Talk:Ghost

Lack of coverage of various cultures noted

After skimming the article, it seems very biased towards European culture. There is no mention of Middle Eastern, African, Austronesian etc. beliefs, and minimal coverage of pre-Colombian beliefs in the Americas, all of which are rich and interesting aspects of the subject. There is too much, in my view, on spiritualism, which has its own article and just needs a short summary. The intro definitely needs a rework to cover the main topics discussed. But this seems as bad as Global Warming for controversy. Think I will avoid it! Aymatth2 (talk) 15:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Aymatth2: please, feel free to add anything from other cultures that you have sources for. Just be a little careful not to accidentally impose a Western bias as you're trying to remove it: e.g. east Asian cultures have mythological entities that Westerners have labeled ghosts that aren't really anything like disembodied spirits (traditional east Asian religious philosophy doesn't have a conception of the human soul that lends itself to disembodied existence). And don't mind brangifer - he can't seem to make a post without it turning into an attack on me. The personal crap isn't something you want to get involved in. --Ludwigs2 17:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

There will always be differences in meaning between different cultures, but the idea of someone who has died but stays around in some sort of disembodied form and remains involved with the living seems fairly universal. Part of the interest in a more complete article would be differences and similarities between ghosts in different cultures. It is huge subject. Lafcadio Hearn wrote a lot about Japan (e.g. In Ghostly Japan), and obviously many other writers did too. See this excerpt for an example of just one aspect in another of the many cultures (Igbo) that are not discussed. Navajos, Polynesians, every culture has them ... A huge subject. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:50, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can certainly see the sense in that. It might require a major restructuring of the article, though. maybe start with a discussion of cross-cultural differences and move the terminology/typology bits down to subsections of the European context... You seem to be much better read on this than I am, so I'm happy to let you take the lead - what would you like to see happen? --Ludwigs2 17:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I am no expert. Just making one of those annoying drive-by comments of the "someone should do something about it" class. I may add some material if I come across it, but at present am working through a list of other articles that I want to get done. I would not worry too much about structure. Easy enough to rearrange as part of expanding. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

By all means do what you can to improve coverage. This is a large subject. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:08, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the {{globalize}} complaints is that either nobody can be bothered to do the research, or else somebody goes out of their way to emphasize the "equality" of cultures for which there are only extremely marginal references, resulting in tocs like "1. Aztecs; 2. Kalahari Bushmen; 3. Western world".

I think we begin to learn that this article needs to be split and cut down into WP:SS shape. Already the paranormal cruft hogs far too much attention here on talk. It is a marginal concern of the main article and should be exported to a dedicated sub-article. Ghost (paranormal research) will finally be in a position to claim with justification that it discusses a topic of pseudoscience. Detailed breakdowns "By culture" and "By period" should also be delegated to sub-articles. --dab (𒁳) 12:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I made a start on arranging by culture and adding some snippets of content on different cultures. The problem is that it could evolve into an enormous article, even if there is just a paragraph or so for each group. I think the sources are there, for example on ghosts in the different Australian aboriginal cultures, if someone wanted to do the research. But there are hundreds of groups that would have to covered to make it balanced, and that could take a long time. So the WP:SS suggestion makes sense. I fully agree that the paranormal stuff could use its own article, briefly referenced from this one, and think popular culture could too. Then there is the question of splitting out the articles on specific cultures. I suppose a geographical breakdown could work: North America, Central America, Caribbean etc. My guess is that a cultural anthropologist would recommend some different breakdown. I am sure there are books comparing ghost beliefs in different places and times. I recommend splitting out the paranormal and the pop culture right away, maybe just with "For" links at the top of the article, then seeing how the cultural part evolves. Do we need a vote on it? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Dbachmann, you are proposing forking the article. There are circumstances when that is legitimate, and if this article were large enough you'd have a point, but it's a very small article, and the only reason the paranormal part is so small is that you are preventing it's inclusion, which violates our rules for article development. Articles are supposed to cover all aspects of a subject. If an article then becomes too large, a split is warranted. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I excuse myself from reacting to any of Brangifer's comments due to excessive Randy-in-Boise-ism. --dab (𒁳) 12:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The "Western Spiritualism and Skeptics" section is a bit of a fork anyway. When there are sub-articles like Spiritualism and Spiritism, it is best to basically just reproduce the summary at the start of each sub-article in the overview article, since the sub-article summaries should cover all the main points. Then only change the main article as needed to reflect changes in the sub-article summaries. That avoids forking. Before doing that, any content that is in this article but not in those should be moved over to the sub-articles, with an edit summary that gives a link back to this article to leave an attribution chain. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

• I split out Ghosts in European culture into a separate main article. Think this works well: more balanced coverage here and a more focused discussion in the new article. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:30, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

• • should probably be "Western culture", since Spiritualism and ghost hunting etc. is very much a phenomenon in North America. Probably traditional folklore and modern crackpottery should be treated as distinct. --dab (𒁳) 12:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
• There are articles on Spiritualism, Spiritism and Ghost hunting, probably others on recent beliefs and skepticism in western culture. Perhaps there should be an umbrella article to pull them together: "Modern beliefs in ghosts"? Maybe "in European culture" should be moved to "in European folklore", cutting out the very short "Modern Spiritualism" section. But I find the Western ghosts, both traditional and modern, rather boring. They just seem to vaguely hang around in a passively spooky sort of way. I just started Ghosts in Polynesian culture and may expand that - much more interesting to me since the ghosts are so much more active and the legends are so rich in detail. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:03, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ghost hunters lack scientific judgement

Google search results. QuackGuru (talk) 19:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

No less than three problematic lead sentences on ghost "research" and pseudoscience

This is excessive for the lead:

Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various attempts have been made to investigate ghosts through scientific methods, but such efforts are generally held to be pseudoscientific. In a 2006 National Science Foundation (NSF) report on a recent Gallup Poll survey of public opinion in the US, the NSF referred to belief in the existence of ghosts as a "pseudoscientific belief." A 2004 report by the NSF used somewhat similar language.

Obviously there are people who believe in ghosts and want to research them to find out more about them. I have no doubt that most of them are doing pseudoscience. It is also possible to research why people believe in ghosts: What are the mechanisms? Are people with specific mental diseases / mental dispositions more or less likely than average to believe in ghosts? How about cultural factors? Obviously there is a lot of potential for genuine research he. I have no idea whether this genuine research actually happens or not.

Now here is the problem: If you want to do ghost-related pseudoscience, you will think you are doing genuine research. If you claim to be doing some of the things I mentioned above as genuinely scientific, you even might get funding from reputable sources and be printed in reputable journals, if you are lucky. On the other hand, if you are doing genuine research in this area, you will have to (pretend to) take the object of your studies at least somewhat seriously, or they won't want to be studied by you. Add to that the fact that good scholars and scientists always sort of fall in love with their research field, and it becomes clear that it will be very hard to distinguish pseudoscience and proper science in this area.

Given these difficulties, it takes a lot more than the 3 references in the lead to convince me that "such efforts are generally held to be pseudoscientific". We must require certain minimal standards for such claims; otherwise we risk that one day the lead of evolution will say: "evolution is generally held to be just a theory". The first reference simply doesn't support the claim.

Here is the passage from the first source which apparently somebody thought supports the first sentence:

The supposed links between ghosts and electromagnetic fields, low temperatures, radiation, odd photographic images, and so on are based on nothing more than guesses, unproven theories, and wild conjecture. If a device could reliably determine the presence or absence of ghosts, then by definition, ghosts would be proven to exist. I own an EMF meter, but since it's useless for ghost investigations—it finds not spirits but red herrings—I use it in my lectures and seminars as an example of pseudoscience. The most important tools in this or any investigation are a questioning mind and a solid understanding of scientific principles.

The ghost hunters' anti-scientific illogic is clear: if one area of a home is colder than another, that may indicate a ghost; if an EMF meter detects a field, that too may be a ghost; if dowsing rods cross, that might be a ghost. Just about any "anomaly," anything that anyone considers odd for any reason, from an undetermined sound to a "bad feeling" to a blurry photo, can be (and has been) considered evidence of ghosts.

That's the best I could find in the source. Some problems:

• The source does not talk about "attempts [...] to investigate ghosts through scientific methods", which would include legitimate scientific research about the nature of belief in ghosts (if such research exists). No, it talks just about the American "ghost hunting" scene.
• The source does not say that such efforts are "generally held to be pseudoscientific". No, it just says that these "ghost hunters" are doing pseudoscience, and that the author uses their abuse of EMF meters as an example when teaching about pseudoscience.

Basically the source just verifies that one person holds one specific culture of "investigat[ing] ghosts" to be pseudoscience. This is of course way too weak to be worth mentioning in the lead in this form, so we need either a different source or a better formulation.

Currently there are widespread discussions about the second sentence elsewhere, so I am not going into details about that. However, I believe this is a misquotation. Maybe it could be corrected by saying the NSF "casually referred" to belief in ghosts in this way.

The second and third references give the claim in the first sentence a bit more credibility, but only if you ignore that they are implicitly about belief in ghosts, whereas the first sentence is formulated so widely that it would include scientific research into the belief in ghosts by scientists who don't share this belief (and might even think it's a symptom of a mental disease).

And here is the main problem: What are these two and a half sentences about pseudoscientific ghost "research" doing in the lead, giving no information beyond its existence and our disapproval of it? This kind of repetition with next to no content is certainly not encyclopedic brevity.

I was going to propose an alternative formulation that takes care of the distinction between actual, pseudoscientific research of ghosts and (potential) scientific research of belief in ghosts and can be properly sourced. But there is a problem: I find it hard to formulate it so that it doesn't make suggestions one way or the other about research into whether ghosts exist. That is problematic because research whether something for which there is plenty of anecdotal evidence is not a priori unscientific, but people trying to do it are most likely doing pseudoscience. (I expect protest here, but think of this: If Randy, say, does an experiment to prove that some claimed ghost is just nonsense – would that be pseudoscience? I don't think so. Would it only become science if he does it without the open mind w.r.t. results that is otherwise characteristic of science? Nope.) So in the absence of sources discussing specifically this aspect, we should avoid all statements about existence research, but not in such a way as to draw attention to this avoidance.

The following is not a definitive proposal, but perhaps something like it would work:

Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various attempts have been made to investigate ghosts through scientific methods, mostly under the assumption that ghosts exist. Such efforts often involve pseudoscientific methods and are generally held to be pseudoscientific.

The last part of the first sentence here suggests that "such efforts" in the second sentence is in some way restricted, short of us saying it explicitly. The construction of the second sentence further suggests, again short of saying it, that it is the pseudoscientific methods that make such investigations pseudoscience.

I guess a better solution would be to replace "investigate ghosts" by a natural formulation that cannot be misunderstood as covering investigations of the (non-)existence of ghosts or, most importantly, investigations into the belief in ghosts. The problem is finding such a formulation. Hans Adler 11:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Remove the last sentense and remove the number 2006 to cut it down in size. One could even change it too "Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various attempts have been made to investigate ghosts using scientific methods. These attempts and the resulting belief in ghosts are held to be pseudoscientific by the scientific community."Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea. The "resulting belief in ghosts" is a bit surprising at first since most belief in ghosts is unrelated to the experiments, but in the interest of brevity this seems acceptable for the lead. "These attempts" also gives a strong idea that we are talking about the 19th century attempts and similar things that followed, not about research into seeing ghosts as a mental condition. Hans Adler 12:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I am currently waiting for somebody to come here and say: "But I want to say that everything remotely connected to ghosts or belief in them is pseudoscience, including literary research into the status of ghost stories among the Romans. Therefore I object to the new version." If this (or a more reasonable objection) doesn't happen in the next couple of hours I propose putting your version in the lead to solve the current serious problem. Hans Adler 14:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you are. In the mean time, the supposed study of ghosts remains pseudoscience. Guy (Help!) 14:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If that is supposed to be an objection to Doc James' text you need to be more clear. Supposed "study of ghosts" is pseudoscience, no question. This cannot be misunderstood. If you don't like Doc James' version we may find an alternative one using your formulation. Hans Adler 14:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Quibbles: Spiritualism seems to predate Spiritism. I don't see belief in ghosts as pseudoscience, but as religion (e.g. Buddhism). No need for double footnotes from the same source. How about a modified version of the Doc James suggestion: "In the Western world, beginning with 19th century spiritualism, attempts have been made to investigate ghosts using scientific methods. The experiments are widely held to be pseudoscientific."

This is not an article on pseudoscience. The NSF 2006 report did not make the claim about investigation of ghosts, it treated "belief in ghosts" as "pseudoscientific," which may or many not be in plain contradiction to the meaning of the term, and the NSF report was based on Gallup surveys about "beliefs" with not much descrimination between "belief" and "scientific belief." The reason why it would be in plain contradiction is that belief in ghosts is not a "scientific belief," in general, and I have not seen it justified as scientific with any frequency. That someone might have, somewhere, investigated ghosts using scientific methods would not make belief in ghosts "pseudoscience." It would be scientific investigation of ghosts! And it would only be pseudoscience if it met the characteristics of pseudoscience. The topic doesn't make it pseudoscientific, it would be the nature of the investigation and the methods and evidence used that could do this. "Pseudoscience" does not mean "things that most scientists don't believe."

Okay, how might it not be in contradiction? Apparently, the Gallup poll asked people if they thought certain things were "scientific." That's a trick of language, it's entirely unclear what it means. Some people would use "scientific" as a synonym for "true," and so they might be answering that they think something is true. This is thin material to hang a lede on. I removed that whole paragraph as out of balance and poorly supported by the article. Agree on the article, first, I suggest.

I don't see that anything is added to this article by dwelling on this incautious and transient labelling by the NSF of "belief in ghosts" as "pseudoscience." The article presents ghosts as a belief, not as a science or scientific reality, nor as anything claimed to be "scientific." It hints at some attempts at scientific investigation of ghosts, but is remarkably thin on that. That, indeed, could possibly qualify as "pseudoscientific," depending how it was done and reported, but is far from central to this article. How about working on providing more sourced information about that, before trying to give it such prominence? struck as inadvertent ban violation, I wrote this edit and did not sign it and may have accidentally saved it --Abd (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm tempted to suggest a revision along these lines:

Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various pseudoscientific attempts have been made to demonstrate the existence of ghosts. A significant percentage of the population continues to believe that there is a scientific basis for ghosts despite the lack of valid research or evidence.

there are several advantages to this approach, to my mind. (1) it avoids the confusion of claiming that they were scientific methods first and then reframing it as pseudoscience. (2) it clings more closely to what the Science and Technology indicators actually say - with this passage we could cite S&TI directly, rather than relying on the wording of specific years, since it is true of every year I have read, up through 2010. (3) it distinguishes better between belief and pseudoscience (i.e., it makes it clear that people believe in scientific validation for ghosts because of pseudoscience, without any of the weird assertions about pseudoscientific beliefs). what do you think? --Ludwigs2 02:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting really bored of this, but that might be an acceptable compromise, I'm not hugely happy with the wording A significant percentage of the population which sounds like a wordy way of saying "many people", and does not specify which population or which kind of ghosts, but I think is right in spirit. As I said previously, the NSF clearly believe that in some sense "ghost belief" is pseudoscientific. I do not think that the original formulation of the cite was that bad, but I'd be prepared to back a tidied up version of this in order move on! --212.188.161.10 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC).

Balance, Bias and Summary Style

I have been trying to make this article more balanced, but am still not at all satisfied. The basic idea is that the article should cover all aspects of the subject, but give most emphasis to the most important. Presumably importance in this case is based on some balance between how widespread each form of belief is, how complex and evolved the belief is, and what our readers will be most interested in. A vague sort of belief in ghosts seems fairly common in the west, but ghosts play a much more fundamental role in Buddhism and other non-Christian religions, with much more elaborate conceptual structures. English is something of a global second language, and in several non-western countries is the official language, notably India and African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa. We should not assume that the primary audience is in the UK and US, or that the primary interest is in western-style ghosts.

• The introduction stills says too much about Spiritualism / paranormal research and skepticism. This is a fringe topic even in the western world, despite the widespread vague belief.
• The section on Typology seems to have a strongly western orientation, and a slightly condescending view that ghost belief is sort of primitive. Buddhists would disagree. I can't fit the abstract and highly sophisticated Australian dreamtime concepts into this framework anywhere.
• Ghosts in different cultures is probably o.k. now, as a sampling, although much could be added to expand and cover other belief systems
• Western Spiritualism and Skeptics seems much too long for such a fringe topic. I have tried to move forking material to the relevant sub-articles and replace by the shortest possible summary, but the sub-section on Scientific skepticism is surely a fork of content in other articles such as Parapsychology#Criticism and controversy. Still needs clean-up
• Depiction in the arts is hopelessly unbalanced. Surely ghost stories have been written in languages other than English. And surely Bollywood and Hollywood do not have a monopoly on ghost movies.

Comments on the above? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Seems like your aim behind changes is to discuss less relevant topics and avoid far more common and important topics based upon some idea that discussion the most common topics is somehow biased. I think your stated goals are the exact opposite of what should be done here. The ghosts in other cultures section, for example, is already ridiculously detailed for minor cultures in such a way that it because trivial and gives no real educational value. We need more summaries of the overall topic and beliefs throughout history and less sheer random facts without context. The !Kung belief in ghosts, for example, is so ridiculously specific for a general topic that it's absurd. All that sort of thing should be branched off to separate articles, where there's enough information to do so, or deleted, where there isn't. DreamGuy (talk) 16:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I went back and looked at the overall nature of the edits and found them to move the article backward quite dramatically. You removed the terminology section and gutted the history section, two of the most important parts of any article on a broad topic like this, and filled it up with nonnotable details that gave no overall context for topic. Ir everted back to a more stable version of the article. DreamGuy (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

See Ghosts in European folklore. All the information is preserved, summarized in the previous version of the article, which attempts to give a broader perspective than the highly western-oriented version. You have removed a great deal of well-sourced and relevant information on the subject, and introduced massive duplication. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

DreamGuy, I have no idea to what version exactly you reverted the article, and I suspect others have the same problem. Please tell us.

You didn't just revert the treatment of ghosts in various cultures from an excessively detailed version that could simply have been pruned to a poor and embryonic one, you also caused massive regressions elsewhere and an overall very unpleasant situation.

