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Revision as of 14:53, 7 January 2022 editLuckyLouie (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers27,101 editsm →Firestorm at WP:COIN about editor Susan Gerbic and GSoW: link repair← Previous edit Revision as of 15:14, 7 January 2022 edit undoHob Gadling (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users18,374 edits →Firestorm at WP:COIN about editor Susan Gerbic and GSoWNext edit →
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:"Firestorm" is an apt description, I think, and rarely has such a brouhaha made me universally think less of those involved (including myself). Cheers, and Happy Friday! ] (]) 13:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC) :"Firestorm" is an apt description, I think, and rarely has such a brouhaha made me universally think less of those involved (including myself). Cheers, and Happy Friday! ] (]) 13:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
::Just read through all of it. Yuck.
::@]: I recommend the term ] instead of ]. The element of publicly denouncing people for having contacts to others who have contacts to... and so on, is present in all three cases, but a comparison to McCarthyism fits better here since nobody is being imprisoned, tortured or killed.
::@Nobody specific: I myself am happy when fringe people accuse skeptics of witch-hunting because that is an easy-to-refute weakness in their reasoning. Sorry if I sound like a wiseass, but if we are the good guys and in the right, then we have good reasons and do not need bad ones. With that attitude, when we suddenly notice that we do, then we know we are wrong. --] (]) 15:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

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    Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
    ShortcutsBefore posting, make sure you understand this short summary of relevant policies and advice and particularly the guideline on treating fringe theories. Also, check the archives for similar discussions.

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    Body language

    Body language (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    While looking up some claims from proponents of the use of body language for lie detection and other types of questionable inferences, I found that this article has many credulous-sounding claims referenced to questionable sources. Has anyone here looked at this and related articles? Am I off the mark in thinking this is pushing pseudoscience?

    Oculesics, for instance, seems quite the Fringe-fest. The "List of emotions", by the middle of the page, apparently mainly sourced from a "changingminds.org", is very questionable.

    I'll try to work on these when I get some time, but thought I'd ask the kind folks here in the meantime. Cheers! VdSV9•♫ 20:25, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    As a rule of thumb, anything relating to body language that is used to "uncover" things will lack genuine evidence. Also, for the most part, the culturally dependent nature of body language means that any claims that are apparently global are unlikely to be true. We're not even entirely sure about exactly how many fundamental/universal human emotions there are, or how many different emotions there are. You're going to need review papers on those articles to get anything trustworthy. The oculesics article is atrocious, by the way. --Xurizuri (talk) 13:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    My thoughts, exactly! Thank you. VdSV9•♫ 18:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Global warming skeptic, climate change skeptic

    Do we use that euphemism, even when talking about prominent deniers?

    All have recently been changed to "denialist" by an IP, then today reverted to "skeptic" by User:Peter Gulutzan. Not sure how to handle this. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

    The IPv6 might have done more damage than that, I can't tell. If these people (most of whom are alive) have not expressed a fringe view then it's inappropriate to bring them up on this page, but suggesting changes with reliable sourcing on the articles in question, and seeking consensus, without canvassing, is appropriate for the cases that have not been discussed already. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:04, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    In general, "skeptic" in such cases is used as a propaganda tactic and does not describe any real skepticism. Follow the best references, and be very careful of using "skeptic". --Hipal (talk) 22:12, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yeah, that's not usually how the term skeptic is used. That term refers to pro-science people responding to pseudoscience. But, in this case, you have anti-science people pushing false claims about settled science. So denialist is the accurate term here, not skeptic. Silverseren 22:26, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    If these people have not expressed a fringe view That is counterfactual. They did express fringe views, obviously. If you still believe that climate change denial is not fringe, then maybe you should not edit articles about that topic until you learn more about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The National Center for Science Education has a good take on this. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yes, I would air on the side of whatever secondary sources call them. In most of these cases, the answer is "denialist" or "doubter" or "contrarian." "skeptic" is what many of these people would prefer to be called, but that does not necessarily make it the correct moniker. — Shibbolethink 01:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    A post on a noticeboard is not WP:CANVASSing, —PaleoNeonate – 16:54, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The terms are often interchangeable (as well as easily weaponized to easily dismiss an argument), but not necessarily so: the Encyclopedia of Global Warming edited by Steven I. Dutch describes Craig D. Idso thusly: "he argues that atmospheric carbon dioxide does affect air temperature and that it may be good for plant growth." When possible, loaded phrases and labels should be replaced with more nuanced descriptions, and probably not shoe-horned into first place in the first sentence: the same encyclopedia introduces Idso and his father as geographer and physicist, respectively, not "climate change skeptic/denier" right off the bat. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:27, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    A difference is that WP should tell when it's erroneous, —PaleoNeonate – 23:37, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    "Skeptic" is itself a loaded term, in that it brings its own connotations: carefully considering the evidence, arriving at thoughtful conclusions, etc. These are often the wrong connotations, as Shibbolethink pointed out above. XOR'easter (talk) 16:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

    Mātauranga Māori

    The prejudice against mātauranga as science derives from historical attitudes and concepts of Enlightenment science and that it is concerned about the history of science rather than the current scientific method.

    There seems to be a kerfuffle in New Zealand, with the Royal Society there claiming that Mātauranga Māori is a "way of knowing" on par with science, and scientists being admonished for disagreeing. Jerry Coyne has been writing about it on for a while, comparing it with the conflict between creationism and science in the US. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

