Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Archive 6

Here is a new article in The Lancet, arguing that the previous estimates on the likelihood of a lab leak are faulty, and that there is no direct support for a natural origin - Thereisnous (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

In general, considering the rapidly evolving situation, I would suggest that all claims about the scientific consensus on the lab leak should be accompanied by a date. E.g. "Most scientists..." -> "As of February 2021, most scientists..." Thereisnous (talk) 08:44, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

There was a similar "contrarian" letter published in May (if I recall correctly). As an encyclopedia, it is not our job to ride the crest of the breaking news; nor to establish false equivalence between "plausible" and "far more likely". Unless this WP:PRIMARY source gets further attention and leads to additional secondary articles (like the review papers that are being cited for the opposite viewpoint); then it is definitively too soon for us to know what impact it has and we shouldn't lend it an undue impact, especially not since it is at odds with these high quality sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

We do not report every time someone comes out and tries to contradict the consensus. We wait until the consensus has changed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:28, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

As a courtesy to Van Helden and colleagues, I'm quickly addressing RandomCanadian's description of their view as "contrarian". To me, it looks like they're arguing that theirs may be the majority view within the scientific community. They openly support Tedros's view (that all hypotheses remained on the table including that of a laboratory leak) and reject Calisher and colleagues'.

Calisher et al.: "We have watched as the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China, in particular, have worked diligently and effectively to . . . share their results transparently with the global health community . . . Scientists . . . overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife^{2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10} . . . We declare no competing interests."

Van Helden et al.: "Among the references cited in the two letters by Calisher and colleagues,^1,2 all but one simply show that SARS-CoV-2 is phylogenetically related to other betacoronaviruses."

More scientists concur with their view, they imply. –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Whether there is any truth to that claim is another question. It is after all a WP:PRIMARY source and certainly shouldn't be used for bold statements of opinion which are not supported by, and which are indeed appearing to be contrary to, further secondary sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:16, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Daszak did have competing interests, though. No prominent source questions this. Likewise, Tedros did say what Van Helden and colleagues claim he said. And Shi still hasn't shared her results transparently. So we're already treating these viewpoints as majoritarian, not "contrarian" (which is the issue I was quickly addressing).

Hopefully Thereisnous could help limit editorial conflict on our Talk page by using this work as a secondary source for the (majoritarian) claim that the pangolin hypothesis has since been abandoned.^9,10,11,12 The real problem here is that we don't normally cite correspondence. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:32, 20 September 2021 (UTC) 07:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Just the very same day, another piece of corresondence appeared on Lancet with some cardinally different summaries in the beginning (natural origin very likely, lab leak very unlikely, though with some really complex origins; pangolins not excluded). A good reason to be conservative in coverage and patient for reviews of literature to come, as otherwise we will be quarreling about whether individual scientists are right or wrong based on their reasoning and not credentials/paper/type of article, which we shouldn't do here.

As for the majoritarian claim about pangolins... in fact, dunno. Correspondence tends to cite more papers suiting the opinion rather than making a birds-eye view on the studies on pangolins and COVID-19 links. Another reason to simply wait. And, besides, we don't really write this article from the perspective of "it's not pangolins, so must be lab leak"; rather, we report on the assessed likelihood and support of the lab leak theory. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki: That piece of correspondence speaks (rather plainly) for itself:

"These results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 could plausibly spread across regions through cold-chain transmission . . . Chinese scientists and medical workers have always kept an open and cooperative attitude, working vigorously with the international scientific community in all aspects and offering unreserved accurate data."

