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COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis

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COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Procedural nomination. Since there has been a dispute over whether this topic is notable (it is claimed this subject does not "warrant its own article"), and since nobody else wants to make their points at AfD, I figure I'll open an AfD to get a conclusive answer to whether an article may exist at this title. Preceding DRV: Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2021 June 7 and talk page discussions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:00, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of COVID-19-related deletion discussions. Spiderone 21:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Spiderone 21:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. Spiderone 21:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• Speedy close This is a WP:POINTY attempt to disrupt the merge proposal I created at Talk:COVID-19_lab_leak_hypothesis#Merge_proposal. I never claimed that the topic is not notable, but that it is better covered at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

  Not at all, I requested people make an AfD hours ago. The challenge made is that an article should never exist at this title, regardless of its content. That challenge has been made for months and resulted in countless edit wars. In other words, you are saying it is non-notable, and your proposal is clear in that you want (effectively) a deletion, not a merge (as defined at WP:ATD-M and WP:MERGE). People were happy to make notability/content arguments at MfD and other inappropriate venues, so why not here at AfD, the standard venue for assessing this with discussions being widely advertised? This is the best way to get a conclusive answer with near-guaranteed closure by an uninvolved admin after a week or two, and in a way that isn't going to be challenged or be procedurally dubious. Apologies if I misunderstood your argument, but if someone who actually wants it deleted would've nominated it themselves, they could've made their own case in the nom. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep There is enough coverage of this to have an article for it. Dream Focus 21:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• It's good to have a proper discussion about the notability of this subject, as multiple editors have overwritten the article by redirects to COVID-19 misinformation#Wuhan lab origin (Special:Diff/1034205198 Special:Diff/1034208436) or proposed moving its content to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Laboratory incident, all of which are disputed measures. This can't be handled by a merge discussion regarding a specific target, as indicated by the earlier pushing for redirects to a different article. What is actually being questioned here is whether the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis topic warrants its own article. AfD is a useful, and probably the most useful, venue to hold this discussion. It also doesn't duplicate the MfD-related review at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2021 June 7, as we have detailedly determined at Talk:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis#Unblanking (permanent link). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:08, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• Merge to parent We don't have an article on the zoonotic hypothesis, so I see this as a WP:POVFORK. While this clearly isn't a fringe theory anymore, it is still considered unlikely by WP:MEDRS sources, and popular media isn't going to give us the depth and reliability on this highly politicized topic that is enough to write a separate article about. Maybe come back to this topic in a few years once the pandemic finally ends, and probably by then MEDRS will catch up to write about this in more detail. Jumpytoo Talk 22:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep The lab leak hypothesis likely has received the most attention from reliable sources. The Zoonotic hypothesis, on the other hand, has received relatively little attention. WP:POVFORK concerns are valid, but there is enough coverage for the lab leak hypothesis to warrant a stand-alone article. So much about the lab leak hypothesis is missing from the main article. Improvement is needed though, because the current article is not good Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:44, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
  • The Zoonotic hypothesis, on the other hand, has received very little attention. Searching for "COVID-19 zoonotic" on Google Scholar retrieves about 28,900 results. XOR'easter (talk) 16:47, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    • XOR'easter, I have edited my comment. I meant to do that earlier. Scorpions13256 (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
      • "Relatively little attention" is still a factually untrue statement. It has been studied and discussed thoroughly during the entire duration of the pandemic. XOR'easter (talk) 00:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)r
• Delete There is all ready an article about investigations into the origins of COVID-19 that discusses the different hypotheses: https://en.wikipedia.org/Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19 . It seems strange to create articles for specific hypotheses. Most diseases don't even have separate articles for origin investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/HIV#Origins . Dhawk790 (talk) 23:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• COVID-19 has dominated all media in the years 2020 and 2021, and is perhaps the most thoroughly covered topic on the entire English Misplaced Pages. {{COVID-19 pandemic}}, at present, has 1,624 links in it, covering not only every country but many provinces/states, and even individual cities (i.e. Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Sabah, Sarawak, and Selangor in Malaysia alone). There is an article about Moldovan–Romanian collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care facilities; perhaps this is excessive detail, but a hypothesis about the origin of the virus (for which there's a plethora of in-depth coverage from reliable sources) hardly seems undue. jp×g 02:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Delete or merge - Notable in culture, but already covered at two other articles, Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and COVID-19 misinformation § Wuhan lab origin. This redundant material can either result in a WP:POVFORK or in duplicated text needing unnecessary extra maintenance. A redirect resulting from a merge would also resolve for searches. —PaleoNeonate – 23:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• Delete topic already covered sufficiently in Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and COVID-19 misinformation § Wuhan lab origin as noted above. Worry that this kind of article might demonstrate WP:BIAS considering the topic is covered elsewhere and is among a number of hypotheses that are equally notable. Vladimir.copic (talk) 00:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep. First of all, the previous consensus was to allow new draft. Therefore, the recreation is not really a violation. Secondly, given a significance of coverage in press (see this version), it deserves a single separate page that could be linked from pages Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and COVID-19 misinformation § Wuhan lab origin. That would help to avoid duplication of content and properly cover this issue. Note, this is not an outright misinformation, but just something controversial and unproven; whatever views one could hold about it, this should not affect the importance of vaccinations or other epidemiological measures. My very best wishes (talk) 00:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Pinging Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2021 June 7#Draft:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis participants: Jweiss11 (talk · contribs), Extraordinary Writ (talk · contribs), S Marshall (talk · contribs), CambridgeBayWeather (talk · contribs), Jclemens (talk · contribs), SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), Hut 8.5 (talk · contribs), Loksmythe (talk · contribs), Hobit (talk · contribs), SportingFlyer (talk · contribs), Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), DGG (talk · contribs), and RandomCanadian (talk · contribs).