    Seems very similar to the "Indigenous ways of knowing" article that was deleted earlier this year, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:18, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The quoted sentence should perhaps be rephrased as an attributed opinion. As for the broader concerns, well, American young-Earth creationists never used Biblical literalism to navigate the Pacific. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    Actually the statement is true - European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind it. You've also not included the citation in your quote - it's not entirely clear from the way the paragraph is structured, but the citation at the end of that paragraph also supports the sentence you quoted. As XOR'easter said, it's no mean feat to navigate the Pacific (or, as another example, wipe out the moa). I can't comment on the modern rigour of testing in mātauranga, but I'll note that the Royal Society is hardly a fringe source, and that Jerry Coyne's blog, or the opinions of a small group of assorted scientists, aren't exactly RS. Don't be so fast to discredit other sources of knowledge - unless the goal is to begin believing a book (or a journal) knows everything. In summary, find some reliable sources and don't guess. This is a complex topic. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    What is "European science"? Homeopathy, maybe? That would be one European equivalent of, say, Traditional Chinese Medicine. Science is not continent-specific, and that any discrediting is "unfair" is just your opinion.
    The logic "someone who knows how to build and use a ship and how to kill animals must be right about everything else too" does not really hold water either. "Other ways of knowing" are like "alternative facts", and please refrain from all those strawmen. Nobody said Coyne's website was RS. Coyne links to other sources though. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yes, science is not continent-specific. No, practical survival skills don't imply empirical correctness about all things. The point is that a body of cultural inheritance that includes actually empirically successful knowledge isn't analogous to American creationism in a straightforward way. (As Carl Sagan said in The Demon-Haunted World, Certain kinds of folk knowledge are valid and priceless. Others are at best metaphors and codifiers. Ethnomedicine, yes; astrophysics, no.) There are ways that "indigenous knowledge" could fit into a science class taught with a historical perspective, just like introductory college physics explains Ptolemaic epicycles. In turn, it is very easy to portray neutral-to-helpful efforts to do that kind of thing and make science more culturally engaging as nefarious attempts to devalue science. At a distance, through the haze of culture-warring, it can be hard to tell the former from the latter. This is particularly true when the efforts to do the former are described in public-relations pablum, in which the Royal Society Te Apārangi indulges as much as any Society. Coyne, who is willing to cite the Daily Mail on this, seems a poor starting point for a genuinely messy topic. XOR'easter (talk) 16:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Well, that's the thing about comparisons: if Mātauranga Māori were 100% identical with creationism, it would be a synonym and not a comparison. Every time somebody compares A with B, there will not only be similarities but also differences, and somebody else will unfailingly point out that there are differences, as if that would invalidate the comparison. Must be a natural law or something.
    I just wanted to draw attention to the subject and say where I got it from, as a starting point. Coyne has a certain POV, but he quotes lots of sources in lots of blogposts, not just the Daily Mail. I had never heard about Mātauranga Māori before, but the conflict does remind me of Vine Deloria's creationism as well as of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese medicine, and the claim European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind it surely reinforces those associations.
    You are right: without concrete examples, the question "who is right?" cannot be answered, but that is not the point here anyway. The point is to draw attention to the articles connected to this, with ensuing improvement thereof. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I was also thinking of "allopathic medicine" vs "European science", strawmen to present a flawed description of "science", to disregard actual science, —PaleoNeonate – 21:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Might be worth checking out the articles on the authors of this letter, most of which were seemingly created by one editor as coatracks for criticizing them: Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Doug Elliffe, Robert Nola, Elizabeth Rata, John Werry. JoelleJay (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now those links are useful. The articles about the signers seem to be in large part identical. Copy-paste job. That is not how Misplaced Pages works. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Thaddeus Golas and related pages

    These need checking for wiki-notability. XOR'easter (talk) 20:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

    He seems to have been a relatively little-known writer who wrote a somewhat influential book in the self-help, New Age, and psychedelic circles of the 70s. He seems to get quoted frequently in inspirational/self help literature and aphorism compilations, and his most well-known work inspired at least one canine feel-good book. I found a brief obituary that lays out his basic biographical info. He is not to be confused with Thaddeus A. "Ted" Golas, a San Francisco firefighter and occasional actor who once dated Danielle Steele and had a bit part in Star Trek IV, as well as possibly the painkiller commercial mentioned below. I've found some limited coverage, excerpted below, and if more newspaper/magazine coverage can be found then a short single article incorporating his works might be feasible, but I think three articles is unwarranted. Or perhaps he was too underground to leave a lasting legacy. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    • When Thaddeus Golas self-published his little book The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment in 1972 it became an almost instant success. By 1976, when I dished out two dollars for my first copy, published by the Seed Center in Palo Alto, California, it was already into its sixth printing, with 175,000 copies in print. By the early 1980s Golas had achieved enough cult celebrity status that I saw him on an American television commercial making a testimonial on behalf of a popular cross-the-counter painkiller. He died in 1997, at the age of 73, after reportedly having supported himself almost entirely from the earnings of The Lazy Man's Guide...
    • It is an intriguing premise that opens the Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment — a premise that, if true, could save people a lot of time spent sitting on the hard floor over at the Cambridge Zen Center. And for this reason, the book has done extremely well. Author Thaddeus Golas first published this slim (80 pages) treatise in 1972, after he "plunged into psychedelic chaos in San Francisco for several years." Eleven years later it is in its 10th printing, and is at present being published by Bantam Books...
    Yes, there might be enough for one (trimmed) page, but 3–4 seems too many. I've gone ahead and redirected the books to the author's page, and cleaned up the latter somewhat. XOR'easter (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    References

    1. "Obituaries: Thaddeus S. Golas". Sarasota Herald Tribune. 19 April 1997. p. 6B – via NewsBank.
    2. Bane, Vickie L. (1999). The Lives of Danielle Steel. St. Martin's Paperbacks. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-312-95575-5.
    3. Hoyt, Nicole (1994). Danielle Steel: The Glamour, the Myth, the Woman. Pinnacle Books. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-7860-0032-6.
    4. Hefner, Robert (11 December 2005). "The easy road to enlightenment". The Canberra Times – via NewsBank.
    5. Denison, D.C. (January 11, 1983). "Where there's no will". The Boston Phoenix. Vol. 12, no. 2.

    Ivermectin in Australia

    Another day, another ivermectin article. This one, about an Australian doctor, has seen some ... committed editing from a WP:SPA and this may need to go to WP:COIN. In the meantime, more eyes (and more sources!) would help. Alexbrn (talk) 05:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Neuro-linguistic programming

    Is science now, cause of studies, according to someone on the Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Belarusians are really Lithuanians?

