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Ann Coulter

• Ann Coulter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Discussion about how to handle articles about intelligent design fans. Should it be called a pseudoscience or not? --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems more like a MOS type question. I don't think anyone in that discussion is questioning that ID is supported by any type of science. I think all would agree that it's often an attempt to rectify religion to the evidence of evolution. Part of the dispute at that article can be generalized as should we point out as much every time the topic is mentioned in any article where it is even briefly mentioned. That seems to the be crux of the dispute. For example, if Mr Smith's article says, "Smith is a believer in astrology" should we instead say "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience " or "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience that claims X ". Would the answer change depending on the ? For example, if the source specifically says astrology is a psuedoscience vs if it only says he believes in it? Springee (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

The Nancy Reagan page has about a dozen references to astrology and how it ran the US White House, but none of them contain any additional word like "pseudoscience". Nancy is dead and there is no political value in trashing her, but Coulter is involved in contentious current politics so she gets the shaft at multiple points in her article. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Springee, it is not about the FRINGE or pseudoscience status of intelligent design, which everyone currently involved in that discussion seems to agree on. Other than some stuff that is specific to Coulter, the discussion is about whether references to FRINGE material require mandatory warning labels --- as the initiator of the discussion I argued that this practice is gratuitous, patronizing to the reader, and in Coulter's case, politicized. These are MOS or NPOV issues, FRINGE does not come into play since the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented, only the fact of Coulter having some connection to it. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

The people here know how to handle articles that are related to fringe subjects. Now they already know about the subject, so it is pointless to try to keep it from them by claiming it is not related to FRINGE.

Whether the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented is one of the questions here, not a fact. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

What does try to keep it from them mean? Keep what from whom??

Does writing the words "X advocates intelligent design", with the link, as the sole description of X's connection to ID, constitute a presentation of the fringe viewpoint? Nobody at the Coulter talk discussion has claimed that, but if that's part of what you think is being debated, please say so. In the generality that you have framed this ("intelligent design fans"), we aren't just talking about the Coulter article specifically, where there is some (unrebutted) presentation of her closely related views on evolution, and what is said about ID immediately after could be seen as part of that. The more general framing seems to be (the ID special case of) the same question I raised, about negative labels on references to fringe material. Sesquivalent (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE covers all treatments of fringe topics on Misplaced Pages, not just those that go into detail. Indeed, a significant part of that guideline is advice on when and how to go into detail. So, it doesn't matter if particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented. XOR'easter (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Which passage of FRINGE applies to this case? I share TFD's concern that the disparaging tone isn't helpful. It also, importantly, isn't encyclopedic. If simply calling it ID isn't sufficient perhaps calling it the creationist belief of intelligent design. That description makes it clear this is a subset of creationism while avoiding beating the reader over the head with the fact that it doesn't pass the scientific sniff test.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Springee (talk • contribs) 02:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You've assumed the conclusion, that merely mentioning Mr X subscribes to fringe thingy Y requires an attached denunciation of Y (or X, which is often what it amounts to either way). As pointed out at the Coulter article talk page, this is not the case for Y = astrology, Nazism, John Birch Society (re conspiracy theories). Other examples are anti-Semitism and scientific racism; generally when they appear as part of someone's bio we do not attach descriptors like "the discredited 19th century ideology". Maybe some of these things are considered well known enough to be out-of-mainstream that it's de minimis but this "denounce on sight" rule seems not even to be applied for cold fusion. Like Springee, I did not see any such principle in the FRINGE guideline, which I have read many times by now. Can you point to some particular part of the text?Sesquivalent (talk) 08:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I would leave it out. It sounds overly disparaging and as jargon we would have to explain it. Disparaging writing actually creates doubt in readers' minds. They say, "This article is obviously intended to disparage Coulter, so why should I believe anything it says?" TFD (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I rather suspect that people who are eager to leap to that conclusion will do so regardless of whether we include a few particular words or not. XOR'easter (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

+1 to this. Misplaced Pages is WP:NOTCENSORED. We should not be tiptoeing around the subject of fringe in order to cater to the potential pearl clutching of partisan readers. If they don't like what reliable sources say about the subject, they have safe spaces on the internet they can go to such as Conservapedia. Generalrelative (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

While that may be what you suspect, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. People don't like to be told what to think. That's one of the reasons the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the U.S. is so low. Of course it's easier to blame listeners for not being persuaded. TFD (talk) 01:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

No one is blaming listeners for not being persuaded. And yes, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. Generalrelative (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, few people like the feeling of being lectured at. But Coulter's fans will regard Misplaced Pages as a hotbed of cultural Marxism, critical race theory, and general leftist moral degeneracy no matter what adjectives we insert or remove. (Which is pretty funny, because our gold standard for news sourcing is The New York Times, a publication whose editorial practices please roughly zero leftists. But I digress.) There's no pleasing the mentality that regards the tamest, purely factional description as a slanderous subversion of real American values. There's such a thing as spending too much time trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable. I think Generalrelative's suggested phrasing below does a good job of being clear and direct without coming across as overly forceful. XOR'easter (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Presumably at least some readers come to the article because they want to know about the topic and aren't confirmed fans. Consider a reasonable person who has seen her once or twice on a couple of topics. If it is clear to them that the authors of her Misplaced Pages article dislike her then they will question the accuracy of the article. Ironically, the article reads like something Ann Coulter would write. TFD (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

A good rule of thumb in these scenarios is, does it help to explain the prose? Good to look at what we're actually considering here. As of this timestamp, prose reads as follows:

So, does the word "pseudoscientific" add to the prose here? I think it does, but I can see why others might think it is brow-beating. I find it a bit weirder that the text avoids the obvious reference to creationist here which is the umbrella term that, granted, a lot of ID proponents balk at due to believing in their own sophistication but was identified in the most famous court case on the subject to be just that. Well, that's maybe beside the point. The fact that Coulter advocates for intelligent design means that she positions herself in opposition to mainstream science. That is pretty remarkable for any pundit. How we indicate this is a good question, but I do think it reasonable to say we should try to do more than just assume that the reader will click on the relevant wikilink and that we should shrinkwrap our sentence to something like "Coulter advocates intelligent design. End paragraph."

jps (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Other pages use phrasings like "the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design" (here) or "the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design" (here) or "a pseudoscientific creationist argument" (here). The phrasing in the Ann Coulter article is in line with community practice in this regard, though doubtless it could be tweaked. XOR'easter (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I prefer "the pseudoscience called intelligent design". Use of adjectives (like "pseudoscientific") give the impression of being inherently POV. It's a noun: pseudoscience. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

(ec) I agree with you both. The current language needs tweaking. How about: "Coulter advocates for creationism, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, contrasted her beliefs to what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death."? Generalrelative (talk) 00:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Not bad. XOR'easter (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I was actually about to go back and change out creationism for intelligent design since the latter is actually what Coulter seems to be arguing for and is more unambiguously associated with pseudoscience. So my suggested text would now be: Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

The word "bogus" sounds a little informal. Maybe just "bad science"? I'd be happy enough with your suggested sentences, though. XOR'easter (talk) 01:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Good point. We could even go so far as to say the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is unsupported by or at variance with existing evidence. Generalrelative (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I like that a little more. But perhaps "unsupported by or at variance with" is a more elaborate construction than we need. What about just "disproved by"? XOR'easter (talk) 02:43, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

That phrasing is much better in terms of using impartial language but wouldn't it be better to say a bit more about what it is vs isn't? To be honest I confused Theistic Evolution with ID. I guess as someone who has spent most of my life avoiding religion it's easy to confuse various religious based beliefs. Still, based on these descriptions I'm not sure how I would see ID as different from Theistic Evolution or simply creationism. I guess creationism is meant to be accepted purely on faith while ID tries to rationalize. Would "a rationalized version of creationism" be just as informative. I would hope any reader who sees "creationism" would understand that is a religious based explanation vs one based on science. Springee (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Springee: I agree, it's a bit tricky to unpack. I wasn't at all clear on the distinction until reading the articles Creationism and Intelligent design in response to this discussion. This board in particular is such a great place to come to be challenged to learn more. Generalrelative (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: That would work. Or perhaps just "incompatible with"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Generalrelative (talk • contribs) 03:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

"Disproven" and derivatives of the word "proof" are words to avoid, in my book, when talking about science just from the epistemology of the subject. If this were pseudomathematics instead of pseudoscince, then maybe "disproven" is okay, but the formal term for proof confuses people into not understanding the way in which pseudoscience is at odds with science in the proper context. Better to get across the idea of "lacks empirical evidence" or "at variance with known scientific facts" and simple, clear alternatives to that.

In terms of the confusion of ID with evolutionary creationism, theistic evolution, and so forth, this is (excuse the pun) by design. The group of people in the mid-nineties who put their heads together to think about what could be done about Edwards v. Aguillard thought that because there is difficulty in solving the demarcation problem as it pertains to anti-evolutionism and people's personal beliefs, they could come up with a vaguely named concept like "intelligent design" which would capture the confusion and predilections of many religious believers with respect to the subject while maintaining some sort of plausible deniability as to the identity of any "designer". The problem, of course, was that the arguments themselves were all just repackaged from the creation science of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s with, perhaps, a few of the more ludicrous proposals quietly abandoned (ID proponents rarely argue that the Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale for the Sun is evidence of a "young Earth", for example). The fact that you confused ID with TE is exactly what this Center for Science and Culture group was hoping would happen, so this explains a bit why being a little clearer about what Coulter is specifically aligning herself with is so important. The task is not easy, so it's good to think carefully about the best wording granting that there actually may not be a "best wording" owing to this political and rhetorical mess created, again, by design.

jps (talk) 12:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

For those arguing that calling pseudoscience what it is disparages or patronizes, the WP:PSCI policy says that it must clearly be described as such. The reason why ID is pseudoscientific, while also creationism and religious apologetics, is that it attempts to pass as science. A history of it is outside the scope of this discussion, but in brief, it's an adaptation of Creation Science with the name of denomiations and deities gradually removed with more pseudoscientific arguments added that attempt to discredit important findings of science including discoveries and conclusions in geology and biology supported by overwhelming evidence. A main goal was to insert it in classrooms in the US as an alternative to standard biology curricula with the excuse that "students need to be informed and make their own decision". It's textbook pseudoscience and described as such by most reliable independent sources that discuss it. A valid policy-based argument in this case could be WP:SYNTH if the sources that talk about Coulter don't mention that it's not science but attempts to pass as such (or is pseudoscientific). Some current sources appear to be close and a minimum of synthesis may be acceptable for facts like that the sky is blue (and that ID is pseudoscientific)... Pseudoscience is not just a label but an accurate and useful description. —PaleoNeonate – 20:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Are there objections to my proposed language? Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 16:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that. XOR'easter (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Generalrelative, that really is an improvement. One of my original concerns was the article simply said ID is pseudoscience but really nothing more. I suspect that is why a number of us felt it was a dismissive label rather than actually telling the reader what we are dealing with. Your revised sentence is both more informative and impartial. It doesn't read as if we are applying a dismissive label but are afraid to explain the details. Instead it say, it hits a critical point, these people think the theory of evolution doesn't fit the evidence. They might be wrong but it's hardly the same thing as claiming the whole thing came from an Arkleseizure. It also provides some context for why she brings this up and why it's relevant to the article by putting the ID before the mention of evolution etc, vs after where it seems like it was mentioned as an after thought. Springee (talk) 03:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been following the discussion but haven't weighed in. This wording looks good to me as well. –dlthewave ☎ 04:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I do have some comments (or objections if you must).

1. I wish that edit suggestions for this one article would go in that article's Talk page, and more general FRINGE matters here, so we don't have two edit discussions in two places at once and double the size of this here thread.

2. I obtained a copy of Coulter's book and read the last three chapters, which are the part about evolution. (I think many things in this book would interest you, given your interests in articles on scientific racism and fascism -- she provides some information and references not currently in Misplaced Pages). Although she cribs anti-evolution arguments from IDers, and a few of her every-fourth-sentence snarky comments are about evolution comparing unfavorably to intelligent design in some way, it turns out that she is not arguing for ID in the book, or even that evolution must be wrong (though she vituperates it at great length). The first sentence about this in the current article, that she argues against evolution, is a better summary than the above, and having read the thing I would leave out any claim that the book argues for ID.

