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== Water fluoridation controversy ==
== ] ==
*{{al|Water fluoridation controversy}}


RFK Jr. may belong in the article, but some people insist it has to be in a specific way, which results in lots of edit-warring recently. --] (]) 08:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
Some discussion coming to boil over whether Chopra's views on quantum science are really fringe, and whether/how skeptic commentary on him should be present. Wise editors' opinions could benefit the discussion I am sure. ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 19:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
:how notable are the natterings of a famous person? Unless his comments have generated a lot of commentary in the quantum science world, I think they are best left off en.wp all together. He's a Dr. and health advocate, not a chemist or physicist. --] (]) 19:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
::My impression is that hardcore scientists just don't bother with it; skeptics and commentators on science pooh-pooh it, and new-age types might give it a more sympathetic hearing. It's one of those interesting cases where it's so nonsensical the scientists-in-question don't even bother to rebut it ... ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 19:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
:::I can understand how this would happen. You wouldn't believe the sheer volume of crazy that shows up in your email inbox if you're listed on a physics department web site. I'm afraid I got lost with the wall of text on the talk page though. ] (]) 20:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


:Not sure if this is the correct space for this. But why do we call it a "controversy"? There is no reasonable controversy to speak of when we're looking at water fluoridation. We don't call the antivaxxer movement part of a "vaccination controversy", or do we? The nicest terms I've seen used is "hesitancy", as in ]. I think anti-fluoridation cranks deserve the same treatment as anti-vaxxers. <small>Also, they're mostly the same people...</small> I'm thinking the tone should be more in line with ] or outright mention misinformation, like in ]. ]•] 12:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
* Chopra's views on quantum mechanics are fringe, but also quote famously fringe; plenty of sources do exist characterising the fringiness of his views. I'll dig up some at the weekend, but the current sources are fine. ] (]) 20:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
:* Recipients of the ] are obviously notable as such. I would presume that ] laureates also are due some (though lesser) notability for that award, too.--] (]) 19:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC) ::Yes, deleting the "controversy" part would probably give a better article name. "Opposition to water fluoridation"? But that belongs on the talk page. --] (]) 14:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::That would be a better name ] (]) 14:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:See also ], which is teetering on the brink of an edit war. ] (]) 00:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] == ==]==


I have proposed a and redirect of this article as the content is mostly about ] which is duplicated content from his own article. I also believe it is misleading to have an article on "paranormal" plant perception as this is not an independent or recognized field of study. We have Misplaced Pages articles on ] (plant neurobiology) and ]. ] (]) 17:34, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
A new article on a case where an Italian judge apparently awarded damages to a family claiming the MMR vaccine causes autism. Some content on the same topic was added at ] which I reverted. No scientific literature is cited. I'm leaning towards a PROD or AfD but I'd like to ask for opinions here first. :-) ] (]) 12:20, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


:Seems like a ] and maybe a merge of some content if appropriate would be easier. Than prodding it. ] (]) 01:38, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:The case should not, IMO have it's own article, but it clearly is relevant to ], since it has created more controversy! It is citable to reliable sources that it is linked to the ''controversy''. Obviously a legal judgement is not a scientific one, but that's a different issue. ] (]) 12:53, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
::I believe the best thing to do is to have an article called plant intelligence where all the plant perception paranormal content and the plant intelligence/plant neurobiology stuff is mentioned on one large article. The ] article has an incorrect title as all the ] refer to the field as "plant intelligence". I believe the article title needs to be renamed. These articles have been a mess for over a decade. It's important to keep content on ] separate from any of this intelligence content which is ]. ] (]) 02:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::In that case, surely the best course of action then is to move the plant cognition article to "plant intelligence" and then ] Plant perception (paranormal) to it? ] (]) 03:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I was hoping to do this but Misplaced Pages would not let me per technical reasons. A user had already created a plant intelligence redirect years ago. About a decade ago there was a very poorly written plant intelligence article . There was an old decision to redirect that article into ] which was a mistake. I have requested a rename and move on the plant cognition talk-page. ] (]) 03:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::This is what ] is for. I don't think the request will be very controversial so I would just go ahead and write it. ] (]) 03:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
{{deindent}} what's going on with this now that the title has been changed to ] and the AfD has been withdrawn? Should ] be merged into plant intelligence? ] (]) 01:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
::I have redirected and merged the small amount of text on that article to plant intelligence. I believe the issue has now been resolved as we have 1 article for all of the fringe content on which should have been separated from plant physiology a long time ago. ] (]) 14:29, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The last thing to do, it to rename this category ] (]) 15:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)


== Science based medicine at RSN ==
::It's been previously discussed at the MMR controversy article and the consensus appears to have been not to include it. Anyways, I've redirected the article. ] (]) 08:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)


Those who follow this board will probably be interested in ] ] (]) 03:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
== ] ==


Possible topic ban in this fringe-medical-related topic. ] (]) 15:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC) :Noting that the RFC was closed and immediately restarted in a new section, so you might want to look a second time. ] (]) 18:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)


== Stonemounds ==
:A comment about this post by 84.* has been made here: ]. More input welcome, ] (]) 09:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


A link to has been added to ]. The app offers virtual guided tours to a number of ancient sites. I haven't downloaded the site, but am hoping someone knows something about it, and whether it is appropriate for our articles to link to it. ] 15:28, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
== ] ==


:Looks like advertising and shouldn't be on WP. ]•] 17:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Is this a fringe theory or reliably sourced fact? Independent, high quality scholarship on this issue have concluded that the United States political movement known as the Tea Party consists of both grassroots and astroturf components. Several Misplaced Pages editors, however, have called this conclusion a "fringe theory", stating that the movement "" and These Misplaced Pages editors further claim that any mention of astroturf elements when describing this movement is merely non-factual opinion espoused by a conspiracy of political opponents posing as academics and journalists.
::The app is free, and I don't see anything for sale on the website. It says that the audio is recorded by archaeologists who worked on the sites. My concern is whether the information presented is in line with reliable sources. I'm not familiar enough with the various sites covered to confirm that myself. ] 18:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
{{cot|Sample of reliable sources describing the movement as both grassroots and astroturf}}
:::App seems (would want further verification) to be associated with . The 2024 WNC seems to have the backing of prominent government institutions and international universities . If this connection is provable, then I would say it would be a reliable source. ] (]) 18:26, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
<small>
{{quotation|So what is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this chapter: "Astroturf or Grassroots Populism?" The simple answer is that the Tea Parties have been created by both kinds of populism, in part by the few—the corporate lobbyists from above—but also from the passionate many expressing real grassroots populism. (Page 8) The Tea Partiers, finally, are routinely referred to in the media as conservatives. But their blend of astroturf and grassroots populism is more accurately labeled right-wing or reactionary populism. (Page 110)|''The Tea Party: A Brief History''; Ronald P. Formisano; Johns Hopkins University Press; August 2012}}
{{quotation|"Some condemn the Tea Party as Astroturf, a movement directly funded and organized from its very beginning by conservative leaders. Others argue that the Tea Party epitomizes grassroots politics, an outpouring of aggreived citizens who spontaneously protested against big government. Both arguments contain at least a grain of truth." (Pages 98-99) "Local Tea Parties and national Tea Party umbrella groups are entangled with and significantly funded by the United States' conservative establishment and by parts of the Republican Party." (Pages 134-135)|''Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party''; Lawrence Rosenthal, Christine Trost; University of California Press; May 2012}}
{{quotation|Many supporters also proclaim the Tea Party to be purely a grassroots rebellion, a "mass movement of ... 'regular' Americans with real concerns about losing the right to live their lives as they choose." This view captures only a small part of the truth, ignoring the fact that Tea Party participants are in many respects even more ideologically extreme than other very conservative Republicans. Similarly, the ‘mass movement’ portrayal overlooks the fact that the Tea Party, understood in its entirety, includes media hosts and wealthy political action committees, plus national advocacy groups and self-proclaimed spokespersons – elites that wield many millions of dollars in political contributions and appear all over the media claiming to speak for grassroots activists who certainly have not elected them, and to whom they are not accountable. What kind of mass rebellion is funded by corporate billionaires, like the Koch brothers, led by over-the-hill former GOP kingpins like Dick Armey, and ceaselessly promoted by millionaire media celebrities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity? (Page 11) Considered in its entirety, the Tea Party is neither a top-down creation nor a bottom-up explosion. This remarkable political outpouring is best understood as a combination of three intertwined forces. Each force is important in its own right, and their interaction is what gives the Tea Party its dynamism, drama, and wallop. Grassroots activists, roving billionaire advocates, and right-wing media purveyors—these three forces, together, create the Tea Party...(Pages 12-13)|''The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism''; Skocpol, T.; Williamson, V.; Oxford University Press; 2012}}
{{quotation|The indirect lobbying we have discussed is often called grassroots lobbying, meaning that it addresses people in their roles as ordinary citizens. It is the weilding of power from the bottom (roots) up, rather than from the top down. Most of what we refer to as grassroots lobbying, however, does not spring spontaneously from the people but is orchestrated by elites, leading some people to call it astroturf lobbying—indicating that it is not really genuine. Often the line between real grassroots and astroturf lobbying is blurred, however. A movement may be partly spontaneous but partly orchestrated. the Tea Party movement has been, in part, the project of Dick Armey, a former Republican House majority leader whose organization, FreedomWorks, promotes low taxes and small government. FreedomWorks and several other conservative groups, as well as prominent individuals including some commentators at Fox News, have lent their organizational expertise to the Tea Partiers but deny that they are orchestrating an astroturf movement. (Pages 497-498)|''Keeping the Republic: Power and Citizenship in American Politics''; Christine Barbour, Gerald C Wright; CQ Press; January 2013}}
{{quotation|"Some of the issues that have been of central concern to the religious right over the last three decades have more recently been taken over by the considerably more volatile Tea Party movement. Insofar as the latter movement is a creation of media elites, it too qualifies as an example of top-down politics. The volatility of the movement derives, however, from the sponteneity of its populist spirit. The movement's distrust of elites, and "socialists" could rapidly morph into outright fascism if there were a further deepening of the economic crisis or a series of additional terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11. In any event, it is easy to imagine the movement's bottom-up populism becoming a more prominent force in American politics in the coming years." (Pages 230-231)|''Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America''; Jeffrey Stout; Princeton University Press; 2010}}
{{quotation|"The defining feature of astroturf groups is that they are generated by an industry, think tank, or front group, but designed to appear as a spontaneous, popular 'grassroots' effort. The use of astroturf groups has flourished in the Obama era, being used to oppose healthcare reform and other progressive goals of the President and Democratic Congress. Especially important are the roles played by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks front groups in generating a significant portion of the 'Tea Party'..." (Pages 154-155)|''The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society''; edited by John S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, David Schlosberg; Oxford University Press; August 2011}}
{{quotation|The degree to which the Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement is debatable. Tea Party organizers have received extensive financial support from prominent conservative think-tanks and financiers. (Page 8)|''Popular Originalism? The Tea Party Movement and Constitutional Theory''; Rebecca E. Zietlow; Florida Law Review| }}
{{quotation|With expensive grassroots lobbying campaigns, however, comes the issue of authenticity. Many examples of such campaigns from recent years illustrate that they often are not the kind of genuine spontaneous activity indicative of grassroots advocacy. More recent advocacy events have likewise shown an apparent lack of spontaneous organization, most notably some of the early “Tea Party” protests. Following CNBC pundit Rick Santelli’s call, in February 2009, for a “‘Chicago Tea Party’” to oppose President Obama’s mortgage bailout plan, numerous websites dedicated to the cause sprang to life, each supposedly part of a national grassroots Internet protest and each tied to the Sam Adams Alliance advocacy group. This group in turn enjoyed
substantial financial support from the Koch family, multibillionaire owners of one of the largest privately-held corporations in the United States, and FreedomWorks, a public relations firm with former House Majority leader Dick Armey as its chairman, and which the Kochs have funded. The above examples highlight a phenomenon more widely known as “Astroturfing,” or fake grassroots advocacy, a practice that has become popular among particular groups and individuals.|''Artificial Grassroots Advocacy and the Constitutionality of Legislative Identification and Control Measures''; Jonathan C. Zellner; Connecticut Law Review; November 2010}}
{{quotation|Is the Tea Party movement a grassroots movement or not? On one end, it very much is a grassroots movement. It's a movement that surely sprung up out of the ether in a lot of people's minds. But then on the other hand, you have sort of an establishment that is somewhat preexisting. And these are the folks who have come to the game with a great deal of money, if not a great deal of energy, which certainly you associate with the grassroots end of this movement. Steve Inskeep: So you have two things going on at once here, is what you're saying. There really is angst out there. There really are people who are concerned about the direction of the country, but there is also this political structure and corporate structure that's driving them a little bit.|Is the Tea Party Really A Grassroots Movement? NPR Special Series: The Tea Party in America; September 2010}}
</small>
{{cob}}
The contesting Misplaced Pages editors have not, to date, produced any reliably sourced refutation of the scholarly consensus that the movement is made up of <u>both</u> grassroots and astroturf elements. They have, however, cited several sources (mostly news media reports) that only mention the "grassroots" components without mentioning the "astroturf" components, as proof that the movement must therefore be 100% grassroots. We'd like some uninvolved input on this matter. Are the above sources promoting a fringe theory? Thanks in advance, ] (]) 16:27, 27 July 2013 (UTC)


== Discussion of the reliability of the Journal of Controversial ideas ==
:As I expected, this was presented with a lot of high-velocity spin and some key facts which undercut Xenophrenic's argument were left out. Only three of these sources actually claim that any part of the Tea Party movement is Astroturfed. I will refer to them by the names of their principal authors: Zellner, Formisano and Dryzek. Dryzek is written by climate change experts and briefly mentions in passing some political phenomena in America. It's sort of a ] from an academic standpoint. They're not writing about subject matter with which they have any expertise. They point their rhetorical guns at it, briefly spray some rhetorical bullets in its general direction, and move on as quickly as possible.
:Zellner was a law student, not a professor. Almost all the other academic sources we use in the article are written by professors of law or political science, and many are chairs of their departments, teaching at Ivy League universities or other highly respected institutions, appearing multiple times on TV news networks as experts on the law and politics, etc. Zellner just isn't in the same league, and proves it by sourcing his Astroturfing claims with sources that Misplaced Pages would not consider reliable for anything but their own opinions: ] and an opinion column by ], a highly partisan opponent of the Tea Party.
:Formisano is a professor of history, not law, not political science, at the University of Kentucky. He has published at least two op-ed columns which demonstrate that he likes Barack Obama and the Democrats (political oopponents of the Tea Party) very, very much. Some of us suspect that an anti-Tea Party bias crept into Formisano's work, particularly since he has based his Astroturfing accusation on a claim that absolutely no one else has made: that the "]," a genuine Astroturfing group which purports to speak on behalf of the Tea Party when it isn't Astroturfing for Indonesian corporate clients, is in fact a part of the Tea Party.
:The remainder of the sources cited by Xenophrenic do not explicitly claim that any part of the Tea Party is Astroturfed, and to claim that they do is an example of ]. Some of them refer to "top-down" organizing, which is not necessarily Astroturfing; and when you take a closer look at the actual organizing activities they describe, it's the sort of thing that Formisano, Zellner and Dryzek would cheerfully call "]" if it was done by ] instead of ], with the same amount of money provided by billionaire ] instead of the billionaire Koch brothers.
:This takes us to the next problem. Formisano, Zellner and Dryzek are trying to redefine the word "Astroturf" to include community organizing activity, but the word "Astroturfing" has been a stable and well-recognized political science term for roughly 30 years. It refers to a deceptive effort by paid corporate and political operatives to pretend that a grass-roots movement exists where there is no such thing. All these sources acknowledge that there is a very strong grass-roots or "bottom-up" element existing in the Tea Party. The rest of these elements merely amplify an actual existing grass-roots element, rather than manufacturing one where one does not actually exist.
:Xenophrenic is left with three sources. Each is shaky in its own way. They're countered by literally dozens of reliable sources, including the peer-reviewed academic writings of ], a law professor who has repeatedly appeared as an expert on law and politics on CNN and other news networks. There are also sources from such eminently reliable, fact-checked news organizations as ''], ], ],'' ], and ]. Generally these sources say, "The Tea Party movement is a ]." Period. Full stop. Or they refer to members as "grass-roots activists." Implicit in these statements is a refutation of the claim that the Tea Party is partially Astroturfed.
:Xenophrenic presented only half of the truth. Now that the other half of the truth has been presented, let's hear from previously uninvolved editors and admins, to determine whether "The Tea Party is part Astroturf" is (A) the majority viewpoint that belongs in the article lede per ], (B) a minority viewpoint that belongs farther down in the article per ], or (C) a fringe opinion that doesn't belong in the article at all per ]. Xenophrenic supports (A).{{cn}} I support (B), along with four other editors. Arthur Rubin supports (C). What do you think? ] (]) 14:33, 28 July 2013 (UTC) <small>(I've indicated no such support. -Xenophrenic)</small>


This discussion may be of interest to people on this noticeboard. ] ] (]) 15:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::"he likes Barack Obama and the Democrats" is not a valid reason to describe someone's opinions as 'fringe'. ] (]) 14:40, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
:::You are correct, and it's also not a valid reason to describe a ''fact'' as 'fringe', as several editors have attempted to do. Also, after having looked at the 2 links to Formisano pieces provided by P&W, the allegation of 'bias' is unsupported - not that it would matter anyway when determining the reliability of sources. ] (]) 05:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


:I found a couple items in the ''Chronicle of Higher Education'' that may be usable; the relevant parts are quoted in . ] (]) 03:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::All that is required to support a statement of fact is one reliable source. A book about the Tea Party written by a professor of history (Formisano) and published by Johns Hopkins University Press meets that standard. The publisher has determined that he is competent to write about the subject, and his personal opinions are irrelevant to whether the facts in his book are accurate. ] is an established expert on both democratic theory and evironmental politics. While Zellner was a law student, his article appeared in the ], which meets rs.
::AFAIK there is nothing fringe in saying that the Tea Party movement consists of both groups set up by wealthy individuals and groups set up by concerned citizens, i.e., "astro-turf" and "grass-roots" organizations. Of course even reliable sources may be wrong. It could be for example that the ] is not part of the Tea Party movement, or that it was not created by a Republican consulting firm, but was set up by tens of thousands of citizens acting together. If that is true, then the way to challenge what the sources say is to find sources that say something different.
::] (]) 15:52, 28 July 2013 (UTC)


==Promotional edits by a reincarnation believer on ]==
::All of the above reliable sources say that the TP movement is astroturfed, not just three. Five of them specifically use the "astroturf" word, while the remaining sources explain the astroturfing in detail as "top down" organizing, inauthentic/fake grassroots advocacy, and "front group" manipulation -- all decades-old definitions of astroturfing in the context in which they are used. Your claim that several scholars published by Oxford, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and peer-reviewed journals have redefined "Astroturfing" doesn't help your argument; if true, it discredits your argument. Your claim that all of the above reliable sources are "countered by literally dozens of reliable sources" is false, and it is time to call your bluff. Please produce some here, with the exact verbatim text you are citing from those sources, that "counter" the fact that this grassroots movement is also astroturfed. All I've seen so far are sources that just mention the grassroots part, and there is no "implicit" or "explicit" refutation of the astroturfed part there. To quote a reliable source above: '''''"Often the line between real grassroots and astroturf lobbying is blurred, however. A movement may be partly spontaneous but partly orchestrated."''''' Your claim that being one "implicitly" disallows the other is a fiction. ] (]) 05:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
:::Jumping is, as a completely uninvolved editor:
:::* I don't think this is a "fringe" issue; this is more about public relations and American politics isn't it?
:::* Astroturf has wide currency as a term meaning a fake/deceptive/paid-for effort to ape popular ("grass-roots") support; other uses of this word are peculiar
:::* The terms "grass-roots" and "astro-turf" are PR terms (POV-labelling) and we can expect them to be used by partial and hostile commentators respectively. I would usually avoid either of them in the lede of an article, except my impression (from across the Atlantic) was that the TP movement was formed largely from within the Republican party by disaffected members who formed a kind of mass pressure group. The proposed wording along the lines of "grass-roots with astro-turf components" is the kind of writing that makes WP look bad. ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 05:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
:::::You are probably right that this isn't a "fringe" issue, but at least 3 editors called it that. Looking at the argument above by P&W, it appears that WP:RSN and RS:NPOVN would be better suited to address his concerns. You are absolutely correct that "astroturf" and "grassroots" are PR terms, and the PR industry is partly responsible for the "peculiar" synonyms and definitions (Example: ). Proposed wording for the lede about the movement's dual nature (grassroots and astroturfed) would definitely benefit from a more thorough explanation of the nuanced make up of the movement. That might be better relegated to the body of the article. ] (]) 23:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


O Govinda has been adding tonnes of promotional and ] sources at ] and removing sources critical of Stevenson's work. This has been going on since September. I have been bold and reverted their edits. See talk-page discussion. ] (]) 10:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
This appears to be forumshopping at its most intriguing. Not only is it ''not'' related to the stated topic of this noticeboard, is ''not'' phrased in a neutral manner etc. it also manages to take absurdist potshots at other editors ''without'' notifying them of this discussion, yet another venue for what the OP has posted in far too many places already. , the TPm moderated discussion page (multiple posts), self-deletion of his own RfC/U, BLP/N, AN and AN/I posts inter alia all pretty much insisting that he only wants the ] <g> ] (]) 01:54, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
:And that is yet another example of pure, unadulterated Collect, misstating the facts as usual. I did indeed announce this posting to the editors; I've taken this Talk page matter to only one noticeboard/forum, this one; I've never "self-deleted" an RfC/U, BLP/N, AN, or AN/I post. ] as usual I see, but I'm sure you are just trying to be a "good faith participant {{sic}}" with your comment here. ] (]) 06:42, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