    Cukrakalnis is spreading information that "The western Belarusian area was inhabited by Lithuanians. The western Belarusians are certainly largely Russian-speaking Lithuanians." quoting the book of Austrian-German anthropologist Michael Hesch , member of Nazi party and SS. In a discussion with me, he admitted to never having the book in his hands. More about Hesch theory is written here. I don't think Misplaced Pages should be spreading such, clearly racist, theories. Marcelus (talk) 19:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Even disregarding the specifics of Hesch's dubious merits as a source, and the questionable assumptions implicit in the claim, Misplaced Pages cannot possibly cite a book written in 1933 for such statements. Anthropology has thankfully long moved on from such essentialising 'origin theories' when discussing ethnicity, and Misplaced Pages needs to do the same. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:38, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Most of the research in the book published under Michael Hesch's name was done by Rudolf Pöch, who died in 1921. Applying the label "Nazi" to what was essentially his research is just ascribing ahistorical attributes. Even ascribing the word "Nazi" to a book that was published in 1933 outside Nazi Germany and based on research from World War I, is dubious. The source's statements could be phrased in a more nuanced way - some Belarusians have Lithuanian ancestry. That's all that sentence is saying. What's so radical and fringe about that?
    That Belarusians are Slavicized Balts is stated by some Belarusians themselves. If it was a fringe theory with no basis in reality, then why do multiple different individuals from radically different backgrounds come to the same conclusion? Various Belarusians, Austro-Hungarians, and Lithuanians all stating the same and agreeing to some sort of grand conspiracy? The insanity is that WP:RS are being removed because some persons value their opinion more than research by accredited academics. If Michael Hesch was the sole individual stating this thing, then it would maybe be warranted to doubt this as a single, outdated individual's POV. The thing is, that multiple various sources from absolutely different backgrounds (and time periods) are converging on the same point - Belarusian, Lithuanian and Austro-Hungarian sources. Ergo, the inclusion of that statement, because of these precise circumstances, where its findings are affirmed, is warranted.
    As for 'origin theories', I must point out, that there is nothing wrong in pointing out that e.g. most citizens of USA are descended from colonists and immigrants from Europe, or that Afrikaners are descendants mainly from Dutch people. So too, there is no reason to avoid explaining the origins and how certain groups appeared or began or are descended from.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Century old research is nowhere near a good enough source for the sweeping claims you are making. As to That Belarusians are Slavicized Balts is stated by some Belarusians themselves that is some WP:WEASELy nonsense and a bogus argument. "Some" British people claim that they are descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel, see British Israelism, doesn't mean that it's true in the slightest. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just like Hemiauchenia said, just because you googled two articles in which two pretty random Belarusians are saying that they think that Belarusians are really just Lithuanians doesn't mean you can include it in the Misplaced Pages article. These aren't valid sources and that's not how encyclopedia is supposed to be created. Marcelus (talk) 20:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, Sorry for the WP:WEASELy statement, the two Belarusians referenced in the article are the Belarusian political activist and journalist Alieś Kirkievič  and Belarusian researcher with a PhD Aliaksiej Dziermant . They respectively state it here and .--Cukrakalnis (talk) 21:15, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Moreover, these two individuals are not just some "random Belarusians" off the street, they are well-educated individuals. What they said and how they said it fulfils the criteria for a source.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 21:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    The question is not Have some people suggested this but rather Is this the consensus view or a significant minority view in contemporary scholarship, otherwise it is undue per WP:PROFRINGE. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, thank you for the concise question. The answer is that this is a significant minority view in contemporary scholarship, because two scholarly individuals, that is Aliaksiej Dziermant , a PhD researcher specializing in the subject of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians, and Lithuanian professor Zigmas Zinkevičius, both state the view (which is being questioned as being WP:FRINGE).--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    You have not fundamentally answered the question. You have yet to demonstrate that this is a significant viewpoint in contemporary scholarship rather than the viewpoint of a handful of scholars. It is important that Misplaced Pages does not lend undue weight to views of very small minorities. This would require quoting contemporary books describing the theory and the prevailing scholarly views on the topic, rather than just pulling more researchers out of a hat who support it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, in the book "A History of Belarus A Non-Literary Essay that Explains the Ethnogenesis of the Belarusians" by Lubov Bazan from 2014 (can't give pages, because copyrighted material), it is written:
    "Thus, indigenous Baltic tribes became a substrate in the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group. As a result of the Slavicisation of the Baltic population and its merging with the Slavic population a portion of the Slavic people split off into a separate group of Dregovichs and Krivichs, and through their historical and cultural development this led to the emergence of the Belarusian language and the Belarusian people." Next paragraph "This theory on the ethnogenesis of Belarusians appeared in historical academic circles in the 1960s, and was based on extensive material accumulated from archaeological and linguistic research. It was called the Baltic Theory, but was entirely suppressed by the official Soviet scientific authorities."
    Basically, the view that Belarusians descend from Balts is a significant view in scholarship. I hope this hits the nail on the head, metaphorically speaking.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 23:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    The material you have quoted doesn't even remotely support a claim that 'Belarusians descend from Balts'. It suggests that Belarusians have some Balt ancestry (as a 'substrate'), but that is all it supports. Note the the paragraph following the one you quote goes on to discuss 'assimilation' by Slavs. Slavs who had presumably settled the region too: "merging". Not that it matters, since you clearly haven't read the full text. Citing source snippets found by Google-mining isn't the way to demonstrate academic consensus. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:24, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    "A History of Belarus A Non-Literary Essay that Explains the Ethnogenesis of the Belarusians" is not published by an academic press, but by Glagoslav Publications, an independnent press specialising in the translation of works to English by Slavic authors. The author is also an art historian rather than a historian of Belarus. In a book review in the journal East Central Europe, Catherine Gibson of the European University Institute, Florence writes:The book falls into the not altogether unexpected trap of being laced with Belarusian Romantic nationalism, something that the title does not attempt to hide. References are made to the Belarusian “territory” (13), “ethnic group” (14), and “language” (68) from the beginning, despite the dramatically changing borders of all the chronicled proto-Belarusian states, and the absence of an ethnolinguistic group which regarded itself as a coherent “Belarusian” entity up until the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century (Snyder 2003; Rudling 2015). I remain unconvinced. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Do you realize that your "sources" are just opinion pieces? An§ interview and an essay? Why don't you just use some actual English literature on this topic? There are many books about Belarusian history in English. Marcelus (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Marcelus, opinion pieces by accredited academics still count as good and valid sources. To limit oneself to just the literature in English about a certain topic is a grave mistake if one wishes to delve deep into a topic about a foreign country.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Cukrakalnis you aren't delving deep, it's a very short article. This is an English Misplaced Pages you should be looking first of all for English literature, especially in such basic subject. Opinion pieces are opinion pieces, nothing more, and they aren't valid sources. Especially since Dziermant changed his opinion vastly since then. I doubt he has PhD or conducted any serious studies on Belarusian ethnogenesis. In 2010 he was neo-pagan member of neofascist party, today he is main mouthpiece of Moscow in Belarus and supporter of "Eurasian" projects. He isn't an authority on this topic. Marcelus (talk) 22:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    I wasn't saying that I was delving deep into the subject, I was just making general remarks.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 23:52, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    "Austro-Hungarian sources"???? By definition, any Austro-Hungarian sources are a century or more out of date, and from an era when essentialism and bizarre racially-oriented theories were thought scientific, at least by bigots and extremists. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Orange Mike, the main point was that the international provenance of sources necessarily precludes the possibility of a nationalist conspiracy against another group. I fully understand that using a century-old source by itself is incorrect, but it is being used in conjunction with other sources, including very modern ones from the 21st century. Considering that all of these sources align, despite their age difference, reassures that these findings are indeed correct (despite the context you mention, which is indeed problematic, but then again, not everything from back then is wrong and some things from back then are still correct and valid). So, it's unreasonable to remove the source.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    We aren't the slightest bit interested in whether you think something is 'indeed correct', and nor are we interested in what you think 'unreasonable'. Century-old sources cannot be cited for claims relating to anthropology and similar subjects, whether they were written by Nazis or not, and regardless who else may agree with their conclusions. If you want to include content concerning the possible Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians, you will have to do so by citing, directly, modern sources from appropriately-qualified academics, which directly support such content. And that only after you have demonstrated that this perspective on Belarusians is shared by at least a significant minority of scholars with the relevant expertise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    AndyTheGrump and Hemiauchenia, for possible Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians - Article "Uniparental Genetic Heritage of Belarusians: Encounter of Rare Middle Eastern Matrilineages with a Central European Mitochondrial DNA Pool" has the following statements:
    The N1c(Tat) tree in this study indicates that Belarusians share a considerable portion of haplotypes with Balts pointing to a shared patrilineal founder(s) and history.
    haplogroup N1c(Tat) shows the highest frequency (around 15%) in north-west Belarus and is decreasing southward, as it could be expected, bearing in mind that among Lithuanians N1c(Tat) comprises close to a half of their Y-chromosomes .
    Haplogroup I in Belarusians is composed of multiple genetic inputs, mainly from the north-western Balkans (I2a(P37)), and, to a lesser extent, from West and north-west Europe (I1(M253), I2b(M223)) . N1c(Tat) along with its much less frequent sister group N1b(P43) (previously N2), detected in Belarusians indicate an ancient patrilineal gene flow from the north Eurasia westward, yet in the context of studied here populations is best explained by partially shared Y-chromosomal ancestry of Belarusians and their northern neighbors, Lithuanians and Latvians, among whom N1c(Tat) reaches frequencies above 40% , , , .
    This article, published in 2013, has the following contributors: Alena Kushniarevich, Larysa Sivitskaya, Nina Danilenko, Tadeush Novogrodskii, Iosif Tsybovsky, Anna Kiseleva, Svetlana Kotova, Gyaneshwer Chaubey, Ene Metspalu, Hovhannes Sahakyan, Ardeshir Bahmanimehr, Maere Reidla, Siiri Rootsi, Jüri Parik, Tuuli Reisberg, Alessandro Achilli, Baharak Hooshiar Kashani, Francesca Gandini, Anna Olivieri, Doron M. Behar, Antonio Torroni, Oleg Davydenko, Richard Villems.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 18:39, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Are you really so naive as to believe that nobody is going to actually read the source you have just cherry-picked? It doesn't even remotely support any claim for 'Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians'. It demonstrates that the modern Belarusian population has a shared genetic heritage with populations all around them: "Our results reveal that around 80% of the paternal Belarusian gene pool is composed of R1a, I2a and N1c Y-chromosome haplogroups – a profile which is very similar to the two other eastern European populations – Ukrainians and Russians. The maternal Belarusian gene pool encompasses a full range of West Eurasian haplogroups and agrees well with the genetic structure of central-east European populations. "I suggest you drop this now, before someone decides to look further into you editing history, to see if you have been as cavalier with sources elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:51, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    It should be noted that Cukrakalnis has added exactly the same material, again sourced to Hesch, to the Western Belorussia article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    It would be surprising if the Belorusian ethnogenesis did not also entail language shift, intermarriage and other things which you per default would expect with neighboring peoples. But I doubt that the simplistic formula "Belorusians = Slavicized Balts" is supported in any mainstream publication by an academic scholar of international standing. –Austronesier (talk) 23:40, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    See Talk:Answers in Genesis#NPOV tag

