Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Even so, we'd need to report on the
'unreasonable'
creationists, which imho make up the vast majority.
Well, in an encyclopedia we would. In a biology text, probably very
little mention of the controversy needs to be made at all. I could
see it going either way. Do you have a chapter on scientific
responses to common challenges to evolutionary biology? Maybe. But I
don't think it's require in order to have NPOV.
And facts can be contravercial too. UFO sightings are
called 'facts', but they are, of course, disputed.
They are considered evidence for sentient life on
other planets, but the mainstream considers it false
evidence and therefore defenately a false conclusion.
It would be taking a POV to say, conclusively, that
the evidence is true while it is actually disputed. It
makes much more sense to just admit it's DPOV, and
leave out all of the extraneous arguments.
Well, it makes more sense to me, if this is a controversy of
importance in some specific field, to present the controversy
neutrally. The danger I see in 'DPOV' is precisely that it sounds
like a temptation to include too-strong statements of the Truth
According To Science, rather than sticking to that which is
uncontroversially known.
--Jimbo