On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:51:04 -0500, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 17:15:57 -0700, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
It would be acceptable so long as it had been published somewhere reputable and credible, and the chances of it being crackpot would therefore be low. If the public genuinely thought a theory so ridiculous that no one had bothered to challenge it, it almost certainly wouldn't have a place in Wikipedia. This is why the NOR, NPOV, and cite sources policies should always be considered jointly, as each policy serves to illuminate the meaning of the others. Jointly, they would be able to deal with the kind of example you raise.
Just a few thoughts on this:
- *Who* defines "reputable"? If crackpot is just defined as "not
reputable" then that just shifts the point of discretion somewhere else; it doesn't resolve it. 2. "The public" rarely challenges theories. "Pundits", "journalists", "writers", and "academics" challenge theories. The vast majority of "the public" is informationally mute. Which again gets back to the "who?" question.
To provide specific context, consider journals such as "Infinite Energy", with a bimonthly distribution of 3000--5000, which are hard to distinguish in any quantitative fashion from 'reputable' journals. However, this journal is devotes itself to publishing papers on free energy, cold fusion, an perpetual motion; and running headlines like "Einstein: Plagiarist of the Century." I think many of us would agree that a paper does not become reputable, or any less original research, for being published in such a journal.