Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

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Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-01-04/Longevity myths

This is worth looking at I believe, at least for those who don't think the word 'myth' should be driven from Wikipedia. Dougweller (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The article seems like original research to me. Of course the word myth ought not to be driven from the Wiki but what's the encyclopedic value of that entry in the first place? What we don't need are Christian apologists and skeptics battling it out over their own non-scholarly understandings of "myth". Ugh.Griswaldo (talk) 18:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't look at the articles just skimmed the mediation. There's some serious argumentation about stupid things. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The article is pretty odd. I'm debating whether I want to wade in and rewrite it - It could use it, but I'm not sure the effort would be worth the subsequent headaches. --Ludwigs2 19:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been watching it for a while and wondering what on earth can be done with it. At first sight there seem to be two completely different issues covered: the myths and religious beliefs of pre-literate and proto-literate societies, and the modern - 19th century onwards - potentially verifiable stories about long-lived people. But perhaps also social anthropologists might see a continuity, so that in remote areas even today people tell stories about their long-lived elders in much the same way that they have done for millennia. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

A clear case of WP:TNT. At least split the pre-modern stuff from the "unverifiable claims" of modern provenance. --dab (𒁳) 14:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I used not TNT but a big pair of shears. Please feel free to be bolder. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Shears help, but is there really a category of myth called "longevity myth"? Perhaps claims of longevity are a minor motif in some myths and other traditional stories, but not a category of myth as far as I can tell. Most of the examples in the entry are claims of human longevity found within myths and other stories. It really does appear that myth is used in the entry in sense of "urban myths" or other falsehoods that can be debunked. My gut tells me that there is a subject matter here, something that does connect claims of longevity in traditional stories and even in contemporary settings, but if this subject matter has found its way into scholarship I'm not seeing it in the entry, and I wouldn't imagine it was through the study of "longevity myths".Griswaldo (talk) 17:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that perhaps longevity has been a topic or an example in the social anthropological/cultural anthropological study of myth and belief. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

While I would expect so ... do we know this for a fact? Are their studies of longevity in myth, or are we assuming that sources exist are because we like the topic? Blueboar (talk) 22:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

That's what I wonder as well. Like I said my gut says yes (at least in terms of motif) but some lazy research on my part hasn't turned much up yet ... though I emphasize the lazy part. Until something turns up I feel like this is original research.Griswaldo (talk) 23:17, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia#Longevity.2C_ticklish_situation. Forget everything I said above. Straight to AfD. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The background of User:Ryoung122, who appears to be a primary author and defender of the entry adds more fodder to the "straight to AfD" suggestion as well. From what I can tell, his book uses the term myth strictly in the sense of "fiction" or "falsehood". In his book he "debunks" longevity claims. Of course skeptics also like to "debunk" some religious beliefs that originate in stories that are truly myths, in the technical sense, but I'm not seeing that part of the equation. Is anyone?Griswaldo (talk) 11:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

As the author of the hoax question, I thank you for noticing this issue, which was first challenged in 2004. But permit me to hold that it's not an AfD or shears material. There is a basic consensus at this family of articles (this one, then longevity claims, then list of supercentenarians, and not to mention such titles as list of centenarians (educators, school administrators, social scientists and linguists)) that all 110-year-old claims are notable, although more rigorous monitoring has traditionally started at 113. However, because most editors of these topics are acquaintances of Ryoung122 through the Yahoo group World's Oldest People (also attempted as a wikigroup WP:WOP), their original-research classifications have stood all these years, even against numerous policies. For instance, the 18th-20th-century cases listed (and just deleted) at this article are here primarily because the Group doesn't want them counted as longevity claims. We are in a promising situation building toward agreement on the distinction between these articles, but the bold editing just shown needs to be enfolded into this discussion. Now that y'all have stepped in while there is an ongoing mediation, linked above, I would ask you to contribute to "new consensus" by working the following questions.

1. Are all secondary-source 110-year-old claims in fact notable? That is the old consensus, in that 110 is the disciplinary definition of "supercentenarian", there are a manageable number of cases (under 1000 living), and the semi-arbitrary age 110 has the benefit of longstanding acceptance. The sudden deletion of much sourced material is troubling unless the consensus changes that this information is no longer valid for WP. Because this one looks so obvious to me, I'll be doing a careful WP:BRD revert so as not to lose the essential content (primarily contributed by myself, cough). Note that because of the recentism bias of the Group, these and many more classical sources have been overlooked, and could and should be brought to bear to bring the big-picture view of past longevity claims that WP is noted for.
2. Is there a distinction between more "modern" claims and more "traditional" claims? We have agreed there is but not on what it is, a subject of the mediation. The GRG/WOP group has pretty well said the only distinction is that claims of 131 years, 0 days, are false and thus "myths" (in the sense forbidden to WP by WP:RNPOV). I have no problem discussing the mythos of longevity (in the permitted sense), but as this board has noticed, there is zero sourcing of the topic of "longevity myths" in sociologists or mythologists: it is all done by gerontologists, who routinely use the word "myth" in the verboten sense. (Ryoung122 has failed for 18 months to provide on-point sources.) You will note that the age 131 years, 0 days, is very arbitrary and subjective, and, I think, math abuse (Ryoung122 admits it is based on a statement by scientist Jay Olshansky that 130 is possible but not 150, which is only one POV). Having studied the case closely, I proposed a minimal-fuss objective division point that properly addresses WP's need to WP:SUMMARY the material into separate articles and that is both a clear distinction and not a significant intrusion. I said that we could file an uncontroverted claim at (modern) "claim" if updated after 1955 (the beginning of Guinness World Records modern standards) OR if earlier but containing full birthdate and deathdate; and at the other article ("tradition" or "myth") otherwise. This means swapping only a handful of names from one article to the other, but Ryoung122 has not commented on this proposal yet. While any distinction between the two articles would be a form of OR, a subjective one based on flouting WP:RNPOV should be replaced by an objective one that is not much different from alphabetical breakdown.
3. What should the "traditional" article be called? As you note, "longevity myths" breaks policy. My attempts to go to "longevity traditions", "longevity stories", "longevity folklore" and the like have been fought tooth and nail. Given that the topic is notable and the division is objective, the question would be how to name it, as well as its associated category (currently forked into two categories "traditions" and "myths").

The various subcategory questions at mediation need not be addressed by this board, but these basic questions above are apropos and worthy of a consensus by outside Wikipedians that has not materialized for 6 years. JJB 16:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment I have to say that I fail to see the encyclopedic value of anything associated with this category -- Category:Supercentenarians. Have we become the guiness book of world records all of a sudden? Talk about WP:INDISCRIMINATE.Griswaldo (talk) 00:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

A significant rationale is that this area is rife for misinformation and that people who want to know what reliable sources say about any given supercentenarian they hear of would want a balanced article rather than to rely on the rarefied GWR, or any other nontertiary (noncomparative) source. If you see an unexpandable stub at any point, it can be merged back into a main article. But in general, most category members meet independent notability guidelines, or can be given to AFD individually in case you might disagree. Many of these predate GWR as well and WP is the perfect place to collate promoting mentions with debunking mentions insofar as both exist. And, yes, records in general are something we do quite a lot of, in our own way. Would you mind commenting more directly on my 3 board questions above? Thank you. This notability for individuals is not to preclude the axing of some of the regurgitative list articles based on WP:N and WP:NOR, especially when they can be shown to be overweight re-presentations of other articles. Dealing with the larger WP:WALLEDGARDEN of such articles needs many hands and is why my wife calls this thing "PickyWeedia". JJB 01:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The same rationale is possible for any piece of information that someone could conceivably want to know. We do not collect and publish all such pieces of information as I understand it. You say the area is rife with misinformation, but so what? How does that make the information encyclopedic, and really how important is it for people to have the correct information available at Wikipedia about any given centenarian supercentenarian? I said this before but there are hobbyists who are obsessed with all kinds of things, I don't think we ought to publish all the lists of information that every such group likes to collect. As to your points above I've already expressed my views on the article. It is original research and ought to get the axe. Salvageable information in it should go elsewhere. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 04:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I said supercentenarians, not centenarians; there are less than 1000 living supercentenarians and most of them do not appear in secondary sources. The issue of lists of notable centenarians is another topic entirely. But I fail to see the OR today except for the title (18 months ago it was quite obvious). JJB 05:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is what the entry is based on. 1) A recent notion of maximum age and 2) an indiscriminate list of individuals (whether historical or mythical) whom someone claimed lived longer than they possibly could have. Mix and matching the historical and mythical is pretty "smack you in face" obviously OR. But don't take my word for it, take a good look at the big crater like hole in the entry's sourcing when it comes to reliable sources that actually treat this as a viable subject matter in its own right. I really don't know what more I can say about this, I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point, and not for the first time. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 05:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge back into longevity is the only solution I can see. 2-3 paras in that article, with links to the Sumerian kings, the Biblical stories, any other things that have their own articles. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this information. Leaving aside the fact that those are all WP:SOFIXIT issues brought in by the 7 years of imbalance (there is no maximum-age notion left except for the one I am fighting in mediation; there is no claim of living "longer than they possibly could", as that makes a scientific judgment which scientists dispute; as for sourcing, other editors have ignored tertiary sourcing beyond Thoms, Boia, MPG and GWR, but I brought in the more comprehensive Haller 18th c., Hulbert 1825, Prichard 1836, Brewer 1905, Custance 1976, Wright 1996, Faig 2002), let me ask you a favor please. If you believe that not all people above a certain age (viz., 110) are notable for line-inclusion in lists, could you please start any AFD process by seeking consensus on some other article than this one that I've worked quite hard to bring up to standard? It looks like we have been spared some of the GRG specials like "last living people born in the 1890s", but here's some ideas for AFD:

