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• /Archive the first: November 2005 to June 2006. Welcome, questions, collabarations and controversy.

Pseudoscience Maintenance

Hi Jefffire. I noticed your helpful addition of the pseudoscience cat to the TFT article, and your general efforts to clarify similar articles this way. Thanks.

I have an interest in pseudoscience in general, and have noticed that there is quite a lot of silliness about it on Misplaced Pages. Basically, if a reliable source views a subject as pseudoscience, then it can be stated. But I have noticed reams of deep and philosophical debates over why something shouldn't be called pseudoscience, regardless of independent and reliable views. Clearly there is resistence.

Anyway, I am considering a long term clarification for subjects considered pseudoscientific in general in order to clarify articles further and reduce unnecessary discussion and conflicts.

I believe it would help if these subjects were briefly explained more clearly using this kind of format:

• State a reliable source that considers the subject pseudoscientific.
• State why they consider it pseudoscientific
• State their motivation for calling it pseudoscientific (eg for clearing up misconceptions, and/or for helping the public at large avoid harmful or useless methods etc).

This would offer more opportunity for providing clarification for a subject and more opportunity for adding citations (thus reducing the chance of reframes or accusations that scientists are all cynical villains etc).

Anyway, I have access to a lot of research into this, and I believe it would benefit from your feedback.

Cheers KrishnaVindaloo 06:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

May I chime in here? I've posted some thoughts (resistance?) on this issue here. To summarize, if pseudoscience is concisely defined as "something misrepresented as being scientific", then there are going to be some grey areas since misrepresentation isn't always trivial. KV, I think you are probably on the right track with NPOV wording and sourcing. But that doesn't solve the problem of the category label being an on/off condition. Is it appropriate to categorize contested cases as pseudoscience just because someone, somewhere, has done so? It's fine in the body of an article to say who says what and why, but there's no such nuance in applying the category tag. It's either there or it's not. Best regards, Jim Butler 08:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I greatly appreaciate the input from both of you. I think KrishnaVindaloo has a good suggestion which I will bear in mind. This subject is quite emotive for many people so I will be working on things on a case by case basis for the time being. Please continue to give me your thoughts on this subject as I think it is very important that it gets solved. Jefffire 10:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Jefffire. Sometimes the emotion is understandable frustration over having ones position misrepresented.

One "meta" solution to the category issue might be to create two kinds of categories, i.e. undisputed and disputed ones. The genus of the house cat would fall into the former. Pseudoscience, or state terrorism, would be in the latter, as might some categories in theoretical physics or any rapidly-changing discipline. Any category involving significant subjective judgement call, lacking agreed-upon, intersubjectively-verifiable criteria, or with significant "grey" area, could be called a "disputed" category. Or a "fuzzy" category. Such categories can continue be helpful for readers without the inherent POV of Misplaced Pages appearing to endorse the designation. Just a thought. thx, Jim Butler 19:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but I'm a little dubious about your suggestion. Let me consider it overnight and let me get back to you. I have been considering suggesting a review of this topic. Jefffire 21:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

How about this: Template:CategorisationDisputedTopics. I decided to be bold, create the tag (following Template:CategorisationDisputedPeople), and put it on Category:Pseudoscience. I'll probably add Template:Cleancat later for particular issues (such as lingering confusion about the definition of pseudoscience). What do you think? best regards, Jim Butler 08:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It was kind of fun being part of category pseudoscience for a little while :)

Anyway this look like it may be useful. I feel that category pseudoscience is a very useful cagegory, since people like me are very interested in the topic and it is useful to be able to find the articles easily, although individual inclusions can be controversial. Lets see how this category gets accepted and move on from there. Jefffire 12:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Definitely agree the category is useful despite (or maybe even because of) its contentiousness and fuzziness. I think the category does need work. If we agree to categorize something as PS because a reliable source says so, we need to say that right on the category page and note that other reliable sources may disagree. We also need to be clear on when to categorize; check out the criteria from WP:CG that I posted on Category_talk:Pseudoscience. cheers, Jim Butler 00:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, looks like most editors don't think the template is that useful (nominated for deletion here), but you may want to have a look at Category_talk:Pseudoscience. You're a thoughtful editor and I value your input. It's interesting how some other editors are making assumptions about my motives, but then, this is contentious stuff. cheers, Jim Butler 05:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Intelligence of editors

Please don't make insults concerning the intelligence of other editors, even if they are being extremely annoying and apparently using processes and policies in bad faith. It isn't civil, and only hurts your reputation. --Philosophus 13:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

In the face of intense and repeated personal attacks even I occasionaly bend under the strain. I shall endevour to the better person in this situation. Jefffire 15:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Come see

Jefffire, I added a line about cancer, etc on the chiro page. Take a look and see if that works for you. And BTW, your attitude is part of the reason we are able to get anywhere on this page! Thanks.--Dematt 14:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Quantum mind

I agree with your quest to get rid of pseudoscience. That said, the criticisms section of the quantum mind article does not provide any insight into the preferred basis problem. The decoherence argument (the operational interpretation of QM) says that there is a preferred basis that provides a template for evolution of the state vector. It has become popular for cosmologists to use the anthropic principle to determine the form of this preferred basis (ie: the anthropic "environment" is the basis). Many of the QM Mind approaches go a small step further and suggest it is the form of the physical entity that constitutes an observer's mind that is the preferred basis. This is extraordinarily weird, but not POV or pseudoscience. According to "many minds" an observer would have no magic powers nor any non-physical properties and could not "observe" events into existence etc. Contrary to Misplaced Pages's article on "many minds" the theory is not dualist - it just maintains that in the infinity of states in the multiverse those that constitute an observer's physical mind and its correlations are what an observer observes.

