Category talk:Pseudoscience/Archive 1

message: So I was reading the Wiki POV article and I got linked to this.. ? wht ultimate in POVery.. for instance.. Intelligent Design asserts that God was involved in the original degsign of everything. Astro physical events leading eventually to Evolution (it would assert) was the plan of God. Einstein believed this. Heck.. anyone who believes in God and believes he had anything to do with making the universe believes in Intelligent Design.. what's that like 80% of all people? BUT.. the only way to proove it is to go back to the beginning of everything and watch it happen (impossible) or to meet God himself and talk about it (debatable). But the same goes for the opposite.. the I dunno, athiesm, viewpoint. Only there's is even harder to proove because you can't disproove non-existance.. or whatever. 
So... is this article just here as a joke or a slap in the face of anyone you think is "not scientific enough" or is this article taking a stance on the God issue or what? --DjSamwise 18:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ultimate POV article 

message: Look, I admit that a lot of this stuff is way out there, but the very existence of this category is perilously close to skeptic POV; I have softened the description line, hoping that helps a bit. --Gary D 04:09, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It's not the place of Wikipedia to claim that, for example, homeopathy violates the scientific method. I might personally (indeed, I do) think that it's a load of absolute bunkum - but the absolute most that Wikipedia should say is that some named person has claimed that homeopathy is bunkum. I'm going to soften the description even more. --  ALargeElk | Talk 14:29, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Checking the history I see that Gary D had softened it and someone had then hardened it again. There is a difference between the article intro and the category. The article intro effectively says "this is what we believe pseudoscience means". The category effectively says "we believe these articles to be examples of pseudoscience", and must therefore, at the very least, contain the word "alleged" or something similar. --  ALargeElk | Talk 14:41, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously, as the guy who softened it the first time, I support ALargeElk's position. --Gary D 18:02, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In keeping with NPOV#Pseudoscience why not change the description to indicating that this category is for fields currently regarded as pseudoscience by mainstream science ? Then it will not contain both creationism and evolution just because supporters can be found on both sides. Having said that, I feel the category may be too broad. Do we add in everything in the "Alternative Medicine" project? Zuytdorp Survivor 03:50, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your concern about category breadth may touch on why I don't like this category. Unlike the article Pseudoscience, where claims and counterclaims can be attributed and discussed, with a category of Pseudoscience it's as though WP comes down and puts its imprimatur on all these articles to say, "WP agrees that everything here fails to comport with the scientific method and is pseudoscience." That's why I liked the waffle language about "alleged to be"; that way the category was only setting up the possibility of contested claims, WP wasn't vouching for any of them, and the reader could go to the individual articles to see who was claiming something was pseudoscience. (I actually considered proposing changing the category title to "Alleged pseudoscience," but that seemed a bit much.) If we go to the "currently mainstream science" language in the description, we are inserting a broad, definite attribution across the board, to many places where it may not be justified. For instance, this category currently contains the broad article Supernatural. I don't think we want to be in the position of certifying that all of mainstream science thinks everything connected with the supernatural is pseudoscience. Hence, I would propose leaving the admittedly wafflish "alleged to be" language in the description. (What I'd really like to do is dump the category.) --Gary D 20:54, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I too would completely do away with this category completely.  Redirecting the category to "Alleged pseudoscience" would remain a poor second choice.  The term "pseudoscience" tends to be used pejoratively about a study or practice, in the same way that the word "dictator" is used to describe certain national leaders.  When you call a subject "pseudoscience" you are making a positive claim about that subject.  You are proposing a theory about the subject, and unless you are providing falsifiable evidence about your proposal, you are yourself (within our definition of the term) acting pseudoscientifically. For the subject to be pseudoscience there must at least be a semblance or pretense of being scientific, and to the extent that the subject has individual adherents who sincerely attempt to apply (perhaps in futility) scientific methods those individuals do not deserve to be contemptuously called pseudoscientists.  The behaviour of the so-called scientists in this matter is reprehensible; as I read many of the related articles I often find them trying to disprove and spotlight claims that the proponents never made.  The cited section on the NPOV page is not much better than biased POV sophistry, beginning with the presumption that what "scientists" consider to be pseudoscientific is repugnant.  In a later section the author goes so far as to associate the holders of minority beliefs with flat-earthers and holocaust deniers.  I don't know if I have the stomach to go there to change that to a truly NPOV presentation. Eclecticology 12:07, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Category Existence

