Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
The difference
is that some people actively argue that the earth is
not a sphere, whereas those who argue that Paris is not the capital of
France so far have kept their activities secret.
If a fact is contentious, then it should be backed up with a cite.
How many religious fundamentalists does it take to
make a fact contentious? How actively do they have
to argue? Where are you going to draw the line? And
why should we privilege the points of view that
happen to be held by people alive today?
Wikipedia would be a parody of an encyclopedia if it
held that the approximately spherical shape of the
Earth is contentious. People expect an encyclopedia
to be written from a scientific point of view - and,
for the most part, that's how Wikipedia is written.
It's not a matter of the number of religious fundamentalists, or how
persistently anyone argues, or lines being drawn. I certainly don't
believe that today's points of view should hold sway over historical ones.
When we put forth these intuitive truths as examples of the need for
citations we put up a straw man that is there to be knocked down. There
is a presumption that any statement is true unless and until it is
challenged. Of course the more ridiculous and outrageous statements
will be challenged very quickly. Statements about the near-spherical
shape of the earth may not be challenged at all.
The "scientific point of view" would be fine if it meant rigorous
adherence to the principles of scientific method; it is not fine if it
means support for the prevailing prejudices of mainstream scientists.
Some people may very well expect an encyclopedia to be written from that
mythical "scientific point of view"; others may expect it to be from a
"religious point of view" of some sort. We still need to stick to a
neutral point of view. Implicit to the neutral point of view is the
dynamic of questioning everything.
Ec