3. If there is to be any use of "pseudo" it should not be implied that Coulter herself is engaging in pseudoscience, i.e., non-science presented as science. She does not claim to be a scientist, to be publishing a work of science, and nearly all her sources are from popular books and articles, not scientific papers (even ones from intelligent design journals). She does not cite most of these things as works of science, but as case studies in how evolution is presented, used politically and so on. The criticisms of evolution are ammunition in the overall argument of the book (which is not about evolution) and her thesis does not stand or fall on whether Darwinian evolution is totally wrong, totally correct, or anything in between. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Problem: ID is not the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. Creationists of all stripes believe that, not only ID proponents. We don't even know if those people really believe that, we only know that they write that it is so. And I am not sure a belief can be pseudoscientific: it is just the motivation behind pseudoscience and its result.

Why do we have to reinvent the wheel for this one article? Our Intelligent design article says it is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God. We can use that, and the reader who wants to know more can look up the details in the ID article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Sesquivalent, do you think your review of the primary source aligns with this source ? If so it would suggest that RSs disagree if coulter actually supports/advocates ID. As such we shouldn't claim she believes/advocates for it in the wiki article. That of course is independent of how we describe ID in the article. If sources disagree then I would suggest just removing the single mention of ID since it's a minor part of the whole article even if all sources agreed. Springee (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I have to agree with Springee on this. For all that she is a controversial figure, Coulter is not primarily known as a proponent of ID. The entire mention strikes me as UNDUE. I would just omit the entire thing. Blueboar (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, she's written 12 books and the text about ID is relevant to one in particular. Now, if all her books should be weighted the same in her bio (not sure that's true, but let's start there), I guess I would say no one book should take up more than ~10% of the text on her literary career. I count prose about Godless: The Church of Liberalism as taking up about 20% of the discussion (of which about 1/3 is devoted to anti-evolution arguments), so, maybe you could argue it's overweighted. (It's not particularly surprising because the book was well-timed to poke the bear of New Atheists who were somewhat ascendent back in 2006 and fairly active at this website trying to fix coverage of ID. Maybe that's the holdover, I'm not sure.) But I don't think excising discussion of her attachment to this ideology and tutelage by DI mucky-mucks entirely is necessarily justified. Perhaps someone can think more carefully about how to summarize the text about the book and see if ID makes the cut that way. jps (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Exact proportionality by word count seems a not-so-illuminating standard, in my view. She's also written other things attacking evolution (I linked a few below that turned up in an easy search), so it wasn't just a tirade confined to one book. I'd say that given the length of the article, a line or two would be due weight, but I wouldn't spend more time on it than that. The suggestion by Generalrelative was on the upper edge of what I think would be worthwhile. XOR'easter (talk) 23:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

That source looks like a parody of the evolution sections of Coulter's book. It is saying, for example, that she is hypercritical on evolution but gullible toward ID. Which is true but beside the point she is arguing. The book is not in any direct way, an argument for belief in God, the existence of God, creationism, Christianity or ID. It is certainly saying that a Godless society with a secularized pseudo- or anti-Christianity (liberal Satanism as it were, though she doesn't use that idea) is prone to following bad paths, which is an indirect form of classical religious apologetics. But the book is exactly what it pretends to be: an analysis and indictment of American liberalism as secularized atheistic small-c christian theocracy. A Taliban without a God (or more precisely, with a number of secular not-supernatural but equally mysterious functional god-equivalents) Sesquivalent (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The LiveScience.com blog post is an obvious joke, saying that Coulter's book is satire because it's too absurd to be taken seriously. Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly. . XOR'easter (talk) 23:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. This is obvious satire. The author is going along with the premises that Coulter is "an intelligent and well-educated person" and that the right is characterized by "normally rational standards" and reading the book through that lens, concluding that it must be a Sokal-like hoax. It's actually a pretty brilliant piece. Generalrelative (talk) 23:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

"Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly" is not what a reading of her words shows. She is unambiguously and unabashedly an evolution critic, who uses ID tropes and (as I wrote above) makes favorable comparisons here and there of ID to evolution -- one line from the column you linked. The other link is her praising Gelertner who likewise attacks evolution but says he cannot swallow ID. It does not appear that she has undertaken to argue for ID, creationism, or God as propositions in themselves, other than announcing constantly that she happens to hold certain Christian beliefs. Just arguments against evolution, logrolling toward IDers (Behe, Dembski, Berlinski) and other antievolutionists (Gelernter), and certainly being friendly toward the idea and conclusions. But not actually arguing for them as such. To repeat from the Coulter talk page thread, her relationship to ID is a couple of step removed from being a literal IDer, and is more like "promotes the legitimacy of ID proponents". Sesquivalent (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. Generalrelative (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Since various comments above, including yours, are premised on their being some difference between anti-evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, it makes sense to actually be specific about it. If one form puts words in her mouth and the other accurately describes her position why not use the correct one? Since you take the distinction of ID, promoting ID, and promoting ID's proponents to be inconsequential, why would it matter to you which such phrase is used? We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Lol, I see. If only I'd realized that the solution was to do it right. Sarcasm aside, the reason we don't fill our encyclopedia with meaningless distinctions is that it gets in the way of parsimony and ultimately serves to obscure what could easily be stated clearly. Generalrelative (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Some of us think "not putting words in subject's mouth" is distinctly more important than "use marginally shorter description". The difference between saying that Coulter (e.g.) writes approvingly of intelligent design and the same with ID proponents is one word, 10 letters, 3 syllables, and it also allows the possibility of listing some of those people by name, which could be useful.

Most long BLP's, this one included, can be edited to be substantially shorter with no loss of encyclopedia value. Sentences about FRINGE in BLPs are probably the last place one would want to economize on words at the expense of accuracy, since that can effectively imply that someone is a kook, or more of a kook than the record warrants. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

That's the thing about a distinction without a difference: one does not sacrifice accuracy by leaving it out. And nobody here has suggested putting words in anyone's mouth. So at least we agree on that. Generalrelative (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There are at least two big differences involved. One is that we have no direct objective way, by reading her words, to conclude that she argues for an Intelligent Designer, which would seem to be the sine qua non of promoting the "fringe theory of ID" (note the word theory, i.e., the ideas, not the enterprise, movement, people, and institutions). The other is that in the absence of decisive evidence, everyone here who insists on tying her to ID is doing it by SYNTH that combines other facts about her, speculations about her degree of connection to institutional IDers, interpretation of her jokes, and general patterns about other people (creationists). Sources, including Coulter herself, are unanimous that she opposes evolution, but only some associate her arguments with ID at all. I haven't attempted an enumeration to judge whether it's a large or small proportion of sources, but given the other problems with this inference, it is probably best to either call her an evolution opponent only, or someone who attacks evolution using arguments much the same as intelligent design (but no explicit argument for a Designer, creation, or God)". Sesquivalent (talk) 08:12, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Arguing for an "intelligent designer" is not the sine qua non of ID advocacy. It is often the unspoken insinuation and with intentionally prevaricating winks and nods about religions beliefs (or lack thereof). But what makes intelligent design fringe theory an argument is a (re)packaging of neocreationism along the lines of Paley's watchmaker argument (without necessarily reproducing the entire claim). Coulter aligns herself with that rhetoric completely. jps (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

By the way, speaking of parsimony and readability, the clunkiness of multi-word denunciations about ID being pseudoscientific, rather than just saying "intelligent design" (resp. anti-evolution), was one of the reasons this now incredibly long discussion came up in the first place. Is there any passage in FRINGE that actually requires this kind of language whenever any reference to such topic appears, e.g., "Mr X has been known to rely on astrologers"? This has been asked repeatedly above. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

My understanding was that there is rough consensus on the need to provide some kind of explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of intelligent design. My proposed language and that of others above are attempts to work out the most accurate and parsimonious way to provide that. There is apparently a longstanding consensus to describe intelligent design as pseudoscience (see Talk:Intelligent design/FAQ if you haven't already). Whether it is best to include that term in this instance is up for debate, which is precisely the point of this noticeboard and the conversation we are currently having. But I'm unaware of any definitive, policy-based rationale either for including or excluding it here. That said, I really don't see why we wouldn't. Generalrelative (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Before we discuss “the need to provide an explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of Intelligent Design”, we need to discuss whether Coulter actually IS a proponent - and whether there is a need to mention it. After all, If you don’t mention ID in the first place then there is no need to explain what it is. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

She adopts ID arguments and was tutored by ID proponents whom she defends at length while attacking those scientists who spend their time carefully laying out the empirical evidence for evolution. She unapologetically uses the term "Intelligent Designer" in arguing that there is evidence for such while also adopting the argument that such evidence (specifically, the arguments of famed IDer Behe) is being ignored by scientists: I have a hard time accepting that after all this she really isn't a proponent of ID. jps (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There's no other way to slice it: she is a proponent of ID. She said over and over again that ID arguments are good and evolution is bad. There's not even a hair to split here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

No. ID is (1) anti-evolution arguments + (2) a plausibility argument that, if evolution doesn't work, some Designer must have done it. Behe and IDers use "irreducible complexity" for both purposes, Coulter only endorses it as (together with all the other anti-evolution arguments) a disproof of evolution. The whole point of the "irreducible complex" blahblah is to suggest that something must have been designed, as it's a complex watch- or eye-like mechanism, etc. Other than ambiguous and plausibly-deniable snark and jokes here and there, Coulter sidesteps this, the defining feature of ID, entirely. What she does directly say is how great the ID people are and so forth -- approval of the proponents rather than the theory.

So one could say that Coulter "uses arguments from" intelligent design to attack evolution but it is a misrepresentation, or at best SYNTH, to say that she is a proponent of ID-as-a-theory when she fails to endorse or seriously comment on its central argument. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Whaaaat? This is an interpretation that requires mental gymnastics of which I am not capable. How can someone support the people, the arguments, and oppose the opponents but not support "the theory"? I think this is bending over backwards for no good reason except for editorial reticence. jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

No gymnastics needed. Once she is, for whatever reasons and based on whatever arguments, positioned against evolution, IDers are her allies and ID opponents her enemies, whether or not she goes as far as ID does in her public statements. She does not "support ... the arguments" in toto, at least not in print; that is precisely the point.

The gymnastics I don't understand are how to define someone who does not argue for an intelligent designer as a purveyor of ID. Again, merely making moves that are favorable to ID in the political battle-space can make one an ally of the IDers, but being a warm friend and ally of something does not necessarily mean espousing that thing. Speculative SYNTH on this is both forbidden in the article and somewhat pointless, as the evidence is ambiguous. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I cannot even begin to understand the hairs you are splitting here. She does not "support ... the arguments" in toto, at least not in print I have yet to see any evidence of that. What, do you need some sort of banner waving statement of the sort, "I SUPPORT IN TOTO THE ARGUMENTS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN". I feel a bit like I'm arguing with someone who has a complete inability to concede the point. She has argued in favor of intelligent design. I cannot see how any other conclusion is possible on the basis of our sources including her own writing. jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Now we are getting somewhere. What do you need (to classify an antievolutionist as also an IDer) is precisely the question. Assuming it is done on the basis of clear statements and not parsing their jokes, the bare minimum would seem to be an assertion that if Bayesian confidence in evolution goes down, confidence in design or a designer must go up. What else could it possibly mean to argue ID? Since this discussion has gone fractal, and this is no longer a question of Coulter but about how to draw the boundary, it could make sense as a new and more focused thread. Sesquivalent (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

If you wish for no parsing of "jokes", Coulter is impenetrable. That's the only way she engages. jps (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, if the jokes are clear then parse away. Hers are strategically ambiguous, as we saw above. I think that the high IQ, high status, cosmopolitan friends of ID like Coulter and Gelertner know that logically proving a God exists is not only impossible but so well known to be impossible as to be declasse in their social circles, thus a morass they make a point of avoiding. Sniping at evolution (or particular presentations of evolution) is safer. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:41, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The point really is that it is the very same kind of strategic ambiguity that is a hallmark of ID arguments. jps (talk) 11:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