    The editor who added it is User:1990'sguy who also edits at Creationwiki, conservapedia and Infogalactic. Doug Weller talk 09:56, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    I did not originally add the tag.
    Also, please see WP:WIAPA: ...some types of comments are never acceptable: ... Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. My Misplaced Pages edits/activities are separate from what I do on other Wikis (though I will note that I haven't edited CreationWiki since July 2018). --1990'sguy (talk) 15:43, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I think Doug mentioned your affiliations not to dismiss or discredit your views, but to give people an idea which direction this specific profringe pushing is coming from.
    Dismissing or discrediting your views is not necessary since they were dismissed and discredited long before any of us was born. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Ivermectin consolidation

    I have consolidated all the COVID-19/ivermectin content, which was spread across 2½ articles, to:

    Please add to your watchlist. This will likely soon need to be protected. Alexbrn (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    @Alexbrn. Well done. It was an enlightening read. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:45, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
    Definitely worth an article, and will watch. Merry Christmas! — Shibbolethink 16:53, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    And now the pushback

    Encyclopædius has removed the FDA tweet (and the lovely horse photo) on the grounds it is "propaganda" and launched a source-lite Talk page thread on that theme, claiming they're "seeing the same couple of editors putting out this propaganda", while repeating some talking points (ironically) that are propaganda from the quacks pushing this stuff (e.g. that that ivermectin is "approved" in Japan). More eyes would help. Alexbrn (talk) 17:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    "The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro". Antiviral Research Volume 178, June 2020
    Role of ivermectin in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers in India: A matched case-control study National Library of Medicine. "Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month. Are NOT quacks...₪ Encyclopædius 17:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    The first source is the one which kicked the whole thing off (as cited in the article). It's not WP:MEDRS and completely outdated by everything that followed. The second, in the PLOS ONE megajournal, is primary research so unreliable per WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 17:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Gosh. I dont think I've ever seen somebody with such a history here on the project with so little WP:CLUE about WP:MEDRS -Roxy the dog. wooF 18:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    My most bursting question right now is: how has this user not been subject to discretionary sanctions about this? How long can you go pushing a POV absent sources and ignorant of MEDRS in a scientfiic DS area and avoid a TBAN? — Shibbolethink 18:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now I know what it's like to have an idol like Linus Pauling and then see them devolve into Vitamin C pseudoscience. Very disappointing and disheartening. Silverseren 18:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also, in-vitro cannot be used to support any in-vivo associations/claims, obviously... —PaleoNeonate – 18:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    We have an admin with exactly the same amount of CLUE though. -Roxy the dog. wooF 18:49, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just the one? Alexbrn (talk) 04:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    A friendly reminder to be WP:NICE and keep the discussion about content, not personal feelings about individual editors. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:25, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    Report them, or stop with the wp:pa.Slatersteven (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    I suspect Encyclopædius is a compromised account, given the degree of fuckwitedness on show. The idea that an editor with over 600,000 edits doesn't know how to WP:INDENT and is utterly clueless about policy, seem improbable (or is otherwise one of the saddest indictments of Misplaced Pages ever). Alexbrn (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    I don't know, it's very different to write about films and places than to evaluate sources for medicine, —PaleoNeonate – 20:59, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now at AE, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Encyclopædius. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    He says he's retired after 15 years here, and it'a all our fault for holding medical articles to WP:MEDRS when there's all this great stuff about ivermectin that we won't let him use. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    As they have reitred, and as it looks like they may be TBANed, let's stop this about a user stuff?Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    Baghdad Battery

    This is being discussed at the Facebook group Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame (quite a few practising archaeologists there) and it's been suggested it isn't clear enough that this is rejected by the archaeologists who have discussed it and is more of "it could be this, it could be that". This should be a good source a blog but Carl Feagans is an expert. Doug Weller talk 14:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Title issue

    WP:COMMONNAME of course says this should be the title of the article, no question about that in my mind. But how does NPOV affect this? Current scientific opinion in those articles which actually discuss it in detail rather than just mention it is that it's not a battery. But the title suggests that it is. Doug Weller talk 12:08, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Should ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History be a redirect to Institute for Creation Research?

