough to know what I was clicking into, but if someone else can dig the reliable sources from it knock yourself out. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:54, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree. I'm seeing some red flags. Such as the assertion that WIV was engaging in the creation of chimeric coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is a mosaic virus. Maybe some Wikipedian with expertise has time to spend on deciphering all this, but I'll be sticking to the best sources we've found on this topic. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:58, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Yep, this is almost entirely WP:OR, based on primary sources that often do not say what the authors have cited them to say. For example, their citation of the SHC014 paper completely misunderstands where/how the research was conducted, as it was at the Baric lab, not the WIV. Their citation of the bat COVs paper in 2007 also completely misunderstands that paper, asserting that it involved chimeric viruses, when it involved mostly pseudoviruses (which cannot replicate, they are more aptly described as "Virus-like particles (VLPs)") which are actually the basis for vaccines, not bioweapons. That's just the first two links I clicked. They also cite the "Huang Yanling" conspiracy theory, for which no actual evidence exists (and has been debunked by experts numerous times). They also cite the "Canadian Lab" conspiracy theory that is not only unsupported by evidence, it misunderstands which viruses are which . I also LOL'd when I read this: "If an infected animal was indeed the culprit, why did it fail to infect a single person outside of the market?" which means these folks either don't know about, or have completely ignored, all the evidence we have supporting pre-market spread in Wuhan/Hubei. I presume there are more errors here, as it does not appear these individuals have any qualifications to understand the papers they cite. No virologist or biodefense researcher would make such simple mistakes. I would echo Novem Linguae in saying that, as a wikipedian with expertise, I don't want to spend the time necessary to decipher this, and I think the cursory survey of their scientific rationale I just went through means no one should. It isn't worth our time.--Shibbolethink 23:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
  • This document ... examines the probability that each claim is true to allow the reader to make his or her own conclusions. and An earlier version of this document referred to us as "Project E.P.S.T.E.I.N." Yeah, I'm done; that's too much of a red flag. This blatantly isn't MEDRS compliant and I wouldn't use it as a source even for non-MEDRS statements. If there are useful links in the document, someone else can find them. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:15, 20 July 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.

A reality check from BBC News

The lab-leak idea is now being described as an "unproven theory" - not a "conspiracy theory". BBC no longer appears to support using that term, which appears nowhere in this 980-word Reality Check. "Coronavirus: Was US Money Used to Fund Risky Research in China?" BBC News, 23 July 2021. –Dervorguilla (talk) 08:45, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

@Dervorguilla: There are different versions of the lab leak. Some of them (anything that claims deliberate engineering, notably) have been thoroughly refuted by scientists and are still conspiracy theories, based on the WP:BESTSOURCES (scientists in relevant fields writing review articles in relevant journals). The one version that isn't is properly differentiated as such at the bottom of the #Versions section. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Your parenthetical policy restatement ("scientists … in relevant journals") is good creative prose. If you go reread the WP:BESTSOURCES policy description, though, you'll find a quotebox right above it that cites BBC Trust's policy on science reporting.
BBC News isn't a scientific journal – yet we can nonetheless treat it as an eminently authoritative high-quality source here, per BESTSOURCES policy. (Look online for the most reliable resources … or ask at the reference desk.) –Dervorguilla (talk) 03:11, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Citing BBC News when BESTSOURCES explicitly says "Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look online for the most reliable resources." is quite a bit of a misreading of that. You're supposed to look deeper than the newspaper, which is what I and others have painstakingly done whenever challenged - see examples here and here. WP:SOURCETYPES is also quite clear. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Some scholarly material may be outdated…. Try to cite current scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent. Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Clear enough for me! –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
"Outdated" could apply if the material in question was several years old. Journal articles from a few months or even a year ago are certainly not "outdated", especially not when they keep getting cited by their peers, and especially not when more recent articles do not disagree with them. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
I scanned through the article, and none of our uses of the word "conspiracy" seem out of place. There have been others which I've removed, but broadly speaking looks good right now. We're either using past tense (was considered, chilling effect, change in reporting, etc), attributing minority opinions, or accurately describing the way the theory was weaponized politically. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
A reason why both are intertwined is also that for it to be the case one must suspect a lot of people to have hidden information and lied, including scientists there are no valid reasons to doubt, other than having international scientific relationships, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 14:17, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
The BBC is very politically correct, as recently as 2018 they referred to the JFK incident as "cover-up", the word "conspiracy" only appearing when quoted by others. It would not surprise me that they referred to it as an unproven theory, but we all know that if it was, and it was covered up, there would have to have been a conspiracy to do so. It's a bit like the "sprint" qualifying at Silverstone last weekend, it definitely was not a race, even though it was a race. Chaosdruid (talk) 02:44, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Altered timeline of events

