Talk:COVID-19 misinformation

Topic code	Area of conflict	Decision linked to
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=aa}}	politics, ethnic relations, and conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=crypto}}	blockchain and cryptocurrencies	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=kurd}}	Kurds and Kurdistan	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=mj}}	Michael Jackson	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Michael Jackson
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=pw}}	professional wrestling	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=rusukr}}	the Russo-Ukrainian War	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=sasg}}	South Asian social groups	Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=syria}}	the Syrian Civil War and ISIL	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=uku}}	measurement units in the United Kingdom	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=uyghur}}	Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghurs

Status of the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis

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.

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After being involved in this article for a couple of days, it has become apparent to me that there is not a clear consensus amongst reliable sources that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis is either "misinformation" or a "conspiracy theory". And given that the WHO included it as one of the four hypotheses when investigating the potential source of the virus, I am not convinced that it belongs in this article. For those reasons, I propose that we remove it from this article per WP:VER. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:53, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Consensus among editors doesn't decide content, but reliable sources do. All "lab origin" scenarios come under the aegis of conspiracy theory or counter-scientific speculation per the WP:BESTSOURCES, e.g. PMID 32945405 or PMID 33586302. Wikipedia merely reflects that. Alexbrn (talk) 08:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, as I said, there does not appear to be a clear consensus amongst reliable sources that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis is either "misinformation" or a "conspiracy theory". You raise the notion of "consensus among editors", and that is what is needed to decide what is the consensus amongst reliable sources. Currently a reader cannot reasonably verify, from the information given in the article, that this hypothesis is "misinformation", and therefore that it belongs in an article with this title. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

That's wrong I think. The highest quality sources are aligned. Of course there may be disagreement among a minority of weakly-published scientists, lay press, blogs and so on. But that's the same for most nonsenses from bigfoot to homeopathy. Your argument is essentially the WP:GEVAL fallacy. Alexbrn (talk) 08:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, what, in your opinion, qualifies a source as being "highest quality" when it comes to holding an opinion on whether this commonly suggested possibility is "misinformation" (which generally means designed to deceive)? And why would we expect the opinions of scientists, weakly published or otherwise, to be given more weight that those of people from other professions when it comes to so judging the motives behind this suggested possibility? Sure there may be some people who find this possibility a convenient tool for some ulterior motive, but to categorically cast it as "misinformation" needs, I think, a consensus amongst a wider array of sources than just those dedicated to publishing the opinions of non-weakly-published scientists. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

which generally means designed to deceive No, it does not. See Misinformation and Disinformation. This makes the rest of your contribution irrelevant. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:52, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Hob Gadling, even if we assume that more lenient definition (and forget for a moment that Wikipedia is not considered to be a reliable source), it still leaves us asserting that this suggested possibility is in some way false or inaccurate. Remember that even the WHO have refused to rule it out at the moment. It is plausible, even if not the most likely of the four hypotheses that the WHO say they considered. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto:You are changing the subject, and you are doing original research. From "someone from the WHO did not rule it out" does not follow "it is plausible". WP:MEDRS sources are definitely much stronger than your logic, even if your logic was valid, which it is not.

forget for a moment that Wikipedia is not considered to be a reliable source If you actually used that reasoning instead of forgetting it, it would just be Wikilawyering. I linked the misinformation and disinformation articles because I thought you would be able to go there and look at the sources those articles are based on. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: Never mind my opinion, look to the WP:PAGs, particularly WP:MEDRS. Per WP:MEDRS we are looking for sources which are typically: secondary, scholarly, and reputably-published in a relevant publication. So, a review article in a virology journal (like PMID 33586302 which we cite) is an excellent source. We don't seek on Wikipedia a "consensus of sources" which means we use junkier sources to contaminate the knowledge found in high-quality ones; in fact that is explicitly forbidden by WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 09:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, I don't see any discussion there about which sources to use to support opinions related to the moral and other non-scientific aspects of this topic. I don't see any reason why scientists should be given the monopoly in judgement opinions. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

This is an article on misinformation, and the question of whether the virus was produced in a lab is a scientific question. Quality scientific sources - yes - do have a monopoly on scientific questions. Or at least, they do on Wikipedia. If you want to write about the moral aspects of the pandemic, this isn't the right article. Alexbrn (talk) 10:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, who said anything about it being produced in a lab? This is about whether it could have leaked from a lab. Perhaps you are conflating this hypothesis with some other conspiracy theory? All the more reason to remove it from the article I think you'll agree. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The cited MEDRS sources also mention accidental or intentional ‘escapes’ from a lab. They make no such distinction between accidental release and bio weapons, treating them as conspiracies all the same. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: The sources we use cover all these scenarios. However, if SARS-CoV-2 was not "produced" in a lab but existing in nature beforehand, its origin is ipso facto natural. I am aware the believers keep twisting and turning in order to try to slalom around each piece of refutation in their way, but we can only deal with the misinformation as it is described in relevant sources. If we try to encompass every weird mutation of the conspiracy theory, we will fail. Alexbrn (talk) 10:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Not to mention that peer-reviewed journals and scientists can’t keep playing whack-a-mole with the conspiracy theory variation of the day. Not only is it impracticable (takes 1 minute to cook up a variation of the conspiracy, much longer for scientists to dissect and publish) and is a waste of time for virologists to do when they have, you know, a pandemic to worry about... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Quite. Brandolini's law is a reason why Wikipedia does well to rely on the highest-quality sources. Alexbrn (talk) 10:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

With lower-quality sources it can go like this:

• Journalist: "Can you rule out the theory that extraterrestrial aliens made the virus and implanted it into bats?"
• Scientist: "What sort of crappy 'theory' is that? It is unfalsifiable, of course they is no way to rule it out. Only ignorant loons who do not know the first thing about science would even consider it."
• Journalist, writing article: "The scientist said he could not rule out the theory that extraterrestrial aliens made the virus and implanted it into bats."
• Wikipedia author: "We cannot call that idea misinformation because the scientist said it was plausible." --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling Has the US Government ever demanded a UN body to investigate extraterrestrial aliens in the way the current US Gov is demanding the WHO to investigate COVID-19 lab origins? Do you have reliable sources of such a story? It would be WP:DUE for an article of its own. TacticalTweaker (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Please consult the articles Reductio ad absurdum and Red herring to find out if it is possible to heal reasoning which was destroyed by reductio ad absurdum (such as the one that was destroyed by me, above) by changing the subject, applying the same reduction to that other subject, and noting that it does not work in that case (as you did).

Regarding that other subject: What the US Government did does not affect any facts about viruses or science. As before, you need WP:MEDRS sources for medical claims. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:44, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Hob Gadling, please consult WP:BLUDGEON and answer my question concisely. Has the US Government ever demanded a UN body to investigate extraterrestrial aliens in the way the current US Gov is demanding the WHO to investigate COVID-19 lab origins? TacticalTweaker (talk) 21:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Does anybody here think that demanding an answer to a rhetorical question is a smart thing to do? (I do not demand an answer to that question.)

I will ignore you now, since your discussion style has gone below the kindergarten horizon. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Whatever the US government demands the UN investigate, it is not a MEDRS (especially if it involves a political claim with it's main global economic rival), and concluding things from that insistence is WP:SYNTH. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:23, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

That it's a conspiracy theory seems to be verifiable & DUE. I have added more journal and news sources to support. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:07, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Nonetheless - the "lab origin" scenarios cant be ruled out. That was in the article and sourced, but was removed by you Alexbrn. [1] That doesnt seem very encyclopedic or a good idea. Alexpl (talk) 08:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

We follow the WP:BESTSOURCES. Let's keep the job simple. As we now say, the disproof (if possible) of the conspiracy theories is very difficult. This gives the conspiracists plenty of time to fill the void with their Truth™. Alexbrn (talk) 08:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I imagine the main reason for not doing so is political, since there's an agenda by various parties to push blame onto China (sourced). Plus, it's hard to definitively prove otherwise and science is generally not about closing doors prematurely (any theory can be wrong, to decreasing odds with time, research and evidence). It falls into WP:FALSEBALANCE territory, and the scientific consensus is that this is very unlikely to be valid and journalistic consensus is that it's a politicised conspiracy theory, so the article should portray the same. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Deadlock?

It seems clear that some in the community here do not believe that we should separate the two ideas that I think are being (wrongly) conflated here: the hypothesis that the virus could have escaped or leaked out of the lab where it may have been languishing; the conspiracy theory that the virus was somehow produced in the lab. Although the latter belongs in this article, I am not convinced that the former does. Perhaps it is time for an RfC amongst the wider Wiki community. Thoughts? -- DeFacto (talk). 11:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

You can always start an RfC. I still advise you actually read the cited sources first before expending community time on this, but if you want to go ahead then I suggest drafting a well-crafted question that still broadly addresses the conspiracy so we don't have to have this discussion again and can add it to the COVID-19 "Current Consensus". What RfC question are you thinking of asking? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:42, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

It would be good to see any sources for this. So far as I can see the odd idea that SARS-CoV-2 was somehow spontaneously "languishing" in a lab is a scenario I've not seen in any decent source! In general, the arguments of the leak believers seem to be very light on actual sources. Alexbrn (talk) 12:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, I'm not sure about "spontaneously" or that you need to be a believer to acknowledge that such a hypothesis has been proffered. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Well if the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not natural, how did it get to be languishing in a lab? What is the source for the sequence of events you seem to be proposing we include? Alexbrn (talk) 12:25, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, why assume the origin is not natural? -- DeFacto (talk). 13:39, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Because if the origin is natural, then there is no controversy about the origin because ... it's natural. Alexbrn (talk) 13:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, the question here is about whether a biosecurity failure allowed a spillover into the community, not how it got into the lab in the first place. -- DeFacto (talk). 13:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

What!? That's shifted the goalposts even further into an area which seems to make no sense. If you are going to argue the virus "got into the lab", there needs to be some reasoning about that. In a source. Am I right in thinking the source count in support of this increasingly fuzzy scenario is ... zero? Alexbrn (talk) 14:06, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, nothing has shifted. That is why I came here here - to try and understand why the lab leak hypothesis is being conflated with some lab related conspiracy theory. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The point is there is apparently no cogent "lab leak hypothesis" that conforms to what you have been saying. I challenge you to produce a source setting it out. Without sources, this entire discussion is pointless as there is no basis for improving the encyclopedia. So: source? Alexbrn (talk) 14:24, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, a good place to start would be this article in Science, and it is already cited as a reference in the article. It covers some details of the hypothesis, and why the WHO have kept it on the table along with three or four other hypotheses. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, but that doesn't really answer my question. That sources does say how, in the view of Embarek, it is extremely unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 "originated in a Chinese laboratory"; but we know that. What I'm asking about is the positive hypothesis you are alluding to which has a natural virus languishing in a lab. Also see below where I wonder if this is a phantom theory. I just want somebody to point to a description of what, at a basic level, the "lab leak hypothesis" actually is. Alexbrn (talk) 15:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, the question is whether the two concepts amount to the same thing, and whether they both belong in the same section, or even in the same article. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

So: "Should Wikipedia portray the lab leak theory as misinformation, and by extension include it in the COVID-19 misinformation article?" ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd have suggested "What is the most accurate statement regarding the status of the lab leak theory": A) It is misinformation B) It is a minority scientific hypothesis (there's the even more obviously bollocks "It is WP:THETRUTH/a significant hypothesis/...", but obviously we don't want to be attracting twitter trolls and bots any further); but then whatever the the outcome of that question it would not change that only a short section on it should be included in whichever article, and of course that will not fly well with the POV pushers... The fact that a third of Americans appear to be scientifically illiterate (per that poll mentioned somewhere) doesn't help. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, no. Something more like "Should Wikipedia portray the hypothesis that the virus was legitimately present in the lab and accidentally escaped from there, and the theory that the virus was actively created in the lab, as one and the same conspiracy theory?" -- DeFacto (talk). 14:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a convoluted question. And reaches a not-helpful answer, because it doesn't directly influence how we write content in this article. You said on this page that it's not misinformation and doesn't belong in this article, so my proposed question tests that. I'm not really sure what your question tests. Obviously they're not the same conspiracy theory and there's likely differences in coverage between them, but they are both covered as conspiracy theories in MEDRS. As for news sources, one is more covered as a conspiracy theory than the other. So again, obviously they're not the same conspiracy. Just the "bioweapon" one was obviously becoming too fringe, and was being discredited openly by US intelligence whilst Trump was busy peddling it (sourced in article), so he had to ditch it and move onto something slightly more plausible. But I'm not sure a running commentary is suited for this article. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia needs to be wary of falling for the motte and bailey fallacy used by the conspiracists, and it seems by some editors here. When challenged the believers retreat into saying they are just entertaining a mild "hypothesis", but the misinformation is not that, but rather the idea that the virus did (or almost certainly) come from the Wuhan lab and that the Chinese have covered it up, etc. Reliable sources don't discuss the "hypothesis" other than to say its extremely unlikely etc. But in discussing misinformation, RS is addressing the rumours that the virus actually "leaked" (not "might, in extremis, possibly have leaked") from the Wuhan lab. Anybody asserting the virus leaked from a lab is spreading misinformation, because there is no scientific evidence in support of such an assertion. This is what RS tells us. Alexbrn (talk) 14:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) thrice "legitimately" is clearly an attempt at making this a leading question. Both of these are still WP:FRINGE (see the quote from the Science interview) - and the "bioweapon/lab-construction" theory is not even the thing under discussion. And, as pointed out, the "accidental lab leak" theory would still need an external source which got into the lab, an hypothesis for which you have not provided any MEDRS to support. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess, in part, I might see what DeFacto is saying. For example: Many scientists and authorities debunked the conspiracy theory, including American biologist Richard Ebright, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, prominent scientists, and the US intelligence community. is unclear. afaik they fully refuted the bioweapon one only. Ebright made some contradicting statements, not sure about Fauci, and afaik intelligence community refuted the bioweapon one and called the other one unlikely. So I guess, for strictly speaking accuracy, we this paragraph can probably be cleaned up a bit and may need some rewording. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'm a bit behind on which figure has said what it seems; Fauci has discredited both. I've moved the prose around a bit, and adjusted the cites, and also got rid of that Forbes contributors ref. I've removed some names in the process since I don't have refs on hand, but those can be added back if people find something to verify them. Is this an improvement to your concerns, DeFacto? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Phantom theory?

This is what puzzles me, and seems to have been the point that's been reached on several pages during discussion of how Wikipedia should treat this topic (which seems to have been going on for ever). Everybody seems to agree that the bio-weapon and lab-engineered origin scenarios are debunked for SARS-CoV-2. So then there's a fall back to an apparent "lab leak without lab-engineered virus" scenario. But so far as I can see, this scenario does not exist. Not in RS. Not even in the Talk page contributions of its proponents. (The Draft currently up for deletion refers to "the accidental leak of a coronavirus undergoing studies" without a source or explanation). Just for sanity's sake can we confirm we're even discussing an actual concept somebody has articulated somewhere? What exactly is the "lab leak theory" and where is it set out? Alexbrn (talk) 15:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Good questions. (It's kind of looking like a "lab leak of the gaps" argument by now.) XOR'easter (talk) 15:27, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Some media sources cover them as slightly separate events. The "intentional bioweapon" one came around before the "accidental lab leak" one. The former is totally not considered to be valid. There's apparently a separate angle on the "accidental lab leak" conspiracy. Some individuals are slightly less dismissive of that idea. My understanding is that neither have traction in normal RS and definitely no traction in academic sources, though, and are both generally considered conspiracies. I'm not sure I'd treat them wholly as two distinct things to the point of separate sections, but we do still have to make sure the text is verifiable, so if a certain individual only discredited one of the two theories (and said "still investigating" on the other) we can't really imply that they did both. Example: [2]: But the office said it had determined Covid-19 "was not manmade or genetically modified". + "The [intelligence community] will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan." It was the first clear response from American intelligence debunking conspiracy theories - both from the US and China - that the virus is a bioweapon. Now, how exactly do you have a lab leak of a natural virus whilst it not being engineered, but still being not natural, I'm not quite sure. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:29, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, I think this only matters to the extent that we quote who said what. I don't think it's really relevant beyond that. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, in case you missed my reply above, to your request for sources, I'll reiterate... A good place to start would be this Science article. It covers some details of the lab leak hypothesis, and why the WHO have been unable to fully investigate it themselves. It is one of a handful of hypotheses they still have on the table. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:00, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Um, Alexbrn already responded to that link above. I really admire their patience and the patience of others engaging with you, DeFacto. Robby.is.on (talk) 16:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, to answer my own question. The review article we cite, PMID 33586302, says:

There are also rumours that SARS‐CoV‐2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan working on bat CoVs, the ancestral virus of SARSCoV‐2.

and this in turn references PMID 32102621, which is a primary source so not MEDRS, but may be used in conjunction with our secondary source to flesh things out per. This says:

Currently, there are speculations, rumours and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin. Some people have alleged that the human SARS-CoV-2 was leaked directly from a laboratory in Wuhan where a bat CoV (RaTG13) was recently reported, which shared ~96% homology with the SARS-CoV-2

So it appears the "hypothesis" is that the Wuhan lab leaked an experimentally modified form of RaTG13, which is SARS-CoV2. Is this right? It would certainly explain why there's been some questionable editing at our RaTG13 article (which I have since tidied up). Our review article goes on to say that

it is impossible that RaTG13 was manipulated via targeted mutagenesis to generate SARS‐CoV‐2. [my emphasis]

Could this be the basis for some content? Alexbrn (talk) 16:34, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

So it appears the "hypothesis" is that the Wuhan lab leaked an experimentally modified form of RaTG13, which is SARS-CoV2. Is this right?

No. RaTG13 is the closest relative to SARS-COV-2, but it is too far to be its ancestor. From its own records, which have been covered by reliable sources, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was known to have collected at least 9 SARS-like coronaviruses since 2013, which it worked on in undisclosed ways (one of which could be the backbone of SARS-COV-2). The Wuhan Institute of Virology took down its database of viruses, and the US Government has demanded that they provide this data, and any other data on viruses they may have collected and worked on. Here is a Telegraph article describing these accounts: https://archive.is/bK8vO TacticalTweaker (talk) 18:18, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Interview / Failed verification

@DeFacto: I disagree with the tag. Source goes on to clarify: What we saw and discussed gave us much more confidence in our assessment. The consensus was that this is an unlikely scenario. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

re. "Will you self-revert" : No. The full question (and partial answer, emphasis added):

Q: But my question is whether you learned anything new in China. Now that you've been there, do you have more reason to say it's "extremely unlikely" than before?

A: Yes. We had long meetings with the staff of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and three other laboratories in Wuhan. They talked about these claims openly. We discussed: What did you do over the past year to dismiss this claim? What did you yourself develop in terms of argumentations? Did you do audits yourself? Did you look at your records? Did you test your staff? And they explained how they worked and what kind of audit system they had. They had retrospectively tested serum from their staff. They tested samples from early 2019 and from 2020. There were a lot of discussions that we could not have had if we had not traveled to Wuhan. We also did not have evidence provided by outsiders to support any of the claims out there. That could potentially have tipped the balance. What we saw and discussed gave us much more confidence in our assessment. The consensus was that this is an unlikely scenario.

So "the consensus was that this was unlikely" and "what we saw (after meeting with the staff) gave us much more confidence in our assessment"... You can't cherrypick just a part of the question... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, why do you insist on putting your comment of 16:13 (UTC) before that of the original poster who added theirs at 15:57 (UTC), and why have you indented it as if a reply to a previous post? See WP:INDENT and WP:THREAD. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:57, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Cause with all the edit conflicts things are becoming a wee bit confusing. Hopefully fixed? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, -- DeFacto (talk). 17:25, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, if you disagree, you should have come here first, per WP:BRD, rather than edit-warring your edit back in.

From the source, the interviewer asked the question: But my question is whether you learned anything new in China. Now that you've been there, do you have more reason to say it's "extremely unlikely" than before? The answer given was was quite long, but you seem to be relying on the first sentence which was Yes.

