Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:08, 27 September 2021

Did you know

• 14 Jan 2025 – Transgender health care misinformation (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist (t · c); see discussion

Articles for deletion

• 13 Jan 2025 – Kozyrev mirror (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by ජපස (t · c); see discussion (5 participants)

Proposed deletions

• 07 Jan 2025 – British Society of Dowsers (talk · edit · hist) was PRODed by CoconutOctopus (t · c): Non-notable organisation. No independent sources exist on the article, merely a link to a (broken) website of the organisation and a link to companies house. A BEFORE search brings up passing mentions in opinion pieces about dowsing, and a few self-p ... and endorsed by Bearian (t · c) on 12 Jan 2025

Categories for discussion

• 05 Jan 2025 – Category:Ancient near eastern cosmology (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Marcocapelle (t · c); see discussion
• 21 Dec 2024 – Category:Possibly fictional people from Africa (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Smasongarrison (t · c); see discussion
• 21 Dec 2024 – Category:Possibly fictional people from Asia (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Smasongarrison (t · c); see discussion

Good article nominees

• 15 Dec 2024 – Misinformation about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Dan Leonard (t · c); see discussion
• 14 Dec 2024 – Flying saucer (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Rjjiii (t · c); see discussion
• 23 Aug 2024 – Epistemology (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Phlsph7 (t · c); see discussion

Requests for comments

• 30 Dec 2024 – COVID-19 lab leak theory (talk · edit · hist) has an RfC by Slatersteven (t · c); see discussion

Requested moves

• 06 Jan 2025 – Deep state in the United States (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Deep state conspiracy theory in the United States by BootsED (t · c); see discussion
• 02 Jan 2025 – Seed oil misinformation (talk · edit · hist) move request to Health effects of seed oils by 73.40.102.35 (t · c) was not moved; see discussion

Articles to be merged

• 02 Dec 2024 – Amulet (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Ta'wiz by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion
• 24 Nov 2024 – Omphalos hypothesis (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Last Thursdayism by Викидим (t · c); see discussion
• 13 Jul 2024 – Peter A. Levine (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Somatic experiencing by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 101, 102, 103

This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Widom–Larsen theory

Widom–Larsen theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Widom–Larsen theory

Please comment. jps (talk) 21:58, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion was relisted and no one has come by with a brilliant-enough analysis to break the juggernaut. jps (talk) 21:36, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Lada (mythology)

Hello. I have been working on Slavic mythology for almost two years now. I generally write articles from scratch because the articles on the English wiki contain fakelore or are too short. For the time being I focus on deities, as it is difficult to find reliable and scientific information about them in the English-speaking internet, and many people are interested in it. So I recently wrote a new article on the pseudo-goddess Lada from scratch. The article describes the sources, briefly describes the history of the development of the concept of this goddess, is neutral in that it presents famous/influential people who supported her historicity, but focuses on a critique of that historicity, since practically all modern scholars reject her historicity. To support this thesis, I cited the opinions of 6 professors/doctors of history/slavic studies/religious studies and 2 linguists. Besides, if necessary, I can spam more academic researchers who reject her historicity: Stanisław Urbańczyk, Jerzy Strzelczyk, Henryk Łowmiański, Leo Klejn, Evgeny Anichkov, probably also Radoslav Katičić and others. So I copied the article from my sandbox to actual article, and in the discussion I pointed out serious factual errors and unreliable sources. Despite this, the author of the old article (Sangdeboeuf) reverted my article, and then split it up and restored it in pieces. I disagree with this because the article not only spreads obvious factoids, it presents them as the mainstream view in academia, which is absolutely not true. Now lets look at this:

1. I checked: this Wikipedian is not familiar with the topic he wrote about, Lada is most likely the only article from Category:Slavic mythology that he touched (except the list, to which he added a fakelore 4 years ago)
2. This is confirmed by the fact that the main sources there (the ones spreading misinformation) are free sources or with free partial previews (Google Books/Archive.org). Thus, the author probably googled informations about Lada and posted random information from random books on Misplaced Pages without knowing if that book is up-to-date or is reliable source.
3. These sources are very unreliable. First, they are "dictionaries" - they do not contain any source material or analyze it, they just copy residual information about some character from old, non-critical or even romantic sources, e.g. "Lado is the god of love". No reasons are given here for such an interpretation, no information is provided that, however, most researchers reject the historicity of this goddess. There are only two sentences in which the author of the book tells us to believe. These books are written by Americans who are not experts in Slavic mythology (during the communist era the contact between western and Slavic, especially Russian, researchers was very limited), so they copy songs from older books without reading any critical analysis by Slavic scholars.
4. These sources contain reprehensible, even childish errors: "the twins Zizilia and Didilia" invented by Joanna Hubs and Mike Dixon-Kennedy are actually spoiled records of another Polish pseudo-goddess Dzidzilela. As for the "deity" Kupala, 100% of modern scholars believe that they were divinized by mistake. Probably the same with the "deity" Kostroma. There is more false information, e.g. in David Adams Leeming one can read that Baba Yaga was a goddess, although she was just an evil mythological figure.
5. Article states, that Lada was also worshipped among Baltic peoples. From what I know, also most of Baltic scholars also reject her historicity.

As the only active Slavic mythology expert on English wikipedia at this point, I say that parts of the old article contain serious problems with WP:RELIABILITY, WP:FRINGE and WP:FALSEBALANCE. As if that wasn't enough, the author was confident enough to submit the article for a "good article," and since no one on the English Misplaced Pages knew the subject of Slavic mythology, the article was awarded without any problems. Although he was probably doing it in good faith. So I motion to completely replace the current article with mine, which is still in my sandbox. Sławobóg (talk) 14:11, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Ping Bloodofox. This editor is also an expert in folklore and has spoken out about how Misplaced Pages's coverage of the topic has often been very bad. Crossroads 16:20, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Can we do something about articles being awarded good article status without sufficient review? --Salimfadhley (talk) 00:36, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Take it to WP:GAR. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that Sławobóg doesn't know the difference between "dictionaries" and "encyclopedias", so their mistaken assertion that the article relies on dictionary sources is troubling. The statement about David Adams Leeming is also false. Leeming says that "some have traced Baba Yaga to a prehistoric European goddess", and gives very plausible reasons for this as well. Sławobóg has certainly cited a number of scholars who reject the historicity of the fertility goddess Lada (most of whom are not religious scholars or historians), but how do we know these represent practically all modern scholars? (I'm assuming the citations are accurate, since I don't have access to English translations for most of them.) Nor is it actually shown how this conflicts with the existing sources, which generally acknowledge this rejection by certain writers yet conclude there is sufficient evidence for a cult of worship. These sources, including Ivanits (1989), Struk (1993), and Coulter & Turner (2013) , are published by generally reliable academic publishers. The idea that they are non-critical is an assumption, not a fact. Perhaps Sławobóg could provide some relevant quotations from their preferred sources to substantiate their claims? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

1. I said "dictionaries". I said that, because I know dictionaries with more content per entry than your encyclopedias. Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities has 31 words for Lada, and The Oxford companion to world mythology has 9 lines of text on page with 2 columns. Again - without any criticism or references and. These are sources mindlessly copying from romantic authors, primary sources or self-proclaimed researchers.
2. Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture is another bad book, and you can find informations about it in the internet. Not only author is trying to push some feminist ideas, she also is not authority on Slavic religion in any way, she studied cultural studies.
3. Encyclopedia of Russian & Slavic Myth and Legend is another bad book, I found it when I was working on Zorya. Informations about Zorya can't be confirmed by any scientific publication (like Zorya being wife of Perun). Author also used some random, unknown sources or mindlessly copied informations from primary sources. When he is writting on Lada he uses as references: de:Felix Haase (1939) - random German theologist xD, Ivan Snegiryov - early 19th century scholar, it was time before historicity of Lada began to be criticized by the scientific community, Alexander Afanasyev - very important Russian etnographer, but he was often criticized, again, for being uncritical towards the source material. Due to incomprehension of some words/traditions, he invented many deities, e.g. Koliada - you can read about that on Russian version: ru:Коляда (мифология), George Vernadsky - on his page we can read about manipulating about history. Another random, unrelated to Slavic mythology schoolar. Only good and critical reference used here is Myroslava T. Znayenko and her The Gods of Ancient Slavs: Tatischev and the Beginnings of Slavic Mythology, but... I can't find any claims that Lada is real goddess. xD All I found is well documented history of how "Polish pantheon" and Lada developed and mention of old, unimportant scholars' interpretations of Lada. This book basically said what I said in my article.

• I debunked your sources in like an hour of research. Your "sources" 1) Are super short, 2) don't explain this very controversial topic in any way, just make you think such thing as Lada existed (unlike my sources), 3) Don't focus on Slavic mythology at all - "encyclopedia of worlds deities" 2x, "feminist activist book", "encyclopedia of Ukraine" (unlike my sources), 4) are written by people who are not authorities in Slavic mythology (unlike my sources). Also funny, how most of these books are writted after fall of Soviet Union but none of these books cite Vladimir Toporov - probably most influential and most important Russian scholar who worked on Slavic mythology, it is simply not possible to not know him. Ivantis also doesn't work on Slavic mythology, she is another "random" scholar, who repeats stuff after Boris Rybakov - probably most controversial impactful scholar of 20th century who was and is heavly criticised by other scholars (you can read short here).
• "but how do we know these represent "practically all modern scholars"?" - because unlike you, I am familiar with the subject of Slavic mythology. I have read books from different eras, different countries and authors with different views. I have a general awareness of the subject and I know that the views presented by your article are WP:FRINGE and pretty pseudoscientific, because yes - scholar can spread pseudoscience too and this is perfect example. My article, for balance and historical context, presents views contrary to those of the mainstream. Additionally, my sources are better because they have influenced history in this context and are known by scholarship, while no one knows about your sources because they have no merit.
• "The idea that they are "non-critical" is an assumption, not a fact." - that is fact. They literally copy from non-critical primary sources and I explained it before (see Afasnayev). For now, there is no good, scientific, up-to-date book in English. Only relatively good English book was The Mythology of All Races vol. 3. There is only 1 new (2019) English book that might be good (New Researches on the Religion and Mythology of the Pagan Slavs), but I didn't read that yet. French book Perun, dieu slave de l'orage: Archéologie, histoire, folklore (2015) also states that Lada is not supported by historical records (possibly quoting someone else).
• "Sławobóg has certainly cited a number of scholars who reject the historicity of the fertility goddess Lada (most of whom are not religious scholars or historians)" - are you serious? Most of scholars I brought before are historians: Jerzy Strzelczyk, Henryk Łowmiański, Leo Klejn, Evgeny Anichkov, Aleksander Gieysztor. Others are linguists - and that is also very important, because Lada is not supported by any historical records, lada is just word appearing in songs that was deified - because of that linguists' opinion is extremly important (etymology, semantics, source criticism and more). I can't believe I have to spend hours to discuss that instead of working on another article. Sławobóg (talk) 16:57, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

  Most of the authors you cited in the article are not historians. Would it be too much to ask for you to elaborate on how the scholars you listed here support your claims, instead of just name-dropping them? I for one would like some independent confirmation that your sources represent the majority, rather than blindly trusting in your general awareness of the subject. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:33, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Just as a side note, when it comes to folklore topics like myth, commentary from folklorists and philologists (the two are historically closely entwined) is ideal. A background in folklore studies and historical linguistics is crucial for analysis like this and historians often lack it. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oh and I forgot to answer to "The statement about David Adams Leeming is also false." - it is not false, you just switched books. In book you used in the article he says: "Another popular goddes to emerge from folklore is *Baba Yaga". Two paragraphs below your part from the link in the article. Sławobóg (talk) 13:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

  It's the same book. Nor do I see how the latter quote disqualifies Leeming is a source. You seem to have decided that any author who disagrees with your preferred view is unreliable. Rather, we evaluate reliability according to a source's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which OUP certainly has. Leeming is also a recognized authority on mythology. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:42, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Sounds convincing to me. Sławobóg gives lots of details from reliable sources, and the main point is compatible with what I know of mythology: it is indeed a subject where the popular literature abounds with amateurs copying from each other. (To me as an atheist, the question whether Lada is a "real goddess" still sounds weird, although I know that "real" has a different meaning here.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:01, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sławobóg:, please go ahead and start drafting a rewrite of the article in a sandbox. Most of our coverage of myth and related topics is absolutely abysmal on the site. This is primarily due to a lack of specialists investing time in getting them up to snuff. The Slavic and Baltic stuff is particularly bad, no doubt due to the lack of English language sources out there on these topics. That said, if you do prepare a total rewrite, please be cautious to separate primary and secondary sources—it will ultimately save you and our readers a lot of headache over time and allow for the article to grow. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bloodofox: Um? I did rewrite it in a sandbox. It is still there. I always do that. Then I just copy it into actual article. Author of old article reverted it and then massacred it. ATM I'm working on adding scholars on Baltic part of this topic. Sławobóg (talk) 19:17, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank goodness that someone is finally trying to do something about the Slavic mythology articles! Kudos!--Berig (talk) 19:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Definitely areed, @Berig:. I'm happy to see it. @Sławobóg:, your article looks like a major improvement—I missed your sandbox mention. Let me know if I can help. I would really like to see more of our myth articles improve. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

If blatant WP:NPOV violations are a "major improvement", then sure. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:50, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

There's an easy solution to these things: Simply write it all out. If there's doubt about a source, this needs to be clear in a "scholastic reception" section, separate from the attestations. There you can chart out what scholars have said over the years. We do this all the time with our Germanic mythology-related articles. Nonetheless, it's important that this discussion is there and that we don't take any particular side, instead going with academic consensus and presenting all arguemnts in a neutral manner. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:47, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I think this is the best approach, thank you. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but where do you see violation of WP:NPOV in my article? Big part of the article is dedicated to 2 influential authors that supported her historicity. I'm removing your books not because they support some side of the conflict, I'm removing them because they are insignificant on this topic and I've explained pretty thoroughly why. Can you substantively address my accusations and explanations? Because so far you're accusing me of ruining the article by replacing weak, meaningless authors with meaningful authors with similar POV. Sławobóg (talk) 22:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

See my earlier comments. We have yet to see any proof that your sources represent the majority. (Oddly, given your complaints about authors failing to critically examine sources, you appear to want other users to uncritically accept your bona fides as a self-declared expert on the topic.) I explained the NPOV issues on the article talk page. My main problem with the proposed "Historicity" section is that it states the opinions of scholars (or simply your own) as plain facts. On the English Misplaced Pages, our NPOV policy specifically forbids this. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:15, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

If this boils down to which scholars to use, simply stick to the specialists on Slavic mythology. This also concerns statements on what is the majority view. In Germanic mythology topics, we are lucky to have a good supply of prominent specialists, and I suspect that you have some of those in Slavic mythology topics as well. I suggest that you two discuss and try to reach an agreement on what constitutes the most reliable secondary sources per WP:RS.--Berig (talk) 05:04, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

How can I prove it to you? I have listed 14 scholars from Slavic countries who have written books dedicated to Slavic mythology and who clearly evaluate this topic. One of them simply ignores her existence in his publications. I used only a few of them so as not to spam the article unnecessarily. You want me to use them and insert 14 references in a row to prove what I'm saying? (WP:CITEKILL)

If that still doesn't convince you, how about being convinced by Myroslava T. Znayenko, whom you list in the "Further reading" section? Let's see... "Most modern scholars agree with A. Bruckner that Długosz created his Polish pantheon by interpreting freely old ritual texts...". Bruckner? Oh, I have him in my article!