Agreement, if possible

Could we discuss and come to some agreement about the Multiple Sources statements of the WP:RS guideline please? The rest of the guideline doesn't use psychology double-speak such as "unconcious bias in one source will be cancelled out by the unconcious bias in several sources". and "Psychological experiments have shown that memory and perception are not as reliable as we would like them to be ..." followed by a paragraph of proof of that idea which is actually unproven, by the way. WP:RS is a guideline, it should be clearly written, written so it can not be mistakenly understood. Psychology experiments which are cited to prove points have no place in WP:RS, such experiments belong in articles, not in guidelines. And "unconcious bias" is cancelled by "checking several sources" doesn't belong there either. Check multiple sources... I mean it is intuitive, 3 paragraphs of psychology's 1/2 failed experiments about flashing hearts and spades and having people mis-perceive them has no place in a guideline. Could we discuss this? Terryeo 00:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

May be POV

On your user page, you ask about pages that may be POV. Would you check Green Fireballs and Philip J. Klass? The last time I looked at them (a few months ago), I thought they were very POV. Thank you. Bubba73 (talk), 14:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much, these are exactly the sort of articles which I enjoy working on. I've made a few minor changes to Green Fireballs for now, and see how that goes down before proceding further. Jefffire 14:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Check the edit history. Several months ago I put in some reverenced, verifyable material that kept being taken out. Bubba73 (talk), 17:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

And if you enjoy working on articles like those, there are others. I had been trying to improve Majestic 12 and Roswell UFO Incident, but about five months ago the opposition got too great. I haven't looked at them lately, but they should be checked. Thank you. Bubba73 (talk), 20:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Please watch

Please watch amygdala. Thank you. Koalabyte 01:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Careful

Thanks for helping! I guess that today most other regular editors are not online (nice weather in Europe and National Holiday in the US). Ed Addis has continued to disregard your warning, so I guess it is time to report him. Count Iblis 13:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You might be interested...

In this post. It's in reference to a change I made and subsequent revert by Jossi on NPOV, here. As you can guess this springs from our lengthy discussions on a certain page. Marskell 08:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

more accurate

"In a way, everyone is right. But in another, more accurate way, you are wrong." OMG, I'm still laughing. Is that paraphrased from Terry Pratchett's "Pyramids"? Also, I noticed that you were chided for insulting another editor's intelligence; please don't tell me you called him "...a trained ape, without the training!" I just had to ask :) --Doc Tropics 06:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks J. Keep having fun :) --Doc Tropics 15:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

natural vs sexual selection

But Darwin himself made this distinction. Tony 00:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The definition changes depending on who you ask. Darwin's word isn't final after all, so I thought it would be best to adopt the definition used on other articles. Jefffire 12:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

help requested in a dispute on cold fusion

Jeff, I would appreciate your opinion on an on-going dispute with Ron Marshall in Talk:cold fusion. Thx in advance. Pcarbonn 19:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The dispute has cooled down a bit, but the issue remains: the transmutation secion is still way too long, and it has too much editorializing. If another person like you would edit it, Ron may finally get the message. Here is a version I prefer:

Nuclear transmutations are nuclear reactions that cause new chemical elements to appear. If these elements are unstable, they can decay into still other elements. Nuclear transmutations have been reported in many cold fusion experiments since 1992. They have been reviewed by Miley.

Miley reports that several dozen laboratories are studying these transmutations. Some experiments result in the creation of only a few elements, while others result in a wide variety of elements from the periodic table. Calcium, copper, zinc, and iron were the most commonly reported elements. Lanthanides were also found: this is significant since they are unlikely to enter as impurities. In addition, the isotopic ratio of the observed elements differ from their natural isotopic ratio or natural abundance. The presence of an unnatural isotope ratio makes contamination an implausible explanation. Besides nuclear reactions, other exotic process such gaseous diffusion, thermal diffusion, electromagnetic separation can change an element from its natural isotope ratio. Some experiments reported both transmutations and excess heat, but the correlation between the two effects has not been established. Radiations have also been reported. Miley also reviews possible theories to explain these observations.

