Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism/Pseudoscience/Archive 1

message: I'd like to pause from the current discussion to ask for comments regarding the "green cheese" sample article. If its style is a reasonable approximation of what we want to shoot for with the templates, then I'll start making templates for the article skeleton and infobox. If changes should be made, then we should start discussing them (probably here, as they pertain to a wider scope than just the green cheese article). By all means bring in other WP:PNA/Physics regulars, so that we can get as many viewpoints as possible looking at this.
As a second item, it would seem to be useful to cite a handful of cleaned-up articles and VfDs as precedents to aid in interpretation of the decision criteria (which, as noted above, are at best approximations). Harmonics Theory would be a good example of a heavily contested article. The only other applicable articles I've had a hand in editing recently are Anti-gravity, Autodynamics, and "Chaotic gravitational waves", so I'd certainly welcome your own suggested case studies, as most or all of you have been editing for longer than I have. The final number picked should only be two or three (each chosen to illustrate a specific facet of the science/psuedoscience divide, of POV/NPOV, or of deletion criteria)--Christopher Thomas 8 July 2005 20:00 (UTC)
The  Anti-gravity article seems admirably balanced and fair. It would be a good article to refer to. Salsb 8 July 2005 20:28 (UTC)
: It's actually kind of an interesting case, in that it's not straight pseudoscience - both the original and revised article discuss both scientific and pseudoscientific views on antigravity. I'm not sure such an article would fall into this project's mandate (though we still haven't nailed down exactly what the scope of the mandate is). --Christopher Thomas 20:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Case studies and sample article

message: Note that publication in a refereed journal need not mean that its good science.  There are several journals devoted to the engineering topic of GPS, the global positioning system which gives us accurate clocks and rulers over the entire planet surface ... and clocks and rulers are the stuff of  special relativity as well... A careful reading will show that about 1 in 30 articles are crank articles that "disprove" special relativity, "prove" that the universe is rotating (Sagnac effect between satellites), exhibit quantum effects or faster-than-light effects between satellites, etc. The peer reviewers that approve these articles are presumably electronics engineers and software programers who are weak on physics.  I'm not clear on who the authors are, whether they are engineers that are part of the GPS fold, or outsiders.  These same articles wouldn't make it in Phys Rev although they might survive in Foundations of Physics. The point is that getting published need not mean its legit; I suspect that many different engineering journals may print the random, occasional quasi-physics paper, which can then be trumpted as "publication in a peer-reviewed journal".  See Heim theory for an example.  linas 14:19, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Heim theory is NOT an example of 'pseudoscience creeping into a journal'. Heim does not seek to disprove Einstein - on the contrary, this protege of Heisenberg & Jordan builds on General Relativity to form a theory of quantum gravity. Several theoretical physicists are working on it and New Scientist wants to issues an article on it and its links with Loop Quantum Gravity. Let not ignorant pseudo-criticism redound to the detriment of Wikeipedia! --hughey 17:25, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, please note that citation counts on citation servers, such as scholars.google.com, can be terribly misleading. For example the author B.G.Sidharth superficially looks very legit; he has the impressively titled "Quantum Mechanical Black Holes: Towards a Unification of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity" and his most popular paper has an impressive 83 citations. On closer examination shows that all but about seven of these citations are from other papers he's written. Even these seven citations look questionable. The citations for his less-popular articles are just as bad: his self-citation rate exceeds 90%, and only 3 out of 30 citations weren't his own... and the three citations that weren't his were written by people talking about quantum consciousness (none were physicists; one was an MD!)  linas 00:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

text:  Google scholars is a horrible citation server. I wouldn't even call it a citation database even; it doesn't cover the scientific literature completely, and it covers lots of junk. when I say citation database, I mean a real one like Web of Science, or SciFinder. Salsb 00:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crank science in legit journals 

message: Should this project handle only (ha! - trouble enough) :Category:Pseudophysics, or all of :Category:Pseudoscience, including  :Category:Pseudohistory? Anybody dare to look at New Chronology (Fomenko)? --Pjacobi 23:11, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
:Just stumbled across an example, which even has some relations to phyisics: Is Holonomic brain theory in scope? --Pjacobi 19:28, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
::Probably. linas 21:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope 

message: I am sorely tempted to VfD Can Bohr's complementarity be tested? as original research. See Talk:Can Bohr's complementarity be tested? linas 15:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: VfD

