Talk:Gain-of-function research

"But, although the lab-leak scenario figures in many conspiracy theories, it is not itself a conspiracy theory; the consensus is that it is unproved, but plausible."

Plausible, not a conspiracy theory. Hmm...

The 6th source, Politifact, opens with this,

"When this fact-check was first published in February 2021, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed."

Politifact provides a link to their updated version as May 2021 which has quite different content. It quotes various physicians and virologists:

"So far, there is no hard proof to support either the theory that the virus had natural origins or the theory that it leaked from a lab, said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, who has frequently been cited by proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis, including Paul. "At this point in time, all scientific data related to the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of COVID-19 are equally consistent with a natural-accident origin or a laboratory-accident origin," he told PolitiFact. Scientists open to the lab-leak theory have cited three pieces of circumstantial evidence in support of the hypothesis..."."

This is NOT the stuff of conspiracy theories.

Finally, Wikipedia does NOT accept Forbes contributor posts as WP:RS for economics nor even fluffier topics. Forbes contributor posts are certainly not WP:RS for molecular biology! Yet you have listed not one but TWO Forbes contributor articles, e.g. The Wuhan Lab Leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory not science to support your refusal to allow me to make a minor change in wording to that sentence, despite the fact that I kept the word "conspiracy" in the sentence.

I am not going to check the publication date and content of the remaining six sources you cited, given that these ones do not justify the claim that the lab leak hypothesis, with or without GoF research, is a conspiracy theory according to WP:RS. Please address my concerns. I am not going to go to ANI. I am probably just going to go away, yet another defeated female XX chromosome Wikipedia editor, who was not allowed to slightly modify ONE SINGLE SENTENCE in this article, despite providing plenty of evidence to support my views. Or rather, YOU have done my work for me! Half of the sources that you claim in support of "conspiracy theory" in fact support "once deemed conspiracy theory but subject to further inquiry and a variety of other possibilities as to its origin" or whatever I wrote and you reverted.--FeralOink (talk) 11:48, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I somewhat muddled the distinction between lab leak versus bioengineered-and-lab-leaked. Many of your sources in defense of the "not GoF" are in fact, "possibly lab leak" more so than "possibly GoF and lab leak". A few of your sources do say that the bioengineered, i.e. "manipulated" aka GoF possibility IS a matter of discussion (dispute) among scientists. At least one of your sources that even goes into the unique furin cleavage site for SARS-CoV-2 unlike the other SARS, and how RaTG13 doesn't have it (yes, yes, I know, just because they're 96% similar doesn't mean the furin cleavage for SARS-CoV-2 is necessarily a result of bioengineering of a GoF sort...) but they don't say it can be ruled out either. That's the scholarly journal article by all the Chinese scientists from two medical institutions in China. Regardless, the only sources that say "SARS-COV-2 as GoF" is definitely a conspiracy theory is Forbes. The others don't say it is impossible, which means it isn't a conspiracy theory.--FeralOink (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FeralOink, Something doesn't have to be impossible to be a conspiracy theory. If you'd like I can provide exact quotations where the sources I provided (particularly the literature sources) show this is FRINGE. For now, I don't have time to go back through it. Anyone is welcome to do so. I would prefer we discuss quotations and not summaries. Thanks.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please see this conversation [25] with admins

FeralOink please see related discussion here [26]. CutePeach (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:FRINGE, the literature sources are perfectly reliable.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:46, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Okay, CutePeach. I hear you and Shibbolethink loud and clear. THERE WAS NO LAB LEAK. Also, FORBES CONTRIBUTORS ARE WP:RS for molecular biology on Wikipedia.--FeralOink (talk) 12:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FeralOink, I'm sorry but I think you've mischaracterized my position. I totally agree with you about the Forbes contributors, I hadn't even considered that possibility, I thought "contributor" in that context was like any news room's "contributing journalists." Or The New Yorker or The New Republic's "contributing editors." But I see now they're different and we view them differently on wikipedia. I'll tell you I even tried to figure out who the authors were, and they seemed like any other journalist. But I see now that Forbes is different with its contributor columns and we do not view them as RS, likely only as attributional quotations. I would not cite them for this, as they are not experts in this topic.

I agree we should default to the

best available scientific peer-reviewed sources for matters of science. Which in this case, are the secondary reviews published in topic-relevant journals that I quoted in the subsection below.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

BTW, to address CutePeach, it doesn't actually matter all that much what Dr. Hakim has said over email, because his article here has gone through peer review. Those reviewers and the journal editors helped decide how to frame the discussion here. And all of that is consistent with the scientific community viewing this idea as "fringe" and a "conspiracy theory." This is similar to how artists and authors don't necessarily decide what genre their books and songs are published under. I think the text here is quite clear, that these beliefs are viewed as "conspiracy theories" by most scientists.