Even if we do assume that that was a direct reply to the second question of the interviewer's two questions, rather than the first one asking whether they had learnt anything new in China, it takes quite a leap of faith to believe that what would have been meant by, effectively: 'yes, we do have more reason to say it's "extremely unlikely" than before' could be taken to mean: with the WHO mission chief saying in a subsequent interview to Science that the investigation had rendered the lab leak theory even more unlikely than before, as you put it in the article! He definitely didn't say it was even more unlikely, just that he had more reason than before to say it was as unlikely. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:46, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Huh? You boldly made the change, which makes you B. => I’m the R. This is the discuss. I just gave you a specific quote from his same paragraph... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, oops, I beg your're pardon. It was RandomCanadian's edit, 'twixt a stream of yours, that I reverted. Apologies. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The answer given was was quite long, but you seem to be relying on the first sentence
No, the whole of the answer, quoted above, goes in the sense that the answer to both sentences is yes: they learned something new, and that has given them more reasons to think the theory is "extremely unlikely"

Even if we do assume
The answer is rather quite clear, especially the last two sentences as quoted by me and PR.

He definitely didn't say it was even more unlikely, just that he had more reason than before to say it was as unlikely.
So this seems like a minor issue of wording, not one of failed verification. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, I couldn't verify that he said it was even more unlikely, that's all. If a re-wording fixes it, fine. What do you think about adding their given reasons for not being able to investigate this hypothesis further, from the same answer in the same source. That would add clarity. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Mfb, I see you removed the 'fv' tag, asserting that it didn't fail verification. Are you seriously claiming that saying I have more reason to say it's "extremely unlikely" than before is equivalent to saying it's even more unlikely than before? More evidence that something is unlikely doesn't imply it is more unlikely, it implies that you have a higher confidence level that it is unlikely. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:34, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

We are not looking at distinct categories here. We are looking at a continuous likelihood. Before it was less clear how (un)likely it is. Now the answer is "extremely unlikely" with a higher confidence. Everyone else involved in the discussion understands that. --mfb (talk) 04:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Best Sources

The US Government's position is that virus could have leaked from a lab which collected it (or its precursor virus) from nature (a mine). The WHO's investigation does not aline with this position, as they weren't able to conduct a forensic investigation, but the WHO DG has said all hypothesis remain on the table. No other source should supersede the WHO's position, and the US government's position is also important, as they funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology's work as described in these sources:

Bloomberg "The virus could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic,” the State Department said. “Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection." You can read the full "Fact Sheet" from the US State Department that Bloomberg references here. The sheet describes how the WIV conducted "gain-of-function" research, and also mentions that the WIV collected a viruse from a cave in Yunan, and demands for the WHO to have access to WIV's work.

France24/AFP "Price said the January 15 fact sheet was "very clear that it was inconclusive -- it didn't give credence to one theory over another." This statement by Edward Price makes clear what the Biden administration's position is on the fact sheet describing the lab leak hypothesis published by the State Department during the Trump administration.

Reuters All hypotheses are still open in the World Health Organization’s search for the origins of COVID-19, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing on Friday. This statement by the WHO DG makes it clear what the WHO's position is on the lab leak hypothesis.

TacticalTweaker (talk) 18:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

WHO position: How have you managed to skip through all of the above discussion?

US Government: 1) is not a WP:MEDRS, and 2) it's probably also WP:BIASEDSOURCE? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Were MEDRS sources required for the inauguration of Joe Biden? This is no less a political issue. TacticalTweaker (talk) 18:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Bloomberg, AFP and Reuters are biased? What? TacticalTweaker (talk) 18:25, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

No, but medical issues are different form political issues like the inauguration. WP:MEDRS needs to be adhered to. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:27, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I have seen this policy discussed to death on this talk page and others. The lab leak hypothesis is not a medical issue. TacticalTweaker (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

In one sense you're right, in that "the hypothesis" seems mainly to be the domain of politicized blowhards who'd have no idea what science was if it came up and smacked them in the face. But on the other hand, nope: anything that claims or implies knowledge in the realm of biomedicine needs a WP:MEDRS source. Alexbrn (talk) 18:41, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Alexbrn. At its core, this is about the origin of a new pathogen and that is 100% within the purview of MEDRS. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:56, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I respect your opinion but I disagree. I can't find the link right now but there was an RFC on this a few weeks back and there was no consensus on whether MEDRS sources are required for the lab leak hypothesis. The WHO's preliminary report lists four scenarios and the WHO DG has said they are all on the table, so I don't see what a MEDRS source could possible change about how Wikipedia covers this topic. TacticalTweaker (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Have you edited under any past accounts? If so, which ones? ProcrastinatingReader (talk)

It was a medical event, ergo, medical sources are going to have the best understanding of what happened, and due to Trump's documented interference, the US government isn't particularly reliable, especially since this was rolled in with numerous other instances of deliberate misinformation emanating from that source. - NiD.29 (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

We have two US government statements (the second one is from the Biden admin), and the WHO DG statement, which are in line with each other. Which other source, MEDPOP or MEDRS can supersede these statements? TacticalTweaker (talk) 23:03, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Please do not make us waste time by repeating the same points all over again. About the WHO statement, just scroll the page a wee bit up, to Talk:COVID-19_misinformation#Interview_/_Failed_verification, and you'll see why. As for the US governement, political sources are simply not suitable for this kind of information (in any case, Biden or Trump, the relationship between US and China is not exactly one of close friendship), and AFAICS Trump is already mentioned there and elsewhere. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a voluntary project. If you do not have the time to go over these important points, we will not begrudge you. The US government and WHO's position on the lab leak hypothesis is something that is worthy of our time. Do you have any other sources that somehow supersede the above sources laying out the US Gov and WHO positions? TacticalTweaker (talk) 23:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Take the time to read the section starting at Talk:COVID-19_misinformation#Interview_/_Failed_verification (really, just above, surprised it was missed), which clearly explains why the WHO position is not 1) contradictory and 2) does not support the lab leak story, from an interview in Science by the WHO mission chief. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Please read the US State Department spokesman and WHO DG statements in the three sources above. As reported by AFP, the US State Department spokesman said the Fact Sheet did not give credence to one scenario over another. The lab leak hypothesis is one of four on the table. TacticalTweaker (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Have you considered that the US might have political reasons to try to blame China (it's arch-rival since the fall of the USSR)? The politics maybe warrants a mention, but we don't and cannot give it undue weight when compared to the academic consensus. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:43, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not engage in debates. Wikipedia covers debates as reported in reliable sources. The WHO's position is now aligned with the US government position, which warrants mention. TacticalTweaker (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

No, it is not, per the Science interview. Any claim to the contrary is confirmation bias or motivated reasoning. Even if we ignore that, the US government position can be disregarded for scientific purposes since it is clearly a political claim, while the WHO saying that the hypothesis is "still on the table" doesn't meant squat if there's no credible reports in academic peer-reviewed publications about it. So far, I have not seen even one such MEDRS-compliant source about this which doesn't say anything more than the typical scientific "we can't discard the hypothesis entirely". See also Russell's teapot. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: You're using that incorrectly. Russel's Teapot is an argument about an incredibly unlikely thing. But a lab leak is likely - it's why we have all the rules and procedures. This is more like the restaurant teapot hypothesis, you'd be wrong to just claim sight-unseen that a restaurant has a teapot do but you wouldn't be terribly surprised if they did. InverseZebra (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Russell's teapot is about shifting the burden of proof. If one claims something, then he has to provide evidence for it, not just say "it's possible" and ask for the other side to disprove it (which is basically what the proponents of this theory are saying; that because it isn't completely disproven we should cover it as though it was equally valid). And this neglects the fact that while the lab leak is not entirely implausible; the conspiracy theory also posits that there is some supposed cover-up about said leak - which is a more unlikely suggestion for which there is again no more evidence... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:43, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

The former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thinks it is "most likely" that the virus escaped from the lab. , so it is obviously a view that needs to be taken seriously. It cannot and must not be dismissed as a conspiracy theory. To do so obviously prejudices any serious investigation, which is vital for the future biosecurity of the planet. It is also worth comparing the likelihood of a lab being the source, with that of what has been the dominant hypothesis since the beginning of the pandemic, the Wet market theory. There are around 44,000 wet markets in China and only one Biosafety level 4 lab (that studies dangerous pathogens including coronaviruses found in bats). That lab is the Wuhan Institute of Virology . The Wuhan lab leak hypothesis is emphatically not a conspiracy theory, it is, as the former head of the CDC says, "most likely".Kiwicherryblossom (talk) 00:03, 30 March 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.

RFC to fix this once and for all

Two questions:

Primo Should the "lab leak" theory be treated and described as a:

• Minority, but scientific viewpoint; or
• A (political) conspiracy theory?

Secundo Should the "lab leak" theory have a section/sub-section separate from the other theories related to the WIV? 14:45, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Survey

• Conspiracy theory and No The vast majority of actually MEDRS sources do not support this as anything more than an extremely unlikely hypothesis, and per WP:FALSEBALANCE we shouldn't give undue weight to a small minority by presenting "both sides" as being equal. As to a separate subsection, that is not necessary as everything that can be said without going into excessive WP:NOTNEWS-style details is already so described. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:54, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Conspiracy theory and no, per the !vote above. Short sections make for choppy reading, and there isn't enough to say to fill up a long one (without going into blow-by-blow notes of news reports and lengthy quotes of unremarkable public statements in a way that's unbecoming of an encyclopedia article). XOR'easter (talk) 14:58, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• For WP:NPOV, of the two, conspiracy theory is preferable as it better aligns with high-quality sources. PMID 33586302, says:

There are also rumours that SARS‐CoV‐2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan working on bat CoVs, the ancestral virus of SARSCoV‐2.

and references PMID 32102621, which says:

Currently, there are speculations, rumours and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin. Some people have alleged that the human SARS-CoV-2 was leaked directly from a laboratory in Wuhan ...

Of course this is not wholly incompatible with it also being a minority scientific view, but (as with - say - cold fusion) Wikipedia needs to align with the scientific mainstream, which is particularly important in this fringe area per WP:PSCI which tells us to ensure the mainstream scientific view has to be prominently given. A subsection is not necessary. Alexbrn (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: The article you're citing is literally called "No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2". Do you know the difference between engineering a virus like using CRISPR and serial passage mate? Feynstein (talk) 01:35, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: And I found this quote in the first article you cited."However, an independent forensic investigation is probably the only course of action to prove or disprove this speculation.". Confirmation bias much? Feynstein (talk) 23:57, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Ironically, if you actually read this Wikipedia article, you'll see that point is already covered: "In reality, definitively proving or disproving these narratives is a difficult and lengthy process, and it is likely closure of the topic will only be achieved by a thorough forensic investigation." Alexbrn (talk) 07:01, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: It's ironic because it's not misinformation. The sentence pretty much sums it up. Feynstein (talk) 20:02, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• Conspiracy theory and No Not enough uncrappy sources that say the opposite. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Conspiracy theory and no Its pretty clear that the main proponents of the "lab leak" supposition have no actual expertise in virology, and engage in motivated reasoning, attempting to find "evidence" that proves their opinion correct and ignore that that doesn't. It's also clear that it has a conspiratorial and sinophobic aspect. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:50, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Minority, but scientific viewpoint and Yes. MEDRS are being clearly cherry-picked to bury the lab leak hypothesis. These are the reasons:

First we agreed on 6 MEDRS with the resulting analysis that: i) Most of them are very outdated (down to using April 30 2020 as a cutpoint for the review in one case); ii) The two that are not as outdated are: WHO (2020) and Hu et al (2020). Several RS sources point that WHO has contradicted itself when referring to the lab leak hypothesis, for example, when they rule it out one day, to be corrected the next day by Tedros, or two days later by the Embarek interview to Sciencemag. The one thing clear from WHO's treatment of the lab leak is that they are not willing to touch it even with a 10-feet pole, perhaps because of Chinese intimidation. Regarding Hu et al (2020), it has Shi Zheng-Li as a coauthor, which is a clear COI to refer or omit references to the lab leak hypothesis.

Second, there is no consensus on which aspects of the origin hypothesis require MEDRS and which doesn't. In my opinion, by default we can go with MEDRS for most aspects, and still report on the lab leak hypothesis citing top RS like Reuters, BBC, or NY Times.

Finally, there is no consensus on whether the distinction between man-made virus vs natural-origin virus that accidentally escaped the lab requires to be sourced by a MEDRS in order to exist. The distinction is very easy to understand by common sense, and MEDRS usually start mentioning in tandem whether viruses that originate in nature are naturally evolved vs evolved in serial passage or cell culture. You simply are not going to find a MEDRS that says "Well, this virus went through serial passage, so dang, I guess we can not call it a natural-origin virus anymore", because it is taken for granted that they are tandem notions. If you don't believe we can ask in Wikiproject virology. Forich (talk) 16:03, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: PMID 33586302 is very recent. Published on 14 February 2021, it is less than a week old. Alexbrn (talk) 16:13, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I missed the Hakim reference in the previous discussion. It wasn't in the original list of 6 MEDRS. I apologize, and will look into it before commenting again, thanks for tipping me on the new source. Forich (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

"Virus origin", broadly construed, probably requires MEDRS. If we're not sure, always better to require MEDRS as these are the WP:BESTSOURCES. Reporting on the lab leak is possible, as already done, without having an UNDUE section about it, or giving FALSEBALANCE to it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• Conspiracy theory and no per the established high quality peer-reviewed sources in medical journals in this article. It's an o brainer, since nobody can point of sources giving even an inkling of evidence in support of the conspiracy. See WP:FALSEBALANCE: Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Minority, but scientific viewpoint and Yes. I am a historian rather than a virologist, but it took me a matter of minutes to find the lab leak theory advanced by leading virologists in a reputable medical journal published by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (https://doi.org/10.1051/medsci/2020123). As I have mentioned elsewhere, the lead author of this article is a virologist from the École Normale Supérieure de Paris who is working specifically on gene therapy for COVID-19. The other authors are a professor of molecular evolution at the Université de Paris, a professor of biophysics at the Université de Paris, an expert on genome analysis and bioinformatics at the Institut Français de Bioinformatique, and a virologist at CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). The latter author - Étienne Decroly - recently gave an excellent interview on this very subject to the CNRS news site (https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-is-being-seriously-questioned). As for reputable journalistic sources, there is this opinion piece from the Washington Post editorial board (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavirus-origins-mystery-china/). Laboratory escape is a legitimate scientific hypothesis, not a conspiracy theory, yet the two are currently conflated at this poorly written section on COVID-19 misinformation: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_lab_leak_story. For reasons that entirely escape me, there seems to be a great deal of cherry-picking going on here, as well as a concerted effort to marginalise legitimate contributions rather than attempting to address their substance. Rosenkreutzer (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm reading through the original French language article, but I haven't found anything about the lab leak. If anything, this paper is debunking the lab manipulation theory, with statements such as "Dans le cas qui nous intéresse, le score supérieur à 1 indique que l’alignement obtenu est fortuit, et ne peut pas être considéré comme un indice d’homologie entre les séquences de VIH et de CoV." (the alignement between HIV and CoV is merely coincidental) or "Une seconde hypothèse, régulièrement formulée, est que ce virus pourrait résulter d’une recombinaison produite en laboratoire entre un virus de chauves-souris du type RaTG13 et un domaine RBD de haute affinité pour l’homme, cloné à partir du SARS-CoV. Cette hypothèse s’avère également incohérente avec les analyses phylogénétiques [...]" (the RaTG13/Sars-Cov lab manipulation theory is also incoherent). In short, this paper isn't even about the lab leak theory... What a disappointment. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: French Canadian here... if you kept reading you would have found this quote: "D’autres pensent qu’il pourrait s’agir d’un virus de chiroptère qui se serait adapté à d’autres espèces dans des modèles animaux élevés en laboratoire, dont il se serait ensuite échappé. Il est également envisageable que ce virus provienne d’une souche virale cultivée sur des cellules au laboratoire afin d’étudier son potentiel infectieux. Ce virus cultivé se serait progressivement « humanisé » (adapté à l’hôte humain) par sélection des virus les plus aptes à se propager dans ces conditions." Which basically states that some authors think it could have been passed. Feynstein (talk) 01:45, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

[Oui je suis aussi québécois. Ceci-dit, back to the topic:] Except that half-paragraph is the sole in-depth mention of the lab leak hypothesis in the whole report (that, and a more pragmatic sentence: "La controverse s’est amplifiée, dans un contexte politique tendu où le président des États-Unis accusait la République populaire de Chine d’avoir laissé échapper le virus manipulé d’un laboratoire P4 à Wuhan…"; basically as I said at the WIV page: politics, not science). Note also how the language is rather speculative (unindentified others; ...), and no solid evidence is presented. This is the author doing his job as a scientist and explaining possible (however unlikely - there's no decision on the issue, at least from this author) hypothesis. Even if the lack of denial could be somehow misinterpreted as support for the theory, that would not override more recent sources such as the WHO investigation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:02, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: I'm not using the lack of denial as a proof that it happened. I'm saying some articles are saying it's possible and the mainstream ones aren't dismissing it. By the way, I'm not up to date, did the WHO provide any evidence to dismiss it or are we supposed to take them to their word? Conflicts of interest would suggest a nuanced opinion is better. (P.S. please use a ping or a re next time. It's easier for me to answer that way. It's inconvenient to look at that wall of text in search for an answer, thanks) Feynstein (talk) 02:16, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Feynstein: No evidence against is not to be taken as evidence for something (see Russell's teapot) - no evidence is required to dismiss something; rather evidence is required to prove something. As for "did the WHO provide any evidence" - there's this interview with the WHO mission chief in Science. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Hahaha they're really saying that? "But they kept open the possibility that the virus arrived in Wuhan on frozen food, a route promoted aggressively by Chinese media to suggest the virus was imported from elsewhere in the world." Wow, way to ruin their credibility. If it came from "frozen food" there would have been large outbreaks elsewhere. Scientists already ruled that out. Feynstein (talk) 02:29, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Yup. 'Opinion pieces > academic sources' - this effectively makes the case for the "conspiracy theory" option. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:13, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Because it is really important not to misrepresent credentials, I want to point out: Sallard is a grad student, so definitely not an expert; Halloy does bioinformatics on zebrafish collective behavior, which is very interesting and very unrelated to viral evolution and genetics; Casañe researches the evolution of marine and subterranean vertebrates, so may have applicable skills for phylogenetic analysis but is not an expert in viruses; Decroly has legitimate research background in virology; van Helden publishes mainly on molecular/metabolic modeling and sequence analysis tools and on transcriptional profiling, so probably has relevant skills for handling large datasets and interpreting genome information. JoelleJay (talk) 19:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Conspiracy theory and no as per WP:PSCI. --Moxy 22:44, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Conspiracy theory since reliable sources have not reported about investigations having discovered clear evidence of a lab leak in relation to COVID-19 yet it's been suggested and pushed (an RFC is unnecessary for this). I don't personally care about point 2 (depending on sources, some mention politics others not). —PaleoNeonate – 04:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
• Conspiracy theory and no. I have given this a lot of thought (here's an essay I wrote), and I agree with our experienced medical editors that the lab leak idea is WP:FRINGE among mainstream virologists and epidemiologists, who barely even mention the idea, and when they do they usually speak very negatively of it. Going off into opinion-land for a second, I suspect that USA wants an explanation that gives China maximum blame (lab leak), and China wants an explanation that gives China minimum blame (imported frozen food). But all trusted MEDRS sources point toward a less sensational and more boring explanation: a natural spillover from Chinese horseshoe bats, possibly via an intermediary animal. (That's according to these best sources.) I look forward to the WHO's official report regarding their visit to China to hopefully clarify things further. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:44, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
• A lab leak is a plausible scientific hypothesis according to the scientific community which is demonstrated by the quotes and sources provided in the section above. Also note that a priori the lab leak cannot be a conspiracy theory. The definition logically does not allow it. Definition of conspiracy theory is "a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event." An accidental leak by definition says nothing about intentional covert action by a dark sinister organization. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Except that "plausible" is not the word used by the scientific community as evidenced by the best sources, rather wording like "extremely unlikely", "massive online speculation", "pseudoscientific" and "conspiracy theory" is used. Wikipedia is bound to follow these for NPOV. As to a "leak" itself not being a conspiracy theory, that's a truism and a banal strawman argument. The conspiracy theory is about a certain sequence of events which "they" don't want out there. Alexbrn (talk) 11:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The lab leak hypothesis is about a plausible mundane lab leak such as a maintenance worker not disposing of the lab waste correctly and then getting infected without him knowing. Or its about a lab researcher going to a bat cave in Yunnan province and collecting virus samples from bat feces and not realizing that they became infected. It is not about a nefarious organisation which is plotting and planning. --Guest2625 (talk) 13:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

We do not do original research and try to match to dictionary definitions ourselves. We look at the WP:BESTSOURCES. And the best sources say conspiracy theory. See MOS:LABEL ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

It is clear that the best and most authoritative sources we have say that a lab leak is a plausible scientific hypothesis. See the section above which provides the best sources and the relevant quotes which reflect the position of scientists on this topic from the top universities in the world. --Guest2625 (talk) 14:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

In my experience when people say something is "clear", it's a sure sign it's not. Your cherried selection of lay sources are not the best. But Wikipedia does have established criteria which can be used to find the best sources (independent, scholarly, secondary, peer-reviewed, relevantly-published, well-reputed, etc.) By those criteria we have several truly excellent sources which give us the full picture. The recurrent problem with this topic is WP:PROFRINGE editors wanting to throw Wikipedia's established WP:PAGs out the window, so that weak sources can be used to undercut strong ones. It isn't going to happen. Alexbrn (talk) 14:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, just a thought - is it conceivable that the very few sources that you deem to consider allowable here could possibly be wrong? It could be that other more worldly and less narrowly specialised and less homogenised sources might be more reliable when it comes to analysing and evaluating these sort of general and not specifically medical or scientific hypotheses? Perhaps the overly specialised sources have too few shades of grey in their vocabulary between black and white to reasonably evaluate these sort of concepts. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:37, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

^{( Buttinsky)} Many things are "possible", but the purpose of this encyclopedia is to reflect accepted knowledge as published in the highest-quality sources, not to WP:RGW. Alexbrn (talk) 14:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, you'll have explain your "joke", but your link seems to shoot your arguments defending the cherry-picking of primary sources in the foot, if not the heart:

• we can only report that which is verifiable from reliable and secondary sources, giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion
• you'll have to wait until it's been reported in mainstream media or published in books from reputable publishing houses
• Let reliable sources make the novel connections and statements. What we do is find neutral ways of presenting them.

