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How we discuss and explain COVID origins

Introduction and General

This topic has been a bit more common lately, and I hoped that a focus on what I feel are some core concepts that glossed over or misunderstood might help us better agree on how we handle and explain origin issues. Particularly since previous RfCs on the topic were primarily performed prior to the publication of the Joint WHO-China report, at which point the ad-hoc consensus clearly shifted (from "no mention of the lab as anything but conspiracy" to "there is an 'extremely unlikely' possibility of an unintentional lab leak") but hasn't had a clean discussion since the dust settled. There's been lots of good updates lately on the topic, and I thought a more focused discussion (and maybe an RfC later) would be beneficial to help resolve some of the remaining areas our articles could improve.

The groundwork as I see it has three broad areas around the origin, about which the the topic revolves:

• The virus comes from a natural setting, undergoing natural zoonosis to jump from animals to humans. Best sources tend to agree that the mainstream scientific opinion is that this is the most likely origin explanation.
• The ancestor to this virus was collected from bats in the wild, grown in culture (mostly for the purposes of understanding the SARS and MERS outbreaks to prevent future outbreaks) where it may have accumulated mutations, and an inadvertent release occurred. The best sources tend to agree that this is a scientifically valid possibility, with disagreement over the likelihood (with best sources saying most agree it is significantly less likely than natural zoonotic scenarios).
• The virus was intentionally manipulated in the lab, with the goal being an intentional release for nefarious purposes. The best sources are unanimous that these claims are pseudoscience/questionable-science at best, and conspiracy theories at worst.

I've broken things down into a couple areas, which will also hopefully help with edit conflicts and keeping things focused. Looking for discussion on best practices on how to deal with different concepts, and our best sources relating to each concept, so that we can hopefully have a more common framework of understanding that can be applied on articles and discussions around the topics. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Hey I just wanted to put it on your radar that the wuhan market (and truly the city itself) are not a fully agreed-upon origin point, not among virologists anyway. It's not supported by the sequence data or the known epidemiological data. I'm not saying this is MEDRS-level or merits inclusion in any articles, it's nowhere near that level of confidence or sourcing. But I just want to make clear: it would be wrong to assume Wuhan is the origin point. And if China finally provides their more expansive sequence data, and it makes clear that Wuhan wasn't the founder strain, or that diversity exists in other cities larger than Wuhan before Wuhan, then that would make a lab-leak from the WIV extremely extremely unlikely from a scientific perspective (I rarely use the word "impossible"). I suppose still technically "possible," because maybe some WIV scientist was travelling to another city and accidentally released it. But that line of thinking quickly veers into the realm of sacred-cow-speculation. Anyway, just to say, from the perspective of the data, Wuhan very much could have been a jumping off point, from an infection that crossed into humans elsewhere. See below:

• Some of the early on genetic evidence suggests, from a parsimony perspective (using median-joining), that the Wuhan strain of the virus may not have been the founder strain. If the earliest infections occurred far enough away, and are genetically distinct enough, then Wuhan may have just been a jumping off point, not the actual origin. Of course there is also some disagreement about using this method of sequence-analysis in this application. Many don't think median-joining is an appropriate way to draw viral phylogenies (and I tend to agree). But that also does not mean that this analysis is useless. If the A variant discussed in this paper is more prevalent in the earliest sequences than it is in later Wuhan ones, or more prevalent in earlier Wuhan than it is in later Wuhan, then the inference is still fair. This method just isn't very good at accounting for recombination or other methods of generating diversity in viruses in nature. Truly, we need China to publicly release more of the sequence and antibody data they have to make a more robust study into this possible. But if it holds true in the future, it would put serious cracks in the idea of the lab leak. Peter Forster at Cambridge did an analysis early on that suggested the sequence parsimony would put Wuhan as an outgroup, not a founder. That is what originally put it in doubt as the origin.

• We already know that the genetic diversity of cases found at the Wuhan market are not explainable by the market alone. There had to be a fair amount of pre-market spread in order to explain the diversity we've seen at that point in the sequence data. In line with this, several well-regarded virologists (ones I know personally!) have stated in the past that locking onto the wet market (and even the city of Wuhan!) as the location of patient zero is probably premature. And there is at least one documented case of a patient in early November in the outlying parts of the province Wuhan is in, who may have brought it to the city.

• There were also several dozen cases in other cities in the province (and nearby provinces) that occurred in December of 2019 that had no documented travel to the city of Wuhan. Most of the cases in those cities did have Wuhan travel, but a minority did not. Could they have just gotten it from unknown asymptomatic spread that did in fact come from Wuhan? Yes, absolutely. But we are not able to conclude either option definitively at this point.

Overall, this is all based on sequences and epidemiological inference, and there would need to be a lot more sequences to make any of this data robust enough to draw true conclusions. To reiterate, that's why I'm not out here putting this in article-space or saying it counts as MEDRS-supported. It isn't. What I want to communicate here is that it is not supported by the available data that the city of Wuhan is 100% the origin. That's not an expert-driven consensus, even though the popular press have basically just run with that as an assumption. It is not a settled assumption in the virology community. At this point, I would say, though, that the wet market is almost definitely not the origin point, not among virologists.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

