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A more accurate description would be "present an argument in favor of a lab leak origin of COVID-19". — Paleo Neonate – 08:47, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
The book makes the case for both possibilities,says Ebben (CBS Boston). – Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
One review (
Honigsbaum, in the Guardian) does blame the pandemic on habitat destruction
(due to global heating). And it disparages this book's authors for not doing likewise. Other prominent reviews endorse their call for enforceable international biosafety and biosecurity standards
. Which idea seems more
due here? –
Dervorguilla (
talk) 04:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Is it reasonable to describe the author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (shortlisted for the 1994 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books), and of Genome (shortlisted for the 2000 Samuel Johnson Prize) and of Nature via Nurture (winner of the National Academies Communication Award) and of Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (winner of the 2006 Davis Prize for History of Science) as a science writer? I am aware that he has written other things on other topics and has held other jobs. Jonathan A Jones ( talk) 18:17, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
anti-science attitudes native to conservatismis unsupported. ScrumptiousFood ( talk) 15:48, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
I removed these three references from the end of the Adam O'Neal quote, as they're not about that quote. I've placed them here in case they can be used elsewhere in the article.
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Pearson |first1=Allison |last2=Halligan |first2=Liam |last3=Ridley |first3=Matt |last4=Bougeard |first4=Isabelle |title=Planet Normal: Dismissing Wuhan lab leak theory was a ‘shocking episode in the history of science’ |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/11/25/planet-normal-dismissing-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-shocking-episode |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=The Telegraph |date=25 November 2021}}</ref>
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Staff |first1=Jonathan Saltzman Globe |last2=November 14 |first2=Updated |title=Broad Institute researcher wants to fade into obscurity, but first she hopes her COVID book is a bestseller - The Boston Globe |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/14/nation/broad-institute-researcher-wants-fade-into-obscurity-first-she-hopes-her-covid-book-is-bestseller |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=BostonGlobe.com}}</ref>
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Beyerstein |first1=Lindsay |last4=Shephard |first4=Alex |last9=Aronoff |first9=Kate |last11=Featherstone |first11=Liza |last15=Renault |first15=Marion |title=This Terrible Book Shows Why the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory Won’t Die |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory-covid-19 |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=The New Republic |date=10 December 2021}}</ref>
- LCU
ActivelyDisinterested ∆
transmissions∆ °
co-ords° 22:38, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Dervorguilla I was hoping I could offer a compromise on what others had already reverted you on, but I was wrong. So I have taken the Michael Hiltzik sentence back to using a quote. Please find consensus on the talk page before making anymore contested changes. - LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆ transmissions∆ ° co-ords° 09:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Same info, but grammatical. Also clearer and more concise. (We could alternatively word it this way: 'the authors had "place[d] a conspiracy theory..."') - Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC) 22:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Michael Hiltzik wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the authors "place[d] a conspiracy theory between hardcovers to masquerade as sober scientific inquiry."
@
Bon courage: Book synopses are cited by the book itself, this is longstanding policy.
WP:FRIND would not apply in these circumstances since, while the contents may be controversial, the fact that these words themselves are in the book is not controversial. It's a subtle distinction, but important. Digging through the
Wikipedia:WikiProject Books archives backs this up, namely the quote, anything more detailed, like a full "Contents" or "Synopsis" section should not be referenced to anything other than the book itself. Considering the material, any other source would inherently be less authoritative (reliable)
summarizes the policy quite nicely
[2].
Furthermore,
WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE, ...In general, the most reliable sources are:... Magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses
could qualify here. Also see
WP:NFRINGE for more information. I'll hold off on restoring until I see your reply, but I fail to see the justification. My summary may have been a tad long, but that is easy to fix. 🏵️
Etrius (
Us) 20:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I'll take a stab at why your proposed synopsis does not align well with best practices:
Starting with the preface, authors Alina Chan and Matt Ridley begin describing their own independent research into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic-- Is there reasonable consensus that the things these two authors are doing is proper "research"? Or is this, instead, self aggrandizement?