In my opinion a re-revert is in order. Hans Adler 00:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I found the answer to my question now. It was a version from 4 days ago. [1] (I had to turn off JavaScript in order to get a display of page sizes. I am using an extension that only shows me the difference in page sizes for successive edits instead of total page sizes.) Hans Adler 12:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Brown lady ghost photo

I've re-added this image temporarily to preserve it from being deleted (it has ambiguous sourcing, so it has to be listed as non-free). It's one of the more famous ghost images around, so it has a place in this article if we choose to use it. the question is: do we want to use it? --Ludwigs2 16:39, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Spiritism and Science

Vide this extract from the article:

"Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various attempts have been made to investigate ghosts through scientific methods".

The refs given do not support the idea that "spiritists" conducted scientific experiments about ghosts. Believing in ghosts or whatever is not the same as conducting scientific experiments. In fact neither of the refs so much as mention "spiritism". If some Viking believed in Thor that is not the same as the said Viking conducting scientific experiments into Thor's existence. This bit is also not supported by refs given:

"in a National Science Foundation report on a recent survey of public opinion in the US, the existence of ghosts is referred to as a "pseudoscientific belief.""

As far as I can see nowhere in the ref given - http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c7/c7s2.htm#c7s2l5 - is the existence of ghosts referred to as a "pseudoscientific belief". Statements in the wikipedia need to be backed up by refs.Colin4C (talk) 17:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessary and counter-productive nit-picking

The pseudo-science debate here seems to have gone down a rabbit hole. Ghosts, leprachauns, spirits, gods, nymphs, angels and the like all normally involve claims to a causal relationship with detectable phenomena in the real world, and that's pseudo-science. Religion and spirituality cease to be an excuse just as soon as the believer makes a claim about the real world. Which is usually some time around Genesis 1. Tasty monster (=TS ) 09:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

They weren't much better after Phil Collins joined either, but they did drop a lot of the New Age stuff. Verbal chat 09:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

the pseudo-science debate has indeed derailed completely. Which is entirely the fault of the pushers of pseudoscience-debunking. Your "usual" claims of "detectable phenomena in the real world" are a WP:FRINGE topic. A "belief" is not the same as a "claim". By "real world", you mean the material world. For a believer (in ghosts, or in God), the "real world" is spiritual, or both spiritual and material. It is only when claims about the material world are made that "pseudoscience" begins to be a topic. Ghosts are by definition part of the spiritual world. Attempts to link them with theories regarding the material world are a very marginal topic to this article. Any detail on that would belong on ghost hunting and paranormal, with only a brief summary here. This is simple WP:DUE.

case in point: the Pirahã people have an approach to "spirits", which does include spirits of deceased members of the tribe, which involves a living member of the tribe speaking as a ghost. The claim that this persion "is" a spirit at the time they speak is entirely spiritual. From a material perspective, you just have a living person speaking in a funny voice. No pseudoscience is required to explain where the voice was coming from, it was simply the vocal tract of the living person in question. That person will, however, deny categorically that they were present and everyone will insist that the entity that had spoken was a spirit. This isn't a pseudoscientific claim, it is a spiritual claim, or if you like a neurological claim of consciousness and identity. --dab (𒁳) 11:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a silly opinion. There is a reason pseudoscience is called pseudo-science and not pseudo-reality. If you were right, a huge part of human culture would fall under pseudoscience, including most if not all of religion, but also for example Homer's writings. Put a pseudoscience tag on the talk pages of Christianity and Odyssey and make sure it sticks for a week. Then I will take you seriously.

It is possible to produce pure works of pseudoscience that don't even say anything wrong. This is a good example. I read only the first five pages or so before it became too painful. They contain a painfully tortuous proof of a mathematical fact that is so trivial that most lecturers just expect their students to see it on their own in the first session of an introductory lecture on the topic – no need to even mention it. The same author has also mathematically "proved the existence" of a Grand Unified Theory by an argument that is no more sophisticated than "Well, you see, we have these different theories. One tells us some things, and another tells us other things. So now we just look at what we can prove when we assume them all at the same time."

That is what the term pseudoscience is for. Ghosts, gods, and other stuff like this belong in different categories of nonsense. It's not OK to try to fit everything into the label "pseudoscience" just because we have an old Arbcom ruling for that and none for the other topics. The right way to solve the problem is to work on getting Arbcom rulings for the other topics as well, or simply to argue by analogy. Hans Adler 12:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

PS: Pseudoscience needs special treatment in Wikipedia because of the danger that we give it credibility: People reading an uncritical article about pseudoscience may easily be misled into believing that they are reading valid scientific arguments which they merely don't understand. Only those parts of this article which present such a danger fall under pseudoscience and need this treatment. Hans Adler 12:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not silly, Hans, it's simple, and there's a difference because a lot of people are making this unnecessarily complicated.

• You say much of human culture, such as religion, would be pseudo-science under my description? Fine, what's the the problem?
• You say Homer's works would be pseudo-science? No, they're stories with a possible historical basis, just as much of the bible is.
• You say only purported science can be pseudo-scientific? Wrong. The NSF itself lists ghosts, telepathy, reincarnation and all manner of nonsense as pseudoscientific.

Dbachmann, you correctly say that "It is only when claims about the material world are made that "pseudoscience" begins to be a topic."

But then, crucially, you spoil it.

You go on to say "Ghosts are by definition part of the spiritual world." If that were wholly true, then they would not be associated with real places, people wouldn't claim to have seen them and there wouldn't be a whole host of physical phenomena associated with ghosts. That purported collision between the real (or material) world and the imaginary (or spiritual, if you prefer) world is what makes ghosts pseudoscientific.

The failure to acknowledge the simplicity of this situation will make it harder to edit the article into something that makes sense. --TS 17:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

You are talking complete nonsense. There is an entire philosophical debate about what to apply the label pseudoscience to and what not to apply it to. See demarcation problem. I did some research on this a while ago (it never went into the article, unfortunately) and I don't remember anyone proposing a definition that doesn't make sure to exclude the more standard religions and other parts of culture that don't pretend to be scientific. The very fact that everybody agrees one has to do this is one of the reasons it's such a hard problem. The only way to "prove" that the NSF claims ghosts are pseudoscientific is by quoting them out of context. Which is pseudoscholarship, if one goes about it as obviously as you are doing. To quote the NSF from the very paragraph before the misquoted one:

Pseudoscience has been defined as "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility" (Shermer 1997, p. 33).[28] In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (Shermer 1997, p. 17).

This unambiguously defines the entire context as things pretending to be scientific.

What is funny is that we probably agree about the intellectual value of all these things that you want to call pseudoscience (0 or negative). The only thing we disagree about is which label to use. Why call it pseudoscience if the question of science isn't even raised? Why not just call everything you don't like pseudochemistry to be even more specific? Or pseudoarchitecture for a nice change? Hans Adler 18:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

the truly funny thing is that the advocates like brangifer and TS use what is clearly identifiable as pseudoscientific reasoning to make their points (i.e. claims that science somehow refutes things that have never been examined, tested, or researched scientifically). what does one do when the skeptics use the same logic as the pseudoscientists? I remember once talking with some people about a (perfectly valid) sociological theory that angels and visitations filled the same sociological utility in medieval society that UFO sightings fill in modern society. Then the others got into a debate about whether angels were actually space aliens misinterpreted as religious figures, or whether UFOs are religious visitations misinterpreted in scientific terms. Reminds me a lot of the arguments here, and it still makes my head spin. --Ludwigs2 18:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

See also: User talk:Hans Adler § Ghost

Hans Adler 19:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Straw poll on revert

DreamGuy has made a huge revert to a version from 4 days ago to address a specific problem, but also changing a lot of other things in the process. [2] I have mixed feelings about the difference between the two versions. But there is one thing I am sure about: Such long-distance reverts can cause a climate in which editors who want to improve the article feel intimidated. They can expect their work to simply go poof! any moment. I am not going to work on this article before I have an idea of whether the revert is going to stick or not. The two versions are simply too different. There has been no real discussion of the revert, and I don't know whether this means that most people are content with it, or whether it means that most people are, like me, simply left scratching their heads.

This is not about a decision or anything like that. I just want to know where everybody stands so that I can go back to thinking about improvements of this article or not, depending on whether the current situation looks stable or not. Please everybody just say whether you support the revert, oppose it or are neutral (because you don't care either way, or because you haven't made up your mind yet). Please don't start arguing here, or it will defeat the purpose of the straw poll. If you are still undecided, just say so. Hans Adler 12:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral. Hans Adler 12:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose revert. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Introduce changes after discussion. Verbal chat 12:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. The main difference was the shift to a worldwide survey of beliefs, rather than an emphasis on European folklore, which was put in a sub-article [3]; obviously objections could be made to that but I think overall the article was going in the right direction. Xanthoxyl ^< 17:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support revert. Such large changes, including deleting/moving/creating new fork articles, need to be discussed thoroughly first. This article is small enough to include a lot more than it does before it would be justified to split or fork it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

removal of properly sourced material

this and this were removed by brangifer, despite being properly source and clearly both accurate and relevant. the sourcing here is just as adequate as the sourcing used to add the quote (if not more so), and it is a necessary balance on a claim that would otherwise appear as though it has consistent and universal support by the NSF (a fact for which is opposed by available evidence). If we are going to use this quote, it is important to note that the quote is only used in an isolated minority of revisions of this document, and that other revisions do not use it. brangifer, please self-revert. --Ludwigs2 05:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The sourcing is accurate, but it's unencyclopedic to use sources to add editorial comments that are OR and designed to denigrate. I don't think that's allowed. You can try the WP:RS/N to see what they say. I don't think it's relevant, since each report stands on its own merits, and in the absence of any RS to the contrary, such changes don't reflect any change in opinion. The opinions in each version are still accurate. If they made a scientific statement that was later proven to be wrong, that would be a different matter, but this is a different type of subject. They just emphasize different things and it is OR to speculate why they didn't include something. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

it's a simple factual statement intended to balance an inappropriately generalized statement that is currently presented. what's the problem? --Ludwigs2 07:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a very obvious attempt to make a novel synthesis from primary sources. Guy (Help!) 15:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

actually, no, as I can show. we have two (fairly indisputable) facts:

1. in 2004 and 2006 (AFAIK) the NSF used the phrase 'pseudoscientific belief' in this document.
2. in other years (AFAIK), and particularly in the most current revision of the document, the NSF did not use the phrase 'pseudoscientific belief'

The current way the quote is being handled on this page - The scientific consensus, as expressed by the National Science Foundation, has identified belief in ten subjects... - is implying that the NSF uses this phrasing consistently and continuously, which is a lie (per reference to those two indisputable facts above). Under wp:NPOV and wp:V we must attribute sources properly and in proper balance, therefore we need to specify that the language is inconsistent, otherwise we are giving the wrong impression.

If you have a valid problem with using proper attribution in this case, please state it now, otherwise I will be forced to re-enter my additions (and tag the phrase as failed verification and original research if my additions are reverted). --Ludwigs2 17:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the other years (besides 2004 and 2006) are a bit of a red herring. They are circumstantial evidence that the misquotation from the 2006 text is a misquotation, nothing more. Since this fact is already obvious in the first place we don't need them. What if we suddenly find the following in introduced species:

In 1983, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave its support to the idea that aliens live among us on Earth. [Footnote to news story about E.T. getting an Oscar]

Do we then add another sentence like the following?

However, in the following years they did no such thing.

Obviously not. The right thing to do is to remove the original misquotation. If it served any useful purpose it should be replaced by something that makes sense. Hans Adler 17:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

well, I agree with you, obviously, but that implies we have the conditions for reasoned discussion. Since reasoned discussion is currently impossible - i.e., proponents are going to continue battling for the inclusion of this misrepresentation regardless of what gets said - the next best thing is to insist on clear, proper and specific attribution. We can't dispose of the misrepresentation that way, but at least we can put it in some kind of proper perspective which minimizes the schlockiness of it. --Ludwigs2 18:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you are too pessimistic. We just need to implement the text proposed by Doc James. I wasn't pushing it because I first wanted to know whether DreamGuy's huge revert would stick. Apparently almost nobody cares, and so it does. Let's just propose the Doc James text formally. Hans Adler 18:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

lol - you're probably right. ok, I'm fine with Doc James' wording. what's the best approach for implementing it?

Useful cat

There is harm in removing the cat. The cat is a guide for the readers. QuackGuru (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I clicked on your link because I expected that it would take me to a place where someone explains how categorising this article under Category:Pseudoscience can be useful to the reader. That is not the case. So please explain why you took part in the edit war. Hans Adler 20:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm also confused about how a category that doesn't apply is useful to any reader. please explain that as well. --Ludwigs2 20:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

This cat does apply to this article. The belief in ghosts is pseudoscience. It is the case that a cat can be useful for the reader. A reader might want to read other similar subjects. That is why there are cats in most articles on Wikipedia. QuackGuru (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The belief in ghosts is no more a pseudoscience than the belief in trolls or unicorns. Some people have built a pseudoscience around ghosts, but they don't dominate the topic. Using categories to label an article disparagingly is not acceptable anyway. Hans Adler 20:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

A cat is not used to label an article disparagingly. I previously explained the purpose for the cat and how it is helpful for the reader. QuackGuru (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I clicked on your link because I expected that it would take me to a place where someone explains how categorising this article under Category:Pseudoscience can be useful to the reader. That is not the case. So please explain why you took part in the edit war. Hans Adler 20:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is categorised in Category:Ghosts, which itself is in Category:Paranormal, which is in Category:Pseudoscience. Given the general context of some editors here trying to turn this article about a basic topic that has/had some prominence in all known human cultures throughout the ages, has been extremely influential on the arts, etc. into an article that talks almost exclusively about hocus pocus such as spiritism and "ghost hunting", this seems to fit the general pattern.

I note that several other editors have also added the same category without any convincing explanation today:

• [4] BullRangifer (talk · contribs · logs · block log) "per Psi ArbCom and NPOV guideline 2"
• [5] Guyonthesubway (talk · contribs · logs · block log) "Undid revision 350182503 by Hans Adler (talk) Easy to understand... if hunting them is pseuodscience, so is defining them."
• [6] Verbal (talk · contribs · logs · block log) "Undid revision 350234607 by Hans Adler (talk) until the category system is fixed, no harm in making it explicit"
• [7] QuackGuru (talk · contribs · logs · block log) "The cat is to help readers."

The revert by Verbal was probably the most frivolous. When you push a borderline appropriate category into an article, one that is already implied through the category tree, and you do it after it has twice been removed on the same day, then "no harm in making it explicit" is just about the most inane justification I can imagine.

This is transparent category pushing by a tag team that apparently tries to extend the scope of the Arbcom decision on pseudoscience to this entire article, rather than just to the small fractions to which it rightfully applies.

As a result of this ruthless warring, the article is now protected (on the wrong version, obviously), making it harder than necessary to replace BullRangifer's misleading NSF quotation by a sane consensus version. Hans Adler 20:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

And furthermore, that quotation is US-centric and we should adopt a global point of view as well as a historical one. In any case, we should not allow a pseudoscientific viewpoint of our folklore and tradition to develop per WP:NPOV. Cenarium (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

RFC

I am going to launch one. First time I have done it, so bear with me if I screw up. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Is this a pseudoscience topic?

1. Should this article should be categorized as a pseudo-science topic?
{{collapse top|original second question}}2. How much emphasis should be given to the spiritualist / skeptic debate as opposed to other aspects of the subject? <small>collapsed because mixing two questions in one RfC can confuse results, and there is no pollable answer to this second question. --Abd (talk) 03:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC) </small>

I concur with the above comment by Adb, so am withdrawing the request for comment on the second question. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC) {{collapse bottom}} Aymatth2 (talk) 20:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

{{collapse}} hid everything beneath it at wp:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy. As User:Abd might be taking a break, I've gone ahead and "fixed" it.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 14:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• This article is obviously not primarily a fringe article. Ghosts (not necessarily belief in ghosts) are part of mainstream culture, have been so since practically forever, and that in practically all cultures throughout the world. There is some fringe going on around ghosts, probably most of it pseudoscience (some of it is religious fringe). I am a strong supporter of WP:UNDUE and WP:ONEWAY. There is some ghost-related fringe that is sufficiently notable to be mentioned here, but I reject all attempts by the pseudoscience group (BullRangifer, Verbal, QuackGuru and some others) to make the fringe aspects take over this article. I also reject the categorisation of this article as pseudoscience. Via Category:Ghosts it is already categorised in Category:Paranormal. Most of paranormal stuff is pseudoscience, which is why the paranormal category is a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience. Therefore this article is already in a sub-subcategory of the pseudoscience category. Given how marginal the pseudoscience aspects are in relation to the entire vast topic of ghosts (for most of history and in most cultures there is simply no relation), this is just the right level of indirection. Hans Adler 21:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

1. Hans, I agree with most of what you've said in this volumous debate, but I don't agree that most of the "paranormal" is "pseudoscience" unless you define it that way. Any physical manifestation of spiritual power or godly power, including all miracles (all the miracles in the bible, for example, and all the miracles associated with saints in the Roman church) are "paranormal" by definition. But none are testable, none claim to be scientific, and the idea that they are thereby "false-science" (pseudoscience) is just wrong. Read the wiki on science for the best definition of what things are claimed to be sciences (meaning natural sciences in this context), but are not. The power of prayer is not inherently scientifically testable (though some have attempted it) because there's no guarantee that God Almighty will cooperate. Basically it's the same with ghosts (they don't have to cooperate). The fact that they are claimed to affect the physical world is therefore not inherently a "scientific claim" unless they are claimed to effect the physically world reproducably, which I don't think is claimed by anyone! If not, they become like miracles and prayer. Sometimes you see them, othertimes not. But seeing them is not claimed by anyone to be gotten down to a "science." SBHarris 23:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am far from an expert on paranormal (as I mentioned above I didn't even know that's a noun), so I would be prepared to believe you. But it seems to me that quite a lot, quite possibly most, of the stuff in Category:Paranormal is in fact pseudoscience. Of course this may be due to accidents in our coverage or in the category structure. In any case this doesn't seem to affect my argument. Hans Adler 23:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

In that case, I'm not sure what your argument is. The words "paranormal" and "supernatural" are not used rigorously and perfectly (however much WP wants them to be), but the usual sense of them is that the supernatural is stuff that goes beyond physics: god, religous miracles/effects of prayer, spirits, and ghosts. It's not testable with scientific methods, sort of by definition, because these methods are based on physics, and also the supernatural entities are presumed to have the power to appear/work, or not (both of these fouling up reproducibility). In this sense, "ghost" on Wikipedia should be part of the supernatural.

