[WikiEN-l] William Connelley no longer neutral contributor

[Delirium]

Gareth Owen wrote:

>Are you really suggesting that
>    "most scientists find Theory X to be beyond reasonable skepticism."
>is not an acceptable standard for the exclusion of Theory X from a supposedly
>scientific encyclopedia.  
>  
>
I don't see why we shouldn't mention it, especially if it has some 
following in the political debate, as long as we do mention that most 
scientists consider it unreasonable and unfounded (when that is the 
case).  Our pages on various minority religious views don't say, for 
example, "only a bunch of crazy cultists hold this obviously illogical 
view" (even in cases where the view is provably in conflict with 
reality).  We instead say something more like "These claims are nearly 
universally discounted by those outside the group."  Sure, it's a 
*little* silly in some very fringe cases, but there's a lot of gray area 
where we simply can't make that decision.  I don't really see what's 
wrong with saying "This view is sometimes promoted, by widely 
discredited by the scientific community."  That, to my mind, in fact is 
a *stronger* statement against than "This view is clearly false", 
because in the latter case people will say "so what if Wikipedia says 
it's false?", given that we have no independent authority on essentially 
any topic.  In the former case it's clear that we're reporting a matter 
that was settled by people in the field, not making the claim ourselves

-Mark