No, we don't have to simply wait for more pangolin papers — or cold-chain papers. We can treat this letter's cardinal points as significant-minority viewpoints (mostly contradicting the lab-leak proposition). –Dervorguilla (talk) 20:03, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't buy the notion that the position presented in the opinion piece I cited is merely a significant minority viewpoint. The only one (so far presented) that did suggest so was a piece of correspondence in the OP's post, and the quality of the piece I have provided which arrives at cardinally different conclusions (MEDRS-wise) is about the same. You can assert a lot of things in correspondence, just like in NYT editorials (which we may or may not agree with), and that's exactly the reason we have reviews to hopefully sieve out the bias those who write these letters have, or, if these are unavailable, wait for citations to accrue and see if the piece of correspondence is important enough to merit mention (too little time has passed since the publication, so we can't yet use this substitute for review). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:48, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I think we could consider and address the broader topic surrounding the More scientists concur with their view, they imply topic. This has been a somewhat consistent undercurrent since the start, namely how much politicization and personal belief/interests affected the willingness of lab origins being discussed. We touch on this briefly with the "chilling effect" discussed in First appearance and the Daszak COI in Renewed media attention. This letter wouldn't be a reliable source to suggest an actual "silent majority", but it may be worth including as part of these claims being made. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:23, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Just to reiterate what has already been said above, the main issue is that it's not a peer-reviewed "article", but a "correspondence" letter. Its strength as a source stems solely from the reputations of its authors, not the publication, which has no editorial say over the letter's content, other than minor editing for length (see page 4). If it receives reaction/commentary elsewhere, it might warrant a mention in the timeline section at most, but it's not a good enough source for evaluating scientific consensus. Jr8825 • Talk 11:56, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: You put it better than I. The reply letter by Calisher's colleagues is worth reading for its own sake, though:

"We need more scientific evidence . . . However, while we need more evidence, the world will remain mired in dispute without full engagement of China . . . This engagement is impossible in an environment of implicit or explicit blame placed on the Wuhan Institute . . ."

Wikipedia may have done its best to keep people from placing such "implicit blame"; if so, we appear to have failed. We can conclude from all this correspondence that the world is likely going to "remain mired in dispute" indefinitely. (Few if any prominent sources in the mainstream scientific community still believe that China really is offering "unreserved accurate data" about the lab.) I can therefore freely support Thereisnous's proposal that claims about the scientific consensus on the lab leak . . . be accompanied by a date. –Dervorguilla (talk) 21:53, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

IMO when people tend to extremes, the entire work reads dubious. While I think our current article is a good summation of the issue, it doesn't tend to get much mention even in circles that refer to Wikipedia articles on contentious topics. I'm not sure if our overall handling of the issue (esp earlier on) was to Wikipedia's credit in its role of summarising available knowledge, but I guess that's something for the historians to determine. It's a difficult issue, as there are a lot of unknowns, as such I don't really strongly lean one way or the other on citing this Lancet correspondence in some way. But I think it lacks the significance to be mentioned explicitly (i.e. it could be ref'd in a sentence saying something like "some in the scientific community have called for more investigations") ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Why would we add dates to the consensus when we have not demonstrated with any reliable source that the consensus has changed? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:51, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: Excellent question. Here's one (rather generic) answer:

If you suspect that a fact in an article will become dated at some point in the future, and want to ensure that people will update it, include a tag of the form {{As of|year}} or {{As of|year|month}} . . .

WP:AO. –Dervorguilla (talk) 06:13, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

This should be used for stuff which has good reason for that suspicion (such as "As of 2021, the Prime Minister of Canada is Justin Trudeau" or "As of September 2021, COVID-19 had caused more than 4 million confirmed deaths worldwide" and not just "it could change" [I mean, if we're into the "it could change" idea, we should write everything 'as of', because if you look far enough in the future, likely everything that exists now will have changed, maybe in as few as a few centuries].) Science changes slowly (like an encyclopedia) and we have no good reason or compelling evidence to be bringing out crystal balls out. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Reply, step 1. Check article to see whether it might support RandomCanadian's elegant proposition that "science changes slowly (like an encyclopedia)".

Step 2. Read Background section as showing that the relevant scientific consensus did change (in some ways) over the past 18 months. (It was originally suggested that the virus might have originated from bats or pangolins sold at the market.)

Step 3. Read sources as indicating that scientists generally expect it to continue changing over the upcoming months or years.

Step 4. Read the WP:AO guideline, which gives a somewhat analogous contextual illustration: As of 2008, construction is expected to ... cost US$28 billion.

Step 5. Add phrase "as of July 2021" to the appropriate sentence in the "Renewed media attention" section: However, the prevailing scientific view is that while an accidental leak is possible, it is extremely unlikely. –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Step 6. Interpret consensus as supporting your position when everyone except you and the OP who has replied so far has opposed the change. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 08:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: One other editor did say he opposed this particular edit. And he expressed a legitimate concern. It's based on policy and common sense about science changing slowly.

