Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)

Question about MEDRS, definitions and science articles

Hello all,

I'm more and more convinced that the definitions used in MEDRS are unjustifiably limited to medical articles. The definitions found at WP:PSTS gives the impression that a peer-reviewed article on a scientific subject is a secondary source, when really if there is any debate the appropriate secondary source would be a review article. Is there any discussion elsewhere that points to this? For a celebutard's personal life, a news article is appropriate, but for a discussion of the impact of different drivers on human bipedalism, a review article would seem a better source than a journal article - where it is easy to cherry-pick sources to provide the illusion of being a respected hypothesis. Any wikilinks to policies or guidelines that would be helpful to me? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should seek to extend the MEDRS definitions (or something similar) to all science articles, perhaps as WP:SCIRS. As this is certainly going to be controversial amongst certain crowds, care should be taken to broach the topic in an unimpeachable way in order to avoid being interminably bound up in wikilawyering. I'd suggest that WP:Centralized discussion is the place to discuss it and that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science, Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, Wikipedia talk:PSTS and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) should all be notified of the discussion. Before doing so, you may want to draft a strawman in your userspace. You may find it helpful to read WP:Scientific_citation_guidelines, WP:Fringe, the mainspace article Scientific consensus, and their talkpages. LeadSongDog come howl 19:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific standards was attempted at one point. Please feel free to revive it. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WLU, the sort of review articles that you're talking about are journal articles: they're just not the only possible kind of journal articles. Have you asked the folks at PSTS to address this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to follow up at this by making edits to WP:PSTS that explicitly mention original research papers as examples of primary sources, and review articles as secondary. I've also followed up with discussion at WT:NOR #Deletion of examples of primary sources from PSTS. I don't know if these changes will stick (I'm no expert on the arcane points of Wikipedia policy). Eubulides (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

You'd be surprised how inexperienced and wrong many contributors to policy talk page discussions can be. Please, the more of our brightest and most experienced medical editors who offer help tweak and keep an eye on those pages, the better. It can be a hard battle but if we let folk undermine our policies upon which our guidelines are built, then everything falls apart.

I would like to add one point: PST should be judged not just by what type of source it is, but by what facts are being drawn from it. For example, any source can be a primary source for some piece of information (like the fact that so-and-so published such-and-such and when). Any discussion on PSTS that fails to acknowledge that is being too simplistic IMO. Colin°^Talk 22:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the many replies and wikilinks - I'll read through them. My apologies for not responding to all the posts on this one, I got caught up on editing a couple articles and this completely slipped my mind.

WAID, I agree that review articles are journal articles, but the guidance provided here about review articles, textbook chapters and summaries by official bodies taking precedence over single pieces of research was a powerful revelation to me as an editor and struck me as being the best way to ensure DUE weight. I haven't asked anyone at PST to respond, and I should have, thanks for the idea.

Colin, I also agree. However, there's a vast gulf between "X said Y about Z" and "There is general agreement that A is the cause of B". Like reporters "balancing" views on vaccination with notorious deniers and celebrities, by reporting "X said Y about Z" it gives significant weight to the idea that X is an expert on Z and that Y is true. For new editors (and particularly) for POV-pushers, cherry picking (particularly in fringe areas) can easily lead to Medical Hypotheses being cited as a source about AIDS denialism. More explicit guidance on what a secondary source is and why it takes precedence would be quite helpful. This whole thing was brought about by a civil POV-pusher on bipedalism trying to force the idea that the 'wading hypothesis' (a fringe with the fringe theory of the aquatic ape hypothesis) is a serious contender to explain bipedalism. Single sources were cited to support this across multiple years, but realistically the theory was not considered serious or useful by paleoanthropologists (though possibly changing PMID 19890871). So, is citing single sources saying "X said Y about Z" a good idea in this case, or an example of undue weight on an unproven, unaccepted hypothesis? In my mind an emphasis on secondary (i.e. review) sources in this case would neatly solve this problem. In this case I would say the facts were accurate, but still disproportionate. Perhaps this is a point to be made at WP:UNDUE rather than WP:RS... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I am likewise concerned about the application of MEDRS but for the converse reason, and that is the editing policy of some editors to classify article X as a "medical article" and therefore treat any information as falling under MEDRS at their convenience. As far as I can see the scope definition for MEDRS is given in the opening two sentences: "Wikipedia's articles, while not intended to provide medical advice, are nonetheless an important and widely used source of health information. Therefore, it is vital that biomedical information in articles be based on reliable published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." To me, a reasonable interpretation of this would be:

1. It applies to any Wikipedia article which includes biomedical information, however
2. It only applies to the accuracy of that biomedical information. Elsewhere straight WP:RS applies.