As for paranormal, it basically has to do with the unexpected, but it's sometimes used to include all the supernatural, and sometimes reserved for all the unexpected BUT the supernatural. Poor definition! And not easily fixed! In the latter sense of "paranormal" we get all the scientifically-possible and physical, but not supernatural, stuff-- like aliens in saucers, ESP, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Most of this has problems with reproducibility also, since you can't just see Bigfoot or Gray Aliens, on demand.

However, beware of trying to use Wikipedia to define the English language (look at the article on matter and its TALK page, if you think you use Wikipedia this way). Beware of even using categories if you can't define the dang word!

Anyway, regardless of which of the possible definitions of paranormal you use, almost NONE of it is "pseudoscience." We reserve that to a small group of things that the proponents claim will work reliably (if it's not reproducible, it's not science), but which on testing, we find do not work (ala the James Randi tests). Like some claims of dowsing, homeopathy, and acupuncture. I don't even think astrology makes hard and fast and testable claims-- it's too wishy-washy. SBHarris 01:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there was a scientific test of astrology back in the 1980s. They got astrologers recommended by the American Astrological Association (or whatever) & agreed the arrangements with them. The whole thing was supervised by someone both sides trusted. The procedure was that the astrologers would be given a horoscope & 3 personality profiles, or vice versa. 1 was the correct one, the other 2 random. The astrologers predicted, modestly, that they'd identify the correct 1 about 1/2 the time. The scientists of course predicted 1/3. They actually got a little over 1/3, not statistically significant. This was reported in Nature, or Scientific American, I think. Peter jackson (talk) 10:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Request from nominator I strongly suggest to all who have been involved in debates on this page (I am included) to take a break, maybe take this page off their watchlist for a week, refrain from comment, and quietly learn what the broader community has to say on the issue. I should have put this request in before I launched the RFC. It is my first - a learning process. Let's get fresh views rather than rehash the stale arguments. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Bad idea to present two questions in one RfC. Suggest withdrawing the second question, people aren't responding to it anyway, and it's not designed to get a crisp answer. In fact, since it hasn't seen clear response, I'm going to collapse it with this edit. Aymatth2 is welcome to revert me, but if people start commenting on it, it can't then be deleted. As to arguments that have been presented before, arguments relevant to an RfC should be presented at the top of the RfC, or in it, as soon as possible, so that editors commenting are adequately informed as to the nature of the issue. At this point, the Not Pseudoscience side may have been adequately presented (if not, someone should add more), the Pseudoscience side hasn't shown up yet. They should not be discouraged from briefly making the case here. What's a problem is arguing back and forth, over and over. Thanks for starting the RfC. --Abd (talk) 03:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Abd. Agreed. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Not Pseudoscience. The topic of this article is not pseudoscience, as clearly defined in the pseudoscience article, the ArbComm finding, and the NSF reference. The NSF, interested in the prevalence of superstition and other nonscientific belief, in 2006 listed belief in ghosts as a "pseudoscientific belief," that was dicta; a single document cannot revise the English language, in particular when it defines the word itself in the standard way, which does not cover mere superstition or nonscientific belief! The NSF report neither intended nor took any pains to discover the consensus of scientists about pseudoscience and ghosts, it did not report on that; the survey was about public belief. By the loosest standard defined by ArbComm, allowing the use of the pseudoscience category, only a, strong, reliably reported consensus of scientists that "Ghosts" were "pseudoscience," i.e., non-science pretending to be science, as described in the definitions, would allow use. In spite of claims, the 2006 NSF report is a primary source on the "pseudoscience" issue, at most; and as to the Gallup poll, commissioned by the NSF, it's not independent, so the NSF report remains technically primary. I have, however, no objection to the use of noncontroversial statistics from the poll, primary sources may be used with caution. --Abd (talk) 00:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Not usually pseudoscience I think the general topic of ghosts is not pseudoscientific. It doesn't purport to rely on scientific principles; it doesn't use scientific topics in a non-standard way to explain things. It's the same reason the Bible isn't pseudoscience, since it's not relying on a claimed scientific foundation. However, I think that certain subtopics related to ghosts are pseudoscience... specifically "ghost hunter" type stuff where people go around with gaussmeters and laser thermometers and purport to produce empirical evidence of ghost presence. Gigs (talk) 03:57, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I was asked to comment by Aymatth2. I agree with Gigs: I think the topics is so far removed from science that it cannot be labeled pseudoscience. It's mysticism/religion/superstition or some such thing, none of which have any relation to science at all. Pseudoscience refers to things that pretend to be science. Some aspects of psychic research involving ghosts can conceivably be pseudoscience, like an attempt to design an experiment to prove them real, but that's not usually the way the subject is discussed. DGG ( talk ) 04:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Mostly not pseudoscience - my views would align with Gigs and DGG. I did edit this page a bit before but have ducked for cover with the torrent of words preceding this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Not Pseudoscience. While ghost "hunting", etc., might be pseudoscience, ghosts are not. The label better applies to that article, not to this one. This is folklore. Today is St. Patrick's Day, so I wonder when the Leprechaun article will be labelled as pseudoscience. Eastcote (talk) 11:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• The RfC above addressed this issue, we should follow the WP:RS. Verbal chat 12:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Not Pseudoscience. I remember dipping my toe in this article a few years back. The article itself is much better now, but I'm amazed to see that this debate is still going on! I think it's a mistake to see Wikipedia as a project to determine which things "really exist in the real world" by categorising them into things we have scientific evidence for and things which either don't claim to really exist or that make claims which have been described as "pseudoscience". It's just not an appropriate medium (haha). I don't personally believe in ghosts, but neither do I think that the history of how people have tried to study them somehow stains them with this "pseudoscience" label. The methods of investigating something should not be confused with the thing itself. Applying this label would also distract from the way in which ghosts most certainly DO exist, as an idea with a rich history in many cultures. RadioElectric (talk) 12:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Leaning towards Pseudoscience  : The article is full of references to 'Ghost Huntling' like tools. How is ritual binding, reburial, and the Spiritualist movement any different, except with the tools of the period? All are attemtpts to reconcile the mystical with physical tools. Is a seance really any different than EVP? Guyonthesubway (talk) 15:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "The article is full of" such references? Really? I can see such references only in the following two sections: "Spiritualist movement" and "Scientific skepticism". That's precisely where they belong. The rest seems to be perfectly fine in this respect. The two pseudoscience sections (4 and 2 paragraphs, respectively) are a bit too long in comparison to the rest of the article, but that doesn't mean the entire article is contaminated with the topic. Hans Adler 16:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• Depends - If the main article is refactored along the lines of Ghost (belief) then pseudoscience doesn't apply. But if it broadly includes concepts such as Ghost train (spiritual entity) ("recorded events of ghost trains appearing in places where no tracks ever existed") and Spirit photography ("attempts to record images of ghosts") then pseudoscience certainly applies. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
• As somebody pointed out, the article is ultimately in a subcategory of the pseudoscience category, so adding the pseudoscience category itself would be superfluous. On the broader issue, I've already expressed the opinion that a broad interpretation of the term "pseudoscience" is less artificial and creates fewer problems, but I can live with a more parsimonious interpretation. --TS 19:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• Do not put in Category:Pseudoscience, and remove the giant box about it from the talk page. First, the subject matter of this article has little to do with science. Attempts to use supposedly scientific tools to address the subject (such as modern Ghost hunting) could be accurately described as pseudoscience, but this article is overwhelmingly about the history and varieties of folk belief. Pre-scientific beliefs of the ancients are not "pseudoscience" and it is an abuse of language to call them such. Second, the category system has a hierarchy. To the extent that ghosts are related to pseudoscience, it is as an example of paranormal phenomena, for which there is a distinct sub-category. We don't shove individual articles into a parent category when they belong in a sub-category instead. Finally, a footnote in a single report from a single body (however respected) is not the source of "scientific consensus", especially when the focus of the report was not defining what is or is not pseudoscience. The NSF was reporting on social trends related to science, and the report should be used for that information, not for classifications so incidental that they weren't even in the main text. Discussion of belief in ghosts being considered pseudoscientific belongs in the article, but with sources that discuss that more explicitly, not just one seemingly chosen for the prestige of the publisher rather than for substantial relevance. Note that ArbCom did not cite the NSF article, but the box placed above earlier this month (long after the ArbCom ruling, and not by anyone associated with ArbCom) makes it sound like ArbCom has endorsed the particular designation of topics from that article. (The unmodified version of the box can be viewed at Talk:Pseudoscience.) It is inappropriate to put up a non-standard talk page notice in an attempt to sway a content dispute. (Side note: The recent addition of the category to Witchcraft should also be removed. It is even more ridiculous there than it is here.) --RL0919 (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• • It will still be in the PS category even if the PS category tag isn't on the page. The box isn't about the category, but about covering pseudoscience, and this article covers pseudoscience in relation to Ghosts quite clearly. Verbal chat 22:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not Pseudoscience By all means, there is plenty of scope for articles which relate to ghosts which would fall under pseudoscience, such as ghost hunting. Pseudoscience has a particular meaning which we should not maintain an understanding of which departs from establishedusage. Unomi (talk) 01:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Mostly not pseudoscience the "spiritualism" and "scientific skepticism" sections deal with pseudoscience-related aspects of the subject. The rest is spiritual or superstitious, mythological, literary, etc. The stuff about the NSF study could be moved to the scientific skepticism section. I find Kim D. Petersen's conclusion that the "religious" argument "fails, since there is a claim of interaction between the physical and spiritual world" unpersuasive. The assertion that Jesus walked on water also describes such an interaction, but IMO most people would nonetheless consider such a belief to be religious. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 01:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• some parts of it, specifically Ghost#Scientific_skepticism and Ghost#Spiritualist_movement. I'll support Hans in that the arbitration case does not cover the whole article, just the parts that deal with actual pseudoscience (and, of course, any edits that deal with pseudoscientific stuff anywhere in the article). Come on, this is common sense. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Enric, the question is whether or not the entire article should be categorized as pseudo-science. We can't categorize just the bit that deal with a few hundred ghost-hunting cranks and skeptics, but have to categorize the whole article, which could be a bit insulting to the 1.5 billion or so Hindus and Buddhists who believe in ghosts as a basic part of their religion (admittedly their views at present get less coverage than the cranks and skeptics). What is your recommendation? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is what I suggest, we spin off the pseudoscience bits into child articles. This would ensure there is a more clearcut demarcation. Unomi (talk) 04:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

If any of them don't define ghosts as the disembodied spirits or souls of the dead, they should be exempted from the category. (Casper the Ghost, little children at Halloween, etc.) Others which use the regular definition of ghost deserve the categorization per NPOV Guideline 2 and NSF. It is those aspects that are classed as "pseudoscientific beliefs" by NSF. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

BR, the stuff about disembodied spirits of the dead is not pseudoscience either, when it's presented as a supernatural phenomenon and not a scientific one. My grandmother believed in ghosts because (she told me) she had personally seen one, of my deceased grandfather, sometime after he died. She was not a scientific person, she didn't care at all about science or whether her "ghost" had a scientific explanation, she was somewhat religious, and it's just ordinary common sense to understand her "ghost" belief as having been spiritual and/or religious rather than as pseudoscientific. That is the type of ghost most of the article is about. I wish you would stop overreaching with your push poll about the NSF study. The NSF calls something pseudoscience to distinguish it from science when it claims to be science. It doesn't attempt to distinguish pseudoscience from something that makes no claim at all to being scientific.

Unomi, I think completely splitting out the pseudoscience bits into a separate article isn't going to work--a top-level article has to address all the relevant aspects. However, the pseudoscience stuff is possibly overrepresented in the current version and could be scaled back a bit. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 07:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that the NSF statement doesn't claim that ghosts (or any of the other in the list of ten) are pseudoscience. I don't know why people keep getting confused over this. Everything gets twisted into a discussion of pseudo-science, when the NSF statement under discussion is about "pseudoscientific beliefs", not about pseudo-science. Of course they're related, but when we use a source, we must not misquote it. The NSF was concerned about how people come to hold pseudoscientific beliefs and described why. Then they listed ten examples of pseudoscientific beliefs, not ten items that are "obvious pseudoscience", to use the NPOV and ArbCom wording in Guideline 1. I even have a thread on my talk page where you are welcome to come and discuss this in a casual and friendly manner. There I have described in detail my understanding of this matter. In fact, it's entirely possible to hold a pseudoscientific belief in something that isn't strictly a pseudoscience. Now doesn't that make you curious? BTW, please sign in. Using an IP in this manner is against policy. It also lessens your credibility. IPs aren't taken seriously here. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

IPs aren't taken seriously here?! When did that happen? Unomi (talk) 08:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Didn't you lecture me about AGF recently? Something about enforcing it? If you believe this IP has an account and simply doesn't log in for some reason, WP:SPI is the place to go. If you on't have sufficient evidence for that, you are supposed to shut up. Character assassination is not an acceptable alternative. Hans Adler 09:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"Character assassination"??? I only admonished the IP to sign in. I didn't say anything incivil or about the IPs character, and I still replied to the IP's comments. Me thinks you are overreacting. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

How is an IP user who does not have, and does not want to have, a user name, supposed to sign in? You could have told the IP to create an account, but you simply assumed that the IP already has one. Perhaps you thought the IP is a user who doesn't want to act under their usual name, i.e. basically a sock? In any case that wasn't OK. Hans Adler 18:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

BR, belief in ghosts (or in anything else) can only be pseudoscientific if the belief is presented as a scientific belief. It's an overreach when you claim that the NSF "pseudoscience" label applies to any beliefs when they are not presented as scientific, and that's why you're having such disagreements with various other editors. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 08:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Mere belief in an idea like time cube or parapsychology cannot be pseudoscience UNLESS you claim it is a science - that's why "pseudoscience" category tags should be removed from ghost hunting, ghost hunters don't claim it is a sceince. Oh wait a minute the tags are removed anyway. Never mind. Thank you!!24.91.158.85 (talk) 14:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

66.., that's too simplistic an understanding of my POV on the subject. Go to my talk page where I detail my view. If it's not a falsifiable statement, it doesn't qualify for accusations of pseudoscience, and even if it does, it doesn't necessarily qualify. It is the falsifiability aspect which makes a statement a potentially scientific statement. There isn't any black or white thinking here. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

In this case I agree with BullRangifer about the result, for a change. (I don't agree with the argument. That doesn't seem to make sense.) There is no one generally accepted definition of pseudoscience, only many reasonable ones, and they are generally up to interpretation. But there seems to be general agreement that ghost hunting is normally practice of pseudoscience. Whether we have sufficiently strong sources for this is another matter. I didn't immediately find something that would have allowed me to put ghost hunting on List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. Hans Adler 14:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Guys, it's already on category "Paranormal", which is a subcategory of "Pseudoscience". It's already categorized as pseudoscience. If you don't like that, then make separate articles for Ghost (belief) and Ghost (paranormal). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The more I look at the Category:Paranormal the more it seems as though it shouldn't be a child of Category:Pseudoscience. There are a great number of articles that inappropriately become grandchildren of Pseudoscience for that reason. Witness Afterlife, Dragon, Xian_(Taoism), Category:Fictional_ghosts, Category:Ghost films and many many more. Category:Pseudoscience seems to have been neglected badly and lacks proper subcategories which the truly pseudoscientific articles could be attached to, but this overly broad inheritance of Category:Paranormal seems to be in error. Unomi (talk) 12:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Category:Fictional_ghosts and Category:Ghost films aren't paranormal subjects. They don't belong in the Psi category. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

That's normal, we have that with many subcategories and trying to fix is hopeless. It's not really clear what categories are, but they certainly don't define a hierarchical ontology or anything like that. Except for the few categories that are primarily perceived as labelling (e.g. pseudoscience, murderer, terrorist), they are really no more than a navigation tool. E.g. CBM's tools that maintain the mathematics articles rely on categories because the mathematics project traditionally doesn't apply its project banner to unrated articles. This only works because it cuts off subcategories of subcategories etc. at some point and CBM manually excludes certain sub-subcategories that lead very far outside mathematics. Hans Adler 13:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant and frivolous comment: I wonder what the Dalai Lama would have to say? He is, after all, a leading expert on the subject. I suspect he would just laugh and shake his head, and agree that attempts to use machines to detect ghosts are indeed pseudo-science. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

We could create Category:Paranormal pseudoscience (subcategory of both Pseudoscience and Paranormal), and remove Paranormal from Pseudoscience. (of course, since the current Ghost article contains both kinds of paranormal, it would be listed at both categories :P ) --Enric Naval (talk) 14:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Not Pseudoscience. The arguments posted against the pseudo classification above are coherent, even if they all seem to be rooted in an agnostic perception that while intelligent isnt really up to date with the research conducted in this field.

Approaching this from a scientific perspective, the article would not even be partially pseudo science if it were much more positive about the scientifically demonstrable existence of ghosts or at least ghost like incarnate spirits. Scientists have been able to verify their existence with repeatable experiments. Researchers have consistently found positive results for over a century now. But only in the past decade or so has the methodology been refined to the point where no room is left for sceptics to plausibly argue for non supernatural natural explanations; the triple blind protocol pioneered by Archie Roy is especially impressive in this regard. You can read a summary of the recent quantitative work in the first couple of pages of this paper over at the Windbridge Institute. You're need journal or at least Scopus access to read most of the actual research papers, but you can see at least the abstract of one of the triple blind studies here at ScienceDirect

Im not proposing we distress wiki skeptics by integrating the actual science into the article. The Holy Bible does in several places imply that the sprits mediums contact arent really the souls of dead folk but deceptive entities, possibly fallen angels. But one has to question whether its encyclopaedic to allow a skeptic source to verify the claim in the articles lede that "such efforts are generally held to be pseudoscientific". It would be more NPOV to omit the problem sentence or if we dont mind a litle tautology to qualify it as "...held to be pseudoscientific by skeptics." FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comment + Oppose: I would like to remind everyone that this question is about categorizing the topic. Categories are not labels we apply to topics because we believe they deserve to be labeled that way. Categories are labels we apply to topics because they are helpful to the reader. Would someone interested in learning about ghosts find it helpful to look at a category page that contains things like magnetic healing bracelets, rife machines and orgone boxes, AIDS denialism, phrenology...? Unlikely. Compare that with Category:Spiritualism, which someone interested in ghosts would find very apros pos. This isn't about labeling the concept of ghosts as pseudoscientific (which is the main purpose of the proponents); this is about creating a proper category structure that readers will find helpful and appropriate. --Ludwigs2 15:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I support Ludwigs2's view. See Creationism, Evolution and Creation–evolution controversy. The first is in religious categories, the second in scientific categories, and the one in between, mentioned by both parents, is under "Creationism", "Evolution and religion" and "Intelligent design controversies". We seem to be missing an article such as Ghost research that discusses the research mentioned by FeydHuxtable and the skeptics view of such research. Maybe if we had that, with a short summary in Ghosts, we could shift the pseudo-science war over to that one, and free up this one for badly needed expansion to cover Ghost concepts in non-western cultures, religions, books, movies etc. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Good points – from that point of view the pseudo cat would be useful to some if the article ever includes significant coverage of the science, as some do admittedly reject it. But as well stated by others the existing article is much more about the cultural / historical aspect etc. Im not sure whether its worth the possible drama to start the ghost research article however as skeptic wikipedians may object to a fair and neautral presentation of the very strong science in this area. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking of starting one, checked and found Paranormal#Paranormal research. The content in this article is a fork. Material that is not in Paranormal#Paranormal research should be moved there, and content in this article reduced to a short summary. That fixes the problem, as far as I am concerned. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• A technical trick: it is quite easy to automatically include the summary of a sub-article in the main article. That discourages forking. Example from Indian ghost movie:

Indian ghost movies are popular not just in India but in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and other parts of the world. Generally the movies are based on the experiences of modern people who are unexpectedly exposed to ghosts. Some Indian ghost movies, such as the comedy horror film Chandramukhi, have been great hits, dubbed into several languages. They usually draw on traditional Indian literature or folklore, but in some cases are remakes of Western movies, such as Anjaane, based on Alejandro Amenábar's ghost story The Others.

