Mark Richards wrote:
So you think that in science pages, for example, space
should be given to different theories based on their
relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
evolution, not to mention gravity!
Are you really serious?
We can simply contextualize what we're talking about. If an article is
in the context of a scientific theory, it should say what the scientific
viewpoint on it is. If other communities disagree, these could be
mentioned briefly. If there is a lot to mention, a separate article
such as [[creationism]] or [[controversies involving evolution]], or
something of that sort, is warranted.
Sometimes this is hard to do, but I think usually it's possible. To
take one example, something like [[clinical depression]] could describe
the orthodox psychiatric view of clinical depression, with a mention
that it's controversial and a link to a more general article and/or an
article specifically about the controversy. If this had been 1970, when
orthodox psychiatry considered homosexuality a mental illness, we'd have
a similar case, where we'd have [[homosexuality (paraphilia)]]
describing psychiatry's take on it and linking to [[homosexuality]] or
[[gay]] or something of that sort describing controversies and other
views on the matter.
The problem with a hardcore scientism point of view is that scientists
are not always right, as the homosexuality example illustrates.
-Mark