  Cunard (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Pinging Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis participants: Britishfinance (talk · contribs), Novem Linguae (talk · contribs), Horizons 1 (talk · contribs), PaleoNeonate (talk · contribs), Arccosecant (talk · contribs), Hemiauchenia (talk · contribs), Billybostickson (talk · contribs), J mareeswaran (talk · contribs), XOR'easter (talk · contribs), ProcrastinatingReader (talk · contribs), Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs), JoelleJay (talk · contribs), Dinglelingy (talk · contribs), Arcturus (talk · contribs), Dlthewave (talk · contribs), Alexbrn (talk · contribs), Pythoncoder (talk · contribs), JPxG (talk · contribs), Forich (talk · contribs), Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs), Atsme (talk · contribs), Magic9mushroom (talk · contribs), Nil Einne (talk · contribs), David A (talk · contribs), Rosenkreutzer (talk · contribs), Tomruen (talk · contribs), Guest2625 (talk · contribs), Nsk92 (talk · contribs), Chaosdruid (talk · contribs), and Porcelain katana (talk · contribs).

  Cunard (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• I left notices about the existence of this AfD at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Normchou/Essays/Does common sense point to a lab leak origin? and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:China COVID-19 cover-up. Cunard (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep as there's an abundance of coverage of this topic to warrant a stand-alone article (e.g. and , , , , , , , ) Jweiss11 (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - Plenty of news coverage, worth a single article, can expand from summary at: Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#Laboratory_incident. Tom Ruen (talk) 02:06, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - There is more than enough evidence to support an article, except that applying the medically reliable source standard to a question that is not a medical question is imposing a sterile orthodoxy and preventing Misplaced Pages from summarizing what reliable sources really say. The medically reliable source standard is a lagging standard, imposing a standard of verification that is higher than the reliable source standard that is only needed to protect readers from getting incorrect medical information from Misplaced Pages (which they shouldn't be using for that purpose anyway). The origin of covid is not medical information. How to test for, diagnose, treat, and prevent covid is medical information. So keep this article. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. A discussion on Misplaced Pages repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce, then as.... I don't even know what this is now. It's a mess. There's been a MfD for this page, there's been a DRV for this page, there's a merge discussion for this page, there's been an AN/I argument, a RSN argument, an ArbCom case, a huge argument at WT:BIOMED, more AN/I arguments, a throwdown at WT:MEDRS, more MfDs for tangentially related pages, MfDs for userspace essays agreeing with one of the sides of the argument, et cetera. Most of these discussions have not closed with the consensus that everything about the subject should be purged from the project. I am sick of arguing about COVID. Most sane people on this website are sick of arguing about COVID. There are almost enough sources for the Misplaced Pages argument about COVID origins to have its own article, for fuck's sake. This is a subject that's been covered by every source you can imagine; are Vox, CNN, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, and Wired not reliable sources? Okay, it might not be true -- this is an encyclopedia, not a political debate forum. Who cares. If something is covered by every paper of record on the planet, it's notable enough to have an article. jp×g 02:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Suggest procedural close three aspects to my argument on this: A) whether we can have an article about this without it attracting the same kind of disruptive bollocks this topic has attracted since God knows when, B) whether there is enough material here that it would be impractical to cover it with enough context in the other articles on the subject and C) whether this AfD was really necessary.