"Strategic" is mindreading, on my part and yours; that it's ID related strategery is additional mindreading, and "hallmark of ID" is (as previously stated) replacing consideration of what the subject herself says and does with pattern matching to conduct by others, to impute the missing data. But those others are already identified by additional unambiguous signals, so it's begging the question to invoke them as the pattern! Categorization by contagion, where clear cases infect the adjacent who (by mindreading and inference) infect the indirectly adjacent is no longer an application of fringe to theories, it is half baked social network analysis even if the conclusions feel right to people on high alert for such signals. Imagine doing this analysis in a BLP to deduce that a lawyer who works gay rights cases, lobbies for the cause in newspaper articles, lives with a longtime same sex roomate (etc), is closeted based on the signals being a "hallmark of homosexuality". Declaring someone a stage 2 kook rather than stage 1 should have the same sort of precautions. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not mind-reading, it's duck-identifying. On the basis of looking, walking, and quacking checks. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:06, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Giving folksy names to mindreading (however plausible) does not remove it from the category of mindreading. Stage 1 vs 2 kook identification in BLP needs a bright line standard or the nearest equivalent, which is the opposite of a ducktest, the latter being an abbreviation for "it's personally obvious to me". I proposed a clear definition above of what it means to argue ID. Sesquivalent (talk) 11:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how application of the experience of discussing ID proponents is any worse than your WP:SYNTH clear definition above. Usually, we say that someone is an ID proponent if we have secondary source saying exactly that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I too read a claim of synthesis and editorializing above, but that's not even the case, since independent sources stress the link. I suggest to drop the stick... —PaleoNeonate – 22:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

FRINGE applies to theories, ideas. Accordingly we judge Coulter's position on the science/pseudoscience spectrum based on what she says rather than how she is situated in the creation/evolution political battle-space. With what she says (and in this case, does not say) about the science carrying more weight than what she says in relation to the battle-space. That her book must have made IDers happy, a battle-space outcome, does not mean her book is a work of ID, i.e., argues for an intelligent designer.

"Tutored" makes her sound like a protege, for which there is no evidence, rather than the more mundane relationship of a writer who picked up the phone to get advice from someone with a massive incentive to give it. She "unapologetically uses the term Intelligent Designer" ... as part of a joke. If there are un-ironic uses of Designer, God etc that would be more to the point. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Huh? Ann Coulter herself says she was tutored by Behe, Berlinski, and Dembski: . The substance of the joke requires that you accept that "Intelligent Designer" is the thing that must exist. Coulter's style is dripping sarcasm and snark, but the joke is not to pretend that *wink, wink* this idea is not one I endorse. Quite the opposite.

If I stretch my WP:AGF chops as far as I can here, I would say you just haven't researched this closely enough.

jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I am well aware that Coulter was in frequent contact with the IDers when writing her book --- I had specifically checked the Acknowledgements section of the book, which is where that quotation comes from, in order to confirm the presumption that this was the case. I did not remember that she used the word "tutored" for this, which explains your phrasing, but I also don't see how that contradicts or responds to my point. In saying she was tutored, Coulter did not apparently imply that she was a protege or puppet of the IDers, or anything beyond my description of how a professor would react when a famous author consults them about having their work appear in an upcoming bestseller (hint: it would involve tutoring to whatever extent needed). People are describing her as a stalking horse for them, based on all kinds of assumptions about her religious position, the meaning of her ambiguous jokes and the general sociology of the anti-evolution space. My understanding of FRINGE is that we give primacy to what people actually say and do without too much reading of other stuff into it, even if the Bayesian likelihood seems high, especially in a BLP. Her actions are simply "used ID's arguments to argue against evolution (but not for an intelligent designer)". The latter part seems to in and of itself disqualify her from being called an IDer even if, e.g., she would be totally happy to see ID replace evolution in schools. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

By the way, if we are parsing her word choices, notice that she describes the tutoring as being about evolution, not intelligent design. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:53, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Why do you think she doesn't argue for an intelligent designer? Is there some sort of quote that indicates that? jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

A few nights ago I searched for sources and various about the Godless book mention Dembski and Irreducible Complexity arguments, which is part of ID, at least... The DI website also has a rant about "Coulterian Contempt". —PaleoNeonate – 04:47, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

The lack of clear statements saying that a designer must exist (given the arguments against evolution) or that if you don't believe evolution could have done it, design is the only alternative. The sources people are citing don't contain that and are a mixed bag as to whether they claim she is ID or only (what they all assert) antievolution. In the absence of consensus in the source, to classify her as an IDer we would need to find things she does say, not infer it from pattern matching a resemblance to some things that other people who are undoubtably creationist also say in this arena. Who her friends and enemies are on the political battlefield does not substitute for what she herself says and does (or doesn't). Sesquivalent (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

How is this kind of circumlocution different than any other intelligent design proponent? They all quibble whenever asked directly about the identity of an intelligent designer or whether one exists at all. That's the entire point. We have plenty of sources which identify her as adopting ID as an ideology. That's more than enough for our purposes. jps (talk) 12:28, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

@Sesquivalent: I note a comment you made on the talkpge: Whether she was making the stronger assertion, that these are winning arguments against evolution or a proof that an intelligent creator must exist --- or something weaker like "evolution is far from proven scientifically but is nonetheless used as a religious dogma by the Left" --- isn't clear without looking at the book again more closely. which to me indicates that you think it is possible to adhere to a position that "evolution is far from proven scientifically" independent of adherence to/advocacy of creationism in these contexts. This was an argument that Ben Stein made on his tour junket for the "documentary" he produced as was all the rage when ID was having its moment in the sun right before it all came crashing down in the Dover trial. I just want to clarify that this is actually your contention. Because, if so, I think you definitely need to do some research about this subject more broadly. Briefly, there are absolutely no critiques of evolutionary synthesis in this fashion which are not ideologically creationist and pseudoscientific. jps (talk) 14:01, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

With a good starting point evidence of common descent and its sources, —PaleoNeonate – 14:41, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

If Stein, Gelertner and Coulter all use ID arguments to dispute evolution but decline to use it to argue ID (or a Creator, God, etc) itself, that would suggest that this position is not an impossibility; that there exists a slightly different, more modest and less assailable species of argument than ID, that recurs in this arena. If you mean that there are no known atheists who make this ID-adjacent argument, that may well be true, but I could certainly imagine that the wide circulation of these polemics has convinced some people who have no particular interest in religion and a resistance to supernatural explanations, that there are gaps in the standard evolutionary account, which could presumably be filled by some means other than God (new discoveries or whatever).

In fact, there are gaps in the usual account, i.e., the narrative typically told in schools, and the God-less way to fill them in is to give a better account of the same material. The evidence of common descent page doesn't quite do this --- even the lede has cringe-worthy material touting the supposed predictive triumphs of evolution, that is susceptible to the (largely correct) argument, which Coulter gives at length, that "prediction" has been redefined so that the house always wins. This gap in explanation can be overcome, the problem is expository not scientific, but it does not serve the Cause of Science to paper over that by tossing around the word pseudoscience like candy and dismissing the critics as deluded fundie idiots.

To avoid some likely misunderstandings about this: all I'm saying here about the science is that this is one of many cases of "theory and evidence correct, exposition flawed". IDers are kept in business by this discrepancy, as they can (basically correctly) attack flaws in the exposition and then (incorrectly) claim to have demolished the theory. It doesn't help that the expositions retain misleading phrases like "the theory of" evolution that enable this confusion. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Nothing much wrong with "exposition" either. "Theory of evolution" is fine, and Stephen Jay Gould explained why in his essay Evolution as fact and theory. Science is difficult, and creationists of all stripes will always find ways to misunderstand it no matter how it presented. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This is getting off topic, but the typical exposition is wrong to use "prediction" to mean "unfalsifiable, house-always-wins prediction" (while using vocabulary like "testable" implying the ordinary falsifiable sort of prediction), and evolution is not a theory. It is a constraint on the allowed theories, just as Lorentz invariance and locality are constraints on what we consider as usable theories in fundamental physics. The "theory" in evolution is whatever the current account is of how the tree of life is connected and came to be, and the principle of evolution plays a big role in that but isn't the "theory" that is the thing supportable or refutable by evidence. We simply choose, based on thought experiments and observation, to make it basic to the narrative; it is not the theory itself. So the creationists have it backwards when they insist evolution is "just a theory". Sesquivalent (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The "typical exposition" does not do that. Creationists just claim that it does. Maybe you should have a look at the talk.origins archive and its list of hundreds of creationist arguments with refutations. Been there, done that for about thirty years now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The claim that lack of evidence is what keeps creationist apologetics in business is misleading (vs motivated reasoning, ignorance and confusion because of misleading literature, etc). Predictive power is also indeed important for scientific theories, in the case of evolution an example is evaluating where more transitional fossils would be found despite their rarity, etc. Eventually DNA was discovered and this has confirmed and corrected what was already known, at the same time opening more related fields of knowledge and investigation (then there is consilience, the evidence is supported by a number of scientific disciplines). While this noticeboard is more open to discussion than article talk pages, I think that all this argumentation is excessive... I also see arguments that we should present the material as directly interpreted by the author, when by policy we should instead present the evaluation and conclusions of independent sources. —PaleoNeonate – 21:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

To say I'm gobsmacked here would be an understatement. Others have done justice to this, but apologias for creationism like this are things I haven't seen on Misplaced Pages for nearly a decade. Suffice to say, we don't suffer this kind of circumlocutions of rhetoric kindly here. This is all reminiscent of old timey Evolution is just a theory-type arguments. Here endeth the lesson. jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I've humored your postings above (stretching the AGF chops, as you put it) and this is not the place to debate the science, but apologias for creationism got my attention. I suggest you run my statement about Lorentz invariance by a theoretical physicist or two, and then figure out that it's exactly the same with evolution, i.e., neither one is (in effect) "the theory" within the scientific framework where it appears, even if textbooks happen to lazily use that term. That does not imply any denial of relativity or evolution. If your position is that not only the science of evolution is correct (we agree on that) but that the exposition is incontestible and logically gapless, you must not have seen a textbook in the past few decades. Certainly a number of Misplaced Pages pages on this have the problems I described. If you have further complaints please post them at a more relevant talk page. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Your problem is that you sound like a creationist sometimes, even if you aren't one. For example, dismissing the critics as deluded fundie idiots is not a real thing. There are no such "critics". The ones who are dismissed in that way are either really deluded fundie idiots or they just repeat what they heard somewhere without checking it. A real critic, someone who knows what he is talking about, someone who points at flawed reasoning, like Stephen Jay Gould has always done, will be taken seriously. (Most of the time. Scientists are humans.) Yes, displaying the horse ancestors in a straight line and omitting the side branches gives a false picture, for instance. But when something like that happens, the thing to do is replacing the picture by a better one, not making a lot of noise pointing out scientists are DOING IT RONG. The creationist clowns have taken that horse picture thing, rolled it around in brain rot and half-truths until the fact that it is a minor correction gets lost, and presented it as an example of how evolutionists are faking it all.

Those who have fought that off for decades, which included most of the people you are talking to in this section, are familiar with lots of red flags. "Lack of transitional fossils" is one of them, "redefining prediction" is another, "just a theory" is a third. Each of them is just another hoof in the Gish gallop. Each of them is a false rumor spread by creationists, and echoing them is indeed an "apologia for creationism".

Do Not Believe Anything Creationists Write. It Is Tainted. It Is Based On Out-Of-Context Quotes, Bad Logic And Cherry Picking. Always. If May Sound Plausible To You, But That Is Because It Was Manufactured To Sound Plausible To People Who Do Not Check The Original Source.

