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    Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
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    Bret Weinstein, etc

    Apparently a leading light of the Intellectual Dark Web, this gentleman has recently had his Youtube channel suspended after taking ivermectin and proclaiming himself COVID-proof, raising concerns about vaccine safety, &c. The cries of "censorship" has meant his output is now getting wide attention and sharing. Recently there has been increased attention on his article, and particularly on whether anything critical can be said. As always, the eyes of WP:FRINGE-aware editors could be helpful. Alexbrn (talk) 13:28, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

    Related, but not directly is a report at the BBC today -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 13:31, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks Roxy, I have updated the COVID-19 drug repurposing research with that source although one fears if that trial (the first really good one) comes up with the "wrong" result for the ivermectin cultists, they will disown it. I should add, BTW, that the Bret Weinstein bio, inevitably, also involves the "lab leak" question; see
    Alexbrn (talk) 14:41, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/NeuroQuantology

    NeuroQuantology has come up on this noticeboard before, so this AfD may be of interest. XOR'easter (talk) 23:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

    The AfD has been relisted for another week. XOR'easter (talk) 16:37, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
    After being relisted and seemingly forgotten, it's officially been closed as "no consensus", which defaults to keeping the page. XOR'easter (talk) 17:22, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

    The danger of the spike protein in RNA vaccines, according to … their inventor?

    Robert Malone is an individual who has appeared on social media to (as this Reuters fact check puts it) say that the spike protein as used in several COVID vaccines is "very dangerous" and "cytotoxic". He styles himself and is referred to in such forums as the "inventor of mRNA vaccines".

    Over at RNA vaccine#History there has been repeated editing trying to get this "inventor" characterisation into Misplaced Pages, despite apparently there being no suitble WP:RS for it. While there is no doubt Malone was a scientist publishing early work in this field (see here) for example, his role does not even seem to have been so much that he is even named in historical overviews of the topic, in contrast to - say - Katalin Karikó. Alexbrn (talk) 08:52, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

    Katalin Karikó thanks Malone in the 'Acknowledgements' section of her first mRNA immunotherapy publication. This article tells Karikó's impressive contributions as extensions of Malone's earlier work. I sense you're striving for good information rather than simply taking down Malone, but where are you getting this historical overview information? AntaniSuper (talk) 18:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
    The main issue with Malone is there aren't any reliable sources that discuss him in detail or the merits of his claim to have "invented" mRNA vaccines, though I see the Daily Mail and Fox News have uncritically parroted his claims. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:56, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
    "According to his company website, he designed and developed in-vivo transfection experiments that led to numerous publications and over 10 patents on mRNA vaccination.
    However, the claim that he’s the inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology underlying the covid jab is not widely accepted by independent researchers documenting the intellectual property landscape of this discovery."
    The best source for claims of who invented mRNA vaccines appears to be "A network analysis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine patents" in Nature Biotechnology Especially interesting: . --Guy Macon (talk) 15:56, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
    Related: Fact Check: COVID-19 vaccines are not 'cytotoxic' --Reuters Fact Check
    --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
    This "fact check" is simply describing the way the vaccines were designed to work, not how they actually have been observed to work in practice and are claiming the design "fact checks" that the spike proteins are not becoming bio active simply based on the claims of the vaccine manufacturers. The gene was edited so that the protein would permanently bind to the cell that creates it, thus immobilizing it as well as keeping the protein "open", so the immune system could recognize it and build immunity towards it. In theory this would be totally safe, and during vaccine research they did a crude test on this technique using a different protein, not the spike protein. In any rushed development corners need to be cut, so they had little time to verify how effective this cell binding actually worked in real patients with the C19 spike protein. In practice, this "trapping" technique fails in a statistically significant amount of patients, and the protein is then free from the cell, making it cyotoxic and free to flow through the blood stream as researchers have found all over the body Asailum (talk) 07:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    Robert Malone and his two colleagues *did* invent this technology, their patent was filed in 1989 . You can read through his frustration of how he was not given credit and Katalin Kariko was instead(who did not start researching until 1990) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asailum (talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Is this a dispute about how to accurately label his involvement? If so, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe him as “one of the scientists who’s work directly led to the vaccine” or something similar. Or is the dispute more about what he says? Blueboar (talk) 16:07, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
      I don't think the sources even go quite that far. They cite some early work (for which he was one of several authors), showing that there was some kind of possible therapeutic potential for mRNA. That's what the article more or less currently says, but there's been a push to single him out and name him as a figure, when the sources don't. Alexbrn (talk) 16:12, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
    Professor Francois Balloux tweeted earlier today: (Malone) presents himself as the 'Inventor of mRNA vaccines and RNA as a drug'. I presume his claim is based on being a middle author on 3 fairly well-cited publications from the nineties on DNA/RNA expression vectors (104, 28, and 27 citations this year on Google Scholar). Schazjmd (talk) 22:43, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
    The other side of the story: Malone documents why he makes the claim of inventing mRNA vaccines. Schazjmd (talk) 16:18, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
    (archive link ) —PaleoNeonate – 04:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    Yeah, mRNA vaccines are not just RNA transfection. That's a gross over-simplification. This man also did not invent nucleic acid transfection. Mark Danielsen and Philip Felgner did that at Syntex Research in 1987. This guy was just a middle author on a few papers that used this same tech with RNA in 1990. I would describe him more as a patent troll than an inventor, personally.--Shibbolethink 16:37, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
    So they can keep their legal battle going, but it's of course inappropriate to use Misplaced Pages as a PR platform... When independent reliable sources report about that, it may be possible to cover the process or results... —PaleoNeonate – 04:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    I suggest that WP:COIN may be a better venue IRT Malone at this point, —PaleoNeonate – 00:11, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

    Photo of an acknowledged inventor?

