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Dianetics received a peer review by Misplaced Pages editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Misplaced Pages:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive 1 (to mid-December 2005)
• Archive 2 (to Jan 2006 rewrite)
• Archive 3 (to late Jan 2006)

Etymology of Dianetics

I've restored the line on the etymology of the word "Dianetics", previously deleted by Terryeo. Just so that we can be clear why I've done this and why it is where it is, let me explain:

1) The article as it stood didn't include an explanation of where the word "Dianetics" actually comes from. This is a rather fundamental omission. I think even Terry might agree with that.

I don't agree with that. The etymology as you have stated it in the article does exactly what the rest of you contributions to the article do. It creates dispersion of topic, belittles the topic and presents the topic in a bad POV light. If you wish to have most of it but don't include the dispersive germanic inclusions which most readers don't have a clue about, that would be okay.Terryeo 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

2) I put the etymology (note to Terryeo: it's an etymology, not a definition) in the "Theoretical basis" section for a specific reason. The word is a neologism designed by Hubbard to encapsulate the theoretical basis of Dianetics, i.e. that it operates "through the mind". Compare for instance Fascism, which describes where the word comes from and its connection with Fascist ideology. The origins of the word are fundamentally linked with its theoretical basis - the word actually expresses that basis - so, given this, I decided that the etymology best belonged in that section. -- ChrisO 00:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not a neologism. When a word is in use for 55 years it is no longer a neologism. 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

There's actually a perfectly good Greek word διανοητικός (neuter plural form διανοητικά) which is defined in my ancient Greek dictionary as "intellectual", and in my modern Greek dictionary as "mental". Eliminating the "o" doesn't make too much sense in terms of Greek morphology, but I bet it was done to make Dianetics rhyme with Cybernetics (which was a trendy fashionable paradigm of the 1950's). AnonMoos 01:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

That comment too, while interesting, does not contribute to the topic. Actually, it disperses editing attention from communicating the topic. At no time has ChrisO ever communicated what the topic is about. At all times ChrisO has presented the topic as false. His techniques include dispersion of attention (such as including a long etymology leading to no real understanding of why Hubbard chose a word combination which would direct the attention to the idea that a human mind might be examined in and for itself. Terryeo 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a very interesting point, and one that I'd missed. A bit of Googling suggests that Hubbard had that in mind, too: "While Dianetics does not consider the brain as an electronic computing machine except for purposes of analogy, it is nevertheless a member of that class of sciences to which belong General Semantics and Cybernetics and, as a matter of fact, forms a bridge between the two." (from his 1949 article "Terra Incognita" ). -- ChrisO 01:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It "forms a bridge" in the sense that it is not about a physical body but its subject matter limits itself to human thought. The distinction was necessary in the 1950s because psychiatry at the time (the only organizational body addressing thought) addressed the mind as a physical manifestation of the brain. While psychiatry treated the mind by addressing the brain, Hubbard's Dianetics treated the brain by addressing the mind. Thus a different word was needed which apparently, even today, some people are completely unwilling to understand.Terryeo 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Dianetics never addressed the brain. That is the whole point. No connection between "mind" or "spirit" and the physical body was ever a part of any of it. It is the most obvious thing about Dianetics. It is about thought. That is the whole subject, there is no other part of it except technique about how to communicate. Even today, American Dictionarys say things like; "mind, something found connected with the brain" while English dictionarys usually say things about the mind and don't necessariy connect "mind" with "brain." That's the difference. Mind and not brain, that's what Dianetics is about. Which is why Hubbard used "nous" and not "psyche." That's what it has been about for 50 years.08:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute... Terry, are you objecting to what Hubbard said?

I'm telling you. Dianetics addresses thought. The human body is an effect and it is the effect of thought. Until you get this difference you will not understand that Dianetics is different from psychiatry.Terryeo 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused by your question. Hubbard's beginnings of Dianetics simply went right past all of what was current at that time and mostly, still is current, for concern. Most scientific people immediate go "brain" when you say "mind?" Brain=mind and that's the whole story. Even American dictionarys define it that way, you look for mind and you won't find a definition that doesn't include "brain" in its definition of "mind". However, English (the country) dictionarys will include a definition or two of "mind" without including the term "brain". The possibility the physical object might not be hardwired to the mind, you see? And that is what Hubbard did with Dianetics. "Let's explore the mind" or something along that line without confronting whether the brain was involved or not. Later then, Hubbard did confront the issue. He didn't exclude completely that a nervous system (brain) isn't involved with what a person thinks, but he didn't wrap himself up in the physical body either. Terryeo 22:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there's another interesting point here - Hubbard did consider the mind was separate from the brain. There's a great deal of scientific evidence to contradict that belief, though this doesn't seem to have had any impact on adherents of Dianetics. -- ChrisO 23:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Science has never addressed the mind being separate from the brain. There is no such scientific evicdence. No field of science since the greeks and philosophy addresses itself to the mind, separate from the brain. Terryeo 23:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hubbard occasionally made comment about the human body. Dianetics is the addressing of thought, of what a person thinks, of what a person thought. The result can be many things, but it is not uncommon that the result is a physical manifestation. Such as being able to walk, when before the person was not able to walk. There isn't scientific evidence that what a person thinks does not effect their body. People think it is impossible. But there aren't any studies because no one has figured out how to study the area. Terryeo 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, I disagree. In Evolution of Science Hubbard makes a point about structure and function. He says, where did this idea of "Mind and Body" come from. Meaning thinking of them separately. He developed the idea of establishing what causes function to be the most important, rather than structure. What this means is that function, or engrams cause structure...the brain. So, with this theory if all the engrams in a body were processed, from the cellular level on up, then the body would disappear just as an individual picture and chronic sensation like arthritis disappears. See A History of Man for more discussion of genetic line incidents that form the body, including the brain. With a selection of importances, the direct path to free the spiritual being was taken to Clear. Auditing the body or entities or the brain is a detour away from Clear. He deferred further research along those lines to others. It is outside the scope of Dianetics. Spirit of Man 13:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what is said here. Please see my comment to Terryeo above for more about what is ment in the Context of later Dianetic studies that include the spirit, mind and body. Spirit of Man 03:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

Since it looks like the footnotes are going rather large and difficult to adjust with each new edit, it might be smart to implement this method using <ref> and </ref> (from Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#New_inline_citation_style_available) in order to easily organize all of the footnotes. It automatically numbers all of the references, so that you don't have to use {{ref|1}} and {{ref|80}} continuously. The difference in an article I was working on, History of New Jersey, was large. Just a suggestion :) AndyZ 21:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Great minds think alike, I've just done exactly that. :-) It should be much simpler to maintain the article in future.

Note for everyone else: here's how it works. You simply add your footnote in the body of the text, surrounded by <ref> </ref> tags. You don't need to add a number, just put the citation between the two tags. The footnotes are all "flushed out" under the Notes heading by the tag <references/>, which produces a dynamically numbered list. If you want to add a new footnote, simply put it between a set of <ref></ref> tags. Some more detailed instructions are at http://meta.wikimedia.org/Cite/Cite.php . -- ChrisO 21:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey good ! Terryeo 22:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Neat isn't it? It was only introduced three weeks ago, but it's a massive improvement on what went before. -- ChrisO 22:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review: Why the entire Philosophical content of the article was removed by Antaeus.

ChrisO, do you have any objections to having my Philosophy of Dianetics added to the article? Spirit of Man 06:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

BTfromLA, do you have any objections to having my Philosophy of Dianetics added to the article? Spirit of Man 06:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Spirit of Man, I've just looked over your contribution quickly. I don't think that long section belongs in the article as written, but I do think that some of your material will enhance the article if incorporated in a more concise, encyclopedic form. For example, a short description of the concepts of "Survive!" "Confront" and "Create!", and the importance Hubbard assigns them seems useful. My suggestion would be to drop the whole "Dianetics as philosophy" premise: attempting to describe the relationships between multiple Dianetic claims and pre-existing philosophical thought on these matters seems way beyond the scope of the article and is likely to complicate matters further. Rather, I'd try to extract a few central Dianetic concepts and incorporate them into a narrative account of "concepts and practices" or some such. I'd also try to make it clear how the ideas of Dianetics changed over time: there was nothing about the "whole track" in the early days, for example. I hope that some experienced editor will take on the task of incorporating some of your info into the existing article. I may have time to give it a crack next week, if somebody else doesn't jump in first. BTfromLA 07:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Maybe we could extract some of the less important controversy items to allow a little room to provide a balance with the most important issues of the actual subject? In fact the subject is far more important than the entirety of the controversy, in my humble opinion. To me the philosophical basis in early Dianetics blends smoothly into the applied religious philosophy of Scientology. In terms of the whole track, the clearing techique of 1947 and the four techiques used in 1950 did not need to address the whole track to produce clears. The 1947 technique only addressed one picture, like the time one entered the room. That one picture was then erased. As it says in the philosophy I presented. If you improve the quality of one picture you improve the quality of all pictures in the mind. Likewise with ability, if you improve the ability to erase one picture, you improve the ability to erase ALL pictures. One lock, then a few engrams were addressed and that was it in 1947. In 1950 while training others, it was found prudent to include ones entire physical lifetime from conception foreward. By 1951 it was very obvious that the entire time track of this universe needed to be addressed. By 1952, the nature of universes was developed and well, a clear must be able to operate in any universe he or she wishes. Spirit of Man 15:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with BT. I'll give it a go, if I get the time this weekend. Thanks for taking the time to write that section, Spirit - your efforts are appreciated (honestly!) :-) -- ChrisO 10:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

You have demonstrated that you are a good writer. But the article lacks balance and you have not, at least initially, represented both views fairly. Do you agree both sides of the issue should be presented fairly as NPOV requires? This section on philosophy is actually the only section that represents the subject as opposed to the controversy engendered by the subject and that tends to represent an intention to make nothing of an important subject. Do you care to convince me that you understand enough of Dianetics philosophy to represent the subject fairly, or will you only alter the material presented to make less of its scope and importance? Spirit of Man 15:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I should add, by the way, that it would have been better for Antaeus to explain why he deleted that section. There seems to be a lot of unexplained reverting going on on this article - that's never a good thing. -- ChrisO 10:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Antaeus, do you have any objection to restoring the Philosophy of Dianetics material to this article so it may be Peer Reviewed, discussed, and finalized in a way that fairly represents both sides of the issue? Spirit of Man 15:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Antaeus, do you have any objection to my adding a section on Dianetics therapy?Spirit of Man 15:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Why the Philosophy section revised per BTfromLA's comments was removed a second time by Antaeus without discussion.

Antaeus has not responded to why he removed it the first time. BTfromLA made comments that were incorporated in new edit. Antaeus then removed the edit with the comment per BTfromLAs comments.

I think Antaeus is being malicious and taking a POV that is destruction to the article. He is not discussing and not proceeding with with fairness here. He claims elsewhere that his problem is no citations. This section has always had citations. His second problem is presented as "statements from the subject" not distiguished as citations but presented as FACT without presenting both sides. This last revision includes criticisms. Antaeus, why all the vague deletions that tend to invite confusion and misunderstandings? Spirit of Man 02:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, of course. I view your and Terryeo's edits as fostering the confusion and misunderstandings, because you are both writing them from within your own Scientologist mindset and can't see the forest for the trees. Given where you are coming from, I understand why you might see the edits of Antaeus (and many others including myself) as taking an anti-Scientology point of view, but believe me, there's a LOT of Hubbard-hater stuff we keep off the articles in favor of neutrality! I can't begin to tell you how many times I've removed biased attacks of Scientology from these pages, and reverted edits by people who want to load every page up with excessive negative comments. wikipediatrix 03:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. And thank you for your efforts that have reduced confusion and attacks and excessive negative comments. Do you agree I have presented something of value from Dianetics? You present the view that there are two side to the issue. I present the view they both should be presented fairly with discussion. I have presented the Philosophy of Dianetics fairly, in the last edit I presented both sides fairly in the Philosophy section. I have updated the writing three times with considerations for the discussion here. Antaeus has simply deleted a viewpoint twice without regard to the discussion and without presenting any of his own. So he represents no viewpoint other than suppression of Wiki policy that emphisizes fairness. When you say "I disagree, of course." Just what do you mean regarding what I said? Spirit of Man 02:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Just because there are two sides to any issue doesn't mean these two sides get equal time. To use an extreme example, we don't give serial killers like Charles Ng benefit of the doubt and devote many paragraphs to the notion that maybe Ng had good reason to torture and kill all those women. Scientology and Dianetics are similarly EXTREMELY controversial matters and the long string of veriafiable and proven misdeeds by the Church (who are we supposed to believe, Time Magazine or Spirit of Man?) means that like it or not, it is NOT being unfair to weigh an article towards these FACTS and against the philosophical opinions of the subject, or the subject's adherents. This isn't picking on Scientologists - the same goes for Moonies, Heaven's Gate disciples, Jim Jones followers, Charles Manson devotees, Anton LaVey Satanists, Branch Davidians, and any other group that attracts pathologically contentious fans. wikipediatrix 14:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipediatrix, I think I need to understand the viewpoint you use to weigh things better. You have compared me to: "a serial killer", "having good reason to torture and kill...". Then you slant a view of "big and powerful Time Publishing" to little ol' me, and say who should "we" believe, Time Magazine or me. Then you claim in bold capitals these are "FACTS". Then you go on to compare me to Heaven's Gate disciples, Jim Jones followers, Charles Manson devotees, Satatonists...and any other "pathologically contentious fans." Well, let's start with these "FACTS" of yours, just about me to start. You have presented your POV publically here as if all of these facts were emphatically TRUE, but you in fact do not know me at all. So prove any of your "facts" about me to start. I think you have nothing and can produce absolutely nothing.... So we are left with simply "your POV". And "nothing else". A person that accuses others publically and falsely of "serial killing", and all those other mean and false things you said has a name Wikipediatrix. What is it? What is your POV? If you don't know, ask your parents or Calton or Antaeus. So when it comes to weighing facts who should we have confidence in, Wikipediatrix or the IRS's pile of "misdeeds of the Church of Scientology" that was thrown out in 1994 after one million pages of investigation. They "got rid of" all their false information and so did INTERPOL. Then the IRS published 11,000 names on their illegal Enemies List and 600 names on President Nixons's illegal Enemies list. I'm not saying everyone at the IRS is a happy camper, but I am saying, your "...long string of veriafiable and proven misdeeds..." would be a lot smaller if you and I sorted them out, one-by-one, the way the IRS did. As for me, I have confidence in Dianetics and Scientology and not you Wikipediatrix. And I don't not have confidence in the sources you cite on Misplaced Pages. Spirit of Man 23:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious who those critics doing all the arguing are. They seem like strawmen, so cites would be nice. AndroidCat 05:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

"His second problem is presented as "statements from the subject" not distiguished as citations but presented as FACT without presenting both sides. This last revision includes criticisms." I'm sorry, was there supposed to be some logical connection between those two sentences?

