In response to Jimbo, Shane writes:
But that IS about who is more popular. We don't take each individual scientist, evaluate how good they are, and decide to rank their views according to that. Instead we shotgun it and say nearly everyone believes Albert not Gertie, so we'll declare him the winner.
No, Shane, we DO NOT do that. Wikipedia does NOT engage in original research, and it does NOT make findings of scientific fact. Rather, we follow NPOV policy by reporting who believes the findings of Albert Einstein and why; we don't declare anyone a winner.
At a more abstract level, I don't see why you think we can even evaluate credibility. You point out how we can't evaluate theories well because we're not necessarily qualified to do so, and I agree with that. But if we can't evaluate those theories, how can we evaluate how well the people who do evaluate those theories are doing?
Either this is a strawman, or you are taking a logical argument to highly illogical conclusion. I am NOT an authority on General Relativity, but there are dozens of scientists who are such authorities, and they are easy to find. Only the most obvious trolls and internet-cranks claim otherwise.
In an article we would report something like "Most physicists believe that X is correct", and explain their reasons. We would also say that "Some physicists believe that X should be re-evalutaed because...", and explain their reasons. We can even offer a brief overview of some of the popular views held by self-published cranks. We do not need to proclaim anyone the "winner". By following NPOV we just say who holds a view, and how representative their view is.
Popularity. It's a popularity contest.
No it is not, not in the slightest. Right now you are beginning to worry me. I have seen this exact argument made by cranks and trolls on the physics newsgroups.
Robert
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Robert wrote:
No, Shane, we DO NOT do that. Wikipedia does NOT engage in original research, and it does NOT make findings of scientific fact. Rather, we follow NPOV policy by reporting who believes the findings of Albert Einstein and why; we don't declare anyone a winner.
That's what I meant by "winner". We report on Albert and not Gertie because he's the "winner" in the sense more people believe him. I'm not making any value judgement on who's right. Sorry if my meaning wasn't clear on that point.
Either this is a strawman, or you are taking a logical argument to highly illogical conclusion. I am NOT an authority on General Relativity, but there are dozens of scientists who are such authorities, and they are easy to find. Only the most obvious trolls and internet-cranks claim otherwise.
I don't have any complaint that authorities are easy to find. I don't see any policy that says we're obliged to find them, but that's not my biggest concern with it. My major concern is (at the risk of being told I'm making another strawman argument) doesn't this mean that the entirity of Wikipedia suffers from the "appeal to authority" fallacy?
In an article we would report something like "Most physicists believe that X is correct", and explain their reasons. We would also say that "Some physicists believe that X should be re-evalutaed because...", and explain their reasons. We can even offer a brief overview of some of the popular views held by self-published cranks. We do not need to proclaim anyone the "winner". By following NPOV we just say who holds a view, and how representative their view is.
Representative? I agree. Representative is another way of saying popularity contest though. There's a reason why people elected in a democracy (another popularity contest) are called "representatives".
No it is not, not in the slightest. Right now you are beginning to worry me. I have seen this exact argument made by cranks and trolls on the physics newsgroups.
I don't appreciate the insinuation. I'm not the one who chose the Albert vs Gertie example. I personally believe that Albert Einstein is the greatest scientist since Sir Isaac Newton and that the cranks are nutbags.
This isn't about what I think of Einstein though. This is about the NPOV policy. The whole point of Wikipedia is that we're supposed to put our biases aside when writing. My concern certainly isn't to push crank physics views. To the best of my knowledge, I don't even hold any such views. I want to understand the NPOV policy, since it's pretty clear to me that it means something to people that is (to me at least) quite contrary to what I'm reading on the policy page.
Shane.
Shane King wrote
. My major concern is (at the risk of being told I'm making another strawman argument) doesn't this mean that the entirity of Wikipedia suffers from the "appeal to authority" fallacy?
See [[appeal to authority]]. It's not always a fallacy. I see that the "Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority" now number _six_.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
See [[appeal to authority]]. It's not always a fallacy. I see that the "Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority" now number _six_.
And interestingly enough, that very point refutes this as a legitimate appeal to authority: "The argument must be valid in its own right i.e. without needing to appeal to authority at all."
Since this whole discussion started because wikipedia doesn't evaluate whether arguments are valid, it's entirely reliant on an appeal to authority in the logical fallacy sense.
PS: I'm trying not to think of appealing to the authority of the wikipedia definition of appeal to authority to prove wikipedia is based on an appeal to authority fallacy. The circular and contradictory nature of doing so threatens to make my head explode.
Shane.
Shane King wrote
Charles Matthews wrote:
See [[appeal to authority]]. It's not always a fallacy. I see that the "Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority" now number
_six_.
And interestingly enough, that very point refutes this as a legitimate appeal to authority: "The argument must be valid in its own right i.e. without needing to appeal to authority at all."
Hah! You are trying to win an argument by appealing to the authority of Wikipedia, with something inserted a few days ago which doesn't look very reliable to me (author can't do "its" and "it's", bad sign, as well as this being point six out of five). I hope at least it wasn't inserted by you.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
Hah! You are trying to win an argument by appealing to the authority of Wikipedia, with something inserted a few days ago which doesn't look very reliable to me (author can't do "its" and "it's", bad sign, as well as this being point six out of five). I hope at least it wasn't inserted by you.
a) I'm not trying to "win" an argument, I'm trying to further my understanding of this policy. Frankly I'd be very happy to "lose" and be shown NPOV actually says what people seem to think it says.
b) I noted the irony of it already
c) Accusations of sock puppetry are pretty serious, and you have absolutely no reason to believe whoever added that info is me. Since you've obviously already checked the edit history (where my name is not present), I can only take this as such an accusation. I request you withdraw your accusation and [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]] in the future.
Shane.
Shane King wrote
Charles Matthews wrote:
Hah! You are trying to win an argument by appealing to the authority of Wikipedia, with something inserted a few days ago which doesn't look
very
reliable to me (author can't do "its" and "it's", bad sign, as well as
this
being point six out of five). I hope at least it wasn't inserted by
you.
a) I'm not trying to "win" an argument, I'm trying to further my understanding of this policy. Frankly I'd be very happy to "lose" and be shown NPOV actually says what people seem to think it says.
Well, I think your take on NPOV is all wrong (from what I can tell by your postings here). Ideal NPOV is about not being to 'reverse engineer' the POV held by the author. It is not the same as a notion of 'balance', 'equal time', any of those things.
b) I noted the irony of it already
c) Accusations of sock puppetry are pretty serious, and you have absolutely no reason to believe whoever added that info is me. Since you've obviously already checked the edit history (where my name is not present), I can only take this as such an accusation. I request you withdraw your accusation and [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]] in the
future.
No, I _don't_ believe you _were_ User:Layman adding 'point six out of five' there.
I'd have thought that the edits of someone who (a) can't count and (b) has problems with basic English grammar would count as prima facie not very authoritative. It just happened that the edit of 9 December was making a point somewhat similar to some of the things you were saying here. I thought it was a good illustration of the discussion.
Charles