Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley

message: Ed Poor referenced this in his comment. I'll include it here for completeness:
: Neutrality is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced you are that your facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties disagrees with you, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties. --Larry Sanger 
The fact that it is where it is (off Ed's talk page) makes it clear that this isn't wiki policy, its something Ed likes, and uses for personal guidance. Ed and I have disagreed on this before. I think that following this defn would end up with pages that look like ferrets fighting in a sack. It may be the best way for politics, it isn't for science. Using this defn on the global warming etc pages would leave it a mess of fighting viewpoints, which is exactly what the skeptics want: for it to look like there is no consenus.
In science, neutrality is presenting the truth, or what the vast majority of scientific opinion (as measured by published papers) believes to be the truth. Opposing views should be presented, but with lower prominence. (William M. Connolley 21:55, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: unsigned one (WMC?) I guess I disagree with Sanger's statement even more than you, frankly in science, it isn't either a "significant number" or a "vast majority" that matters, even one peer reviewed paper that does not fit within a theory creates problems for that theory.  Neutrality, would be not just presenting the dominant, but also what data the theory does seem to explain yet, what the competing theories and their evidence and predictions are and what experiments or data might differentiate between them.  No matter how cold fusion papers have been published, one paper by a nuclear physicist reporting the lack of fusion products in an apparattus that is supposed to be working, creates problems.  It isn't a head count, a little conflicting data can outweigh a tremendous about of confirming data.  It depends.--Silverback 21:40, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The cold fusion hypothetical example is pretty horrible, since in the real world the situation is precisely the opposite: there were some initial, promising tests, and after that, bupkis. In the real world, experiment after experiment has shown nothing, and the only papers published are in crank journals. In the real world, those initial promising results trumpeted by Fleischmann and Pons are understood to be anomalies by the vast majority of physicists. In the real world, since science is conducted by people and not machines, people subject to mistakes, confabulation, fraud, willful blindness, bribery, and misinterpretation -- well, anomalous results aren't quite the theory-killer you make them out to be. --Calton 14:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The calorimetry used was of the best quality techniques that had survived peer review and been refined and published for decades, it suddenly came under question when it showed net energy generation and subtle flaws and complexities were looked for and found that hadn't mattered or so it seemed in a whole body of earlier work. --Silverback 15:02, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: It's precisely because a little conflicting data can outweigh a tremendous amount of confirming data that science articles with majority/minority opinions should not just report the one view.  Those articles should aim to present the information more than the views, and that includes the information that supports the majority and the minority views, because frankly, all of that information is involved in the sum total of scientific knowledge about a topic.  The most important part of the Sanger principle is the part where he says that no matter how convinced you are that you're right, you don't force that exclusive view when there are other interpretations existing.   — Cortonin | Talk 05:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: And for the record, official Wikipedia NPOV policy clearly states that Wikipedia does NOT take a  "scientific POV", it takes a "neutral POV", and that the two are not equal.  We do not edit articles here to simply represent the consensus view, as that is clearly against Wikipedia policy.  We edit articles to, and I will quote, "represent the majority ... view as the majority view and the minority ... view as the minority view", when dealing with controversial topics.  And when dealing with observations, information, evidence, or ideas, it's even easier, because those we can simply describe without selectively excluding the ones which disagree with our personal POV.   — Cortonin | Talk 05:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I would much prefer if these environmental articles could focus more on describing the scientific evidence and information relating to their topics in a fair and impartial manner, rather than trying to draw conclusions and push perspectives in every paragraph.   — Cortonin | Talk 05:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the "Sanger" principle?  --Silverback 04:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *points to the top of this section*   — Cortonin | Talk 13:01, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Larry Sangers definition of neutrality