So I tried to address that concern. I pointed out that the WP:AO guideline calls for adding "as of" when the information is expected to change within a matter of years.

Are you asking me for sources to support this point (that the relevant scientific consensus is expected to change - one way or another - within a matter of years)? If so, it would surely be a proper request to make. –Dervorguilla (talk) 12:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Here's one pertinent source: Wales, "Covid povs" (cited in Ryan, "Wikipedia Is at War over the Coronavirus Lab Leak Theory")

The consensus in the mainstream media (which is the relevant media for this, rather than MEDRS sources, as it is a social/geopolitical question, as opposed to a medical question) seems to me to have shifted from "This is highly unlikely, and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative" to "This is one of the plausible hypotheses".

It looks like Wales may, to some degree, have rendered this issue moot (as of June 1).

A consensus about a virological hypothesis may be a proper scientific consensus. But a consensus about a social and geopolitical hypothesis (the lab-leak narrative) really isn't. Not as far as Wikipedia's concerned. In particular, we shouldn't imply that we expect a (reported) scientific consensus to diverge from the shifted mainstream-media consensus indefinitely. Where we do mention it, we ought to qualify it by adding "as of". –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC) 05:19, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• This article in Lancet does not say anything extraordinary, anything that contradicts facts, etc.:

Although considerable evidence supports the natural origins of other outbreaks (eg, Nipah, MERS, and the 2002–04 SARS outbreak) direct evidence for a natural origin for SARS-CoV-2 is missing. After 19 months of investigations, the proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 is still lacking. Neither the host pathway from bats to humans, nor the geographical route from Yunnan (where the viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 have been sampled) to Wuhan (where the pandemic emerged) have been identified. More than 80 000 samples collected from Chinese wildlife sites and animal farms all proved negative. In addition, the international research community has no access to the sites, samples, or raw data. Although the Joint WHO-China Study concluded that the laboratory origin was “extremely unlikely”,WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that all hypotheses remained on the table including that of a laboratory leak.

And so on. Hence their view, ...we hold that there is currently no compelling evidence to choose between a natural origin (ie, a virus that has evolved and been transmitted to humans solely via contact with wild or farmed animals) and a research-related origin (which might have occurred at sampling sites, during transportation or within the laboratory, and might have involved natural, selected, or engineered viruses). What's the problem? Yes, I think this can be used/cited on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that this is a WP:PRIMARY source (basically an opinion letter) and that it is in contradiction with more reliable WP:SECONDARY sources (scholarly review papers); particularly for that "evidence bit" (the quotes at WP:NOLABLEAK are all representative passages; and many of them explicitly state that there is "no evidence" to support such lab origin theories). Per WP:BESTSOURCES (better sources are far more important) and WP:UNDUE, this absolutely shouldn't go in. At best, some time in the future, when there's a secondary source discussing it, it could maybe be cited as an example of dissent within the scientific community on the issue (which will or will not have lead to an actual change), but until then that obviously remains WP:OR so can't go in either. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, WP:RSOPINIONs are entirely valid. The opinion of a set of scholars is relevant, regardless of whether a news source regurgitates their statement in quotation marks. There's no Wikipedia:Reliable sources issue against inclusion, it's just a matter of editorial judgement. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

