Misplaced Pages

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This page is for discussion of the wording of the Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories guideline, not for discussion of specific theories. To discuss problems with specific theories, articles, and users, please go to the Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, thank you.

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Previous requests for comment

Does this guideline have consensus? (April 2007) RfC on particular attribution section (June 2008) Is there enough argument to downgrade this guideline to the status of an essay? (July 2008) Is the label "fringe" inherently pejorative? (July 2008)

Bold suggestion: Rename/overhaul

Copied from Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

I trired to re-read the discussion above and the policy itself, it comes to my mind that a good deal of confusion is the disparity of the policy title and its main point/nutshell: " To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. "

It other words, it does not matter how we graded the views that differ from mainstream: what matters is that they are non-mainstream. Clearly, there is a continuous spectrum and some ideas may float within this range. (For example a bold mainstream hypothesis may become dubious in view of new data, but the proponent will jealously defend it. While he does decent science, it may be called "minority view", when he slips into adding unjustified assumptions, mainstream starts dismissing him altogether, thus shifting into "fringe" area; and at the extreme the proponent may even go full crackpot.)

Therefore I will suggest to rename the policy into Misplaced Pages:Non-mainstream views (NB: not "theories") and focus more on the WP:DUE aspect, rather than on splitting hairs about the term, which is mostly pejorative indeed: I quickly browsed Google Books and most of them who refer to "fringe" actually focus on pseudo-science. In other words, we must focus on a reasonable classification/recognition of the degree of acceptance, rather on the degree of fringeness of a claim/view/theory, i.e., avoid sticking to label-sticking. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

From the perspective of a relatively new editor, I certainly agree that this policy / guideline area needs an overhaul. But, there really are topics that are pseudoscience / fringe. Like, for example, flat earth, creation science, and Time Cube. We need a policy to deal with those sorts of things, narrowly construed. JerryRussell (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The term "Pseudoscience" is rather well-defined and easy to deal with. We can have articles on notable pseudoscience, but no regular articles on, say, Earth or bird control can include anything pseudoscientific. We don't cite Time Cube in Greenwich Time article. And this is rather adequately covered already. If you think something is missing, please make specific suggestions. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I think we're both saying that the problem is, all sorts of minority theories are categorized as "Fringe", which is a pejorative, and then treated the same as pseudoscience. We have some policies like PARITY and ONEWAY that seem like they should be used only for pseudoscience, while WP:DUE is much more widely applicable. FALSEBALANCE is part of the NPOV policy, and seems pretty general and flexible; I think I classed it unfairly with PARITY and ONEWAY above. I think the proposal is to do away with the Fringe label, and use "non-mainstream" except when "pseudoscience" is clearly applicable. JerryRussell (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

What about simply renaming the board to "Fringe theories and pseudoscience"? :bloodofox: (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

My suggestion was to avoid specific labels altogether, thus allowing the inclusion of not exactly fringe, but really minority/nonnotable views. In particular, quite often we see pieces of text like that " Profs A and B in a 27 December 2024 study of psychodermic response based on a sample of 68 volunteers concluded that psychos respond to skin stimuli slower than mainstream theories predicted." Of course we have WP:EXTRAORDINARY/WP:PRIMARY/WP:UNDUE, but why not cover it all neatly here, as applied to the specific case of something which is not mainstream (whether yet or already). Staszek Lem (talk) 21:29, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

