Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:20, 11 March 2008

This is the page for coordinating the upcoming interview of User:Martinphi and User:ScienceApologist concerning science-related articles on Misplaced Pages.

Ground rules

There will be two parallel interviews of ScienceApologist and Martinphi, discussing issues which surround the community debate over how to present fringe topics on Misplaced Pages. User:Zvika will be the interviewer.

Questions can be proposed below by any interested party. Of these, 6-7 questions will be selected by Zvika and placed in a subpage of this page. The interviewees will be given ample time (say, 3-4 days?) to post their responses on that subpage. The interviewees are asked to respond in a polite and peaceful manner. Subsequently, Zvika may ask some clarification questions, and may edit the answers for length (the goal is that each interview will be approximately 1500 words long). When the interview is complete, it will be published in the Signpost or some similar public location. Discussion concerning the interview can take place in the matching talk page, but the interview itself will not be further modified.

Martinphi and ScienceApologist, if you agree, please sign here to indicate your acceptance of the procedure:

• ScienceApologist (talk) 18:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
• ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed questions

Anybody with an interest in this interview may propose questions for the interview here. Please sign your name.

Questions for both interviewees

• What are your jobs and affiliations in real life? What degrees do you have from which institutions? Why did you get involved with Misplaced Pages? What drew you to controversial topics related to science/pseudoscience/the paranormal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScienceApologist (talk • contribs) 10 March 2008, 18:44 (UTC)

• What are the origins and underlying causes of the so-called 'fringe wars' on Misplaced Pages?
• What is pseudoscience? How should Misplaced Pages report on it?
• Is WP:CIV being emphasized - at the expense of NPOV?
• What makes a source reliable and verifiable when dealing with extraordinary claims?
• How is NPOV applied when describing subjects that run counter to scientific explanations of reality?
• Is there an existing Misplaced Pages article which you feel serves as a 'model' example of correct (re FRINGE, NPOV, WEIGHT, etc) treatment of a fringe subject?

66.30.77.62 (talk)

• What is your interpretation of NPOV and specifically WEIGHT in cases where POVs departing from the scientific mainstream have many proponents? For example, in your opinion, what would be the correct structure of the article on Young Earth creationism? --Zvika (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• In a recent AN/I thread, east.718 commented that: "dmins will enforce civility with blocks, which is good - however they hit and run: they take no action with regards to the violations of NPOV, RS, V, UNDUE, FRINGE, TE, DE, SOCK, etc. that led to the incivil outburst. I am guilty of this too. It would be more helpful if we struck the root of the problem, squashing the civility issue as ancillary." To what extent (if any) does this comment apply to the contentious areas of WP in which you edit? Jay*Jay (talk) 15:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• ArbCom have made decisions which relate to some of the problem areas under discussion, in cases including (but not limited to) Pseudoscience, Paranormal, Martinphi-ScienceApologist, and Matthew Hoffman. Comment on the role of ArbCom decisions and actions or inactions in ameliorating or exacerbating the problems relating to contentious articles. Jay*Jay (talk) 15:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• What methods do you use to distinguish between accurate summarization and cherry-picking in a heterogeneous body of literature? That is, if some studies say X but others say Y, how do you assure yourself that your edits fairly represent the field as a whole? - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 18:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Questions for Martinphi

-Do you feel your reputation as a fringe advocate is inaccurate or unfair? 66.30.77.62 (talk)

Questions for ScienceApologist

-Do you feel your reputation as a science advocate is inaccurate or unfair? 66.30.77.62 (talk)

Q1. On his User Page, ScienceApologist (SA) summarily dismisses Marcello Truzzi’s idea that claims need to be investigated thoroughly before being rejected. However, far from being Truzzi’s “idiosyncratic” view as SA suggests, this idea is actually central to scientific skepticism. This can be seen by, for example, its inclusion in the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s charter: “ not reject claims on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, but examine them objectively and carefully.”

Given that SA portrays himself as a staunch advocate of scientific skepticism, my question is this: did he deliberately misrepresent the central status this idea has within scientific skepticism, or did he genuinely not know about it?

Q2. (On the same point as Q1 above.) Given the fundamental difference between SA’s views and mainstream scientific skeptics such as CSI regarding what a skeptic must do prior to rejecting a claim; and given the central position held by things like experimentation and observation within the scientific method, what gives SA his certainty that a claim is false, and what methods does he use to determine this, if not careful and objective examination? SixHorseParley (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)