:Thanks for bringing this up. I read that article recently and did feel like the whole "dismissal without consideration" and some other things there had some pro-fringe sentiment behind them. ]•] 12:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
* This is not fringe and TFD's summary appears to be correct. I'd suggest you guys go to DRN or similar, ] (]) 09:15, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
*'''Not fringe'''. The arguments against "astroturfing" as an essential part of the founding story of the Tea Party Movement are squarely in the "I don't like it" category. Formisano is quite clear. Rosenthal and Trost are quite clear. Skocpol and Williamson are quite clear, etc. ] (]) 11:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
*A theory can't be fringe unless there is some dominant mainstream academic point of view in its field, and I don't think we have that with the Tea Party movement. So this is outside the scope of this noticeboard. Also, much of it is a political argument. The disagreements over what sources are reliable could be discussed at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, if they haven't been already..] (]) 19:59, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


:: This is a perennial effort from one editor that has been ongoing for at least a decade or more. It begins with innocuous edits like formatting citations, cleaning dead links, improving grammar, etc. If there is no response, next very subtle POV shifts are introduced, slight watering down of criticism, etc. If there is still no response, then critical material is trimmed and credulous or supportive material is given primary weight. At this point, usually someone steps in, reverts all the edits, and the article goes dormant again for a few years, only to begin the same cycle again. I was about to do the revert when Psychologist Guy beat me to it.] (]) 14:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
== Transgenerational epigenetic observations? ==
:::I agree. It is a type of stealth editing to make some slow minor edits but over time keep adding until the biased POV gets more and more. In general I am not a deletionist, over at ] I supported a user's re-write of the entire article which was at first controversial. If edits (even controversial) are supported by good sourcing then that I will back them but in this case the sourcing is badly cherry-picked and mostly irrelevant fringe sources from non-specialists, there was a serious UNDUE problem. It's also concerning that this user claims on the talk-page that information cited to a critical source is "''not upheld by the source. At best this could be WP:synth, but its not even that''". Yet when you click on the source the text matched perfectly. The user removed the content without any consensus claiming incorrectly in their edit summary "Verifications failed. Deleted OR". It's hard to come to any other conclusion that this was not done in good-faith because this material does not fail verification nor is ]. This is a case of deleting sources they dislike and leaving false edit summaries. This isn't at the level of ANI yet but there has been a repeated pattern on and off regarding this type of behaviour on their account going back years from what I could see. If it continues into 2025 a topic ban may be appropriate. ] (]) 16:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)


::::There is a similar cycle that happens on ] every year or so, a push to 'right the great wrong' of not recognizing parapsychology as a science, citing AAAS, Etzel Cardena, etc. It's currently in the ascendant phase . ] (]) 17:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
] seems like rather an exceptional claim (that circumstantial information is transmitted to subsequent generations genetically), also evident in the links from here. The ] seems to have had some and is also treated as "reviving" the evolutionary debate in . Any geneticists in the house?
::::: RE Ian Stevenson, see talk-page discussion - User wants all his fringe material restored. I disagree. ] (]) 23:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:The specific result is a bit odd (the opposing gender-specificity of the descent), but the concept that there can be trans-generational effects mediated via epigenetics doesn't surprise me in the least. As big as genomics are, epigenetic inheritance is ''the hot topic'' in genetics these days. Maybe, though, I am missing your point. Is there something specific that raises issues for you? ] (]) 07:04, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
::Quite probably just my ignorance - but it seemed maybe some there was some suggestion of Lamarckian inheritance in play. Is it really mainstream science now that environmental influence is transmitted by some kind of ''genetics''? Well, I live and learn! ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 07:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
:::Well, environmental influences can induce systemic changes in DNA methylation and this can alter gene expression, and some DNA methylation differences are passed to subsequent generations. Neither of those are debated. Is that Lamarkian? Depends on your criteria for Lamarkianism, I guess. Bear in mind that the environmentally-induced epigenetic changes are not necessarily adaptive, so in one sense it is no different than exposure to a mutagen, which makes changes that are then passed down. With this particular study, I would have to read it to see whether they controlled appropriately - it may just be classic Darwinism. If the famine killed off one end of the gene pool, then the progeny of the survivors would have different allele frequency than the non-famine population, whether those allelic differences are methylation-based or simply nucleotide sequence-based. Still, the general concept is accepted, at least in theory. ] (]) 08:25, 28 July 2013 (UTC)


== David Berlinski ==
:::: is probably adaptive. I think the word "reviving" is hyperbole though. :-) ] (]) 11:01, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
*{{al|David Berlinski}}


Article about a creationist and therefore a traditional playground of pseudoscience-deleting philosopher-of-science wannabes. Th last of them threw a fit after being reverted. It's OK now but both the article and the user merit watching. --] (]) 09:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Thanks guys, I am reassured the article has wise eyes on it :-) ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 11:27, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
:Not sure what was going on there, the editor removed pseudoscientific twice , then added it back in . Looks like ] editing. ] (]) 20:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::They go through articles replacing "which" by "that", and they did it in that article too. As they were at it, they also removed the "pseudoscientific" as an aside. I reverted that, and they got angry, said incomprehensible stuff and called me a fool for a reason known only to themselves. Then they seemed to have noticed that was a bad idea and reverted the "pseudoscientific" deletion to save face or something. --] (]) 08:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)


==]==


Denis Noble has been editing the "The Third Way of Evolution" section of his article for a while. Parts of the this section now read as promotional. There is definitely some ] editing here. ] (]) 20:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
==Gospel of Matthew==
Re the ], most Biblical commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, even study Bibles have a section on the Papias tradition which says that Matthew first wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. However there is a dispute as to whether this is fringe?
:: The views of Papias were preserved by the early Christian historian, "Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–ca. 339 CE), generally held by modern scholars to be fairly trustworthy." Papias meant that it is "genuinely true that the apostle Matthew compiled the sayings of Jesus" in a Hebrew dialect, and the testimony of Papias explicitly and credibly traces its own lineage “directly back to the disciples of Jesus themselves.” & The historical data is both ''"striking and incontestable".'' Virtually every piece of external evidence we have from the first few centuries regarding the authorship of the Gospels concurs that Matthew's Gospel was first written in a Hebrew dialect. The widespread agreement of early sources on a number of points is truly remarkable and "cannot be brushed aside, particularly since the discrepancies among these sources regarding other points strongly suggest that they are not, for the most part, simply copying one another." In total there are more than 75 ancient witnesses who testified to the fact that this ''Hebrew Gospel'' was in wide circulation. Twelve of the Early Church Fathers testified that it was written by the Apostle Matthew. No ancient writer either Christian or Non Christian challenged these facts. (Edwards 2009 , &


:He appeared in a video online? Stop the presses! {{pb}} The ''Forbes'' story it mentions turns out to be a ]. ] (]) 03:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)


==]==
See most up to date sources:
*
*
*
*
*


This is about {{tq|Uzziah's name appears in two unprovenanced iconic stone seals discovered in 1858 and 1863. The first is inscribed ''l’byw ‘bd / ‘zyw'', " to ’Abiyah, minister of ‘Uziyah", and the second (]) ''lšbnyw ‘ / bd ‘zyw'', " to Shubnayah, minister of ‘Uziyah."<ref>{{cite book |last=Avigad |first=Nahman |title=Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals |location=Jerusalem |publisher=The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities |year=1997 |isbn=978-9-652-08138-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Mykytiuk |first=Lawrence J. |title=Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. |publisher=] |location=Atlanta |year=2004 |pages=153–159, 219 |isbn=978-1-589-83062-2}}</ref> Despite being of unprovenanced origin, they are the first authentic contemporary attestations to the ancient king.}}
:See also


Reason: mainstream archaeologists are not allowed to even ''comment upon'' Mykytiuk's claim. Unprovenanced objects are taboo: discussing them breaches professional ethics and maybe the law. Just to be sure: I'm not speaking about Misplaced Pages editors, but about professional archaeologists. Mykytiuk is a retiree and apparently not an archaeologist. And Avigad died in 1992. ] (]) 04:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)


{{reflist talk}}
'''Issue'''


Does the aforementioned scholarship on the authorship of the '''''''''' fall under the category of WP:Fringe theories?


:Shouldn't there be something like "According to jewish tradition," or another similar type of attribution, before the claim that "Uzziah was struck with ] for disobeying God" in the second paragraph of the lead?]•] 12:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)


== Identifying fringe ==
'''Importance'''
{{atop|result=If you want to have a meta-discussion about what constitutes fringe, ]. — <b>]:<sup>]</sup></b> 18:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)}}
Imagine a world (unfortunately, the one we live in) in which there is a significant amount of unresolvable polarization. Editors are locked in a dispute:


* A: We can't cite Source1 because they're PROFRINGE. We should cite the widely accepted Source2.
Although most scholars no longer believe that the was a translation of Matthew's ''Hebrew Gospel'', many do believe the ''Hebrew Gospel'' was the or of the Canonical Gospel of Matthew . (See )
* B: Source1 is widely accepted and not PROFRINGE. Source2 is the PROFRINGE one!


and things get worse from there, until (if the rest of us are lucky) a passing admin declares ].
- ] (]) 12:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


Given:


* The individual editors have firmly entrenched viewpoints. They are absolutely, invincibly convinced that they are ''right''. (Also righteous.)
* The individual editors declare a "he said/she said" approach to be a ] and ] promotion. Articles must only say what the True™ side says.
* Editors cannot agree on what "the prevailing views or ] in its particular field" actually are.
** <small>For example, ____ is the prevailing view in my ] but not in your filter bubble. Or maybe it is an interdisciplinary subject, and the prevailing views depend upon whether one is applying the lens of Department A ("This terrible disease must be eradicated to prevent suffering") or the lens of Department B ("Our greatest artists had this so-called disease, so curing it would diminish humanity"). Or maybe there is a cultural or national aspect, so that what's normal in my country is very strange in yours (e.g., gay marriage is an unremarkable, ordinary thing in California but not in places with ]). This is not necessarily just due to POV pushing by editors, because there are real-world divisions.</small>
* The debated sources are more like 'authors' rather than 'documents'. They might be an informal group ("pro-rightness political scientists" or "that little clique that always cites each other's papers"), but editors are probably talking about it in terms of a specific organization ("Society for the Advancement of Political Rightness" or "the Paul administration").
** <small>Misplaced Pages editors seek to shun or ostracize the Wrong™ side: If the author has ever been associated with the Wrong™ people/groups/ideas, then nothing you've ever written is acceptable, unless you have undergone ritual purification and redemption by publicly renouncing your prior evil ways/associations.</small>
* In some cases, the debated sources directly address each other, each calling the other names like ''pseudoscientific'' or ''fringe''.


Given all this, how does one determine which groups really are FRINGE? Is there a checklist that says things like "See who's getting cited in centrist newspapers" or "If both of the supposedly FRINGE groups are getting their stuff published in decent scholarly journals, then you should assume that neither of them are FRINGE"?
:What are the grounds given by those suggesting that this is fringe? ] (]) 13:34, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:: Hmmmm My honest answer is there are not any. A NPOV discussion of the topic should have both those who support the Papias tradition and those who oppose. - ] (]) 14:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:::If nobody has suggested that this is fringe, why are you asking here? ] (]) 14:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::The above material was deleted from the ] and on the talk page it was said to be fringe. Best you look at it directly for I would hate to be accused of misrepresenting their position. - ] (]) 14:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::So, in a nutshell, the question is: is the ] fringe, or not? ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 14:35, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::::I think that would be off topic. The above scholars are talking about the origins of the ], that it was of composite scholarship of which Most most Biblical commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, even study Bibles have a section in their article devoted to the Papias tradition in their articles on the Gospel of Matthew. - ] (]) 15:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::::::<small>Ret.Prof, please do not edit your posts after people have responded to them. It makes understanding the flow of discussion difficult. ] (]) 15:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC) Sorry I forgot the link and to sign - ] (]) 15:12, 2 August 2013 (UTC)</small>
:::::::Looking at the Gospel of Matthew talk page it appears that grounds ''have'' been given for the suggestion that this is fringe. As to whether this is correct or not, I am in no position to respond, and I suspect that few other WP:FTN regulars are likely to be able to either - Biblical scholarship is rather outside the scope of the sort of issues usually raised here. Evaluating sources regarding a specialist subject such as this may well be beyond most of us, and I suspect that you might do better to take this to dispute resolution, rather than expecting any sort of 'yes' or 'no' answer here. ] (]) 14:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::::::You are correct. They seem to agree the matter is clear, has been resolved and is a dog that won't hunt! I remember Casey, Ehrman etc being debated "as fringe" in ], the heated discussion on the as well as the and I even remember some discussion with ], ] ], ], ], ] and ], BUT I have no recollection of a "Fringe debate" on Ehrman, Casey, Blackwell etc re the Gospel of Matthew?? Nor was it ever brought to ] ?? Cheers - ] (]) 15:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
After a somewhat confused start due to my typing skills, we must look at ] and see if they apply here. - ] (]) 16:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:Allow me to jump in here and offer an independent perspective. There needs to be a call by neutral third party observers on whether the topic Ret.Prof describes, i.e. the <U>content</U>, is fringe. Taking this to dispute resolution implies there is a conduct problem. That is beside the point here. I believe an RfC was tried previously, but it was dominated by the very same people arguing strenuously for removal of the material. ] (]) 16:39, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::Well said and thanks for getting us back on track! - ] (]) 16:44, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::] deals with issues where there is no conduct problem. Someone should probably notify wikiproject Christianity, ] (]) 16:48, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:::This is a complex textual problem with a long history. It may well be beyond the scope of FTN. I agree that DRN would be a good next step to deal with the content part of this dispute. ] (]) 16:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::You are correct. I will notify wikiproject Christianity now. - ] (]) 16:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


I have the feeling that we're going to need more of this during the next few years. ] (]) 06:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::On the Google Scholar search Ehrman states in Jesus Interrupted that Papias was rendering fourth-hand information and that there are multiple credibility issues with this information. The ] article states the 20th century consensus: there was no Hebrew original for the Gospel of Matthew. So, Ehrman isn't fringe, but he does not pretend that there were a Hebrew original for the Gospel of Matthew. ] (]) 17:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::::Yes, but what needs to be accounted for, speculative conjectures of modern scholars aside, is why Church Fathers from the earliest times right up to scholars at the end of the 19th century all thought there was a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. There is an abundance of primary literature attesting to that fact and many reliable secondary sources analyzing and summarizing that primary literature. Therefore, this should be discussed as a problem of WEIGHT rather than FRINGE. ] (]) 17:50, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::I agree, the term for that is ], and it is not only encyclopedic, but the stuff encyclopedias are made of: outlining the history of what people have thought, not only what some people say today. ] /]/ 17:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::There are multiple issues here. There is a difference between the claim that "there was a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" and the "canonical ] was written in Hebrew". No one has presented any relevant scholar who believes that the canonical ] was written in Hebrew; probably because no relevant scholar actually believes that. The problem is that the material that is sought to be added is so misleading as to leave that impression. Even the different claim that the gospel to which Papias was referring existed and was written in Hebrew is a minority opinion (Casey's). Ask yourself: What is the Casey- and Edwards-sourced material even doing there? Is it illuminating the topic of the article (the canonical Hebrew of Gospel)? Or is it talking about the separate topic of the Hebrew gospel, and just muddying the waters?


:What you say above applies to 1% of the disputes about fringe. For the rest 99% is a slam dunk.
:::::::The view of McGrew and McGrew that all the early external evidence agrees that the canonical Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew is completely fringe. Luckily, their view is not one of relevant scholars. They are not established critics of the New Testament. These remarks are merely incidental to their building of an Argument from Miracles (the subject of the paper). Neither are the editors of the volume (Craig and Moreland) established critics of the New Testament. And neither is the volume meant to be a source for New Testament criticism. The endeavour is metaphysical/theological in focus, not historical; and it is even one-sided at that (see Patrick Arnold's and Glenn M. Harden's reviews).
:Like that judge who defined porn as "I know it when I see it". Meaning when ARBCOM sees it.
:Of course, if WMF were headquartered in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the definition of fringe would be wholly different from ours.
:Some editor has reverted my edits to ], wherein I stated that acupuncture is not pseudoscience ''in China.'' They believe in the universality of science, while I have studied the sociology of science and have doubts about it. ] (]) 07:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::99% slam dunks but it seems like still a lot of effort required to get other editors to give it up. Should tban faster. Like the last point you make, hard problem. ](]) 13:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I suspect that it's 1% of the disputes but >50% of the effort. Simple cases are simple. We can solve the simple cases with an explanation or by waving at policy, and if necessary, with the regulars ] until the Wrong™ side retreats.
::I think that complicated situations would benefit from more of a procedural approach. ] gives me a format for explaining how I arrive at a conclusion about a medical source What's a similar list for allegedly PROFRINGE sources? ] (]) 07:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::For the complicated %1 i think editors do often become focused on source 1 and source 2 (or just a few sources), usually just snippets of text in each an not reading entire works. My understanding is that an encyclopedia article ideally should be an introduction and summary of the entire body of literature. Due to WP's policies it is really easy to just google and ctrl-f for particular phrasing or label and is sometimes an unfortunately effective argument on talk pages. Making a best sources argument seems much more difficult and often dismissed as OR. I really wish someone would expand the ] policy. If it is really complicated in a well documented area then editors should step back and look to bibliographies and literature reviews, not for use as sources or content, but for selecting and organizing the sources themselves. Tertiary sources as ''examples'' of how to organize the content. ](]) 13:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::We talked about re-writing BESTSOURCES recently. It's a bit of an Easter egg, in that it doesn't address any of the things that people would expect from that shortcut.
::::For this, I'm more interested in the problem of authors being 'tainted' or 'untouchable'. Imagine one of those "]" moments: "We can't cite them. We can't cite them even if the paper is also co-authored by Einstein. We can't cite them even if it's published in the world's best peer-reviewed journal. They are/were part of The Evil Ones, and they and their views can only appear in Misplaced Pages for the purpose of calling them evil." ] (]) 17:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::That's pretty rare isn't it. ] and ] come to mind. They don't co-author with Einstein (who had some pretty fringe ideas, mind you, in his dotage). ] (]) 17:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I don't think it's rare in politics. ] (]) 17:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::<small>Wouldn't know about that!</small> ] (]) 18:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I'll turn most questions into a best sources argument. Find the best source(s) for the topic, see if they include the view, how contextualized, and whether those sources call them evil. Really very ] myself tho so throw in all the views and cites to whatever, just write non-fiction and don't confuse the reader. ](]) 04:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::So shamelessly ripping off that MEDRS_Evaluation template as a basis, and using a recently challenged PROFRINGE source, something like ] which changes the end to give eg:
:::* Independent commissioning: check Independent sources are best.
:::* Independent authors:check Sources written by independent authors are best (80%).
:::So you can specify number of authors vs which ones have a conflict of interest, and evaluate the independence of the commissioning and the authors in more detail? (edited to give dummy output because sandbox template breaks indentation) ] (]) 10:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::If ] is the edit you are referring to, then, I would characterise it as saying a few more things than just that acupuncture is not pseudoscience in China. I'm also not really convinced that there's an {{em|academic}} consensus in favour of traditional Chinese medicine even in Chinese academia, even if MEDPOP and government sources tend to be more favourable. ] (] • ]) 15:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:We don't live in a moral void. We live in the Free World, and we should be proud of it while it lasts. ] (]) 07:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
* Let's not try to invent problems to solve before they arise. ]] 18:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*:It's too late for that. ] (]) 19:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Then the burden is on you to provide specific examples of intractable conflicts that need resolved. ]] 21:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::Since I'm asking whether we have any existing general advice that would be widely applicable, then proof that specific examples exist does not seem really relevant to me. If you only choose to participate in discussions when you can deal with what's sometimes called the ] details of an exact situation (Exactly which words were used to describe that Trump nominee, and exactly which publications, with what reputations, have used those exact words how many times?), then that's fine. Anyone who is interested in the general case is still welcome to share any advice with me or point to any essays they're aware of. Surely after all these years we have something. If not, maybe we should write it. ] (]) 23:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::I've seen specific examples that fit the profile WAID is describing, do not believe that the problem doesn't arise in significant cases, and agree that discussion in the general case could be helpful. (We already see below how a general discussion can be derailed by what looks like a specific re-hashing of a previous talk discussion.) ] (]) 17:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)