References

1. citing these profs A and B

• if you start with the NPOV policy, and the discussion oF WEIGHT and of PSCI there, and the clear discussion of how you determine WEIGHT and what is UNDUE based on what (actually) reliable sources say together, you can see that the FRINGE guideline just complements the NPOV, and does so in a way that is pretty clear. If you start with FRINGE and work backwards, it is much harder. And we cannot legislate WP:CLUE; it does take an understanding to deploy FRINGE. Jytdog (talk) 00:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
  • WP:CLUE redirect to a bot. I guess it was not your intention? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I see your point. However I don't want to "start" with FRINGE. Please re-read my suggestion. I said that the text of the guideline does not match its title. My suggestion is to rename the policy and make the explanatory part more general. Another option, which is possibly less drastic, is to start the guideline with the phrase which clarifies our language, something like, "In wikipedia parlance, a fringe theory/view/claim is broadly understood to be a theory/view/claim which gained very little or no support in mainstream science. These minority views may range from outright pseudoscience to novel bold ideas or new experimental results which did not enjoy a general acceptance or confirmation yet. While typically the term 'fringe' is used pejoratively, in Misplaced Pages we understand it literally: 'on the fringe of the mainstream knowledge' and therefore fringe views have little or no weight in general Misplaced Pages articles. " Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Oops, my bad. We already have something like this. "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field." However IMO it is misplaced into the section "Identifying fringe theories". IMO the definition must be at the very top of the lede. This will remove misunderstandings due to tl;dr right away. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
      • I agree with this renaming and believe "fringe" is POV while "non mainstream" or "extreme minority view" are more objective. I especially believe that any policy stating only rules suitable for hard science cannot be invoked in the human sciences (history, religion, biography, even economics or ethics or philosophy) and proposed some ways to deal with that as below - which I suggest be a different policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 04:57, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Historicism in science and intellectual history

• Historically influential theories that are either believed by non-specialists or which are still applicable to some scope of problems, or which have influenced language or methodology, must be differentiated because they are part of intellectual history as well as science. Examples:
  • "F=MA" was considered literally to be true by 19th century scientists, but now is seen as an approximation that applies at low speeds and neither vast nor tiny masses. It was sufficient to get to the Moon.
  • Social Darwinism was another historically influential or tragic theory that had huge influence (racism, eugenics, forced sterilization) and did not generally die out until decades after World War II (partly caused by such views), bhy which time humans had developed enough nuclear weapons to destroy all advanced life on Earth thus making the endpoint of unlimited "darwinian" competition undesirable.
  • "the ether" has been suggested as just another name for dark matter but its characteristics were never clearly defined
  • Particle physics and electromagnetism have two quite different explanations for matter that have waxed and waned over centuries, so it would be incorrect to state one as consensus and the other as merely historical - even if 19th century texts employ more wave & 20 century employ more particle terminology.
• Such theories properly fit into intellectual history cannot be ignored nor all their followers necessarily treated as ignorant. In some cases it was not yet possible to experiment or see the logical consequences of a theory. In others terminology has been used to obscure similarity with more current theory.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2017‎

Pseudoscience

There are arguments that are constructed to look like science, but aren't. To determine whether something is pseudoscientific or merely an alternative theoretical formulation, consider that:

• Alternative theoretical formulations generally tweak things on the frontiers of science, or deal with strong, puzzling evidence—which is difficult to explain away—in an effort to create a model that better explains reality. It incrementally changes models and generally does not reject good explanations of phenomena from prior theories.
• Pseudoscience generally proposes changes in the basic laws of nature to allow some phenomenon which the supporters want to believe occurs, but lack the strong scientific evidence or rigour that would justify such major changes. Corruption of science itself is often usually claimed.

Pseudoscience usually relies on attacking mainstream scientific theories and methodology while lacking a critical discourse itself. Watch specifically for:

• claims that solved problems are impossible to solve (e.g. Biblical creationists)
• reliance on weak evidence such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence (e.g. parapsychology)
• indulgence of a suspect theoretical premise (e.g. claims of water memory made by advocates of homeopathy).
• conflations of terminology that allow incoherent definitions.

An example of the latter is climate change. Obviously the Earth's climate has changed drastically over its history, but the phrase in its scientific meaning refers to recent rapid unprecedented changes (at least unprecedented within human time on Earth). A highly motivated lobby present the scientific consensus or dominant paradigm as having some problem, but it has proven impossible to disprove either global warming as an overall trend or the narrower anthropogenic global warming or the even narrower CAGW. While all the alternative theories of warming are "fringe" and studies citing them or claiming to support them have all proven irreproducible (as with parapsychology). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2017‎

Motives of pseudoscience

Often pseudoscience theories are proliferated as part of a crapflood - a tactic in information warfare whereby a truth in plain sight can be rendered hard to believe by dilution. If the percentage of people believing the science motivates action can be reduced below some critical supermajority, it becomes easy to delay such action, and profits continue. It is not necessary for any new theory to emerge, only to prevent adoption of - and action on - the dominant one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2017‎

discredit consensus or establishment

Be careful to differentiate consensus from fringe status, to find answers to the fringe objections in the consensus, and to be especially watchful of WP:COI problems among sources. It can be useful to just enter the name of the theory with "debunked" in a search engine and see who has directly responded to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2017‎

discredit or delay policy

Consider medicine as the best analogy for differentiating between science & policy: No matter how many fringe theorists claim that arsenic is good for you, it is still illegal to dump it in your well, and you are entitled to defend yours based on the medical consensus that it is harmful. An argument about how scientific consensus may change is not an argument to ignore policy based on the current consensus.

