On 4/25/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote:
up to
speed, Sylvia Browne is a self-professed psychic.
Invevitably, James Randi is not impressed.
Neither is Danny.
On the other hand, does this merit an article. She is an LP, so this is
essentially a "Criticisms of a BLP" article. On the other hand, it is
quite
well-sourced, at least from a perfunctory glance
at it.
Still, do we want to open the door to these kinds of articles?
Criticisms of
Sylvia Browne could lead to Criticisms of Uri
Geller to Criticisms of
George
Bush to Criticisms of Tom Cruise to Criticisms of
[pick your favorite].
The
very hypothesis of the article is POV. Surely,
this is not what we are
here
for.
I'd really like some input. Ideally, it should be merged, but the
precedent
this poses should also be mentioned.
Merge.
"Criticisms of ..." articles are bound to POV, especially when the
subject is a person. The entire article seems to focus on her personal
dispute with James Randi, and his obsessive campaign to find fault with
her. The tone of the article takes sides with Randi, and fails to
recognize that he is as big a part of the problem as she is.
Psychic phenomena of all sorts are controversial, but if the objective
is to discuss such phenomena dispassionately and objectively it cannot
be done by focussing on a personal feud between two publicity seeking
personalities Strangely the claim that Browne's psychic visions are
bunk presupposes that there are claims by others that are not, and that
she is instead not representative of mainstream psychics.
The sources for this article are indeed plentiful, but seemed chosen
with the sole intent of highlighting sensationalism. While I would be
highly critical of Browne as a representative of psychic phenomena, I
also think that the article puts too much stress on the failures of her
public performances, and is there purely to make her look bad.
Ec
This fued between the two of them gets a huge amount of play (although I
don't ever remember her name, just his) in the press, in academia, in the
various skeptic groups. Even if the article were more approrpriately titled
feud between the two or something, it would still be mostly negative and
mostly from Randi's POV, because he's the one instigating the battle, *because
that's what he does for a living*, and because the feud is not quite only
about Randi's criticism of her, it's a back and forth thing. Oh, and what
he does for a living is attack people who make their livings like Sylvia
Browne makes hers, and Sylvia Browne is often the leading lady in sales in
her area.
That is what Randi does, publicize his criticisms of supposed psychic's
public performance failures. That's where psychics fight back when they do,
where Randi has established the battle ground.
The article is about his obsession to find fault with her and her personal
dispute with him, so that it's entirely about what it's about, hardly seems
like a complaint.
The article is not about objectively discussing psychic phenomenon, it's
about a dispute between two of the main players on either side of the
attempt to do so.
So, let's see, a feud by two notable people, based on their occupations,
carried out in full public mode, and the question is, should it be covered
by Wikipedia?
I will look at the article though. I think the title could be more
appropriate, but I don't know enough about the feud to know that for
certain.
KP