• list of last veterans of World War I by country and branch of service
• list of the verified oldest men
• list of oldest people by year of birth
• list of Belgian supercentenarians
• list of oldest twins
• list of verified supercentenarians who died in 2009
• list of centenarians (miscellaneous)

I almost merged that last one myself but just didn't have enough impetus. Also ping me on the AFD because I don't watchlist them! If you want to work on the OR walled-garden, it is a much bigger field than the patch I've been working on last year and this year. Thanks! JJB 11:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning all this up needs a collective effort. Many hands make light work, and I suggest that you take this through WikiProject World's Oldest People. Get agreement on what makes a list notable, etc. But also from time to time bring in people completely outside the wikiproject, because the article we started off discussing here might have seemed OK to someone deeply involved in the topic, but it definitely didn't look OK to people coming to it out of the blue. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Done already (note date, and response). JJB 14:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I've proposed merger back into the parent longevity article; please join in the discussion on the talk page. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a sensible solution.Griswaldo (talk) 11:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

More eyes are needed at this page. "Longevity myth", as defined on this page is simply not a viable subject matter. It appears that some record experts and possibly even medical experts use a very sloppy notion of "myth" to encompass both actual myths that include characters who could not have lived as long as claimed, and urban myths, rumors and various other false but more contemporaneous claims to old age. If we do indeed care about the retention and proper use of terms like "myth" here on the encyclopedia then sorting this mess out would be helpful.Griswaldo (talk) 13:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank y'all for coming in despite our disagreements. I agree more eyes are needed but I propose we do this by adjourning from this board and continuing at the hot topic WP:COIN#User:Ryoung122 on Longevity myths, as well as the articles and an RFC I am likely to start. I am counting mediation on hold due to mediator's last edit being 21:47, 1 Oct. JJB 16:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Did it without RFC at Talk:Longevity myths#Questions to Griswaldo, thanks. JJB 17:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Mediation is restarting, with a new mediator. I have posted on what I think is the main item for discussion (i.e. whether the article should exist at all, cf first posts in this thread). Please, all FTN people have a look and a say in the mediation. This has been too messy too long. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The argument about what "myth" means might benefit from a reading of The Power of Myth. Myth does not equal false. Nor does it equal, necessarily, religious. I was pretty sure Joseph Campbell acolytes as diverse as George Lucas and Bill Moyers had helped settle these questions. It's hard for me to see why these topics are worth the number of electrons wasted disputing them. One clear problem is pugnacious incivility. Others include obvious violations of WP:COI and, especially, violations of WP:OWN. Also a truly jaw-dropping, blithely wiki-ignorant effort to bolster an argument by citation to an editor's own doctoral thesis. Not to mention and "expert" who has been judged, by consensus, to be non-notable. Reasonable people can resolve their difference collaboratively. But that pre-supposes a condition that's clearly lacking here.David in DC (talk) 18:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Number inflation in Turkish People

Not sure if this is the right place, but this article suffers from major inflation of numbers in the infobox. The main problem is one of methodology: National censi are routinely ignored, and instead, a maximalist figure obtained from an often low-quality online source is used, typically without any explanation of how that figure is arrived at. This is done for many countries, and is clearly a pattern. Specifically:

• Germany: a figure of 3.5 million is used, based on nothing more than a press release by the German Embassy [1], without any explanation of how this figure is arrived at. The lower figure from the census is ignored [2].

• Iraq: A maximalist figure of 3,000,000, taken from Iraqi Turkmen advocacy groups is posted along side the generally accepted figure in Western sources of 500,000.

• UK: A figure of 500,000 is given, taken from this [3] source.

• US: Until recently, the only figure given was 500,000, which was taken from local websites such as "The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History" [4] (even the title is ungrammatical) and the "Turkish Society of Rochester NY" [5]. Both sources are moreover from 2005, while the data from the US census from 2008 [6] was relegated to a footnote on the most spurious of grounds [7].

• Australia: Until the census was recently added by me, the only figure given was taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that casually mentions 150,000 in passing, without any further explanation [8].

• Greece: A maximalist figure of 150,000 is given based on POV advocacy sources such as these [9] [10], even though the Greek census shows that Muslims make up only 0.95% of Greece's population (~105,000, which includes about 35,000 Pomaks).

I could go on. Any attempt to discuss this on the talkpage is met with personal attacks, trolling, mockery, feigned victimization [11] [12] [13] and juvenile "retaliation" over at Greeks [14] [15].

Here's what I propose: For countries where current census data does exist, such as Germany, US, Australia, use the census data and only the census data, as is standard practice in all other ethnic group articles. If there is an issue that the census does not include those with ancestry, a footnote can be added as is done in Greeks regarding the number of Greeks in the US. POV advocacy sources should not be used at all (e.g. Iraqi Turkmen advocacy groups). Athenean (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Turks in the United Kingdom#65,000???? may also be relevant. Christopher Connor (talk) 02:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I concur. The inability of this article to handle relatively simple facts in an unbiased manner is a real mark on Wikipedia. The article should stick with census data, offer a mention where there is a legitimate differing sum, and stay away from POV sources or sources throwing unsubstantiated numbers around in passing.Konchevnik81 (talk) 02:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Well do you actually know anything about the British Turks? Have you any expert knowledge? There are an estimated 200,000 Turkish Cypriot-born people living in the UK. The 65,000 figure is toally absurd.Turco85 (Talk) 15:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not so much a question of "maximalism" vs. "minimalism", it's a question of what you want to count. In Germany, there are 3.5 million ethnic Turks, and 1.7 million Turkish citizens. This isn't a contradiction, it just means that Germany has 1.8 million citizens who are ethnic Turks. --dab (𒁳) 19:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, the issue is that many of the figures are backed by dubious or unreliable sources (e.g. for the US or UK), as opposed to sources that meet WP:RS. The method used is to scour the internet for a website that gives the largest possible figure, and then enter that information in the infobox so as to make the numbers as large as possible. This is a common problem in many ethnic group articles, not just here mind you. Athenean (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

that's just a matter of WP:RS, then. A serious reference will make clear whether it is talking about Turkish nationals or ethnic Turks. These are two entirely different questions (you can be a Turk but not a Turkish national, and you can be a Turkish national but not a Turk) and need to be treated seperately. You must avoid by all means to end up with a sum of "mixed" figures, some counting nationals and some counting ethnic Turks. --dab (𒁳) 13:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