In any given decade, less than 1% of scientific consensus from the previous decade is typically challenged at all, so it would be entirely wrong and dangerous to claim that safety critical policy is ever dependent on scientific total certainty. It literally never is, policy decisions (as in medicine) are made based on best known science, and if that changes, then, it changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2017‎

Is this a hoax or a fringe theory?

Please see Wikipedia_talk:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia#Is_Warsaw_number_a_hoax?. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:34, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• I would say it is BOTH. Looking at the history, hoax material was added to a Misplaced Pages article about a fringe theory. Blueboar (talk) 11:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Based upon

Regarding this, the Misplaced Pages:Based upon essay is about what articles should be based upon rather than what any individual statement should be based upon. Of course, the essay can be expanded to address statements in addition to what type of sources an article is primarily or half based upon. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:56, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

RM involving interpretation of WP:FRINGE (and MOS:WTW)

Please see: Talk:List of reportedly haunted locations#Requested move 1 June 2020. Some of the more circular debate there involves interpretation of MOS:WTW with WP:FRINGE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:01, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

POVFIGHTER

Please see: Misplaced Pages talk:Tendentious editing#POVFIGHTER. Summary: A provision has been added to WP:TE that appears to have implications for this page and editorial activity relating to it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:57, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Add shortcuts to better refer to specific fringe categories

Currently we have a single shortcut to the Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories#Spectrum of fringe theories section: WP:FRINGE/PS. However, there are three broad categories listed in the section: Pseudoscience (PS), Questionable science, and Alternative theoretical formulations. Our single shortcut seems to refer specifically only to the first category, pseudoscience.

In conversations on topics where there is potential for miscategorization of distinct theories that either overlap or are commonly grouped together in the vernacular, this leads to significant debate about whether or not a certain idea is fringe or not.

For instance, this has come up multiple times regarding COVID-19 and theories about laboratory origins. Generally people think of the pseudoscientific conspiracy theories regarding bioengineering, but this isn't the only topic. There's also some questionable/junk science, either from those without relevant experience or far outside the norms of peer review and open transparency. Generally the problem comes with the alternative theoretical formulations, specifically an unknown collection and inadvertent exposure to a bat virus in a lab environment. This is very clearly an area of legitimate scientific inquiry (as the joint China-WHO team evaluated it, but not the bioengineering theory), but also arguably fringe for being the apparent minority opinion. I can refer to WP:FRINGE regarding any of these topics, but this can be misinterpreted in multiple ways.

My proposal is to add two additional shortcuts, WP:FRINGE/QUES (or similar) and WP:FRINGE/ALT (or similar). This would allow easier distinction when used on talk pages, avoiding the potential baggage of implying valid scientific inquiry of a minority perspective is pseudoscience, and vice-vers-a. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:05, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Conspiracy theorism

I missed the discussion in January and wanted to add an additional view.

Conspiracy theory has a clear meaning in academic literature. It is an alternative explanation of events that involves an all-knowing, all-powerful and totally evil group whose actions are unreported in mainstream sources. Such theories are not falsifiable, because any evidence against them is dismissed as obfuscation by the conspirators. Much of conspiracy theory writing uses dubious or false facts and faulty logic.

As an article in The Conversation says, "Conspiracy theories are deliberately complex and reflect an all-encompassing worldview. Instead of trying to explain one thing, a conspiracy theory tries to explain everything, discovering connections across domains of human interaction that are otherwise hidden – mostly because they do not exist."

9/11 Truth fits all the elements of a conspiracy theory. It claims that the U.S. government murdered 1,000s of its own citizens as a false flag operation to justify the war in Iraq. In order to do that, it would have been able to carry out an elaborate covert action and keep it secret, despite the fact that hundreds or even thousands of people would have been in on the secret. The adherents explain the findings of experts by claiming they are part of the conspiracy.

