User talk:Novem Linguae/Essays/There was no lab leak

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New commentary in the Journal of Medical Virology[edit]

"The unresolved question on COVID-19 virus origin: The three cards game?" was very recently published in the Journal of Medical Virology and it discusses the lab leak idea. The commentary states that it's a consensus view that the virus probably originated from a zoonotic spillover:

In conclusion, even if suspicions by some about the possibility of lab-leak hypothesis still remain, the consensus view is that the pandemic probably started from a natural source.

But also specifically criticizes how the press and policymakers have covered the topic:

Fallacious origin stories about the mysterious SARS-CoV-2 origin appear in the popular press worldwide as misinformed political propaganda used by policymakers as a form of political rhetoric, such as the use of the virus as a biological weapon, with deeply harmful geopolitical implications.

Right now, we still do not know enough whether SARS-CoV-2 is human-made or not, and lab-leak theories remain essentially speculative unless someone admits that the virus was manipulated before escaping the lab accidentally.

Leaving speculative hypotheses lacking evidential support aside from real science, the WHO agreed to sponsor an independent international expert team tasked with understanding the origins of SARS-CoV-2. The WHO-China mission to Wuhan concluded a direct introduction or indirect zoonotic introduction of the virus through an intermediate host was the most plausible, however, a lab leak has not been ruled out, and many included scores of recommendations for further study.

It's just a commentary, so the latter quote may be more useful as a citation to this essay. Particularly in the "Politics" section, though I don't know how you'd incorporate it if at all. There are also a number of other relevant arguments in the commentary you can read (it's open access). --Chillabit (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What counts as evidence of consensus?[edit]

I'm aware, due to past conflicts with other editors in other areas, that my standards for claiming existence of a consensus seem to be higher than most. To me, the phenomenon that seems to persuade many of the existence of a consensus, the described unanimity in top medical sources, while suggestive of a consensus, is not conclusive. Instead, I think we need positive, quality evidence of the opinion of the population of experts on the topic, both those who have weighed in on the topic and those who have not.

Gathering this kind of evidence is not normal practice in science. It requires specialist polling skills. It does occur with some regularity in some fields such as climate science and economics. My impression is that it is uncommon in virology, and so we lack the evidence to make the strongest claims in this essay in wikivoice. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Check out WP:MEDSCI, it describes our standards here on Wikipedia pretty well. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:34, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, fortunately some of the best sources already report about it, as well as what is most or least likely; this is also an essay meant as a useful reference rather than an article. Also adding a link to the more general WP:RS/AC, —PaleoNeonate – 17:22, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:MEDSCI seems to me to be rather unfortunately worded. I understand that we need to work with the institutions of academic publishing as they actually exist, but there does not seem to be a whiff of awareness in those three paragraphs about, say, the routine failure of highly reputable medical journals to retract material known to lack credibility. Even if we restrict our attention to the very best in class, does anyone seriously think that for each claim made in an up-to-date Cochrane review article, say, there is a consensus that the claim is true? To me, this obliterates a useful distinction between reliable sources, which are the body of claims that we generally expect to be true, and scientific consensus, which regards the much smaller set of claims that have withstood thorough expert scrutiny. — Charles Stewart (talk) 19:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If there were serious issues, they would likely have been retracted. It's also not for WP editors to decide that they should have been, —PaleoNeonate – 20:49, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • With respect to your first sentence, are you saying the problem I describe does not occur? Are you familiar with the work of Elisabeth Bik? When it becomes clear that an issue attracts the interest of science journalists, journals generally do the right thing, but many editors seem to regard retraction as a PR defeat rather than a scientific responsibility.
With respect to your second, the problem seems to be growing. Certainly it is not our place to do original research, but perhaps we should be more open to the output of venues like PubPeer. — Charles Stewart (talk) 00:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

accidental furin cleavage site from serial passage[edit]

Have there been any studies done to look at the possibilty that a FCS could have accidentally been developed durring unrelated serial passage expirements? 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence for a lab leak[edit]

In the unlikely event that the authors of this page are interested, the strong evidence for a lab leak can be found at [1] Most of the evidence quoted against a lab leak in this page is spurious. But this is not the place to discus that.

Incidentally, the latest dubious paper supporting a lab leak by Worobey et. al. "proves" that it did in fact start in the seafood market. You need to update your story!Tuntable (talk) 04:06, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your own personal blog? With of course links to DRASTIC? And with the same kind of obvious misinterpretation that is explicitly discredited in reputable peer-reviewed journals (such as those cited on this very page - they are not hard to access or behind a paywall, so no excuse for missing them)? You've missed your appointment: April Fools is in two weeks. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is not helpful and childish. 2600:8804:6600:45:2918:2AB7:9BF0:437B (talk) 05:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The only unhelpful thing is pretending there is evidence for something when that evidence sums up to, as best summarised by others more qualified than me, "the coincidence that the virus was detected in a city with a virology lab". And Wikipedia is biased against coincidences and towards people who publish their research in high-quality publications (like topic specific peer-reviewed journals). A personal blog by a random person on the internet is simply nowhere near the requisite level, even less so when it makes basic errors and seems more an excuse for personal soapboxing (something which Wikipedia is not) than actual scientific discourse. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you should have said that before making personal attacks? 2600:8804:6600:45:2918:2AB7:9BF0:437B (talk) 06:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What part of RC's comment is a personal attack? I don't see anything in their comment that describes the user in any way, only the content of their comment. This is precisely how the policies and guidelines would ask us to interact, and is well outside the bounds of a "personal attack" for that reason. One might have a cogent argument to say RC is not assuming good faith, but since OP (Tuntable) set the tone for this section with "In the unlikely event that the authors of this page are interested"... I would argue it's justifiable. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:40, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RandomCandian is belittling user Tuntable saying: "Obviously you can't distinguish a crap scientific paper from actual ones." This reflects poorly on The Cabal. You should stop using this "personal essay" as a bludgeon. 2600:8804:6600:45:2918:2AB7:9BF0:437B (talk) 05:55, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Research article in Science[edit]

26 Jul 2022 research article in Science: The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic

Key quote: "Our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Authors:

  • Michael Worobey, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
  • Joshua I. Levy, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute
  • Lorena Malpica Serrano, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
  • Harry Feinstone, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Jonathan E. Pekar, Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego
  • Stephen A. Goldstein, Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine
  • Angela L. Rasmussen, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan
  • Moritz U. G. Kraemer, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
  • Chris Newman, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
  • Marion P. G. Koopmans, Department of Viroscience, Erasmus University Medical Center Netherlands
  • Marc A. Suchard, Department of Biostatistics, University of California Los Angeles
  • Joel O. Wertheim, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego
  • Philippe Lemey, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research Belgium.
  • David L. Robertson, University of Glasgow Center for Virus Research
  • Robert F. Garry, Tulane University School of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
  • Edward C. Holmes, Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases
  • Andrew Rambaut, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh
  • Kristian G. Andersen, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:05, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You also might be interested in this: The rise and fall of the lab leak hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:04, 6 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Department of Energy assessment[edit]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/politics/china-lab-leak-coronavirus-pandemic.amp.html 2A00:1370:8184:1CE9:E784:E0E4:EA4B:73F6 (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Summary: USA's nuclear regulator changes its opinion on a virology topic, with "low confidence". –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Novem_Linguae/Essays/There_was_no_lab_leak&oldid=1142120594"