    I don't want to do it unless it makes sense. Doug Weller talk 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    I fails to see how it would be independently notable. Even if it somehow were, it would still be best as a section of the ICR, rather than a seperate article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:53, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    It has made its way into a footnote of an academic RS, but that's not really sufficient per SIGCOV. Merging it into the main ICR page is a good option. –Austronesier (talk) 18:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I oppose merging and will contest it (note: I am the article creator). The article cites three reliable and independent sources (including The Dallas Morning News and WFAA, and these articles focus on the museum, rather than mention it in passing). I also found this source (citation here) that briefly discusses the museum. The coverage meets SICOV. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    There's material, but not a lot of material, and it seems like the content would be better organized if it were a section in Institute for Creation Research. Having lots of tiny pages isn't always the most informative way to present the facts (though it's often not really harmful either). XOR'easter (talk) 04:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Since it's part of ICR and that it's not particularly independently notable (there's not much to write about it using independent sources), I agree that a merge/redirect would be reasonable, —PaleoNeonate – 12:10, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    The sources in the article meet WP:SIGCOV without a doubt. The cited sources are reliable, independent, and secondary, and there's no original research required for this article. I've seen many WP:GNG articles with far worse coverage than this.desmay (talk) 19:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hmmm...well, per the comments on the necessity to use original research, it does not seem to need that. It has coverage in independent sources. Plus since the article is young it may need more time to be expanded further. Also perhaps it would be wiser to discuss the matter on the talk page than here too.Ramos1990 (talk) 23:41, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    "It might have more content in the future" is not really a persuasive argument against folding it into another article now. If that section of the Institute for Creation Research page then grows too big and unwieldy, it could be split off, but that strikes me as unlikely. XOR'easter (talk) 04:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    I don't see that there is any significant disagreement that the article has reliable sourcing to justify its existence. The main argument for merging seems to be that the quantity of the content is insufficient. Is there a policy that provides guidance on the preferred length of articles? In monitoring new Kentucky-related articles, I see an awful lot of short articles created about (for example) Negro League baseball players who only had a few at-bats in their careers. These are just as unlikely to ever grow beyond stub status as the ICR Discovery Center article - perhaps even less so, as most of these players have died, while the Center has just opened and has the potential for additional coverage of related events. An appeal to precedent may sound like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but saying it should be merged despite sufficient sourcing just because it's short sounds a lot like WP:IDON'TLIKEIT to me. If, as XOR'easter (talk · contribs) contends, there's nothing really harmful about leaving it as a short article, then I'm inclined to leave it as-is. There's some marginal benefit to having the facility show up in its related categories, imo. YMMV. Acdixon 15:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

    Another meteor disaster in the ancient Near East?

    We've already previously discussed the claims on this noticeboard that a meteor airburst around 3600 years ago destroyed Tall el-Hammam in Jordan. See Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_82#Tall_el-Hammam_and_Steven_Collins_(archaeologist). I would like to focus on another fringe impact claim. The Umm al Binni lake in Southern Iraq has been claimed by some geoarchaeologsts to represent an impact crater that caused disaster in the Middle East c. 2200 BCE, though there has been no actual work on the ground to confirm/refute this. The primary sourcing in the article is currently done using conference abstracts by the proponents of the impact theory. I can find only one paper that analyses the claims in any detail, which claims that the lake is likely the result of regional subsidence, and finds no evidence for the impact claims. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:10, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    I've removed some OR. I also see that the article says "...Hamacher determined that an impacting bolide would have produced energy in the range of 190 to 750 megatons of TNT (for an asteroid and comet impact, respectively)" The abstract of the source says "Sharad Master used satellite images to discover a possible Holocene impact structure in the Al 'Amarah marshes of southern Iraq, known as Umm al Binni lake. With an estimated age of < 5000 years and a diameter of ~3.4 km, this structure may help explain this disaster. Using numerical models and scaling equations for a cosmic impact, I show that although destructive forces would have damaged Sumerian cities within a few hundred km of the coast, it is unlikely that this single impact would have caused the large-scale destruction seen over the larger region. The impact origin of the structure is unconfirmed and any connection to Bronze Age catastrophes remains speculative." Doug Weller talk 12:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've scheduled an email to be sent to the author asking for a copy of his article Monday. Doug Weller talk 15:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Lloyd Pye

    IP edit warring WP:PROFRINGE stuff. - - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    Recent edits claimed he was an anthropologist, the article claimed he also was a psychologist and had worked for intelligence services, but the in-article citations apparently did not support it. —PaleoNeonate – 12:53, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also claimed DNA of starchild "is not 100% human". - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:14, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Some of my genetic material also comes from fish! —PaleoNeonate – 13:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    May want to reach out for page protection if the IP continually does disruptive editing.Ramos1990 (talk) 23:36, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Muslims discovered America, etc

    I wouldn't be surprised if this or something she writes shows up at some time in our articles. Doug Weller talk 12:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Well, given that Misplaced Pages still contains claims that Columbus 'discovered' America, It probably wouldn't be surprising if that bit of ignoring-the-inhabitants boosterism gets in too. ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    It shouldn't, but I don't follow all the related articles. Where do we say that? Doug Weller talk 16:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    I was mostly relying on my memory of the Christopher Columbus article. Having looked at it again, it seems more nuanced than it used to be, though maybe I'd misremembered. It does however say this: "Between 1492 and 1504, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the Americas, as well as the Columbian exchange, and are thus important to the Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large." Of course, 'independently discovered' can be interpreted in several ways... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Incidentally, the paragraph I've just quoted is sourced to the 1993 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Which now has a much more nuanced take on Columbus itself, and probably shouldn't be cited for something it no longer says, given the date, and the subsequent reassessment of Columbus and the merits of his claims to 'discovery'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    I avoid the Britannica like a plague. It certainly shouldn't be used there. Doug Weller talk 08:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    @AndyTheGrump: I've tweaked the text and was reverted with the edit summary " the phrasing as is should stand. It makes clear that his voyage was not based on earlier European voyages)". I'm not sure that we can state that as a fact, although it's likely, in any case. Doug Weller talk 10:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    Sarmatism (pseudohistorical theory)

    Fresh article, ex nihilo. I don't know anything about the subject, but maybe someone could have an eye on it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Maybe the disambiguator could be shortened to Sarmatism (pseudohistory), akin to Torsion field (pseudoscience). –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just moved it to (pseudohistory}, because I agree and it should be uncontroversial. If there's any pushback I will just move it back and start an RM. As for the article, it looks pretty NPOV to me, but I am no expert in Lithuanian history! — Shibbolethink 21:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Maria Trzcińska as a source for her own claims to provide context for later refutation

    On the talk page of the Warsaw concentration camp article, concerns have been raised about using this source's WP:ABOUTSELF usage to merely describe the main tenets of the conspiracy/fringe theory that the person propagated (her work was the seminal one to spread it):

    Trzcińska, Maria (2002). Obóz zagłady w centrum Warszawy. Konzentrationslager Warschau (in Polish). Radom: Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne. ISBN 83-88822-16-0.

    K.e.coffman said that WP:FRIND forbids us from citing info directly to Trzcińska at all; on the other hand, I believe that citing the pages where her assertions about the camp may be found is only to provide context for the following sections, Refutation and Reactions+the article with that text passed the GA review on PL Misplaced Pages back in 2016, from which it was translated to English in September (though admittedly PL WP's policies don't include precise language of how to handle sources such as this for WP:ABOUTSELF purposes).