You did not discuss here before you made your edits. You simply deleted all of it. You left the impression you were being vindictive. The comment on your deletion is ambiguous because the edit was responsive to BTfromLA's comments. You now have an explaination, but she didn't say to delete it, so your explaination is not timely, and weak. Now finally to your discussion here. The paragraph hopes to devine the reason for your pre-emptory deletion. The two sentences discuss the possibility you might have expected more things to distinguish FACT from merely making a citation.

...Putting in the article "Dianetics makes a happier, healthier human being" instead of "Hubbard claimed Dianetics makes a happier, healthier human being" is unacceptable. It does not solve the problem to say "Dianetics makes a happier, healthier human being. Critics disagree". It is simply not a concept that should be giving you this much trouble.

Antaeus and Wikipediatrix, here is the first idea of the Philosophy section, written in such a way, I believe conforms with your view. If it doesn't please state why or suggest revisions:

== The Philosophy of Dianetics ==

Philosophy is the study of the nature of Existence. In Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard claimed the discovery of a "Dynamic Principle of Existence" in 1938.

His Dynamic Principle of Existence is SURVIVE! Dianetics Today iii

The dynamic part emphasizes the need for such a principle to be the starting point for evaluations that follow. L. Ron Hubbard used this principle and its meaning to define other principles and to define a set of coordinated definitions that define the scope of Dianetics in 1950. Evolution of Science - -

Critics argue that "survival" only means the barest individual necessity and there is more to life than that.

People in Dianetics respond with the idea of abundance. When one survives well, he provides for many things. He puts away for winter, saves for the future or plans for years of drought. He thinks in terms of abundance and the future. He acts to survive. The reward is pleasure. When he doesn't he tends to SUCCUMB!, the opposite of survive.

In Dianetics, Hubbard wrote the basic purpose of life, SURVIVE!, has four basic subdivisions; the individual, the family, the group and mankind. The idea of family includes sex, marriage and the rearing of children and the care of parents.

One philosophy, that of Ian Rand, says, man is selfish and lives for self, alone. In another philosophy, the psychology of Sigmond Freud the idea is that man lives for sex alone. Another philosophy or economic system, the communism of Karl Marx, says that man lives for the group only, like a cell in a body. Hubbard claims that the more basic principle, SURVIVE!, encompasses all philosophies and existence itself. Spirit of Man 16:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about and taking examples from Dianetics Today and not this section on Philosophy you deleted? Spirit of Man 00:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit I am having difficulty defining what your problem is. Partly because you didn't discuss first, partly because you deleted and referred to something that was done, now you give examples from another page, in hopes of clarifying what you mean. I think you are talking about something here that is not included in BTfromLA's comments. It seems to me if I cite from the book and give a quote and citation, that is enough. It seems to me if I say "Hubbard claimed..." that is enough. If I present an idea in a paragraph then these representations are enough. It doesn't seem right to fill the text with he or she saids, and then delete everything without discussion anyways. Why don't you just admit as Misplaced Pages does that her POV is that it is a FACT that I am "a criminal" and do not deserve to say anything here so she is fully justified in deleting it . Spirit of Man 00:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

And while it is important to discuss this important principle which is apparently very hard for you to grasp, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that you have dragged not one, but two red herrings into this discussion. You mention critique that I have made of your editing "elsewhere" but fail to mention that I never said that these were the problems with the various versions of your "Philosophy of Dianetics" section. What BTfromLA said was "Hubbard's ideas belong in the article, but the "philosophy" section as written is not close to a coherent, encyclopedic presentation of them." I consider that true of your first version, to which he applied that comment, and I consider that true of your second version as well, which is why I reverted it with the statement "rv to last by BTfromLA, for reasons stated by BTfromLA".

You haven't said how I entered a "Red Herring" into this. You are discussing now, not then. BTfromLA said the ideas belong. Why did you delete? Since I was trying for an acceptable level of "encyclopedic presentation" why didn't you comment something on that? Spirit of Man 00:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo then restored your second version again, with the only change being that he removed the "primarily" from "developed primarily by L. Ron Hubbard" in the introduction, and I reverted it, once again stating that my reasons were the same as those stated by BTfromLA: Hubbard's ideas should be in the article, but in coherent, encyclopedic form, and neither version presented was coherent, encyclopedic form.

Isn't there a rule about "Three Reversions"? Why would you go to this level of effort, in this way, just to correct a "presentation" issue? Spirit of Man 00:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

That's even before getting into the factual inaccuracies, such as "One school of critics argue that man lives for sex alone," which is a pretty profound misunderstanding of the concept of libido,

What is your view of libido? Doesn't Freud say sex is the basic Drive of living things?

...not to mention how misleading it is to call Freudianism a "school of critics " when Freudianism existed not only before Dianetics but before Hubbard himself was born in 1911. Even before that, even just as a clear, lucid explanation of Hubbard's ideas -- it fails, because it is neither clear nor lucid. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I was referring sarcastically to ChrisO's critical Freudian presentation surrounding the "Dynamic Principle of Existence" as if Freud had created the entire subject, in an article on Dianetics. I didn't intend you to think I was referring to the more general study of Freud's works known as "Freudianism".

I believe it is the most "clear and lucid" description of the philosophy of Dianetics on the web. Simply because it is the only one. If it needs some help lets do it and stop all this compulsive deletion of everything. Alright? Spirit of Man 00:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

original research or a primary source of information

Can we confront the issue of how to classify Dianetics? If it "Original Research" (such as the "cold fusion" guys did) then we should cite it in one manner. But if it is a body of information, the primary source of that information. Then we should cite it in another manner, per WP:NPOV. For example an archeologist's findings are his original research. When he publishes them then they are "original research" and don't qualify as for being a body of information. Newton, when he published his laws of motion, they were his research untill others duplicated and published thier results based on similar experiements. So which way do we treat Dianetics? One man's original research or "body of information, Hubbard's books are the primary source?" Terryeo 20:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It really does have to be one way or the other way. When editors remove direct quotations with a cited source, that says they consider Dianetics to be unverified "original research" (by Hubbard who is quoted). That's per NPOV, V, and "No original research". On the other hand, when editors directly quote from Xenu.net, quotes which are themselves direct quotes of Hubbard, then that qualifies Hubbard's work as "Primary Source" and in that case, Xenu.net is the secondary source who is quoting the primary source. One way. Or the other way. Which shall it be? And then let's stick with it. "Primary Source", or "Original research?" which shall it be? Terryeo 21:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It's original research when it's talking about something else: in other words, just because Hubbard made a statement about bananas doesn't mean his word can be treated as fact on the bananas article. When it's referring to itself, however, it's OFTEN a primary source, but not necessarily, because many other factors come into play. It is not, and will never be, a simplistic "either/or" choice. wikipediatrix 21:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

We are at no time to treat any person's statement as true, our interest is in verifiability. We are interested in presenting verifiable informations to the reader. WP:V published information. Whether it is true or the pipe dream of a heroin addict, if it is published we can quote it and build an article with it. What you believe to be true, or I do, doesn't matter for Misplaced Pages purposes. per WP:V.

Now we are confronting the issue our contradictory edits revolve around. Wikipediatrix you are saying that if Hubbard said, "bananas are good for you" then we can't quote that passage, (example: Hubbard said; "bananas are good for you" in "purification rundown") because Hubbard wasn't a recognized Doctorate of bananas? I yield, he didn't hold degrees in any field that I know of. By the measure, "A person must be accredited by institutions to be credible" Hubbard loses. However, history has shown us many examples of persons who were not accredited by institutions, which persons are recognized. Einstein is one example, Newton and the laws of motions another. I do not believe it is a fair measure to ignore a person's published word because the person was not accredited by educational institutions. If we held to that standard we wouldn't have many modern conveniences we enjoy today. Its not that I am saying your arguement is wrong, Wikipediatrix, but that as an arguement it fails when held to the light of history. Henry Ford is another example of a person whose efforts to produce something were scorned by his peers, but because he developed assembly lines, today we enjoy many benifits. Even the two men who first created a flyable airplane were nothing but bicycle mechanics. So I don't believe we can refuse to quote Hubbard and cite his words simply because he wasn't accredited by educational instutitions. Terryeo 09:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are citing Hubbard to describe what he said about Dianetics (e.g., "According to Hubbard's 1950 book, Dianetics is "an exact science."), Hubbard's writings are being used as a primary source, and appropriately so. In the context of Misplaced Pages articles, Hubbard's writings about Dianetics and Scientology should only be used as a primary source of what Hubbard wrote, not as a "reliable source" about the history or effectiveness of Dianetics or Scientology. Hubbard (and CoS publications) are unreliable sources in this context, because they are heavily partisan. (For the same reason, one would treat pronoucements of the Pope about the meaning and importance of the Catholic church as unreliable unless supported by third party views. This is spelled out in Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources.). In the case of Hubbard, there is an additional credibility problem, as his claims are not merely agenda-driven, but he and the CoS have been repeatedly shown to engage in fabrication (about Hubbard's war record, for example). I'm not sure where original research comes in here... if you are baldly stating Hubbard's views as fact (e.g., "Dianetics is an exact science.") you are violating NPOV by presenting a widely disputed opinion as fact. I wouldn't call that "original research," though, unless you then proceeded to demonstrate how, through data you've collected, the statement is true.

Terryeo, I think your question betrays some confusion on your part about the fundamentals of encyclopedic writing. "Original Research or Primary Source" does not get at the crux of your continuous conflicts with other editors here. Assuming that you genuinely want to contribute to better, more accurate and informative articles, it seems to me that your problems with just about everybody else who edits here stem from two related causes:

• 1. Inexperience as a writer of clear expository prose
• 2. An unsure grasp of the principals of Misplaced Pages and the culture of editing Misplaced Pages.

Should you seriously wish to improve matters, I suggest the following:

• 1. Don't edit any Scientology-related articles for sixty days. Don't even read them.
• 2. During this hiatus, get involved editing wikipedia articles on other subjects that interest you but about which you are not intensely partisan.
• 3. Reread the Misplaced Pages policies and style guides, and try to isolate underlying principals. My sense is that you have been approaching those with the question "how can I use this to get what I want?" rather than "what is the writer's intended meaning?"
• 4. Consciously work on making your writing more concise and communicative. "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White is a great short book packed with principals of good writing.
• 5. Then come back to the Scientology articles. --BTfromLA 23:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi BTfromLA. I disagree. For my nickle, most of you don't understand the least word of dianetics or even understand what subject dianetics addresses. I disagree, but understand what you just wrote. I understand dianetics. I don't believe most of the editors here do. I am also pretty sure the edits which Scientologists make and the edits which non-scientologists make contradict each other in this one and singular area. That is; is Hubbard's writing is his unaccredited original research, unsubstantiated by any other dicipline. Or, alternatively, Hubbard's writing is "primary source" and Xenu.net, Clambake, and all others are "secondary sources." I believe it is this issue alone which is the conflict. If we agree on it, we can align our efforts instaed of bumping heads. Say for example we all agree that Hubbard's writing (excluding his fiction) is "original, unsubstantiated research" okay? Well then, that defines how we present his datums and other's datums.Terryeo 09:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)<minor edit> Terryeo

Actually, Wikipediatrix, I'd like to make a slight correction, if I might: while WP:NOR might be misread to give the impression that everything which isn't from a reputable primary source or secondary source is "original research", the term refers more specifically to research that originates with the editor(s)* who added it. If not for this, we could never report on most incorrect or mistaken ideas, no matter how notable they might be; since the ideas would never receive validation from reputable sources, if that alone made them "original research", we couldn't report what the originators of the mistaken ideas themselves had said, only what reputable others had said about them.

(* Common sense applies here. Obviously if Joe Schmoakes tries to publish his own theory on Misplaced Pages that the moon is made of green cheese, it's original research. This doesn't mean that if he forms the Institute for Lunar Viridian Pressed Curds Research and it's another ILVPCR member who tries to add Joe's theory to Misplaced Pages, it's okay.)

By this standard, most of the examples Terryeo has been giving are not at all "original research". Fleischmann and Pons didn't post their claim to have discovered room-temperature cold fusion to Misplaced Pages, so it is not "original research". However, as the example chosen should indicate, simply not being original research is not enough to make something a reputable, unimpeachable source.

With respect to Terryeo's real area of concern, whether Hubbard is to be considered a reputable source and/or a primary source depends upon what matter we are considering Hubbard as a source on. As mentioned earlier, one reason that the rule is "no original research" and not "no material that comes from anything other than reputable sources about whom there is not even the littlest bit of doubt whatsoever on any subject" is that the latter would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to write about ideas that are wrong but notable in or despite their wrongness. If we are talking about what ideas are part of the body of ideas called 'Dianetics', Hubbard is clearly a primary source.