-- DeFacto (talk). 15:40, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yup. Now just take into account that in the field of biomedicine Wikipedia wants WP:MEDRS and you'll be there. Alexbrn (talk) 15:44, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, we're not talking about any biomedine here though, we're talking about a hypothesis that a lab might have had an accidental escape. That could be related to biology, chemistry, civil engineering, meteorology, road transport, ... If it had been a bat rather than a virus that was hypothesised to have escaped, would we have to got to WP:MAM and ask what sources they would give us permission to use? -- DeFacto (talk). 16:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to repeat the points here, because this has been decided. Any assertions about the origin of the virus need a biomedical source. All these arguments that this is a "road transport" question (etc) are irrelevant. There are peripheral matters to the central topic which may not need MEDRS sourcing, but that is not the question at hand in this RfC. Alexbrn (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, the RfC arguments that assert that the accidental lab leak hypothesis discussion can only contain viewpoints and vocabulary supported by the MEDRS sanctioned subset of sources contravenes WP:BALANCE. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:49, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and since this is a WP:FRINGE area the balance we need is set out at WP:VALID. We describe the fringe views through the lens of mainstream, scientific sources. In time, there will likely be history-of-science books giving an overview of how the scientists were beset by the conspiracy theorists, which will be useful. Alexbrn (talk) 16:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, and there, I think, we have the root cause of the problem. Concluding from only what is found in those very specialised scientific academic sources that this is 'fringe' can only show it's 'fringe' as far as that niche of knowledge is concerned. That test would probably render a huge proportion of Wikipedia content as 'fringe'. We need to be more inclusive for a topic such as this, with massive worldwide interest and significance, and recognise that a wider range of disciplines also have a relevant contribution to make to this discussion. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:23, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

You're right about this being the root cause, but your prescription for a fix is wrong. In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. Thus the "lab leak" ideas are fringe ones. The root cause of the problem is that the WP:PROFRINGE editors who have flocked here want to edit against the grain of Wikipedia's established WP:PAGs. Alexbrn (talk) 17:29, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I'd like to ask you what you think about Bismuth and how it is presented in this article. Should it require the same MEDRS standard? After 31 years the mechanism is still unknown and we're still talking about it like it's not a placebo effect. "Bismuth subsalicylate is used as an antidiarrheal;[5] it is the active ingredient in such "pink bismuth" preparations as Pepto-Bismol, as well as the 2004 reformulation of Kaopectate. It is also used to treat some other gastro-intestinal diseases like shigellosis[63] and cadmium poisoning.[5] The mechanism of action of this substance is still not well documented, although an oligodynamic effect (toxic effect of small doses of heavy metal ions on microbes) may be involved in at least some cases. Salicylic acid from hydrolysis of the compound is antimicrobial for toxogenic E. coli, an important pathogen in traveler's diarrhea.[64]". To me it seems in the same ballpark of credibility. 31 years is a long time though, we should be pretty sure at this point. On the other hand, covid is barely 1 year old. Maybe we shouldn't be so sure if no one has found definitive proof and we still didn't find the zoonotic agent. Feynstein (talk) 17:48, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd don't think anything about it. There are loads of shit articles on Wikipedia. Let's not add to the tally, eh? Alexbrn (talk) 18:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I'm quoting you here: "want to edit against the grain of Wikipedia's established WP:PAGs". If we're talking like that about Bismuth even if it has been shady for 30 years, I'm pretty sure the precedent tells us it's conceivable to draft at least a paragraph on a minority scientific view about a the origin of a virus that emerged a year ago. Moreover, I have a pretty good MEDRS article here[3] that says you're wrong. I quoted it elsewhere, it's the French one. If you want I can quote it again in this discussion so that you're up to speed. If you want me to find shady stuff here that would require MEDRS just ask, I worked in a pharmacy in college there's plenty of them over the counter. Feynstein (talk) 20:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: not ignoring your ping btw, just thinking. Generally, I feel like we're kinda going around in circles here, and that's probably because the differences of opinion between the two sides of this issue are more fundamental. I think crying policy, although it's often an irritating thing to be subject to, applies here somewhat, otherwise a resolution is impossible. Some smart folks came up with WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE and related PAGs and I think our job is less deciding how we should write, but how the content matches up with policies. It's a pretty politicised topic. Now, personally I think there is room for non-MEDRS sources on this particular matter. For example, a quality piece of investigative reporting from The New York Times or some such which interviews people at the lab, or obtains a leak, and reaches some conclusions on the basis of evidence I think would be DUE to include (and it would likely also be covered in MEDRS with a delay anyway). But that doesn't exist yet. What we have is conjecture, speculation and theorising. Does the theory sound 'plausible'? Maybe. But so does saying Bin Laden isn't dead & the US govt has him locked up somewhere. A good conspiracy theory is impossible or difficult/expensive to disprove. I think that applies here. There's no evidence in favour of the theory other than speculation. Most RS discussing it don't even say there's any evidence in support, they just say it's not completely ruled out / is 'possible'. But their opinion is that it's highly unlikely. The scientific consensus, via various journal articles, is natural origin via bats. The article should portray that, in my view. It's possible this could be wrong as a matter of fact, but we can re-decide when there's something in MEDRS in support. We follow the sources, not decide the truth. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:18, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Minority, but scientific viewpoint and Yes The following are two MEDRS secondary sources (not primary!) from a reputable scientific journal [4]. Both are peer reviewed. If anyone wants to challenge the journals they need to advocate for that somewhere else like WP:RS, not just dismiss them because they don't match their POV.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000240

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000091

I'll also note that this RFC was canvassed at both an ANI and on the Fringe Notice Board in violation of WP:CANVASS.

Alexbrn canvassed with a link at an ANI Fringe Notice Board [5]

ProcrastinatingReader canvassed with a link on the Fringe Notice Board ANI.[6]

Shameful. Dinglelingy (talk) 14:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC) — Dinglelingy (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Those sources are weak. We need review articles (or better) per WP:MEDRS. You're also telling fibs about AIN, which is naughty. Alexbrn (talk) 14:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. Just as shameful. We need MEDRS which they are, you're telling fibs now.Dinglelingy (talk) 15:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

You should read Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate_notification before making such accusations. As an aside, when one is worried about notification to the administrators' noticeboard, and/or to the fringe NB, you can be sure the editor is probably up to no good. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:27, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Canvassing#InAppropriate_notification, Vote-stacking, campaigning, biased. Nice try though. You are not an admin here, quit pretending you are. Dinglelingy (talk) 15:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

If you sincerely think this is canvassing, this RfC is not the place for this. You can try your luck at WP:Dramaboard. Though, friendly reminder, you should also be aware of WP:BOOMERANG. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:35, 18 February 2021

I'm well aware of the rules. A little advice, you may want to refresh your understanding of WP:ForumShop,WP:Stonewalling,and WP:TENDENTIOUS editing. [7]. Dinglelingy (talk) 16:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

If you have any further accusations please start an ANI thread instead of venting heat at this RfC. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:20, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

You're still pushing those two primary non-MEDRS articles, even after so many people have explained why they are not appropriate for SCI/MED? It should be immediately apparent that those authors do not provide expert perspectives on viral evolution or genetics and therefore wouldn't be DUE even if they were otherwise MEDRS-compliant. How valid can your scientific opinion be if you can't find anyone with any credentials whatsoever to coauthor with you? Especially if 1) your coauthor is a dude with an MBA and zero science background rather than, you know, the scientist PI whose lab you're in? Or 2) you form a shell company to list as your "institutional affiliation" because you're retired and your only coauthor is your blogger insert applicable descriptor from link son who openly admits he hasn't studied biology since high school? JoelleJay (talk) 19:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• I’m not understanding why it can’t be both, the question asked appears to be a false dichotomy. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Conspiracy theory and no. Novem Linguae and Alexbrn give a good recap here. I've opined substantially in other venues so won't repeat here. JoelleJay (talk) 19:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Minority and yes. It's clearly stated in the main MEDRS paper that even though it's unlikely, serial passage could have happened in the lab. The littérature rightly dismisses any bioweapon claim, but not the lab incident theory. I'm sorry everyone it's not a conspiracy theory. I suggest editors read this article [8] by Michael Shermer in Scientific American to help them decide if it is or not. If you can use this article to debunk the hypothesis I'll be glad to discuss it under here. Feynstein (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Except it is not for us editors to decide whether the story is "true", "untrue" or whatever (that piece is 10 years old and naturally does not mention COVID once, so any inferences from it would be WP:SYNTH. What we do is reflect what reliable sources (in this case, even more stringently MEDRS) say. They say the theory came out of a context of politically motivated accusation, is extremely unlikely, that there is not a shred of evidence, ... So we say that, not the FALSEBALANCE option that it is an equally valid but minority view. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:09, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Except it's precisely what this RfC is about isn't it? Editors dismissing it as a conspiracy theory are precisely deciding it's not true. It's demonstrably not one with multiple RS sources. Shermer's article was only for rhetorical purposes, but it's still very handy to read, you should try it. Feynstein (talk) 02:21, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Feynstein: This RfC is about some users trying to legitimise this because it's not disproven, and then wanting to have a larger section to entertain their particular view about it (and other editors having to debunk the same debunked points multiple times all over again), as was formerly the case at WIV (where nearly half the article was taken up with that kind of thing), before that was trimmed for the same reasons. The fact that most high-quality medical sources dismiss this as extremely unlikely is telling all you need to know. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:00, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Yes, but then why is the question minority viewpoint vs political conspiracy theory? Extremely unlikely doesn't come across to me as anything close to a conspiracy theory. And there are primary RS that have positive arguments for it. We're really not into chemtrail territory here. I can understand anyone answering no to the second question tough, it is a minority view and I don't think it deserves anything else than a paragraph detailing the RS we have on the subject. Why did you answer conspiracy theory when you know that the difference between chemtrails and this is multiple orders of magnitude of credibility? There's absolutely no RS positive arguments for chemtrails or flat earth. And we also have RS saying the Chinese conspiracy theory of frozen food is false. Why would the WHO promote that? We also have tons on RS saying the Chinese government hid stuff like human to human transmission and prohibited scientists from releasing any paper, genome or samples to the rest of the world. It's really not that much a stretch of the mind to think they would have, and probably still would, be hiding evidence of a lab leak. The best answer in my opinion would then be minority and no? Having one paragraph or subsection on the subject would be the logical way to go. We can even reference two MEDRSs that talk about serial passage. Feynstein (talk) 17:31, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The WHO referencing the "all hypotheses are still on the table" is just sign that this is also [mostly] a political issue. We ought not to mix the political aspect with the scientific aspect - reporting on the politicians who promoted this misinformation can be done separately of reporting on evidence or lack thereof (simply because this is more likely than some of the wilder theories you mention does not, or at least should not influence our judgement). Two (or ten) "primary RS" are not enough per MEDRS, we need better sources (secondary reviews) which describe this as something more than unfounded speculation. Re. "frozen food": the scientist makes a very clear distinction that, in 2019 (when the outbreak started), there was no possible route of introduction:

But that’s happening in 2020, at a time where the virus is widely circulating in the world, where there are multiple outbreaks in food factories around the world. It is probably an extremely rare event; we can see that from only a few dozen positive findings in China, out of 1.4 million samples taken so far. It’s potentially possible, so it’s worth exploring. But we have to separate the situation in 2020 with imported goods in China, and the situation in 2019, where that was not a possible route of introduction. There were no widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 in food factories around the world.

So what is said is that it is an interesting thing to investigate, in the context of global transmission (2020), but not in the context of virus origin (2019). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: I'll refer to my previous quote: "But they kept open the possibility that the virus arrived in Wuhan on frozen food, a route promoted aggressively by Chinese media to suggest the virus was imported from elsewhere in the world.". From the article you referenced yesterday that dismissed the lab leak hypothesis. They're specifically talking about Wuhan, don't try to slither away from it by talking about the global pandemic situation. It's the WHO that said that, ruining their credibility. If they want to find the zoonotic origin, fine, but don't play favoritism for other "political conspiracy theories" if they really are "conspiracy theories". This is MERDRS btw [9]. And they separate the theories about a synthetic virus and a serial passage virus "En l’absence d’éléments probants concernant le dernier intermédiaire animal avant la contamination humaine, certains auteurs suggèrent que ce virus pourrait avoir été fabriqué dans un laboratoire (origine synthétique). Mais ces assertions ont été réfutées par de nombreux spécialistes, notamment sur la base d’études phylogénétiques qui suggèrent deux scénarios prépondérants pour expliquer l’origine du SARS-CoV-2 : (1) l’adaptation chez un animal hôte avant le transfert zoonotique, ou (2) l’adaptation chez l’homme après le transfert zoonotique [11, 17, 18, 22]. D’autres pensent qu’il pourrait s’agir d’un virus de chiroptère qui se serait adapté à d’autres espèces dans des modèles animaux élevés en laboratoire, dont il se serait ensuite échappé. Il est également envisageable que ce virus provienne d’une souche virale cultivée sur des cellules au laboratoire afin d’étudier son potentiel infectieux. Ce virus cultivé se serait progressivement « humanisé » (adapté à l’hôte humain) par sélection des virus les plus aptes à se propager dans ces conditions. Quel que soit le mécanisme présidant à son apparition, il est important de comprendre comment ce virus a passé la barrière d’espèce et est devenu hautement transmissible d’homme à homme, cela afin de se prémunir de nouvelles émergences [23].". It can't be more clear. Feynstein (talk) 18:06, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Feynstein: We already discussed that source earlier, see my previous comments. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:09, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Yeah and I think you missed it: "Il est également envisageable que ce virus provienne d’une souche virale cultivée sur des cellules au laboratoire afin d’étudier son potentiel infectieux. Ce virus cultivé se serait progressivement « humanisé » (adapté à l’hôte humain) par sélection des virus les plus aptes à se propager dans ces conditions.". This is positive proof, not a lack of negative proof. Feynstein (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Feynstein: For our English speaking friends: "Il est également envisageable" means "It is also possible to consider [the possibility that the virus originates from ...]" - id es, speculation, not "positive proof". I already addressed that report previously, see my comment beginning with "[Oui je suis aussi québécois. Ceci-dit, back to the topic:]". No point going in circles, if there's nothing new to add then it is probably time for us to let the debate continue with new interventions by other users. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:57, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: I think you missed my point, I probably used the wrong language here. I'll try to make it clearer before we do that. I didn't mean "positive proof" as in proof the theory is true. I meant it as it is possible. This paper saying it's "envisageable" (Soft proof let's say) combined with the absence of hard proof that the theory is false and the absence of an intermediate host a year later means it should get at least consideration. And since there are now multiple RS talking about it I could certainly see a subsection about this theory. Put in the right context (i.e. as a minority view) it's absolutely "envisageable" ;-) Feynstein (talk) 23:29, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• Minority, abstain. [10] is enough for me to say it's not entirely a conspiracy theory. I don't have enough of a clue to know if it's reasonable to have a section on this. If we did have one, it should be a fairly short paragraph--the sourcing is too thin to do more. Hobit (talk) 11:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
• conspiracy theory and no (until there is something solid to the contrary) Minority, abstain--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Ozzie10aaaa, is this solid?