"My main problem with the proposed "Historicity" section is that it states the opinions of scholars (or simply your own) as plain facts." - these are not opinions, these are facts. Medieval historians/writers copied informations from each other pretty often. And Polish historians have long established who copied information from whom. You are just ignorant. I just forgot to add references, which I already did in my sandbox. To show again that you are ignorant, I will again use Znayenko, who described the relationships between primary sources, some examples: Miechowita, Kromer, Bielski, Stryjkowski, Synopsis. Deal with it.

More amusingly, your article didn't even mention Dlugosz, who is the most important source/element of the article here, until someone added that information 3 years after article got "good article status". And you say something about neutrality? You're the one I have to prove I know better than you on the subject? Cherry on top is that in the "Further reading" section you mention the work of some random priest from Germany (de:Felix Haase) who, according to the German Misplaced Pages, supported the NSDAP and "his publications, for example on the Russian Orthodox Church or the Slavs, were unobjective and nationalistic.". You are ridiculing yourself. I see no room for any compromise, your article is frivolous on many levels. Sławobóg (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Is 14 scholars a lot or a little? Without independent sources to evaluate the disagreement, we just don't know. You're simply asking us to take it on faith that you haven't left out any relevant sources or overlooked any. I'm happy to mainly cite specialists in Slavic mythology, so I do find the quote from Znayenko more convincing than your bald assertions, thank you. However, based on this short quote, we can't imply that "Contemporary scholars overwhelmingly reject the authenticity of the deities Lada and Lado"; see WP:SYNTH. Nor can we imply anything based on the one writer who completely ignores Lada; that would be the epitome of original research. I gave two examples of POV wording on the article talk page: "The only 'authentic' sources mentioning the deity of Lada/Lado are the Gniezno Sermons" and "East Slavic sources cannot be considered independent sources either". Another one is "We should therefore assume that Długosz's Lyada corresponds to the Old Polish form *Łada". These are all statements of opinion that need attribution. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sangdeboeuf: and @Sławobóg:, let's take a step back for a second. From what I've seen, everyone here simply wants to improve the article. From my experience, this is unfortunately all too rare: Misplaced Pages's coverage of folklore topics has been in the gutter for a long time. We really need more contributors working on these topics.

Slavic folklore is notoriously difficult to approach for English language audiences. This is primarily due to a lack of coverage. There are comparatively few works by English language scholars touching on the topic. Much of what is available in English language scholarship can be found in comparative analyses from philologists and folklorists, but these works are often far too brief and few in number.

Now, I recommend that we work together here. I detect no malicious intent, just what I suspect is simply miscommunication. It's easy to get annoyed on Misplaced Pages—the revert cycle system almost encourages it—but all we have to do is keep the attestations separate from the analyses and chart out what scholar said where and when, with particular emphasis on specialists like folklorists and philologists. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I concur with Bloodofox, and I was about to ask you why you are discussing this here. You should get back to improving articles and discuss sources on a case to case basis.--Berig (talk) 04:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thank you, this is exactly what I was asking for when I asked for some relevant quotations from preferred sources. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:50, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

"Contemporary scholars overwhelmingly reject the authenticity of the deities Lada and Lado" this statement is supported by quote from Znayenko and scholars I mentioned, most of whom published their works after Znayenko's book and are critical. I also know that as expert. That I know more about the subject than you I have proven in this discussion by listing leading researchers that you have not even heard of and using specialists' opinions in my articles - you use some random, free American sources and books that don't focus on anything. I also debunked Dixon-Kennedy. Besides, I have experience in this topic on Misplaced Pages - I have written over 20 articles in this field, while you have 1. Also, if one were to accept your constant repetition of "but how do we know that's the majority" it would be impossible to write anything on Misplaced Pages. I have also been supported here by other Wikipedians, including admin...

"The only 'authentic' sources mentioning the deity of Lada/Lado are the Gniezno Sermons"" and ""East Slavic sources cannot be considered independent sources either" - no POV here - this is already referenced. Plus, it's not the researchers' "opinion" on these sources - footnotes and bibliographies were already used in middle ages.

"East Slavic sources cannot be considered independent sources either" - again, no POV, referenced since the begining.

"We should therefore assume that Długosz's Lyada corresponds to the Old Polish form *Łada" - I don't even why do you think it is POV here. Whole paragraph is explained and sourced since begining. Possibly bad wording?

So, I've expanded my article to include an analysis of Lithuanian scholars (the latest I've found) and corrected typos, references, minor factual and language errors. I am moving article from my sandbox to the mainspace. And I repeat once again: my article does not violate NPOV anywhere because it presents different points of view (2 most popular Slavic researchers who assumed its historicity, and one Lithuanian). Your researchers are insignificant. Additionally, mine present some argumentation. You probably also don't understand that Slavic or Baltic mythology is not as obvious as Greek or Roman and a lot of information about it is false, and the English Wiki can't handle it. I recall that the list for many years included information from the 18th century Prillwitz forgery, for example - I was the only one who made a point of it. Sławobóg (talk) 20:56, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Interactions of actors theory

• Interactions of actors theory (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This was a redirect for a long time. It's now a page with sources that look very primary and text that is not easy to follow. XOR'easter (talk) 23:30, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It was all copyvio; I've restored the redirect and tagged it for copyvio revdel. Schazjmd (talk) 23:54, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. XOR'easter (talk) 00:11, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not a copyvio. The blog from 2009 is a direct copy of the 2008 version of Gordon Pask. I've reverted and canceled the revdel. The editor indicated on the talk page that he moved it from the bio. Whether the material should have its own article or be returned to the Gordon Pask bio is a different question. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I tried and failed to deal with Gordon Pask eons ago. If anyone can make heads or tails of this stuff, I'd be most grateful. I am not even sure whether the subject material is broader than information science or not. There was some quote from Pask tsk-tsk-ing atomic theory, for example, which seemed to me to be rather astounding. But the jargon is so impenetrable and the ideas so opaque that I cannot tell whether it is my own ignorance that is preventing me from making sense of the sources and text or whether it is gobblety-gook. jps (talk) 21:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Polygraph

• Polygraph (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The only mention of "pseudoscience" is the pseudoscience template. Older versions, such as , still contained the sourced sentence In 1991, two thirds of the scientific community who have the requisite background to evaluate polygraph procedures considered polygraphy to be pseudoscience. I guess it was removed because such things are not decided by voting. In any case, either the word should be in the article, or the template should be removed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:36, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Here's the edit that removed the sentence, for the record. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The polygraph has been explicitly discussed in notable surveys of pseudoscience, like , and , so it shouldn't be too hard to source and attribute who calls it pseudoscience and why. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Just a note about why it's considered pseudoscientific, despite relying on signals that can be recorded and that can fluctuate: the signals are not optimal, and the main problem is their motivated interpretation, with conflicting studies demonstrating that they cannot effectively determine when someone is lying or not (to reliably know would require technology way beyond what current neurology allows, or verifiable facts that contradict their claims, the traditional way)... —PaleoNeonate – 18:23, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

It's reasonable to question the degree to which "pseudoscience-ness" should be emphasized in the article, including template and category. If you only quote or overly rely on professional Skeptics, then everything looks like pseudoscience. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

You're fallaciously misapplying the adage. Skeptics spend time on the pseudoscience that the rest of the scientific community ignores. As such, they often represent the best sources we have on pseudoscientific subjects. If everything truly looked like pseudoscience, then why don't skeptics list everything as pseudoscience? jps (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, pseudoscience is what skeptics specialize in. By the same reasoning, you could say that since entomologists write only about insects, everything must look like an insect to an entomologist. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:39, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@ජපස: Debunking pseudoscience is not a scientific discipline, though. On Misplaced Pages, many (if not most) of the pseudoscience statements are sources to skeptic blogs, podcasts, and books in the commercial market. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

All this is true. I don't see why any of that, however, indicates that we should look askance at sources produced by skeptics. WP:PARITY is the guiding light. jps (talk) 17:58, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Because pseudoscience is nearly always added to the lead of those articles, with the argument that the "scientific community" has called it so. But as you've said the scientific community "ignores" the work of debunking of pseudoscience. So by definition, the "debunkers" are operating on the fringe of science, not speaking for the scientific community. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Your attempt to cram skeptics into the fringe-pusher pigeonhole is pretty transparent. It will not work. Skeptics are on the side of science. They agree with the scientific "mainstream" or "orthodoxy", as you would probably call it, on every subject. They propagate the scientific POV.

Pyrrhonic skeptics, on the other hand, are useless nowadays. They are history. All they know is that that they don't know anything, and all they can propagate is their belief that nobody else does either. Their POV is that of WP:FALSEBALANCE and of postmodern know-nothingism. You will convince nobody here that skeptic sources should not be used. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:13, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Why would a "skeptic" be an appropriate source for the Polygraph article? As Generalrelative pointed out, but removed for some reason, there is not a lack of quality published literature for the subject. While WP:PARITY allows for "alternative venues" in cases where more reliable sources do not bother to speak to a subject, in this case real researchers have submitted to peer review and been published.

A skeptic may be a wonderful science educator, a role sorely needed these days. When they become the self-anointed bearers of the light of science, tribal members, rejecting all criticism of themselves as criticism of science itself—they are just blowhards. fiveby(zero) 14:40, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Wow, no. I deleted my comment because I had misconstrued the issue here –– assuming that the APA statement sealed the deal against Fiveby's POV (when the issue at hand is apparently just about the word "pseudoscience", which that statement does not use). Saying that my comment was removed for some reason when I stated the reason in my edit summary is disingenuous, as is trying to trot me out in support of their argument. Generalrelative (talk) 14:51, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure what you consider my "POV", but ...how much weight to assign skeptics publishing in the popular press appears moot in this case seemed to be the question presented, and the best response. Apologize if you think i misrepresented your edit in some way. fiveby(zero) 15:05, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

If you agree that the point is moot then why debate it? Your previous comment certainly did not give the impression that you think the point is moot. Generalrelative (talk) 15:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Er, probably an aversion to fanboyism. fiveby(zero) 16:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Then you're certainly barking up the wrong tree. Characterizing any of the statements above as "fanboyism" is 100% inappropriate. Take it elsewhere. Generalrelative (talk) 16:24, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Because pseudoscience is nearly always added to the lead of those articles, with the argument that the "scientific community" has called it so. But as you've said the scientific community "ignores" the work of debunking of pseudoscience. It is important to get the wording right. If the source is reliable and it indicates that the scientific community has, where it has commented, indicated a certain idea is pseudoscience, then that is an appropriate framing. If that's not what the source indicates, then different wording can be had. In the context of this article, I am pretty sure that every scientific study that has examined polygraphs and the claims as to what their effectiveness may be has determined that there is essentially no evidence for polygraphs working in such a fashion. This is a hallmark of pseudoscience and the sources we have seem to indicate fairly plainly that this is a fair summary of the opinions of scientific consensus. Precise wording can be hashed out at the talkpage, but suffice to say that it can both be true that the scientific community has determined an idea to be pseudoscientific and that the bulk of the community ignores an idea as a matter of course. jps (talk) 15:51, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: You say "skeptics" as if it's one big institution. Literally anyone can call themself a skeptic, unlike a scientist. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

... but few of us can spell it. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 16:06, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages comes from this side of the pond, or as you would say, WiCipedia. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 16:18, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, literally anyone can call themself a "scientist" as well. There is a consistent definition of scientific skepticism that functions more-or-less as a cohesive group and does distinguish itself from certain examples of self-proclaimed skeptics that don't fit the bill. Compare global warming skepticism, for example. jps (talk) 17:12, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

That's a fair point, I appreciate it. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Don't ping me. I live here.

Calling yourself a scientist (or a skeptic) will have the consequence of skeptics calling your bluff. And that is because they know where the border is.

It sounded like you were trying to treat skeptics as one big ball of unreliable, so this "big institution" is not my doing. Users who try to disqualify skeptics for being skeptics, as sources, are just engaging in WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Of course, we should treat them the same way as other sources: determine their reliability for a subject and then use them or not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

All good points, thanks. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Pentagon UFO videos

Pentagon UFO videos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Additional eyes would be welcome at the Talk page, where a RfC is addressing the description of ufology as a pseudoscience. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

More eyes definitely needed

Now at Pentagon UFO videos a POV tag has been added and a third opinion request regarding alleged NPOV issues has been made, both while the RfC and a VPP discussion directly concerning the RfC continue. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 13:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Hypnotherapy

• Hypnotherapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Recently added: "evidence supporting" the use in menopause and irritable bowel syndrome. I am not sure how WP:MEDRS that is. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the North American Menopause Society does in fact recommend it for menopause, according to primary and secondary sources. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:40, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Organic farming – "health" benefits?

The Organic farming farming article strikes me as problematic. In particular, this sentence in the lead, "Organic farming advocates claim advantages in sustainability, openness, self-sufficiency, autonomy and independence, health, food security, and food safety." There is no counterpoint to these claims in the lead. Isn't it a violation of WP:FRINGE (or at the very least NPOV) to prominently feature rhetoric claiming that organic food has health benefits over non-organic food? The other purported benefits also strike me as dubious and poorly substantiated. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:39, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Ivermectin was removed as an allowed parasiticide for organic livestock in the U.S. in 2018. fiveby(zero) 02:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Just looked there. You're probably right. I also reverted this removal. As a review article, it is a top quality secondary academic source and should be covered. Crossroads 04:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

A few weeks ago I noticed that the article appeared overly promotional, but have only added that to my endless notes, —PaleoNeonate – 05:22, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

But organic farming 'advocates' actually do claim those things. Why does there need to be a counterpoint to those claims? The claims are what they are. The lead presents them as claims, not facts in Misplaced Pages's voice. All of those claims are believed by the large population who create a demand for organic products by buying them. Farmers, on the other hand, would say that organic farming is more lucrative (larger profit margins) due to that demand, provided you get past the approvals, which a few organic farmers have told me is easier to do outside of California than within it. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Why does there need to be a counterpoint to those claims? Per WP:FRINGE. Imagine if the homeopathy article or its lead just said the claims of proponents - attributed as claims, mind you - and left off all criticism. That would be a huge problem. Now, organic farming isn't as fringe as homeopathy, but the point stands. Crossroads 05:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The lead section is supposed to provide an overview of the body text. A counterpoint would be a summary of the "issues" section of the article. WP:SOFIXIT. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:38, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

It would probably be best to find a reliable secondary source that reports what advocates claim and see what qualifications there are. There should also be clarification of who these advocates are. I haven't seen any organic producers that claim their products are healthier for example. If you provide a claim that hasn't been made then rebut it, it's a strawman argument. TFD (talk) 05:59, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The two sources given: "Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues" and The New Organic Grower do not support the claims at all. fiveby(zero) 13:20, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

More important than what advocates say is what consumers think about the product they are buying. It's the proximate cause that makes an industry large. Could be that consumers got their view that "organic is better" from advocates, could be that they came up with that on their own, got the view from their circle of friends, or wherever. When advocates say this product is better for this and that reason, as long as consumers don't believe them it doesn't really matter. --Distelfinck (talk) 14:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans, I think you might be reading that sentence loosely. Organic farming does improve health – the health of the farm workers who would otherwise be exposed to pesticides, and the health of the local ecological web that would otherwise have fewer insects, birds, frogs, and fish. The sentence doesn't actually claim that eating organic food confers benefits on consumers.