    So now this has developed so that a couple of editors are objecting to a photograph of Katalin Karikó. She is named in multiple RS as a/the key player in the development of RNA vaccines, but her photo is being objected to apparently because of other key scientists (read: Malone) "that have been deleted". I find it uncomfortable that Misplaced Pages is downplaying a woman with an acknowledged, RS-backed, historical role because of a man who is effectively agitating, with no RS backing, to usurp her. I am pinging WP:WIRED because of concerns about systemic bias Alexbrn (talk) 18:10, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    Alexbrn is mistaken in his assessment. I am curious why he is making this personal. I studied the previous edits, discussions and read some sources and what I see is a person promoting one scientist, who just happens to be a woman, over other scientists. See our discussion on the RNA vaccine talk page. There even is a table showing all the contributions of many scientists. To focus on one scientist in the history section is a disservice to the page. Alexbrn seems to be fixated on one of the scientist, Malone and seems to have a bias towards that scientist. Please prove your statement: "a man who is effectively agitating, with no RS backing". Misplaced Pages doesn't support edits according to bias. Red Rose 13 (talk) 18:29, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    If the RSes are fixated upon this scientist -which seems to be the case- then our articles should reflect that. As years pass and the subject hosts more scrutiny, if more scientists are given more credit in those, then we can adjust our articles accordingly. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:33, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    @Red Rose 13: It is daft to say I have a "bias towards" Malone. In fact I don't think he should be named since there is apparently no RS support for so emphasizing his role (see the discussion in the parent section to this). Photos are good to illustrate articles and if RS gives prominence to certain folk, then Misplaced Pages follows that, for NPOV. Alexbrn (talk) 20:44, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    Again as I have said before there are many scientists involved in this as clearly shown by the table itself and the section does not reflect that. We will need to research deeper and find the RSes that support this. This picture of her should not be in this section as it distorts the reality.Red Rose 13 (talk) 20:59, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    Do you have any sources showing that other scientists have been as instrumental as the woman who literally holds the patent on RNA vaccines? I've read a lot about Kariko since the first vaccine was developed, but I've yet to see any RSes crediting a "Malone". ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:42, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    The idea that deleting Robert Malone and putting in a woman is "causing issues" because of "systemic bias" is quite ridiculous and easily disproven by facts, plus it's quite clear the opposite bias is happening here, Robert Malone is being erased because he is a man that is raising controversy about the vaccines and Katalin Kariko is being promoted because she is a woman, despite the facts proving that Robert along with two others discovered mRNA methods before Katalin even began researching. Robert Malone along with V.J Dwarki and Inder M. Verma share the original method of mRNA transfection which was published in 1989 , and which they were researching for years before that. Katalin Kariko only started to research mRNA vaccines in 1990, so to claim she played a key role in discovering the liposome method is factually wrong. She built upon his work and gave him and the others credit, and thus this page should simply reflect the history of what happened with all contributors, not selectively include people based on bias. Alexbrn is showing a heavy bias in the way he interprets information instead of abiding by the neutral information rule of wikipedia. Furthermore this nature study doesn't even discuss earlier mRNA discoveries, they mark 1990 as the "beginning", so clearly they don't fall under a reliable source for getting this basic fact wrong.Asailum (talk) 06:59, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    The purpose of Misplaced Pages is merely to summarize what the WP:BESTSOURCES say (they'll be secondary, reputable, publications). It it WP:NOT many things, and one of the many thing's it's not is a platform for WP:PAID socks to use as a platform for re-writing history in service of (what I now learn is) an ongoing legal dispute. Don't you think some of that might have been going on with all these Malone promotional shenanigans? Alexbrn (talk) 08:48, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    I see allegations of bias, but I'm not seeing evidence to back that up. Show me the RSes covering Malone's contributions, because citing Malone and then telling us to interpret that is just WP:OR and it has no business here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:05, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    I already did link the paper from 1989 here is the patent from 1989. Robert Malone discusses how credit was stolen and the controversy with Merck here @alexbrn I accused you of bias based on your removal of Robert Malone, despite the facts showing he did this research before others. Instead of expanding that section to reflect there might be controversy in some objective neutral way, you simply removed all his references. I'm also seeing a lot of conspiracy theory about Malone's intentions which all seem to stem on him speaking out about concerns that the health authorities are not being transparent about the risks of the current widespread mRNA vaccines. I don't see how that would lead anyone to jump to conclusions that he is an anti vaxxer and he needs to be erased, when he has never said anything along those lines. Asailum (talk) 19:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

    We don't need a picture of a person in that article. Putting a picture of one person in a general article is a big decision, I think doing that now would be too soon. Wait until the pandemic is over and people can look at the topic with a calmer view. Note that e.g. General relativity and History of general relativity don't have a picture of Einstein, even though he is undisputedly the inventor of it. --mfb (talk) 12:55, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

    I agree with this. Very solid example of precedent and the threshold we should be looking for to justify inclusion. And attributed text should cover this better (she is mentioned in the text). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:20, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    Sources

    1. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab465/6279075
    2. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5589466A/en
    3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mrna-proof-principle-vaccination-experiments-from-1989-robert-malone/
    4. Felgner, P L; Gadek, T R; Holm, M; Roman, R; Chan, H W; Wenz, M; Northrop, J P; Ringold, G M; Danielsen, M (November 1987). "Lipofection: a highly efficient, lipid-mediated DNA-transfection procedure". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 84 (21): 7413–7417. ISSN 0027-8424. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
    5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2762315/
    6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780127655611500412
    7. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780127655611500412
    8. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5589466A/en
    9. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mrna-proof-principle-vaccination-experiments-from-1989-robert-malone/

    Saturated fat

    A couple of new users associated with the low-carb community have recently joined Misplaced Pages commenting on this talk-page. They believe there is a "controversy" about saturated fat consumption, cardiovascular disease and other diseases. The mainstream scientific consensus is that a diet high in saturated fat is a risk for CVD but these users dispute this and are linking to healthline and studies funded by Nina Teicholz or written by Aseem Malhotra. This is obviously a false balance. Link to the talk-page Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:18, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