Frutos et al (2021) in Infection, Genetics and Evolution (a review and hence a secondary

Grimes (2021) in PLOS ONE (a primary research article which demonstrates through mathematical modeling how unlikely this conspiracy theory is):[4]

COVID-19 has seen a plethora of conspiracy theories adopted worldwide, specific to the pandemic, which has been propagated heavily across social media. Much of this is organic, arising from already existent conspiracy theories...COVID-19 is a hoax / deliberately engineered: Since the dawn of the pandemic, a dichotomous set of narratives either dismissing the novel coronavirus as an outright hoax or alternatively insisting it has been engineered and spread have garnered serious traction...One could argue that if COVID were an engineered bioweapon, then a “single event” conspiracy confined only to a small number of conspirators might in principle be possible. There are however several objections to this hypothetical framing, outlined in detail in the discussion section

Because of these sources, and the considerable lack of scientific peer-reviewed literature sources describing this as a viable hypothesis, it is entirely appropriate to describe this idea as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. And maybe provide one or two expert opinions explaining why the theory is not viable, which I believe we already do. It would be inappropriate to give it much more attention than that. There are, admittedly, many lay press sources which discuss this as a "former" conspiracy or as "formerly labeled" a conspiracy, but I would also point out that these are often describing all "lab leak" theories and not specifically bioengineering, as

Dr. Hakim's article has lots of errors, regardless of having gone through peer review! Not the science part. I am not going to raise objections about the scientific content of his review. The scientific content is (mostly, other than in a few passages) written so as not to rule out the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 as 'lab leak', or 'lab leak of GoF research' on bat coronaviruses, if new information or research findings should come to light in the future. Rather, there are puzzling and very real errors about the conspiracy theory portions, which are apparent based on simple chronology. Simple chronology is a form of due diligence. I know the article has been through peer review. Regardless, there are errors. No, I do not have the audacity to question the science. I do know about due diligence. Some of the findings regarding conspiracy are clearly incorrect based on the references that Dr. Hakim cited himself. I mention this because we are using this paper to support the allegedly conspiratorial nature of anything other than a natural, organic origin of SARS-CoV-2. Since Shibboleththink observed that my prior discussion points consisted of an insufficient number of direct quotes, and instead, my commentary on them, I will be more precise here. Before I begin, note that my objective is NOT to find fault with Dr. Hakim's review. Rather, my intent is to demonstrate why more political balance is called for in this article, regarding portrayal of the gamut of conspiracy theory enablers (i.e. anti-vaccinationists). Given the vigor and length of objections that have been brought to bare upon me for making one modification to one sentence a few days ago, I am fearful of being subject to more of the same, should I make any other modifications to the article that do not first pass muster with talk page participants.

The publication date of Dr. Mohamad S. Hakim's SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories is 14 February 2021. That is the first and only version of the review. I confirmed this using the Crossref bibliometric service, Crossmark. The manuscript was received on 27 December 2020. Yet Dr. Hakim repeatedly refers to the potential for Covid19 to become a public health hazard. He uses evidence for politically influenced conspiratorialists by describing what Roger Stone said. Roger Stone is a minor GOP political operative. Instead, a better example of an anti-vaccinationist would be current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. In October 2020, during the VP candidate debate with Pence that was televised live, she said that she would refuse to be vaccinated for COVID19 if the vaccine were developed during the Trump administration CDC because she considers Trump so disreputable. Next, Hakim discusses some of the Bill Gates conspiracies, about how the vaccine will contain microchips. He quotes and sources his material to an April 2020 Gates Foundation blog post in which Gates repeatedly says that a vaccine is unlikely to be available for another 18 to 22 months, perhaps at the end of 2022 or even 2023. That was a reasonable supposition at the time, but surely Dr. Hakim would have known, by December 2020 when he submitted his paper, that a vaccine was in sight very soon. There are lots and lots of inconsistencies in the article like that. Finally, I don't see any evidence of a "mathematical analysis" establishing why the COVID19 virus has unquestionably natural origins. You said that. You keep quoting sources to respond to what I say on the talk page here, yet when I read the sources, they don't support your claims! I am done. I will go off and make spelling corrections while great minds such as yourself quote Forbes magazine.--FeralOink (talk) 12:55, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FeralOink, We are not peer reviewers, and we should not spend our time "looking for errors" in peer-reviewed articles. We should defer to the experts. Even as a trained virologist, I defer to the experts here, because on wikipedia that's how it works.

I don't see any of the errors you've pointed out, and some of this comment verges on

WP:POINTY, particularly the political content and remarks about the Forbes article. Johnuniq

, could you take a look at this as an uninvolved admin? I may be wrong, but I think it at least merits a look, and if you agree, a warning given the political nature of this soapbox in a scientific article.

FeralOink, please stop citing the Forbes piece, as I said above [27], it is no longer relevant to determining how to write this article.

"Finally, I don't see any evidence of a "mathematical analysis" establishing why the COVID19 virus has unquestionably natural origins. You said that" -- No, I said it presents a mathematical model demonstrating how unlikely "this conspiracy theory" is, referring to the gain-of-function origins hypothesis, which should be the topic of this conversation, given the topic of this article. Please be precise and take relevant conversations to relevant pages.

I'm sorry for how frustrated you appear to be, but I'm not sure what you mean with regards to "quoting sources to respond...[that] don't support your claims." I have only quoted literature sources above where they explicitly (or very plainly) describe this idea as a conspiracy. Which of those scientific journal article sources do not do this?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, anyone here who is of the opinion "News sources are more cutting edge, and the scientific literature is just slow to adapt. We should go with the faster news sources and disregard these 'old' scientific sources", I would encourage you to read the following essays and