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/health/coronavirus-lab-leak-who.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/07/science/virus-inquiries-pandemic-origins.html

Tinybubi (talk) 09:36, 8 April 2021 (UTC) — Tinybubi (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

it is getting interesting...time will tell--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:50, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa: Ignore the SPA, but those sources are not MEDRS. The letter referred to in the NYT is from Jamie Metzl. Maybe an expert about geopolitics, but he has no relevant expertise here (except for highlighting the political aspect, which is already obvious). And the deliberate misinterpretation of "requires more investigation" by lab leak proponents flies in the face of statements like "He said that over all, on the question of viral origins, “I’m really not convinced that it came from a lab, but there’s not enough investigation.”" In fact, much of the NYT article is giving the opinion of scientists who generally agree with the report's conclusions, with some limitations, but nothing of the political nonsense about the WHO seen in places like the RSN post or further below here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

• Minority viewpoint, and this RfC is silly. There have been several discussions about this over a variety of noticeboards, talk pages, MfDs, et cetera over the course of months, and I'd say most reasonable people have gotten sick of it by now (I certainly have); the only people left are people who care to an extreme degree about this. I (and others) certainly do not feel up to the task of copy-pasting the exact same posts into a dozen different discussions about the exact same thing for weeks on end, so I guess the consensus is probably going to be that every fact that reliable sources don't consense on is automatically a conspiracy theory; I will say again, for the record, that this is a dangerous oversimplification of how scientific consensus works. Wikipedia's job is not to be an authoritative decisionmaker on controversies where reliable sources have not reached consensus. jp×g 22:16, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Minority viewpoint, concur with JPxG that this RfC is a poor idea. The lab leak perspective does not deserve undue weight or recognition in the article -- hence I abstain from the question of whether it should have a section, which would potentially be undue weight -- but similarly does not deserve a hardline position on whether it's a conspiracy theory at this point in the process. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:19, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• conspiracy theory and no. There is a minority for the lab leak theory, but it is so minor that any mention would be undue and a false balance. The conspiracy theory around the idea is notable, which give the false idea that the minority view is notable. In time this conspiracy theory will just be remembered as one amongst many, and the minority view will be completely forgotten. 92.3.131.156 (talk) 23:09, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• Minority, but scientific viewpoint and Yes. I also agree with DeFacto and Slatersteven that this RFC doesn't address the issue. Politico published an article yesterday explaining the Covid lab origin hypothesis in great detail. RebeccaofLondon (talk) 13:52, 10 March 2021 (UTC) — RebeccaofLondon (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• No and no. This is simply something unknown. A lot of things are unknown. One might argue this is a "minority view" based on recent publications [11], i.e. a letter sent by a group of scientists to WHO, etc. But there is a problem: these scientists do NOT claim that it was leaked from the lab. They only say it should be independently investigated becuase WHO investigators failed their mission, obviously due to the information blockout by the Chinese government. My very best wishes (talk) 17:54, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Not conspiracy theory - Echoing My very best wishes here; "conspiracy theory" is often taken to mean an explanation of thing/event that is contrary to the commonly accepted explanation. I don't believe there is a well-defined and widely accepted origin story for COVID, thus it's hard to call this a "conspiracy theory". Probably best to just use some WP:WEASEL language and say "a small number of sources have suggested....". NickCT (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

  Conspiracy theories can be "well-defined and widely accepted". --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Hob Gadling: Granted that "conspiracy theory" can have different definitions, but a lot of those definitions include some kind of rejection of the common narrative (e.g. this one). Hence, once something is "widely accepted", it by definition can't be a conspiracy theory. NickCT (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  I actually misread what you wrote. I thought you had written that the lab leak idea was a "well-defined and widely accepted origin story for COVID", so my response did not fit. Nevertheless, a claim that people conspired to hide a lab leak is a conspiracy theory. There does not need to be one widely accepted exact explanation in order for some weird story to be a CT, it can be a general idea too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Hob Gadling: - Ok. Well maybe we need to define the "lab leak theory" a little better. My understanding is that theory largely pertains to the purported origin of the virus. Not necessarily any subsequent conspiracy to hide the origin. NickCT (talk) 15:28, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  I do not think this is a conspiracy theory for a couple of reasons. First of all, an accidental leakage of a pathogen from a lab does not imply conspiracy or any evil intention. A conspiracy to hide the fact? There is no doubt that the Chinese government is hiding something (simply based on their information blockades, disinformation campaign, preventing access to WHO team, etc.). We just do not know what they hide exactly. My very best wishes (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  Largely agree w/ My very best wishes's comments. Even if members of the Chinese government are "conspiring" to hide a lab leak, I still don't think I'd call that a "conspiracy theory". Governments conspire to hide things all the time. Saying something like "I think the Air Force is covering up details of a new jet fighter", isn't really a conspiracy theory. NickCT (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• neither and Yes. It's not really a conspiracy theory or a minority scientific opinion. It's a hypothesis mostly based on the outbreak being near a lab which was studying similar viruses and considering it is more common sense than a conspiracy or science. Given the WHO have looked into it and said probably not and also that the US government have also commented on it, both the Trump and Biden administrations, I think it would be reasonable to have a section on the 'the possibility of a laboratory-related incident' with the information that the WHO had said it was unlikely rather than regarding all discussion as to be censored. The term 'the possibility of a laboratory-related incident" is from the WHO press conference where they list it as one of four hypotheses considered. (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/covid-19-virtual-press-conference-transcript---9-february-2021)

I think calling the lab hypothesis a conspiracy theory may deviate from 'neutral point of view (NPOV)' given both the WHO and State Department consider it as a real possibility rather than conspiracy theory. A recent update on the State Dept stuff was

>“There wasn’t significant or meaningful disagreement regarding the information presented in the fact sheet,” the senior State Department official said. “No one is disputing the information, the fact that these data points exist, the fact that they are accurate. Where there was some discomfort was that [the Trump administration] put spin on the ball.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/09/biden-administration-confirms-some-trump-wuhan-lab-claims/)

Tim333 (talk) 10:35, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Political conspiracy theory and no we should not have sections on this theory and/or the WIV on articles related to COVID, except in articles that are specifically dedicated to misinformation, disinformation, or conspiracies. I've dozens on scientific journal articles on coronavirus biology — published either before or after this most recent outbreak — and all discuss high coronavirus lineage diversity, frequent spillovers, and the likelihood of another epidemic occurring for natural reasons as a result. Papers published in the last year consider the virus to have a natural origin. -Darouet (talk) 15:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  Darouet, you seem to be confusing the lab-leak hypothesis being discussed here (which is one of only four hypotheses, all only concerned with a virus of natural origin, still on the WHO's table) with the long since refuted theory that the virus was engineered by humans. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:33, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a serious misunderstanding here. The accidental leak hypothesis assumes that the virus is of natural origin. It just was leaked from a lab, just as in many other pathogen leakage accidents that did did happen as a matter of fact. This can not be proven or disproven by analysing the evolutionary history or biology of the virus. If it could, this question would be already closed. My very best wishes (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm not misunderstanding this at all, and if you think so, you're confused about what most people are voting about on this RfC. When I write coronavirus lineage diversity, frequent spillovers, and the likelihood of another epidemic occurring for natural reasons as a result, that should indicate to you that I mean the "lab leak" (not engineering) idea is also misinformation. -Darouet (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• But then this is just an invalid RfC. What all these people are voting for? RfC asks: "Should the "lab leak" theory be treated and described as a...". But what is the "lab leak"? This seems to be understood differently. For example, this ref say: Some people have alleged that SARS‐CoV‐2 is of laboratory origin and the result of deliberate genetic manipulation. According to these conspiracy theories, a novel virus is a human‐made biological weapon, not the result of natural evolution and selection. OK, this is one of claims. Then it say: SARS‐CoV‐2 is said to be engineered by the Chinese government with economic or political background and agenda. This is different. Then it say There are also rumours that SARS‐CoV‐2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan working on bat CoVs, the ancestral virus of SARS‐CoV‐2". This is something else. My very best wishes (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: personally, I would assume that the "lab leak" idea does not imply engineering at all. The idea proposes that the the WIV had SARS-CoV-2 in its lab. It might have been sampled from a natural population and unchanged. But then the virus leaked, perhaps by infecting a researcher. What I'm telling you is that most scientists view this idea - that involves no engineering at all - as a politically motivated conspiracy theory that's wholly at odds with available evidence. -Darouet (talk) 23:34, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

What evidence? There is no any scientific evidence it did not leak from a lab, just as there is no evidence it leaked from the lab. Science can not answer if something was or was not physically present in a lab. This is a question for a police-style investigation. The souce population of bats is unknown. The intermediate host (if any) is unknown. The patien zero is unknown. Hence there are many recent publications, such as this arricle in WaPo [12]. My very best wishes (talk) 04:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

The evidence is the close genetic proximity of SARS-CoV-2 to wild coronaviruses in the region; the dozens or hundreds of CoV strains that have been characterized; the extraordinary number of bats that live throughout SE Asia and carry CoVs with them; the high CoV seroprevalence among people living near the bats; the high rate of zoonosis by CoVs in SE Asia and throughout the rest of the world; the two other SARS epidemics that have occurred recently; warnings by many CoV scientists that another outbreak was bound to happen again soon. Add to these the absence of the SARS-CoV-2 strain in the WIV or other institutes before the outbreak. All these facts are known to virologists and epidemiologists, the vast majority of whom would agree with virologist Vincent Racaniello in describing the lab leak conspiracy theory as "science fiction."

Sure, it's possible for anyone to propose a series of highly unlikely events — a "lab leak" is a more likely source for SARS-CoV-2 than a meteorite origin, but both are highly implausible compared to zoonisis — and to declare that no evidence exists to contradict them. However, there are a truly infinite number of false hypotheses to explain the origin of SARS-CoV-2, if your only criteria is that the hypotheses cannot be falsified. Understanding the ecology of coronaviruses in nature — and this involves plenty of data and evidence — will help you understand why scientists consider this idea to be science fiction. -Darouet (talk) 17:53, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• Conspiracy theory and no. I saw a note about this at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine — Preceding unsigned comment added by ApproximateLand (talk • contribs)
• Minority, but scientific viewpoint since it’s scientifically possible and has been hypothesized or not escluded by serious scientists. Conspiracy theory is instead something impossible and that no serious expert would consider. Even experts who disagree call it “unlikely”, but that’s very different from a conspiracy theory. It’s still a valid scientific hypothesis, even if it turns out to be wrong. It cannot by definition be called a conspiracy theory Eccekevin (talk) 11:00, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• Minority viewpoint and yes. As of yesterday (after the official report was released), the Director General of the WHO has come out on record saying: “Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation,”. Nothing about it being a conspiracy theory or even misinformation. If the head of the world organization responsible for investigating the origins has deemed it worthy of a follow-up, and if the WHO is considered a reliable source (which has been repeatedly stated in this talk page), this should be an open and shut case.CommercialB (talk) 21:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Minority viewpoint that is significant enough that yes, it should have a dedicated subsection. Given that the evidence is only pointing in another direction, but has not conclusively proved this isn't the case, it is not a conspiracy theory. There is a valid scientific pathway to get to lab leak as the source, and even though there's equally many or more pathways to get to the conclusion that it was from animals, neither has been proven correct or incorrect as of yet. Thus, it's not a conspiracy by definition. Conspiracies are not defined by "how likely they are" - they're defined by misinterpreting facts or outright fabrication to support their views. If and when a conclusive source is proven, then continuing to spread this theory would be a conspiracy. Until then, it is being used for misinformation (saying that a conclusive source has been found as a lab leak, for example), but it is not a conspiracy. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• Opening an RfC so the endless I-dont-hear-it-is can come to an end. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:45, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• I don't think this will settle it, as there are different "lab leak" theories, including odd variants being pushed on Wikipedia which don't seem to appear in sources. Also some sources seem to use multiple terms to describe the lab leak including (yes) "conspiracy theory" but also "rumours" and "misinformation". Alexbrn (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, at least this will give an enforceable consensus about it, and it will be that much harder for the POV-pushers to keep repeating the same rebutted arguments all over again under different usernames... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:59, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• We already had a conclusive discussion on this in early last year (which I am unable to find at the moment), so I cant imagine this concensus holding for more than 8 months. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:50, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• That previous RfC is here. Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

That was in the main topic article (where the lab leak is entirely off topic, unlike here). Time goes on and things don't change: "The only WP:MEDRS which discusses this speculative theory find "that the available data argue overwhelmingly against any scientific misconduct or negligence".[1]"; "Politically-motivated narratives about the virus origin are completely divorced from hypotheses developed by scientists reporting in WP:MEDRS"; "Discussion of the origins of the pandemic should be based on WP:MEDRS sources."... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:46, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• This RfC does not address the issue we have. The issue is the conflation of the legitimate hypothesis that the virus accidentally escaped from a lab, the hypothesis that currently sits, along with just three other hypotheses on the WHO table, with some arbitrary and non-specific lab leak conspiracy theories, that we should be getting comments on. Should we be doing that, as we currently are, or should we separate them and treat the conspiracy theoris as such, and the hypothesis with the weight and voracity that its widespread coverage in the media and in the literature deserves. This RfC does not address that issue at all, it offers two closed questions, neither of which is relevant, and whichever get's the most support is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I suggest scrapping this RfC and getting agreement on the wording for a new one, before then opening it. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:45, 17 February 2021 (UTC)‎

• You have been repeatedly asked to provide a source setting out your "natural virus languishing in a lab" leak idea, but have not done so. I have concluded the story is your own original one. The "conflation" in is the sources and Wikipedia just reflects that properly rather then embarking on original research, which would be prohibited by policy. Alexbrn (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

  Alexbrn, we saw the sources and you dismissed them as not being MEDRS compliant, as if that has any weight wrt the specifics here. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

"The issue is the conflation of the legitimate hypothesis that the virus accidentally escaped from a lab" No, it might maybe be "legitimate", but it's very WP:FRINGE. The real issue is editors attempting to push that theory as something equally valid (based on poor sources) to the scientific consensus, which is actually, very clearly, per recent WHO clarifications and the vast majority of MEDRS, that COVID does not come from the WIV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:49, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, and this RfC does not cover it either way, so needs starting again. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:05, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

It does not cover it explicitly, because it is not a legitimate concern, it is one which you keep pushing without evidence, as mentioned by both me and Alexbrn. In any case, even if it does not cover it explicitly, it is implicitly included in the first question. If you think you have a case, do so by giving us direct and non-cherrypicked quotes from WP:MEDRS and proper research, not WP:SYNTH from the popular press. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

At this stage I'd be interested even to see a non-WP:MEDRS sourced that sets out the supposed sequence of events. But every time the question is asked there is just arm waving at various sources which do not do so. The idea sounds to me inherently absurd, that the virus can have somehow both a natural origin and lab origin, without human intervention in its nature. Alexbrn (talk) 17:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, imagine for a moment that a member of a lab's staff or a delivery to it or animals in transit came in with a virus, or viruses being studied in there evolved, and then their biosecurity system failed in some way. Is that, for example, beyond the realms of possibility? That'd be the sort of thing the WHO would want to look at, if they had the power and the resources to do it. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

If you want to include that in the article, and assuming somehow it's not just your wild speculation, then applies... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:31, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, and the rest is history! Can you remind us what happens then, and how quickly it is whisked away? What's the record, sub-30 seconds I wouldn't wonder. (clue: MEDRS) -- DeFacto (talk). 17:42, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, if the RfC does not cover it it will not solve the issue, will it? And whether you or MEDRS think it is a legitimate concern, or not, is totally irrelevant. The RfC should decide if there is a case to cover in due detail the widely publicised and commented upon hypothesis that the WHO have kept on the table. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:36, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

And which hypothesis is that, that is not already included in the RfC? Virus bio-engineered? Already in article. Virus leaked from lab? The point of this RfC. Sources on the topic that are not just the popular press reporting on politics? Nowhere to be seen. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:39, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

*I agree with DeFacto that this RFC does not address the real issue, so I would suggest rewording it and posting it again.

There is a similar discussion on the talk page of Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 where editors Park3r, Guest2625, Horse Eye's Back and My very best wishes support the inclusion of the Biden administration's statements dichotomising the lab leak hypothesis from conspiracy theories.

There is are also a long discussion on the talk page of the Wuhan Institute of Virology where Feynstein makes many good points delineating several points of divergence between the lab leak hypothesis and bioweapons conspiracy theories.

Alexbrn also points out in this discussion that there are different lab leak theories, including some variants he finds "odd" and which he says do not appear in sources. The Hakim MS source he mentions in the above discussion includes one variant involving gain of function research, so I assume he not referring to that one as "odd" or unsourced, as that is the main variant that many editors here and on other pages are concerned about.

TacticalTweaker (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC) Blocked sock editing in violation of their topic ban. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:36, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

That's how conspiracy theories work: taking convenient bits here and there and connecting them in a way to speculate and suggest conclusions despite the lack of evidence. Investigations can indeed explore all needed aspects but unless those demonstrate clear evidence that a lab leak occurred the narratives pushed about it remain misinformation and meet WP:FRINGE. You claim to have read the history of previous discussions, it should then already be clear that Wikipedia is not about presenting a WP:FALSEBALANCE of opinions and speculation, but should instead present the current consensus. Many reliable sources discuss these claims as misinformation and document the spread of rumors by conspiracy theorists, thus it should be presented as such... —PaleoNeonate – 03:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

To be strictly accurate, the misinformation about the WIV is a melange of conspiracy theory and unfounded speculation (per the best sources). So this is what we say:

Currently, there are some fictitious and pseudoscientific claims as well as conspiracy theories associated with the Covid‐19 pandemic ...

(Hakim 2021)

Some of the lab leak scenarios fall more into the pseudoscientific, fictional category than the outright "conspiracy theory" category, as some of the claims on this very Talk page illustrate.

(Add) though I notice DeFacto has just tagged this very directly-sourced text in our article with a {{cn}}, which seems disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 08:09, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: there is nothing disruptive about asking for a source when the sentence containing that phrase is totally unsourced. There are four sources on the following sentence, is it one of them? If it is sourced, then why not make it easier for the reader to find it. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:15, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

[13] The tone of the two sentences in the diff could use some work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: The source is the next following. A source is not required for every sentence. Alexbrn (talk) 08:35, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: I think for conspiracy theorists, "believer" is the correct/neutral term as it is an article of faith for them. From the conclusion of the Hakim source:

The believers of conspiracy will continuously search for ‘scientific evidence’ to defend their claims that SARS‐CoV‐2 is a human‐made virus, such as the case with an HIV‐1 bioRxiv paper that has been retracted. On the other side, however, the believers of conspiracy theories criticise sciences when scientific evidence argues against their beliefs.

Alexbrn (talk) 08:35, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, thanks for the feedback. Here's my concerns. The first sentence has an essay tone, like it's building up to some subjective conclusion. The second sentence in the diff (farther down) uses strong words like "believer" and "dedicated". Even if the source says that, it seems like an opinion to me, and I'd argue that tone is too strong for Wikivoice. No response necessary unless you want to, I don't want to spend too much time on this minor issue. But I did want to articulate my concerns. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:52, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Problem is it can be both.Slatersteven (talk) 14:15, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I’m with Slatersteven, it can be both. Forcing it into a false binary choice makes the RfC useless. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

It can be both, but WP:NPOV means it probably shouldn't be described as such in the article (especially if MEDRS overwhelmingly reject/describe it as some degree of unlikely). Anyway, there's the other question which is also pertinent for purposes of UNDUE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:37, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me, from the best RS, some variants of the "lab leak" story are conspiracy theory, others fall more into the category of "unfounded speculation". Hence our current opening of this section is "Conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation have gained popularity during the pandemic ...". Alexbrn (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

No NPOV does not mean that, it means we give a nuanced view. We call should include the parts that are called by RS misinformation as misinformation.Slatersteven (talk) 16:46, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

NPOV would seem to be nearly the opposite, if it can be both then we must express both to the extent we find them in WP:RS. Also MEDRS does not apply to the political and communications aspects of the claims (which this page is primarily about), only the biomedical ones (which this page is *not* about, there should be no unique biomedical claims here). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd like to say that this article[14] would actually fall in the MEDRS category as it is secondary. All the arguments i've seen against it are based on the authors credentials and I'm allergic to that. Some editors think they can dismiss papers because they think they know enough about the authors. Feynstein (talk) 01:52, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• You might "like" to say it, but you'd be wrong. The publisher/PUBMED categorize it as a "comparative study". Alexbrn (talk) 18:18, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• @Alexbrn: In French it says "synthèse" (or summary of research), which would be a secondary article. Can you explain to me how it's a comparative study and what's about them specifically that's not MEDRS. When you read it, it actually reads like a review. Looks to me like you picked this argument out of a hat mate. Feynstein (talk) 20:32, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• See PMID 32773024. Alexbrn (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I saw that. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe PubMed can't speak French? Or they mixed it up? I'll contact them tomorrow to see if it's a mistake. It's written "synthèse" in the original article. Anyhow, literally a tag on a paper from a website other than the original publisher shouldn't be used to completely dismiss the article. And what I've asked you is actually: if it's a comparative study, which it is demonstrably not, why isn't it MEDRS? Because it's primary? They literally cite multiple authors throughout the paper like a litterature review. You hiding behind what is probably a tagging mistake is not an argument. Do you also think it's a comparative study? Aside from the tag can you demonstrate that? It looks a bit shallow to me mate. Feynstein (talk) 23:41, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

To my non-medical (but minimally scientifically literate) eyes, this doesn't look like a primary (case-study/experiment report/...) source. It doesn't change my previous comments on the content therein. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:52, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Feynstein: "Maybe PubMed can't speak French?" ← has to be one of the more ridiculous statements on this page, in a competitive field. The metadata record with the article's type will have been prepared by the publisher and submitted to PUBMED. From the abstract ("Based on phylogenetic inferences, sequence analysis and structure-function relationships of coronavirus proteins, informed by the knowledge currently available, we discuss ...") it is apparent the authors are conducting novel research using others' work as a basis. One has to wonder why, when we have genuine and recent review articles, we would want to consider a comparative study from last August? Alexbrn (talk) 06:10, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Except for this...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33558807/

@Feynstein, looks kind of like a checkmate on this issue, no? Which would great as we can all move on to better or more important things, yay!

There is now a good MEDRS secondary source that meets literally everyone's requirements.