To put it another way, Misplaced Pages can't say out of one side of its mouth that methyl bromide is incredibly dangerous to basically every living organism and deserves a place in the List of highly toxic gases, and then say out of the other side of its mouth that organic strawberry farming (which doesn't use it, unlike basically the entire rest of the strawberry industry) has no health benefits for anyone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah though some "organic" practices complicate the picture rather. Alexbrn (talk) 06:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Ostrich Egg Globe redux - basically uses only one author

See Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 69#Da Vinci Globe. The article has 15 sources, 10 of which are by Stefan Missinne publishing in the predatory journal Advances in Historical Studies - see ] and Cambridge Scholars Publishing (note their article has promotional material sourced to them). I haven't found much commentary on him. There's this which has no author, and this blog which is just a brief recent comment on him.. Doug Weller talk 15:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

also back in Hunt-Lenox Globe diff. fiveby(zero) 20:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I ran into this a while back, and couldn't really decide what to do with it. I left things in because it's the 'original' paper, which was commented on by other sources.

It's still a garbage publisher though, just possibly allowed under WP:PRIMARY in this very narrow case. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:21, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

btw, here's the article from The Portolan couldn't find last time around, if you haven't seen it. fiveby(zero) 22:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Journal of Archaeomythology

We use this journal a lot as a source.

Interestingly, I can't find any impact factor for it at SCImago Journal Rank. Its ISSN is 2162-6871. Have I missed something? I've searched by title and here's the SJR search using the ISSN number.

It claims to be peer reviewed but Stel Pavlou has had a paper accepted by it. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

There are peer-reviewed journals not included in the SCImago Journal Rank, such as the Sussex Archaeological Collections and the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The Journal of Archaeomythology's website claims it's peer review, but I've not managed to find reviews of the journal which you can sometimes find for early volumes of a new series. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:06, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell: why would a journal that seems to want to be considered seriously not want to be in SJR? Or is it SJR that decides what to rank? Doug Weller talk 09:34, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Scopus/SJR decides what they cover or not. There's plenty of reliable journals not in SJR, and there's some unreliable that are in SJR. The question here should be is JoA mainstream or fringe? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Headbomb: thanks. As I suggested, Stel Pavlou is concerning. JSTOR only has one article referencing a journal article that I can find, but it does have a scathing review of a book published by the Institute of Archaeomythology. I'd guess that views vary between supporters of Gimbutas who would of course support the Institute and Journal, and others who are likely to ignore it from what I've seen. Doug Weller talk 15:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Fringe theory regarding Pratapaditya

• Pratapaditya (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The fringe theory of Raja pratapaditya being just a zamidar is put forward in the course of an edit war by an user who have cited a source which is not of a history book but rather a citation of a historian's critique of another historian's work about whom the concerned article is dedicated to. The picture templete was deliberately removed there are several other historians who have worked on this particular person and the academiciqans have afairly mainstream view but that is not taken into account by the last editor of the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samx don (talk • contribs) 22:52, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

That was P's picture? Provide sources in support. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:RSN concerning a paper about COVID origins and bioengineering

There is a discussion at WP:RSN concerning this paper by Yuri Deigin and Rosana Segretto in Bioessays which may be of interest to those watching this noticeboard. See discussion here.

Segreto, R., & Deigin, Y. (2021). The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. BioEssays, 43, e2000240. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240.

Thanks.— Shibbolethink 23:49, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Derrick Lonsdale

Derrick Lonsdale (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Just came across this article today; it seems like this man is a nutritionist who thinks various vitamins, excesses of hormones, and other stuff that seems psuedoscientific (from my perspective as a layman) is the true cause of diseases. Looks like it's being written in a somewhat promotional way; I added a criticism of one of his studies, but I imagine more are out there. --Bangalamania (talk) 20:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The article violates WP:MEDRS, and WP:BLP. I seriously doubt that it would survive an AfD if this was rectified. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

He actually did some work in thiamine precursors which is frequently cited; my personal feeling is that he isn't important enough for an article, but in any case the article is almost entirely junk. Mangoe (talk) 13:56, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Si.427

Si.427 is a Babylonian tablet depicting a land survey, one of many dating back to thousands of years earlier, with a hyped-up media campaign claiming it to be the first use of the Pythagorean theorem and the first-ever use of applied geometry. Both claims are demonstrably false, but editors Infinity Knight and Selfstudier have been systematically removing any countering opinions from experts in Babylonian mathematics (both peer-reviewed publications providing long-known evidence of more explicit knowledge from the same time, and self-published material criticizing the hype and falling under the "established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" clause of WP:SPS). Thease edits leave only the hyped-up churnalism claims, violating WP:NPOV. Less-credulous opinions welcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused. Mansfield claims the tablet shows Babylonian knowledge of theorem, and the counterargument is that Babylonians already knew of the theorem? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:38, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not the first ever use of applied geometry, which is the headline claim of the hype campaign. XOR'easter (talk) 15:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I've looked over all the media and the criticism and the only claim I see the media making is that it's possibly the oldest known example, not the oldest use. Maybe I'm missing some of the evidence with examples of use that predate it? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 16:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The headline picked out for criticism by Robson was Mathematician uncovers the origins of applied geometry and land surveying after the rediscovery of a 3,700-year-old clay tablet. Which is, as she says, absurd. (Side note: given the vagaries of dating ancient documents, it's possible that the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, Berlin Papyrus 6619, and the Lahun Mathematical Papyri are even older, and all of them include examples of applied geometry.) XOR'easter (talk) 21:06, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Lemuria

71.82.105.154 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and VeryRareObserver (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (who I presume are the same person) are slow edit warring to remove the word disproved from phrase "disproved theoretical continent" in the Lemuria article. It obviously doesn't exist, look at any bathymetric map of the ocean floor. That said, would some other phrasing such as "discredited" be better? As this was a legitimate scientific hypothesis at one point. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:44, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Why not just simplify and say "a theoretical continent" or "was a theoretical content"? It immediately goes on to say it was disproved from continental drift theory. Putting "disproved" seems clunkier and not as clean, in my opinion. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Or better yet, fictional.Slatersteven (talk) 15:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Why not proposed.--Berig (talk) 15:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Because there is less evidence for this than Atlantis, it is "proposed" or "theatrical" in the same way the N rays were (and is just as disprooved).Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know. "Fictional" to me implies that it was created by an author or artist, like Atlantis, and featured extensively in works of fiction. "Proposing" a continent sounds to me like something Elon Musk would do on Mars. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:51, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

And the basis of that proposal has been shown to be false, thus disproved. So either it is a failed theory or it is fictional.Slatersteven (talk) 15:54, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Seems clear that it started as a hypothesis and lived on, after being scientifically discredited, as fiction. That does leave us in a tricky situation re. how to describe it in the opening sentence. Perhaps the first sentence should read: "...was a hypothesized continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean." Using "was" rather than "is" indicates that it is no longer a current scientific hypothesis. We can then go on to describe Blavatsky's appropriation of the idea in a separate, 3rd paragraph in the lead. Generalrelative (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Might work, though I feel we still maybe giving it too much credence. MAybe include in the first line "latter used by Occultist", as that really is all it is now. We need to reflect what it is, not what it was.Slatersteven (talk) 16:19, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps: "...was a hypothesized continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in fictional accounts of human origins." Generalrelative (talk) 16:30, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Yep, covers all the bases.Slatersteven (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

That's great. There are plenty of examples like this: Flat Earth, Humorism. No reason to change the way we talk about theories and hypotheses. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 16:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Cool, I went ahead and WP:BOLDly made the change. Generalrelative (talk) 16:47, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm a bit late, but Lemuria is clearly watchlist-worthy (as if life isn't hard enough...) –Austronesier (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Yahshua

What do you think about ? tgeorgescu (talk) 15:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

And... most evidence for the name Yahshua has been removed from the article? Are you kidding me? What evidence can there be for a WP:FRINGE name of Jesus, concocted by a bunch of cultists in the 20th century? Misplaced Pages is WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia, so it admits no such evidence. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Looks like classic WP:YESBIAS against WP:PROFRINGE. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Seems to be a pattern: In Citer has declared You Jews make me sick. Yet how many Jews have been responsible for creating this trash site of a page. (At Talk:Yahweh.) tgeorgescu (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Service: Link to that one --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Given the previous ban, perhaps bringing this to the attention of the admins would be in order. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:16, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Elizabeth Prophet

Far to much use of her own works. Church Universal and Triumphant looks better but has two links to "WhoSampled" which is just an app - weird, and at least one blog. Doug Weller talk 08:35, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction?

• An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction? (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Sounds like a great film, if you look at the reception part of that article... Is it? --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Even if it got some good reviews when it came over a decade ago, a lot has changed since then in our understanding of climate change so I would vote for removing most of that section and adding a counter review or two. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 19:34, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

a lot has changed since then in our understanding of climate change Not so sure about that. The IPCC reports look remarkably similar from then and now. jps (talk) 01:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Alina Chan

• Alina Chan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

New AfC published from draft. About a COVID lab-leak origins proponent. In general I think it could just use more eyes. See:

Chan became known during the COVID-19 pandemic for suggesting the possible lab origins of the virus in a BioRxiv preprint coauthored with Shing Hei Zhan which she sent for consideration to multiple journals but the editors decided against sending for peer review. The preprint attracted criticism from prominent scientists such as Jonathan Eisen, with whom she interacted constructively, but also the head of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, in a more contentious exchange that Chan was regarded by some as having the upper hand, e.g. Nicholson Baker summarised this 'it was enough for one Twitter user to muse, “If capital punishment were as painful as what Alina Chan is doing to Daszak/WIV regarding their story, it would be illegal.”'

There are a few other instances where the article cites a preprint for some commentary about that preprint, and does not cite a secondary source.— Shibbolethink 01:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I've trimmed that away by removing the subjective words ("suggesting", which implies as though she was the first one to support this) and by removing the rest since it was based entirely on the papers being used to support their own existence (so in essence, a primary source the same way a book is a primary source for it's text) and likely therefore to include copious amounts of WP:SYNTH and other subtle NPOV problems. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Is there a good reason why the lab escape theory is not referred to as a fringe theory in the lede? Basically, we have an article about a postdoc who is only notable for spreading fringe theories, she would not be notable for her research.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit the article to clarify. But note the word "fringe" not even found at COVID-19 lab leak theory (honestly a bit of refreshing surprise, since Wikipedians seem very fond of that term). See also {{Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus)}}. "Fringe" can be a pejorative (see both Fringe science and Fringe theory), and there are often more sophisticated ways to convey that an idea is a minority view. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Fringe is only a pejorative because of the euphemism treadmill. It etymologically refers to the edges of a tapestry which is a very neutral way to describe ideas that are not part of the mainstream. The fact that people find it pejorative when applied to their pet ideas is because they don't like other things that are objectively fringe and hate that their idea is in the same category. I do agree, however, that the term is overused on Misplaced Pages. Fringe festival, fringe benefit, etc. jps (talk) 00:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I think a big issue is with defining where the fringe starts and stops. That it's a broad term, it can lead to interpreting its use as referring to pseudoscience and quackery, even if it's actually just a minority perspective. Is the fringe on a rug just the tassels, or also the stitched border? It's almost always worth using a more precise term for that reason. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, sure, people like to argue incessantly about such details. Demarcation is not easy and never is. But that doesn't mean fringe has to be pejorative, and sometimes there aren't more precise terms in the offing. I'm not saying that's not the case here, but "fringe theory" may be a better way to describe ZOMG! LABLEAK! than "minority report". Or maybe not. How's that for precision? :)jps (talk) 00:37, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I've taken ancientorigins.net to RSN

See WP:RSN#ancient-origins.net is surely an unreliable source. Doug Weller talk 12:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Ann Coulter

• Ann Coulter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Discussion about how to handle articles about intelligent design fans. Should it be called a pseudoscience or not? --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems more like a MOS type question. I don't think anyone in that discussion is questioning that ID is supported by any type of science. I think all would agree that it's often an attempt to rectify religion to the evidence of evolution. Part of the dispute at that article can be generalized as should we point out as much every time the topic is mentioned in any article where it is even briefly mentioned. That seems to the be crux of the dispute. For example, if Mr Smith's article says, "Smith is a believer in astrology" should we instead say "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience " or "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience that claims X ". Would the answer change depending on the ? For example, if the source specifically says astrology is a psuedoscience vs if it only says he believes in it? Springee (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

The Nancy Reagan page has about a dozen references to astrology and how it ran the US White House, but none of them contain any additional word like "pseudoscience". Nancy is dead and there is no political value in trashing her, but Coulter is involved in contentious current politics so she gets the shaft at multiple points in her article. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Springee, it is not about the FRINGE or pseudoscience status of intelligent design, which everyone currently involved in that discussion seems to agree on. Other than some stuff that is specific to Coulter, the discussion is about whether references to FRINGE material require mandatory warning labels --- as the initiator of the discussion I argued that this practice is gratuitous, patronizing to the reader, and in Coulter's case, politicized. These are MOS or NPOV issues, FRINGE does not come into play since the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented, only the fact of Coulter having some connection to it. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

The people here know how to handle articles that are related to fringe subjects. Now they already know about the subject, so it is pointless to try to keep it from them by claiming it is not related to FRINGE.

Whether the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented is one of the questions here, not a fact. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

What does try to keep it from them mean? Keep what from whom??