Maybe the lab leak idea proponents will eventually be proven correct, maybe they won't. But on Wikipedia, the only thing that will decide this is if the lab leak theories (especially the gain of function origin theory) become an accepted and supported explanation in the wider scholarly community (historians, scientists). Not if journalists think it's "hot" enough to publish news reports on it. Once again, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, it is an encyclopedia. And scholars set the tone for what counts as "true" and "verified" around here.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What scientists investigate is significant, including the erroneous trails they follow. We need eventually to say what the actual cause is, and it seems increasingly clear that it is not likely to be from a laboratory. But the investigations about whether it was is a part of science regardless of the conclusions. Science progresses through the proposal of theories, followed by research to determine which of them are are correct, not because it miraculously proposes the unquestioned truth at the first go. It's only in the most elementary textbooks for beginners that science can be presented as an unbroken sequence of progress. This particular circumstance is a remarkably interesting example in the sociology of science, where something that was first proposed as a xenophobic conspiracy theory, became recognized as a potentially valid hypothesis worthy of full investigation, before (very likely) being disproven by the proper methods of science. I cannot immediately think of a similarly important example. And I can certainly not think of one where the very possibility of the incorrect theory has and will serve as a major influence in terms of social policy--the fact that it was not a priori unbelievable will, depending on your viewpoint, establish necessary social controls of possibly catastrophic experiments, or tragically prevent research that might prevent future catastrophe. We who are trained in science do not operate independently of the rest of the world. Nor can those working in science, or any.other profession, be completely relied upon to criticize their own practices. There is a differnece between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and mMinority, between totally unlikely, and ;possible by not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely. What is needed is a re-examination of the basis on which we use this term., and I intend to try to find a suitable place for this, where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue. DGG ( talk ) 04:13, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG! Yes, yes PLEASE do that! We need that very much, i.e. what you just said,

"We who are trained in science do not operate independently of the rest of the world. Nor can those working in science, or any other profession, be completely relied upon to criticize their own practices. There is a difference between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and Minority, between totally unlikely, and possible but not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely. What is needed is a re-examination of the basis on which we use this term, and I intend to try to find a suitable place for this, where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue.

I hope you are well, by the way, and am glad to see you here. You expressed yourself beautifully.--FeralOink (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, to address some of your points here, in brief... Because this is such a complex overarching ongoing conversation...

What scientists investigate is significant, including the erroneous trails they follow -- I would agree only if it is covered in secondary peer-reviewed scientific journal articles (particularly topic-relevant reviews written by experts and peer-reviewed by experts). Anyone can call themselves a "scientist" in any field, but we don't cite Joe's garage-based perpetual-motion experiments in our article on the First law of thermodynamics.

We also do cover these ideas some, where relevant, but from the lens of mainstream experts, exactly as

Investigations

article.

This particular circumstance is a remarkably interesting example in the sociology of science, where something that was first proposed as a xenophobic conspiracy theory, became recognized as a potentially valid hypothesis worthy of full investigation, before (very likely) being disproven by the proper methods of science. - I think we actually strike this balance extremely well in the

Investigations

article. If we don't, I would love to hear specific criticisms from you on how we could cover it better, over at the relevant articles' talk pages. Or see a draftspace rewrite of it. But right now I think it does it actually very well, and here we are discussing the GoFR theory.

We cover the lab leak, we cover the accidental release, we cover the genomic engineering. Among these, the genomic engineering hypothesis was dismissed earliest and most handily, and so we give it the least weight. It is covered the least in secondary scientific sources. This, to me, is completely appropriate.

There is a differnece between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and mMinority, between totally unlikely, and ;possible by not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely - Could you be more specific about the gain-of-function theory here? Do you think this is not a fringe idea? And if so, how so? What mainstream coverage has it received in the scientific literature? To me this is a clear case of a fringe theory, based upon its extremely scant, dismissive coverage by the mainstream scientific sources.

I greatly appreciate your insight here as a fellow content expert, but I think you may be talking in too broad of terms to be useful for discussion's sake. I am personally only interested in making very encyclopedic articles, and I think FRINGE, in its current state, absolutely helps us do that. We are getting deep into the weeds, differentiating "accidental leak of a natural virus" from "intentional leak of a natural virus" to "genomic engineering of a virus before accidental release" to "intentional leak of an engineered virus." These have varying degrees of coverage, and are thus not all strictly

WP:DUE

.

How would you have us do these things differently? I am interested in specifics and quotations and specific targeted reworkings of content, but I empathize with how complex and ridiculous this controversy has become. And why that has made our work on this area of the wiki so difficult. However, I don't think changing FRINGE will fix that. See the extremely fraught and drawn out RFC at

WP:BMI... I think Colin is right in particular, that changing content guidelines in the middle of a content dispute is basically never a good idea. So if we do it, we should only do it in the lens of looking back on this controversy a few years from now, in my opinion.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:12, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

I got pinged. I've read some of the discussion, particularly what DGG wrote and his suggestion of trying to reconsider FRINGE "where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue". I'm not sure the matter is "where" to do it but "when". Largely I see FRINGE being used to limit the weight (to zero, sometimes) given to an aspect of the Covid story by considering only the science or biomedical aspects of that, and ignoring entirely the political, social and human aspects. At another discussion where the weights of aspects of biomedical articles were being considered, I warned against having a community discussion around guidelines any time soon. Here's what I wrote:

Have a look at Template:COVID-19 pandemic and open up all the collapsed boxes. I'm not sure how many links there are, but my text editor says the wiki text has 1539 pairs of open brackets. Wrt Covid, DUE left the building and went somewhere nice on holiday quite some time ago.