This is all really useful. There have also been studies that have documented potential antibodies outside of China, some going back to Fall 2019. Some studies have documented potential viral genome in sewage (should be interpreted with caution) and in at least one that I am aware of there was a nasal swab that was confirmed to have coronavirus in Northern Italy in December 2019. Many of these studies have fairly serious limitations and I certainly do not think these are proof that the virus did not start in Wuhan or China. Indeed, I believe that the best evidence certainly suggests that is the case. Just as the best evidence supports animal spillover. However, they (just like other potential explanations) deserve consideration. I have no problem with the lab leak theory itself being pursued, but it seems like it is being pursed at the expense of other potential hypotheses, maybe because the lab leak is more headline grabbing. Dhawk790 (talk) 01:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Happy to help :) Honestly I'm just really happy that everyone likes to talk about viruses these days, lol. Wish it was for a different reason, of course. But if you had told 2015 Shibbolethink that this would be his future, he would not have believed you. Re: the early antibody studies (in places like France and Italy) and PCR+ samples in sewage etc. yeah there are a lot of limitations there, you are right about that. False positives in antibody tests are really easy to trip on, especially when you don't use significant care to make sure antibodies against other common cold coronaviruses don't show up positive. In the lingo, it is hard to make sandwich ELISAs with specific-enough probes. I wrote a post for r/science last year about this sort of question, in the frame of "are immunity passports possible?" To sum it in one phrase: It is really hard to make a test that, when you give it to a large number of people, will not create a smaller (but still large) number of false positives. The same logic exists for PCR tests, though they are much easier to make more specific. But yes I 100% agree, those are interesting studies, if true. I think it is entirely possible (and probably likely) that there was pre-December spread of the virus. I'm not sure about November in Europe! But the sequence diversity is pretty damning. I think the narrative is just so juicy that people can't help but believe it. There have been decades and decades of mad scientists on TV and film (centuries if you count Mary Shelly). If the most prominent examples of science in the American media diet have been those who either are trying to destroy the world or do it accidentally, then it is unsurprising to me that so many people believe it is now the reality. Especially when there really have been a lot of unethical scientists throughout history (though the vast minority).--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you think there is any possibility (because we can speculate here and I am glad to be talking to a virologist) that a pre-pandemic ancestor strain could have been circulating, maybe for years, in human populations and then a mutation occurred in late 2019 in China that resulted in it becoming more virulent? This could potentially explain antibody findings in asymptomatic people with respect to the studies I referenced and the difficulty in findings a zoonotic host. Of course, there would be still be a zoonotic host, but if the spillover event happened longer ago, it might be harder to connect the ancestor strain to the circulating strain. Dhawk790 (talk) 01:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Dhawk790 and Shibbolethink: That seems to be the possibility argued for in Infect Genet Evol. 2021 Mar 18. I've so far not used that because it's only one source (so this appears to me as something like an actual minority scientific theory), although I note some of the other authors also wrote this (about the pangolin no longer being a viable hypothesis as an intermediary host). Any comments on those papers (particularly the first)? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Dhawk790:, In general I do think those arguments about the virus circulating for a few weeks before December (or even months before) are intriguing. We do know that the first part of the influenza season likely covered up the first crop of these influenza-like illnesses, and it was only noticeable when they started to grow in number. But the inverse could also be true, it could be that it was just the beginning of flu season and the virus really did show up in late November early December. There weren't a larger or unusual number of Influenza-related ARDS cases back then, to be fair. I'm not really convinced yet, because we're missing the truly high quality evidence about it... What we really need is a bunch of blood bank samples from October and November and December in Wuhan and the surrounding areas of the province. And then for someone to do a bunch of ELISAs on those samples looking for antibodies against both external (meaning the spike) and internal proteins (all the building blocks of the lil package inside) of SARS-CoV-2. I forget who it was but somebody once called viruses "RNA and protein wrapped in bad news." Or something like that. Anyway, my point is, these tests could tell us whether the virus was circulating in those populations in that time. They'd need to have control samples to show they weren't getting false positives from other coronaviruses as well. If China would share this kind of data/resources, we could actually solve this thing. But alas! I also want to say: the asymptomatic nature of this disease in many hosts is what makes this difficult. It could have been circulating in outlying provinces in Hubei long before November, it could have already been outside the country by then. We don't currently have a good way to know, and without more sequencing and antibody-data from China, we probably will never know. Here's hoping they come around to the idea that obfuscation is not always better.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian:, this also is exactly the paper we need more of. Yes it's useful, but it is hampered by the lack of early data like everybody else. But yes, this paper in particular is good because it outlines what's so problematic about early data on COVID-19 and SARS-COV-2. All we know about Wuhan is that it was a place where early spread occurred. We have no reason to believe it is where the virus emerged. In fact, many other outbreaks have shown that viruses often emerge or cross-over in suburban or rural settings, only to be first seen in the canary in the coal mine that is the urban center. Lots of people clustered together makes a great setting for the slightly more rare presentation to become obvious. It's where probability dictates we will often find the first cases of a new viral illness, even when cross-over occurs in more rural settings. Examples:

• 1995 Ebolavirus outbreak in Kikwit (pop. ~500,000) (first case was likely a farmer/charcoal miner who contracted the virus in a very rural setting some 13 miles south of Kikwit, but it quickly spread to the adjacent very urban area,

  2002 outbreak of SARS-1 in Foshan (pop. 7.2 million) (butchers and other animal-adjacent workers likely got the virus first from civet cats/bats in suburban/rural animal husbandry settings, spread to the very urban area of Foshan),

  2012 outbreak of MERS in Jeddah (pop. 4.7 million) (first known case was a 60 year old man with no direct connection to camels who died in a very urban hospital in Jeddah, but the first cases (for this and subsequent outbreaks in Qatar as well) were likely camelmongers and traders who lived in the suburban and rural areas outside the city proper, with spillover happening in warehouses and barns in suburban/rural settings),

@Bakkster Man: really hit the nail on the head here as well in the comment below. "all roads lead to rome" and more specifically, urban centers represent a canary in the coal mine of viral emergence. The larger the urban center, and the more asymptomatic the disease, the more likely this sort of canary-ing is. Is it possible the emergence actually did happen in Wuhan? Yes, but it would be unique if so. It would be different from known coronaviruses and other emerging virus patterns.

All of the outbreaks I linked above, at first, looked like they emerged from the indicated city. Because that's where most if not all of the early cases were. But subsequent epidemiological investigation and sequencing showed the actual emergence was likely suburban or rural, not in the urban center where the first cases were identified. Areas with lots of people tend to have the first hospitalized cases in these things, but that doesn't mean that's where the virus is actually coming from. @Novem Linguae: this is exactly the sort of thing that belongs in your essay, btw! I know there's already some in there, but people do find past examples of other virus outbreaks persuasive, and it is also what many people in the pro-lab leak are lacking knowledge of. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people misstate or misunderstand what actually happened in the 2002 SARS-1 situation. Also would probably help us to say how long after these events it took to identify the animal of origin... several years in all these cases! Some people are still undecided about Ebola, but it probably took at least 20 years to have any sort of idea. Around 2 years to connect SARS-1 to civets, around 14 to 15 to truly connect it to bats and nail that down. Et cetera et cetera. I am happy to incorporate it, but I am rather slow at these things, so feel free to get started without me. I think any and all arguments for why Wuhan is not an "obvious" origin are arguments against the lab leak being extremely plausible.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I think this is a really good example of why we do (and should continue to) prefer language like "first detected" and "closest known", at least until a 'patient zero' or direct animal progenitor is confirmed. These things can change over time for sure (and already have), so being clear with what is likely to change and what isn't is good. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:50, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The world is noticing that the lab-leak theory is credible. The behavioral evidence shows that it is likely true. Part of the problem here is that biologists quite naturally look at biological evidence. But that's not the full picture. The CCP's evidence-hiding is revealing. Does Wikipedia want to be the last to notice? That's the question. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:59, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• The world is noticing that the lab-leak theory is credible. As I've said before, we've very much adjusted article content before to changes in consensus. Most notably with the publication WHO-China joint report resulting in significant changes to how we wrote these articles. There are obviously specific examples remaining of old language prior to that shift that have gone unnoticed or been more stubborn to resolve, but overall we treat the possibility (appropriately, IMO) as "credible but unlikely".

The behavioral evidence shows that it is likely true... The CCP's evidence-hiding is revealing. Does Wikipedia want to be the last to notice? Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:NOTADVOCACY, WP:CRYSTALBALL, and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, this sounds like you may be advocating for something Wikipedia is not. Yes, we should continue to respect the mainstream as reflected in WP:BESTSOURCES, with any/all mentions of contrary views placed in that context. Even if we end up wrong when more information comes out (WP:VNT). It's worth noting, most of our strong mainstream sources which we discuss giving the lab leak credibility also mention that it remains unlikely and/or the minority view. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:36, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The consensus view, even among many who are calling for further investigation into a lab leak, is not that it is likely true, but rather a possibility worth studying. You can't rely on behavior to make that claim. Spokespeople for the Chinese government has used similar circumstantial claims about the US government (Fort Detrik, Vaping disease, etc.) to suggest that the virus originated in the U.S. We should use a higher standard of evidence. Dhawk790 (talk) 19:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Id like to point out that "The virus was intentionally manipulated in the lab, with the goal being an intentional release for nefarious purposes. Is not the only, nor the most prominent (in my opinion) origin theory that involves genetic manipulation. The Nicholas Wade article that has been making the rounds posits a non-nefarious gain-of-function research + accidental escape scenario. In this theory, WIV was doing GoFR for non-weapon research in conjunction with US health officials and the resulting chimeric virus (to use his words) got out by mistake. Bonewah (talk) 19:50, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I generally assume when we are discussing the lab leak we are referring to a non-nefarious accident. Still, the consensus is that it emerged from a natural spillover event. That may change and wikipedia should reflect that if it does change, but it has not changed yet. I know a lot of people are frustrated that the changing media coverage has not been reflected in the Wikipedia article. I favor a different perspective (long term circulation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7969828/#) than that which is reflected in the article and has unfortunately not gotten attention from the WHO, which considered the lab leak. However, I accept that my view is not the consensus view. Dhawk790 (talk) 19:58, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