    Psychologist Guy and User:Alexbrn and User:Tempes1. Does this particular source cited by Tempes1 not propel the idea are they arguing for out of the fringe theory category and warrant at least acknowledgement in the section they are disputing? As it is now, it reads in very heavy wikivoice about the association between CVD and saturated fat only and yet makes no acknowledgement to the "idea evolving" as per this Harvard link. Not to mention it is already in the entry as source 3. FrederickZoltair (talk) 14:28, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    Well, it not a reliable source for any non-trivial medical content. So no. So far as I can see there is a strong consensus across good WP:MEDRS that saturated fat is associated with CVD, but for overall mortality the picture is less clear. Alexbrn (talk) 16:05, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    It's also quite an old weblink (it was written in 2014) and it cites a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies from 2010. A much more recent review of prospective cohort studies has been published . I don't think we should be citing studies older then 5 years when it comes to controversial medical topics like this. The article section on "association with diseases" needs to be updated with modern reviews, not reviews from 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    I found these two sources and I realize per MEDRS they probably do not warrant use, but I wonder if you would guys mind checking them out and giving your opinions. Healthline in particular links to many studies such as this one and this one from 2018 and 2017. The Healthline article says in its conclusion "Though saturated fat intake may increase heart disease risk factors, research hasn’t shown a significant link between it and heart disease itself. Some studies indicate that it may negatively affect other health aspects, but more research is needed." while WebMD says: "“It’s true that low-saturated fat actually lowers LDL cholesterol, but it cannot predict cardiovascular disease,” says lead study author Yuni Choi, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. “Our research strongly supports the fact that plant-based diet patterns are good for cardiovascular health.”" Thank you both. FrederickZoltair (talk) 00:12, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    Healthline and WebMD are not reliable sources per WP:MEDRS, especially in a field where there are high-quality publications. Alexbrn (talk) 14:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Your opinion, when I qualified not recommending using them in the entry inherently for that reason, is that they should not be used in the entry? Did I get that right? Did you even read what I wrote or read the the content of the links? And "Yikes" as your edit summary....really? FrederickZoltair (talk) 15:02, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    You asked, and I responded. What further point is there in discussing unreliable sources? Alexbrn (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    You're killing me smalls....Why would you use a mocking and passive-aggressive edit summary twice now or respond in this way to a good faith attempt to include you and give your ideas credence as they relate to my own? Misplaced Pages is not a meritocracy of scientists (or science enthusiasts which more aptly describes you in my opinion) and their opinions only and while policy like MEDRS is important for biomedical information, it is not the only guiding policy at play nor is it proper to assume existing information in an entry is so sound (Scientific information specifically which literally changes day to day in some fields) it is not worth consideration of any changes? While you may believe currently that MEDRS has this situation tightly under wraps, it is my opinion and others that it does not so it merits a good faith discussion at minimum. I think based on this, it would be better to not engage with you further and I will begin now. FrederickZoltair (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    You seem to personalizing. I don't know what my "ideas" are on this - except as I have consistently said we need to use high-quality WP:MEDRS sources, and I was reacting to low-quality ones (not to "you"). That is in accord with the WP:PAGs. When we have sources like recent Cochrane systematic reviews why are we talking about unreliable pop-health websites? Alexbrn (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Please. Yikes = "expressing shock and alarm, often for humorous effect." nor are edit summaries for making jokes and it was not received as a joke about the sources and furthermore implying the sources I personally contributed are such low quality as to warrant joking about them without informing me as to why is insulting and also serves as a cheap jab that had I not noticed would likely have framed my comments to anyone else. Its one thing if you want to be neutral and sit on the sideline simply pointing out when someone is being irrational but do not fail to assume good faith and then claim you are being altruistic and I am at fault for my perceptions while I stare at the evidence of it. That is literally a tactic that abusers use to foster a narrative and bully their targets while remaining innocent from an at a glance perspective, and I am far from the only one that alleges this is what you have been doing for a good long while. Like when you called an editor's opinions the most idiotic tinfoil and ignorant thing you have ever seen on Misplaced Pages in addition to questioning their competency and sealed it by citing policy and saying engaging in idiotic ideas helps nobody and from the looks of it hurt their feelings badly enough that I do not think they have come back, and this was only in the last week. FrederickZoltair (talk) 17:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    I picked the right word then to express my "shock and alarm" at these sources being put on the table. You might find WP:CGTW#20 amusing, but in any case such discussion are out-of-scope for this noticeboard. Please WP:FOC! Alexbrn (talk) 18:27, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Per MEDRS: "Medical information resources such as WebMD and eMedicine are usually acceptable sources for uncontroversial information; however, as much as possible Misplaced Pages articles should cite the more established literature directly.". I even acknowledged above that they should not go into the article, but asked for opinions on the "more established literature directly" for example, the studies they cite that I also linked in my comment. Now with that in mind are we really going to deconstruct every study that disagrees with the current entry as is and not do the same for every study that does not while ignoring in a recent noticeboard another editor was told specifically not to do that and take the studies conclusions at their presented merit? We do not interpret the conclusions of studies, if the study is valid and not from a fringe journal or retracted or otherwise been shown to be unreliable and is not a tiny minority they get covered. Additional studies to consider: Controversies and discrepancies in the effect of dietary fat and cholesterol on cardiovascular risk and Faith in Fat: A Multisite Examination of University Students’ Perceptions of Fat in the Diet, Dairy Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: Do We Really Need to Be Concerned?, A healthy approach to dietary fats: understanding the science and taking action to reduce consumer confusion, Dietary Fats and Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases , Fat, Sugar, Whole Grains and Heart Disease: 50 Years of Confusion , Efficacy of dietary odd-chain saturated fatty acid pentadecanoic acid parallels broad associated health benefits in humans: could it be essential? (This one is heavy and I may be mis-interpreting its results)FrederickZoltair (talk) 17:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    WP:BESTSOURCES are good: so ideally secondary recent and in esteemed journals. I'd avoid anything from MDPI when we've much more reputable stuff to hand for this topic. Alexbrn (talk) 18:11, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Just note that the section you quoted comes from all the way down from the top quality sources mentioned first, and it's quite clear that the guidance is to not use them for anything but utterly uncontroversial statements. They are absolutely not what any reasonable editor would consider to be WP:MEDRS sources. I mean, the key word in that sentence is "however" for a reason. If you need to add a cite to the claim that getting punched in the face is bad for you, then WebMD is perfectly fine. But when you're arguing against a longstanding medical consensus, it's about on par with Dr. Nick. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:35, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Both observations are valid, but that is all they are and not evidence we cannot use these studies. FrederickZoltair (talk) 20:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Evidence that using them would be going against the established guidance, reflecting the consensus of the community. It such cases there needs to be a good, consensus-based justification otherwise it's just WP:DE. I can see no possible jusitifcation for using poor sources when there are ample good ones. Alexbrn (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Except that this new evidence has not been established via consensus to be of poor quality. You have made the argument here, and so has Psychologist guy. Simply asserting that it is, does not make it so. Please take the discussion to the Saturated Fat talk page and if we are unable to reach consensus there, then I guess another noticeboard is where we are all headed. FrederickZoltair (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    You are citing editorials and opinion pieces which are primary sources, they are not reliable for Misplaced Pages per the guidelines which have been explained to you. On this topic we need high-quality meta-analyses and reviews which are considered reliable secondary sources. That is why we cite the Cochrane review on the article and others like it. Hopefully you understand this and the difference between a primary and a secondary source. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Lets move this to the talk page permanently please, I just posted a significant list of reviews and meta-analyses only, all from the last 5 years. FrederickZoltair (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

    Gang stalking

    Newly created, looks like the fringe fork from Stalking#False claims of stalking, "gang stalking" and delusions of persecution and Persecutory delusion. --mfb (talk) 13:36, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

    It's a WP:POVFORK of Electronic harassment that creates a false balance between extraordinary claims of "targeted individuals" and assessments by mental health professionals. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    Since copyedited, with discussion on Talk page. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:06, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    It might actually be *better* forked into its own article because the "Stalking" article is about actual stalking, while this one is about a weirdly common shared delusion which is an interesting and important topic in its own right.
    Heck, it might even be useful for borderline cases if it came up in google searches above whatever forum or reddit group these people usually wind up on. ApLundell (talk) 15:25, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    Oh Lord, not THIS again
    Articles for deletionThis article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:
    --Calton | Talk 03:19, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    @Calton: Your use of {{Old AfD multi}} with indent messed up the rest of the page. This has been fixed. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:43, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    Also, the template thinks it is not talking about other pages but about the FTN. It says "this project page". I don't think this is a correct application of it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    At least it doesn't add this page to a category that was my initial concern... For the text itself, |type=article allows to change it a bit, —PaleoNeonate – 10:46, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    Your use of {{tl|Old AfD multi}} with indent messed up the rest of the page
    Sorry about that. There were a LOT of AFDs, and just copying the text of the box without the links wouldn't have been right.
    But the point is, this is not just nonsense, it's nonsense with a long history of attempts to crowbar it into Misplaced Pages. At the VERY least, any article which somehow gets kept should have "delusion" or "complex" as part of the title. --Calton | Talk 15:21, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    Fair enough. There is a requested move proposal at the article now . - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

    The Rise and Fall of the Black Hole Paradigm

    Is there any reason this article should exist?

    It's decidedly fringe content, and it seems too recent and obscure to be noteworthy fringe content. An article on the author was deleted in 2018. The stated rationale for the book being notable is not grounded in facts, appearing to be ignorant of what the NASA ADS is. XOR'easter (talk) 00:27, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

    At least some independent people have written about Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object. I only looked for a few minutes, but I found it difficult to find anything that wasn't only a mention or advert for this book... —PaleoNeonate – 10:52, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    Hmm what do you think of a bold merge-redirect to the above article? —PaleoNeonate – 10:56, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    I don't think there's anything worth merging, and I'm not sure the title of a random fringe book is a likely search term, but I guess redirecting is faster than AfD. XOR'easter (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    I also have no objection to immediate AfD and am fairly confident that the result would be delete, but exactly, if it's contested it's the unavoidable process, —PaleoNeonate – 14:30, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    OK, I've made it into a redirect. XOR'easter (talk) 16:03, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

    I almost put the redirect up for deletion, but then decided that redirects are cheap and it might be useful to have a link back. Good work. jps (talk) 17:22, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Yes one could also argue that if there's no direct mention of the book in the target article the redirect should be deleted, although in this case there's a mention of the author, even if there was nothing to merge. —PaleoNeonate – 17:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Patrick McDermott disappearance