Click on "Edit" to see how this is done. Not difficult. Any changes to the intro to the Indian ghost movie essay will be automatically included on the parent pages. With an article like Ghost that seems so controversial and with so much risk of forking, this is a good approach. Fight the wars in the sub-articles, and let the main article automatically reflect the current position on each topic. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

damn. I have to say, that's super-cool. does the colon restrict the transclusion to the first section or the first paragraph? --Ludwigs2 02:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The sub-article brackets the content that goes in the main article with <onlyinclude> and </onlyinclude> markup. That is, the sub-article says what should be included when it it treated like a template. Check the sub-article source. This approach does not exactly conform to general policy on summary articles, but I think is useful for ones like this that somehow have become controversial. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:41, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

This is in fact a very bad practice, mainly because it gives a misleading impression of what previous versions of the article are saying. Imagine that you transcluded a summary into an article on January 2009, and that summary got completely rewritten a year later (January 2010). People looking at the old version of the article as it looked on January 2009 will see the summary from January 2010, which may completely contradict other parts of the article! This is also true for templates such as infoboxes and navboxes, but this is not so much of a problem. But when people start transcluding actual text, then things rapidly fall apart in terms of being able to trace the history and development of an article (unless you cross-reference with the history of the template, but how do you cross-reference with the history of a summary transcluded from the lead of another article?). Carcharoth (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not pseudoscience, and Category:Pseudoscience should be removed. Ghosts (in the sense relevant to this article) are folklore/mythical beings, like witches, gnomes and so on (although they have a more important role in modern culture). There ain't no such thing as a 'pseudoscientific being' per se, as pseudoscientific refers to the claim that a concept is scientific or supported by scientific findings contrary to the scientific consensus. While beings are just beings, in themselves they can't be characterized as pseudoscientific, even though some considerations on them are. It would be unacceptable for us, on the basis that a concept has been studied/analyzed/considered in a pseudoscientific manner, to characterize or even categorize it as such; we should do so only if it has been considered only or most notably and massively in a pseudoscientific context (by extension) - which is clearly not the case for either ghosts, reincarnation, haunted houses or witches. Although I reckon this paper (subject of discord) is a bit misleading in this respect, it restates the definition of pseudoscience as "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility", so it is evidently not directly applicable to beings, a being is not a claim ! and per above, neither by extension. Nonetheless they indeed refer to beliefs in those as pseudoscientific, but it is not clear what they mean by 'pseudoscientific belief'. If they meant by that, belief in pseudoscience, then it would be too much a shortcut especially for ghosts, reincarnation, haunted houses, witches, as they're not purely pseudoscientific concepts and believing in them doesn't imply believing in them as scientifically valid; and indeed that (pseudo)scientific aspect was quasi-irrelevant hundreds of years ago (while not relevant to the paper, it is to us as we must take a historical perspective). So I don't consider the source to be valid for this, as plenty of other sources consider those subjects without any reference to pseudoscience, and don't refer to them or categorize them as such. To put it in another way, pseudo-scientific does not mean extra-scientific. Ghosts, reincarnation, haunted houses, witches, are extra-scientific concepts (in their physical reality), but can't be described as pseudo-scientific on their own. Actually scientific research has been done on those subjects (most obviously historical research, social research, etc), and it's clear the cultural impact is massively more important than any pseudoscientific consideration of them. So those are in no way essentially pseudoscientific concepts; they originated in folklore/tradition from hundreds or thousands of years ago, and science, if existent, was irrelevant to them; pseudoscience developed around them in modern times and are only a small aspect of it. We need to put things into perspective, per our policy of neutral point of view, and it would be incompatible with it to push those subjects as pseudoscientific or the pseudoscientific aspects or them (which appeared very recently on a historical scale and are ridiculously unimportant compared to the cultural significance). As an illustration of why we shouldn't classify 'targets' of pseudoscience as pseudoscience themselves, consider that some people believe that the earth is flat, should we then categorize earth in pseudoscience ? and TVs, because they allow communication with dead people ? Obviously no, and the same goes with respectively, fictional, (genuinely) scientific or cultural concepts (examples in order: Parallel universe (fiction), Wormhole, Will-o'-the-wisp, all subject of pseudoscientific considerations). On the other hand, modern views of telepathy and astrology, channeling, extrasensory perception, clairvoyance and communication with dead, are considered pseudoscientific theories, though they also have a historical and cultural significance that needs to be covered with due weight. Cenarium (talk) 05:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Further comment in the section #Lead, on the question of belief in particular. Cenarium (talk) 20:52, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not Pseudoscience per points made by Cenarium and others above. --EPadmirateur (talk) 16:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not pseudoscience. See my post below, which I wrote before I saw this. Beliefs in ghosts and lucky numbers and the power of black cats are superstitions. Nothing to do with science or pseudoscience. Pseudoscience concerns the alleged subversion of scientific method. It's not about fearing seven years bad luck when you break a mirror. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 11:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Ugh I didn't even realize that the Pseudoscience wars were still ongoing... everyone who is on the pro or anti pseudoscience crusade should be permanently banned from the project. Dlabtot (talk) 04:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
  • BullRangifer moved my response to a new section #Resumption of discussion about NSF and RfC without even the basic decency of leaving a pointer here. Hans Adler 07:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
  • In addition, this way of expressing your disapproval of the mere fact that there is a conflict is not acceptable because it is in no way constructive and treats an asymmetric situation as if it were symmetric. A small number of editors are on an obvious crusade to spread the word "pseudoscience" all over Wikipedia, including to articles where it simply doesn't fit. Unfortunately they are being enabled by a large number of editors who don't look at the matters at hand – presumably because they are thinking in terms of a "pro-science, anti-pseudoscience" camp and a "pro-pseudoscience, anti-science" camp and make incorrect assumptions about which is which. Pushing indiscriminate inflammatory terminology for irrational beliefs into an encyclopedia is not pro-science/anti-pseudoscience. It is anti-science, because it denies the basic premise of science to stick to precise language and to give reality precedence over one's own wishes about reality. (Such as: "I want everything I don't like to be called 'pseudoscience' because I am emotionally attached to the term.") It is neither pro- nor anti-pseudoscience. And if you think that trying to contain this nonsense is banworthy, I must ask you to pursue one of the appropriate avenues. Hans Adler 08:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I stand by my comment. Whether you think it is 'not acceptable' is unimportant to me. Dlabtot (talk) 13:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• Not pseudoscience I don't see how this article can be considered pseudoscience when there is little science in it, good or bad. The article stats off by saying 'according to traditional belief' which sets the tone for the rest of the article. It isn't an article about a fringe view of science or a poor scientific method, it's an article about various belief systems, legends and stories. Calling it pseudoscience elevates the discussion beyond it's stature. Weakopedia (talk) 08:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Not pseudoscience in general (if I shudder in the dark because I think there's a scary monster under the bed, am I being pseudoscientific?). There may be some purported methods of ghost-hunting that could be called pseudoscience if the reliable sources do, but I suppose the question then becomes: who cares? People aren't going to think it's good or bad or true or false because someone somewhere has called it pseudoscience. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Is the Paranormal pseudoscience

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Is_the_paranormal_pseudoscience.3F. Unomi (talk) 05:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

"Spiritualist movement" section

The section on Ghost#Spiritualist movement shows Spiritualism and Spiritism as the main articles, but does not summarize these articles. It is a fork. I propose to a) make sure any content here is copied to the appropriate place in one of those articles and b) replace this section with the lead sections of those two articles, which appear to provide reasonable summaries. Then we can periodically check for significant changes to the leads of those child articles and update this parent article to reflect those changes. We should avoid adding content to this section that is not in one of the child articles - it should summarize them. Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• The above proposal seems uncontroversial. I will wait a day or two, and if no objections are raised will go ahead. It is in line with policy, and I think will be a real improvement. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I have made the change. Good to get rid of a fork. See the discussion of the next proposal: Spiritualism and Spiritism do not seem to be about ghosts in the conventional British sense of hauntings or apparitions. The ghosts are mobile but not visible, communicate only through table tappings and ouija boards, and seem to have no malevolent intent. They just answer questions and give advice. But in the broader sense of spirits of the dead communicating to the living, I think the topics are relevant. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:00, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Globalization

At present this article is heavily biased towards a European (largely British) view of the subject. European culture is important, since with the Americas it covers more than 20% of the world population, but ghosts in other cultures should be given reasonable coverage as well. Belief in ghosts is probably strongest (and most sophisticated) in areas where it is part of the accepted religion. The present structure of Terminology – Typology – History – By culture – Depiction in the arts is awkward to maintain if other traditions are given equal weight. I propose to rearrange the content by region:

• Typology
• Middle East (Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Arab world …)
• Western tradition
  • Terminology
  • History (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance to Romanticism)
  • Modern period (Spiritualism, Spiritism, Scientific scepticism)
• Asian traditions
  • Early Vedic beliefs
  • Hindu beliefs
  • Buddhist beliefs (India, Tibet, China, Japan) ...
• Pre-Colombian Americas (Inca, Maya, Aztec, Navajo …)
• African traditions (Yoruba, Igbo …)
• Other traditions (Voodoo, Australian aboriginals, Polynesia …)
• Depiction in the arts …

I put the Middle East ahead of Europe because of the influence that the Mesopotamian and Egyptian beliefs had on Greek and Roman beliefs. The existing content would be preserved under the new headings, and the new sections can be started with summaries from existing articles such as Chindi. Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 16:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

E.g. pretas, which are often called ghosts, but don't really fit in with the description in the lead. Peter jackson (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I would include pretas. The lead describes European-style ghosts, and emphasizes visibility and solitary haunting. I prefer a more general definition, something like: "the spirit or essential being of a person who lives on after death, and continues to interact with the living". Those attributes are found in most cultures. A hungry ghost would fit that definition, as would ghosts in Babylonian, Egyptian, Navajo etc. beliefs, none of which are visible. Haunting is common to several cultures, but is also by no means universal. In some cultures ghosts roam around freely, and in others they live in a netherworld and exert their influence remotely. To me, the similarities and differences between different ghost concepts would make the article much more interesting. Personally, I find European-style ghosts rather dull. They mostly just hang around aimlessly, acting spooky. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:28, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Even that doesn't really fit pretas. They're just 1 of the realms of rebirth. You're no more & no less the same person if you're reborn as one than if you're reborn as something else. Peter jackson (talk) 09:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

There must be some way to word it... The general idea is that the soul or spirit leaves the body, continues to exist in a different state from that of living people, and can interact with people. It gets worse. See Dreaming (spirituality) and Dreamtime. This seems vaguely similar to Buddhist views of rebirth, but more abstract. I think it belongs too. My instinct is to not worry much about the lead until the article has more content on different cultures, then work out a formulation that fits them all.

I suppose a radically different approach would be to say that "Ghost" is an English word, and describes a British cultural concept. Chindi, Goryō, Hantu, Ikiryō, Obambo, Preta and so on describe different concepts in different cultures. All mention of non-British ghost-like concepts should be stripped from the article, as should Spiritualism and Spiritism, and all non-British articles should be removed from the "ghost" category. I can't see that being accepted. I would have no problem with an article specifically about British ghosts, but think we have to have an umbrella article covering related concepts around the world, and Ghost is the natural title. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The English language isn't confined to our country, & I don't think you'd get consensus to exclude Americanisms. Do they have a particularly different idea of ghosts anyway?

"The general idea is that the soul or spirit leaves the body, continues to exist in a different state from that of living people, and can interact with people." But in Buddhism that isn't confined to ghosts. Peter jackson (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

American ghosts may be a bit more diverse than British ones, given the many origins of the people there, although I suspect they are mostly similar. I think India has the largest English-speaking population, and India is full of a vast variety of ghosts, some of which are not at all British. Anyway, I am sure it is not practical to exclude non-British ghosts from the article, and would be against doing so.

I see your point on Buddhism. I am no expert, and maybe this is hair-splitting, but I had the sense that after a period of confusion the spirit is either reborn in this world, goes to one of the heavens or hells, achieves Nirvana or becomes a ghost. It is only the ghosts that interact with people. Maybe there are different Buddhist schools with different beliefs. One solution is simply to give a rough definition in the lead, followed by a clarification of Buddhist beliefs, and perhaps other beliefs that do not quite fit the rough definition. But do you agree that the article should be expanded and restructured to cover un-British ghosts better? And is the regional breakdown correct? At first I was thinking of breakdown by school of thought, so Vedic, Hindu and Buddhist beliefs would be in one group, and perhaps West African, Caribbean and Brazilian in another group. But that gets very tricky with cross-fertilization issues. Another way would be by type of ghostly existence: tied to place of death, underworld, mobile, stage in rebirth cycle. But that gets into original research and lumps together totally unrelated cultures. I think regional is simplest. Views? Aymatth2 (talk) 19:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Your sense is basically correct, except that the period of confusion you mention, the intermediate state, is recognized by Mahayana but not Theravada, & contrariwise the Mahayana but not the Theravada recognizes another possibility, the asuras. Your general suggestion sounds constructive to me. Peter jackson (talk) 09:44, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

However, the next sentence isn't correct. There are plenty of stories in Buddhist literature of people interacting with gods, for example. Peter jackson (talk) 09:46, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

If there are no objections in the next day or two, I will go ahead with the rearrangement, which should encourage editors to expand the article to give a more global view. I will not drop any content, but will shift content to fit the new heading structure, and will add some summaries from existing articles as a starter. The result will still be heavily biased towards British ghosts, but should at least encourage addition of content on ghosts in other cultures. To make the change easy to follow (assuming no objections) I will do the job in a series of steps. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The approach of changes that "should encourage editors to expand the article to give a more global view" is inheretly flawed, as I have pointed out before. It tends to turn a perfectly structured article into listcruft just out of a misguided drive for "globalization". What we should do instead is let ourselves be guided by other good tertiary sources on the topic.

I find the present article structure is well thought-out, except for the "by culture" section, which remains a bit out of place (and invites listcruft). Of course your proposal is driven by the same observation, but your proposed solution of raising the "By culture" section to h1 level, as it were, imho will only make things worse. Perhaps I misunderstand your intents, and perhaps you should prepare your version in a workpage so it can be commented upon, but I remain opposed to any approach that has an unreflected ideal of "globalization" for its own sake. Our chief guideline is WP:DUE, which does not require "globalization" but weight relative to notability. As a guideline for notability, we should look at the best examples of discussions of "ghosts" in tertiary sources. If you have a good example of such an article structured along a "by continent / by culture" layout, perhaps you can point it out and we can base further discussion on that example.

Perhaps this would be a good time to direct our attention to the spirit article, which is rather underdeveloped. Now "spirit" is a much wider concept that "ghost", and if there should be a "globalized" discussion anywhere, it probably belongs there. --dab (𒁳) 09:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Undue weight?

Thinking about Dbachmann's comment on WP:DUE, it strikes me that it does not all apply. The assertion "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject" is hard to dispute. But the next assertion "How much weight is appropriate should reflect the weight that is given in current reliable sources" is probably aimed more at cases where there is a dispute between different opinions on a single topic than cases where there are several independent topics, as is the case here. The article on Solar System gives roughly equal coverage of each planet, even though the amount written about Earth is vastly greater than the amount written about any other planet. A straight comparison of Google book result counts will give a misleading sense of relative importance. I suppose we could look for books on comparative ghost lore and see what emphasis they give to the different cultures. My guess is that they will vary wildly depending on the author's interests, but will generally give a much more global view than this article.

Another way to assess relative importance could be by number of people who hold each belief. I checked the article on major religious groups, which gives average estimates:

Religious category	Ghosts?	Millions of followers
Christianity	No	2,150
Islam	No	1,450
Hinduism	Yes	1.014
Folk religion / Deism	Yes	500
Buddhism	Yes	450

The column on Ghosts? is my own addition, based on my understanding of whether ghost belief is inherent in the religion or not. If, as seems plausible, ghost beliefs are strongest when they are sanctioned by the official religion, this points to the article giving much greater weight to ghosts in Hindu, Buddhist and folk religions.

Christianity and Islam present a problem. Presumably many Christians and Moslems have some belief in ghosts, but it is likely a residue of beliefs that existed before these religions were introduced. The Philippines and Poland are both largely Christian, but I doubt that their ghost beliefs have much in common. Similarly, ghost beliefs in Morocco and Malaysia are probably quite different. But ghost beliefs in the Philippines and Malaysia may have much in common.

The 2008 World population gives another way of judging relative importance.