message: It looks like we have a consensus here. Why hasn't any action been taken? The article is OK, but the Category is POV, not to mention insulting. Why haven't any Wikipedians who support the existence of this category posted their opinion? 
Specific proposal: rename the category to something like Category:Alternative scientific paradigms. --Smithfarm 16:27, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I just dicovered -- to my astonishment -- the existence of this category. Shall we make it Afd? Harald88 22:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pseudoscience is an extremely POV term. While there are many things I would consider such, there are others, which I would consider to be borderline... for example, is acupuncture, "alternative", protoscience, pseudoscience or medical? There is good evidence for its anaesthetic qualities, but few Western doctors would agree with some of the other attached theories. However, within science, there are always competing theories, e.g. the Big Bang, while the most popular theory of the universe's origin is still not the sole one, and the Steady State, while of much less popularity is still accepted by some scientists. --MacRusgail 19:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why hasn't this been deleted yet? 

message: Now what about the Quackery category? Does that fit in here at all? Does it have any proponents (i.e. people who say "I'm a quack, and proud of it")? Or is it just an insult? --Smithfarm 16:32, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quackery? 

message: Smithfarm: please stop removing this categorization like you did for holistic science. There is clearly the need to mark non-scientific topics as non-scientific (or non-mainstream or whatever). Removing this category would be blatant POV. I also don't like the the name "Alternative scientific paradigms". Why not stick to "pseudoscience", a term that is widely in use and where we have an article for.  Cacycle 22:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you at least agree that putting a derogatory label on something is POV? (Same as taking the derogatory label off is, as you state) Can you suggest a non-derogatory label? --Smithfarm 06:42, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keep this category 

message: I'm going to add category:Belief to this category, since I think that some of the articles / subcategories fall into both partial science and belief realms. Hopefully, this will provide a balanced categorisation. Ian Cairns 20:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a wise idea. -Willmcw 21:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Balance

message: Category is misleading and has fueled a revert war on Aetherometry — Hackwrench 14:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
Having presented the request, I vote 'For' Hackwrench 14:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Hackwrench, voting for deleting or renaming this category take place at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Pseudoscience to Category:Science of Questionable Validity. We have a procedure. Thanks, -Willmcw 07:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I had originally submitted this to Requests for move. The procedure there is to vote in the Talk page. Hackwrench 17:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested Move

message: :Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
Having presented the request, I vote 'For' Hackwrench 14:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hackwrench, voting for deleting or renaming this category take place at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Pseudoscience to Category:Science of Questionable Validity. We have a procedure. Thanks, -Willmcw 07:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I had originally submitted this to Requests for move. The procedure there is to vote in the Talk page. Hackwrench 17:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting

message: "The result of the debate was keep --Kbdank71 15:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Outcome

message: The creationism category includes articles which are pseudoscience such as Flood geology, and many other articles which aren't such as Theistic evolution. I strongly suggest that crationism should no longer be a sub-category of pseudoscience. ...dave souza 19:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Items don't need fall 100% within a category to be categorized there. The point of categories is not to define articles (or subcategories) but to provide readers with a navigational tool to related topics. -Willmcw 19:45, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As the discussion above shows, this is a contentious label and should not be applied lightly where it can't be justified. Oddly enough, parent categories tend to be less of a fuss as they don't appear at the foot of the page, but at the moment the categorising seems to be leading to arguments and confusion, hence my agreement with Fastfission's 13 June 2005 suggestion on the cat:creationism talk page. ....dave souza 23:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Though you've cross-posted this I suggest we only discuss it one place, :Category talk:Creationism. -Willmcw 01:36, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Creationism

