[Textbook-l] Textbooks (response to Jimbo's WikiEN-l post)

[Jimmy Wales]

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