    This article is written terribly. As far as I can tell, this individual disappeared without a trace in June 2005, likely drowned. Since then, there have been claims in tabloid newspapers that this individual has been sighted in Mexico, but these appear totally unsubstantiated. This article lends a large undue amount of weight to these allegations and it needs signficiant cleanup. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

    One apparently only via a claimed third party "representant", another a mistaken identity... indeed indicating there's no strong reason to believe he's still alive. On the other hand, it's likely those rumors that made the person notable? —PaleoNeonate – 11:02, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
    Update: some recent improvements by Hemiauchenia already, —PaleoNeonate – 08:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Water fluoridation

    Talk:Water fluoridation#removal of israel text - discussion from 2019/2020, but the text where the government of Israel justified its discontinuation of fluoridation is still in the article. What do people think? Pinging User:Jtbobwaysf and User:VdSV9 who discussed this back then. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

    Thanks for pinging me. I'm still of the opinion that the quoted statement from the Israeli Ministry of Health shouldn't be there, as it promotes an anti-scientific POV. The fact that they stopped fluoridation of course is relevant, but if we want to add information about this, it should rather be the fact that a "Dental Health Promotion Program has been formulated as an alternative to mandatory fluoridation", quoted from reference 84, than on the reasoning they gave for stopping fluoridation. VdSV9•♫ 22:37, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    @VdSV9: Your input is welcome at the article's talk page where I proposed a compromise. The reason why I removed Newsweek was that its header claimed it was now banned, but since headers can be ignored versus the actual article's content, maybe it's still relevant if you think it should be restored. We appear to agree on other points, —PaleoNeonate – 08:43, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Mark Hyman (doctor)

    A new user is repeatedly adding POV to the lead that some dietitians support Mark Hyman's "pegan" diet. This is clearly false. The added reference was a holistic medicine/alternative medicine website. I have not seen any registered dietitians from reliable sources support Hyman's pegan diet, the added source was Parsley Health which promotes something called "holistic medicine". Parsley Health is sponsored by Goop so this is outright quackery. It is obviously a false balance to pretend some dietitians support it whilst some do not. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

    This user does not understand how Misplaced Pages works, they are unfortunately adding personal comments into article tags Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:52, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    The issue is on-going . Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    I just reverted that series of edits; they are now arguing with other users at Talk:Mark Hyman (doctor). The user in question, RaoulTheWok (talk · contribs), has been notified of this discussion. Recommend a partial block from the article and its talk page to encourage them to edit on some other topic. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    I since back down from discussing what amount/quality of dietitian consider the pegan diet particularly faddy since as PaleoNeonate indicated in the discussion, it is probably not going to be a well sourced claim one way or another unless relevant sources are referenced which has yet to be done. Have you read through the sources and their sources where needed? I have. I'd welcome correctly identifying irrelevant sources/claims as opposed to reverting edits where clearly insufficient sources are used. Please refer to the discussion at Talk:Mark Hyman (doctor) as well. RaoulTheWok (talk) 08:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    Also while I'm not an expert on editing etiquette, I'm neither a new user nor intending to do POV edits. It should be beyond obvious what is wrong in terms of mismatch between the claims being made and the sources used. Sorry if someone got the wrong impression initially. I have again tagged some most egregious abuses but cannot guarantee that this is all of em. Feel free to help uphold quality standards on Misplaced Pages because the impression one would get from reading this article about the man may be a poor one. I say that as someone who's not rushing to do a pegan diet. And no I'm not saying that a fair balance would be to give either side 50% credibility. But there's a different extreme to worry about as well. RaoulTheWok (talk) 09:03, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    To amuse you

    Apparently an editor has decided that MEDRS-compliant sources (e.g., med school textbooks) about human biology are unacceptable in Sex because doctors aren't necessarily biology experts, and only sources from the field of biology may be cited in the article. See Talk:Sex#Biological sex in humans and my talk page for proof that I'm not making this up. I'm going to bed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    There is no need to bring this to notice board.
    Medicine and biology are completely two different fields of academia end of story.CycoMa (talk) 06:13, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    Please ignore my last comment it was a mistake I didn’t mean it. I swear, look all I’m trying to say was that the sources you presented at sex are not ideal sources okay.CycoMa (talk) 07:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    There, I've struck the comments you made that you wanted to erase. That's how you do it. erasing somebody else's post is just a big nono. I do believe that you should know this, with your time here. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 07:15, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    I honestly didn’t know that to be honest. I’m very sorry about that.CycoMa (talk) 07:17, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    No more apologies, OK? I also note that I believe that you should pay more attention to her ladyship's points at Talk/Sex -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 07:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Okay but anyway I don’t think some of the sources she presented are reliable regarding the topic. Like I don’t understand why sociological sources should be included.CycoMa (talk) 07:33, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    WP:MEDRS sources are perfectly acceptable in that article. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 07:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    Okay sure. But one of her sources contradict a reliable source I presented.
    one of her sources said this.
    While we tend to think of sex as a binary (either male or female) determined by looking at a baby's genitals, the evidence shows that sex is determined by multiple biological factors including chromosomes, hormones, gonads and secondary sex characteristics, as well as external genitalia. ... It is important to remember that sex and gender are two different things: a child or young person's biological sex may be different from their gender identity.
    While says this.
    Sex is a biological concept. Asexual reproduction (cloning) is routine in microorganisms and some plants, but most vertebrates and all mammals have 2 distinct sexes. Even single-cell organisms have “mating types” to facilitate sexual reproduction. Only cells belonging to different mating types can fuse together to reproduce sexually (2, 3). Sexual reproduction allows for exchange of genetic information and promotes genetic diversity. The classical biological definition of the 2 sexes is that females have ovaries and make larger female gametes (eggs), whereas males have testes and make smaller male gametes (sperm); the 2 gametes fertilize to form the zygote, which has the potential to become a new individual. The advantage of this simple definition is first that it can be applied universally to any species of sexually reproducing organism. Second, it is a bedrock concept of evolution, because selection of traits may differ in the 2 sexes. Thirdly, the definition can be extended to the ovaries and testes, and in this way the categories—female and male—can be applied also to individuals who have gonads but do not make gametes.…Biological sex is dichotomous because of the different roles of each sex in reproduction.
    Notice how these two sources have contradicting definitions of the same thing. Sure one could argue binary and dichotomy aren’t the same thing.CycoMa (talk) 07:45, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    Also the definition presented in the second source here aligns more with definition of sex at the article.CycoMa (talk) 08:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)


    Okay everyone I asked at WikiProject Medicine and they said that medical sources are fine for an article like sex. I’m very sorry about all this please forgive me for all this.CycoMa (talk) 17:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Dissociative identity disorder

    New section "Torture-based deliberate creation" looks rather dubious and was removed. As I wrote this, it has been reverted back into the article.

