Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative medicine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Alternative medicine related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Alternative medicineWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicineTemplate:WikiProject Alternative medicineAlternative medicine
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Misplaced Pages.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology
This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science
Vitalism is part of the WikiProject Biology, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to biology on Misplaced Pages. Leave messages on the WikiProject talk page.BiologyWikipedia:WikiProject BiologyTemplate:WikiProject BiologyBiology
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chiropractic, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Chiropractic on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChiropracticWikipedia:WikiProject ChiropracticTemplate:WikiProject ChiropracticChiropractic
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Misplaced Pages aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.
Alternative Medicine sidebar
I don't know what's common practice but putting an incidental sidebar (with a bad reputation) at the very top can be a bad first impression overriding the body of articles. The Bertrand Russel quote, "... we must either succeed in producing living matter artificially, or we must find the reasons why this is impossible" establishes there is science/philosophy here even today, and that dismissing it looks like premature triumphalism, which is maybe the overriding tone of this article as it stands --184.21.192.44 (talk) 04:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
So, you want one sentence by Russell and your own conclusions from it to be the ultimate arbiter. But that that is not how Misplaced Pages works. Our arbiter is the totality of reliable sources, and they regard vitalism as a relic which is only taken seriously by quacks and religious nuts nowadays. Alternative medicine is its place now, whether you like it or not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
You misunderstand. It's a philosophical postulate, or scientific hypothesis, which would be relevant to science if there were any practical way to demonstrate anything about it (like so many things) one way or other ... or if it would make any difference, much like the question of free will. The only interesting thing about it is whether or not it would work to build an animal with no living materials, from scratch, and see if it comes to life or not. Whether such a creature is conscious can't be found out because there's no objective criteria, but whether or not it can be made is an open question until technology reaches that point, and it would remain a baffling conundrum if it turned out to be beyond the reach of technology, but you can't simply pronounce something is the case because "you want it to be the case" without any evidence. That's not how science or philosophy works, which is what that BR quote is about --75.106.108.191 (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
After two sentences, I got too bored to continue reading. But I forced myself, and should not have, because it got even more boring.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Misplaced Pages, once wrote:
"Misplaced Pages’s policies ... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Misplaced Pages will cover it appropriately.
What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t."