Region	Population
Asia	4,054
Africa	973
Europe	732
Latin America and Carribean	577
North America	337
Oceania	30

If we assume that ghost believers are fairly evenly spread around the world, two thirds of the article should be about Asian beliefs. Numbers cannot be the deciding factor of course. The Solar System article does not concentrate on Jupiter because of its size, but tries to give a balanced survey of the planets and other aspects of the subject. There are many ways to consider balance in the article. But it seems clear that this version is extremely unbalanced. British ghosts should not take up over half the space. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I think if we are going to base content on percentages or numerical strength, then perhaps only 5% of this article should be in English, or the rest of "English" language Wikipedia for that matter. Native English speakers after all only account for 5% of the world population. There is an inherent bias in an English-language "pedia" toward Anglo-centric concepts and objects, which is why British ghosts take up over half the space. I'm OK with that. Eastcote (talk) 23:29, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

An article such as this that describes a global phenomenon should give a global view. Similarly, the articles on religion and major religious groups are not and should not be mostly about British religious sects. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I like your thinking. To give the article a global perspective while also giving each culture, country, language, whatever, due consideration, it might be a good idea to create topic fork articles for each group and then summarizing them in short sections here. That way they all get more or less the same coverage here, and each article can be of widely varying sizes. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm suggesting is that you don't hold back. If a section gets too large in relation to the others, then just split it off into a separate fork and leave a summary here. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That is what I would prefer. Make this article a balanced global overview, pointing to articles like Ghosts in Tibetan culture or Ghosts in British culture that give more detail. The sub-articles can grow freely depending on editor interest. But clearly splitting out any content is going to be controversial. It is probably easier to first expand to give more balance, then discuss splitting when the article starts to get unwieldy. But if I take a day or two to work up ten or twenty paragraphs on, say, Chinese ghosts, do I spread them out into the sections on Terminology, History, By Culture and Depiction in the Arts? Ditto with Hindu ghosts. The effect would be chaotic. I would much prefer a structure that keeps together the culture-specific material. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Rationale for "by culture" breakdown

The difficulty with the current structure is that the sections on Terminology and History reflect a largely British-American view. Terminology could, it is true, be expanded to cover other cultures. I made start adding the para that begins "Gwai (鬼) is the general Chinese term for ghost..." but realized that the section would turn into an incoherent jumble of definitions, so did not continue. The section on Antiquity is o.k., covering several ancient cultures. After that, the history is purely western. Again, it could be expanded to discuss evolution of ghost concepts in Buddhist etc. cultures, but that seems awkward. And then there is the jumble of random material under "By culture". The real choice, to me, is between a structure like:

• Terminology (Britain, China, India ...)
• History (Britain, China, India ...)
• By culture (Britain, China, India ...)

Or a structure like:

• Britain (terminology, history, beliefs)
• China ...
• India ...

The first structure will become increasingly incoherent as more global material is added, jumping back and forward from one culture to another, where the second structure allows for a more flexible treatment, with some cultures that have rich ghostlore treated in more depth, and others just given a short summary. I think there is room for a paragraph on Chindi, for example, but only a paragraph. Would that belong in the Terminology section? Seems awkward.

Another approach, which would have very little impact on the flow, would be to

• Remove the History L1 heading
• Bring Antiquity up to L1
• Add an L1 heading after Antiquity called Western Culture
• Add an L1 heading before Asia called Non-Western ghostlore (this is where the new content on Tibetan, Malayan, Philippine, Polynesian etc. ghosts would go)

I don't particularly like it, because a structure "Western - Other" seems a bit biased but would be o.k. with it. All the content remains the same, in the same sequence, but the headings are renamed to accurately reflect the material that follows them, which seems unexceptionable.

As for notability, there are huge numbers of sources discussing ghosts around the world. Obviously there will be more discussion of British-American ghosts in the English-language sources, but there is plenty of discussion of other cultures written in the English language. See this example. In deciding how much emphasis to give each culture we need some balance that considers extent and complexity of a particular set of beliefs, and brings out unusual and interesting beliefs. Reader interest is relevant, but we have to remember that many people in India, Africa and other parts of the world use the English Wikipedia. Clearly there should be much more coverage of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs, for example, probably as much as there is of Western beliefs, since the concepts are highly developed and basic to major world religions.

I am not so much interested in presenting a more global view just for the sake of it, although that is perhaps valid, as because there are many interesting non-western ghost beliefs, some widespread and highly developed, and adding this content would make the article much richer.

There is overlap with the spirit article, and I am not sure how best to deal with it. My view is that ghost are simply spirits that interact with living people. The ghost article should mainly discuss the interactions, while the spirit article should be more about beliefs about the experience of the spirit in the afterlife. That is a complex subject, and I don't have a fixed opinion. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

You make an important distinction which should be used to decide which content is appropriate for this article. Much of the current content isn't appropriate here, but is appropriate in the spirit article, or other related articles. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:48, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

pretas are often described as ghosts, but can't properly be called spirits as they have bodies. Peter jackson (talk) 15:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• I suppose a spirit could be clothed in a body... But this is straying far from the subject of whether the article should be restructured before being expanded to give a more global view, or whether the new content should be slotted into the existing structure. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I just cobbled together Ghosts in Chinese culture, a rough start on a rich and complex subject. I was sort of tempted to spread out the material into this article under the terminology, history etc. headings - it is in the same sequence - but that would be childish. There should be a summary in this article though. Where? Aymatth2 (talk) 16:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Ghosts in Chinese culture

Should Ghosts in Chinese culture be tagged as pseudo-science? I seem to have started on a series of "Ghosts in X culture", and Japan is probably next. I would like a standard agreement on the categories I should use. "Ghost" obviously, but what about "Pseudo Science"?

Off topic comment: many years ago I read Lafcadio Hearn's In Ghostly Japan. All I can remember is a tale of someone who has to climb a mountain. Hour after hour he gets higher and higher, getting more and more tired, and still there are endless slopes to climb. He asks his guide how much higher he has have to climb, and at the same time notices that the mountain is made entirely of human skulls. The guide explains that all the skulls are his, from previous existences. Ignore that. Nothing to do with the discussion. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Start OR reasoning and personal belief... Personally I'd think that most of the subject's historical aspects would be merely beliefs of a superstitious and religious nature held in the prescientific era and thus probably shouldn't be labelled as pseudoscientific beliefs. Such labelling is more appropriate for the modern expression of such beliefs, maybe even in that article. For something to be a pseudoscientific belief, it needs to be held because of muddled thinking that ignores or fails to understand scientific facts and thinking. That wasn't really a possibility in ancient times, but the label would be appropriate in modern times. End OR reasoning and personal belief.

Per policy, if a RS labels such ancient beliefs "pseudoscientific beliefs", it would be appropriate to cite it with due attribution, but unless it's from a national scientific body, it wouldn't justify placement of the whole article in Category:Pseudoscience. Note that our policies as stated in NPOV and the Psi ArbCom apply here. Application of these policies trumps personal beliefs and places our content on solid ground.

Per those policies, if a RS from a national scientific body made such a statement, then both mention and categorization would be required.

Personally I'd like to reserve categorization for modern day beliefs, rather than ancient beliefs. The Ghost article would have had much more to say about modern day pseudoscientific beliefs if such content had been allowed, but it's been kept out in violation of NPOV. That's why dividing the whole subject up, as I believe you've been doing very nicely, might be the best solution, even if it violates NPOV. Deal with the ancient beliefs as such in their own articles, and the modern beliefs in their own articles as pseudoscientific beliefs. BTW, I think much of what you're doing (I haven't examined it closely) seems to be a very valuable contribution to the encyclopedia. Keep up the good work! -- Brangifer (talk) 04:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, of course. Discussing pseudoscience at length in ghost would not be a violation of WP:UNDUE, and not doing it is a violation of NPOV? By arguing in this way you are merely exposing your obsession with pseudoscience. You should certainly notify the editors of Britannica. [8] E.g. here is their full Kids Encyclopedia article on the topic: "soul or specter of dead person capable of returning to world of the living; belief in ghosts based on notion that body and spirit are separable and spirit may live on after body’s death; ghosts thought to take many forms, sometimes as vague likeness of deceased or as if still alive; haunting of places or people by ghosts is thought to be connected with spirit’s strong past emotions in life, such as fear or remorse; in many societies funeral rites are believed to prevent spirits from returning to haunt the living; ghost stories still an important part of folklore worldwide, often told with grisly detail in dark or gloomy settings."

Our article automobile doesn't have its main focus on agricultural applications (tractors), computer isn't primarily about Apple computers, and the present article should not concentrate on pseudoscience, no matter what farmers, Apple fans or die-hard (anti-)spiritists may think. Hans Adler 15:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The beliefs are old, I suppose. Certainly older than Christianity. But they are held by several hundred million people today, who continue to practice the rituals. In that sense they are modern. Is religion pseudo-scientific? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The parts of it that make falsifiable claims that actually defy (aren't merely "beyond") our current scientific knowledge are potentially pseudoscientific.

Ultimately, as far as Wikipedia goes, it really makes no difference. Wikipedia doesn't judge such matters. Our job as editors is to document what is said in V & RS regardless of conflicting editorial opinions about the "truthiness" of the statements. Such opinions are essentially OR.

What's interesting is that the God of Christianity is usually defined in unfalsifiable terms, IOW lots of circular reasoning where the goalposts get moved as necessary to protect the beliefs of believers. Apparently one of the rules of the "game" is that it's not allowable to "pin God down". According to the Apostle Paul, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Heb. 11:1) Once one has "seen" something, it's no longer faith. It's evidence-based. It's fact. Ergo, belief in God is by faith and not by a falsifiable claim of "fact", so such belief isn't pseudoscientific or scientific, but non-science, religious, and metaphysical. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC announcement: Using the National Science Foundation as a reference at NPOV

See: Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view#RfC:_Using_the_National_Science_Foundation_as_a_reference

Please weigh in THERE on whether a statement by the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy. This is especially important for members of the Arbitration Committee, since it relates to an ArbCom ruling.

I'm announcing this here since it is very relevant to the RfC we have just held here. Please do not discuss this here. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead (NSF again)

(continued from #RfC: Context of NSF statement about belief in ghosts; see the Talk:Ghost/pseudoscience archive)

I've not been involved in this before, so I'm sorry if it has been talked to death already, but I want to say that the sentence citing a webpage from the National Science Foundation, and calling this "pseudoscientific belief" is really not appropriate for the lead. If you read the source, it's using the term "pseudoscience" broadly and inconsistently, and includes people thinking they have lucky numbers. Its own definition of "pseudoscience" is "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility." So if I were to claim that seven is my lucky number, it seems I would be "presenting a claim that appears to be scientific ..."

I think the authors meant "superstitious," which is not quite the same thing. The source is making an argument, rather than writing in an informed and disinterested way, because it's engaged in advocacy. In citing it so prominently our lead is also so engaged. And please don't interpret that to mean I think ghosts exist or that seven is a lucky number. :) I just think we need to limit the sprawl of the word "pseudoscience," because it's often used in ways that are meaningless, and this is one of them. People who won't walk under ladders or who read their horoscopes aren't making scientific claims in the first place. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 11:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

That's very interesting OR and personal opinion, none of which are becoming for an editor, or especially an admin, to use as substitutes for "verifiability, not "truth". Try some policy-based arguments, rather than assuming the supreme scientific organization in the USA made a mistake. That's a pretty bold assertion, and definitely OR. Also, when articles quote sources that are advocating a position, the article is not advocating, it's just following our sourcing policies. The quote must be attributed and framed properly, but this is perfectly proper. Since this is a subject governed by WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT, it is especially proper to give the mainstream POV prominence in the lead.

I really doubt that their use of the phrase "pseudoscientific beliefs" was a mistake they made every other year since 2000 (!), when "The National Science Board Members were closely involved in all phases of the preparation of this report." As Gwen Gale wisely put it (above), "Editors should keep in mind, reliable sources may not be true and often may be lacking, but en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability." That was immediately after stating that the "National Science Foundation is a reliable source." Now that's an opinion based on policy, and I can respect that.

Note that this discussion is totally muddled because the discussion focuses on the rigid, black/white definition of "pseudoscience" (which is a correct definition), but the NSF quote under discussion was about "pseudoscientific beliefs", which aren't exactly the same thing as "pseudo-science", even if related to it. Undocumented topics are "beliefs", and if they are held because of a lack of scientific insight or critical thinking, they are "pseudoscientific beliefs". (This is a relatively modern phenomenon, since "pseudoscience" couldn't really exist in the pre-scientific era.) Read the whole 2006 report where they discuss why people end up believing wierd things. That's why. A false belief cannot be a pseudo-science, but it can be a pseudoscientific belief. There's a difference, and the apparent lack of understanding of this difference is confusing this discussion.

The 2006 NSF report dealt with this commonly used expression ("pseudoscience" coupled with "belief" in various forms), using it numerous times. They understand the wider nuances of this subject, nuances which aren't covered in the rigid, black/white definition. It's a broad topic. My talk page has a discussion about this, and you're welcome to join in. -- Brangifer (talk)

BullRangifer, you are seriously overstating the relevance of this document, in particular with reference to the topic of pseudoscience.

• The document itself does not claim to speak for the NSF, it is written by the National Science Board, a body that is somehow associated with the NSF and consists mostly of statisticians. These statisticians have written the SEI 2006 as an executive report about science-related statistics, for politicians. Detailed questions of whether a belief is a "pseudoscientific belief" are well outside the scope of such a document, and well outside the professional competence of the chapter's main author. (Melissa F. Pollak of the Division of Science Resources Statistics; results ofmy Google Scholar searches suggest she is not normally interested in anything relevant for the pseudoscience debate [9].)
• There is nothing in the paragraph + footnote that you are relying on to suggest that the NSF, or even just the (unqualified) NSB want to put their authority behind the claim that these beliefs are "pseudoscientific beliefs". They are just drawing this connection casually.
• The SEI has an influence on the funding of science in the US. If the NSB wants to get money for fighting pseudoscience (i.e. creationism), they have an interest in overstating how prevalent it is by treating subjects that most of the politicians won't like (e.g. for religious reasons) as if they were pseudoscience. It is not appropriate to take a political statement out of its original political context and present it in a scholarly context as if it was a serious contribution to scholarly debate – not even with attribution, because along with attribution we would need a discussion of the political context, giving the whole matter about a hundred times the weight it deserves. We simply can't fill our articles with careful exegesis of casual remarks in our sources, exegesis that surpasses the original remark in length.
• I think I am beginning to understand your careful distinctions regarding "pseudoscientific belief": Since it's not a well-defined term, it can be regarded as very fuzzy, allowing it to be potentially much more general than "belief in pseudoscience or belief that is held because of pseudoscience". This idea makes your sourcing slightly more reasonable, but it also makes the resulting claim even less relevant to all those articles where you put them.

Ultimately, Wikipedia is about truth. We use reliable sources for approximating the truth. A fundamentalist approach of following the sources when we all agree that they are wrong would be unethical. In particular, given X (e.g. ghosts, reincarnation) which is generally not regarded as pseudoscience, it is extremely misleading and verges on lying, to say that some high authority has called belief in X "pseudoscientific belief". The readers will draw the conclusion that therefore X is pseudoscientific, especially if we link the word "pseudoscientific" to the pseudoscience article or fail to explain that nobody actually calls X itself pseudoscience. (And we can't do that because we have no sources for that. It wouldn't be desirable anyway, especially for X which does have some marginal aspects that are pseudoscientific without any doubt.) Hans Adler 10:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, we need to maintain historical perspective. Pseudoscience has appeared only recently on a historical scale, and it has been connected to our traditional, folkloric and religious heritage because some people tried to explain those in a pseudoscientific manner, but it's actually only a very small aspect of those subjects, to which we should not give undue weight. The NSF source on the other hand was only concerned with the modern aspect of those and interpreted them narrowly in the context of pseudoscience, which we should definitely not do ourselves. It termed those beliefs 'pseudoscientific', but it can't be accurate, and plenty of sources have discussed those beliefs in depth and never termed them in this way, those are traditional, religious or superstitious beliefs, and still nowadays. I'm sure that only a small minority of the respondents actually believe in their pseudoscientific explanations, or are even aware of them, so this really can't be termed pseudoscientific belief (and the same goes for other items like reincarnation, astrology and so on, although the pseudoscientific aspect may be more important for some; on the other hand, beliefs that could definitely be termed pseudoscientific are those in brain gym, radionics and co). Cenarium (talk) 20:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

BR, there are two issues here:

1. You wrote, "Undocumented topics are 'beliefs', and if they are held because of a 'lack of scientific insight or critical thinking, they are 'pseudoscientific beliefs'." I don't know what an undocumented topic is, but to argue that any belief held because of a lack of critical thinking (which applies to most of our beliefs most of the time) can be classed as pseudoscientific is clearly false. The benefit of having a large vocabulary is that one can draw useful distinctions with it, such as the distinction between superstition, irrationality, and pseudoscience. You're asking us to proceed as though we can't understand that those concepts differ.

2. What matters is whether the source is appropriate for the lead of this article. The article is about ghosts. The source is not an expert on ghosts. If you were writing about The Holocaust, you wouldn't use some webpage as a source in the lead unless it was written by an expert on the Holocaust. And if someone objected to it as inaccurate, you would hopefully ditch it and go to the library instead. What you're doing here is deciding for yourself that ghosts fall under pseudoscience, and that therefore a source you see as an expert on pseudoscience (though I question that too) is an expert source on ghosts. But that's cheating; it's OR. And I'm not arguing that the sources have to be ghost hunters—there are philosophers, historians, sociologists, and psychologists who've written about the origin and function of beliefs like this. Instead, someone has found a government-related webpage with no byline that mentions ghosts in passing. It's being used not to bolster an uncontentious factual claim (e.g. x percent of adults in America say they believe in ghosts), but to impose a value judgment (ghosts are pseudoscience), with the value term so poorly defined that you may as well be saying ghosts are blah.