In my opinion this is similar to the case of terrorism. It is a concept studied by experts and we expect expert opinion before we use the term. We don't expect that a reporter has sufficient expertise.

There is a clear distinction between conspiracy theories and plausible if unlikely alternative explanations which may elude news reporters, although conspiracy theorists may adopt alternative explanations and add in the elements of a conspiracy theory. In fact, Misplaced Pages draws a clear distinction between pseudoscience and alternative explanations in its Fringe theories|.

To use a current example, conspiracy theorists have seized on the Wuhan lab leak theory which fits in with their pre-existing views on Communism, the U.S. government, the globalists, and xenophobia. Yet the WHO and Dr. Fauci see it as a possible if unlikely source that has not been ruled out.

TFD (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about wikipedia "Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans"

 You are invited to join the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans, which is about a wikipedia that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Bangalamania (talk) 20:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Relationship to MEDRS

It might be useful for WP:PARITY to mention WP:MEDRS. The fact is that editors do not require an "ideal" source to add information about notable quackery. We can say that Chromotherapy is quackery without producing a peer-reviewed review article published within the last five years in a reputable journal; it's enough to produce any reliable source to describe such obvious nonsense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposed addition: Relationship of WP:FRINGE to other policies and guidelines

Over the past few months, there have been several discussions about instances of WP:FRINGE being misused as a justification to disregard other policies and guidelines. The most important of these was the Skepticism and coordinated editing arbitration case, in which Rp2006 was topic banned from all skepticism related BLPs for (among other things) editing with a conflict of interest, and excessively negative editing of BLP articles about individuals associated with fringe topics. During that case, one of the workshop proposals was for a principle which would have clarified that WP:FRINGE must be used in a way that is consistent with other policies and guidelines, but this principle was not incorporated into the final decision.

In a discussion about this issue at the village pump a few months ago, Masem made an insightful comment about how WP:FRINGE also has been used to circumvent RS policy: While I agree that we should still be relying on quality RSes for discussion of the state of a fringe theory without legitimizing, the issue that has been the core of this entire thread has been about how editors with a strong anti-fringe stance seem to go out of their way to knock any type of legitimacy of sources that would be the appropriate type to use in these cases that happen to give a bit of support or non-stigmatizing coverage of fringe, and then thus claim there's no coverage of the fringe view in RSes and thus no need to cover it - a line of circular logic.

WP:FRINGEBLP already makes it clear that the usage of WP:FRINGE cannot supersede the requirements of BLP policy. I suggest that the WP:FRINGE guideline should contain a similar clarification about its relation to other Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines: namely, that WP:FRINGE also cannot supersede the requirements of WP:COI, WP:RS, or WP:V. 2600:1004:B110:A468:C55C:DD85:8E2:95C5 (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to include something like that. Obviously COI, RS, and V apply everywhere; but the entire point of FRINGE is that it does have some effect on WP:RS / WP:V (hence WP:PARITY, which does unambiguously override the normal requirements of WP:RS in limited and specific circumstances.) The policies are not in competition with each other - WP:FRINGE is a supplement to RS / V and affects the reliability of sources. But more generally the underlying problem is that, aside from very new editors unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages's policies, anyone advancing a WP:FRINGE theory is going to believe that WP:RS / WP:V back them up. In a dispute like that it's useless to say "well RS wins", because the underlying dispute is going to focus on how the policies intersect and which is more applicable. And generally I am skeptical of efforts to write policies that are too "hard" (in the sense of "always do X, never do Y, Z always wins") outside of narrow areas like WP:BLP / WP:MEDRS where there is a compelling reason we need to do so or the fundamental definitions of essential core policies. Having a policy that comes down too hard on one side of a dispute discourages discussion and consensus-building, which is bad because the majority of cases are at least somewhat context-sensitive and deserve more discussion than someone just linking a single policy. That is to say - WP:RS / WP:V apply everywhere, yes, but you have to make your specific argument for how and why they apply, which includes considering supplemental policies like WP:FRINGE. --Aquillion (talk) 20:43, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

"WP:FRINGE is a supplement to RS / V and affects the reliability of sources" - I've seen editors routinely make this argument, but as far as I'm aware it has no basis in policy. WP:RS does not mention the viewpoint of a source as a criterion in determining whether or not it is reliable. According to WP:RS reliability is based on more objective criteria such as age, the reputation of the publisher, and what statement it is being cited for. Obviously if a publisher consistently presents fringe theories, its reputation will suffer as a result, but WP:RS requires these types of judgments about a source to be based on the source's reputation, not based on the viewpoint itself.