:@] Would I be remiss in assuming that this thread is an allusion to the ] (SEGM)? The ones the SPLC not only list as a hate group but describe as the "hub of the anti-LGBT pseudoscience movement", who are described by various RS explicitly as a "fringe group", called out by more for misinformation, who push unevidenced theories and work with people famous for ] (and are in fact famous for creating a new kind: ])? The ones referenced as a key example in nearly every peer-reviewed article on trans healthcare misinformation for the past 3 years? The ones who have been repeatedly called our for evading peer review by producing copious numbers of letters to editors? Or is there another group this is alluding to? I've seen you defending them recently so I'm applying occam's razor, but I'd like to be wrong. ] (]) 19:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::What was said above that "The above scholars are talking about the origins of the ], that it was of composite scholarship of which Matthew was the fountainhead!" is just plain wrong. Only McGrew and McGrew are. --<font face="georgia">]&nbsp;</font><font face="georgia" size="1">(],&nbsp;])</font> 18:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::Can you point to where SPLC sit on the MEDRS pyramid? ] (]) 20:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::SEGM is, unfortunately, only one of several disputes that I see a similar theme in. The others are mostly ] subjects. ] (]) 20:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The general problem you point out is certainly on display in the ] article. Citing A.J. Eckert at '']'' to say they are mistaken. Picking and choosing the sources based on what they say to define fringe rather than looking to the best sources. The best might indeed say the same but i can't really trust that from a quick look at the article. ](]) 16:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::From another quick look at ], it seems that a deeper dive is needed on how there came to be what looks like a preponderance of unattributed or cherry-picked opinions in the lead. But again, by focusing this discussion on SEGM, diversion from the broader discussion has already resulted. ] (]) 17:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::One problem is possibly the confusion of "we can tell these are fringe views because they are only in unreliable sources" with "we know these views are fringe therefore the sources are unreliable".
:::::Disregarding a source that we would ordinarily consider reliable on FRINGE grounds should be a high bar. ] (]) 22:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:In that case neither source would be fringe since they have equal or similar support. ] (]) 04:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::Support from whom? If it was a source you'd never heard of, what would you check first to find out more? ] (]) 04:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Support from reliable sources. If there's no clear winner, the mainstream view, then nothing would be a clear fringe. If there is a clear winner or a clear group of views that are well supported in a variety of sources then the less supported ones can be called fringe. ] (]) 04:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:As others have said, if the majority of RS say it, it's not Fringe (though here we may well restrict this to "qualified RS"), if a minority of RS say it, it is harder, but here we then would go with what is the mainstream opinion. If only a very few RS support it, it's fringe, if no RS support it's fringe. So really the only time there should be any don't is when there is a (more or less) a 50 50 split between relevant RS. ] (]) 13:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::So 'HIV causes AIDS' is the mainstream POV, and therefore the AIDS denialist views of ] are fringe.
::But for any new claim, 'this new drug cures this cancer' or 'this policy will solve this problem', there might not be any FRINGE views under this approach, because there might not be enough RS to evaluate it.
::What's your approach to multidisciplinary subjects? Imagine that moral philosophers, feminists, and disability rights activists disagree over, e.g., something about abortion or embryo screening. Which field is the mainstream field? ] (]) 18:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::What would be the fields in this example besides philosophy? ] (]) 18:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::] and ] are academic disciplines. ] (]) 18:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::A feminist is not someone who engages in Women's studies nor is a disability rights activists one who engages in Disability studies. If we take the question as simply practicing professors in the three fields you've named I think we would include all of them at least in some contexts (none would hpwever likely qualify for the more MEDRS aspects of that issue) ] (]) 00:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::MEDRS's ideal source is a good way to determine tangible outcomes: What percentage of embryos with this mutation will be severely disabled? How many people need to be vaccinated with ] to prevent one death from pneumonia? It shines when the question is primarily statistical in nature.
::::::MEDRS is not suited for determining human values or morals. For example, if you're working on ] and need a paragraph on the hypocrisy of (e.g.,) US politicians condemning this practice in other countries while making no move to ban it in their own country, then you need ordinary RS on ] instead of MEDRS. If you're writing about ], you need non-scientists. ] (]) 02:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Sure, but in that example is it really interdisciplinary? That seems to pretty clearly fall within political science. ] (]) 02:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Some individual points about (e.g.,) ] may fall more into one field than another, but this one could be poli sci ("these politicians are responding to domestic pressures about..."), or could be feminism ("more evidence of anti-female bias"), or could be ethics ("about this 'do what I say, not what I do' stuff..."), or could be other fields. Each field will have its own focus on why the observed phenomenon happens and whether it is good. ] (]) 18:09, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
: Can sources even be WP:PROFRINGE? The way WP:PROFRINGE is written its editors who are PROFRINGE. How it talks about actual sources doesn't match what you're saying here. ] (]) 13:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::No, but the edit that introduced it can be. So then it boils down to issues like ] and ]. ] (]) 14:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::So both editor A and editor B are incompetent? ] (]) 16:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::No they may well just be misusing pro fringe as a shorthand for "this failed ] ] and ], and maybe ]", it would depend on the edit (and the sources being objected to). This is the problem with hypotheticals. ] (]) 17:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Misuse is either a competence issue or a malicious one. In this sort of case (especially a hypothetical) we generally assume incompetence not malice per AGF. ] (]) 17:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Using the wrong ] is exceedingly common, so I don't think we can even call it incompetence. Using precisely the correct word/link/advice page is important in a few instances (e.g., if you are writing a notability guideline, you should not write ''secondary'' when you mean ''independent''), but it's usually just a vague wave meaning "policy says I win" or a honest mistake (the 'mistake' in question often being 'believing experienced editors who said this during prior discussions'). ] (]) 18:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::What would you call it? If its wrong then it wasn't used in a competent manner. Precision is competence, someone making honest mistakes is lacking in competence (even if in a very minor way). ] (]) 18:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::"Precision is competence" is a viewpoint that I associate with autistic people, and the opposite (e.g., the tactful hint, the vague wave at the gist of the thing) is one I associate with neurotypical people. In the spirit of FRINGE, I'd say that neither of these viewpoints are FRINGE viewpoints, and also that neither of them are the sole True™ way of understanding what other people say. ] (]) 18:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::That "Everyone has a limited sphere of competence." seems to be consensus. Personally I find writing it off as autistic incredibly offensive. ] (]) 18:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I am not dismissing it or "writing it off". I'm saying that in my own experience, these two viewpoints exist and are associated with two groups of people. If you are familiar with the ], then you already know why communication between these two particular groups of people is difficult. ] (]) 18:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Maybe give it another try without calling me Autistic (which is the clear implication of your association)? ] (]) 18:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::I suspect that many of our Autistic editors would be offended by anyone talking about their identity and their way of seeing the world as being anything other than a desirable thing, and certainly nothing to apologize for. ] (]) 19:05, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::You suspect that people in a given class would not be offended by you asserting that as a class of people they see the world in a specific way? "Autistic editors" don't have a unified identity or way of seeing the world, thats stereotyping and its offensive even when the stereotype is a positive one. ] (]) 19:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::You might be interested in reading about ], which is actually a thing, and it is based in part on seeing the world in a specific (i.e., non-allistic) way.
::::::::::::::It is true that some people with autism have internalized shame around this, but you will notice that I said "many of our Autistic editors" and not "every single human with autism". ] (]) 19:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::This is like arguing that "Asian editors see wikipedia primarily in mathematical terms" its just offensive no matter how you want to justify it... And implying that any editor who approached wikipedia in mathematical terms was Asian would also be offensive, despite the stereotype being a stereotypical example of a positive stereotype. You're acting like I'm the one offending people here, you're the one making stereotypes and implying that I fit them. ] (]) 19:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Autism is defined as a difference in how people experience and respond to the world. It's like saying "Asian editors are from Asia". It's not a stereotype; it's the definition of the word. ] (]) 21:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, people on the spectrum experience and respond to the world in a wide variety of ways. What you are presenting is a stereotype and it is an offensive one... I've now made that clear in both a precise way and a tactful/vague way. ] (]) 21:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::{{re|WhatamIdoing}} As a person who has never been called "autistic" (I don't remember hearing the term until I was in my 40s or 50s), but who has recently been called "Leonard" by a friend and who loved to browse through the encyclopedia as a child, your comments have made me very uncomfortable. You are stereotyping people who have a broard range of means of dealing with the world. While I have concluded that I may be somewhere on the spectrum, I would never suggest that my way of engaging with the world is typical or representative of any group. ] 23:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::@], I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable.
::::::::::::::::::What I said about "Precision is competence" is an example of the ]. Although not universally beloved, it has been one of the most widely accepted descriptions of how autism contrasts with neurotypical thinking (in people without intellectual disabilities). The autistic style is "It is good because all the details are exact". The non-autistic style is "It is good because the overarching picture is pleasing". Neither style is better than the other, and both groups are capable of using both styles when it suits them.
::::::::::::::::::It is true that "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism". It is also true that researchers have found similiarities in cognitive patterns and that there are some "typical" cognitive patterns in ''both'' autistic and non-autistic people. These patterns are not stereotypes (no more stereotypical than saying "children usually learn to read by age 6"), and they are not just one individual claiming that their own experience is true for everyone.
::::::::::::::::::Perhaps, though, if you find this off-topic tangent uncomfortable, you would hat it. I suggest beginning with the (unkind, aggressive, tactless) comment above that ] ] (]) 00:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Or maybe just...don't speculate on the neurodevelopmental conditions you think someone's behavior resembles?? ] (]) 06:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I am autistic. Considering autistic people '''are not a monolith''', I obviously can't speak for all of us, but from my perspective? I consider your statements as significantly closer to offensive than HEB's, in a borderline-patronizing and borderline-infantilizing way.
:::::::::::::* First and foremost: equating {{tpq| identity and way of seeing the world}} with {{tpq| autistic}} is problematic. Autism absolutely is an inalienable '''''part''''' of my perspective and my identity, yes. That's not the same thing as it '''''being''''' (the whole of) my identity. I am autistic, yes. Just like I am many, many other things, all of which influence who I am as a whole, but do not by themselves make up the whole of it.
:::::::::::::* {{tpq|offended by anything other than a desirable thing}} - Non-autistic people do '''not ''' get to tell me that having sensory meltdowns, sensory overstimulation, sensory processing issues, running into various barriers where it comes to failing accessibility even from those services ''geared towards'' dealing with neurodivergent people and/or those with disabilities, dealing with frequent patronization and infantilization, having had schools tell my parents (paraphrased) "well yes she gets severely bullied, but the ''real'' problem is that she is autistic" and refusing to do shit about bullying, and healthcare and mental healthcare services trying to toss everything on my autism regardless of whether it actually ''is'' related to my autism, is '''desirable'''. (Non-autistic people also do not get to tell me that being autistic is entirely '''undesirable''', either. There are both benefits and downsides, and I'm really, ''really'' tired of allistic people talking over us how desirable or undesirable our neurodivergency is.)
:::::::::::::]] 06:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
{{abot}}


== ] ==
I agree. For something to be a fringe theory, it must be A) FRINGE and B) a THEORY
====A) FRINGE====
Matthew's ''Hebrew Gospel'' is not fringe as its existence is supported, not only by the above contested sources but also by older sources from Lessing to Ehrman.


Article: ]. Rapidly evolving and increasingly in the news (local, regional, national and international), and starting to get into/bump toward weirdness with the latest Pentagon revelations and claims of "Iranian Motherships". -- ] (]) 21:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
,


:The correct solution is to delete the article until it's established that this isn't ]. ] (]) 23:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
*,
::We're not supposed to rush to create articles... But once the article is created the guidance shifts to don't rush to delete articles. Per ] "As there is no deadline, it is recommended to delay the nomination for a few days to avoid the deletion debate dealing with a moving target and to allow time for a clearer picture of the notability of the event to emerge, which may make a deletion nomination unnecessary. Deletion discussions while events are still hot news items rarely result in consensus to delete." ] (]) 00:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I said the ''correct'' solution, not the one that will play out. :P ] (]) 02:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Touche mon ami, touche ] (]) 02:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Is this "hot news" or just filler? It seems pretty trivial to me. ] (]) 13:18, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Answering that question is why we're told not to rush to deletion. You can't really tell until the event is in the rear view mirror (some say to wait ten years before evaluating) ] (]) 16:38, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It's now international news for like 72 hours, and all over the major American networks again tonight. -- ] (]) 00:31, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I agree with Horse Eye's Back that regardless of what we should have done, that ship has sailed. The BBC have 2 recent stories about aspects of this and even did a live updates and had a video over a week ago . AP News have at least 7 recent stories , , , , , , and one older one about this, and 4 videos , , , . Reuters have at least 2 stories , and one video . Perhaps in a few weeks or more likely months we can re-evaluate what to do with the article but there's no point trying now. ] (]) 10:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:Geez. There's an article for ''that''?!
:I saw mention of it, a couple of posts on social media of pretty obvious misidentifications of airplanes and, in at least a few cases, even planets. And then the bandwagon of highly impressionable people, lunatics and sensationalist journalism (with a ridiculous one on a Fox channel where the story is that these sightings are close to one of Trump's properties, with the comment section of the video leading me to believe that Americans are about to begin trying to shoot down airplanes from up in the sky), but no serious coverage because there is literally nothing to it. Now I see the AP ref and a couple more RS sources covering it, but still too soon and with no sober analysis.
:Looks like an absolute flap. A lot of the article is poorly sourced, it shouldn't have been created and it's currently just spreading misinformation. People see something up in the sky, they have no idea how large or how far it is, or how fast it's moving, and they start making claims. Something that looks obviously like a plane is moving toward them, they say it's a "SUV-sized drone hovering" and WP just replicates this claim? ]•] 13:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
==="UFO flap" article===
::I would like to see an article on ]s. That is a phenomenon that is not well known even though I see lots of sources on the subject. ] (]) 20:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Seconded, perhaps ] is a more common title though? ] (]) 23:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I think that UFO craze tends to refer more to the broader phenomenon of UFO fandoms. A "flap" is a particular localized event in time and space where there is a kind of ] about UFOs and sightings go through the roof. In fact, such flaps happened ''prior'' to the traditional Kenneth Arnold kick off. ]s and other mystery airship sightings were the flaps in the late nineteenth century. ] (]) 02:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::What sources are you seeing which use "Flap"? I'm seeing more or less 0% use that language. ] (]) 15:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I have yet to see any reputable independent sources not affiliated with UFO/skeptic spaces do this. Only Mick West on Twitter, and as he knows as little as apparently even Congress, it would be credulous and absurd to consider him ] (and certainly not ]!) on this set of incidents. All of us are in the dark until the government gives up data, it still appears. -- ] (]) 16:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::: When it comes to ] and claims of mysterious things in the sky, scientific skeptical sources ''are'' the preferred ] we should be giving most weight to. ] (]) 17:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::This is not a ] article. It would be irresponsible to frame it thus. -- ] (]) 17:27, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::They are perfectly fine sources, but certainly not preferred... And we should not be giving them undue weight. ] (]) 17:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I'm thinking Mick West is a reliable source for this, by WP:PARITY. I also see this as a UFOlogy article. ] (]) 01:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::0% vs 0.1% does not a common name make... What other sources are you seeing use flap? ] (]) 15:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Mick West is quite the expert when it comes to finding out what things in the sky ''actually are''. Doesn't matter if they are being called drones, UFOs, UAPs or alien motherships. So very much RS and NPOV. ]•] 13:49, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::How are y'all ''not'' finding sources for ]? I see ] defining and probably in ''American Cosmic'' by Oxford. Lots of results on scholar to look through. ](]) 05:07, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I was surprised to see the Google search result for "ufo flap" in quotes. Quite a bit more sources than expected use the term, which apparently has a deep historical context going back to the 1950s. ] (]) 14:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::You misunderstand, we're lacking sources describing the current event as a "ufo flap" (nobody is questioning whether the term is a thing, the question is whether RS are using it to describe the events (or non-events as the case may be) in New Jersey). If for example we want to make a page which lists various "flaps" we're going to need at least some of them to actually be regularly called that. ] (]) 15:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::So far the term is being used in places like Substack, Medium and the occasional . It is very likely that after 6 months or a year there will be more widespread RS using the term to describe the flap in retrospect. ] (]) 15:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I'm less concerned about the current UFO flap being properly categorized than I am with having an article that adequately describes them as a general idea. If ] never gets called that, no problem. But we still could have a nice article on this subject. ] (]) 18:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I'm actually surprised that article doesn't exist. -- ] (]) 18:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::There is a lot of overlap with topics that do exist like ]. One spot I see for improvement is that we don't have a dedicated UFO history article which would more or less be an article on UFO flaps. ] (]) 19:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::The sources seem to indicate that there is something substantively different between a flap and a single sighting. ] is a flap. ] is not. ] (]) 20:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Oh then perhaps it is me who is mistaken... I agree that an article on flaps (whatever we want to call them) is valuable. ] (]) 19:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::: Someone familiar with historical UFO lore could easily create this article. <small>{{ping|Feoffer}} if this doesn't work we could ].</small> ] (]) 19:28, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Yes.. UFO ''flaps'' are definitely something we need an article on -- they show the social contagion aspect to the phenomenon, and of course, all the fringe stuff goes in 'flaps'. Spiritualism keeps coming back in flaps, etc. We have an article on the ], and I keep meaning to expand ] into the ]. ] (]) 23:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Thank you. ] is a good start. ] (]) 12:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] ==
*


Someone is arguing that the introduction using the word "delusional belief" to describe the idea that malicious actors are transmitting words and sounds into their heads is violating ]. Would be useful to get more eyes on this. ] (]) 15:02, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
*


: BTW, we now have three articles containing much the same content, which are often targeted (no pun intended) by SPAs seeking to introduce language giving credibility to various fringe claims. Keeping track of the disruptions of similar content among three articles can be difficult.
*
:*]
:*]
:*]
: It would help if a main article could be identified and content from the satellite articles merged to it leaving a pointer link to the main article.
] (]) 17:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)


:I'd say Electronic harassment and Microwave auditory effect could be merged, but Gang stalking (while including an element of this) is sufficiently unique I'd say it should be a stand-alone article. — <b>]:<sup>]</sup></b> 18:52, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
*
::Microwave auditory effect is a reality based phenomenon, though. Just not one that has a lot in common with how the Electronic harassment folks portray it. I don't think merging the actual physics with the delusion stuff is a good idea. We should remove the 'Conspiracy theories' section from ] and just have a very brief mention with link to ], though. ] (]) 19:13, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The ] article has been the object of some confusion in years past (it doesn't help that some of the cited sources use the phrase "gang stalking" to describe physical surveillance as well as fantastic forms of electronic surveillance such as microwave technology). Somebody added a brief and possibly ] etymology that says it is a type of ], but the article quickly identifies the delusion is specific to technological "mind-control weapons", which places it far outside reality-based relationship abuse and social media harassment. ] (]) 20:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::Should the paragraph on ] stay, or should it go with the merge? Also, when the conspiracy stuff is worked out, the following redirects need to be re-targeted: ], ], and ]. ] (]) 03:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:Out of curiosity, is there a reason there's not a separate page for Targeted Individuals at this point? We have two pages (possibly more) talking about them, but no page dedicated to an analysis of the community itself. ] (]) 01:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::Two is already too many. Content about a single topic should only be split onto multiple pages when they exceed length requirements, and this topic isn't even close to that threshold. ] (]) 02:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)


== Metabolic theory of cancer ==
*


*{{articlelinks|Metabolic theory of cancer}}
*
I lack expertise on the topic so I don't know whether the article gives appropriate weight or undue weight to the idea. ] (]) 22:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:Appropriate weight, but very badly written and could easily be misconstrued. I'll get to work, since I do have expertise in this area. ] (]) 22:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] (again) ==
*


{{articlelinks|Flynn effect}}
*


Continued IP edit warring to include ] content . This is picking up from where they left off last month . Failure to engage on talk ]. I'm going to request page protection as well, but more eyes on the situation would be helpful. ] (]) 22:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
*
:Needs page protection. The IP is likely to be associated with ]. The only way to get rid of them is article protection like on the others. ] (]) 23:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
::Second need for protection, seems unlikely to die down on its own ] (]) 04:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
{{hat|]}}
: '''General comment''' Is FT/N really the right venue to request page protection? At some point, this just becomes ]. ] (]) 13:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
::That's not what ] says. This noticeboard is the appropriate place to request additional eyes on a fringe topic. Note that I requested (and got) page protection at ]. ] (]) 16:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
:::]. ] (]) 17:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
{{hab}}


== ] ==
*


Would appreciate editor input with regards to these edits:
*


Discussion is here: ]. ] (]) 09:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*


:This is getting so tiring, a self-admitted ] editor pushing and pushing lab leak talking points on multiple articles. There are very good sources on this so writing good content is not hard. ] (]) 09:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:Just a quick comment: Of all these books, only 3 date from the last half-century, which indicates that they're not quite the current state of play. The most recent is ], whose most recent book, ''The Secret Legacy of Jesus'', "offers the thesis that the Judaistic teachings of Jesus were passed in underground fashion from groups such as the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, via the Cathars and Freemasons" (that's from his Misplaced Pages entry). I have doubts that Professor Butz is quite within the academic mainstream. ] (]) 03:04, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
:Pushing a partisan as fuck committee report is ]. I think we should be requiring MEDRS level sourcing on this given how politicised it is with people like Rand Paul pushing the conspiracy theories that leads to hyper-partisan committee reports. '']''<sup>]</sup> 10:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::How can you claim that a formerly standard theory is now fringe? I'd understand if it were geocentrism but this is literary theory, not hard science. It is at least a "former standard theory". ] ] 06:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
:::A theory is fringe if it has no significant backing by reliable sources. Many theories which were previously standard (or even still are in the sense that many people subscribe to them) now have no backing in reliable sources for New Testament scholarship. For example, it was a standard view that Matthew the disciple of Jesus wrote the Gospel of Matthew. Now no reliable source supports that theory; so how could it not be fringe? --<font face="georgia">]&nbsp;</font><font face="georgia" size="1">(],&nbsp;])</font> 07:30, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
::::I agree fully, ] (]) 10:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


Hello,
====B) Theory====
Matthew's Hebrew gospel is not a theory but a "statement of fact". Virtually every piece of external evidence we have from the first few centuries regarding the authorship of the Gospels concurs that Matthew's Gospel was first written in a Hebrew dialect. The widespread agreement of early sources on a number of points is truly remarkable and "cannot be brushed aside, particularly since the discrepancies among these sources regarding other points strongly suggest that they are not, for the most part, simply copying one another." In total there are more than 75 ancient witnesses who testified to the fact that this ''Hebrew Gospel'' was in wide circulation. Twelve of the Early Church Fathers testified that it was written by the Apostle Matthew. No ancient writer either Christian or Non Christian challenged these facts. (Edwards 2009 , &


I am the person who made the edits in question. I am not a "self-admitted fringe editor," the link provided for that claim is to a talk page discussion from an entirely different user.
This "statement of fact" may be contested. Scholars can debate whether or nor the "Gospel of Matthew" was a translation of the "Hebrew Gospel". They may argue that the ''Hebrew Gospel'' is the but they cannot say ''Matthew's Hebrew'' Gospel is theoretical.