Good MERS means the lab leak theory is a 'Minority but scientific viewpoint.'

A 'Minority but scientific viewpoint' can not be a 'Conspiracy theory'. More precisely, it is no longer a 'Conspiracy theory.'

Might need a little blurb about the transition.

Case closed.

Any objections to assuming consensus on this?

Dinglelingy (talk) 13:14, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a modified version of the article appearing in a non-MEDLINE indexed journal, an indication that the journal article may not be reliable. Avoid, especially when we have solid sources. Alexbrn (talk) 13:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

That's one objection. Any others? Dinglelingy (talk) 13:26, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, plenty of objections. As said, this is a translation of the French-language article mentioned above, and I'm not going to repeat what I said about it in excruciating detail (see my comment and the one mentioned in it earlier, [15]), but in short, the only thing it offers for this lab leak story is some minor speculation (which, unlike for the other statements in that study, is not even sourced to any other previous paper). And it is from last August, so it isn't exactly the newest thing. We'd do better to wait for the full WHO report and see how that has any consequences in MEDRS: after all, on Wikipedia, we're not supposed to be latest news and there's no worry if we're a bit delayed in reporting things, especially when reporting things earlier could lend undue credence (read WP:FALSEBALANCE for once) to a theory that is not really supported, except for some minor mentions, in proper sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:44, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"The data currently available are not sufficient to firmly assert whether SARS-CoV2 results from a zoonotic emergence or from an accidental escape of a laboratory strain. This question needs to be solved because it has important consequences on the risk/benefit balance of our interactions with ecosystems, ::on intensive breeding of wild and domestic animals, on some laboratory practices and on scientific policy and biosafety regulations"

The review is updated with current data and additional information. They have not backed away from their previous statement. It's from Feb 4, 2021. You are proposing to wait until for the WHO Summary report. You are not claiming it's not a good MEDRS review. I think that's right. Any other objections?Dinglelingy (talk) 14:04, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

A translation does not mean the data is the latest available, and, crucially, even the publication date (let alone the date at which this was actually submitted for publication: peer-review and translation typically are not, in a reputable journal, something done hurriedly in a day or two) is before the WHO press conference on the 9th, which provided plenty of new information, which this study (initially written in August 2020) could not possibly have even known of. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:06, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"This article is the English translation and update of a French article published in médecines/sciences (10.1051/medsci/2020123) on July 10, 2020. Since our study included a complete re-analysis by ourselves of the genomic and peptidic sequences, this English translation contains an additional section “Materials and methods.” We also added the ferret in Fig. 4, made some minor revisions, added a short conclusion at the end of each paragraph and discussed a few key articles on the subject that were published after our initial publication."

I don't think that changes anything from your first comment. You have a content issue. I posted what the review says about the update, people can read it for themselves. Are you now saying it is not MEDRS? If you are not saying that, we are good and we can see if there are any other objections. Are the any other objections? Dinglelingy (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to go in circles and repeat myself about the analysis of the French language article (most sections are pretty much unchanged). What about this direct quote: "The hypothesis promoted by most specialists is that the virus has a zoonotic origin. This hypothesis relies on phylogenetic studies suggesting [...]". So the lab leak thing would still be pretty much a minority affair (even more so in light of the more recent WHO reports), so even if we somehow wanted to divorce it from the politically motivated conspiracies we'd still only afford a very minor mention of it per WP:DUE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

You don't have to. I have acknowledged you have a content issue and people can read your comments. You are not claiming it is not MEDRS. Thank you for your objection. Are there any other objections? Dinglelingy (talk) 16:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Whatever. I still think we have to mention in the article, that there is no way to tell an artificially produced virus from a natural, zoonotic emergence. Alexpl (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that's fine with a nice MEDRS link. Thank you. Dinglelingy (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

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.

---

(Proposed) Concensus

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33558807/

There is now a good MEDRS secondary source that meets literally almost everyone's requirements.

Good MEDRS means the lab leak theory is a 'Minority but scientific viewpoint.'

A 'Minority but scientific viewpoint' can not be a 'Conspiracy theory'. More precisely, it is no longer a 'Conspiracy theory.'

Might need a little blurb about the transition.

Case closed.

Objection 1: Alexbrn - Not MEDRS because its a non-MEDLINE indexed journal (see above)

Objection 2: RandomCanadian - Is MEDRS but has content concerns. Timing with WHO report (see above)

No need to argue, if you have an objection, keep it short & sweet, be very specific if you object to it being good MEDRS. I am going to try and let this go without needing to summarize. We'll see what happens.

Any objections to assuming consensus on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinglelingy (talk • contribs)

The consensus is to omit. Arguments against the WP:PAGs have no weight in evaluating consensus. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

As has been said there are two stains here, the "it was a leak" conspiracy theory and "the data currently available are not sufficient to firmly assert whether SARS-CoV2 results from a zoonotic emergence or from an accidental escape of a laboratory strain." scientific bet-hedging. We need to differentiate the two, not assume that the existence of one means the other is not a conspiracy theroyy or misinformation.Slatersteven (talk) 18:08, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I support the conclusion that the accidental leak of the virus from a laboratory (regardless of how that virus might have got there) is not a conspiracy theory, that is supported by the latest reports from the WHO team who confirm it is still on the table and they would need more power, resources and expertise to fully investigate it. That does not though, I think, rule out the 'theory' that the virus was created in a laboratory, which might well be a conspiracy theory. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:54, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I've added a sentence which seems to be well supported in the MEDRS, that is that further research might be required (whichever source is most appropriate for this should be added). If that pleases everybody then we can settle this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that suggestion aligns well with where the new MEDRS is taking us as well as the previous two comments. Let's see if there are any more objections to the proposed consensus, don't want to cut short if there are more objections. Dinglelingy (talk) 19:35, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Dinglelingy: Yeah it's pretty much a checkmate. It also absolutely proves my point that PubMed messed up the tag, considering the translation paper is "a review". Alexbrn can retract his statement about me raising the possibility of this to be ridiculous. I accept your apology mate. Other than that, this article is perfectly MEDRS. It is a minority view, of course, but it should be included. I think we actually broke the WP:STONEWALL about this issue didn't we? Can we all agree it's not a conspiracy theory now or what? #toldyouso. Feynstein (talk) 20:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I would also suggest we box that RfC so that the consensus of that article being WP:MEDRS can apply to other wikipedia articles and that it can be used as a reference. Meaning that with this precedent we can finally separate the conspiracies about an "engineered" virus from the minority viewpoint that a specimen could have serially passaged (in petri dishes or lab specimens) in the lab and finally escaped. I would also suggest editors inform themselves that lab specimens evolving the virus for it to develop the ACE2 receptor would also represent like a natural evolution in the virus's genome. Editors can actually look up how evolution works, especially if they're into debunking creationism over at the fringe noticeboard. It would make us look bad wouldn't it? Feynstein (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I will consider any clutching at straws over this to effectively be proof of bad faith. Feynstein (talk) 20:30, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Any other objections to assuming consensus on this? Dinglelingy (talk) 02:37, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I also object to calling this a "review" article. The authors do not limit themselves to discussing other publications' results and analyses; they actively performed their own alignments/PIP calculations and phylogenetic inferences with original scripts (fig. 2) as well as structural analyses and proffer their own novel conclusions from those data throughout the article. This is evident by the fact they have a "Materials and Methods" section, which is not something one needs in a literature review (at least outside of clinical trials and other studies with specific inclusion/exclusion criteria). That at least some of their conclusions on the viability of the lab passage scenario rely on primary data they generated (in particular, see the penultimate paragraph of the section "An evolutionary history by fragments") indicates this primary-review hybrid article should not be used to support the passage hypothesis. JoelleJay (talk) 03:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I think we can keep the 'passage hypothesis' out of the consensus until there is more MEDRS on that. Fair point. Dinglelingy (talk) 04:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Any other objections to assuming consensus on this?Dinglelingy (talk) 04:03, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Consensus is not "assumed", it has to be achieved by editor(s) seeking to include content, per WP:ONUS. We generally don't use non-MEDLINE indexed journals for biomedical claims, but especially not for WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, so this POV-push has no hope of succeeding. If you want to gauge consensus formally, a WP:RFC is the way to go. Alexbrn (talk) 06:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I have your objection that it's not MEDRS noted up above and we have your comments. The other objections seem reasonable for achieving a consensus. Let's try not to repeat ourselves.Dinglelingy (talk) 09:40, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: May I remind you of what you used to form a concensus on WIV page? WP:CLUE. Your objections are noted and rejected by some editors. Feynstein (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Any other objections to assuming consensus on this? Dinglelingy (talk) 09:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I suggest you stop saying "assuming consensus". There is an RFC in progress on this issue, and that will determine consensus, not "assuming consensus" in this section. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:03, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Was just trying to stay consistent in looking for specific objections following the MEDRS that came out of the RFC discussion but I think I get your point on semantics. Maybe the following is more clear? Dinglelingy (talk) 11:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Any objection to the proposed consensus in the discussion section? Dinglelingy (talk) 11:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it is the survey that matters.Slatersteven (talk) 12:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Ending_RfCs Dinglelingy (talk) 12:35, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Does not say we ignore one part of an RFC. Wre take into account the opinons expressed in the survey (else why even have it?).Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Any objection to the proposed consensus in the discussion section? Dinglelingy (talk) 12:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

There are clearly lots of objections. You do not need to keep asking. This is getting spammy. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Great idea. Let's get back to focus on driving consensus by identifying specific objections to the proposed consensus so we do not get sidetracked. Thanks. Dinglelingy (talk) 13:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Lets ask an uninvolved admin to close this RFC then, and let them determine what is and is not relevant to consensus.Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Summary of Proposed Consensus discussion

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33558807/

1) There is now a good MEDRS secondary source that meets literally almost everyone's requirements.

2) Good MEDRS means the lab leak theory is a 'Minority but scientific viewpoint.'

3) A 'Minority but scientific viewpoint' can not be a 'Conspiracy theory'. More precisely, it is no longer a 'Conspiracy theory.'

4) Might need a little blurb about the transition.

5) Case closed.

"Any objections to assuming consensus on this?"

Objection 1: Alexbrn - Not MEDRS because its a non-MEDLINE indexed journal (see above)

Objection 2: RandomCanadian - Is MEDRS but has content concerns especially with respect to WP:DUE. Timing with WHO Summary Report (see above)

Objection 3: Slatersteven - [16] (see above)

Objection 4: DeFacto - Is MEDRS, Lab leak theory is not a conspiracy theory, 'created' in lab might be a conspiracy theory (see above)

Objection 5: JoelleJay - First paper is MEDRS, updated paper adds primary research on a 'passage hypothesis' which should not be supported by WP (see above, I think that is right?)

That's what we have so far. Seems like Objection 2,4,5 could be accommodated with carefully worded consensus. Objection 3 unsure. Objection 1 see Feynstein/Alexbrn dialogue.

I don't mind doing this another day to see if there are other objections but cool with whatever. Dinglelingy (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

That is not what I said, now ask for this to be closed without telling anyone what the result should be and let the closer decide who said what, and what the merits of those arguments are.Slatersteven (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Relax, just trying to summarize your comment not put words in your mouth. No need to get pissy, here's your diff. [17] Dinglelingy (talk) 15:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I know what I said, "the two are different" one is a conspiracy theory and one is not.Slatersteven (talk) 15:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Now formally ask for a close or do you want me to?Slatersteven (talk) 15:12, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I updated your objection. Sorry for any confusion. Dinglelingy (talk) 15:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

It looks to me as if you added "Is MEDRS" to every user who has not explicitly said "it is not MEDRS". This is argument from silence and not a valid reason. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

"be very specific if you object to it being good MEDRS." I think the only objection that concern might apply to is JoelleJay as she stated the the updated version was a hybrid primary/review because of the updated information so I am assuming the first paper without the primary was fine. I'm not sure how to catagorize Slatersteven's objection now and will let him speak for himself. Does that make sense or do you still have a concern? Dinglelingy (talk) 15:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Even the main MEDRS articles we found do not dismiss the lab leak hypothesis. And then there's this RS saying "In a significant change from a year ago, a growing number of top experts – including (ordered alphabetically by last name) Drs Francois Balloux, Ralph S Baric, Trevor Bedford, Jesse Bloom, Bruno Canard, Etienne Decroly, Richard H Ebright, Michael B Eisen, Gareth Jones, Filippa Lentzos, Michael Z Lin, Marc Lipsitch, Stuart A Newman, Rasmus Nielsen, Megan J Palmer, Nikolai Petrovsky, Angela Rasmussen and David A Relman – have stated publicly (several in early 2020) that a lab leak remains a plausible scientific hypothesis to be investigated, regardless of how likely or unlikely. We informed and obtained consent from each expert for their inclusion in this list."[18]. And plenty others that move in the same direction. At this point still considering it a conspiracy theory is clearly WP:STONEWALLING. I'm sorry, but it's true. The clutching at straws over this is excruciating. Feynstein (talk) 15:54, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

We are just going over old ground, either ask for this to be closed or just allow new voices to chip in. But no involved editor can or should close this.Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

My objection below was mischaracterized; I never said the original Sallard article was MEDRS. JoelleJay (talk) 19:54, 22 February 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.

RFC closure

Was the main RFC (the one with the "survey" section) that was closed just now by Hemiauchenia closed properly? I don't feel like having 5 days of debate spanning over 200 edits, then getting a close of "oh this RFC doesn't count, see this MFD instead" is the correct close here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:02, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia I reverted your premature closure. Wait for the discussion to play out and then ask at the appropriate board for a formal close. This is about what happens in this article, and not about what may or may not have happened at another article. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: @DeFacto: In that case everyone who voted in the MfD but not in this RfC should be notified of this RfC. This RfC currently has less than half of the votes in the MfD, many of which expressed that the "lab leak" was a conspiracy theory. The RfC should not be closed until every MfD voter has been notified and given reasonable time to respond. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, that's not how it works. The editors of this article have no reason to know about that other article, and have no reason to reach the same consensus. Canvassing a group of editors with a known opinion, with a reasonable expectation that they will influence the outcome of a discussion in a particular way isn't a good idea. Do we have to check every other article in Wikipedia each time we have a disagreement or RfC on an article, in case they've argued the same point before? Of course not. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: I never said that editors who exclusively expressed negative opinions in the MfD should be notified, that indeed would be canvassing. My point is that all the editors who expressed an opinion in that discussion should be notified of this one, as whether or not the "lab leak" supposition is a conspiracy theory was a central theme of that discussion. The MfD by my count had 33 participants, compared to this ones 15. Whether or not the "lab leak" supposition is a conspiracy theory has been an ongoing issue for nearly a year at this point, and it should not be considered resolved by a low participation RfC. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, knowing what the consensus was there gives a reasonable expectation as to the influence the same participants might have here. Anyway, here we are talking about something completely different - here we are discussing the investigations into the hypothesis, and not specifically what the strengths/weaknesses of the hypothesis are. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

If you read the closing statement, it was based on the strength of the arguments presented, not the number of participants, it was a more even split than you might think. The discussion was also heavily canvassed by ScrupulousScribe, who covertly emailed all of the users who had previously expressed pro "lab leak" opinions in related discussions extending many months before the MfD, including accounts which had long been dormant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

DeFacto By the same reasoning, you could be accused of trying to keep this a secret from those users because you fear that the majority of them will disagree with you. If you use this two-edged sword, you are very likely to cut yourself.

Hemiauchenia is right. Another point: Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:COVID-19_lab_leak_hypothesis is not a page intended for being visited by users with specific opinions. It happened to be visited by users who collectively happened to come to a specific conclusion. If that were canvassing, then posting on any page whatever, noticeboards or other function pages, would have to be disallowed. People would not be allowed to go to WP:AIV or WP:ANI if they had any expectation of success. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:25, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Hob Gadling, I disagree. The reason given for targeting that particular group was based on the outcome of a discussion they were all involved in. That sounds very much like votestacking to me. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:03, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

We already know that you disagree. And we already know the reason you gave for disagreeing. And we already know why you really disagree. You do not need to repeat yourself. Read WP:BLUDGEON. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, I've made a post on WP:ANI about WP:STONEWALLING on the subject. [19] I think there's sufficient proof at this point. Feynstein (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

And it was rightfully ignored as the claim was frivolous. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

People will answer, be patient. I wouldn't call the evidence "frivolous" though, it's pretty explicit. Evidence you still didn't address over there btw. I'm waiting for your rationalization behind using WP:STONEWALLING to WP:BAIT editors into getting topic banned. Looks pretty disruptive imo. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Feynstein (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Note to closer

I abstained from voting as I didn't agree with the question. A better question would have been: conspiracy theory or working hypothesis?

Here is some new information that was published in the last few weeks:

After a fumbled press conference in Wuhan in early February [20], the long awaited report on the even longer awaited joint study conducted by the WHO and PRC was released March 30 [21] assessing the lab leak as extremely unlikely while assessing the frozen food transmission hypothesis as possible, which was considered to be highly controversial [22]. After the press conference, WHO Mission Chief Peter Embarek downplayed the "extremely unlikely" moniker in an interview with Science Magazine, saying the lab leak hypothesis was not assessed as impossible on their scale, and it was an "achievement" to even call it that as previously it was considered "impossible" to even discuss [23]. However, the credibility of the report was questioned before it came out by scientists in an open letter published by the Wall Street Journal [24], and after the report in another letter published in the New York Times [25]. The US government and the 13 other multilateral statements were put out as a well prepared response to the WHO report [26] [27] [28], and US gov spokesman Ned Price said the other day [29] that What is evident from our review of the report is that it lacks crucial data, it lacks information, and it lacks access. The WHO Director General critiqued the report [30] and reiterated his previously stated position [31], stating that the lab leak hypothesis requires further investigation and called on China to be more transparent in further investigations [32]. China rejects this criticism [33], and is now pushing rumors that the virus leaked from a lab in the US [34].

To date, China has not shared raw data, particularly the requested blood donor and patient data [35]. This data can rule out the lab leak hypothesis if the blood specimens from index patients show the earlier stages of the evolution of the virus, like with SARS-COV-1 [36]. If China does not cooperate in providing access to the data, international scientists may set up an independent investigation and make an assessment of the lab leak hypothesis without them [37]. There is now also talk of reforming the WHO and the need for a new post pandemic health treaty [38].

CutePeach (talk) 07:09, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

American scientist selling virus to China

While the gist of this section is truthful beyond doubt, the argument it makes is undermined by inaccuracy.

Consider the summing-up last sentence of the section: "The rumor of Lieber, a chemist in an area entirely unrelated to the virus research, creating the coronavirus and selling it to China has been discredited." The rumor does seem to have been discredited, but "a chemist in an area entirely unrelated to the virus research" is manifestly untrue. I adduce two straightforward examples both of which have ample corroborating evidence.

First, Lieber, was one of the founders of Nanosys Inc., whose director of business development was quoted in 2003 as follows: "In addition...Nanosys is working with the defense industry to develop biological sensors to detect chemical or biological attacks in advance, says Mr. Empedocles."

Second and more directly, Lieber himself can be found announcing through various media channels his interest in developing nanoscale detection systems for identifying the presence of viruses, including bioweapon viruses. Direct Lieber quote from 2004: "Viruses are among the most important causes of human disease and are of increasing concern as agents for bioterrorism...Our work shows that nanoscale silicon wires can be configured as detectors that turn on or off in the presence of a single virus particle.". That's from the topmost search result for a google search of "Charles Lieber nano detection bioweapons"; many other similar results in the list.

