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:::{{tq|According to a 2021 RfC discussion, there is unanimous consensus among editors that Rolling Stone is generally unreliable for politically and societally sensitive issues reported since 2011}} at [[WP:RSP]], so that should be removed anyway. I would first look at a broad selection of recent sources to make sure it's due for the lead. Then I would select a group of them and summarize, likely with something like "He has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19." That's an example, as I haven't done any of that leg work, and I'm not familiar with yet another YouTuber. The whole lead should be expanded, then there's space for a sentence or two about COVID-19 or whatever, with context. [[User:ScottishFinnishRadish|ScottishFinnishRadish]] ([[User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish|talk]]) 01:28, 4 April 2022 (UTC) |
:::{{tq|According to a 2021 RfC discussion, there is unanimous consensus among editors that Rolling Stone is generally unreliable for politically and societally sensitive issues reported since 2011}} at [[WP:RSP]], so that should be removed anyway. I would first look at a broad selection of recent sources to make sure it's due for the lead. Then I would select a group of them and summarize, likely with something like "He has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19." That's an example, as I haven't done any of that leg work, and I'm not familiar with yet another YouTuber. The whole lead should be expanded, then there's space for a sentence or two about COVID-19 or whatever, with context. [[User:ScottishFinnishRadish|ScottishFinnishRadish]] ([[User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish|talk]]) 01:28, 4 April 2022 (UTC) |
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::::Thanks for the noticed about that RfC, I was not aware of that. I've collected a bunch of recent coverage about the subject at [[Talk:JP_Sears]]. They add up to say pretty much the same thing: A few years ago, Sears pivoted from standup and YouTube to being an active and visible anti-vaxx influencer. [[User:Bloodofox|:bloodofox:]] ([[User talk:Bloodofox|talk]]) 01:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC) |
::::Thanks for the noticed about that RfC, I was not aware of that. I've collected a bunch of recent coverage about the subject at [[Talk:JP_Sears]]. They add up to say pretty much the same thing: A few years ago, Sears pivoted from standup and YouTube to being an active and visible anti-vaxx influencer. [[User:Bloodofox|:bloodofox:]] ([[User talk:Bloodofox|talk]]) 01:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC) |
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:::::To be clear, I don't doubt that. I just think it reads better, and the reader is better served, when we explain what someone has done, rather than just applying a label. "Sears is a YouTuber and comedian that uses satirical humor. They initially rose to notability in whatever year with their gluten intolerance video. During the COVID-19 pandemic he used his platform to spread conspiracy theories about the disease and the United States government's response to it." I think something like that better communicates who they are, why they're notable, and explains the COVID stuff with some context. [[User:ScottishFinnishRadish|ScottishFinnishRadish]] ([[User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish|talk]]) 02:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC) |
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Recent human evolution
The whole Recent human evolution article seems like its purpose is to exaggerate recent human evolutionary rates beyond the scholarly consensus. Some things that really stand out on a cursory reading are numerous references to the work of the science journalist Nicholas Wade, the author of the widely criticsed A Troublesome Inheritance which was criticsed by scientists in an open letter for its exaggeration of recent human evolutionary rates, as well as citations of things like this BBC article from 2007, which is based on the claims of anthropologist Henry Harpending, who believed that black people were naturally more aggressive due to their genetics. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, ffs, it cites phys.org too. XOR'easter (talk) 00:15, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don't know, I saw a documentary called X-men, and it seems humans are evolving very quickly. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:18, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- There is resistance to removing Wade, on the grounds that
good science writers write much more clearly than all but a few scientists
. See Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:43, 22 March 2022 (UTC)- That's a solid reason to choose one citation over another for comprehension, but has limited applicability when it comes to weight and consensus. Clear writing leaves open the potential to get things wrong, which seems to be the typical concern with any science writer (and Wade in particular). Wade's writing might be helpful in explaining details, but any contentious claims should also be able to be cited to a more reliable peer-reviewed source to avoid taking Wade's view as the consensus view. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:28, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
- There is resistance to removing Wade, on the grounds that
Mentioning it here as I'm guessing not everyone watches that page. Doug Weller talk 11:09, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- I've been mulling over User:DGG's comments on this and have decided to mention them here, as they appear to be an attack on the way we handle fringe. In a long screed which needs to be read for full context he says fringe is no longer a danger to Wikipedia (which is hard to swallow as fringe is even more a danger to the world than it was 15 years ago) and ends his comments with "the first step towards of this would be a contents rule, that we never say something is fringe, or false, or true, or controversial.I would not modify the rule: I would remove it. To use a previous example of mine, we don't even call Stalin a tyrant. Reporting what he did will make it clear, and reporting the views of his supporters will make it even clearer. But if any of us say that we know something to be true, or false, or unproven, we can only be asserting either that we are supernaturally inspired, or that there is nobody better informed or more intelligent. We all know what we think today, but we can not tell if we will still think it tomorrow; how can we dare enshrine it as a judgment in a work of reference? " Doug Weller talk 14:02, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
The dangerous social movements of our time are not represented significantly in Wikipedia.
- That is because disobeying fringe (and falsebalance) is a ground for sanction. Once we take that away, we are on course to be the next r/incel or like community.- And I do neither see how a (self-declared) mol. biologist/librarian's review of a work of history is a valid "illustration" for the tedious arguments. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:21, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- For context, it might be helpful to know that the IP user who started this thread is topic banned from race & intelligence, and would have been indef blocked for meatpuppetry if not for concerns about collateral damage. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gardenofaleph/Archive if you're curious. Though the IP user bends over backward not to mention it, DGG's recent amendment request from ArbCom ([1]), which was about race & intelligence, is clearly an important piece of background here. Generalrelative (talk) 16:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the links. Interestingly, I was not aware that even IP editors can be topic-banned! TrangaBellam (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- In extreme cases, yes. And the abuse in this case was extreme. Generalrelative (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the links. Interestingly, I was not aware that even IP editors can be topic-banned! TrangaBellam (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- I comment when asked, and what I say does not depend on who asks me. The views I expressed are not new; I've said them before over many years. I was not aware I was reviewing a book, not that considering Stalin a tyrant was controversial. My background in science is on my user page. The most recent presentation of my views was at WP-NA 2021, at [2] at 4 h 57 min. DGG ( talk ) 22:09, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- Please note that DGG has altered the above comment after it was replied to by TrangaBellam below, without marking the change, in clear violation of WP:TALK#REPLIED: [3]. Though the meaning change was minimal in this case, that sort of casual violation of guidelines is a problem. Generalrelative (talk) 02:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Who is talking about Stalin, here? TrangaBellam (talk) 22:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- I see no need to say more, except that if Doug thinks fringe wasn't a worse danger when he joined, he's forgotten about Scientology. If he means Trump et al are a danger, he's right. I wish they were fringe, instead of a near-majority, But thanks for reminding me to find the link to my talk. DGG ( talk ) 22:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'm noticing a lot of debate here about what "the facts" are, and what we should believe. We are going to have to relearn the lessons that Wikipedia learned in its infancy: That Wikipedians must not concern themselves with what they believe to be true, but with what is verifiable by mainstream, academic sources. Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. To debate about what is true is to arrogantly raise ourselves to the status of scientist, historian, doctor, or reporter, and to violate Wikipedia:No original research. Personal belief is a corrupting factor in editing articles, especially if you feel strongly that your point of view is the correct one. MarshallKe (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- While this is true in the abstract, when it gets down to brass tacks there are people who are familiar with the reliable sources and the full survey of the literature on a topic and then there are people who are not. Ultimately, people need to base their arguments for including material on mainstream, academic sources. We agree on that matter. But take a subject like alternative medicine where there are hundreds if not thousands of papers which make claims that alternative medicine works in pocket journals, obscure outfits, or walled gardens. It would be irresponsible for Wikipedia to pretend that the sources which proclaim such, as numerous as they may or may not be, are somehow indicative of the "mainstream understanding". And yet, that very argument is made all the time on the talkpages of this website. We need editors who adhere strictly to wanting to toe the line of using only that which is vetted by mainstream academic sources, but we also need editors who can identify those sources and can summarize them accurately which is why WP:CIR is a thing. jps (talk) 16:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I've read your reply three times now and fail to see how your point contradicts mine. I never claimed that we shouldn't strive for full understanding of the literature or that we shouldn't be aware of low-quality scientific journals or the ways studies receive feedback from the academic community. All I'm saying is that our personal beliefs should be ignored insofar as we are capable, as they corrupt the editing process. Most sane people capable of independent thought have at least a few beliefs that don't match up with the current academic consensus. An editor who thinks their personal belief on a topic match up perfectly with the current mainstream consensus is almost certainly wrong, and if they have sufficient competence, they have to demonstrate that to other editors, and don't just get to say the magic words "I am competent and you are not" and everyone else just says "oh okay well then I'll just believe everything you say". You still have to show your work, otherwise it's just an ego battle of who believes more strongly or who is smart and who is dumb. MarshallKe (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
- While this is true in the abstract, when it gets down to brass tacks there are people who are familiar with the reliable sources and the full survey of the literature on a topic and then there are people who are not. Ultimately, people need to base their arguments for including material on mainstream, academic sources. We agree on that matter. But take a subject like alternative medicine where there are hundreds if not thousands of papers which make claims that alternative medicine works in pocket journals, obscure outfits, or walled gardens. It would be irresponsible for Wikipedia to pretend that the sources which proclaim such, as numerous as they may or may not be, are somehow indicative of the "mainstream understanding". And yet, that very argument is made all the time on the talkpages of this website. We need editors who adhere strictly to wanting to toe the line of using only that which is vetted by mainstream academic sources, but we also need editors who can identify those sources and can summarize them accurately which is why WP:CIR is a thing. jps (talk) 16:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
@DGG: it is true that what you say is not new, but it appears to me that you are looking for spooks where there are none and are playing a dangerous game here of carrying water for a group that adheres to a particular set of beliefs about the race and intelligence controversy which I think are best described as being "intellectual dark web". This argument has appealed to a certain crowd who think of themselves as torch-bearers for the Sokal hoax when I think they are better described as last gasps of a moribund approach to scientific racism. Part of the reason we have a fringe guideline at all is because, essentially by definition, the sources that surround fringe claims tend to be on the thin side. Knowing when a particular perspective is noticed enough to be described on Wikipedia is delicate when you have a group creating their own alternate universe of sourcing. This was true 15 years ago and it is true today. jps (talk) 22:54, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's too early to settle that question. Research in human biology will decide. At least, it will decide for for those who actually trust the scientific method, and do not adopt the anti-scientific approach of accepting only those results in science that meet their preconceptions, or the even more tempting pseudo-scientific method of accepting only the results that they think socially useful. Such was the attitude in the 1930s, and we all know the consequences. DGG ( talk ) 02:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- This sort of "the jury is out" claim is a canard. You may recall that global warming denialists used much the same 10 years ago, in their effort to rewrite other WP:MAINSTREAM discussions on Wikipedia. "The science is settled" is a phrase that was bandied about in effort to put to bed some of this nonsense, for better or worse, but I'll say it now to you: the science is settled that race is not biologically determined. It is pseudoscientific to claim otherwise. And invoking Godwin's Law in service of scientific racism as you are doing is amazingly rich. jps (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's too early to settle that question. Research in human biology will decide. At least, it will decide for for those who actually trust the scientific method, and do not adopt the anti-scientific approach of accepting only those results in science that meet their preconceptions, or the even more tempting pseudo-scientific method of accepting only the results that they think socially useful. Such was the attitude in the 1930s, and we all know the consequences. DGG ( talk ) 02:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Pardon me, couldn't help but notice the goings-on next door, and I'd like to weigh in. I think the FRINGE policy serves an important role, but only when correctly applied. The trouble is when it's abused and reinterpreted in order to gatekeep minority views out of articles. For example, claims for the effectiveness of homeopathy, colloidal silver, or Scientologist auditing are clearly FRINGE, these practices should only be covered as quackery that at most has a placebo effect (or turning your skin blue, in the case of ingesting silver). But the scientific minority view that global warming is not primarily anthropogenic and/or not a real danger is not FRINGE at all, it's a valid minority view being disenfranchised and shouted down through various means, such as being falsely labelled FRINGE. There's an important distinction between unscientific nonsense vs minority, unpopular, yet scientific viewpoints. I too have noticed that the line often gets blurred, especially by editors who gatekeep articles or are driven by an agenda. That sort of thing is not conducive to an encyclopedia. But an encyclopedia shouldn't promote snake oil either, so it's tricky.
- back on topic,
the science is settled that race is not biologically determined. It is pseudoscientific to claim otherwise.
even if you believe that race is a construct, there are biological differences between ethnic groups, aren't there? This seems like a case of semantics to me. Xcalibur (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC)the scientific minority view that global warming is not primarily anthropogenic and/or not a real danger is not FRINGE at all
This is your opinion. The scientific sources disagree with you and with the conservative/libertarian news sources and blog you probably got that misinformation from. (The pseudoscience of climate change denial is, like the pseudoscience of holocaust denial, politically motivated.) We go not with your opinion but with the reliable sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:32, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- The same applies to Xcalibur's claim
there are biological differences between ethnic groups, aren't there?
. Races and ethnicities are not delineated by biology. A fringe issue that has been extensively debated on Wikipedia in different forums over the last two years is whether claims of genetic racial differences in intelligence are fringe. In all of those discussions the consensus of editors, based on an examination of reliable sources, has been that those racialist claims are fringe. NightHeron (talk) 11:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Climate change skepticism and Holocaust denial are not even remotely comparable, an absolute false equivalency. On one hand, we have a scientific view that goes against the mainstream opinion regarding future predictions of a vast, complex system (the Earth's climate); on the other, fallacious denials of a historical event with an overwhelming amount of evidence that says it occurred. Even if climate change skepticism is politically motivated, that is certainly no less true for climate change proponents. Of course we go by the RS, but that policy is also vulnerable to subversion and gate-keeping: if the article's guardians approve, blog-like sources are considered reliable; if not, then reputable scholarly journals are not considered good enough. In other words, the bar gets arbitrarily raised and lowered, which is yet another means of gaming the system. And if the RS themselves are biased or lopsided in their coverage, then there's nothing to guard WP against this. BTW, you didn't comment on the distinction between valid vs false FRINGE labeling, which was my main point. Xcalibur (talk) 11:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that climate change is happening the way the scientific consensus says it is happening. You can deny this as much as you want, but it doesn't change that fact. Seems odd that you think it is somehow arguable. Perhaps because of your political bias? Have you read the climate change literature? Do you know why what you term the "minority" view is in the minority and how marginalized it is as a position among those who actually study the phenomenon? In fact, I would contend that your argument in this fashion would essentially exclude you from being competent enough to edit within our articles on climate change. jps (talk) 12:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Climate change skepticism and Holocaust denial are not even remotely comparable, an absolute false equivalency. On one hand, we have a scientific view that goes against the mainstream opinion regarding future predictions of a vast, complex system (the Earth's climate); on the other, fallacious denials of a historical event with an overwhelming amount of evidence that says it occurred. Even if climate change skepticism is politically motivated, that is certainly no less true for climate change proponents. Of course we go by the RS, but that policy is also vulnerable to subversion and gate-keeping: if the article's guardians approve, blog-like sources are considered reliable; if not, then reputable scholarly journals are not considered good enough. In other words, the bar gets arbitrarily raised and lowered, which is yet another means of gaming the system. And if the RS themselves are biased or lopsided in their coverage, then there's nothing to guard WP against this. BTW, you didn't comment on the distinction between valid vs false FRINGE labeling, which was my main point. Xcalibur (talk) 11:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Please be aware, unfounded accusations of incompetence can be construed as a personal attack.
