Daniel Mayer wrote: I wrote: Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: Well, you shouldn't "just assume the validity" -- you should set the context of what this information is. I think this point is really subtle, but really important. At one point, a textbook teaching about the Earth and the Sun might say "The Sun revolves around the Earth". Bad move to say that. Better to say "Current scientific consensus is that the evidence outlined in this chapter suggests that the Sun revolves around the Earth." That's NPOV in action. It's writing things so that even people who disagree on the substantive matter can agree that it's a valid presentation. So Copernicus could point to the first one and say: "That's just plain wrong." And we know today that it is wrong. But he'd have to say of the NPOV version, "Well, this presentation is fair, but I disagree with the current scientific consensus described therein." I think it would be wise, actually. You have to write it a bit more carefully than that, of course. And part of it is just _infused_ into the final product. Throughout the book, you refer to authorities, to scientific consensus where appropriate, etc. You don't say "Evolution is true" -- you say "Modern biologists are in virtually unanimous agreement that the broad outlines of evolutionary theory are overwhelmingly supported by the evidence." No, it need not sound like either, and -- done properly -- it's an actually a good way to sound *certain*, because we write only things about which we *are* certain. "Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium says that..." Well, we may not be sure if all the details of punctuated equilibrium are true, but we are sure what Stephen Jay Gould said, and what evidence he adduced for his theory, and what critics said. Respect for the reader entails simply laying out all the facts uncontroversially, and allowing the reader to draw the appropriate conclusions. [...] Actually, that article does exist. That's why I picked it as an example: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_of_homosexuality My typo ('on' rather than 'of') misled you, I'm sure. Actually, there's a very strong consensus on a lot of things, and majority views on some things. But even there, there is a consensus view on what the majority views are. Consider "Theory A" and variants "Theory A-1" and "Theory A-2". "Theory A" is accepted by virtually all scientists and educated people. That's a consensus. But when we get down to details, down to A-1 and A-2, opinions vary. There's a majority opinion, and a minority opinion. Sometimes these will have roughly the same status. Well, that's not a problem for NPOV. NPOV just presents it all this way: "Theory A is scientific consensus. Scientists are divided, however, on the details of A-1 versus A-2, both of which we will describe in detail." No, I'm describing NPOV as I understand it. I made it up, so I get to say what it means. :-) What I'm saying is that it's a big misconception to think that an NPOV textbook treatment of biology has to include, as if equally valid, the views of scientists and creationists. It doesn't. It is not _bias_ to restrict our focus to a particular topic. There's absolutely no reason for a textbook to have to be biased. If a biology text doesn't cover the Major League pennant race, that's not bias. And it's not bias for a biology text to not cover the creationism versus evolution debate. In both cases, that's not what the book is about. Of course it's very possible for a biology text to be biased on these matters. What I'm saying is: it's not necessary. It's not necessary to introduce bias in order to restrict topic. You just restrict the topic, you handle points of intersection thoughtfully and fairly, and there you go. Remember, NPOV is about getting consensus between potentially warring factions. If your biology text is written properly, then an honest creationist will accept it. And a baseball fan might lament the lack of coverage of that issue, as well, right? My point is, NPOV doesn't require us to write a book about everything that everyone will love equally. But it does require us to write carefully about things that even opponents can agree on. No, I insist exactly the opposite. This is exactly what NPOV is all about, and it applies 100% to textbooks. Well, I think you've completely misunderstood what I meant. Let me jump to a different example. I'm not sure that it's better, but hopefully it'll open up a different way of looking at this. As a hobby, I like to read Supreme Court cases, and about abstract legal reasoning generally. Politically, I'm what most people would call libertarian, and like lots of libertarians, I believe in the morality of individual rights. So for any controversial issue, there's two ways to approach it. I can approach it from the point of view of individual rights theory. Or I can approach it from the point of view of legal reasoning, of how I think the Constitution ought to be read. These two approaches don't always come up with the same result. Even so, I can read a brilliant legal argument and say "Yes, I agree with that. That is what the constitution says, and under the legal principles at work, that's the right answer