Does writing the words "X advocates intelligent design", with the link, as the sole description of X's connection to ID, constitute a presentation of the fringe viewpoint? Nobody at the Coulter talk discussion has claimed that, but if that's part of what you think is being debated, please say so. In the generality that you have framed this ("intelligent design fans"), we aren't just talking about the Coulter article specifically, where there is some (unrebutted) presentation of her closely related views on evolution, and what is said about ID immediately after could be seen as part of that. The more general framing seems to be (the ID special case of) the same question I raised, about negative labels on references to fringe material. Sesquivalent (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE covers all treatments of fringe topics on Misplaced Pages, not just those that go into detail. Indeed, a significant part of that guideline is advice on when and how to go into detail. So, it doesn't matter if particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented. XOR'easter (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Which passage of FRINGE applies to this case? I share TFD's concern that the disparaging tone isn't helpful. It also, importantly, isn't encyclopedic. If simply calling it ID isn't sufficient perhaps calling it the creationist belief of intelligent design. That description makes it clear this is a subset of creationism while avoiding beating the reader over the head with the fact that it doesn't pass the scientific sniff test.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Springee (talk • contribs) 02:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You've assumed the conclusion, that merely mentioning Mr X subscribes to fringe thingy Y requires an attached denunciation of Y (or X, which is often what it amounts to either way). As pointed out at the Coulter article talk page, this is not the case for Y = astrology, Nazism, John Birch Society (re conspiracy theories). Other examples are anti-Semitism and scientific racism; generally when they appear as part of someone's bio we do not attach descriptors like "the discredited 19th century ideology". Maybe some of these things are considered well known enough to be out-of-mainstream that it's de minimis but this "denounce on sight" rule seems not even to be applied for cold fusion. Like Springee, I did not see any such principle in the FRINGE guideline, which I have read many times by now. Can you point to some particular part of the text?Sesquivalent (talk) 08:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I would leave it out. It sounds overly disparaging and as jargon we would have to explain it. Disparaging writing actually creates doubt in readers' minds. They say, "This article is obviously intended to disparage Coulter, so why should I believe anything it says?" TFD (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I rather suspect that people who are eager to leap to that conclusion will do so regardless of whether we include a few particular words or not. XOR'easter (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

+1 to this. Misplaced Pages is WP:NOTCENSORED. We should not be tiptoeing around the subject of fringe in order to cater to the potential pearl clutching of partisan readers. If they don't like what reliable sources say about the subject, they have safe spaces on the internet they can go to such as Conservapedia. Generalrelative (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

While that may be what you suspect, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. People don't like to be told what to think. That's one of the reasons the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the U.S. is so low. Of course it's easier to blame listeners for not being persuaded. TFD (talk) 01:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

No one is blaming listeners for not being persuaded. And yes, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. Generalrelative (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, few people like the feeling of being lectured at. But Coulter's fans will regard Misplaced Pages as a hotbed of cultural Marxism, critical race theory, and general leftist moral degeneracy no matter what adjectives we insert or remove. (Which is pretty funny, because our gold standard for news sourcing is The New York Times, a publication whose editorial practices please roughly zero leftists. But I digress.) There's no pleasing the mentality that regards the tamest, purely factional description as a slanderous subversion of real American values. There's such a thing as spending too much time trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable. I think Generalrelative's suggested phrasing below does a good job of being clear and direct without coming across as overly forceful. XOR'easter (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Presumably at least some readers come to the article because they want to know about the topic and aren't confirmed fans. Consider a reasonable person who has seen her once or twice on a couple of topics. If it is clear to them that the authors of her Misplaced Pages article dislike her then they will question the accuracy of the article. Ironically, the article reads like something Ann Coulter would write. TFD (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

A good rule of thumb in these scenarios is, does it help to explain the prose? Good to look at what we're actually considering here. As of this timestamp, prose reads as follows:

So, does the word "pseudoscientific" add to the prose here? I think it does, but I can see why others might think it is brow-beating. I find it a bit weirder that the text avoids the obvious reference to creationist here which is the umbrella term that, granted, a lot of ID proponents balk at due to believing in their own sophistication but was identified in the most famous court case on the subject to be just that. Well, that's maybe beside the point. The fact that Coulter advocates for intelligent design means that she positions herself in opposition to mainstream science. That is pretty remarkable for any pundit. How we indicate this is a good question, but I do think it reasonable to say we should try to do more than just assume that the reader will click on the relevant wikilink and that we should shrinkwrap our sentence to something like "Coulter advocates intelligent design. End paragraph."

jps (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Other pages use phrasings like "the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design" (here) or "the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design" (here) or "a pseudoscientific creationist argument" (here). The phrasing in the Ann Coulter article is in line with community practice in this regard, though doubtless it could be tweaked. XOR'easter (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I prefer "the pseudoscience called intelligent design". Use of adjectives (like "pseudoscientific") give the impression of being inherently POV. It's a noun: pseudoscience. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

(ec) I agree with you both. The current language needs tweaking. How about: "Coulter advocates for creationism, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, contrasted her beliefs to what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death."? Generalrelative (talk) 00:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Not bad. XOR'easter (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I was actually about to go back and change out creationism for intelligent design since the latter is actually what Coulter seems to be arguing for and is more unambiguously associated with pseudoscience. So my suggested text would now be: Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

The word "bogus" sounds a little informal. Maybe just "bad science"? I'd be happy enough with your suggested sentences, though. XOR'easter (talk) 01:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Good point. We could even go so far as to say the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is unsupported by or at variance with existing evidence. Generalrelative (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I like that a little more. But perhaps "unsupported by or at variance with" is a more elaborate construction than we need. What about just "disproved by"? XOR'easter (talk) 02:43, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

That phrasing is much better in terms of using impartial language but wouldn't it be better to say a bit more about what it is vs isn't? To be honest I confused Theistic Evolution with ID. I guess as someone who has spent most of my life avoiding religion it's easy to confuse various religious based beliefs. Still, based on these descriptions I'm not sure how I would see ID as different from Theistic Evolution or simply creationism. I guess creationism is meant to be accepted purely on faith while ID tries to rationalize. Would "a rationalized version of creationism" be just as informative. I would hope any reader who sees "creationism" would understand that is a religious based explanation vs one based on science. Springee (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Springee: I agree, it's a bit tricky to unpack. I wasn't at all clear on the distinction until reading the articles Creationism and Intelligent design in response to this discussion. This board in particular is such a great place to come to be challenged to learn more. Generalrelative (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: That would work. Or perhaps just "incompatible with"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Generalrelative (talk • contribs) 03:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

"Disproven" and derivatives of the word "proof" are words to avoid, in my book, when talking about science just from the epistemology of the subject. If this were pseudomathematics instead of pseudoscince, then maybe "disproven" is okay, but the formal term for proof confuses people into not understanding the way in which pseudoscience is at odds with science in the proper context. Better to get across the idea of "lacks empirical evidence" or "at variance with known scientific facts" and simple, clear alternatives to that.

In terms of the confusion of ID with evolutionary creationism, theistic evolution, and so forth, this is (excuse the pun) by design. The group of people in the mid-nineties who put their heads together to think about what could be done about Edwards v. Aguillard thought that because there is difficulty in solving the demarcation problem as it pertains to anti-evolutionism and people's personal beliefs, they could come up with a vaguely named concept like "intelligent design" which would capture the confusion and predilections of many religious believers with respect to the subject while maintaining some sort of plausible deniability as to the identity of any "designer". The problem, of course, was that the arguments themselves were all just repackaged from the creation science of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s with, perhaps, a few of the more ludicrous proposals quietly abandoned (ID proponents rarely argue that the Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale for the Sun is evidence of a "young Earth", for example). The fact that you confused ID with TE is exactly what this Center for Science and Culture group was hoping would happen, so this explains a bit why being a little clearer about what Coulter is specifically aligning herself with is so important. The task is not easy, so it's good to think carefully about the best wording granting that there actually may not be a "best wording" owing to this political and rhetorical mess created, again, by design.

jps (talk) 12:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

For those arguing that calling pseudoscience what it is disparages or patronizes, the WP:PSCI policy says that it must clearly be described as such. The reason why ID is pseudoscientific, while also creationism and religious apologetics, is that it attempts to pass as science. A history of it is outside the scope of this discussion, but in brief, it's an adaptation of Creation Science with the name of denomiations and deities gradually removed with more pseudoscientific arguments added that attempt to discredit important findings of science including discoveries and conclusions in geology and biology supported by overwhelming evidence. A main goal was to insert it in classrooms in the US as an alternative to standard biology curricula with the excuse that "students need to be informed and make their own decision". It's textbook pseudoscience and described as such by most reliable independent sources that discuss it. A valid policy-based argument in this case could be WP:SYNTH if the sources that talk about Coulter don't mention that it's not science but attempts to pass as such (or is pseudoscientific). Some current sources appear to be close and a minimum of synthesis may be acceptable for facts like that the sky is blue (and that ID is pseudoscientific)... Pseudoscience is not just a label but an accurate and useful description. —PaleoNeonate – 20:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Are there objections to my proposed language? Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 16:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that. XOR'easter (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Generalrelative, that really is an improvement. One of my original concerns was the article simply said ID is pseudoscience but really nothing more. I suspect that is why a number of us felt it was a dismissive label rather than actually telling the reader what we are dealing with. Your revised sentence is both more informative and impartial. It doesn't read as if we are applying a dismissive label but are afraid to explain the details. Instead it say, it hits a critical point, these people think the theory of evolution doesn't fit the evidence. They might be wrong but it's hardly the same thing as claiming the whole thing came from an Arkleseizure. It also provides some context for why she brings this up and why it's relevant to the article by putting the ID before the mention of evolution etc, vs after where it seems like it was mentioned as an after thought. Springee (talk) 03:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been following the discussion but haven't weighed in. This wording looks good to me as well. –dlthewave ☎ 04:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I do have some comments (or objections if you must).

1. I wish that edit suggestions for this one article would go in that article's Talk page, and more general FRINGE matters here, so we don't have two edit discussions in two places at once and double the size of this here thread.

2. I obtained a copy of Coulter's book and read the last three chapters, which are the part about evolution. (I think many things in this book would interest you, given your interests in articles on scientific racism and fascism -- she provides some information and references not currently in Misplaced Pages). Although she cribs anti-evolution arguments from IDers, and a few of her every-fourth-sentence snarky comments are about evolution comparing unfavorably to intelligent design in some way, it turns out that she is not arguing for ID in the book, or even that evolution must be wrong (though she vituperates it at great length). The first sentence about this in the current article, that she argues against evolution, is a better summary than the above, and having read the thing I would leave out any claim that the book argues for ID.

3. If there is to be any use of "pseudo" it should not be implied that Coulter herself is engaging in pseudoscience, i.e., non-science presented as science. She does not claim to be a scientist, to be publishing a work of science, and nearly all her sources are from popular books and articles, not scientific papers (even ones from intelligent design journals). She does not cite most of these things as works of science, but as case studies in how evolution is presented, used politically and so on. The criticisms of evolution are ammunition in the overall argument of the book (which is not about evolution) and her thesis does not stand or fall on whether Darwinian evolution is totally wrong, totally correct, or anything in between. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Problem: ID is not the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. Creationists of all stripes believe that, not only ID proponents. We don't even know if those people really believe that, we only know that they write that it is so. And I am not sure a belief can be pseudoscientific: it is just the motivation behind pseudoscience and its result.

Why do we have to reinvent the wheel for this one article? Our Intelligent design article says it is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God. We can use that, and the reader who wants to know more can look up the details in the ID article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Sesquivalent, do you think your review of the primary source aligns with this source ? If so it would suggest that RSs disagree if coulter actually supports/advocates ID. As such we shouldn't claim she believes/advocates for it in the wiki article. That of course is independent of how we describe ID in the article. If sources disagree then I would suggest just removing the single mention of ID since it's a minor part of the whole article even if all sources agreed. Springee (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I have to agree with Springee on this. For all that she is a controversial figure, Coulter is not primarily known as a proponent of ID. The entire mention strikes me as UNDUE. I would just omit the entire thing. Blueboar (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, she's written 12 books and the text about ID is relevant to one in particular. Now, if all her books should be weighted the same in her bio (not sure that's true, but let's start there), I guess I would say no one book should take up more than ~10% of the text on her literary career. I count prose about Godless: The Church of Liberalism as taking up about 20% of the discussion (of which about 1/3 is devoted to anti-evolution arguments), so, maybe you could argue it's overweighted. (It's not particularly surprising because the book was well-timed to poke the bear of New Atheists who were somewhat ascendent back in 2006 and fairly active at this website trying to fix coverage of ID. Maybe that's the holdover, I'm not sure.) But I don't think excising discussion of her attachment to this ideology and tutelage by DI mucky-mucks entirely is necessarily justified. Perhaps someone can think more carefully about how to summarize the text about the book and see if ID makes the cut that way. jps (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Exact proportionality by word count seems a not-so-illuminating standard, in my view. She's also written other things attacking evolution (I linked a few below that turned up in an easy search), so it wasn't just a tirade confined to one book. I'd say that given the length of the article, a line or two would be due weight, but I wouldn't spend more time on it than that. The suggestion by Generalrelative was on the upper edge of what I think would be worthwhile. XOR'easter (talk) 23:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

That source looks like a parody of the evolution sections of Coulter's book. It is saying, for example, that she is hypercritical on evolution but gullible toward ID. Which is true but beside the point she is arguing. The book is not in any direct way, an argument for belief in God, the existence of God, creationism, Christianity or ID. It is certainly saying that a Godless society with a secularized pseudo- or anti-Christianity (liberal Satanism as it were, though she doesn't use that idea) is prone to following bad paths, which is an indirect form of classical religious apologetics. But the book is exactly what it pretends to be: an analysis and indictment of American liberalism as secularized atheistic small-c christian theocracy. A Taliban without a God (or more precisely, with a number of secular not-supernatural but equally mysterious functional god-equivalents) Sesquivalent (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The LiveScience.com blog post is an obvious joke, saying that Coulter's book is satire because it's too absurd to be taken seriously. Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly. . XOR'easter (talk) 23:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. This is obvious satire. The author is going along with the premises that Coulter is "an intelligent and well-educated person" and that the right is characterized by "normally rational standards" and reading the book through that lens, concluding that it must be a Sokal-like hoax. It's actually a pretty brilliant piece. Generalrelative (talk) 23:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

"Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly" is not what a reading of her words shows. She is unambiguously and unabashedly an evolution critic, who uses ID tropes and (as I wrote above) makes favorable comparisons here and there of ID to evolution -- one line from the column you linked. The other link is her praising Gelertner who likewise attacks evolution but says he cannot swallow ID. It does not appear that she has undertaken to argue for ID, creationism, or God as propositions in themselves, other than announcing constantly that she happens to hold certain Christian beliefs. Just arguments against evolution, logrolling toward IDers (Behe, Dembski, Berlinski) and other antievolutionists (Gelernter), and certainly being friendly toward the idea and conclusions. But not actually arguing for them as such. To repeat from the Coulter talk page thread, her relationship to ID is a couple of step removed from being a literal IDer, and is more like "promotes the legitimacy of ID proponents". Sesquivalent (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. Generalrelative (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Since various comments above, including yours, are premised on their being some difference between anti-evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, it makes sense to actually be specific about it. If one form puts words in her mouth and the other accurately describes her position why not use the correct one? Since you take the distinction of ID, promoting ID, and promoting ID's proponents to be inconsequential, why would it matter to you which such phrase is used? We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Lol, I see. If only I'd realized that the solution was to do it right. Sarcasm aside, the reason we don't fill our encyclopedia with meaningless distinctions is that it gets in the way of parsimony and ultimately serves to obscure what could easily be stated clearly. Generalrelative (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Some of us think "not putting words in subject's mouth" is distinctly more important than "use marginally shorter description". The difference between saying that Coulter (e.g.) writes approvingly of intelligent design and the same with ID proponents is one word, 10 letters, 3 syllables, and it also allows the possibility of listing some of those people by name, which could be useful.