FormalDude you altered the timeline of events with your removal of well-sourced content that you call an unsourced description of speculation by social media users that is not encyclopedic . Both the Caixin and BBC Chinese pieces reference these social media users / netizens, and one can argue that in a country where mainstream media is censored, social media should matter. We are not citing the social media content directly, but the UPI, Caixin and BBC Chinese sources. Please restore the content and source you removed so that our readers can know the hypothesis was formed in China by netizens and scientists there, and not in the USA by politicians and conservative media pundits. Perhaps someone here can also add the Feb 6 2020 paper by the Chinese scientist couple Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, which is well covered in reliable sources , as they were, in fact, the first scientists to make the inference, and no one has heard from them since. CutePeach (talk) 17:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach, the source does not support the claim at all. There's no mention in that article about social media users nor netizens. ––FORMALDUDE 00:37, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Serious BLP Violations

Jr8825 your removal of the widely reported Cotton saga is contentious, but your edits here put the false claim that Pompeo and Trump alleged that the virus was created as a bioweapon, which is a very serious WP:BLP violation. This needs to be removed immediately.

Neither Cotton, nor Pompeo or Trump made such an allegation. There was a discussion on this with Guy Macon here and another discussion with Bakkster Man here , clarifying this misconception. The Jan 2021 "Fact Sheet" put out by the USDOS mentioning Secret military activity at the WIV , is not an allegation by Pompeo or Trump that the virus was created as a bioweapon. It was a very carefully vetted document that has also cited by the Biden Administration, which we discussed here with Pkeets My very best wishes Thucydides411, Shibbolethink and Bakkster Man . I don't care how we want to present this information, but we definitely should not use it to misprepresent Pompeo and Trump's position.

This is perhaps an innocent mistake by Jr8825, but it is revealing of a bias by certain bias editors who demand to go through the WP:BRD on every little comma and discuss their WP:SELFPUB opinions lest you get dragged to AE on trumped up charges of misconduct . Bakkster Man and Shibbolethink, I kept this post saved in my Evernote since yesterday afternoon, just to see if either one of you would spot it, but I have to go to sleep now, so good night. The particular nature of this matter also puts the WP:LIE to point #19 in Shibbolethinks’s AE post, which should tell you something about the rest of his points. Tagging ToBeFree, DGG, Valereee, HighinBC, CaptainEek and El_C. CutePeach (talk) 17:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

My edits were intended to improve the paraphrasing of the source so that the text more closely followed the existing inline citation. See The Conversation; Peter Knight, Professor of American Studies, University of Manchester : "The general lab-leak theory, along with hints that the virus might have been designed as a bioweapon, were promoted by Trump, US senator Tom Cotton, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. All had previous form in using conspiracy rhetoric to blame America’s woes on enemies without and within." The only issue is that the source does not mention Pompeo, which is my mistake as his name was already in the text previously, I will remove it now. Jr8825 • Talk 18:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Jr8825 I realise it was an innocent mistake on your part and thank you for fixing it. This Conversationlist opinion piece is not a good enough source for this WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim, so its still a BLP violation. Please see the sources in the above linked discussions. I really need to go to sleep now. CutePeach (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
How is "Trump and other politicians said X" an exceptional claim? That was widely reported in many sources (whether we want to cite all of these sources, or whether we're satisfied with citing one analysis by an academic, is another issue). WP:REDFLAG makes a nice list of what is an "exceptional statement which requires exceptional evidence". This doesn't seem to be such a kind of statement. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:40, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps relevant: This one is not about direct claims by Trump or Pompeo, but relevant IRT a previous closed (as in to avoid scrutiny) program https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/biden-shut-down-trump-effort-coronavirus-chinese-lab/index.html later determined to have been inconclusive and misguided when evaluated, then the program shut down. And "The State Department project began in late 2020, months after Pompeo and President Donald Trump first claimed that the virus could have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In May 2020, Pompeo claimed there was "enormous evidence" and a "significant amount of evidence" to support the claim -- despite the US intelligence community saying there was no definitive answer as to precisely where and how the virus began transmitting." It was compared to the Iraq stove pipe by this source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/27/did-covid-come-from-a-wuhan-lab-what-we-know-so-far . I'm not saying that this would necessarily be the first in a timeline if earlier items are also properly documented in independent sources, of course. —PaleoNeonate – 21:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Also adding: when well cited to sources considered generally reliable (WP:BLPRS), it's not a BLP violation to echo them. If those sources are retracted, then other sources should be used or the supported material also removed. —PaleoNeonate – 22:52, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Just to further emphasise, if anyone feels they can provide a better summary of the sourcing on this (or are more well-read than me) please go ahead and adjust the sentence accordingly. As I mentioned above, my edits were made from a copy-editing perspective as the previous wording was unclear and grammatically poor, and although I've read a moderate amount, that specific change was very much based on the existing inline refs. Jr8825 • Talk 23:43, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
I can't help much here, Jr8825. This material appears to be a (partly) original interpretation of a source for a contentious allegation about a public figure. Without multiple sources, it needs to get removed, per WP:BLPREMOVE and WP:BLPPUBLIC. I also question its prominence of placement (per WP:DUE). --Dervorguilla (talk) 07:46, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
While I expect there's plenty of sourcing to support the assertion those figures promoted misinformation, I'm inclined to agree with you here – I'm not certain they're central enough to the lab leak theory to warrant inclusion in the lead (perhaps they are, again, I haven't read sufficiently extensively here). I agree there are potential BLP concerns, although this might be addressable with additional sourcing as PaleoNeonate suggested. Jr8825 • Talk 09:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
I'll add that we need to be very clear with what we cite, and when the citation is from. As our article describes, while a news article last November might have described the suggestion of an accidental lab leak as "promoting conspiracy theories", that would no longer be the way the source would describe it. As further reason to avoid the lede, it's going to be difficult to lump so many public figures together, particularly when the statements by (for instance) Cotton were very different from the funding and advocacy of Bannon. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 26 July 2021