- Yes, I've read up on climate change, enough to be aware that it's not really settled, it's only claimed to be due to how highly politicized the topic is. The following facts are certain: we've released alot of CO2 since the Industrial Revolution, it's a greenhouse gas that has a warming effect, and the earth's climate is getting warmer, with more erratic weather events. That much is settled, what's NOT settled is how much of this is anthropogenic vs natural, and how much trouble we're in. Natural oscillation, the carbon cycle, and albedo all factor into this. The earth was warmer than it is now during the Medieval Warm Period, and much cooler during the Little Ice Age, all without the presence of industry. Following these trends, we should be due for a Modern Warm Period, which could at least partially explain away warming trends. Then there's the carbon cycle, which sequesters CO2 into the biosphere, directly offsetting its greenhouse effect; the concern among scientists is whether the natural pump can work quickly enough to offset emissions. And then there's albedo, or reflectivity of the earth -- with more greenhouse gas, cloud cover and albedo goes up, reflecting more sunlight away, which again directly offsets warming. On top of all this, as I said, we're trying to predict the future of a huge, complex, nonlinear system, which is always challenging.
- I didn't mean to go off on a tangent here, but that's a reasonable summary for why climate science isn't really settled. I've looked into the literature myself, and it doesn't seem to answer these points, or admits they're not factored in. There are other things too, like the mesopelagic layer of the ocean having much more life than previously supposed, which affects the rest, but I won't go into every detail here and now. Point is, a scientific view can go against majority/consensus without necessarily being FRINGE. Xcalibur (talk) 12:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
what's NOT settled is how much of this is anthropogenic vs natural
This is incorrect. If you are of this opinion, you are contrary to the reliable sources on the subject. The added denialist talking points (which is what your arguments are, whether you believe it or not) about past climate change are so efficiently debunked in the associated literature that we even explain why the arguments are incorrect on relevant pages here at Wikipedia! The long and the short of it is that your armchair arguments here, while commonly made by interlocutors who arrive at climate change talkpages at Wikipedia, really are wrong and do not belong in the encyclopedia as anything more than an object lesson for incorrect arguments. That's how we treat it, and that's definitely the best way to treat it considering that any alternative would just be appointing random individuals as arbiters of content rather than reliable sources. jps (talk) 16:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
Even if climate change skepticism is politically motivated, that is certainly no less true for climate change proponents.
No, accepting climate change is simply motivated by facts. Climate change denial is grounded in the belief that free markets cannot do wrong. This belief is solidly refuted by the fact of man-made climate change and is therefore an obstacle to accepting that fact. Those who do not have that belief do not have a reason to reject the science, and that is why they accept it. So, the reason why üpeople on the left tend to accept the science is not the presence of a political position but the absence of one specific false worldview. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- Climate change is a theory, not a fact. The level of CO2 and its function as a greenhouse gas are facts, the larger model is a theory which may or may not be correct. Science can make mistakes, in fact a large part of science is learning from mistakes. Your assertion that climate skepticism must be founded on blind faith in capitalism, rather than simply skepticism, reveals how highly politicized this is, and the political bent of climate alarmists. Even more troubling is this religious belief in "The Science", as if scientific institutions cannot possibly be wrong when predicting the future of a huge, complex system, which is not only unscientific but anti-science. Xcalibur (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- File under: gravity is a theory, not a fact. Basically you're pushing WP:PROFRINGE denialism here on Wikipedia. Don't. Alexbrn (talk) 14:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Not even remotely similar. Gravity is a law, ie law of gravitation. The climate change hypothesis/theory (it could be either, not sure actually) has nowhere near the same scientific backing. It wasn't my intention to push anything, I brought up climate as a passing example to illustrate my point, and got dragged into a discussion. Xcalibur (talk) 14:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Strictly speaking to terminology, this is a category error, and Alexbrn is correct. Have a look at the page to which Law of Gravitation redirects; you'll see a description of several theories: the most accurate of which is Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Laws are for logic and mathematics--since science is inductive, laws are not on offer. Future observations could always change things. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity. Your argument is also like "evolution is just a theory". Anti-science playing with words. I'd support a ban if this continues or manifests as damage to content. Alexbrn (talk) 14:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Pardon my semantic error. The point still stands: comparing current climate models to rock-solid science like general relativity or evolution is absurd and borders on the irrational. It shows a complete lack of skepticism, almost a blind faith in the current consensus, which may change and is not built on nearly as solid a foundation as the other theories mentioned. Xcalibur (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- There are huge numbers of people who deny evolution is "rock-solid science", exactly like you're denying climate science. And with the same types of argument. It's a problem on Wikipedia too. Alexbrn (talk) 14:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I have to say that your argument, User:Bigdan201, is just as fallacious as those who are relativity deniers or creationists. It's just as pseudoscientific and just as disconfirming for editing articles on the subject. jps (talk) 15:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's not even similar. You're comparing fundamental scientific tenets to predicting the weather, which is ultimately what climate science is, albeit on a grander scale. Let's put it this way: if evolution or gravity were wrong, this would turn reality as we know it upside-down. If climate science is wrong, it simply means that we miscalculated how the atmosphere would respond to multiple variables. It's not in the same ballpark. Xcalibur (talk) 15:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- The science of climate change is not the science of weather prediction. That you make such an astonishing argument as this seems to me to indicate strongly you need to take some time to learn more about this. More than that, this is a perfect object lesson as to why DGG is ultimately incorrect about the community no longer needing WP:FRINGE. Here's a perfect example. Here's an established WP:USER who is basically saying that because we have inaccurate weather predictions we therefore are unsure about whether human beings are causing a severe and rapid change to our climate. Your argument, such that it is, is one that is basically regurgitated pablum from deniers. It has no basis in reliable sources and deserves to be completely excluded from articlespace except to show how it has been debunked in reliable sources. jps (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I didn't say they were equivalent, but it's a useful comparison. Predicting the behavior of a vast, complex system is difficult, and no matter how strong your foundation is, there's still a % error, and perhaps key variables that you missed entirely. Comparing even the best predictions to fundamental scientific principles (as was done here) is in fact hyperbolic and absurd. Even if you have 100's of the best RS for your prediction, it could all be wrong, just as 95% of political analysts made wrong predictions on the outcome of the 2016 election (but that's another can of worms). Yes, articles follow RS, but the RS don't control the Earth's climate. Xcalibur (talk) 16:39, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- btw, just to reiterate: I'm not against FRINGE or related policies, I just think it's taken to excess, particularly when content which is not pseudoscience or quackery is lumped into FRINGE. Xcalibur (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It is manifestly not a useful comparison as many reliable sources have pointed out over the decades that this particular argument you are making is ignorant at best and motivated reasoning at worst. I really do encourage you to study this subject because it is abundantly clear that you are ignorant of it. So here's an excess that I will take this guideline to: I am glad that WP:FRINGE can be used to shut down conversations like this when people argue as you are doing that Wikipedia should include more "minority beliefs about climate change". That this is not going to happen is a feature of WP, not a bug. jps (talk) 17:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- If you read my post about natural oscillation, carbon cycle, and albedo, you should realize that I'm far from ignorant on this. I'm also not insisting that the current climate models are wrong, just that they might be. As I said further down, FRINGE distinguishes between pseudoscience, questionable science, and alternative theoretical formulations. All I'm saying is that there should be greater acceptance of the last category. Xcalibur (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It is manifestly not a useful comparison as many reliable sources have pointed out over the decades that this particular argument you are making is ignorant at best and motivated reasoning at worst. I really do encourage you to study this subject because it is abundantly clear that you are ignorant of it. So here's an excess that I will take this guideline to: I am glad that WP:FRINGE can be used to shut down conversations like this when people argue as you are doing that Wikipedia should include more "minority beliefs about climate change". That this is not going to happen is a feature of WP, not a bug. jps (talk) 17:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- The science of climate change is not the science of weather prediction. That you make such an astonishing argument as this seems to me to indicate strongly you need to take some time to learn more about this. More than that, this is a perfect object lesson as to why DGG is ultimately incorrect about the community no longer needing WP:FRINGE. Here's a perfect example. Here's an established WP:USER who is basically saying that because we have inaccurate weather predictions we therefore are unsure about whether human beings are causing a severe and rapid change to our climate. Your argument, such that it is, is one that is basically regurgitated pablum from deniers. It has no basis in reliable sources and deserves to be completely excluded from articlespace except to show how it has been debunked in reliable sources. jps (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's not even similar. You're comparing fundamental scientific tenets to predicting the weather, which is ultimately what climate science is, albeit on a grander scale. Let's put it this way: if evolution or gravity were wrong, this would turn reality as we know it upside-down. If climate science is wrong, it simply means that we miscalculated how the atmosphere would respond to multiple variables. It's not in the same ballpark. Xcalibur (talk) 15:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Pardon my semantic error. The point still stands: comparing current climate models to rock-solid science like general relativity or evolution is absurd and borders on the irrational. It shows a complete lack of skepticism, almost a blind faith in the current consensus, which may change and is not built on nearly as solid a foundation as the other theories mentioned. Xcalibur (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Not even remotely similar. Gravity is a law, ie law of gravitation. The climate change hypothesis/theory (it could be either, not sure actually) has nowhere near the same scientific backing. It wasn't my intention to push anything, I brought up climate as a passing example to illustrate my point, and got dragged into a discussion. Xcalibur (talk) 14:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- File under: gravity is a theory, not a fact. Basically you're pushing WP:PROFRINGE denialism here on Wikipedia. Don't. Alexbrn (talk) 14:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Climate change is a theory, not a fact. The level of CO2 and its function as a greenhouse gas are facts, the larger model is a theory which may or may not be correct. Science can make mistakes, in fact a large part of science is learning from mistakes. Your assertion that climate skepticism must be founded on blind faith in capitalism, rather than simply skepticism, reveals how highly politicized this is, and the political bent of climate alarmists. Even more troubling is this religious belief in "The Science", as if scientific institutions cannot possibly be wrong when predicting the future of a huge, complex system, which is not only unscientific but anti-science. Xcalibur (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
You are ignorant enough to think that the argument that "weather prediction is a useful comparison to climate change" has not been roundly debunked in reliable sources, that's for sure. Again, you need to do more research on this topic. Since there really are no reliable sources which argue that climate change denial belongs in "alternative theoretical formulation", I also chalk this up to ignorance on your part. This is me being generous. There are some people who come to this topic with motivated reasoning. I am assuming that's not what's happening here. jps (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- That seems like a personal attack, and its based on you misunderstanding my posts. I've said plenty here and explained major points.
"weather prediction is a useful comparison to climate change"
I didn't actually say this. I brought it up because there's a common thread: the difficulty of predicting complex systems. If you want me to explain any further, you can ask, otherwise you can re-read my posts, which should be informative. Xcalibur (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- Have a look at Strange attractor. A point is running around in a huge phase space, following a very complex trajectory based on comparably simple equations. This is probably what you are talking about - a lot of people have heard about that. The weather is the point running around on the trajectory, and because the system is chaotic, you cannot exactly predict where that point will be in four weeks. But climate is the trajectory itself. It is the attractor. Its shape is exactly determined by the equations, and by a set of independent parameters - such as CO2 concentration. The problem we have with determining the weather of next month simply does not exist with determining the climate of twenty years from now, if the parameters we put in are realistic. That is why climatologists' forecasts from decades ago are spot on, and why denialists' forecasts are not, and why drawing conclusions about climate from how the weather behaves is ignorant. So, can we please stop this now, and you either go and bring yourself up to speed on the subject or shut up when the subject comes up? --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Huh. It seems that contribution of mine was not WP:CIVIL enough, even though I said "please". See User talk:Dennis Brown#I don't think the message made it through. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
- Have a look at Strange attractor. A point is running around in a huge phase space, following a very complex trajectory based on comparably simple equations. This is probably what you are talking about - a lot of people have heard about that. The weather is the point running around on the trajectory, and because the system is chaotic, you cannot exactly predict where that point will be in four weeks. But climate is the trajectory itself. It is the attractor. Its shape is exactly determined by the equations, and by a set of independent parameters - such as CO2 concentration. The problem we have with determining the weather of next month simply does not exist with determining the climate of twenty years from now, if the parameters we put in are realistic. That is why climatologists' forecasts from decades ago are spot on, and why denialists' forecasts are not, and why drawing conclusions about climate from how the weather behaves is ignorant. So, can we please stop this now, and you either go and bring yourself up to speed on the subject or shut up when the subject comes up? --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
arbitrary break
- There are biological differences between any two people. There are also biological differences between groups of people when the two groups are separated by genetic distance. But race is a clumsy proxy for the latter no matter how you slice it. For example, when the American medical community warns certain races that their risk is higher for contracting a certain genetic disease, this is not an indication that the race itself is a biological marker for the disease but, rather, that a group of related people who have a higher risk for the disease are more likely to be classified as a certain race. If you really want to know whether a couple is at risk for having a child with sickle cell anemia, knowing the race of the patient is not the test. In one sense, you are correct: this is a case of semantics because the definition of race is ultimately semantic. It is crucial that the most accurate way that race has been defined is in the context of social science, and, social facts being what they are, that's the way race is made. Where I have seen many fail in this regard is that they think that because skin color, for example, is heritable that therefore race is something that is inherited. But that's not how the causal chain works. Race is a construct that is socially attached to a large number of arbitrary identifiers that come into the designation of race. Whenever a biological basis has been looked for it in a serious fashion, the findings have always been (to the extent that we say, "the science is settled") that the biological/genetic variations within any "race" are just as broad or broader than the biological variations between any "race". Brown Paper Bag Tests, phrenology, and one drop rules are all examples of what happens when people try to operationalize this in pseudo-empirical fashions.
- I knew a biologist who argued that "race is a phenotype" because skin color was inherited. But the phenotypic association of the color of skin is not race as the variation in phenotypes that determine melanin concentration in the skin is broader and overlaps between racial identity groups in a way to make it basically impossible to say anything meaningful. On the other hand, we know that racism exists and that there are things that happen which are racially motivated even as many disagree that this is an okay thing to do. So this is where the question falls. When you note that, for example, black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated in the United States than white people, the plain truth of that is that this indicates a racial bias. Since the biological differences between populations selected by race have been studied in serious fashion without any meaningful distinction identified while scholarship has identified racism in the society over and over again as not just a correlative but a causative factor, it is just as pseudoscientific to argue that the difference in the American incarceration rate is due to biological difference as it would be, say, to argue that the phase of the moon is what determines the rate of hospitalizations.