dab, this is why I object to using firgures based on citizenship. A person with Turkish citizenship could be a Kurd, Armenian, Grek etc. Nonetheless, a person with Cypriot, Bulgarian, Greek, Iraqi, Syrian, Kosovan citizenship may actually be an ethnic Turk. Using citizenship figures is therefore not reliable. Furthermore, citizenship stats do not include ethnic Turks who have be naturalised citizens or who have been born in the host country. I would like to invite you all to discuss this further in the discussion page of the aticle in question...Turco85 (Talk) 15:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Stats can only be produced when data is collected. In the UK the 10 yearly Census of Population provides the definitive stats. That means the 2001 census, out of date, pity, can't be helped. It asked about ethnic origin, but there was no category for Turkish, so Turkish people presumably ticked "White Other" or "Other". It asked for place of birth, so we know how many people living in the UK in 2001 were born in Turkey or North Cyprus. If you want to know how many ethnically Turkish people live in the UK today, then you will be in big problems, because the census didn't ask. A demographer could make an estimate from the data held on school pupils, but has that been done? Unemployment is measured in the same way across Europe, so you might think nationality and ethnicity might be as well, but they're not, so there is no consistent way of counting how many Turkish people live in the various countries. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The case for the UK is an interesting example: It is true that there are no reliable official figures, for the reasons you mention. However, there do exist estimates of 125,000-300,000 which appear in reliable sources such as these [16] [17], while The Independent, another reliable source, gives a figure of 300,000 [18]. True, these are nothing more than estimates, but at least they appear in reliable sources. This is in contrast to the figure of 500,000 which is taken from the Federation of Turkish Associations [19], a less reliable source. So while official figures are impossible to come by, and this is unlikely to change, it boils down to a question of estimates in various sources. To me at least, it is clear that the estimates from the more reliable sources should be the ones used in the article. Athenean (talk) 21:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Itsmejudith, it's great to see someone understands about census'...yes this is what I am trying to explain. However, I would like to add more to what you have said. There is an estimated 130,000 Turkish Cypriots who came to the UK from the TRNC which is not recognised by the UK. The Cyprus-born figure most likely only includes those TCs who came the the UK before 1983 as they immigrated with Cypriot passports; which makes it even more complicated.
• Athenean, please take into consideration that The Independent estimate of 300,000 was given 15 years ago. The Independent has also recently reported that a further 100,000 have been smuggled to the UK which would equal to at least 400,000 as the original 300,000 estimate would have increased even if 100,000 Turks were not smuggled to the UK.Turco85 (Talk) 22:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I would also like to say that I am now confused on what Athenean sees to be a reliable source. It seems as though if the estimate is a high one he/she believes it to be unreliable. e.g. Athenean sees The Independent's 1996 estimate of 300,000 British Turks as reasonable yet does not believe that the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany's 2010 estimate of 3.5 million Turks to be reliable.Turco85 (Talk) 22:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

So basically you're claiming that the number of Turks in the UK almost doubled in the 14 years since 1996? Outlandish, and pure WP:OR. Btw, these sources [20] [21] are from 2005 and 2009, and they are much more reliable. 19:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

No what I am saying is that 300,000 (1996 estimate) + 100,000 (recently smuggled in 2005) = 400,000. But what about the population increase prior to the smuggled 100,000? Are you saying that the population stayed at 300,000 for 15 years until 2005? And now you claim that academic sources are reliable. Before you was arguing that the figures used for Iraq is unreliable because we are using academic sources for them. So what is it Athenean? Your comments are all contradictory. I am sincerely confused with what you see to be a reliable source. Turco85 (Talk) 20:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

100,000 smuggled in 2005? Again outlandish. Do you have a source for that (for once)? I am getting bored by your OR. And I never said that academic sources are unreliable. The Federation of Turkish Associations is definitely not a reliable source. Athenean (talk) 20:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The Independant in 2005 reported that 100,000 Turks had been smuggled to the country: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gang-held-over-smuggling-100000-turks-into-britain-510591.html Why are you saying this is 'outlandish' for? You make it seems as though I come up with all these figures from thin air! Every stat I talk about in my arguments come from a source.Turco85 (Talk) 21:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

In your first comment you wrote the following the 'maximalist figure of 3,000,000, taken from Iraqi Turkmen advocacy groups is posted along side the generally accepted figure in Western sources of 500,000'... in the article we are using two academic sources [Park 2005 and Kibaroğlu, Kibaroğlu & Halman 2009] which both state that the population is disputed between 500,000 to 3,000,000. Turco85 (Talk) 21:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I also find it amusing that you find the 500,000 estimate of Turkish Americans by the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History as an unreliable source. If you type 'Encyclopedia of Cleveland History' in the wikipedia search engine you will see that there are 2,145 results!Turco85 (Talk) 21:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Exotic tribes of ancient India, Category:Exotic tribes in Hindu scripture

Just found a sizeable walled garden, apparently due to Jijithnr (talk · contribs), plus Sri Lankan additions by Wikinpg (talk · contribs), full of {{inuniverse}} articles inspired by the Sanskrit epics. I found this when I stumbled on and tried to clean upthis, and things just got worse the more articles I looked at (sigh).

• Rakshasa Kingdom & Raksha people vs. Rakshasa
• Pisacha Kingdom vs. Pisacha
• Gandharva Kingdom (ugh) vs. Gandharva
• Kimpurusha Kingdom (yes, "They could be a tribe of horse-warriors like the Kamboja")
• Kinnara Kingdom vs. Kinnara
• Naga Kingdom & Naga people (Sri Lanka) vs. Nāga

and probably others. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there any chance that this is a topic that has received attention from scholars who analyse the ancient Indian epics? Or is it pure synthesis? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:28, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a valid topic of Hindu mythology, or more specifically of Category:Mahabharata and Category:Ramayana. So, the Rakshasas were a class of demons, and they figure as having a kingdom in the Mahabharata. Hence Rakshasa Kingdom either should be merged into Rakshasa, or it should become Rakshasas (Mahabharata), i.e. a WP:SS sub-article of Rakshasa focussing on their role in the Mahabharata.

As usual, the articles also need to be cleaned of their 85% useless cruft. I think as Wikipedians watching the Hindu articles, we slowly begin to understand just how the Mahabharata itself could end up as a 1.8 million word construct. --dab (𒁳) 14:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you still need assistance with this? I can see for example that Rakshasa is a sensible and informative article whereas Rakshasa Kingdom wants me to believe that the Mahabharata is a historical document. I will help if I can, but can only give a lay view. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Origin of the Albanians#Genetic studies

This section of the article is a dreadful, incoherent mish-mash of unrelated items. Claims that Y Haplogroup J2 originated in Albania, that the Albanians are unmixed with other Balkan peoples (from "sources" such as this [22]), utterly irrelevant maps about the spread of Cardial pottery [23] (what this has to do with the article's subject is beyond me), you name it. This section was always a mess, but it has now grown out of control. Any help in cleaning up this section would be appreciated. Athenean (talk) 02:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't suppose I can just delete it? I think that would be an improvement... --Akhilleus (talk) 02:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I certainly would not object to that. Athenean (talk) 02:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have replied here regarding this issue before. As you can see genetic section is present in many Balkan people related articles pretty much in the same format, while I didn't see user:Athenean complaining about that. Furthermore I don't understand the supposed fringe theory issue? I am curious to find out what kind of fringe theory is that and where it is stated?! As far as I see in the article there are only data related to haplogroups presented among Albanians and everything is properly cited. No theory of any kind. As for style of editing my version was somewhat primitive but the current form was made by Andrew Lancaster which is well known in wiki and outside for his contribution in genetic related articles. Look here and for about a year that section of article had been stable and right now is pretty much the same, although there was a lot of edit warring about the rest of the article. That means the Andrew has done an excellent job. But of course there are always places for improvement and genetic studies which are multiplied during recent years can help in improving that section, but that needs an expert in the field. Aigest (talk) 12:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Aigest mentioned the discussion so a quick comment. I worked quickly on this in the past and do not want to claim too much for it at all. It can certainly be improved. But on the other hand, needing work does not equate to being "fringe". There are lots of normal looking sources, so I think Athenean needs to explain why he has posted here? Just from what he has said so far though, I agree that the map of the Cardial culture does not have any reason to be there right now unless someone finds a reason. I'll have a look.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Have made some changes in order to reduce any potential controversy, at least in the Y DNA section. I see nothing not coming directly from the strongest sources available, and quite uncontroversial. If there are problem in discussions about other types of DNA I have not checked.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I object to any deletion of well sourced material in general. Could you please specify how the material is fringe theory? A cleanup tag would suffice. Grubi is a reliable source and his article is certainly WP:RS.--Sulmues ^(talk) 12:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this genetic-basis-for-racial-origins material has been spread across multiple articles. It all looks like fringe science, if not outright pseudoscience.

Someone needs to look across the relevant noticeboards to what's already been discussed, and list the discussions here or in another central location for discussion. If I'm not mistaken there's a lot out there, including at least two related Arbcom's. --Ronz (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it is more complicated than that. Population genetics is an orthodox type of science, but the problems on WP come from the lining up of a few things:-

• It is a new field, so especially 5 or more years ago the academics themselves were still writing quite speculative stuff, without as much caution as they should have; and this was made difficult to reflect properly here also because there is still not much secondary writing.
• It is a very multidisciplinary discussion, which meant that for example there were geneticists trying to write about linguistics and vice versa, again leading to problems made worse by there not being much secondary writing. Again this was worse a few years back than it is now.
• Perhaps the most critical point is that people are very interested in it, especially people with interests in ethnic and national identity things, and so there are newspaper articles, press releases etc, (and this is also something academics encourage these days).

