George Herbert wrote:
On 9/17/07, Ian Tresman <ian2(a)knowledge.co.uk>
wrote:
There is
no reason not to have an article on Immanuel, or innumerable
other pseudoscientific phenomena / fads / people.
My opinion on fringe materials is to be inclusive in terms of having
articles or descriptions, but make the descriptions from a mainstream
perspective. Velikovsky was not in the end a scientist; nor was
Hoagland, or others of note recently. We have articles for them, and
their most important theories, as we should. The articles need not
confuse the issue by telling readers to lend the fringe theory as much
credibility as one does normal mainstream science.
Wikipedia specifically tells us to describe things from a neutral
point of view which Jimmy Wales says is "absolute and non-negotiable".
That's not to say that we exclude the scientific point of view, or
even the mainstream scientific point of view. But we do tell people
there is a mainstream point of view, and point people to the
appropriate article, and/or, provide criticisms where they exist.
When we describe the Republican point of view, we don't automatically
counter-point from the Democratic point of view.
I would expect a scientific encyclopedia to assume a mainstream
scientific point of view.
I'm sorry, but you're attempting to reinterpret the neutrality
policy
in ways that simply benefit you and other fringeists.
Your disagreement with neutrality policy is no reason to start making
false accusations about people.
Neutral, regarding conspiracy theories and
pseudoscience, is to state
the theory's fundamental statement, note that it is not considered
part of mainstream science (or insert field), and then go ahead and
describe the details in a neutral fashion. Once that's done, a
criticisms section noting how mainstream science (or insert field)
believes the theory to be wrong.
When you state it that way there is no significant disagreement.
Nevertheless if we are talking about Velikovsky's theories in astronomy
and geology, the most credible scientists to support counterarguments
should be astronomers and geologists. Using the term "mainstream
science" generically is no argument at all.
Failing to note that something is not part of
mainstream science (or
the equivalent, historical or whatever, for conspiracies) is
significantly *more* non-neutral and biased towards the theories.
Nobody is saying that we shouldn't note that.
There are those who seek to treat such theories as
simply completely
credible; we should not and cannot do that.
Who is arguing that we should?
There are those who seek to treat such theories as
jokes, and use
derogatory comments about their authors or the theory itself. We also
should not do that.
That's exactly what I'm saying when I call such terms as
"pseudoscience"
derogatory. Your statement here makes my point.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV#Undue_weight
"We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a
small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views
that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in
articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a
significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might
be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to
present competing views in proportion to their representation among
experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties."
This is settled policy. Attempting to nibble in at the edges may be
amusing for you, but is not going to succeed.
This is an unfounded accusation.
You have a right to hold your beliefs. We have a
completely
legitimate right to observe that they're not part of the mainstream,
form a tiny minority, and describe them as such in Wikipedia coverage.
If you don't like that then you need to convince people elsewhere
that they're notable and correct. Attempting to enhance their
credibility via false representations in Wikipedia is an insidious
form of original research creep. That shall not pass
Who is arguing that these
theories are part of the mainstream? Where?
Where are the false representations that you allege?
Ec