There are too many editors with Covid blinkers on and agendas to promote (on all sides) for there to be any chance of a reasonable debate on this issue right now. I think better to accept Covid-19 is an outlier and just make sure that what people write about is as accurate and fair per reliable sources as we can. The dogma that works for both common-or-garden and controversial biomedical topics is broken for Covid, and not proving to be acceptable to a large number of editors. If we are too dogmatic about Covid, then that mob will wreck the guidelines and good practice used and seen elsewhere.

So given that we have a bazillion articles on Covid, I think the endless arguments we have about whether or not to mention some development in the investigations around treatment or origin or whatever, is focussing too much energy on something that doesn't particularly matter. If we can have articles about the effect of Covid on Marvel character movies, then surely there is some room for stories that make newspaper headlines in reliable mainstream media.

We are evidently not short of space nor of willing writers of material. If what we do write is fair and as accurate as we can, per the sources we consider reliable for particular claims, then I think it does more harm for Wikipedia to say nothing at all, than to say something. Spend less time flinging WP:UPPERCASE at each other, and more time just thinking "What will readers expect us to cover right now?" Shibbolethink linked to Meta:Eventualism with an argument to take a slow approach to including material. Actually that essay takes the opposite, inclusionist approach. Eventualism says let's stop bickering among ourselves and write something our readers will find informative, and we can worry about refining it later. And if later it turns out that little story was a forgettable blip then we can delete it. Wiki actually means fast, but I'm not suggesting we completely forget all the recommendations about breaking news and controversy as it happens. I'm just saying we can afford to be a little more laid back and take the long term view, rather than being dogmatic and ultra exclusionist and constantly at war. -- Colin°^Talk 14:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP. We cannot suggest that a scientist "lied" or committed malfeasance if we do not have a direct source for it.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

It is the job of scientific journals to report on advances in scientific research. Whether or not a lab was conducting gain-of-function research it not a scientific or biomedical claim but a bog standard human "Well, were you?" question. That some scientific journals have published papers, editorials or opinion pieces discussing these suggestions about covid origins reflects rather than they are stepping on the toes of what journalists normally do, not the other way around. I'm sure scientists are interested in the latest gossip as much as anyone else. Why are you restricting your quotes to "scientific peer-reviewed literature sources"? Is there a scientific process that determines whether something is labelled "a conspiracy theory" or not? I'm curious exactly what kind of "peer-review" or indeed "evidence" such statements might receive. Let's examine the first article: SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories. You mention this is "a review and hence a secondary

PMID 32152585. The opening lines of that article are "Last week, my 6-year-old daughter would not go to school. A friend had told her that “the virus” was coming and that everyone would be sick. I sat down with her and, before the school bus arrived...". Yes, even Nature Medicine is capable of publishing a "Mom" story that wouldn't be out of place in any newspaper. Coming back to the original paper, the sentence "There are also rumours that SARS-CoV-2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan" is so gossipy I can imaging the author using a hushed voice and making little air quotes for "leaked". For goodness sake, Smallpox leaked from a laboratory and the major (fortuately localised) incident and lengthy investigation prompted labs round the world to cease their work on the virus. This isn't a theory where one can snigger at the silly non-scientists for their foolishness with homeopathy and crystals. This is the paper you are citing to inform us about professional style, tone and language-use when discussing a controversy? Hmm. The conclusions of the paper (essentially, educate the dumb masses with more science) is well known to be a failed approach. I've read far better articles by respected scientists in The Guardian. -- Colin°^Talk 15:14, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Colin, The question of whether something "counts" as "gain of function" research is a domain-level question, though. It is a question that requires expert knowledge of virology and biosafety to answer. Those experts can come from many different venues, of course (intelligence agencies also employ such experts, I know most of all because they tried to recruit me to do it in grad school).

It's a similar question to "Are the Iranians making nuclear bombs?" when all we have are pictures of centrifuges. The findings may be published in newspapers or wherever, but the conclusions should be drawn from consulting with experts, and often that is how the news articles frame it. To understand how experts view it, the best consensus we can draw will be from these high quality secondary reviews in the literature. These were peer-reviewed by content experts, editorially reviewed by content experts, and are read by content experts, who critique later in open peer criticism. That's why I value these sources so highly, and why

WP:PAGs

value these sources so highly for questions that require expertise to address.

It is not simply a question of "did they do it?" It becomes a question of "what counts as gain of function research in the first place?" I think it's important that we address that controversy in this article, and I believe we actually do quite well. Open to criticism, as always.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:30, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But is it really a question of whether their research "counts" as "gain of function" research? I thought it was more along the line of "Were they conducting GoF research?" ... "No, they were not, they just collected some bat shit from some cave, and posted it to us" and then pick your response of "I don't believe a word you are saying" or "Oh, all right then, thanks for getting back to us so quickly". -- Colin°^Talk 15:42, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Colin, No I am sorry to tell you it actually does get really really complicated. You can get a sample of how ridiculous it gets by viewing this extremely long discussion about this over at The WP:NOLABLEAK talk page.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to read that nonsense. Do you have reliable sources where the Wuhan lab says "Well we did XYZ research on Covid viruses" and there is a scientific debate over whether "XYZ" is or is not GoF research. -- Colin°^Talk 16:02, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Colin, here is all we have:

• Shi Zhengli's lab has published a paper where they made chimeric viruses that took one non-human pathogenic low-virulence bat coronavirus and put the spike protein of a different non-human pathogenic low-virulence bat coronavirus on it. This did not increase or decrease the ability for either virus to infect human cells.