in the law." But I can still think that the constitution ought to be changed in certain ways. Or, it can go the other way. I like the outcome of Roe v. Wade, and I think that there is an individual right to early term abortion. And yet, I think that Roe v. Wade is a bad constitional decision, because it finds principles in the constitution that aren't there, using reasoning that makes little sense. You with me so far? Well, now imagine an article about Roe v. Wade written by someone with whom I disagree on matters of individual rights. I think that there is a right, and the other person thinks there is not. But the article simply isn't about that. The article is about the reasoning used in Roe v. Wade, and the question of whether or not it's sound constitutional law. I could very easily end up agreeing with the article, if it's well-written and NPOV, because the issues are separate. --Jimbo

Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia(a)math.ucr.edu> wrote:Jimmy Wales wrote in part: Exactly. If all that mav means by "DPOV" is �restricting the topic to the discipline at hand and NPOV within that limit�, then I agree with him about how the textbooks should be written. But I disagree that this isn't already just part of NPOV. In Wikipedia, when we write an article on part of biology, then that article too is restricted to the displine of biology. This doesn't violate NPOV, and neither will the biology textbook. An important point is the existence (or potential existence) of other articles on parts of the discipline of scientific creationism (such as the attempts to pin down the dating of the flood by cross-referencing Genesis with geological data) and similarly, the (potential) existence of a textbook on that topic. To be sure, we don't have those articles on Wikipedia and probably never will have that textbook -- but we could. The text in [[en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] of course must be changed, since it refers to a comprehensive encyclopaedia on everything. But this is /context/, not the /essence/ of NPOV. -- Toby _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l "In Wikipedia, when we write an article on part of biology, then that article too is restricted to the displine of biology." Well. No. That is not always true. I just don't understand why some of you just keep focusing on the creationnism issue, only leading to hiding more important matters. Important matters are that some topics just cannot be treated just within one disciplin. Mine definitly can't. Writing a textbook about corn, and only sticking to the plant biology would be of no interest to a farming student. He will need plant science and botany to know the crop, farming information to grow it, animal science to understand what it is needed for (hence the quality required), soil science to understand the crop requirement versus soil resources, climate science and water science to irrigate the crop wisely, chemistry and quality management to understand how to best deal with this crop disease and insect specificities whilst insuring food quality and safety, environmental issues related to that crop, such as benefits and drawbacks associated with a particular crop management, a minimum of biotech information to understand what a gmo is and what the different trends are on that topic, mechanics for the farming equipment, trade, market, economical and political background to best sell his product and project himself in the future. That is what I would put in a good textbook on this "so-restricted" topic. This is the book I would offer to students trained to be farmers for example, this is the book I would tell them to buy. This book would encompass at least 10 different disciplines. Likely, it can only be a group work, as it requires different disciplins to work together. And that is *exactly* where Wikip�dia can help, because it is likely to benefit from different inputs, while in the "meat space", these various disciplins don't always meet. Note I don't necessarily say this has to be NPOV. I just say what Wikipedia can offer that others can't, is the vision offered by people on the same topic from different perspectives. Here, the perspective of a farmer, of an accountant, of a trader, of a seed retailer, of a chemist researcher, of a trade-unionist, of a policy maker... If corn is too restricted, similar books about cereal cropping would be perfect. Including all these various perspectives. This would be a good book imho. There are very few books of that type. Even when there is a collaboration, it is usually of two people at best. 2 people cannot give the best in all these disciplines. Wikip�dia can provide better because we can be more than 2. But if all the various aspects of the topics are spreaded in 15 different booklets, all focusing on one discipline, we do just as the others do. Bland food. It is quite frequent that professors tend to teach students research stuff, because that is what they know best, and that tend to suggest them the whole world is turning around research, here around biology. But in truth, only professors and researchers are doing stuff in research. What most students will do, and need really, is practical information to do well in life. Professors are not always very good at giving practical information. They need (and often welcome) support to adjust their teaching. They need a resource giving the practical and up to date information they have more pain to provide. Well, that all depends if we want to make little booklets for academics to put on the shelf, or if we want to make books useful and helping people to get the big picture, as well as provide them with accurate and much needed info to deal with daily life. Both are ok, but I am here for the second point. Not the first. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia(a)math.ucr.edu> wrote: I agree completely. For a textbook on corn farming. Which is not the same thing as a textbook on biology! So I don't see any conflict between your opinion and mine. There are no conflicts between your opinion and mine :-) So you would rather work on a textbook on corn farming than work on a textbook on biology. That's fine with me! Quite true Toby. Except that if the official rule for textbooks defines that these textbooks must be "DPOV" (as a basic rule at the same level than NPOV on Wikipedia, meaning "mandatory"), then there is no room in this project for this book. This virtual book would have to go in another project. If this rule is not mandatory, or if this rule does not exist at all, then the book can exist there. See ? We know the goal, we know the means, let's avoid restrictives rules :-) cheers --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Anth�re wrote: The virtual book would be about corn farming, not biology, so it wouldn't have to fit into the DPOV of biology. The discipline of corn farming includes all of what you said, just as the discipline of medicine includes medical ethics. But anyway, I doubt that DPOV will ever be written up. Jimmy invented NPOV, and he says that NPOV includes what mav wants. If anything happens, it's that [[NPOV]] will have to be clarified. But since Jimmy also keeps agreeing with my intepretations of it, I see no risk that any such clarification will threaten your book. The only alternative is that Jimmy's opinions are incoherent, but nobody is arguing that. -- Toby

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote: No, to be unbiased, we need rebuttals for the individual points in articles, otherwise we are using a DPOV/SPOV. If you want to change Wikipedia to SPOV like I-E is, that's fine, but don't keep saying it's unbiased. Each article would convince the person to that POV unless the counterarguments are placed /in the article/, not on a seperate page. When people are looking something up, they don't say, "I think I'll look at all of the related topics, and all of the topics related to those topics, to get an unbiased view", they just look at that article! Plus, where would attacks on other theories go anyway if they are undirected towards a particular alternate theory? Do you think, by your logic, that [[Scientific creationism]] (which says it was invented for getting creationism in schools, btw) shouldn't have any reasons against it on the article, and that the reasons against should be on some other article like evolution or intelligent design? That's completely rediculous! I really don't think we need a policy change in that respect. It's best to preserve the neutrality of each individual article. -LDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote: I've already read it, and imho it supporst my opinion on the matter. To quote /you/ from [[Wikipedia:NPOV]]: "2. An encyclopedia article should not argue that laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. (I happen to believe this, by the way.) It should instead present the arguments of the advocates of that point of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree with that point of view." The section "consequence: writing for the enemy" (the title explains my point alone) explains my view, but it is written confusingly, and I'd need to include the entire section in this post. Just go there and read it. I would edit it for clarity, but I think that would be unethical when refering to it. If we purposly exclude other POVs, this effect will be even stronger. Exclusion of information is inherently POV, and if we can, we should keep it to a minimum. In the Q/A section, the policy also clarifies there is no such thing as objectivity, but objectivity was assumed when talking about evidence. My suggestion for all of this is that we make several appendicies, kept only online, that explain the reasons against, say, evolution, and for other theories such as intelligent design or creationism, in a textbook-like manner. That way, we can include enough information to be NPOV while still writing like a textbook. -LDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

LittleDan wrote: Since "NPOV" has never meant �encyclopaedic�, I don't see the need to change letters to clarify. And if I understand my Wikipedia history right, Jimbo's concept of NPOV predated the -pedias (even Nu-). -- Toby

Jimmy Wales wrote in part: "neutral point of view" is problematic, in that it's not a POV at all. [[fr:]] says "la neutralité de point de vue", which is subtly different: "the neutrality of point of view". -- Toby