Hubbard, however, never possessed any sort of legitimate degree; he dropped out of George Washington University instead of graduating as a nuclear physicist as he later claimed, and the Sequoia University which supposedly granted him the Ph.D he later "resigned in protest" was a mail-order diploma mill, not an accredited insitution with the right to grant such a degree. In particular, he never had any legitimate degree in any of the health professions and so he is most definitely not an acceptable and reputable source on the medical effects of Dianetics. His writings show some fundamental and bizarre misunderstandings of scientific matters (he claimed that radiation was something you could simply hose off of a building surface or a road) and so he is not an acceptable source for the claim that Dianetics is "an exact science". A source for the claim that he claimed Dianetics to be an exact science, yes; a source for the claim that it was an exact science, an emphatic no.

Nor is Hubbard even an unimpeachable source for everything in the domain of "what is Dianetics". Every anthropologist knows that the gap between "real culture" and "ideal culture" can be vast indeed; people are quite capable of espousing certain ideals, and actually truly believing that they hold those ideals dear, and yet regularly engaging in behavior contrary to those ideals. So, you could treat Hubbard as a source for the claim that Dianetics claims to be founded upon certain ideals, but not for the claim that Dianetics in practice actually manifests those ideals.

So, it is not as simple as "It really does have to be one way or the other way." Hubbard's writings on Dianetics are not "original research" as Misplaced Pages defines the term but that definitely does not make them all "primary sources" for all purposes. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You Miss my point entirely. The term "original research" is used by wikipedia to reference two different sorts of possibilities. One is a Misplaced Pages editor who has drawn a conclusion and is presenting that conclusion in an article he edits. WP:NOR addresses that. But there is another situation too. states "Information on Misplaced Pages must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories and claims in articles must only be included if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." And this is the area around which we continually edit back and forth. We are pretty clearly editing back and forth because we have different opinions about how reliable Hubbard's information is. Do you people consider Hubbard's 20 million published words (or whatever quantity) to be his "original research" (and therefor unreliable) ? There, that's the single basic question. I ask you because I am treating those 20 million words (ha!) as "primary source" and treating xenu.net, etc. etc. as "secondary source" And I do think that is the source of almost all of the back and forth editing happens here. One further question follows if you consider Hubbard's work to be unsubstantiated "original research" and that would be, what do you consider Xenu.net, Clambake, etc to be? Terryeo 09:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you people consider Hubbard's 20 million published words (or whatever quantity) to be his "original research" (and therefor unreliable) ? Well, there you have it; there's the proof. Terryeo is not even trying to understand what other editors are spending large amounts of time trying to explain to him. He is merely looking for an adequate pretext to pretend that he believes other editors are violating Misplaced Pages policy; for those purposes it is to his advantage to resist acquiring an actual understanding of the actual policies and guidelines. It has already been clearly explained why Hubbard's published work is not "original research", but is not a reliable source, either, except on a very small, narrowly-defined range of topics (in fact, about the only topic on which Hubbard is a reliable source is "What Hubbard said at some point or another". For anything else -- even "Things Hubbard never said", for instance -- Hubbard is not a reliable source.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll tell you what I will do. I will quit editing with one, single exception for a while, until we resolve this issue of how to treat Hubbard's direct, published words. The exception is, I will remove any citation which is not published. Particularly I mean ChrisO and Wikipediatrix's citation of a confidential, unpublished Class VIII document. That's just wrong. It is unpublished. It is stolen. Whether it is criminal or not criminal isn't a matter I am qualified to comment on, really. But I am qualified to remove those citations which I know to be unpublished. Misplaced Pages is not a rag newspaper to be used as an expose' of unpublished Scientology materials. I'll quit editing until this issue of "original research" or "primary source" is resolved if people will cooperate and we work toward that goal for a few days. Terryeo 09:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

And okay, Antaeus Feldspar, I'll reply to your statements with the single exception that I don't believe your interpretation of what is a "real" concern of mine is entirely accurate. I have posted my "real" concerns a number of times. I am "really" concerned that Misplaced Pages presents accurate information in the areas which I have knowledge of, presents information as defined by WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. I initiated this discussion because I believe we (meaning myself and some other scientology editors, with yourself and some other academic editors) are holding, treating and considering Hubbard's work differently. And I have stated above, except for removing unpublished citations, I'll lay off editing for a while. But to your above stated points....I agree that WP:NOR is primarly intended to make clear that an editor can not post his conclusions as part of an edit. I don't do that but instead the conflicts seem to center around whether Hubbard can be directly quoted, i.e. "Hubbard said that Dianetics cures psychosomatic conditions" or can not be directly quoted. Which in turn (I think) revolves around whether Hubbard's published works can be considered "primary sources" or not. If we are examining the publication source, then most of Hubbard's works are today published by one organization in the USA, and another in Europe. Are those sources of publication, "reputable publications?" I say they are because Misplaced Pages:No_original_research#What_counts_as_a_reputable_publication.3F states; "(b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? If it is (b), it is what Misplaced Pages calls "reputable". I doubt if you can find an error in a book from Bridge Publications, they are a large building, have a professional front, high quality publications and have been recognized by the Library of Congress for years. However, I am willing to understand that no matter how large or how prosperous a corperation is, there are more factors than just prosperity and quality to consider.  :) You several times deliniate what Hubbard is not an expert about and can not be considered "primary source" of. Well, in the matter of nuclear physics, I would agree, he isn't source. But when nuclear physics meets Dianetics, then he is source because there is no other source of information about Diantics. If Hubbard says, "the purification rundown's vitamin B3 runs out radiation exposures" then that is a source of information. Feel free to argue its effectiveness. Feel free to argue that no vitamin can ever be helpful about radiation exposures. But it is not a claim, it is a statement. Treating Hubbard's statement as a primary source of information then treating Xenu.net, Clambake, etc a secondary sources of information will give us realistic articles, I believe. This is a quote: "Hubbard stated in HCO Bulletin 3 Jan 80 RA, Purification Rundown and Atomic War; 'The discover I made with this vitamin in the 50s began with its apparent effect on radiation exposure.'" Such a quote should be allowed, I believe. Bridge Publications is a refutable publisher, is it not? Hubbard is a past expert on Dianetics, is he not? Sure, you can argue the accuracy of his statements, but they are his statements and they are widely published. Xenu.net even quotes them in big blocks. Can't we quote Hubbard and then put the controversy right butt up against that? In this case of niacin and radiation there are lots of statements that say otherwise. "Hubbard says this" and The medical community, Dr. John Doe, says "this." The way I view it, The whole point of NPOV is to present Hubbard's statements and to present the conflicting information. To present them both, as they are published and available to the public. "Hubbard says ..." and "Dr. John Doe says.." just like that. Not, "Hubbard is claimed to have said .." and "Dr. John Doe says ..." Just the straight published data, as it is presented to the public in books, newspapers, etc. It is not our duty to interpret what is published to the public. It is our duty to present selected published data in a manner which, when read together, makes sense to the reading public. Terryeo 11:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

If I understand this correctly, Terryeo wants us to take Hubbard's word as the truth, and not question the truth of Source at any time at all. Essentially, it means "Hubbard is Source, and Source is NPOV. If it doesn't come from Source then it isn't NPOV." Newspaper articles, court judgements, and statements from anyone other than Source are all false data, which is why Terryeo refuses to accept them as "properly cited" information. On the other hand, if it appears in a statement by Source, then it is true and therefore it is NPOV. Despite your best efforts to push this, Terryeo, it is not going to be accepted at Misplaced Pages because that is not NPOV. Hubbard's POV is not Neutral point of view. --Modemac 12:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope. I don't want you to take either my word, Hubbard's word or anyone else's word as truth. "Truth" in that sense isn't what Misplaced Pages is about. What I want is to arrive at a concensus of opinion about how to present what Hubbard said. I believe we should quote Hubbard directly such as; "On Jan 3, Hubbard said, "the sky is blue." Whether the sky was blue that day or not, irrelevant. Whether Hubbard said it or not, that's the important point. "Verifiability" is what Misplaced Pages is based on. WP:V and not whether what was said tickles your fantesy or not, or my fantesy. I don't expect anyone to take Hubbard's word as truth. I expect everyone to edit Misplaced Pages per Misplaced Pages Policy and guidelines. Secondary sources (Xenu.net, newspapers and so on) are then to likewise be quoted per Misplaced Pages policy and guidlelines. Honestly Modemac, I have repeated this message 50 times that. I don't expect anyone to swollow it, I expect everyone to simply follow Misplaced Pages guidelines, that's all. I haven't made any effort to push my POV. Well, I did publish my POV on my user page, heh. But Hubbard's POV is his alone, and as long as we keep that clearly in mind then we can work together. I understand that you view me as something like a born again christian, sprouting POV and threatening everyone with eternal fire. lol. That's simply not the case, modemac. You see me working all the time toward following Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines. That's what this area of discussion is for. How exactly can we all work together to present good information for the reader. Terryeo 13:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

If Hubbard says, "the purification rundown's vitamin B3 runs out radiation exposures" then that is a source of information. Let me see if I can point out the central absurdity you are trying to get us to accept. If someone who never had any medical qualifications whatsoever says "Hey, listening to Celine Dion music makes teeth whiter, cures radiation sickness and raises IQ 50 points!" it would be absurd to take that as a primary source for the claims that any of these effects actually happen. However, suppose this person who never had any medical qualifications whatsoever formed a "body of knowledge" consisting of the above-listed claims and others; let's call that body of knowledge "Dionetics". Do we now say "Well, Bubbard is the primary source on what Dionetics is, and Dionetics claims that Celine Dion music cures radiation sickness; that means Bubbard is a primary source for the claim that Celine Dion music cures radiation sickness!"? No. Bubbard is a primary source for the claim that Dionetics claimed that -- NOT for any claim that there is any truth whatsoever to the claim. Anyone who talks about "well, let's just list both sides of the story: let's list Bubbard's claim that it does cure radiation sickness, and the claim of actual doctors that it doesn't!" is clearly confused: there is no story to which these are "both sides". On the story of "what is Dionetics" these are two parts of the story: there is the part where someone with no qualifications to make this extravagant claim made it anyways, and there is the part where the people with actual qualifications confirmed that the claim was nonsense. On the story of "what actual effects can Dianetics produce" there is no justification for treating an absolutely unqualified source as if he was a reliable source on the matter, even if (especially if) he is the originator of the methods under discussion. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not attempting to get you to accept a datum. I am not attempting to get you to accept the B3 datum. I am not attempting to cause you or editor to accept what Hubbard said. What I am attempting to do (by using the example of B3) is to open an area to discussion. The area I am attempting to open is: How do we treat Hubbard's statements? Thousands of pages of them exist. Is he to be treated as a "primary source" and others as "secondary sources" and "tertiary sources?" The discussion which I used the example "B3" about is not about "B3" nor about whether you or I or the man on the moon believes "B3" acts with a human body but about how to treat Hubbard's thousands of pages of published material. The two possible treatments (which I think of) are, Hubbard is to be treated as "primary source" or, alternatively, Hubbard's published work is to be treated as "original research." I don't know how I can make the question more plain. If I illistrate with another example, I'm going to rouse you into "disbelieving" another example. In what manner can we all agree to treat Hubbard's work? Is it original research or is his written word a primary source of information? Terryeo 12:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

We treat Hubbard's statements as claims, because that is exactly what they are. As has been noted, time and again -- and as it is stated in the article right now -- There has never been any verifiable, peer-reviewed evidence to prove Hubbard's claims to be anything more than claims. Hubbard made many, many bold statements delcaring his work to be absolute proof. He declared that his writings were the result of thousands of hours of research. And he declared that he had been "attacked" by psychiatry since the debut of Dianetics in 1950. However, Hubbard's grand statements have never been more than unproven claims. And that's all they are, claims. They are not a "primary source," not a "secondary source," they are not a "tertiary source." They are claims. Hubbard claimed that Dianetics and Scientology could cure radiation sickness, mental diseases, physical injuries, drug addiction, and a host of other maladies. But even after over fifty years, these claims have never been proven. And this is what is stated right now in the article. It is what the article will continue to state, because that is NPOV. Hubbard's writings are claims, not scientific proof -- and they are not a "source" of anything except for the fact that they are rules of how the Church of Scientology operates and what Hubbard's opinions were. --Modemac 13:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Good, thank you for replying Modemac. On the basis of an agreement of how to write articles we might then write articles and not argue with edits. Please understand, it is okay with me however you view these things. I am not arguing that you should view any of it in any manner other than you view it. You state Hubbard's written words can not be considered "primary source?" That is your position? How would you characterize the millions of published words which make up Dianetics, Scientology "technology" and the organizational published words (again, lots of it) by which the Church of Scientology operates? Is that all to be considered scribbles in a researcher's notebook? Such as we would treated an unpublished diary about "cold fusion?" Or how, exactly do we treat those words? Can we make a quote from one of those books, substitute Hubbards words, "I would say that bananas are good for you?" with "Hubbard claims bananas are good for you?" How, exactly do we present this information? You say we can not treat published books as "primary source" (of the subject it is published in). So, how then ? BTW, I do understand you dispute every word of it, okay? Fine, good, continue. But how do we treat the published word, how can that be done? Terryeo 15:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, your attempt to paint this as my opinion is a M/U that you need to handle. My "position" on Hubbard's writings has nothing to do with this. I am merely stating the fact that Hubbard made a great number of unproven, uncited, unsubstantiated claims in his "millions of published words." That's what he did -- he made a lot of claims. Therefore, NPOV dictates that his statements be described as what they are: unverified claims. You can ask "how do we treat this" over and over until LRH returns in his next life, but that does not change the fact that his writings are unverified claims that cannot be accepted as scientific fact. --Modemac 16:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Glad to see you reply Modemac. I am asking in that area. I understand that your opinion is: Anything Hubbard ever said, i.e. "On thursday Hubbard said 'the sky is blue today,'" whether he published that or not, is a claim. All right? Is that is your position? Terryeo 16:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason I bring this point up for discussion is because not all the editors view it the same way and there is room for disagreement. For example, is Bridge Publications which produces most of the books, etc. a refutable publisher? Might it be that they scramble up the information within the books? No one has raised that point yet. Modemac seems to feel it isn't approrpriate to even allow Hubbard to be primary source of information for things he said. Antaeus makes sure to state those things Hubbard is not to be considered a source of information for. Wikipediatrix and Antaeus both state that Hubbard can be considered "primary source" for some kinds of Dianetics information. I had hoped ChrisO might comment too. BTfromLA, says: "In the context of Misplaced Pages articles, Hubbard's writings about Dianetics and Scientology should only be used as a primary source of what Hubbard wrote." That really makes sense to me, personally and I can't find any room to wriggle around that when she adds, "... are unreliable sources in this context, because they are heavily partisan." Reading through Antaeus' rather more example strewn post, I think he and BTfromLA have both stated the same position. Is this a fair summation of how you all feel? Terryeo 16:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think there are a number of issues involved here. Rather than debate the definition of "original research" or whatever, it might help if we look at the underlying issues.