I believe the WP community is getting better at handling these issues, and also the field itself is maturing, but there were certainly a few years were it was a mess. The most difficult articles, because of their sensitivity, are generally those about the genetics of particular ethnic groups. Also Y haplogroup articles have had their troubles, mainly because these were heavily relied upon for a few years by both scientists and pseudo-scientists looking to explain the genetics of ethnic groups. With technology now moving ahead we are hopefully seeing more autosomal DNA studies which will give better balance to the field, and therefore hopefully also reflect upon WP articles. (Because WP articles are supposed to reflect whatever a field says.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Ronz, there aren't any fringe sources or theories like others said and that part of the article needs some cleanup.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 08:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Longevity-cruft

Further to threads passim, what, if anything at all, is worth keeping from:

In my very humble opinion it is a walled garden guarded by WP:OWNers. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• Don't forget everything here -- Category:Supercentenarians. Much of the material on these pages is sourced solely to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), members and fans of which apparently belong to the same Yahoo group and edit these entries on Wikipedia almost exclusively.Griswaldo (talk) 15:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
• On their website the GRG describe themselves as "Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging within the next 20 years." I know nothing about gerontology but I wonder if this means they are at the fringes of the discipline. As a layman I would imagine most people who study aspects of aging do not share this objective.Griswaldo (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

From grg website [24] the prime mover is L. Stephen Coles. According to his bio he qualified in electronic engineering and then again in obstetrics and gynecology. But the source could be regarded as SPS. He has published mainly in Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine, now Rejuvenation Research, which seems to be the house journal of this group. It's starting to look on the fringey side. Are any of our resident biologists/medics around? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

For most everything they cite here, i.e., world records, they are as skeptical as the best of this board. They are also skeptical about resveratrol, Okinawa diet, and swamis. But as you two have noted, what they are is qualified gerontologists and amateur folklorists and (maybe) statisticians, and the allied editors are editing folklore and statistics. (It is probable that they have some basic grasp of statistics, but I have already presented evidence the prime mover Ryoung122 doesn't.)

As for the walled garden, I have been trying to rally for careful scope definition so we can determine what is WP keepable and what is plain vanity. As already said, I will back you up on the majority of AFD proposals. But I think a go-slow approach will work better to actually complete the massive job. I've thrown out all sorts of ideas for merge or delete in prior discussions. I would say, what do you two want to delete first, let me share my thoughts, and then we'll message WP:WOP and User:Ryoung122 and wait a couple days so we have a fair and notified start on AFDs. Going too fast would jeopardize a valid process by inviting accusations of, um, going too fast. JJB 16:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Actually I will make a recommendation: let's start with the three by-continent articles as the least defensible. I'd want to confirm I felt this way after reading the articles and histories, of course. (Yes I did just say delete prior to reading them, that shows how bad it is, hearing an inclusionist says that.) JJB 17:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Here's a great map of the garden! JJB 17:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with notability criteria for lists, but something that really strikes me is the lists of centenarians. We have to draw the line somewhere, and since these days a lot of people live beyond 100... Itsmejudith (talk) 17:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Read it as "list of notable centenarians". Those are actually tamer because they resemble the unimpeachable list of Eagle Scouts (notable), but their breakdown is arbitrary, the titles abysmal, and a merge-to-biglonglist not inconsiderable. Another take is that you could delete the main article as redundant with the template and keep it occupationally or alphabetically broken down. (An agreement on subarticle max size would be needed, 100K is accepted by many people, these articles are much shorter than that.) But "delete all" would be a steeper climb because there are more articles, and they're more of a WP-style topic taken over by WP:WOP and thus a fixit. As to supercentenary articles, they don't require notability, but the idea that they should require at least one secondary source per name is also often flouted and thus can be another entry point. JJB 17:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the list of centenarians, it might be best to turn the list into a list of only those centenarians who meet notability guidelines, specifically including WP:NE, which would mean that those who are only notable for having reached an advanced age would not be included. I have a feeling that might include a large number of them. John Carter (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for looking at this area. I think the list of centenarians already met your suggestion of being limited only to those with WP articles, and due to their all having occupational categories very few are likely to be notable solely for being 100 (which I agree would delete them there if so). The problem on that set is not OR/SYN or unencyclopedicity, but only presentation. There are a lot worse problems afoot though. Feel free to dip in anywhere. JJB 20:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Based on User:NickOrnstein's activity (apparently favoring deletion) on these articles, I have completed and/or created deletion nominations on the following:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oldest military veterans (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of last veterans of World War I by country and branch of service
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of the oldest living men
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katie McMenamin
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eva McConnell
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Dolan Quinn
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Dolan (centenarian)

JJB 04:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing

There's a discussion here about Barry Fell and his idea that Mi'kmaq 'hieroglyphs' were Egyptian. Some other views would be useful on how it should be handled in the article. I'm not sure myself. Dougweller (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the chart of Fell's errors was undue weight. It's quite interesting, actually, but mainly to illustrate how the pseudoscientific mind works. It doesn't tell us anything about Mi'kmaq writing. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

IMO, that would be more appropriate in the Barry Fell article. At Mi'kmaq, we could simply say that there are fringe ideas about connections to Egyptian, link Barry Fell, and leave it at that. — kwami (talk) 21:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Fringe science?

I feel silly even bringing this here but I would like some outside input (for the record at least). Is this source fringe? It attempts to make a "scientific" case for what seem to be impossibly old ages in antiquity, apparently to justify the literal reading of the ages of Biblical patriarchs. Some assessment of this source for the record would be much appreciated. More attention in general to the longevity articles mentioned above would also be appreciated.Griswaldo (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it's "fringe science", what matters is that it represents a significant POV held by millions of people about the subject (longevity traditions) and that on the point cited it agrees with an opposing significant POV held by millions of people, also cited to support the same point for balance. Since it's a mentionable (minority or majority) POV it is easy to name adherents, but what if I named them and somebody classed all of them together as fringe? This is an article about traditions from all eras and so it is appropriate to mention all POVs. This source challenge was advanced to object that the synthesis it makes (the same synthesis that the skeptical source makes), are not valid syntheses to appear in the article; so I reask my question from talk: what sourced synthesis would you accept to appear in the article? JJB 14:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It surely can't be the case that millions of people agree with Arthur Custance, the author of the source Griswaldo linked to; I doubt that millions of people have read his work. An assertion that millions of people hold a particular opinion about soi-disant longevity traditions ought to be backed up with a citation to a reliable source; Custance doesn't appear to be a good source for this purpose. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say millions agree with Custance as having read him, thanks for inviting a strawman. The POV I mentioned is Biblical literalism, which I think based on its article is safe to attribute to millions of conservative Christians, although the number is intended as round. If you'd like me to find a source for that article indicating how many adherents it has, beside the list of scholars provided, that's a bit out of my scope right now. Can we at least agree that Biblical literalism is not a fringe position when the article is about interpreting Biblical and other ancient texts? Itsmejudith, a regular here, has just proposed taking the question to WikiProject Christianity, which I think is a very considerate compromise. Did you have any comments about whether the Biblical literalist POV, without using the source for any mention of science, was proper for an article on Biblical and other ancient sources? JJB 16:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

By the way, posting at WikiProject Christianity is just an idea I had, hoping to get more eyes on the article, especially people with experience in editing in areas that the article currently covers. I would also like to post at WikiProject Taoism. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

On the "biblical literalist POV", this isn't the right way to approach it. There is a massive scholarly literature on interpretation of the bible. The solution is to use prominent mainstream theologians, who between them have addressed every aspect. Custance isn't in that category, is he? Itsmejudith (talk) 23:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree w/both of Itsmejudith's comments. If it's important to establish that there are lots of people who believe in biblical stories of long-lived Israelites because they take a literalist approach to the OT, there are better sources than Custance. (And I haven't read the article, but this doesn't seem like an important point to make, anyway.) --Akhilleus (talk) 00:25, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

there are also lots of people who believe that they are the center of the universe, built so that a giant teat will lower itself to feed them whenever they make a hungry noise. These include all the world's below-four-month-olds. The question is, is this a relevant point of view? Wikipedia is already hopelessly biased towards the US American brand of infantile redneck Christianity. Not even so much in our accounts of Christianity, but ironically in our accounts of atheism: US American atheists apparently grow up learning that Christianity more or less equals full lobotomy. In reality, of course, outside the North American steppes, Christianity has a venerable and highly intellectual theological tradition. I am saying this here because this is yet another topic where there is a danger of treating "a literalist approach to the OT" as a valid and quotable school of thought within Christianity. --dab (𒁳) 07:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Judith is the only one on point, as the (devolving) discussion is not about whether Custance should be quoted for literalist views. Custance has long been quoted in the article for the fact that he cites old-age traditions from Prichard and other sources, and nobody objected to his quotes due to his POV, because it didn't affect the data. I then added another cite to Custance and one to a skeptical source, showing only that both sources compare the Biblical data to modern data, and that was to deflect charges that such a comparison is an unsourced synthesis. It's a sourced synthesis, and since discussion has moved on from that point, I think it's settled. Therefore the discussion here is (should be) about whether Custance can be used as an example to demonstrate how various sources compare various old-age traditions, and it's really a moot discussion because it would be more appropriate to just dig up more sources that do the same thing instead. Judith's point is well-taken but the article already covers theologians on every aspect of the question in the Biblical section. Custance's mention in the main, categorizing section does not make any reference to what his POV is, other than that it's different from that of the other source (the skeptic), which needn't even necessarily be said. JJB 20:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear semiotics

Nuclear semiotics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

I'm at a loss. Between the nuclear priesthood and the atomic cats, I know not where to turn.