And the editorial judgement is what gets us to the point where proposals around what we write and where we cite this come into play. Not every opinion is notable, and not every description of the opinion is given due weight. Without concrete proposals, we'll just circle around and around. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I would say the issue is that reliable secondary sources do not support the idea that this is a notable iteration of this opinion, which is in no way novel and I don't think a useful addition to an article which already has this opinion in it in several places. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 08:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the most notable iteration in opinion that this Van Helden et al letter marks, is that up till now, the Lancet only published letters in support of the natural origins theory , especially that controversial Calisher et al which had to be updated for COI disclosure and clarification. We already cite sources describing how views on the lab leak theory shifted and how the "conspiracy theory" and "extremely unlikely" descriptors seem to have been switched out with "plausible" and "uncertainty" descriptors, so this letter could be included to describe the shift/change in view and the Lancet's role in it. I would say there are even enough sources covering the Lancet's coverage of this topic for a standalone article, like Lancet MMR autism fraud, and other standalone articles on notable Lancet articles. I see Publius In The 21st Century added a section on this saga to The Lancet article, which I updated with this development. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 13:04, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Stonkaments is insisting on adding what appears to be redundant repetition to the final paragraph of the lead. This seems to me to be bringing both issues of WP:UNDUE and of poor writing (repeating the same information in successive sentences is poor writing) into account. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Thank you for starting this discussion, I was just in the process of doing it myself. Could you clarify what you find redundant or undue about my proposed addition (that most scientists acknowledge that the lab leak theory is possible)?

Again, the source I referenced says: Most say that the virus is very likely natural and that theories around the Wuhan Institute of Virology are a possible explanation, but they’re unlikely. The lead currently fails to accurately convey this information—it mentions that some scientists argue the lab leak theory should be investigated further, but nowhere states that most scientists say it is a possible explanation. This seems especially important to get right given earlier attempts in the scientific community (described as "scientific propaganda and thuggery") to dismiss the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory. Stonkaments (talk) 13:42, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

As far as I see the current text already implies that the theory is possible: if the theory was ruled out by scientists, we'd be saying that exactly, not merely saying that scientists are "skeptical" and that the other theory is "far more likely". In addition, the very next sentence mentions "the possibility of a lab leak" (without qualifying it as being merely the opinion of some scientists), so I think that covers it too. We don't need to paraphrase the sources too closely, especially when we have many high quality sources which say similar things. Holmes et al. have "in contrast to other scenarios there is substantial body of scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin. Although the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be entirely dismissed, and may be near impossible to falsify, this conduit for emergence is highly unlikely". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:53, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

A possible compromise wording could be "Most scientists have remained skeptical of the idea, describing that existing evidence supports a zoonotic origin, and that, although the idea cannot be ruled out, there is a lack of such evidence for a laboratory accident." This changes the focus from "possible" (which is implied by the existing text) to "not ruled out" (which is a more accurate reflection of what the higher quality sources are saying) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:57, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

1. "the very next sentence mentions 'the possibility of a lab leak' (without qualifying it as being merely the opinion of some scientists)" – This is simply not true. The sentence in question reads: Some scientists agree that the possibility of a lab leak...
2. Implying that the theory is possible is very different than a statement that scientists say the theory is possible. Again, given the earlier attempts in the scientific community to shut down any inquiry into the possibility of a lab leak, this should be stated explicitly. Stonkaments (talk) 14:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The second sentence is very clear that what "some scientists" agree on is not the "possibility of the lab leak" but the need for further investigations. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I find the suggested statements redundant and unnecessary. Adding them again feels like an attempt to add more undeserved legitimacy to the theory. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Lard Almighty:See the source above. You have reverted an unrelated edit, can you please self-revert? Stonkaments (talk) 13:46, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

This edit request to COVID-19 lab leak theory has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

This statement is false -- "Some versions (particularly those alleging human intervention in the SARS-CoV-2 genome) are based on speculation, misinformation, or misrepresentations of scientific evidence."

This is exactly what Wuhan and Peter Daszak said they were doing -- inserting spike proteins into bat coronaviruses to make them pathogenic to humans in order to develop vaccines. How could you not know that?

https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2021/06/09/daszak-you-insert-the-spike-proteins-from-those-viruses-see-if-they-bind-to-human-cells 2600:1700:F040:8160:21F7:74A4:B998:8C7A (talk) 16:56, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Response to request, step 1. Check our (four!) cited sources for the disputed sentence, just to see how well they support its general point that some versions (...) are based on speculation, misinformation, or misrepresentations of scientific evidence.

Step 2. Read Graham and Baric as proposing that some versions are based on reasonable speculation. Notice an unflattering reference to the Institute's operating procedures:

"Speculation about accidental laboratory escape will likely persist, given the large collections of bat virome samples stored in labs in the Wuhan Institute . . . and the operating procedures at the facility (Zeng et al., 2016). . . [F]orensic evidence of natural escape is currently lacking, and other explanations remain reasonable."