So far the clearest evidence for transmutation has come from an experiment made by Iwamura and associates, and published in 2002 in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (one of the top physics journals in Japan). Instead of using electrolysis, they forced deuterium gas to permeate through a thin layer of caesium (also known as cesium) deposited on calcium oxide and palladium, while periodically analyzing the nature of the surface through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. As the deuterium gas permeated over a period of a week, the amount of caesium progressively decreased while the amount of praseodymium increased, so that caesium appeared to be transmuted into praseodymium. When caesium was replaced by strontium, it was transmuted into molybdenum. In both cases this represents an addition of four deuterium nuclei to the original element. They have produced these results six times, and reproducibility was good. The energy released by these transmutations was too low to be observed. When the calcium oxide was removed or when the deuterium gas was replaced by hydrogen, no transmutation was observed. The authors analyzed, and then rejected, the possibility to explain these various observations by contaminations. The experiment was replicated by researchers from Osaka University using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to analyze the nature of the surface (the Palladium complex samples were provided by Iwamura).

A 2004 DOE panelists said that, from a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions of transmutations cannot be believed. Fusing 2 deuterons is difficult enough; merging four deuterons with a heavy nucleus such as Palladium is not to be believed, especially when no evidence is presented for any nuclear products with intermediate atomic mass. A non-nuclear process, possibly unknown, cannot be excluded (eg. the migration of impurities towards the surface).

Tadahiko Mizuno is another prominent transmutation experimenter. Attempts to find at least partial theoretical explanations are being made by Takahashi and others. One proposal by Takahashi to explain the wide range of elements generated is that fission of palladium is initiated by photons.

Pcarbonn 06:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

This is generally good. I suggest that perhaps the wording in the fourth para might be better as "such conclusions of transmutation should be treated with skeptisism", unless there is a direct quote. Jefffire 13:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you remove

...the stupid line about plate tectonics when you see it? I'm around three but it's all quite confused. Marskell 16:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Usual pseudoscience BS. I've seen the exact same claim on several over page. As the pattern goes, they alledge a conspiracy, compare themselves to Galileo, mumble something about quantum dynamics, bring up continental drift, then post-modernism. I've seen it repeated so many times on other pages. The predictability of such people is interesting, not to mention amusing. Jefffire 13:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

CTMU

I appreciate your work with the CTMU...it's interesting that some of your concerns are quite similar to ones I have raised, but have had all my edits reverted. Anyway, on my user page there is a link to my sandbox, where I am trying to make an entirely new article, according to the Project Pseudoscience ideas. Please feel free to contribute ideas, if you wish.

One of my major concerns is to strip this of the excessive jargon, so the man in the street can weight is up for himself. This current version is almost complete broken.--Byrgenwulf 14:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your opinions on the current version. It makes my eyes bleed trying to read it. Whoever wrote it has done a terrible job. Jefffire 14:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

POV in Thomas Midgley, Jr.?

I like clicking through User pages and saw your request for possible POV articles. The Thomas Midgley, Jr. article seems like it could be more NPOV to me. I am a chemist, so I may be POV the other way (which is one reason why I haven't tried cleaning this up myself). Please see the History sections of Haloalkane and tetra-ethyl lead for what seem to me to be more NPOV treatments. I added Midgley's Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society which is how I found this article initially. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 03:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll do my best. Jefffire 12:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Good grief, someone really had it in for that poor sod. I've made badly needed changes but I will need to do some reseach to verify some of the claims. Jefffire 13:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Jonathan Ross interview

I think it's pretty notable...however the point needs to be made that the purpose of his appearance on the show, he was bringing the conservative party to a different audience to try to win votes, and failed, I think it should be included, obviously without a critical POV Plebmonk 17:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree but if you think it is notable then feel free to include it. Personaly I think that just a brief mention of the show would do. Jefffire 17:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

1. Miley, G. H. and P. Shrestha. "Review Of Transmutation Reactions In Solids". in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA.
2. Miley, G. H. and P. Shrestha. "Review Of Transmutation Reactions In Solids". in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA.
3. Yasuhiro Iwamura, Mitsuru Sakano, and Takehiko Itoh, "Elemental analysis of Pd complexes: Effects of D2 gas permeation", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol 41 (2002) pp4642-4650
4. Taichi Higashiyama, Mitsuru Sakano, Hiroyuki Miyamaru, and Akito Takahashi. "Replication of MHI Transmutation Experiment by D2 Gas Permeation Through Pd Complex". Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003.
5. Reviewer #7, "Original comments from the reviewers of the 2004 DOE Cold Fusion review", New Energy Times
6. Mizuno, T. "Experimental Confirmation of the Nuclear Reaction at Low Energy Caused by Electrolysis in the Electrolyte". Proceeding for the Symposium on Advanced Research in Technology 2000, Hokkaido University, March 15, 16, 17, 2000. pp. 95-106
7. Mizuno, T., "Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion". 1998, Concord, NH: Infinite Energy Press
8. Takahashi, A., Ohta, M., Mizuno, T., "Production of Stable Isotopes by Selective Channel Photofission of Pd". Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. A, 2001. 40(12): p. 7031-7046. .
9. Takahashi A. "Mechanism of Deuteron Cluster Fusion by EQPET Model"”. in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003