My point was that the author should amend his three scenarios listed at the beginning of this discussion to reflect that there are theories of intentional, non-neferious, manipulation + accidental release. As it stands now, the three choices are 1) natural 2) natural but accidentally released and 3)bioweapon. There should be a 4) innocently modified and accidental release. Bonewah (talk) 20:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I intended to include the possibility of evolution through serial passage, GoFR, recombination, or any other common means within The ancestor to this virus was collected from bats in the wild, grown in culture (mostly for the purposes of understanding the SARS and MERS outbreaks to prevent future outbreaks) above. I've edited above to make clear that this theory includes that growth in culture is where it may have accumulated mutations. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: I'm not sure if there was an edit that didn't go through, but I agree with Bonewah that your current scenario 2 still suggests only growth in culture, rather than modifying the viruses. ("Mutations" wouldn't include deliberate modifications.) The 2018 and 2019 grants describe plans to use genetic editing techniques ("reverse genetics," "infectious clone technology") to modify the bat coronaviruses to infect humanized mice. So I would suggest "grown in culture and perhaps modified for experimental purposes".

Also, I would suggest "(mostly for the purposes of understanding the SARS and MERS outbreaks to prevent anticipate future outbreaks)". (The goals appear to have been some combination of "refine estimates of how often to expect SARS/MERS-type leaps to humans," and "improve understanding of what needs to happen to leap to humans," which would guide pre-emptive vaccine and drug development.)

I know this is only the wording for the discussion here, but it may end up being the ancestor of the eventual (edited) article wording ;) SSSheridan (talk) 19:36, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@SSSheridan: Yeah, apparently I missed that edit. Should in included with this one now (unless I screw it up again). And I think your suggestion is solid. I'll update above if we can get some additional consensus. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:59, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: given that it's your own suggestion about the broad areas of hypotheses, I'd say you can go ahead and update it as you see fit. And unless I'm missing something, I think it should be uncontroversial to include modifications, GoFR, etc. in scenario 2, given that they're fundamentally still the "innocent science -> virus escapes" story. SSSheridan (talk) 21:50, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

References
References

Distinguishing and describing "Inadvertent Release"

A common difficulty has been distinguishing the inadvertent release topic. Often wording gives the impression that it is either grouped with the (generally considered more likely) natural setting investigations (these topics combined were the evaluated options in the WHO-China report), or conflated with the nefarious purposes conspiracy. How can we best make clear which topic we are referring to, particularly revolving around the use of the word "lab" or "laboratory" that is unclear if it applies to option 2, option 3, or options 2+3? How do we apply guidelines on alternative theoretical formulations to distinguish from conspiracy and mainstream explanations? Bakkster Man (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I would simply describe it as "accidental lab leak". I think that is the wording used by the WHO. It clearly distinguishes from a voluntary lab release. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 00:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

For consideration, here is some feedback from an educated non-scientist who I respect. ""Escaped from the lab" or "leak" can be misleading/misunderstood by the lay person. (me). It appears it may have been that three workers from the lab got sick late in 2020 and went to the local hospital. That would be a leak or an escape, but easier to grasp if that is what happened." I honestly don't get the confusion, but as a scientist, I'm not really qualified to judge!

The take-home is twofold: as already notes, the phrase "laboratory leak" alone can be misunderstood; and, the mechanism of a putative leak (infecting researchers) is not self-explanatory.

I think the confusion is that the literal meaning of "leak" (i.e. the virus escaped the lab into the surrounding air or water) is masking the fact that this is metaphorical usage. Think of leaks of toxic chemicals and radioactive isotopes. Compare (just for illustration, I'm not proposing these) the phrasings "accidental contamination" and "accidental infection". They're at least closer to self-explanatory.

To avoid neologism, we should probably pick the least ambiguous phrase from established sources, and then include a sentence or subclause to define the phrase. SSSheridan (talk) 04:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

This is the concern which prompted the question. Particularly since, hypothetically, an accidental exposure could be the source of the first human infection whether the virus was collected straight from bats, in culture to research SARS/MERS-style zoonosis, undergoing intentional GoFR, or being developed as a biological weapon. In other words, both a naturally occurring virus, and a deliberately manufactured bioweapon, could both 'leak' from a lab. Even the bioweapon conspiracy theorists would probably describe their theory as a leak (since they would have presumably wanted to deploy the weapon somewhere outside their borders).

Currently Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Investigations uses the wording straight from the WHO report, the unfortunately even more vague laboratory incident (though the explanation clarifies: SARS-CoV-2 is introduced through a laboratory incident, reflecting an accidental infection of staff from laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses. We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome. Hard to get that distinction without a lot of sentences, especially since common lab research can be described as being 'modified' or 'engineered' (at least, colloquially by lay people). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I support the rewording, the current "lab leak" teminology is very misleading because of a strong smell of evil intentions. We can try with a detailed preface like

The animal source of the initial outbreak was expected to be found in Yunnan province, near the ecological reservoir. However, since the index case was a man in Wuhan, Hubei province, and the outbreak began with a single-point introduction, pathways from Yunnan to Wuhan that leave no traces of multiple-introductions are needed. One of the theoretical pathways is that the animal source was transported to Wuhan to be sold in a wet market. A second one is that a swab sample obtained from a bat carrying SARS-CoV-2 was transported to a scientific laboratory in Wuhan, where they study such swabs for routine surveillance. A third possibility is that a package of frozen food containing dead pieces of the animal source arrived to one of the markets in Wuhan

. This can be followed by use of the phrase The second pathway will be refered as the 'accidental contamination hypothesis'.". Forich (talk) 19:14, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to leave the specifics of that article to its talk page, if possible. But I think it's a worthwhile discussion to have there. I could see 'accidental laboratory contamination', since the cold/food chain introduction could similarly be described as 'accidental contamination'. Other options might be 'laboratory collection' or 'research contamination'. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure, let's focus on just the label here. I'd avoid the word laboratory at all costs, there is no way a reader would not associate it with "people messing with viruses in a lab". This is a wild idea, but I propose "fortuitous contamination of lab personnel handling stored wild samples" followed by an acronym, which is long but painfully detailed. Opponents would say it would be WP:Synth to create acronyms, though. Forich (talk) 21:14, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

In addition to being too long (and using the word 'lab', which you wanted to avoid), I think it's too narrow as well. Only a small subset of the viable lab theories suggest it was a wild strain, with various sources pointing to genetic markers of various legitimate research techniques. What about research contamination, researcher infection, or similar? Distinguishes both that it was a result of legitimate research (not weapon development), and avoids the use of the charged word 'laboratory'. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Forich and Bakkster Man, I would suggest laboratory or occupational related incident as per biosafety parlance, or laboratory/research related incident as per the first open letter [1] [2] or field/research related incident as per the third letter [3]. See Annex A and B of third letter for correct terminology relating to lab origins and virus genesis. In my view, we should not avoid using the term laboratory completely. CutePeach (talk) 09:40, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Mainstream vs Minority

How do we best describe and determine the mainstream and minority views on the topic? How do we gauge and refer to the size of the minority? What are our current best sources for verifying the majority opinion is majority? Any particular phrasings that fall under "words to watch" which may be particularly problematic? How can we better portray a "small but reasonable" group of scientists without implying unreasonability, that the size of the group is limited to only the cited authors, nor providing an WP:UNDUE list of every statement of support? Bakkster Man (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The mainstream view (WHO) on the accidental lab leak is that it is possible but extremely unlikely. This is not a minority opinion as the WHO reflects the scientific consensus somewhat. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 00:13, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

By my understanding of the epistemology of science, "Possible but extremely unlikely" is lumping together two things (claim of possibility, and assignment of a probability value.) Because the philosophical sense of "possible" is unhelpful (almost anything is possible), the word "possible" in this context refers to a common-sense idea of plausibility. However, disagreement can result when two people use two different heuristics: person A uses "possible" to mean "estimated probability above, say, 0.00001", and person B understands "possible" to mean "there is a non-handwavey mechanism (an explanation minimal reliance on black boxes) by which this could occur."