- jps (talk) 12:00, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Your points on race are well-taken. It's true, you have to guard against fallacies. To use your example of the minority incarceration rate in the US, this is sometimes used by racists to falsely claim that criminality is linked to skin color, which is fallacious. Rather, there are systemic social/cultural issues created by racism (ie discrimination by skin color) and other factors, which leads to those affected being incarcerated at a higher rate. It's also certainly true that there can be variation within a race/ethnicity as well as between different races/ethnicities, although that doesn't rule out minor baseline differences between populations. All humans are one species, this is easily proven by the fact that we can breed and have fertile offspring. However, there are minor differences, some of which you mentioned, these include not just skin color, but also facial features, fast vs slow twitch muscle fibers, hair type, and so on. I've read that people of the Himalayan region are adapted to have more efficient oxygen uptake to help them live in that high-altitude environment. Individuals and groups vary physically, and also mentally. Could there be minor baseline mental differences between races/ethnicities? Maybe, but if they exist, they must not be too significant. However, no one can research this today without getting tarred-&-feathered and losing their career and reputation. Xcalibur (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
However, no one can research this today without getting tarred-&-feathered and losing their career and reputation.
There is no evidence that I have seen that there is any kind of "tar and feathering" as such at least not any more than there is in any other dead-end area. I know that a lot of race realists and IDW types like to say that this is true, but the claim is "evidence free" as they say. Let's say you spend your time trying to find out whether the moon affects people's likelihood of hospitalization. It is absolutely the case that you will not be treated with scholarly respect: you are barking up a pseudoscientific tree. jps (talk) 15:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- Agreed. If Bigdan201/Xcalibur is open to persuasion, this source is explanatory: [5]. More can be found at Talk:Race and intelligence/FAQ. Generalrelative (talk) 15:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to read. Xcalibur (talk) 17:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Bigdan201: There are also high-quality sources that present the opposite view, but they’ve been excluded from the FAQ for reasons that aren't clear. I recommend reading the comments by Stonkaments in this discussion, where he listed a few of them, as well as the subsequent exchange here. [6] [7] [8] [9]
- Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to read. Xcalibur (talk) 17:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed. If Bigdan201/Xcalibur is open to persuasion, this source is explanatory: [5]. More can be found at Talk:Race and intelligence/FAQ. Generalrelative (talk) 15:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Your points on race are well-taken. It's true, you have to guard against fallacies. To use your example of the minority incarceration rate in the US, this is sometimes used by racists to falsely claim that criminality is linked to skin color, which is fallacious. Rather, there are systemic social/cultural issues created by racism (ie discrimination by skin color) and other factors, which leads to those affected being incarcerated at a higher rate. It's also certainly true that there can be variation within a race/ethnicity as well as between different races/ethnicities, although that doesn't rule out minor baseline differences between populations. All humans are one species, this is easily proven by the fact that we can breed and have fertile offspring. However, there are minor differences, some of which you mentioned, these include not just skin color, but also facial features, fast vs slow twitch muscle fibers, hair type, and so on. I've read that people of the Himalayan region are adapted to have more efficient oxygen uptake to help them live in that high-altitude environment. Individuals and groups vary physically, and also mentally. Could there be minor baseline mental differences between races/ethnicities? Maybe, but if they exist, they must not be too significant. However, no one can research this today without getting tarred-&-feathered and losing their career and reputation. Xcalibur (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- The discussions linked above are an excellent example of the unusual way that WP:PARITY has been applied to this topic. The sources presented by Stonkaments in those discussions include a paper by Ceci and Williams published in Nature. [10] While this source endorses an environmental cause of group differences, it also is very clear that there have been attempts to suppress those who challenge this idea. Normally, WP:PARITY would not require Wikipedia to exclude a viewpoint published in Nature in favor of one published in Review of General Psychology, but that is what's been done in this case. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- It is fortunate, then, that Generalrelative's source discusses the editorial (not an article) and provides a very good explanation for why it isn't exactly relevant to the discussion you link to. Frankly, I find your WP:ADVOCACY tiresome and think it was a mistake for you to have had your ban from discussions of race and intelligence lifted. jps (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- The discussions linked above are an excellent example of the unusual way that WP:PARITY has been applied to this topic. The sources presented by Stonkaments in those discussions include a paper by Ceci and Williams published in Nature. [10] While this source endorses an environmental cause of group differences, it also is very clear that there have been attempts to suppress those who challenge this idea. Normally, WP:PARITY would not require Wikipedia to exclude a viewpoint published in Nature in favor of one published in Review of General Psychology, but that is what's been done in this case. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Bigdan201:
But the scientific minority view that global warming is not primarily anthropogenic and/or not a real danger is not FRINGE at all
Please see WP:FRINGE/ALT, explicitly covering this case. Things can be fringe without being pseudoscience or quackery. The root issue seems to be people who are insisting that we can't even call this view a minority one. One that typically strays into WP:RGW territory (ie. "The Man" is suppressing my favorite theory in mainstream scientific journals, it should be more prominent here to compensate). even if you believe that race is a construct, there are biological differences between ethnic groups, aren't there?
This is a significant bag of worms to this one (there's a good reason it's under DS), but the short version revolves around two concepts. 1) Race is not a good proxy for genetic variation, two anglo-European individuals may be more genetically dissimilar than an anglo-European and an east-Asian. 2) Defining and measuring intelligence is, in and of itself, a construct; there are numerous examples of cultural biases in intelligence testing, on top of why one culture or another values certain mental activities higher than others. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don't believe it's RGW to point out that if a valid minority view is underrepresented in RS, that poses a problem for a neutral encyclopedia. As for FRINGE/ALT, I honestly disagree with lumping minority scientific views in with quackery, they are two very different issues. By extending FRINGE that far, you end up with gatekeepers forcing viable content out of articles for violating their orthodoxy. There are similar problems with FALSEBALANCE, which is built on good principles, but gets taken too far as well. Xcalibur (talk) 14:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I don't believe it's RGW to point out that if a valid minority view is underrepresented in RS, that poses a problem for a neutral encyclopedia.
. The suggestion that the viewpoint deserves more representation in RS is precisely WP:RGW (Wikipedia doesn't lead; we follow
), with a sprinkling of WP:CRYSTAL (Although currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections.
).
By extending FRINGE that far, you end up with gatekeepers forcing viable content out of articles for violating their orthodoxy.
I see WP:FRINGE/ALT as the clarification of the boundary specifically to avoid this issue. If it's being abused, address the abuse, rather than changing the guideline. Regardless, the policy of WP:UNDUE already covers the concept of a minority viewpoint being identified as such:Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject.
Emphasis exists in the policy, not added by me. Contrary to your view that content must be given additional prominence to remain neutral, policy says the opposite. See also WP:GEVAL:Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship.
(Emphasis added)- So yes, if a
view is underrepresented in RS
, core content policy dictates we are to give it correspondingly less representation. Your arguments against the guideline WP:FRINGE are in opposition to the core content policy WP:NPOV. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- However… in an article specifically about a fringe topic, it is appropriate to give some weight to what proponents say. More than we would in an an article on a related topic. For example: while we don’t mention what flat earth proponents say in our article on the Earth, we DO in our article about Flat earth. In fact, in Flat earth we go into some detail about what proponents believe, and cite some of those proponents (as primary sources) to establish the fact that they believe it. Context matters in determining if, when and how we cover fringe theories. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Indeed, there are clear situations where the topics should be covered in articles. This doesn't appear to be in dispute in this discussion. This dispute seems to be revolving more around whether or not, in our discussion of an individual who supports a minority viewpoint, we state that the minority view is indeed the minority viewpoint according to reliable sources. Policy says "yes", whether or not you read the clarifications in WP:FRINGE. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- However… in an article specifically about a fringe topic, it is appropriate to give some weight to what proponents say. More than we would in an an article on a related topic. For example: while we don’t mention what flat earth proponents say in our article on the Earth, we DO in our article about Flat earth. In fact, in Flat earth we go into some detail about what proponents believe, and cite some of those proponents (as primary sources) to establish the fact that they believe it. Context matters in determining if, when and how we cover fringe theories. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don't believe it's RGW to point out that if a valid minority view is underrepresented in RS, that poses a problem for a neutral encyclopedia. As for FRINGE/ALT, I honestly disagree with lumping minority scientific views in with quackery, they are two very different issues. By extending FRINGE that far, you end up with gatekeepers forcing viable content out of articles for violating their orthodoxy. There are similar problems with FALSEBALANCE, which is built on good principles, but gets taken too far as well. Xcalibur (talk) 14:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Good points by Blueboar. In fact, I'm fine with proportionate representation, and giving minority views correspondingly less coverage. And yes, we should clearly state that it's a minority view. The problem as I see it is when this policy is taken to excess, when minority views are locked out, or barely mentioned except to argue against them. My issue isn't with the policy, it's with excessive interpretation. Xcalibur (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- But take, for example, an editor who shares your belief that the science is not settled on global warming attribution. We have many such accounts who have argued that such minority reports should be mentioned in our article on climate change. We, however, lock out that view per our policy. I do not consider that an excess. That seems appropriate given the overwhelming preponderance of reliable sources on the topic. jps (talk) 16:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Good points by Blueboar. In fact, I'm fine with proportionate representation, and giving minority views correspondingly less coverage. And yes, we should clearly state that it's a minority view. The problem as I see it is when this policy is taken to excess, when minority views are locked out, or barely mentioned except to argue against them. My issue isn't with the policy, it's with excessive interpretation. Xcalibur (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- If the RS themselves are not neutral, then the "neutral POV" becomes a fiction. More to the point, an encyclopedia should strive to be informative. When it comes to controversial issues like climate, it should present both sides in good faith. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily mean a 50/50 split, perhaps 70/30 or 80/20 is more appropriate. But when minority views are drowned out, strawmanned, or only attacked, it's simply not fair representation. This might make sense for pseudoscience and quackery, but not for plausible minority views. As I said, the policies are founded on the right principles, but they're taken too far. Xcalibur (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
When it comes to controversial issues like climate, it should present both sides in good faith
← this is called WP:PROFRINGE whether it's climate, evolution, JFK assassination, cancer-cure enemas or whatever. WP:GEVAL exist to stop it. Alexbrn (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)- Alexbrn is precisely right here, but I'm sorry, we can't bend the rules just because the reliable sources are mean to an idea. If you would like to right that wrong, you'll need to encourage the creation of reliable sources that do that. Then Wikipedia can follow. But we cannot accommodate any of the splits you propose on climate because the reliable sources on climate do not admit to any such split. That's how Wikipedia works, and it really cannot work in any other way if we are going to avoid original research. jps (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- If the RS themselves are not neutral, then the "neutral POV" becomes a fiction. More to the point, an encyclopedia should strive to be informative. When it comes to controversial issues like climate, it should present both sides in good faith. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily mean a 50/50 split, perhaps 70/30 or 80/20 is more appropriate. But when minority views are drowned out, strawmanned, or only attacked, it's simply not fair representation. This might make sense for pseudoscience and quackery, but not for plausible minority views. As I said, the policies are founded on the right principles, but they're taken too far. Xcalibur (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Disagreement on climate is not even remotely comparable to the other things you mentioned. It's fine to dismiss conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, but when legitimate minority views get lumped in, then it becomes excessive. RS, FRINGE, FALSEBALANCE, et al have the right ideas at their core, they're just taken too far. For RS in particular, I think we should use them prudently, rather than espousing the belief that published sources define reality. Xcalibur (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
Not only is it comparable, it is a perfect object lesson for the problem with people trying to promote their pet ideas in the encyclopedia. You have made it clear that you are partial to climate change denial arguments. Others are partial to creationism. Others are partial to JFK conspiracy theories, etc. We are unable to distinguish between which of these fringe theories is correct and which are incorrect. Therefore we go by what the WP:MAINSTREAM reliable sources say. That offends the believers in those ideas. I am sure there are, even now, some fringe proponents balking at being lumped with the climate change deniers as strenuously as you are balking being lumped with them. But we have no other means to figure out what is encyclopedic and what is not. The only alternative is to name an editor-in-chief, but that's not the Wikipedia model. jps (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- ISTR the GMO conspiracy theorists here got extremely upset if they were compared to the climate deniers. Alexbrn (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I still say it's not equivalent. In fact, the FRINGE policy page provides a spectrum, ranging from pseudoscience, questionable science, to alternative theoretical formulations. I think the last category should be distinguished from the rest, climate being an example of this. Xcalibur (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Of course you say it's not equivalent. But the reliable sources disagree with you. And until you can get reliable sources that agree with you published, our hands our tied. The spectrum described on the guideline page only works if you have a reliable source that identifies a fringe belief as being in one of those categories. In our case, the category for global warming denialism is science denial. jps (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- I still say it's not equivalent. In fact, the FRINGE policy page provides a spectrum, ranging from pseudoscience, questionable science, to alternative theoretical formulations. I think the last category should be distinguished from the rest, climate being an example of this. Xcalibur (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- There are reliable sources which give fair representation to climate skepticism, and criticize climate alarmism. Trouble is, the bar for RS would be arbitrarily raised for those sources, and lowered for RS that agree with the consensus. I'm not accusing you in particular, but this is the pattern I've observed. Xcalibur (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- Can you provide examples, just for my own edification? I would be grateful. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's right that WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims require exceptional sourcing, but I'm suspicious of supposedly slam-dunk sources which are alluded to rather than actually referenced. Alexbrn (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- There are reliable sources which give fair representation to climate skepticism, and criticize climate alarmism. Trouble is, the bar for RS would be arbitrarily raised for those sources, and lowered for RS that agree with the consensus. I'm not accusing you in particular, but this is the pattern I've observed. Xcalibur (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Bigdan201: Continuing from well above. Two hopefully clarifying points. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume a hypothetical science topic, with a mainstream and a small-but-significant minority rejected by the mainstream.
If the RS themselves are not neutral, then the "neutral POV" becomes a fiction.
Here, I believe you are simply incorrect regarding core policy. If the high quality mainstream journals (ie, Nature, Science) only publish meta-analysis supporting the mainstream view, then it is indeed the mainstream that is presumed default and the minority view must be contextualized as the minority relative to. If the minority view is to be considered equivalent, it needs to be published in those top-quality journals alongside the mainstream. To 'correct' for the 'imbalance' of those journals does not improve neutrality, it harms it. It's even an example in WP:RGW:Spread the word about a theory/hypothesis/belief/cure-all herb that has been unfairly neglected or suppressed by the scholarly community
. You might disagree with that policy, but it is indeed foundational content policy, and no change to WP:FRINGE would affect this concept. The more we debate this, the less focus we can spend on actionable concerns.But when minority views are drowned out, strawmanned, or only attacked, it's simply not fair representation. This might make sense for pseudoscience and quackery, but not for plausible minority views.
This is where there's room for discussion, probably. And this is where 'it depends' comes into play depending on how significant/plausible the minority is. In the specific context of BLPs for advocates of minority views, the view should very much be discussed but I don't think this is disputed. Where on the fringe scale it is will affect how it's presented. Personally, I'd want there to be a pretty high bar of prevalence for a minority view for the BLP to present the author's view as the one which gets the 'final word', like refuting a mainstream criticism. Stepping out of hypothetical world for a moment, this is the kind of thing I would sooner consider for advocates where experimental data is scant or impossible (ie. string theory or futurism) than for established fields with significant experimental data. Yes, even if it turns out they were right in the end, the article should reflect it now if reliable sources say their peers dismiss them currently. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:54, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
University press book Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas.