Is this WP:SYNTH? I can't tell.

Help!

ScienceApologist (talk) 21:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's synth. Some could be merged into Thomas Sebeok, some into nuclear waste. I expect it is a concern in health and safety studies. Perhaps there are working parties that are notable, if so someone needs to point to the references and allow the articles to be created. Not a sub-discipline of semiotics. Is it a notable trope in science fiction? Probably not. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It has three interwikis, for what it's worth. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the article. Sure, it's an eccentric topic, but then this is Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 07:27, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have been translated from German Wikipedia, hence the interwikis. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this excellent find! I have no idea if it's synth, but frankly for this particular hilarious but apparently legitimate topic it doesn't seem to matter much. One of the sources is an article from Der Spiegel. I quote (in translation):

The team of 13, including engineers, sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, nuclear physicicsts and behavioural scientists, enjoyed protection from the highest rank. The recently inducted Reagan administration acted as contracting body. When the commission presented its report in 1981, recommendations for a Stonehenge-style nuclear Grail were part of it. Responsible for the curious recourse to antiquity was Thomas Sebeok, then professor of linguistics and semiotics at Indiana University in Bloomington. His proposals would originate a dubious research area – nuclear semiotics was born.

I see a featured article coming for early April next year. Hans Adler 10:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Weston Price and Quackwatch

Some additional input would be nice at Weston Price where there is disagreement about whether or not to include a contemporary criticism of Price, now dead over 50 years, from Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch. A prior related discussion was held at the RS/N. See ...

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_a_paper_.28possible_blog.29_by_a_psychiatrist_valid_regarding_old_claims_regarding_dentistry.3F

My personal opinion is that Barrett's criticism is UNDUE in the entry. He's criticizing Weston for scholarship that during its time of production (almost a century ago) does not seem to have been fringe. Other editors have pointed this out in more detail than I have. Some comments from people more knowledgeable would be good here. In general some help might be good with the Weston entry, as it is not in a very good state over all either.Griswaldo (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion. I have a very different perspective on the dispute:

Weston Price is most notable today because of the two organizations that base their claims on Price's research, the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation and Weston A. Price Foundation. Both organizations promote fringe theories.

It appears Price is notable (almost?) entirely due to the work of these organizations, as well as individuals and groups who also use Price's research for similar purposes.

Currently, the Quackwatch reference is the only one in the article that discusses how Price's research is used today.

My perspective then is that the article needs more and better references on Price's notability as a researcher cited for fringe theories. --Ronz (talk) 16:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The thing is we already have an article on The Weston A. Price Foundation so the use (or possible misuse) of Price's theories belongs there. The Weston A. Price article is on the man himself--NOT what organization founded after his death have done with his theories.

As for notability that is kind of sticky as Weston A. Price was certainly notable in his own time (It looks like his obituary appeared in the New York Times and tribunes and memorial articles appearing in Journal American Academy Applied Nutrition and Modern nutrition) He was also the Chairman of the Callahan Memorial Award Commission in 1922.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Any other notability of Price remains to be seen. --Ronz (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Price was very notable in his own time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Frankly I'm not certain why this discussion is on this noticeboard. I don't think Price's views are given undue weight, nor is the concept of nutritional effects on teeth fringe theory with regard to processed foods. Even my own dentist has admitted that. Barrett tried to make the point that if you introduce these tribes to western foods they would develop a sweet tooth and over eat on candy; and of course their teeth would rot (I'm paraphrasing).

"Price knew that when primitive people were exposed to "modern" civilization they developed dental trouble and higher rates of various diseases, but he failed to realize why. Most were used to "feast or famine" eating. When large amounts of sweets were suddenly made available, they overindulged. [Barrett]"

Well anyone that's every traveled to a Caribbean island would know that these people have their own forms of "sweets" from the products they've grown for centuries, that are not produced in a factory using artificial ingredients (i.e., processed). So the business of trying to paint Price a simpleton because he didn't account for this obvious fault in his study is ridiculous. Furthermore the age of observations and studies is not a determinant of the validity of the results today. Until we see proper studies that refute Price, we shouldn't be assuming them. Does everyone or Price's theories have to be correct, to bring Price out of the finge? If so, then should we label the hydrogenation of oleo as fringe too? Didn't we all grow being told it was healthier than butter, only to find out later it wasn't? --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 13:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's being discussed here because Price is most notable today for a researcher whose works are used to promote fringe theories.

This is not a venue for apologetics for Price. --Ronz (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Please acquaint yourself with WP:Recentism. Thank you. Hans Adler 16:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I've written my comments about the situation with WP:Recentism in mind, as I'd hope my repeated use of "notability" indicates. Others agree with my notability concerns. Let's not beat a dead horse. If you have specific concerns that haven't been addressed by myself or others, please bring them up. --Ronz (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Nor is it a venue to critique one person's work based on another's use. Maybe you should bring those articles in here instead. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 16:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thankfully, no one is doing that. How about we keep the discussion to what is actually happening? --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I am. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 17:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I have two thoughts. 1) a discussion of the impact of someone's theories/researches after their death is appropriate for the biography. and 2) Use of Barrett and Quackwatch should be limited as, he is more focused on debunking of theories than on straight up evaluations of them. If no one else cares to discuss the fringey-ness of Price's old theories, it might be best to keep it short. Full discussion of the fringey-ness of the various foundations who promote fringe off his work in their own articles is warrented, imo. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 16:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said over in Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_a_paper_.28possible_blog.29_by_a_psychiatrist_valid_regarding_old_claims_regarding_dentistry.3F Barrett has serious problems.

Burn Barrett Bandwagon?

Barrett: "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition."

Price: "This physician stated that there were about 800 whites living in the town and about 400 Indians, and that notwithstanding this difference in numbers there were twice as many Indian children born as white children, but that by the time these children reached six years of age there were more white children living than Indian and half-breed children. This he stated was largely due to the very high child mortality rate, of which the most frequent cause is tuberculosis." (Chapter 6)

"The changes in facial and dental arch form, which I have described at length in this volume, develop in this age period also, not as a result of faulty nutrition of the individual but as the result of distortions in the architectural design in the very early part of the formative period. Apparently, they are directly related to qualities in the germ plasm of one or both parents, which result from nutritional defects in the parent before the conception took place, or deficient nutrition of the mother in the early part of the formative period." (Chapter 19)

"It is important to keep in mind that morbidity and mortality data for many diseases follow a relatively regular course from year to year, with large increases in the late winter and spring and a marked decrease in summer and early autumn. [...] I have obtained the figures for the levels of morbidity for several diseases in several countries, including the United States and Canada." (Chapter 20)

"Dr. Vaughan in her reference to the data on the annual report of the chief medical officer, the Minister of Health, states as follows: Our infant mortality returns show that over half the number of infants dying before they are a year old die before they have lived a month..." (Chapter 21)

The direct quotes from Price's own book showed that he was very much aware of the high rates of infant mortality of native peoples and the effects of endemic diseases so where is Barrett getting this idea that Price ignored these factors? Worse for Barrett, Price wrote this in a 1923 book called Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic: "since 1870 the average length of life has been increased by fifteen years, that marked reduction has occurred during this period in infant mortality and in mortality due to tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox and many other diseases."