I'm not too sure about A - but then again, I don't think there's much that we can do about that: talk page semi-protections, topic bans, and even ArbCom have so far been insufficient to quell the shitshow (although it doesn't appear to be quite as bad as before), so one more or less page likely won't matter that much. B is a bit clearer - there is quite a lot of material about it, but writing a good article on this that expands on the existing material found in the misinformation and investigations without getting into issues with FALSEBALANCE and FRINGE stuff, while giving appropriate weight to SCHOLARSHIP and similar high-quality sources will require skillful editing, and is likely to be an even further timesink.

Going back to C, given that there was an existing merge proposal on the article talk page, and that there has been so far some amount of quality work on the article, I'd be inclined to say that this AfD is hasty (the article was re-created just one day ago, FFS) and ill-considered. I'd therefore suggest that we should give some time for interested parties to work on the article and see where it gets. If it doesn't expand much beyond what is there at the present, that will prove the argument that it's an unnecessary, stub-like content fork, and merging it will be easy. If, on the other hand, we can write a more thorough treatment of this particular topic in a dedicated article, then it will prove that this AfD was unhelpful. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Not real thrilled with AfD being used to address a merge proposal, but the topic easily meets WP:N. There are organizational arguments for merging the article (which I think are wrongheaded...), but notability isn't an issue. keep. Hobit (talk) 03:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep and suggest an early close. As noted above, there's potentially enough coverage to have a stand-alone article on Misplaced Pages's coverage of the lab leak hypothesis, the suggestion that it is unreasonable to have this as a separate article does not hold water. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:10, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  Suggest against early closure. We need a firm conclusion to whether a standalone article may exist, otherwise we're going to be dealing with RfCs and merge proposals to different targets for the next few months. Nobody wants to work on an article if their work is at reasonable risk of being deleted. Whatever the consensus here, ideally a strong one, it should suffice for a long period of time and be unambiguous. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:14, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. Whether this is a hypothesis or conspiracy theory is debatable, however what is clear is that this angle has received significant coverage for a significant period of time and thus is notable in the Misplaced Pages sense.--Eostrix  ( _hoot🦉) 07:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• "Hypothesis"? Faugh. It's woo, fabricated by US politicians to meet the needs of US politicians. If kept it should not be kept at this title. "Hypothesis" dignifies it far too much: it's a POV name for the material.—S Marshall T/C 08:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - there is no question this article is notable. The fact that it keeps being nominated for deletion speaks more to politics than to its notability. Our time would be much better spent in assuring its accuracy. Atsme 💬 📧 09:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep as standalone article, for several reasons:
  1. It clearly passes WP:GNG with hundreds of reliable sources (here is a list of dozens) focused around this angle.
  2. Editors saying it's a fork of existing articles can't even agree upon which article it's apparently a fork of. Here it's claimed it's a fork of COVID-19 misinformation, even though that article has basically one paragraph (perma) on this. Similarly for the content at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19; barely a paragraph (of different information) (perma). And here it's claimed it's a fork of Wuhan Institute of Virology, where there is a similar quantity of (different) information. People have claimed it's a fork of maybe 10 different articles at this point (others include COVID-19 misinformation by China, COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Government response, etc...)How can an article be a fork of (sub-)sections in 10 different articles? Isn't that just "an article" not "a fork" at that point? Maybe we should create a List of sections in Misplaced Pages articles that contain information about the lab leak hypothesis, and then once a reader reads them all they can consider themselves caught up?
  3. When content that is closely related to this hypothesis (such as aspects of its sociopolitical background) is added to one of those existing articles it is removed with the rationale "not misinformation so doesn't belong here" (or some variant thereof). Such content is perfectly encyclopaedic and has no NPOV etc issues, and the removers agree, they just think it's not within that article's scope. It's true, it often doesn't fit in scope, but what I think is perverse is then voting to delete the article where such information would fit.
  4. This article's scope extends beyond just the factual origin of the virus. It's just as much a cultural issue, defined by the American political context since early 2020, and the media and government response to it. There are plenty of reliable sources that discuss this aspect. That part is critical and doesn't really fit into any other article.
  5. COVID-19 misinformation is at about 100K anyway, which is at the upper limit of WP:TOOBIG. If anything it needs to be split up into separate articles. Similar for the other apparent 'forks'. This is a good start to managing them. We can compile the scattered information into a single article, and trim the others to summaries with a {{main article}}, and that's far better value for readers.
• No good, policy-based argument can be made for why it shouldn't exist. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source; it summarises reliable secondary sources. Readers then read that information and make their own conclusions. The status quo of complete exclusion and split information is a great disservice to our readers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:20, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  This "keep" comes from the AfD nominator.