1) Should we be sceptical about everything Hubbard says? I think we need to be sensible on this. Clearly there are some things he says - Terryeo gives an example of "the sky is blue today" - which are not controversial. However, there are other things he says - e.g. that he sunk Japanese submarines, or that there was a nuclear holocaust 75 million years ago - which are controversial. So how do we define what is controversial? I think the rule of thumb has to be: does it contradict generally accepted knowledge from non-Scientology sources? For instance, Hubbard's claims about radiation are contradicted by mainstream science. That's why those claims are controversial in the first place. If there is a conflict between a Hubbard claim and mainstream knowledge, we should note that.

2) Should we take literally everything Hubbard says? Clearly not - as I've said, he makes claims which are way outside the mainstream. Just because he says something, and because (most of) what he says is published, we shouldn't take it that what he says is correct. Hubbard isn't automatically wrong, but he's not automatically right either.

3) Are Scientology publications unbiased sources? Again, clearly not - they have a financial and ideological interest in promoting Hubbard's ideas, and come to them with an a priori assumption of Hubbard being automatically right about everything. Would we regard a fundamentalist Christian work as being an authoritative statement on the validity of evolution, for example?

4) Is Hubbard's work a primary source? Yes, obviously - it's the man himself speaking, not what someone is saying about him or his ideas. But a primary source is not automatically right or wrong - you have to consider what it says in the light of other knowledge. Primary sources of any kind need to be examined in a critical light. For instance, Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ("Commentaries on the Gallic Wars") is our main contemporary source of information about that conflict. However, you have to bear in mind that Caesar wrote it to make himself look good and to deflect criticism from his enemies in Rome. You can't simply take it literally, given that Caesar had an obvious agenda and bias which prompted him to write it in a certain way (suppressing awkward facts; exaggerating his achievements; making claims which can't be reconciled with historical knowledge). Hubbard's writings need to be examined critically in just the same way. -- ChrisO 19:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, My point of view is: "If Hubbard's word is published about Dianetics, then that publication is "Primary Source" as per WP:NOR#Primary_and_secondary_sources because it satisfies WP:V which states: "articles in Misplaced Pages should refer to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have been published by a reputable or credible publisher. The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth." I of course recognize that because it is verifiable does not make it valid, real, accepted, etc. But everyone except User:modemac seems to agree that within the subject Dianetics and about the theory and how to do it, Hubbard's word as it is published is "Primary Source." Is that how everyone is viewing it? Notice I am not including Hubbard's expertise on anything beyond the subject Dianetics, not medicine, not radiation, not anything beyond Dianetics, ok? Terryeo 21:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, your comments lead me to suspect you have a different idea of what "primary source" means than the other editors here do: for one thing, it's "a primary source," not "Primary Source"; your capitalized phrase looks very close to "Source" as used in Scientology. To say that Hubbard's writing can be employed as a primary source for an encyclopedia article on Scientology is not the same as saying that Hubbard is the authoritative "Source" of all things Scientological. The fact that Hubbard can be cited as a primary source of information in an article about Dianetics does not mean that his words must come first, or that they take precedence over the words of others, or that they can simply be presented as factual statements, or that they are the only relevant source, or that primary sources are more relevant to the article than secondary sources. Nor does it mean that Hubbard's words are the only primary source: writings from the early 1950s by J A Winter. M.D., or John W Campbell could equally be primary sources in the context of this article. Agreed? BTfromLA 22:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

My reply to you just got messed up here. So here it is. BTfromLA, I think we are close to the area of conflict. If you can present sources of information which say the J A Winter. M.D. and/or John W Campbell contributed to the Dianetics we know today, I would not mind reading them. Else no, I won't agree.Terryeo 23:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, Terryeo, your reply confirms my suspicion that you have a non-standard notion of what "primary source" means. Please look at the short article Primary source. Anything which is an artifact of the actual events under discussion can be considered a primary source. So even if Winter and Campbell didn't influence a word of the dianetics texts, their writings could become primary sources for this article, because they were first-hand participants in the initial dissemination of Dianetics. The article is there to provide an overview of dianetics, which includes a history of Dianetics. Any first-hand participants or witnesses to that history can be primary sources. Make sense? BTfromLA 03:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense. Those two are excellent primary sources in only one area. Dissemination. But when it comes to theory, to printed books then no. Unless it can be shown that Hubbard assimilated their inputs. But about dissemination, yes. BTW, I'll read Primary source anyway and its associated pages. But my main effort here is that we have not presented the theory of Dianetics. History, well maybe. Dissemination and the controversy about that, maybe. But the core of the article, the meaning of the key concepts which Dianetics was fabricated from, we haven't presented that. I know people are going to argue that we have, but both Spirit of Man and I have agreed, variously. The meaning of the thing has not been presented.Terryeo 19:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Rereading through various Wiki Policies with an eye toward how to present information where the "Primary Source" is widely published but "Secondary Sources" which comment on the "Primary Source" are lacking, I come up with:WP:NOR#Disputes_over_how_established_a_view_is and I think this is our area of difficulty. "us" Scientologists have one opinion of how established Dianetics is, having personal experience with it. And neutral people (probably most readers) who have no experience with it don't have a yardstick to measure it by. And really hostile editors (psychologists, people who also edit on Xenu.net) are convinced it is their duty to be sure it never appears to anyone to be established at all. Would you all say this is the primary area of difficulty? Terryeo 22:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, surely you don't mean to say that there is a lack of secondary sources that comment on Dianetics, Hubbard or Scientology! All of those subjects have been extensively commented upon from the time Dianetics first appeared. Perhaps what you meant is that there is little or no secondary literature from reputable sources that validates Dianetics and Scientology. That does seem to be the case, and you are correct that testimonials about your personal positive experiences with the subject are not suitable for inclusion in wikipedia, no matter how true or powerful they may be. Such stories are unverifiable anecdotes, and they will always, and correctly, be deleted from Misplaced Pages articles. I do think that is one of the reasons that some contributions by you and Spirit of Man have been deleted by other editors (who are not, so far as I can tell, a bunch of "really hostile" psychologists). BTfromLA 22:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I am saying :WP:NOR#Disputes_over_how_established_a_view_is is what we are revolving around, it seems to me. My use of the term "Secondary Source" is misleading just above your entry. I meant to type "tertiary sources", there are hardly any tertiary sources. Terryeo 23:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I did not mean to say "there are few secondary sources" because the internet and news is full of secondary sources. But there are few tertiary sources which give a view reconciling the two views of primary and secondary sources. Which means we have a situation where the body of information, Dianetics, is viewed by most people as a "theory" and the practice of it, well, we never get to that because there is so much difficulty with the theory. WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories gives us this guideline (again, my opinion on this) and if there is some consensus (necessary by that guideline) we can quit editing each other. Terryeo 23:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

No one is commenting on how to handle these ideas but BTfromLA who is pretty busy, anyway. Can we agree on how to handle informations like "mind, engram, mental image picture, reactive mind, etc" and get on with it instead of back and forth edit wars? This question has stood here about a week and no one is replying. If we can simply get an agreement on how to treat these informations we can produce stable articles, what do you all say? Terryeo 16:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

"No one is replying" because you ignore what they say anyways. If you'd like to prove us wrong, explain why Fleischmann and Pons' cold fusion experiments do not constitute "original research". -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I see, you won't reply to the issue of Hubbard's work being "original research" or "primary source" because you have already replied, just above, right? And I have understood and stated my agreement. Which is, yeah, Hubbard's work is primary source only about his work. In matters of bananas and "the moon is made of green cheese" he isn't primary source. Some of us editors have moved on from there. Specifically the section following this one brings at least 2 of us (BTfromLA and myself) into alignment that we might treat Hubbards ideas (such as "engram", "Clear", "dianetics theory" etc,) might treat it as theory per wiki policy and be able to get somewhere. I used the cold fusion example as a means to communicate an idea. From the responses it was a useful communication. Now you are taking exception or making arguement about my example, this after a good deal of discussion has gone on. My intent was to cause discussion and, eventually reach an agreement of "How do we present this information" because the edit wars lead us nowhere. Because agreement has already been reached (I thought your words somewhat helpful toward that) I don't understand why you question the example I used. However, to attempt some smoothing of ruffled feathers here, I used that because obviously the persons who conducted the first experiments and published about their experiments did so about a theory. And further, with regards to their experiment, they were "primary source" of information. I also used the example with the idea in mind that it was debunked and I chose a debunked example of theory and original source becuase I felt it would spark symathy and because it implied my POV about scientology is not the ruling POV here, that people who are utterly convinced that scientology has not produced a jot of difference in the world would comment. I felt if I took a proven theory (Einstein's theory has almost been proven) as an example, people would not reply. So I chose a debunked theory, hoping to get some agreement about how to treat Dianetics and Scientology informations. Terryeo 18:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If someone insists on believing that "left" means "towards the nearest object shaped like a banana" and "right" means "towards the nearest object shaped like a donut" then giving that person road directions is nothing but a waste of time. Despite our best efforts to explain your mistakes to you, you are still insisting on some very fundamental misunderstandings of terms such as "primary source", "secondary source", and "original research". Proof of this is shown in this edit which you made just today. Your edit summary claims "redid the reference section. The primary sources of information should come first, secondary second." The actual edit, however, separated the references into "References" (occupied solely by L. Ron Hubbard) and "Hostile References" (all other references). If you think that the changes you made to the article and the changes you claimed in your edit summary are the same thing, it shows that you still don't understand the terms you're using, and it's fruitless for us to try to explain anything to you in terms you can't or won't grasp. Of course, if you actually do understand the terms, you need to explain why your edit summary was untruthful. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

CUTE! First you disperse my question and thereby refuse to either recognize or respond to it. Then, additionally you call into question my understanding of the terms. Were you willing to respond to my question (Which BTfromLA has responded to) you would state whether we can present Dianetics as a theory. That would provide a platfrom from which we could communicate about the subject. Based on that we might present the information which is Dianetics. So far we got lots of information but don't present the information which Dianetics uses. Perhaps this is your intent, Feldspar. Perhaps you will forever refuse to confront whether there is a theory, "Dianetics". I have replied to a lot of your comments to me, but do you reply to my question, "How do we handle the concpets which make up Dianetics?" Well, not really. You're going to see continued edit wars, back and forth variously untill we have a common ground to work from. I'll continue to organize links into "primary source" and "secondary source" though I might not name them that. If you want it otherwise, you'll have to say so. Accusing me of misunderstanding some vauge statement, requiring me to justify an edit to you simply won't work. I have replied to you a lot. You don't reply to me. Hence we have edit wars. The resolution is up to you at this point. I've made a considerable effort, I've narrowed the main problem causing the edit wars to an area, "primary and secondary sources" and further to "is dianetics and scientology and its associated things like Clear, theory?" Terryeo 21:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you've replied to me -- with personal insults such as "Beanbrain. Dogfood. Idiot." You can claim that your edit-warring is justified by the fact that we refuse to explain concepts you don't want to hear a tenth time when we've tried nine times already, but it won't wash. You can't abuse people and slander them and then pretend that you get carte blanche over the article because they're 'unwilling to work with you'. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Steps toward alignment of effort, conflict resolution

So, Hubbard is to be treated as primary source as outlined at WP:NOR#Primary_and_secondary_sources within the very confined boundries of "theory of Dianetics", "practice of Dianetics", "theory of Scientology", "practice of Scientology" and "Scientology, organization" (I hope). If anyone has comments, please say so. I feel we are isolating the area(s) of disagreement.Terryeo 23:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a comment; I second Modemac's doubts that you truly understand even now, even though you claim to, what it means for something to be a primary source (note: "a primary source", not "primary source" or "Primary Source"). If you are under the illusion, for instance, that Hubbard being a "primary source" would mean that nothing he claimed on those subjects would ever again be phrased as "Hubbard claimed X", then I'm afraid you're still substituting what you wish to be true for actual understanding. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand that you, Antaeus Feldspar doubt that I understand what "primary source" as spelled out at WP:NOR#Primary_and_secondary_sources means. I'll reply to this and then, because your second comment requires some looking and referencing, I'll reply to that later. "Primary Source" means a source of raw, unfiltered information which has not been interpreted nor modified but is presented as the individual who first presents it, wished to publish it. To reply to you about quoting Hubbard, I'll give an example of what I think would be an acceptable quote under the standards of "primary source".Terryeo 03:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hubbard said, "most people go around thinking that a misunderstood is just something they obviously don't know --a 'not-understood.'" in a bulletin. Hubbard continued, "A 'not-understood' is a misunderstood, but there are additional ways a person can misunderstand a word. In the bulletin, Hubbard went on to list 10 ways in which a word can be misunderstood.(signing for clarity)