Do not repeat creationist propaganda here. We already know it. And the refutations to it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:06, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I have to agree with Hob here. Whether you intend to or not, your rhetoric is plainly falling in the universe of a Teach the controversy style of argument. I understand that the toxic nature of the subject causes problems for discourse at the level of philosophy, for example, but we aren't here to fix that. What you have essentially done here is moved to accommodate creationism in a way that has been carefully and exhaustively identified as a problematic conceit in sources published by groups such as NCSE. And whether you intended it or not, your suggestion that I should "run my statement about Lorentz invariance by a theoretical physicist or two" is borderline insulting. jps (talk) 13:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I also see the standard "there are unresolved details so maybe alternative explanations are right" kind of narrative above, however this is ridiculous considering how other models fail to provide better explanations or to correspond to what was discovered about the natural world. As I previously noted, if the goal is to get lost in extreme relativism with metaphysical philosophical arguments, it's not productive to improve the encyclopedia, since its contents must take in consideration the descriptions of the real world as reported by reputable sources (admitedly a type of appeal to authority, but there's no other method to get somewhere efficiently in a collaborative encyclopedia)... —PaleoNeonate – 22:38, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Maybe a last word from me: if the argument is exclusion of the fact from the BLP, I think it's DUE, considering that a book from Coulter that was apparently a best-seller was mostly on this topic. As for belief vs promotion, it's always difficult to know what someone really believes, but I've seen at least one source where she was asked if she really believed it, and claimed to. It may not be that relevant. —PaleoNeonate – 23:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

References

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20061017024044/http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/06/coulter-911/
2. https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-21/
3. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/coulter-crap-don-t-ignore-it-expose-it/

Superdeterminism proven?

Some sockpuppet accounts are pushing the idea that Superdeterminism has been proven. See Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Johnbannan/Archive and recent IP editing. Affected articles include Superdeterminism, Quantum entanglement, Copenhagen interpretation, Determinism, Predestination, and Free will. Those of you who embody the proper collection of quantum states will be compelled to watchlist these articles shortly. - MrOllie (talk) 21:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)‎

Spoiled my fun, I really wished that Superdeterminism were proven. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Tgeorgescu: I think you were joking, but in fact I would not expect a solution any time soon, in either direction. Of course things can change within the next decade, given the multiplicity of the issues involved, but logically speaking neither a proof nor a rejection is likely. A key confounding variable that affects the solution, but is not usually mentioned, is the budget at CERN. And as of now, that is far from being deterministic with all that is going on. Ode+Joy (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Seems to be the same self-published book previously promoted by Special:Contributions/Groguyoda —PaleoNeonate – 13:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Sodom and Gomorrah

• Sodom and Gomorrah (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

A new article in Scientific Reports suggests that city destruction was wrought by a meteorite. This has found its way into this article as asserted fact. But is it fringe? Alexbrn (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• That Tall el-Hammam would be related to the legendary city is itself controversial. The story is also not generally viewed by scholars as historical, more as a moral lesson... —PaleoNeonate – 19:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  For those interested, a credible scientist (whose work the paper cites) made some initial notes on Twitter: . I think it's reasonable to say he is unimpressed thus far. Cheers all. Dumuzid (talk) 19:44, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 20:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Just a note for posterity/archives, when I removed the impact related info, the rationale is that this is about Tall el-Hammam, when the suggestion that it would correspond to Biblical Sodom is itself dubious. This suggested that Sodom and its story must suddenly have been actual and historical, through those far-fetched links... —PaleoNeonate – 03:00, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• This looks like a walled garden to me:
  • Biblical Archaeology Society (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Biblical Archaeology Society)
  • Steven Collins (archaeologist) (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Steven Collins (archaeologist))
  • Biblical Archaeology Review (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Biblical Archaeology Review)
  • Hershel Shanks (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hershel Shanks)
  • Bible Review (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Bible Review)

jps (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm okay with Sci Rep when it comes to paleontology related topics, where it usually publishes reliable low-impact descriptive work. However, in other topics I find that Sci Rep has low standards and tends to publish low quality work, and the fact that a spectacular claim such as this hasn't been published in a more prestigious journal indicates to me that the evidence is not high quality. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:05, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Its biggest problem is that it tries to be all things to all disciplines and thus has an editorial board that numbers in the hundreds. If we wanted, we could probably track down which editor it was who passed this dreck by looking for associates of the articles I link above, but I'm kinda tired of playing these games, TBH. jps (talk) 21:10, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think for something that amounts to personal speculation published in such a journal (which though they maintain scientific rigor tend to have have relaxed standards of what is noteworthy enough to publish), we should err on the side of caution and wait for it to be repeated in a secondary source before even considering whether it is noteworthy speculation. To quote WP:UNDUE, "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Misplaced Pages, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." Agricolae (talk) 23:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  In my field (condensed matter physics / nanophysics) Sci. Rep. is a low impact but generally reliable journal. They claim that validity of the publihed material is the only criterion (which does not seem to be the case though since they sometimes reject clearly valid articles). I do not publish there myself, but some of my colleagues do.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Apart from the creationists, the rest of the authors of the paper are associated with the Comet Research Group, an odd group with a history of pushing fringe views related to the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. Before this they published another paper about another comet wiping out another prehistoric settlement. That was also in Scientific Reports... I wonder if they have a sympathetic ear or two on the editorial board. – Joe (talk) 15:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, gee. It's an unholy alliance that reminds me of how the creationists got really excited about Velikovsky back in the 1960s and 70s. Sigh. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Coherent catastrophism comes to mind. jps (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Apologies for bearing the bad news, but it looks like this is getting more mainstream pickup then I expected or than (in my opinion) it deserves: see this article at The Daily Beast . Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• It has at least been completely torn apart on Twitter already: the dubious background of the authors; there are plenty of other explanations for "melted crap"; astronomically implausible; incompetent excavation; bad chronology; bad osteoarchaeology. Hopefully a published rebuttal will follow before too long... maybe even a retraction, if we're lucky. – Joe (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• This has been nominated for ITN: Misplaced Pages:In_the_news/Candidates#Tall_el-Hammam_and_Jericho_destruction_by_an_impact_event. – Joe (talk) 12:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Rejected. See these also about earlier claims and Allen West. and this about earlier claims. Doug Weller talk 15:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
• And the published rebuttals start, ironically, with other biblical literalists: . – Joe (talk) 09:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Shanks and BAR

The deletion bombardment directed at Shanks and his works displays a lack of familiarity with him and them. BAR was (and I imagine is) a perfectly straightforward piece of popularization which at times attacked popular fringe ideas: in one notorious case, a Franklin-Mint-ish statuette of a very white Nefertiti set off a letter battle which culminated in an article discussing the matter pretty much along the same lines as this Wash. Post article on the matter. I agree that we don't need every one of these articles, but assuming that they are fringe is a major failure of WP:BEFORE. Mangoe (talk) 04:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I mean, the problem is the way they were being pushed at this website. Maybe there is a way to frame them such that we indicate that in the past the society, its publications, etc. functioned as a popularization rather than a fringe promotion, but the way these articles are sourced doesn't indicate to me much more than that they push certain fringe theories about biblical archaeology. If there are good sources (other than the NYTimes obit), I was unable to find them. The WaPo article is interesting, but it doesn't quite strike me as a justification for an article. But maybe there are third party sources out there which can provide proper contextualization. WP:FRIND is the name of the game I think. Anyway, if we do decide to merge into one or two articles with good sourcing, that would be a wonderful outcome of the AfD storm, IMHO. jps (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

BAS is an important outlet for popularizing archaeology. It has some religious conservative bias, though, despite the religious beliefs of its owner. It is not 100% fringe, it does feature many mainstream archaeologists and mainstream Bible scholars. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. What sources do we have that say this sort of thing which would be much more useful to describe in our article than what we currently (don't) tell readers. jps (talk) 18:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

If we only go by https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/free-hebrew-bible-course-with-shaye-cohen/ it is not fringe. Cohen is a conservative believing Jew, but that has more to do with his private life than with what he teaches at Harvard (he teaches mainstream Bible scholarship). tgeorgescu (talk) 18:07, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay. But is that discussed elsewhere? jps (talk) 21:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Break (Sodom and Gomorrah)

• I'm wondering what the response would be like if the paper had not mentioned Sodom. I'm sure it wouldn't have been so hysterical, and poorly-qualified "experts" like Mark Boslough (cited here multiple times) would not have been able to use mockery in lieu of arguments. Or Michael Press, whose expertise is irrelevant to the subject. If there had been a city in the path of the Tunguska event, it would have been destroyed, so there is nothing intrinsically implausible about a comet zapping a city. The question is how well the evidence stacks up scientifically, nothing else. Some of the lead author's previous related papers were in prestigious journals like PNAS and The Journal of Geology, and they led to useful reactions. That's what is needed here, not blah-blah on twitter. Finally, Shanks is not an author; why does he keep getting brought up here? Zero 10:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If there had been a city in the path of the Tunguska event, it would have been destroyed, so there is nothing intrinsically implausible about a comet zapping a city. Except that the rarity of such events points to the likelihood of hitting the bullseye something of an ECREE situation. I find your attempt to pooh-pooh skeptics a bit remarkable (Mark Boslough is not "poorly-qualified"). Mockery is about what should be expected here because the evidence for a meteor strike is pretty poor and there is a long history of claiming meteor strikes where the evidence is scant. jps (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Finally, Shanks is not an author; why does he keep getting brought up here? Because he founded BAS which the co-director and lead author of the Sci Rep paper seem to have been able to manipulate into supporting these rather fantastical positions. It is unclear whether this group still wields influence at BAS or not, but they might. Sourcing is horrible for those related articles and it looks to me, at least, like there may be a concerted effort on Misplaced Pages to provide more coverage than reliable sources do for the associated group of (amateurish) Biblical archaeologists and catastrophists. Shanks seems to have been on the up-and-up for the most part with his popularizations of Biblical archaeology, but the group pushing this new claim (and others from the last few years) seems firmly WP:FRINGE as far as I can tell. Sourcing for articles other than Shanks is atrocious and connecting the dots is nigh on impossible for me, at least. jps (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The Tunguska event "flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest", so no bullseye was required and none is proposed in the article anyway. I am very doubtful of the claim, but refutation does not consist of first impressions by tweeters who seem to mostly be qualified in the wrong subjects. I will withhold my judgement until more worthy responses are available; you can choose differently. Zero 13:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The Earth is far bigger than two thousand square kilometers. That's the proper comparison (not to the area of the city). The tweeters are absolutely qualified in the right subjects. That's because they have experience debunking the comet research group (Boslough) and debunking the claims of charlatans in archaeology (Press). Your vain attempts to argue that their expertise isn't well-positioned looks to me like you haven't seen how a lot of this fringe stuff typically plays out. jps (talk) 13:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

By this reasoning, nobody wins the lottery because one person is far far smaller than the human population. Zero 13:34, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but no. In order for this analogy to hold the entire surface of the earth would have to be covered by cities (or I suppose much of it, since sometimes no one wins a given lottery). If we're contemplating the odds of an ancient city being destroyed by a meteorite impact we'd be talking about vanishingly slim odds, as jps has pointed out. Generalrelative (talk) 15:42, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Probability theory of exceptional occurrences is one of my professional specialties. You show the problem with your argument by writing specific meteor, when that is not part of the claim. It could have been any old meteor. How many meteors strike the earth over a couple of thousand years; I don't know but you have to allow for all of them and not just one. If it could have been any old city as well, your argument would be in even more trouble. I think it is very suspicious that the city just happens to be the one that some people identify as Sodom and for that reason it may not be any-city any-meteor but rather this-city any-meteor that we have to consider. The difference is huge but needs some mind-reading to assess. Zero 16:15, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Ha! You took out the word "specific" during an edit-conflict, good for you. Zero 16:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I took the word "specific" out because I saw that it might be a source of quibbling, but either way the point stands. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on your professional competence here, but your By this reasoning, nobody wins the lottery argument is transparently specious. I imagine I was the only one to respond because others just threw up their hands. But in any case, I'm not interested in pursuing this line of debate further. If you don't see why it was specious at this point I'm probably not going to be able to convince you. Generalrelative (talk) 16:39, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm wondering what the response would be like if the paper had not mentioned Sodom. Imagine what the response had been if it had been a completely different paper!

