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As new info about the lab leak theory comes out, it seems a lot of the focus has been on the types of work that the EcoHealth people were performing or proposing to perform in Wuhan. Should a new "EcoHealth" wiki subsection under "Release of a genetically modified virus" be added to more explicitly explain how Ecohealth's genetic modification studies could have lead to the existence of genetic code in the lab that were similar to that of Sars-Cov2?
https://nypost.com/2021/09/22/wuhan-scientists-wanted-to-release-coronaviruses-into-bats/
-- 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 21:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
There is consensus that The Daily Telegraph is generally reliable. Some editors believe that The Daily Telegraph is biased or opinionated for politics....
The Times is considered generally reliable.( WP:RSPSOURCES.) @ Shibbolethink: If you reread those articles, you can see that the authors' motives really aren't that malevolent; at least, they're not seeking to
insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild. Nobody wants to harm these cute little sky pups! – Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
generally reliabledoes not mean every single article is de facto reliable. Not to mention that the political football of a lab leak can reasonably be considered to apply towards why someone would consider the Telegraph to be potentially unreliable here. Nor does source reliability depend on "malevolent motives", see WP:RSBREAKING, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:SCIRS (particularly Popular press section). While WP:MEDPOP doesn't directly apply here (not biomed information), I think it's also valid to note
The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles.All that is to say, if these news sources misrepresent the grant proposal (likely because they author misinterpreted them) per other reliable sources (as Shibboleth says), then the information about the EcoHealth grant proposals in these news articles would be unreliable. Bakkster Man ( talk) 14:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Just a note, if someone were to read about EcoHealth in anyone of these biased articles and come to wikipedia to see an unbiased version, there would basically be no information here to explain anything about weather of not virus was actually released into the caves. They'd have to rely on the incorrect reporting. 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 22:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
"They [meaning Whipple and other authors] insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild." Interesting comment. Compare "Gallery of Winners," Society of Editors, 2021:
Winner: Science Journalist of the Year. Tom Whipple, The Times ... ‘Whipple produces essential journalism for the pandemic ...’
– Dervorguilla ( talk) 07:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
I feel this Intercept bears mention in the article (also previously posted by 2.96.240.198). Given there was a proposal to add Furin Cleavage Sites(FCS) to SARS-related coronaviruses. The proposal was not funded, but it clearly demonstrates there was an existing idea to modify viruses in this fashion. It was noted from the beginning of the pandemic how unusual the FCS site was High Tinker ( talk) 12:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation. Although the furin cleavage site is absent from the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020), this is unsurprising because the lineage leading to this virus is poorly sampled and the closest bat viruses have divergent spike proteins due to recombination (Boni et al., 2020; Lytras et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). Furin cleavage sites are commonplace in other coronavirus spike proteins, including some feline alphacoronaviruses, MERS-CoV, most but not all strains of mouse hepatitis virus, as well as in endemic human betacoronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (Gombold et al., 1993; de Haan et al., 2008; Kirchdoerfer et al., 2016). A near identical nucleotide sequence is found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-1 (Gallaher, 2020), and both SARS-CoV-2 and HKU9-1 contain short palindromic sequences immediately upstream of this sequence that are indicative of natural recombination break-points via template switching (Gallaher, 2020). Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 2).
Wikipedia already has an article on misinformation as well as one on investigations, that already make clear ... that a lab leak hypothesis was suggested and investigated yet also considered unlikely ... —PaleoNeonate – 22:07, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
This is not entirely clear to me. What I mean is: 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 ... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
mountain of textproblem and the associated
brain drainif we stop treating ourselves as reputable authorities. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
You supported it (at 0:02/0:18). So did more than one other "expert on coronaviruses." You lost 3:7.In May 2021, a request for comment was opened on the MEDRS page to determine if "disease and pandemic origins" are "a form of biomedical information." Around 70% of the respondents opposed the idea.
weighed in on how the lab leak debate should be covered.He did so by stating:
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" ... to "This is one of the plausible hypotheses".
Even if it is authentic, as it appears to be, the DARPA proposal does not prove the lab-leak hypothesis, nor does it come close to changing the consensus view that the pandemic started from a natural source." [3]I would say this The Atlantic article is by far the best source to come out about this so far. It would be a good roadmap for inclusion, as this is becoming more and more DUE. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 18:14, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
potential conflicts of interest:
Can't we find a less biased source for this arguable claim? – Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)Declaration of interests
E.C.H. is an honorary visiting professor at Fudan University (Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center) ... and, from 2014–2020, was a guest professor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention...
As the OP here, I'd like to first apologize for this becoming somewhat of a forum/battleground. I'm unfamiliar with wiki guidelines on drafts in talk pages, but I think it would be worthwhile for us to construct a(some) draft(s) of a section or just a paragraph. Then perhaps we can vote on which version is most acceptable for inclusion. If you do not believe there are any notable theories that notably feature EcoHealth Alliance, please directly comment below this comment. I will attempt to start a draft below this comment thread, please feel free to edit or add information. 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 22:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
"In September of 2021, a rejected 2018 grant was leaked to the press which described experiments proposed by EcoHealth Alliance scientists and collaborators. No evidence exists that any of the proposed experiments were ever conducted, and a spokesman for the EcoHealth Alliance has stated that they were not. One proposal included the synthesis and release of a protein-based (non-infectious) coronavirus vaccine into bat caves in Southern China, to reduce the overall burden of viruses on the wild bat population. Another involved furin cleavage site modification in non-human pathogenic bat coronaviruses in the laboratory, to determine which spike protein would make the best bat vaccine. Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2, as it lacks a viable virus backbone."
fairly representingthis specific aspect. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 04:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
References
In describing experiments involving the construction of 'chimeric coronaviruses', as well as the regular sampling of viruses from bat caves, the leaked documents will increase scrutiny on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the idea that the pandemic may have originated in a laboratory.