Short life expectancy, high rates of infant mortality, and endemic diseases being eliminated by modern culture were addressed by Price years before and more over Price uses this very book as a reference in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Chapters 2 and 18). But according to Barrett claims Price ignored the very things Price himself noted in 1923 even while referencing said work. Does this make a lick of sense?!?--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett is not an WP:RS on this subject matter at all as far as I can see, and this is just evidence of that fact. Arguing for the inclusion of Quackwatch here is not only a detriment to the entry but also a detriment to Quackwatch in the areas when it is a useful source.Griswaldo (talk) 22:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

One could hardly wish for a clearer proof that Barrett simply makes things up rather than doing any research. What I find really worrying is that with this level of laziness, dishonesty, or whatever it is – in any case lack of professionalism – in one area, it seems hard to defend Quackwatch as a reliable source on anything, and we need something like it. The key question for me (although probably not very relevant to the Price article) is now whether this is a unique error or whether this reflects Barrett's general MO. Hans Adler 23:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the right person to ask about this, but I was under the impression that there are areas where issues are so fringe that mainstream sources of better quality are hard to find refuting the fringe sources, and that something like Quackwatch is all one is left with. However, I am now also wondering if Barrett is "reliable" for anything given how grossly unreliable he appears to be here. I'm sure there are those who know more who want to respond here though.Griswaldo (talk) 23:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Can we please drop the strawmen on how Quackwatch is being used as a source? No one is even proposing that the source be used in the ways discussed above. Also, please note that WP:BLP applies in discussions about Barrett. --Ronz (talk) 23:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's back up the burn-Barrett bandwagon for the moment. Barrett is spot-on with his criticism of holistic dentistry and is probably the best independent source we've got on this obscure alt. medicine. His dismissal of Price is inexact but not ridiculously out-of-line compared to the outrage I'm seeing expressed here, on the RSN thread, and the article talkpage. What is needed here are sources on the subject. I've been unable to find many. This makes me very nervous. In my first brush with research, I've discovered, for example, that Price was a prominent eugenicist until he renounced it in the 1930s [25] which seems to be all but absent from the Price Foundation's website: [26]. The source I reference is quite good, but makes me think that what is needed is a competent researcher to solve this problem. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

SA, regarding your "eugenics" comment, lets not play so fast and lose with what the sources says - "And early on he, like many of his class and educational background, was an advocate of eugenics, although he had abandoned it by the early 1930s" (emphasis mine). However horrible we might consider eugenics, it hardly seems like something that a contemporary supporter of his theories would feel compelled to mention if it indeed eugenics was such a widespread position among people of Price's social station at the time. And it is up to Barrett and Quackwatch to do their editing and fact checking more diligently, btw. As I pointed out earlier, if Quackwatch is a resource that is a net positive to the project pushing articles like this is a serious detriment because they rightly make us question the website's reliability.Griswaldo (talk) 01:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not playing fast-and-loose. Price had an eight part slideshow he marketed all over Cleveland called "Race Decline and Race Regeneration" where he advocated a "back to Africa" sort of noble savage idealism according to this source. Sure, there were lots of intellectuals on this bandwagon until the excesses of National Socialism, but the fact that this fact is available in reliable sources and totally absent from our article is troubling to me. On the other hand, contemporary supporters have written multiple pages on homeopathy, which, as far as I can tell, Price never wrote about. So how are we to tease all this out? I'm concerned that we're swallowing a supporting-party-line for no good reason. The Weston Price Foundation probably does not belong as a reliable source for our article, and it is startling to me that no one is saying that right now. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You are playing fast-and-loose and now you've raised the specter of National Socialism, and to what end? Price believed in some theory of eugenics, and so did the Nazis, therefore ...? Here is an even more complete quote from the source - "Price was long influenced by Darwinism and genetics. And early on he, like many of his class and educational background, was an advocate of eugenics, although he had abandoned it by the early 1930s." Do we actually know that there is any connection between the "excesses of National Socialism" and Price abandoning his own version of eugenics? Not that I can see. The source does however make a connection between eugenics and his interests in evolution and genetics, so why didn't you mention that? I'd say you are exactly "playing fast-and-loose" with the sources, seemingly to make Price look less appealing. But again to what end? If the eugenics stuff was a prominent part of his life and work of course we should add it to the entry, but you seem less concerned with the encyclopedic quality of the entry and more concerned with impugning the Foundation and others in the homeopathy movement, which is exactly the problem we're facing with the Barrett as a source. We should be focusing on building an encyclopedic entry on a historical figure and not fixated with a Foundation that was created nearly 50 years after his death. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 11:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Comments like this seem way out of proportion. I have no irons in this fire at all and don't care one way or another about "homeopathy movements" except that it's patently obvious that the Weston Price Foundation is advocating a whole lot of alternative medicine that doesn't seem connected to the biography of Weston Price and so using them as a source is worrying. It's undeniable that Price was a Eugenicist. I am not sure why he abandoned eugenics, but I do know that the 1930s were the time it fell out of vogue and the rise of fascist ideologies which advocated for national purification were definitely part-and-parcel to this. What Price's motivations are cannot be determined from the paltry sources we have, but I am extremely uncomfortable that you are engaging in strident attacks on these issues. I'm wondering why you want to make this so personal. You're really just making my trepidation worse. ScienceApologist (talk) 12:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I just read your user page; I'd say you have plenty of irons in the fire. Exposing pseudoscience appears to be a subject of great interest to you. Bringing up fascism in regards to this article is certainly taking things out of proportion. Let's try to get back to the topic at hand please. You are also assuming bad faith on the part of Griswald which is out of line as well. Your trepidations are your own doing, don't blame anyone here for that. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 01:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your personal comments to yourself. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett, the Price Foundation, and Expertise

"Want to make this so personal" ... nothing of the sort. It just seemed to me that your comments were more aimed at attacking Price than helping us with the problems raised on the board. I'm clearly mistaken and apologize. I have no desire to make anything personal. Using the Foundation as a source is not good, I agree, but as Bruce points out we need better sources here. My perspective is precisely that the connection to the Foundation is the problem, and I mean that in both directions. We ought not to write an entry on Price based on the Foundation's romanticized version of him, utilized by them quite clearly to promote their own contemporary nutrition agenda. Agreed? But we also shouldn't write an entry on him puffed up with criticism of this romanticized version Price, promoted by professional "debunkers" in their own contemporaneous discursive battle with the Foundation. Do you also agree with that? Regarding eugenics, which is clearly a topic we should discuss but not really related to the question that started this thread, as I already stated if this is a notable aspect of his life and work we should put it in with the aid of reliable sources. I don't see where the problem is there. What I didn't understand was how his connection to eugenics could be stated so emphatically, while we all know and admit that sourcing on Price is extremely thin. That doesn't sit right with me, and I'm sorry if you think my responses to this were turning personal. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the source I cite is a pretty good one, so that's a start anyway. Barrett's site is, to be clear, reacting to the foundation. To that end, he may be criticizing the image of Price rather than the actual person, but I'm not buying the arguments presented here that somehow his brief essay is flatly contradicted by the protestations of Price-enthusiasts. The current article claims that the Foundation disputed Barrett's claims, but what I see instead is a harping on singular ideas and ignoring bigger issues. Did Price have the tools required to figure out what the differences in diet meant for dentistry? Not compared to today. That's really what I get out of Barrett's piece more than anything else. His confounding variables points are not refuted by other sources that I've seen, but this is all really beside the point since I agree with you that better sources are needed for the biography. I was just using the connection to eugenics as an object lesson as something about Price which is not found at all in the article but is trivially referenced to independent sources. I'm just concerned that there may be people from the Foundation trying to control the biography and harping on about Barrett is actually obscuring the real issues of how to write a neutral and well-researched biography. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