I would like to present a succinct argument for my edits;
Therefore WP Fringe Theory cannot apply. - ] (]) 19:16, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:Well, not quite. The "fact" is not that the Hebrew Gospel existed; rather, it is that the Church believed it existed for 1700 years. Simply put, if the "mainstream" conjecture of modern scholarship is right, then 1700 years of Church history is wrong. Our job as an encyclopedia is not to elucidate the TRUTH of these two positions; it is to document the ongoing debate. ] (]) 19:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::I stand corrected. - ] (]) 19:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::You should also make some sort of visible effort to not attempt to engage in somewhat pointless editing, which, honestly, I believe that this rather inherently prejudicial thread is. There is a significant difference between ], which you seem to have unilaterally and I believe falsely asserted is the reason for the contesting of this content, and ], which is in fact an entirely separate guideline. Please make a more visible effort to show willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with others, rather than starting threads such as this which could perhaps not unreasonably be seen as attempts at straw man arguments and also be seen as perhaps raising very serious questions regarding conduct. ] (]) 15:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


1. The United States House of Representatives is not a Fringe source, nor is it a conspiratorial organization.
:::There is a broad consensus that Matthew did not write the Gospel of Matthew. So whether Matthew's Hebrew Gospel actually existed (as in minority view), or not (as in majority view) is irrelevant in an article about what is now called the Gospel of Matthew, since if it ever existed it has nothing to do with what is called the Gospel of Matthew. ] (]) 22:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::I agree that there is broad consensus that the ''Gospel of Matthew'' is not a a translation of Matthew's ''Hebrew Gospel''. Casey, Ehrman & Edwards all state this. They further state that Matthew composed his Gospel in Hebrew and then Casey argues that ''Hebrew Matthew'' was the fountainhead or source for the Canonical ]. Can you name any sources that disagree with Casey.


2. Reports generated by the US House are not generally considered the "mere opinions" of those politicians who create them, they are generally considered, at the very least, not conspiratorial. (])
:::Most Biblical commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, even study Bibles have a section on the Papias tradition which says that Matthew first wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. They present both those who support and oppose Papias. We should follow the reliable sources and also write our article from NPOV - ] (]) 23:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::::That's not what Casey 2010 argues. Casey argues that Matthew the apostle collected sayings in either Hebrew or Aramaic to which Papias was referring and which were a fountainhead for some traditions, and these traditions were in turn sources for the canonical Gospel of Matthew. He is not saying that Matthew wrote a gospel or some such work in Hebrew and the author of the canonical Gospel of Matthew used this as a fountainhead or source. Such implies that what the apostle wrote was like Q or the Gospel of Mark, which is not what Casey is saying at all (in fact, he suggests that some of these traditions from Matthew the apostle made their way into Q !) But even this view of Casey has reliable sources that disagree with it, including sources which you have been citing: Duling 2010 (p. 302), Edwards 2009 (pp. 260–262). Try asking instead: What reliable sources agree with Casey on these points? --<font face="georgia">]&nbsp;</font><font face="georgia" size="1">(],&nbsp;])</font> 09:17, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


3. Testimony from a similar event, a US senate hearing, is presented in the paragraph above my proposed edit without any issue.
This discussion has become about SCOPE and WEIGHT, which can only be decided by consensus. Therefore, it should be ended here and continued on the article talk page or in DRN. ] (]) 23:53, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


4. The edit which I revised, following feedback from other editors, includes secondary source reporting on the primary source, and presents criticism and negative reception of the report, so as to not unduly push one side.
:I agree that the question is WEIGHT, not FRINGE - the meaning of Papias' statement is indeed discussed by just about every important scholar who writes about the composition of this gospel, but the important thing is that the overwhelming majority (and it really is overwhelming) don't see an Aramaic or Hebrew original behind it. We do discuss this in our article - we have a whole paragraph about it - and that's enough. ] (]) 03:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


5. The report in question was submitted by a bipartisan committee of Congressmen and Congresswomen. Some of the key points received bipartisan support. Other points had disagreement. It is not "hyper-partisan dog excrement."
* I see no specific editor that asserts any fringe content. Is that correct? Is the discussion over as far as this noticeboard is concerned? I'm not sure how much this noticeboard can help rather than wikiproject christianity/religion. ] (]) 03:15, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
::I too agree that the question is WEIGHT, not FRINGE and I see no specific editor that asserts any fringe content. Still, we should keep the discussion open a little longer to make sure nobody is left out and that everyone who is interested has been notified. - ] (]) 04:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
6. The 500 page report contains mostly hard evidence, including photographs, emails, reports, transcribed sworn testimony, and subpoena testimony. It is not pure conjecture and opinions of the politicians authoring it, it is based on and provides evidence.

:::There is a simpler point to be made: you have quoted some reliable sources in order to prove exactly what these sources disagree with. So, you made a misleading summary of what these sources actually say. Do you expect such edits to pass as good faith edits? You were either unable or unwilling to render the actual viewpoints of the sources and posited your own view as if it were the view of the sources. So, this is not a case of weight vs. fringe, it is a case of ] against ]. The point which you have made up is not supported by the sources, except by the fundamentalist Christian apologist. ] (]) 12:01, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

In fairness to Ret.Prof, he brought this question to FTN because of a lot of loose talk on the article talk page about the fringiness of the topic of a Hebrew Gospel as a justification for the deletion of reliably-sourced content. I think we are in general agreement that this dispute is not, and never was, about FRINGE. The beginning of personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith signals the end of rational discussion, so I propose this emotive dialogue stay on the article talk page and we finish up here. ] (]) 15:07, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
:In fairness to others, much of that loose talk about fringiness was really his own fault, as at least one of the threads one the article talk page about it being "fringe" was started by himself. I agree that this never has been about ], but ] and ]. Those are entirely separate pages, and I believe it would be in everyone's interests if certain editors made a clearer effort to familiarize themselves with all those pages, and the differences between them. ] (]) 15:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

@ Tgeorgescu - I just finished reading your comments, and I think I found the problem. You were reading from an older version of Ehrman. Please look at the following quotes, but sure to follow the links to see their context! Feel free to point out any errors, add any important material you feel was left out and of course add more up to date sources. Thanks for taking the time to join our discussion.


Taken from
*'''''Author and Setting''''' The earliest surviving tradition about Matthew comes from Papias of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) about 125–50 CE. His views were preserved by the early Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260– ca. 339 CE), generally held by modern scholars to be fairly trustworthy. The “Papias tradition” says, “Then Matthew put together the sayings in Matthew the Hebrew dialect and each one translated them as he was able” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.16). By “Matthew” it is very likely that Papias had in mind Jesus' disciple (Mark 3:18; Matt. 10:3; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). In Matthew – and only in Matthew – “Matthew” is identified as “the toll collector” (Matt. 10:3: ), the one previously said to have been sitting at the “toll booth” (Matt. 9:9:) near Capernaum (the northwest corner of the Lake of Galilee). The parallels in Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 call this toll collector “Levi,” not Matthew, but Levi is not in the disciple lists. Modern scholars usually interpret the Papias tradition to mean that Papias thought that Jesus' disciple Matthew the toll collector had assembled a collection of Jesus' sayings in Hebrew (or Aramaic, cf. John 20:16) and then others translated them. (quote from p 302)

Taken from
*We encounter a striking and incontestable fact. Virtually every piece of external evidence we have from the first few centuries regarding the authorship and composition of the Gospels concurs that Matthew's Gospel was the first written, that it was written in the Hebrew language...the widespread agreement of early sources on a number of points is remarkable and cannot be brushed aside, particularly since discrepancies among these sources regarding other points strongly suggest that they are not, for the most part, simply copying one another. (quote from p 602)

Taken from After quoting the Papias tradition which states "Matthew composed the sayings in the Hebrew tongue"
* Still, on one point there can be no doubt. Papias may pass on some legendary traditions about Jesus, but he is quite speciflc—and there is no reason to think he is telling a bald-faced lie—that he knows people who knew the apostles (or the apostles' companions). This is not eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus, but it is getting very close to that. Where conservative scholars go astray is in thinking that Papias gives us reliable information about the origins of our Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The problem is that even though he “knows” that there was an account of Jesus's life written by Mark and a collection of Jesus's sayings made by Matthew, there is no reason to think that he is referring to the books that we call Mark and Matthew. In fact, what he says about these books does not coincide with what we ourselves know about the canonical Gospels. He appears to be referring to other writings, and only later did Christians (wrongly) assume that he was referring to the two books that eventually came to be included in Scripture. This then is testimony that is independent of the Gospels themselves. It is yet one more independent line of testimony among the many we have seen so far. And this time it is a testimony that explicitly and credibly traces its own lineage directly to the disciples of Jesus themselves. (quote from pp 100-101)


7. The question of "Was there US-funded gain of research in China" is not a question which requires scientific expertise to answer. It is not a scientific question, in the way that something like "What are the cleavage sites on a protein" would be. It is a logistical and budgetary question. Thus, the fact that the authors of this report are not scientists is irrelevant and, as the body which is in control of the budget, is exactly within their expertise.
Taken from
*This is corroborated in Ecclesiastical History 3.39.7 and 14, where Eusebius says that Papias confessed to having received the words of the apostles from their followers. Of course, if John the Elder was in fact John the Apostle — although this seems unlikely — then Papias's testimony comes directly from the apostolic fountainhead. It is in any case very early, within living memory of the apostolic age. Eusebius records Papias's relevant testimony: “Matthew organized the oracles (of Jesus) in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as he was able.”8 This testimony does not specifically identify the Hebrew work of Matthew as the Hebrew Gospel, but it is reasonable to equate the two.9 Papias's primary intent seems to have been to emphasize the Hebrew composition of the work. (quote from p 3)


8. Sources which disapprove of the study and respond to it negatively should absolutely be included. But the fact that some secondary sources disapprove of the study is not a reason to exclude it. ] (]) 21:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Taken from
*Papias attributed the collection of some Gospel traditions to the apostle Matthew, one of the Twelve, who wrote them down in Aramaic and everyone 'translated/interpreted (hērmēneusen)' them as well as they were able. There is every reason to believe this. It explains the high proportion of literally accurate traditions, mostly of sayings of Jesus, in the 'Q' material and in material unique to the Gospel of Matthew. It also explains the lack of common order, as well as the inadequate translations of some passages into Greek. (quote from p 86)


:1. The US House of Representatives is full of non-experts touting conspiracy theories. Odd that you would think otherwise.
*It follows that this is what Papias meant! It is genuinely true that the apostle Matthew 'compiled the sayings/oracles in a Hebrew language, but each (person) translated/ interpreted them as he was able.' Moreover, the Greek word logia, which I have translated 'sayings/oracles', has a somewhat broader range of meaning than this, and could well be used of collections which consisted mostly, but not entirely, of sayings. It would not however have been a sensible word to use of the whole Gospel of Matthew.It was later Church Fathers who confused Matthew's collections of sayings of Jesus with our Greek Gospel of Matthew. (quote from p 87)
:2. Reports generated by the US House are representative of the members who produced them or sponsored their production. Since (1) is true, it is absolutely possible for reports from the US House to be problematic and not representative of the best and most reliable attestations to reality.
:3.Testimony is only as reliable as the person giving the testimony. Many people giving testimony before Congress are unreliable.
:4. If a source reports on a primary source with criticism and negative reaction, it may be that the primary source does not deserve ].
:5. The bipartisanship of a committee is irrelevant to whether the points in question are problematic. Just because a committee is bipartisan does not mean that the offending text is therefore beyond reproach or apolitical.
:6. "Hard evidence" in the context of academic science needs to be published in relevant academic journal and subject to appropriate peer review.
:7. "Gain of research" is obviously a typo, but illustrates the point well that expertise is needed to determine whether or not there is any relevant concerns about research funding. The report authors do not seem to have that expertise. Simply being called by Congress is not sufficient.
:8. We have rules for exclusion as outlined in my response to point (4).
:I think this response illustrates that, intentionally or not, you are functioning as a ] ]er. This is not allowed at Misplaced Pages.
:] (]) 22:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::1. Your opinion on the current members of the house is irrelevant. The US Congress is not a fringe source. See my example provided.
::2. You just asserted the opposite of my point without any explanation. This isn't a refutation.
::3. Unless you're arguing any specific testimony in the report is false, that is true, but irrelevant.
::4. Secondary sources reporting on any topic will be both positive and negative, depending on their own biases. The presence of negative reviews is not dispositive to a source's inclusion.
::5. The bipartisanship of the committee is completely relevant to the charge that it should be excluded because it is "hyper-partisan."
::6. "Did the US fund gain-of-function research in China" is not a question which is scientific in nature. Scientific expertise in the field of gain-of-function research is not required to answer that question.
::7. "Did the US fund gain-of-function research in China" is not a question which is scientific in nature.
::8. See point 4.
::And I do not appreciate being left on my talk page. Extremely inappropriate. ] (]) 02:39, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::At the very least, it looks like this editor is coming in extremely hot based on the ] responses I'm seeing just above my reply to you. With the attitude I'm seeing, it looks like they're heading to the cliff where something at ] or an admin here acting under the COVID CT restrictions due to ], bludgeoning, etc. would be needed. Controversial topics are not the place for new editors to coming in hot while "learning the ropes" and exhaust the community, so this seems like a pretty straightforward case for a topic ban to address that. ] (]) 22:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I directly addressed or refuted the challenges levied against my points. In what way can you claim my responses are ]?
:::Which of my comments did I fail to substantively defend? I will be happy to do so now. ] (]) 23:31, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::What is your goal here? ] (]) 01:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I'm trying to have the rules, policies, and guidelines, applied.
:::::The source I've been trying to cite very clearly does not violate ] or ]. A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe" as defined by WP:FRINGE, nor can the reports of it be considered "Unsubstantial," as defined by WP:UNDUE.
:::::Yet, so long as 2 people disagree with source, more specifically, personally disagree with the findings or have a personal vendetta against its authors, it does not matter that my edit is perfectly legitimate and rule-abiding, it will be removed as "Against the consensus."
:::::Which is not inherently bad, I'm willing to change the edit in response to criticism. But, despite my many efforts to compromise or edit the change, change the wording, add context, add secondary sources, those in opposition refuse to hear any compromise or even provide any constructive criticism.
:::::There are parts of the article which neither side disagrees are, are as matter of pure fact, incorrect. However, I'm unable to change them, because one side will not approve any source that I use.
:::::I'm making my case here because I feel I've reached an impasse where the current consensus refuses to listen to any reasonable changes, or any changes at all, even to statements everyone has agreed are just factually wrong. ] (]) 02:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::A bunch of politicians certainly can be ]. In every country politicians are known to spout the most arrant nonsense, especially when it comes to science. The burgeoning antiknowledge movement in the USA as exemplified by the current incident is just another example of this. That we have editors signed-up to the same agenda trying to bend Misplaced Pages that way, is a problem. As always, the solution is to use the ]. ] (]) 03:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I mean . While it doesn't deal that much with the science, I'm fairly sure there is probably some science nonsense in it, and there are far worse reports. Then there is ] which again mostly not dealing with science AFAIK, did deal with it enough to result in this . While not from the house, there was also the infamous ] demonstrating that even US federal government agencies aren't immune to publishing nonsense due to political interference. 05:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC) ] (]) 05:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::New user has absolute faith in something that is clearly not a reliable source and insists on including it. This is a ] issue and a topic ban would be a good idea. --] (]) 10:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Agreed. We've had more competent editors receive indefs for pushing ] in this topic area. '']''<sup>]</sup> 11:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I like that you decided to pull out wikipedia articles which contain, by your own words "far worse reports." Wouldn't the fact these "Worse" reports are still allowed in the articles be evidence for my point? If worse sources are still allowed in under the rules, why would this "better" source not be? ] (]) 18:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::This reply I think best sums up what I have to work with; it is the consensus of other editors that the US Congress is a secret, fringe, conspiratorial group which is secretly manufacturing fake evidence and putting out false reports to prevent the REAL TRUTH from getting out to true believers.
:::::::And I'M the one labeled the conspiracist for disagreeing. ] (]) 18:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Nobody said "secret". That group has been quite openly anti-science for decades. See ]. --] (]) 09:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::{{tq|I directly addressed or refuted the challenges levied against my points.}} No. You responded. However, in your response, you have displayed the inability or unwillingness to understand what was being explained to you. That's IDHT. You continuing to claim that {{tq| A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe"}} shows that you're missing the point. As does the repetition that {{tq|nor can the reports of it be considered "Unsubstantial," as defined by WP:UNDUE.}} even though an explanation has been given on how these reports absolutely can be completely biased, politically motivated, and from a "quality of the source" perspective - be it scientifically, journalistic or just factually -, it is deemed unreliable. ]•] 13:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{tq|A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe"}}
:::::There has been no substantive explanation of this. Only repeated assertions that it is true, and then an expression of an author's personal dislike for Republicans or the government in general. That is not an explanation as to why the statement, an objective statement, is true.
:::::{{tq|even though an explanation has been given on how these reports absolutely can be completely biased, politically motivated, and from a "quality of the source" perspective - be it scientifically, journalistic or just factually -, it is deemed unreliable}}
:::::Nobody is arguing that the article should be replaced by this report. However, the US Congress's position is very clearly a prominent position. And again, I know you personally believe the US Congress can't be trusted, but WP:UNDUE actually says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." The US Congress's viewpoint is a significant one, and even if you dislike the original source, there are dozens of reliable secondary sources reporting on it. ] (]) 18:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::You're blatantly wrong here. Politicians saying "science is wrong" is as FRINGE as it gets. ] (]) 18:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::A question of how much money, if any, was allocated to a certain project, is not a scientific question. ] (]) 18:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::We define what is ] based on the ]. A politician with no expertise in medicine is a terrible source for anything related to diseases, and therefore carries no weight in discussion over whether a particular position is ] or not. There are mainstream politicians who deny evolution; that does not change the fact that that denial is a fringe perspective among the best available sources on the topic. Misplaced Pages's purpose, as an encyclopedia, is not to be an arbitrary reflection of what random politicians believe or what the gut feeling of random people on the street might be; it's to summarize the very best sources on every topic (which, in most cases, means academic sources with relevant expertise.) Keep in mind that ] doesn't mean that we omit a position entirely; in an article ''about government responses to COVID'', we could reasonably cover the opinions of lawmakers who contribute to that response, even if their opinions are medically fringe. But our ''core'' articles on the topic will be written according to the conclusions of the parts of the medical establishment that have relevant expertise; the gut feelings of politicians with no relevant expertise have no weight or place there at all. --] (]) 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::{{tq| A politician with no expertise in medicine is a terrible source for anything related to diseases}}
:::::::::'''The question of 'was there US-funded gain of function research in China" is not an epidemiological question, and is not remotely scientific in nature. '''
:::::::::You're just not addressing why this question is scientific. You're just skipping past that part. Why does an Epidemiologist have to testify as to the US budget? What would they possibly know about Congressional funding? ] (]) 07:02, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::The question what constitutes 'gain of function research' is very much is a scientific question and thus by extension the question "was there US-funded gain of function research in China" is also a scientific one. '']''<sup>]</sup> 07:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::That's a nonsense point. By that logic, the JFK assassination report could not be used to support the claim that JFK died unless a journal by the American Coroner's Association agreed with it. ] (]) 18:55, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::: quotes Nicholas Evans as saying "{{tq|No one knows exactly what counts as gain-of-function, so we disagree as to what needs oversight, much less what that oversight should be}}". Evans specializes in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.
::::::::::::It is a subject of active debate within the scientific community. Therefore politicians are out of their depth talking about whether there was "US-funded gain of function research in China" when scientists don't agree what that is. '']''<sup>]</sup> 02:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I originally also had an edit which which was also removed. ] (]) 19:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::First off, you don't {{tq|know}} anything about what I {{tq|personally believe}} about anything. Looks like you're both poisoning the well and mistaking me for jps... Second, and, of course, more relevant here: a report sponsored by members of Congress is not "The Congress's viewpoint". Thirdly, even if they had an assembly where they discussed the matter and voted or whatever it would take to make something "The Congress's viewpoint", it's questionable if whatever conclusion they came to would be deemed a reliable source and IF that warrants being included in an encyclopedic article about the subject they discussed. Explaining it further would just be repeating what I and others have said before. About your other point of there being articles about other, worse, reports. These reports and their coverage are reliable sources for the articles that talk about the reports themselves. The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are notable enough to get their own articles, not that it's a reliable source. What you are asking for is more akin to using the "findings" of the report mentioned by Hob Gadling on something like ] or other fetal tissue research related article. ]•] 14:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{tq|The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are notable enough to get their own articles}}
:::::::This report has also been covered by reliable secondary sources. Why then can this source not at least be mentioned? ] (]) 19:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Notability is not the same as reliability. {{tq|The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are '''notable''' enough to get their own articles}}, it doesn't mean they are reliable to be used as a source of information in articles other than the ones about themselves. That was the whole point I was trying to make above, please read again. ]•] 19:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::If the fact that they were covered by secondary sources doesn't make them reliable, then you never addressed my original point, which is why are other House Reports considered reliable, but this one isn't? ] (]) 19:32, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::VdSV9's last remark is related to ]. Article about wackos talking about scientific subjects: Sources talking about wackos talking about scientific subjects are OK. Article about scientific subjects such as this one: Sources talking about wackos talking about scientific subjects are not OK. You need to understand that context matters. --] (]) 08:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