Step 3. Read Krishnaswamy and Govindarajan as pointing out that Daszak's email message to Fauci is itself based on a misrepresentation:

"Dr Fauci received an email on April 18, 2020, from the zoologist Peter Daszak thanking him . . . for rejecting the laboratory leak theory. Actually, Dr Fauci did not reject it but only claimed it was less likely compared with the zoonotic origins theory."

Step 4. Read Hakim as apparently supporting the requester's (poorly sourced) info about Daszak.

Step 5. Read Kasprak all the way down to the concluding paragraph:

"‘Is Dr. Shi telling the whole truth? And even if she is, are all her similarly skilled colleagues in Wuhan?’ This is indeed the central crux of the debate."

Step 6. Hasten to reword the disputed sentence, as a courtesy to the cited authors!

Some versions are based on reasonable speculation; some (particularly those alleging human intervention in the SARS-CoV-2 genome), on misinformation or misrepresentations of scientific evidence.

–Dervorguilla (talk) 05:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Disagree, I don't read any of those sources as supporting the phrasing "reasonable speculation." Otherwise I think the change is fine. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 08:51, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: Good point. Graham and Baric, for instance, just say that "other explanations" (than natural escape) remain "reasonable". (The context is "speculation about accidental laboratory escape".) Can we say (citing Graham and Baric) that some versions are speculation based on the published operating procedures at the facility and the large collections of bat virome samples stored in labs there? –Dervorguilla (talk) 10:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Personally I think it's too vague. And contradicted by other sources, which describe how the virus bank is stored mostly as RNA in trizol (non-infectious) and how much of the animal work was done at other facilities... Hence why we say what we say about misinformation and misrepresentations of evidence. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:16, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Which other sources say animal work was done only at other facilities and which other facilities are these reported to be? 2.96.240.198 (talk) 11:10, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

What I said: "much of the animal work was done at other facilities." What you heard: "The animal work was only done at other facilities." I refer to the grant proposals and RSes interpreting those proposals (Intercept, others) which show that animal work was conducted at either Ralph Baric's Lab or at The University of Wuhan in most cases. It didn't happen at the WIV for the most part. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:24, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

We have a situation with the article, which uses a lot the "extremely unlikely" likelihood assigned to the lab leak hypothesis by the WHO mission. Here are the issues:

• Peter Ben Embarek has not been clear about how the team reached the "extremely unlikely" rating. In February, he said We should not put too much focus on the wording. We were looking at different options. At some point we were thinking: Should we use a ranking, with one being the most unlikely, five the most likely, or should we use colors, or should we find another scale? We ended up with a five-phrase scale: "extremely unlikely," "unlikely," "possible," "likely," and "very likely." It's more an illustration of where these hypotheses are to help us organize our planning of future studies.. Then, in a danish documentary released in August 2021, Embarek allegedly said that Chinese officials pressured investigation to drop lab-leak hypothesis and label it very unfavorably, thus the "extremely unlikely" assesment. Asked to comment on the veracity of this allegations, Ben Embarek initially said the interview had been mistranslated in English-language media coverage. “It is a wrong translation from a Danish article,” he wrote. So, overall, the "extremely unlikely" label was not the strongest point of the WHO report regarding clarity of communication.

• A more recent MEDRS published in Cell (Holmes et al, 2021), states in its conclusions that the lab leak hypothesis is "highly unlikely". The exact wording is: Although the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be entirely dismissed, and may be near impossible to falsify, this conduit for emergence is highly unlikely relative to the numerous and repeated humananimal contacts that occur routinely in the wildlife trade. WP:MEDRS does tell us to give more weight to new reviews, so in my opinion Holmes et al is in this regard a superior source than the WHO report

• The Chair of the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Microbiology, along with two other prominent coauthors, published in August 2 2021 an editorial saying that "The lab escape hypothesis is now a mainstream concern". Made no mistake, they conclude their paper by favoring the zoonotic hypothesis, but the fact that such prominent scientific authors, writing in a scientific journal, dare to elevate the lab leak hypothesis to "mainstream", seems to me incompatible with it being "extremely unlikely".