• random conspiracy theorists like Yuri Deigin have said this is GoFR. I'm not sure if other people have said it is GoFR. If reputable experts have, and they were covered in secondary RSes (and are
  WP:DUE
  ), then I would personally support putting their quotations in the text of this article. But so far I cannot find any quotations like that in reliable secondary sources. Only journalists.

I would agree with you, that in the absence of a scientific debate about whether these particular experiments count as GoFR, we should not put it in this article.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But whether or not it is GoFR is not subject to the scientific method. It is just a matter of who you ask, trust, believe. And probing individuals to uncover whether they are wholly truthful is the sort of things journalists do, not virologists. I think you are letting the "there's a bit of sciency stuff involved here" contaminate the whole, which is really more about claims and denials between human beings. -- Colin°^Talk 16:40, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, in terms of how much text to write about Covid conspiracy theories in this article vs some other article on Covid conspiracy theories, the question is "Does the reliable secondary literature mention Covid-Wuhan-lab-leak when discussing gain-of-function research", not "Does the reliable secondary literature mention gain-of-function research when discussing Covid-Wuhan-lab-leak". My guess is "a little" because "OMG it might cause/have-caused a pandemic" does tend to focus the minds of politicians and scientists and adds to arguments concerning moratorium and what the US should fund. But be aware that all the sources in the this section have Covid theories as their topic, not GoF research as their topic. -- Colin°^Talk 15:31, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

the question is "Does the reliable secondary literature mention Covid-Wuhan-lab-leak when discussing gain-of-function research", not "Does the reliable secondary literature mention gain-of-function research when discussing Covid-Wuhan-lab-leak Colin, I agree, and in fact that is exactly what I said above. I may have said it in a confusing way, but I agree with you on this distinction. We're doing that thing where we talk past each other or meta-argue, when we actually agree.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cherry-picking and Misinterpreting sources

@Shibbolethink: you've made three replies above on what is essentially a request to change one word in a "Society and culture" section in the footer of this article.

RE: [28] it was actually you that linked the Washington Examiner. The

RE: [35] these peer-reviewed literature sources are offered to justify the conspiracy theory label, based on further

As to your news sources (which should not trump literature sources), they are all about The Lancet, which I haven't cited here in any way. I think

WP:FLAT. Only the NYT article even mentions "gain-of-function," but it does not describe the "gain-of-function" origin hypothesis as a mainstream idea. What is your point in citing it here? Could you please use quotations? Thanks.—Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 11:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)(edited 22:23, 14 July 2021 (UTC))[reply

]

You picking a Washington Examiner article is indicative of you engaging in

WP:NPOV

is a core Wikipedia policy.

On the Sallard et al paper (PMID 33558807), it was published in Environmental Chemistry Letters which actually is relevant to virology, biosafety, or biosecurity. Much more importantly, the authors, particularly Etienne Decroly and Jacques van Helden are notable experts in their fields, which matters more than which journal they were published in. Even more importantly, their paper was first published in French (PMID: 32773024) in Médecine/sciences, a most prestigious journal.

Regarding the Hakim paper, it is a case of WP:MISINTERPRETATION. Have you actually read the paper? CutePeach (talk) 08:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the Arbcom request. Sorry to butt in but may I ask what this long section is all about. In this subsection you said it concerns a "request to change one word"—is this about removing "conspiracy" from "conspiracy theories"? If so, is there a concern about "conspiracy theories spread about the origin"? Or is it the "and links to gain-of-function research" part? Johnuniq (talk) 09:45, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:OPINIONs of scientists on either side as facts in Wikivoice. This is a very important chapter in the history of medicine. CutePeach (talk) 13:41, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Greetings, @Johnuniq:. I believe that it is about this change. Specifically, from "During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] a number of conspiracy theories spread about the origin of the [[SARS-CoV-2]] virus and [[COVID-19 misinformation#Gain-of-function research|links to gain-of-function research]]" to "During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], a number of theories that were deemed conspiracies spread about the origin of the [[SARS-CoV-2]] virus and [[COVID-19 misinformation#Gain-of-function research|links to gain-of-function research]]."--FeralOink (talk) 22:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CutePeach, Shopping around to find an article supportive of your POV, such as that one from the Denver Gazette, and then checking it on RSP - in that order - is not okay This isn't what I did. Please do not continue to put words in my mouth or actions in my hands for which you have very little, if any, proof. When you accuse someone of something, and they reply demonstrating how they didn't do that thing, the proper response is not to re-assert the accusation without evidence.

To reiterate for the third time, I did not "[shop] around to find an article supportive of [my] POV." I have shown you the only RSes I could find which address this topic, and I have included the only high quality literature reviews from scientific articles which describe the connection between GoFR and covid origins. Those are what we should focus on, more than anything, given that they are the

WP:BESTSOURCES

for this niche scientific topic.

Most sources don't really address this at all. If you can find others, I would love to discuss them. But also, what are you accusing me of? Are you unhappy about the state of the article, or how I argued for the inclusion of the term "conspiracy" here on the talk page? Could you be specific? And please address any conduct accusations on my talk page, which is the proper place for them? Continuing to put accusations against my conduct on these article talk pages is really not okay. This page is for discussion about the article. Please keep our discussions here about content, not conduct.

I am very happy with your additions to the article including those quotes from Ebright etc. I added one from Alina Chan, and combined a few repetitive quotes. We don't need Ebright's identical opinion 3 times from different sources. We should cover their opinions in proportion to the weight of their coverage, which I believe we do better now. Of course these opinions deserve inclusion, but in due weight.