It has been proposed in this section that COVID-19 lab leak theory be renamed and moved to COVID-19 lab leak claims.

A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.

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COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis → ? – Please place your rationale for the proposed move here. ––FORMALDUDE 04:05, 26 July 2021 (UTC) More than a few editors mentioned a rename during the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis.

I would like to propose we keep the page and give it another name: COVID-19 lab leak claims

Pinging user who mentioned the title in the AfD discussion (with no expectation to participate, just a courtesy): Berchanhimez, Shibbolethink, Dhawk790, Czello, Chaosdruid, Jr8825, XOR'easter, Crossover1370. Also pinging users who took part in the previous merge discussion: Hemiauchenia, Dream Focus, ToBeFree. ––FORMALDUDE 01:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Support claims. Much more neutral and avoids the entire issue re: hypothesis vs. theory and scientific vs. lay definitions. A claim can have mountains of proof, or no proof at all. It is perhaps one of the most neutral ways to describe this.--Shibbolethink 01:58, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • It's worth considering if we can avoid a term entirely and just use COVID-19 lab leak as the title. Assuming not, I'm neutral regarding "hypothesis" v. "theory", and "claims" or "suggestion" or "discussion" aren't much worse than those first two. "Conspiracy theory" is blatantly inappropriate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:01, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    "Disinformation" is also blatantly inappropriate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:35, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    力, I think "COVID-19 lab leak" is too supportive. It presupposes that such a leak happened. It also does not really focus the WP:DUE aspects correctly imo. We need a name that demonstrates that we are talking about all the relevant leak ideas not just one such idea.--Shibbolethink 02:04, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Hmm yes, it's a similar problem with "COVID-19 China cover-up", —PaleoNeonate – 02:36, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    I'm very tempted to agree that it should be "hypotheses" or "theories" over a singular, as there are multiple different theories/hypotheses discussed in the article. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:37, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    They don't appear to all be valid, however, to use "hypothesis" or "theory" to describe all of them... —PaleoNeonate – 02:49, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    There's certainly disagreement regarding whether "hypothesis" or "theory" or both or neither imply that the claims are true. I don't feel either word implies truth, yet I will not claim that consensus is with me. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • No official statement from me yet, but it's tricky: COVID-19 lab leak conspiracy theory is another relevant name, COVID-19 lab leak disinformation fits for what some have done, both are very political however while there's always the actual hypothesis, that however unlikely has not been falsified or confirmed and may never be but that some scientists agree needs investigation. Time will tell if it will always only remain claims (hypothesis fits here), but that's what we have now... If it's "COVID-19 lab leak claims" how do we also present it as a scientific hypothesis? Yet another possible variant would be "story", that some sources use. Adding "allegations" in case it makes sense... —PaleoNeonate – 02:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    The article already presents the scientific hypothesis and the less than scientific hypothesis. I think "claims" is a word that encapsulates both. ––FORMALDUDE 03:16, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Well, we first have to decide if it is just one thing. If it is two or three, then we have to separate that. The problem for me is that there were several differing theories.
1 The "leak" was either a cover up for deliberately releasing it or it genuinely escaped by accident
2 What "leaked" was manufactured there, or was brought in from somewhere else as a sample
3 It was "a few years old in the form of RAT coming from a mine", not that it "came from bats via another animal" to the market
4 It either started "when lab workers got ill at home bringing it to the market" as no proof found it was on food at the market, or it "was there from lab workers who were on lunch break" and either one was cleaned up by the government sterilising the market. After all, someone has to come up with how it was "leaked" ...
For me, the issue is that this seems like a catch-all, which is why I suggested going with a title much like the JFK conspiracy theories article.
It does feel like there are several theories all mashed up into one "it came from the lab" page.