Pure fringe. See [11] where the university press ad says "Paints a compelling picture of impressive pre-Columbian cultures and Old World civilizations that, contrary to many prevailing notions, were not isolated from one another". Used in several articles.[12] Doug Weller talk 14:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- Lol, "The work gives new meaning to the expression tour de force." Indeed. Generalrelative (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- So, dear experts, the pertinent question for Wikipedia is: is this book pseudoscience, questionable science, or an alternative theoretical formulation? Should Dr. Jett be summarily removed on sight as a lunatic charlatan, or added (if contextually relevant) as a significant minority view? Books are where scholars enjoy relatively more freedom of synthesis, discussion, and speculation than primary literature might permit. It would sure be convenient if Jett were speaking completely out of his anus, and could summarily be dismissed in all cases (and thus expunged from the hallowed halls of truth known as Wikipedia). But is it possible certain claims could be evaluated on their own merits? Archaeologist Peter Bellwood in reviewing the work states "I have no trouble in believing that many coastal populations in the Old World had the ability to cross wide oceans by at least 5,000 years ago", and finds individual aspects to criticize, yet concludes: "I think the upshot of all of this is that transoceanic "contact" between peoples in different hemispheres occurred along a scale of significance. That it sometimes could have occurred is not in doubt, but was it always relevant from broad perspectives of cultural and biological evolution? Stephen Jett has done a good job, but endless questions remain."[1] Anthropologist Terry L. Jones begins his review with "Stephen Jett is one of a handful of dedicated (mostly) geographers who have sought to keep dialogues about prehistoric transoceanic contacts with the Americas within the realm of scholarly discourse for historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, or anyone else who might listen." His review finds aspects to commend and to criticize, and concludes with "Despite such misgivings, I think that the possibility of intercivilizational contacts across the oceans connecting Asia, Malaysia, South America, and/or Mesoamerica continues to be worthy of consideration, and I appreciate Jett’s monumental efforts in trying to keep that possibility alive in the minds of American scholars."[2] Geographer Charles F. Gritzner writes: "Jett takes a stand counter to the long-held position that such contacts were improbable, if not impossible. The book, then, is a reconsideration of traditional views", and concludes "Jett has drawn together and convincingly presented and assessed a huge body of evidence that amply supports the case for early transoceanic exchanges."[3] A review by Colombian archaeologist Diana Carvajal Contreras notes: For Jett, cultural developments are explained by diffusion. For the vast majority of historians and archaeologists, this explanation for the dissemination of knowledge and technology is viewed with caution in the best of cases and seen with skepticism in the case of inter-oceanic contacts before the Vikings. It is criticized as a vision of being biased by the notion of cultural evolution.[4]
- Laughing out loud is good and healthy for the body, but closely examining sources and preconceptions is also healthy for the mind. I'm by no means an armchair expert in archaeology or anthropology (pre-Columbian or otherwise), but, just spitballing, I would place this guy as a minority but alternative scientific viewpoint, if one accepts the premise that science consists of more than the simple dichotomy of "majority" (right and good) and "fringe" (wrong and bad). --Animalparty! (talk) 05:58, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'd say you're just a bit too high up on that horse for me to hear what you're trying to ask. Feel free to continue resenting the community I suppose. Generalrelative (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Animalparty: I find it difficult to take Gritzner seriously. I realise that he grew up at a time when hyperdiffusion was taken much more seriously, but he's praising some fringe people writing in two self-published books. One by John L. Sorenson. Doug Weller talk 14:13, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'd say you're just a bit too high up on that horse for me to hear what you're trying to ask. Feel free to continue resenting the community I suppose. Generalrelative (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'd say we let the actual experts in that subject decide that question - historians and archaeologists - and completely ignore our own
spitballing
. The way we always do it. The way the guidelines tell us. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
References
- ^ Bellwood, Peter (June 2018). "Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas . Stephen C. Jett. (review)". Journal of Anthropological Research. 74 (2): 281–284. doi:10.1086/697645.
- ^ Jones, Terry L. (April 2019). "Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas. STEPHEN C. JETT. 2017. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. xx + 508 pp. $49.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-8173-1939-7". American Antiquity. 84 (2): 377–378. doi:10.1017/aaq.2019.6.
- ^ Gritzner, Charles F. (2019). "Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas; World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492, Revised and Expanded Edition; Pre-Columbian Sailors Changed World History". The AAG Review of Books. 7 (4): 274–278. doi:10.1080/2325548X.2019.1650557.
- ^ Carvajal Contreras, Diana Rocío (2018). "Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas. By Stephen C. Jett. 2017. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. 508 pp". Ethnobiology Letters. 9 (2): 250–252. doi:10.14237/ebl.9.2.2018.1352.
Phantom time hypothesis
- Phantom time hypothesis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
An IP found quite a few faults, and indeed, the article needs a brush-up. I started by slight reorganizing and NPOVing. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- Might we rewrite this line in the lead:
The hypothesis has never attracted any support from historians.
Since Illig is a "historian," it directly contradicts itself. What aboutThe hypothesis is refuted by the vast majority of scholars.
And perhaps a source to pin to it. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)- Do you have any reliable source that calls Illig a historian? He did German studies at University of Bremen. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:46, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- Mother Jones calls him a historian, as well as numerous lesser sources, but I suppose it could be argued that he's merely an "author." German studies degree would certainly cover the early medieval period of Europe, though. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- OK... that is nomially a reliable source, but they got it wrong. [13] says,
Die Historiker, das sind die anderen, er zählt sich selbst nicht dazu, und sie ihn auch nicht, weil er nie Geschichte studiert hat, sondern promovierter Germanist und Diplomkaufmann ist.
The historians are the others, he does not count himself among them, and neither do they, because he never studied history but a specialist in German studies with a doctorate, and a business graduate. This is pretty consistently what sources say; only a few call him a historian, probably because they guessed he is one since he writes about history. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:14, 14 March 2022 (UTC)- There are a lot of armchair historians out there. I think it is fairly clear that "academic historian" is the sense that the sentence is trying to communicate. Sometimes there is a fine line between WP:ASTONISH and WP:ASTONISHME, and I make no judgement as to which principle is most appropriately applied here. jps (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- OK... that is nomially a reliable source, but they got it wrong. [13] says,
- Mother Jones calls him a historian, as well as numerous lesser sources, but I suppose it could be argued that he's merely an "author." German studies degree would certainly cover the early medieval period of Europe, though. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
- Do you have any reliable source that calls Illig a historian? He did German studies at University of Bremen. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:46, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Is the New York Post a reliable source for this article "Activist makes list to bust imposters claiming to be Native American"
Posted today.[14]. Doug Weller talk 17:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- What is it being cited for, and where? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- It was just posted today, and I have no idea. I guess there are three options. No, it's not reliable for anything, it's reliable in some instance and not in others, or it's reliable for anything. It might be relevant for Pretendian. Doug Weller talk 17:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I wouldn't use it for anything. (Note that there was pushback on Keeler's methodology and the verifiability of her claims.[15][16]) Schazjmd (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I would say that it is reliable for the fact that an activist has compiled such a list, but this would have very limited utility. For example, it would be justified to include it on a page of the activist themself, or if we had some discussion somewhere about the generic (not specific to one person) issue of such claims being disputed it could be mentioned to illustrate the extent of the perceived problem. It is not reliable for the contents of the list (which the Post is not claiming to have independently verified) and it is not WP:PROPORTIONal to mention inclusion on the list in any BLP unless there is some independent RS about that specific individual that mentions their inclusion on the list. Agricolae (talk) 18:48, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- WP:NYPOST is
generally unreliable for factual reporting
. I would look for another source or leave it out. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)- This is what I expected to hear. Doug Weller talk 19:16, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- It was just posted today, and I have no idea. I guess there are three options. No, it's not reliable for anything, it's reliable in some instance and not in others, or it's reliable for anything. It might be relevant for Pretendian. Doug Weller talk 17:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Probably notable, but most of the text is unsourced. Doug Weller talk 11:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Alexander Cockburn
- Alexander Cockburn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Section "Green issues" contains several fantastic climate change "explanations" by laymen written as if they were serious scientific ideas. Example: He cited the statements of semi-retired explosives expert Martin Hertzberg that rising CO2 levels are a symptom, not a cause, of global warming, which Hertzberg asserts is the result of natural, predictable changes in the Earth's elliptic orbit.
Yeah, or maybe global warming is caused by hobgoblins rubbing their hands together.
Can't quite think of a way to rewrite this in accordance with WP:FRINGE. Maybe someone has an idea. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:41, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- That whole section should just be nuked. What isn't WP:SYNTH from primary sources is sourced to blogs and Counterpunch, which should not be used, especially in a BLP. If there's no good secondary sourcing about this, then it isn't WP:DUE. I've removed it, so I guess we'll see how that goes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:47, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- I suspected that to be the right solution, and I agree with it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- I did some digging and found his obit in The Guardian, which says
For example, he shared the scepticism of many conservatives about global warming and climate change.
There's also Columbia Journalism Review, which goes more in-depth, and has this nice quip,Neither article, by itself, is groundbreaking in any way. Hansen’s list is generic and Cockburn is wrong. But there is a likeable tension in their collocation that has not existed on news pages in some months.
It also providesRebutting the remainder of Cockburn’s pseudo-scientific argument is unnecessary.
Lastly, I found this Reason article which is pretty small, not in-depth, and providesNow comes Cockburn's second column peddling climate change denial
. Really, the only thing to work off of is the Columbia Journalism Review piece, which might be enough to say "Cockburn wrote in support of the incorrect and pseudoscientific belief of climate change denialism." That's really not enough for it's own heading, though. - To be honest, that entire article is just filled with SYNTH based on his writings, with little in the way of secondary sources to show that any of it is notable or due. The entire "political views and activities" section could be cut down to a paragraph that says "He was a socialist, Marxist and a contrarian."
At times acerbic, Cockburn could also be gently and humorously ironic, once declaring Gerald Ford America's greatest president for "doing the least damage" and praising the Lewinsky scandal's entertainment value.
is sourced to this unreliable source which doesn't mention gentle, humor or irony, or even Gerald Ford. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:18, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- I did some digging and found his obit in The Guardian, which says
- I suspected that to be the right solution, and I agree with it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- As indicated by SFR, the entire article is problematic. Tangents, synth, puff, verbosity, you name it. If I have time over the next few days (that's a significant if, unfortunately) I will break out the hatchet and start a-hackin'. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- I now suspect the job will require a bulldozer and C-4. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
- Please see the article Talk page for more comments (not that I'm recommending that rabbit hole), as issues regarding the page seem mostly tangential to fringe topics. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 19:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
Recent addition to OR policy
I'd be interested in thoughts about this matter at the OR policy talk page. Crossroads -talk- 04:06, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Charles Faulkner (author)
Working through 2009 promo tags and stumbled on this article. I'm inclined to shorten it significantly but curious opinions on whether the fringeness of his views is being buried in the body and needs to be made more apparent to a reader.Slywriter (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
- Service: Charles Faulkner (author) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
- --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Alexander Gorodnitsky
- Alexander Gorodnitsky (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Some user still believes in the existence of "climate change skeptics". --Hob Gadling (talk) 22:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Norman Fenton
- Norman Fenton (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
Recently came across this tangentially via COVID-related avenues (see Hart Group of which he is a member), and find there's a lot of science stuff in here which is outside my area of interest (Bayesian reasoning) including the bold claim that he is "renowned for his work in software engineering". I note he has also pronounced on climate change (how, I don't know). Do other editors know more and (outside COVID vaccines) is there a fringe aspect here? Alexbrn (talk) 12:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
- I went through and trimmed some WP:PEACOCK language. While he does appear to have a significant number of citations in computer science and software engineering (roughly a thousand IEEE citations per year), I feel like "renown" needs a better citation than that. Much of the section seems to need a bit more work to read like it wasn't written as a promo or to pulled from his CV. But he doesn't appear to be a WP:FRINGE computer researcher, more like the common example of being over-certain outside his field of expertise. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
I just finished diffusing the biographies in Category:Scientific racism, which constitiuted about 60% of the category, into a new category named Category:Proponents of scientific racism, except for a few articles which lacked context or were otherwise unapplicable. However, I discovered during cleanup that the new category has a large overlap with Category:Race and intelligence controversy: 31 articles are in both categories, and from a cursory glance some of those entries are nondefining for R&I. Any advice on what to do with the biographies in the R&I category? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:14, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
AfD for The Templar Revelation
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Templar Revelation (2nd nomination) - it may end up being kept, but at the moment it has no inline citations, just a link to this which I'm pretty sure fails RS. Doug Weller talk 17:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
- I swear that site ripped off the aesthetic from my website aggregating resources on Hittite history from 1995 or so. Dumuzid (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's been kept. It's got a big pov summary with no sources. Doug Weller talk 15:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
RFC on how to include allegations of Chinese government undercounting COVID-19 cases and deaths
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 § RFC: How should we include allegations of undercounting?. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Ghost of Kyiv
Can (or should) we repeat the claims of reliable sources, which state that there is no evidence for the existence of the Ghost of Kyiv?[17][18][19][20][21] Some additional opinions at Talk:Ghost_of_Kyiv#Reverted_edits would be appreciated. Endwise (talk) 14:49, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Fish falling from the sky
Rain of animals. Extremely curious how the anti-fringe crowd is going to treat this one. It's one of those things that seems so goofy, implausible, and inconsequential that mainstream academic science doesn't even care. So instead Wikipedia have filled this article with absolute speculation, presumably as a false balance against the presumed message that fish falling from the sky means magic is real and science is a lie. This article is like 1/5th documenting the reports of the phenomenon, and 4/5ths wild speculation. Do we allow the wild speculation only because it's inside a specific point of view? MarshallKe (talk) 13:46, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'm a little sad that it doesn't mention the Mad Fishmonger theory. Anyone happen to have a reliable source that describes it? MrOllie (talk) 13:51, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- The only fishmonger I could find was "Roscoe Chandler". JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- So, having quickly perused the article (and recalling my misspent youth reading "Fortean" type works), I was actually pleasantly surprised at the sourcing (Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, BBC, etc.). While I would agree that "wild speculation" is an accurate descriptor, I am not quite sure what you think would be an improvement? That seems to be the state of understanding of the phenomenon. Are you suggesting we edit out the speculation? Or the whole article? Any clarification would be appreciated. Have a nice day. Dumuzid (talk) 13:55, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I drew the same conclusion, its seems OK, not brilliant but OK. Slatersteven (talk) 13:56, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, in the absence of a higher confidence explanation, it's pretty reasonable to describe the various theories in proportion to their mainstream acceptance. The latter bit being the trick... On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm a bit surprised nobody has taken up such research to get themselves an Ig Nobel. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Not sure I'm making any specific suggestion on what to do with the article, as I actually like the article as it stands. I just see that we are allowing things like "yeah, I think it might be waterspouts, man" into the article just because they happened to get published in Smithsonian. Seems like the takeaway here, at least for me, is that if mainstream academic peer-reviewed work published in a journal isn't available on a topic, we can just use whatever happens to get published in any vaguely scientific secondary source. MarshallKe (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Now I'm wondering, what do we do with abstract cosmological and particle physics questions that are open questions without a lot of consensus or published research? Are these sources just easy collections of those views, rather than the journal papers that back up those views (and editors haven't found them yet)? Bakkster Man (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'm interested, too, in seeing a list of ideas that science is studying but there is truly no reliable mainstream academic consensus yet, and seeing how Wikipedia has treated these articles. MarshallKe (talk) 14:14, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I believe you, MarshallKe, have the right (if somewhat unsatisfying) answer. Where there are no (at least none found) reliable academic sources, published studies, or the like, then yes, we are forced to rely on more "popular" reliable sources. To me, that's an easy call: better to have a "dumbed-down" description of some abstruse M-theory spinoff than not describe it at all. We all know science is imperfect, always progressing, and always growing. Sometimes we just have to wait for it to get where we would like it to be. As ever, just my opinion, and happy to defer to consensus if it should go some other way. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Lists of unsolved problems probably has a solid corpus of examples of this. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Now I'm wondering, what do we do with abstract cosmological and particle physics questions that are open questions without a lot of consensus or published research?