Terryeo 03:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

There you go, that's an example of my understanding, how to quote a primary source. Maybe my example is a poor choice but that's the situation as I understand it to be. I also understand we don't quote Hubbard on any issues which is not utterly, totally obvious (like "they sky is blue") except that we first discuss his statement as a theory and resolve the discussion of his theory as per WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theoriesTerryeo

WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories tells us what we can do in this sort of situation. Hubbard makes statements which he is the source of, but those statements are "claims" because they are far-fetched, inconceivable, etc? So our manner of dealing with his theories is spelled out there. Which means we are going to have to talk about "the key concepts" because our various ideas of what is "key" and what is not is going to vary. In fact, that's what a whole lot of the editing has been about. Spirit of Man puts in a big theory section and people look and go "oh hell, that doesn't have much to do with the subject", etc. So okay, let's attempt some consensus ! :) Terryeo 23:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny, I can't remember a single instance of anyone saying "the philosophy of Dianetics doesn't have much to do with the subject of Dianetics". I just remember people saying things like "this particular attempt to describe the philosophy of Dianetics is rambling and disorganized, and states as facts both unverifiable personal opinions and factual inaccuracies". Perhaps you'd be kind enough to actually show us some diffs that actually support your claim that people said anything of what you're claiming here that they said? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

As I re-read your question more carefully, I see you are addressing the same question I am posing. That is, How do we deal with a primary source of information, the source is publishing theories which are not apparent. I have to agree, one editor creating a relatively large amount of "theory" without the consensus of other editors isn't going to work. I believe we would have to work over and come to agreement about each "key point" of Hubbard's theory or theories. In fact, when it comes to Dianetics I don't believe I have ever read a basic statement of the foundations in good, clean english. Hubbard states his axioms but I don't think I've read "key points" of his theories anywhere and we might be able to come up with information which has not be presented in quite the way we might come up with. Terryeo 03:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

So that would be a "no," then? -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

My reply is not meant to be a "no" but an agreement. I agree that raising more than one point in a "theory" section is contrary to WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories which says to arrive at a consensus of editors. Each key point of a theory should be discussed, a concensus reached whether it is a point which can be presented as an obvious datum or not. For example, "A memory can be considered a mental image picture" Well, that is Dianetics theory but because a lot of people don't consider that a memory can be a viewable mental picture, there is disagreement, at least it is not intuitive to everyone, right? Therefore we should arrive at a consensus about how to present that key element of Dianetics theory, per WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories. But it is wrong to create a wholesale theory section without concensus of us editors. Does this make more sense? Terryeo 18:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

So that would be "no, I can't support my claims about what other users have given as their reasons for particular edits that I disagree with," then. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand you now. My statement which prompted your request for verification was about User:Spirit of Man theory section. I stated that people thought: "oh hell, that doesn't have much to do with the subject" as editor's motivation for deleting his theory section. My claim is that people deleted his theory section. My proposal is that editors deleted Spirit of Man's theory section because they thought what I stated. No, I can not support that editors thought that. I can support that editors deleted his work. Editors thoughts? no, I can't support that. The statement I made was an over-simplification, I stated it to propose that a group of key points was presented by one editor, all in a block and without concensus from other editors. I use that as a point to present that we follow

If some of us are agreed the pole we seem to dance around has to do with Dianetics being an unproven theory, then we should discuss its key elements, arrive at a concensus, and include them in the article. May I propose the first "key element" of Dianetics theory is what, exactly is meant by this term: "MIND", because it is on this flagpole that Hubbard separated his "research" and his "therapy" and even "science" which Psychiatry so strongly disagreed with that it refused to respond to Hubbard. Terryeo 21:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

May I propose the article is quite good the way it is. Terryeo has made a valiant effort attempting to cast himself as the only one following Misplaced Pages policy (or rather, the way he wants to define it), while the other contributors to this article are engaged in egregious violations of Wiki policy because they disagree with him. However, his attempts to change and re-write the article are not being accepted by the Misplaced Pages community at large, as noted by the many different users making efforts to keep this article legible, accurate, and NPOV. --Modemac 00:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

While I appriciate that you distancing yourself from me and aligning yourself with others by declaring me to be "over there, spouting Misplaced Pages Policy incessently" and you "over here with many other like-minded people who should all pat themselves on the back about the wonderful article, I completely disagree. The article as it stands right now does not communicate anything about the meaning of Dianetics. No meaning of Dianetics, no glimmer of the good sense of Dianetics transmits itself through the article in the mind of the reader. (my opinion). The article says things. Those things are not really false, but they don't communicate what Dianetics is, How Dianetics has been used, is used or manifests within the Church of Scientology. It is talking about the yeast bubbles and not the bread, the steam and not the tea. Terryeo 02:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, can you offer a concise sentence that describes Hubbard's concept of "mind"? BTfromLA 03:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll sure try. Hubbard departs from other disipliens because he considered "mind" seperately and independently from "body and brain." His approach to the subject differed. Rather than look at the physical and figure out the mind from that. He looked at the mind and characterized the mind. The sentence: Hubbard considered it a workable theory to consider the mind to be made of pictures of experiences. There, is that enough or too little? Terryeo 03:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for that response. "Considered it a workable theory to consider" doesn't really add anything, but "Hubbard considered the mind to be made of pictures of experiences" seem reasonable, and the concept of "mental image pictures" which have actual mass (right?) seems like a legit one to include when describing Dianetics, and a good lead-in to "engram" and "reactive mind." Are there other crucial concepts that aren't mentioned in the current draft? BTfromLA 03:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

<surge of joy> Yes, that is the sequence. A mind is can be thought to be made of mental image pictures. Some mental image pictures contain pain. Those are not so easily looked at and are called engrams. The collection of engrams together are called the reactive mind because they react to stimulii without a person being aware that they are in restimulation and causing feelings and reactions. That's the sequence. Last I read the article, none of that meaning was present. I state a definition and it gets deleted right away. Terryeo 03:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

What you've written above strikes me as much more concise and informative than most of the other things I've read by you: maybe we're actually making progress! If you want to add to it, I suggest you do so here on the talk page first, and we can work out difficulties here without the usual exasperating reverts. BTfromLA 16:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

All right then, I'll create a "theory" subdivision on this page for discussing what key elements are theory and how to state them for deployment on in the article page. Have a cheeful BT ! Terryeo 17:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so Dianetics pretty much has to have a theory section. The theories of engram, mind, reactive mind and so on need some discussion don't they? I'm pretty sure several editors are going to find lots of controversy with each element of the theory section. Unless someone posts here otherwise I will begin with including what "mind" means within Dianetics and how its use of the idea differes from mainstream use of the term. The difference is not vast and I'll support it with dictionary definitions. Terryeo 15:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Here are some ideas for a theory section. Hubbard discovered certain basic things, but he went through the process alone or with close associates and conducted a great many tests. So the scientific process of limiting the subject to what science can observe, was done philosophically. Other so-called mental sciences have not done this. To them the mind is not visible, except possibly as the brain with tomography viewing the activity of radioactive indicator materials. In Dianetics the mind consists of mental image pictures only, and these are visible to the owner and viewer. They are also visible electronically with an ohm meter or a household scale for measuring one's weight. The pictures have mass. They have resistance that can be measured when the picture impinges on the body. All of these things are scientific developements that other mental studies have not gotten to yet. So mental image pictures can be viewed, sensed, measured, weighed, counted and tabulated. When one exists it can be experienced and when it is gone this can be measured as well. All mental image pictures together are call the Time Track. The basic element of the mind is the mental image picture. So from 1938 with the discovery of the dynamic priciple of existence and the need to know what it ment and to develope a workable therapy, to 1948 or so, that basic principle evolved to an "axiom" or a simple statement understood to be more or less a natural law. Dianetics currently has about 200 such axioms that can be read and understood to learn what the subject consists of. In 1948 there were just six. By 1950 there were about 30, but unnumbered. There are about 29 Logics as well, but I think I would include those in Philosophy rather than scientific theory. By the early 50s the scope of the philosophy underlying these axioms had become so vast that the main organization carried forth as an applied philosophy. The individual techniques evolved very rapidly. For those that were at this level of perception of the subject, the subject seemed to change continuously. By 1952 the value of the individual, the person going clear became the focus. This was most important. Even more important than the entire mind. So by 1952 the first axioms of Dianetics describe the individual himself, the spirit, the static or thetan. At that time it was known that one had to address the thetan as an individual. By 1959 this became so evident that even the dynamic principle of existence had to be expanded to reflect the actual capabilities of the thetan. In Scientology the dynamic principle of existence is "CREATE!" So the current theoretical basis of Dianetics should reflect this. Thetan, mind, and body. Dianetics can increase the abilities of the thetan to a level where he no longer needs the mind or the body to experience the fullness of existence. Of course he can retain the body and mind, and do all of the things bodies and minds can do as well. Spirit of Man 01:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre excuses

I noticed that Terryeo has been deleting chunks of the introduction again with the odd excuse "removed some editor's personal opinion of what the book contains". The bizarre thing is that it's substantively very similar to an earlier version with which he was apparently fine (see ). So are we to assume that he disagrees with himself? In any case, deletionism isn't a good thing... -- ChrisO 00:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, aren't you friendly, Mr. Cite-unpublished-confidential-documents and modify-wikipedia-guidelines-to-justify-it and then in the talk page, keep your fingers crossed that I don't get called into the discussion and explain that your editing of the guideline happened because you "just felt right" about editing a guideline to justify including an unpublished, confidential document. HA ! bizarre! HA! BTW, I believe most of our back and forth edits have to do with treating Hubbard's statements as primary source as per WP:NOR#Primary_and_secondary_sources, but not recognizing and discussing Dianetics as "theory" as per WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories and if you and I and others here too, can align our efforts I think we can produce stable, useful articles. What do you say, are you willing to "work well with others, ChrisO ?"Terryeo 02:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

a proposal of how to introduce Dianetics as a theory

Dianetics is a theory and resultant practice which is about thoughts and mind. It was first introduced to the broad public in 1950 with, Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health. Prior to publication, Hubbard had written two previous shorter treatments of his ideas of Dianetics, one is available on the internet. In practice, Dianetics centers around a two person communication technique called auditing. Today the Church of Scientology uses his ideas and calls them "a workable technology of the mind".

There, that's my suggestion for the first paragraph. I assume controversy will be inserted copiously after the first, introductary paragraph.Terryeo 19:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be worth going through this line by line to explain why it's not very satisfactory. It has three main problems: it isn't NPOV, it has some accuracy issues and it doesn't provide an adequate summary (it's considerably less detailed than the alternative):

• Dianetics certainly isn't a theory by any conventional definition of that term - it probably isn't even a hypothesis, and at best it amounts to a conjecture.

• Your version of the paragraph doesn't mention Dianetics' supposed therapeutic benefits (which I thought was, after all, Hubbard's main point - if it doesn't do anything what use is it?), nor Hubbard's claims about what issues it could resolve.

• It also doesn't mention Hubbard's positioning of Dianetics in opposition to conventinal psychotherapy, which is surely also a key point.

• Saying that it was "developed by L. Ron Hubbard" is partial and therefore POV - there's incontrovertible evidence that others were involved as well. Hubbard certainly claimed in later years that it was all his own work, but that simply isn't supported by the historical evidence, or even by what Hubbard said at the time. That's why I added "developed primarily" by LRH.

• It's also surely a bit of an omission to leave out the point about Dianetics still being promoted and used by the CoS - the article is about a topic of ongoing relevance, not just an historical issue.

I'm sure that the other editors will be able to add to this list if there are any other points that I've overlooked... -- ChrisO 22:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, ChrisO, it is really really irritating when editors work together toward agreements for a period of time, and then arrive at agreements through struggle and effort. But you come along and say the entire thing is false. That is really really irritating. By itself, that could be forgiven and you could be included in the discussion. Instead you post a notice at the top of the discussion page which states ChrisO's POV to the exclusion of all other POVs. This discussion and this article are covered not by your posted policies, but the the policies and guidelines which apply to all articles. You are wrong about this one too, ChrisO. Terryeo 17:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, you have missed the whole point here. You have completely missed the whole point of this "theory" discussion. I am not talking about Dianetics being a "theory" I am talking about how to handle the subject of Dianetics. If you will be so good as to read the section above, a good deal of effort has gone into how to deal with information about this subject, Dianetics. At this point the concensus was reached by a number of editors (which you did not contribute to whatsoever) that the infomation of the subject, Dianetics is to be treated as spelled out at: WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories. Now the reason for this treatment is this. There is a body of information. It is spelled out in 10 books and many lectures. The information is collectively called, "Dianetics" and the question is, how do we present that information? Well, it is research and publication by Hubbard. So it is his original research. But Hubbard died and left it to the Church of Scientology. That leaves us in the position of presenting his information per Misplaced Pages policies. How do we do that? From the ongoing discussion above (which you could have contributed to but didn't) we are going to treat it as Misplaced Pages treats theories. Now do you get it?Terryeo 01:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, here is one definition from your theory reference:

"Theories are typically ways of explaining why things happen…"

"In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from or supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified." Spirit of Man 02:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

If you are quoting that as a proof that Dianetics is a scientific theory, then I suggest you read further. A much more clear example is given in the article on Intelligent Design Intelligent_design#ID_as_science Tenebrous 05:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Tenebrous, I'm not quoting that as proof of anything. I merely pointed out that ChrisO had said it doesn't meet a conventional definition and it in fact meets the one he cited. Spirit of Man 02:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Tenebrous again, thank you for your link. I understand you ment to refer me to this;

For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:

Consistent (internally and externally)

Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor)

Useful (describes and explains observed phenomena)