Estimation of probability is (whether "common-sense" or formal) inextricably based on assignment of prior probabilities, which is messy and best to avoid.

The plausible-mechanism sense of "possible" is the one which has been changing recently. The lab leak hypothesis has evolved from "what if that coronavirus lab in Wuhan made this, through, I dunno, CRISPR?" (high reliance on black boxes) to "given that the lab was funded to edit the S protein in bat CoVs to infect humanized mice, they could have made SARS-CoV-2 assuming they used scarless techniques, an unpublished backbone, etc., etc." - a lower (still nonzero) reliance on black boxes.

Given that current discussions of "possible" are based on the plausible-mechanism heuristic, a phrase like "considered possible but extremely unlikely" should be avoided, in favor of separating the statements. Most sources which discuss it (even those strongly opposed) consider it possible; the WHO report estimated the likelihood as 'extremely unlikely'". The advantage of this separation is that "plausibility" (i.e. is it just hand waving or are there conceivable mechanisms? The Anderson "proximal origin" paper was an early claim that there are no conceivable mechanisms) can be discussed separately from "estimated probability" (e.g. WHO report: "extremely unlikely"; Richard Ebright: "likely").

The concern here would be how to achieve proper balance. Here is an example which is technically correct, but gives undue weight to the minority view: "Most sources consider the scenario possible, with estimates of likelihood ranging from "extremely unlikely" (WHO report) to "likely" (Richard Ebright's tweets)." Better in terms of DUE would be: all the most-reputable publications give some version of 'extremely unlikely'. A few individuals have claimed it "likely," but no peer-reviewed science has supported this.

However, this is also bad, because the most reputable discussions of the lab-leak hypothesis, such as the Science letter, do not provide a probability estimate. They instead stake a strong "both hypotheses remain viable [ie plausible] until further evidence become available" position. It's a tricky one. SSSheridan (talk) 06:14, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• I agree, the mainstream view is that an accidental lab leak is "unlikely". I'm wondering how we can best describe the minority who believe it is "likely". We've previously ruled out just listing a bunch of prominent people (Redfield, Relman, Baltimore, et al) as being UNDUE. I also think there's a reasonable argument to be made that current phrasing like "Some individuals, including a small number of virologists" might be interpreted as being even more fringe than actuality.

To make it just a bit more complicated, I'd suggest the mainstream view includes "more research is required". The difference is that most in the mainstream would describe it as "more research is required to completely rule it out", while the minority view's reasoning ranges from "it hasn't received enough research to evaluate probability" to "people aren't paying attention to the information we already have". IMO the best solution will explain both these variations. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:29, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

This article indicates significant mainstream scientific support for the lab leak theory: "many leading scientists believe [COVID-19] may well have leaked from a lab". It also highlights the lack of consensus: "There has never been a clear expert consensus on the virus’s origins. There were a handful of scientists with unusually robust social-media profiles expressing strong views".

This article calls into question the "authoritarian pronouncements" of the WHO and Andersen reports, due to clear conflicts of interest and the issue being a heavily-politicized, partisan struggle. Stonkaments (talk) 01:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The following are the relevant policies:

WP:MEDSCI:

Although significant-minority views are welcome in Wikipedia, such views must be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. Additionally, the views of tiny minorities need not be reported. Finally, make readers aware of controversies that are stated in reliable sources. A well-referenced article will point to specific journal articles or specific theories proposed by specific researchers.

WP:FRINGELEVEL: alternative theoretical formulations:

Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective. Such theoretical formulations may fail to explain some aspect of reality, but, should they succeed in doing so, will usually be rapidly accepted.

WP:GEVAL:

While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity...Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.

WP:DUE:

Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects.

If I've missed any, please add them.

As a footnote: within the discussion of significant minority opinions, the higher standard of MEDRS sources does not apply. SSSheridan (talk) 07:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll add WP:SCHOLARSHIP, which for the most part avoids discussion of the contentious topic of whether we need to comply with MEDRS or not. For us, the only difference is that SCHOLARSHIP says 'prefer secondary sources when available' without requiring only these citations (thus potentially excluding minority views). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:29, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The following is my understanding of the current state of the inadvertent-release (lab leak) minority viewpoint. I think it would be helpful if we could first agree on some version of this, and we could then (afterward) hammer out some wording which reports the minority viewpoint(s) without undue weight.

• Majority/mainstream, most-reputable sources:

Possibility: a range from technically yes, but only because we're not allowed to say no (Anderson) to possible enough to take seriously (WHO report).

Probability: "extremely low"; "overwhelmingly [against]".

Source's relevance: top; MEDRS standard.

• Some dissenting opinions from reputable sources (e.g. the Science letter, Tedros's comments on the WHO report):

Possibility: yes

Probability: can't be judge with current evidence

Source's relevance: low in terms of biomedical information; high in terms of existence of differing opinions (see the "Notability and acceptance" section below)

• A few individuals with relevant background (eg Richard Ebright, David Baltimore, Robert Redford), as quoted by journalists:

Possibility: yes

Probability: high

Source's relevance: low, but >0 according to the MEDSCI guidance "point to specific journal articles or specific theories proposed by specific researchers." These researchers are sufficiently prominent (Baltimore is a Nobel Laureate, which means his every utterance, awake or asleep, is notable (joking)). Their theories are specific enough to meet the MEDCI standard (i.e. rare codons in the furin cleavage site as evidence). Probably little space is DUE to them, but again, I'm deferring that discussion for now.

Again, the purpose of this summary is to seek consensus on the existing state of opinion amongst relevant sources. I would suggest not to debate due weight until we're on the same page about who's said what. I invite the addition of notable publications and opinions which I have not included.

(In the interest of brevity, I've assumed familiarity with all the allusions above, but I can provide links/quotes on request.) SSSheridan (talk) 07:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I broadly agree with this summary of the spectrum of views, with two comments.

• Perhaps it's worth splitting the mainstream into the current mainstream "technically possible, but requiring further study to rule out" and the prior more-mainstream which is now no longer broadly accepted of "the lab leak is implausible enough that any suggestion regarding it is conspiratorial". The latter frequently cited last year's Nature letter, and was how we discussed the topic here until the release of the WHO report (though in retrospect, that letter is broadly the WHO position: plausible but "extremely unlikely" compared to simpler natural explanations).
• I continue to have concerns with placing the Tedros statement as 'dissent'. I understand why people say so, and think it's a reasonable conclusion that might even be correct, but I think he was abstract enough that including him in a list of 'dissenters' or 'adherents' regarding lab origins is potentially a WP:BLP issue. To put it another way, he also said The role of animal markets is still unclear... Further study will be important to identify what role farmed wild animals may have played in introducing the virus to markets in Wuhan and beyond. but we clearly wouldn't cite him as dissenting over the cold/food chain conclusion.