That is a fair concern but I don't think that this is happening. Bruce's points are not from the Foundation as far as I can tell but from his own reading of Price's work. Basically he has shown that Barrett makes claims about Price that seem to be contradicted rather plainly by Price's own writings. Either way, I've been looking into sources that cite Price, refer to his work or review his work, and I've been putting my results on the article talk page. It appears that there may be a wealth of further information out there that simply isn't all that easy to access.Griswaldo (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The claims of "plain contradiction" seem, to me, to be more-or-less incorrect. Barrett was speaking broadly about some concerns regarding confounding variables. In some of the instances Bruce cites (which are very similar to foundation talking point I looked at wherein they criticized Barrett) the quotes seem to be about entirely unrelated issues. In any case, moving towards better sources might make this entire dispute disappear. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett rather dubiously leaves out of his discussion of Price the role of "vitamins and minerals", which appears to have been the most important variable to Price. If you ask me Barrett creates a caricature of the man so that his findings look as absurd as possible. If had pointed out that Price thought that the processed food of his time was positively correlated to higher risk factors because it had a lower vitamin content it wouldn't have had quite the same damning effect now would it? Now it is possible that many or most of Price's conclusions have not stood the test of time. It is possible that his studies were flawed in a great many ways, but I think that Barrett's presentation of them is unreliable and skewed. I've now read some of Price's book, along with a great many of sources citing him and reviewing his work (and no, none from the contemporary fringe), and I don't get the same picture here. My concern is that we do justice to a historical figure in the way that someone with an axe to grind against holistic dentistry (Barrett) cannot be trusted to do.Griswaldo (talk) 17:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett's discussion of Price as a person takes all of, what, three paragraphs? I think he is entitled to an editorial opinion if he wants. Arguing that he is unreliable "by omission" seems really strange to me. No one is arguing that we use Barrett as the authoritative and exhaustive source of all that is Weston Price. But I don't think that the three paragraphs he wrote on the man are strictly incorrect or particularly more unreliable than any other random three paragraphs on Price we might care to identify. Price's obsession with first nutrition and then micronutrients is clearly documented in the source I listed. Note that this "nutrition" movement is the direct antecedent to modern vitamin therapies and the largely unregulated (in the US) supplement industry which is famously guilty for overselling their ideas. Price argued passionately about certain foods (especially fish oil) being associated with dental health and towards the end of his life was largely dismissed by the mainstream establishment as a has-been quack. This is also documented in the source I cited. Barrett seems to support this portrayal and I'm not convinced that he has been plainly impeached in his critique. Sure, I want Price to be treated fairly. But I don't think that we need excise Barrett as a source in order to do it. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Hans here regarding WP:SPS. Barrett does not have the relevant expertise. If Barrett was adept at seeking out expert opinions, or expert studies that refuted someone like Price and utilizing them in his own critiques then one might consider his general expertise here in "quackbusting". But since he does not do that, but instead relies on his own analysis of a subject matter he has no expertise in I again have to agree with Hans. That said, I also disagree that Barrett's characterization of Price is even mildly in line with the paper you linked by the PhD student in history. I just read through the paper, and it is a great resource, but it does not discredit Price's work at all so maybe I missed something there. It also emphasizes the connection to vitamins and minerals I mentioned above, and plainly states that there was "nothing idiosyncratic" about Price's position. Now he's not lauding Price either or saying that Price got it all correct by any means. But this is the kind of dispassionate historical narrative we need to evaluate Price's theories and not that of contemporary skeptic.Griswaldo (talk) 21:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the relevant expertise here is in relation to evaluating alt med claims. Inasmuch as Price's ideas are relevant to alt med claims (and I submit that they are), Barrett is a reliable source to discuss them. I can understand why you might think that the history paper is not "in line" with Barrett's description of Price. That's because the presentation of the historian is one of context while Barrett's presentation is focused on the details of how Price's claims are not scientifically verified. When I read the phrase "nothing idiosyncratic", I took it to mean, simply, that the ideas purported by Price were more mainstream for their time than they are now. In that sense, I think the paper dovetails extremely well with Barrett's criticism. You may take issue with Barrett's tone or his rhetorical style, but the substance of his argument, to me, seems to be that Price was arguing that specific nutrition played a role in dentistry, and that specific nutrition Price advocated (essentially a "nativist nutrition" ideal) is not a dental panacea. This is simply not the point of the history paper, so I'm not surprised that Barrett's take is different: He's a different sort of expert. But he's still an expert with something to add to the discussion about Price's legacy. To be clear, the attempts earlier in this thread to claim that certain quotes from Price's work somehow show that Barrett's criticism is incorrect or off-base seem to me to be akin to Tesla enthusiasts who argue that, for example, that criticism of Tesla's power generation schemes from the ionosphere are ignore the fact that Tesla wrote about potential issues with his ideas. Where you read malice towards a dead man, I read simply critique of ideas that are promoted today by advocates in ways that are verifiably counter to scientific fact. An appropriate summary style of ideas from Barrett might read, "Price's promotion of native diets as a cure for modern dental problems, are criticized as being incorrect by skeptics such as Stephen Barrett who lament the current-day promotion of Price's work as lacking evidence basis." We can workshop that, of course, but I see no problem with including such a sentence (properly vetted, edited, and conceded to, of course) in the article with the citation to Barrett's piece. Do you? ScienceApologist (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Except that Barrett's critique does not rely upon general knowledge of "alternative medicine" ... it relies on expertise in physical and medical anthropology or perhaps more generally expertise in the historical and cross-cultural study of nutrition and consumption behaviors. His critique rests upon uncited claims about both general state of nutritional health and consumption practices as well as various other health related social behaviors of the various cultures that Price did fieldwork with. Sorry but I can tell you emphatically that he has no credentials to make such statements, and being a general critic of modern holistic medicine certainly does not get him any closer to knowledge about the nutritional life of the Wakamba and Jalou tribes of Kenya in the early 20th century, for instance. When we start accepting this kind of lackadaisical credentialing of critics we're doing this project a huge disfavor.Griswaldo (talk) 16:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding Barrett's work here. Barrett is not attempting to make a critique of Price's anthropology. He's making a critique of Price's claims being used for medical advice. In that he certainly has expertise. Barrett is not talking about specific anthropological aspects of the nutrition of the Wakamba and Jalou tribes. He's talking about how the conclusions of Price are not reasonable as medical advice. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You must have read a different article by Barrett than the one I read. There are two criticisms of Price's work. 1) The one I described above which falls into the realm of disciplines like anthropology and public health and 2) of Price's focal infection theory. The first two paragraphs are completely focused on #1 and the third paragraph on #2. I think you are confusing the purpose of Barrett's critique with the actual elements of Price's work that Barrett is actively criticizing.Griswaldo (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Careful parsing of Barrett's two paragraphs is probably not worth it, but suffice to say I do not think Barrett was intending to do an academic takedown of Price's shoddy anthropological methods within the context you suggest. Instead, I think he was pointing out confounding variables (which, though protestations to the contrary were made above, Price did not really take into account and, in some instances, could not possibly have taken into account). ScienceApologist (talk) 18:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I hope this clarifies things a bit. See for instance the following excerpts from paragraphs 1 and 2 respectively with emphasis to make the point more obvious:

• "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition. While praising their diets for not producing cavities, he ignored the fact that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities.
• "... but he failed to realize why. Most were used to "feast or famine" eating. When large amounts of sweets were suddenly made available, they overindulged. Ignorant of the value of balancing their diets, they also ingested too much fatty and salty food. Their problems were not caused by eating "civilized" food but by abusing it."

These arguments are not simply based upon medical knowledge, they are based upon a series of presuppositions about what the natives Price studied did and how their health was effected by what they did. He suggests that Price overlooked these variables, not that he misinterpreted them. Barrett clearly must have knowledge of the existence of these variables then. Without such knowledge none of these critiques are in anyway germane. Yet he does not have the expertise to make such claims about these natives. He would have to cite the claims, and he does not. Is that clear enough?Griswaldo (talk) 18:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

To put it another way, given your latest response, Barrett does not have the expertise needed to be a reliable source on the existence of these confounding variables. That is one solid reason why he is not an exception to WP:SPS in this case.Griswaldo (talk) 18:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

No, Barrett is not positing content expertise in anthropology, he's just illustrating that Price succumbed to the normal problems associated with noble savage ideology that dominated much of his work. Barrett is not saying that Price "overlooked" variables. He's saying that he didn't take many of them seriously because he "ignored" them in favor of his own ideological explanation: an explanation Barrett knows from introductory med school classes has gaping holes. Careful reading to me indicates that Barrett is simply pointing out the ideological problems with Price's approach and one need not be a particular expert in anthropology to see where the holes are. To criticize Barrett for pointing these out without citations is like criticizing a scientist who speaks extemporaneously about creationist pabulum. "But, this scientist isn't a geneticist, how can she criticize this claim that genes mutate at too low of a rate to explain evolution?" One need not be a high-level content expert to see obvious holes. That's what Barrett has pointed out. These holes are relevant because people have uncritically used Price's writings to promote obviously erroneous ideas. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You do have to be a content expert if you're using content that is not common knowledge as the foundation of your critique. This isn't even remotely related to your creationism analogy which involves information that is common knowledge and not just among "scientists". Are you saying that it is common knowledge that all of these various groups behaved in the manner that Barrett claims they did prior to and after being introduced to Western customs? Most lived "feast or famine" and suffered from malnutrition? Most were "ignorant of the value of balancing their diet"? Really? Also did most second generation westernized natives of the 1920s and 1930s and belonging to the groups studied by Price "overindulge" in Western foods? I didn't know that. Did you? Where does that come from? I'm sorry I do not accept his non-expert generalizations about native groups he knows squat about. From my perspective these look an awful lot like generalizations based upon some contemporary studies of the health and consumption habits of contemporary "native" groups (e.g Native Americans and Polynesians). I could be wrong, but then again, like Barrett I have no business making such claims in the first place.Griswaldo (talk) 14:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

What this amounts to is Barrett critiquing Price for falling prey to the trope of the "noble savage" with his own contemporary trope of the "overindulging savage". Neither trope is particularly convincing on its own and at least Price did some actual research and produced some empirical evidence to back his conclusions, however biased his interpretations ended up being. I continue to believe that this blind defense of Barrett is a great detriment to the project because Barrett is clearly a useful source in other areas.Griswaldo (talk) 14:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You're not getting it. Barrett's goal is not to provide an anthropological critique of Price. Barrett's goal is to point out problems. That there are generalizations or "tropes" that are inexact in Barrett's two paragraphs on obvious reasons not to take Price at face value is irrelevant. Barrett isn't asking that we accept his interpretation as the only correct one: he's simply pointing out the error in accepting Price's. At least that's how I read it. You can criticize this kind of critique as being "not useful", but you should not be making judgments about which person did "actual research". Claiming that Barrett didn't do "actual research" is baseless. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to get the last word in here but I don't see this going anywhere at this point. I do get it. The problem is that Barrett does not have the necessary expertise in " pointing out the error in accepting Price's", and this is made obvious by the manner in which he choses to do so (said manner has described above again and again). If Barrett did actual research he would be presenting us with ways to verify his research (whether that research was original scientific research or source research). For the last time his opinion alone doesn't cut it because he is not an expert here. I've quoted directly from his essay to corroborate this claim by showing the exact types of claims he's making in order to mount his argument and I can't really do much more than that.Griswaldo (talk) 16:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Casual analysis and skeptical dismissal has its place when fringe ideas based on nearly 100-year-old work that has no ral intellectual progeny are being promulgated. Just because ideas that are being explicated by non-experts are analyzed in passing by relevant skeptics doesn't mean that the skeptics are doing shoddy research. We can verify that Barrett made the statements, but no one has impeached their validity except to say that they are overly-broad which was their intent in the first place. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Confounding variables and what makes an expert?