If there's not a lot ofpublished research
, then we don't write about it. If there's merely a lack ofconsensus
, we write about the different viewpoints that exist. A debate has to be documented before we can cover it here. If no scientific papers on a question have yet made it through peer review, then it's almost certainly too soon to write about it on Wikipedia. It is very, very rare for a topic to qualify based on pop-science coverage alone, and that is how it should be; very few pop-science publications are remotely reliable enough for our purposes, and we're not here to do the services of a PR department by recycling sensationalistic trash. XOR'easter (talk) 00:56, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Lists of unsolved problems probably has a solid corpus of examples of this. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I believe you, MarshallKe, have the right (if somewhat unsatisfying) answer. Where there are no (at least none found) reliable academic sources, published studies, or the like, then yes, we are forced to rely on more "popular" reliable sources. To me, that's an easy call: better to have a "dumbed-down" description of some abstruse M-theory spinoff than not describe it at all. We all know science is imperfect, always progressing, and always growing. Sometimes we just have to wait for it to get where we would like it to be. As ever, just my opinion, and happy to defer to consensus if it should go some other way. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'm interested, too, in seeing a list of ideas that science is studying but there is truly no reliable mainstream academic consensus yet, and seeing how Wikipedia has treated these articles. MarshallKe (talk) 14:14, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Now I'm wondering, what do we do with abstract cosmological and particle physics questions that are open questions without a lot of consensus or published research? Are these sources just easy collections of those views, rather than the journal papers that back up those views (and editors haven't found them yet)? Bakkster Man (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Ho, I did not watch that one yet! Thanks for bringing it up.
presumably as a false balance against the presumed message that fish falling from the sky means magic is real and science is a lie
That childish "I-cannot-explain-this-and-I-am-so-smart-therefore-nobody-can-explain-this" position is not even mentioned in the article. And "false balance" is about avoiding the addition of stupid ideas to balance out the smart ones, not the other way around. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)- The fact that the "magic" explanation is not anywhere in the article is exactly my point. We've added a bunch of crap to balance out a statement that only exists in our minds, not in the article. And false balance is about adding stuff that isn't mainstream academic scientific consensus, not about adding what Hob Gadling determines is stupid or not. And you have to admit, the waterspout hypothesis is a stupid idea, for multiple reasons. MarshallKe (talk) 15:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Why is the waterspout hypothesis 'stupid'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Two obvious ones:
1) Waterspouts don't pick things up, move them miles, and drop them. They fling.2) Unless there is such a thing as selective waterspouts that only pick up specific kinds of objects to the exclusion of everything else in a body of water, the waterspout hypothesis would result in a variety of organisms and nonliving objects being moved, which is in the minority of reports. MarshallKe (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2022 (UTC) - Of course, keep in mind this is not a forum and we're not here to speculate or do the job of scientists. MarshallKe (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Waterspouts can and do move things miles. Scientists say so. [22] AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:15, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Okay, I may have been mistaken on #1. MarshallKe (talk) 15:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Given that aerodynamic forces are responsible for moving stuff up, it is more or less inevitable that it is going to get sorted to some extent, by terminal velocity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Okay, I may have been mistaken on #1. MarshallKe (talk) 15:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Where did those
selective waterspouts that only pick up specific kinds of objects to the exclusion of everything else
come from? Do the reports say that the observers made a complete inventory of everything that fell from the sky in a large area? Both your "obvious ones" are wrong. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:22, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Waterspouts can and do move things miles. Scientists say so. [22] AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:15, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Two obvious ones:
The fact that the "magic" explanation is not anywhere in the article is exactly my point.
It should not be anywhere. That's what WP:FALSEBALANCE is about. Of course, as soon as something is slightly difficult to explain, the web is full of simple people who fail to explain it after trying for a few seconds, then conclude, "it's a miracle! it's aliens! it's psi!" There is nothing noteworthy about that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:22, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Why is the waterspout hypothesis 'stupid'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- The fact that the "magic" explanation is not anywhere in the article is exactly my point. We've added a bunch of crap to balance out a statement that only exists in our minds, not in the article. And false balance is about adding stuff that isn't mainstream academic scientific consensus, not about adding what Hob Gadling determines is stupid or not. And you have to admit, the waterspout hypothesis is a stupid idea, for multiple reasons. MarshallKe (talk) 15:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- The article fails to mention Hyman’s Categorical Imperative [23]:
before we try to explain something we should be sure that there is indeed something to explain
. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:51, 23 March 2022 (UTC)- To be 100% fair, Radford there doesn't seem to question the general proposition of animal falls, just the idea of "single species falls." And wow, this is the most I have thought about this topic in several decades. Happy Wednesday, everyone! Dumuzid (talk) 14:59, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Given the variety of contentious topics in the zeitgeist, this one is quite the palate cleanser. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I concur MarshallKe (talk) 15:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah I added basically that to the talk page ages ago, with no replies thus far, that one idea is that this is hundreds of cases of The Ubiquitous Unscrupulous Reporter (TUUR). MarshallKe (talk) 15:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Gullible people do listen to each other and do propagate false rumours. Reporters do need to fill paper with something exciting. And if there are no details, details are invented. You should read research by Joe Nickell some time, tracing back stories of the unexplained to their origins. Names change over time, details change over time, sometimes the whole character of a tale changes over time. And those who spread fantastic tales of mysterious happenings are the worst at correctly reproducing their sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:22, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- This Smithsonian group, Center for Short-Lived Phenomena, used to report/log these events, but I don't know if there is an on-line copy or if they went into much explanation. StrayBolt (talk) 16:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Gullible people do listen to each other and do propagate false rumours. Reporters do need to fill paper with something exciting. And if there are no details, details are invented. You should read research by Joe Nickell some time, tracing back stories of the unexplained to their origins. Names change over time, details change over time, sometimes the whole character of a tale changes over time. And those who spread fantastic tales of mysterious happenings are the worst at correctly reproducing their sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:22, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- To be 100% fair, Radford there doesn't seem to question the general proposition of animal falls, just the idea of "single species falls." And wow, this is the most I have thought about this topic in several decades. Happy Wednesday, everyone! Dumuzid (talk) 14:59, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Magical extraterrestrial jelly
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Star jelly shared without comment. Except that it is magical. Obviously this proves science is a lie. [sarcasm] MarshallKe (talk) 15:43, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- For someone who's just got an arbitration warning this WP:POINTy use of the forum is ... brave. Alexbrn (talk) 15:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree, though I would probably choose a different adjective. MarshalKe, remember, considers this "debate style" to be "not just policy-abiding, but exemplary of a Wikipedian." [24] Generalrelative (talk) 16:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Wait until you see my new userbox! MarshallKe (talk) 16:13, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- So... openly trolling? If so, the thing for the rest of us to do is to WP:DENY recognition, and leave it to the admins to decide if and when the disruption amounts to dispositive proof of WP:NOTHERE. Generalrelative (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Trolling? No no no. When did humor become so unfashionable? Jesus. MarshallKe (talk) 16:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Alex has been absolutely itching to have me on AN/I for months and the fact that I was merely warned on arbitration is probably a letdown considering he wanted me topic banned. Consider this userbox a gift, to get things moving, so to speak. It seems that a userbox seemingly admitting that I am openly against the very concept of science would be sufficient to ban me from science forever, right? MarshallKe (talk) 16:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- So... openly trolling? If so, the thing for the rest of us to do is to WP:DENY recognition, and leave it to the admins to decide if and when the disruption amounts to dispositive proof of WP:NOTHERE. Generalrelative (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
THis is not the place to discuss user conduct, please stop. Slatersteven (talk) 16:53, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Did Aliens Build the Pyramids? And Other Racist Theories
An article on Sapiens.[25] Sapiens is part of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for which we have no article, just a redirect to its founder. Doug Weller talk 17:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Climate change denier vs skeptic
I noticed 2600:1011:B135:4BE3:21DE:6485:E887:A6C2 (talk · contribs) replacing "skeptic" with "denier" in the context of climate change. I'm under the impression that we favor "denier" only when properly referenced. The edit summaries from this ip suggest something different, Replaced deprecated term
and brought vocabulary up to date
--Hipal (talk) 00:11, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I wouldn't know. "Denier" would definitively be the appropriate term (since there's essentially no room for reasonable, rational disagreement, on this). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- "Skeptic" is a euphemism and should be avoided. A few years back, the climate change denial article was renamed from the earlier "climate change skepticism and denial" because the skepticism term was recognized as inappropriate since it gives deniers more credit than they deserve. They have nothing, like creationists.
- The usual way we put it is "rejects the scientific consensus on climate change", which avoids the euphemism as well as the possibly unsourced word "denial". --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:13, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- This is literal hate speech, please strike it Unblockabl (talk) 07:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Another thing: Reliable journalistic sources essentially stopped using the "skeptic" moniker at about the same time. It can only be found in sources older than that, or in denialist sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I see plenty of recent sources using "climate skeptic" [26][27][28][29][30][31], although it's certainly fallen in use compared to denier. I think there's probably a place for the skeptic label versus the denier label, and we should follow sources. There seems to be, in the short amount of source surveying I've done, a difference between denier, someone who doesn't think humans are having an effect on the climate or thinks the climate isn't really changing, and a skeptic, someone who accepts our effect on the climate, but isn't certain of the scale and overall outcome.
- Basically, though, we shouldn't be using a label that sources aren't using, and we should be using the label that the weight of high quality sources use. For the most part this will end up being denier. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, "stopped" was an exaggeration. Still, the sources that still use it tend to specialize less in science than in "markets", engineering and stuff like that.
a skeptic, someone who accepts our effect on the climate, but isn't certain of the scale and overall outcome
I never heard that definition before. Are there sources for it? The definition in our own climate change denial article would call that denial too. It's #4 in Michael E. Mann's "stages of denial".- If we use "skeptic" because all the sources are from the time when the journalists were still on the false-balance trip, we are using an anachronistic euphemism. I'd say we should avoid both. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'll add that while the Scientific American source uses 'skeptic' in the (likely editor written) headline, the text of the article by the author does not mince words, referring to his views (and those who promote him) as "denial" four times. The kicker:
He evidently doesn't need to win a debate, he just needs to make it seem like there is one.
I agree with the interpretation that 'skeptic', particularly as the primary description, is an anachronistic euphemism here. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC) - It's not exactly an uncommon distinction to make, and I've seen it made many time. Here's a few examples.
- [32]
While these scientists do not necessarily doubt all aspects of climate science, issues of reliability of methodology and validity of conclusions in some areas remain, for them, alive. Whether they are correct or not (and many have been responded to in the literature), they are at least working within the broad norms of academia. We might call these people “climate sceptics”.
- [33]
The use of the terms skeptic, denier, or contrarian is necessarily subject-, issue-, context-, and intervention-dependent. Blanket labeling of heterogeneous views under one of these headings has been shown to do little to further considerations of climate science and policy
- [34]
“I draw a distinction between sceptics and deniers. The sceptics are people I respect – they have raised legitimate issues and, from my experience, are open minded. The deniers are people who start with a conclusion and only pay attention to the data that support it. I do think that our results could change the minds of some sceptics about the reality of global warming.”
- [35]
Hence, I have some sympathy for people who make the "Denier-Skeptic" distinction. (I'll group "climate agnostics" with the Skeptics for this discussion.) They deserve a chance to show they are motivated more by curiosity than partisan fever. Among those who convincingly fit into the Climate Skeptic category, I include several engineers, fellow science fiction authors and the famed physicist Freeman Dyson.
ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'll add that while the Scientific American source uses 'skeptic' in the (likely editor written) headline, the text of the article by the author does not mince words, referring to his views (and those who promote him) as "denial" four times. The kicker:
- What is the difference? Slatersteven (talk) 13:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- The difference (to me, at least) is that "skeptic" suggests a reasonable, evidence-based position, whereas "denier" does not. Your idiolect may vary. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)I was curious and found these source at least discussing the differences as seen by the authors [36][37][38]. All basically see this as a sliding scale and none see the terms as absolutely interchangeable. The AP has a style guide entry on the subject as well.[39] It generally says don't use either term. Don't use skeptic as, traditionally, skepticism followed by investigation is a core part of science. Thus "skeptic" is a good description for someone who is scientifically investigating and challenging current climate science views. Conversely, the AP sees "denier" as often a pejorative term. For these reasons the AP suggests "climate change doubter" or "someone who rejects mainstream science". Note that LABEL may apply to "denier" if it is seen as a pejorative term. Springee (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think an obvious MOS approach is to describe ideas and arguments rather than people. Thus "So-and-so has expressed support for the climate change denial argument thus-and-such." Rather than "So-and-so is a climate change denier." jps (talk) 14:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Then we go with what RS say they are. Slatersteven (talk) 14:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Descriptions are both far more informative and far less denigrating than labels. Per Hob Gadling's advice and AP's style guide linked by Springee, I think the best way to phrase that is
So-and-so rejects the scientific consensus on climate change
. (Maybe for some people, that can be downgraded todoubts the scientific consensus on climate change
.) "Climate change denier" can also often be misleading, as some people don't deny the existence of climate change but claim it is natural rather than anthropogenic, but both claims would fall cleanly under "rejects the scientific consensus on climate change". BTW I don't think there's a MOS:LABEL issue with the term "climate change denier" though as I don't think "denier" is value-laden.
- For numerous reasons listed above I also don't think it's appropriate to ever use the phrase "climate change skeptic" or "climate change skepticism" in Wikipedia's own voice, i.e. the term should appear in quotes or be attributed wherever used. Skepticism is a normal part of science, so a reasonable and skeptical scientist may well say that for instance "nobody knows whether clouds speed up or slow climate change as they are too hard to model" or the even more skeptical "nobody knows the effect releasing aerosols into the atmosphere has on climate change as aerosals act as condensation nuclei for clouds which we do not understand". Such scientists are skeptics about our current understanding of climate change, and are well within normal scientific debate, but those who deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change are anything but. Endwise (talk) 05:45, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
The articles in question:
- Lucia Liljegren (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Rather stubby, contains almost nothing but the bones of an article, a bit of backslapping by someone who thinks like her, and a tidbit about fencing stolen e-mails. Should probably be deleted.
- Heartland Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Clearly a denialist organization. No BLP problem here.
- Sherwood B. Idso (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Notorious part of the denial industry. See [40].