The book begins with an account of the Mojiang copper mine, the earliest known cases, and possible zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2.-- "possible zoonotic origins"? The zoonotic origins of COVID-19 is a basic fact. Does the book deny this fact contra scientific evidence? If so, we need to identify this. If no one has noticed this, it probably does not deserve spouting per WP:NFRINGE.
I will stop here for now. Suffice to say the synopsis was far from neutral or in-line with best practices.
Please workshop here.
jps ( talk) 23:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
We're getting there. I question this phrase: call for the cessation of all gain of function research
. What do they mean by that? "Gain of function research" is more-or-less an umbrella term and in the context of many analyses corresponds to basically all virology research. Our own article on the subject doesn't do a decent job of explaining that, but it's definitely present in the sources.
jps (
talk) 23:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
One can agree, though, with the book’s passionate argument for closer regulation of — or even a moratorium on — what is known as “gain-of-function research”, in which viruses are manipulated in the lab to become more dangerous.The book itself is critical of humanized mice trials and the risk they pose to causing pandemics when they escape the lab. Specifically, the book focuses on induction of the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 on viral capsids, gene editing, and broadly defined research that can cause increases in virulence. This is then mired in the implication that other SARS pandemics might have been the result of lab leaks and that China was working on a broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine that might've been the source of this leak.
When two of the people directly involved in say its not a conspiracy theory, then its not a conspiracy theory.Lol. What "two people directly involved" have said that this book is not about a conspiracy theory? The authors? I don't think you are referring to Fauci and Collins because as far as I can tell they've never commented on this book. Please cite sources that refer to this book. jps ( talk)
any more that i would need a review of a specific book about evolution to claim that evolution is not a fringe theory.Okay. Let's take your weird paper tiger because, it seems, you have no actual reliable sources about this book and evaluate it carefully. Let's imagine someone wrote a book on "evolution" and there was a review in The Guardian which said it was a conspiracy theory bound by a cover. Are we to just roll over and play stupid that it couldn't possibly be "fringe" because the subject is "evolution"? I hope you can see how silly your argument appears. It is possible to promote fringe theories in any number of contexts. This particular book happens to be one of them, and it's not even close to being controversial that fringe advocacy is, at least in part, what the authors are doing. Even the supportive sources we have admit that the book engages with ostensible "fringe theories" (per the Wikipedia definition). jps ( talk) 16:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Dude, you seem to continue to miss the point that the reviews you are citing support the identification of many of the contentions in this book as WP:FRINGE! I don't know where you got this idea that there was some sort of game that is played where certain ideas are stamped "fringe" and therefore, I dunno, subject to greater scrutiny while other subjects are given a kiss and a blessing with a *can't possibly be fringe* sort of treatment, but that's just not how things have ever been done at this website. You have been around long enough to know that. To argue in the face of the evidence you yourself provide that WP:FRINGE is not relevant to this book is a kind of WP:ADVOCACY that strikes me as at the very least blinkered and at worst WP:PROFRINGE. Whether the article gets deleted or not is not a question we will resolve on this talkpage, so you can drop that line of concern trolling. As to whether certain claims made in the book will make it into articlespace, that is quite another matter. Are we done here? jps ( talk) 17:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
On Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory, there are summaries of prior RfCs regarding the veracity of lab leak, there's a reason our no lab leak essay had to be written. This discussion began trying to figure out how to handle a WP:FRINGE book, and if could it be effectively put into a synopsis. While I think it could still be written effectively, trying to write the synopsis is honestly becoming more of a headache than it's worth since it's hard to distill meaning without ending back at fringe ideas. The book goesn't go full Ivermectin and bleach cure COVID but it is a conspiracy theory tall-tale guised by appeals to "scientific inquiry". Two of these sources are blogs. I can maybe see a WP:BLOG justification for them, Scott Aaronson's blog would have to be heavily qualified. The Inquisitive Biologist is a harder sell since this is a fringe topic. The NYT article ( better link) was released prior to the book coming out, which would serve more for background content. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 17:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
This is wild! I don't think anyone else would agree with this bizarre take. You are hiding behind your own weird and twisted reinterpretation of a Request for Comment on an entirely different page as though that is more important than basic facts. It is absolutely wild that you will not admit that the Lab Leak stuff is not "largely dismissed by scientists" and it is even more wild that you seem to be arguing without so much as slight introspection that "likely of zoonotic origin" is somehow in conflict with that statement (or, even more ridiculously, that it is the only possible thing that can be said in Wikipedia's voice). The phrasing does not even by implication claim to know the views of all scientists. I think we're done here. What you write looks little better than trolling, and it is taking all I can muster to continue to engage in good faith. jps ( talk) 20:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