{{tq|A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe"}} ]. If it can happen once in an obvious fashion, it can happen again. Ours is not the job to decide it happened, but when ] identify it happening, we aren't in the business of declaring categorically, as though there is something magical about the US Government, that the reliable sources can't possibly have identified something fringe-y being promoted within the hallowed halls of the US Government. ] (]) 19:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
It is upon this basis, that Casey after studying composite authorship in the period comes to his scholarly conclusion. The is the product of composite authorship of which Matthew's ''Hebrew Gospel'' was the . Hence the Gospel of Matthew as Matthew was probably a . Now I hope this clears up the confusion. Thanks for being patient with an old guy who was clearly overwhelmed! Cheers - ] (]) 17:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


:It seems that we have to have this conversation about conspiracism in the US house of representatives regularly. There's a similar conflict at ] because some of the conspiracists in the US house believe the CIA is covering up Russian involvement in the proposed syndrome for vague, poorly defined, reasons. ] (]) 19:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*Yes, the key thing to understand about ] is that it is about where a view stands in relation to the ''best sources'' on the subject; it's not a measure of what random people think or what arbitrary big names on unrelated topics believe. This is one of the oldest elements of our fringe policies (since a lot of the policy was hammered out in relation to the creation-evolution controversy, where there very much was a significant political structure devoted to pushing fringe theories aobut it); just because a particular senator doubts evolution doesn't make that perspective non-fringe. Members of the US government are only reliable sources on, at best, the opinions of the US government itself, and even then they'd be a ] and often self-interested source for that, to be used cautiously. The ] on eg. COVID are medical experts, not politicians (who may have an inherent motivation to grandstand, among other things) with no relevant expertise. Something that is clearly fringe among medical experts remains fringe even if every politician in the US disagrees. --] (]) 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*:1. There are findings which are non-scientific which the report would be used to prove, namely whether or not the US government funded gain-of-function research in China. This is not a scientific claim, and the US government has the absolute most authority on that issue. There is no reason any given medical expert would be qualified at all to talk about this, as it is a logistical and budgetary question, not a scientific or medical one.
*:2. There are also findings which are bipartisan. That is, they aren't just the opinions of one or two, or even an entire party's worth of politicians. They are agreed upon by all members of the committee, Republican and Democrat. That is drastically and categorically different than trying to cite one politician's personal opinion as fact.
*:3. The remaining claims are still substantial, even if you or a large majority of people disagree with them, as a documentation of a significant viewpoint as required under ]. As paraphrased:
*:{{tq|If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents}}
*:Clearly the US government is "prominent," even if you believe they're secretly a cabal of anti-scientific fringe conspirators who seek to manipulate the fabric of reality to hide the REAL truth. ] (]) 05:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*::It is not a usable source. You need to drop the ]. ] (]) 05:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::Yes. You've made your opinion abundantly clear. But you have never once provided a valid reason, other than "more people agree with me, so our interpretation of the rule wins."
*:::I have, at every turn, proven how the source fits the rules. You are overturning the rules in favor of your own, politically motivated consensus. ] (]) 06:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::You have, at every turn, proven that you do not understand the rules. Opposing pseudoscience is not politically motivated just because the pseudoscience is politically motivated. --] (]) 09:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::I have consistently proven how my edits fall within the rules. The response has been "We interpret the rules differently and we have a majority, so what's actually written means what we say it does." ] (]) 22:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::No, that has not been the response. You do not understand the response or you do not want to understand it. I suggest you should first learn the Misplaced Pages rules in a less fringey topic. --] (]) 08:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


:'']'' Is one of Ronson's best works and illustrative of exactly why placing blind faith in the judgements of the government or military on scientific matters is tantamount to intellectually throwing in the towel and giving up on reality. ] <small><small>]</small></small> 16:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
@ Ignocrates Thanks for restoring sanity when needed! - ] (]) 17:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
::I find this logic hilarious when just 4 years ago good-faith editors get banned for not trusting the government sources or trying to exclude the government as a source on lockdowns and social distancing. Go and read the discussion boards on social distancing from 2020, as I just have. I hope you understand that WP's new opinion of "Government primary sources cannot be used," was literally the exact opposite just four years ago. ] (]) 19:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:The confusion and lack of "sanity" is I believe pretty much inherent in the prejudicial, emotional approach one editor, the starter of this thread, has seemingly taken from the very beginning. I once again <u>'''extremely seriously'''</u> urge that individual to review all the relevant conduct guidelines before engaging in further conduct which could not unreasonably perhaps be taken as both ] and ]. ] (]) 15:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
:::That's a Strawman. No one is saying that a political report from the legislative branch and the output of public health agencies like the CDC are the same thing. Please try to engage with the arguments others are actually making. ] (]) 19:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Amongst other secondary sources, I've been trying to cite to the DHHS report about EcoHealth. How is that a strawman to point out that the CDC is a completely valid source, but I have been prevented from adding a DHHS report? Do you know what a strawman is? ] (]) 22:43, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::It feels like we're dealing with a ] here. You've been warned about ] sanctions and you don't seem to be ]. How do you want to proceed? ] (]) 20:25, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|You've been warned about WP:AE sanctions and you don't seem to be accepting what others are telling you}}
::::::I haven't edited anything since being warned. I've complied and haven't tried to edit the article or revert my changes. Don't know what you're threatening here.
::::::{{tq|How do you want to proceed?}}
::::::I would like the parts of the article which are demonstrably false, and supported by perennially approved secondary sources '''other than''' the house report and reporting thereto, rectified. Such as the DHHS barring EcoHealth from receiving funds (Other DHHS reports are cited in the article, and the article still says that EcoHealth was cleared from wrongdoing).
::::::I would of course think at least ''some'' mention of the house report, even if negatively, even if only to highlight the secondary source's reception of it, is worthy. But I believe at this point I think some editors are too unwilling to compromise to consider that but, I'll throw it out there. ] (]) 21:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Okay. Well, if you're willing to ], I'm sure we can happily help you find other places at this massive project to invest your volunteer time. Maybe give it six months and see if the landscape has changed. After all, there is ]. ] (]) 20:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{tq|I haven't edited anything since being warned. I've complied and haven't tried to edit the article or revert my changes. Don't know what you're threatening here}}.
:::::::Conduct on noticeboards and talk pages is actionable by ] in ]s. '']''<sup>]</sup> 23:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== Please watch ==
:As far as Ehrman's book is concerned, the quote starts with "Many conservative Christian scholars use this statement to prove that what Papias says is historically accurate (especially about Mark and Matthew), but that is going beyond what the evidence gives us." So, Ehrman does not claim that Papias would be accurate in his reports, except for reporting the fact that he knew people who knew the apostles or their companions. As shown from another source, Ehrman believes that almost everything else Papias told is inaccurate and there is no indication that Ehrman has changed his mind about Papias's reliability. So, you cannot make Ehrman say that what Papias reports about a Hebrew Gospel written by Matthew would be a reliable report. What Ehrman stressed is that Papias is not a reliable source for the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew and it could be even be inferred that Ehrman affirms that Papias is historically inaccurate (with the exception of knowing those people). Just read the quote above ignoring the parenthesis and you will see what I mean. So, using Ehrman to establish the historical reliability of Papias's report fails verification, it is using partial quotations to justify an idea that Ehrman rejects. So, I was at least right about misrepresenting Ehrman's view. That's why I said that I cannot assume a fair rendering of the viewpoints of those sources, either you have failed to understand Ehrman's point or you have willfully misrepresented it. At least you could concede that you have misread what Ehrman has to say. ] (]) 18:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


Please consider putting ] on your watchlist, or , so you can get an Echo/Notification of any new topics created on the page. It is an under-watched page and gets some fringe-related messages. ] (]) 22:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::As for the sources who say that the Gospel of Matthew was written anonymously:


== ] ==
* E P Sanders, ''The Historical Figure of Jesus'', (Penguin, 1995) page 63 - 64.
* Bart D. Ehrman (2000:43) ''The New Testament: a historical introduction to early Christian writings.'' Oxford University Press.
* Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1995:287) '''' MATTHEW, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Quote: „Matthew, like the other three Gospels is an anonymous document.”
* Donald Senior, Paul J. Achtemeier, Robert J. Karris (2002:328) '''' Paulist Press.
* Keith Fullerton Nickle (2001:43) '''' Westminster John Knox Press.
* Ben Witherington (2004:44) '''' InterVarsity Press.
* F.F. Bruce (1994:1) '''' Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
* Patrick J. Flannagan (1997:16) '''' Paulist Press


Not sure about the new edits. My watchlist has never been so strange as in the last 12 hours. ] ] 10:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::List by ] (]) 19:24, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


:Do you have specific concerns? Looking over the changes, nothing ''jumped out'' at me as horrifically problematic, but I'm not reading that closely. ] (]) 10:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
== Acupuncture ==
::Just wanted a sanity check. :) Also seems ok to me. ] ] 11:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:Sorry if any edits were problematic! I am interested in strange things. It's a bit awkward writing the... plot? When it's something like this, but it's unavoidable. ] (]) 05:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)


== The Black Monk of Pontefract ==
Could use some eyes on ]. Some editors are trying to elevate some unsupported or poorly supported explanations to the level of "theories". A lot of the material in the section on "Proposed mechanisms of action" is not supported by sources complying with ], and the most widespread explanation, the placebo effect, is played down, probably violating ]. ] (]) 18:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
*{{la|The Black Monk of Pontefract}}
:Which of my sources do you think fail ]? -] (]) 18:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::Which of the sources being used for highly speculative ideas about mechanisms violates ]? Is that your question? ] (]) 22:11, 3 August 2013 (UTC) Massive reconstruction of a REDIRECTed article places ] weight on a single ] source. Article body loaded with credulous claims in WP voice. ] (]) 13:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


== "Starving" cancer ==
== FTN Discussion at ] ==


* {{al|Warburg effect (oncology)}}
An editor has raised concerns with FT/N on UT:Jimbo, thread can be found at ]. ] <font color="black"><sup>]</sup></font> 00:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Some new accounts/IPs seem unhappy that the "Quackery" section of '']'' is being cited to call out the quackery in play here. More eyes needed. ] (]) 17:53, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


== Thomas N. Seyfried ==
==Precognition==


] is a biochemistry professor who probably passes ] who seems mainly notable for going on podcasts to tell cancer patients to reject chemotherapy in favour of going on a keto diet. Gorski on Science Based Medicine did a good article on him and his claims , which in light of current RfC alas looks unusable. The article
A new user Seleukos256 has been pushing some fringe views and deleting scientific sources on the ] article. I did some further research. Here is one of his comments (it is obviously the same guy):
has been subject to persistent whitewashing attempts by IPs (one of which geolocates to where Seyfried works) and SPAs, and additional eyes would be appreciated. ] (]) 04:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:I think he's ''notable'' for doing well-cited work on diet/metabolism and (mainly brain) cancer in mouse models, some of which on a quick glance seems reasonably mainstream (see eg ''Annual Reviews'' research overview {{doi|10.1146/annurev-nutr-013120-041149}}), but notorious for attempting to translate that early research (at best prematurely) into medical advice for people with cancer. We should probably avoid mentioning the issue at all, as none of the sources (either his or those debunking it) fall within the medical project's referencing standards for medical material. ] <small>(])</small> 12:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::People are looking up Seyfried specifically because he is coming onto podcasts to make these claims , and if we omit them then Seyfried looks like a distinguished scientist giving mainstream advice, when he is saying things against the medical consensus. I think it would be better to delete the article than to omit this information. ] (]) 15:03, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I fear the problem is that he genuinely ''is'' a distinguished scientist, even if he is currently talking in areas in which he appears not to be qualified. ] <small>(])</small> 16:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC)


== Modern science and Hinduism ==
"I visited the Misplaced Pages page on precognition this morning and it was awful. It said things like: no replicable experiments, violates scientific principles (I have a Ph.D. in physics and say this is a B.S. excuse and no I don't mean the degree), no scientists believe in it... yadda, yadda. I fixed and replaced some of the most painfully false statements today. But I think we need to be more proactive in promoting and defending scientific parapsychological results on Misplaced Pages. It is the first place many people go for reference.


I presume that new article ] could do with a thorough check. ] (]) 09:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
If you see these kinds of statements on Misplaced Pages pages, please DELETE! The "skeptics" have nothing to back them up."
:Despite the head note about not confusing it with Vedic science, most of it seems to be about Vedic science. And quite apart from anything else, most of the body of the article seems to be a paraphrase of reference 8. The headings are pretty much identical. ] (]) 09:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:The same editor has also started a draft at ] with some of the same content. ] (]) 11:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::I boldy redirected to ] as an alternative to a ]. I judge maybe a half dozen sentences/ideas may be useful to incorporate over there. ] (]) 19:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Vedic science itself needs some serious work, particularly given the appropriation of the term by Hindutva. ] (]) 21:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Agreed. If nothing else, the creator has pointed out a gaping hole in our coverage. We need something along the lines of an article on ]. Maybe a spin-out from ] itself? ] (]) 22:31, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::many religions use science apologism to justify faith. best to understand they are mostly means to justify religion to those insecure about it, but pseudoscience might be incorrect term of talking about it.
:::::I don't mean to say that science proving hinduism right should be taken as a fact (def would break NPOV), but that we would also be wrong to dismiss the beliefs of a worshipper as "pseudoscience" when "religious faith" and "scientific apologism" would be the more correct term to describe this. ] (]) 23:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::an example of an article section covering scientific apologism a bit better ] ] (]) 00:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::When there is a concerted effort to replace certain scientific disciplines with religious-inspired belief, that is pretty classic pseudoscience. There are plenty of pieces from respected scientists who are aware of the current political/religious arguments being proffered against scientific understanding within the context of Hindutva who call this kind of posturing "pseudoscience". Misplaced Pages need not shy away from this designation. ] (]) 23:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I most of the unsourced puffery added on 21 November. Frankly though whether the article should exist at all should be examined; it might be ripe for AfD. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 22:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The creator of the article had the username "HindutvaWarriors" until a bit over a week ago. ] (]) 21:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:Gonna add a reference section to the bottom of the article.] (]) 22:41, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== The main paper promoting hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment has been withdrawn. ==
From a spiritualist blog . Eyes may need to be put on some of these parapsychology articles, I suspect that other stuff may start being deleted and all kinds of crackpot claims are going to be inserted. I don't have time for this because I am busy working on some other articles. But just giving a heads up, if anyone wants to watch that article. Thanks. ] (]) 19:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04014-9
:Added to watchlist, I also note "I have a Ph.D. in physics and say this is a ..." is an ], ] (]) 22:10, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
::The section on "Tachyon theory" does injustice to the word "theory". Surely this is conjecture at best? --] (]) 00:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
:::I removed it wholesale, undue weight fringe theories. ] (]) 08:58, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


I doubt this'll shut up the pro-fringe users, but now all of their "evidence" can be tossed outright. ] (]) 23:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
== Christ Myth Theory ==
: Just to be clear, the paper was by the journal's co-owners. The word "withdrawn" is often associated with an action taken by a paper's authors, which is not the situation here. ] (]) 17:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::Thank you for the clarification. ] (]) 17:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] ==
] is a minority theory concerning the historical origins of Jesus. I'm concerned about some POV language in the article's lead section which gives the impression that this subject is fringe or bogus history:


No clue if it's a fringe therapy for autism or not... apparently theres at least one scientific article discussing it as a pseudoscience , but i can't really tell if it falls under that or not. ] (]) 20:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
"Modern scholarship has generally dismissed these analogies as without formal basis, and a form of parallelomania laden with historical errors."


== David and Stephen Flynn ==
The quote about "parallelomania" comes from a single specific Jesuit Priest ] who seems to be quite a mainstream Catholic theologian but hardly representative of historians in general.


There is an ongoing effort at ] to remove or whitewash these individual's medical misinformation section. I believe additional eyes would be helpful on this page. --]<sub>]]</sub> 15:35, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
The article presents a comprehensive list of mainstream objections to the theory, however none of suggest that the theory is 'laden with historical error'. I think it's also odd that this is characterized as "Modern scholarship" - as these objections to Christ Myth theory have existed for as long as as the theory. I can only suspect that the editor may have been trying to suggest that this theory has been recently debunked. --] (]) 00:36, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


:On the noticeboard Biographies of living persons I've requested help because this situation needs a review by neutral, experienced editors to ensure compliance with Misplaced Pages’s neutrality and verifiability guidelines.
:I would love Misplaced Pages to demand genuine reliable sources (not historians' interpretations) for the claims about the existence of religious figures, but it ain't gonna happen. Any argument like this is going to be coloured by the beliefs of the participants. It's a waste of time and energy. It will never be properly encyclopaedic. Just forget it, and let the believers and non-believers believe. ] (]) 00:47, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
:The previous edits are one-sided, hence several attempts have been made to improve the neutrality of the section by adding balanced context and reliable sources to reflect differing perspectives.
:In the "careers" section, edits have repeatedly removed references to David and Stephen Flynn stopping collaboration with Russell Brand, implying continued support despite this not being true.
:Specific concerns with the medical section include:
:1. The section title “Medical Misinformation” is to make it sensational; hence, changed it into “Health Advice and Public Response” instead.
:2. Peer-reviewed studies and mainstream media articles, were added for context but reverted without justification.
:3. Efforts to clarify the Flyns’ acknowledgment of errors and removal of contentious content have also been ignored. ] (]) 17:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::I've started a convo on the article talk page. Please continue there. ] (]) 18:24, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] ==
::HiLo48, I share your frustration but that's really not a very constructive thought! ;-) --] (]) 01:19, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


{{articlelinks|Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns}}
: I guess that it could be a good idea to list some related discussions from the archives:
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
:* ]
: So, let's see what do we have ''now''... You do not like "''Modern scholarship has generally dismissed these analogies as without formal basis, and a form of parallelomania laden with historical errors.''"? Especially "''I think it's also odd that this is characterized as "Modern scholarship" - as these objections to Christ Myth theory have existed for as long as as the theory.''? Well, as far as I understand, that statement means that the theory was more popular at some time, but now is fringe. By itself it does not say if this change is because of new evidence or because of change of fashion. Anyway, the statement looks true and no reason to think otherwise has been given, thus there is no need to change anything at the moment.
: Also, HiLo48, "''I would love Misplaced Pages to demand genuine reliable sources (not historians' interpretations) for the claims about the existence of religious figures, but it ain't gonna happen.''" corresponds to wishes of supporters of many fringe historical (and non-historical) theories. You might think that ''this'' theory is unpopular unjustly, but Misplaced Pages must make sure it does not correct any existing injustice (it is somewhat related to ])... If you don't like that, read the archives of this noticeboard and (hopefully) you will start hating the alternatives far more. If that won't help, there's also my essay ]...
: Anything else..? --] (]) 02:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


Some ] editing from an account with <1000 edits. I don't have time to engage with them further over the holiday (and I'm at 3RR on this article anyway). Other experienced editors are invited to take a look. Note I left on their user talk page to . Cheers, ] (]) 00:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
::You seem to have read far more into my comment than I said, or meant, and I meant little more than I said. ] (]) 02:56, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


::: Then... Um... OK, I guess..? --] (]) 03:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC) :You added a cite and I quoted it verbatim. If it's a fringe source, why did you add it? ] (]) 09:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
::You quoted it selectively to highlight a caveat as though it were the central point of the piece. This looked an awful lot like ], as did your subsequent edits to the page. ] (]) 13:57, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Just noticed Turkheimer had this out in November: {{cite book|last=Turkheimer|first=Eric|chapter=IQ, Race, and Genetics|title=Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate|series=Understanding Life|publisher=Cambridge University Press|chapter-url=https://www-cambridge-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/core/books/understanding-the-naturenurture-debate/iq-race-and-genetics/BEE6D69A17DEBA6E87486A1830C31AD7?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark}} ](]) 18:20, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== Cult whitewashing ==
*So far as I know, there are no credible academic sources supporting the idea that Jesus never existed. Nor any support for the idea that he might have existed but the gospel-epistle writers made up his teachings. There's some discussion of the possibility that the gospel writers based some parts of the gospel stories on OT stories (it's mainstream that Matthew seems to have gone out of his way to paint Jesus as a second Moses and to have ransacked Isaiah in particular for "prophesies" proving that Jesus was the Messiah). At that end of the spectrum, you're moving out of "Jesus as myth" and into solid scholarship. Perhaps the article needs to be clearer about what it considers "myth". ] (]) 05:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC)