And of course, there is that lengthy Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#RfC:_MOS:LABEL discussion going on which is relevant here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:42, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lucia Liljegren. jps (talk) 14:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
White Christian nationalism
See [41] discussing this new book.[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-flag-and-the-cross-9780197618684?cc=a2&lang=en& The Flag and the Cross:White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. Doug Weller talk 15:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- What is the purpose of posting this here? --Animalparty! (talk) 17:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Just to let people know about it. Doug Weller talk 09:23, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Circular and unfruitful discussion about whether someone who spreads propaganda is a propagandist. Let's add a few more people who repeat what has already been said. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:38, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think the problem is in describing a person rather than what they are doing. At least that's my editorial bias in these sorts of matters. But if my WP:BOLD Gordion Knot cutting does not have consensus, that's fine too. jps (talk) 14:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Joe Biden is someone who has told lies, so is he a liar? I say, in general, it's best to use whatever sources say, without applying labels not used in sources. I don't think there would be an issue in this case using "conspiracy theorist", but unless sources are specifically calling them a propagandist, I wouldn't use the label. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- I personally don't like "conspiracy theorist" all that much either as I get rather fascinated by the difference between those who are documented to invent conspiracy theories (for example, David Icke) and those who take the conspiracy theories and then propagate them (for example, Alex Jones). What makes one a "conspiracy theorist", then, is a hair-splitting argument that really is not edifying. It's more precise and more informative to say what the person is actually doing vis-a-vis conspiracy theories instead of just giving them a title like "conspiracy theorist". jps (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree there is definitely a difference, but that's why I generally go with what the weight of sources say. It's like the climate skeptic/denier conversation above. They have different meanings to different people, so it's best just to look at the weight of sources, specifically the best quality sources, and see what they say. I also don't like how we tend to shove labels or mentions like that into the first sentence of the lead.
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954) is an American environmental lawyer and author who is known for promoting anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories.
The huge, enormous, vast weight of sources do not claim he's a conspiracy theorist, or even promotes conspiracy theories. He isn't known for for his vaccine stances or 5G nuttery, he's been known forever. I prefer to have a bit more context when it comes to the negative claims. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:39, 25 March 2022 (UTC)- Sticking to sources is fine and admirable, of course, but I think generally editorial decisions about word choice come down to other judgement calls. While style guides might help and certainly explain why, for example, certain ways of saying this or that are more common in reliable sources than others, what we're really quibbling here over is wording that is essentially synonymous. The devil is in the details, so I do think arguments for precision are more convincing than pretending that a source that say "He spreads propaganda" is not really saying "He is a propagandist". And anyway, whether we've stuck slavishly to sources or not is an argument I think often is taken too far at this website -- occasionally with the result that prose becomes overly stilted fashion or, worse, plagiarism. jps (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- We aren't required to stick to the source in all cases for specific terms used to describe someone. For example, if most sources refer to Mr Doe as "that a-hole who spreads misinformation" we can skip the first part while saying he spreads misinformation. If an anti-vaxxer is viewed as not just risking the health of those who follow their preaching but, as was often seen during COVID, risking the health/well being of those who were vaccinated it's understandable many sources may pick language that is specifically meant to appeal to their reader's sense of outrage etc. This is often true when groups sensitive to LGBT issues write about someone who opposes something LBGT related. The person may be labeled as -phobic in general rather than more accurately describing the subject's specific views. From there we have people arguing that Mr Doe needs to be called -phobic in Wiki voice rather than providing the more nuanced version of his position. Yet another reason to generally avoid labels and stick more to descriptions of the underlying issues. Springee (talk) 02:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- Sticking to sources is fine and admirable, of course, but I think generally editorial decisions about word choice come down to other judgement calls. While style guides might help and certainly explain why, for example, certain ways of saying this or that are more common in reliable sources than others, what we're really quibbling here over is wording that is essentially synonymous. The devil is in the details, so I do think arguments for precision are more convincing than pretending that a source that say "He spreads propaganda" is not really saying "He is a propagandist". And anyway, whether we've stuck slavishly to sources or not is an argument I think often is taken too far at this website -- occasionally with the result that prose becomes overly stilted fashion or, worse, plagiarism. jps (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree there is definitely a difference, but that's why I generally go with what the weight of sources say. It's like the climate skeptic/denier conversation above. They have different meanings to different people, so it's best just to look at the weight of sources, specifically the best quality sources, and see what they say. I also don't like how we tend to shove labels or mentions like that into the first sentence of the lead.
- I personally don't like "conspiracy theorist" all that much either as I get rather fascinated by the difference between those who are documented to invent conspiracy theories (for example, David Icke) and those who take the conspiracy theories and then propagate them (for example, Alex Jones). What makes one a "conspiracy theorist", then, is a hair-splitting argument that really is not edifying. It's more precise and more informative to say what the person is actually doing vis-a-vis conspiracy theories instead of just giving them a title like "conspiracy theorist". jps (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- The exact same issue with "has spread X propaganda" --> "is a propagandist" and "told X lie" --> "is a liar" exists with "has spread X conspiracy theory" --> "is a conspiracy theorist". I think in this case though, from a quick google search, "conspiracy theorist" is a label that reliable sources do actually use for him. Endwise (talk) 15:10, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think Impartial tone applies. When I hear the term propagandist, I think of Joseph Goebbels. So it seems like an attempt to disparage Kennedy by comparing him with the Nazis, which is an all too frequent tactic used to discredit people with whom we disagree, and certainly not something articles should do.
- It's a problematic term, since its definition is just writing or speech that promotes a cause. but we wouldn't use it for example to describe the Surgeon-General, who persuades people to lead healthy lifestyles. So it's judgmental.
- TFD (talk) 15:17, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's okay to describe what people do (spread propaganda) without assigning them a character trait (propagandist). This is especially true WRT pejorative, contentious, or negative terms. Saying "he's an environmental lawyer who promotes a anti-vaccine propaganda" is sufficiently detailed and perfectly correct, without using labels. If you can state the same information without using emotionally charged labels applied to the person (i.e. describing someone who has done something rather than describing someone who is a thing) is almost always better. --Jayron32 16:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Agree that "he's an environmental lawyer who promotes a anti-vaccine propaganda" sounds good. Will have to keep an eye on the article as the new wording is being contested by many not aware of ongoing chat. Tried to bring attention to the ongoing talk but it was removed stating some sort of consensus during ongoing talk. Moxy- 03:53, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
A user is repeatedly removing the term "fringe" from the ganzfeld experiment. It's obvious that the ganzfeld technique used to test for ESP is fringe science. This is really not controversial. The user is repeatedly adding a citation tag claiming fringe does not appear on the article. The same user [42], [43] has stated that parapsychology is a science and has been in many debates before about their defense of psychic powers. I am not sure why we need a citation tag to claim the ganzfeld experiment is "fringe" but I added a reference for this and was still reverted. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- In my opinion, "fringe" is a bit of a Wikipedian-ism. Sometimes it is used in the literature, but often there are better and more precise ways to describe a situation considering "fringe" can mean such disparate things as "avant-garde" or even "flowery". Since we rely on WP:FRINGE to be an organizing principle, I think we can easily succumb to the misconception that the outside world uses "fringe" in the same way we do, but that is not the case. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, for example, is hardly WP:FRINGE. :) jps (talk) 20:08, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- In this case, we do (and almost certainly should) use the more descriptive term pseudoscience, which is covered by a subset of our FRINGE guideline. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Read the lead:
- A ganzfeld experiment (from the German word for “entire field”) is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. Consistent, independent replication of ganzfeld experiments has not been achieved, and there is no scientifically validated evidence for the existence of any parapsychological phenomena. Ongoing parapsychology research using ganzfeld experiments has been criticized by independent reviewers as having the hallmarks of pseudoscience."
- Since it already says it is AN ASSESSMENT USED BY PARAPSYCHOLOGISTS, the numerous disclaimers and warnings are superfluous. What next? Are we going to write disclaimers for Ghostbusters and the Flintstones that they portray pseudoscience and should not be watched by children under 21?
- Fringe in Wikipedia incidentally means has little or no support in mainstream sources. That could include an alternative theory that science may eventually accept.
- Incidentally, the lead should explain what the experiment is and why it is notable. We should do that before adding more disclaimers.
- TFD (talk) 16:18, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
What next? Are we going to write disclaimers for Ghostbusters and the Flintstones that they portray pseudoscience and should not be watched by children under 21?
- Wikipedia is headed there. We already now refuse to summarize any information about preliminary research because apparently we think readers are so dumb that we've given up on accurately portraying the information and now straight up just tailor the article to make them think what we think they should think. MarshallKe (talk) 18:29, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
- The quoted text reads fine to me; the "disclaimers" summarize the main article below, which is what the introduction is supposed to do. XOR'easter (talk) 22:27, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think summarizing the experiment itself would be a great idea for the lede, but I note that the article as currently written doesn't do a fantastic job of it either. I've been working on that a bit. One thing I cannot determine is whether it was Charles Honorton who coined the term or whether it was used prior to his promulgation. Also, I believe that the 1980 cult classic Altered States may pay homage to this experiment, but I haven't found many sources to help with that. All this is to say it would be nice if people got out of the peanut gallery and tried to help write the article. If you want. jps (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
- A friendly reminder (that is actually written in bold red text at the top of the page) that when referring to specific editors you should notify them.
- Sadly you have not accurately represented here what happened. I shall leave it up to interested parties to review the edit history and the talk page to see what actually happened should they so desire. Morgan Leigh | Talk 05:23, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
Trofim Lysenko
- Trofim Lysenko (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
When I last checked, last November, he was a pseudoscientist. Now, he turns out to be an "agronomist and biologist", and suddenly [some of Lysenko's work had scientific merit, which was recognized internationally, and some of his contributions in the fields of science, agronomy and biology have been highly praised by a number of world-famous scientists.
Could somebody have a look? --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
This is the best example I've seen of why we should never use the media as a source for archaeology, particularly sensational claims. The main discussion is at Talk:Mount Ebal. See [44] for a discussion of the problems by Christopher Rollston who himself says "that there was some sort of Exodus, and that there was also some sort of entrance into the land of Canaan for at least some of the Proto-Israelites, and that there were at least some battles as part of that" so he can't be accused of being a "Bible denier" as the Creationist who found it (out of context) has accused others of being. Doug Weller talk 11:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
- I was just coming here to make sure this had been covered; I should have known Doug would be all over it. I am seeing all sorts of grandiose claims for this thing which should be interesting enough on its own philological grounds. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
- See Israel Finkelstein’s FB page. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Page author has started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apollo of Gaza in what seems to me like an action that goes right up to the line of WP:POINT. jps (talk) 11:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- The AfD process hasn't been properly followed either - there is no entry for the Apollo article in the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log. Someone (preferably someone uninvolved) should probably sort that out. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Page author has started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apollo of Gaza in what seems to me like an action that goes right up to the line of WP:POINT. jps (talk) 11:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- See Israel Finkelstein’s FB page. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
Spirit (animating force)
Spirit (animating force) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
What to do about the name of this article? The problem is, of course, that what is described is manifestly not a force in the way "force" is normally described. The article was renamed from simply spirit over concerns that it was describing something that is more narrowly defined than all the different things that "spirit" refers. This is perhaps a bit more problematic than energy (esotericism), but perhaps that is a solution here? I just think that keeping it at "animating force" is not a good idea. jps (talk) 11:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- What to do about it? Nothing at all, in my opinion. Instead credit readers with the ability to actually read the article, and figure out for themselves that it isn't describing something you'd learn about in a physics lecture. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:27, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Spirit (vitalism)? I note that force is used in the colloquial sense of 'power', not in its scientific sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Vitalism, I think, is best left as a historical side project from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Although some believers in spirits are self-described vitalists, many (perhaps even the majority) are not. Also, while I have heard it said that the colloquial sense of 'power', 'energy', and 'force' are not being used in the scientific sense, when you talk to actual believers in these subjects they will often contend that these things have measurable consequences. It isn't as easy as saying, "Oh, they're not talking about the measurable aspects of power, energy, and force." because, in many cases, they are making claims that such things really are occurring measurably. jps (talk) 11:53, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- I guess I have less faith in potential readers than you do, Andy. Every semester, I have students that ask me if gods or spirits are just a kind of force in my classes because of this kind of misnomer. They literally mean a force that has physical influence. In any case, I think precision is important and here we lack it. jps (talk) 11:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Spirit (vitalism)? I note that force is used in the colloquial sense of 'power', not in its scientific sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Just redirect it to Soul. The article discusses the root words of spirit and soul being different, but does not elaborate on any functional difference in usage, and then goes on to provide a bunch of examples of it being used interchangeably with soul, or examples unrelated to the scope of the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Seems like a possible plan to me, but it is not clear to me that the concept of soul captures absolutely everything that believers in "spirits" think exists. Many believers in souls argue fervently over whether animals have them, for example. Some of those believers who deny animals have souls also argue that those animals have spirits (pneuma). I don't pretend to understand the logic behind such nitpicking, but I know it happens. jps (talk) 11:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- How about something squirrelly like Spirit (animating concept)? Assuming of course that 'concept' is sufficiently neutral. Thinking about the do-animals-have-souls complication reminded me that "animal spirit(s)" can also refer to an economics concept, so we have that, too. And here I was thinking that Spirit (animating force) referred to the finer single malts. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:45, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Seems like a possible plan to me, but it is not clear to me that the concept of soul captures absolutely everything that believers in "spirits" think exists. Many believers in souls argue fervently over whether animals have them, for example. Some of those believers who deny animals have souls also argue that those animals have spirits (pneuma). I don't pretend to understand the logic behind such nitpicking, but I know it happens. jps (talk) 11:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- So the problem is that "force" is used in its common English sense, and not its strictly defined physics sense?
- If so, it's not an isolated problem. We might speak of the "forces of nature", the "Force of a man's character", the "Forces of civilization", etc.
- It seems that it's outside of Wikipedia's remit to encourage the English-speaking word to standardize language to match physics jargon. ApLundell (talk) 17:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Sure, there are plenty of other ways the word "force" is used. I find that "animating force" is hard to identify among the various definitions. Yes, we all know what it means. But it carries with it a mechanical misnomer that I find myself working against in many situations. And as a (parenthetical), I think that precision is ultimately best. Do we even need this parenthetical? After all, we don't exactly describe "animating force" in the article (for good reason). jps (talk) 18:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think it's actually that first definition. " 1a(1) : strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change : active power" The examples given are "the forces of nature, the motivating force in her life "
- A spirit, in this sense, is the active power that animates living things. It is the active power that is the cause of a living thing's motion and vitality. ApLundell (talk) 18:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Well, I guess we're now onto Aristotleian causes now. Factually, spirit is not a material cause of living things' motion and vitality. It might be an efficient cause or a formal cause. The confusion lies, of course, in that many believers in spirit argue that it is a material cause. jps (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- I am not arguing that the idea is true. I am talking about how the idea is commonly described, which is what dictates naming if I understand the guidelines.