There is no consensus in Wikipedia to declare what all of science believes about it, save what the community has expressly stated.That's not how it works. Reliable sources are what declares what can or cannot be WP:ASSERTed. All of the sources for this article agree that these ideas are marginalized. Find a source which disagrees with those contentions and we'll consider it. jps ( talk) 21:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
The book is ostensibly an exploration of the
origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Discussing related topics such as an outbreak of a coronavirus infection in the
Mojiang copper mine, and the
2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the authors focus attention first on matters related to
illegal animal trafficking and the
Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The book describes some of the
earliest known cases relating the evidence that
COVID-19 is a zoonotic spillover from bats and
pangolins. The book spends considerable time on arguments that COVID-19
was accidentally released from a lab, a claim they believe to be largely dismissed by scientists. The authors are critical of the
Wuhan Institute of Virology,
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and
WHO, alleging that these groups mishandled or
censored information regarding the pandemic. The book ends with a courtroom-style breakdown pitting lab-leak origin against a zoonotic spillover event. They ultimately come to a conclusion of uncertainty as to which explanation is correct and contend that both ideas should be further considered.
Bonewah (
talk) 21:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
"a claim they believe to be largely dismissed by scientists" has got to be one of the strangest clauses I've ever read. Has anyone else anywhere in Wikipedia been described as having an opinion about what positions are largely dismissed by scientists in such an argumentative context? It is laughable parody. jps ( talk) 22:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to
COVID-19, broadly construed, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
A more accurate description would be "present an argument in favor of a lab leak origin of COVID-19". — Paleo Neonate – 08:47, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
The book makes the case for both possibilities,says Ebben (CBS Boston). – Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
One review (
Honigsbaum, in the Guardian) does blame the pandemic on habitat destruction
(due to global heating). And it disparages this book's authors for not doing likewise. Other prominent reviews endorse their call for enforceable international biosafety and biosecurity standards
. Which idea seems more
due here? –
Dervorguilla (
talk) 04:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Is it reasonable to describe the author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (shortlisted for the 1994 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books), and of Genome (shortlisted for the 2000 Samuel Johnson Prize) and of Nature via Nurture (winner of the National Academies Communication Award) and of Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (winner of the 2006 Davis Prize for History of Science) as a science writer? I am aware that he has written other things on other topics and has held other jobs. Jonathan A Jones ( talk) 18:17, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
anti-science attitudes native to conservatismis unsupported. ScrumptiousFood ( talk) 15:48, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
I removed these three references from the end of the Adam O'Neal quote, as they're not about that quote. I've placed them here in case they can be used elsewhere in the article.
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Pearson |first1=Allison |last2=Halligan |first2=Liam |last3=Ridley |first3=Matt |last4=Bougeard |first4=Isabelle |title=Planet Normal: Dismissing Wuhan lab leak theory was a ‘shocking episode in the history of science’ |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/11/25/planet-normal-dismissing-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-shocking-episode |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=The Telegraph |date=25 November 2021}}</ref>
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Staff |first1=Jonathan Saltzman Globe |last2=November 14 |first2=Updated |title=Broad Institute researcher wants to fade into obscurity, but first she hopes her COVID book is a bestseller - The Boston Globe |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/14/nation/broad-institute-researcher-wants-fade-into-obscurity-first-she-hopes-her-covid-book-is-bestseller |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=BostonGlobe.com}}</ref>
* <ref>{{cite news |last1=Beyerstein |first1=Lindsay |last4=Shephard |first4=Alex |last9=Aronoff |first9=Kate |last11=Featherstone |first11=Liza |last15=Renault |first15=Marion |title=This Terrible Book Shows Why the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory Won’t Die |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/164688/viral-lab-leak-theory-covid-19 |access-date=23 December 2021 |work=The New Republic |date=10 December 2021}}</ref>
- LCU
ActivelyDisinterested ∆
transmissions∆ °
co-ords° 22:38, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Dervorguilla I was hoping I could offer a compromise on what others had already reverted you on, but I was wrong. So I have taken the Michael Hiltzik sentence back to using a quote. Please find consensus on the talk page before making anymore contested changes. - LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆ transmissions∆ ° co-ords° 09:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Same info, but grammatical. Also clearer and more concise. (We could alternatively word it this way: 'the authors had "place[d] a conspiracy theory..."') - Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC) 22:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Michael Hiltzik wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the authors "place[d] a conspiracy theory between hardcovers to masquerade as sober scientific inquiry."