Empirically testable & falsifiable (see Falsifiability)

Based upon multiple observations (often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments)

Correctable & dynamic (changes are made as new data are discovered)

Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)

Provisional or tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

In this context, do you feel strongly enough that anything in Dianetics would not qualify, that you would care to defend your view here? For example, I choose a "theory" from Dianetics and you do your best to defend why it does not meet the above? I'm not talking about you just blustering and spouting gibberish, but something serious and businesslike. This is not a challenge at this point, I'm just talking, you know? Spirit of Man 02:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that we could do that. I'm not sure what it would accomplish, though. There are a number of well-written essays on this subject online. If you want I can provide you with links to them, but you could easily find some by using the terms "dianetics" and "pseudoscience" in a Google search. I will further mention that neither of our opinions on this subject are relevant: mainstream science considers Dianetics to be without substantial evidence and therefore so must we. We are not here to "prove" Dianetics---the day that it is accepted by mainstream science (i.e. when JAMA or some other peer-reviewed source publishes it)---it will not be considered pseudoscience, and will be described as a scientific theory. Until then, it will be pseudoscience. Tenebrous 08:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do give me links to two of the essays you feel best answers this issue. I assume you mean to present evidence that supports your view and that I may evaluate? I disagree with your thesis that "mainstream science considers Dianetics to be without substantial evidence and therefore so must we." JAMA has a track record of calling anything it views as competitive to its economic interests as "quackery". That is not unique to Dianetics. Do you agree this is true? Dianetics says that only the spirit may heal the body. I think that would qualify as a competitive idea to drugs and surgery. Can you point me to the data where the mainstream community has disproven anything in Dianetics? So thank you very much for that valuable bit of data. So..., I understand you wish to abandon your challenge above that it meets the definition ChrisO pointed out? Unless you mean to withdraw also from your definition outlined above, please show me where it does not meet that one as well? I say it does, but it doesn't have to. I don't have to prove to a material scientific community that man is in fact spiritual. Any time they go sleep, have an injury, compulsively want to leave, or think of death, they demonstrate it and that is observable on an ohm meter with a fluctuating resistance that changes the applied voltage in a characteristic bopping pattern. Spirit of Man 18:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll actually give you more than two links, because I suspect you don't want to be exposed to the information, that you just want an argument you can pick apart. Operation Clambake And there's far more material on the subject of Scientology, but it's not directly relevant.
When I mention JAMA, it's as an example of a peer-reviewed journal. You are welcome to invent any reason you wish to explain why Dianetics has not been published by any valid sources. I did indeed withdraw from the discussion on the merits of Dianetics as a theory: it's irrelevant. Can you point me to the data where the mainstream scientific community has proven anything in Dianetics? For that matter, if you don't value the opinion of JAMA, what do you consider to be "mainstream"? I will accept any peer-reviewed source. Your argument that Dianetics is "spiritual" is also bunk: currently the CoS promotes Dianetics as religious, but the core text most definitely refers to Dianetics as a science---repeatedly. What it is marketed as is irrelevant: it describes itself as science.
"Any time they go sleep, have an injury, compulsively want to leave, or think of death, they demonstrate it and that is observable on an ohm meter with a fluctuating resistance that changes the applied voltage in a characteristic bopping pattern." This is gibberish, and it has no relation to your argument as far as I can tell. Please don't include it in this discussion, as it is not relevant, it suggests that you are trying to promote the ideas of your religion, which is against policy. Tenebrous 23:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, also, I believe I have asked this before, but who provided what important successful developements in Dianetics, other than L. Ron Hubbard and the people he has specifically credited in writing? I know of no instance where he takes total credit as you claim In fact every major course in Scientology has "Keeping Scientology Working", KSW-1 HCO PL 7 Feb 1965 page 3, in it and this specifically refutes your claim. Spirit of Man 02:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with "Dianetics is a theory..." It embraces all existence. It defines "Zero" for the physical sciences, like Physics. It defines and proves the nature of the spirit for religions and philosophies. It provides a more basic definition of logic and clarifies the nature of logic as reason. It elevates the concept of the "optimum individual" from the "normal" of psychology to a "clear", a person with no neuroses, psychoses, aberrations or self induced illnesses. So a "clear" can be rational, and this level of rationality is the nature of logic. When hidden information is included in a "logical argument" it is no longer rational. When an individual fails to face the reality of his environment, he resists and makes mental image pictures. The individual is what is important, not the images or "thought". When the individual fails to confront pain and unconsciousness and makes a mental image picture of that, then fails to confront that. He becomes illogical. He becomes "normal". If you feel I have not understood your idea please discuss it, and let's sort it out. Spirit of Man 22:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay Spirit of Man, I understand. But if we as editors can arrive at an agreement of how to treat the information which comprises Dianetics, we can edit more fruitfully. Myself, I know Dianetics works. I have audited and been audited with it and I know it works. But how does the public see it? It is a body of information, it exists, it has been published for a long time. On the other hand it is not accepted as Newton's Laws of Motion are accepted. Let's come to an agreement of which wikipedia policy applies to the body of information which is Dianetics, okay? Terryeo 18:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this part to; "In practice, Dianetics centers around a two person communication technique called auditing." In Dianetics we find the person becomes more rational by just understanding the mind and this is theraputic. There is something in Dianetics known as the "Doctrine of the true datum" that basically says, that when the mind becomes aware of an irrationality it will correct itself instantly. This says, that one could have a course a person could take and then no longer have self induced illness. One could have a course that could teach communications and the person would not be irrational while communicating, or communicate like a clear. There is a code for counselling that when learned well produces a counsellor that is rational like a clear. What would happen if this Doctrine were applied to all that Dianetics embraces, existence? This is all just using Dianetics in Education. There is another major factor used in Dianetics and that is Preventive Dianetics. One just eliminates Engrams from happening in the first place. Like the "silent operations" you see on TV with Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Another major factor is Necessity Level from Dianetics Evolution of a Science. The entire "reactive mind" can be nullified by the individual under certain conditions he perceives as necessary for survival. In life one sees this often as "adrenaline rush" or "second wind". One can also go to a new locality without any reminders that bring irrationality into affect. So I think it is a great over-simplification to simply say, "two person technique", or "auditing" only. Spirit of Man 22:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

That's very true, Spirit. So how can we introduce it? Terryeo 01:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I searched the web for things on Dianetics as a philosophy and didn't find much. Everything I found on Dianetics in encyclopedias was trivial. So if we as a group could pull this off I think it would be an achievement for the world wide web. I think it is now a very large subject integrated with an applied philosophy. But we could present just the theory part that is testable within the scope of what man knows and respects as science.

We could start with the definition of theory I gave ChrisO above from his Misplaced Pages link. Can we reach a consensus on using that as the context for a theoretical section?

I think we should look to the current theory and minimize any lengthy history lesson.

Then we could possibly agree on what is most important to include. I think the idea of the individual as a spiritual being having a mind that can be described in terms of a current scientific theory meeting the criteria of the above definition is most important. To my knowledge there is no other science out there that can do even this much. I don't think there is any encyclopedia that has done it either, let alone the testing of such a theory. I don't think we need to get hung up on the testing issue. There are about 50,000 clears out there. They exist. They have been tested. That information could be consolidated. It is not that the theory has not been tested. We just need to write it down in a framework acceptable to Misplaced Pages.

The derivation of each of the key ideas from the basic principle of survive is probably beyond the scope of the article.

The state of Clear as the optimum individual or most basic personality, is a major key concept. The idea of a static as more basic than the personality is probably out of scope. The idea of the mental image picture as the element of the Mind might be next. The idea of the Time Track, all the mental image pictures possible, is essential to the concept of the Mind. The two or three parts of the Mind are next, I think. The basic element of aberration, the Engram is next. Then the Reactive Mind. Some Clears don't use or have mental image pictures. How they use knowlege and what they do for memory might be interesting if there is space for that. Emotional Level is the best predictor of human behavior might be included in a more extended article. What makes auditing work should be described. Educational Dianetics with the Doctrine of the true datum and how that works might be mentioned. Preventive Dianetics and how that works could be mentioned. The four basic principles of how to define scientific concepts could be touched on. The Logics and how to evaluate information is too philosophical I think for such an article.

The above ideas might be articulated in terms of the statements of natural law used in Dianetics to describe them. Spirit of Man 04:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried trimming the philosophical section down to two or three ideas only and still got "too long" as a comment. So you have your work cutout for you trying to reduce the list to something anyone could actually do. ChrisO had some good ideas too. Spirit of Man 04:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, you argue that Dianetics is not a theory, but that we should treat it as if it were anway. Yes, Dianetics is LRH's original research. However, until it has been published by a reputable source and undergone peer review, it is still original research no matter who presents it. The appropriate Policy associated with Dianetics is found under Pseudoscience, not Theory. WP:NPOV#Pseudoscience I would support an expanded section on the concepts of Dianetics, but only if the concepts are presented in a concise form, using as few of LRH's neologisms as possible, and also give the mainstream scientific consensus, and clearly represent that Dianetics is a minority view. Furthermore, the rest of the article is well-written and NPOV, but lengthy. I'm not going to remove sourced material without discussion, but I would like to bring the subject up for discussion. Tenebrous 03:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Tenebrous, why you didn't join the above discussion is beyond me. We talked for a week about how to treat this information. We hammered extensively whether to treat the subject as "original, unsubstantiated research" or to treat it as "theory" or how. We settled on "theory" because there is so much secondary source material available. When there is primary source, secondary source and tertiary source, then the material is no longer, "original research" because it has had review. You are late on the discussion, but if you continue to contribute, please read the earlier discussion which are on this page, above. Terryeo 04:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess I better say it again. This discussion is about how to treat the information in the Dianetics article. This discussion is about how to treat the information which is called, "Dianetics". If you think it is pseudoscience, fine, if theory, fine, if conjecture, fine. We are talking about how to treat the information, and not how to classify and present the information. First things first, which wikipedia guideline and policy do we use to present the ideas which are known as Dianetics? Terryeo 04:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Dianetics has not been described in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, in fact, it has been refused from them because it lacks substantial proof. Yes, there is secondary source material. Is it reliable? No. Therefore the information should be presented as per the guidelines here: WP:NPOV#Pseudoscience Tenebrous 05:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to withdraw from this discussion. It was a bad call to get involved in an argument with True Believers. Have fun Tenebrous 05:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Now I see what you were trying to argue, Terryeo. I didn't intervene in the debate above because I couldn't work out what you were trying to say, and I didn't have the time to wade through a verbal fogbank.

Tenebrous is clearly right - Dianetics plainly does qualify as original research, per WP:NOR, and it needs to be treated as such. Your comment that it's "spelled out in 10 books and many lectures" is, I'm afraid, completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Dianetics might have been be spelled out in millions of words or on the back of a cigarette packet, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether it's a bona fide theory. The amount of source material is simply not relevant (there's at least as much source material in creation science, but that doesn't make that scientific either). Note what WP:NOR says:

The original motivation for the no original research policy was to combat a real issue: people with personal theories that very few people take seriously, such as cranks and trolls, would attempt to use Misplaced Pages to draw attention to these theories and to themselves. It is clear that this material does not belong at Misplaced Pages, but it's difficult to exclude it under other policies: often the cranks will cite their own irreputable publications, providing verifiability, and choose theories that are difficult to prove false. But precisely because the expert community does not take their work seriously, they are almost never published in a reputable peer-reviewed publication, allowing us to apply this rule.

Scientology publishing organisations patently don't qualify as reputable sources - they're little more than L. Ron Hubbard's vanity publishers, they're highly partisan (obviously) and they evidently have no system of peer review. There's a clear definition of what a theory is at Theory, and Dianetics doesn't even begin to qualify as a theory. We should not present it as something that it isn't.

I think Tenebrous' suggestion of treating Dianetics in a similar fashion to intelligent design is a sensible one. We certainly do need to say something about the scientific problems with Dianetics - it's a bit of an omission that we should assert that science sees Dianetics as a pseudoscience without going into much detail about why. -- ChrisO 10:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

One more point, ChrisO. What you think is "clearly right" is not actually right. You felt you were "clearly right" to cite unpublished, confidential Scientology documents (thereby putting Misplaced Pages at the same risk other organizations which have had lawsuits against them take) and that is completely wrong per WP:V (confidential information is not published) and then you were wrong again because you then cited an online, audio version which is likewise not published and not to be cited per Misplaced Pages Policy. Here too, You have an opinion. You appear unwilling to discuss your opinion. Is this because you are unable to discuss your opinion, or is it because you are an utter snob? When information has been read by millions of people, when published information continues to be purchased and read, it is more than nothing. Scientology owns millions of dollars of property and is on every continent, your opinion may be wrong, or may be right but it needs to be discussed and it isn not good with several of us.Terryeo 02:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, your opinion does not a concensus make. I suggest we treat the information of Dianetics per this wikipedia policy: WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories. Tenatively, BTfromLA things so too. What is your counter-suggestion, which Misplaced Pages policy or guideline? Terryeo 18:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, it would be appreciated if you followed wikipedia's suggestion of indenting your replies appropriate to the page. Its good that you at last duplicate and understand what the editors here have been talking about for 2 weeks. It is worth pointing out that your consideration of your fellow editors is very poor as witnessed by your substituting an entire Dianetics article in place of the hard work of many editors and agreements. By all means, if you are going to continue to edit, continue to be responsive.