Environmental Chemistry Letters is not relevant to virology or biosafety. It doesn't have either of these words in its Web of Science index descriptions. It does not have these in its scimago categories. It does not have virologists or biosafety experts on its editorial board. It is not MEDLINE indexed, which is a pretty big red flag in considering scientific journals. It does not often publish papers about these topics that are not about the lab leak hypothesis. Feel free to bring this to RSN, but we've actually discussed this journal before at the Investigations talk page several times (

4

), and every time, there was consensus that this journal is not reliable for this topic. All in all, I don't think it would be right to use the journal here, when we so often found it unreliable there.

I don't appreciate your assertion that I have not read the papers I'm citing. Please don't continue to attribute actions to me without evidence. Thank you.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:59, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shibbolethink, on Sallard et al, as I said, the authors of papers matter more than the journal, and as I also pointed out, their paper was previously published in a very prestigious journal. In the discussions you linked to, I see just as many editors proposing it as those opposing it. In the first discussion I see Guest2625 proposing it and another paper by Bernd Kaina, which they say is Medline indexed [44]. I actually don’t see why Medline indexing is a requirement for a statement that - contrary to your POV - is non controversial, and which Colin correctly says above is not a matter peer-review can verify. In the second and third discussions, I see a proposal by Feynstein backed by Guest2625 and Empiricus-sextus to use this paper, with only Alexbrn opposing it for being non-MEDLINE indexed, and JoelleJay opposing it for being a non-review article - which is untrue as that journal exclusively publishes reviews. In the fourth discussion, I see KristinaLu proposing various papers, but nothing about this one in particular - perhaps a mistake.

On the Hakim paper, since you have read it - which I will take your word on - can you cite the part you want to use to put the claim in Wikivoice that any link to gain of function research is conspiracy theory? As I have noted above, in section 3.2 of the paper, the author unpacks a statement made earlier in the introduction and concludes that only an independent forensic investigation can prove or disprove this speculation. As far as I’m concerned, the statement citing this paper fails verification and I have tagged it accordingly. If you can’t cite the part to use for the claim, I would like the claim removed and replaced with a quote using

WP:INTEXT

attribution.

To clinch it,

Ralph Baric, who is the most cited expert in coronaviruses and viral engineering and who certainly does not support the lab-leak hypothesis, told RAI that with more modern assembly methods, we could engineer a virus that is completely indistinguishable from a naturally occurring one [45], so we can’t know if this virus was subject of gain of function research [46]

. In PMID: 32392464, Baric and Graham write about the possible laboratory manipulation and deliberate and/or accidental release of SARS-CoV-2 concluding that Transparency and open scientific investigation will be essential to resolve this issue, noting that forensic evidence of natural escape is currently lacking, and other explanations remain reasonable.. This alone is enough to remove the Wikivoice statement.

I have ten other things on my WIKI task list so I don’t want to have to continue arguing this with you here. Please just remove the statement. CutePeach (talk) 12:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What is this argument about?

I have read through a good portion of the above discussion. What I've seen is DGG saying a bunch of very smart things, and Colin saying a bunch of very smart things; they appear to be disagreeing with User:Shibbolethink, who seems to be a smart guy, who is saying smart stuff in the above section. My understanding is that, beyond saying smart stuff in the discussion above, DGG is a doctor of molecular biology and Shibbolethink is a doctor of virology, so this is not exactly an armchair science argument. My problem is I can't seem to figure out what the actual object of contention is. I suspect that the above sections on this talk page are not the entire discussion, and lots of discussion has been removed, or archived, or held somewhere else. My head is spinning a little bit from all of the COVID arguments that have been happening on Wikipedia (and they have all kind of blurred together in my mind). There are literally megabytes of text arguing about COVID stuff here; for this reason, simply reading all COVID arguments on Wikipedia would be an unbelievably onerous task, which I'm not particulary up to at the moment. Since I cannot seem to determine what the ultimate goals of both sides of the argument are, in terms of what stuff should go in this particular article, I will ask: what are you all talking about here? jp×g 07:46, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A very sensible question indeed, because we have been arguing unnecessarily. I and Shibbolethink and almost everyone involved in this in goof faith agree that the molecular evidence is not likely to support the theory of lab origin. I think almost everyone agrees that it would have been possible for this or some future similar virus, to have escaped in a laboratory accident, in China or elsewhere. I do not think that anyone is seriously arguing that it was a deliberate release--saying this is certainly at least fringe by any definition of fringe, and probably is also a conspiracy theory by any reasonable definitional also. The strongest evidence at this point that it might have been a lab accident is China's attempt to inhibit an open investigation; I personally discount it because I think they tend to do that with anything for which they might conceivably be blamed, no matter how unlikely--and I do point out that this part of the question is political, not scientifc, and scientists have no more standing here to judge this part than other people, unless they should happen to be experts also on Chinese information policy. .

The question of what sources can be used is quibbling. The molecular evidence is properly sourced only to reliable scientific sources. The evidence for the spread of the disease is properly sourced to epidemiology, a subject which is both medicine and sociology (medical scientists can not properly investigate it without also knowing the social sciences, and vice-versa.). The evidence for the attitude of the government of China is politics, not medicine.