    The prevailing post-traumatic model of dissociation and dissociative disorders has historically been contested and are remnants of out-dated hypotheses that became popular in the 1980s (such as the fantasy-model and therapy-induced model)

    The therapy-induced model is outdated? Is that true? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:24, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    No. Not at all. See sources here. --Saidmann (talk) 18:12, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    @Saidmann posted a link to this article at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine#Fringe rumors in Dissociative identity disorder. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Zeta Reticuli

    Some determined section-blanking activity here lately. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:52, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

    Problem solved. But I wish we had a better source than “zeta talk” in the article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:03, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
    There is no exoplanet around Zeta Reticuli. There is no reason for us to explain a mistake that happened 25 years ago in the article. jps (talk) 21:21, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
    ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:32, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

    Psychoanalysis

    I am involved in a disagreement as to whether psychoanalysis should be described as pseudoscience in the lede of the article. Jake Wartenberg (talk) 04:54, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

    Hessdalen lights

    Long section on piezo effect seems undue. Does anybody have an opinion or even a source? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:06, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

    If this is being used, it’s not a RS. Neither is Journal of Scientific Exploration. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:23, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
    There are lights in the sky in central Norway? It must be aliens!
    Yes, I'm aware that the Hessdalen lights aren't northern lights, I'm just joking around. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
    Not sure why Brian Dunning isn't being included in the article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:35, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
    (1) Some editors have been removing Dunning cites in the wake of his fraud conviction, although that admittedly had nothing to do with his "Skeptoid" work. (2) Dunning's most constructive explanation of the origin of the Hessdalen lights is that they might be aircraft landing lights -- and then he says, "By no means am I suggesting that aircraft landing lights are the cause of all the Hessdalen sightings." Nevertheless, I would vote for including a distillation of his analysis in the article. DoctorJoeE /Talk 14:30, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
    Brought up the sourcing issue on the article Talk page. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:38, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

    Day-year principle

    Huge article detailing exactly which theologian interpreted which Bible prophecy using the technique called "day-year principle", which is a magic idea reminiscent of creationists, homeopaths, Bible-code cranks, Nostradamus exegetes, and astrologers, as well as sympathetic magic and as-above-so-below thinking. Also makes me think of Deutobold Symbolizetti Allegoriowitsch Mystifizinsky.

    Most of it seems WP:UNDUE angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin-counter fancruft. I don't even know where to begin. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

    It was extremely influential in American religion as the basis for the Millerite Great disappointment. A better framing of this historically is definitely possible. I think Ronald Numbers might be a good source. jps (talk) 12:01, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
    The day-year principle is both hugely influential in fundamentalist theology (though, obviously, not so much the inerrantist branch), and the core idea behind old earth creationism, the most scientifically valid variant of the notion (note that theistic evolution is more scientifically valid yet, but is generally not considered to be a form of creationism). I think it's appropriate that we have an article on the subject, though for obvious reasons, NPOV could become a problem there. I've watchlisted and I'll give the current state a good read in a bit, when I'm able to focus. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:41, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
    See also to Day-age creationism might be a good thing. jps (talk) 13:23, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

    Study supporting Ivermectin as a COVID treatment withdrawn for impressive reasons

    A highlight:

    A medical student in London, Jack Lawrence, was among the first to identify serious concerns about the paper, leading to the retraction. He first became aware of the Elgazzar preprint when it was assigned to him by one of his lecturers for an assignment that formed part of his master’s degree. He found the introduction section of the paper appeared to have been almost entirely plagiarised. It appeared that the authors had run entire paragraphs from press releases and websites about ivermectin and Covid-19 through a thesaurus to change key words. “Humorously, this led to them changing ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome’ to ‘extreme intense respiratory syndrome’ on one occasion,” Lawrence said.

    It's the cdesign proponentsist of COVID!

    The Elgazzar study was one of the the largest and most promising showing the drug may help Covid patients, and has often been cited by proponents of the drug as evidence of its effectiveness. “If you remove this one study from the scientific literature, suddenly there are very few positive randomised control trials of ivermectin for Covid-19. Indeed, if you get rid of just this research, most meta-analyses that have found positive results would have their conclusions entirely reversed.”

    Oops. XOR'easter (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

    • Can somebody do Carvallo et al. next? Also, somehow, this study wasn't actually published anywhere other than a pre-print site, yet it showed up in meta-analyses. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 22:44, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

    Bigfoot

    I saw this, adding noises Bigfoot supposedly makes to List of unexplained sounds, and then noticed there is a whole section at Bigfoot about it Bigfoot#Alleged_behavior. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:41, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

    My little yeti makes mysterious noises too, including, but not limited to: chirping, purring, meowing, growling, hissing, scratching, sometimes even snoring; and does throw objects around and eat meat... On a more serious note, while the article can certainly include popular culture material, it also seems to rely on poor sources (even for some of the critical material)... —PaleoNeonate – 17:37, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
    Right, this is essentially Bigfoot fan site content sourced to a blog. I’ve removed it, but must avert my eyes from the other ills of the article, which could take many hours to fix. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
    wooF. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 05:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    That section was probably the worst thing I'll read on Misplaced Pages today, knock on wood. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 06:04, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    Elections in Cuba

    There's an IP address who's edit-warring to insert content to promote the fringe view that Cuba is a democracy with free elections. The IP is using sources that are either bad or characterized (and I think there may also be some IP hopping going on). More eyeballs would be helpful. Neutrality 17:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Queer coding

    This AfD concerns a poorly sourced section of the article that promotes the fringe theory that certain Disney Animated Canon villains are queer. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

    Height 611 UFO incident

    Height 611 UFO incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    The article has only two sources. One source is a link to our Discovery Channel article. The other is to a UFOlogists book. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

    The article should be put out of its misery. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Kind of a Shaggy dog story in which it is claimed that people saw a glowing light crash into a mountain, metal was recovered that was 'not of this earth', photos taken wouldn't develop, etc. I AfD'd the article 8 years ago but Russian language Misplaced Pages editors opposed deletion and gave the impression they might improve it, but never did. All the sources given at the AfD are in Russian. I was able to Google translate one, which was an interview with a UFOlogist whose claims were covered quite credulously. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Height 611 UFO incident (2nd nomination) - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:53, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
    In other news, AnomieBOT (talk · contribs) has archived the AfD on delsort pages twice, with unknown result and closure time 12:59, 21 July 2021 (UTC), despite the discussion still being in progress. The given timestamp is the time when the discussion was opened. The operator of AnomieBOT has not responded to complaints on the talk page. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:45, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

    Norman Vincent Peale

    Has been under a whitewashing attack for a few months. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    Another day, another lab leak essay