Most long BLP's, this one included, can be edited to be substantially shorter with no loss of encyclopedia value. Sentences about FRINGE in BLPs are probably the last place one would want to economize on words at the expense of accuracy, since that can effectively imply that someone is a kook, or more of a kook than the record warrants. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

That's the thing about a distinction without a difference: one does not sacrifice accuracy by leaving it out. And nobody here has suggested putting words in anyone's mouth. So at least we agree on that. Generalrelative (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There are at least two big differences involved. One is that we have no direct objective way, by reading her words, to conclude that she argues for an Intelligent Designer, which would seem to be the sine qua non of promoting the "fringe theory of ID" (note the word theory, i.e., the ideas, not the enterprise, movement, people, and institutions). The other is that in the absence of decisive evidence, everyone here who insists on tying her to ID is doing it by SYNTH that combines other facts about her, speculations about her degree of connection to institutional IDers, interpretation of her jokes, and general patterns about other people (creationists). Sources, including Coulter herself, are unanimous that she opposes evolution, but only some associate her arguments with ID at all. I haven't attempted an enumeration to judge whether it's a large or small proportion of sources, but given the other problems with this inference, it is probably best to either call her an evolution opponent only, or someone who attacks evolution using arguments much the same as intelligent design (but no explicit argument for a Designer, creation, or God)". Sesquivalent (talk) 08:12, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

By the way, speaking of parsimony and readability, the clunkiness of multi-word denunciations about ID being pseudoscientific, rather than just saying "intelligent design" (resp. anti-evolution), was one of the reasons this now incredibly long discussion came up in the first place. Is there any passage in FRINGE that actually requires this kind of language whenever any reference to such topic appears, e.g., "Mr X has been known to rely on astrologers"? This has been asked repeatedly above. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

My understanding was that there is rough consensus on the need to provide some kind of explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of intelligent design. My proposed language and that of others above are attempts to work out the most accurate and parsimonious way to provide that. There is apparently a longstanding consensus to describe intelligent design as pseudoscience (see Talk:Intelligent design/FAQ if you haven't already). Whether it is best to include that term in this instance is up for debate, which is precisely the point of this noticeboard and the conversation we are currently having. But I'm unaware of any definitive, policy-based rationale either for including or excluding it here. That said, I really don't see why we wouldn't. Generalrelative (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Before we discuss “the need to provide an explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of Intelligent Design”, we need to discuss whether Coulter actually IS a proponent - and whether there is a need to mention it. After all, If you don’t mention ID in the first place then there is no need to explain what it is. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

She adopts ID arguments and was tutored by ID proponents whom she defends at length while attacking those scientists who spend their time carefully laying out the empirical evidence for evolution. She unapologetically uses the term "Intelligent Designer" in arguing that there is evidence for such while also adopting the argument that such evidence (specifically, the arguments of famed IDer Behe) is being ignored by scientists: I have a hard time accepting that after all this she really isn't a proponent of ID. jps (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There's no other way to slice it: she is a proponent of ID. She said over and over again that ID arguments are good and evolution is bad. There's not even a hair to split here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

No. ID is (1) anti-evolution arguments + (2) a plausibility argument that, if evolution doesn't work, some Designer must have done it. Behe and IDers use "irreducible complexity" for both purposes, Coulter only endorses it as (together with all the other anti-evolution arguments) a disproof of evolution. The whole point of the "irreducible complex" blahblah is to suggest that something must have been designed, as it's a complex watch- or eye-like mechanism, etc. Other than ambiguous and plausibly-deniable snark and jokes here and there, Coulter sidesteps this, the defining feature of ID, entirely. What she does directly say is how great the ID people are and so forth -- approval of the proponents rather than the theory.

So one could say that Coulter "uses arguments from" intelligent design to attack evolution but it is a misrepresentation, or at best SYNTH, to say that she is a proponent of ID-as-a-theory when she fails to endorse or seriously comment on its central argument. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Whaaaat? This is an interpretation that requires mental gymnastics of which I am not capable. How can someone support the people, the arguments, and oppose the opponents but not support "the theory"? I think this is bending over backwards for no good reason except for editorial reticence. jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

No gymnastics needed. Once she is, for whatever reasons and based on whatever arguments, positioned against evolution, IDers are her allies and ID opponents her enemies, whether or not she goes as far as ID does in her public statements. She does not "support ... the arguments" in toto, at least not in print; that is precisely the point.

The gymnastics I don't understand are how to define someone who does not argue for an intelligent designer as a purveyor of ID. Again, merely making moves that are favorable to ID in the political battle-space can make one an ally of the IDers, but being a warm friend and ally of something does not necessarily mean espousing that thing. Speculative SYNTH on this is both forbidden in the article and somewhat pointless, as the evidence is ambiguous. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

FRINGE applies to theories, ideas. Accordingly we judge Coulter's position on the science/pseudoscience spectrum based on what she says rather than how she is situated in the creation/evolution political battle-space. With what she says (and in this case, does not say) about the science carrying more weight than what she says in relation to the battle-space. That her book must have made IDers happy, a battle-space outcome, does not mean her book is a work of ID, i.e., argues for an intelligent designer.

"Tutored" makes her sound like a protege, for which there is no evidence, rather than the more mundane relationship of a writer who picked up the phone to get advice from someone with a massive incentive to give it. She "unapologetically uses the term Intelligent Designer" ... as part of a joke. If there are un-ironic uses of Designer, God etc that would be more to the point. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Huh? Ann Coulter herself says she was tutored by Behe, Berlinski, and Dembski: . The substance of the joke requires that you accept that "Intelligent Designer" is the thing that must exist. Coulter's style is dripping sarcasm and snark, but the joke is not to pretend that *wink, wink* this idea is not one I endorse. Quite the opposite.

If I stretch my WP:AGF chops as far as I can here, I would say you just haven't researched this closely enough.

jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I am well aware that Coulter was in frequent contact with the IDers when writing her book --- I had specifically checked the Acknowledgements section of the book, which is where that quotation comes from, in order to confirm the presumption that this was the case. I did not remember that she used the word "tutored" for this, which explains your phrasing, but I also don't see how that contradicts or responds to my point. In saying she was tutored, Coulter did not apparently imply that she was a protege or puppet of the IDers, or anything beyond my description of how a professor would react when a famous author consults them about having their work appear in an upcoming bestseller (hint: it would involve tutoring to whatever extent needed). People are describing her as a stalking horse for them, based on all kinds of assumptions about her religious position, the meaning of her ambiguous jokes and the general sociology of the anti-evolution space. My understanding of FRINGE is that we give primacy to what people actually say and do without too much reading of other stuff into it, even if the Bayesian likelihood seems high, especially in a BLP. Her actions are simply "used ID's arguments to argue against evolution (but not for an intelligent designer)". The latter part seems to in and of itself disqualify her from being called an IDer even if, e.g., she would be totally happy to see ID replace evolution in schools. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

By the way, if we are parsing her word choices, notice that she describes the tutoring as being about evolution, not intelligent design. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:53, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sesquivalent: I note a comment you made on the talkpge: Whether she was making the stronger assertion, that these are winning arguments against evolution or a proof that an intelligent creator must exist --- or something weaker like "evolution is far from proven scientifically but is nonetheless used as a religious dogma by the Left" --- isn't clear without looking at the book again more closely. which to me indicates that you think it is possible to adhere to a position that "evolution is far from proven scientifically" independent of adherence to/advocacy of creationism in these contexts. This was an argument that Ben Stein made on his tour junket for the "documentary" he produced as was all the rage when ID was having its moment in the sun right before it all came crashing down in the Dover trial. I just want to clarify that this is actually your contention. Because, if so, I think you definitely need to do some research about this subject more broadly. Briefly, there are absolutely no critiques of evolutionary synthesis in this fashion which are not ideologically creationist and pseudoscientific. jps (talk) 14:01, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

With a good starting point evidence of common descent and its sources, —PaleoNeonate – 14:41, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

If Stein, Gelertner and Coulter all use ID arguments to dispute evolution but decline to use it to argue ID (or a Creator, God, etc) itself, that would suggest that this position is not an impossibility; that there exists a slightly different, more modest and less assailable species of argument than ID, that recurs in this arena. If you mean that there are no known atheists who make this ID-adjacent argument, that may well be true, but I could certainly imagine that the wide circulation of these polemics has convinced some people who have no particular interest in religion and a resistance to supernatural explanations, that there are gaps in the standard evolutionary account, which could presumably be filled by some means other than God (new discoveries or whatever).

In fact, there are gaps in the usual account, i.e., the narrative typically told in schools, and the God-less way to fill them in is to give a better account of the same material. The evidence of common descent page doesn't quite do this --- even the lede has cringe-worthy material touting the supposed predictive triumphs of evolution, that is susceptible to the (largely correct) argument, which Coulter gives at length, that "prediction" has been redefined so that the house always wins. This gap in explanation can be overcome, the problem is expository not scientific, but it does not serve the Cause of Science to paper over that by tossing around the word pseudoscience like candy and dismissing the critics as deluded fundie idiots.

To avoid some likely misunderstandings about this: all I'm saying here about the science is that this is one of many cases of "theory and evidence correct, exposition flawed". IDers are kept in business by this discrepancy, as they can (basically correctly) attack flaws in the exposition and then (incorrectly) claim to have demolished the theory. It doesn't help that the expositions retain misleading phrases like "the theory of" evolution that enable this confusion. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Nothing much wrong with "exposition" either. "Theory of evolution" is fine, and Stephen Jay Gould explained why in his essay Evolution as fact and theory. Science is difficult, and creationists of all stripes will always find ways to misunderstand it no matter how it presented. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This is getting off topic, but the typical exposition is wrong to use "prediction" to mean "unfalsifiable, house-always-wins prediction" (while using vocabulary like "testable" implying the ordinary falsifiable sort of prediction), and evolution is not a theory. It is a constraint on the allowed theories, just as Lorentz invariance and locality are constraints on what we consider as usable theories in fundamental physics. The "theory" in evolution is whatever the current account is of how the tree of life is connected and came to be, and the principle of evolution plays a big role in that but isn't the "theory" that is the thing supportable or refutable by evidence. We simply choose, based on thought experiments and observation, to make it basic to the narrative; it is not the theory itself. So the creationists have it backwards when they insist evolution is "just a theory". Sesquivalent (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The "typical exposition" does not do that. Creationists just claim that it does. Maybe you should have a look at the talk.origins archive and its list of hundreds of creationist arguments with refutations. Been there, done that for about thirty years now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The claim that lack of evidence is what keeps creationist apologetics in business is misleading (vs motivated reasoning, ignorance and confusion because of misleading literature, etc). Predictive power is also indeed important for scientific theories, in the case of evolution an example is evaluating where more transitional fossils would be found despite their rarity, etc. Eventually DNA was discovered and this has confirmed and corrected what was already known, at the same time opening more related fields of knowledge and investigation (then there is consilience, the evidence is supported by a number of scientific disciplines). While this noticeboard is more open to discussion than article talk pages, I think that all this argumentation is excessive... I also see arguments that we should present the material as directly interpreted by the author, when by policy we should instead present the evaluation and conclusions of independent sources. —PaleoNeonate – 21:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Thunderbirds

• Thunderbird (mythology)

Any thoughts on this edit and sourcing edits to this author Paulette Steeves? Heiro 21:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Was the edit in "Supermarionation"? -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF

I don't see anything wrong with the source or the author. This is apparently the author's area of expertise "Steeves research focuses on the Pleistocene history of the Americas". Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

That is what her Misplaced Pages article says. It also says she is the Canada Research Chair in Healing and Reconciliation, which does not sound like a branch of paleontology or paleoanthropology. And you can "focus on" things outside your expertise. That's where many fringe ideas come from. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Reading the citation on her article, it seems like the grant is in fact for research and truth as it pertains to the First Peoples of Canada and their history here on Turtle Island, the funding coming from a Canadian initiative supporting Truth, Healing and Reconciliation with indigenous Canadians. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm iffy on this. Teratorns have likely been extinct for on the order of ten millenia, cultural memory generally doesn't go back that far. Some native american groups believe they have always had horses as that's been true as far as cultural memory goes, but horses were only re-introduced to the Americas 500 years ago. It's similar to the claims that the bunyip represents the cultural memory of the giant marsupial Diprotodon, despite it being extinct for probably 40,000 years, which also gets breathlessly repeated in layman sources without much critical examination, as it's essentially an unfalsifiable claim. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:11, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

From what I see she has her own pet theories that may possibly be presented as opinions if it's notable (i.e. has been discussed enough by independent sources that put them in context). The current text is at least WP:ATTRIBUTEd, that is consistent with presenting opinions. —PaleoNeonate – 23:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Her pet theories seem pretty WP:FRINGE from the academic mainstream (such as "Indigenous people were in North America more than 130,000 years ago") and I was just wondering if we should be using it at all, especially without some kind of disclaimer. But if everyone else is sure it's ok. Heiro 00:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I removed this mention (and the duplicate one at Teratornis). The IP has visited my user talk page and isn't super happy about it. Hasn't used the article talk page(s) yet, though. - MrOllie (talk) 23:11, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Nicholas Wade, yet again

An IP has been mildly edit-warring to remove a sentence from the lead. Additional pairs of eyes are welcome. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:20, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This should probably be summarized and posted to a BIO RfC to gain a consensus, otherwise this looks like it could drag on. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 23:44, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Lead of Communism: "The USSR was not communist"

I have problems with the Communism lead because it has a section of the lead that advances the proposition that the USSR was not a communist state. The sources for this claim include Noam Chomsky, Truthout.org and a heterodox economics journal. This seems problematic given that I'm under the impression that mainstream scholarship firmly characterizes the USSR as a communist state. In other words, it's a fringe theory that the USSR was not communist. The communist state Misplaced Pages article does not have this problem: it clearly describes the USSR as a communist state. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:32, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

If we're talking about this section:

Several academics and economists, among other scholars, posit that the Soviet model under which these nominally Communist states in practice operated was not an actual communist economic model in accordance with most accepted definitions of communism as an economic theory but in fact a form of state capitalism, or non-planned administrative-command system.

It is properly attributed as the point of view of some, not all, scholars; explained with more nuance than that (you put "The USSR was not communist" in quotation marks but it is not a quotation and not what this says); and is cited to eight sources, not three. This text is also at the end of a paragraph which starts by describing the USSR as a "Communist government" in an article that extensively discusses the USSR as a communist state. I don't see any fringe problem. – Joe (talk) 21:58, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Joe here. Political ideologies are defined conventionally, and in the case of communism we have two conventional definitions that are quite at odds:

1) Communism is what Marx & Engels advocated in texts like The Manifesto of the Communist Party.

2) Communism is what the USSR and its allies were.