So for example the statement that "Actor X is HIV positive" is making no medical claims about HIV, so MEDRS does not apply here (though there is a host of other policies and guidelines which do govern the inclusion of such content). If this is not the case then we need to tighten up the guideline wording. I am not a medical expert, but I do expect that MEDRS be sufficiently clear in its scope that even any competent editor can sensibly interpret it. -- TerryE (talk) 00:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the intent of the opening sentence is to apply to the biomedical information in an article, independently of whether the article's topic is itself biomedical. Eubulides (talk) 00:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, even if the the article's topic is itself broadly biomedical, it shouldn't be applied to remove information that is not MEDRS but is valid for the article. For example one might argue that a specialist subject such HIV-1 is entirely MEDRS in scope, but the AIDS covers history and social aspects which are clearly outside MEDRS. One the other hand in the case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which is also both an medical subject and also has social and other aspects, editors in the past have successfully argued to exclude RS material because it falls outside MEDRS. Of course we should exclude biomedical on MEDRS criteria, but for non-biomedical content RS and not MEDRS should apply. -- TerryE (talk) 01:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm afraid that things are not as black-and-white as the previous comment suggests, as it's not always the case that "material" is clearly biomedical or clearly non-biomedical. Furthermore, in controversial areas like CFS and AIDS it's even more important than usual to employ high-quality sources, and the advice given in WP:MEDRS is particularly good advice to use in such areas. For the history of AIDS, for example, the question of where AIDS started and how it spread is clearly biomedical, as are many social aspects of AIDS involving transmission of disease. Eubulides (talk) 04:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Clearly we don't live in a world of black and white, but the whole purpose of having policies and guidelines is to help us move towards more objective discriminants. For example, WP:V states that in the case of submitting content "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material". What I hate is when some editor justifies that his revert or whatever is "because of MEDRS", but when you ask a perfectly reasonable Q such as "what aspect of this content breaches what specific aspect of MEDRS", the editor doesn't give a direct reply and instead just repeats "it's MEDRS silly" or words to that effect. This whole idea of having a trump card up your sleeve to drag out when convenient without explanation doesn't work for me. In such grey areas, the editor citing MEDRS must be willing to define what elements of the content fall under MEDRS and also which specific aspects of MEDRS are breached. Otherwise it isn't a sound edit and it therefore doesn't deserve to stand. -- TerryE (talk) 15:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

We expect editors to use their best judgment, and to apply guidelines like this one with 'common sense and the occasional exception.'

Have you read the last half of the section on popular press? It gives several examples of information that are often not best sourced to the peer-reviewed scientific literature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Medicine or medical?

This guideline appears to be about medical articles, but it's titled "medicine". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's title is "medicine-related articles". There is a difference between a 'medicine article' and a medicine-related article'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Assessing the evidence

We talked about this a while ago and never got very far. My bold change rearranges a bit, but it's the first and last paragraphs that are (mostly) new.

I didn't get very far with wordsmithing, so if you've got any ideas about how to improve it, please go ahead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Use or overuse of UpToDate

A new editor added considerable material to Grave's disease. Leaving entirely aside any POV issue I have re neuropsychiatric symptoms, the rest of the added material is I think basically correct, although written in a style of a text book. My specific concern is that UpToDate has been used in large measure (eg Ref3 used 24 times and further multiple references to UpToDate too) for the added material. Yet UpToDate is a subscription only site, so I am unable to check the details, and "Diagnosis of hyperthyroidism, Douglas S Ross, UpToDate.com, Last literature review version 17.1: januari 2009 | This topic last updated: augustus 25, 2008" does not seem likely as a reference easily located.

Is UpToDate therefore a permitted source for what should be standard information. Is any deficiency as a source (no abtract per PubMed for published articles to at least vaguely WP:V a topic), preclude it from being a major repeated source ? David Ruben ^Talk 22:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Generally this talk page is not intended to operate as a noticeboard - WP:MED might be a better spot.I think UpToDate should be discouraged as a source because it's tertiary and harder to access than medical journals, which you can at least access through an interlibrary loan if nothing else. It makes it harder to verify the content which means that subtle or major issues slip by easier. You should explain that to the editor and see if the editor understands. If not, I would request that the editor verify the sources used in UpToDate and provide them on the talk page, and then begin replacing UpToDate citations with secondary sources. If the UpToDate article does not provide its sources, it's a good reason to look for a source which does use sources. II | (t - c) 22:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The policy is at WP:PAYWALL, which I have added to ==See also==.

We might consider developing a section on this point. It could address online access as well as cost. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Teen Health Issues

I think the internet can do more to address teen health issues, as adolescent problems are often different that the adult diagnosis, and many adolescent problems go untreated because they are thought to be "only for adults". www.kidshealth.org and [[1]] are two good websites for such resources.

Alex Schwarzer (talk) 19:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Alex Schwarzer 5/12/2010 EST