The suggestion is that we look for the many instances in which we use "extremely unlikely" and replace some of them, where appropiate, with the Holmes et al (2021) more charitable "highly unlikely". Forich (talk) 12:36, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems reasonable, particularly considering the criticism of the WHO report that has been widely reported, including from some scientists. I support retaining "extremely unlikely" in discussion of the WHO report and in the lead (because it's discussing the WHO report), but I think the two wikivoice usages (2nd para. of "accidental release of a natural virus" and 3rd para. of "renewed media attention") can be replaced with "highly unlikely". Jr8825 • Talk 13:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, Yes I think this is a good plan. It's not much of a difference to me, but if it pleases someone else, it's good enough and I think it still accurately represents the scientific consensus evident in our sources.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems like hair splitting. "highly unlikely" and "extremely unlikely" basically mean the same thing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, to me, "extremely" unlikely implies a vanishingly small chance (dictionary definition = "to a very great degree"), whereas "highly" unlikely implies a degree of uncertainty/plausibility, even if the odds are slim. Jr8825 • Talk 15:15, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Such change makes sense to me. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

 Done I made the suggested change to the second wikivoice usage (in para. 3 of "Renewed media attention"). –Dervorguilla (talk) 07:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Not yet peer-reviewed, so probably not ready for inclusion. But keep an eye on this, it will probably be a good thing to include at some point:

Choice quotes:

Particularly concerning is that the new viruses contain receptor binding domains that are almost identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, and can therefore infect human cells. The receptor binding domain allows SARS-CoV-2 to attach to a receptor called ACE2 on the surface of human cells to enter them.

“When SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced, the receptor binding domain didn’t really look like anything we’d seen before,” says Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. This caused some people to speculate that the virus had been created in a laboratory. But the Laos coronaviruses confirm these parts of SARS-CoV-2 exist in nature, he says. “I am more convinced than ever that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin,” agrees Linfa Wang, a virologist at Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore.

— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:32, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Did they address the possibility of backspill from humans to bats in 2020? Have you seen if anyone has done a phylogenetic tree for Banal back to pre-2019 samples? Lots of studies to be done on Laos! 2600:1700:8660:E180:B0A0:1C2A:1977:A77F (talk) 22:45, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Viruses swap chunks of RNA with one another through a process called recombination, and one section in BANAL-103 and BANAL-52 could have shared an ancestor with sections of SARS-CoV-2 less than a decade ago, says Spyros Lytras, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Glasgow. “These viruses recombine so much that different bits of the genome have different evolutionary histories,” he says.

On one hand, good to hear we're possibly getting closer to putting this possibility to bed. On the other, get ready for more pandemic coronaviruses in the future... Bakkster Man (talk) 01:44, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, not sure why this would be relevant to the lab leak wiki page unless youre suggesting this belongs in "accidental leak of a natural virus" section? 2600:1700:8660:E180:69CE:BC4:C894:5E63 (talk) 07:43, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

One of the primary arguments made in favor of the genetic engineering origin was that the genetic distance from known bat coronaviruses to SARS-CoV-2, making any discovery of similar viruses in the wild directly relevant. Bakkster Man (talk) 11:51, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Isnt the primary argument for "accidental leak of a natural virus" based on a close match found somewhere else besides china? If this was found in a cave near wuhan in 2018 it would have helped non lab leak theory. 2600:1700:8660:E180:69CE:BC4:C894:5E63 (talk) 14:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Some of these bat-resident coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 were found in Hubei province caves (same province as Wuhan) in the fall of 2020 (after the pandemic): and in the spring of 2019 (before): . — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:19, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• In August 2021, the results of a US intelligence community probe ordered by president Joe Biden were declassified.