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider biosafety research ... EcoHealth Alliance's president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June.
The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses ... Peter Daszak and Linfa Wang, two of the researchers who submitted the proposal, did not previously acknowledge it.
Even as a natural origin remains the most plausible explanation, these discoveries, taken as a whole, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that good-faith investigations of these matters have proceeded in the face of a toxic shroud of secrecy.
Good morning all. I don't follow the edit of this article, but I wonder if the news in the Telegraph today "Revealed: Wuhan and US scientists planned to create new coronaviruses - Before Covid pandemic erupted, group submitted proposals to mix genetic data of related strains and grow completely new sequences" "... grant application submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), leaked last month, reveal that the international team of scientists planned to mix genetic data of closely related strains and grow completely new viruses. ... The Darpa proposals, leaked to the pandemic origins analysis group Drastic," is new [1] Regards to all, Springnuts ( talk) 07:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC ( talk) 18:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)Explaining the proposal, a WHO collaborator, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "This means that they would take various sequences from similar coronaviruses and create a new sequence that is essentially the average of them. It would be a new virus sequence, not a 100 per cent match to anything.
"They would then synthesise the viral genome from the computer sequence, thus creating a virus genome that did not exist in nature but looks natural as it is the average of natural viruses.
"Then they put that RNA in a cell and recover the virus from it. This creates a virus that has never existed in nature, with a new 'backbone' that didn't exist in nature but is very, very similar as it's the average of natural backbones."
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other.
...anonymous source from the WHO.... fiveby( zero) 18:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other.It's an interesting circumstantial suggestion by this source that they believe it indicates evidence of manipulation, though it's odd that they reference RaTG13 (not announced until much later) when one would expect multiple such 95% similar viruses would be identified if this were the case. Just me, or does this come across as motivated reasoning? Just pushing the boundary of where the deception started without actual evidence (also worth noting, the source seems to suggest a weird burden of proof, and calling any alternate explanations "misinformation"). Bakkster Man ( talk) 19:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
If we decide to mention EcoHealth in the lab leak theory page, it might be interesting to mention how divisive affiliations with the organization has become. Nice new Science article on the subject concerning The Lancet COVID-19 Commission.
"Instead, Keusch asserts, Sachs’s decision reflected his own biases. “Anybody who had a connection to EcoHealth became persona non grata,” Keusch says. “I had a long email to Jeff, which said you’re conflating expertise, collaborations, or connections with conflict of interest.”"
"Last month, Sachs says, his concerns about conflicts broadened beyond Daszak to other task force members. On 10 September, he learned details of an NIH grant to EcoHealth, “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” which was released following Freedom of Information Act requests from The Intercept. Keusch and three other task force members are listed as co-investigators. “None of them reported this involvement with the EcoHealth Alliance grant, though they had been asked to do so,” Sachs says. “In these circumstances, I ended the task force.”"
2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 ( talk) 23:18, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=COVID-19_lab_leak_theory&oldid=1051752553
"1) a declined grant proposal is a non-event 2) WP:NOTNEWS 3) the group at the origin of this leak is of extremely dubious reliability and trustworthiness 4) this was already discussed here..."
1 if it is a non event, why has the media not ignored it?
2 are you proposing that we delete the entire "Renewed media attention" section?
3 the telegraph also released this same information.
4 where has it been discussed? what was the conclusion?
2600:8804:6600:C4:CC9F:4E65:9616:EAB6 ( talk) 17:56, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
If your first edit is reverted, try to think of a compromise edit that addresses the other editor's concerns.– Dervorguilla ( talk) 01:15, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
topic should have its own article, rather than to
determine the contentof an established article. I believe that most editors here do understand and accept that our 25 July 2021 consensus has made that policy irrelevant to these discussions. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:00, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
and the linked guideline ( Notability):2. News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events...
The second half of NEWSREPORTS surely does apply to "article content"—but it doesn't really seem to bear on the content in dispute here.Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists.
Routine news reporting of announcements is not a sufficient basis for inclusion.The content here is about information that didn't get announced.
trivia. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 01:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Despite the unlikelihood of the event, and although definitive answers are likely to take years of research, biosecurity experts have called for a review of global biosecurity policies, citing known gaps in international standards for biosafety.[70][229] The situation has also reignited a debate over gain-of-function research, although the intense political rhetoric surrounding the issue has threatened to sideline serious inquiry over policy in this domain.[232](which is a proper way to describe this in an encyclopedic fashion and not in a "oh this was in the news"-fashion - copied over from Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#International_calls_for_investigations, if you ask). RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 02:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination <salacious headlines>. Not to question anyone's preferences, but I suspect that most readers would likely regard Prototyperspective's material as closer to encyclopedic (in the sense of
comprehensive <The event was described in encyclopedic detail>). – Dervorguilla ( talk) 02:11, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
– Dervorguilla ( talk) 16:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)It was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach. It told how the language was used, not how it ought to be used.
