Daniel Mayer wrote:
It depends on the focus of the particular course you
are writing for. An intro class in biology shouldn't
spend too much time defending the underlying premise
that modern biology is founded on (namely, evolution).
Sure, I agree with that.
It's perhaps subtle, but the point of NPOV in this context is just
that a creationist could read the entire book on biology and agree
that it's a fair presentation *of biology*, even if they don't agree
that current biologica science is a valid description *of reality*.
Usually, this is just a matter of a few words here and there.
Our current NPOV policy does not restrict topical
focus; that was my point.
Well, it does, though, doesn't it? If an article is about X, then it
is about X, not "X plus some other junk that people like to argue
about". Often we have to fix this by adding some qualifier to the
title.
As an example, consider [[Christian views on homosexuality]]. If that
article is done properly (and I didn't read it just now, so I don't
have an opinion), then both fundamentalist Christians and their
opponents should be able to read the article and say "O.k., that's a
fair presentation of the topic."
If NPOV (as written)
were applied to the evolution chapter of the above
biology textbook example then we would have to present
creationism viewpoints on an equal footing with the
viewpoints of biologists.
No, I think this is a common misconception about NPOV, but that isn't
the way I see it at all. The topic of the chapter on evolution in the
science book is not "evolution and everyone's opinion about it". The
topic is "scientific consensus views on evolution". Such a chapter
may (and likely should) include a paragraph to indicate that other
views, religious views, exist, but that's not the topic of _this_
book.
Restricting focus to the topic of interest is perfectly legitimate and
falls within the scope of NPOV, rather than being an addition *to*
NPOV.
Remember the big argument about "communist state"? Part of the
problem there was that the two sides were talking past each other as
to what the article was *about*. Was it "everything good and bad
about communist countries"? Or was it "the political science
definition of the term 'communist state'"?
That's similar. It's not POV to talk about bad things that happened
in communist countries. And it's not POV to exclude such talk in an
article that's actually about something else, namely "how political
scientists define this term". Both can be NPOV, and yet, both can be
inappropriate for articles within a particular scope of interest.
The real acid test is this: could an honest creationist read our
idealized biology text and come away saying "Yup, that was a good book
about what scientists believe about biology. I have a greater
understanding of their theory now. I would have preferred a book
about something else, but this book is a fair and honest and accurate
treatment of the subject."
Can this be achieved without contortion or weaselly soft-pedalling? I
think so.
--Jimbo