  I agree that there's no good, policy-based argument to delete the material, so it should remain, but this does not mean that it must remain at the current title. After this AfD has decided to retain the material, a separate and subsequent discussion about POV should ensue. We do need to be much clearer that this "hypothesis" is based on minimal evidence and a vanishingly small number of properly-qualified virus experts take it seriously.—S Marshall T/C 09:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  As I say, I don't want it deleted. I nominated it because people were edit warring to redirect it, considering a 2 sentence bland stub to be a "POVFORK", and then starting a merge discussion to (as the proposer admitted) effectively delete it, and this comes after other similar attempts months ago. The situation led an admin to ask at AN for 1RR to be added to the article. It's clear a number of users do not want any standalone article to exist about this theory, so a consensus discussion is required so we can put this issue behind us.

  Titles can be discussed on talk, but "lab leak theory" or "lab leak hypothesis" are the COMMONNAMEs for the theory. I think it's already pretty clear in the lead that this is not the working theory, and it's also quite obvious that only the US cares about it which says a lot. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:06, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Either Delete, or merge into Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and COVID-19 misinformation § Wuhan lab origin.

If this article does end up being kept, it is an absolute requirement that it rely primarily on scientific literature when discussing scientific issues related to SARS-CoV-2, and must accurately convey the now longstanding scientific consensus on the virus' origins, namely that it emerged via natural zoonosis as with all other novel pathogens.

In order to do this, the article must include transclusions about the known ecology of coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 specifically from the most carefully written and edited article on this topic, SARS-CoV-2. These transclusions are the mechanism by which our article Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 was salvaged: it used to be a mess of pseudoscientific nonsense and has remained attractive for editors who are uninterested in the biology and ecology of infectious disease. This article will almost surely become the next focal point for those editors.

The immediate benefit of including text and sources from SARS-CoV-2 is that scientifically naïve readers who come here will learn about the idea of the "lab leak" within the context of what scientists know about zoonosis, both for this virus in particular, and for others. It will help them understand why most scientists consider the lab leak concept to be "extremely unlikely," to quote from the WHO-convened report on the topic.

Lastly I'd like to echo the words of S Marshall: If kept it should not be kept at this title. "Hypothesis" dignifies it far too much: it's a POV name for the material. Either "conspiracy theory" or just "idea" are fine. -Darouet (talk) 11:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Agreed hypothesis makes mostly political accusations sound too scientific, but news articles do reference it informally as lab leak theory Covid: Biden orders investigation into virus origin as lab leak theory debated, or this one says hypothesis The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know, However, a lab leak has not been ruled out, and many are calling for a deeper investigation into the hypothesis that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), located in the Chinese city where the first COVID-19 cases were reported. Tom Ruen (talk) 12:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  There is no such scientific consensus. We need to fix that in the COVID-19 investigations article. CutePeach (talk) 13:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  Then you should tell all these scientists that they're wrong. I'm sure they'd love to know that they're wrong about what they believe because CutePeach, the SPA lab-leak fan on Misplaced Pages says so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  @MPants at work: Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that accusations against other editors are generally recommended to be made at a relevant location (WP:AN/I, WP:SPI, WP:AE etc) and backed up with diffs, rather than as vague aspersions during a deletion discussion. jp×g 00:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

  The very first edit and the rest of the history with a recent essay, are a lot of easily accessible evidence of a promotional SPA. But yes. —PaleoNeonate – 01:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