The lead of Communism needs to make clear that most scholars do not believe 1 and 2 to be the same thing. Generalrelative (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Sources 24–26 have nothing to do with whether the USSR was communist or not. I cannot access the recently added sources 19–20, so I cannot comment on those. Even if those two 20-40 year old sources do indeed say that the USSR was not communist, they strike me as a fringe minority. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:23, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

To add on to this, regardless, Chomsky and Richard D. Wolff are fringey for this topic. The lead also lacks any mention of the criticism that "true communism" is not possible and/or that efforts to establish it inevitably lead to Soviet-style authoritarian Communism. Crossroads 01:44, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

It's a long time since I studied political science as my major, but it's correct that if you take Marx and Engel's understanding of Communist, the USSR was never a Communist state - it might have been a '"pre-Communist state". Only if you define Communism as the form of government that the USSR had was it a Communist state. Our article Communist state has an odd lead, as it later in the lead clearly says "However, these states do not describe themselves as communist nor do they claim to have achieved communism—they refer to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing socialism." That's always been my understanding as well. Doug Weller talk 13:50, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed - the USSR etc never described themselves or their bloc as "communist", always "socialist", as in many of their official names. Communism, like Nirvana, was a goal none claimed to have reached yet. For the non-Marxist West, being ruled by a Communist Party made you a communist state willy-nilly. We need to briefly explain both senses of the term. Better sourcing than Chomsky should not be a problem. Johnbod (talk) 14:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Precisely. Very well put. Generalrelative (talk) 14:32, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with Crossroads' statement that Chomsky and Richard D. Wolff are fringey for this topic. As explained by Doug Weller, Johnbod, and Generalrelative, we should clearly delineate two views of what communist means as a description of a country -- the view of Marxists and communists themselves and the view of writers and media in the West. Marxist or communist or leftist writers are certainly not fringe as a source for the former, just as anti-communist writers are not fringe for the latter. NightHeron (talk) 16:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

At school, we were told that the USSR is a "socialist" state, and a "communist" state means a kind of welfare state, when everybody works as much as they can and get (from the state) as much as they need irrespectively of what they do.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:51, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I totally agree with what Joe Roe, Generalrelative,Johnbod, Doug Weller and NightHeron said. We should be more clear in all our relevant articles about the distinction between (1) and (2) as summarised nicely by Generalrelative. I think it would be really helpful if we did that by using a small c for the first meaning (the historical definition of communism as a workless, stateless society, as in the Marx's concept of primitive communism) and a capital C for the second meaning (stuff do with proper noun Communist Parties and the states they've ruled). Adherents of big-C Communism always called their states "socialist" not "communist" and said they were on the road to communism not that they had achieved it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:03, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Also similar with the difference between the ideal of democracy and the variants of existing, effective democracies, —PaleoNeonate – 18:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Elvira Bierbach

Elvira Bierbach does not pass WP:LUNATICS. It does not acknowledge the commandment I will put enmity between thee and Misplaced Pages. Thee meaning quackery. Even if that's legal in Germany, she is still a quack by our book. Every Heilpraktiker is a quack, every one of them. If they had something positive to offer, they would not become Heilpraktiker. I call a spade a spade. I call a quack a quack. Heilpraktiker is legalized quackery. That's tautologically true. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:29, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Just a small caveat: A school for Heilpraktiker needs to teach them the actual basics of medicine, because that is exactly what is required in the Heilpraktiker exam - they have to prove that they know when to send someone to a real doctor. Of course, that does not guarantee that they will use that knowledge. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

TLDR tirade removed. I even mentioned Peter Fisher (physician). -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 16:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

You should nominate the article for deletion. Your next best bet is to hire an assassin to destroy all quacks and lunatics, such that they will never trouble you ever again. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

You presumably well know that it's not a valid deletion rationale and this comment appears to be violating WP:AGF. —PaleoNeonate – 02:37, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Animalparty: Orac (David Gorski) stated Quacks really hate Misplaced Pages. Of course, that is not my own fault, but a result of WP:RULES such as WP:DUE, WP:PSCI, WP:FRINGE, and WP:MEDRS. We are at war with quacks, how comes that you did not know it?

I did not learn anatomy in my post-secondary education, but they learn it in order to dodge real medical care for as long as they can.

They learn some elements of medical science in order to bullshit their patients. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

And this is from a poster representing the views of quacks: Worse than 1984 Jimmy Wales Misplaced Pages Runs an industry-organized, coordinated smear engine to discredit and suppress all independent scientists, naturopaths and journalists.

It's the first result at https://www.google.com/search?q=jimmy+wales+techno-fascism&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&dpr=1 It seems that believing in mainstream science is considered techno-fascism. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Zang-fu

Zang-fu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I just came across this topic and all its subtopics (each one of the 12 Zang and Fu "organs") and it is in a terribly credulous state. My first thought is that all those "organ" articles should be merged into Zang-fu, and the whole thing would need a big POV review. VdSV9•♫ 12:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Sathya Sai Baba

• Sathya Sai Baba (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Longish list of requests on the Talk page. Have fun. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Steve Kirsch $1000 debate

If anyone's got some spare time, the subject of our article Steve Kirsch came on the talk page to offer $1000 per hour to anyone who would like to debate him on zoom about whether or not the COVID-19 vaccines are toxic. - MrOllie (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Just me, or WP:NOTHERE? Bakkster Man (talk) 13:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Yep. I've blocked them. – Joe (talk) 13:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Cheers, thanks! Bakkster Man (talk) 13:11, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Teahouse post

I noticed this WP:Teahouse#Richard_Lynn_article if anyone's interested. Doug Weller talk 15:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

"Don't mention the eugenicist is a eugenicist in the lede" is a heck of a position. Here's hoping my comment there was helpful. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Superdeterminism proven?

Some sockpuppet accounts are pushing the idea that Superdeterminism has been proven. See Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Johnbannan/Archive and recent IP editing. Affected articles include Superdeterminism, Quantum entanglement, Copenhagen interpretation, Determinism, Predestination, and Free will. Those of you who embody the proper collection of quantum states will be compelled to watchlist these articles shortly. - MrOllie (talk) 21:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)‎

Spoiled my fun, I really wished that Superdeterminism were proven. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Seems to be the same self-published book previously promoted by Special:Contributions/Groguyoda —PaleoNeonate – 13:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Sodom and Gomorrah

• Sodom and Gomorrah (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

A new article in Scientific Reports suggests that city destruction was wrought by a meteorite. This has found its way into this article as asserted fact. But is it fringe? Alexbrn (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• That Tall el-Hammam would be related to the legendary city is itself controversial. The story is also not generally viewed by scholars as historical, more as a moral lesson... —PaleoNeonate – 19:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  For those interested, a credible scientist (whose work the paper cites) made some initial notes on Twitter: . I think it's reasonable to say he is unimpressed thus far. Cheers all. Dumuzid (talk) 19:44, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 20:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Just a note for posterity/archives, when I removed the impact related info, the rationale is that this is about Tall el-Hammam, when the suggestion that it would correspond to Biblical Sodom is itself dubious. This suggested that Sodom and its story must suddenly have been actual and historical, through those far-fetched links... —PaleoNeonate – 03:00, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• This looks like a walled garden to me:
  • Biblical Archaeology Society (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Biblical Archaeology Society)
  • Steven Collins (archaeologist) (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Steven Collins (archaeologist))
  • Biblical Archaeology Review (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Biblical Archaeology Review)
  • Hershel Shanks (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hershel Shanks)
  • Bible Review (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Bible Review)

jps (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm okay with Sci Rep when it comes to paleontology related topics, where it usually publishes reliable low-impact descriptive work. However, in other topics I find that Sci Rep has low standards and tends to publish low quality work, and the fact that a spectacular claim such as this hasn't been published in a more prestigious journal indicates to me that the evidence is not high quality. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:05, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Its biggest problem is that it tries to be all things to all disciplines and thus has an editorial board that numbers in the hundreds. If we wanted, we could probably track down which editor it was who passed this dreck by looking for associates of the articles I link above, but I'm kinda tired of playing these games, TBH. jps (talk) 21:10, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think for something that amounts to personal speculation published in such a journal (which though they maintain scientific rigor tend to have have relaxed standards of what is noteworthy enough to publish), we should err on the side of caution and wait for it to be repeated in a secondary source before even considering whether it is noteworthy speculation. To quote WP:UNDUE, "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Misplaced Pages, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." Agricolae (talk) 23:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  In my field (condensed matter physics / nanophysics) Sci. Rep. is a low impact but generally reliable journal. They claim that validity of the publihed material is the only criterion (which does not seem to be the case though since they sometimes reject clearly valid articles). I do not publish there myself, but some of my colleagues do.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Apart from the creationists, the rest of the authors of the paper are associated with the Comet Research Group, an odd group with a history of pushing fringe views related to the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. Before this they published another paper about another comet wiping out another prehistoric settlement. That was also in Scientific Reports... I wonder if they have a sympathetic ear or two on the editorial board. – Joe (talk) 15:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, gee. It's an unholy alliance that reminds me of how the creationists got really excited about Velikovsky back in the 1960s and 70s. Sigh. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Coherent catastrophism comes to mind. jps (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Apologies for bearing the bad news, but it looks like this is getting more mainstream pickup then I expected or than (in my opinion) it deserves: see this article at The Daily Beast . Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• It has at least been completely torn apart on Twitter already: the dubious background of the authors; there are plenty of other explanations for "melted crap"; astronomically implausible; incompetent excavation; bad chronology; bad osteoarchaeology. Hopefully a published rebuttal will follow before too long... maybe even a retraction, if we're lucky. – Joe (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• This has been nominated for ITN: Misplaced Pages:In_the_news/Candidates#Tall_el-Hammam_and_Jericho_destruction_by_an_impact_event. – Joe (talk) 12:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Rejected. See these also about earlier claims and Allen West. and this about earlier claims. Doug Weller talk 15:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
• And the published rebuttals start, ironically, with other biblical literalists: . – Joe (talk) 09:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Shanks and BAR

The deletion bombardment directed at Shanks and his works displays a lack of familiarity with him and them. BAR was (and I imagine is) a perfectly straightforward piece of popularization which at times attacked popular fringe ideas: in one notorious case, a Franklin-Mint-ish statuette of a very white Nefertiti set off a letter battle which culminated in an article discussing the matter pretty much along the same lines as this Wash. Post article on the matter. I agree that we don't need every one of these articles, but assuming that they are fringe is a major failure of WP:BEFORE. Mangoe (talk) 04:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I mean, the problem is the way they were being pushed at this website. Maybe there is a way to frame them such that we indicate that in the past the society, its publications, etc. functioned as a popularization rather than a fringe promotion, but the way these articles are sourced doesn't indicate to me much more than that they push certain fringe theories about biblical archaeology. If there are good sources (other than the NYTimes obit), I was unable to find them. The WaPo article is interesting, but it doesn't quite strike me as a justification for an article. But maybe there are third party sources out there which can provide proper contextualization. WP:FRIND is the name of the game I think. Anyway, if we do decide to merge into one or two articles with good sourcing, that would be a wonderful outcome of the AfD storm, IMHO. jps (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

BAS is an important outlet for popularizing archaeology. It has some religious conservative bias, though, despite the religious beliefs of its owner. It is not 100% fringe, it does feature many mainstream archaeologists and mainstream Bible scholars. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. What sources do we have that say this sort of thing which would be much more useful to describe in our article than what we currently (don't) tell readers. jps (talk) 18:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

If we only go by https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/free-hebrew-bible-course-with-shaye-cohen/ it is not fringe. Cohen is a conservative believing Jew, but that has more to do with his private life than with what he teaches at Harvard (he teaches mainstream Bible scholarship). tgeorgescu (talk) 18:07, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay. But is that discussed elsewhere? jps (talk) 21:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Break (Sodom and Gomorrah)

• I'm wondering what the response would be like if the paper had not mentioned Sodom. I'm sure it wouldn't have been so hysterical, and poorly-qualified "experts" like Mark Boslough (cited here multiple times) would not have been able to use mockery in lieu of arguments. Or Michael Press, whose expertise is irrelevant to the subject. If there had been a city in the path of the Tunguska event, it would have been destroyed, so there is nothing intrinsically implausible about a comet zapping a city. The question is how well the evidence stacks up scientifically, nothing else. Some of the lead author's previous related papers were in prestigious journals like PNAS and The Journal of Geology, and they led to useful reactions. That's what is needed here, not blah-blah on twitter. Finally, Shanks is not an author; why does he keep getting brought up here? Zero 10:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If there had been a city in the path of the Tunguska event, it would have been destroyed, so there is nothing intrinsically implausible about a comet zapping a city. Except that the rarity of such events points to the likelihood of hitting the bullseye something of an ECREE situation. I find your attempt to pooh-pooh skeptics a bit remarkable (Mark Boslough is not "poorly-qualified"). Mockery is about what should be expected here because the evidence for a meteor strike is pretty poor and there is a long history of claiming meteor strikes where the evidence is scant. jps (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Finally, Shanks is not an author; why does he keep getting brought up here? Because he founded BAS which the co-director and lead author of the Sci Rep paper seem to have been able to manipulate into supporting these rather fantastical positions. It is unclear whether this group still wields influence at BAS or not, but they might. Sourcing is horrible for those related articles and it looks to me, at least, like there may be a concerted effort on Misplaced Pages to provide more coverage than reliable sources do for the associated group of (amateurish) Biblical archaeologists and catastrophists. Shanks seems to have been on the up-and-up for the most part with his popularizations of Biblical archaeology, but the group pushing this new claim (and others from the last few years) seems firmly WP:FRINGE as far as I can tell. Sourcing for articles other than Shanks is atrocious and connecting the dots is nigh on impossible for me, at least. jps (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The Tunguska event "flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest", so no bullseye was required and none is proposed in the article anyway. I am very doubtful of the claim, but refutation does not consist of first impressions by tweeters who seem to mostly be qualified in the wrong subjects. I will withhold my judgement until more worthy responses are available; you can choose differently. Zero 13:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The Earth is far bigger than two thousand square kilometers. That's the proper comparison (not to the area of the city). The tweeters are absolutely qualified in the right subjects. That's because they have experience debunking the comet research group (Boslough) and debunking the claims of charlatans in archaeology (Press). Your vain attempts to argue that their expertise isn't well-positioned looks to me like you haven't seen how a lot of this fringe stuff typically plays out. jps (talk) 13:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

By this reasoning, nobody wins the lottery because one person is far far smaller than the human population. Zero 13:34, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but no. In order for this analogy to hold the entire surface of the earth would have to be covered by cities (or I suppose much of it, since sometimes no one wins a given lottery). If we're contemplating the odds of an ancient city being destroyed by a meteorite impact we'd be talking about vanishingly slim odds, as jps has pointed out. Generalrelative (talk) 15:42, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Probability theory of exceptional occurrences is one of my professional specialties. You show the problem with your argument by writing specific meteor, when that is not part of the claim. It could have been any old meteor. How many meteors strike the earth over a couple of thousand years; I don't know but you have to allow for all of them and not just one. If it could have been any old city as well, your argument would be in even more trouble. I think it is very suspicious that the city just happens to be the one that some people identify as Sodom and for that reason it may not be any-city any-meteor but rather this-city any-meteor that we have to consider. The difference is huge but needs some mind-reading to assess. Zero 16:15, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Ha! You took out the word "specific" during an edit-conflict, good for you. Zero 16:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I took the word "specific" out because I saw that it might be a source of quibbling, but either way the point stands. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on your professional competence here, but your By this reasoning, nobody wins the lottery argument is transparently specious. I imagine I was the only one to respond because others just threw up their hands. But in any case, I'm not interested in pursuing this line of debate further. If you don't see why it was specious at this point I'm probably not going to be able to convince you. Generalrelative (talk) 16:39, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm wondering what the response would be like if the paper had not mentioned Sodom. Imagine what the response had been if it had been a completely different paper!