In situation of this complkexity, there is only ione justifiable approach to sourcing--ignoring whether or not it supports one POV, and judging only on the basis fo whether it is an informed and responsible view within the part of the question it considers. Medical scientists have no special knowledge of Chinese politics, and sources knowledgeable in politics have no spdical knowledge of the science. the far right-wing sources originally proposing it as a consiracy theory are not RSs for anythig except their own viewsin the history fo the discussion, but the fact that they have widely publicized their views is also relevant--it is especially relevant for the bitterness of the discussion here, for none of us wants to be say they have anything relevant to contribute to the science or the social aspects. (But even they do have to be discussed to explain why this is such a partisan question==why I need to dissociate myself form them, and Shibbolethink to totally reject them. )

And here is the real disagreement: Shiboleththink (and those who share their views--I do not in the least mean to be personal) are of the opinion that this distinction can be best done by restricting the sources to the most certainly reliable; I (and those who share my views--I again do not mean this to be a personal conflict in any direction) think the distinction can be best shown to the public by including as wide a range or sources as possible, and letting the reader decide what is sensible. Here is the real disagreement--I think we should take as broad as possible a view of what sources should be presented, this beinga n encyclopedia aimed at people of all eucatioanl levels prepared to think for themselves, and those who disagee with me think they can not be rusted to do this, and need to be guided, DGG ( talk ) 10:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with most all of the above, and think that most of what the two of you have said is relatively uncontroversial. I think we can break down this specific dispute to 3 basic questions:

• A) "How likely/unlikely/fringe is the gain of function/bioweapons origin?"

• B) "How likely is a secret Chinese government program involving virus engineering?"

• C) "Does the evidence point to this virus' genome being engineered or evolved through natural selection?"

I think you would probably agree that C is fundamentally a scientific question, addressed by the expertise of virologists, geneticists, and evolutionary biologists. To answer C, and portray the answer to C, we should trust the expertise of people who know how to examine virus genomes. B is more muddy, involving lots of international relations/national security people, as well as virologists/biosafety people. A incorporates the likelihoods of both B and C.

Here's where I suspect you may disagree: If the answer to C is overwhelmingly a consensus among the relevant experts that the virus was very very likely not engineered, then I think, quite confidently, that makes B immaterial. If making C is so absurdly unlikely, with no supporting evidence, and lots of evidence against, then it doesn't matter as much whether the Chinese government was even trying to do B (which I don't believe there is any evidence to support, either). They may have a bioweapons program, but Ken Alibek would tell you that you don't need to make crazy engineered superweapons, when conventional anthrax spores will do just fine.

At the end of the day, we need to trust what the relevant sources tell us about A, B, and C. As far as I can tell, very few reliable sources address A and B outside of C, re: SARS-COV-2. Most RSes have, thus far, only paid attention to C. And most sources, as I demonstrated above, point to C being so extremely unlikely that A and C have been collectively described as a "conspiracy theory."

This, by the way, is separate from other "lab leak" questions, which undoubtedly have more non-science components (accidental leak, etc), where other non-science non-virology domains start to matter a lot. However, the very narrow question C) re: "gain of function origins" is very particular, because the orthogonal question D) "what counts as gain of function?" is also very particular. There is great disagreement among experts about D, but there is a lot of agreement that D very likely does not apply to SARS-COV-2. Even if China was conducting GoFR, it could not have generated SARS-COV-2, as is heavily discussed in the sources we cite in the article. Ralph Baric, for example, says in one of the Washington Post Fact Checks: “These recombinant clones and viruses were never sent to China. Importantly, independent studies carried out by Italian scientists and others from around the world have confirmed that none of the bat SARS-like viruses studied at UNC were related to SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.” [47]

By analogy, there can be lots of disagreement about whether or not a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit (I believe it is a "culinary vegetable" but a "botanical fruit"), but very little disagreement about whether or not tomatoes were present in the salad you ate for lunch today.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good question, jp! By the way, I am a very smart woman, and I say very smart things, and I have a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore (mathematical statistics), and master's degrees from Stanford (industrial engineering) and U Penn, and I have worked as a non-infectious disease epidemiologist for the State of Arizona in the Office for Children for Special Health Care Needs, so please do not dismiss me out of hand, even though I lack a PhD in virology or molecular biology. I mention this only because you praised the credentials of other participants in this conversation. No offense intended. So, the very good question is, "What is this all about?" I do believe it was precipitated because I made a one word change in this edit, under the Society and Culture section, in the final part of the article, from:

During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] a number of conspiracy theories spread about the origin of the [[SARS-CoV-2]] virus and [[COVID-19 misinformation#Gain-of-function research|links to gain-of-function research]].

to

During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], a number of theories that were deemed conspiracies spread about the origin of the [[SARS-CoV-2]] virus and [[COVID-19 misinformation#Gain-of-function research|links to gain-of-function research]].