  I'll post it here since it's a relevant centralized discussion, but this may also answer to a question on your recent essay's talk page. A list of people who believe things, or public opinion, are very different to scientific consensus. To support claims of scientific consensus one needs to also cite reliable sources that really report about the scientific consensus itself (what most relevant scientists consider to be the most or least likely). —PaleoNeonate – 23:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep - Given coverage that started when covid started it seems to have lasting notability. It is also enjoying more mainstream acceptance or at least consideration as well. It is no longer an exclusively fringe topic and has enough material to have a stand alone article. PackMecEng (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep and move to COVID-19 lab leak conspiracy theory. Except for a few journalists who did an about-face a few months ago when news that some lab workers were hospitalized came at about the same time Nicholas Wade penned his mostly fact-free article supporting this conspiracy theory, the only support it's gotten has been from the now-usual crowd of conspiracy theorists. With that being said, it's very clearly a quote popular conspiracy theory that looks set to eventually gain the same traction as Pizzagate. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:27, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  I don't know if you've seen this by now, but some in the Biden administration who are reviewing the intelligence also find the theory credible. Now for sure they may not be scientists or experts but they are certainly non-fringe figures. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  Intelligence officials are not experts in virology, and furthermore, are professionally motivated to seek out and respond to threats. I'm not unaware of that fact, not surprised by it, and not impressed by it, either. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  I strongly oppose the suggestion of "conspiracy theory" in the title; it is a blatant NPOV violation. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  Except it is a conspiracy theory, so it's not an NPOV violation. A couple of journalists taking it seriously proves nothing, and the connections to QAnon and various other right-wing conspiracy theories are undeniable to anyone who cares about factual accuracy. Before you respond by denying those connections:

  You may want to take note of how many of those actually refer to the lab-leak claim as a conspiracy theory, and then you might want to read how many strongly imply that it's a conspiracy theory. Hell, even some of those supportive of it admit it's a conspiracy theory. It seems like its only a handful of Wikipedians who object to the term. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  I thoroughly reject your argument. If you exclude journalists, the US intelligence community, a letter in Science, and the head of the WHO, you can manufacture a consensus for your position. The term "conspiracy theory" is derogative and should not be applied when there is a substantive body of scientific inquiry into the topic. Just because your friendly neighborhood QAnon friend likes the lab leak theory does not mean it's a conspiracy theory, and no number of sources making that logical fallacy will make it valid. And while you can say "if there was a lab leak, the Chinese must have covered it up, so there must have been a conspiracy" that doesn't make it a conspiracy theory either. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  I don't exclude any of them, but I certainly value their expertise significantly less than I do that of the vast preponderance of actual experts. Also Most scientists seem to agree that the lab leak is pretty damn unlikely. Note that those sources are all attesting to the broad preponderance of scientific opinion on the matter: not a relatively tiny collection of scientists voicing their dissent. Also note that none of your links actually contain any scientists endorsing the theory; contrary to your implication otherwise.

  So by all means, accuse me of "manufacturing" a consensus that's explicitly supported by the six MEDRS sources I gave above while you "refute" it with two non-MEDRS sources that kinda sorta seem like they might disagree with it if you squint juuuuust right (and you're predisposed to disbelieving it yourself, that is). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not going to argue whether it is "unlikely" or not; if you're saying it's unlikely then you admit it's possible and shouldn't be called a conspiracy theory. Nobody could possibly think you have a neutral point of view here, and your title suggestion is not neutral either. We don't even title Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship as a conspiracy theory. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 22:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  Well, shit. It remains a possibility that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings, so I guess that's not a conspiracy theory either, even though the odds are against it.

  If you've got some minimum probability that distinguishes conspiracy theories from legitimate hypotheses, you should introduce the undoubtedly definitive RS you got that minimum from over at Conspiracy theory so we can incorporate that into the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:23, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Keep - Ongoing discussion on talkpage. The proposed justification for deletion that it doesn't meet notability criteria is absolute nonsense; it is clearly notable, and title is appropriate given the dictionary definitions of hypothesis. Aeonx (talk) 13:25, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep as an independently notable topic worthy of a page. There has been a lot of good content that has been deleted from COVID-19 investigations for reasons of WP:DUE and, so it's clearly necessary to have this page. CutePeach (talk) 13:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - Now the US have launched an investigation and the WHO are asking for investigation I think it's become mainstream enough. Also while the article is currently short there is a lot of information that could be added. Tim333 (talk) 13:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - I have significant concerns that this article, at this time, will serve primarily as a POV-fork. Intentionally or not, it seems like a likely outcome. If there's a good faith effort to ensure otherwise, I'd suggest the first orders of business would be to ensure the page is protected and has sanction notifications to fulfill the discretionary sanctions under effect, and that there are links placed to the article on the two talk pages most likely to have interested editors (so the page doesn't appear as if it's attempting to draw solely from POV editors): Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and Talk:COVID-19 misinformation Bakkster Man (talk) 15:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