  Such counterfactuals are not helpful. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

But it does mention Sodom, most of the ridicule directly derived from the fact that it mentioned Sodom, and most of the embarrassing press nonsense we are going to be subject to in the near future will only exist because it mentions Sodom. As proof that I am on target, note that the previous similar claim about Abu Hureyra that makes no suggestion at all of a biblical connection received little or none of this type of reaction. Zero 04:46, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. Write stupid stuff and people say you wrote stupid stuff. Do not write stupid stuff and people do not say you wrote stupid stuff. What's your point? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Zero0000: the previous similar claim about Abu Hureyra that makes no suggestion at all of a biblical connection received little or none of this type of reaction Depends where you mean, really. Reactions in the media, twitter, etc., no, because unfortunately the Neolithic doesn't have the widespread same appeal as "bible times". But amongst people who actually study Neolithic Southwest Asia, I can assure you that it's been alternately a source of despair and the butt of jokes for years. – Joe (talk) 09:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: On the balance of probabilities, the jokes were justified. And yet (sorry, can't resist) the idea that the dinosaurs were zapped by a meteor was also the butt of jokes for quite a few years until it gradually became a mainstream theory. My only real point here is that science progresses by scientific study and scientific debate. It doesn't progress by sideshows like mockery on twitter or fatuous arguments like "it cited a creationist so it must be entirely wrong". Zero 11:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

That's the Galileo gambit you are using here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:50, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

And it is also a fallacy that matching something to a named type makes it incorrect. Zero 15:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

If it bothers you that fallacies have names, I can instead refute your reasoning by saying: You cannot find the correct answer to a question such as "does this creationist paper have a valid point?" by looking at very superficially similar questions like "did an asteroid (not a meteor, BTW) kill the dinosaurs?" (the main similarity being that they once were answered "no" by the establishment too), then transplanting the answer "yes" from that question to the first one. That is a pathetic technique only used by completely helpless people who have no idea how else to approach scientific problems.

Same answer as before, just more detailed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Don't worry, the science is happening. But for our purposes—judging what should be included in an encyclopaedia written from a neutral point of view—I think the fact that the paper cites (and is written by) creationists, and that experts in the field have severely criticised it on Twitter, are both very useful pieces of information. – Joe (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not putting it in any articles and I haven't argued for that. The fact is that I have very low confidence in this paper and I came to that conclusion after reading it on the day it came out. I'll be delighted to see either a serious refutation or serious independent support, but I've seen neither. I just don't like seeing fallacious arguments being put forward as proof. For anything. Incidentally, has your claim "written by creationists" been established here? I tried to establish this about the lead author Ted Bunch who has come at this via the Younger Dryas stuff (108 citations) but I didn't succeed. It is easy to prove that none of the authors of this paper (assuming they believe what is written in it) are "young-earth creationists" since it states as a fact that something happened 12,800 years ago, which young-earth creationists believe is older than the age of the earth. Anyone who believes in the Younger Dryas stuff, and many of these authors even published papers supporting it, is definitely not a young-earth creationist. That leaves "old-earth creationist" which mostly refers to not believing in stuff like evolution. It isn't a correct name for people who "just" believe that the bible is a history book. But I can't prove that Ted Bunch is one of them either, can you? Zero 15:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not talking about Ted Bunch... the last author, Silvia is a student of Steven Collins (archaeologist) and works for Veritas International University. I don't know or care what exact subspecies of inerrancy the Tall el-Hammam Project subscribes to. Misplaced Pages isn't the place to look for "serious refutation", but if you care to look at the tweet threads I've linked above, there are plenty of subject-matter experts pointing out substantial flaws in the evidence and reasoning. But if you also don't believe their claims, and don't think we should put in an article, what exactly is your problem with us talking about the background of the authors? We do that all the time when assessing the reliability of a source. – Joe (talk) 08:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Multiple chemical sensitivity etc

• Multiple chemical sensitivity (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
• Toxicant-induced loss of tolerance‎ (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
• Environmental sensitivity (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

A WP:SPA, Silliestchris is making multiple edits across these pages, apparently in an attempt to de-stubify stubs and create more articles in this messy, fringe, topic space. A new article, Environmental sensitivity (illness) is proposed by them. More eyes/input would be helpful. Alexbrn (talk) 07:32, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I too, would appreciate more input, I invite randoms to review my input on talk pages in particular. The multiple chemical sensitivity page in particular gets frequent reversions to anyone trying to add information that does not conform to the Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance hypothesis. This disease is highly controversial and poorly understood, I am mainly trying to constructively add properly cited information. Thank you for your very helpful discussions today, Alexbrn.Silliestchris (talk) 07:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Update: blocked by Bbb23 for now, —PaleoNeonate – 21:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Didn't know that. Stff still happening at MCS page though. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 21:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

RFP request pending, —PaleoNeonate – 22:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree with User:Silliestchris: Well-documented sections will be removed for no reason as they do not reflect the opinion of individual authors. It would be nicer if they incorporate their counter-arguments into the article and provided them with suitable sources. -- Brackenheim (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Do you not think it a problem that the version of the article being reverted in the edit you linked, failed to mention that MCS can be triggered in people irrespective of whether or not "chemicals" are present? Alexbrn (talk) 01:49, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I have never claimed that my version / editing is the only correct one or that it is complete. The disease is a complex area that has several sides or is very multifaceted. I myself have only dealt with one side so far. Since many, it seems, are more familiar with the other side, I still ask that this aspect be supplemented and, above all, supported by studies. But in this context they don’t seem to use any scientific standards here on Misplaced Pages. For example, this edit was undone – it were peer-reviewed journals with an impact factor of 4.4 - 5.4! -- Brackenheim (talk) 08:39, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Just now found this. I am an interested party on MCS. I am the author of a heretical hypothesis about how MCS works which is irrelevant to Misplaced Pages. I have stated on the talk page that the article as written is not Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view because it is designed to leave a reader with the impression that MCS is always psychological. That was the PR message of the chemical industry litigation defense effort 25 years ago, and the choice has been made not to balance it against reports of the experience of people with MCS, such as Claudia Miller et al's TILT work and Ann Steinemann's work. I have in the broader MCS community for over 5 years defended the presence of this one sided presentation of MCS in the Misplaced Pages article as "the Misplaced Pages editors are doing what they're supposed to do" "peer reviewed science literature is the definition of fact for Misplaced Pages and it is not allowed to put opinion on a page" and "we just have to focus on getting peer reviewed science literature before anything will change".

As best I can tell, as a neophyte editor, the only reason for this lack of balance is that MCS as a whole is viewed as fringe, which is a very good reason for Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view to not apply. How can I find out if there is a consensus to this effect?

Lastly, it is my opinion based on the facts I have that Silliestchris was not acting as WP:SPA before he was banned, but rather as an interested party trying to correct what he knew to be errors of fact in the page, without a real understanding of how encyclopedia editing works.

Fstevenchalmers (talk) 04:48, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It is then possible that you have a conflict of interest (WP:COI) in relation to the article (if so, per policy that should be made clear). Fringe topics are subject to WP policy including WP:FRINGE, WP:FRIND, WP:PSCI and in this case since it also touches medical topics, the WP:MEDRS guideline for reliable sources about biomedical claims. As far as I know, the scientific consensus is that when it is not misdiagnosed (usually self-diagnosed and a proper diagnosis would show an actual pollutant or poisoning if relevant), it is considered a type of anxiety about potential pollutants in the environment. That studies have demonstrated that sufferers could display stress symptoms in the absence of actual chemical stimuli, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 06:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging, Paleoneonate. I have reviewed the COI criteria and believe that I am an interested party, not COI, so long as I do nothing to advocate my heretical hypothesis here, which would be utterly inappropriate. To elaborate, I am a retired computer designer, with no path to profit personally or professionally in this context. I am much more the parents in "Lorenzo's Oil" style, noting that my kids grew up and Lorenzo didn't, and they found a cure and I didn't.

Thank you for the policy pointers. It was utterly foreign to me that secondary sources would be preferred over primary. This is starting to help me understand how sourcing on a medical topic is different. This means the survey paper out of Italy a few years ago is very important, but the more recent primary sources will not be given weight. Interesting.

I have a much wider range of information, but with less academic rigor, than you do and believe (1) there is no consensus (2) special interests continue to drive an illusion of consensus for their own purposes (3) the actual definition of MCS best used is probably the 1999 consensus as published (4) there is no operational definition of MCS in mainstream medicine and doctors are strongly discouraged from diagnosing it except as mental illness

That means MCS is a disability which the medical profession has been strongly discouraged from accepting, understanding, researching, or trying to treat. I cannot figure out how to apply the policies correctly in these circumstances.

Are you willing to spend a few more minutes reading a few paragraphs of non-rigorous background (which will help you understand why people with MCS are so apoplectic about the article as it's stood for over a decade) and help me think through what are appropriate and inappropriate ways to approach evolving the article? Thank you, just for reading this, even if not.

Fstevenchalmers (talk) 09:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It is not Misplaced Pages's job to placate "apoplectic" advocates, but neutrally to reflect accepted knowledge as (generally) published in reliable, independent, third party-sources. So far as I can see, these say that over the years there have been been multiple proposed causes for MCS, with the evidence strongly pointing to it being unrelated to any direct "chemical" effect. The problem we seem to have is editors with an avowed agenda, and an apparent wish to stigmatize mental health problems as somehow "not real", who want to skew the article so it falsely appears that everybody agrees that "chemicals" directly cause MCS. This is over-layered with conspiracy theories about how the Truth™ is being suppressed by shadowy organizations and by a cabal of Misplaced Pages editors. Meanwhile, sourcing has always been thin and even the small bubble of interest around the turn of the century seems to have deflated. There is a decent overview from Science-Based Medicine which is at least from this century. Alexbrn (talk) 09:19, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I see you're a skeptic, Alexbrn

Sounds like you've been burned by advocates in the past

I think reference in the article, the 2017 Rossi and Pitidis survey paper on MCS, is a far more credible and objective source of information than an anti alternative medicine site.

The job of Misplaced Pages editors is to see to it that articles are fact based, well sourced, neutral, etc. I want nothing else. There is no cabal of Misplaced Pages editors. There are no shadowy organizations. Everything is "just business".

The agenda of Ron Gots, the primary author of source #4, at the time source #4 was written, was heading the Washington DC organization ESRI, which was funded by the chemical industry to advance its litigation defense effort by creating consensus that MCS is always psychological, so that the chemical industry could go to court with expert witnesses who said MCS was psychological, and that expert witnesses who said it was real were excluded under the rules of evidence as "fringe". That source would not be considered credible by a truly neutral and knowledgeable editor.

The emotional appeal in your post above reflects exactly the PR message Ron Gots placed in media, in policymakers' ears, in grant funders' ears, and yes, in the science literature of that era. He was successful. I do not understand why a neutral Misplaced Pages editor would support a special interest position like that with such vehemence.

MCS is not hard. Claudia Miller explains it as TILT more clearly than she explained it in "Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes" so many years ago. In my words not hers, person gets poisoned, person wakes up unable to fully function (or function at all) in the presence of multiple everyday substances seemingly unrelated to the original poisoning. Person goes to medical profession for help, but is met with a blank wall because the medical profession has been told that this can't occur so they shouldn't try to help. Person ends up partially or fully disabled, but the social safety net is denied. The thing which poisoned the person can originate in nature or be manmade, but if it's manmade the people who made it have complete immunity from product liability suits. Which was the point of Gots' work. It was "just business" in the rough and tumble world of Washington DC advocacy.

I have to live with the science literature distorted by selective funding and PR framing the problem and therefore framing the research in a non fact based way from that era. Misplaced Pages editors' role is to treat quality peer reviewed science literature as the gold standard, and facts not present in that literature as nonexistent (premature to include in an encyclopedia). So the gold standard literature from that era will continue to dictate what Misplaced Pages writes. I get that. I have to live with it.

Happy to discuss this in a setting where we will not disturb others. I post under my real name and have nothing to hide.

Fstevenchalmers (talk) 11:59, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is always under threat of being "burned by advocates", on this and countless other topics. The fact that people with MCS have been preyed upon by altmed charlatans is an important part of the topic, no? Unsourced conspiracism about somebody called "Ron Gots" (crazy name? crazy guy?) looks like part of the advocacy problem. Alexbrn (talk) 12:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Gots is the primary author of source #4 in the published article, cited in the introduction, Alexbrn. There is a contemporary source for the what I describe in a 2001 article, but it's not in a journal of any respect at all.

Environmental medicine can actually help maybe half the people who get MCS. But yes, it's expensive. I don't patronize them. Discussing them is irrelevant to the task at hand, which is editing a neutral voice Misplaced Pages article on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

There is no conspiracy here, it's just business.

Fstevenchalmers (talk) 13:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about what neutrality means on Misplaced Pages. It does not mean that the article should take no stand on factual questions at all (that is, it does not mean a balance between opposing views), it means that the tone of the article should match the preponderance of sources. In this case, since most reliable sources take the position that MCS has a psychological basis, so too will the Misplaced Pages article. - MrOllie (talk) 13:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for coaching, and yes I am a neophyte. But in this case I have studied the policy in depth. It is and remains my judgment that the balance of the article leaves a reader new to the topic with the perception that MCS is always psychological, which is appropriate to the balance of the literature 10 years ago but not to the balance of the literature over the last 5 years. The best example I have is source in the article as published today, where the conclusion of a very thorough lit review is written leaving both physical and psychological (or both) in a balance inconsistent with that of the Misplaced Pages MCS article as written today. Open to coaching. Fstevenchalmers (talk) 01:14, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Please share the direct link to the recent, high quality, secondary source you feel isn't being taken into account. Without one there's nothing to really change in the article. I'd also suggest you read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Your quarrel seems to be with the medical establishment. Change their views, and those of Misplaced Pages will follow, not vice versa. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@MrOllie and @Bakkster Man, if our article appears to say that MCS is psychological in nature, then I suggest that the source not being used adequately is the medical school textbook (ISBN 978-0-07-180816-3) that is already cited more than any other source in the article. Perhaps what we need is to remove outdated sources that contradict the current mainstream viewpoint. We can generally rely upon medical school textbooks to represent the current mainstream medical viewpoint, and that one in particular made Doody's list as a "Core Title", which means it is one of the best medical textbooks.