See {{diff2|1265459461}}, {{diff2|1265464033}}, {{diff2|1265465049}} and {{diff2|1265465790}}. ] (]) 02:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
== Ruggero Santilli ==


:I've reverted them. I see long-term Grail SPA {{Ping|Creolus}} whitewashed the Abd's article two months ago so I just reverted them as well. ] (]) 02:55, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Please see ]... The page is giving credibility to the man and to several of his theories, that are clearly fringe theories and fringe science, without giving due warning, or showing credible sources of refutation, thus giving it undue weight. ] (]) 13:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
:Also noting for posterity that I've managed to find another decent English-language source on the topic , don't know if there are any more in German. ] (]) 03:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:I think the BLP makes it clear that none of his theories have been accepted. ] (]) 14:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


::Yup, in his Grail Message he distinguished between the Son of God (Jesus Christ) and the Son of Man (himself). The morals of the book was that Christ was a loser, while Bernhardt is a winner. ] (]) 03:50, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
== March Against Monsanto Deletion discussion ==
:I really feel that if you are to stay objective, then you should look at the evidence to come to a conclusion. It's not whitewashing if you choose to use the author's exact words to represent his legacy whilst stating the interpretation of others which are not really in accord with the author's wishes or actions.
:And worthy of note, I'm not a member of the grail movement but even they shouldn't be banned from editing if the content brought is true and verifiable. ] (]) 03:54, 27 December 2024 (UTC)


::Hmmm... that's not how Misplaced Pages works. We prefer ] ] sources written by ] to a ] view of the religious believers. See ].
I've put the article ] up for deletion. It is of interest to this board because the reason for deletion is that the article inherently fails ]/] because it appears that the scientific consensus can not be stated without ]. ] (]) 09:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
::Also, religious preachers often state "Go left!" when they go right. We don't take ] religious writings at face value. We don't take Bernhardt's statement that he preaches the rationally intelligible version of Jesus's message, but essentially the same message, at face value.
::He knew that saying "Let's do like the primary Christians" was tantamount to founding a new sect. Because there were plenty of historical examples of that. ] (]) 05:20, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq|use the author's exact words to represent his legacy}}
::No. That's just propaganda, not reliably sourced information. — <b>]:<sup>]</sup></b> 17:58, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:Service: {{al|Grail Movement}}
:For those who are already watching the article and do not want to destroy their last-version-seen bookmark by clicking directly on a newer version. --] (]) 09:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
: For what it's worth I've comprehensively rewritten the article on the Grail Movement based on the very useful encyclopedia entry. ] (]) 19:43, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 19:43, 27 December 2024

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    Water fluoridation controversy

    RFK Jr. may belong in the article, but some people insist it has to be in a specific way, which results in lots of edit-warring recently. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

    Not sure if this is the correct space for this. But why do we call it a "controversy"? There is no reasonable controversy to speak of when we're looking at water fluoridation. We don't call the antivaxxer movement part of a "vaccination controversy", or do we? The nicest terms I've seen used is "hesitancy", as in vaccine hesitancy. I think anti-fluoridation cranks deserve the same treatment as anti-vaxxers. Also, they're mostly the same people... I'm thinking the tone should be more in line with anti-vaccine movement or outright mention misinformation, like in COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and hesitancy. VdSV9•♫ 12:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, deleting the "controversy" part would probably give a better article name. "Opposition to water fluoridation"? But that belongs on the talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    That would be a better name Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    See also Water fluoridation, which is teetering on the brink of an edit war. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

    Plant perception (paranormal)

    I have proposed a deletion and redirect of this article as the content is mostly about Cleve Backster which is duplicated content from his own article. I also believe it is misleading to have an article on "paranormal" plant perception as this is not an independent or recognized field of study. We have Misplaced Pages articles on plant cognition (plant neurobiology) and Plant perception (physiology). Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

    Seems like a WP:BLAR and maybe a merge of some content if appropriate would be easier. Than prodding it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:38, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    I believe the best thing to do is to have an article called plant intelligence where all the plant perception paranormal content and the plant intelligence/plant neurobiology stuff is mentioned on one large article. The plant cognition article has an incorrect title as all the WP:RS refer to the field as "plant intelligence". I believe the article title needs to be renamed. These articles have been a mess for over a decade. It's important to keep content on plant physiology separate from any of this intelligence content which is WP:Fringe. Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    In that case, surely the best course of action then is to move the plant cognition article to "plant intelligence" and then WP:BLAR Plant perception (paranormal) to it? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    I was hoping to do this but Misplaced Pages would not let me per technical reasons. A user had already created a plant intelligence redirect years ago. About a decade ago there was a very poorly written plant intelligence article . There was an old decision to redirect that article into Plant perception (physiology) which was a mistake. I have requested a rename and move on the plant cognition talk-page. Psychologist Guy (talk) 03:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is what Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests is for. I don't think the request will be very controversial so I would just go ahead and write it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

    what's going on with this now that the title has been changed to Plant intelligence and the AfD has been withdrawn? Should Plant perception (paranormal) be merged into plant intelligence? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

    I have redirected and merged the small amount of text on that article to plant intelligence. I believe the issue has now been resolved as we have 1 article for all of the fringe content on which should have been separated from plant physiology a long time ago. Psychologist Guy (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    The last thing to do, it to rename this category Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

    Science based medicine at RSN

    Those who follow this board will probably be interested in Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#"Science-Based_Medicine"_blog MrOllie (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

    Noting that the RFC was closed and immediately restarted in a new section, so you might want to look a second time. MrOllie (talk) 18:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

    Stonemounds

    A link to Discover Stone Mound App has been added to Karahan Tepe. The app offers virtual guided tours to a number of ancient sites. I haven't downloaded the site, but am hoping someone knows something about it, and whether it is appropriate for our articles to link to it. Donald Albury 15:28, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

    Looks like advertising and shouldn't be on WP. VdSV9•♫ 17:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    The app is free, and I don't see anything for sale on the website. It says that the audio is recorded by archaeologists who worked on the sites. My concern is whether the information presented is in line with reliable sources. I'm not familiar enough with the various sites covered to confirm that myself. Donald Albury 18:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    App seems (would want further verification) to be associated with the "2024 World Neolithic Congress". The 2024 WNC seems to have the backing of prominent government institutions and international universities . If this connection is provable, then I would say it would be a reliable source. Allan Nonymous (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

    Discussion of the reliability of the Journal of Controversial ideas

    This discussion may be of interest to people on this noticeboard. Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Journal_of_controversial_ideas_redux Simonm223 (talk) 15:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

    I found a couple items in the Chronicle of Higher Education that may be usable; the relevant parts are quoted in this edit. XOR'easter (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

    Promotional edits by a reincarnation believer on Ian Stevenson

    O Govinda has been adding tonnes of promotional and WP:Fringe sources at Ian Stevenson and removing sources critical of Stevenson's work. This has been going on since September. I have been bold and reverted their edits. See talk-page discussion. Psychologist Guy (talk) 10:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

    Thanks for bringing this up. I read that article recently and did feel like the whole "dismissal without consideration" and some other things there had some pro-fringe sentiment behind them. VdSV9•♫ 12:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is a perennial effort from one editor that has been ongoing for at least a decade or more. It begins with innocuous edits like formatting citations, cleaning dead links, improving grammar, etc. If there is no response, next very subtle POV shifts are introduced, slight watering down of criticism, etc. If there is still no response, then critical material is trimmed and credulous or supportive material is given primary weight. At this point, usually someone steps in, reverts all the edits, and the article goes dormant again for a few years, only to begin the same cycle again. I was about to do the revert when Psychologist Guy beat me to it.- LuckyLouie (talk) 14:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    I agree. It is a type of stealth editing to make some slow minor edits but over time keep adding until the biased POV gets more and more. In general I am not a deletionist, over at A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada I supported a user's re-write of the entire article which was at first controversial. If edits (even controversial) are supported by good sourcing then that I will back them but in this case the sourcing is badly cherry-picked and mostly irrelevant fringe sources from non-specialists, there was a serious UNDUE problem. It's also concerning that this user claims on the talk-page that information cited to a critical source is "not upheld by the source. At best this could be WP:synth, but its not even that". Yet when you click on the source the text matched perfectly. The user removed the content without any consensus claiming incorrectly in their edit summary "Verifications failed. Deleted OR". It's hard to come to any other conclusion that this was not done in good-faith because this material does not fail verification nor is WP:OR. This is a case of deleting sources they dislike and leaving false edit summaries. This isn't at the level of ANI yet but there has been a repeated pattern on and off regarding this type of behaviour on their account going back years from what I could see. If it continues into 2025 a topic ban may be appropriate. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    There is a similar cycle that happens on Talk:Parapsychology every year or so, a push to 'right the great wrong' of not recognizing parapsychology as a science, citing AAAS, Etzel Cardena, etc. It's currently in the ascendant phase now. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    RE Ian Stevenson, see talk-page discussion - User wants all his fringe material restored. I disagree. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

    David Berlinski

    Article about a creationist and therefore a traditional playground of pseudoscience-deleting philosopher-of-science wannabes. Th last of them threw a fit after being reverted. It's OK now but both the article and the user merit watching. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

    Not sure what was going on there, the editor removed pseudoscientific twice , then added it back in . Looks like WP:Disruptive editing. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    They go through articles replacing "which" by "that", and they did it in that article too. As they were at it, they also removed the "pseudoscientific" as an aside. I reverted that, and they got angry, said incomprehensible stuff and called me a fool for a reason known only to themselves. Then they seemed to have noticed that was a bad idea and reverted the "pseudoscientific" deletion to save face or something. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

    Denis Noble

    Denis Noble has been editing the "The Third Way of Evolution" section of his article for a while. Parts of the this section now read as promotional. There is definitely some WP:COI editing here. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

    He appeared in a video online? Stop the presses! The Forbes story it mentions turns out to be a "contributor" piece. XOR'easter (talk) 03:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

    Uzziah

    This is about Uzziah's name appears in two unprovenanced iconic stone seals discovered in 1858 and 1863. The first is inscribed l’byw ‘bd / ‘zyw, " to ’Abiyah, minister of ‘Uziyah", and the second (rev.) lšbnyw ‘ / bd ‘zyw, " to Shubnayah, minister of ‘Uziyah." Despite being of unprovenanced origin, they are the first authentic contemporary attestations to the ancient king.

    Reason: mainstream archaeologists are not allowed to even comment upon Mykytiuk's claim. Unprovenanced objects are taboo: discussing them breaches professional ethics and maybe the law. Just to be sure: I'm not speaking about Misplaced Pages editors, but about professional archaeologists. Mykytiuk is a retiree and apparently not an archaeologist. And Avigad died in 1992. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

    References

    1. Avigad, Nahman (1997). Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. ISBN 978-9-652-08138-4.
    2. Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 153–159, 219. ISBN 978-1-589-83062-2.


    Shouldn't there be something like "According to jewish tradition," or another similar type of attribution, before the claim that "Uzziah was struck with tzaraath for disobeying God" in the second paragraph of the lead?VdSV9•♫ 12:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

    Identifying fringe

    If you want to have a meta-discussion about what constitutes fringe, the Talk page is thataway. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Imagine a world (unfortunately, the one we live in) in which there is a significant amount of unresolvable polarization. Editors are locked in a dispute:

    • A: We can't cite Source1 because they're PROFRINGE. We should cite the widely accepted Source2.
    • B: Source1 is widely accepted and not PROFRINGE. Source2 is the PROFRINGE one!

    and things get worse from there, until (if the rest of us are lucky) a passing admin declares a block on both your houses.

    Given:

    • The individual editors have firmly entrenched viewpoints. They are absolutely, invincibly convinced that they are right. (Also righteous.)
    • The individual editors declare a "he said/she said" approach to be a WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:PROFRINGE promotion. Articles must only say what the True™ side says.
    • Editors cannot agree on what "the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field" actually are.
      • For example, ____ is the prevailing view in my filter bubble but not in your filter bubble. Or maybe it is an interdisciplinary subject, and the prevailing views depend upon whether one is applying the lens of Department A ("This terrible disease must be eradicated to prevent suffering") or the lens of Department B ("Our greatest artists had this so-called disease, so curing it would diminish humanity"). Or maybe there is a cultural or national aspect, so that what's normal in my country is very strange in yours (e.g., gay marriage is an unremarkable, ordinary thing in California but not in places with capital punishment for homosexuality). This is not necessarily just due to POV pushing by editors, because there are real-world divisions.
    • The debated sources are more like 'authors' rather than 'documents'. They might be an informal group ("pro-rightness political scientists" or "that little clique that always cites each other's papers"), but editors are probably talking about it in terms of a specific organization ("Society for the Advancement of Political Rightness" or "the Paul administration").
      • Misplaced Pages editors seek to shun or ostracize the Wrong™ side: If the author has ever been associated with the Wrong™ people/groups/ideas, then nothing you've ever written is acceptable, unless you have undergone ritual purification and redemption by publicly renouncing your prior evil ways/associations.
    • In some cases, the debated sources directly address each other, each calling the other names like pseudoscientific or fringe.

    Given all this, how does one determine which groups really are FRINGE? Is there a checklist that says things like "See who's getting cited in centrist newspapers" or "If both of the supposedly FRINGE groups are getting their stuff published in decent scholarly journals, then you should assume that neither of them are FRINGE"?

    I have the feeling that we're going to need more of this during the next few years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

    What you say above applies to 1% of the disputes about fringe. For the rest 99% is a slam dunk.
    Like that judge who defined porn as "I know it when I see it". Meaning when ARBCOM sees it.
    Of course, if WMF were headquartered in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the definition of fringe would be wholly different from ours.
    Some editor has reverted my edits to WP:ABIAS, wherein I stated that acupuncture is not pseudoscience in China. They believe in the universality of science, while I have studied the sociology of science and have doubts about it. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    99% slam dunks but it seems like still a lot of effort required to get other editors to give it up. Should tban faster. Like the last point you make, hard problem. fiveby(zero) 13:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    I suspect that it's 1% of the disputes but >50% of the effort. Simple cases are simple. We can solve the simple cases with an explanation or by waving at policy, and if necessary, with the regulars WP:PILINGON until the Wrong™ side retreats.
    I think that complicated situations would benefit from more of a procedural approach. Template:MEDRS evaluation gives me a format for explaining how I arrive at a conclusion about a medical source What's a similar list for allegedly PROFRINGE sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    For the complicated %1 i think editors do often become focused on source 1 and source 2 (or just a few sources), usually just snippets of text in each an not reading entire works. My understanding is that an encyclopedia article ideally should be an introduction and summary of the entire body of literature. Due to WP's policies it is really easy to just google and ctrl-f for particular phrasing or label and is sometimes an unfortunately effective argument on talk pages. Making a best sources argument seems much more difficult and often dismissed as OR. I really wish someone would expand the WP:BESTSOURCES policy. If it is really complicated in a well documented area then editors should step back and look to bibliographies and literature reviews, not for use as sources or content, but for selecting and organizing the sources themselves. Tertiary sources as examples of how to organize the content. fiveby(zero) 13:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    We talked about re-writing BESTSOURCES recently. It's a bit of an Easter egg, in that it doesn't address any of the things that people would expect from that shortcut.
    For this, I'm more interested in the problem of authors being 'tainted' or 'untouchable'. Imagine one of those "Have you no sense of decency" moments: "We can't cite them. We can't cite them even if the paper is also co-authored by Einstein. We can't cite them even if it's published in the world's best peer-reviewed journal. They are/were part of The Evil Ones, and they and their views can only appear in Misplaced Pages for the purpose of calling them evil." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's pretty rare isn't it. Andrew Wakefield and Marianne J Middelveen come to mind. They don't co-author with Einstein (who had some pretty fringe ideas, mind you, in his dotage). Bon courage (talk) 17:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think it's rare in politics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    Wouldn't know about that! Bon courage (talk) 18:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'll turn most questions into a best sources argument. Find the best source(s) for the topic, see if they include the view, how contextualized, and whether those sources call them evil. Really very WP:PROFRINGE myself tho so throw in all the views and cites to whatever, just write non-fiction and don't confuse the reader. fiveby(zero) 04:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    So shamelessly ripping off that MEDRS_Evaluation template as a basis, and using a recently challenged PROFRINGE source, something like User:Void_if_removed/sandbox/TemplateTest which changes the end to give eg:
    • Independent commissioning: check Independent sources are best.
    • Independent authors:check Sources written by independent authors are best (80%).
    So you can specify number of authors vs which ones have a conflict of interest, and evaluate the independence of the commissioning and the authors in more detail? (edited to give dummy output because sandbox template breaks indentation) Void if removed (talk) 10:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    If this is the edit you are referring to, then, I would characterise it as saying a few more things than just that acupuncture is not pseudoscience in China. I'm also not really convinced that there's an academic consensus in favour of traditional Chinese medicine even in Chinese academia, even if MEDPOP and government sources tend to be more favourable. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    We don't live in a moral void. We live in the Free World, and we should be proud of it while it lasts. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    • Let's not try to invent problems to solve before they arise. GMG 18:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      It's too late for that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      Then the burden is on you to provide specific examples of intractable conflicts that need resolved. GMG 21:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      Since I'm asking whether we have any existing general advice that would be widely applicable, then proof that specific examples exist does not seem really relevant to me. If you only choose to participate in discussions when you can deal with what's sometimes called the low-level details of an exact situation (Exactly which words were used to describe that Trump nominee, and exactly which publications, with what reputations, have used those exact words how many times?), then that's fine. Anyone who is interested in the general case is still welcome to share any advice with me or point to any essays they're aware of. Surely after all these years we have something. If not, maybe we should write it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      I've seen specific examples that fit the profile WAID is describing, do not believe that the problem doesn't arise in significant cases, and agree that discussion in the general case could be helpful. (We already see below how a general discussion can be derailed by what looks like a specific re-hashing of a previous talk discussion.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing Would I be remiss in assuming that this thread is an allusion to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM)? The ones the SPLC not only list as a hate group but describe as the "hub of the anti-LGBT pseudoscience movement", who are described by various RS explicitly as a "fringe group", called out by more for misinformation, who push unevidenced theories and work with people famous for conversion therapy (and are in fact famous for creating a new kind: gender exploratory therapy)? The ones referenced as a key example in nearly every peer-reviewed article on trans healthcare misinformation for the past 3 years? The ones who have been repeatedly called our for evading peer review by producing copious numbers of letters to editors? Or is there another group this is alluding to? I've seen you defending them recently so I'm applying occam's razor, but I'd like to be wrong. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    Can you point to where SPLC sit on the MEDRS pyramid? Void if removed (talk) 20:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    SEGM is, unfortunately, only one of several disputes that I see a similar theme in. The others are mostly WP:AP2 subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    The general problem you point out is certainly on display in the SEGM article. Citing A.J. Eckert at Science Based Medicine to say they are mistaken. Picking and choosing the sources based on what they say to define fringe rather than looking to the best sources. The best might indeed say the same but i can't really trust that from a quick look at the article. fiveby(zero) 16:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    From another quick look at Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, it seems that a deeper dive is needed on how there came to be what looks like a preponderance of unattributed or cherry-picked opinions in the lead. But again, by focusing this discussion on SEGM, diversion from the broader discussion has already resulted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    One problem is possibly the confusion of "we can tell these are fringe views because they are only in unreliable sources" with "we know these views are fringe therefore the sources are unreliable".
    Disregarding a source that we would ordinarily consider reliable on FRINGE grounds should be a high bar. Void if removed (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    In that case neither source would be fringe since they have equal or similar support. EEpic (talk) 04:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Support from whom? If it was a source you'd never heard of, what would you check first to find out more? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Support from reliable sources. If there's no clear winner, the mainstream view, then nothing would be a clear fringe. If there is a clear winner or a clear group of views that are well supported in a variety of sources then the less supported ones can be called fringe. EEpic (talk) 04:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    As others have said, if the majority of RS say it, it's not Fringe (though here we may well restrict this to "qualified RS"), if a minority of RS say it, it is harder, but here we then would go with what is the mainstream opinion. If only a very few RS support it, it's fringe, if no RS support it's fringe. So really the only time there should be any don't is when there is a (more or less) a 50 50 split between relevant RS. Slatersteven (talk) 13:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    So 'HIV causes AIDS' is the mainstream POV, and therefore the AIDS denialist views of Kary Mullis are fringe.
    But for any new claim, 'this new drug cures this cancer' or 'this policy will solve this problem', there might not be any FRINGE views under this approach, because there might not be enough RS to evaluate it.
    What's your approach to multidisciplinary subjects? Imagine that moral philosophers, feminists, and disability rights activists disagree over, e.g., something about abortion or embryo screening. Which field is the mainstream field? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    What would be the fields in this example besides philosophy? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Women's studies and Disability studies are academic disciplines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    A feminist is not someone who engages in Women's studies nor is a disability rights activists one who engages in Disability studies. If we take the question as simply practicing professors in the three fields you've named I think we would include all of them at least in some contexts (none would hpwever likely qualify for the more MEDRS aspects of that issue) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    MEDRS's ideal source is a good way to determine tangible outcomes: What percentage of embryos with this mutation will be severely disabled? How many people need to be vaccinated with Pneumovax to prevent one death from pneumonia? It shines when the question is primarily statistical in nature.
    MEDRS is not suited for determining human values or morals. For example, if you're working on Sex-selective abortion and need a paragraph on the hypocrisy of (e.g.,) US politicians condemning this practice in other countries while making no move to ban it in their own country, then you need ordinary RS on WP:SCHOLARSHIP instead of MEDRS. If you're writing about Down syndrome#Ethics, you need non-scientists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Sure, but in that example is it really interdisciplinary? That seems to pretty clearly fall within political science. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Some individual points about (e.g.,) Sex-selective abortion may fall more into one field than another, but this one could be poli sci ("these politicians are responding to domestic pressures about..."), or could be feminism ("more evidence of anti-female bias"), or could be ethics ("about this 'do what I say, not what I do' stuff..."), or could be other fields. Each field will have its own focus on why the observed phenomenon happens and whether it is good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Can sources even be WP:PROFRINGE? The way WP:PROFRINGE is written its editors who are PROFRINGE. How it talks about actual sources doesn't match what you're saying here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    No, but the edit that introduced it can be. So then it boils down to issues like wp:rs and wp:undue. Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    So both editor A and editor B are incompetent? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    No they may well just be misusing pro fringe as a shorthand for "this failed wp:fringe wp:undue and wp:rs, and maybe wp:or", it would depend on the edit (and the sources being objected to). This is the problem with hypotheticals. Slatersteven (talk) 17:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Misuse is either a competence issue or a malicious one. In this sort of case (especially a hypothetical) we generally assume incompetence not malice per AGF. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Using the wrong WP:UPPERCASE is exceedingly common, so I don't think we can even call it incompetence. Using precisely the correct word/link/advice page is important in a few instances (e.g., if you are writing a notability guideline, you should not write secondary when you mean independent), but it's usually just a vague wave meaning "policy says I win" or a honest mistake (the 'mistake' in question often being 'believing experienced editors who said this during prior discussions'). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    What would you call it? If its wrong then it wasn't used in a competent manner. Precision is competence, someone making honest mistakes is lacking in competence (even if in a very minor way). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    "Precision is competence" is a viewpoint that I associate with autistic people, and the opposite (e.g., the tactful hint, the vague wave at the gist of the thing) is one I associate with neurotypical people. In the spirit of FRINGE, I'd say that neither of these viewpoints are FRINGE viewpoints, and also that neither of them are the sole True™ way of understanding what other people say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    That "Everyone has a limited sphere of competence." seems to be consensus. Personally I find writing it off as autistic incredibly offensive. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    I am not dismissing it or "writing it off". I'm saying that in my own experience, these two viewpoints exist and are associated with two groups of people. If you are familiar with the Double empathy problem, then you already know why communication between these two particular groups of people is difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Maybe give it another try without calling me Autistic (which is the clear implication of your association)? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    I suspect that many of our Autistic editors would be offended by anyone talking about their identity and their way of seeing the world as being anything other than a desirable thing, and certainly nothing to apologize for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    You suspect that people in a given class would not be offended by you asserting that as a class of people they see the world in a specific way? "Autistic editors" don't have a unified identity or way of seeing the world, thats stereotyping and its offensive even when the stereotype is a positive one. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    You might be interested in reading about Autistic (identity), which is actually a thing, and it is based in part on seeing the world in a specific (i.e., non-allistic) way.
    It is true that some people with autism have internalized shame around this, but you will notice that I said "many of our Autistic editors" and not "every single human with autism". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is like arguing that "Asian editors see wikipedia primarily in mathematical terms" its just offensive no matter how you want to justify it... And implying that any editor who approached wikipedia in mathematical terms was Asian would also be offensive, despite the stereotype being a stereotypical example of a positive stereotype. You're acting like I'm the one offending people here, you're the one making stereotypes and implying that I fit them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Autism is defined as a difference in how people experience and respond to the world. It's like saying "Asian editors are from Asia". It's not a stereotype; it's the definition of the word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, people on the spectrum experience and respond to the world in a wide variety of ways. What you are presenting is a stereotype and it is an offensive one... I've now made that clear in both a precise way and a tactful/vague way. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing: As a person who has never been called "autistic" (I don't remember hearing the term until I was in my 40s or 50s), but who has recently been called "Leonard" by a friend and who loved to browse through the encyclopedia as a child, your comments have made me very uncomfortable. You are stereotyping people who have a broard range of means of dealing with the world. While I have concluded that I may be somewhere on the spectrum, I would never suggest that my way of engaging with the world is typical or representative of any group. Donald Albury 23:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Donald Albury, I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable.
    What I said about "Precision is competence" is an example of the Central coherence theory. Although not universally beloved, it has been one of the most widely accepted descriptions of how autism contrasts with neurotypical thinking (in people without intellectual disabilities). The autistic style is "It is good because all the details are exact". The non-autistic style is "It is good because the overarching picture is pleasing". Neither style is better than the other, and both groups are capable of using both styles when it suits them.
    It is true that "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism". It is also true that researchers have found similiarities in cognitive patterns and that there are some "typical" cognitive patterns in both autistic and non-autistic people. These patterns are not stereotypes (no more stereotypical than saying "children usually learn to read by age 6"), and they are not just one individual claiming that their own experience is true for everyone.
    Perhaps, though, if you find this off-topic tangent uncomfortable, you would hat it. I suggest beginning with the (unkind, aggressive, tactless) comment above that "So both editor A and editor B are incompetent?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Or maybe just...don't speculate on the neurodevelopmental conditions you think someone's behavior resembles?? JoelleJay (talk) 06:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    I am autistic. Considering autistic people are not a monolith, I obviously can't speak for all of us, but from my perspective? I consider your statements as significantly closer to offensive than HEB's, in a borderline-patronizing and borderline-infantilizing way.
    • First and foremost: equating identity and way of seeing the world with autistic is problematic. Autism absolutely is an inalienable part of my perspective and my identity, yes. That's not the same thing as it being (the whole of) my identity. I am autistic, yes. Just like I am many, many other things, all of which influence who I am as a whole, but do not by themselves make up the whole of it.
    • offended by anything other than a desirable thing - Non-autistic people do not get to tell me that having sensory meltdowns, sensory overstimulation, sensory processing issues, running into various barriers where it comes to failing accessibility even from those services geared towards dealing with neurodivergent people and/or those with disabilities, dealing with frequent patronization and infantilization, having had schools tell my parents (paraphrased) "well yes she gets severely bullied, but the real problem is that she is autistic" and refusing to do shit about bullying, and healthcare and mental healthcare services trying to toss everything on my autism regardless of whether it actually is related to my autism, is desirable. (Non-autistic people also do not get to tell me that being autistic is entirely undesirable, either. There are both benefits and downsides, and I'm really, really tired of allistic people talking over us how desirable or undesirable our neurodivergency is.)
    AddWittyNameHere 06:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    2024 New Jersey drone sightings