This argument also fails to address Masem's concern about circular logic. Normally, determinations about whether an idea is or is not fringe would be based on the balance of viewpoints that exists in reliable sources, which are objectively defined by the criteria of WP:RS. But if the reliability of sources is itself based on whether or not they present fringe views, then decisions about whether or not an idea is fringe can become completely disconnected from the source material, and are left to the discretion of Misplaced Pages editors. In other words, this would allow virtually any idea to be classified as fringe, if Misplaced Pages editors want it to be classified that way, and decide that all the sources supporting it are therefore unreliable, even if they satisfy WP:RS in every other respect. 2600:1004:B110:A468:C55C:DD85:8E2:95C5 (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

• To the extent that WP:FRINGE is a supplement to another policy, I would say it supplements WP:NPOV more than WP:RS. The point of FRINGE is to explain both when and how we cover fringe views. Blueboar (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
  • This is definitely the origin of WP:FRINGE -- almost a supplement to WP:WEIGHT. It just so happens that these days WP culture is to argue over reliability rather than neutrality. I appreciate that shift as a rhetorical clarification for how actual editing happens, but it has its limitations just as NPOV does. In particular, evaluating sources is necessarily circular. This isn't just the situation in the context of this guideline, but it perhaps becomes more apparent here since sourcing on fringe articles tends to look a bit different than on mainstream articles. In any case, there isn't a strong argument for replicating the wording of FRINGEBLP to apply to all other PAGs as if this guideline can be ignored if you find some line or interpretation elsewhere that you think supercedes it. The only reason we have a caveat in the FRINGEBLP section is because we have a special obligation to make sure that BLPs as a class of articles are taken care of in a special way. jps (talk) 13:11, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• I have no objection in principle to a carefully worded clarification to FRINGE with the object of preventing questionable editing by overly enthusiastic anti-fringe editors. But, I would caution that great care needs to be taken that FRINGE is not materially weakened. There is no shortage of people and groups who have, and continue to aggressively attempt to promote all manner of nuttery in the encyclopedia. PROFRINGE editing is by far a greater problem than the occasionally over-zealous behavior of those attempting to curb these pernicious POV editors. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Ad Orientem for the most part. We should clarify FRINGE to prevent abuse, accidental or intentional. Obviously, its all dependent what the proposed changes actually are. Bonewah (talk) 17:56, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm with Aquillion here in that The policies are not in competition with each other. (I am by default dubious of any proposal that tries to "clarify" proper editing by playing acronyms against one another, as in my experience, these tend either to be bikeshedding or an attempt to push a pet cause by cloaking it in wiki-jargon. I'm not presuming anything about the motives of anyone in this discussion, just saying that for me personally, any such proposal will be an uphill battle.) I also concur with Ad Orientem that PROFRINGE editing is by far a greater problem than the occasionally over-zealous behavior of those attempting to curb these pernicious POV editors (in fact, I would italicize by far). I don't find the argument about "circular reasoning" to be persuasive; to me, it reads as a slippery slope down to a worst-case hypothetical. Moreover, and perhaps I am echoing jps here, one could make the same accusation about editing on any topic. (Nor does it really seem connected with the ArbCom case that prompted this discussion, as that was principally about COI editing, not demarcating fringe from non-fringe or insisting that a particular source must be reliable because it toed some imagined party line about fringe topics.) The problem with trying to tweak the words in any one guideline to prevent abuse is that there's always another guideline, always some other way to wiki-lawyer, always another argument to drag out and delay until the editors standing in your way have had to move on to the next crisis. Words can only do so much when it's people who are the problem. XOR'easter (talk) 20:43, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I've also seen that circle of reasoning run in the other direction, now and then. "The fan wiki for my favorite TV show is exhaustively detailed, and it has a reputation for reliability (among fans — who are the people who'd know best!). Therefore, it should be designated an RS, and omitting the table of the 100 best episodes as ranked in a 1997 poll violates UNDUE." I wouldn't want to modify guidelines in a way that would fuel that kind of argument, either. XOR'easter (talk) 20:58, 7 March 2022 (UTC)