message: Without first ever reading this talk page(oops), I have posted a justification for this and similarly POVed categories at Category talk:Pseudophysics. Assuming that one agrees that we should categorize things as science and that there exists at least one uncontroversial(and therefore minimally exclusive) criteria met by science, I've shown there why there is necessarily reason for a 'similar-to-but-not-science' category to exist. It is impossible to NPOVly couch a POVed categorization, whether it be favorable or unfavorable. However, this doesn't imply that such categories are unuseful nor even controversial in their contents.  Even with POV categories, it is still possible to maximize compromise and minimize edit wars with a reasoned category scheme. Anyways, I guess I'll read this talk page now. =P
--Intangir 06:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A deductive justification for this category's existance 

message: As an off-the-cuff proposal, I think that a good scheme would be
*Natural Ontologies->Science+Pseudoscience+(Other reality-oriented beliefs)
Or better yet,
*Natural Ontologies->Science+(Controversial Ontologies->Pseudoscience+fringe science+more)
Ontology might be a big word, but at least it means the right thing(unlike belief) and is quite value neutral(unlike a parent category which implied science or validity). The second suggestion allows for overly controversial categorizations to be compromised and marked merely as Controversial Ontologies.
--Intangir 07:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Category Scheme Proposal

message: This category has been nominated for deletion or renaming several times.  This section is a summary of that activity.
* nominated for deletion at end of May 2005 ~ diff showing addition of template
** decision to keep at start of June 2005 ~ diff showing removal of template
** I've not found the archived discussion for this, otherwise I would have added that link instead of these User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of category at [[WP:CFD]] 

message: Here are some criteria on whether to include something in a category:
:Questions to ask to determine whether it is appropriate to add an article to a category:
:* If the category does not already exist, is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of the category, explaining it?
:* If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why the article was put in the category? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article?
:If the answer to either of these questions is no, then the category is probably inappropriate. ....
:Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.  ....
:Whatever categories you add, make sure they do not implicitly violate the neutral point of view policy. If the nature of something is in dispute (like whether or not it's fictional or scientific or whatever), you may want to avoid labelling it or mark the categorization as disputed.
thx -Jim Butler(talk) 22:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criteria from [[Wikipedia:Categorization|WP:CG]] 

message: :This category comprises articles pertaining to fields of endeavor or bodies of knowledge that are both claimed by their proponents to be supported by scientific principles and the scientific method, and alleged by their critics and the scientific community to be inconsistent with such principles and method. 
By this vague definition, any scientific theory can be considered a pseudoscience. — goethean ॐ 21:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Absolutely not. In the vast majority of areas of science, disagreements within the scientific community do no result in the everyone claiming that what their rivals are doing is not science. For example, there is currently disagreement among biologists about how much neutral drift matters for speciation. Neither side is claiming the other side is being pseudoscientific. JoshuaZ 22:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. Nonetheless, the description is too vague to refer only to pseudoscience. — goethean ॐ 22:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's acceptably specific, but there are a lot of shades of grey and a category doesn't depict that very well.  Also, people still use the term in different ways:  just Google "pseudoscience definition OR define" and you'll see what I mean.  It's cool to include these views, but I think the category namespace is unsuitable, cf. below.  cheers, Jim Butler(talk) 06:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Description

message: Please come and vote :) Count Iblis 01:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  VFD [[List of non-mainstream theories]] underway 

message: Hi all. Things are improving. The cat now has more useful categories that explain the nature of PS (eg, Confirmation Bias, Granfalloon etc) and of course, this reduces conflict long term as it clearly shows the pseudoscience category is not a set of pseudosciences. There are most likely a lot of other psychological and sociological factors that will help the reader, so I'll keep on delving for more, and any help will be great. KrishnaVindaloo 05:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Selection Bias/psychological/sociological aspects etc