    Article: 2024 New Jersey drone sightings. Rapidly evolving and increasingly in the news (local, regional, national and international), and starting to get into/bump toward weirdness with the latest Pentagon revelations and claims of "Iranian Motherships". -- Very Polite Person (talk) 21:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

    The correct solution is to delete the article until it's established that this isn't an irrelevant fleeting news story. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    We're not supposed to rush to create articles... But once the article is created the guidance shifts to don't rush to delete articles. Per Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) "As there is no deadline, it is recommended to delay the nomination for a few days to avoid the deletion debate dealing with a moving target and to allow time for a clearer picture of the notability of the event to emerge, which may make a deletion nomination unnecessary. Deletion discussions while events are still hot news items rarely result in consensus to delete." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    I said the correct solution, not the one that will play out. :P Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Touche mon ami, touche Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Is this "hot news" or just filler? It seems pretty trivial to me. Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Answering that question is why we're told not to rush to deletion. You can't really tell until the event is in the rear view mirror (some say to wait ten years before evaluating) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    It's now international news for like 72 hours, and all over the major American networks again tonight. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 00:31, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    I agree with Horse Eye's Back that regardless of what we should have done, that ship has sailed. The BBC have 2 recent stories about aspects of this and even did a live updates and had a video over a week ago . AP News have at least 7 recent stories , , , , , , and one older one about this, and 4 videos , , , . Reuters have at least 2 stories , and one video . Perhaps in a few weeks or more likely months we can re-evaluate what to do with the article but there's no point trying now. Nil Einne (talk) 10:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    Geez. There's an article for that?!
    I saw mention of it, a couple of posts on social media of pretty obvious misidentifications of airplanes and, in at least a few cases, even planets. And then the bandwagon of highly impressionable people, lunatics and sensationalist journalism (with a ridiculous one on a Fox channel where the story is that these sightings are close to one of Trump's properties, with the comment section of the video leading me to believe that Americans are about to begin trying to shoot down airplanes from up in the sky), but no serious coverage because there is literally nothing to it. Now I see the AP ref and a couple more RS sources covering it, but still too soon and with no sober analysis.
    Looks like an absolute flap. A lot of the article is poorly sourced, it shouldn't have been created and it's currently just spreading misinformation. People see something up in the sky, they have no idea how large or how far it is, or how fast it's moving, and they start making claims. Something that looks obviously like a plane is moving toward them, they say it's a "SUV-sized drone hovering" and WP just replicates this claim? VdSV9•♫ 13:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

    "UFO flap" article

    I would like to see an article on UFO flaps. That is a phenomenon that is not well known even though I see lots of sources on the subject. jps (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Seconded, perhaps UFO crazes is a more common title though? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think that UFO craze tends to refer more to the broader phenomenon of UFO fandoms. A "flap" is a particular localized event in time and space where there is a kind of mass panic about UFOs and sightings go through the roof. In fact, such flaps happened prior to the traditional Kenneth Arnold kick off. Edison ships and other mystery airship sightings were the flaps in the late nineteenth century. jps (talk) 02:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    What sources are you seeing which use "Flap"? I'm seeing more or less 0% use that language. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    I have yet to see any reputable independent sources not affiliated with UFO/skeptic spaces do this. Only Mick West on Twitter, and as he knows as little as apparently even Congress, it would be credulous and absurd to consider him WP:RS (and certainly not WP:NPOV!) on this set of incidents. All of us are in the dark until the government gives up data, it still appears. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    When it comes to ufology and claims of mysterious things in the sky, scientific skeptical sources are the preferred independent reliable sources we should be giving most weight to. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is not a ufology article. It would be irresponsible to frame it thus. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    They are perfectly fine sources, but certainly not preferred... And we should not be giving them undue weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm thinking Mick West is a reliable source for this, by WP:PARITY. I also see this as a UFOlogy article. Geogene (talk) 01:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    0% vs 0.1% does not a common name make... What other sources are you seeing use flap? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    Mick West is quite the expert when it comes to finding out what things in the sky actually are. Doesn't matter if they are being called drones, UFOs, UAPs or alien motherships. So very much RS and NPOV. VdSV9•♫ 13:49, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    How are y'all not finding sources for UFO flap? I see Diana Walsh Pasulka defining here and probably in American Cosmic by Oxford. Lots of results on scholar to look through. fiveby(zero) 05:07, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    I was surprised to see the Google search result for "ufo flap" in quotes. Quite a bit more sources than expected use the term, which apparently has a deep historical context going back to the 1950s. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    You misunderstand, we're lacking sources describing the current event as a "ufo flap" (nobody is questioning whether the term is a thing, the question is whether RS are using it to describe the events (or non-events as the case may be) in New Jersey). If for example we want to make a page which lists various "flaps" we're going to need at least some of them to actually be regularly called that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    So far the term is being used in places like Substack, Medium and the occasional local radio. It is very likely that after 6 months or a year there will be more widespread RS using the term to describe the flap in retrospect. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm less concerned about the current UFO flap being properly categorized than I am with having an article that adequately describes them as a general idea. If this NJ UFO flap never gets called that, no problem. But we still could have a nice article on this subject. jps (talk) 18:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm actually surprised that article doesn't exist. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 18:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    There is a lot of overlap with topics that do exist like List of reported UFO sightings. One spot I see for improvement is that we don't have a dedicated UFO history article which would more or less be an article on UFO flaps. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    The sources seem to indicate that there is something substantively different between a flap and a single sighting. Belgian UFO wave is a flap. Travis Walton UFO incident is not. jps (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Oh then perhaps it is me who is mistaken... I agree that an article on flaps (whatever we want to call them) is valuable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Someone familiar with historical UFO lore could easily create this article. @Feoffer: if this doesn't work we could say his name three times. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:28, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes.. UFO flaps are definitely something we need an article on -- they show the social contagion aspect to the phenomenon, and of course, all the fringe stuff goes in 'flaps'. Spiritualism keeps coming back in flaps, etc. We have an article on the 1947 flying disc craze, and I keep meaning to expand 1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident into the 1952 UFO flap. Feoffer (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you. UFO flap is a good start. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    Talk:Electronic_harassment#Introduction_Violates_WP:MEDRS_and_WP:NPOV

    Someone is arguing that the introduction using the word "delusional belief" to describe the idea that malicious actors are transmitting words and sounds into their heads is violating WP:NPOV. Would be useful to get more eyes on this. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:02, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

    BTW, we now have three articles containing much the same content, which are often targeted (no pun intended) by SPAs seeking to introduce language giving credibility to various fringe claims. Keeping track of the disruptions of similar content among three articles can be difficult.
    It would help if a main article could be identified and content from the satellite articles merged to it leaving a pointer link to the main article.

    - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

    I'd say Electronic harassment and Microwave auditory effect could be merged, but Gang stalking (while including an element of this) is sufficiently unique I'd say it should be a stand-alone article. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:52, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Microwave auditory effect is a reality based phenomenon, though. Just not one that has a lot in common with how the Electronic harassment folks portray it. I don't think merging the actual physics with the delusion stuff is a good idea. We should remove the 'Conspiracy theories' section from Microwave auditory effect and just have a very brief mention with link to Electronic harassment, though. MrOllie (talk) 19:13, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    The Gang stalking article has been the object of some confusion in years past (it doesn't help that some of the cited sources use the phrase "gang stalking" to describe physical surveillance as well as fantastic forms of electronic surveillance such as microwave technology). Somebody added a brief and possibly WP:OR etymology that says it is a type of stalking, but the article quickly identifies the delusion is specific to technological "mind-control weapons", which places it far outside reality-based relationship abuse and social media harassment. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    Should the paragraph on Havana syndrome stay, or should it go with the merge? Also, when the conspiracy stuff is worked out, the following redirects need to be re-targeted: Voice to skull, V2K, and Voice-to-skull. Rjj (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
    Out of curiosity, is there a reason there's not a separate page for Targeted Individuals at this point? We have two pages (possibly more) talking about them, but no page dedicated to an analysis of the community itself. Amranu (talk) 01:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Two is already too many. Content about a single topic should only be split onto multiple pages when they exceed length requirements, and this topic isn't even close to that threshold. MrOllie (talk) 02:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

    Metabolic theory of cancer

    I lack expertise on the topic so I don't know whether the article gives appropriate weight or undue weight to the idea. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

    Appropriate weight, but very badly written and could easily be misconstrued. I'll get to work, since I do have expertise in this area. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

    Flynn effect (again)

    Flynn effect (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    Continued IP edit warring to include WP:PROFRINGE content . This is evidently the same user picking up from where they left off last month . Failure to engage on talk here. I'm going to request page protection as well, but more eyes on the situation would be helpful. Generalrelative (talk) 22:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

    Needs page protection. The IP is likely to be associated with Human Diversity Foundation. The only way to get rid of them is article protection like on the others. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    Second need for protection, seems unlikely to die down on its own Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    ANI is thata way ––>
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    General comment Is FT/N really the right venue to request page protection? At some point, this just becomes WP:CANVASSING. ChopinAficionado (talk) 13:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's not what WP:CANVASSING says. This noticeboard is the appropriate place to request additional eyes on a fringe topic. Note that I requested (and got) page protection at WP:RPP. Generalrelative (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
    The spirit of the law. ChopinAficionado (talk) 17:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

    Gain of function research

    Would appreciate editor input with regards to these edits:

    Discussion is here: Talk:Gain-of-function_research#Covid_Section_Update_reverted. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    This is getting so tiring, a self-admitted WP:PROFRINGE editor pushing and pushing lab leak talking points on multiple articles. There are very good sources on this so writing good content is not hard. Bon courage (talk) 09:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Pushing a partisan as fuck committee report is WP:FRINGE. I think we should be requiring MEDRS level sourcing on this given how politicised it is with people like Rand Paul pushing the conspiracy theories that leads to hyper-partisan committee reports. TarnishedPath 10:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    Hello,

    I am the person who made the edits in question. I am not a "self-admitted fringe editor," the link provided for that claim is to a talk page discussion from an entirely different user.

    I would like to present a succinct argument for my edits;

    1. The United States House of Representatives is not a Fringe source, nor is it a conspiratorial organization.

    2. Reports generated by the US House are not generally considered the "mere opinions" of those politicians who create them, they are generally considered, at the very least, not conspiratorial. (Some even have their own Misplaced Pages articles)

    3. Testimony from a similar event, a US senate hearing, is presented in the paragraph above my proposed edit without any issue.

    4. The edit which I revised, following feedback from other editors, includes secondary source reporting on the primary source, and presents criticism and negative reception of the report, so as to not unduly push one side.

    5. The report in question was submitted by a bipartisan committee of Congressmen and Congresswomen. Some of the key points received bipartisan support. Other points had disagreement. It is not "hyper-partisan dog excrement."

    6. The 500 page report contains mostly hard evidence, including photographs, emails, reports, transcribed sworn testimony, and subpoena testimony. It is not pure conjecture and opinions of the politicians authoring it, it is based on and provides evidence.

    7. The question of "Was there US-funded gain of research in China" is not a question which requires scientific expertise to answer. It is not a scientific question, in the way that something like "What are the cleavage sites on a protein" would be. It is a logistical and budgetary question. Thus, the fact that the authors of this report are not scientists is irrelevant and, as the body which is in control of the budget, is exactly within their expertise.