    And another cross-namespace shortcut: WP:YESLABLEAK. If I didn't know better I'd think a WP:POINT was being made. Alexbrn (talk) 12:38, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    Worth an RFD in your opinion? This is definitely more succinct and PAG-based, but it essentially argues against WP:SCHOLARSHIP. One also wonders about whether this is RFD-able in the same way other redirects were, for targeting a "group of wikipedia editors" in an USTHEM mentality. It's also wild because it's mostly a strawman argument. NOLABLEAK doesn't say we "shouldn't cover the lab leak" it says we should contextualize it with the mainstream view among relevant scholars (that it is "unlikely"). But at the same time, I think bad user essays tend to help the implicated "enemy" more than they harm, because it shows plainly just how bad the argument is. My favorite line is "Just because the wording of some text in support of the hypothesis seems biased, doesn’t justify deleting it." No, but rewriting such biased text to be NPOV isn't too popular among this crowd, either. In the end, weighing these competing forces, I'm not really sure where to come down on this one.--Shibbolethink 12:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    because it shows plainly just how bad the argument is Only to those who know to judge such things. Most people cannot tell good reasoning from bad. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Hob Gadling, Yes, that is a fair point. Reading this, and then reading NOLABLEAK, it definitely muddies the waters considerably and makes one concerned that NOLABLEAK is saying something that it definitely is not.--Shibbolethink 13:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    The essay is essentially OR (at least the "Reasons given for why SARS-COV-2 may have leaked from a lab" section), and completely ignores the real intention of NPOV and FRINGE. To quote WP:FALSEBALANCE: "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Misplaced Pages policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world."... A clear example of the latter (undue legitimisation through comparison to accepted scholarship) is my revert of this RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    To be fair, WP:OR doesn't apply to user essays. If it did, there basically wouldn't be any WP:NOLABLEAK either. I agree with you that the issue is how we need to contextualize the lab leak in the frame of the mainstream scholarly view, which we currently do quite well in many of the relevant origins and misinformation articles.--Shibbolethink 13:13, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    MfD may fail with advocates of userspace blogging, but the redirect is inappropriate and worthy of RfD... As for the essay itself, we've seen worse but it's still conspiratorial, a bit polemic about Misplaced Pages and pushing GEVAL/FALSEBALANCE arguments... —PaleoNeonate – 19:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Why is "WP:YESLABLEAK" inappropriate and worthy of Rfd but "WP:NOLABLEAK" is not? Neither essays make the case that a lab leak absolutely did or did not happen. As an outsider, I don't consider the essay particularly polemic or conspiratorial. I think harping WP:SCHOLARSHIP as if it forbids or supersedes WP:NEWSORG for non-medical information (it does not) is a red-herring. There is a growing list of literature at Talk:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis#Sources (warning: not peer-reviewed meta-analyses, just the mad ramblings of lowly investigative journalists). --Animalparty! (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    The redirect is project-space to userspace. Feel free to RfD NOLABLEAK, of course. One is still more usable than the other in legitimate discussions (those shortcuts are for easy referencing). —PaleoNeonate – 23:03, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis‎

    Is back:

    Alexbrn (talk) 13:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    So it comes, so it goes. Redirected again, but for how long... Urve (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Back again. What a time to be alive, surely. Urve (talk) 14:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    And that promoted previously spammed dubious sources like BioEssays... —PaleoNeonate – 15:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    BioEssays was willing to publish physicist nonsense about cancer. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    This is totally redundant with Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Yep. I fear it will soon become a POVFORK.--Shibbolethink 20:04, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    So FIX it. Like the flat earth theory, Lab Leak theory may be bullshit, but it is NOTABLE bullshit, and so merits an article of its own. The key (like flat earth) is to ensure that the article is accurate and well sourced. Blueboar (talk) 20:52, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Blueboar, Yes I get your argument, and that's why I am doing just that. Better to be involved in making it good rather than complain from the sidelines, I agree and have always agreed.--Shibbolethink 20:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Even as we fix it, it's still just another long-term fringe-happy time sink... —PaleoNeonate – 22:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
    Now at a AfD, which I did not ask for. ProcrastinatingReader's deletion rationale was a total strawman of what I was trying to accomplish with the merge proposal. I knew that taking it to AfD would result in a massive fucking circus and god damn it I was right. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:27, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    Blueboar we generally fix POV-forks by deleting them and rolling them back into the primary article... Bakkster Man (talk) 14:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    Yeah the AfD has gotten way out of hand. ––FORMALDUDE 04:49, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
    The new version will no longer be a POV fork though, contrary to previous ones, —PaleoNeonate – 12:10, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

    Christiane Northrup

    Since User:Fitzrex has been CU-blocked, we're probably done here. Feel free to re-open if you disagree. Bishonen | tålk 08:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC).

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Antivaxxer "Northrup is particularly concerned with reproductive system dysfunction and menstrual cycle irregularities as a result of COVID-19 vaccines, that have been documented by medical anthropologists, pharmacists and others". Is that so? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:41, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

    @Hob Gadling: Is that not so? Isn't she an Ob/Gyn? Don't we need to give MDs the benefit of the doubt in cases which deal with their specialties? Fitzrex (talk) 15:38, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    No, we absolutely do not ... and that's not the primary objection here. Please familiarize yourself with Misplaced Pages policies. -- Jibal (talk) 03:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
    What is the point of asking me the same yes-no question I asked, turned into a no-yes question?
    Your approach of accepting everything somebody with a specific job says cannot work because people with the same job disagree with each other. Most MDs do not know how to do science because they "only" have to apply science other people did. So, some random MD is not the right source for scientific questions. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
    The sentence in question was inserted by:
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    User adding fringe language and ethnic supremacy theories

    Changeanew (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

    This user is promoting language theories about Vietnamese from a folk healing website to linguistics and history articles. . They are also adding ethnic supremacy theories. . This is not supported by any academic material. Please prevent them from continuing. 64.18.10.194 (talk) 01:47, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

    (Non-administrator comment) User notified of this thread. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:50, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

    Fentanyl

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

    I removed a section from this article which accused China of "Non Conventional Warfare" using the drug, while the sources were actually about a drug cartel operating out of a factory in China to smuggle into Canada. I've also requested RD2 for an unsourced conspiracy theory added and quickly removed in late June. Please keep a close eye on this article for conspiracy theories, especially the racist/xenophobic ones. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:47, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

    UPDATE: User Oshwah (talk · contribs) restored the above two things, plus made a few other tweaks. The conspiracy theory is a bordeline BLP violation, so I can't fathom their reason for doing that. I rolled back again. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:17, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
    I'm not sure why this had to come to a noticeboard, and I'm very much not sure why anything is RD2 worthy. The "Non Conventional Warfare" section is obviously bad; Oshwah's edit looks like an edit-conflict trying to revert to a previous version as there is a lot going on in that diff. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:21, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

    Medical genetics of Jews

    At the article Medical genetics of Jews there's a user adding content about Nazis and ranting about the nature of sources used. They tried to get the article deleted through a case request at WP:DRN, which I closed as an improper filing. More eyes on that article would be helpful. I'm not entirely sure what their angle is, though the possibility that they're upset over some legitimate problems with the article seems real, if remote. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:25, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

    How has this gone unchallenged / unmodified? 2001:8003:237D:1100:CC88:E2ED:D8C2:7F7F (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
    I'm guessing the article is not watched by many. Hence why I made this posting. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:41, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
    I removed it. It seems to confuse testing of ethnically Jewish people for medical purposes with DNA testing to find out whether someone is Jewish. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 08:49, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
    I welcomed the user and invited them here if their edits are contested. —PaleoNeonate – 17:50, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

    Should China COVID-19 cover-up be merged with one of the other COVID-19 in China articles?

     You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:China COVID-19 cover-up. Shibbolethink 22:44, 24 July 2021 (UTC)Template:Z48

    Do qi nor meridians exist?