The situation has reignited a debate over gain-of-function research, although the intense political rhetoric surrounding the issue has threatened to sideline serious inquiry over policy in this domain. Researchers have noted that the politicisation of the debate is making the process more difficult, and that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."
More subtly, editorializing can produce implications that are not supported by the sources. When used to link two statements, words such as ... although may imply a relationship where none exists, possibly unduly calling the validity of the first statement into question while giving undue weight to the credibility of the second.
To write that someone ... noted ... can suggest the degree of the person's carefulness ... or access to evidence, even when such things are unverifiable.
Present ... viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view... Inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized...
Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute.
Do not try to discuss disputes across multiple edit summaries.I ask that LondonIP, Prototyperspective, RandomCanadian, or others first try suggesting
compromises that may satisfy all concerns. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:16, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Sorting out the balance of risks and benefits of the research has proved over the years to be immensely challenging. And now, the intensity of the politics and rhetoric over the lab leak theory threatens to push detailed science policy discussions to the sidelines".I don't see how using "although" is problematic at all here. Nevermind the broader context of the source (which will show the quote is already an appropriate summary and not cherrypicking), if you can't be bothered, but in short, the usage of although was just natural English writing used to link two ideas which are linked in the sources. You haven't explained how you think no. 2 or no. 3 apply (merely parroting policy is not an explanation), so I can't fix that. And if the issue was just a few words, maybe you're the one who needs to compromise and not revert the whole of the edit? RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 11:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have noted ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."According to the source ( Smith), one expert biologist (Rodrigo)
saysthis. Per MOS:SAID, using the term noted suggests that Rodrigo said this with a higher degree of carefulness than other authorities said things, or with greater access to evidence. Nothing in the cited source supports that comparison. ∎ – Dervorguilla ( talk) 19:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have noted ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."According to the source ( Smith), Rodrigo also said this:
Per NPOV#IMPARTIAL, quoting directly and selectively from a participant in a heated dispute can lead to articles becoming“While most of the wide-scale epidemics (in the past) have been driven by zoonotic transmission, this pandemic happened to originate where there were labs working on viruses. If you add that fact into the mix it changes the level of probability.”
partisan commentaries. ∎ – Dervorguilla ( talk) 20:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
On one side, ‘science’ is often used to support conspiracy theories. The believers of conspiracy will continuously search for ‘scientific evidence’ to defend their claims that SARS‐CoV‐2 is a human‐made virus, such as the case with an HIV‐1 bioRxiv paper that has been retracted. On the other side, however, the believers of conspiracy theories criticise sciences when scientific evidence argues against their beliefs. Thus, the issues are clearly on their ideology, not the science.( Hakim)
The origin of SARS-Cov-2 is still passionately debated since it makes ground for geopolitical confrontations and conspiracy theories besides scientific ones... However, no epizootic, no animal reservoir and SARS-CoV-2 virus have ever been identified. Incidentally, this failure in identifying the virus and the reservoir species in the natural environment facilitated the development of conspiracy theories linking SARS-CoV-2 to genetic engineering.( Frutos)So this doesn't rely on just that one individual citation, we have plenty of reason to believe this is true and say-able in wiki-voice. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 20:34, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have said ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories." [33]It quotes directly and selectively from Rodrigo and selectively from Smith. This goes against a well-established core policy, NPOV#IMPARTIAL:
And by selectively quoting that phrase "in wiki-voice", we risk making the whole article sound partisan. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 22:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)Inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected... Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute.
He refuses to discount the lab leak theory.But,
“It is not about China. It is about research facilities and how we manage that everywhere.”– Dervorguilla ( talk) 17:34, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Accurately represent the opinions of the source.This passage seems to directly quote one
researcher(Rodrigo) out of context. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 16:52, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
"If the lab leak hypothesis is plausible and is shown to be true then this is an issue into how we manage labs and research facilities.") – Dervorguilla ( talk) 17:23, 29 October 2021 (UTC) 17:37, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
(
←) @
RandomCanadian: Re "(A)" - Willing to try. It may not be as tricky as some editors think. See
WP:FRINGE/ALT: Alternative theoretical formulations from within the
scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process
. Compare that with the lead sentence in your source (
Smith):
Like the origins of coronavirus itself, the exact moment the Wuhan laboratory leak theory became credible is hard to pinpoint.
So it may now be OK for us to paraphrase Grohmann (who notes that COVID-19 mutated a lot faster than previous natural viruses [and] says scientists need to study bats in the area as well as obtain the genomic sequencing of the earliest patients
) or Lentzos (part of a team that studied standards at 59 [BSL-4] labs ... in 23 countries... Only a quarter of those countries scored well on security bio-safety measures. There has been concern from within China that there is not enough focus on biosafety or training compared with other countries.
). –
Dervorguilla (
talk) 04:06, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
materials [...] were released following a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept? I find it interesting how editors on Wikipedia often bend policies to their liking (or rather passing over WP:RS and simply calling some things fringe and unreliable and apparently thinking WP:DUE means info-extensiveness should resemble what they and self-described non-expert "skeptics" would like to believe, not resemble coverage by the media & experts), having the effect of delaying inclusion of relevant, well-sourced info until public interest in a topic fades or violating WP:NPOV (often using WP:FRINGE as an excuse). See WP:RS and WP:DUE, they are pretty clear. I would very much agree that form and accuracy are very important on such sensitive issues and I do have WP:AGF in that I think that editors only want the best for Wikipedia and the public. I think it's wrong to debate whether we should include content on this – instead we should debate how we include it (as well as using better rationales for removals). For why the content should be included see e.g.
Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and eventswhen considering this to inform about an "event" – however, in this article it would be best to not consider it to be mostly about the event at all...it's more about the new knowledge that is highly relevant to the lab leak theory as well as biosafety more generally (as an explanation think about info about the greenhouse effect in the climate change article: it could be informed about as an "event" of the reports and studies that showed a link, but should also be included more generally simply as relevant knowledge). My addition was something like a proposal I guess and people could have edited it directly or have made other proposals of texts to potentially include on the talk page.
I think it's wrong to debate whether we should include content on this – instead we should debate how we include it (as well as using better rationales for removals).As a broad observation, this seems to be where most content inclusions get bogged down. Particularly when the first inclusion attempts aren't neutrally written (as is somewhat expected for contentious topics, the most motivated to include are often motivated by the 'gotcha' factor). I might have some availability to look into this over the weekend and try and come up with a proposed wording that would be less contentious, which would hopefully help us get past this dispute. Bakkster Man ( talk) 13:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute, in a way that goes against our core policy on maintaining an IMPARTIAL tone. You may be on to something here! – Dervorguilla ( talk) 23:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
On the question of genetic engineering, the report said that most intelligence analysts believe the virus was not human-made in any way, though that assessment is calibrated as low confidence. As of August this year, there have been no sign of genetic signatures that are usually the telltale signs of engineering, it said, but pointed to academic studies that “some genetic engineering techniques may make genetically modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses”.). I don't see why we have to keep pretending that "engineered in a lab" is a valid position in light of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV; and I don't see what is not impartial about describing the spread of of various conspiracy theories (as opposed to the not-quite-conspiracy-version) as having resulted from the misinterpretation of scientist word's or stating that the political nature of the debate (for ex. the diplomatic spat between US and China) has interfered with the debate. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 02:05, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
low confidencethat the virus was
not genetically engineered, also point out that
some genetic engineering techniques may make genetically modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses. When I search the archives for "Baric" and "seamless techniques", I see editors have pointed this out many times before, including two comments from ScrupulousScribe in January [34], [35], a comment from Francesco espo [36], and another from CutePeach [37], in May. Seamless technologies are just one of the
techniquesthe IC describes, that make
modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses. If Ralph Baric already explained to RAI in November of 2020 what this IC report tells us today, why are editors still arguing about this nearly a year on? Seamless techniques are not even the only techniques the IC refers to, which the FOIAs that Prototyperspective was trying to cover detail, as Richard Ebright explains here. LondonIP ( talk) 00:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
The reliable sources policy says thatNeutrality requires that mainspace articles fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.
respected mainstream publicationsdo count as published,
reliable non-academic sources. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
They argue that reliable sources are biased while their own preferred sources are neutral.]). Said arguments can thus be dismissed. Given the lack of a policy- or sourced-based argument for changing how we cover the "engineered in a lab" variant of the lab leak (which is definitely a conspiracy theory, unlike the milder variant), I don't see what you want from me, nor do I see a purpose in continuing this, since we're obviously not convincing each other. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 14:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Inclusion and exclusion of content related to fringe theories and criticism of fringe theories may be done by means of a rough parity of sources. If an article is written about a well-known topic about which many peer-reviewed articles are written, it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced to obscure texts that lack peer review.Given there is a significant amount of peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals on COVID and COVID origins, and that I can find a dearth of them (i.e. I can't find any) supporting deliberate engineering, it's clear which way this is going. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 00:11, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Inclusion and exclusion of content related to fringe theories and criticism of fringe theories may be done by means of a rough parity of sources. If an article is written about a well-known topic about which many peer-reviewed articles are written, it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced to obscure texts that lack peer review.— Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 02:37, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Project DEFUSE was a rejected DARPA grant application, that proposed to sample bat coronaviruses from various locations in China. [2] To evaluate whether bat coronaviruses might spillover into the human population, the grantees proposed to create chimeric coronaviruses which were mutated in different locations, before evaluating their ability to infect human cells in the laboratory. [3] One proposed alteration was to modify bat coronaviruses to insert a cleavage site for the Furin protease at the S1/S2 junction of the spike (S) viral protein. Another part of the grant aimed to create noninfectious protein-based vaccines containing just the spike protein of dangerous coronaviruses. These vaccines would then be administered to bats in caves in southern China to help prevent the next outbreak. [2] Co-investigators on the rejected proposal included Ralph Baric from UNC, Linfa Wang from Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore, and Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. [4]
overall significance tothe lab-leak theory. (Per NPOV#BALASP, we attempt to
treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in ... reliable, published material on the subject.) – Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:00, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
And another source: https://theintercept.com/2021/11/03/coronavirus-research-ecohealth-nih-emails/ LondonIP ( talk) 22:53, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
And hopefully this source brings this 15,000 word discussion to a close. LondonIP ( talk) 01:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
As new info about the lab leak theory comes out, it seems a lot of the focus has been on the types of work that the EcoHealth people were performing or proposing to perform in Wuhan. Should a new "EcoHealth" wiki subsection under "Release of a genetically modified virus" be added to more explicitly explain how Ecohealth's genetic modification studies could have lead to the existence of genetic code in the lab that were similar to that of Sars-Cov2?
https://nypost.com/2021/09/22/wuhan-scientists-wanted-to-release-coronaviruses-into-bats/
-- 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 21:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
There is consensus that The Daily Telegraph is generally reliable. Some editors believe that The Daily Telegraph is biased or opinionated for politics....