    Is the framing and usage of this source in the article appropriate? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    ABOUTSELF says, Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities
    So, this would be an unusual application of ABOUTSELF, justified by what?
    I would dump that source. ABOUTSELF applies to the article Maria Trzcińska, but not to the Warsaw KL article. Why would we need details on the fringe theory there? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:11, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Maybe the whole (pretty long) section should be moved to the Trzcińska article, leaving a much shorter section in the KL article. That way, the source can be used. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Trzcińska's activity was directly connected to the article's topic (she rallied for commemoration of the victims according to her theory of events), so I think it is included in "their activities".
    As discussion in independent sources show, there are enough of them to establish notability for a section of their own, and the camp is primarily known to the Polish public precisely because of the conspiracy theory, and, to English readers, mostly due to the presence of Trzcińska's theory for 15 years on this Misplaced Pages and the whole controversy that came thereafter. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Putting aside ABOUTSELF for now, I think issues of WP:UNDUE apply to any usage of Trzcińska as a source. The theory may be notable and well covered in independent secondary sources, but if any aspect of the theory is not then I don't see a reason we should cover it. In other words, if the only source is Trzcińska, well then no one else cares about some specific aspect of what she said, so we don't either. Anything we cover should also be covered in reliable secondary sources. If editors just want to add it as an additional source since some readers may prefer it "direct" so to speak, personally I'm not fussed provided the source itself doesn't have BLP problems i.e. makes claims about living third parties. Others may not feel the same thought. I'd note that IMO using someone's self published source to cover their theories even if it doesn't affect third parties tends to violate the not unduly self-serving criterion anyway IMO. Nil Einne (talk) 11:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Exactly, ABOUTSELF is for basic BLP article details and it's the analysis of more reliable independent sources that should be presented. When those are lacking about some primary material it's an indication of WP:UNDUE (and sometimes failure to meet WP:BLPN, but not in this case)... —PaleoNeonate – 16:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    The theory may well be fringe globally, it was (in effect) both mainstream in Poland and even here for a while (indeed that is kind of the point). So yes we should mention it there. But she is not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 10:53, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    • WP:FRIND is clear: discussion of fringe theories requires independent sources. Otherwise, we are giving undue weight to the elaboration of her theories. Not clear why cites to Trzcińska are needed for later refutation either; her conspiracy theory has already been refuted, by third-party sources. --K.e.coffman (talk) 16:44, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
      I hope it's better now? I've left the Trzcińska cites but coupled them with independent reliable citations, and deleted text to which I was not able find any RS citation. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • This is not really helpful and arguably makes things worse since now the fringe source is intermingled with a better source. In any event, there's no support for using Trzcińska -- either in this discussion, nor on the article's Talk page: . --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    Global cooling

    Two fresh December WP:SPAs (or maybe one wearing two socks) try to WP:WAR WP:FRINGE text into the article. The next revert should come from somebody else. Maybe they both need a bit of coal in the sock too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    I was too impatient and reverted it myself.
    That article traditionally attracts accounts that edit only it, or almost only it: Special:Contributions/Entropics, Special:Contributions/A fresh avocado and Special:Contributions/Chenzia wanted to add exactly the same fringe source as Special:Contributions/Pi_Variant and Special:Contributions/The Canonical Project, and Special:Contributions/Climate expert deleted the same sentence. Looks like a massive sock farm. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Watching now. A good candidate for page protection if it continues. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 16:49, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Adding: Special:Contributions/2600:387:B:7:0:0:0:0/64 (blocked as part of range 2600:387:b:7::/64 since July), Special:Contributions/2A01:B747:16D:344::/64 (blocked as part of range 2a01:b747::/32 since September), Special:Contributions/2600:1700:4810:1490::/64 apparent WP:BE, like those accounts who are most likely the same person... It's been going on often enough recently that page protection may indeed be a good idea, —PaleoNeonate – 01:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    Request filed at WP:RPP... –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    It was already at RFPP, where it was declined as a content dispute. I noticed this and filed Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Pi Variant, which is currently pending a checkuser response. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    RFPP is finished, both new accounts blocked together with User:Stemwinders, and Global cooling is protected. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

    Elizabeth Loftus

    Somehow, Loftus' appearance in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial is more important than her main work now. The lede says she was "criticized by the prosecution" but not that she is "a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory". I removed this UNDUE stuff before. --Hob Gadling (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    2350 BC Middle East Anomaly another comet/airburst claim

    The source is published by British Archaeological Reports which should mean its reputable, but as it is a collection of papers from the Second Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Cambridge Conference, and SIS is a Velikovskian group I'm pretty dubious. I don't see the term used in mainstream publications or at least with reference to SIS, and I'm not convinced it's used in mainstream academia. For instance, Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse doesn't seem to mention it. This introduction to the publication is useful. Doug Weller talk 12:13, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

    For what it's worth, I have never heard of any substantial climate anomaly at that time, only around 4.2ka and 5.5ka. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    This introduction to the publication is useful Benny Peiser? Does this mean the climate change denialists have gone Velikovskian?
    I see, Peiser's article even cites "Reconsidering Velikovsky: The Role of Catastrophism in the Earth Sciences and the History of Mankind". He seems to be a real poly-innumerate (if that is the opposite of a polymath).
    I think that stub should be deleted. It does not really do anything except maybe lend credence to wacky fantasy pretending to be science. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    There is a citebomb in Umm_al_Binni_lake#Climate_change_and_impact_effects about this. Without assessing the merits or non-merits of these claims, I suggest to redirect the poorly-sourced stub to that section. It seems to me that no-one talks about the "anomaly" except in the context of the impact claim, which means that 2350 BC Middle East Anomaly is not an independent topic. –Austronesier (talk) 10:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've gone ahead and redirected the article to the lake per the discussion here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
    Redirect reverted, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2350 BC Middle East Anomaly. Doug Weller talk 17:00, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
    Oops, that might suggest I reverted, which I didn’t. Doug Weller talk 18:57, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    List of possible impact structures on Earth

    Such a lits seems ok, but I'm not sure about the sources used as criteria: "The list below includes those features which remain unconfirmed, each of which is ranked according to a three-step confidence level as indicated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, by Anna Mikheeva: 1 for "probable", 2 for "potential", and 3 for "questionable". Level 4 is given to discredited structures, which hence represent geological features other than impact craters. Structures with confidence 0 are considered "confirmed" (EID) or "proven" (Mikheeva) and should be placed in the lists of confirmed craters according to continent." Umm al Binni mentioned above is in note 1 said to be proven by Mikheeva, although the recent source don't agree. In fact, one of the two sources, Sissakian, V.K. and Al-Bahadily, H.A., 2018. The geological origin of the Umm Al-Binni Lake within the Ahwar of Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq, which I have, concludes:

    1. The study of the Umm Al-Binni Lake using the available geophysical data and remote sensing techniques did not support the meteorite impact crater origin for this Lake as believed previously.