The fact we can break this down 3-4 ways, with variation and overlap aplenty, is exactly why this discussion will be helpful. Bakkster Man (talk)

For the purposes of this exercise, I support separation of Mainstream into two parts, pre- and post- the paradigm shift that happened in May 2021. Mainstream can also be divided into: with possible Conflict of Interest (COI) and non-COI. Shi Zheng-Li, for example, would be COI. Dazsak, possibly there too. Chinese epidemiologists obliged to send their drafts to the CCP for approval? I don't know whether their views are contaminated. Rancaniello, the virologist, refered to their situation as both positive and negative. Negative, because of obvious restriction of scientific freedom. But he said it could be positive that their views were filtered so that any result that could be used in favor of crazy allegations (i.e. Trump support) was stopped. Forich (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd rather focus on current views, both because it's too early to disentangle whatever changes have/will happened, and it's the most contentious. I expect if we handle current mainstream/minority well, the historical changes will be much less problematic to address. I could see us covering allegations of COI somewhere (Investigations?), but will need a very careful touch for WP:BLP. Maybe more broadly the topic of "influence", covering WHO relationships with member states (China and US pressure, notably), funding sources (viral research to prevent pandemics, conservative money to Li-Meng Yan‎, etc), with COI included in there. Maybe a separate discussion and/or sandbox around the Investigations article to avoid derailing here? Bakkster Man (talk) 22:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

On the mainstream view's likelihood statement of "extremely low"; "overwhelmingly [against]": It seems that the scientific method would require collection of all the data, and conducting of interviews as the previous stage BEFORE careful analysis is undertaken. The lab leak hypothesis is void of the necessary data to even attempt to assign a probability. Facing the main contended fact, for example. "WIV hold an undisclosed strain of SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor (>99.7%)) in its facilities", with no previous investigation, the prior would be a high probability that WIV is telling the truth when they say they did not had it. After data collection and auditories, two possibilities would arise that make the hypothesis true: that WIV was lying, or that they had unidentified samples that inadvertenly had the virus and infected a worker. Maybe, an examination of the bats in the Mojjiang mine could also alter the priors, if many infected bats are found, and people put 2 and 2 together. Forich (talk) 22:57, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Scientists seem to agree that previous zoonotic outbreaks of similar virus from a similar reservoir, genetic analysis of the virus, lack of evidence to the contrary, and the sheer statistical likelihood (of one among hundreds of thousands of possible, random, everyday rural people being exposed to a new pathogen vs. of all stars aligning for one worker at one lab to get infected by a virus and for it to go unnoticed and spread all across the place), along with the possibility that the virus didn't originate in Wuhan at all, all speak in favour of the prevailing consensus. It is not our job to criticise them, but to report this. Have scientists been wrong before? Yes. But we must not jump to conclusions, nor be premature. We simply follow the consensus of high-quality sources (which hasn't budged at all since a while, i.e., the virus very likely has a zoonotic origin and a lab leak is "possible but extremely unlikely"). If scientists are wrong currently, then we'll all know in due time and the articles can be updated. After all, this is a perpetual work in progress. Otherwise, we certainly must not fuel narratives or blindly follow lower quality sources. What might seem like an innocent academic (actually, it's more of a political proxy war) debate over the origins of a virus has real-life consequences, including the fuelling of online bullying, racism and bigotry, and of course a very real political and diplomatic divide between two global superpowers. Our duty to our readers is to provide them with the best information we have, based on the best sources we have. That this happens to go against the "theory du jour" and reports from journalists, is of next to no concern to us, since we care for verifiability, not truth. In short, yes, we are biased towards what scientists say, and if they say that the virus very likely has a zoonotic origin, we report that, while also noting that there has been political controversy over it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:12, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I think your use of language like "scientists seem to agree", "prevailing consensus", and letting go of "theory du jour" shows that you view that their confidence on understanding the origin of the virus is high. The timeline of scientific approach after a pandemic usually transits like this: i) preprints; ii) primary peer-reviewed sources; iii) a period of discussion and assimilation; iv) flawed secondary sources that dare to publish reviews too soon; v) definitive secondary sources published in top epidemiological journals like Clinical Microbiology Reviews. I believe we are at stage iv) right now, so we should use more cautious language, shouldn't we?

If this topic was directly concerned with treatment that people ingest, there is an argument to unifying the discourse around the treatment with statements that leave no space for doubt, and these statements should be published by the WHO, the CDC and Wikipedia. But this is not about a treatment, it is about understanding the origin, and the argument to "nudge" official statements even if it shows overstated confidence, so that people do not hate an authoritarian regime with a history of not being transparent and a history of interfering with their own scientists, do not convices me. Do we want to be the parent that says, "everything is under control, we have this pretty much figured out" and calm down the children despite misrepresenting the facts, or do we want to be accurate, even if that can be used by crazy conspiracy people to spread misinformation? Great questions, really, this is historic and we are learning a lot by having this discussions, let's keep up the good work. Forich (talk) 01:19, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: I hesitate to bring this up, because I don't want to be argumentative, and this point isn't really about policy; but our opinions on plausibility are, as much as we'd like to deny it, related to the positions we take here. So, in reply to your informal analysis of likelihood in the above comment, with hundreds of thousands of rural people vs. a few lab workers: past history shows that 1) coronaviruses leap to humans every now and then, and 2) dangerous viruses (e.g. smallpox and ebola) have an unfortunate tendency to escape their labs every now and then. Judging by that history, 1) zoonosis is certainly plausible; and 2) lab leak would be plausible if they had SARS-CoV-2 in their lab. So, how likely is that? We know (from the grant proposals) that the lab in question was running a project involving editing bat coronaviruses so that they would infect humanized mice. Do you see why that makes it sound, suddenly, not-so-implausible? In my opinion, it's certainly a "reasonable people can differ" situation. SSSheridan (talk) 02:43, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Both possibilities are plausible, in the sense that yes, they could have happened and there isn't sufficient evidence to disprove it at this time (although I note that some versions of the lab leak, whereas both A) a natural [zoonotic] virus was collected and then B) this same [nowhere recorded] strain was accidentally released, stretch the idea of falsifiability a bit too far to my liking - the virus being discovered in a natural host would, for example, not be enough to "disprove" this from a strictly "possible" point of view). As I've said, there are many reasons why, despite both being "possible", one is far more likely than the other. However, this is, if you'll excuse the metaphor, way above our paygrade, since WP:NOR explicitly prohibits us taking sides based on our own conclusions. I'm satisfied that our best sources broadly agree with the following: A) the mainstream scientific view is indeed "natural zoonotic origin [very] likely" and "lab leak possible but extremely unlikely" (with the more questionable variants, scenarios such as "deliberate lab engineering", ruled out); B) there have been calls for further investigations from various sources and for various reasons. Again, the only question is how to report these disparate positions and the disparate coverage this has attracted in different articles. The only place where editor opinion matters in all of this is assessing the reliability and the relative weight of sources - most of the time, though, both of these are relatively clear and uncontroversial. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:29, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: Could you clarify your position? Do you think that the mainstream view scientific view is flawed, or that our description of the mainstream view is inaccurate? Bakkster Man (talk) 00:00, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure. It is a fact that WHO used the "extremely likely" wording, and I can not dispute or remotely challenge that. Now, since we are going "meta" in this excellent discussion, I have to put out there that if Expert A produces a likelihood statement with a very different approach than that used by Expert B to produce his, we are doing a disservice in presenting them side by side. I brought up that the whole line of inquiry of direct animal transmission has had a chance to examine the evidence collected over 18 months, and they have available many methods to assess likelihood. On the other hand, the lab leak theory is in a preliminary stage where the only way to come up with a likelihood is either with sloppy frequentist computations (i.e. how many accidents have ocurred in the past), or by a voting system from the opinion of a team of experts, each with little access to evidence. If we want a fair presentation of the investigations, we would go, IMHO, for the "wait-and-see" language used by the New York Times to describe the efforts of lab leak proponents. It would be a complete misreresentation to use something like this "The world scientists have deeply studied the origin for more than a year, their consensus is that animal direct zoonosis is very likely what happened, and that a lab leak is extremely unlikely", because it would be akin to describing a criminal trial in which the defense have finished presenting their evidence, and the prosecutors have just had the green light to start collecting theirs. Forich (talk) 00:49, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Claims about a possible laboratory origin are not exactly news from yesterday. Even Andersen et al. speculate about it, before deeming that a laboratory-based scenario is not plausible (although not possible to disprove). That was back in March 2020. Scientists have had years of experience working and studying these viruses, and they are certainly aware of the possibility of a lab accident. Beyond Andersen, they've been directly commenting on the specific hypothesis of a lab leak since at least May last year. There was even a big RfC at the time on the main COVID pandemic page. Claiming that this is a misrepresentation and that the research is outdated seems like special pleading. If scientists feel confident enough in saying that, despite all of this, the most likely scenario is still and has been a natural zoonotic outbreak (like for previous coronaviruses), then we must report it as such, even if there is an alternative theory which is getting renewed attention in the press. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:05, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