  Such counterfactuals are not helpful. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

But it does mention Sodom, most of the ridicule directly derived from the fact that it mentioned Sodom, and most of the embarrassing press nonsense we are going to be subject to in the near future will only exist because it mentions Sodom. As proof that I am on target, note that the previous similar claim about Abu Hureyra that makes no suggestion at all of a biblical connection received little or none of this type of reaction. Zero 04:46, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. Write stupid stuff and people say you wrote stupid stuff. Do not write stupid stuff and people do not say you wrote stupid stuff. What's your point? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Zero0000: the previous similar claim about Abu Hureyra that makes no suggestion at all of a biblical connection received little or none of this type of reaction Depends where you mean, really. Reactions in the media, twitter, etc., no, because unfortunately the Neolithic doesn't have the widespread same appeal as "bible times". But amongst people who actually study Neolithic Southwest Asia, I can assure you that it's been alternately a source of despair and the butt of jokes for years. – Joe (talk) 09:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: On the balance of probabilities, the jokes were justified. And yet (sorry, can't resist) the idea that the dinosaurs were zapped by a meteor was also the butt of jokes for quite a few years until it gradually became a mainstream theory. My only real point here is that science progresses by scientific study and scientific debate. It doesn't progress by sideshows like mockery on twitter or fatuous arguments like "it cited a creationist so it must be entirely wrong". Zero 11:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

That's the Galileo gambit you are using here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:50, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

And it is also a fallacy that matching something to a named type makes it incorrect. Zero 15:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

If it bothers you that fallacies have names, I can instead refute your reasoning by saying: You cannot find the correct answer to a question such as "does this creationist paper have a valid point?" by looking at very superficially similar questions like "did an asteroid (not a meteor, BTW) kill the dinosaurs?" (the main similarity being that they once were answered "no" by the establishment too), then transplanting the answer "yes" from that question to the first one. That is a pathetic technique only used by completely helpless people who have no idea how else to approach scientific problems.

Same answer as before, just more detailed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I made the mistake of swinging by just now and the bigger mistake of reading your offensive and stupid "reply". You put words into my mouth and then "refuted" them with insults. You don't have a fucking clue where I come from or what I believe. Zero 11:06, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Don't worry, the science is happening. But for our purposes—judging what should be included in an encyclopaedia written from a neutral point of view—I think the fact that the paper cites (and is written by) creationists, and that experts in the field have severely criticised it on Twitter, are both very useful pieces of information. – Joe (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not putting it in any articles and I haven't argued for that. The fact is that I have very low confidence in this paper and I came to that conclusion after reading it on the day it came out. I'll be delighted to see either a serious refutation or serious independent support, but I've seen neither. I just don't like seeing fallacious arguments being put forward as proof. For anything. Incidentally, has your claim "written by creationists" been established here? I tried to establish this about the lead author Ted Bunch who has come at this via the Younger Dryas stuff (108 citations) but I didn't succeed. It is easy to prove that none of the authors of this paper (assuming they believe what is written in it) are "young-earth creationists" since it states as a fact that something happened 12,800 years ago, which young-earth creationists believe is older than the age of the earth. Anyone who believes in the Younger Dryas stuff, and many of these authors even published papers supporting it, is definitely not a young-earth creationist. That leaves "old-earth creationist" which mostly refers to not believing in stuff like evolution. It isn't a correct name for people who "just" believe that the bible is a history book. But I can't prove that Ted Bunch is one of them either, can you? Zero 15:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not talking about Ted Bunch... the last author, Silvia is a student of Steven Collins (archaeologist) and works for Veritas International University. I don't know or care what exact subspecies of inerrancy the Tall el-Hammam Project subscribes to. Misplaced Pages isn't the place to look for "serious refutation", but if you care to look at the tweet threads I've linked above, there are plenty of subject-matter experts pointing out substantial flaws in the evidence and reasoning. But if you also don't believe their claims, and don't think we should put in an article, what exactly is your problem with us talking about the background of the authors? We do that all the time when assessing the reliability of a source. – Joe (talk) 08:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• By this reasoning, nobody wins the lottery because one person is far far smaller than the human population. Not at all. Someone might win the lottery, but identifying some specific person as a lottery winner without doing a systematic search of all lottery players is far more likely to result in a false positive than a correct attribution. That's just the way Bayes' Theorem works. jps (talk) 16:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  Just thought I should point out that Elizabeth Bik has now involved herself, in this tweet and at the linked page: . Not suggesting these are good bases for an article, but interesting information for those of us following along. Cheers, all, and happy Friday-eve. Dumuzid (talk) 22:48, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

  • West has now admitted to doctoring the photographs: . jps (talk) 02:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

"Mainstream Science on Intelligence"

In response to points raised by Sesquivalent, I've tried to improve the lead of the article "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which describes a 1994 letter published in the Wall Street Journal defending the controversial book The Bell Curve. More eyes on this would perhaps be helpful. Generalrelative (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Why not post a link to the actual points raised?

The more eyes the better, but I am curious what the relevance of FTN is here. On the one hand that page is already extensively monitored by race and intelligence guardsmen familiar with the whole story and context of the Gottfredson letter and associated sources. On the other, the letter itself has never had the odor of fringe (in 2009 Steven Pinker called it literally "the mainstream" in the New York Times) and it seems that all your edits are trying to tar it as fringe-by-iterated-association with a liberal dose of SYNTH. That's far beyond any Misplaced Pages RfC's, however those may be interpreted. Sesquivalent (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

This is an article about a controversial letter published in support of a well known WP:PROFRINGE book, so its relevance to this noticeboard should be clear. You are of course free to cite Pinker in the "Response and criticism" section, and to point out any instances of WP:SYNTH that you've found. But characterizing what you believe my edits are trying to do will get you nowhere. Just imagine if the same standard were applied to you. Generalrelative (talk) 19:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, we can all discuss particular edits over at the article Talk page, regardless of whether or not this is FTN related. However, "defending ... The Bell Curve" and "in support of PROFRINGE" (and thus a link to FTN) are assumptions, or SYNTH. It's a not-uncommon claim, but the letter and Gottfredson's article on this say different, and (even excluding all 20 Pioneer Fund affiliates) the lion's share of respondents who expressed an opinion on the content of the letter agreed with it, which seems hard to arrange for a fringe position. There is at least as much evidence that the motivation for the author and most of those who agreed with her had to do not with embracing Murray and Herrnstein but frantically separating psychometrics and its funding from the scourge of public association with that one famous sentence in the Bell Curve. Much like the population geneticists after Nicholas Wade's book. (Pinker reference is https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/review/Letters-t-LETSGOTOTHET_LETTERS.html ) Sesquivalent (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

"defending ... The Bell Curve" and "in support of PROFRINGE" (and thus a link to FTN) are assumptions, or SYNTH. Goodness no. I've even supplied a couple of sources to support the existing language in the article's first paragraph, which state explicitly that the letter in question was a defense of The Bell Curve. One is a scientific journal: . And please note that SYNTH is something we're not permitted to do in article text. Of course we're meant to use our capacity for putting 2 and 2 together when discussing what belongs in articles and how to apply guidelines like WP:FRINGE. I hope that clears things up.

And thanks by the way for the link to the exchange between Gladwell and Pinker. I'm not a huge Gladwell fan but it was fun to see him get the better of a Harvard prof, whom he clearly caught out relying on garbage sources. It should be abundantly clear, however, that that passing and rhetorical mention doesn't count for much as far as sourcing goes. Especially when compared with the litany of criticism discussed in the "Response and criticism" section of the article. Generalrelative (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, SYNTH is fine on talk pages -- I've posted the same remark myself several times recently. I was using the Misplaced Pages term of art in a less formal sense to mean that the idea Gottfredson and supporters (again, excluding the 20 Pioneers) were defending the Bell Curve, rather than trying to avoid fallout from it, is something for which there is as much negative as positive evidence, and AFAIK no direct evidence to contradict Gottfredson's account, so is being constructed from speculation at various points. I cannot access the JSTOR link at the moment but (as I said) the existence of sources that merely call the letter a defense of the Bell Curve is not in question. The issue is whether that is likely to actually have been the reason.

The Pinker link, which comes from his bio page here, is provided for local comic relief. I haven't thought about it in connection with the article proper. Their exchange immortalized the unfortunate term "Igon Value" in online STEM and quant circles. Sesquivalent (talk) 23:28, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

no, that journal article does not say the letter is a defense of the Bell Curve. What?? Just like in the above discussion of Ann Coulter, you are advancing a distinction without a difference. The McInerney article is very clear about what is meant by "commentaries that are supportive". No one who has read the article could possibly interpret it otherwise. Saying no indication whether the author thinks so. Merely "supportive" if all commentaries are dichotomized into supportive or critical is utterly baffling since the author explicitly discusses Gottfredson's letter as a defense of both the The Bell Curve's evidentiary basis (p.85) and its pretension to inform public policy (p.91), and in the latter discussion holds it up as a paradigmatic example. But in any case, it's immaterial whether you agree on this since you've conceded that there are numerous other sources we can use which say the same thing. So let's both move on to other things now. You can go on doubting whether Gottfredson and her co-signers meant to defend The Bell Curve, and we will continue to abide by what reliable secondary sources say. Generalrelative (talk) 00:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Telling people what they can go do, and speaking in the majestic plural --- are those recommendations from MOS or something? I must have forgotten.

Searching the paper for all appearances of "Gottfredson", "Mainstream" and "1994b" gives an exhaustive idea of what the McInerney article says about this, which does not much resemble what you are saying. I am sure Murray was happy to read the Wall Street Journal the day the letter appeared but that is neither here nor there. (Come to think of it, even that might not be true. The letter could be seen as hanging him out to dry on the critical point of genetic differences, by showing that even right-wing psychologists were not willing to go as far as he and Herrnstein did.) You seem to have deduced some of this yourself though a few hours too late to modulate your tone above. (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence&type=revision&diff=1047303881&oldid=1047302591 ).

In any case, you sent out the bat signal here and the effect over there was an edit ever so slightly in the direction I suggested on the talk page re Campbell. All good! Sesquivalent (talk) 02:28, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Just imagine if the same standard were applied to you. Using Steven Pinker as a touchstone is prima facie evidence of an ideological WP:POVPUSH in my opinion. jps (talk) 22:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Pinker is the quintessential example of an academic who is very careful to maintain his cultural and intellectual standing, and thus the last person to say something in the New York Times that would mark him as an outlier or give his enemies ammunition. So if he quotes from the Gottfredson letter that's a pretty good sign he sees no risk in treating it as mainstream or at least as a serious document. How does my thinking this and citing Pinker establish an ideology?

As to the standard, a well known guy around these parts cited NOFUCKINGNAZIS and threatened to have his admin friends eject me from the site (spoiler: that's not how the movie ended), GeneralRelative has at least twice vaguely hinted that I should be banned (spoiler: nobody took up the cause), and a certain Talk page buddy of his and yours has poured lots of similar passive-aggressive speculation and insinuations in my direction. So I don't have to imagine what it would be like, it's been a parade of vitriol from the day I posted on a talk page about their pet issues. Sesquivalent (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

If you think that because Pinker is IDW that's why he should be trusted, I think we're done here. Crow all you want. Accounts that adopt the self-satisfied and cynical right-wing rhetorical arguments of which you are fond do not last. jps (talk) 01:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

IDW?? Trusting Pinker??? Who mentioned that? I only think what I stated, that because Pinker is embedded in some very sweet high status gigs that he likes to keep, and because I have some other reasons to be confident in my suspicion that he works hard to stay respectable, him citing something isn't an indicator it's correct, but it is a great indicator that it's not fringe. All the more so when he riffs on it calling itself "the mainstream". Shoot First, Read Later doesn't work well online --- at least those IDW dorks preach epistemic humility. Sesquivalent (talk) 01:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

That's some pretty strong contortionist logic there. It is, at least, consistent with the alternative fact that Pinker or other "IDW dorks" are humble. jps (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Counterpoint: “Rationality is uncool,” he laments. It isn’t seen as “dope, phat, chill, fly, sick or da bomb.” As evidence for its diminished status, he quotes celebrations of nonsense by the Talking Heads and Zorba the Greek. (Pinker is also vexed by the line “Let’s go crazy,” which he says was “adjured” by “the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”)

In any case, the relevance of FTN is pretty obvious; editors familiar with racist pseudoscience and its history on Misplaced Pages hang out here, so this is a better place than most to solicit informed opinions. XOR'easter (talk) 02:47, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how much you follow the Racist Pseudoscience topics here, but the editors concerned with fighting that battle are already patrolling and in some cases strictly OWNing a large group of articles including the one in question. If you think of those articles as topically organized in concentric circles (like Dante's Hell) centered on race and intelligence, the difficulty of making an edit without approval from this group is inversely proportional to distance from the center. The same editors summon each other on their user talk pages and posting here looked (to me) like the same sort of bat signal. The effect of posting at FTN in such cases seems to be a few fresh eyes from the FTN crowd that might edit independently of the collective, but also a signal to the latter that enforcement is desired. Both happened here as far as I can tell. Either way I don't think the question was an empty one considering all this. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I've followed those topics for a good long while, and I don't think your assessment is accurate. Also, WP:AGF. XOR'easter (talk) 03:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I hope you're right, but: when I detailed the OWNership situation of R&I on its talk page in a discussion with the alleged OWNer and her supporters, nobody disputed it, including the 850 talk page watchers, and the only meek response was 3 of her talk page friends saying that (be the OWNership as it may) they like the resulting edits. One of those friends posted this thread and shortly afterward the alleged R&I OWNer went over to argue at the very article talk page discussion it points to. So I'm not exactly seeing the error of a model in which a clique of like-minded editors control edits on a large number of interrelated pages. And R&I isn't even the page where ownership is most apparent.