    2. It was found that the Lake rather has a tectonic origin as indicated; for example, the straight NE and SW Lake rims coincide with the general Zagros Thrust–Fold trend (NW–SE). Doug Weller talk 14:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

    I have had a problem with this list also. I agree that Mikheeva's list is unreliable, she doesn't appear to have any major expertise in the topic area, and what rankings she assigns to certain craters seem arbitrary. The problem with a list like this is that it becomes a dumping ground for all sorts of fringe impact claims, even if they are not credible. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    We should remove her as a source, leaving us with a criteria problem though. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've gone and removed the confidence parameters from the table. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    @Hemiauchenia: thanks. Did you mean to leave Note 1 in? And I'm still wondering about including Umm Al-Binni Lake with two sources, one of which people might think supports it being an impact structure even though it strongly argues that it's not. Doug Weller talk 10:03, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

    Tucker Carlson – COVID-19

    There is a discussion on the Tucker Carlson page about whether we can include an attributed Media Matters analysis of the show's COVID coverage. Some editors are disputing whether the rhetoric on Carlson's show actually undermines vaccines or otherwise downplays COVID. More eyes would be helpful. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

    Organ theft

    Organ theft (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    The user Beansohgod (talk · contribs) prodded this page with a concern about giving undue weight to the credibility of certain accounts, mostly supported by mainstream media and books of dubious reliability.

    The page is unencyclopedic and documents an urban legend as if it was a factual occurrence. The source material is questionable at best, and all of the relatively factual information can be transferred to other pages. Moreover, the article seems to be torn as to the credibility of its own subject, first asserting that the subject in question (organ theft) does not occur before presenting several examples of when it did.
    — User:Beansohgod

    I deprodded it because the Snopes and Skeptical Inquirer references are likely reliable for statements about the incredulity of claims, and Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for statements regarding its use in science fiction. Beansohgod also failed to specify a potential merge target for the remaining potentially WP:DUE material. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

    I keep trying to read this article, but every time I do, I wake up in a bathtub full of ice...curious. Well, Happy New Year, everyone! Dumuzid (talk) 21:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    I added some sci-fi related material that I think is relevant and reliable. 172.195.96.244 (talk) 07:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just as an aside: related articles are
    The second one is a redirect. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
    I did not think of a merge at the time (more so confused at the stilted page as a whole). In retrospect, a merge sounds like a really good idea; either way, the Organ Theft article requires the cleanup equivalent of trying to clear up the Kuiper Belt of asteroids. Also, if I had seen that Snopes was amongst the sources I called bunk, then I would have retracted my statement and replaced it with something a modicum more intelligent. Beansohgod (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

    Marty Makary

    Another COVID "critic". May need more knowledgeable watchers. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

    Ah yes, the guy who said "we'll have herd immunity by April", referring to April 2021... Other than the blanking of paragraphs, what concerns are you seeing here? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    No specific concerns. I just point it out as an article that would profit from a few fringe-savvy watchers. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

    Vaccine shedding

    Opinions on renaming? On removing the "erroneously termed" in the lede? (See Talk:Vaccine shedding#Rename? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    Chronology of Tamil history

    Two Ips inserting material claiming a deep prehistory for the Tamil, which even that page doesn't claim. First version was sourced to media and not all of them mentioned Tamil, second version left out all but one source. Some was copied from Adichanallur without attribution, and that article does not claim Tamil origin either except for some urns dated ca 1500 BCE. Doug Weller talk 17:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    This looks like an interesting source dealing with the development of the concept of race

    Also deals with the subject of race and intelligence. This link is actually to a review of The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, by Joseph L. Graves, Jr. Doug Weller talk 17:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    Rudolf Steiner

    Complaint on the Talk page: This article presents Steiner's work as wildly accepted and does not ground it in a wider scientific or philosophical contexts where his work has largely been dismissed

    I must say that complaint has merit. The Reception section contains nothing about his adherence to - at the time already - obsolete scientific ideas and all the crazy stuff based on his clairvoyance, and the "Judaism" part is a mix of reception of other ideas by him and his ideas by others - including Nazis. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    Great catch. Important for us to fix this, given Steiner's ongoing reach in 21st century education. Feoffer (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    David Finkelhor

    Sociologist who wrote about Satanic ritual abuse. See last section of Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:20, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

    As in all cases, the question should not be "has this person's work been verifiably criticized?", it should be "is criticism appropriate to include, and if so, is it given proportionate emphasis and appropriate context?", per WP:PROPORTION, WP:BLPBALANCE, and WP:VNOTSUFF. "Has been criticized" is not an invitation to include all criticism, and academic disagreements should not necessarily be framed as implying the critic is more correct. I don't know enough about the situation to weigh in yet, but from my experience criticism is too often over-emphasized and unduly framed as a negative or "controversy". It is apparent that Mary de Young has criticisms of Nursery Crimes. It is not yet apparent to me that Finkelhor's work has been "discredited", despite a passing assertion in North & South magazine. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
    That it is "not apparent" to you does not mean we should not have that quote about his discreditation. It does mean that context is missing and should be added. As I understand it, Finkelhor helped incite the Satanic panic back then and refutations of his work should be included, but that is not apparent from the article. If I just look at the article text, he could just as well have pointed out the weaknesses in the recovered-memory idea and been attacked (or, as the article puts it, "criticized") for it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Dysgenics

    Thoughts on how to improve this article? As it stands, it's sourced entirely to dictionaries and primary sources, drawing heavily on the work of WP:PROFRINGE author Richard Lynn.

    It seems to me that the topic is notable (and it withstood two AfDs in the past ). A search on Google Scholar, for instance, yields numerous genetic studies on fruit flies, etc., along with a heavy sprinkling of pseudo-academic dross by the likes of Lynn. But as it stands almost nothing in the article appears to meet our standards for inclusion in the encyclopedia. The only exception seems to be the “In fiction” section. Generalrelative (talk) 01:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    The “Further reading” section does contain at least one relevant scientific ref, , which speaks to the lack of evidence for dysgenics in the US population. The key takeaway from that study is that increases in assortative mating at the phenotypic level for education are not matched at the genotypic level. Perhaps the whole idea of dysgenics at the level of human population groups is FRINGE? Does anyone know of mainstream contemporary geneticists who have argued otherwise? If not, perhaps this article needs to be rewritten either to focus on fruit flies or else to conform with WP:FRIND. Generalrelative (talk) 02:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
    Further digging shows that there is a substantial difference between the terms dysgenesis and dysgenics, which I hadn't realized. The former is indeed a legitimate scientific concept, including with regard to humans (see e.g. , , , and ), but that shouldn't be confused with evidence of scientific support for the idea of dysgenics in humans. Generalrelative (talk) 03:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
    FYI, I've begun making WP:BOLD changes. If anyone thinks I'm going too far, I invite you to revert and discuss. Generalrelative (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Jeremy Narby

    Anthropologist who wrote The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge where he "hypothesizes that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of entheogens, specifically ayahuasca". Doug Weller talk 14:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Edgar Cayce