    Of rather, should Misplaced Pages say they don't exist? That is the question being discussed at Talk:Shiatsu#"neither qi nor meridians exist". Alexbrn (talk) 06:49, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    The matter is not whether qi or meridians exist, it is that claims in an article must be backed up by the source. I have no problem stating in Misplaced Pages that something positively does not exist, like in Benzoquinone where a peer reviewed study makes a statement that a certain chemical compound does not exist because it is impossible. The problem here is that "qi does not exist" is a POV statement not supported by the source.
    The Ernst source states that "Concepts such as the qi of Chinese traditional medicine are myths which enjoy the same status as religious faiths" and "the existence of qi can neither be proven nor disproven". A myth is not synonymous with "does not exist", and if something cannot be disproven, it cannot be asserted to be nonexistent. A basic principle of scientific thought is that anyone making a claim, *either negative or positive*, has the burden of responsibility. It is unscientific to assert that something does not exist without Proof of impossibility.
    The Hall source states that "Acupuncture meridians and acupoints are imaginary until proven otherwise", and although a reasonable reader would understand this as an attention-grabbing statement rather than a professional statement, taking it at face value, it still implies that it is *possible* to be proven. After explaining research that failed to find the structures claimed, the author goes on to say "I don’t know whether the structures described as the PVS exist". This is a scientific conclusion consistent with basic scientific epistemology.
    In addition, Accupuncture goes into detail about the studies done. We use WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR and proper scientific methodology to refute pseudoscience, not POV unsourced statements like "qi does not exist". These cheapen our message and promote the idea that science is merely another religion. As Carl Sagan said, "Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking".
    Therefore, I propose that we either 1) keep consistent with the NPOV style of Misplaced Pages, the sources cited, and with the Accupuncture article and state that there is no evidence for these structures to exist, *or failing that*, 2) add to the Accupuncture article to state that qi and meridians do not exist. MarshallKe (talk) 12:52, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
    Basic logic fail there. Ever heard of the null hypothesis, a mainstay of evidence-based medicine?. But in any case we summarize sources, and if something's mythical it doesn't exist in reality. We probably should mention qi etc don;'t exist in whichever articles they come up. Alexbrn (talk) 15:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
    I'm familiar with the use of null hypotheses. It's not relevant to this discussion. Hypotheses in science can only be supported or refuted, but never proven or disproven beyond a doubt. This is basic science 101 stuff that should be a prerequisite to editing anything related to science in Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages describes the science rather prescribing which unproven assumptions the reader should hold on what is possible or impossible. Regardless, Misplaced Pages is not a place to debate epistemology and metaphysics. We are here to uphold WP:NPOV and WP:V policy, and Misplaced Pages is not a place for scientific or religious advocacy. Although we are biased towards scientific sources, we do not have a free pass to misrepresent what the scientific sources say, such as cherrypicking attention-grabbing single sentences from articles and then drawing erroneous hyperbolic conclusions from them. MarshallKe (talk) 15:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
    Oh it's relevant okay, because contrary to your assertion "science" is not the endeavour of trying to "disprove" unfalsifiable silly stories from the realm of pseudoscience. Hitchen's razor is useful for rational progress. But to repeat: we summarize sources, and if something's mythical it doesn't exist in reality. Misplaced Pages isn't going to be hedging its bets on whether meridians and qi exists any more than our good sources do. Sorry. Alexbrn (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
    We do seem to be repeating our points, so considering that we are the only two participants in this conversation thus far, I'm going to stop here and wait for input from other editors. MarshallKe (talk) 16:22, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    Well, they don't. For good or ill, we don't live in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Trying to create doubt in the face of a massive amount of scientific evidence by zooming in upon a few turns of phrase in a couple sources and splitting their rhetorical hairs is not the way to be NPOV. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    I'll try to check for more sources about it later on. The meridians (like nadis) are often treated as "metaphysics" since it's outside of what science can work with. The qi (like prana) or energy (esotericism) claimed to go through these channels is, like them, imaginary. Of course some claim that they have been religiously revealed, but visualization remains an activity and product of the mind (so are visions and hallucinations). It's considered pseudoscientific because it's presented as a "scientific" or rational method that works with an alternative anatomy that has not been verified, and makes medical claims that have not been demonstrated to be more useful than massage and other forms of relaxation or reassurance. About the advocacy claim, by WP:PSCI it must be clear when it's pseudoscientific, but I currently don't see it mentioned prominently. I support the current text about that it has not been verified to really exist. "Has not been disproven" is not really meaningful other than affirming that it's unfalsifiable and not science... —PaleoNeonate – 17:03, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    To argue that meridians or qi exist in the same way that nerves or blood exist is to adopt a profoundly pseudoscientific approach to reality. But the same way with all variety of religious beliefs, superstitions, and folklore there are those who use the stories about various empirically questionable points as metaphors to help them talk through ideas about the human experience. We don't go on and on about how there is no empirical evidence for miracles in every miracle story. But we sure as hell are not going to pretend in an article on faith healing that the jury of empiricists is still out on claimed mechanisms. jps (talk) 02:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

    Hiding the fact that science has been done on a topic sounds very un-Wikipedian to me. Therefore, I propose removal of the qi statement and keeping the meridian statement (studies have been done looking for meridians, while qi is not studyable by science) MarshallKe (talk) 21:13, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    The article is very clearly talking about qi as a tangible phenomenon, not a concept, metaphor, or myth. If you push it out of the realm of things that science can study, then you rule it out as the basis for any kind of medicine that actually works. XOR'easter (talk) 00:42, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    Nobody is trying to promote Qi as a serious concept. We are here to eliminate POV statements that violate WP:V. MarshallKe (talk) 01:03, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

    This took me about an hour to figure out, but the actual question here is this. The article on shiatsu currently states, in a separate paragraph and (in my opinion) quite bluntly:

    Neither qi nor meridians exist.

    Some users would like to change this, either into:

    Neither qi nor meridians are commonly believed to exist. ()

    or:

    While existence of qi can neither be proven nor disproven since vitalism is not scientifically testable, the concept of a meridian system does create a testable hypothesis. There is no physically verifiable anatomical or histological basis for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians. ()

    or:

    Anatomists consider qi and meridians to be imaginary; their existence can neither be proved nor disproved. (, corrected spelling)

    I personally think that all of these options are pretty awful. They seem to be the unfortunate result of an undue preoccupation with either pushing pseudoscience or pushing back against it, rather than with writing an encyclopedia. I didn't read the sources, but I'm quite confident that someone who did will be able to add proper references to something like the following:

    The practice of shiatsu is based on the traditional Chinese concept of qi, a type of vital force that is supposed to flow through certain pathways in the human body, known as meridians. Modern research has failed to find any evidence for the existence of these meridians, and their use as a scientific concept has been generally abandoned outside of traditional Chinese medicine.

    This could be put before the current paragraph starting with There is no evidence that shiatsu is of any benefit in treating cancer or any other disease . ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 02:43, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