- ApLundell (talk) 21:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- This is what I mean by "precision", however. The fact that this spirit is not a material cause or a physical force per se is hardly a matter for discussion in the article. But since there are those (many, in fact), admittedly non-experts, who argue that it is a material cause or physical force mean that the parenthetical is automatically argumentative and adopting a particular perspective that is "believer based" at best and entirely misleading at worst. My concern is not that people as sophisticated as you or I will be misled. My concern is that people who are just starting to investigate such ideas and are presented with the parenthetical will take the label at face value. I know that there are people who will read "spirit (animating force)" and think, "Oh! A spirit is the the force that animates things!" This is, however, not strictly true! It is only a poor approximation of the meaning this label is going for. jps (talk) 19:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Well, I guess we're now onto Aristotleian causes now. Factually, spirit is not a material cause of living things' motion and vitality. It might be an efficient cause or a formal cause. The confusion lies, of course, in that many believers in spirit argue that it is a material cause. jps (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Sure, there are plenty of other ways the word "force" is used. I find that "animating force" is hard to identify among the various definitions. Yes, we all know what it means. But it carries with it a mechanical misnomer that I find myself working against in many situations. And as a (parenthetical), I think that precision is ultimately best. Do we even need this parenthetical? After all, we don't exactly describe "animating force" in the article (for good reason). jps (talk) 18:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps I overlooked the obvious solution? What about spirit (folk belief) since that is the identified category to which the concept belongs according to the first three words of the article? jps (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- I was thinking spirit (folk lore). Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Historically it wasn't just a 'folk' concept though. As the article notes, William Harvey and René Descartes both considered it something physical, something that science (as it was emerging) could comment on. 18:29, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Absolutely! Of course, they had no formal definition of "force" yet, but it is possible if they did they may have tried to apply it to such. jps (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- But "spirit (folklore)" could also refer to things like the White Lady or Nearly Headless Nick. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Is it possible to Find a better source for Descartes’s and Harvey’s view? The source used is well over a century old, and more importantly is somewhat ambiguous about Descartes. Although it says he believed in a “vital force which animated the whole bodily frame”, the previous paragraph says that he held the “soul” to be responsible only for consciousness, but “all other vital phenomena were due to properties of the material of which the body is composed”. Brunton (talk) 08:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Maybe the reader would be better served by an expanding and improving the Spirit, Breath of life, and Life force disambiguation pages rather than trying to find a correct name for the mishmash of concepts in the content? Based on the title I would expect to see pneuma and Galen from Vitalism#Ancient_times, spiraculum vitae along with et spiritus Dei from pneumatology, Energy (esotericism), etc. but without the ghosts, fairies and other spiritual beings from the redirect. Wouldn't improved disambiguation be better than confusing article content? fiveby(zero) 17:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I feel like this might be a great way forward. jps (talk) 11:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree. This solutions seems to be the most reader-oriented / informative approach on the table so far. Generalrelative (talk) 03:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- We should also clarify that Spirit gum is not in fact made from ghosts, so that dumb people are not mistaken. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- "The school spirit is a ghost, who will kill me if I don't obey. Ghosts are scary, guy!" -Cal Evans, Undergrads Bakkster Man (talk) 13:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- Similar issues with Gum Arabic. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:09, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- It's already a huge disambig page, and y'all are just making it bigger with your spirit gums and school spirits. Looking at the titles with direct links to Spirit (animating force) i imagine many can be replaced with a more specific target, or cleaned up by altering the text or just removing the link. Guessing what's left over would be mostly artifacts of the recent move and others: immaterial beings that aren't properly ghosts. Probably wanted one of redirects: spiritual being or spiritual entity or some such. Will reduce the link count and then maybe it will be clearer what to do with Spirit (animating force) content, name and history. fiveby(zero) 15:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- I like Supernatural#Spirit as the eventual target here rather than Non-physical entity#Spirits. fiveby(zero) 15:19, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- It's already a huge disambig page, and y'all are just making it bigger with your spirit gums and school spirits. Looking at the titles with direct links to Spirit (animating force) i imagine many can be replaced with a more specific target, or cleaned up by altering the text or just removing the link. Guessing what's left over would be mostly artifacts of the recent move and others: immaterial beings that aren't properly ghosts. Probably wanted one of redirects: spiritual being or spiritual entity or some such. Will reduce the link count and then maybe it will be clearer what to do with Spirit (animating force) content, name and history. fiveby(zero) 15:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Meat explosion at John Campbell
- John Campbell (YouTuber) (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
Youtuber John Campbell has mentioned his Wikipedia article to his ~2 million subscribers and the result is predictable. The fuss is entirely around fringe pandemic topics (ivermectin, vaccine safety, death counts, etc.). Eyes from fringe-savyy editors may help. Alexbrn (talk) 05:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I first thought there had been an accident in the soup factory... --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree, I was getting ready to add Great Molasses Flood to the see also section. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 09:21, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Exploding whale would be another candidate for that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- How about the London Beer Flood? Brunton (talk) 13:24, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think List of edible disasters is just begging to be a blue link. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:32, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- a redirect to Wetherspoons maybe? Alexbrn (talk) 13:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- And here I was hoping for a sequel to the Kentucky meat shower--not exactly a disaster, but it certainly sounded on point. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- SFR, please don't eat the exploded whale. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 13:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Get on my level. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:31, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- a redirect to Wetherspoons maybe? Alexbrn (talk) 13:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think List of edible disasters is just begging to be a blue link. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:32, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- How about the London Beer Flood? Brunton (talk) 13:24, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Exploding whale would be another candidate for that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree, I was getting ready to add Great Molasses Flood to the see also section. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 09:21, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I first thought there had been an accident in the soup factory... --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I have AFD'd it as they do have kind of a valid point about how its pretty negative, problem is is that this is why he is kind of notable. Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed. If there's going to be an article about John Campbell, it's going to be pretty negative because that's the locus of his fame in RS. (I actually think Wikipedia's notability guidelines need to be revised to that we only carry bios of living people who have had a book/journal article written about, or who have repeatedly appeared in headline news in major news sources. Yes, that would mean deleting a lot of Wikipedia. It would be great.) Alexbrn (talk) 13:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree, notability and fame should not be synonymous, but that is how society works. Slatersteven (talk) 13:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- AfD seems like a jump. There's some cleanup to be done, but no indication that the article is beyond fixing. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:21, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- What's going to happen, most probably, is that Campbell will keep producing increasingly fringey videos and so fact-checkers etc. will keep issuing corrections. So the article will get "worse" as this accumulates. I live in hope a source will emerge with an overview of his Youtube career, which would allow us to wrap everything up into a more compact form. The closest so far is this, but trying to use it will probably provoke even more disquiet because it's not ideal. Alexbrn (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think one of the missing elements of the article is that transition, from praise in 2020 for factual science communication, to censure over specific items of misinformation later. Another example of the reason not to apply labels, or perhaps more specifically here to make such references to misinformation very specific. It seems closer to something like Nobel disease, where it's a few instances of fringe ideas overshadow a body of otherwise good work. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:52, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think you're spot on. "Audience capture" it's sometimes called. We really need a source to chart this. Alexbrn (talk) 17:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Nobel disease assumes a certain brilliance to the individual in the first place, (think Montagnier or Josephson), and then a fall from still great heights into oddthink. This isn't that. this guy was never up there in the first place, gets a doctrate, starts pronouncing on things way way outside his area of expertise, and gets caught out. That's his notability in a nutshell. Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I didn't mean in the sense of Nobel-levels of brilliance to start. But there's multiple sources on the article early in the pandemic by major publications calling him a 'sensation' or having 'gone viral' with his COVID explanations, and UNICEF giving him as an example of "real experts" who should be amplified. He wasn't perceived as a crackpot then, it's that later fall (whether audience capture or something else) that led to the misinformation allegations. Which, I'll add, is why I don't think he's a WP:BLP1E, having had mainstream coverage prior to the misinformation events. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Nobel disease assumes a certain brilliance to the individual in the first place, (think Montagnier or Josephson), and then a fall from still great heights into oddthink. This isn't that. this guy was never up there in the first place, gets a doctrate, starts pronouncing on things way way outside his area of expertise, and gets caught out. That's his notability in a nutshell. Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think you're spot on. "Audience capture" it's sometimes called. We really need a source to chart this. Alexbrn (talk) 17:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think one of the missing elements of the article is that transition, from praise in 2020 for factual science communication, to censure over specific items of misinformation later. Another example of the reason not to apply labels, or perhaps more specifically here to make such references to misinformation very specific. It seems closer to something like Nobel disease, where it's a few instances of fringe ideas overshadow a body of otherwise good work. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:52, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- What's going to happen, most probably, is that Campbell will keep producing increasingly fringey videos and so fact-checkers etc. will keep issuing corrections. So the article will get "worse" as this accumulates. I live in hope a source will emerge with an overview of his Youtube career, which would allow us to wrap everything up into a more compact form. The closest so far is this, but trying to use it will probably provoke even more disquiet because it's not ideal. Alexbrn (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I kind of like the test case deletion discussion. Wikipedia seems to have an over-coverage of biographies of YouTube stars. Most of the content that is worthy of inclusion here could be contained in other articles, in my opinion. jps (talk) 11:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think this changes my mind. The two most notable issues seem to be about Ivermectin (got a whole article about that), and the death count stuff which was only notable because David Davis (British politician) cited it to Parliament (but not present on that article). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:25, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
Essentially, this is part two of my submission from December "Belarusians are really Lithuanians?". Cukrakalnis spreads the idea that Poles in Lithuania, are not Poles living in Lithuania, but actually "Slavicized Lithuanians". He bases this statement on the works of the controversial Lithuanian linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius. He was a politically engaged academic and Minister of Education who claimed that Poles in Lithuania are not Poles, but more or less "confused Lithuanians". He also claimed that the Polish language does not exist in Lithuania, and that the language spoken by Poles in Lithuania is a separate language, devoid of grammar and literature, and as such is doomed to extinction. And Poles in Lithuania should return to the bosom of the Lithuanian nation. To which he himself contributed significantly by leading the action of Lithuanianization, being the Minister of Education. I described his character in more detail here: Talk:Poles in Lithuania#(Un)reliability of Zigmas Zinkevičius. His view has deep roots in Lithuanian nationalism. You can read about it in Ethnographic Lithuania.
It is a historical fact that the Polish minority in Lithuania emerged as a result of a long-lasting process of adoption of the Polish language and culture by the inhabitants of Lithuanian territories. Migration from central Poland was of marginal importance. It is also a fact that the process of Polonisation among the lower classes took place mainly in the second half of the 19th century. I described it in the article Polonization, which I am currently working on. But this does not mean that Poles living in Lithuania today are only "Slavicized Lithuanians" or "Polonized Lithuanians". In the last year 183 thousand people marked Polish nationality in the census. And this is how they should be defined. Just because someone's great-great-grandfather or even grandfather spoke Lithuanian as his first language, it does not mean that person is "Slavicized" if he self-identify as simply "Polish". Marcelus (talk) 20:30, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- This concerns this phrase from Poles in Lithuania: They are either mostly descended from or are themselves Slavicized Lithuanians,[1][2][3][4][a] and the American political scientist Walter Clemens mentions a Belarusian origin.[6] This WP:NPOV phrase is directly supported by numerous sources and also supported by content in the article itself, which was added by Marcelus. Moreover, Marcelus initiated a WP:EDITWAR and continuously removed material that had multiple sources supporting it. Instead of initiating a conversation on the page's talk page, there were about ten major removals by Marcelus. As for me, I kept re-adding the sourced material and also improving other sections of the article.
References
- ^ Lipscomb & Committee for a Free Lithuania 1958, p. A4962; "It is very enlightening that a sharp cleavage separating Catholics and Orthodox runs along the boundaries drawn up in 1920 between Lithuania and Soviet Russia. During the negotiations in Moscow, it was admitted that this cleavage shows where the ethnographic border between Lithuania and Byelorussia ran, since the Lithuanians accepted Christianity later from the Roman Catholic church; they remained Catholic although later some of them were Polonized or Byelorussified. That religious-ethnographic boundary, further emphasized by the style of farmhouses and buildings, runs well to the east of Vilnius, through the regions of Molodechno, Lyda, and Gardinas (Grodno)."
- ^ a b Budreckis 1967; "Halinos Turskos studija apie lenkų tarmę Vilniaus ir Švenčionių apskrityse įrodo, jog Vilniaus krašto lenkai, tai, daugumoje, sulenkėję lietuviai, o ne žmonės, atkeliavę iš etnografinės Lenkijos."
- ^ Šapoka 2013, p. 216.
- ^ a b Zinkevičius 2014.
- ^ Turska 1930, pp. 219–225.
- ^ Clemens 1991, p. 150; In reality, many Poles in Lithuania were the offspring of Polonized Lithuanians or Belarussians
- Bibliography:
- Budreckis, Algirdas (1967). "Etnografinės Lietuvos Rytinės ir Pietinės Sienos". Karys.
- Clemens, Walter C. (1991). Baltic Independence and Russian Empire. 0-312-04806-8: St. Martin's Press. p. 150.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link) - Šapoka, Adolfas (2013). Raštai (in Lithuanian). Vol. I - Vilniaus Istorija. Vilnius: Edukologija.
- Lipscomb, Glenard P.; Committee for a Free Lithuania (29 May 1958). "Extension of Remarks". Congressional Record. 104 - Appendix.
- Turska, Halina (1930). "Język polski na Wileńsczyzne". Wilno i Ziemia Wilenska (in Polish). Vol. I.
- Zinkevičius, Zigmas (31 January 2014). "Lenkiškai kalbantys lietuviai" [Polish-speaking Lithuanians]. alkas.lt (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Lithuanian professor Zigmas Zinkevičius considers the Poles in Lithuania and especially in the Vilnius Region as Polish-speaking Lithuanians,[4], while the Lithuanian historian Algirdas Martynas Budreckis wrote that "Halina Turska's study[5] of the Polish dialect in Vilnius and Švenčionys counties proves that the Poles in the Vilnius region, for the most part, are Polonized Lithuanians, not people who came from ethnographic Poland."[2]
Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Note that none of the sources you cited use the term "Slavicized Lithuanians" or "Polonized Lithuanians". Even Zinkevičius talks about "lenkiškai kalbantys lietuviai" - Polish-speaking Lithuanians (in a 2014 article, then by the way he claims that their speech has nothing to do with Polish). Let me repeat, it is true that the Polish minority in Lithuania arose as a result of Polonisation, which took place mainly in the second half of the 19th century (this is what Turska writes about), and not as a result of some great migration of Poles to Lithuania (such theories appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, today no one seriously claims so). This does not change the fact that Poles in Lithuania today are Poles, because Polishness is not a community of blood and soil, but a community of language and culture.Marcelus (talk) 20:54, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
- Marcelus' statement is flat out false - The American political scientist Walter Clemens uses the term "Polonized Lithuanians", as do the other sources (e.g. sulenkėję lietuviai and other similar terms). Marcelus making false statements is clear for all to see. This nomination should be removed, because Marcelus wants to remove content based on sources just because he dislikes what they say. He did not acquaint himself with what they said and instead just wants to remove them. He accused me of
Either you don't read Polish or you are deliberately misleading
, even if the source in question supported what I said (see the bottom of section Talk:Poles_in_Lithuania#(Un)reliability_of_Zigmas_Zinkevičius, where Marcelus smears the professor Zigmas Zinkevičius for saying what many others, even Poles, have said). Finally, the article's content supports the phrase Marcelus seeks to remove. Marcelus' actions are simply not according to Wiki guidelines. Cukrakalnis (talk) 21:07, 30 March 2022 (UTC)- I don't have access to Coleman's book, but all it matters is context. It's one thing to call Lithuanians who adopted the Polish language and culture "Polonized Lithuanian", but the whole other thing is calling that established national minority in Lithuania, which members clearly self-declare as Poles. Can you cite the whole context Coleman is using that term? That's one thing. Other is that you still failed to pinpoint a source that uses the term "Slavicized Lithuanians". Also term Sulenkėję lietuviai, which I believe translates as something like "bent/broken/fallen Lithuanian" is something very different, more like a slur than anything worth using in the encyclopedia. Can you quote the part of Turska's article that supposedly supports what you are saying? Because I read it, and there is no nothing like what you are claiming. Hence my assumption you don't really read well in Polish. Zigmas Zinkevičius is very anti-Polish, his theories are just reflections of his nationalistic views. Of course content of the article doesn't support claim that Polish people in Lithuania are "Slavicized Lithuanians".Marcelus (talk) 16:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- The work of the Lithuanian historian Adolfas Šapoka has the sentences
Lithuanian areas in many instances were cut up or bisected by Slavicized "Locals", and appropriated by both the Whiteruthenians and Poles for their propaganda purposes.
orIslands of Lithuanians are to be found guite far in the east, and Slavicized islands are encountered west of Vilnius.