We should be using the most appropriate sources, scholarly ones if we can find them, to write an educated article in a disinterested tone. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 14:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The prefix pseudo is from a Greek word meaning false. Something can only be false science if it pretends to be science. Religious beliefs, superstitions &c don't usually make any such claim so don't count as pseudoscience. Where they do, as in The Science of Creative Intelligence, they do. Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, can't find a link under any variant of that. Something to do with ISKCON or some such. Peter jackson (talk) 11:13, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Prabhupada did write a book called The Science of Self-Realization. That would be an example. Peter jackson (talk) 11:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Resumption of discussion about NSF and RfC

(This section has been moved from above where it threatened to get an existing thread off-track. This is a separate issue and should be dealt with separately. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC))

• This war was restarted recently by BullRangifer when he found a weak source that contradicts common sense and does not agree with any other reliable sources, and then added it to the leads of many articles. See User:Hans Adler/NSF disruption for the extent of the problem. Hans Adler 05:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• Hans, don't bring that issue into this one. This is forum shopping. The source I found was published on the National Science Foundation's website and authored by the National Science Board. That's hardly a weak source. Two RfCs (one on this page) have resoundingly approved of the source and the manner in which the content was phrased. You have now resumed your edit war against that source and somehow it's my fault? Stop the forum shopping, personal attacks and character assassination. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• No, Bullrangifer, you abused the source, mangled and misinterpreted the two RfC's, and edit-warred this pure balderdash in all over the project. you should be ashamed of yourself, but you're not. that says (IMO) all that needs to be said. --Ludwigs2 06:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• Your (both of you) objections remind me of a saying we once had where I once worked. Our supervisor was bipolar (and she regularly failed to take her meds) and would often curse, swear and yell at the top of her lungs in front of patients. Needless to say there was constant tension in that workplace until she ungloriously "left"! We wished we could say to her "Since when has YOUR lack of planning become MY emergency?" Well, Hans and Ludwigs2, "Since when has YOUR lack of understanding of the subject of pseudoscience, YOUR failure to abide by "verifiability, not truth", YOUR attempts to use personal OR disagreements with the actual statement they made, YOUR refusal to abide by the clear and overwhelming consensus in two RfCs on the use of this source, and YOUR edit war against the NSF/NSB, become MY problem?" The NSB/NSF said what they said, and that's a Verifiable fact. That you don't like it is not a policy-based reason to war against it. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• Pot calling the kettle black. you're failure to appreciate the basics of scholarly reasoning is noted, and I have offered to work with you on it to improve your understanding. the offer still holds. --Ludwigs2 16:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• BullRangifer, you really need to stop lying about the outcomes of the two confusing RfCs that you started. They both established that the NSF is a reliable source for saying something if it bothers to say it. They did not establish that the NSF actually said anything in any meaningful sense. Hans Adler 23:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

<-- Hans, don't make such accusations. That's a gross violation of policy. You may not believe me, and even though I've read and understood what you've said many times and still don't believe you (so don't accuse me of IDHT), that doesn't equal "lying". Keep it civil.

The RfC above makes it pretty clear who's telling the truth here, including the closing admin's conclusion:

I'm closing this RfC as National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs." Editors should keep in mind that the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific. This does not mean that other verifiable and widely, reliably published outlooks cannot be cited, so long as WP:UNDUE has sway. Likewise any assertions as to current scientific consensus. The consensus may be wrong (research on how people come up with notions about ghosts may not be deeply understood), but en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC) Rfctag 1. Please weigh in on whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs". 2. Also please discuss whether their expressions can be considered to represent the current scientific consensus (in the USA) on that subject. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The resulting consensus overwhelmingly supported both points in my proposition, which is why I could then state that it was considered to represent the scientific consensus. (The consensus had stated that it was the scientific consensus.) The closing admin summarized it very nicely.

I'm not lying, but in light of what is written above, I'll let others decide whether you are being disingenuous.

Why should YOUR lack of understanding of the subject of pseudoscience be MY problem? Why should YOUR refusal to accept the consensus be MY problem? Well, it's not my problem, but you're disrupting Wikipedia by making such an issue of it, and that makes your behavior a problem for Wikipedia.

Gwen Gale summarized the key issue quite succinctly in both RfCs:

• "en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability" (above)

• "I'm closing this as National Science Foundation is a reliable source. Editors should keep in mind, reliable sources may not be true and often may be lacking, but en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability." [10]

That has been my contention all along. Whether what the NSF/NSB says is true or not is totally immaterial to the real issue here. We are to follow our policies and guidelines, and we must base our content on verifiable sources, and this is clearly verifiable content. Your placement of a "failed verification" tag at Pseudoscience was obviously totally off-base, and its removal by an other editor (not myself) was perfectly proper, and his edit summary was based on the verifiability policy. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Collective stupidity is not actually better than individual stupidity, you know. the fact that you confused people into voting for the wrong thing and then misinterpreted their responses in your favor destroys any validity the RfC's might possibly have had. and even if (by some wild stretch of the imagination) I might have bought that the RfC's were valid, I would automatically {{wp:IAR|]] any such RfC that produced such a mind-bogglingly unsupportable claim as the one you keep making. sorry. --Ludwigs2 05:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, that pretty much sums up your approach all along. You IAR, assume bad faith, make personal attacks, ignore the consensus, IOW you admit you are disruptive. Thanks for putting it so clearly. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to get the impression that the real problem here is loose use of language by "reliable sources". You often come across this in the humanities, but here we seem to have a scientific example. Peter jackson (talk) 11:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

In what sense do you mean that? (Note that I'm well aware that Wikipedia's definition of a RS includes and covers more than the usual definition in society. Here it's used as a policy.)

The real problem here is a failure to admit "verifiability, not truth". Personal objections (that the NSF/NSB were wrong, IOW "untrue") are being used to demand that a statement in a V & RS, made by the supreme scientific body in the USA, not be used. Gwen Gale recognized this was a key policy-based issue and pointed this out in both RfCs, and numerous other editors have done the same. The verifiability policy is carefully written in that manner to prevent V sources being rejected based on editors' conflicting personal beliefs of the truth or falsity of a statement. It's simply a fact of life that editors frequently disagree on such matters, so "truthiness" is not a legitimate argument in this situation.

I obviously believe the statement is clear and true, and will take the word of the illustrious members of the National Science Board, who claimed close involvement "in all phases of the preparation of this report", over the objections of two fringy editors. ("The National Science Board Members were closely involved in all phases of the preparation of this report.") They totally failed to convince a large number of editors who !voted against their arguments in two RfCs and approved of the source, the formulated statement (using the exact NSF/NSB quote), and that it represented the scientific consensus in the USA. Read the comments of those who approved. They are right up above on this page. Hans Adler and Ludwigs2 lost two RfCs and still stubbornly refuse to abide by them. Their actions since then constitute disruption.

No, the objections of these two editors don't cut it. Gwen Gale was right:

• "I'm closing this RfC as National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs." Editors should keep in mind that the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific." (Emphasis original.)

Brangifer (talk) 14:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Gwen Gale later clarified that she only meant the closure to mean that the NSF is a reliable source for this statement if it actually makes such a statement. Your RfC was begging the question. It simply assumed that your source makes this statement and, starting from this assumption, asked whether the NSF is good enough. That was ridiculous. It doesn't matter whether someone is "illustrious" and qualified to say something if the real question is whether they actually meant to say it in the first place.

BullRangifer, are you really unable to see the difference between the following two situations?

1. The NSF creates a scientific committee for deciding what is pseudoscience and what isn't. On the committee there are several leading philosophers of science as well as established researchers from various scientific fields. They publish a report with the title "The Pseudoscience Demarcation Problem – Some Example Cases Decided", whose main finding is: "We found the following 10 fields to be examples of pseudoscience." The bibliography of the report reflects the committees careful examination of the existing scholarly literature. Any apparent contradictions to the existing literature, and to a plain reading of established definitions of pseudoscience is justified by means of careful discussion.
2. The NSB, a body of the NSF whose main purpose it is to produce bi-annual reports for politicians about science policies, mentions pseudoscience marginally in two or three of these reports, each time citing Gallup polls or similar third-party polls, whereas in the main part of the report they use data from polls that they commissioned themselves. The Gallup poll cited is actually about paranormal, and most of the ten fields used by Gallup as proxies for belief in paranormal fail the "purports to be science" aspect of all all respectable definitions of pseudoscience, including the one that the report has cited itself (from a popular, not scholarly, book). The main author of the chapter in question is a statistician with hardly any publications, and it is not clear who else worked on it. (But most authors are statisticians.) There is no attempt to explain why a list of ten paranormal fields is treated as if it was a list of ten pseudoscience fields – consistent with a confusion between paranormal and pseudoscience which, for the purposes of the report, is justified, but for the purposes of encyclopedic articles about pseudoscience or any of the ten fields is not justified at all. The claim that belief in any of the 10 fields is pseudoscientific belief is implicit in the report, but is not made explicitly.

Seriously, if you are unable to see the difference between these two situations, and why the report in the first example would be useful but the one in the second (the one we are in) is not useful. And if you think the weakness of the source can be overridden by an abuse of Jimbo's "verifiability not truth" dictum (which said that some truths may not be included because they are not verifiable, not that some untruths may be included because they are "verifiable"), excessive spamming of the claim to the leads of roughly 15 articles for none of which it is particularly relevant, and generally disruptive behaviour. – Then I must tell you that a cooperative project to build an encyclopedia may not be the best choice of hobby for you simply because you lack the most basic instincts required for such a scholarly endeavour. Hans Adler 14:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

1. Please provide the exact quote and diff for what you claim to be Gwen's "clarification" ("if it actually makes such a statement"). The NSF/NSB's exact quote is their exact quote. Period! It's as simple as that (and your words "if it actually makes such a statement" explicitly deny they made their exact quote). You and Ludwigs2 are the only ones who dare to make such a mind-bogglingly ludicrous assertion. It simply defies all logic. Gwen would never do that. Please provide a diff for that "clarification", because I now have enough (disappointing) experience with your thinking and debating tactics to know that the context needs to be examined carefully before ANYONE can even begin to entertain your statements (in more and more regards) as being remotely connected with the truth. I really doubt that she would have made the very clear statements she actually did make, and then contradict herself, and I think you should apologize to her and us. Don't make her a part of your disruption. I suspect any statement she made is being taken way out of context.

2. Your statement ("whether they actually meant to say it in the first place") is at least closer to the truth, because it actually implies the truth (that they did make the statement), but that you have personal OR concerns about their intentions. Well, lacking any other statements by them to the contrary (and we have none), we shouldn't assume their intentions contradict their plain statement, so we are thus obliged to take their statement at face value.

3. As to your claim that the RfC "simply assumed that your source makes this statement", that's obvious nonsense. With the exception of yourself and Ludwigs2, no one would claim a direct quote is not a direct quote. What part of their quote was not part of their quote?! Please enlighten us with yet another interesting example of your twisted hermeneutical skills. (Believe me, it is truly entertaining to collect these examples.)

As to your "two situations", you start off with a condescending false assumption ("Seriously, if you are unable to see the difference"), when I obviously can "see the difference" (without getting fooled). In this latest example from you it's like the classic trick question: "When did you stop beating your wife?" It's a deviously worded juxtaposition you've set up. How can I take you seriously when you speak condescendingly, use straw man arguments, etc.? Only respectfully stated arguments based on facts, and above all policy, will do.

1. Your first example would sure be nice to have, but it will likely never exist, IOW you're setting the bar conveniently too high (convenient for defenders of fringe POV). Scientific bodies rarely ever mention pseudoscience, so, per WP:FRINGE and the FRINGE ARBCOM, on the rare occasions when they actually do they should be taken seriously. Their failure to write much about it should not be used to undermine what they actually do say, but that's what your whole campaign against the NSF/NSB has been doing.

2. Your second example is simply a straw man argument based on gross misrepresentations of the facts.

If you wish your arguments to be taken seriously you'll have to be completely honest, stop using straw man arguments, and drop the condescending tone. It reeks of WP:PA and a failure to AGF. I know you can do better than this when you wish to and aren't so emotionally involved in the issue. You're grasping at straws, but you've pulled out so much straw from the straw man that he's getting pretty skinny! This leaves you little left to do but to be more and more "creative". In case you don't understand the irony of me lecturing you about your typical condescending tone while engaging in a small bit of it myself, well, I've gotten so tired of it that I thought you deserved to feel a bit of what it's like to be on the receiving end. Call it "pointy" if you will, but you've been asking for it for some time, and Ludwigs2 even more so. I hope it gives you a bit of understanding of how you're coming across and will reform. An apology for all of it would be appreciated. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Re your first 1: "There is a consensus that NSF is a reliable source. There may not be a consensus as to how you want to cite that source" [11]

Also see User talk:Gwen Gale/archive17#RfC closure on Talk:Ghost for context, where she was still confused about the context and probably thought I was pushing a POV, and said the same thing with guarded language to protect against that. Only when you started complaining to her did she understand that you were trying to overstate the RfC result by far, as I had predicted, and said it more directly. Hans Adler 06:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Does Gwen Gale understand that the NSF is a beaurocratic government funding agency, and not ipso facto a reliable source, if you know anything about them? Statements by their 25 person board of directors (The National Science Board) are a reliable source when they're speaking as the Board ex cathedra, if you will, but that's about it. It would certainly be nice if the people who opined on these things knew something about them. Has Gwen Gale ever applied for an NSF grant? Met any NSF people? SBHarris 16:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the diff. That does indeed reveal that your statement isn't supported by her words. She's speaking of a totally different matter. She doesn't in the least intimate that "if it actually makes such a statement". Not in the least. In fact it continues to back up her previous statements confirming that they did make the statement. You are conflating two very different matters. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

And why is it that we're considering that every last word published by the NSF, no matter what its purpose, is to be considered an official statement of the NSF, as though it had ITSELF been carefully reviewed by the National Science Board that directs the NSF, who had officially signed off on it, and so on? Remember, most of what the NSF does is simply act like any government agency, doling out money for projects and writing. Even their own publications aren't reviewed by their entire board of directors, and if they occasionally say something that seems to be definitional, in the service of some other pursuit (as here, where the object is in trying to see what fraction of Americans are superstitious) that doesn't necessarily mean it's an official finding of the National Science Board. The NSF per se is not NIST or a relevant part of the National Academy of Sciences. Only the NSF Board has any real scientific cred, and even there, it very much depends on the issue.

I'll bet a quarter if you wrote to the NSF and confronted them with this particular statement, they'd say: "Look, you can't take us that literally about everything we print. Give us a break." The author of THIS article ended up quoting Michael Shermer of SKEPTIC magazine for the definition of "pseudoscience," and then didn't end up following it! Come on! SBHarris 03:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Ugh, this is such a textbook case for why wp:BURO is so important. Brangifer has basically created a mire of misapplied policy, malformed and misleading RfC's, and etc., and is tendentiously clinging to these procedural points in order to hammer through an absolutely inane and unsupportable misconstrual of the NSF's document. If it were a joke, it might be funny, but as a reality it's just sad. unfortunately, I suspect there is nothing in this universe that will make him back down and see reason at this point (he's far too committed to the cause). How do we deal with an editor who has simply sacrificed rationality to achieve a goal like this? --Ludwigs2 06:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Bull, you asked what I meant. The answer is rather simple. I have to say first that I haven't carefully studied the enormous word count on this topic in various fora, so my impression may be mistaken. However, that impression is that the NSF called these things pseudoscience but didn't really mean it. Obviously, as a matter of common sense, it's absurd to call Buddhism, Hinduism & fundamentalist Protestantism pseudoscientific simply because some people claim to have scientific support for some of their ideas. It's those claims that are pseudoscientific: psychical research, reincarnation research & "creation science". The NSF is a proper authority for that, but not for the other. Unfortunately they don't seem to have made that distinction clear.

So, as a matter of common sense I tend to agree thus far with the other 2. However, there's no law of nature that says Wikipedia policy must accord with common sense. Your interpretation may very well be correct, though there's always IAR. Peter jackson (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You say "However, that impression is that the NSF called these things pseudoscience but didn't really mean it." The NSF didn't call anything anything unless it did so policy-wise, which would mean the National Science Board, which directs them, did it officially. Otherwise, their editorials and side-statements are rather informal, and have to be. This whole discussion is sort of like finding some statement in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and deciding that, due to its source, it's authoritative and must represent an infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic church. SBHarris 18:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

@ Sbharris: exactly. --Ludwigs2 18:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Peter and Sbharris, it's so nice to have a reasonable discussion without all the personal attacks! I can respect that. Thanks. It's appreciated, and I understand what you mean.

Peter Jackson, you're right that the NSF/NSB statement didn't make the distinction very clear. That's true, and it would have been nice if they had. I still have no problem with the statement because I (following the rules of hermeneutics) interpret statements so that internal consistency is maintained. The whole page on which the pseudoscience section is found discusses the reasons why pseudoscientific beliefs exist and are accepted uncritically, and I interpret the list in that light. They seem to be referring to current beliefs, not ancient superstitions. While they only use the words from the Gallup Poll list, IOW a very simple wording, each word can be interpreted, and I believe they should be interpreted so that they make sense in the context. When they mention witches, they are obviously not referring to little children in Halloween costumes, but to the very real beliefs in the power of witchcraft held by some modern Wiccans and others. Even our article recognizes this and the word witch redirects to witchcraft. There are definitely modern individuals, who because of lack of critical thinking and lack of scientific knowledge hold to such beliefs, and their belief in witches can rightly be labelled "pseudoscientific beliefs". The other words that are questioned should be parsed in the same manner. As to your mention of "Buddhism, Hinduism & fundamentalist Protestantism", they don't go there and neither do I, so in this context it raises a straw man example that should best be left out of this discussion. I do appreciate your well-reasoned comments and welcome them. Please continue.

Sbharris, our policy regarding RS doesn't require that all sources be policy statements. I don't believe, have never claimed, nor even intimated that this was some kind of policy statement. It's a V & RS statement from a notable scientific organization. They publish the SEI document every other year. That's all it is and it doesn't need to be anything more than that to be usable. What's notable about it is that it's the only place on the NSF website that uses the word pseudoscience, so, per FRINGE and the FRINGE ArbCom it's notable enough for use and should be taken seriously. As to infallibility, nothing in science is infallible, and we constantly use fallible statements from RS. Is it a violation of the RS policy to use fallible statements? I think not. "Verifiability, not truth" means that statements from RS must be verifiable, but not necessarily even true, since one editor's "truth" is another editor's "error". Wikipedia doesn't sit in judgment, it just reports, and it can report this statement. On that basis there is no reasonable cause for eliminating the source and statement from Wikipedia as Hans Adler and Ludwigs2 seem intent on doing in such a disruptive manner. Ludwigs2 has even expressed a desire to "dispose of the word pseudoscience entirely" in our editing at Wikipedia! That tells us where he's coming from, but fringe advocacy editors don't deserve support for such a mission. In fact, such a mission violates the whole idea of this encyclopedia. In this regard Ludwigs2 and the banned User:Martinphi are pretty much twins in their thinking, mission here at Wikipedia, and their attempts to tweak and change our most fundamental policies in favor of fringe and paranormal ideas (often correctly labelled "pseudoscience"). Sbharris, I enjoy your comments and hope you will continue to discuss and enlighten. This is the only way toward a meeting of the minds. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I never see anybody use the phrase "verifiability, not truth" (which is not in any current policy), without them defending some oddity which is of verifiable provenance, but of dubious truth! Our citation sources per WP:RS are supposed to be "reliable" and that MEANS "likely to be true," so it's not a "this, not that" thing. In this case, the question before us is the "true" definition of a word. Who do you go for, to get reliable definitions? So what would our reliable sources be, here? This is not really a scientific word. The word does not fall under the authority of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, nor is it defined by (say) IUPAC. So who do we go to? The [12] Glossary of the American Council on Science and Health says that "pseudoscience" is "Any activity, practice, system, methodology, or theory that simulates science, or that is described as science, but lacks a scientific basis." Well, that wouldn't be simple belief in ghosts. My own friend Michael Shermer of SKEPTIC mag, a well known authority on pseudoscience (having published many books on the subject), says much the same. Merriam-webster.com says the word dates from 1844 and is: "a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific." Okay, that leaves out simple belief in ghosts. In fact, the only place I've been able to find that assumes that the belief in ghosts is "pseudoscience," is the NSF publication you're using.