I do AGF and the comment on the effect of an FTN posting does not require any assumption about the motive for the post. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Pinker has his share of interesting work and controversial claims. Evolutionary psychology is not an easy field and some hypotheses are useful, others very tentative or contested. In any case, he's notable and because of that, secondary sources will often report about his ideas or positions. When so, it may be DUE on a case by case basis. Then on fringe topics there's WP:PARITY, where a lower standard is acceptable when it's to cite someone who reminds of the scientific consensus, or that a particular idea is either nonsense or has not gained traction... Then there's CONSENSUS. But how is it possible to really understand what the exact request is, when instead of concise suggestions what we read are confused rants? Why not attempt WP:BOLD and WP:BRD? —PaleoNeonate – 06:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:BRD is broken on the patrolled pages. "R" is almost guaranteed for edits toward neutrality, so changes have to start from "D" at the talk page. Talk page discussions of such edits or proposed edits lead to a lot of... talk... but no change to the article, for the same reason BOLD editing does not work. The upshot is that not only does the process have to start from a talk page but the "D"iscussion needs to be structured as some sort of legal brief.

The thread at Talk:Mainstream Science on Intelligence that led to this FTN notice is one example, another is my recent post at Talk:Noah Carl. They don't look like "confused rants" to me, and caused a lot of edits on the articles, generally in the direction if not the extent that I suggested. Does that mean the system is working? Not exactly: for every slanted source or statement removed, several new ones are added on the occasion. The overall trend is therefore to skew the articles further, with the BRD and Talk pages serving as "fight harder" instructions to the POVFIGHTERS. Sesquivalent (talk) 13:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

"R" is almost guaranteed for edits toward neutrality This assumes that the "B" was "toward neutrality", which begs the question. Whether the changes were neutral is exactly what is to be discussed during the "D" part. It seems you want to skip the "R" and "D" parts because you already know which "D" result you would like. That is exactly the reason why we have BRD. It is not "broken". --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

"Neutrality" was correct. Like its sketchy cousin "consensus", NPOV is a relatively objective assessment of other people's expressed opinions and can be assessed independent of one's own views. Nor do the edit histories follow a Neutrality or a Consensus Maintenance pattern. Under either of those (in, e.g., the very commonly occurring case of a subject where views tend to fall along a left/right spectrum) there would be many successful edits that make small movements in both directions, that on the whole tend to cancel each other out POVwise, or maybe a slow drift over a period of years (Misplaced Pages swims slowly, but it only swims left), with the (N)POV enforced by a broad set of contributors. Under an OWNership and takeover model, one sees instead: a relatively fast phase transition in the article's POV within weeks when the group or individual takes over; motion almost exclusively in one direction, with exceptions of the "one step back, 3 steps forward" variety; a high proportion of reversions on edits in the other direction, always by the same watcher or two or three.

And while neutrality is in fact the right concept, if you replace "edits toward neutrality" by "edits directionally against the POV of the OWNers" then it is not subject to your objection and amounts to the same thing as a breakdown of WP:BRD. Maybe in some lucky cases the group controlling the page has a near neutral POV but that's not something to rely on and not what can be observed. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:24, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:NPOV includes WP:GEVAL warning against there would be many successful edits that make small movements in both directions, that on the whole tend to cancel each other out POVwise —PaleoNeonate – 19:31, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

GEVAL would be one of the mechanisms enforcing, not preventing, the maintenance pattern (of an NPOV or CONSENSUS equilibrium) that I described. But we don't see the pattern, we see forced drift. If you look at the recent ANI on the OP of this thread, and material linked and related to that, people are proudly and openly saying that they patrol not only the political content of Misplaced Pages pages but based on their perception of other users' politics, essentially assigning themselves the role of an immune system to surround and neutralize any rightward drift. No such welcome wagon in the other direction, which happens several multiples more often. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:21, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

As I said, you want to skip the "R" and "D" parts because you already know which "D" result you would like. You have already determined that the "B" changes were "toward neutrality", because you assessed it in a relatively objective way, and therefore the "R" and "D" parts are unnecessary. In other word, other editors should not revert or contradict you because you know what you are doing, because you are the arbiter of neutrality. But they do revert you, and they do contradict you, and they do not accept that you are arbiter, therefore the system is broken.

At least that is how you sound. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, i think that is the wrong part of WP:PARITY you are looking at, and should focus on the first paragraph. The last thing the topic area needs is a lower standard of sourcing. Consider this discussion. Trying to use a minor paper from Warne spirals into this. What a waste of time. A minor paper criticizing something that is widely used within introductory textbooks? WP:PARITY certainly applies, but you are highlighting the wrong side i think. Since that fringe RfC there have been many arguments to redefine "reliable" based on POV. Redefining in the way WP:MEDRS does, might provide a more streamlined and longer lasting improvement. fiveby(zero) 15:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

You're right, my comment was more intended as a summary and not to suggest that this was a particular case, thanks for noticing. —PaleoNeonate – 01:15, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

John Ernst Worrell Keely, Godfrey Higgins etc.

• Atlantisandlemuria (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

May be worth watching. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:08, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• It is not worth watching. This user needs to be stopped from doing damage, because every edit they have made has been negative. I left a message on User_talk:Orangemike#Reference Removal. Someone with authority needs to take a step. Ode+Joy (talk) 21:12, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Wang Sichao

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

Whaddya think about that last section?

jps (talk) 17:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it was sourced by the CCP's media outlet and poorly written. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure how to handle this. Is someone else up for the task? jps (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

OK, so...The People's Daily is a suspect source for pretty much anything, the subject's UFO claims have not received any attention in actual, reliable, secondary sources, and I'm far from certain the subject is sufficiently notable to merit their own article. At a minimum, WP:UNDUE applies, so I will try to edit the section accordingly. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 23:25, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Notability is also a concern of mine that I expressed at its talk page. —PaleoNeonate – 23:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

AfD started here. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

BrandonTRA (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is arguing that a book by conspiracy theorist and holocaust denier James Fetzer is a reliable source for claims related to the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. It's already cited in the article for Fetzer's POV, but not in wikivoice. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:15, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I see they have a 48 hour block for editwarring. Looking at the article, Headbomb's unreliable sources checker which everyone should have brings up a book by Oakcliff Press - which has only published one book, two from Consortium News which has been discussed at RSN and is fringe/unreliable, this group, history.com, this YouTube video, this self-published book, and this. Doug Weller talk 13:35, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I've added Consortium News to WP:RSP as generally unreliable linking all those RSN discussions, and removed content sourced to it or Robert Parry from the JFK conspiracies article. There's a lot of cleanup needed here, but particularly quite a few problematic WP:HOWEVER statements sourced to non-RSes. — Shibbolethink 16:49, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding 24.234.77.218 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for reference, —PaleoNeonate – 14:20, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

IP edits need checking

38.126.71.24 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) was banned for long-term insertion unsourced or material not in sources provided or undue conspiracy theories (eg Woodstock was plan by the government and AIDs doesn't exist). Several have been reverted but there a number of fringe edits by them that may need a check (the field is a bit out of personal wheelhouse) 2001:8003:38C0:900:9:D148:4A30:DF5B (talk) 00:18, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I have to admit: the conspiracy theory that the Woodstock Music Festival was a nefarious government plot is a new one for me. I guess that's some real throwback John Birch Society propaganda. Give me that old time religion! jps (talk) 12:10, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

While checking this user's contributions, I came across their additions to Hepatitis B (diff), and I found out that the included information is mostly identical to this article on "Opera news" (apparently an African portal). I'm assuming for now that the IP and the author of the article, "ProfFrancisT", are likely the same person. A couple of possible counterfactuals: the OperaNews article includes a couple of the previous paragraphs, but the majority of it is what 38... added to HepB. And the additions to the HepB article were in November 2020, while the article says it was posted "6 months ago", but that might be rounded down and those were simultaneous. I can't find the actual date of the article. Thoughts? VdSV9•♫ 17:31, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Past life memory

• Past life memory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

New article with pretty much one author. Stubby, some dubious sources, probably redundant with something else too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I cama across this by chance, so I will just comment and move on. Given that I do not personally believe in reincarnation I was surprised to see that the University of Virginia School of Medicine has a group working on past memories and the page on Ian Stevenson is in effect a review of the field. Jim B. Tucker also has a detailed page, and the letters MD after his name. So:

• The article is an absolute disaster, full of factual errors but has a few valid references.
• The topic is notable, given the many references in the medical literature.
• I am not sure if the issue is fringe, or a small group idea. This needs more research, but not for me to do.

I do not know the past memory field and will not be able to work on the article. My edits would be half baked, at best. As a final note I should say that Ian Stevenson was sloppy as they say in his article, given his attempt at a Popper type empirical falsification test. To test past memories, he left a combination lock at the department, and said he would try to give the combination to a department member after his death. This would of course not test "memory" but communication. So his work can not be taken seriously. The article will survive an Afd attempt, so someone with knowledge of the topic should try and fix it. Ode+Joy (talk) 09:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Just one aside: "Fringe" does not mean "small group". See WP:FRINGE. The operational part in departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field is "in its particular field". --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:10, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• So I should have said "minority view" vs "majority view" to avoid the term mainstream, given its ambiguity. Now, let me ask, what happens when there is no majority view on a subject, and scientists oscillate between 40-60% and 60-40% from year to year? How is WP:Fringe interpreted in that case? A good example is, of course, the definition of mass in the E=MC2 equation. A readable explanation of the problem is in Physics Today Vol 42, No 6, by Lev Okun, of Hadron fame. But let me note that I do not agree with his selection of item 1 as a solution in that paper and I just mentioned that paper because it is readable. In this type of case is there any theory which is considered a fringe, given that there is no majority view? Thanks. Ode+Joy (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  You have to differentiate between the popualtion at large and the relevant scientific community. Climate change denial is a good example for a fringe theory: there are just a handful of climatologists who hold that view, and they have practically no effect on the published science because the facts are not on their side. But in the general population, ignorant as it is, deniers are definitely not a "small group".

  Minority views (minority of scientists) are something completely different. Being in a minority does not make something fringe.