I would happily support "Covid-19 lab leak claims", as the pluralism is very necessary IMHO; so "Covid-19 lab leak claims" with redirs from "lab-leak conspiracy theory/theories" or the much less desirable "lab-leak hypotheses" --- as well as redirs from any other possibilities.
I think you'll find that most scientists think it needs further investigation, even Daszak said so on several occasions before and after the letter, and throughout the last year. When they went there, they did look into it. It is just that it has been conflated with probability. The lab leak probability is also considered extremely low by most scientists. It took 12 years to find the source of SARS.
We have to remain neutral, so "claims". All the rest seem biased, in some way validating the claims. There is still no evidence either way on any of those 4 points. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
"most scientists think it needs further investigation" in the origin, of course, that includes the most plausible natural one (as you say, it's a difficult thing and takes time). Your points are rather convincing to me that "claims" could work... —PaleoNeonate – 03:48, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Support claims per Shibbolethink, if that fails please consider "Allegations". Forich (talk) 04:09, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Support "theory" if we're voting, and we want a neutral word, "theory" is best; it covers every epistemic value from the theory of gravity to the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:11, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Theory implies there are general principles upon which the supposition is based, but this article explains the lab leak supposition has little evidence or proof. That makes it far closer to falling under the definition of claim (to state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof). ––FORMALDUDE 04:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    theory: A working hypothesis given probability by experimental evidence or by factual or conceptual analysis…. hypothesis: A proposition tentatively assumed in order to draw out its logical or empirical consequences and so test its accord with facts that are known or may be determined. claim: An assertion, statement, or implication … often … likely to be suspected of being made without adequate justification. (M-W Unabridged.)
To illustrate - If Trump really did make speculative comments suggesting the virus was designed by China as a bio-weapon, that would count as a claim. (All such obvious misinformation should get added to the COVID-19 misinformation article, which already exists.) –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Dervorguilla, I can't tell what side you're on here... Based on those definitions you gave, claims seems the most accurate descriptor for the title. The entire article is about the claim that COVID was leaked from the Wuhan lab. These are allegations rather than an established theory. ––FORMALDUDE 14:35, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The word "hypothesis"

During the AfD - closed recently as "keep" - a few editors, myself included - voted "keep" with some concern about the NPOV potential of the word "hypothesis". I wondered if we could discuss this word in the article title - maybe we should be looking at an article title without its potentially weighted and heavily suggestive definition?

Off the top of my head - "Allegations about..." or "Coverage about..." could be a good alternative. Open to any suggestions. doktorb words 05:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps keep this discussion contained to the section immediately above: Talk:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis#Requested move 26 July 2021. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

"Versions" section -- what exactly is this theory?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "the lab leak theory" is the stuff in #Accidental_release_of_a_natural_virus right? Basically, if I understand correctly, the theory spread under this name is that a natural zoonotic virus found its way into a lab somehow (perhaps by workers collecting samples), possibly was altered through some scientific stuffs (like "gain of function research"), and accidentally someone walked it out of the lab and it made its way into the wider world? The "bioweapon theory" isn't actually the "lab leak theory" right? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Broadly speaking, I'd consider any theory in which the virus was not deliberately released as a "lab leak theory". Meaning, potentially, a bioweapon which accidentally released would be a "lab leak", but not necessarily as credible of one as the others. The challenge is, lacking strong epidemiology of the early outbreak, much of the supporting evidence cited to support a lab leak refers to the laboratory's activities and potential markers of such in the virus genetics. So we can't adequately describe any individual theory without explaining each and how they differ, which does make it challenging. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
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