Okay, so how about we do this for our NPOV exercise. You take the first ten dictionary entries you can find for the word, and say something like: "Although the simple belief in ghosts is not "pseudoscience" in the following list of ten sources and dictionaries, one article published by the NSF considers it so: "NSF stuff". And then go on.

That will fix your article writing problems, but not your categorization problems. Unfortunately, that is not as ammenable to two-valued thought, because you have to pick one thing or the other. So that leaves you kind of stuck. NPOV doesn't work when it comes to the internal syntax WP works by, because this often cannot be fuzzy. However, this is WP's problem, not mine. I didn't make up the silly rules around here. I personally would have done it differently. SBHarris 03:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your whole point is. It seems to be a new discussion, rather than a response to my comment. I will comment on one thing. "Verifiability, not truth" is pretty fundamental to our Verifiability sourcing policy: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—what counts is whether readers can verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source (see below), not whether editors think it is true." That's what this boils down to. Gwen Gale cited this in her closing of both RfCs. Of course we strive for truth, but since editors often have totally differing opinions about what is the truth of a matter, as in this case, Wikipedia withholds judgement and just cites V & RS. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You are missing the word "threshold" here. Verifiability is the threshold that something needs to cross before it can be included. It doesn't follow that we have to mention everything that is "verifiable" in our technical sense. Especially if it's neither notable nor correct, as in this case, we simply leave it out. It's not the purpose of an encyclopedia to spread non-notable misinformation. Hans Adler 15:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

"Non-notable misinformation"? You have a very short memory:

I'm closing this RfC as National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs." Editors should keep in mind that the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific. ... en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC) (All emphasis original.)

The majority of editors in two RfCs and the closing comments by Gwen Gale all disagree with you. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Wrong. The NSF is a reliable source for stating such a thing. Nobody doubts that as far as I am aware. Gwen Gale later clarified that she did not mean to say that your particular NSF NSB source actually states this. And in fact it doesn't. Your RfC begged the question. If this was an acceptable technique I could simply start an RfC on whether disruptive spammers and misquoters should be banned (giving you as an example without stressing that that is what it's really about), with the predictable result that yes, they should be. And then claim that all the time it was clear that the RfC is about you. It doesn't work that way, and it shouldn't. You will be banned or topic banned the proper way, but it's going to take time and effort. Hans Adler 07:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

@ brangifer: you know, I'm still amused at how you can accuse someone of attacking you, and turn right around and attack them in turn. have you ever hear the term noblesse oblige? You can accuse me of being a Fringe advocate all you like - any time I need to I can demonstrate (as I have before) that I have a far better understanding of scientific reasoning and scientific practice than you do. That is a matter of demonstrable fact. I'm sorry that you are so convinced of the rightness of your position that you can no longer appreciate proper scholarly reasoning, but that is not my problem. --Ludwigs2 04:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Pot. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here.

1. Reincarnation is
   1. part of traditional Hindu & Buddhist doctrine
   2. claimed by some people to be susceptible of scientific investigation/proof
2. ghosts are
   1. part of traditional Buddhist cosmology (not sure about Hinduism)
   2. part of folklore &/or "superstition" in many cultures
   3. claimed by some people to be susceptible of scientific investigation/proof
3. the creation of the world a few millennia ago is
   1. a dogma of many Protestant fundamentalists
   2. claimed by some people to be susceptible of scientific investigation/proof

Now, which of these do you think count as pseudoscientific & which not, & why? Peter jackson (talk) 13:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is the answer according to BullRangifer: 1 and 2 are pseudoscientific because he found a super-turbo excellent source for this (more precisely: belief in 1 or 2 is pseudoscientific according to the source; I must say it in this way because otherwise BullRangifer would attack me for being imprecise), but not 3 because he doesn't have such a source in that case.

Of course what really happened is that in the Bush era the NSB tried to get money out of US politicians for fighting against creationism. It wouldn't have been wise to say that clearly, so they just talked about pseudoscience in general, and instead of giving the most obvious example they listed some paranormal topics as if they were all pseudoscience – presumably in the hope that even fundamentalist Christian politicians would not be opposed to fighting belief in ghosts and reincarnation. Hans Adler 15:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Hans, don't speak for me. I hadn't gotten around to answering that, and I wasn't even sure whether I should since it isn't about building the article, but is about personal beliefs. We've all indulged in that too much and it looked like a trick question. It's also about whether these are "pseudoscientific" (something which has a clear definition), not whether they are "pseudoscientific beliefs" (something that is much broader), which is a slightly different topic. This whole debacle isn't supposed to be about "truth", or whether anyone of us believe or don't believe in ghosts, but about whether the NSF/NSB said what they said. That's what editors are supposed to focus on, not whether they agree with the source. Did the NSF/NSB's exact quote state what it stated, or was it deserving of your inaccurate (downright false) "failed verification" tag? It was properly removed with the edit summary stating "the list of ten items is clearly in the cited reference." Your overreaction to that removal is what got all this started again. I hadn't touched the subject for some time. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The "failed verification" tag was my proposed compromise, to give you time to understand that you are wrong and it is in fact a misquotation. What we normally do with misquotations is remove them altogether. I had assumed, incorrectly it seems, that by now you had cooled down and were seeing things more clearly. Obviously I was too optimistic.

By the way, do you have any comments regarding the latest news about your infallible oracle? See #NSF. Hans Adler 07:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is this discussion being "resumed", or kept alive? Brangifer has had ample opportunity to demonstrate his exasperating cluelessness. Nothing of interest will come from this. At some point, it is best to just let it be. --dab (𒁳) 18:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Dbachmann. I've been wondering the same thing, but it was resumed by Hans Adler. His inaccurate tag was removed by another editor, he overreacted by removing the entire section, and now we're here. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

That's easy to answer. it's being kept alive because otherwise brangifer will continue to push this silliness into more and more areas of wikipedia (if you think this stops with 'ghost', you're mistaken). Ignoring the symptoms is fine if you're convinced the cause will go away in time, but that seems unlikely in this case. --Ludwigs2 18:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't touched the subject for some time. This all started again when Hans overreacted to the removal of his inaccurate tag by another editor. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

NSF

Each of the following of the Science and Engineering Indicators refers to belief in ghosts explicitly as a pseuoscientific belief.

"SEI is prepared by the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) under the guidance of the National Science Board (Board). It is subject to extensive review by outside experts, interested federal agencies, Board members, and NSF internal reviewers for accuracy, coverage, and balance."

2002 Chart from 2002 2004 2006 Chart from 2006

Forgive me if these are already referenced. Perhaps spend a moment to read them. Guyonthesubway (talk) 21:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not as if this hasn't been discussed before. See User:Hans Adler/NSF disruption to get an approximate idea of the extent of the disruption caused by BullRangifer spamming this source to more than a dozen articles. See User:Hans Adler/Science and Engineering Indicators for my analysis of the 2006 source – an extremely poor one for the statement you want to use it for. The other two aren't better. Hans Adler 21:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The document is subject to "extensive" peer review and clearly references ghosts as a pseudoscientific belief. Case closed. (btw, I'm not interested in your opinions of another editor, thanks.) Guyonthesubway (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The three documents don't claim to be establishing novel claims about philosophy of science, and the claim that ghosts are pseudoscience is obviously false when taken out of the original context (where it is merely sloppy) and doesn't appear anywhere else. Case closed. Hans Adler 22:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

PS: Thanks for the links to the two charts. I was not aware that these charts are part of the NSB's SEI reports. They clearly (and correctly) put certain ghost-related beliefs under paranormal beliefs, which is obviously correct and not contentious at all. What is contentious (surprisingly, as it is so obviously goofy) is the claim that belief in ghosts is a pseudoscientific belief. In most cases it has nothing to do with anything that could be confused with science, so this is obvious nonsense. One can say that something is nonsense without scientific foundation and not stretch the word for a particular type of such nonsense beyond all reason. The English language is rich and allows us to express nuances. Encyclopedias are among those places where it is most important to get these nuances right. Hans Adler 22:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Yup, the Gallup organization terms this beliefs as 'paranormal' while the NSF terms them Pseuoscientific. So it would be correct to say 'Gallup terms these beliefs as paranormal' just as it would be correct to say 'NSF terms these beliefs as pseudoscientific'. The more reputable source on terminology here whould be NSF, the science body, as opposed to the consumer polling company. Unless you think Gallup is a better authority....Guyonthesubway (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Guyonthesubway (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

They are both V & RS which we often cite. While Gallup can only be cited as stating they are paranormal, the NSF can be cited for stating that these paranormal beliefs are pseudoscientific beliefs, which makes sense. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The SEI is not a magical document that is somehow right about everything, including things far outside its focus. It is created under time, resource and political constraints: [13]. This incident also demonstrates that if something disappears from SEI, this may well have a reason such as the NSB thinking it shouldn't have been there in the first place. The pseudoscience section of SEI currently talks only about belief in astrology. Hans Adler 03:54, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

According to an NSB member, the pulled questions that the report is about were "flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because the responses conflated knowledge and beliefs". I am not sure I can agree with the NSB in this specific instance, but they had previously pulled the paranormal stuff from the "pseudoscience" section in 2008 [14], and they did in fact suffer from the described problem by conflating Buddhists etc. with pseudoscience believers. Hans Adler 04:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll just note, so no one gets confused, that your comment is regarding the failure to mention evolution and the big bang in the 2010 SEI report, not anything about pseudoscience or the current subject. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The news report I cited is about the NSB withdrawing language it used in earlier SEIs, because they now consider it incorrect. They would not normally have made this public, but someone noticed a paragraph was removed from the draft, didn't like it, and brought it in the news. This shows that your infallible source isn't actually infallible and that removal of information from the SEI, from one version to another, may be a sign of the NSB noticing problems in the earlier version. As people keep telling you. But it would have been a misquotation even in 2007, i.e. before the 2008 version without the list of 10 paranormal items came out. But of course to see this a scientific, rather than pseudo-scientific quote-mining mind is required. Hans Adler 09:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Our job is to follow the sources. If you find a RS that documents this OR of yours, the situation will change and we'll document it. Until then we use what we have, regardless of whether you think it's "true" or not, per WP:V. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:42, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

yes, our job is to follow the sources, not misrepresent them. that's the point you keep missing, BR. --Ludwigs2 06:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

"Misrepresent them"? In what way is using the NSF/NSB statement to document that the NSF/NSB wrote what they wrote a misrepresentation? That's my main concern. That's about as NPOV a manner to use the statement as I can think of, and neither of you will allow that NPOV usage. Take a look at the way it's used at Pseudoscience. It's attributed properly so it's presented as their opinion. What's wrong with that? -- Brangifer (talk) 15:42, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

As I explained at WP:RS/N#Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 the problem is that (1) it's not at all clear that it's actually their opinion, because it only appears in passing in a report about something completely different, and (2) even if it was an opinion, it would still be an extreme violation of NPOV to put it in the leads of our articles, because that gives it a lot more significance than the NSB itself gave it. Encyclopedias summarise the published facts and opinions. If you think we are in the business of inflating published opinions then you are confusing Wikipedia with a blog. If you want to respond I suggest that you move this discussion to WP:RS/N, so that we finally get a centralised discussion. It's no fun to repeat the same things over and over again because the same questions keep coming on different pages. Hans Adler 15:57, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

There is now a centralised thread at WP:RS/N#Science and Engineering Indicators 2006. I suggest continuing all discussions there. I also suggest that those of us who are already heavily involved give fresh eyes a chance to judge the situation. I think the major arguments have already been outlined by BullRangifer and me. Hans Adler 08:27, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I share your interest in centralizing the discussion, but I disagree about the location as that's not the purpose of RS/N. It is only for discussing whether a source is a RS, not for whether a statement is true. (Keep in mind that even patently obvious lies, as established by the majority of RS, are used here at Wikipedia simply because we use them to document that a POV exists. Their framing is of course very imporant.) What other step in DR would be appropriate? -- Brangifer (talk) 18:02, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought I had made it clear that the question I put before WP:RS/N was whether the SEI 2006 is a reliable source for what you are attributing to it (or rather the NSF/NSB). Of course the original context and the Wikipedia context cannot be ignored for this purpose. However, I would not object to moving the discussion to a subpage of WP:Centralized discussion and advertising it as an RfC or something in WP:CENT. It doesn't seem to get much attention in its present place anyway. Hans Adler 18:12, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I have misunderstood you, so I'll ask you a question. What do you mean by "for what you are attributing to it"? It's not a trick question, but an attempt to make sure we are "on the same page." -- Brangifer (talk) 22:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I mean the things you are putting in the leads of articles. If, for example, you make the lead of the ghost or pseudoscience article say "According to the NSB, belief in ghosts is belief in pseudoscience", then the context is set as follows:

• ghost = the subject of ghosts in its full generality, including all its cultural connotations
• pseudoscience = pseudoscience in the technical sense as defined in the article: "a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status."

This is not something they have said explicitly. They merely assumed it, even though they are not using a single source that claims it. It's also absurd, which makes it especially important not to misquote them. Note that in RationalWiki, for example, or in a book called something like "dictionary of pseudoscience", the situation is different because the context is explicitly set up so that the pseudoscientific aspects of all things are in the focus. In such a context Hamlet and other literary uses of ghosts are a marginal distraction, while in our context they are one of the main aspects, and certainly not pseudoscientific.

There is also the issue of what it means that the SEI 2008 and 2010 don't have the relevant section any more, especially in the context that they have pulled similar material as incorrect, for a reason that might apply here as well, but didn't publish that reason proactively. Hans Adler 05:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

As a related issue, see WP:LINKING#General points on linking style: "Items within quotations should not generally be linked; instead, consider placing the relevant links in the surrounding text or in the 'See also' section of the article."

The reason for this rule is that linking a term in a quotation often constitutes a misquotation, because in the original context the word did not have (necessarily) exactly the same meaning. Putting a literal quotation that uses the words ghost and pseudoscience in the lead of the ghost or pseudoscience article has the same effect as linking it and therefore can also constitute a misquotation. Hans Adler 05:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Your first line contains a quote that you attribute as my doing. Did I really write something like that? Where did I do it? That doesn't look right as it's not their quote. I don't recognize that. If I did it I'll gladly fix it. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Your last paragraph about linking (I assume you mean wikilinking) is something I vaguely remember. It can be problematic, so if there's a place where it creates a problem, let me know and I'll take a look. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Random break 1

<- I don't quite get the motivation here. There are a lot of people attempting to discredit a source to avoid the use of a single term.... Guyonthesubway (talk) 00:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately it's not really "a lot". It just seems that way because Hans Adler and Ludwigs2 have been making lots of noise. It's basically lots of repetition, and when two do it the result is twice as much as my replies, which gives a false impression. Rereading the two RfCs is very interesting. Not only have these two been repeating arguments that were shown to be fallacious back then, some of the other opposers in the RfCs seem to have not even understood the issue (i.e. don't understand basic English), including one admin, and yet they mouthed off and revealed their confusion. That's really sad. The other admins, and even an ArbCom member, understood very well and supported the RfCs. The fact that these two remain a distinct minority should be raising red flags in their minds, but apparently not. Everyone else is wrong, and they only are right? Hmmmm.....-- Brangifer (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, I agree with those 2 to the extent that I'd say that their view is the common-sense one. Whether it's also in accordance with WP policy I'm not going to bother arguing about. Peter jackson (talk) 10:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

And then there is also Dbachmann, who initially was involved in the issue at this talk page, and now also DGG and SlimVirgin at WP:RS/N. Hans Adler 12:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I would fight in exactly the same way against anyone trying (with my knowledge) to force a quotation concerning "a river of orange juice" into our article river. This is about accuracy of the encyclopedia and normal (not even especially strict) academic citation standards. The only way in which the whole pseudoscience/scepticism debate is important to the dispute is that it makes some people automatically assume the worst about anyone who doesn't agree with them. Hans Adler 12:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok.... but nither of your opinions of what is or isn't common sense are permissable here. NSF clearly sees ghosts within pseudoscience. Its right there in your face. The source is persmissible. It clearly says Ghosts are pseudoscience. I'm going to leave the interpretation of the term up to the people that do that sort of thing for a living. I can only assume that you're trolling, or attempting to inject your definition of the word into the article. Neither is laudable. Guyonthesubway (talk) 13:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I can only assume that you are trolling or lack any ability or experience with scholarly work. But these personalisations really don't help. Hans Adler 13:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

What does this have to do with contributing here? Please show me the guideline that restricts editors to those that persue 'scholarly work', or gives your opinion any more weight under your scholarly abilities. I guess I thought it had something to with 'verifiability' and 'no original research'. You're giving your opinion weight over a good source, therefore either you're pushing a point of view or you're trolling. Cloaking yourself in 'expertdom' would tend to suggest POV, maybe you're not a troll. Guyonthesubway (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah.. read the various RFx... you're a POV pusher, and this has already been decided. Guyonthesubway (talk) 20:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No, it hasn't. Confirmation bias at work. The RfCs were closed basically with "NSF is a highly reliable source", which is unrelated to the dispute itself. This happened because BullRangifer didn't formulate the questions appropriately and instead chose to beg the question.

