--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)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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