    8. Sources which disapprove of the study and respond to it negatively should absolutely be included. But the fact that some secondary sources disapprove of the study is not a reason to exclude it. BabbleOnto (talk) 21:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    1. The US House of Representatives is full of non-experts touting conspiracy theories. Odd that you would think otherwise.
    2. Reports generated by the US House are representative of the members who produced them or sponsored their production. Since (1) is true, it is absolutely possible for reports from the US House to be problematic and not representative of the best and most reliable attestations to reality.
    3.Testimony is only as reliable as the person giving the testimony. Many people giving testimony before Congress are unreliable.
    4. If a source reports on a primary source with criticism and negative reaction, it may be that the primary source does not deserve inclusion.
    5. The bipartisanship of a committee is irrelevant to whether the points in question are problematic. Just because a committee is bipartisan does not mean that the offending text is therefore beyond reproach or apolitical.
    6. "Hard evidence" in the context of academic science needs to be published in relevant academic journal and subject to appropriate peer review.
    7. "Gain of research" is obviously a typo, but illustrates the point well that expertise is needed to determine whether or not there is any relevant concerns about research funding. The report authors do not seem to have that expertise. Simply being called by Congress is not sufficient.
    8. We have rules for exclusion as outlined in my response to point (4).
    I think this response illustrates that, intentionally or not, you are functioning as a WP:PROFRINGE WP:POVPUSHer. This is not allowed at Misplaced Pages.
    jps (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    1. Your opinion on the current members of the house is irrelevant. The US Congress is not a fringe source. See my example provided.
    2. You just asserted the opposite of my point without any explanation. This isn't a refutation.
    3. Unless you're arguing any specific testimony in the report is false, that is true, but irrelevant.
    4. Secondary sources reporting on any topic will be both positive and negative, depending on their own biases. The presence of negative reviews is not dispositive to a source's inclusion.
    5. The bipartisanship of the committee is completely relevant to the charge that it should be excluded because it is "hyper-partisan."
    6. "Did the US fund gain-of-function research in China" is not a question which is scientific in nature. Scientific expertise in the field of gain-of-function research is not required to answer that question.
    7. "Did the US fund gain-of-function research in China" is not a question which is scientific in nature.
    8. See point 4.
    And I do not appreciate threats being left on my talk page. Extremely inappropriate. BabbleOnto (talk) 02:39, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    At the very least, it looks like this editor is coming in extremely hot based on the WP:IDHT responses I'm seeing just above my reply to you. With the attitude I'm seeing, it looks like they're heading to the cliff where something at WP:AE or an admin here acting under the COVID CT restrictions due to WP:ADVOCACY, bludgeoning, etc. would be needed. Controversial topics are not the place for new editors to coming in hot while "learning the ropes" and exhaust the community, so this seems like a pretty straightforward case for a topic ban to address that. KoA (talk) 22:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I directly addressed or refuted the challenges levied against my points. In what way can you claim my responses are WP:IDHT?
    Which of my comments did I fail to substantively defend? I will be happy to do so now. BabbleOnto (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    What is your goal here? jps (talk) 01:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm trying to have the rules, policies, and guidelines, applied.
    The source I've been trying to cite very clearly does not violate WP:FRINGE or WP:UNDUE. A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe" as defined by WP:FRINGE, nor can the reports of it be considered "Unsubstantial," as defined by WP:UNDUE.
    Yet, so long as 2 people disagree with source, more specifically, personally disagree with the findings or have a personal vendetta against its authors, it does not matter that my edit is perfectly legitimate and rule-abiding, it will be removed as "Against the consensus."
    Which is not inherently bad, I'm willing to change the edit in response to criticism. But, despite my many efforts to compromise or edit the change, change the wording, add context, add secondary sources, those in opposition refuse to hear any compromise or even provide any constructive criticism.
    There are parts of the article which neither side disagrees are, are as matter of pure fact, incorrect. However, I'm unable to change them, because one side will not approve any source that I use.
    I'm making my case here because I feel I've reached an impasse where the current consensus refuses to listen to any reasonable changes, or any changes at all, even to statements everyone has agreed are just factually wrong. BabbleOnto (talk) 02:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    A bunch of politicians certainly can be WP:FRINGE. In every country politicians are known to spout the most arrant nonsense, especially when it comes to science. The burgeoning antiknowledge movement in the USA as exemplified by the current incident is just another example of this. That we have editors signed-up to the same agenda trying to bend Misplaced Pages that way, is a problem. As always, the solution is to use the WP:BESTSOURCES. Bon courage (talk) 03:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I mean . While it doesn't deal that much with the science, I'm fairly sure there is probably some science nonsense in it, and there are far worse reports. Then there is United States House Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood which again mostly not dealing with science AFAIK, did deal with it enough to result in this . While not from the house, there was also the infamous Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis#National Cancer Institute demonstrating that even US federal government agencies aren't immune to publishing nonsense due to political interference. 05:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC) Nil Einne (talk) 05:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    New user has absolute faith in something that is clearly not a reliable source and insists on including it. This is a WP:CIR issue and a topic ban would be a good idea. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    Agreed. We've had more competent editors receive indefs for pushing WP:FRINGE in this topic area. TarnishedPath 11:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I like that you decided to pull out wikipedia articles which contain, by your own words "far worse reports." Wouldn't the fact these "Worse" reports are still allowed in the articles be evidence for my point? If worse sources are still allowed in under the rules, why would this "better" source not be? BabbleOnto (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    This reply I think best sums up what I have to work with; it is the consensus of other editors that the US Congress is a secret, fringe, conspiratorial group which is secretly manufacturing fake evidence and putting out false reports to prevent the REAL TRUTH from getting out to true believers.
    And I'M the one labeled the conspiracist for disagreeing. BabbleOnto (talk) 18:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    Nobody said "secret". That group has been quite openly anti-science for decades. See The Republican War on Science. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    I directly addressed or refuted the challenges levied against my points. No. You responded. However, in your response, you have displayed the inability or unwillingness to understand what was being explained to you. That's IDHT. You continuing to claim that A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe" shows that you're missing the point. As does the repetition that nor can the reports of it be considered "Unsubstantial," as defined by WP:UNDUE. even though an explanation has been given on how these reports absolutely can be completely biased, politically motivated, and from a "quality of the source" perspective - be it scientifically, journalistic or just factually -, it is deemed unreliable. VdSV9•♫ 13:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe"
    There has been no substantive explanation of this. Only repeated assertions that it is true, and then an expression of an author's personal dislike for Republicans or the government in general. That is not an explanation as to why the statement, an objective statement, is true.
    even though an explanation has been given on how these reports absolutely can be completely biased, politically motivated, and from a "quality of the source" perspective - be it scientifically, journalistic or just factually -, it is deemed unreliable
    Nobody is arguing that the article should be replaced by this report. However, the US Congress's position is very clearly a prominent position. And again, I know you personally believe the US Congress can't be trusted, but WP:UNDUE actually says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." The US Congress's viewpoint is a significant one, and even if you dislike the original source, there are dozens of reliable secondary sources reporting on it. BabbleOnto (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    You're blatantly wrong here. Politicians saying "science is wrong" is as FRINGE as it gets. 208.87.236.180 (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    A question of how much money, if any, was allocated to a certain project, is not a scientific question. BabbleOnto (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    We define what is WP:FRINGE based on the WP:BESTSOURCES. A politician with no expertise in medicine is a terrible source for anything related to diseases, and therefore carries no weight in discussion over whether a particular position is WP:FRINGE or not. There are mainstream politicians who deny evolution; that does not change the fact that that denial is a fringe perspective among the best available sources on the topic. Misplaced Pages's purpose, as an encyclopedia, is not to be an arbitrary reflection of what random politicians believe or what the gut feeling of random people on the street might be; it's to summarize the very best sources on every topic (which, in most cases, means academic sources with relevant expertise.) Keep in mind that WP:FRINGE doesn't mean that we omit a position entirely; in an article about government responses to COVID, we could reasonably cover the opinions of lawmakers who contribute to that response, even if their opinions are medically fringe. But our core articles on the topic will be written according to the conclusions of the parts of the medical establishment that have relevant expertise; the gut feelings of politicians with no relevant expertise have no weight or place there at all. --Aquillion (talk) 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    A politician with no expertise in medicine is a terrible source for anything related to diseases
    The question of 'was there US-funded gain of function research in China" is not an epidemiological question, and is not remotely scientific in nature.
    You're just not addressing why this question is scientific. You're just skipping past that part. Why does an Epidemiologist have to testify as to the US budget? What would they possibly know about Congressional funding? BabbleOnto (talk) 07:02, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    The question what constitutes 'gain of function research' is very much is a scientific question and thus by extension the question "was there US-funded gain of function research in China" is also a scientific one. TarnishedPath 07:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's a nonsense point. By that logic, the JFK assassination report could not be used to support the claim that JFK died unless a journal by the American Coroner's Association agreed with it. BabbleOnto (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    The Member Magazine Of The American society for biochemistry and molecular biology quotes Nicholas Evans as saying "No one knows exactly what counts as gain-of-function, so we disagree as to what needs oversight, much less what that oversight should be". Evans specializes in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.
    It is a subject of active debate within the scientific community. Therefore politicians are out of their depth talking about whether there was "US-funded gain of function research in China" when scientists don't agree what that is. TarnishedPath 02:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    I originally also had an edit which attempts to discuss this which was also removed. BabbleOnto (talk) 19:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    First off, you don't know anything about what I personally believe about anything. Looks like you're both poisoning the well and mistaking me for jps... Second, and, of course, more relevant here: a report sponsored by members of Congress is not "The Congress's viewpoint". Thirdly, even if they had an assembly where they discussed the matter and voted or whatever it would take to make something "The Congress's viewpoint", it's questionable if whatever conclusion they came to would be deemed a reliable source and IF that warrants being included in an encyclopedic article about the subject they discussed. Explaining it further would just be repeating what I and others have said before. About your other point of there being articles about other, worse, reports. These reports and their coverage are reliable sources for the articles that talk about the reports themselves. The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are notable enough to get their own articles, not that it's a reliable source. What you are asking for is more akin to using the "findings" of the report mentioned by Hob Gadling on something like Use of fetal tissue in vaccine development or other fetal tissue research related article. VdSV9•♫ 14:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are notable enough to get their own articles
    This report has also been covered by reliable secondary sources. Why then can this source not at least be mentioned? BabbleOnto (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Notability is not the same as reliability. The fact that these have been covered by secondary sources means they are notable enough to get their own articles, it doesn't mean they are reliable to be used as a source of information in articles other than the ones about themselves. That was the whole point I was trying to make above, please read again. VdSV9•♫ 19:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    If the fact that they were covered by secondary sources doesn't make them reliable, then you never addressed my original point, which is why are other House Reports considered reliable, but this one isn't? BabbleOnto (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    VdSV9's last remark is related to WP:ONEWAY. Article about wackos talking about scientific subjects: Sources talking about wackos talking about scientific subjects are OK. Article about scientific subjects such as this one: Sources talking about wackos talking about scientific subjects are not OK. You need to understand that context matters. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

    A branch of the US government cannot, in any meaningful way, be called "Fringe" Watch me. If it can happen once in an obvious fashion, it can happen again. Ours is not the job to decide it happened, but when reliable sources identify it happening, we aren't in the business of declaring categorically, as though there is something magical about the US Government, that the reliable sources can't possibly have identified something fringe-y being promoted within the hallowed halls of the US Government. jps (talk) 19:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

    It seems that we have to have this conversation about conspiracism in the US house of representatives regularly. There's a similar conflict at Havana Syndrome because some of the conspiracists in the US house believe the CIA is covering up Russian involvement in the proposed syndrome for vague, poorly defined, reasons. Simonm223 (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    • Yes, the key thing to understand about WP:FRINGE is that it is about where a view stands in relation to the best sources on the subject; it's not a measure of what random people think or what arbitrary big names on unrelated topics believe. This is one of the oldest elements of our fringe policies (since a lot of the policy was hammered out in relation to the creation-evolution controversy, where there very much was a significant political structure devoted to pushing fringe theories aobut it); just because a particular senator doubts evolution doesn't make that perspective non-fringe. Members of the US government are only reliable sources on, at best, the opinions of the US government itself, and even then they'd be a WP:PRIMARY and often self-interested source for that, to be used cautiously. The WP:BESTSOURCES on eg. COVID are medical experts, not politicians (who may have an inherent motivation to grandstand, among other things) with no relevant expertise. Something that is clearly fringe among medical experts remains fringe even if every politician in the US disagrees. --Aquillion (talk) 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      1. There are findings which are non-scientific which the report would be used to prove, namely whether or not the US government funded gain-of-function research in China. This is not a scientific claim, and the US government has the absolute most authority on that issue. There is no reason any given medical expert would be qualified at all to talk about this, as it is a logistical and budgetary question, not a scientific or medical one.
      2. There are also findings which are bipartisan. That is, they aren't just the opinions of one or two, or even an entire party's worth of politicians. They are agreed upon by all members of the committee, Republican and Democrat. That is drastically and categorically different than trying to cite one politician's personal opinion as fact.
      3. The remaining claims are still substantial, even if you or a large majority of people disagree with them, as a documentation of a significant viewpoint as required under WP:UNDUE. As paraphrased:
      If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents
      Clearly the US government is "prominent," even if you believe they're secretly a cabal of anti-scientific fringe conspirators who seek to manipulate the fabric of reality to hide the REAL truth. BabbleOnto (talk) 05:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      It is not a usable source. You need to drop the WP:STICK. Bon courage (talk) 05:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      Yes. You've made your opinion abundantly clear. But you have never once provided a valid reason, other than "more people agree with me, so our interpretation of the rule wins."
      I have, at every turn, proven how the source fits the rules. You are overturning the rules in favor of your own, politically motivated consensus. BabbleOnto (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      You have, at every turn, proven that you do not understand the rules. Opposing pseudoscience is not politically motivated just because the pseudoscience is politically motivated. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      I have consistently proven how my edits fall within the rules. The response has been "We interpret the rules differently and we have a majority, so what's actually written means what we say it does." BabbleOnto (talk) 22:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
      No, that has not been the response. You do not understand the response or you do not want to understand it. I suggest you should first learn the Misplaced Pages rules in a less fringey topic. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    The Men Who Stare At Goats Is one of Ronson's best works and illustrative of exactly why placing blind faith in the judgements of the government or military on scientific matters is tantamount to intellectually throwing in the towel and giving up on reality. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    I find this logic hilarious when just 4 years ago good-faith editors get banned for not trusting the government sources or trying to exclude the government as a source on lockdowns and social distancing. Go and read the discussion boards on social distancing from 2020, as I just have. I hope you understand that WP's new opinion of "Government primary sources cannot be used," was literally the exact opposite just four years ago. BabbleOnto (talk) 19:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's a Strawman. No one is saying that a political report from the legislative branch and the output of public health agencies like the CDC are the same thing. Please try to engage with the arguments others are actually making. MrOllie (talk) 19:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Amongst other secondary sources, I've been trying to cite to the DHHS report about EcoHealth. How is that a strawman to point out that the CDC is a completely valid source, but I have been prevented from adding a DHHS report? Do you know what a strawman is? BabbleOnto (talk) 22:43, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    It feels like we're dealing with a WP:MASTADON here. You've been warned about WP:AE sanctions and you don't seem to be accepting what others are telling you. How do you want to proceed? jps (talk) 20:25, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    You've been warned about WP:AE sanctions and you don't seem to be accepting what others are telling you
    I haven't edited anything since being warned. I've complied and haven't tried to edit the article or revert my changes. Don't know what you're threatening here.
    How do you want to proceed?
    I would like the parts of the article which are demonstrably false, and supported by perennially approved secondary sources other than the house report and reporting thereto, rectified. Such as the DHHS barring EcoHealth from receiving funds (Other DHHS reports are cited in the article, and the article still says that EcoHealth was cleared from wrongdoing).
    I would of course think at least some mention of the house report, even if negatively, even if only to highlight the secondary source's reception of it, is worthy. But I believe at this point I think some editors are too unwilling to compromise to consider that but, I'll throw it out there. BabbleOnto (talk) 21:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    Okay. Well, if you're willing to WP:DROPTHESTICK, I'm sure we can happily help you find other places at this massive project to invest your volunteer time. Maybe give it six months and see if the landscape has changed. After all, there is WP:NODEADLINE. jps (talk) 20:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    I haven't edited anything since being warned. I've complied and haven't tried to edit the article or revert my changes. Don't know what you're threatening here.
    Conduct on noticeboards and talk pages is actionable by WP:AE in WP:CTOPs. TarnishedPath 23:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    Please watch

    Please consider putting Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine/Psychiatry task force on your watchlist, or subscribing to the talk page, so you can get an Echo/Notification of any new topics created on the page. It is an under-watched page and gets some fringe-related messages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    Yakub (Nation of Islam)

    Not sure about the new edits. My watchlist has never been so strange as in the last 12 hours. Doug Weller talk 10:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

    Do you have specific concerns? Looking over the changes, nothing jumped out at me as horrifically problematic, but I'm not reading that closely. Feoffer (talk) 10:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    Just wanted a sanity check. :) Also seems ok to me. Doug Weller talk 11:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry if any edits were problematic! I am interested in strange things. It's a bit awkward writing the... plot? When it's something like this, but it's unavoidable. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

    The Black Monk of Pontefract

    Massive reconstruction of a REDIRECTed article places WP:UNDUE weight on a single WP:FRINGE source. Article body loaded with credulous claims in WP voice. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

    "Starving" cancer

    Some new accounts/IPs seem unhappy that the "Quackery" section of Lancet Oncology is being cited to call out the quackery in play here. More eyes needed. Bon courage (talk) 17:53, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

    Thomas N. Seyfried

    Thomas N. Seyfried is a biochemistry professor who probably passes WP:PROF who seems mainly notable for going on podcasts to tell cancer patients to reject chemotherapy in favour of going on a keto diet. Gorski on Science Based Medicine did a good article on him and his claims , which in light of current RfC alas looks unusable. The article has been subject to persistent whitewashing attempts by IPs (one of which geolocates to where Seyfried works) and SPAs, and additional eyes would be appreciated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

    I think he's notable for doing well-cited work on diet/metabolism and (mainly brain) cancer in mouse models, some of which on a quick glance seems reasonably mainstream (see eg Annual Reviews research overview doi:10.1146/annurev-nutr-013120-041149), but notorious for attempting to translate that early research (at best prematurely) into medical advice for people with cancer. We should probably avoid mentioning the issue at all, as none of the sources (either his or those debunking it) fall within the medical project's referencing standards for medical material. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    People are looking up Seyfried specifically because he is coming onto podcasts to make these claims , and if we omit them then Seyfried looks like a distinguished scientist giving mainstream advice, when he is saying things against the medical consensus. I think it would be better to delete the article than to omit this information. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:03, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I fear the problem is that he genuinely is a distinguished scientist, even if he is currently talking in areas in which he appears not to be qualified. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    Modern science and Hinduism

    I presume that new article Modern science and Hinduism could do with a thorough check. Fram (talk) 09:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

    Despite the head note about not confusing it with Vedic science, most of it seems to be about Vedic science. And quite apart from anything else, most of the body of the article seems to be a paraphrase of reference 8. The headings are pretty much identical. Brunton (talk) 09:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    The same editor has also started a draft at Draft:Hindu Science Draft with some of the same content. Brunton (talk) 11:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I boldy redirected to vedic science as an alternative to a WP:TNT. I judge maybe a half dozen sentences/ideas may be useful to incorporate over there. jps (talk) 19:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Vedic science itself needs some serious work, particularly given the appropriation of the term by Hindutva. JoelleJay (talk) 21:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Agreed. If nothing else, the creator has pointed out a gaping hole in our coverage. We need something along the lines of an article on Hindutva pseudoscience. Maybe a spin-out from Hindutva itself? jps (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    many religions use science apologism to justify faith. best to understand they are mostly means to justify religion to those insecure about it, but pseudoscience might be incorrect term of talking about it.
    I don't mean to say that science proving hinduism right should be taken as a fact (def would break NPOV), but that we would also be wrong to dismiss the beliefs of a worshipper as "pseudoscience" when "religious faith" and "scientific apologism" would be the more correct term to describe this. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    an example of an article section covering scientific apologism a bit better Islamic_attitudes_towards_science#Miracle_literature_(Tafsir'ilmi) Bluethricecreamman (talk) 00:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    When there is a concerted effort to replace certain scientific disciplines with religious-inspired belief, that is pretty classic pseudoscience. There are plenty of pieces from respected scientists who are aware of the current political/religious arguments being proffered against scientific understanding within the context of Hindutva who call this kind of posturing "pseudoscience". Misplaced Pages need not shy away from this designation. jps (talk) 23:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I trimmed most of the unsourced puffery added on 21 November. Frankly though whether the article should exist at all should be examined; it might be ripe for AfD. Crossroads 22:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    The creator of the article had the username "HindutvaWarriors" until a bit over a week ago. Brunton (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Gonna add a reference section to the bottom of the article.CycoMa2 (talk) 22:41, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

    The main paper promoting hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment has been withdrawn.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04014-9

    I doubt this'll shut up the pro-fringe users, but now all of their "evidence" can be tossed outright. 2603:7080:8F00:49F1:8D86:230:8528:4CDC (talk) 23:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

    Just to be clear, the paper was retracted by the journal's co-owners. The word "withdrawn" is often associated with an action taken by a paper's authors, which is not the situation here. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you for the clarification. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Social_thinking

    No clue if it's a fringe therapy for autism or not... apparently theres at least one scientific article discussing it as a pseudoscience , but i can't really tell if it falls under that or not. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    David and Stephen Flynn

    There is an ongoing effort at David and Stephen Flynn to remove or whitewash these individual's medical misinformation section. I believe additional eyes would be helpful on this page. --VVikingTalkEdits 15:35, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    On the noticeboard Biographies of living persons I've requested help because this situation needs a review by neutral, experienced editors to ensure compliance with Misplaced Pages’s neutrality and verifiability guidelines.
    The previous edits are one-sided, hence several attempts have been made to improve the neutrality of the section by adding balanced context and reliable sources to reflect differing perspectives.
    In the "careers" section, edits have repeatedly removed references to David and Stephen Flynn stopping collaboration with Russell Brand, implying continued support despite this not being true.
    Specific concerns with the medical section include:
    1. The section title “Medical Misinformation” is to make it sensational; hence, changed it into “Health Advice and Public Response” instead.
    2. Peer-reviewed studies and mainstream media articles, were added for context but reverted without justification.
    3. Efforts to clarify the Flyns’ acknowledgment of errors and removal of contentious content have also been ignored. SabLovesSunshine (talk) 17:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've started a convo on the article talk page. Please continue there. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

    Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    Some WP:PROFRINGE editing from an account with <1000 edits. I don't have time to engage with them further over the holiday (and I'm at 3RR on this article anyway). Other experienced editors are invited to take a look. Note this response I left on their user talk page to their most recent revert. Cheers, Generalrelative (talk) 00:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

    You added a cite and I quoted it verbatim. If it's a fringe source, why did you add it? Hi! (talk) 09:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
    You quoted it selectively to highlight a caveat as though it were the central point of the piece. This looked an awful lot like WP:POINT, as did your subsequent edits to the page. Generalrelative (talk) 13:57, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
    Just noticed Turkheimer had this out in November: Turkheimer, Eric. "IQ, Race, and Genetics". Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate. Understanding Life. Cambridge University Press. fiveby(zero) 18:20, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

    Cult whitewashing

    See , , and . tgeorgescu (talk) 02:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    I've reverted them. I see long-term Grail SPA @Creolus: whitewashed the Abd's article two months ago so I just reverted them as well. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:55, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    Also noting for posterity that I've managed to find another decent English-language source on the topic , don't know if there are any more in German. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yup, in his Grail Message he distinguished between the Son of God (Jesus Christ) and the Son of Man (himself). The morals of the book was that Christ was a loser, while Bernhardt is a winner. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:50, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    I really feel that if you are to stay objective, then you should look at the evidence to come to a conclusion. It's not whitewashing if you choose to use the author's exact words to represent his legacy whilst stating the interpretation of others which are not really in accord with the author's wishes or actions.
    And worthy of note, I'm not a member of the grail movement but even they shouldn't be banned from editing if the content brought is true and verifiable. 2A00:23C8:E70F:C001:A5BF:3554:E7D:7FCF (talk) 03:54, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    Hmmm... that's not how Misplaced Pages works. We prefer WP:IS WP:SECONDARY sources written by real scholars to a WP:IN-UNIVERSE view of the religious believers. See emic and etic.
    Also, religious preachers often state "Go left!" when they go right. We don't take WP:PRIMARY religious writings at face value. We don't take Bernhardt's statement that he preaches the rationally intelligible version of Jesus's message, but essentially the same message, at face value.
    He knew that saying "Let's do like the primary Christians" was tantamount to founding a new sect. Because there were plenty of historical examples of that. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:20, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    use the author's exact words to represent his legacy
    No. That's just propaganda, not reliably sourced information. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:58, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    Service: Grail Movement (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
    For those who are already watching the article and do not want to destroy their last-version-seen bookmark by clicking directly on a newer version. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    For what it's worth I've comprehensively rewritten the article on the Grail Movement based on the very useful encyclopedia entry. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:43, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
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