I hear you, we are getting closer to understanding each other. I am currently writing a blog entry to spell out my thinking there, a more appropiate forum. Cheers. Forich (talk) 19:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: I can see where you're coming from, that there's a potential for our description of likelihood to be interpreted as certainty. Particularly around the word 'consensus' (which I think we intend to use regarding likelihood, but is more often used to denote certainty), I've intentionally tried to stop using it in Talk page discussions for that very reason. That's something I hope we can refine here. Perhaps "most scientists/virologists believe..." or "the mainstream scientific belief is that the most likely explanation is..." would better help avoid unintended implications of certainty? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:17, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: Yes, the mixing of likelihood and confidence on the certainty of the results is problematic, not only in this entry but in science in general. I recommend you to check out this reference on that topic (Mastrandea et al, 2010), it contains many practical language solutions. Unmixing the two is possible with careful language, I am currently writing a chapter on a book on decision theory that exactly covers that issue. Forich (talk) 19:38, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

The Relman et al letter in Science [4] and subsequent interviews on CNN [5] [6] puts a position that there isn't sufficient data for scientists to weigh any given origin hypothesis. The Science letter counters the Andersen et al letter in Nature, which puts a position on Natural origins in an illogical way [7], offering a genomic analysis as if it was evidence. The more recent Science letter is authored by a group of scientists who are much more senior and experienced than the Nature letter's authors, representing a significant shift in consensus. Furthermore, W. Ian Lipkin, the most senior scientist listed as an author of the Nature letter, no longer associates himself with its position [8] [9] [10]. This shift in consensus is not from natural origins being more or less likely, or lab origins being more or less likely, but of something else entirely. The shift in consensus is in how to assess hypotheses based on the currently available data.

The question of which hypothesis is mainstream vs minority is moot and the WP:FRINGE criteria do not apply here. We wouldn't try to determine a "consensus position" on what downed a plane before the relevant authorities were able to recover the bodies, debris and black box. As it is now, the Chinese government isn't cooperating with the international community, specifically in facilitating the further investigations that the WHO DG called for [11]. If this is the status quo, then phylogenetic analyses will have to suffice as evidence, just like in the sources we have to substantiate the lab origins of the 1977 Russian flu.

I respectfully disagree with Gtoffoletto that the WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2 represents a scientific consensus, as the WHO is a diplomatic organization which works by the consensus of its member states [12], many of which do not agree with the assessments made in the Study's report. I agree more with the sentiment expressed by CyberDiderot, Stonkaments, Horse Eye's Back, Forich, Jtbobwaysf and SSSheridan. We should not claim there to be a scientific consensus where there isn't one. CutePeach (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

One clarifying point before we discuss the relative prevalence of the views: the WHO study is the strongest and most notable source supporting the view that the conclusion is mainstream, but it is not the only one. The bulk of our strongest, reliable, peer-reviewed, secondary studies have been supporting natural zoonosis, and generally published in higher quality journals. It's the studies supporting the lab origin tending to be in non-mainstream journals (at least, non-mainstream for virology) that makes me lean towards being WP:FRINGE/ALT.

Unfortunately, to really untangle this and get a better idea of the state of science is a significant quantity of work. Probably pooling together as many reliable papers we can find, grouped by level of support (lab unlikely, lab possible, lab likely?) and month of publication (to see if there was a true shift), along with the journal published in (to determine weight). Anyone want to sandbox up a table to collect all this?

I'd also like to suggest that our decision should focus on are we accurately reflecting current scientific views? It shouldn't matter to us if scientists have jumped to conclusions which they may need to walk back (WP:CRYSTAL), only that we accurately reflect current views. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:05, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

There was a user named Gimiv (talk · contribs) that was doing a nice start of a table (I think it was likely pro-lab theory POV slanted) in their sandbox, regardless it was a nice start and format and maybe the same idea you have. Then the sandbox page got deleted for socking (essentially censoring the content). I agree it would be useful to have a neutral POV table that included both views (pro and anti lab theory) and some notes & categories about the type of source MEDRS, high quality, dubious, political, otherwise. I had even added a source to it that i found and was starting to collaborate some data on my own, but I lost the work when the user sandbox was deleted. This type of table would allow neutral editors to comment in RFCs much more easily. I asked the deleting admin ToBeFree to email me the data so i could incorporate the data, but until now they have refused my request. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:14, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Nothing is "nice" about ban evasion, and I'm not even the deleting admin. Nothing prevents you from creating a similar table yourself. Context and detailed explanations can be found at Jtbobwaysf's talk page and the subsequent AN discussion. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:23, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: Since I made the above comment, RandomCanadian has begun such a list, and an incredibly comprehensive one. I expect he will welcome input from others (it's a lot of articles to sift through, hundreds), but I would advise you participate cautiously (if at all) due to past errors on your part regarding the type of analysis required.

I'll also point out that this type of analysis, even if the majority view shifted overnight when the WHO paper was released, won't show the change for months. Authors need to read the new research, cite it in their own writings, submit and be published, which is not a quick process. It'll get us a quality answer (what do high-quality journal articles with lots of citations say?), but it'll get us a delayed answer. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:09, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to remind everyone that MEDRS can only tell us if it's of natural origin by studying the genome, hence they can rule out a lab creation of the virus as a biowpeon. MEDRS studies that do not have access to the investigation samples and data cannot (as the sources themselves state) prove or disprove whether or not transmission happened in the wold, in the market, of if it was a lab accident. To determine that, an investigation which has access to the lab data and samples is needed. No MEDRS has yet been published with any data that could prove or disprove a lab leak. Eccekevin (talk) 02:51, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Notability and acceptance

On which pages is the minority or conspiratorial view notable for inclusion? On which pages is the minority view sufficiently accepted among scientists and/or the public overall for inclusion? Which topics are the various viewpoints most notable and WP:DUE, versus least notable and WP:UNDUE? Where is the threshold for notability/acceptance in the main topics (particularly COVID-19 Pandemic), and how do we gauge it? How do we best apply WP:GEVAL to avoid creating false balance? Bakkster Man (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

We don't know the origin of the virus. The only consensus we have is that it is of natural origin and not "built" in a lab. But we don't know where it originated. We should stick to this information in the main articles and only explore the investigations into the origins of the virus in other more relevant pages. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 00:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

As you say, we don't know the origin of the virus, but the current SARS-CoV-2 article has a section titled "Reservoir and zoonotic origin," which (in title alone, as well as it's content) suggests that we do.