Unfortunately you see my statement of "10 books and many lectures" as being an arguement. Its a point, however the subject matter which makes up Dianetics is to be treated, its publication, its broad issue in many languages, its web presence, is not to be ignored. BtfromLA and myself are willing to treat its information as a "theory". That it has been extant for 55 years contributes. In 55 years psychiatry could have commented on Dianetics, but hasn't. In 55 years any scientific disipline could have commented, but hasn't. There has been one disipline which has commented on Dianetics. Religious leaders have commented. is a collection, but you can find those men's opinions in other places too, not only in a human rights link. So you suggest "pseudo-science?" Terryeo 16:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is basically anything presented as science, which is not. Dianetics is by definition pseudoscience. It may also have religious aspects, but that does not affect whether it meets the criteria for pseudoscience. KillerChihuahua 16:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Today Dianetics does not present itself as a science. Today, Scientology does not present itself as a science. About 1950, 51, along in there, Dianetics presented itself as "along scientific lines". But why argue whether it is science or not a science. It doesn't seek to be recognized as a science, it established itself as a religion in 1954, it has been accepted as a religion in most countries (Belgium being an exception and Isreal another). In no country has it sought acceptence as a science in the last 40 years. Why address the issue of "science" or "pseudoscience" at all in our article? In fact, why address it as a religion? It is information. 10 books and many lectures, published for 50+ years. Why do we need to classify it either as science or as religion? Can't we keep it simple to introduce the subject, then as the article develops tell of the controvery around "science" and "religion?" Let's present it as Misplaced Pages suggest "theories" be presented. Terryeo 18:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Dianetics and pseudoscience

Following my comments above, I've mined Intelligent design for a new section on Dianetics as a pseudoscience. Comments below, please. :-) -- ChrisO 11:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, you are creating and contributing to a problem when you do things like that. Please take a moment and understand. There are a number of editors working here. We constantly edit. Can you follow the reasonableness that we can talk, come to agreements, and present a better article together? This is after all, wikipedia's basis. Right now we are attempting to reach a concensus of agreement about how the public views the information which comprises Dianetics. You have an opinion. Dianetics is a controversial topic. Even IF your position of pseudoscience is the opinion widely held by the public, you should be editing per the wikipedia policy regarding pseudoscience. Which means, don't make large edits of that nature unless first getting some concensus of opinion. Rather, contribute to the discussion instead of treating your, singular opinion as the only existing opinion. You know what you know. I know what I know. If you persist it will only be the continuation of what has been going on for months with this article. If you disucuss, some resolution is possible. You have been wrong before. You are wrong again, wrong to not discuss. Will you discuss, per wikipedia policy? Terryeo 17:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course I'll discuss it, which is why I started this particular thread in the first place. What I won't accept is you removing large amounts of content without even explaining what's wrong with it. You don't seem to understand how the editing process works. I suggest you read Misplaced Pages:Editing policy and pay particular notice to the section "On editing styles". -- ChrisO 19:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree that the subject should be treated in that manner. Dianetics is a subject more than 50 years old. Your illistration is not. Dianetics is published in many books, lectures, videos and other media. Your example is not similarly published. Dianetics is supported by millions of dollars of property and it practiced daily, improving people's lives. Your example does not change anyone's life. It isn't even an action but a theory about why things exist. Dianetics is about how to DO something. Your example isn't about how do do anything. Dianetics requires a good deal of education and the understanding of a number of new ideas. Your example is about the understanding of one idea. To compare Dianetics to your idea is to compare the game of baseball to the color of the grass growing on the field. Your example is a theory about how to view what is present. Dianetics is about how to do something. Yours is a noun, Dianetics is a verb, an action. It exists as a noun in order that the action, the verb, can happen. Given the best effort by 100 editors, it could not be treated the same way because your example is a noun, a POV while Dianetics is an action, a thing that people do. And they do it every day, whether you know it or not. Terryeo 02:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

However, none of this does anything to prove that Dianetics is not a pseudoscience, as ChrisO notes. Therefore, the inclusion of the section on pseudoscience is appropriate for the article. --Modemac 03:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Modemac and ChrisO, the goal of Dianetics per DMSMH is the Clear. To date according to Clear Numbers assigned, and Auditor magazine, about 50,000 Clears have been produced with this science. I think you both are discounting the actual evidence from an extreme point of view. It does what it says. It is a science. The section on pseudoscience is itself an extreme POV and should be removed. Your handling of the 1950 study presenting test results for the Wechsler and other tests from Science of Survival is another example. Spirit of Man 17:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, it is unfortunate that you find yourself unwilling to communicate with other editors. Your POV is apparently not the only POV on planet earth, why don't you talk a bit, hey? It is getting rather obvious that your intent is not to present the information which comprises Dianetics, but to prevent the information which comprises Dianetics from being presented. Terryeo 19:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, it is unfortunate that you find yourself unwilling to communicate with ChrisO. He is well respected by, and able to communicate with, just about everyone on Misplaced Pages, except you. Are you having trouble confronting? --Modemac 19:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Modemac, ChrisO made a huge error recently. He attempted to cite a confidential, unpublished Scientology document. When I called him on it, he modified a Misplaced Pages Guideline to justify his citation. That led to discussion on the guideline discussion page. When I was included and spelled out what he was doing (supported by Feldspar I might add) his revision to the guideline was removed. Then he used the same document from a webpage to make the same citation. Nonetheless, if it isn't published, it isn't a good citation. You can see his errors at Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health in the history where he attempts to give a reason for the publisher choosing a volcano as a cover picture for that book. You can see his guideline discussion here. In addition, ChrisO has deleted the work of several editors over a period of time, put his article in whole. He does not have a good track record in either this article or the DMSMH article. He might have a wonderful track record in those subject he understands. Terryeo 17:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Modemac. I saw you remove what people had said here. That is a no-no and you must never do that. The difference you created is viewable here: . On 5 Feburary 2006 at 19:01, User:Modemac edited Talk:Dianetics. He removed what User:Spirit of Man said and he removed what User:Terryeo said. The difference is viewable at the above link. Why we have so damn much trouble is becoming a little more clear now. Terryeo 03:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say he's having trouble with duplicating, if you want to put it in Scientology terms - i.e. understanding Misplaced Pages policy. Terryeo's interpretations of policy are sometimes so bizarre that I'm not even sure if we're reading the same guidelines here. I think we've gone as far with this as we can. The next step is mediation, followed by arbitration if necessary. If Terryeo doesn't want to abide by community standards, I think it's time to invite other members of the community to take an interest and enforce those standards if required. -- ChrisO 19:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Neither Modemac nor ChrisO reply to what I have stated. And I have only stated the obvious. A number of editors are working toward the idea, "how do we treat the informatiion which is Dianetics". I bring your attention once more back to the point of discussion. How do we treat that information which is Dianetics. The reason this is important is because it is the basis on which we all edit. When I treat Dianetics as if it were proven and workable and another editor treats Dianetics as if it were conjecture and causing insanity whenever it is applied, we can not arrive at a good article. I am attempting to get a consensus of agreement, "How do we treat that information which consitutes Dianetics" I am suggesting "theory" but I am not hardlining on theory. Can we talk about this basic issue which lies under every other issue discussed here on the talk page and in the article? Terryeo 20:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

We've not replied to what you stated because it's irrelevant to the topic at hand. What are your objections to the "Dianetics and pseudoscience" section? You deleted it twice - you must have some concrete objection to it? Am I going to have to ask "where's the beef" again? -- ChrisO 20:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The topic which has been at hand for 2 weeks is, "How do we treat that information which is Dianetics" This is not, "whose point of view is Dianetics" and this is not, "Dianetics is a science, damnit!" this is a discussion, "How do we treat the information which comprised Dianetics?" ChrisO, you have stated you consider it to be bunk. Unfortunately, "Bunk" is not one of the ways of treating information within Misplaced Pages articles. Nor is your statement, "conjecture" accurate either. Your choices are few. You apparently do not know what they are. And yet you edit? <raised eyebrow> Your choices include "theory" "pseudoscience" "reliable, proven theory" and a few others. The reason for this topic is this. Every editor edits based on what they consider the subject to be. For "Theory", Misplaced Pages suggests we discuss. For "Pseudoscience" wikipedia insists we discuss. No matter what you consider the information to be, discussion is critically important. And the foundation of editing is "How do we treat the information". This is the reason people are editing for you and against you. Those who are certain Dianetics is Bunk, support you. Those who know otherwise continually tell you where you are wrong, how you are wrong and what you are doing wrong. What you do is up to you, join the rest of us and state how you feel we should treat this information, or continue your rogue editing. Terryeo 02:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

(reduce)NPOV and V define how any controversial subject is treated. If the subject has been presented as a science, that should be covered. If as a religion, that also - including countries such as Australia which decreed it not a religion. As Dianetics has been presented as several things, perhaps the way to begin is to make a list, try to come to consensus as to how to prioritize that list, (chronological, perhaps?) and organize the article by aspects and proceed per WP:V and WP:NPOV. One puppy's suggestion. KillerChihuahua 02:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, KillerChihuahua, you are not very current because Australia has recognized Scientology as a religion a few months ago. To the degree Dianetics has presented itself as a science, to that degree controversy might argue it is not. Thus the possibility of a section presenting it as a science, and arguing it is not (pseudoscience). But both of those would be covered if we treated Dianetics as a "Theory". We could arrive at a concensus of editor opinion about the important points and present those in the article. Terryeo 02:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Not current at all on Dianetics in Au, apparently. If you treat Dianetics as a Theory then the pseudoscience approach is the only one. That seems contradicting some of your earlier statements. KillerChihuahua 08:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, User:Modemac has been editing this talk page. He has been removing selected people's talk here. on 5 Feburary 2006 at 19:01, User:Modemac edited Talk:Dianetics. He removed what User:Spirit of Man said and he removed what User:Terryeo said. This difference is viewable here:

On a number of occassions in the past I have found a confusing series of entries. Now it becomes more clear why we argue so much. User:Modemac comes on and simply removes what he doesn't like to view. What shall we do about him? Terryeo 03:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately for your paranoid theories and subsequent slanders, this is much more likely to be a known bug in the software which sometimes fails to detect an edit conflict, and simply saves an editor's version of a page even though that version is missing contributions other editors have made in the meantime. Unless the editor takes the extra step of checking the diff of the edit he just made, he doesn't realize that other people saved other versions in the meantime, and that the software didn't alert him of the edit conflict as it should have. See, by checking this diff, you see that the only posts "removed" were the posts made in the previous nine minutes. Which is more likely (that is, to a person who is neither paranoid, nor looking for a specious excuse to slander other editors): that Modemac found these two posts, both made in the space of nine minutes, to be so totally intolerable they had to be disposed of, or that the known bug in the software failed to alert him that other people had posted things in the nine-minute interval since he started his edit?

As for your subsequent accusations, well, now, that's a different story. Obeying Assume good faith (you're very keen on citing Misplaced Pages policy, aren't you? How are you at abiding by it?) would mean taking the more plausible and less accusatory of two explanations for this problem edit, which is the one I've outlined above about the bug in MediaWiki. However, you've chosen not only to assume that this incident has a sinister explanation, you've proceeded to openly assert that there are multiple incidents of this nature. Well, well. I highly advise you that if you are going to make nasty accusation of that sort against your fellow editors, you had better get cracking and find other examples of this supposedly "clear" accusation you are making. You're going to be in very big trouble if you start hurling accusations of "The problems of this talk page are due to Editor X who makes a regular practice of removing posts he doesn't like!" and you can't offer more than one single incident for which there is a much simpler explanation. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It might be possible about the 9 minutes. That wouldn't be impossible. However. Your reply does not address User:Spirit of Man's post which was similarly removed. Nor does it respond to other differences which I find in viewing history, where User:Modemac substitued his name in a susequent edit for a generic IP address. Yes, my post was posted. It is viewable and my edit states: "Terryeo (→Dianetics and pseudoscience - reply to KillerChihuahua)". It might be true about the 9 minutes, that's possible. But that does not explain the User:Spirit of Man deletions. Nor does it explain why you don't notice, comment and then move on to address the main issue here. Which is, "how shall we treat the information which makes up the subject, Dianetics?" I say we treat it as a theory. We deliniate its various points and take the care to present them. An introduction usually introduces a subject, telling what it is about. Dianetics is about thoughts, but further than "about thoughts" we haven't settled very much. Terryeo 04:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Your reply does not address User:Spirit of Man's post which was similarly removed. Yes it does; have you failed to follow along? The problem edit in question had the effect of removing two other edits: and . Those two subsequent edits happened in the nine minutes between 02:52 UTC and 03:01 UTC. If the software failed to detect an edit conflict caused by one intervening edit it could easily fail to detect an edit conflict with more than one. As for the rest of your post, I really don't think it deserves to be dignified. You not only failed to assume good faith regarding one problem edit, you made a very specific, very damaging allegation that there were in fact a series of such problem edits. You cannot suddenly change the subject from where is your evidence for such a very serious allegation, which it would be a very serious breach of civility to make falsely? to it doesn't explain why you keep changing the subject! though I'm hardly surprised that you choose to do so. You simply cannot say "the subject of conversation will be me accusing other people of serious offenses as long as I want that to be the subject, and then when I don't want to talk about the accusation I made and the lack of evidence for them, the subject is something else." -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Consistantly Feldspar, you would rather argue than create an article. For a couple of weeks the question has been posed, "how do we handle the information which is Dianetics" On every possible occasion of any possible arguement, poof, there you are, ready to argue until the cows come home. It happens often. I replied to your post above. I've let it go and moved on. As spelled out above. Moving on. ChrisO considers Dianetics "bunk", you consider it a past, brief fad, I know it to be a workable technnology which is used every day of the year, BTfromLA is willing to treat it as "theory" for purposes of the article. There are a number of concepts to Dianetics. Would it be all right with you to treat them as "Theory", introduce them, point out the various "fadnesses", "debunking counter arguements" etc. etc? The reason I bring this up is real obvious. Until we can agree of how to treat an individual piece / bit of Dianetics information, we have no reality about the scope of the article. If you are going to present (as an example) "mental image picture" as a past fad, no longer extant or used today, then after the concept of what it (is/was?) was presented you could do that. ChrisO could present how the idea is bunk in the first place. BTfromLA is willing to treat these ideas as theories per wikipedia policy and we might work together toward an article. What do you say? Terryeo 06:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