The Times is considered generally reliable.( WP:RSPSOURCES.) @ Shibbolethink: If you reread those articles, you can see that the authors' motives really aren't that malevolent; at least, they're not seeking to
insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild. Nobody wants to harm these cute little sky pups! – Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
generally reliabledoes not mean every single article is de facto reliable. Not to mention that the political football of a lab leak can reasonably be considered to apply towards why someone would consider the Telegraph to be potentially unreliable here. Nor does source reliability depend on "malevolent motives", see WP:RSBREAKING, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:SCIRS (particularly Popular press section). While WP:MEDPOP doesn't directly apply here (not biomed information), I think it's also valid to note
The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles.All that is to say, if these news sources misrepresent the grant proposal (likely because they author misinterpreted them) per other reliable sources (as Shibboleth says), then the information about the EcoHealth grant proposals in these news articles would be unreliable. Bakkster Man ( talk) 14:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Just a note, if someone were to read about EcoHealth in anyone of these biased articles and come to wikipedia to see an unbiased version, there would basically be no information here to explain anything about weather of not virus was actually released into the caves. They'd have to rely on the incorrect reporting. 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 22:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
"They [meaning Whipple and other authors] insinuate that the EHA grant would involve releasing live virus into bats in the wild." Interesting comment. Compare "Gallery of Winners," Society of Editors, 2021:
Winner: Science Journalist of the Year. Tom Whipple, The Times ... ‘Whipple produces essential journalism for the pandemic ...’
– Dervorguilla ( talk) 07:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
I feel this Intercept bears mention in the article (also previously posted by 2.96.240.198). Given there was a proposal to add Furin Cleavage Sites(FCS) to SARS-related coronaviruses. The proposal was not funded, but it clearly demonstrates there was an existing idea to modify viruses in this fashion. It was noted from the beginning of the pandemic how unusual the FCS site was High Tinker ( talk) 12:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation. Although the furin cleavage site is absent from the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020), this is unsurprising because the lineage leading to this virus is poorly sampled and the closest bat viruses have divergent spike proteins due to recombination (Boni et al., 2020; Lytras et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). Furin cleavage sites are commonplace in other coronavirus spike proteins, including some feline alphacoronaviruses, MERS-CoV, most but not all strains of mouse hepatitis virus, as well as in endemic human betacoronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (Gombold et al., 1993; de Haan et al., 2008; Kirchdoerfer et al., 2016). A near identical nucleotide sequence is found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-1 (Gallaher, 2020), and both SARS-CoV-2 and HKU9-1 contain short palindromic sequences immediately upstream of this sequence that are indicative of natural recombination break-points via template switching (Gallaher, 2020). Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 2).
Wikipedia already has an article on misinformation as well as one on investigations, that already make clear ... that a lab leak hypothesis was suggested and investigated yet also considered unlikely ... —PaleoNeonate – 22:07, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
This is not entirely clear to me. What I mean is: 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 ... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
mountain of textproblem and the associated
brain drainif we stop treating ourselves as reputable authorities. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
You supported it (at 0:02/0:18). So did more than one other "expert on coronaviruses." You lost 3:7.In May 2021, a request for comment was opened on the MEDRS page to determine if "disease and pandemic origins" are "a form of biomedical information." Around 70% of the respondents opposed the idea.
weighed in on how the lab leak debate should be covered.He did so by stating:
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" ... to "This is one of the plausible hypotheses".
Even if it is authentic, as it appears to be, the DARPA proposal does not prove the lab-leak hypothesis, nor does it come close to changing the consensus view that the pandemic started from a natural source." [3]I would say this The Atlantic article is by far the best source to come out about this so far. It would be a good roadmap for inclusion, as this is becoming more and more DUE. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 18:14, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
potential conflicts of interest:
Can't we find a less biased source for this arguable claim? – Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)Declaration of interests
E.C.H. is an honorary visiting professor at Fudan University (Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center) ... and, from 2014–2020, was a guest professor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention...
As the OP here, I'd like to first apologize for this becoming somewhat of a forum/battleground. I'm unfamiliar with wiki guidelines on drafts in talk pages, but I think it would be worthwhile for us to construct a(some) draft(s) of a section or just a paragraph. Then perhaps we can vote on which version is most acceptable for inclusion. If you do not believe there are any notable theories that notably feature EcoHealth Alliance, please directly comment below this comment. I will attempt to start a draft below this comment thread, please feel free to edit or add information. 70.191.102.240 ( talk) 22:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
"In September of 2021, a rejected 2018 grant was leaked to the press which described experiments proposed by EcoHealth Alliance scientists and collaborators. No evidence exists that any of the proposed experiments were ever conducted, and a spokesman for the EcoHealth Alliance has stated that they were not. One proposal included the synthesis and release of a protein-based (non-infectious) coronavirus vaccine into bat caves in Southern China, to reduce the overall burden of viruses on the wild bat population. Another involved furin cleavage site modification in non-human pathogenic bat coronaviruses in the laboratory, to determine which spike protein would make the best bat vaccine. Most scientists agree that this type of genetic engineering could not have created SARS-CoV-2, as it lacks a viable virus backbone."
fairly representingthis specific aspect. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 04:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
References
In describing experiments involving the construction of 'chimeric coronaviruses', as well as the regular sampling of viruses from bat caves, the leaked documents will increase scrutiny on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the idea that the pandemic may have originated in a laboratory.