    Unnecessarily detailed boring stories of the sleeping prophet's daily life. If you like to delete entire paragraphs because they do not belong in an encyclopedia, this is for you. I only removed a few of them. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Coherent catastrophism

    I'm trying to work on William Napier (astronomer) and Victor Clube who have written about this and who Ed Krupp described Clube and Napier as "thoughtful, credentialed scientists" but went on to demolish their argument on this view of comets. I've got a review by Ed Krupp which I can provide the text fo if you can't read it. I've used this a bit already in Clube's article. This might also be useful although we'd need the final version. I've done something with my back and in too much pain to do much, so any help would be useful. Doug Weller talk 16:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup claimed the same thing in the eighties, but with a 26 My period instead of 30; they are mentioned in Michael R. Rampino, who is linked in Shiva hypothesis. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
    Also . Doug Weller talk 20:30, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
    @Doug Weller: This 2021 paper by Ignacio Ferrín and Vincenzo Orofinomay may be of interest:
    Unless they're being used to describe the history I'd be slightly hesitant to draw too much from older sources, things have come a long way in the last 40 years. Sorry to hear about your back, I'd be more than happy to help out where I can. Aluxosm (talk) 20:38, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    NESARA

    Pretty garbled, lots of connections to about everything else, including Ascended masters from theosophy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

    Slavery in ancient Egypt

    I'm uncertain about this large edit. It's actually not much about slavery but mainly about the Exodus, adding text from Richard Elliott Friedman and changing "Modern archaeologists do not believe the Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers and were indigenous to Canaan." to "Some archaeologists and historians doubt that Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers, and most archaeologists agree that the ancient Israelite culture was indigenous to Canaan." @Aminomancer: it's the word "some" that bothers me, as I believe that the mainstream view is that they were not there in significant numbers. Doug Weller talk 08:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

    Even if it were true, one could set a WP:WEASEL on it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:42, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    I went ahead and read the revision and it does not seem like WP:WEASEL words or undue. The prior version entirely discredited the events of Exodus and while there is a majority view there is also a significant minority that affirm it in some way or another Viktory02 (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    I must say I have qualms about describing the source's "the consensus of archaeologists" as "some archaeologists." Dumuzid (talk) 17:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    That "significant minority" are not mainstream archaeologists or historians. Here's what a mainstream treatment of slavery in ancient Egypt looks like: . The Israelites / Exodus story do not even warrant a mention there. Any mention we make of them in this context needs to be consistent with WP:FRIND. Generalrelative (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    I agree with GR that The Exodus, a mythic narrative is not really relevant to the actual topic of slavery in ancient Egypt, and should only be mentioned briefly if at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    User:Viktory02 reverted User:Hemiauchenia restoring the “some” version on the basis of this discussion. Doug Weller talk 19:03, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    User:Generalrelative reverted User:Viktory02 removing the inclusion of other points of view on the basis of the discussion.Viktory02 (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
    Then it was probably a bad idea by User:Viktory02 to revert the revert. WP:BRD does not mean "I said something on a Talk page somewhere, now I can restore the BOLD edit again." See also WP:WAR. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

    Dhu al-Qarnayn

    Why me, oh Lord? I keep running into things I wish I hadn't seen. See , some or all of which was reverted earlier by User:Wiqi55. I'm a bit concerned also that the page was protected on the 10th of December after an AN3 complaint, in part because of probable socking. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

    Bechor Zvi Aminoff

    Can some people here take a look at Bechor Zvi Aminoff, Aminoff Suffering Syndrome and Aminoff Entropy definition of Human Happiness and Suffering. It all seems extremely fringey to me, and probably not notable at all, but I might be missing something so I prefered to ask here instead of tagging for deletion immediately. Apart from the lack of independent references, warning bells included "He was awarded an Honorary Doctor degree of the Yorker International University" ("a for-profit unaccredited institution": "The institution has no professors and, on the basis of life experiences, issues Master's degrees and even PhDs in several fields.") and " awarded a Research Professor Degree from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England." ("Government consumer advocates have described it as a "scam" or as "pretty tacky".", "The International Biographical Centre creates "awards" and offers them widely. In 2004, an award was said to cost the recipient US$495 or £295,") Fram (talk) 09:36, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

    At a bare minimum, there doesn't need to be 3 separate articles about this. From a quick check, I can't find anyone other than Aminoff discussing the syndrome, let alone journal reviews - not a good sign for WP:FRINGE. The entropy thing is... bordering on WP:Complete bollocks. It's certainly not notable. I'm not great at checking notability for biographies, but absolutely there's some red flags. You probably already know, but the article is also affected by the notability guideline for academics - although I wouldn't say there's any credible claim of significance against those anyway. --Xurizuri (talk) 15:09, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks. I'll wait a bit to see if someone else here chimes in, and otherwise I'll put the three articles up for deletion, and we'll see what happens. Fram (talk) 16:09, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

    Tall el-Hammam, clickbait, Steven Collins (archaeologist) and looting

    See Interesting conclusion:"Demand-driven looting matters, and archaeologists, scientific journals, media outlets, and the public should never blindly and blithely support or foster these activities through clickbait claims based on pseudoscience." And earlier in the article, "when Boslough noted on Twitter that “pottery shards from Sodom and Gomorrah would have a much greater market value than shards from some random unidentified site,” Collins dismissed this salient concern, against all evidence. He responded, “Poppycock.”" Doug Weller talk 11:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

    Wrong Steven Collins. This one does not have an article, only a redirect to a section of one: Steven Collins (archaeologist). --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
    @Hob Gadling: agh. Fixed it as it was unfair to the other one. I'd forgotten about the AfD. Doug Weller talk 17:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

    Net Zero Watch

    Is this really a separate thing from GWPF? Its article suggests it's just a "rebrand". Anyhow mentioning it here because "he group says that they should be called "climate change sceptics", not "deniers"." --JBL (talk) 15:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

    Precognition

    Recent edits seem highly dubious to me.

    is connected. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

    Firestorm at WP:COIN about editor Susan Gerbic and GSoW

    See Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Rp2006 and something at RSN about Skeptical Inquirer. 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC) Doug Weller talk 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

    "Firestorm" is an apt description, I think, and rarely has such a brouhaha made me universally think less of those involved (including myself). Cheers, and Happy Friday! Dumuzid (talk) 13:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
    Just read through all of it. Yuck.
    @User:Alexbrn: I recommend the term McCarthyism instead of witch hunt. The element of publicly denouncing people for having contacts to others who have contacts to... and so on, is present in all three cases, but a comparison to McCarthyism fits better here since nobody is being imprisoned, tortured or killed.
    @Nobody specific: I myself am happy when fringe people accuse skeptics of witch-hunting because that is an easy-to-refute weakness in their reasoning. Sorry if I sound like a wiseass, but if we are the good guys and in the right, then we have good reasons and do not need bad ones. With that attitude, when we suddenly notice that we do, then we know we are wrong. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
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