@
Bon courage: Book synopses are cited by the book itself, this is longstanding policy.
WP:FRIND would not apply in these circumstances since, while the contents may be controversial, the fact that these words themselves are in the book is not controversial. It's a subtle distinction, but important. Digging through the
Wikipedia:WikiProject Books archives backs this up, namely the quote, anything more detailed, like a full "Contents" or "Synopsis" section should not be referenced to anything other than the book itself. Considering the material, any other source would inherently be less authoritative (reliable)
summarizes the policy quite nicely
[2].
Furthermore,
WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE, ...In general, the most reliable sources are:... Magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses
could qualify here. Also see
WP:NFRINGE for more information. I'll hold off on restoring until I see your reply, but I fail to see the justification. My summary may have been a tad long, but that is easy to fix. 🏵️
Etrius (
Us) 20:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I'll take a stab at why your proposed synopsis does not align well with best practices:
Starting with the preface, authors Alina Chan and Matt Ridley begin describing their own independent research into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic-- Is there reasonable consensus that the things these two authors are doing is proper "research"? Or is this, instead, self aggrandizement?
The book begins with an account of the Mojiang copper mine, the earliest known cases, and possible zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2.-- "possible zoonotic origins"? The zoonotic origins of COVID-19 is a basic fact. Does the book deny this fact contra scientific evidence? If so, we need to identify this. If no one has noticed this, it probably does not deserve spouting per WP:NFRINGE.
I will stop here for now. Suffice to say the synopsis was far from neutral or in-line with best practices.
Please workshop here.
jps ( talk) 23:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
We're getting there. I question this phrase: call for the cessation of all gain of function research
. What do they mean by that? "Gain of function research" is more-or-less an umbrella term and in the context of many analyses corresponds to basically all virology research. Our own article on the subject doesn't do a decent job of explaining that, but it's definitely present in the sources.
jps (
talk) 23:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
One can agree, though, with the book’s passionate argument for closer regulation of — or even a moratorium on — what is known as “gain-of-function research”, in which viruses are manipulated in the lab to become more dangerous.The book itself is critical of humanized mice trials and the risk they pose to causing pandemics when they escape the lab. Specifically, the book focuses on induction of the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 on viral capsids, gene editing, and broadly defined research that can cause increases in virulence. This is then mired in the implication that other SARS pandemics might have been the result of lab leaks and that China was working on a broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine that might've been the source of this leak.
