Talk:Pseudoscience/Archive 5

message: Kenosis, your edits on the psuedoscience page are unacceptable. Your edit summary Revert factually incorrect POV pushing. To say the boundaries of science are disputed is incorrect without the statement about the "precise" boundaries, is also incorrect in logical terms. Removal of the qualifer "precise" does not achieve what you claim. You then edited the page MORE THAN TWENTY TIMES!!! I gave up counting. This is going way beyond what is acceptable, in my view. If other editors feel the same perhaps they could say so. Please take this in good faith, I am only trying to explain to you that your behaviour makes it much harder to work together to create an excellent article which I assume we both desire. You may also like to check my Editing principles for pseudoscience articles. I'm always keen to talk and try to reach consensus. Mccready 12:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't seem like Kenosis's edits were over the top.  Since Kenosis didn't rearrange the order of paragraphs in the article, once can readily see the diffs between your previous edit and Kenosis's string of edits easily compared.  Your most recent ones look OK to me although some might question "broad agreement exists on the basics ..." vs. "broad agreement exists on certain basics..." thx, Jim Butler 14:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And we're not finished editing either.  All but three of these edits were in direct response to Jim Butler's demands for citation.  Judging by the comments posted since I added these latest citations, Jim Butler is of a different opinion about the issue, as may be the case with other involved editors. There were roughly a dozen editors involved in the article when we arrived at the current language for that sentence (about the "precise boundaries" of scientific method being less than settled, and about wide agreement on certain core principles).  Moreover, there is now one solid citation for this statement, with more to come in the near future.  Having said that, there may be other ways of expressing the fact that there are core agreements about scientific method (among knowledgeable practitioners at least) with marginal disputes around various edges.  Among other things involved here, there are actually four or five separate schools of how to define the edges, including that of Popper, Kuhn, Lacatos, and Thagard.  Perhaps this should be summarized, but I think the "main" articles, Scientific method, Philosophy of science and Demarcation problem are the appropriate places for such detailed treatment.  The sentence as it stands is correct.  The sentence which attempted to say that the boundaries are disputed is misleading without qualification that there is wide agreement and consensus on the core principles of scientific method...Kenosis 15:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: As to the "POV pushing" comment, perhaps an apology is in order, and is hereby proffered.  There are numerous editors (usually "just passing through", so to speak) who read or hear about Feyerabend's sociological perspective on science, and come to believe mistakenly that there are no boundaries or widely disputed boundaries involved in scientific method.  Fact is, if one diagrams the consensus and the areas of dispute on scientific method it tends to look rather like a sunflower, with a core and a bunch of separate petals.  Add or remove a few petals and it still looks like a sunflower...Kenosis 16:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kenosis edits 

message: I've removed this sentence (from the "Introduction" section, where it was the last sentence of the paragraph introducing Popper and falsifiability) and am temporarily placing it here so it can be reworked, analyzed and re-integrated more effectively...Kenosis 17:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "These include the historiographical approach of Imre Lakatos in his Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes."17:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence on Lacatos temporarily removed

message: I'd like to question the inclusion of anthroposophy on this list as well. First of all, Carroll does not call it a pseudoscience, as this article currently claims. This is already ground enough to remove it from the list. But there is also a misunderstanding somewhere here:
In English, we generally use science in the narrow sense of natural science. In German there are Naturwissenschaften (natural sciences), Sozialwissenschaften (social sciences), Geisteswissenschaften (the humanities), Schöne Wissenschaften (belle lettres, literary criticism) and probably more uses of Wissenschaft, which literally means science. Its founder, Rudolf Steiner, called anthroposophy a Geisteswissenschaft, a part of what we call the humanities, not a Naturwissenschaft. 
Note that Dilthey and Husserl, among others, strongly defended the use of the term science for subjects like history and literary criticism, emphasizing 1) that the methodological approach needs to be subject-appropriate, and 2) that these areas cannot be judged by the criteria of the natural sciences.Hgilbert 14:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whilst I disagree with the rational above I don't think there is room in the list. Anthroposophy, also called spiritual science, is definately a pseudoscience as it presents itself as a science ut does not conform to the norms. However it is nowhere near as notable as the others on the list. I propose leaving it in the expanded list of fields which is linked to from the list. Jefffire 11:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a sticky point.  Like Jeff, I have seen suggestions that at least some proponents of anthroposophy do consider this science (or scientific?); for example, look at categorizations wars over WP articles on Steiner-related topics!  I don't have time to research this, but hope that some kind editor will do so and figure out how to stick in a clear and concise discussion of this issue (probably broader than anthroposophy alone). ---CH 02:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello all.  This a very simple issue.  If a reliable source states that a subject is pseudoscientific, and it is notable, then it can be mentioned. Just because some say it is not science, that doesn't negate the former view of it being pseudoscience. Cheers KrishnaVindaloo 06:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that this approach is consistent with NPOV and verifiability.  But the related problem of whether to put articles in :Category:Pseudoscience is not so simple, since it's an all-or-nothing thing without any nuance indicating the possibility of serious disagreement.  This issue has been debated on that article's talk page for two years and is still not resolved.  Jim Butler(talk) 01:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anthroposophy 