The concluding sentence of the section should be changed to ""The rumor of Lieber creating the coronavirus and selling it to China has been discredited." TadeuszMorgensternPodjazd (talk) 23:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Virus denialism

What's I feel is missing from this page is a paragraph on virus denialism. I have covered this in a 25-part series THE CORONA CONSPIRACY on my website Integral World. While David Icke and Thomas Cowan are mentioned under the 5G section, there is a larger group of those who deny the very existence of viruses, and therefore of SARS-CoV-2. Examples are: David Icke, Andrew Kaufman, Stefan Lanka, Thomas Cowan, Stefano Scoglio, Torsten Engelbrecht, Samantha Bailey, etc. In general they claim that viruses are actually exosomes generated by our cells when under stress (by various causes, including but not limited to 5G). The common argument here is that "the virus has never been isolated." Icke initially launched Kaufman to fame in his London Real interview, and Kaufman has teamed up with Cowan, Lanka and Scoglio recently to spread this view that viruses don't exist and a healthy lifestyle is the cure for all ills. Since these articles are written by myself I don't know exactly how to mention this on this Wikipedia page and avoid self-promotion. Any suggestions?

My work is mentioned by skeptic David Gorski in his blog post on germ theory denial.

FrankVisser101 (talk) 10:13, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Blogs are typically not considered reliable sources for Wikipedia, as they are self-published sources. See the policy on self-published sources: "Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources."

Are there more mainstream sources which have covered these informal group's fringe views? Dimadick (talk) 15:56, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Additionally, linking to one's own website can be seen as spamming and is usually discouraged per the conflict on interest policies. On the content issue, there probably is something somewhere about general denial of the existence of the vaccine or the existence of a problem (Trump's "this will go away by itself" comments at around this time last year, for ex.). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:01, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Better references needed to debunk the claim masks cause low blood oxygen levels

cf "There are false claims spread that the usage of masks causes adverse health-related issues such as low blood oxygen levels,[258]" - this reference 258 leads to " Bessonov, Ania (18 July 2020). "Do masks reduce your oxygen levels? Your COVID-19 questions answered". CBC News. - "I haven't seen any medical or scientific evidence that shows that wearing a mask depletes your body of oxygen," said Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control at Toronto's University Health Network." We need better references, the references the Dr. bases her claim upon. Can anybody help? Thy, SvenAERTS (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Don't think we need more references to prove a negative. A medical expert (subject matter expert) being cited for their professional opinion, about face masks (which have been worn without issue by medical experts since quite a while) is not an exceptional claim - and she's saying there's "no evidence" for the exceptional claim, so not like we'd have something to cite, besides conspiracy theorist nutjobs. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:29, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Split the "Wuhan lab leak story" section into: "accidental leak" and "engineered as a bio-weapon"

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.

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This section is creating so much confusion and debate, and one of the reason is that, as the second sentence states: "One such narrative says the pandemic was the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon." We're really dealing with two completely different hypotheses, that are treated differently by the experts. For clarity, these two should split it, in order to make it clearer and also help the discussion/debate about sources. Eccekevin (talk) 22:29, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

This is related to the above RfC. In short, both the "bio-weapon" and "accidental leak" are sufficiently marginal that having separate sections on each one would be legitimising them unduly (at least, if you ask me). Anyway, no need to split the discussion between here and the RfC RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:32, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

How could just splitting the sections legitimize them? This page is literally called COVID-19 misinformation . Splitting the section would make the whole topic much clearer, both for the reader and for the discussion that is raging on. The issue is that editors are debating two different ideas as if they were one, hence creating a lot of confusion. Eccekevin (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

If we split the two separate WIV related stories; then proponents of the "lab leak" will take free rein to say add things which unduly legitimse it, such as can be seen at the previous MfD for a related POVFORK page; or even here with the "it's not impossible" (incorrectly shifting the burden of proof from those proposing the theory to those opposing it) arguments. Keeping the two bits together will prevent such free additions - the two conspiracies are intrinsically related: they involve the Wuhan lab, and some form of conspiracy to hide the alleged, fictional, events, whether it be sinister bioengineering or a more mundane leak (both have been deemed extremely unlikely, if not outright rejected, by MEDRS)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

The two hypotheses should not be treated as the same. The WHO does not treat them as the same and WHO mission chief Peter Embarek clarified the unfortunate "extremely unlikely" wording in his interview with Science magazine. Embarek even said that calling the hypothesis "extremely unlikely" is an "accomplishment" because previously it was "impossible": https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/politics-was-always-room-who-mission-chief-reflects-china-trip-seeking-covid-19-s CutePeach (talk) 02:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

No, that is not what the source says. Exact quote:

Extended content

Q: But my question is whether you learned anything new in China. Now that you’ve been there, do you have more reason to say it’s “extremely unlikely” than before? A: Yes. We had long meetings with the staff of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and three other laboratories in Wuhan. They talked about these claims openly. We discussed: What did you do over the past year to dismiss this claim? What did you yourself develop in terms of argumentations? Did you do audits yourself? Did you look at your records? Did you test your staff? And they explained how they worked and what kind of audit system they had. They had retrospectively tested serum from their staff. They tested samples from early 2019 and from 2020. There were a lot of discussions that we could not have had if we had not traveled to Wuhan. We also did not have evidence provided by outsiders to support any of the claims out there. That could potentially have tipped the balance. What we saw and discussed gave us much more confidence in our assessment. The consensus was that this is an unlikely scenario.

So this went from "extremely unlikely" to "even more extremely unlikely"; not the other way round, and certainly not from "impossible" to "extremely unlikely". I've already had this discussion in the RfC above. Claiming that the lab leak theory is regarded seriously by MEDRS is dubious at best, misleading at worst: in the most generous of assessments, we could say that it's, like all other "not impossible" but not debunked theories, "under [various degrees of] investigation". But then again the exact origin of COVID will likely be "under investigation" for a while further (many years), so singling out one particular theory (and a fringey on a that) in this aspect would bring out undue attention on it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

And directly after the section you quote is:

Extended content
Q: So, it will be investigated further, just not by you and your team? A: It’s not something we’re going to pursue in the coming weeks and months. But our assessment is out there, and the topic is on the table. This is to me a big achievement, because for the past year it was mission impossible to even discuss it or even put it on the table or on the agenda of any meeting or discussion.

Likely or not, these two hypotheses are not one and the same. The sources do not treat them as the same and there is no better source than the WHO mission chief. The WHO's full report will be published next week. CutePeach (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

The circular repetition of this same point is disruptive, particularly since the complainants don't seem to have read the article where the different types of misinformation are teased out, and backed by good sources. To quote (references redacted):

Conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation have gained popularity during the pandemic, holding that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One such narrative says the pandemic was the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon.

This is completely explicit. It does not lump everything together as "conspiracy theory" (some is just "unfounded speculation") and also specifically mentions "the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus". Sources are cited backing this up. Sheesh. Alexbrn (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Alexbrn. -Darouet (talk) 17:42, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I do not agree with your view point and your reading of the sources. I agree with Eccekevin's view point that we are dealing with two completely different hypotheses that are treated differently by the experts. The interview with WHO mission chief Peter Embarek in Science Magazine makes it very clear that the hypothesis of an accidental leak is treated differently to the hypothesis of engineered as a bio-weapon, which in your sources are conflated. Embarek also spoke about this later in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSS5DzeV_wU CutePeach (talk) 18:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Did you even read my response, or the article? This is just nonsensical raving, detached from the text(s) in play. Alexbrn (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Calling my words nonsensical raving is a personal attack (tagging ToBeFree). Please stay at the top of this pyramid with your argumentation and refrain from gaslighting tactics. I am a biotechnology professional by education with a successful career in implementing biosafety and biosecurity practices in hospitals and laboratories. I read your reply and the text and I respectfully disagree with your view point as I don't see how the selective quotes from your texts can supplant the statements of the WHO mission chief. There are other editors more experienced than I who agree with my view point in other discussions above and on other pages, such as Eccekevin, DeFacto, My very best wishes, Forich Guest2625, NickCT, Adoring nanny, Tim333, Slatersteven, JPxG, Hobit, Vaticidalprophet and Horse Eye's Back. You may disagree with our view point, but we are not nonsensical ravers and you should accord us the same respect as you would with a colleague in your university or work place. CutePeach (talk) 01:44, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Just as a friendly warning, pinging (by linking their user page using {{u}}) like-minded editors, is presumably WP:CANVASS (by seeking a partisan audience) - please refrain from doing that (you can use {{noping}} - or simply not do it because discussions are WP:NOTAVOTE).

Whoever you are in real life, on Wikipedia you must be able to cite proper sources which support the addition or change of information. So far, I've only seen convoluted interpretations (which are closer to WP:SYNTH than to WP:V). Both "hypotheses" (if we can accept calling them that), the completely outlandish or the slightly more mundane one, have been mostly dismissed - not proven false, of course: if you have a formation in science you must certainly be aware that proving something false is much harder than proving it true; but language such as "extremely unlikely" is pretty much unequivocal that these are fringe positions. We can afford to group them together (since they both involve the WIV) and discuss the mainstream view, which is that they're pretty much on the bollocks side of the scale; without employing WP:FALSEBALANCE by suggesting that there is a significant amount of doubt about the current consensus.

Anyway, Wikipedia is supposed to lag behind the consensus of sources, not report latest developments. If and when we have more complete investigations, and more definitive answers on the origin of COVID, then of course we can update the information. Until then, arguing the same points ad nauseam hoping people will get bored of this is not the way to go forward. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The complaint here is nonsensical raving because the OP asserts the bio-weapon and lab leak notions are "treated as the same", when they are explicitly itemized in our article as two distinct narratives. Thus the central point of the complaint is refuted. This is really a complaint about reality, and not something we can fix with the sources as they are. What we have properly reflects peer-reviewed, scholarly publications. All these lab origin ideas are somewhere in the "unfounded speculation" / "conspiracy theory" / "misinformation" realm per the solid RS cited, without recourse to ingenious interpretation of weaker sources. Ironically the OP invokes Graham's hierarchy while trying to talk-up their own personal credibility, which is fallacious. In lieu of new strong sources, I suggest we are done. Alexbrn (talk) 03:29, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

No the complaint is not nonsensical raving and this language is denigrating and entirely inappropriate (again tagging ToBeFree). As Eccekevin explained above, this article is about misinformation so the "Wuhan lab leak story" section should be properly split into "accidental leak" and "engineered as a bio-weapon" as the former hypothesis one may not even belong in this article. The wording must to be impartial to better represent the sources used and more sources with different view points included. Peter Embarek’s words saying the theory is "more unlikely" than before are cherry picked as he also said the "extremely unlikely" classification is an improvement from the “impossible to even discuss” it was before. CutePeach (talk) 07:49, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Repeating the same refuted argument while bolding lots of words does not a stronger argument make, but savours even more of raving. What would make a difference is an explicit edit proposal with good text properly WP:VERIFIED by a reliable source (such as we already have). Until and unless that happens, I shall not respond further. Alexbrn (talk) 07:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, I agree with Drmies that we should focus on serious scholarship and I will work on an edit proposal as you suggested. I will work on it in my sandbox and send it to you when ready. CutePeach (talk) 05:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Can I ask why you say said in above conversation that we should avoid using Sallard et al as a source to clarify for our readers that a laboratory escape is something that isn’t necessarily misinformation? In above conversations, JoelleJay agrees the paper's authors are reputable but objects to calling it a review article, even though it is classified as a review on PubMed. The article was published on 11/26/2020 in Environmental Chemistry Letters, a single-blind peer-reviewed journal with an impact factor of 4.41, so it is a very reputable journal. The journal covers harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins and very popular with biosafety and biosecurity professionals. The first version of the article was initially published on 8/10/2020 in Médecine/sciences, a peer-reviewed journal which exclusively publishes reviews, so its PubMed’s classification of it as a comparative study is puzzling. The second version would have been peer reviewed by the second journal’s experts, so it shouldn’t matter.

As part two of my question: why are we avoiding this source when the current sources used such as the Hakim paper, doesn’t specify the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory? In section 3.2 of the Hakim paper, the laboratory release theory is rejected with four reasons given, but concludes: However, an independent forensic investigation is probably the only course of action to prove or disprove this speculation. Finally, we can always learn from the previous SARS‐CoV accidents that the best biosafety practices must be implemented to prevent any accidents in the future.

I think both papers, when read properly, support our colleague Eccekevin’s proposal to discuss these different hypotheses separately. This is a critical point in identifying serious scholarship.CutePeach (talk) 06:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Sallard et al is in a low-quality (not MEDLINE-index) chemistry journal, so is not usable. The original is indeed published in a more reputable French journal, but this (correctly) does not classify it is a review, but as the comparative study that it plainly is. The Hakim source is correctly reflected as is. You can't use a source which refers to these ideas as "speculation" or "conspiracy theories" to elevate them into some kind of mainstream scientific questions or (ye gods) "scientific theories". 08:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I didn’t know about {{noping}} but the users I tagged are already here in this discussion already on this very page so it is not canvassing. Your interpretation of the WHO mission chief’s words are false and misleading as he clarified the "extremely unlikely" wording in the Science Magazine interview and the other interview I linked to above. This is not an ad nauseam point in this discussion and instead of lecturing me, you should read the Science magazine piece and compromise on your position. CutePeach (talk) 07:29, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Well sure, if you read the interview like this:

Q: But my question is whether you learned anything new in China. Now that you’ve been there, do you have more reason to say it’s “extremely unlikely” than before?
A: Yes. We had long meetings with the staff of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and three other laboratories in Wuhan. They talked about these claims openly. We discussed: What did you do over the past year to dismiss this claim? What did you yourself develop in terms of argumentations? Did you do audits yourself? Did you look at your records? Did you test your staff? And they explained how they worked and what kind of audit system they had. They had retrospectively tested serum from their staff. They tested samples from early 2019 and from 2020. There were a lot of discussions that we could not have had if we had not traveled to Wuhan. We also did not have evidence provided by outsiders to support any of the claims out there. That could potentially have tipped the balance. What we saw and discussed gave us much more confidence in our assessment. The consensus was that this is an unlikely scenario.
Q: So, it will be investigated further, just not by you and your team?
A: It’s not something we’re going to pursue in the coming weeks and months. But our assessment is out there, and the topic is on the table. This is to me a big achievement, because for the past year it was mission impossible to even discuss it or even put it on the table or on the agenda of any meeting or discussion.

If you actually read all the words together it's obvious this has nothing to do with the viability of the lab leak idea and everything to do with the WHO's ability to make any assessment of it at all. It was "mission impossible" to make any progress in the investigation until the team actually went to Wuhan, after which their findings informed their conclusion that it was "extremely unlikely". JoelleJay (talk) 19:12, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

JoelleJay, that is really not obvious to me at all. By my comprehension, Embarek is referring specifically to the lab leak idea as previously impossible to table, and not just any progress in the investigation. I agree that Embarek does not give more weight to the viability of the lab leak idea in his comment, but no one claimed that he did, so that is a red herring. We are not discussing the viability of the idea here, but about splitting it off from conspiracy theories / misinformation as it is one of the four hypotheses in the preliminary report on the WHO’s scientific study. Maybe we should we wait for the final report. CutePeach (talk) 11:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Seems OK with me, as I said in the RFC we should differentiate between the conspiracy theories and genuine scientific questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slatersteven (talk • contribs)

I don't even know what the argument about this is. The current page states: "One such narrative says the pandemic was the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon.". Since as the page itself states it's two hypotheses, let's discuss them separately. I haven't heard a good reason not to.Eccekevin (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Attempt to circumvent the RfC

On Wikipedia generally, both “variants” of the lab origin concept - bioengineered and lab leak - have been treated as a conspiracy theory with virtually no support in the scientific community. This reflects the mainstream scientific view that both variants of this concept are highly unlikely. Now, an ongoing RfC, above, appears to be once again confirming this view. In that context, this section comes across as an attempt to preemptively negate the RfC outcome once again confirming that the “lab leak” is misinformation. We need to accurately convey to readers the scientific consensus on this issue: a natural virus being collected by the WIV and subsequently leaking to cause this pandemic is viewed by scientists as highly unlikely. -Darouet (talk) 03:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Some editors don't agree with the wording of the RFC and even Alexbrn says it won’t settle it. As Alexbrn and the Wall Street Journal say, there are different lab leak theories. We are still waiting for the WHO to release its full report to know what the science says. We also have to wait and see how it is received by the WHO’s member states. Please see Politicization of science. CutePeach (talk) 06:18, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The article text as is is evolved beyond the question of the RfC, making it moot. Per the best sources, all the lab origin narratives are somewhere on the spectrum between "conspiracy theory" and "unfounded speculation", and we say that. Nothing is elevated to the status of (legitimate) "theory" in the context of science, so using that word is WP:PROFRINGE. Alexbrn (talk) 08:16, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

This is a moot point. It doesn't change the fact that they are two separate ideas and should be treated as such, even if they are considered both conspiracy theories or both legitimate or whatever. But they are two different ideas. Eccekevin (talk) 01:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Well they are considered as such, as should be clear if you read the article. That does not mean we need to have separate sections on them; especially if they have plenty of common characteristics... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Except they are not, because the commentary is the same for both, when it's clear from the RfC that they are not treated equally by the scientific community. Eccekevin (talk) 02:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

To quote the current state of the article: "Conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation have gained popularity during the pandemic, holding that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[27][28] One such narrative says the pandemic was the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon.[29][27][25][30]". The reason for putting them together is very clear - and if you're arguing that the "accidental lab leak" hypothesis is being treated as anything but "extremely unlikely" by the scientific community (this viewpoint, a careful reading of the RfC and sources therein provided will show to not be accepted), we'll need you to quote proper MEDRS for that. If you think the text is otherwise misleading, please identify which parts are actually misleading and suggest improvements. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

You are correct, the sources treat the accidental lab leak as extremely unlikely, but they treat the biological weapon hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. While some serious scientists have been open to the possibility of the first (however unlikely), none has been for the latter. Hence, they are treated differently. But the current page lumps them in, hence making it seem that the scientific community treats them as one. Eccekevin (talk) 04:22, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

That's not quite right. Some sources treat all "lab origin" stories as a conspiracy theory. And Not all "human engineered" stories invoke bioweapons. It's all, however, in the province of online speculation without any supporting scientific evidence, in the context of the general understanding that the virus was of natural origin. Our article says "One such narrative says the pandemic was the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon." That differentiates them as much as our sources do. People wanting to create some kind of "But this might be true" sub-heading are pushing a WP:PROFRINGE idea that is not supported by the WP:BESTSOURCES. Wikipedia is not a vector for politically-motivated speculation. No "serious scientists" is open to the idea of a "lab leak" when constrained by the rigours of scholarly publishing. That a handful say odd things when dazzled by TV lights or media attention, or when having to contort themselves into politically-acceptable positions, has been a feature of this pandemic in all its aspects. And of course, as with climate science, creationism, etc. there will be maverick "scientists" advocating fringe ideas too. Wikipedia's policy as always is to reflect the accepted knowledge as published in the best sources, of which we have several. Alexbrn (talk) 06:39, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

List of "serious scientists" and some of the "odd things" they say (in alphabetic order):

• Angela Rasmussen: "Lab origin is one hypothesis that should be tested. My opinion is that it is less likely than natural origin but still possible and can’t be ruled out. As a scientist I believe the data must lead the way." [39]
• David Relman: "Alternatively, the complete SARS-CoV-2 sequence could have been recovered from a bat sample and viable virus resurrected from a synthetic genome to study it, before that virus accidentally escaped from the laboratory." [40]
• Daniel R. Lucey: "Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did?" [41]
• Filippa Lentzos: "investigating the range of possible spillover sites - from the wet market, to an accidental lab or fieldwork infection, or an unnoticed lab leak - requires a forensic investigation."
• Marc Lipsitch: "the @WHO team will need to consider the hypothesis that the virus was accidentally released from the lab" - "Otherwise, the report won’t have done its job." [42]
• Michael Eisen: "And there is an at least plausible case for lab accident too, in that the virus first appeared in the rough vicinity of a lab that is studying precisely this kind of virus and doing the kind of experiments that, if something went wrong, would lead to disaster." [43]
• Rasmus Nielsen (biologist): One problem, he says, is the spread of conspiracy theories that Covid-19 was created in a lab and then intentionally released. “I think that has really harmed the case for a proper investigation.” While investigating a lab-accident origin is important, he says, it’s gotten lumped in with tinfoil hat ideas. [44]
• Richard Ebright: "The question whether the outbreak virus entered humans through an accidental infection of a lab worker is a question of historical fact, not a question of scientific fact. The question can be answered only through a forensic investigation, not through a scientific investigation." [45]

So yes, a sub-heading would be the right way to go.