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider biosafety research ... EcoHealth Alliance's president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June.
The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses ... Peter Daszak and Linfa Wang, two of the researchers who submitted the proposal, did not previously acknowledge it.
Even as a natural origin remains the most plausible explanation, these discoveries, taken as a whole, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that good-faith investigations of these matters have proceeded in the face of a toxic shroud of secrecy.
Good morning all. I don't follow the edit of this article, but I wonder if the news in the Telegraph today "Revealed: Wuhan and US scientists planned to create new coronaviruses - Before Covid pandemic erupted, group submitted proposals to mix genetic data of related strains and grow completely new sequences" "... grant application submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), leaked last month, reveal that the international team of scientists planned to mix genetic data of closely related strains and grow completely new viruses. ... The Darpa proposals, leaked to the pandemic origins analysis group Drastic," is new [1] Regards to all, Springnuts ( talk) 07:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
2600:8804:6600:C4:3960:5A22:2350:25AC ( talk) 18:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)Explaining the proposal, a WHO collaborator, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "This means that they would take various sequences from similar coronaviruses and create a new sequence that is essentially the average of them. It would be a new virus sequence, not a 100 per cent match to anything.
"They would then synthesise the viral genome from the computer sequence, thus creating a virus genome that did not exist in nature but looks natural as it is the average of natural viruses.
"Then they put that RNA in a cell and recover the virus from it. This creates a virus that has never existed in nature, with a new 'backbone' that didn't exist in nature but is very, very similar as it's the average of natural backbones."
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other.
...anonymous source from the WHO.... fiveby( zero) 18:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The source said it was noteworthy that the cut-off for generating such an average sequence was viruses that only had five per cent genetic divergence from each other.It's an interesting circumstantial suggestion by this source that they believe it indicates evidence of manipulation, though it's odd that they reference RaTG13 (not announced until much later) when one would expect multiple such 95% similar viruses would be identified if this were the case. Just me, or does this come across as motivated reasoning? Just pushing the boundary of where the deception started without actual evidence (also worth noting, the source seems to suggest a weird burden of proof, and calling any alternate explanations "misinformation"). Bakkster Man ( talk) 19:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
If we decide to mention EcoHealth in the lab leak theory page, it might be interesting to mention how divisive affiliations with the organization has become. Nice new Science article on the subject concerning The Lancet COVID-19 Commission.
"Instead, Keusch asserts, Sachs’s decision reflected his own biases. “Anybody who had a connection to EcoHealth became persona non grata,” Keusch says. “I had a long email to Jeff, which said you’re conflating expertise, collaborations, or connections with conflict of interest.”"
"Last month, Sachs says, his concerns about conflicts broadened beyond Daszak to other task force members. On 10 September, he learned details of an NIH grant to EcoHealth, “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” which was released following Freedom of Information Act requests from The Intercept. Keusch and three other task force members are listed as co-investigators. “None of them reported this involvement with the EcoHealth Alliance grant, though they had been asked to do so,” Sachs says. “In these circumstances, I ended the task force.”"
2600:8804:6600:C4:3810:149:B7D5:A6D6 ( talk) 23:18, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=COVID-19_lab_leak_theory&oldid=1051752553
"1) a declined grant proposal is a non-event 2) WP:NOTNEWS 3) the group at the origin of this leak is of extremely dubious reliability and trustworthiness 4) this was already discussed here..."
1 if it is a non event, why has the media not ignored it?
2 are you proposing that we delete the entire "Renewed media attention" section?
3 the telegraph also released this same information.
4 where has it been discussed? what was the conclusion?
2600:8804:6600:C4:CC9F:4E65:9616:EAB6 ( talk) 17:56, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
If your first edit is reverted, try to think of a compromise edit that addresses the other editor's concerns.– Dervorguilla ( talk) 01:15, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
topic should have its own article, rather than to
determine the contentof an established article. I believe that most editors here do understand and accept that our 25 July 2021 consensus has made that policy irrelevant to these discussions. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:00, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
and the linked guideline ( Notability):2. News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events...
The second half of NEWSREPORTS surely does apply to "article content"—but it doesn't really seem to bear on the content in dispute here.Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists.
Routine news reporting of announcements is not a sufficient basis for inclusion.The content here is about information that didn't get announced.
trivia. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 01:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Despite the unlikelihood of the event, and although definitive answers are likely to take years of research, biosecurity experts have called for a review of global biosecurity policies, citing known gaps in international standards for biosafety.[70][229] The situation has also reignited a debate over gain-of-function research, although the intense political rhetoric surrounding the issue has threatened to sideline serious inquiry over policy in this domain.[232](which is a proper way to describe this in an encyclopedic fashion and not in a "oh this was in the news"-fashion - copied over from Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#International_calls_for_investigations, if you ask). RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 02:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination <salacious headlines>. Not to question anyone's preferences, but I suspect that most readers would likely regard Prototyperspective's material as closer to encyclopedic (in the sense of
comprehensive <The event was described in encyclopedic detail>). – Dervorguilla ( talk) 02:11, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
– Dervorguilla ( talk) 16:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)It was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach. It told how the language was used, not how it ought to be used.