  Past life memory being real is clearly fringe. Psychology can explain it without any fantasy elements, and it plays a role only in those journals which do not care about the quality of studies. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:14, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The user has also worked on Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This is an article that might benefit from some consideration of capable noticeboard watchers. jps (talk) 11:58, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• What you did not want to say is that the user seems to be living in outer space. While that may be true or not, it should not affect notability, etc. I don't see the article on the institute as harmful and confusing, unlike the other one which needs more urgent attention. Ode+Joy (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

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

Has a section "The theory of evolution" which is probably 100% bollocks. And lots of other stuff likely needs cutting down. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:15, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a pretty cringe-y job. It would be good to find some critical sources, but I think they may not actually exist because who cares what an Islamic Traditionalist thinks of scientific discoveries? jps (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I did some clean-up work, but it could do with some attempts to actually see which of Nasr's ideas have been noticed by, y'know, actual experts, and which are just promoted by his students and disciples. jps (talk) 14:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

There has been a little bit of pushback from the authors on the talkpage. Some misunderstanding about what the role of Misplaced Pages is, some confusion about what would constitute good sourcing. I think I'm okay for now, but getting some others to contribute to the discussion would be good. And if you are really up for it, the article is still very full of exposition that is heavily based on primary sources rather than sources which properly contextualize their importance. Reminds me a bit of how William Lane Craig used to read. jps (talk) 12:17, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Blue zones

• Blue Zone (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Came across this recent article on SBM, and then noticed we have a substantial article on this topic already (~700 views/day). Reading it, it seems a bit ... credulous. As Doc James noted back in 2018: "The article basically takes the word of the people who own this trademark without critical analysis. This article needs independent sourcing". Alexbrn (talk) 07:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I noticed it also. A good deal could be done by summarizing the "Characteristics" section, much of which is trying to summarize one particular pOV on many complicated issues of human health the basis of consumer publications. . DGG ( talk ) 20:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I note that many of the sources fail WP:MEDRS, and the overall concept of "blue zones" seems to be based entirely on Dan Buettner's claims. –dlthewave ☎ 02:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Looking closer, Buettner didn't invent the concept, but I was able to trim a large amount that was based on his book. –dlthewave ☎ 04:26, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Chiropractic

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

SPA wants to delete the risks of stroke and death because some chiropractic somehow managed to get a whitewashing study published. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Creationist cosmologies

Please see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Creationist cosmologies (2nd nomination) and share your thoughts.

jps (talk) 01:47, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

AfD: Abadir dynasty

There is a discussion about deleting the article Abadir dynasty that may benefit from the attention of editors at this noticeboard. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:32, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Alfredo Bowman

I just reverted some bad edits on this page. User was inserting a racial debate onto the article and claiming "Bowman's theory on genetics was in direct conflict with the pseudoscience on race that scientists and universities had utilized for hundreds of years to preserve and ingrain the concept of white superiority, so it must be noted that McGill University itself has a deep history of participation in race pseudoscience". . Psychologist Guy (talk) 14:21, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

They are 'bad edits', certainly, but I can't see how they constitute a 'fringe theory' of any consequence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:29, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

If good sources report controversy about the McGill University, it would belong in its own article and is irrelevant here and inappropriate to attempt to pointy-WP:GEVAL in this context, of course. And if reliable sources also put Bowman's claims in context in relation to countering the prevalent white racialism, it's acceptable to mention it... Thanks for patrolling, —PaleoNeonate – 22:51, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Homicidal sleepwalking

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

The article has been tagged since 2015 due to overreliance on anecdotes from sometimes questionable sources; a large section from The Book of Lists was removed in September 2020 for this reason. Should any other content be removed or cleaned up, considering that most of the anecdotes are based solely on news articles? In addition, some of the other sources are clearly non-WP:MEDRS.

My motive for reporting this at FTN is that it is described (without proper citation) as an extremely rare event that is going to attract incredible anecdotes. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:35, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

As a totally irrelevant aside, thank you for providing the name for my next hardcore band. Generalrelative (talk) 18:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

This article lacks an overview sourced to expert literature and instead by listing various incidents reads more like a chapter in a book about strange and unusual things. In the discussion page, an editor refers to a BBC article that quotes an expert on the phenomenon. However much more is needed to establish notability of the topic. TFD (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a notable topic - the lead is atrociously written, but what the article body is actually describing is sleepwalking in a legal context. While it's not super rigorously studied, it's also not fringe because everyone agrees that assaults while asleep do genuinely occur. They're just... uncommon and ethically complicated. That being said, this topic would best be discussed within the context of the sleepwalking article rather than as a separate article. And it already is covered there, with less resulting undue implication that sleepwalking is dangerous, because the entire rest of the article says "it's basically fine". --Xurizuri (talk) 02:07, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Polynesian expedition to Antarctica

• Antarctica (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Ui-te-Rangiora (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hires an editor Is edit warring on the Antarctica article to imply that Antarctica was known prior to its discovery by Europeans, complaining that the article is written from a "Western European perspective". diff. As far as I can gather, this is apparently referring to Maori oral tradition surrounding the legendary figure Ui-te-Rangiora that some have interpreted as evidence of an expedition to Antarctica during the 7th century. These claims made a brief splash in the news in June, which was based off a paper entitled A short scan of Māori journeys to Antarctica in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The paper has received a response in the same journal entitled On the improbability of pre-European Polynesian voyages to Antarctica: a response to Priscilla Wehi and colleagues. As far as I can tell, there is no scholarly consensus that these claims are likely. My question is, do these claims merit inclusion/how much weight should they be given in the discovery section of the Antarctica article? In my own opinion, the current wording repeats these claims as if they were fact, and should at least be modified, if included at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

A perfect example of how well-intentioned but simplistic pushes to "center indigenous knowledge" above all else can harm scientific accuracy. I don't think these claims should appear in the Antarctica article at all. It is just another novel claim that has been rebutted and certainly does not have widespread acceptance among experts. There are tons of these in every field. They are almost always WP:UNDUE. Crossroads 00:11, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

* I made no such implication. My only issue is the idea of "discovered" is Western-centric, as if no other people could have "discovered" anything on their own.

Besides, the entire paragraph is from a Western European perspective, rather than a NPOV. So in my opinion, it bears mention that the perspective being used is Western European. So we might say something like "Western Europeans are the first people documented to have sighted/landed on/(whatever)..." and avoid the word "discovered".

* Separately, I had no knowledge of the fringe theory mentioned above. I agree that without proper evidence, the fringe theories mentioned don't belong.

* Lastly, I did say we should discuss it. Hires an editor (talk) 00:16, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why "discovered" is Western-centric in the case of Antarctica. It makes sense to question the "discovery" language for the Americas, as people were already living there, but Antartica was uninhabited. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I am actually fine with Hires' edit to Antarctica; it's a more epistemologically conservative statement. To be clear, I don't believe Ui-te-Rangiora reached Antarctica, and I can't point to anyone else who did. But one statement restricts itself to a field of knowledge while the other apparently takes in the entire sweep of human experience. There certainly can be times when overly specific language gives credence to fringe theories, but this doesn't strike me as one. As ever, perfectly fine if consensus is against me. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 00:34, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I read it as implying that there were non-Europeans who had discovered it or even living there - much like the Americas or Australia, which are sometimes erroneously called "discovered" when speaking about Europeans. However, there is zero evidence for humans ever reaching Antarctica before recorded history. From what I could see in the abstract of the rebuttal paper cited above, there are good reasons to very skeptical that any humans could have reached Antarctica before modern times. Crossroads 00:38, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree, that is a possible reading, but for me it's simple epistemic humility. I don't think it at all likely that people reached Antarctica before the modern age, but that's an inferential leap I am making. With regard to western science, that's something closer to an observable fact. Again, if the general thought is that it's too close to implying someone made it there before, so be it. But as I say, I believe there is also value in precise language. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:43, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes the "Western-centric view" accusation is a straw man: it's simply that we know that it was visited in reliable enough recorded history, which must be distinguished from legends that are reinterpreted or altered to suggest that it has also been visited before (a claim lacking reliable evidence). As always, it could be mentioned and be presented as speculative opinion, if enough critical sources mention it, indicating it's a notable claim. Unless there is reliable evidence, it remains a fringe claim. —PaleoNeonate – 01:55, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

While there is essentially no evidence that anyone knew about Antarctica prior to the so-called "Age of Exploration", there is definitely a bias that needs correcting with a certain undue and trivial emphasis on the provenance of discovery. I am certain there are historiographical sources which deal with this and probably provide ways forward for this and other similar framings. I think it would be good if WP:Wikiproject Countering Systematic Bias tried to reposition some of the text at Misplaced Pages that gets overly into the Great Man Theory trope -- in a fashion that was coherent and, dare I say, systematic. jps (talk) 03:39, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

This appears to me to be the appropriate takeaway here. Generalrelative (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

"Unknown to European science" absolutely carries the implication that it was not unknown to all peoples. The specificity implies exceptions. Like describing a no-parking zone as "No parking on Tuesdays", or describing George Washington as "The first straight, white president of the united states." ApLundell (talk) 03:46, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

It also carries the weird (and incorrect) assumption that there is some way to identify science as being specifically "European". Or that "science" is the proper field of study when we're talking about people learning about geographical locations. jps (talk) 12:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

So let's go about fixing this issue. I propose that the entire paragraph be reframed as "The first documented explorations of Antarctica were by Europeans ...", which avoids all kinds problems, and is much more of a NPOV. Hires an editor (talk) 15:02, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support this proposal and would be happy to help. Generalrelative (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I think this is an elegant solution. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I oppose this. It has the same problem as before - it implies that there could have been pre-European, undocumented explorations of Antarctica. As this above-cited paper notes, Polynesian voyaging through the circumpolar westerlies would have little chance of success and archaeological evidence of Polynesian voyaging does not extend south of about 50° South. It isn't physically plausible for even the expert seafarer Polynesians to have gone there. I get not wanting to be Eurocentric, but WP:FALSEBALANCE does apply. We wouldn't rewrite Apollo 11 to say Armstrong was the "first documented" person on the Moon because, oh, some lost civilization 100,000 years ago, or aliens from another star system billions of years ago, maybe could have landed there. And of course, the implausibility of both scenarios is part of the point. Crossroads 03:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Crossroads: With respect, this bit of the thread is on another topic. You're certainly free to object to a paragraph beginning "The first documented explorations of Antarctica were by Europeans ..." but that is very different from what you seem to be arguing here. Generalrelative (talk) 03:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

No, that's exactly what I was objecting to. I don't know how it could seem otherwise. Crossroads 03:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Hm, okay. Apologies for misreading what you'd said. Generalrelative (talk) 03:52, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

This tweet contains a full link to the paper, it's only 4 and a half pages long, so not too much of a time investment. From the paper, it's not even clear if an Antarctic voyage is a reasonable interpretation of the original legend. The Ui-te-Rangiora article is in need of some serious reworking. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:00, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

We can have our cake and eat it too. It's perfectly reasonable to say, "the first documented explorations of Antarctica were in the nineteenth century, and there is no evidence that any humans had contact with the continent prior to this...." I don't think identifying the provenance of the humans who were on those first ships is necessary. The article states which countries they hail from which is good enough for a reader. jps (talk) 02:26, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Breast tax

Breast tax (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This is surely one of the longest surviving WP:HOAX on Misplaced Pages because it tries to show a imaginary subject as historical. The article depends on mainly new and partisan sources who are mixing up with a local village legend called Nangeli.

A BBC article about Nangeli was published in 2016, and the article about "Breast Tax" was created in 2018, while Nangeli was created in 2017. This is clearly in line with the fact that these subjects were not known before BBC published article about local village legend Nangeli in 2016. Historians agree that a "breast tax" did not exist.

The article even survived AfD but the participants at DRV guided editors to avoid WP:AFD and instead look for merging or redirect via discussion.

Numerous discussions have happened since, such as Talk:Breast tax#Redirect, Talk:Breast tax#Dubious journals, Talk:Channar revolt#Scholarly sources for tax?, and others where it was made certain that the subject is a WP:HOAX after carefully analyzing the sources provided.

A couple of users (Paraoh of Wizards, 103.13.229.228) however believe otherwise.