I was reverted. I had explained my reasoning for this change in the talk page, prior to making the change. After being reverted, Shibboleththink enumerated no fewer than 12 links as to why my change should not be permitted. I proceeded to unhappily pick at his 12 links, and all of the rest followed. Now do you understand the basis for my saying that Shibbolethink seems to own this article, (these are words that cannot be said because they are considered the casting of aspersions, even after I am accused of being pointy and bitey and not allowed to modify even a single sentence despite leaving the word "conspiracy" untouched) that no one else may contribute to it, else unleash his wrath? He reverted my edit, I protested, he protested, others got pulled in, larger issues were broached regarding sourcing and relevancy. I have a warning from Shibboleththink on my talk page now, first welcoming me to Wikipedia (I have been editing regularly since 2011, but thank you, I guess) and telling me that I have a bad attitude and need to change or else.--FeralOink (talk) 15:05, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG, Shibbolethink, and DGG:, I'm mostly concerned that various talk pages are simply forums where editors have found a comfy place to argue on the internet. Although the intention is a good faith one to improve the encyclopaedia, we have allowed that to become very much a distant secondary concern vs getting to the point of proposing text and backing it up with sources. Endless arguments about what kind of sources are needed shape both what we say and whether we can say it but too often those arguing are asking the wrong questions and their proposal require consensus agreement on too big a question. (such as recent RFCs about MEDRS scope). When I got pinged, I saw that FRINGE kept being mentioned, and queried whether that was appropriate. Then there was a claim that only medical journals should be cited to support our language used here. But, rather sadly, it is easy to see show that even respected medical journals have descended to tabloid-style articles about this current-affairs story, and where authors of some speciality step way outside that speciality to speculate on social and political questions. One must always be on the guard for what are essentially "opinion pieces" dressed up as reviews, but which are nothing of the sort.

To answer the original question about conspiracy theory. Wikipedia defines it as "an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable". Certainly there is no question that GoF and LabLeak ideas invoke a conspiracy by groups, both in the US and China. And I think it is fairly easy at present to demonstrate that reliable sources on the matter, which I believe should include quality mainstream media as much as science journals, believe this is unlikely here. Not because it couldn't happen (it certainly could) but because the evidence it did is missing and those involved deny it. It isn't for us to judge whether to believe them or not, just report what reliable sources say.

Shibboleththink's three questions aren't the one's I'd have asked, and don't really directly get to the point. Scientific evidence plays only a part of the story, much like forensic evidence may play a small or large part in a criminal case. I don't think there is a significant divergence between what reliable mainstream media are reporting and what journals are writing, so I do wonder why trying to argue everything as a scientific question is achieving anything other than filling up talk pages.

I think we need to get more focused on article text + sources, and less about discussing the covid story or WP:UPPERCASE rules on talk pages. And more laid back about including things that may end up being unimportant in the future. -- Colin°^Talk 09:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is 4th question,

• How likely is it that this is a deliberate Chinese program to cause disease in the ret of the world, especially the US'. This is the easiest--it's a pure conspiracy theory, (as is a corresponding Chinese conspiracy theory, that it is a deliberate attempt of the US to implicate China. DGG ( talk ) 15:30, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But in general I very much like -Shibbolethink's approach above. I did not expect them to agree with me as much as they have, and I take it as a sign that views may be converging. We will never be able to write a single NPOV article--we will ever be able to write a single article at all, because there are too many aspects. The criteria on sourcing for the various parts will be different, but with care we can keep them from being POV forks. As experience has already shown, it will be enormously easier to do that than to decide all the sourcing and POV aspects in a single article. We probably need a centralized discussion some place on how to divide up the topic, without advanced preconceptions and without jockeying for advantage. If there's a rational discussion, I'll be glad to participate or even moderate. preferably jointly. After it's been divided up, people can work on the parts they want to and have some command of the sources, and , if there remain disputes, at least their scope will be limited. And the readers will find the information they are looking for, and be led to sources whose reliability is suitable to the particular aspect. DGG ( talk ) 15:48, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd like to support user Shibbolethink. He seems to be well qualified here, and he is acting in a good faith to improve content. As about "gain of function", I think, this WaPo fact-checking nailed it. Meaning that some research funded by the NIH earlier in 2017 was indeed arguably a "gain of function research", however the recent "funding to the EcoHealth Alliance and later sub-contracted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology was not to support gain-of-function experiments, but instead to enable the collection of bat samples in the wild", so Fauci of course was right, and the accusations by Rand Paul is just another ridiculous BS on par with QAnon and other nonsense his party is promoting right now. My very best wishes (talk) 01:07, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• My very best wishes, I'd like to support Shibbolethink too, but his big bold A, B and C didn’t include the one scenario that has been all over the news for the past year, which is the possible accidental leak of a virus subjected to GoFR in way or another. He went straight to bioweapons in his A, and that is something I find very disingenuous of such a senior editor and a scientist, so I ask you, Colin, DGG and JPxG to mediate in this matter. There were two excellent talks about this by David Relman in the last few days [48] [49]. Why can’t Shibbolethink just agree that the conspiracy theory label should go, so that we can all move onto bigger and better things? This is what FeralOink started the discussion about it could be very easily remedied with one simple edit. CutePeach (talk) 15:26, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify... (a) NIH did NOT fund any gain-of-function research by the Wuhan lab. (b) It still could be that some Chinese labs were doing such research of COVID-19, but there is no direct evidence of this. Other than that, I would rather stay away of this subject. My very best wishes (talk) 15:37, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CutePeach, see what I wrote above. The "conspiracy theory" label is absolutely fine until it becomes the accepted mainstream scientific view that Covid-19 most likely occurred due to GoF research at Wuhan. That's just the definition of the term. -- Colin°^Talk 17:34, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@CutePeach:, this is the “Gain of Function” page. Why would I include discussions of the natural virus theories in this discussion? It isn’t the subject of this page. —Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I prety much agree here. A good deal of our difficulty is in trying to cover everything in every article. A sentence with a link should be enough. DGG ( talk ) 09:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: I have just requested clarification on whether this article is affected by the Arbitration Committee decision on COVID-19. You can see the relevant request and make comments in the section over at the ArbCom Requests page. Thanks.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]