The situation has reignited a debate over gain-of-function research, although the intense political rhetoric surrounding the issue has threatened to sideline serious inquiry over policy in this domain. Researchers have noted that the politicisation of the debate is making the process more difficult, and that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."
More subtly, editorializing can produce implications that are not supported by the sources. When used to link two statements, words such as ... although may imply a relationship where none exists, possibly unduly calling the validity of the first statement into question while giving undue weight to the credibility of the second.
To write that someone ... noted ... can suggest the degree of the person's carefulness ... or access to evidence, even when such things are unverifiable.
Present ... viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view... Inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized...
Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute.
Do not try to discuss disputes across multiple edit summaries.I ask that LondonIP, Prototyperspective, RandomCanadian, or others first try suggesting
compromises that may satisfy all concerns. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:16, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Sorting out the balance of risks and benefits of the research has proved over the years to be immensely challenging. And now, the intensity of the politics and rhetoric over the lab leak theory threatens to push detailed science policy discussions to the sidelines".I don't see how using "although" is problematic at all here. Nevermind the broader context of the source (which will show the quote is already an appropriate summary and not cherrypicking), if you can't be bothered, but in short, the usage of although was just natural English writing used to link two ideas which are linked in the sources. You haven't explained how you think no. 2 or no. 3 apply (merely parroting policy is not an explanation), so I can't fix that. And if the issue was just a few words, maybe you're the one who needs to compromise and not revert the whole of the edit? RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 11:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have noted ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."According to the source ( Smith), one expert biologist (Rodrigo)
saysthis. Per MOS:SAID, using the term noted suggests that Rodrigo said this with a higher degree of carefulness than other authorities said things, or with greater access to evidence. Nothing in the cited source supports that comparison. ∎ – Dervorguilla ( talk) 19:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have noted ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."According to the source ( Smith), Rodrigo also said this:
Per NPOV#IMPARTIAL, quoting directly and selectively from a participant in a heated dispute can lead to articles becoming“While most of the wide-scale epidemics (in the past) have been driven by zoonotic transmission, this pandemic happened to originate where there were labs working on viruses. If you add that fact into the mix it changes the level of probability.”
partisan commentaries. ∎ – Dervorguilla ( talk) 20:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
On one side, ‘science’ is often used to support conspiracy theories. The believers of conspiracy will continuously search for ‘scientific evidence’ to defend their claims that SARS‐CoV‐2 is a human‐made virus, such as the case with an HIV‐1 bioRxiv paper that has been retracted. On the other side, however, the believers of conspiracy theories criticise sciences when scientific evidence argues against their beliefs. Thus, the issues are clearly on their ideology, not the science.( Hakim)
The origin of SARS-Cov-2 is still passionately debated since it makes ground for geopolitical confrontations and conspiracy theories besides scientific ones... However, no epizootic, no animal reservoir and SARS-CoV-2 virus have ever been identified. Incidentally, this failure in identifying the virus and the reservoir species in the natural environment facilitated the development of conspiracy theories linking SARS-CoV-2 to genetic engineering.( Frutos)So this doesn't rely on just that one individual citation, we have plenty of reason to believe this is true and say-able in wiki-voice. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 20:34, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Researchers have said ... that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories." [33]It quotes directly and selectively from Rodrigo and selectively from Smith. This goes against a well-established core policy, NPOV#IMPARTIAL:
And by selectively quoting that phrase "in wiki-voice", we risk making the whole article sound partisan. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 22:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)Inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected... Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute.
He refuses to discount the lab leak theory.But,
“It is not about China. It is about research facilities and how we manage that everywhere.”– Dervorguilla ( talk) 17:34, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Accurately represent the opinions of the source.This passage seems to directly quote one
researcher(Rodrigo) out of context. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 16:52, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
"If the lab leak hypothesis is plausible and is shown to be true then this is an issue into how we manage labs and research facilities.") – Dervorguilla ( talk) 17:23, 29 October 2021 (UTC) 17:37, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
(
←) @
RandomCanadian: Re "(A)" - Willing to try. It may not be as tricky as some editors think. See
WP:FRINGE/ALT: Alternative theoretical formulations from within the
scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process
. Compare that with the lead sentence in your source (
Smith):
Like the origins of coronavirus itself, the exact moment the Wuhan laboratory leak theory became credible is hard to pinpoint.
So it may now be OK for us to paraphrase Grohmann (who notes that COVID-19 mutated a lot faster than previous natural viruses [and] says scientists need to study bats in the area as well as obtain the genomic sequencing of the earliest patients
) or Lentzos (part of a team that studied standards at 59 [BSL-4] labs ... in 23 countries... Only a quarter of those countries scored well on security bio-safety measures. There has been concern from within China that there is not enough focus on biosafety or training compared with other countries.