The consensus you allude to is no longer universally accepted in the reputable literature. The WHO, among others, consider construction in a lab (by honest science, not nefarious design) as a possibility worthy of investigation. This is evident from the fact that the WHO did investigate it. The WHO report ruled it "extremely unlikely," while Tedros, in response, said that further investigation is needed to draw robust conclusions. The bottom line being: zoonosis is the mainstream explanation, with lab construction and accidental release being a minority viewpoint. WP:MEDSCI and WP: FRINGELEVEL (block quotes above) support the inclusion of minority viewpoints/alternative formulations, in context etc. etc. SSSheridan (talk) 07:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Perhaps the mainstream consensus would be better described as "the virus was not genetically manipulated with malicious intent". We can probably find a way to be less wordy, but there's no quality scholarly source suggesting otherwise. Additional note, I can agree "Origin" is probably a less contentious title, make sure pages which transclude this section get updated if we change it. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

This "Notability and acceptance" section, as I understand it, is to decide the relatively binary questions of where to include what, whereas nuances of wording would primarily be in e.g. the "Mainstream vs Minority" section.

• Article SARS-CoV-2#Reservoir and zoonotic origin:
  • Rename the "Reservoir and zoonotic origin" section to "Origin", in line with e.g. MERS-CoV#Origin.
  • Keep the balance of content (word count) similar to present. (WP:DUE/WP:UNDUE)
  • Lightly reword around the zoonotic origin to acknowledge that it is mainstream,but not universal, while continuing to emphasize the literature's overwhelming support for it.
  • Rewrite the paragraph dedicated to alternative formulations (lab leak), in the context of their acceptance in the community, in accordance with WP:FRINGELEVEL, WP:DUE, etc. (discussed in the "Mainstream vs. minority" section).
  • Add a "See also:" link in this section See also: Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, because it is the article in which the origins (zoonotic or otherwise) are discussed in most depth.
• Article Investigations into the origin of COVID-19:
  • Add a section for accidental lab release ("accidental lab release" being my placeholder; we may decide ("Distinguishing and describing "Inadvertent Release"" section) to use a different term.).
  • Given that the article is "Investigations," not "ideas some people had," this section should focus on actual investigations of the lab leak possibility (the WHO report), as well as notable responses to that report (the WHO Director-General's "however"), and the existence of calls for further investigation. (I include calls for further investigation of either the lab leak hypothesis specifically, or of an "all possibilities" where lab leak is clearly included.). Those who have singled out lab leak explicitly for further investigation include the WHO Director-General, the Science letter, the editorial boards of prominent newspapers (WaPo and NYT(?)), and the Biden administration. Those who have called for investigating all possibilities further (which clearly include lab leak as a possibility) include the January 2021 EU statement and joint US-UK-Japan-S Korea-Canada-etc. statement. Given that an investigation is an act of a government or intergovernmental agency (WHO), the statements of governments and the WHO with regards to investigations are notable. MEDRS doesn't apply in this context. Edit: I believe the last statement to be true, but I've opened a discussion on the topic Wikipedia_talk:Biomedical_information#What_is_MEDRS_for? here.
  • In accordance with WP:DUE, this section should be brief.
    • I propose the section consist of: a summary of the WHO investigation's finding ("extremely unlikely"), Tedros's response to it, an enumeration of notable actors calling for further investigation, and those saying further investigation is not needed. Were there any earlier investigations worth mentioning?

I propose that we focus on these two articles before considering others, unless I've missed another we should include. SSSheridan (talk) 08:54, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, my intent was that this section is the 'how much to talk about each topic on a given article'. The Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Investigations lead section is new, and seeks to describe the general hypotheses (based on the WHO study breakdown), giving similar weight to each before noting the investigations and conclusions of various groups into their likelihoods. There's discussion of whether to create a specific section for the lab leak hypothesis, and I thought the discussion of DUE/UNDUE was the right one to inform that call. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm a bit unclear on the distinction between "singled out the lab leak explicitly" and "called for investigating all possibilities". Surely the two are not mutually exclusive. Biden's announcement from yesterday, for example, says I had my National Security Advisor task the Intelligence Community to prepare a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of COVID-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. [...] As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has “coalesced around two likely scenarios” but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question. [...] I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days. That explicitly mentions "a laboratory accident" while also sounding like an "investigate everything on the table" kind of directive. XOR'easter (talk) 21:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I think the difference is one wording can imply the reason behind the investigation is a belief in one particular explanation being more likely, while the other doesn't. "Biden called for investigations into both animal and laboratory origins" would be accurate. But "Biden called for investigations into laboratory origins" would not. Even flipping the order around "both laboratory and animal origins" would be WP:UNDUE (prominence of placement). I think we need to be cautious about this two ways; both in how readers interpret what we write, and how we interpret reliable sources on topics. An example of the latter is the Tedros comments on the WHO report. Was he placing specific weight/criticism on the conclusions regarding the lab theory, or was it only one of several limitations he mentioned across all facets of the investigation? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:28, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Related RFC

There appears to be a related RFC underway right now at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information#RFC: Disease / pandemic origins. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

There is blatent WP:SEALION behavior going on where a few editors open discussions on every article under the sun, including this one. And then the same editor argues to hat discussions with Malerooster on the other talk pages. Then subsequently opens yet another discussion here, while there are multiple RFCs running over at the policy page as WhatamIdoing points out above. It seems there a couple of high-volume SEALION editors engaging in this covid discussion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf:

1. Please WP:AGF. Particularly since I believe any reasonable look at my edit history will show that if I'm 'pushing' anything it's WP:NPOV, having been working to ensure that the lab theory (which you advocate for [13][14]) gets increased discussion so long as it's neutral. If you still feel this way, take it to the ANI as WP:SEALION recommends.
2. As the diff you provided shows, I did not argue in favor of hatting this discussion, nor did I hat it myself. I didn't feel it was so egregious that I would unhat it myself, your concern is best directed at the user who placed the hat.
3. Beyond merely not hatting the discussion you complain about, I'm still awaiting your reply at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic#DUE WaPo having written my specific policy disagreements with the topic you wanted to discuss. Complaining about the temporary closing of a discussion you don't appear interested in engaging in, and using it as a cudgel against the editor who is willing to engage in the discussion, seems WP:POINTY to me.
4. The discussions I began above, relating to notability and terminology, are quite distinct from the RFCs relating to sourcing.