    @Apaugasma: Specific content discussions like this could be put back on the talkpage and probably are best discussed there. However, now that we're here, I'll identify a few issues with your proposal. One, it's not at all clear that qi as the traditional Chinese concept is a type of vitalism which is a distinctly Western school of thought. Certainly in the context of the alternative medicine of today the two are linked (as they are in our article on energy (esotericism)), but it is not a good idea to engage in this kind of blanket and, frankly, anachronistic declaration of what categories these historical concepts from disparate cultural groups fall under. Then we move on to the claim that modern research has failed... which, I think, misses the point that the reason there isn't evidence that these things exist is because there has been tremendous care in documenting what does exist. It's rather much the same with any number of concepts for which there is a lack of empirical evidence. I hate to always bring up Santa Claus, but I will again because I do think the comparison is apt. It's not that modern research has failed to find evidence that Santa Claus exists. Rather it's that the research about all the things with which Santa Claus supposedly interacts does not allow for the existence of such a beast. The difference here, of course, is that there are some stubborn researchers who manage to publish one-off papers to look in vain for qi/meridians, but the larger point is that this sort of research isn't the main stumbling block for, say, modern medicine when it comes to claims about qi/meridians. It's not as though when you mention this to a medical doctor they go running to the journals to look for all the research on the subject. Finally you use the turn of phrase, their use as a scientific concept which is problematic in that with very few exceptions, qi/meridians are not treated as a scientific concept at all, and when they have been, the treatments have been maligned to such an extent that it is debatable whether we should call it properly "scientific" instead of "pseudoscientific".... but to make matters worse the sentence goes on to imply that within the realm of TCM there is a way to use meridians/qi as "scientific concepts". Perhaps that is not the intention of what you are writing, but I think it is an undeniable implication nonetheless.
    All this is to say that coming up with good wording is difficult. I think it's fine that you are trying, but a lot of us have been at this for, in some cases, more than a decade, and, while it may be that we are overly entrenched in a rigid style, there is also a lot of work that has been done to try to make the wording as clear as possible. In the case of your proposal, I'm not at all convinced that it is better than the first simple sentence you identify that "some users" (including yourself) consider to be too blunt.
    jps (talk) 15:09, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    Is it that, in a similar vein to WP:ANI, we normally don't discuss content here but only conduct? Or just that we use this noticeboard to draw attention to local discussions, without moving them here? In both cases, the above was already not following that convention, which got me confused.
    Your first objection is easily met, I think, by not linking vital force to vitalism. It is true that the latter is a specifically 19th-century doctrine, which of course does not negate the fact that qi is a kind of vital force similar in nature to the vital heat and the pneuma of ancient and medieval western medicine (these comparisons are routinely made by historians of science). I'm fairly sure that sources characterize qi as a vital force, so that should pose no problem.
    As for your second objection, I think you're ignoring a bit that for many centuries, meridians were a valid scientific concept that was subject to empirical research, and that is it an outdated and abandoned concept rather than an inherently unscientific one (in the mainstream historiographical meaning of 'science' as something that also existed before the 17th-century development of the modern scientific method). It is precisely because it was a scientific concept and because it is still used as such by traditionalists that modern research has been conducted on the existence of meridians. It is the failure of traditional Chinese medicine to acknowledge the results of that research (and modern research more generally) which renders it pseudoscience, a fact which we are also conveying in this way.
    I think we have a choice here: do we prefer to be encyclopedic and informative for our readers, or do we prefer to obfuscate all useful information on a topic just to make sure no one could suspect us of promoting pseudoscience? I think your third and last objection clearly speaks to that binary: yes, I was aware of the possible implication of my words with regards to qi and meridians still being used as scientific concepts in TCM, but I did not immediately find a better way to word it, and I just really don't think that it's a problem given the general tendency both of the paragraph and of the article as a whole. It's quite simple really: if your only concern is that every word and every turn of phrase is 100% free from any possible implication of perhaps maybe even looking a bit like what in another context would be fringe, all that's going to result in is a thoroughly unencyclopedic mess.
    Really, I suggested something like the following. I think that anyone with some background knowledge of the subject and with their priorities straight could write something similar. It's rather the failure of editors to come up with something instructive like that and their preference to endlessly discuss about God, epistemology and Santa Claus that is utterly amazing. I know it's a lot to ask, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I really think you should reconsider your approach to these things. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:53, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    Off-topic banter
    If I recall the cited source correctly, it says there's no scientific evidence that it will prevent or cure any disease. Saying there's no benefit goes beyond that. Several of the survey sources do discuss benefits. I'm certainly not saying we should claim there are benefits, either, but stating that there are not is too far to one side of NPOV. Dicklyon (talk) 04:29, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    Facepalm Facepalm Great. I wake up to find we've entered some parallel universe where Misplaced Pages editors propose content while admitting they haven't read the relevant sources. Alexbrn (talk) 05:01, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    I was just trying to be helpful by doing the wordsmithing. I have no reason to believe that anyone here will disagree with the content, and I think that it can be easily backed up by sources. Just thought that this could be done better by someone who has read the particular sources already cited in the article. This is a collaborative project after all. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 05:16, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    For fairness, someone please edit God to read "God does not exist." End all that pseudoscience once and for all! --Animalparty! (talk) 05:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
    These topics are more like chiropractic subluxations than God (i.e. proposed as actual biophysical phenomena which are pivotal to medical treatment). Alexbrn (talk) 05:49, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

    I thought maybe we should actually discuss the topic at hand. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 06:06, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

    Mizanur Rahman (Islamic activist)

    Mizanur Rahman (Islamic activist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    More eyes on this article would be welcome. FDW777 (talk) 12:46, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    If it wasn't there already and your concerns are not addressed soon I recommend BLPN, —PaleoNeonate – 17:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    More antivaxx

    Becoming prominent, and so attracting attention from IPs and "new" accounts. Could use wise eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 19:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

    I will try and stem the inevitible WP:RECENTISM that accompanies any time someone mentions COVID-19 on TV. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:17, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
    @Animalparty: There's one editor persistently adding just that. I've exhausted patience there, and I'm busy watching the opening match of rugby sevens at the Olympics (Fiji currently lead the hosts 24-19). See ya, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:18, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

    Disinformation Dozen

    I made a redirect for Disinformation Dozen, but I could see some potential for some spin-out if someone might be interested. Seems like there has been a lot more attention to this lately what with the Mercola profile in NYTimes this weekend, e.g. jps (talk) 03:04, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

    This probably doesn't warrant its own article, just as we don't need a stand-alone article for every study, finding or science paper that gets major discussion for a week ("according to a new report, doctors say sugar will kill you"... "according to a new new study, sugar is fine"). This is a single primary report (with apparently, a remix) from a single agency. Just like most primary sources, the findings are what matters, and maybe gets the researchers a stand-alone biography, not the document. It's no more spin-out worthy than if the Southern Poverty Law Center released a list of the 10 Most Hateist Hate Groups for 2020, or National Geographic publishing the Sexiest Snakes Alive (number 4 will shock you!). The disinformation (baker's) dozen are named and discussed in context at Center for Countering Digital Hate#The Disinformation Dozen, and all have, or will likely soon have, their own articles. I think that's plenty good context. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:12, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    I actually started to draft an article, but when I saw what we had I thought it didn't quite merit a standalone. But if secondary commentary builds then ... maybe? Alexbrn (talk) 06:16, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Normally I would agree, but in this case the designation is gaining some amount of traction. Still, wait and see is a perfectly acceptable position at this point. jps (talk) 11:14, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Have you guys seen the standard of many new articles nowadays. It's like a torrent of shite. I'm certain that any article about the disinformation dozen would be an imformative, pleasant change. Please dont give up, just lower your standards a tad, OK? -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 12:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Funnily, when I see "disinformation dozen" I keep thinking of 12 apostles, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Twenty-Four Elders, Eight Immortals, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves... —PaleoNeonate – 15:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    You youngsters! Think back to The Dirty Dozen ! Alexbrn (talk) 16:12, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Bah. Seven Samurai. But actually, I thought of the other Four Horsemen, Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens and Thingummy. They don't have their own article either, not even a redirect, because they are on the same notability level, only they have been there longer - someone invented the moniker once, and it is used occasionally, but to call them a thing would be reification. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:44, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
    Lets not blether on about all this old stuff, when we can have a freshly minted Gorski post regarding the Telly Savalas of the disinformation dozen. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

    Lipid hypothesis

    A user is adding an opinion piece from the New York Times from 2013 to the lead which fails WP:MEDRS. The reference does not mention the lipid hypothesis so this is also original research.

    The "Dissenting views" section cites some serious fringe advocates (known as cholesterol denialists) but I am not so sure that we should be citing these people in this much detail. A line has recently been added that cites Robert DuBroff. DuBroff authored a controversial paper with Aseem Malhotra which has been described as an "extraordinary deception". . It is clearly a false balance to be citing these minority of cholesterol denialists to be claiming in the lead that there is a dispute to lower blood cholesterol levels. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:51, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

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