However, it is true that there was a lot of cluelessness, failure to actually read the source, and assumptions of bad faith in both RfCs, leading some editors to fully agree with BullRangifer, and explicitly so. But not enough for a consensus. Hans Adler 21:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Hans, you can basically disregard anything Guyonasubway says - I've run into him before, and his only real purpose in life is to stir up aggravation. If you ignore him politely, he goes away, so wp:DNFTT. --Ludwigs2 21:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

My problem is a lack of time, same reason I don't read half of the condescending nonsense that comes out of either of you. Guyonthesubway (talk) 23:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If you don't have the time to read the sources that BullRangifer is abusing, then don't abuse those who do. Hans Adler 05:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing to indicate he hasn't read them. In fact, some of those who objected in the RfCs gave evidence that they hadn't read them, and SlimVirgin and DGG possibly as well. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

GS, it's not Hans's definition. Here's the Wiktionary definition:

Any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method.

Does anyone seriously claim that Buddhism, folklore & "superstition" purport to be scientific or supported by science in their belief in ghosts? Peter jackson (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ghosts are an explanation for perceiving something.

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is comprehensive information on any subject, but the word is especially used for information about the physical universe

You heard/saw/smelled X, and you explain X with by saying "there is something that can defy the laws of physics, and it is the spirit of the dead". Ghosts are explanation of a physical phenomenom, but lacking a scientific grounding. "That chair just moved because of a ghost" is the spontaneous appearance of energy with no source. If we put this same conecept in a lab, it might be cold fusion, or perpetual motion. Ghosts are just older and steeped in tradition. So we have "science" (information about the physical universe) and "fails to comply with the scientific method" The NSF sure seems to think so.... Guyonthesubway (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Sorry...irrelevant original research. It's hard to suspend the "this is common sense let me explain" reaction. Guyonthesubway (talk)

Ha ha! Very understandable. It's hard not to reply to OR without using more OR. All of the objections refuse to follow our V & RS polices, but are instead based on personal belief objections about the truthfulness of the statement. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

BullRangifer, you are practising WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I will say it for the last time, and the next 150 times I have to say the same thing again because you again prove that you didn't listen, I will simply create a section heading here and link to it:

Original research is perfectly proper when it is done for the purpose of evaluating the fitness of a source for presentation in Wikipedia, as opposed to putting the result of the research in an article.

Hans Adler 18:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I listen, but I don't agree, just like all the other editors who have previously refused to be fooled by your specious arguments. There's a vast difference. When I referred to OR I was referring to your OR personal opinions for disagreeing with the consensus in the two RfCs. I'm not talking about typical OR. You have been using your own reasoning in the absence of RS which mention and disagree with the NSF/NSB's statement. Such use of personal opinion to reject a source is a form of OR POV pushing. It violates "verifiability, not truth". Your idea of truth must not be used to deny the verifiabilty (the threshhold for inclusion) of the statement. You have even gone so far as to use a "failed verification" tag on the statement! That was truly bizarre. By doing so you directly invoked the verifiability policy and violated it because your addition of the tag was based on your lonely POV on the truthiness of the statement. If you had V & RS that expressly commented on the exact 2006 SEI statement and questioned it, then we could at least cite that at the same time, thus documenting that there was a disagreement among RS, but you don't even have that kind of source to back up your POV. It's just your idea of truth, while others have their ideas of truth. None of those ideas trumps verifiability. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

BR, this is a poor source for the claim, period. V not T doesn't mean that every single source must be used in every WP article to which it could possibly apply, no matter how inappropriately. It looks like a press release (is it? does anyone know who that specific webpage is aimed at?) with no byline, citing some Gallop polls and someone's unusual opinion that walking under ladders and having lucky numbers is pseudoscience, which is silly. If it's not silly, please find some other reliable sources who make that claim. If there's no difference between pseudoscience and irrationality, then we may as well use the latter and be done with the former. If the former is going to retain any meaning, it shouldn't be used as loosely as this. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

SV, as an admin you should be ashamed of yourself for using such a mixture of blatent straw man arguments, all in one paragraph. You're also ignoring the consensus in two RfCs. You disagree with Gwen Gale, Coren, and several other admins, as well as the majority in both RfCs. That's just plain disruptive and tendentious editing against the consensus. You are aiding and abetting disruption and should think twice. You have been advised of this before and I'll also note this absurd, policy-ignoring comment of yours as another piece of evidence for future use. Note that your adminship is on the line. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I paid for an argument. This is not an argument, it's just contradiction. [15] Hans Adler 05:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a very aggressive way to approach things, BR. I'm far from ignorant about policy. I've not looked carefully at the RfC you mention (it's hard to keep up with things, and the latest one says the opposite so far as I can see), but I'm betting you didn't phrase the question quite correctly. Any experienced editor familiar with policy would hesitate to use that source in the way you're using it. Could you explain why you're so keen on that particular source, given the trouble its use is causing? Can you look for others instead? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 05:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You did ask a misleading question. "Please weigh in on whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that 'belief in ghosts and spirits' are 'pseudoscientific beliefs'. The source is in fact a chapter, or summary of a chapter (I still can't work out what this is), with no byline in Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 that summarizes some polls. [16] And that says or implies that things like having a lucky number are pseudoscience. Had you asked the question carefully and neutrally I think you might have had a different response.

Guys, this is a poor source and an odd issue to be causing such upheaval over. If the issue isn't contentious there will be better sources for it out there. If there aren't that will tell us something. So please look for other sources. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 06:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You really should study both RfCs, especially the one about this article. Gwen Gale did it enough to make a very clear conclusion, one which was an echo of the overwhelming consensus. Other admins (except for a couple fringy ones) supported them, including Coren, an ArbCom member. This is about the verifiability of a statement from a very notable RS, and other speculations and personal beliefs need to be kept out of the discussion. It is especially on that last point where you are ignoring policy. "Verifiability, not truth" is designed to keep such arguments from being used to exclude good sources. The reason there has been trouble is exclusively because of two editors who have refused to abide by the consensus. They are the ones you should be blocking for their disruption over the last two months. I'm the one who has acted in good faith, and they are the ones whom you're protecting? Very odd indeed. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

First, who is an admin or ArbCom member makes no difference; we're here as editors. Secondly, you asked the wrong question, in my view so the RfC is undermined. Third, the more recent RfC is deciding against labelling this as pseudoscience, which I know is yet another question, but it's not unrelated. But can you tell me why you won't look for another source? That's the standard thing to do when something is challenged. Look for another source to support it. The more sources you produce that say the same thing (so long as they're not just mirroring the first), the less anyone can argue with you.SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 06:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Random break 2

<-Peter, none of those things are mentioned in the quote and no one is questioning the standard definition of "pseudo-science", which, BTW, isn't the only definition. The Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (right here beside me) makes it clear that the concept is a broad one with no absolute definition and it's used in many different ways.

That's not what this is about. This is about what the source actually says, not whether we agree with it. Our verifiability policy explicitly disallows our personal beliefs about the truthiness of a statement being used as a reason for excluding it, especially when its truthiness is hotly disputed by only a few editors who lost two RfCs which determined the statement was true and proper. Hans Adler's claim about the way the RfCs were "basically closed as" is totally false. The RfCs were closed very explicitly as the statement was true and the source reliable for making that exact statement:

I'm closing this RfC as National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs." Editors should keep in mind that the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific. ... en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC) (All emphasis original.)

Note that the quote under discussion is about "pseudoscientific beliefs" (a broad concept related to faulty thinking), not "pseudo-science" (a more narrowly defined concept related to claims). They're related, but not exactly the same. The source page quotes arch skeptic Michael Shermer's definition favorably. It's an excellent definition with which I fully agree. The page also liberally discusses pseudoscientific "beliefs" and expresses deep concern for the causes of such beliefs: lack of scientific insight, lack of critical thinking, in short just plain muddled thinking. This is discussed at length. The use of the term "pseudoscientific beliefs" is no accident, and it isn't in conflict with the definition of "pseudoscience" since it's a slightly different concept. If you forget that, the discussion becomes muddled and confusing.

The quote is an exact quote (with the necessary added attribution) published on the National Science Foundation website in the 2006 SEI Report prepared biennially by the National Science Board, whose membership is rather illustrious. Just follow the verifiability and reliable source policies without getting into OR discussions about the truthfulness of the statement. It makes a huge difference if one seeks to understand the statement in the context of the page, or whether one seeks deliberately, as is being done by the objectors, to make it look like the writers hadn't a clue and were internally inconsistent. If one follows the standard principles of hermeneutics, one should seek to interpret everything on the page in a manner that maintains internal consistency, IOW one should bend and twist one's own understanding, rather than bend and twist the source. That's where the learning really happens! -- Brangifer (talk) 13:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

BullRangifer, you are practising WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I will say it for the last time, and the next 150 times I have to say the same thing again because you again prove that you didn't listen, I will simply create a section heading here and link to it:

The quotation is literal and a misquotation. Yes, that's possible. And yes, that's what you have done.

Hans Adler 18:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's your lonely opinion. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Is it? It would appear that the average creationist is more likely to agree with you than the average scientist. Hans Adler 05:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, sorry for being so strict with you. I notice that you recently wrote: "[e]diting here can be a very learning experience" [17], and although that was on April Fools Day you seemed to be serious. So perhaps we should all give you a few more years for learning how Wikipedia works, rather than picking too much on you when you are unintentionally introducing problems into our articles. Hans Adler 05:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Not that it proves anything, as you seem to imply, but I've been here about two years longer than you and have about twice as many edits. My current (often pared) watchlist description: "You have 4,311 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages)." Big deal! Let's leave that stuff out of this. No matter how long we are here, we should be able to learn something. I think we can agree on that. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't evade the question. Did you or did you not write: "Editing here can be a very learning experience"? You can claim as much as you want that you didn't mean it. I merely quoted your words literally. If you want I can start an RfC on the following question: "Is there any reason to suppose that when BullRangifer wrote 'Editing here can be a very learning experience' he wasn't serious?"

More seriously, by misquoting you in this blatant way I hoped to make you protest against the misquotation in words that you will understand when I apply them to your misquotation. It was an attempt to resolve our obvious communication problem, but you avoided addressing the appropriateness of the literal quotation, which I had of course taken from one context to a different context where it causes the wrong associations, and instead focused on other things. What a shame. Hans Adler 08:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Evading what question? I don't get your point. Were you or were you not intimating that by admitting that it's a learning experience I was admitting I didn't know everything? If so, of course that's true. I don't, and neither do you. In your book, is admitting one doesn't know everything a sign of weakness? If so, I feel sorry for you. That would be a foolish attitude. Your associated comment right after it seems to back up my analysis even more. It very clearly intimates that such an admission indicated I was ignorant, more so than you, of how Wikipedia works, and that you'd give me some more years to learn (to catch up with your supposed superior knowledge). I then straightened you out on that one, but also noted that your invocation of experience/inexperience isn't necessarily the right criteria and said we should leave that out of the equation. I figured we could agree on that, but apparently you had some other agenda that didn't assume good faith, whereupon you launched into this attack on me. Very strange... -- Brangifer (talk)

I am amazed to see that it is still discussed. Even if a statement can be reliably supported, it doesn't mean it should be included without regard to other policies. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, our article on Ghost should be written in a neutral point of view. The view of ghosts as a topic of pseudoscience is extremely minor in a historical perspective and adding this would be pushing it. For this reason and others which have been given in prior discussions, we should not include it. Cenarium (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In principle I agree. There are many criteria for inclusion and exclusion. In this case I was really in doubt because of the original objections of Ludwigs2, Hans Adler, and a couple other pushers of fringe POV. Since the arguments of such editors don't carry much weight, I decided to get more input. I did what is recommended in such situations. I started an RfC on the matter and got a resounding "yes" that I was correct. In another RfC on the same matter, but for a different reason (a specific way to use the statement), I got another resounding "yes". In both RfCs these two objectors repeated their arguments which were repeatedly debunked by many others. A number of admins and at least one ArbCom member agreed with me. The RfCs were closed with very strong endorsement of the correctness of the statement for the proposed use. Since then they have refused to abide by the consensus in those RfCs. All the while I have acted in complete good faith.

Even though the statement was properly sourced, exactly quoted, properly attributed, and from an impeccable source, IF they had used proper arguments based on policy, they might have quickly convinced me that there were indeed some situations where the statement should not be used in the way I proposed, but they didn't. Instead, they invoked their own beliefs regarding the truthiness of the statement (in violation of "verifiability, not truth"), without using a single RS that mentioned the NSF/NSB statement which criticized it. Now that would have been a new factor to consider, but I've never heard of such a critical source.

Here is the real kicker, they also repeatedly made a fatal blunder by denying that the exact quote even said what it said, which is of course nonsense. Hans Adler even used a "failed verification" tag which was removed by another editor. Hans then removed the statement entirely, which restarted this whole debate. His overreaction to a proper removal of his false tag was yet another disruptive action. That's why this is still being debated. I had pretty much dropped the matter and not touched it for a while. If editors would stick to policy and not invoke their personal beliefs about the truth of the statement, we'd have a much better discussion I'd be glad to consider more seriously. They fail to realize that they are discussing the definition of "pseudoscience", when the statement is about "pseudoscientific beliefs", a related but not identical matter. If they stop shooting beside the target we'd get somewhere. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

Brangifer, if I were going to add a paragraph to the lead about the science aspect, I'd use an academic source such as Susan Blackmore. I've added something based on a paper of hers, just as an example, though I reverted myself. I think it's more solid than the NSF paper. Or you could use the papers Blackmore cites. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 11:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

NSF	Blackmore
Beginning with 19th century spiritism, various attempts have been made to investigate ghosts through scientific methods, but such efforts are generally held to be pseudoscientific. A National Science Foundation report in 2006 on a recent survey of public opinion in the US, referred to belief in the existence of ghosts as a "pseudoscientific belief."	A 1991 poll in the U.S. reported that a quarter of people believed in ghosts, a level of belief that psychologists Susan Blackmore and Rachel Moore argue stands in contrast with the scientific evidence for paranormal phenomena, which they say is controversial to non-existent.

SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 11:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ghosts in Spanish culture

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I have been starting a series on ghosts in different cultures, see template below, in the hope that editors who actually know about the subjects will find the articles, mutter uncomplimentary remarks about me under their breaths, and then fix them up. That seems to be starting to happen. The Brits don't qualify of course, because they are not very important, their ghosts are sort of boring and they have more than enough coverage in the main article.

I realize that the above is facetious and perhaps offensive. I confess that I find British, and more generally European ghosts relatively uninteresting since the beliefs are so primitive, but perhaps that is their charm. The Europeans seems to have jumped straight from primitive folk superstitions to a fully developed monotheistic religion with no intermediate stages, and the ghost beliefs preserve the early savage culture. There certainly is room for an article on the subject, or maybe two. I suspect that northern and southern Europe have rather different beliefs. It is worth looking into. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:Ghost beliefs Anyway, I got this brainwave that if I checked the other language wikis linked to Ghost I would get a good start for new articles on ghosts in different cultures. Spanish seemed like a good one because it seemed to have a lot of content. Google translate to the rescue, with some cut-and-paste and manual clean-up. Then I looked at the result: lots of stories but no sources. None. I checked La Silbón and found a couple. I am sure there are more. Is there anyone out there who speaks Spanish and can stop this one going to AfD? More people speak Spanish than English. It has to be worth salvaging. Please. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately my high school Spanish has never been used. It would be a shame if your efforts were in vain. I know that in Mexico belief in ghosts is a very important part of their culture. Good luck. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually I was thinking of starting a separate article on Mexican ghosts because the culture is so rich, with a blend of very different pre-colombian beliefs (Mayan, Aztec etc.) overlaid with Spanish and carried forward into the Day of the dead. There are sources for that in English. But for the reports of apparitions in castles in Spain, I am lost. Aymatth2 (talk) 11:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I did a start on Mexico, but am not at all satisfied. I did not find the sources I would have expected. Maybe editors who know something about the subject will improve it. Never mind. Malay ghosts seem really interesting, rather gruesome. I will try add a bit more to that one. 350 million people have to be relevant. But there is still a huge gap on Africa. That is where we all came from, and is incredibly diverse. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

English Terminology

The section on "English Terminology" is inappropriate in a general article on ghosts. It could be expanded to include Chinese terminology, Japanese terminology, Malay terminology and so on, but that would be silly. It would wind up as an incoherent list of hundreds of names for different ghost concepts around the world. Obambo? Alphabetic? I propose to move this section out to a separate article called "British ghost terminology", and replace it with a link from this article. Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd rename it Etymology which is a standard heading in many articles. Most other names will appear under the relevant geographic, historical or cultural description. I think it is fine as is. See vampire for a comparison. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Vampire article has the same problem. Maybe it works if it strictly limited to European-style vampires. But then you add Manananggal, Pontianak (folklore), Penanggalan and so on, and you get into a massive list. Not that there is anything wrong with a list-style article, but it would flood out the main article. Maybe a list-style article called "Ghost etymology"? Could be fun. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I take your point. I prefer to think of it as a rather nebulous cluster, with material that is closer to the classic concept, and some that is further away. Etymology relates to the name, which is in this case ghost and how it is derived. Some similar terms are also discussed. The key is to avoid reduplication when an article starts to get biggish. I got a bit carried away with vampire and it turned into a bit of a magnum opus, but I think all the material is integral - every article needs some context....I am now remembering such things as My Life in the Bush of Ghosts etc. :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

What I would really like to do is start an article on "Ghosts in British culture", something like that, that would give more detail on the different types of British ghost, origins and evolution of beliefs, haunted places, apparitions, literature, movies etc. This would be consistent with other articles such as Ghosts in Chinese culture and Malay ghost myths. My guess is it would grow into a large but rich and interesting article. The English etymology section would belong there. The difficulty is that it would introduce a fork with Etymology and other parts of the main Ghost article, mostly In the arts. I hate forks, but could foresee a huge fight over summarizing content in this article. I would also like to expand this article, mostly in the Typology section, to give more examples of similar ghost concepts around the world. The expanded typology would have links to detailed articles on specific types of ghosts in different cultures, but within an organized framework. I think that works better than a raw list of words and avoids bias towards one particular country. There is a risk of original research creeping in, but I would not worry too much about it. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I've lengthened my close of the RfC

It was way over-extrapolated.

• Talk:Ghost/pseudoscience#RfC:_Context_of_NSF_statement_about_belief_in_ghosts

Gwen Gale (talk) 11:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That RFC has been superseded by more recent discussions in any case, where consensus was found against inclusion. Cenarium (talk) 12:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I lengthened my close because I was asked about it today. It seems there were wider worries than inclusion in the article. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)