Regards. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: I can assure you (for whatever that's worth) that I'm not arguing in bad faith. I'll concede that the discussion I opened at Talk:SARS-CoV-2 was very high-volume -- that was because I wasn't familiar with the relevant Wikipedia policies. That conversation became too scattered, I suggested restarting it, and Bakkster Man made this proposal. I think WikiProject COVID-19 is the right place to discuss this issue, isn't it? The RFCs on the policy pages are, well, discussing changes in policy, whereas here we're just trying to apply the existing policies. I honestly don't see what the problem is, unless you're of the opinion that non-zoonosis hypotheses are non-notable. Otherwise, let's discuss is so we can get it right. SSSheridan (talk) 20:25, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man it does seem quieter around here than the discussion on Talk:SARS-CoV-2, and there were definitely more opponents there than here. We do need input from those who are opposed to most of the suggestions here, e.g. those who consider non-zoonotic origin hypotheses to be exclusively conspiracy theory or pseudoscience, and would reject considering any of them to be alternative theoretical formulations (WP:FRINGE/ALT). Should we try to invite the more-opposed users over here, or is there a better party going on elsewhere? SSSheridan (talk) 21:37, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster, apologies I assumed you hatted it as it appeared you were advocating for hatting here so I assumed you had done the deed rather than just advocate for it. Thanks for the clarification. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Please more careful in the future, as I will not be as understanding if this occurs again. I would also appreciate your correcting the erroneous statements above. Bakkster Man (talk) 23:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@SSSheridan:, I dont recall reading your initial posts and my comment was not directed towards you. I only wade in and out of this subject from time to time, it is one of these political headache articles, which generally I try to stay away from other than to add my comments from a policy perspective. From what I have seen the main tool that the editors that want to censor the content are mostly arguing MEDRS applies to history (that RFC is now underway and aside from the early involved editors supporting it, looks like it will fall towards a continuation of the Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_not_biomedical_information?). The second attempt to censor the content is to argue history is UNDUE/FRINGE/FALSEBALANCE because it is not "scientific," and then to use MEDRS sources to beat back the huge number of mainstream high-quality RS (NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc). 'One journal report is worth 100 mainstream news articles' is the argument summed up. This second argument hinges on history being classified as somehow scientific. His-story is the opinion of those who interpret it, and over time a consensus emerges. Taking a step back, in this case, there is probably an absence of science on either side of the fence, it is just arguing beliefs (some believe it came from the lab, others from an undiscovered animal, etc.) There is also an attempt to conflate medical cause with the origin, as that also allows them to use the MEDRS argument, but that argument seems to be used less now. Both theories (animal or lab) lack evidence and there is a lot of pretending to argue one belief is superior to the other. The strategy has been to WIKILAWYER and BLUDGEON to guide the discussion. A good example is this where an editor cites articles of authors that purport to know the origin of the virus. I have seen editors use 'science' published by Wuhan weapons lab employees. It appears there are paid editors here, or at very least a couple of editors that spend all day on this (or at least volunteer crusaders). Your suggestion to do an RFC here on a meta-level article is a good one, and I think the MEDRS policy issue needs to be settled first. They are quite entrenched, and the only way forward, in that case, is to do an RFC as you suggested. Appreciate your help on it! Feel free to ping me when you see something interesting and I will be happy to comment (unless I am tired of the subjust which happens every few days). Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: You could at least do me the courtesy of pinging me, instead of making personal attacks about my motives behind my back, as you have been doing here. For the last time, the origin of the virus is not history, certainly not at this stage, and certainly not for the next few years (FFS, it took 14 years before direct evidence was found for SARS). You're welcome to present scientific sources which argue for the lab leak. So far, as presented in my post (which you've linked to above, and which I suggest, if you don't trust my summary, you take a look at the sources themselves), most sources describe the origin of the virus as very likely zoonotic. You can either accept what the sources say, and find a way to present the lab leak for what it is, or move back to Twitter and the like if your wish is instead to advocate for the lab leak. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:47, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I think you perfectly made the point here: 'that we need to wait 14 years to add the historical content relating to the theories of the origin to the article. Until that occurs we will use MEDRS sources over high-quality RS, out of the position that MEDRS applies to historical content. Any other content will be false balance.' The diff I showed is an example of an edit and is not directly related to you, other than that you made it. Thanks for clearly summarizing your opinion/position here. You and Bakkster also make the same point here Talk:COVID-19_pandemic#DUE_WaPo It has not usefully be summarized. SSSheridan, and other interested editors, I think after Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information#RFC: Disease / pandemic origins. completes we can then RFC this question (if history relating to theories and relating to origin, are Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_not_biomedical_information?. However, I see the Biomed RFC as an interim question that needs to be answered first. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:18, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Misrepresentation upon misrepresentation. I said that A) the undetermined origin of the virus is definitively not "historical content" - the 14 years comment was a comparison and call for patience; that B) we prefer high-quality scientific sources for scientific topics (the undetermined origin of a viral pathogen is a highly complex, scientific issue, which requires years of study); and (maybe very obtusely in the post above - "present the lab leak for what it is", but more directly elsewhere) C) that issues which are not science (calls for investigations, politics, misinformation, and the like) can be described at appropriate places using newspapers and sources with appropriate expertise. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:14, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

• Beautiful analysis @Jtbobwaysf: , I was unaware that WP:SEALION existed as a concept- but this appears to be what @RandomCanadian: (since you would like to receive a ping- not singling you out) and a few others are engaging in. It’s (intentionally, I’d imagine) exhausting to keep up with all these extra discussions being started on other pages to subvert the consensus demonstrated in earlier discussions. I am a firm believer in assuming good faith (and I do so)- but when someone is clearly acting in bad faith, you no longer have to rely on assumptions. Thank you, Jtbobwaysf- I would agree with your analysis above wholeheartedly. Thank you all for the discussions. CatDamon (talk) 20:35, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

  Rebuttal: to quote SEALION, section about sources:

*They argue for the inclusion of material of dubious reliability; for example, using commentary from partisan think tanks rather than from the scientific literature.

• They argue that reliable sources are biased while their own preferred sources are neutral.
• They ignore their burden to demonstrate verifiability, insisting attempts be made to find reliable sources for dubious claims before removing them from an article.
• When pressed for reliable sources, in lieu of honoring the request they:
  • use a source to verify claims outside its author's expertise. For example, a foreword to an electrician's handbook is used to verify a statement of historical fact;
  • engage in cherrypicking

1. You have argued for the inclusion of poor sources (non-scientific journals, newspapers, sometimes even tweets), vs. scientific journals.
2. You or others have claimed that scientists and virologists are biased and have conflicts of interest, pretending we should instead take reports from journalists and politicians
3. When asked for reliable scientific journals to support the claim that the lab leak is non-fringe, you:
   1. Cherry-pick from papers arguing against the lab leak AND
   2. Take the existence of a political controversy to argue for a scientific one
   3. Have failed to provide a single compliant source so far, despite repeated requests to do so

In short, your claims are humourous at best, deliberately wrong at worst, and you should look in the mirror in either case. Give me a friggin break. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:42, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I broadly agree with this concern. Without explaining which elements of WP:SEALION (which, I'll point out, is an essay not WP:PAG) commenters believe they see exhibited, I'm left wondering if it's being used as "I'm frustrated that my edits are being reverted for policy reasons, which I'm going to complain about instead of refuting". Which, as you point out, comes across as WP:SEALION behavior itself. Particularly, soapboxing and misrepresent others or other discussions in an attempt to incriminate or belittle others' opinions. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:18, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

An essay on how to extract reliable information from non-MEDRS on SARS-CoV-2 origin

I wrote the essay as a blog post in order to have more freedom but my views follow closely Wikipolicies on Reliable Sources#Academic Consensus. I picked only the best news sources, and I triangulated their statements against the WHO report and the opinions of two of the world's best virologists. As a result I think we can use non-MEDRS to source half a dozen new opinions. Please read an comment the blog post. Forich (talk) 23:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)