--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
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.
But, if you just assume the validity of the subject matter, you are stepping into DPOV. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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*.
Yes, but to say that, you would need an introduction explaining explicitly that this attempts to outline biology, not reality. Otherwise it is assumed that this is a discription of reality, as most books are. But it wouldn't be wise to include such an introduction, for obvious reasons.
Usually, this is just a matter of a few words here and there.
... and obfuscation of the entire text. It'll sound like we are describing an imaginary world or that we are uncertain of everything, both bad for textbooks.
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.
Perhaps other people's views could go in an apendix to create a NPOV.
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."
The thing is that that page doesn't exist. It doesn't have a place in Wikipedia. We might right that at [[homosexuality]] or possibly [[christianity]], but wikipedia doesn't write articles like this. And both of those articles contain the rebuttals. That was one of the reasons that Fred branched to make I-E. We don't do this with NPOV, and you're thinking of DPOV/SPOV. (come to think of it, DPOV=SPOV)
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".
What consensus? There is no such consensus, just a majority view.
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.
No, that is DPOV. You're describing DPOV. A diciplinary point of view restricts the focus to the topic of interest. DPOV is reasonable, but biased because of a lack of information, and you don't have to keep misusing the jargon.
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'"?
I still disagree with that decision, which, I guess, weakens my argument.
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."
Yes, but if the creationist doesn't agree with it as a representation of reality, which is always assumed (and a few words couldn't change in the minds of most), the creationist will still say, "I disagree with that book. If we decended from monkeys, why are they still there? [classic creationist argument] This book should adress that."
Can this be achieved without contortion or weaselly soft-pedalling? I think so.
--Jimbo
Possibly, but you have to admit that it is DPOV, not NPOV. No one wants a book that has no application in reality, only vague "biology". We want biology for use in the real world, and that assumes that biology is true. That is how textbooks work. But if we still wanted to be NPOV, we wouldn't assume that biology applies only in biology-land, we'd make arguments against biology for the real world in a seperate section.
-LDan
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