See my reply above per Theory. KillerChihuahua 08:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

okay Chihuahua, that makes some sense.Terryeo 16:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree there could be an arguement of pseudoscience. However, balanced against such an arguement are the many publications which Dianetics has produced. I have put such a historical list into the article many times. It gets deleted. Pseudoscience arguements get put in, instead. If people will agree not to freely remove cited information (historyical book list) I will agree not to remove the pseudoscience arguement. Terryeo 17:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, are you saying that Dianetics is less of a pseudoscience because of the number of publications about it out there? (most published by Bridge Publications, part of the Scientology empire) Raymond Hill 18:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Povmec. I am talking about coming to an agreement about how to treat the body of information which comprises Dianetics. Pseudoscience is one method of treating a body of information. Theory is another. Religion another. As I stated above and in keeping with the idea of a balanced article, if "pseudoscience" is to comprise a portion of the article it is reasonable to balance the implications of "unpublished, hairbrained idea" with a historical publications list. Don't you agree it presents a more balanced article that way? Of course, Povmec, I am actually refusing to respond to your question about my personal opinion :) Terryeo 18:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarify "unpublished, hairbrained idea" please, since I don't know what part of the article you are referring. And what do you mean by "a historical publications list"? Do you mean to insert in the article a raw list of all publications related to Dianetics? Raymond Hill 18:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That's 2 questions. heh. I don't support attempting to present Dianetics to the reader as pseudoscience. First of all, to properly be "pseudo" something must present itself as science. Today the Church of Scientolgy does not present it as a science. The official Dianetics website, ] does not present it as a Science. In fact I have read the church's policies on presenting it as a science. While it was presented in early years as a "science of mind" and Hubbard used phrases like, "along scientific principles," in recent years the scientific point of view has not been presented. Church policy discourages such a presentation. The other half of "xxxx is a pseudoscience" would rely on counter-scientific proof. There isn't any, or so little that it doesn't matter. With no counter-proof and no presentation today as a science, I argue that presenting Dianetics as a Pseudoscience is dispersive. It doesn't help the reader understand Dianetics. Terryeo 18:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The second half of your question. I have prepared a historical list of book publications, appropriately cited with ISBNs which I have inserted in the article under "History". Terryeo 18:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

1) I agree with you that Dianetics has nothing to do with science. But Dianetics presents itself as a science. The book title: 'Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health'. I invite you to read the excellent essay by Jeff Jacobsen, Hubbard is Bare, and in particular the chapter Hubbard is Bare - Science and Dianetics: "L. Ron Hubbard constantly makes the claim that dianetics is a 'scientific fact.' In fact, he makes that claim 35 times in Dianetics." Clearly, Dianetics presents itself as a science, thus it is entitled to be debunked and characterized as a pseudoscience.

2) I reverted your changes, as far as I know, only you and Spirit of Man at this point are opposed to the current state of the article. Raymond Hill 19:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Good to be talking with you, Povmec. Actually Hubbard is dead and can't reply, however his constantly claiming disappeared from view quite a number of years ago. As I've stated above but could quote policy about, the Church of Scientology which now owns the property which comprises Dianetics does not present it as a science. Of course the book title remains as it is a best seller as it stands. Perhaps I can be more clear. Dianetics presented itself as a science, Hubbard presented Dianetics as a science in the early years. Later publications made less of the claim. The Church of Scientology and the official Dianetics website don't make an issue of it as Hubbard did. I can see the information would be a point that could be addressed in the article.Terryeo 19:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

BTfromLA has agreed (I think he/she is completely neutral in the matter) that Dianetics might be presented as a theory. The individual concepts which comprise its theory (i.e. "mental image picture, engram, reactive mind, etc.) might be presented as Misplaced Pages suggest theory be presented at WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories. I have re-inserted the historical Dianetics publications list, cited with ISBN numbers included. Terryeo 19:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The word theory has a very specific meaning. It's commonly misused to mean a supposition (which is the sense in which you and, I suspect, BTfromLA are using it). The fact is that it's no more a theory than intelligent design and your claim that it constitutes a "theory" is just the same old line that ID apologists and any number of pseudoscience cranks like to trot out. Hubbard defined Dianetics as a science, and repeatedly described it in the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health as a theory. Once again, the mere fact that he made the claim is not evidence that the claim is correct. There's plenty of other evidence that Hubbard was utterly ignorant about scientific matters, so I definitely wouldn't call him an authority on the nature of science. -- ChrisO 00:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO, I would like to address this one paragraph in your new section: "Philosophy professor Robert Carroll has criticized Dianetics as a classic pseudoscience exhibiting a lack of scientific rigor and evidence:"

"What Hubbard touts as a science of mind lacks one key element that is expected of a science: empirical testing of claims. The key elements of Hubbard's so-called science don't seem testable,... yet he repeatedly claims that he is asserting only scientific facts and data from many experiments. It isn't even clear what such "data" would look like. Most of his data is in the form of anecdotes and speculations ... Such speculation is appropriate in fiction, but not in science. "

There are about 50,000 Clears currently. This is what the "results" of Dianetics look like. Carroll said "doesn't seem testable..." yet he could have looked in any Science of Survival book of the day and seen evaluations that resulted in using the Wechsler IQ test and others. This is what the tests would like. The book also presents a summary of what the results of before and after testing would look like. This is what the test results look like. 50,000 Clears had before and after tests. They had to do this as a part of the clearing procedure. The fact that he made these statements publically, 20 years after the fact of such tests, and test results and the number of Clears in 1970 is one thing. That you quote him here in this context well knowing the 1950 tests were conducted with the Wechsler and why, and with the test results here on this very article, and the number of Clears today, represents irresponsible editing. You should remove the paragraph and the section. Spirit of Man 17:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Good job, Spirit. A lot more needs to be done still because the article puts whole paragraphs which say stuff about how no science has addressed Dianetics. Well, okay. Fine. Good. No science has tested Dianetics. Fine, okay, but now what? We don't need whole paragraphs telling us that Dianetics has been not been run through nero-hoses. heh! Terryeo 18:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hubbard was plainly ignorant about science, and I'm afraid the two of you are just parroting that ignorance. "There are about 50,000 Clears" - there may well be 50,000 people with pieces of paper certifying them as "Clear" (though I note that you've not provided any references for that claim). However, without any independent confirmation that the state of Clear even exists, it doesn't mean squat in scientific terms. The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

As for why "no science has addressed Dianetics", why should science address it? Science simply doesn't work that way. Any number of people make any number of claims every year, and 99.9999% of them never end up in the scientific journals. The way that real scientists work is to conduct research, find convincing evidence, present the evidence in a digestible framework (i.e. a paper), submit the paper to a peer-reviewed journal, and if it passes peer review - most papers don't - work with others to develop the line of research. There's nothing to stop any proponents of Dianetics from doing this. But they never have. Why is that, Terryeo? -- ChrisO 00:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed ChrisO's POV caution

Because I don't agree that those are the policies that apply here. ChrisO has refused (with one brief posted exception) to discuss anything with anyone. He posted his POV as a caution at the top of the page. While I disagree that those are the appropriate policies which should be followed, whether I personally agree or don't agree, the wrongess is that ChrisO put his personal point of view of which elements of Misplaced Pages Policy and Guideline apply here. He did not get a concensus of editor opinion. He simply chose which policies apply to his own, personal POV. That isn't right. I removed it. ChrisO can talk here as well as anyone. Some of us have opinions that Dianetics information should be presented as a Theory. ChrisO utterly ignored all of that. Theory was no part of the notice template he posted. Therefore I removed it. ChrisO, should he wish to post how the Dianetics information should be presented, should discuss it. That is what the rest of us are doing. ChrisO's POV which removes the whole article so he can post his Personally Written, Personal POV which communicates Nothing of the meaning of Dianetics is simply not tolerable. The article is to reflect a concensus of opinion. First he removes everyone's hard work. Then he posts his own personal POV. then he posts a "Read this First" template which supports his POV and doesn't include anything about treating Dianetics information as a theory. So I removed it. It isn't right. And ChrisO isn't right to cite unpublished documents, either. Terryeo 06:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

An apology

First of all, my apologies for accidentally removing comments when I entered my own commentary; as Antaeus noted, it was entirely unintentional. Now having said that, I shall restore the template that was added to this article, and subsequently removed by Terryeo. --Modemac 13:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay Modemac. have fun. By the way, the template was placed by one user, ChrisO. It was placed by him without a bit of discussion for its contents. I am going to remove it every time I see it until its contents fulfill WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. The reason why is the discussion on this page. We have talked for 2 weeks about how to present the information which is Dianetics. Several of us consider "theory" a good way to do it. ChrisO disagrees. His disagreement does not give him the right to place a template which states his opinion and does not state the opinion of the rest of the editors who are working on this. Terryeo 16:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It isn't "my" template; I haven't written a word of it. The template is from Talk:Intelligent design, another controversial pseudoscience topic, with "Dianetics" substituted for "intelligent design". If you think it's POV, I suggest that you go and tell the many editors of Intelligent design - I'm sure they'll be surprised to hear that... -- ChrisO 23:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Good to understand that you deny all responsibility for the template. Now will you work with the rest of us toward a common consensus about how to introduce the subject matter of "Dianetics" to the reader? Terryeo 00:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I am very surprised to hear that a notice to apply NPOV, NOR, and be sure to CITE is somehow POV per Terryo. Dumbfounded might be more accurate, leaning in fact towards completely disbelieving. Did you read the notice? Serious question, not being sarcastic. KillerChihuahua 23:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It reveals a lot about his approach to editing, doesn't it? -- ChrisO 00:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Possible content approaches

• One: Theory WP:NOR#How_to_deal_with_Wikipedia_entries_about_theories. Dianetics has some theory about how to think of the mind. It has a jargon, "mental image pictures, engram, reactive mind" and these things together comprise a theory.
• Two: Pseudoscience WP:NPOV#Pseudoscience. Hubbard presented Dianetics as along "scientific" lines when he introduced Dianetics in the 1950s and the "pseudoscience" counter-arguement has some basis.

What basis? I have presented here citations for the evaluations of what tests to use, what tests may be used, what test results might be exptected and what before and after test results look like. There are 50,000 Clears that have used these methods. I have shown a development history from 1930 to present day. The Fox article presented by ChrisO presents a possibility of falsifiability. More modern developements show the danger to man of heavy drugs, but they are are handled by the science. Again, What basis? Spirit of Man 18:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, there is no basis because no scientific disipline has undertaken a study (except for the positive results in Science of Survival introduction.) However, ChrisO has hugely stated the information should be addressed in that manner. Because there is no "pro" and "con" I don't see how it can be presented as pseudoscientific. Terryeo 18:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

• Three: Religion WP:NPOV#Religion. Today Dianetics information is owned and operated by a church. Religion therefore fits as a discussion area.
• Four: Neologism (common usages) A new word, expression, or usage. Dianetics has a vocabularly unique to it. The vocabulary was created by Hubbard about 50 or 55 years ago and has been widely published. The arguement exists that those words are neologisms. But whether a memory is called a "mental image picture" or not, a person's memory is what it is. I like BTfromLA's idea of presenting Dianetics vocabulary as neologisms, defining each as we go along, treating the whole of them as a theory. (I hope I got BT's idea right)
• Five: Neologism (Theology) A new doctrine or a new interpretation of scripture. I have seen people posting about this in regards to how Miscaviage (new Church of Scientology head) has had new patter drills created.

Any others? Feel free to insert comments behind any bulleted item.Terryeo 17:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment: One and Two hang together. If you use the word Theory then the word pseudoscience will be hard on its heels, because the use of "theory" in this context most assuredly indicates the precise meaning of the word as used by Science. Question: Does anyone mind if I shorten the subjectheader above from "Ways we can deal with the information comprising Dianetics" to "Possible content approaches" or something else short and sweet? KillerChihuahua 19:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea ! and if one begats the other, okay, well and goodTerryeo 19:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If and only if Theory

(If theory is an approach) Could we present the idea of a memory "mental image picture" because this is really the basic idea which all of Dianetics is built on. Other things are needed but until a person can consider it might at least be possible that their memories are in the form, Mental Image Picture, the rest of it can not make sense. The real problem with this idea lies in how individual everyone is. One person hears the term, looks at a memory, recalls the watermelon on the table, its color, where he is standing and how hot the sun was that day. He goes, "Oh yeah, mental image picture, no problem." But the next person sees the term, thinks of a memory and gets nothing but a negative emotion from the memory. And therefore doesn't understand the term, "mental image picture." Terryeo 19:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC) I would propose the article treats each of these as theories and we introduce them that way:

• list of Dianetics definitions, words particular to Dianetics

mental

having to do with thoughts or the mind, especially as seperate from the body.

mental image picture

A memory of a single moment which appears to an individual, when recalled, as a picture.

engram

a mental image picture which contains physical or emotional pain, or unconciousness.

reactive mind

the collection of engrams which an individual accumulates over time.

analytical mind

conciousness, any thinking or thought a person can be concious of.

Terryeo 22:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This illustrates perfectly how "a simple explanation" from a Scientology POV has absolutely nothing in common with what the average reader would consider such. What you call "presenting the idea of a memory "mental image picture" because this is really the basic idea which all of Dianetics is built on", I call a colloidal suspension of words in sheer applesauce. Perhaps we can have two versions of the article: one in Hubbardese, one in plain English? Seriously. wikipediatrix 22:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, you have said something. I think you have said, "No one will ever understand what is meant by the term, 'mental image picture?'" Terryeo 23:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard, c2000, pub. Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044165
2. Terra Incognita: The Mind An official Dianetics site with full text (5 pages).

• Misplaced Pages controversial topics
• Old requests for peer review