Thank you

tinybubi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinybubi (talk • contribs) 08:08, 23 March 2021 (UTC) — Tinybubi (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Yes, of the millions of working scientists on earth, you can find a few who say that we should take the "lab leak" idea more seriously than do all other scientists. Every one of the sources you're linking is either a twitter comment, a comment in an ordinary newspaper, or in two cases a comment in Science news / an opinion piece in PNAS. This doesn't change the fact that most scientists view the lab leak hypothesis as extremely unlikely, and as a political conspiracy theory. -Darouet (talk) 14:59, 23 March 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.

"Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory shouldn't be dismissed" USA today, HN

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.

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There was an interesting article about lab leaks in general, most in the US, in USA Today (https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/opinion/2021/03/22/why-covid-lab-leak-theory-wuhan-shouldnt-dismissed-column/4765985001/) and discussion on Hacker News (802 comments) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458#26545903)

The top comment:

>This is a great article explaining why a lab leak should always be a suspect. The alternative theory is that a virus traveled on its own (via bats or other animals) from bat caves 900km away to Wuhan where there are 2 labs researching bats. One of the labs is lesser known but is right next to the seafood market and the hospital where the outbreak was first known.

>This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak.

Seems a reasonable position to me. Maybe a lab leak article including the Wuhan possibilities in the context of the many other leaks in history? Tim333 (talk) 10:06, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

We have high-quality scholarly sources, so no need to use lower-quality journalism. Alexbrn (talk) 10:29, 23 March 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.

Former Trump official promoting lab leak misinformation

@DeFacto: On what grounds are you objecting to this? That there's too much information (in which case it can be shortened a bit), or that it isn't related to misinformation (in which case I'll have to say, again, that it is, despite twitter threads from clueless people and Trump syncophants claiming the contrary). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto and RandomCanadian: & others: FWIW - seems the edit is worthy imo atm, and should be added to the main article along with relevant refs - if interested - there is a related discussion here => "Talk:COVID-19 pandemic#Origin of virus" - iac - hope this helps in some way - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 02:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, I gave the grounds in my edit summary. Linking it to the previous sentence with the use of "despite" gives undue weight to the credibility of the WHO opinion, and implies Redfield's opinion was in defiance of the WHO opinion rather than it was merely a private and unrelated opinion. But even without that it is, as an opinion or viewpoint, not itself "misinformation". Properly attributed to the holder, it is a statement of irrefutable fact - he was reported as thinking that.

I thought France would win the rugby match against Scotland yesterday, that I thought that was an irrefutable and absolute fact. That other people thought Scotland would win, and that in the end Scotland actually did win, does not alter that. You seem to be arguing that my opinion about France should be considered to be misinformation. That is clearly ridiculous. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:13, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Note: the duplicate discussions about the same subject at Talk:Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#Origin_of_virus and Talk:COVID-19_pandemic#Origin_of_virus. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Lab leak hypothesis: MIT Technology review article

The following MIT Technology Review article, which came out yesterday, overviews the current scientific state of knowledge on the origin of the covid-19: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covid-coronavirus-cause-origin-wuhan/

In the article, the lab leak hypothesis is explained to be one of several plausible theories that are currently being investigated by scientists.

Now, the lab leak may or may not be what happened, but it certainly doesn't belong here in an article about covid-19 misinformation (not to mention, literally the first section in the article). When people land here from google and see the lab leak section (like me), they may well dismiss the whole article, which is unfortunate because the rest of the article contains a lot of good material. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 08:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello friend. We don't really trust the mainstream media such as the magazine you linked for our medical articles on Wikipedia. Our WP:MEDRS guideline tells us that we should only trust high quality articles in academic journals (and a couple of other sources such as the WHO). These high quality scientific sources barely discuss the lab leak idea at all, and when they do, they speak negatively about it, calling it "extremely unlikely", "highly unlikely", "online speculations", etc. There is consensus among our medical editors that the lab leak theory is a conspiracy theory, therefore it is included here in the misinformation article. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

OK. That seems like an extreme rule though. The MIT Technology Review is highly regarded for its science journalism. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 14:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Using an article titled "No one can find the animal that gave people covid-19"; which also clearly ascribes the lab controversy in the context of politics: "What’s certain is that the research to find the pandemic’s cause is politically charged because of the way it could assign blame for the global disaster." and is clearly a piece of journalism and not an article in a peer-reviewed journal (you can look up the page by NL above to see what these look like), is inappropriate for our purposes here - we can use them to describe politics, but as sources for science, not sufficient. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm a scientist in my day job (in a totally unrelated field; geosciences; I know nothing about epidemiology), so I know about peer reviewed articles and the academic process. But it just seems... strange... that there would be a blanket rule against all news articles and secondary sources, and wikipedia can only rely on journal articles and primary sources. Are wikipedia editors really the right people to interpret the scientific literature? 24.18.126.43 (talk) 23:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi geologist - there are a lot of scientists volunteering at wikipedia, and in this case the editorial reliance on MEDRS with COVID-related articles has really helped with removing conspiracy theories. Most virologists, evolutionary biologists, and ecologists working with viruses agree that the virus likely spilled over into humans under natural circumstances, as has been the case for every other novel pathogen in history. -Darouet (talk) 23:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Even stricter: when the situation demands it, we require secondary sources (review articles), as described at WP:MEDRS. News is okay for plenty of topics, but in case of issues of scientific contention, we prefer scientific sources (I guess you would also prefer to cite a specialist resource, say, a reputable publication on geology, than some random article in a popular newspaper). And well, reputable medical journals (see here for an incomplete list) tend to see the "lab leak" idea as not the best hypothesis to explain the origin of the current situation... Anyway, I don't see where in the article the lab leak theory is described as "plausible". The only thing I can find is them giving the opinion of "Matthew Pottinger, a former deputy national security advisor at the White House" - clearly not a medical expert; and maybe just more sign of what I'm saying, that this is a political issue more than it is a scientific one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The head of the WHO went on record saying that the lab leak theory is plausible and needs to be investigated68.148.28.136 (talk) 01:01, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Well to be fair to the other people in this thread, the director of the WHO is also primarily a political figure, so ignoring his statement is at least internally consistent. But I think the problem here is the framing of the issue as a whole. There is a spectrum of possibilities for theories, ranging from misinformation and conspiracy theories, to possible, to likely, to established science. In a new or developing area, most theories are somewhere in the middle. This article presents the lab leak as misinformation, but that categorization just doesn't seem credible at this point. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Wuhan conspiracy theory, its wp:Fringeicity notwithstanding, merits granularity

cbsnews[46] quoted by realclearpolitics[47]: "Jamie Metzl, a former NSC official in the Clinton administration and member of a WHO advisory committee on genetic engineering, said: 'To quote Humphrey Bogart, "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, why Wuhan?" What Wuhan does have is China's level four virology institute, with probably the world's largest collection of bat viruses, including bat coronaviruses.' // "'It was agreed first that China would have veto power over-- over who even got to be on the mission,' he said. 'WHO agreed to that... On top of that, the WHO agreed that in most instances China would do the primary investigation. And then just share its findings with these international experts. So these international experts weren't allowed to do their own primary investigation.' // "'No!' Leslie Stahl said. 'Wait. You're saying that China did the investigation and showed the results to the committee and that was it? ... Whoa.'"
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I tried adding something here, but that was reverted by the usual suspects... Politics should be covered. However, a broadcast on CBS news is not sufficient for anything besides mentioning the political aspect and the opinions (probably non-medical experts) there. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It appears that some wikicontributors misinterpret wp:FRINGE's " If discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, a theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight,[1] and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner" -- as meaning no mention at all thereof ought to be made.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 29 March 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per WP:SNOW (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 23:47, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

---

COVID-19 misinformation → COVID-19 conspiracy theories – per wp:NPOV - old name puts in wikipedia's voice that all the theories contained herein are known to be incorrect. Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Not all misinformation is conspiracy theories, and moving to the suggested title would provide an inappropriate reason to stop covering some of it; possibly raising the possibility of even more content forks (when we should be trying to consolidate existing articles). And I fail to see the NPOV concern; "conspiracy theory" is even more of a loaded term than misinformation... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

cmt - I see: So, as of this point in time, WP still lacks a list of NPOVish terms to which editors can resort, for like circumstances: less loaded than, say, witchhunt, without implying the legitimacy of probe?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

That might be a more general failure of the English language. Though closely related terms are "inquiry", "investigation", "interrogations". Though some of these do imply a bit more of a formal organisation... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:45, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Conspiracy theories are misinformation, but not all misinformation comes in the form of a conspiracy theory. Maybe there should be a conspiracy theory section on the page. B.KaiEditor (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  That's a question whether we should categorise misinformation by type or by subject (origins, ...). The second option seems superior if you ask me. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, for the reason stated above by RandomCanadian and B.KaiEditor. ACLNM (talk) 13:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons above. Examples of sections in the article which would not be appropriate to label as 'conspiracy theories' include "Large gatherings"; Cruise ships' safety from infection; Efficacy of hand sanitizer, "antibacterial" soaps; Public use of face masks; Alcohol; Vegetarian immunity; and more. Misinformation is the appropriate title. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per reasons above, though I would consider a content fork that could go by that name. —hueman1 (talk • contributions) 02:54, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This article covers a wide variety of content, including conspiracy theories. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:37, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose and please WP:SNOW close - this article covers far more than just conspiracy theories. --mfb (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. ~ HAL333 17:53, 2 April 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.

WHO Director General statement

..However the theory "requires further investigation, potential with additional missions involving specialist experts," Dr Tedros said. "Let me say clearly that as far as WHO is concerned, all hypothesis remain on the table," he added.

“We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned.”

I've seen the WHO listed as a credible source in previous discussions, and it's clear that the Director General believes a lab-leak is a possibility that's being actively investigated. He's also on record stating that they haven't found the source of the virus, so it seems that either all potential virus origins being investigated by the WHO are misinformation or none of them are. Any arguments as to why this wouldn't warrant the lab-leak section's removal on the COVID-19 misinformation page?68.148.28.136 (talk) 01:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The WaPo article says, "Right-wing news outlets in the United States published tendentious and thinly sourced reports that the virus may have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology". Sound like misinformation to me. We already say that an investigation is the only way this will be put to bed. Nothing has changed, and the fact that lab-leaks, meteorite delivery etc. remain remote "possibilities" doesn't cancel out the misinformation which has been spread. Alexbrn (talk) 01:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

It's been made clear by yourself and others in this talk page that articles themselves aren't reliable sources and don't warrant discussion, so I'm not sure why you'd try and build a counter-argument around one. Any text from any article that is not quoting the WHO directly is irrevelant and pure conjecture. I'm focused on what the Director General said: "“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, which I am ready to deploy.”" Note that he didn't even use the previous term "extremely unlikely", least likely can be anywhere from 1-49%. It's explicitly clear the head of the global authority leading the investigation does not deem the lab-leak hypothesis to be misinformation.68.148.28.136 (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like someone has not read the actual report [48]. Still says that the lab leak is the most unlikely hypothesis. And that conforms with all of the other MEDRS. Of course, it needs further investigation. That does not make it "credible". Painting it as such would be tendentious and WP:FALSEBALANCE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I did read the report, specifically the section titled "Introduction through a laboratory incident" (p. 118). Regardless of the likely-hood, the WHO chose to include it as a possible origin. To re-iterate, in the report that the WHO released on possible origins of COVID-19, they listed a lab-leak as a possibility. Consequently, it's the only hypothesis on the misinformation page that is officially being examined and hasn't been denounced by the WHO. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see a section in their report titled "Bio-engineered weapon". The inclusion of 'lab-leak' as misinformation fails even the most basic logical tests at this point, as is quickly approaching misinformation in itself 68.148.28.136 (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

More specifically, the WHO conclusion labels this explanation "extremely unlikely". Bakkster Man (talk) 13:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

And why does that matter if they're investigating it as a potential origin? And how is it misinformation if the Director General is quoted as saying a leak “requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts”?68.148.28.136 (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

It's about the nuance. Some of the details in the article's section are clearly not supported by this WHO research and the statements around further investigation; for instance being a bio-weapon developed at either WIV or Ft. Detrick. Some of it refers to statements being made which misrepresent the likelihood of the theory being true. Really, all of this comes down to the current consensus being that this theory is "extremely unlikely", with plenty of misinformation surrounding it for this article. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:31, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Sorry I couldn't find the reference page for WP:NUANCE. I think it's about using the most recent and reliable information from the governing body that conducted the investigation, even if it contradicts the language in the report (which at no point discredits the lab-leak hypothesis as misinformation anyway) CommercialB (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The WHO mission chief explained the "extremely unlikely" label and even talked it down in this Science Magazine interview [49]. The WHO interim report and now full report [50] lists four hypotheses, one of which is cold chain food transmission which they labeled as "possible" even though there is no direct for it, or even a peer reviewed paper. It is now obvious that this was not a credible investigation.

p.s. Alexbrn’s meteorite delivery hypothesis is not one of those four so it deserves the label misinformation while the lab leak must be split off. CutePeach (talk) 17:15, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not it's "considered a possibility", the "lab leak theory" has been used as misinformation - mostly by people claiming it's the "only option" or that there's some "conclusive evidence" to prove it. While yes, it hasn't been disproven, so it's not a conspiracy theory, it still is being used in misinformation by people exaggerating the possibility this was the source. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Berchanhimez, the problem is more often with people downplay the possibility and labeling those who propose it as conspiracy theorists. It started in the scientific community with the Lancet letter authored by Peter Daszak who attributed it to Charles Calisher who now distanced himself from it [51]. This toxicity has spilled over into Wikipedia as some editors on this page equate the lab leak hypothesis to little green men and meteorites. CutePeach (talk) 02:50, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The real problem is people wishing to write an article on a scientific topic and basing it on the popular press, so as to promote a fringe viewpoint. Much better would be to look for proper MEDRS. These (even if we completely ignore the WHO report), if they mention the lab leak at all, dismiss it as "extremely unlikely", etc. Instead of Google, you're better looking for review articles in places like pubmed. A search for a query like "covid-19 origin" yields plenty of acceptable sources; and well I'm not going to repeat myself. No, the lab leak does not need to be split out of this. It is, at best, evidence-less speculation; and at worst, a transparent political blame game. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I think most of us are aware of what the real problem is at this point. Framing the lab-leak theory as misinformation is at best a direct contradiction of the WHO's most recent statements; and at worst a transparent attempt by a handful of politically motivated editors to discredit it as a theory. CommercialB (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Nonetheless - Latest WSJ News re Lab Leak origin of Covid => "Yet enough already is known about the WIV suggest this [ie, that the WHO lab leak explanation as "extremely unlikely"] lacks credibility." - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

A WSJ editorial is opinion, not news. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

References

WSJ is not a MEDRS, as already repeated plenty of time. I assume that analysis of the situation, incorporating the WHO report, will appear in peer reviewed journals soon enough. Until then, we stay with the existing scientific consensus, which is that there's no more evidence for the lab leak theory than for little green man. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

You have already been pointed to peer reviewed MEDRS, yet you and Alexbrn continue to WP:STONEWALL. Here is one of several MEDRS that have been linked to:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33558807/

You have made your position abundantly clear, nothing will convince you (don't make me dig up all the links, you know I am not lying about this and your little green men). Time for you to step aside and focus on something else or sanctions may be in order. I have seen no one here asking for anything more than a common sense, NPOV, and appropriately DUE explanations of the situation. Yet the WP:STONEWALL continues contrary to every policy and principle of Wikipedia. There is no scientific consensus, there is politics pretending there is. The science says we do not know what happened and that the necessary transparency for future science is lacking. With almost 3 million people dead, every possible explanation is to be fully explored until an answer is found. Calling a potential lab leak misinformation or a conspiracy theory is absurd. It might even be time for Wikipedia to delete this misinformation/conspiracy theory page altogether. While it may have served a purpose at one time, it is obviously being abused for centralized 'right-think' and really is not in alignment with the history and purpose of Wikipedia; but that discussion is probably for another day. In the mean time, Wikipedia needs to tell the truth about the subject, politically and scientifically. The current page does neither. Dinglelingy (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agree here, these are blatant attempts to WP:STONEWALL by RandomCanadian and Alexbrn. They've become increasingly oppositional in response to mounting evidence against their arguments, and continue to deflect from the head of the WHO's recent comments. A record of their actions have a more rightful place on the COVID-19 misinformation page than the lab-leak hypothesis. You have to wonder if the WHO envisioned a handful of rogue editors contradicting their organization's statements when they agreed to partner with the WikiMedia foundation. CommercialB (talk) 16:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

As has been pointed-out numerous time before, PMID 33558807 is in a low-quality (not MEDLINE-indexed) chemistry journal, so is not a good WP:MEDRS. Why scrape the barrel when we have several really good sources? Doing do is suggestive of WP:POVSOURCING. Alexbrn (talk) 05:46, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, add your 'special' undocumented requirements to MEDRS. Laughable WP:STONEWALL. Good sources on what, zoonosis? There are no papers proving anything and the WHO has stated so. You are making crap up. Stop lying about what the science says to support your POV. A topic ban may be necessary if you continue this propaganda campaign and your dismissal of valid sources you disagree with. Are you and RC the top commenters here, yet claim you speak for consensus? Hmmm, let me look. Like I said, we need to question if this page should even exist given such intransigent in the face of common sense and valid RS and MEDRS. Dinglelingy (talk) 06:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Lack of MEDLINE indexing and articles in out-of-field journals are mentioned in WP:MEDRS so again, you're wrong. If you want to propose a topic ban feel free to post another rant at ANI. Rants on this page are disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 06:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh, so you are claiming it is a predatory journal and out of field? lol. Keep digging. Dinglelingy (talk) 06:57, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

No, only you has used the word "predatory". This is beginning to look like a WP:CIR issue or maybe trolling. Anyway, I shall not respond further unless or until new good sources are produced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexbrn (talk • contribs)

Great, because your 'special' MEDRS requirements are listed as a way to spot 'predatory journals' under MEDRS, not a requirement for all journals, and there was debate about even mentioning medline under 'predatory journals' due to the fact that all reliable journals are not in medline, especially non US ones. With respect to competence, you might want to actually read the journals you dismiss, the subjects they cover, etc. before making claims that they are not in field. I know its tempting to think a journal with 'Chemistry' in its title is 'out of field' but that would show a lack of basic reading comprehension as to the stated purpose of the journal, much less the topics of the peer reviewed papers they have published. Thanks. Dinglelingy (talk) 07:34, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The WHO report [52] summarizes:

The joint team’s assessment of likelihood of each possible pathway was as follows:

• direct zoonotic spillover is considered to be a possible-to-likely pathway;
• introduction through an intermediate host is considered to be a likely to very likely pathway;
• introduction through cold/ food chain products is considered a possible pathway;

• introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway.