  The page was extended-confirmed protected all the time; there is no page-specific sanction to mention in a {{Ds/editnotice}}. I guess 1RR is an option, but I'm afraid it might benefit violations of WP:ONUS when two editors disagree about existing content, as has happened in Special:Diff/1034355261 very recently. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Delete A disruption magnet, an invitation to "civil" POV-pushing, a topic that is better served within exiting articles, and a bad title. The time and energy of Misplaced Pages editors with medical expertise is a scarce resource that we do not need to waste by creating yet another page to monitor. XOR'easter (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• @XOR'easter: I think the ship has long sailed on "yet another page", since there are well over 1,600 links in {{COVID-19 pandemic}}; as for being a disruption magnet, I agree. The multiple megabytes of heavily politicized argument have proven to be a massive time sink; I'm not sure if deletion follows from that (since Donald Trump, Joe Biden, COVID-19 pandemic, etc generate much wailing and gnashing of teeth, for similar reasons that often overlap with this one). Also, it seems like somewhat circular reasoning to say that an article ought to be deleted because a few people keep trying to delete it (or, alternately, because a few people keep trying to argue that it shouldn't be deleted). jp×g 23:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• So, because a problem is bad, we should be content to let it get worse? XOR'easter (talk) 00:01, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Given the recent investigation launch into this hypothesis I think it is becoming difficult to argue this article shouldn't exist. — Czello 21:49, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Overwhelming amount of coverage in WP:RS. Loksmythe (talk) 21:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Official investigation is ongoing. Various prominent virologists have publicly stated they kept an open mind. Including Dr Fauci. It's high time obstruction by a few random biased editors is thwarted WP:RS. Alain Pannetier (talk) 22:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong keep. The hypothesis is currently being considered by many of the most important governments in the world, even outside the NATO system. Obviously special mention for the seriousness with which he is being faced by the Biden commission. Not keeping and enriching an extremely topical argument like this (that could lead to a better disasters prevention that it happened or not) is a real information crime. --Francesco espo (talk) 23:11, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong keep as a standalone article. Six months ago I would have said delete or merge as at the time the topic was generally regarded as a fringe conspiracy theory. But consensus among WP:RS can and does change and that's what happened here. Given the massive amount of coverage the subject has received in the last three months in numerous WP:RS and given various ongoing government investigations, continuing to fudge the topic here on Misplaced Pages is an untenable position. Arguments saying that the article may become a POV pushing and disruption magnet constitute an appeal to censorship, which cannot be justified for a highly notable topic such as this one. We have various mechanisms in place for dealing with disruption and POV pushing that could and should be used here. Nsk92 (talk) 23:52, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - like others, I would've voted prior to delete as it would only be a POV fork - but at this point there's enough useful and due information that wouldn't be POV (ex: politicians talking about it, the reasoning behind it, etc) that I doubt it will fit well in any other article. That being said, I agree with MPants - this should not be called a "hypothesis" or "theory", as the scientific consensus is that it is a conspiracy theory. When scientific consensus is that something is a conspiracy theory (or a pseudoscience, or anything else "negative"), we don't call it something else just because it has a large following among people, nor because there's some "logic" as to why they're "right". See also homeopathy - while hundreds of millions of people believe in homeopathic remedies, that doesn't make it any less of a pseudoscience, and thus it's called such prominently. If people don't like "conspiracy theory", perhaps it should just be titled COVID-19 lab leak claims or similar - without imparting the validity of "hypothesis" onto it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

The word "hypothesis" is not a trophy given only to scientifically proven ideas, and reliable sources and existing articles do not make this distinction. The giant-impact hypothesis is widely believed but not proven, the Gaia hypothesis is controversial, the just-world hypothesis is a cognitive fallacy, the abortion–breast cancer hypothesis has little scientific support, the oral polio vaccine AIDS hypothesis is largely discredited, and the Chinese hypothesis was mathematically proven to be impossible. There is no such thing as the Gaia idea, for example, and Homeopathy is not located at Pseudoscience of homeopathy or Homeopathy conspiracy theory. jp×g 02:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

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