message: I'm on a "wiki-sabbatical", and will probably remain on sabbatical for at least several more weeks. Apologies for failing to follow up on a handful of tasks I said I'd get to as a result. The following items should probably be dealt with, though:
* Someone get in touch with Ed Poor via his talk page, and follow up re. his concerns with this WikiProject. Responses have been posted here and on User talk:Salsb, but I haven't seen much (on here at least) indicating whether or not he considers the responses satisfactory. Note - He's on vacation until August 1st.
* Please, please move discussions re. specific articles to PNA/Physics, or preferably start them there, as opposed to here. This is starting to look like the PNA/Physics break room, and that was not the intention I'd had when proposing the WikiProject. I realize that I'm not in a position to do anything more than just _ask_ that this be done, but I feel it's important to send things through their proper channels to the greatest degree possible. Otherwise we'll get more anons yelling about collusion.
::Sorry about that myself. I hadn't found PNA/Physics before you mentioned it above. Salsb 00:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sabbatical, and a couple of notes 

message: I know a lot of scientists consider ID to be pseudoscience... just wondering if the people on this project considered that to be within their scope or not.  David Bergan 17:39, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: On one hand, it probably fits the definition of pseudoscience, but on the other hand, it's enough of a land mine topic that _I'm_ certainly not touching it. Your mileage may vary. --Christopher Thomas 04:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  All scientists consider ID to be pseudoscience. The real question is how much energy everyone may have to engage is endless running editorial battles. If you do need help, it is appropriate to bring things to attention here, and maybe someone will help. linas 21:47, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  My impression Linas (given what you just said) is that he doesn't want your help. --CSTAR 03:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Intelligent Design?

message: Yes, I know that this isn't exactly the vest place to call for help, but that one gave no responses.
*  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/ErkDemon
* False Doppler
* Talk:False_Doppler#Why_Eric_Baird's_Articles_on_Doppler_are_Incorrect
* Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/False Doppler
It's the 63.24.*.* anonymus vs User:ErkDemon (alleged to be identical to Eric Baird).
Can someone makes enough sense out of this battle, to suggest a route of action.
Pjacobi 17:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I followed this trail to Acoustic Doppler effect. I couldn't see any point to the article, so I redirected it to doppler effect. Oh lordy. William M. Connolley 19:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ErkDemon's articles 

message: Some Interpretation of quantum mechanics are clearly pseudoscience, and Wikipedia's present article on this subject seems to be free of pseudoscience, at least as far as I can see.  Actually, I'm surprised that more crap isn't in there.  I confess that I have little skill in differentiating plausible interpretations of QM from the "I am totally out of my mind" interpretations of QM, especially since bizarre ideas like "many worlds" are scientific and rational!  (Anything "New-Agey", however, rings my BS detector immediately.)  As such, I would like people here to take a look at some recent additions I made to the article on Interpretation of quantum mechanics, to make sure that these ideas are presented fairly. RK 15:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That particular article should not discuss particular interpretations but what an interpretation is. The best solution is present each interpretation in its own article. I have worked on that article considerably, although  I am not still not happy with it.  The most lucid discussion of interpretation is I believe, Roland Omnès' book listed in the references. Nevertheless, Sunny Auyang's book How is Quantum Field Theory Possible contains a gem of a definition in the first two paragraphs of Chapter V.--CSTAR 04:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interpretation of quantum mechanics 

message: Links to "Why Speak of an Aether? Scientific theoretical research, 2001: Aether as dynamic massfree energy, Matter as Aether energy imprisoned in electrically stable constructs, OR and DOR ambipolar radiations, Orgone subtype of aether energy, generation of Space and Time, Gravitational fields and 'latent heat',..." and to aetherometry are appearing now on at least Luminiferous aether, Etheric plane, Aetherometry, and Aether theories. While it might be appropriate on Aether theories, with a different description, since that article mixes pseudoscientific and historical theories, it doesn't seem approriate elsewehere to me. Would someone else take a look at this as well? Salsb 19:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it from Aetherometry since it was (a) POV (the science bit) and (b) there were plenty of links to aeth.com already. I can't see it on Luminiferous aether though. William M. Connolley 19:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it from Luminiferous aether  Salsb 19:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Why speak of an Aether"