This sentence is false. We do not know which of "the results' were unclassified, and which remain classified. 2.96.240.198 (talk) 18:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

We are summarizing what others have said about the events. And those reliable sources indicate the results have been declassified. Could there be other hidden still-classified results? I suppose. That's true of anything in the US government. And we don't add qualifiers and weasel words to all of those other events. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Which sources are we summarising that gave us this sentence? 2.96.240.198 (talk) 18:24, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Check the sources that are already on the article. Nobody says "all of the results have been declassified" and that's also not what we say. We just say "the results." We could change it to "an executive summary" if you like. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

"Published an unclassified..." would be the way I would phrase it, whether we call it a report, results, conclusions, or a summary. Bakkster Man (talk) 02:03, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The inline citation says The intelligence community plans to review the report with an eye to releasing a declassified version at some future date, Assistant Director of National Intelligence Timothy Barrett said Friday. Statement worded as-is fails verification. Maybe some of the four at the end of the paragraph verify but I'm not going to go hunting on a whim if the citations aren't properly placed. It goes back to my earlier concern about verifiability. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I reworded it a bit but it could probably do with a better sentence structure still. I do think it's important to emphasise that only a two-page declassified summary was released. People cannot judge the evidence for themselves, they just have the summary conclusions of the IC. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Article is here. Should anything be added to the article? The authors' takeaway:

The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed.

And our friend Alina Chan gets mentioned again:

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, said the documents show that the EcoHealth Alliance has reason to take the lab leak theory seriously. “In this proposal, they actually point out that they know how risky this work is. They keep talking about people potentially getting bitten — and they kept records of everyone who got bitten,” Chan said. “Does EcoHealth have those records? And if not, how can they possibly rule out a research-related accident?”

Stonkaments (talk) 11:37, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

This looks like the typical much ado about nothing new-story. It's all about the grants to EcoHealth, including the one which was first granted in 2014, renewed in 2019, suspended by Trump's administration, ... Does this add anything new about those grants and the political controversy they generated? There is, otherwise, not much that could be useful for the science part of the article, even if this were not a popular press article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know that there's much to say at this point, but hopefully more RS will analyze the documents and present their findings. The article itself is a bit lean on key takeaways, but those quoted in the story have said more elsewhere. For example, Richard Ebright, quoted in the article, said on Twitter that The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses--one not previously disclosed publicly--was more pathogenic to humanized mice that the starting virus from which it was constructed and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity. He went on to say The documents make it clear that assertions made by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful. None of that appears in any RS yet though. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be the meaningful, relevant finding. Not merely "what if we get bit by a collected bat", as that's fundamentally the overlap with natural zoonosis and unrelated to the most common (and notable) claims relating GoFR to the possibility of a lab leak. To put it another way, if it was just a researcher getting infected directly from a bat, then it was only a matter of time before a member of the public got infected by the same natural virus. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this really says much. e.g. Presumably the intelligence agencies had access to these government records. If it didn't convince the IC... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I just came here to post about this! Missed it by a day... yeah, no this is definitely a big nothingburger. In fact, perhaps the most interesting thing I'm seeing here is that work everyone assumed was done at BSL-2 was actually done at BSL-3! Where it should have been done! See: The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd say the most interesting facts from the article are the "humanized" mice that were being given SARS at the Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment. And the suggestion that the WIV may not have been the source, but the WU. 2600:8804:6600:9:69DA:EEC9:C186:3467 (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

We already knew this had happened in a virology lab in Wuhan? They published a paper about it . And no, they did not give the mice SARS, not in these studies anyway. They gave the mice bat coronaviruses. And they didn't passage the virus in the mice, which would have been required to make it a gain of function experiment. Labs in the US have been infecting these humanized mice since at least 2005 . — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this statement in the wiki's lead paragraph still true? "Some versions of the theory, particularly those alleging human intervention in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, are based on misinformation or misrepresentations of scientific evidence." 70.191.102.240 (talk) 20:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The first thing we need to answer is whether this sentence implies all versions involving human intervention are based on misinformation/misrepresentation, or just the most common ones. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

we could say "particularly some of those involving human intervention...." But my argument (and that of many of our sources) is that there is no evidence of any human intervention in the genome whatsoever, and most experts agree it is extremely unlikely. Verging on the impossible. And we now have viruses in nature which contain all the features necessary to evolve SARS-CoV-2.

So on one hand, we have a very plausible evolutionary origin with evidence from extant viruses in nature and known mechanisms of recombination and crossover, and on the other hand, we have an extremely implausible artificial genetic engineering explanation with no evidence... — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:52, 27 September 2021 (UTC)