- pretty much obviously implying the term of Slavicized Lithuanians. The term Sulenkėję lietuviai translates to Polonized Lithuanians and not "bent/broken/fallen". The "translation" you provided comes from Google Translate or etc. and is obviously wrong - it confused lenkti (to bend) and lenkas (a Pole). Sulenkėję has the stem lenk, which is connected to Poland (Lith: Lenkija) and Poles (Lith: lenkai). I guarantee you this as a native speaker of Lithuanian. Moreover, Slavicized includes both Polonized and Byelorussified (both Poles and Byelorussians are Slavs) and both of these terms are used in the 1958 source. - Turska's article writes in the very first page of it:
O języku polskim na Wileńszczyźnie pisano dotychczas bardzo mało, nie doczekał się on jeszcze gruntownego, monograficznego opracowania. A szkoda, posiada bowiem swoistą, bardzo charakterystyczną i niezmiernie ciekawą postać, odrębną od postaci innych nowych narzeczy polskich, wyrosłych bądź na gruncie ruskim, bądź też litewskim. Odrębność ta dotyczy nietylko właściwości językowych, ale także historji powstania i rozwoju polszczyzny wileńskiej: jak wiadomo, nie powstała ona ani przez jakąś godną uwagi polską kolonizację, ani drogą stopniowego wypierania języka obcego przez sąsiadujące dialekty polskie, nigdzie bowiem nie łączy się z obszarem czysto polskim, a stanowi wyspę, ze wszystkich stron otoczoną morzem białoruskiem i litewskiem. Od jak dawna wyspa ta istnieje, kiedy, w jakich warunkach i w jaki sposób powstała? Na te pytania można będzie z całą pewnością odpowiedzieć po gruntownem zbadaniu zarówno mowy współczesnej, jak też języka zabytków przeszłości. Dziś można powiedzieć jedno: polszczyzna na Wileńszczyźnie powstała na gruncie obcym w sposób swoisty, niespotykany poza tem, jako wynik działania siły atrakcyjnej kultury polskiej.
The conclusion is obvious from this. Zigmas Zinkevičius is very anti-Polish, his theories are just reflections of his nationalistic views.
No, and you have not proven anything of what you are accusing Professor Zigmas Zinkevičius of being. Going out of your way to call them "theories" without proving that they are wrong is intellectually dishonest. He, as a professor, is much more knowledgeable than you about the subject - especially the one where he specializes in.Of course content of the article doesn't support claim that Polish people in Lithuania are "Slavicized Lithuanians".
The phrase in question is They are either mostly descended from or are themselves Slavicized Lithuanians, and the American political scientist Walter Clemens mentions a Belarusian origin. The article clearly supports the claim made in this sentence, and denying that is dishonest. And you are trying to remove this sentence, which is well supported and factually true. Cukrakalnis (talk) 17:27, 31 March 2022 (UTC)- Thank you for clarifying the meaning of "Sulenkėja lietuviai", Google translate has misled me.
- Adolf Šapoka died in 1961, so his words clearly cannot apply to the current situation in 2022. His work is obviously very biased, written in the spirit of the understanding of the nation as an "ethnographic-racial" community, characteristic primarily of pre-war Lithuania. On page 215 he writes: "Lastly, the language alone does not determine nationality. It is determined by ways of life, customs, folklore and other elements of national culture, and finally -racial peculiarities". As we can see, the nation is treated here as an objectively existing community of blood, independent of personal self-identification. So for people like him, Lithuanians who have adopted Polish national self-identification, and even their descendants cannot be Poles, they will always be Lithuanians. Because "Lithuanian blood" flows in their veins. This is obviously unacceptable. If someone was Polonised even in 1939, can their children and grandchildren be described as "Slavicised Lithuanians"? Obviously not.
- Turska's article, the passage quoted contains nothing controversial for me, I fully agree with it. Let me translate: Very little has been written about the Polish language in the Vilnius region so far and it has not yet received a thorough monographic study. It is a pity, as it has a specific, very characteristic and extremely interesting character, distinct from the characters of other new Polish dialects, developed either on Ruthenian or Lithuanian grounds. This distinctiveness applies not only to its linguistic qualities but also to the history of its origin and development. As we know, it was not created by any noteworthy Polish colonisation or by the gradual suppression of a foreign language by neighbouring Polish dialects, for it is nowhere connected with a purely Polish area, but constitutes an island, surrounded on all sides by the Belarusian and Lithuanian seas. How long has this island existed, when, under what conditions and in what way did it come into being? These questions can certainly be answered after a thorough study of both the contemporary speech and the language of the monuments of the past. Today we can say one thing: the Polish language in the Vilnius region came into being on foreign soil in a peculiar way, unprecedented elsewhere, as a result of the power of the attractive Polish culture. Her conclusion is that the Polish language in Lithuania emerged as a result of the adoption of the Polish language by the local Lithuanian and Belarusian population, which resulted in a dialect different from the one spoken in central Poland. This is absolutely true. Turska in her article distinguishes between the tongue of the intelligentsia and the tongue of uneducated people, which has two varieties: one similar to Lithuanian and the other to Belarusian. This does not confirm Zinkevičius' "theory" that the Polish language in Lithuania is some kind of a completely separate language. And the fact that the Polish language island in Lithuania was created as a result of Polonisation, and not mass colonization, is of course true. Nobody denies that.
- Zigmas Zinkevičius was a nationalist politician, and the fact that his "theories" about the Polish language and Poles in Lithuania are simply propaganda is an opinion shared by researchers. And it is, of course, understandable for anyone who has any idea about the subject.
- The article concerns the Polish minority in Lithuania, i.e. the group of people who declared self-identification with the Polish national group. Thus, calling them "Slavicized Lithuanians" is false. The results of the Lithuanian census are indisputable.Marcelus (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- The work of the Lithuanian historian Adolfas Šapoka has the sentences
- I don't have access to Coleman's book, but all it matters is context. It's one thing to call Lithuanians who adopted the Polish language and culture "Polonized Lithuanian", but the whole other thing is calling that established national minority in Lithuania, which members clearly self-declare as Poles. Can you cite the whole context Coleman is using that term? That's one thing. Other is that you still failed to pinpoint a source that uses the term "Slavicized Lithuanians". Also term Sulenkėję lietuviai, which I believe translates as something like "bent/broken/fallen Lithuanian" is something very different, more like a slur than anything worth using in the encyclopedia. Can you quote the part of Turska's article that supposedly supports what you are saying? Because I read it, and there is no nothing like what you are claiming. Hence my assumption you don't really read well in Polish. Zigmas Zinkevičius is very anti-Polish, his theories are just reflections of his nationalistic views. Of course content of the article doesn't support claim that Polish people in Lithuania are "Slavicized Lithuanians".Marcelus (talk) 16:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Marcelus' statement is flat out false - The American political scientist Walter Clemens uses the term "Polonized Lithuanians", as do the other sources (e.g. sulenkėję lietuviai and other similar terms). Marcelus making false statements is clear for all to see. This nomination should be removed, because Marcelus wants to remove content based on sources just because he dislikes what they say. He did not acquaint himself with what they said and instead just wants to remove them. He accused me of
- Note that none of the sources you cited use the term "Slavicized Lithuanians" or "Polonized Lithuanians". Even Zinkevičius talks about "lenkiškai kalbantys lietuviai" - Polish-speaking Lithuanians (in a 2014 article, then by the way he claims that their speech has nothing to do with Polish). Let me repeat, it is true that the Polish minority in Lithuania arose as a result of Polonisation, which took place mainly in the second half of the 19th century (this is what Turska writes about), and not as a result of some great migration of Poles to Lithuania (such theories appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, today no one seriously claims so). This does not change the fact that Poles in Lithuania today are Poles, because Polishness is not a community of blood and soil, but a community of language and culture.Marcelus (talk) 20:54, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking through the page Criticism of modern Paganism and I see that multiple references are made to known Russian state-sponsored fake news website Ukraina.ru in the section on Slavic neo-pagan violence. I've removed some sections solely sourced to known fake news websites, but I am not exactly familiar with the subject matter so my ability to do so is somewhat limited. Additional eyes on the page to preen out statements sourced solely to dubious sourcing from somebody with familiarity in the topic area would be helpful in improving the article. — Mhawk10 (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- I am the person who added them and I support this. That section is translated from Russian Wikipedia. Can you check this source too? https://www.ng.ru/ng_religii/2015-04-01/4_donbass.html it looks legitimate to me, but also came from an author who wrote for Ukraina.ru MaitreyaVaruna (talk) 20:20, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- This artile is an absolutely mess. A look at its sourcing, including the use of self-published sources, tells me that it needs to be scraped and rewritten from scratch. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:58, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- Is this even a legitimate subject anyway? 'Modern Paganism' is an umbrella term covering a multitude of diverse belief systems, in all sorts of cultural contexts - it isn't a single system at all, and accordingly any general 'criticism' beyond 'we don't like it because they don't follow our religion' is likely to be based on facile generalisations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:13, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Fascinating Article, though I thought people should be aware....
...as I would not be surprised for some related "King Arthur" content to appear. Either way, worth a perusal. Graves of dozens of kings from the time of King Arthur uncovered in Britain. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:11, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
Just drink water, bro
Fereydoon Batmanghelidj seems untouched by the latest anti-fringe editing style. Note the separate criticism section, and the non-disparaging lede. MarshallKe (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- We're all volunteers here, and open, clear communication helps us collaborate effectively. Have you said what you actually want to say, and if not, is this the best place to say it? Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 17:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- The article obviously needs work. This is where you post "fringe" articles that need work. I am literally just doing that. MarshallKe (talk) 18:00, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- I'm glad you clarified. I had interpreted your comment as sarcastic criticism of this noticeboard and the people who address issues brought up here. I'm taking a look at the article now. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 18:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- The article is about a "doctor" who thinks water cures all disease and his lede is practically promotional. Maybe actually look at the article before assuming I'm up to no good? MarshallKe (talk) 18:14, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- Based on history, the assumption was appropriate. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
the latest anti-fringe editing style
? That's a pretty good indicator that you're only here to soapbox. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- Based on history, the assumption was appropriate. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- The article is about a "doctor" who thinks water cures all disease and his lede is practically promotional. Maybe actually look at the article before assuming I'm up to no good? MarshallKe (talk) 18:14, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
The article obviously needs work.
Can you clarify what work you think it "obviously" needs? jps (talk) 12:45, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- I'm glad you clarified. I had interpreted your comment as sarcastic criticism of this noticeboard and the people who address issues brought up here. I'm taking a look at the article now. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 18:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- The article obviously needs work. This is where you post "fringe" articles that need work. I am literally just doing that. MarshallKe (talk) 18:00, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
- The only thing wrong with this article is that it doesn't redirect from "Dr. Batman". Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:28, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Magical extraterrestrial jelly (again)
Star Jelly (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I already reported this article (just scroll up), but my communication style got me WP:ABF'ed. The article is packed with speculation and WP:NOTDATABASE. MarshallKe (talk) 18:39, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Robert W. Malone
Robert W. Malone (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
The New York Times profiled this individual today who has been the subject of past FTN threads. May be a good source for current wording or expansion of the article. [46]
jps (talk) 16:40, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
JP Sears described by New York Times as "conservative conspiracy theorist"
Wikipedia's article on JP Sears, a YouTuber, comedian, and, as the New York Times recently put it, "conservativ conspiracy theorist". Sears has become a regular in anti-vaxx circles, which has become pretty widely reported in the media. It appears to have become his bread and butter: Pretty much all coverage he receives from media sources now comes from his attendants at vaccine conspiracy events. However, we see repeated attempts at scrubbing this page, and the talk page appears to be pretty stacked with Sears-aligned editors. I've recently added a bunch of new sources to the article's talk page and the New York Times description to the lead. The article needs a lot more attention. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:56, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- It appears only the NYT source actually calls him a conspiracy theorist. The other two sources don't use that label. It would probably be better to have an explanation in the lead, rather than using the label. Similar to my view above in the discussion on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- Beyond the recent New York Times source, the McGill source refers to him as "pushing COVID-19 conspiracy theories"
and the Rolling Stone article, which is called "‘I’m a Full Anti-Vaxxer Now’: How the Conspiracists Are Winning Over Fresh Converts", refers to him as "a comedian known for spreading conspiracy theories through sarcastic comedy". It would seem to me by far the easiest way to put this information is conspiracy theorist. What do you suggest? :bloodofox: (talk) 01:07, 4 April 2022 (UTC)According to a 2021 RfC discussion, there is unanimous consensus among editors that Rolling Stone is generally unreliable for politically and societally sensitive issues reported since 2011
at WP:RSP, so that should be removed anyway. I would first look at a broad selection of recent sources to make sure it's due for the lead. Then I would select a group of them and summarize, likely with something like "He has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19." That's an example, as I haven't done any of that leg work, and I'm not familiar with yet another YouTuber. The whole lead should be expanded, then there's space for a sentence or two about COVID-19 or whatever, with context. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:28, 4 April 2022 (UTC)- Thanks for the noticed about that RfC, I was not aware of that. I've collected a bunch of recent coverage about the subject at Talk:JP_Sears. They add up to say pretty much the same thing: A few years ago, Sears pivoted from standup and YouTube to being an active and visible anti-vaxx influencer. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- To be clear, I don't doubt that. I just think it reads better, and the reader is better served, when we explain what someone has done, rather than just applying a label. "Sears is a YouTuber and comedian that uses satirical humor. They initially rose to notability in whatever year with their gluten intolerance video. During the COVID-19 pandemic he used his platform to spread conspiracy theories about the disease and the United States government's response to it." I think something like that better communicates who they are, why they're notable, and explains the COVID stuff with some context. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the noticed about that RfC, I was not aware of that. I've collected a bunch of recent coverage about the subject at Talk:JP_Sears. They add up to say pretty much the same thing: A few years ago, Sears pivoted from standup and YouTube to being an active and visible anti-vaxx influencer. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- Beyond the recent New York Times source, the McGill source refers to him as "pushing COVID-19 conspiracy theories"