If you're interested in the question of etiology, it would be useful to have a solid history in the article of all the purported causes. There was a new claim of its cause about every 15 years (just like there have been multiple claims about what causes influenza over time – you may be aware that its name is a reference to an early belief that influenza was caused by astrology). Perhaps if people can see that the cause has blamed on whatever is trendy in science (allergies when allergies were a new concept, immune system dysfunction when AIDS was in the news, etc.), then they might have an easier time grasping that we actually don't know what causes this, that we're just testing ideas to see if any of them work, and that our incomplete information doesn't mean that it's not "real" – just like influenza, when we were completely wrong, multiple times, about its cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The recent Quebec report mentioned hereabout has a run down of all the hypotheses over time, so should be useful for this. Alexbrn (talk) 15:47, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fstevenchalmers: I have reviewed the COI criteria and believe that I am an interested party, not COI, so long as I do nothing to advocate my heretical hypothesis here, which would be utterly inappropriate. I'd recommend you reread WP:COI, most notably: Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest. That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgement about that person's opinions, integrity, or good faith... Editors with a COI are sometimes unaware of whether or how much it has influenced their editing. Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial (including holding a cryptocurrency)—can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Misplaced Pages is governed by common sense. In other words, it's not wrong or bad or a judgment on you if you have a potential COI. Only that it's worth recognizing (and disclosing) if one exists. And, whether or not your outside writings rise to the level of COI, it's worth asking yourself whether you can set aside that personal belief in order to build a neutral encyclopedia. Especially if it means working to the contrary of your personal beliefs. While it doesn't appear you're exhibiting any off the behaviors of WP:NOTHERE, that's the broad concern others have in these kinds of situations (which, as I'm sure you'll believe, we've seen repeated many times before). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Side note: There has been a big shift in mainstream medical views of Multiple chemical sensitivity during the last five years or so. If your mental model is still stuck in "In the previous century, Ronald Gots said it wasn't real", then I encourage to you find some recent sources, such as medical textbooks. There is some reason now to believe that MCS is primarily a neurological condition (not psychological – think "physical brain damage") that manifests in autonomic dysregulation. It's still not necessarily caused by any of the previously alleged causes, but the science has moved on from "it's not real". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:30, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

If I have understood it correctly, the problem is that I used Huber’s book too often as a source for the pathomechanism (draft: User:Brackenheim/MCS). If I now find other primary sources or studies for his statements and insert them as sources, it should fit. I’m right? -- Brackenheim (talk) 18:58, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The article must be based on secondary sources. It's in a mess overall, but should really be updated with sources preferably from the last 5 years for anything bio/medical, such as pmid:29111991. Alexbrn (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Brackenheim, Huber's book is too old (2008 = 13 years old) and from a somewhat disreputable publisher. I think you should consider using other sources. A review article from a reputable journal could be a good source. Alex has linked one here from a reputable journal. One approach that can be helpful as a starting point is finding a good source and seeing how much of what you've already written could be cited to that better source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I know that the book is unfortunately quite old, but the fundamentals of the pathomechanism are the same today. My plan was first to bring the basics of the disease up to the state of 2008 and then gradually supplement it with newer findings. However, I can understand the point of criticism well and will try to find newer evidence and gradually remove Huber’s book as a source. Of course, everyone is welcome to help me with this. Since MCS is not the focus of research, this might not be that easy - but it is certainly feasible. -- Brackenheim (talk) 05:58, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the Huber source is usable at all. But (as mentioned on the MCS Talk) page, we're in luck! A June 2021 comprehensive review has been published by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. This should be a good basis for reforming the article. (I haven't read it yet, and will need to brush off my French). Alexbrn (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Alex, I started reading in French, then realised that there is an English version too!! -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 07:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Its key point: all is consistent with symptoms resulting from chronic anxiety and the conclusion invalidates the hypothesis that the toxicity of chemicals at their normal levels is the cause. Yet it remains a serious health issue considering the debilitating symptoms and supportive treatment/medical support is recommended. —PaleoNeonate – 08:31, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I read the same short source (in English), and I didn't see anything that says the symptoms results from chronic anxiety. Consider this bullet point:

• Over the long term, the nearly unavoidable recurrence of these acute stress episodes in these individuals leads them to develop neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and, inevitably, chronic anxiety.

Does that sound to you like "MCS is caused by chronic anxiety"? It sounds to me like this sentence says "repeated acute stress episodes causes chronic anxiety".

(For clarity: I read the bullet points on the initial webpage, not the four-page PDF, which I'll get back to later.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Wolfgang Huber‎

• Wolfgang Huber (1940)‎ (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Related to the above, I notice there have been repeated attempts to cite this gentleman's (likely non-WP:MEDRS) work in the MCS article, and the above article was created last month, with a high proportion of unsourced biographical detail. Is Huber notable? Alexbrn (talk) 03:40, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, see WP:BIO. -- Brackenheim (talk) 14:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Which makes me think no. A minor academic failing WP:PROF surely? And (as creator of the article) could you say how the unsourced material got there? (Like, when he finished his studies?) Is there a WP:COI here? Alexbrn (talk) 15:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

• "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times; or" (WP:BIO):  Yes
• "The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level." (WP:PROF):  Yes
• "The person has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association or a fellow of a major scholarly society which reserves fellow status as a highly selective honor " (WP:PROF):  Yes
• "The person has held a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research, or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon." (WP:PROF):  Yes -- Brackenheim (talk) 21:38, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

If you don't think so, feel free to start a deletion discussion. -- Brackenheim (talk) 21:38, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

No evidence any of these are so. And you didn't answer about WP:COI. Alexbrn (talk) 00:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, that’s very simple: Huber does not belong to family, friends, customers (nor am I his), is not my employer, and there are no financial or other relationships. I didn’t even study in Heidelberg.
How did I find him? I was looking for special immunological tests (BDT and LTT). I found some Information about him during a presentation in a special immunological laboratory in Berlin. I’ve listened to a few of his lectures and found his work very interesting. Since he didn’t have a Misplaced Pages article yet, I contacted him and asked for information about him/his life. Since he is a bit older, he sent me a nice letter with the requested documents. So he got the article and I got the info.
I also found out about the MCS through the laboratory. I think the disease really exciting because it is very extensive and multifaceted. So I once decided to expand the associated articles over the next few years. For this I received his book from Mr. Huber, payed by WMDE, which summarizes the previous studies. I supplemented this with further studies. There are of course many more, but it takes time to work your way through.
And what about you? You seem to have a downright personal interest in the fact that none of these studies appear in Misplaced Pages. Are you really sure you are not biased? -- Brackenheim (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Right, so this was your fan page for him based largely on private correspondence added without heed for WP:V, a core policy. Since you ask, I do have a bias against inclusion of unreliable and unverified material in Misplaced Pages. It still seems Huber is not notable, and your assertion that (e.g.) he holds a "named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment" is still unevidenced. Alexbrn (talk) 15:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Fan page? For real? Sure, and everyone who wrote about Adolf Hitler is sure to be a Nazi. Otherwise one would certainly not write about him ...
What kind of sources would you like then? You do not accept studies or other primary sources, newspapers, databases and books. Then what kind of sources should I search for? -- Brackenheim (talk) 16:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It's all gone a bit Godwin. Sources should be reliable and content should meet WP:V at a minimum. We can't just have WP:BLPs with completely unsourced content, nor can we base notability on apparently false assertions about holding a "named chair or distinguished professor appointment". What is going on here? Alexbrn (talk) 16:10, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn, you blanked a fairly large part of that article, and I think that the line in WP:CHALLENGE might have some relevant advice:

"Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and the material therefore may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."

1. It may be that the article contains so few citations it is impractical to add specific citation needed tags. Consider then tagging a section with {{unreferenced section}}, or the article with the applicable of either {{unreferenced}} or {{more citations needed}}. For a disputed category or on a disambiguation page, consider asking for a citation on the talk page.
2. When tagging or removing such material, please keep in mind such edits can easily be misunderstood. Some editors object to others' making chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Do not concentrate only on material of a particular point of view, as that may appear to be a contravention of Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view. Also check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere on the page. For all these reasons, it is advisable to communicate clearly that you have a considered reason to believe the material in question cannot be verified.

It seems to me that it would be easy for an editor to misunderstand your blanking as indicating "chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions" that are "unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material" while you "concentrate only on material of a particular point of view".

Also, do you actually have any rational "concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source" for all of what you blanked? Most of what you removed was basic education and work history, such as where he went to medical school. That's not usually at high risk for being unverifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Given that I'm drawing a blank looking for sources on Huber, it looks like verifiability could be a problem. I notice BTW, this appears to be a translation of the article on German Misplaced Pages (also lacking sources). Alexbrn (talk) 18:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Did you try looking at the website in ==External links==? It is absolutely standard for such basic information to be taken from self-published, non-independent sources, especially for articles about academics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I glanced at it but did not consider an archived copy of what looked like personal pages to be great. I see now it links off to an archived cv - but using such sources for a fairly large part of the article could be problematic. Alexbrn (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I might think that relying on self-published, non-independent sources for such content is problematic, but I assure you that repeated discussions about WP:NPROF have convinced me that other editors believe entire BLP articles can and should be sourced exclusively to such material. I therefore cannot say that there is any consensus for claiming that such a source is unreliable for such uncontentious material. You might self-revert (if you haven't already) and spam in a few {{citation needed}} tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, for this kind of stuff there comes a point where WP:BLPSELFPUB#5 would come into play, which is hard policy. Alexbrn (talk) 16:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: No problem, I’ll find the necessary sources and add them. My question about the sources you didn’t accept (primary sources, newspapers, databases and books) also referred to the section above on MCS. You had undone my edit as „fringe“, even though I had provided the section with a source. A review in the AFP should actually be citable ... -- Brackenheim (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It's a very old source (1998) but the biggest problem was that it was misrepresented to imply this was a list of chemical causing MCS, when the source itself made clear it was more the belief of exposure to such chemicals which was to blame. Copying large parts of unsuitable-licensed sources into Misplaced Pages is also not a good idea. Alexbrn (talk) 18:57, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, you are right. I missed that. However, it would have helped me more if you had corrected that in the text directly.
Of course it is clear to me that you can’t just copy and paste large sections of text into Misplaced Pages. According to German law, however, such a simple list does not have a height of creation ("Schöpfungshöhe") and I tacitly assumed that this is the same on en.wiki. -- Brackenheim (talk) 06:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Tall el-Hammam and Steven Collins (archaeologist)

Article uses the Creationist archaeologist Collins as a main source, describing him as a professor at two universities (although further down it mentions that one of them is Creationist). It also mentions the claims discussed above of a Tonguska event. I'm generally unhappy with using sources so recent that haven't yet been discussed in the professional literature. Doug Weller talk 11:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

See #Sodom and Gomorrah. jps (talk) 13:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@ජපස: that's what I meant as "the claims discussed above". Doug Weller talk 13:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Gotcha. Sorry if I came across as well-actuallying. jps (talk) 14:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

No problem. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

As someone who watched a LOT of Discovery Channel in the 90's, I can assure you both that this is totally, completely, and 100% legit. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Dumuzid: Collins is a Creationist and a literalist. He's constrained in his analyses by his religious beliefs, thus he is not a reliable source. We need clearly reliable secondary sources. Doug Weller talk 15:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I thought my Discovery Channel reference would make my intent clear, but alas I forget that such views actually exist. Suffice it to say my tongue was firmly planted in my cheek for that comment. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Dumuzid: thanks, that's a real relief. I was wondering what had happened to you! Doug Weller talk 15:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Steven Collins (archaeologist). XOR'easter (talk) 17:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Changed the wikilink in the heading. Different Steven Collins. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:12, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Australia - New Zealand Skepticon

20-21 November. Few details yet. Doug Weller talk 14:55, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Who will be most popular this year? fiveby(zero) 15:59, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Chiropractic

• Chiropractic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Someone wants to happily promote bogus treatments in a Misplaced Pages article by removing the risks of death and stroke from it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Which edit is the concern? I am not seeing any recent edits that reflect your statement? Slywriter (talk) 03:54, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Seems to be some WP:PROFRINGE manoeuvring on the article's Talk page. Alexbrn (talk) 03:59, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Michael Yeadon

• Michael Yeadon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Low-intensity but persistent whitewashing of Yeadon's involvement in spreading COVID misinformation and conspiracy theories. Additional eyeballs on the article would be appreciated. Thanks. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University is about to be stricken by a new wave of fideism. What do you think about ? tgeorgescu (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

So this "retrenchment" is being called for by Jeffrey Holland and others, and Holland is a Mormon big shot? Seems like a fine addition to me. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:37, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Why did you add "a new wave of fideism is preparing to wreak havoc at the university"? Was that a quote from somewhere? I think the way you had it before that was better without that additional bit. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not verbatim inside the text, but, yes, that's what the text says BYU professors expect to be happening soon. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay. For what it's worth, I think without quotation marks, it might look like Misplaced Pages's voice is saying "preparing to wreak havoc", which isn't quite right, don't you think? I'll watch the page and defend the original addition, though. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:47, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The article describes that havoc has been produced two times before by similar fideism waves, but it was short-lived. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The edit in question is more about a characteristic type of bad writing in WP than it is about the subject matter. I'm hard-nosed about WP:NOTNEWS and therefore tend to oppose writing about ongoing events until the dust has had a chance to settle, but at any rate, in a section that's supposed to be a summary of the issue over time, news-reporting a SLT article isn't appropriate. It lacks context and strictly speaking, we would be looking for a third party reporting on the article's publication. In the context of the statement, the article is a primary source. There's also an element of WP:CRYSTAL going on when this new fideism hasn't happened yet.

The section as a whole could probably do with some rewriting, but just plunking this statement in is not a good approach. Mangoe (talk) 01:06, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

My impression is that if it's kept some details should be restored like evolution, race, LGBT; as someone who isn't very familiar with Mormon culture I otherwise find the paragraph unclear. On the other hand, considering that the source is itself a Mormon-focused publication, I agree that it appears to be a primary source. It potentially could still be used, but more independent sources would indeed be ideal. —PaleoNeonate – 01:31, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

As Bible scholars say, the criterion of embarrassment points that the source is particularly reliable (since it reports against its vested interests). tgeorgescu (talk) 08:38, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that while Deseret News is under editorial control of the LDS church, Salt Lake Tribune, though owned by big-names in Mormonism, has (relative) editorial independence. jps (talk) 14:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

FLCCC - another one for your watchlist

• Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance‎ (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Another article about COVID quacks, now approaching 1000/views day as the World continues to go crazy, and also attracting drive-by disruption. Like other similar articles probably needs some form of protection. Alexbrn (talk) 12:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Thanks for notifying. I've taken care of the latest batch, and asked at RfPP. Feel free to report again if there's further silliness. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:09, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Yosef Ben-Jochannan

Eyes needed for event edits. Doug Weller talk 17:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Misplaced Pages dispute resolution