message: In the list of pseudoscientific fields, I found quite a few more citations of Carroll's work that do not support the inclusion of the entry. Some of these are radically far from a condemnation of the field as pseudoscientific, others are critical but do not give evidence for such an inclusion. 
I have removed the citations; when the citation was the only evidence given, I have removed the entry. Please replace any entries for which other evidence can be given, or for which my (fairly swift) perusal of the Skeptic's Dictionary entries missed anything damning. (I did a search for the term pseudo and read over the articles to see if the equivalent in evidence was there, but erred on the side of caution; we are not researching the topic but summing up previous research).
The citations have been replaced; they need checking, for those that I took out simply do not support what they are claimed to support.Hgilbert 02:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ROFL.  "Quantum mysticism" is patently pseudoscience.  Stop trying to subvert the NPOV policy because it doesn't fit your POV (that applies to others as well). — Dunc|☺ 09:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Double ROFL.  Shit, are you going to try to say that anything with the word mysticism in the title is not pseudoscience?  That's just too funny.  As for Wheeler, two things: one, you're going to need to provide a cite that he supports this slop (no doubt in his doddering old age, if so); and two, Sir Isaac Newton supported alchemy, which merely proves that great thinkers can be idiots at times.  •Jim62sch• 00:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: "Having studied the atom, I tell you that there is no matter as such [only force]....we must assume that behind this force is a conscious, intelligent mind or spirit. This is the very origin of matter."  Max Planck, Florence lectureHgilbert 02:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations that do not support the entry 

message: The text says that Williams Encylopedia of Pseudoscience, includes Big Bang theory, continental drift and Pasteur's germ theory. Yet these fields are excluded from the list. If Williams is a credible enough source to include some entries, then his credibility is good enough to include all others. Fact selection does not conform to NPOV. 
What is clear, is that there is a tremendous amount of subjectivity in defining Pseudoscience. Stephen Hawkins himself says that "Cosmology was thought of as pseudoscience", and others have said that "cosmology had degraded into a state of pseudoscience"
--Iantresman 17:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pseudoscientific fields

message: There has been some conjecture over Williams 2000 as a source.  This can clear it up.  Williams is a professor of science at the Pen State University and a fellow of the Universith of Leeds (England).  The co-writers are Dr Carl Mitcham, Professor of Philosophy of Science, Dr Daniel Conway professor of neuroscience, Dr Lisle Dalton, Dr Alex Dolby, Dr Shannon Duval, Dr John Mcmillan, Dr J Gordon Melton, Dr Mearcello Truzzi.  They are all professors.  The list also includes Terry ONiel, Kenneth Shepherd, Steven Utley, Jeff Frazier and Honour Farrel. They are all science experts of some kind.  Its a very solid source.  Lots of corroboration, and a whole lot of knowledge.  KrishnaVindaloo 09:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Williams (et al) as a credible source

message: Most of the Fact templates (those which read "citation needed") used in this article are unnecessary. For example, there's fifteen or so in the "Identifying pseudoscience" section alone. This is overkill. Those fifteen will likely be satisfied with by one or two cites in the end (which I may be able to add), so there's a level of overkill that is bounding on the surreal. It harms the article and serves no purpose. Regular editors of this article to find a better way remind contributors to comply with WP:V than just adding a fact template to every assertion or statement of fact. FeloniousMonk 16:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While one or two references at the end of the article may provide the citations required, it is not always obvious which statement are verified. I think the article is harmed if such citations are not included. I think the tags provides a useful reminder as to which statements need verifying, and for the sake of a couple of weeks research, will result in a much improved article. --Iantresman 17:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I am the editor to whom any applicable blame belongs for recently placing those templates.  They amount to a request to advance this article to a yet more developed level of verifiability (WP:VER).  I am by no means adamant about them, but I surmised that in a controversial article such as this, these individual templates allowed each to be cited whenever editors had a chance to dig into the literature and cite accordingly.  I do recognize the approach is a bit unconventional in WP to date.  My opinion is that with a bit of patience, they can be cited one or two at a time, and what is left can either be weeded out or discussed point-by-point among the editors as to the merits of the particular "characteristic".  So I'm OK with it either way.  But this approach is one possible way to help selectively determine what is original research (WP:OR) and what isn't, rather than necessarily subjecting the whole section to unnecessary controversy. ... Kenosis 03:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Fact templates  

message: *I changed the subhead title to this shorter version, which pretty much sums up the section
*I removed the link to "List of alternative, speculative, and disputed theories", because there is no implied connection.
*I removed the commented text implying that consensus must be met before adding fields to the list; the only requirement is a verifiable citation --Iantresman 21:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed cosmology from the list of alleged pseudosciences. The quote was taken out of context. It is true that there were (and still are) people who study cosmology who advocate pseudoscience. That doesn't make the study of cosmology in-and-of-itself pseudoscience. Ironically, the quote by Hawkins was making this very point. --ScienceApologist 15:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The quote does say that Cosmology was thought of as pseudoscience, past tense. But I think you make a more import point... subjects in themselve are not pseudoscience, only some people who make certain claims about them --Iantresman 18:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  I don't think he means "pseudoscience" in the strict sense.  I think me means that it was full of speculation.  But it was being studied by bona fide scientists, but none of them were claiming that their theory was correct, counter to evidence.  Bubba73 (talk), 23:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  I've added radionics since this is already classed as a pseudoscience in Wikipedia. --TimVickers 14:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alleged pseudoscientific fields

message: I'm trying to look up some references where they are requested (I just added one).  I saw that a large number of references were commented out - presumably because they are not referenced in the text.  I saw some items there that could be listed as "further reading".  Bubba73 (talk), 17:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  references 

message: I noticed that there is a different template being used for the two lists; one NPOV, one totally disputed, yet the two are equally well documented. We should match templates; either both should be totally disputed or both NPOV. Which do people prefer?Hgilbert 18:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template disparity 

message: The generally accepted scientific method involving repeatability, prediction etc. seems predicated on the notion that there is a material objective reality "out there" and independent of mental influence (since accepted experimental methods usually do not allow for the possibilities of such influences on the part of the testers, subjects etc). Consequently, any world view which postulates mental influence on matter seems disadvantaged from the start--it is playing uphill and against the wind for the whole game! Any comments? Preferably not relating to quantum theory :-)81.108.35.99 10:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General Remarks on the Categories