A priori knowledge about coronavirus ecology, and seroprevalence among rural populations in SE Asia, led scientists to conclude even early in the pandemic that a laboratory leak was highly unlikely. After more than a year of research into this virus by tens of thousands of international scientists, and after assessing that research and conducting their own, WHO scientists still consider a lab leak origin to be "extremely unlikely." It's appropriate that we continue describing efforts to push the lab leak idea as misinformation, and important that we educate readers as to the most likely biological sources of the pandemic. -Darouet (talk) 13:34, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Thankfully there's a page for that- Investigations into the origin of COVID-19- where you can educate readers as to the most likely source of the pandemic. Doesn't come close to making the lab-leak theory misinformation. If the Director General says the lab-leak needs to be investigated further than it's not for a handful of non-experts to re-interpret that message. Either you make the case that the WHO head is an unreliable source and deliberately spreading misinformation by advocating for further investigation of the lab-leak, or we take his statements as the most recent and reliable information on the matter. CommercialB (talk) 16:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I concur with Darouet here. A desire for further research to eliminate an extremely unlikely pathway doesn't change the basic fact that it's an extremely unlikely pathway. (And the unsuitability of the Environ. Chem. Lett. paper was established a long time ago.) XOR'easter (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh really, I must have missed the retraction from Environ Chem. My bad. Can you please send a link to this retraction? Much appreciated. Dinglelingy (talk) 20:44, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll say this bluntly - if you User:Dinglelingy make another sarcastic comment towards another editor here, or if you continue to play with words to try and attack others, I will request you be blocked from editing COVID-19 related articles. They did not say it was retracted - they said that the article was determined by consensus to not be suitable as a source for this article as it would not be due weight to give that article's views prominence here. Your refusal to accept that outcome does not change that [[WP:CON|Wikipedia runs on consensus of editors, and you don't have consensus to support using that article here. Making sarcastic comments towards others is not helping your case at all. If your next post on this talk page is anything other than suggesting specific changes (i.e. put an old sentence then suggest specific changes to wording, or suggest brand new sentences added, with sourcing), I will ask you to be blocked from this page for refusing to accept that consensus is against you. Regards -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Haha, okay. I appreciate your bluntness and the fact you are trying to make your argument with logic. That has been lacking here from the minority of editors disposed to call everything they don't understand a conspiracy theory. I also appreciate your call for specific changes to the page. That's how it should work here. But that has never been the case for anyone proposing changes here and every assertion I have made about editor behavior can be verified by multiple links. Its far worse than your concerns about my supposed sarcasm. That said, your understanding of Wikipedia processes is lacking if you think that MEDRS requires the article was determined by consensus. That is not up to you, or me. If the journal is bullshit, then there is a watchlist for bullshit journals. It is not up for debate. No consensus required. Wikipedia does not vote on MEDRS, its MEDRS or it is not. Anyway, I will respond to your call for changes later in the new section break, but I really don't have more time to address your other thoughts today. And honestly, if you really have concerns about sarcasm in addressing this topic, we are on the same page about acceptable behavior and arguments. It would be nice if personal attacks were discouraged by admins but it seems that calling anyone you disagree with a sockpuppet or SPA is allowed in order to discredit the account instead of the argument. Dinglelingy (talk) 22:44, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS does require that consensus is used to determine if an article meets MEDRS or not. Consensus here is that the article in question does not meet MEDRS requirements, thus cannot be used for medical information in articles. If you wish to challenge that, given that nobody seems to be agreeing with you here, your appropriate avenue would be to ask at the reliable sources noticeboard to ask a wider community view as to whether it applies or not. Until you get a consensus that it's acceptable though, you do not get to unilaterally declare it acceptable, and given that it's unacceptable (as per past consensus), you don't get to use it just because you disagree. And no, it does not need to be on any "bullshit journal" watchlist for it to be unacceptable, nor is it not being on such a list indicative of it being acceptable - we operate on much more than binary determinations on Wikipedia, which I see multiple editors have tried to explain to you. I appreciate your confirming that you are concerned with the behavior here, but to be honest, the only behavioral problem I see is your sarcastic responses, bludgeoning of the topic, and attempts to change the subject when you get an answer you don't like. The section isn't going to be removed, because there has been a lot of misinformation regarding the lab leak theory - even if the theory itself hasn't been disproven, how people have been using it in the real world is misinformation - it has not been proven, it's highly unlikely, and people claiming "it's the only possibility" or that it's being "seriously considered" is misinformation. I made edits the other day to make sure that it's clear that this section is discussing the use of the theory, not the theory itself - if you think the section improperly implies that the theory itself is disinformation, and not how it's being used, please propose specific edits to improve the section. The TLDR version is that even a theory which hasn't been disproven can be misinformation if it is improperly elevated or spread as a "proven" or "likely" theory when it's not - which is what happened here. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:56, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't recall the WHO saying they were only researching the pathway to eliminate it as an option. Would be quite the WP:CRYSTALBALL you had if you knew for sure that was their goal. Regardless, that still does not make it misinformation in any sense of the word. There's only one subsection on the COVID-19 misinformation page that is being actively investigated by the WHO, with that investigation further re-iterated by the Director General. That makes the lab-leak subsection a blatant outlier on the page, and subject for removal. CommercialB (talk) 17:16, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

CommercialB, it's your second day here at Wikipedia, and you're already throwing a bag of Wiki policies at us [53][54][55] to explain why we should unduly promote politicized psuedoscience. Please. -Darouet (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Non-arbitrary break to refocus

We are arguing about sources for specific claims to try and say whether the section should go as a whole. Contrary to what some people have been claiming here, the section as it stands in the article now does not say that the lab leak theory itself is misinformation or a conspiracy theory. This article discusses hyperbole, exaggeration, and flat out lying about the theory (ex: saying it's been proven or is the "only option" as opposed to being extremely unlikely). Regardless of whether the theory proves true or not, that is still misinformation - and what's covered in this article, appropriately so, is that sort of hyperbole/exaggeration or outright fabrication of evidence for something. Furthermore, some lab leak theories truly ARE conspiracies. A conspiracy theory doesn't have to be false - it simply has to use improper or "snowball's chance in hell" jumps between facts/logical arguments to get to the conclusion - regardless of whether the conclusion proves true or not. There have been people who have gone beyond saying "it's a viable consideration to make" and have started piecing together unrelated information or misrepresenting facts to push this theory. That is the definition of a conspiracy. So, put bluntly, no, the section is not getting removed. And if the SPAs commenting here continue to WP:BLUDGEON the process with deflections and failure to even read the policies involved, there won't even be any constructive edits out of this. I recommend anyone looking to make substantial changes to wording/sentences point out specifically what they want changed here so it can be discussed. I'll also note that if continued disruption occurs to this discussion by users who refuse to accept consensus is not in their favor, I'll ask an admin to step in. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:26, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely, please get an admin to step in. I think we can all agree that this topic is of sufficient public interest to escalate this discussion. CommercialB (talk) 01:50, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

You may wish to review what administrators are. They are not some "judges of fact/rightness", they are not some "super powerful vote" in a discussion, they are merely around to stop people from violating the rules, such as WP:BLUDGEONING and WP:NPA. Administrators will not say "you're right" and block people you disagree with - they will say "you violated these rules" and block the person violating rules. Although, for someone who already has a good understanding of the Wikipedia space pages, I'm surprised you didn't know that. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:54, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I understand what administrators are, and I'd welcome a review on my and other's discussions on this talk page. There have been several accusations against other editors for violating the rules, which judging from the responses were not addressed or met with outright hostility and/or threats of punitive action. In fact I've read several threats of administrative action on this page with little or no follow-through, primarily targeting users who are petitioning for the removal of the lab-leak section. It's nothing more than an attempt to force consensus through coercion. It is my and other's opinion that a small subset of editors have engaged in blatant WP:STONEWALL on this issue. If my removal from this discussion is part of broader set of very necessary housecleaning actions to clear out all malicious editors, then I'd happily accept that ban without objection. So please, contact an admin. CommercialB (talk) 17:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I concur with CommercialB above, this should be escalated to admins. The consistent attempts to WP:STONEWALL when presented with ANY new source of information that gives credibility to an unintentional lab leak scenario has reached the point of absurdity, and I'm disappointed to see this on Wikipedia. I'm hoping we can resolve this in a manner that works for all. CatDamon (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Berchanhimez, thank you for joining this discussion. It is uncharitable to call new users SPAs. I was motivated to create my account reading User:Rich Farmbrough’s kind words directed at new users contributing to this topic [56].There are widely varying views among scientists on the origins of COVID-19 and how to assess the probability of different origin hypotheses, and the debate on Wikipedia is centered around the question of how to select sources and interpret them. I am sceptical that the edit proposal discussion you initiated below will change the minds of certain activist editors involved in this topic. For example, User:Alexbrn says above that the article text as is is evolved beyond the question of the RfC, making it moot but persists on calling the lab leak hypothesis "conspiracism" [57], based on a misrepresented source (Hakim paper) which has been noted by other editors [58], [59], [60]. There are now also problems with one of the other sources used by activist editors on this page [61]. For there to be constructive edits on this topic, the above RFC must first be closed by an experienced administrator. There is also a discussion on the RS noticeboard which one of our activist editors tried to close prematurely [62]. Tinybubi (talk) 10:03, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

More falsehoods. There are time-wasting discussions all over the place yes. Alexbrn (talk) 10:20, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Wuhan lab origin (Section change proposal, comments at the end)

Proposed replacement section

Wuhan lab origin The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, however speculation and conspiracy theories regarding the possibility that the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a Wuhan research lab, have gained popularity during the pandemic.. Despite much speculation on the Internet, "lab" related theories are not supported by current scientific evidence. Definitively proving or disproving a "lab" related origin of the virus is a difficult and lengthy process, and long investigations are required to provide a definitive proof or disproof of any theory of the virus' origin. One early source of misinformation was a bio-weapon origin claim made by former Israeli secret service officer Dany Shoham, who gave an interview to The Washington Times about the Wuhan laboratory. The Epoch Times, a newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong, refers to the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the "CCP virus", and a commentary in the newspaper posed the question, "is the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan an accident occasioned by weaponizing the virus at that [Wuhan P4 virology] lab?" One scientist from Hong Kong, Li-Meng Yan, fled China and released a preprint stating the virus was modified in a lab rather than having a natural evolution. In a peer-review, her claims were labelled as misleading, not scientific, and an unethical promotion of "essentially conspiracy theories that are not founded in fact". Some US politicians have speculated on a potential "lab" origin, including Republican Senators Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, as well as then-President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many scientists and authorities countered that there is no scientific evidence to support the claims being made, including NIAID director Anthony Fauci and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance., while others have called for a forensic investigation to look for evidence. On 30 March 2021 a joint study team of 17 Chinese and 17 international experts probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic for the World Health Organization released their report "The joint team’s assessment of likelihood of each possible pathway was as follows: direct zoonotic spillover is considered to be a possible-to-likely pathway; introduction through an intermediate host is considered to be a likely to very likely pathway; introduction through cold/ food chain products is considered a possible pathway; introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway." The WHO Press Release and closing remarks by WHO Director General Tedros have emphasized that all hypotheses remain open. The EU and a number of other countries including the United States issued joint statements primarily supporting the WHO mission while also encouraging full access, transparency, and timeliness in follow on studies to determine origin. References

Per request from Berchanhimez, proposed changes to 'Wuhan lab leak story' section including a title change. Removed non NPOV language and some sentences, especially individual quotes from certain experts that can be countered with quotes from other experts saying the opposite, I don't think we need a quote war with various experts. Changed WIV reference to Wuhan research lab for accuracy and to avoid singling out a particular facility or group of scientists. Also didn't quote Tedros to avoid taking his statement out of context. Might need some minor cleanup but otherwise this is my NPOV proposal that will probably upset all sides of the discussion but is hopefully accurate while minimizing conjecture. I think we can add without comment any additional RS references on either side of the discussion to the following line without hurting the overall NPOV of the section while waiting for more MEDRS:

"Many scientists and authorities countered that there is no scientific evidence to support the claims being made, including NIAID director Anthony Fauci and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.[16][17][18], while others have called for a forensic investigation to look for evidence.[19]"

Dinglelingy (talk) 07:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Just the title change is problematic, as it squashes the idea this is a story that has a counterpart "story" this was a US bioweapon developed at Fort Detrick (and it entirely cuts that text accordingly). That is a presumably a "theory" which the lab leak proponents insist is still in play because "no hypotheses have been ruled out" etc. etc. This is meant to be an article about misinformation! In that light, the proposal also loses information from our best RS about how the conspiracy theories are pushed online by science-resistant believers, and contains much else which is off-topic. In sum: WP:PROFRINGE and not an improvement. Alexbrn (talk) 07:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Agree to Dinglelingy's title change. There are three labs in Wuhan - Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Wuhan Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (WIBP) [63]. First two were known to collect and handle bat CoVs from Yunan and there are dual use concerns with the third [64].
• Disagree with Alexbrn’s proposed Fort Detrick story as plausible hypothesis with equal validity. Fort Detrick lab origin is not one of the four hypotheses mentioned in the WHO’s Mission report, clarified with WHO DG statements, as reported in reliable sources. Misinformation on Fort Detrick can be split into new subsection and with all the new sources on China’s latest push, it can even grow into an entire section, or a new page [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70].
• This edit proposal builds on Berchanhimez improvements and is a good start towards building consensus on use of best sources. I will add to this edit proposal.

CutePeach (talk) 13:23, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Dinglelingy's proposed title change and edits, including the exclusion of the Fort Detrick story for similar reasons stated by CutePeach. Adding a reference to a US lab-leak in a section titled 'Wuhan lab leak story' is not a constructive edit. Additionally, we are WP:MNA that the WHO is the most reliable source on this issue (as per their formal partnership with the Wikimedia foundation to combat misinformation and having access to the most recent raw data), and as such the findings of their report and statements on the Wuhan lab origins should be included and updated as needed. It defeats the purpose of having a page on misinformation if we aren't presenting the most recent publicly-available information regarding it. CommercialB (talk) 17:25, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Nope We've explained this enough times by this point. I fail to see any MEDRS which would sustain the lab leak being anything but an extremely unlikely theory - citations above are entirely to popular press sources (Taiwans News, CNBC, CNN, whatever). We can use them to report on political and other happenings. Using them to attempt to bring WP:FALSEBALANCE to the lab leak. And yes, the WHO report is among the top sources, but it's only one MEDRS, and we should seek to establish what the consensus of MEDRS is (already explained previously). Also, per WP:SUMMARY, we should only seek to include the most relevant viewpoints. The other hypotheses have received very marginal coverage. Therefore we should focus on the scientific consensus (natural origin, via which exact route not precisely known) and the hypothesis most commonly used to promote misinformation (the lab leak - which although theoretically possible has little to no support amongst scientists who publish in peer-reviewed publications and is instead mostly used by political whackos, sycophants and the like). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:32, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

As I explained to you above, it doesn’t matter whether the lab leak is likely or not, but whether it is a working hypothesis being investigated. The WHO DG statement that the "least likely" lab leak hypothesis "requires further investigation" [71] is itself a MEDRS, and sits above all other MEDRSs published to date. WP:FALSEBALANCE would be giving equal validity to origins by meteorites or little green men. As per WP:SUMMARY, there is significant coverage of the lab leak hypothesis we can summarize. CutePeach (talk) 05:18, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• The proposed edit looks like an improvement, and presents a more balanced summary of the situation, in my opinion. I'm not a fan of the title change though. Before everyone starts making ad hominem attacks and calling me a conspiracy theorist, I'm not. I'm a research scientist (in a totally different field, but I do know how to survey academic literature and think critically about it). I am against Trump and everything he stands for. I don't even think the lab leak is the most likely scenario. But with all the information that has come out in the last few months, in MIT Technology Review, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Magazine, and many other news sources, it is just not credible to say that an accidental lab leak is misinformation any more. Early in the pandemic, a couple journal articles that came out in Nature and the Lancet (which are journals of the highest quality), and people are interpreting these articles to make the claim that a lab leak is impossible. But this is not what the articles show, and not even what they claim, which is that the virus was not genetically engineered. These articles cannot rule out accidental release of a virus that was being studied. Bat coronaviruses were being studied at the lab, and viruses do accidentally escape from labs occasionally. Other SARS coronaviruses have escaped from labs in China before, and the USA today article gives numerous additional examples of other viruses escaping high security labs. Now to a bigger point, the discussion keeps coming back to this MEDRS rule, which is being used here like a lawyer trying to win a case on a technicality. But even a cursory reading of the rule shows that it is being misapplied. Where the virus came from is not, primarily, a health or medicine topic. If there were toxic chemicals in a river getting people sick, surely no one would claim that investigation into the source of the chemicals is a medical/health topic. 24.18.126.43 (talk) 08:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  So John Doe writing in the Littletown Gazette would be a valid source for highly complex scientific issues? Ha. No; and anyway, for all the reasons previously given there is already consensus that MEDRS are what is required here. And these say things like "the only evidence for a lab leak is that there was a lab in the same town"... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  That is absolutely a bad-faith characterization of the argument being made here. Robert Redfield, the WSJ, MIT Tech Review, NYMag, WaPo, etc. are not small time news sources or outlets. I would agree that the above revision is an improvement as we continue to work towards further investigation and evidence moving forward (given the cooperation of the international community). It is worth repeating that in order to classify something as "misinformation" one should be prepared to give evidence in the affirmative that such a theory is false. It seems that evidence is not available yet, and we are relying on the opinions from institutions and individuals that have many competing considerations, and we should recognize that reality as such. Lastly, the SARS-COV2 virus itself IS, in fact, a highly complex scientific issue HOWEVER the investigations surrounding its origins do not fall into the "highly complex scientific issue" category, and its reasonable that non-virologists can understand those dynamics. Lets steer clear of ad hominem attacks please. CatDamon (talk) 21:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• This proposal puts undue weight into arguing that the theory hasn't been disproven completely - this isn't about the theory, it's about the misinformation surrounding the theory. Any more than what is currently in the article attempting to legitimize the theory - regardless of its truth or not - is not due for this article. This article is about people who have turned the theory into misinformation/conspiracies - not about the theory's veracity. Even in the virtually nil chance that this theory is proven later, the information here remains as describing misinformation - such as claiming it's been proven or the only possibility or even that it's more likely than it is. Regardless of your personal beliefs as to the theory's veracity, it's a fact that people (including high ranking politicians from various countries) have taken this possibility and turned it into a propaganda machine full of conspiracy theories, faulty logic, and misrepresentations of facts - and that is what this article is and will remain about. So no, this proposal is not an improvement, as it removes valid information regarding the misinformation campaigns, and it replaces that information with undue weight on the theory itself. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  I would agree with you bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez if it were the case that the previous page of “Lab leak hypothesis” hadn’t been collapsed into a page entirely devoted to misinformation (this was within the last 3 months if I recall correctly). There has been a great deal of misinformation constructed from this hypothesis, certainly (I.e. bioweapon claim, etc.). Would you agree that an individual page describing the benign, accidental lab leak hypothesis (key word, hypothesis) would be warranted? I am very uncomfortable with the current state of the way the lab leak hypothesis is being presented here is all. CatDamon (talk) 23:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  There is no such thing as the "benign, accidental lab leak". It is not considered seriously by the scientific community (see WP:NOLABLEAK; and the newest sources mentioned here and previously about the WHO report and reactions thereto in serious publications such as Nature) and it has been mostly used as a vehicle for misinformation - it is not possible to dissociate any account of it from the amount of misinformation is has been the source of; claims that it hasn't been disproven (Russel's teapot) notwithstanding. Creating a separate article would be a POVFORK, as already established at previous deletion discussions. There's nothing about the lab leak that can't be covered here or in a more summary fashion at some other article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:14, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  CatDamon, no, it would not be, per WP:POVFORK - the lab leak hypothesis is already presented in its entirety, with as much detail as is WP:DUE, at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Wikipedia does not give inflated weight to fringe viewpoints just because they may have a lot of "information" out there about them. You say you're uncomfortable with the way it's presented here - you need to ask yourself why you're uncomfortable. If you're uncomfortable because Wikipedia isn't pushing it as a theory that's being strongly considered, or because you feel Wikipedia is "shooting the theory down", you should review this essay which explains that Wikipedia is not about what is "true" or what you believe to be "true", but what is verifiable - and any notion that the lab leak theory has any traction beyond "hasn't been completely ruled out but is exceedingly unlikely" would be not verifiable - because all reliable sources on this topic do not give it any traction beyond that. If that makes you uncomfortable because it disagrees with your personal feelings/beliefs, that is not our problem - Wikipedia is not here to be a soapbox for your views or to counter what reliable sources say. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:20, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Misinformation regarding near to zero contamination via outdoors crowds, manifestations, festivals Suggestion

cf COVID-19_misinformation#Large_gatherings, 1. the correct information is missing and meagre, 2. springtime has come. Many seem to have forgotten why outdoor festivals were cancelled last year. Anybody can help expand the paragraph, find and add correct information and references? Thy, --SvenAERTS (talk) 13:04, 4 April 2021 (UTC)