When two of the people directly involved in say its not a conspiracy theory, then its not a conspiracy theory.Lol. What "two people directly involved" have said that this book is not about a conspiracy theory? The authors? I don't think you are referring to Fauci and Collins because as far as I can tell they've never commented on this book. Please cite sources that refer to this book. jps ( talk)
any more that i would need a review of a specific book about evolution to claim that evolution is not a fringe theory.Okay. Let's take your weird paper tiger because, it seems, you have no actual reliable sources about this book and evaluate it carefully. Let's imagine someone wrote a book on "evolution" and there was a review in The Guardian which said it was a conspiracy theory bound by a cover. Are we to just roll over and play stupid that it couldn't possibly be "fringe" because the subject is "evolution"? I hope you can see how silly your argument appears. It is possible to promote fringe theories in any number of contexts. This particular book happens to be one of them, and it's not even close to being controversial that fringe advocacy is, at least in part, what the authors are doing. Even the supportive sources we have admit that the book engages with ostensible "fringe theories" (per the Wikipedia definition). jps ( talk) 16:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Dude, you seem to continue to miss the point that the reviews you are citing support the identification of many of the contentions in this book as WP:FRINGE! I don't know where you got this idea that there was some sort of game that is played where certain ideas are stamped "fringe" and therefore, I dunno, subject to greater scrutiny while other subjects are given a kiss and a blessing with a *can't possibly be fringe* sort of treatment, but that's just not how things have ever been done at this website. You have been around long enough to know that. To argue in the face of the evidence you yourself provide that WP:FRINGE is not relevant to this book is a kind of WP:ADVOCACY that strikes me as at the very least blinkered and at worst WP:PROFRINGE. Whether the article gets deleted or not is not a question we will resolve on this talkpage, so you can drop that line of concern trolling. As to whether certain claims made in the book will make it into articlespace, that is quite another matter. Are we done here? jps ( talk) 17:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
On Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory, there are summaries of prior RfCs regarding the veracity of lab leak, there's a reason our no lab leak essay had to be written. This discussion began trying to figure out how to handle a WP:FRINGE book, and if could it be effectively put into a synopsis. While I think it could still be written effectively, trying to write the synopsis is honestly becoming more of a headache than it's worth since it's hard to distill meaning without ending back at fringe ideas. The book goesn't go full Ivermectin and bleach cure COVID but it is a conspiracy theory tall-tale guised by appeals to "scientific inquiry". Two of these sources are blogs. I can maybe see a WP:BLOG justification for them, Scott Aaronson's blog would have to be heavily qualified. The Inquisitive Biologist is a harder sell since this is a fringe topic. The NYT article ( better link) was released prior to the book coming out, which would serve more for background content. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 17:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
This is wild! I don't think anyone else would agree with this bizarre take. You are hiding behind your own weird and twisted reinterpretation of a Request for Comment on an entirely different page as though that is more important than basic facts. It is absolutely wild that you will not admit that the Lab Leak stuff is not "largely dismissed by scientists" and it is even more wild that you seem to be arguing without so much as slight introspection that "likely of zoonotic origin" is somehow in conflict with that statement (or, even more ridiculously, that it is the only possible thing that can be said in Wikipedia's voice). The phrasing does not even by implication claim to know the views of all scientists. I think we're done here. What you write looks little better than trolling, and it is taking all I can muster to continue to engage in good faith. jps ( talk) 20:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
There is no consensus in Wikipedia to declare what all of science believes about it, save what the community has expressly stated.That's not how it works. Reliable sources are what declares what can or cannot be WP:ASSERTed. All of the sources for this article agree that these ideas are marginalized. Find a source which disagrees with those contentions and we'll consider it. jps ( talk) 21:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
The book is ostensibly an exploration of the
origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Discussing related topics such as an outbreak of a coronavirus infection in the
Mojiang copper mine, and the
2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the authors focus attention first on matters related to
illegal animal trafficking and the
Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The book describes some of the
earliest known cases relating the evidence that
COVID-19 is a zoonotic spillover from bats and
pangolins. The book spends considerable time on arguments that COVID-19
was accidentally released from a lab, a claim they believe to be largely dismissed by scientists. The authors are critical of the
Wuhan Institute of Virology,
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and
WHO, alleging that these groups mishandled or
censored information regarding the pandemic. The book ends with a courtroom-style breakdown pitting lab-leak origin against a zoonotic spillover event. They ultimately come to a conclusion of uncertainty as to which explanation is correct and contend that both ideas should be further considered.
Bonewah (
talk) 21:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
"a claim they believe to be largely dismissed by scientists" has got to be one of the strangest clauses I've ever read. Has anyone else anywhere in Wikipedia been described as having an opinion about what positions are largely dismissed by scientists in such an argumentative context? It is laughable parody. jps ( talk) 22:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)