Sam Korn wrote: [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]] I disagree. It's horribly clunky. - d.

Sam Korn wrote: And using "pseudoscience" alone would be at the expense of NPOV Clunky terms never have a long shelf life. People tend not to like the discipline of repeating the clunky term whenever the term is needed. Ec

On 12/17/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote: Actually if you'd look over the discussion you'd see there is somewhat more than just assertion, and that you have been the one doing the most blunt asserting. If you can't see why labeling a form of inquiry as "pretend science" might be a POV problem, I'm not sure how much you are going to bring to the discussion. I agree that most things labeled pseudoscience are "crap" or worst. But I'm willing to recognize where that POV I happen to hold comes from, and that there are valid and actually quite common alternatives to it. As an aside, did anybody notice in last month's _Wired_ they made fun of Wikipedia for having decided that Scientology was a pseudoscience? I don't know enough about Scientology to know whether it was a good idea or not (I suspect it is bonkers, but that's different from being pseudoscience), but the fact that _Wired_ would find that amusing enough to comment on is a bit suspicious and really gets at the heart of some of what I have been saying. Labeling something as "pretend science" is a POV statement, as I have tried to demonstrate at length (and have not yet seen any compelling arguments against it), and if we are to be applying such a label, we should come up with standards so that it is not "Wikipedia" who is responsible for the POV. The biggest difficulty, in my mind, is figuring out a better category name which expresses something along the lines of "Considered 'pseudoscience' by the scientific community". Which would be both a useful tag (labels the nonsense for those who are fans of real science) and a neutral one (properly attributes POV, is not WP who is making the decision), as well as a set of verifiable critieria (it is not hard to determine whether or not something is considered pseudoscience in an indisputed way amongst most mainstream scientists; keyword searches of _Nature_ and _Science_ make that pretty easy). FF

On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 11:55:29AM +0000, Sam Korn wrote: When someone says "it's not a black-and-white thing", they are usually correct that there exist *some* "gray" or undecided cases ... but there usually are also many cases that are definitely "black" or "white". The existence of vague boundaries doesn't rule out that some things are definitely on one side and others definitely on the other. Who's talking about "the scientific method" here? There isn't *one* scientific method, and nobody here is claiming that there is. What's at issue are fields that don't do anything even remotely resembling scientific work, yet the practitioners call their ideas "scientific". We're not talking about string theory or cold fusion. We're not even talking about zero-point energy or acupuncture or orgonomy. We're talking about "scientific astrology", "creation science", and other fields that do nothing resembling scientific work, and yet call themselves "science". Of course not. But many people likewise reject unflattering facts about them. Scientologists would prefer we don't talk about Xenu. That a person who falsely claims "science" doesn't like it talked about that they have not done any experiments or observations, simply doesn't enter into the issue. There exists a fact of the matter, and we are bound to report it as such. If someone comes up with a new conjecture -- call it the Moo Principle -- and claims that it is "scientific", then we are correct to seek out the citations for scientific research on the subject. If there actually is not any research -- they simply chose to call it "scientific" because "religious" wouldn't get their Moo Principle into the public schools -- then calling their work "para-science" or "alternate science" would be simply false. "Pseudoscience" is simply the correct term. It sounds to me like you are simultaneously decrying and advocating "relativism". Can you clarify? -- Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger(a)whoi.edu>

Sam Korn wrote: This is the whole point. Many of the topics that are typically put into the pseudoscience category are deeply suspect. I could choose any one of them and spend an entire lifetime trying to determine whether it is science or pseudoscience, and the results would still be inconclusive. So I would prefer to find some relatively neutral term, put a caveat at the top of the list, and go on with life. I have no particular sympathy for Creation Science, but I find it odd that I should be in a position where I need to defend their right to be referred to in a relatively respectful manner. Ec