The page is currently fully protected, but input is very much welcome at Talk:Breast tax#Redirect. Azuredivay (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

This does not seem to be a fringe at all. The consensus seems to be that this tax actually did exist. --Salimfadhley (talk) 20:13, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Somatology

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

In case someone would like to work on this obscure article. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 23:44, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Some other related:

• Deviance (sociology) § Biological theories of deviance
• William Herbert Sheldon
• Somatotype and constitutional psychology

—PaleoNeonate – 07:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

So it's an archaic term that would now be called Physical Anthropology? Could it just redirect to Biological Anthropology? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Mathias Bröckers

• Mathias Bröckers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Has been expanded recently. I just changed the order yet - did not have time for more then - but NPOV and FRINGE problems are likely. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:00, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Tulpa

Hi! Could you take a look at , please? I am not an active editor of the enwiki and have no idea of whether it satifies its rules, but it certainly looks fringe. Wikisaurus (talk) 00:09, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Vision therapy

• Vision therapy (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Following some outrage on FaceBook among behavioral optometrists about Misplaced Pages's coverage of this topic, there has been an influx of new editors and an uptick in article interest. Could use more eyes from editors experienced with WP:FRINGE topics. Alexbrn (talk) 07:25, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

This is seconded. I’m one of the new editors that wants to make sure that all Wiki rules and criteria are met. I believe the article can much more neutrally describe where vision therapy is supported, questioned, and ophthalmology’s position on it. I’m struggling with some of the circular reasoning that comes with having had a fringe label applied to optometry. I respect Wiki fringe policies because there is no shortage of quackery out there (including some claims about Vision Therapy). I do not believe ‘turf war’ arguments trump logic or science.

We could really use the expertise of someone with a serious background in evaluating both studies and reviews of studies. Especially related to poor design (in support of quackery) and misrepresentation of papers, or selection bias in a review.

I’m hoping there is a lot I can learn here and I can be of more value to Wiki for other topics in the future, especially areas of healthcare outside my own expertise.

Snapdginger (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Arb request filed

People here may be interested in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Amendment request: Fringe science and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Misplaced Pages:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, DGG ( talk ) 17:00, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University

• Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Should the article say you can learn only bollocks there? Someone deleted this part: Ayurvedic medicine is considered pseudoscientific because it confuses reality and metaphysical concepts, and because its premises are not based on science. Ethnologist Johannes Quack writes than although the rationalist movement Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti officially labels Ayurveda – like astrology – a pseudoscience, these practices are in fact embraced by many of the movement's members.

The user is right that the quote is not talking about the institution... and the rationalist movement's members embracing Ayurveda sounds fishy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:29, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Also, that one clause about reality and metaphysics is premised on a false dichotomy. The concept "reality" is by definition metaphysical. This could be easily fixed however by cutting that clause and skipping to the next "because". Generalrelative (talk) 11:38, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Relies on flawed metaphysics would be more accurate, —PaleoNeonate – 13:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps accurate, sure. But far from verifiable. And also perhaps trivially true since I'm unaware of any flawless metaphysical systems. Generalrelative (talk) 13:26, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Not that it's all flawless, but It would be false equivalence to compare this to methodological naturalism and the scientific method, that constantly attempt to assess reality as best it can and work with what exists and is practical, obviously... —PaleoNeonate – 00:07, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Methodological naturalism and the scientific method are certainly more powerful than whatever epistemological commitments underpin Ayurvedic "medicine", but they are not, strictly speaking, metaphysics. Indeed, that's the whole point of designating a methodological naturalism. In any case, though, I believe we agree in principle. As an aside, I imagine that some here will be aware of the literature on this topic already, but if not, the collection Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality is a fantastic inquiry into the effort to salvage realism, and what other metaphysical commitments we might need to abandon in order to do so. Generalrelative (talk) 00:59, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

• If Ayurvedic medicine is invoked, it is necessary somehow to make sure it's clearly identified as pseudoscience, per WP:PSCI. Alexbrn (talk) 13:33, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

  Agreed. I suggest restoring the first sentence quoted above, minus the nonsensical clause about reality versus metaphysics. The second sentence can be considered separately. Generalrelative (talk) 13:35, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

  Update: I went ahead and did this, adding citations from the main article Ayurveda. Generalrelative (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

  I’ve added one for homeopathy as well. Anyone got one for Unani? Brunton (talk) 19:39, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I am a scientist myself and I clearly don't accept this as medicine, but the article is not about Ayurveda, it is about a university. There is no rule that says that every time someone says "Ayurveda", you need to shout "pseudoscience" and slap four sources on it, which absurdly, more than doubled the size of the article (as of this edit, the entire article is 5,594 bytes, 2,803 of which are this unrelated commentary). Besides, you are ignoring the cultural context. This is not some fringe institute, it is a state university established by an act of parliament. The sentence added gives undue weight to some unrelated sources without balancing them with the fact that these practices are respectable in this culture. Having said that, I really don't care about this article or about Ayurveda at all. If it gives you joy to yell "pseudoscience", go ahead and add it to every article about Ayurveda institutes in India, there are many more. --Muhandes (talk) 21:11, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

It's a fringe institution and generally not "respectable" even within the cultural context, while there is a non insignificant number of people who believe in the effectiveness of "alternative medicine", the vast majority does not. It's also well within policy and would be irresponsible to our readers to not specify that a medical institution which claims to impart education on a reliable medical practice, does not in fact do so. Not to mention, we define fringe science on the basis of scientific consensus rather than the degree of acceptance (or not) by the general population. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 22:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Stephen F. Hayes – Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda relationship

There is a dispute over the wording of the lead in the Stephen F. Hayes article. Hayes is known as a chief proponent for the false claim that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had an operational relationship. Hayes claimed in 2003, "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." Should we describe Hayes's claims as being "false" or should we say that the claims were "later determined to be false"? The latter language suggests that Hayes's claims were valid at the time, but only later discovered to be false. I find that language to be deceptive, as Hayes's claims were baseless at the time that he made them. Furthermore, Hayes was actively working with Bush administration officials in selling the Iraq War, which makes his claims on the subject even more reckless. His claim, "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans", was false when it was made in 2003 and it was false after 2003. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:33, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I would certainly argue for "false" and not "later determined." I don't think any serious thinkers in 2003 believed there could be no serious argument about the proposition. A more temperate assertion (something like "evidence leads me to conclude they worked together") could accurately be said to be "later determined." This maximalist formulation. however, strikes me as false ab initio. Just one old guy's opinion. Cheers and happy Monday. Dumuzid (talk) 20:47, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

The article originally stated, in the intro paragraph, that Hayes was "and an influential figure in promoting the false claim that the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda had an operational relationship." My view, which sparked the disagreement, is that this gives the impression of a deliberate lie. "False claim" may be literally ambiguous about motive, but its implication, I would say, is definitely one of knowingly lying. I argue that in 2003, the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda was still an open question in the US, and the book was only definitively closed on it -- as Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations recounts -- in 2007-2008. My larger point is that since this is a WP:BLP, we should take care to ensure that our language is as NPOV as possible. I'm not married to "later determined," but the old wording of "promoting the false claim," to me, sounds like it's making an implication about motive and knowledge that we simply can't be making. Korossyl (talk) 02:29, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I understand and respect your position; for me the quote is so bombastic that it is close enough to a lie to call it such. I would argue the same about someone who had said "no one actually believes that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda." In 2003, there was a great deal of debate and it certainly seems in retrospect that the matter was unsettled. When you go to the outer edges of the claim like this, I think it is appropriate to label it out-and-out false, no matter from which ideological direction it comes. I hope that makes sense, and though I have my position, reasonable minds may certainly differ. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 02:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Dowsing

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

Should explosive detectors be mentioned in that article because someone called them "nothing more than dowsing rods"? They seem to be based on the ideomotor effect, with the swiveling antenna and so on, but it could be WP:COATRACK to mention them. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:11, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Page 51 of the PDF of source 45 specifically mentions "advanced" dowsing gizmos with supposed discrimination ability and some makers of these who were selling them to law enforcement for contraband detection. Considering this, it seems relevant. MarshallKe (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Though, I didn't check the sources for the list of four devices MarshallKe (talk) 11:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Is this what they are talking about ] ], if so, yes it is dowsing?Slatersteven (talk) 11:39, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. Dowsing#Police and military devices mentions ADE 651, Sniffex, and GT200. Quadro Tracker is another one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:02, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Damn, the military bought eight of them for $50,000 each? Need to change my career to scamming the government MarshallKe (talk) 12:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Oh cops and militaries love to buy these bad boys. The quadro tracker is particularly excellent, because cops didn't stop buying them even after people started opening them up and showing that they were literally empty (or, in a couple of instances, had dead flies seemingly intentionally placed in them). And yeah, big time dowsing rod. --Xurizuri (talk) 08:22, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

A mention of fraudulent devices seems warranted, but obviously not a claim that actual detection devices are dowsing... —PaleoNeonate – 22:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Pumapunku, again

Hello all, eyes would be again appreciated on this article, especially with regard to the 'liquid stone' section; anyone with particular knowledge of material sciences or geology would be especially welcome. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Fucks sake, this shit again? Where have these claims got any critical secondary coverage? WP:GEVAL is dead. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I feel very much the same way, but have perhaps too acute a sense of my own limitations. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:45, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Saturated fat

The same sort of nonsense on the talk-page of the saturated fat article again from the usual suspects that were pasting in similar low-carb stuff 4-5 months ago. This time claiming a single low-carbohydrate diet feeding trial is a high-quality study that should be put onto the article Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Binary silicon-hydrogen compounds

• Binary silicon-hydrogen compounds (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

de:Peter Plichta is supposed to have proved something, but without a source, a text introduced here. For context: Plichta has written a book "Benzin aus Sand" ("Gas/Petrol from Sand") propagating silans as energy storage, although he makes it sound like an energy source. (He has also revolutionized number theory and quantum mechanics with his self-published ideas about prime numbers, without the communities of mathematicians or physicists noticing it.) My chemistry knowledge is not good enough to judge the silan stuff. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:17, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Same old same old

• Forrest Mims (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

ID not pseudoscience! News at eleven! --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

The article seems rather promotional, and similar to his biographies at the two ID institute pages (currently references 6 and 7), as though written by one publicist.

The statement in the lede that he is "an advocate for intelligent design" is not specifically supported. What's known is that he is/was listed as a fellow of the ID houses, which is obviously closely related but not quite the same thing. There is also no indication of this connection having been mentioned anywhere outside Misplaced Pages or the institutes themselves. Despite this, Mims is placed in 4 categories on ID and creationism, against WP:DEFINE and WP:COPDEF. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:00, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

It's possible that it's slightly promotional. Definitely notable for his popular electronics introduction/experiment booklets (I'm a fan, yet interestingly when I reread some a few years back I noticed a mix of good basic practical science and opinions questioning more complex science)... As for "pseudoscientific", same old indeed... I'd argue that "Intelligent Design creationism" would also be acceptable (with the link). —PaleoNeonate – 22:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Fringe, Anti-fringe, and Turning Misplaced Pages's Values Upside-down

Most here have probably seen DGG's ARCA request at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests#Amendment request: Fringe science which is still open but you may not have seen this. Doug Weller talk 11:50, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

In the arbitration case, we have three separate questions:

1. Is a certain viewpoint actually being taken seriously by experts, by those who know what they are talking about?
2. Is that viewpoint being propagated by popular media and portrayed as actually being taken seriously by experts?
3. Did Misplaced Pages users, by consuming those popular media, arrive at the belief that the viewpoint is actually being taken seriously by experts?

I get the impression that regarding the race-intelligence question, as well as regarding COVID outsider ideas, the answers are no, yes, yes. The #3 yes" leads to sentences like this:

The problem is adequately discussed in the case statements, and epitomized by Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, but I can summarize them as Consensus has changed and what was originally a far fringe theory from sources associated with conspiracy theories, became one seriously considered by both the medical establishment, and the most reliable possible news sources (WSJ, NYT--in a series of major articles).

Lacking direct access to the scientific consensus, users apply instead the trickled-down out-of-context information framed by those media they happen to read. It's the availability bias in action. And they think this is somehow better than the real, original sources, because, heck, the result agrees with their own impression. This is a concrete attempt at making Misplaced Pages more fringe-friendly.

The village pump thread looks much more vague, like "there are anti-fringe users, I won't say who exactly, who do bad things, I won't say what exactly. I disagree with them. Who is with me?" The bad things consist of one hypothetical example which, if addressed by pointing at policies, would be resolved quickly in a satisfying manner - the hypothetical anti-fringe users would lose. It sounds as if that solution would not work in the actual cases that inspired the thread (because they are different; the hypothetical example is an exaggerated one), which is why the actual cases are kept under the hat. Since those bad things the anti-fringe users are doing are not against policy, a mob of "pro-fringe" and "meh-everything but strongly anti-anti-anything" users is gathered first. But they will not be able to do anything because all they have is hot air. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

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