). –
Dervorguilla (
talk) 04:06, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
materials [...] were released following a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept? I find it interesting how editors on Wikipedia often bend policies to their liking (or rather passing over WP:RS and simply calling some things fringe and unreliable and apparently thinking WP:DUE means info-extensiveness should resemble what they and self-described non-expert "skeptics" would like to believe, not resemble coverage by the media & experts), having the effect of delaying inclusion of relevant, well-sourced info until public interest in a topic fades or violating WP:NPOV (often using WP:FRINGE as an excuse). See WP:RS and WP:DUE, they are pretty clear. I would very much agree that form and accuracy are very important on such sensitive issues and I do have WP:AGF in that I think that editors only want the best for Wikipedia and the public. I think it's wrong to debate whether we should include content on this – instead we should debate how we include it (as well as using better rationales for removals). For why the content should be included see e.g.
Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and eventswhen considering this to inform about an "event" – however, in this article it would be best to not consider it to be mostly about the event at all...it's more about the new knowledge that is highly relevant to the lab leak theory as well as biosafety more generally (as an explanation think about info about the greenhouse effect in the climate change article: it could be informed about as an "event" of the reports and studies that showed a link, but should also be included more generally simply as relevant knowledge). My addition was something like a proposal I guess and people could have edited it directly or have made other proposals of texts to potentially include on the talk page.
I think it's wrong to debate whether we should include content on this – instead we should debate how we include it (as well as using better rationales for removals).As a broad observation, this seems to be where most content inclusions get bogged down. Particularly when the first inclusion attempts aren't neutrally written (as is somewhat expected for contentious topics, the most motivated to include are often motivated by the 'gotcha' factor). I might have some availability to look into this over the weekend and try and come up with a proposed wording that would be less contentious, which would hopefully help us get past this dispute. Bakkster Man ( talk) 13:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute, in a way that goes against our core policy on maintaining an IMPARTIAL tone. You may be on to something here! – Dervorguilla ( talk) 23:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
On the question of genetic engineering, the report said that most intelligence analysts believe the virus was not human-made in any way, though that assessment is calibrated as low confidence. As of August this year, there have been no sign of genetic signatures that are usually the telltale signs of engineering, it said, but pointed to academic studies that “some genetic engineering techniques may make genetically modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses”.). I don't see why we have to keep pretending that "engineered in a lab" is a valid position in light of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV; and I don't see what is not impartial about describing the spread of of various conspiracy theories (as opposed to the not-quite-conspiracy-version) as having resulted from the misinterpretation of scientist word's or stating that the political nature of the debate (for ex. the diplomatic spat between US and China) has interfered with the debate. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 02:05, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
low confidencethat the virus was
not genetically engineered, also point out that
some genetic engineering techniques may make genetically modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses. When I search the archives for "Baric" and "seamless techniques", I see editors have pointed this out many times before, including two comments from ScrupulousScribe in January [34], [35], a comment from Francesco espo [36], and another from CutePeach [37], in May. Seamless technologies are just one of the
techniquesthe IC describes, that make
modified viruses indistinguishable from natural viruses. If Ralph Baric already explained to RAI in November of 2020 what this IC report tells us today, why are editors still arguing about this nearly a year on? Seamless techniques are not even the only techniques the IC refers to, which the FOIAs that Prototyperspective was trying to cover detail, as Richard Ebright explains here. LondonIP ( talk) 00:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
The reliable sources policy says thatNeutrality requires that mainspace articles fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.
respected mainstream publicationsdo count as published,
reliable non-academic sources. – Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
They argue that reliable sources are biased while their own preferred sources are neutral.]). Said arguments can thus be dismissed. Given the lack of a policy- or sourced-based argument for changing how we cover the "engineered in a lab" variant of the lab leak (which is definitely a conspiracy theory, unlike the milder variant), I don't see what you want from me, nor do I see a purpose in continuing this, since we're obviously not convincing each other. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 14:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Inclusion and exclusion of content related to fringe theories and criticism of fringe theories may be done by means of a rough parity of sources. If an article is written about a well-known topic about which many peer-reviewed articles are written, it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced to obscure texts that lack peer review.Given there is a significant amount of peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals on COVID and COVID origins, and that I can find a dearth of them (i.e. I can't find any) supporting deliberate engineering, it's clear which way this is going. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 00:11, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Inclusion and exclusion of content related to fringe theories and criticism of fringe theories may be done by means of a rough parity of sources. If an article is written about a well-known topic about which many peer-reviewed articles are written, it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced to obscure texts that lack peer review.— Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 02:37, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Project DEFUSE was a rejected DARPA grant application, that proposed to sample bat coronaviruses from various locations in China. [2] To evaluate whether bat coronaviruses might spillover into the human population, the grantees proposed to create chimeric coronaviruses which were mutated in different locations, before evaluating their ability to infect human cells in the laboratory. [3] One proposed alteration was to modify bat coronaviruses to insert a cleavage site for the Furin protease at the S1/S2 junction of the spike (S) viral protein. Another part of the grant aimed to create noninfectious protein-based vaccines containing just the spike protein of dangerous coronaviruses. These vaccines would then be administered to bats in caves in southern China to help prevent the next outbreak. [2] Co-investigators on the rejected proposal included Ralph Baric from UNC, Linfa Wang from Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore, and Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. [4]
overall significance tothe lab-leak theory. (Per NPOV#BALASP, we attempt to
treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in ... reliable, published material on the subject.) – Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:00, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
And another source: https://theintercept.com/2021/11/03/coronavirus-research-ecohealth-nih-emails/ LondonIP ( talk) 22:53, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
And hopefully this source brings this 15,000 word discussion to a close. LondonIP ( talk) 01:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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