Talk:Skeptical Inquirer

Gullible skeptics

Please tell me which Skeptical Inquirer issue has dealt with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) since I don't remember anyone. In fact, I have discussed ADHD with the Skeptical Inquirer editor quite a few times thru email and he does not seem to be interested in the subject (though he did publish my short article about The Bélmez Faces). —Cesar Tort 05:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

May/June 2006 issue, see the photo of the cover in the main article. Bubba73 (talk), 02:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I am truly shocked that Kendrick Frazier published the article you called my attention to: a pro-psychiatry piece for the immoral drugging of healthy American children with Ritalin. Please take a look at my own web page. [1]

Back in 1992 Prometheus Books rejected John Modrow’s How to become a schizophrenic even though Peter Breggin wrote a warm endorsement for the manuscript. Modrow had no choice but to self-publish it with his earnings as a blue collar hard worker at Seattle bay. I am afraid that I have no choice but to quote a paragraph of a 1998 letter he sent me:

Now in regard to the people at CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer, I pretty much dismiss them as a bunch of intellectual cowards who spend their time beating up fringe beliefs and marginal crackpots. Perhaps I’m a bit too harsh. After all, there is nothing wrong with what they are doing. In fact, I approve of what they are doing —except that they never go after the really big fish: an establishment pseudoscience like psychiatry. In fact, I recall reading one article in the Skeptical Inquirer in which Thomas Szasz and other critics of psychiatry were put in the same category as “creation scientists” and other purveyors of superstition and anti-science.

My bold type above. —Cesar Tort 04:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

While I have my own (strong) opinions of Szasz, I won't post them here. I will, however, say that Szasz absolutely is not, and does not claim to be, a scientist, and that his consideration of psychology as a pseudoscience is from a VERY different perspective that the Skeptical Inquirer's consideration of, for example, ESP as a pseudoscience. It is not just that psychiatry is well-established as compared to most fringe theories the Inquirer attacks, but that its beliefs and practices are largely in-line with most current scientific principles and utilizes the scientific method in a highly rigorous way. Objections to "biopsychiatry" are typically philosophical, not scientific. Eebster the Great (talk) 02:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

enquirer?

an enquirer inquires. the editors of the afore mentioned periodical should consult a dictionary. i appreciate this has nothing ot do with the article, i just dislike bad english. Jonomacdrones 01:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The New Oxford American Dictionary says that inquirer is correct. Bubba73 (talk), 03:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem

When I typed Zetetic scholar into Wikipedia, it bounced to the Skeptical Enquirer page. It should not, because the SE was originally The Zetetic, and was renamed SE. Truzzi founded the Zetetic Scholar after leaving CSICOP.

Martinphi 22:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it. That was due to a misunderstanding by THB. Bubba73 (talk), 23:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Journal?

'but it is not a formal scientific journal.' Can anyone explain what this means, and if it is a clear distinction. Liam195.7.54.2 10:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a magazine, not a journal that specializes in publishing scientific research, like JAMA, NEJM, Lancet, etc.. You won't find its articles listed at PubMed. -- Fyslee 10:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Standard appendices and descriptions & WP:GTL

I noticed that this article and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry don't follow WP:GTL guidelines regarding some section namings. It seems to me that the section presently named References should, to follow GTL guidelines, be named Further reading and that the section now named Notes should be named References. Is there any opposition to changing these names per GTL? -- Boracay Bill 07:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The two item under "references" are indeed references (Harvard referencing), they are cited in the text. So they aren't "Further reading". Maybe "notes" should be renamed "footnotes", but I need to read the GTL. Bubba73 (talk), 13:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

GTL says:

• Notes
• References (or combined with "Notes" into Notes and references)
• Further reading (or Bibliography)

...

"It is okay to change the sequence of these appendices, but the Notes and References sections should be next to each other. For example, you may put "Further reading" above "Notes and references" or vice versa. "Notes" is only for footnotes (explanations or comments on any part of the main text). "References" is only for referenced materials (books, websites etc. cited in the main text). Otherwise "Notes and references" should be combined. "

So according to that, it is OK as it is, unless the two are combined into "notes and references". Bubba73 (talk), 13:40, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I partially agree. The items in References are definitely references, but the "notes" are references too, and not "explanations or comments". Bubba73 (talk), 13:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The "notes" are all external links, though. Bubba73 (talk), 13:54, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

What was done on these two pages is a bit different from the pages I'm used to seeing. Most of the pages I've looked at place a <References/> tag in a section named References, and populate that section with inline <ref>REF_ITEM</ref> instances, where REF_ITEM is often formatted by one of the citation templates from WP:CITET. Individual REF_ITEMs in the text hook to their References section appearances via numbered links and backlinks supplied by the mechanism behind the <ref>, </ref>, and <References/> tags (the Cite.php extension to MediaWiki) . The {{ref}} & {{note}} template family can also be used to supply connective links and backlinks, but don't do auto-numbering of links.

WP:GTL describes the References section as containing "... [items] that you used in constructing the article and have referenced (cited) in the article. An example is then given using <Ref>, which puts the example item into a <References/> collection under an example section named (confusingly, to me) Notes instead of References.

Per WP:BB, I went ahead and made the changes. I eliminated the Notes section and combined its contents with the References section. I also improved & combined cites and fixed the Harvard-references backlinks. If this looks OK, I'll try to do the same to the other article sometime soon. -- Boracay Bill 05:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

What appears to have been done on the two pages being discussed here is that the items which would go in the References section have been broken up into (1) some harvard-referenced books and (2) other stuff -- mostly web pages but some books as well on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry page --, with the harvard-referenced books being put in a bulleted list in a section titled References and the other stuff in a list auto-numbered with <Ref> etc. in a section named Notes. That's what threw me -- I'm not used to seeing that done .

WP:GTL does say "it is more important to have clarity and consistency in an article than to adhere to any particular system." I have plenty of other things on my plate at present, so I think I'll drop the matter here. -- Boracay Bill 21:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You are exactly right in your pbervation. Books that are referenced are Harvard-referenced in the text and the references section. Most of the footnotes are external links, but some in the other article are not. Somewhere else I've read something to the effect "better any kind of reference than no reference". What do you suggest about the conflicting styles? I strongly prefer Harvard referencing, but I'm not up to changing the notes and links. Bubba73 (talk), 21:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:BB, I went ahead and made the changes. I eliminated the Notes section and combined its contents with the References section. I also improved & combined cites and fixed the Harvard-references backlinks. If this looks OK, I'll try to do the same to the other article sometime soon. -- Boracay Bill 05:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, this former Feature Article Paul Morphy uses notes (footnotes), references, and further reading. But in that case, notes are true footnotes. Bubba73 (talk), 03:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

not peer-reviwed, and not a journal

I made this change because that harvard source is directly contradicted by the official website, so it must be wrong. Their official website:

1. states that it's a magazine and says nothing about being a journal. Their subtitle is "The Magazine for Science and Reason"
2. does not claim anywhere to be peer-reviewed
3. doesn't explain any method to recruit reviewers and apply for being a reviewer.

Maybe the Harvard source was mis-interpreted --Enric Naval (talk) 04:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)