Look, I'm sure there were confounding variables here, and possibly even some of the ones identified by Barrett. The problem is that Barrett, who appears to have no expertise in identifying the existence of the actual confounding variables, has created an argument by adapting a series of generalizations that sound scientific in order to prove his point. This is an "ends justify the means" type of situation for his defenders if you ask me, but I do not think we can adopt that approach on Wikipedia because that is tantamount to crusading for the WP:TRUTH instead of WP:V. Do I believe that Price probably overlooked several variables and possibly dismissed others that would add great explanatory value to the health differences he observed and would call many of his specific conclusions into doubt? Certainly. But I'm not about lobby for the inclusion non-expert opinions that in the end agree with my belief I'm going to continue to search for expert criticisms of Price's theories, especially those that situate the criticisms historically and help to flesh out the historical narrative of Price. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that we adopt this approach "on Wikipedia". I've already stated clearly that I think Barrett's critique is worth its context but is not meant to be authoritatively autobiographical. Barrett is an expert on how the works of Price are being misused by the Price Foundation. He's also an expert in how the Price Foundation has spun Price's findings and how there are problems with Price's findings. Are his critiques as precise as those that might be made by an expert anthropologist? No. But that's not the point of the Barrett source anyway. You can search for more sources that are of higher academic quality, but this blanket dismissal of Quackwatch is just unwarranted. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett is not an expert on how they are being misused. He's an expert at sniffing out that they are probably being misused. This is the real problem here. Barrett is probably correct in general but he has no expertise in the fields needed to accurately explain why and this is obvious because he resorts to tropes and generalizations about native diets and westernized native behaviors. Like I said above, feel free to have the last word here because clearly what I'm saying is falling on def ears.Griswaldo (talk) 16:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

@ Griswaldo: my ears aren't deaf, and I agree with you substantially. I think it's time that we acknowledge that we have largely reached a consensus on this bit (that Barrett is not an expert at all, but merely an informed commentator who opinion may have a place on the article with respect to the foundation, but cannot be treated as an unbiased source with respect to Price himself). At this point we should just go ahead and revise the article from that understanding. I mean, I'm happy to continue the discussion with SA, but at this point he's got a bit of upstream swimming to do before he can make an effective case for his perspective. --Ludwigs2 18:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no consensus for the statement "Barret is not an expert at all". He is an expert at debunking false medical claims. I'm not sure what you mean by "unbiased", but skeptics are pretty much the closest thing we have to independent analysis of much of the nonsense promulgated by obscure fringe sources. Essentially, no one here has addressed these fundamental facts, and these are facts from on the ground: these represent how Wikipedia functions. I'm doing no upstream swimming here. If anything, the vestiges of the old alt-med wars have been all but marginalized from this encyclopedia leaving yourself as one the sole hold-outs. Barrett is used as a source a whole lot more than three years ago, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

SA, I'm not sure what you mean by 'an expert at debunking false medical claims'. I'll grant that that is what he does, and I'll even grant that there's a value to it, but 'being an expert' involves more than just doing something a lot. generally speaking, 'expertise' requires some kind of professional or academic degree, some form of testing and licensing, or some other publicly established system for verifying expertise and conferring the title. There are no public systems for conferring or confirming expertise at skepticism or debunking, and Barrett has no special skills or knowledge (that I am aware of) that entitle him to the status of 'expert'. Honestly, he doesn't do anything that you or I couldn't do (and couldn't do better) if we had the time and interest to dedicate to the task; a decent plumber has more right to call himself an expert (by virtue of specific training and licensing), than you or I or Barrett.

I don't disagree with what you say about skeptics, but that doesn't make skeptics authoritative experts. it makes skepticism a particular point of view to be included in broader discussions. The 'old alt med wars', as you put it, were the result of two partisan camps each trying to queer the encyclopedia to their own bias. the skeptics have generally done better at imposing their bias due to divide-and-conquer issues: fringe advocates tend to have a small range of articles that interest them, while skeptics have a generalized bias that allows them to organize better across a broad range of pages. but it is still a bias, and it is still inappropriate to impose a bias to the encyclopedia, and it's high time that we loosened that particular stranglehold and headed back towards neutral presentations. If in fact you are correct that Barrett is being used more extensively as a source, all that tells me is that a lot more articles may be suffering from sourcing problems. I should probably look into that.

This is what I mean by swimming upstream. you can only maintain your position by maintaining that Barrett somehow, someway, has some special status beyond 'guy that runs a skeptical website'. You have to keep asserting that against every person (5 or 6 in this debate alone) who suggests that Barrett in no way has any special status or position that give his critiques 'umph', but you don't really have any justification for that assertion, and the more you argue it, the more apparent it becomes that you don't really have any justification for it. You simply cannot explain why Barrett is someone whose opinion carries any particular weight (aside from being a notable 'guy who runs a skeptical website'). I (at least) am waiting for the shoe to drop: the point where you stop trying to present Barrett as more than he is, and settle down to using him as he is (which is good enough for skeptical critiques in a lot of cases). Is that ever going to happen, or are you going to continue advancing him as a sort of skeptical messiah? --Ludwigs2 20:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Since Barrett has been published by third-party publishers and journals debunking phony medical claims (e.g. [27], [28], [29]), he is an expert according to WP:SPS. According to Wikipedia's definition, then, he is an "expert". That's what I'm going by. If you dislike this definition, take it up at the talk page of that policy. If you think you can get published in the way Barrett has been published and can start a website that has received the accolades Barrett's website has received, then you are indeed an expert. Wikipedia is doing just fine with handling neutrality, as I see it. But I won't stand idly by while people malign perfectly good sources like Quackwatch. My justification is enshrined in Wikipedia policy, and until you get it changed, I'm going to stick to it. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Geez, who keeps changing the section titles? making me dizzy...

SA, wp:SPS talks about 'established experts whose work has been published in reliable sources'; it does not say that being published in 3rd party reliable sources makes one an established expert (which would be an absurd thing to say, if you think about it). asserting that as true is a logical fallacy: affirming the consequent. even if you could legitimately use this argument (which you can't, not within the bounds of rational discourse), you'd run smack into the next line of SPS which says "caution should be exercised when using such sources". You can't honestly claim that this is a 'cautious' application of the source; you're pushing the edges of common sense in order to assert the source as authoritative.

You are free to stick by your viewpoint until the cows come home. I respect that: as you know, I am not even slightly shy about stubbornly sticking to my own guns when I think I'm in the right. But I know (and you ought to) that there comes a point when you simply have to bow to reason. Being stubborn is useful and often successful when the other side is not being reasonable; but one needs to be open to the possibility that reason is on the other side of the table and one's assertiveness is simply misguided. --Ludwigs2 03:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You are really parsing closely if you think the dependent parenthetical clause in SPS is the consequent. But no matter, it's pretty easy to see how either of us could be correct: the real point I'm making is that it is the only guidance Wikipedia gives for determining expertise and it's not an outrageous one. The alternative is to just go by the vague considerations of editors and, as we've seen from the Burn Barrett Bandwagon, this isn't a reasonable approach. I think that if we were to adjudicate this it is very likely that the result would be that the person who has been published in peer reviewed journals and has maintained a website that has received numerous positive reviews from other acknowledged experts is likely to be considered reliable at least for certain aspects of what we're dealing with here. And, you're just putting words into my mouth if you think that I'm not advocating for a cautious approach here. "Reason", as it were, has really nothing to do with our disagreement. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:49, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No, SA, it is not the case that either of us could be correct. The common (or should I say 'common sense') criteria for the word 'expert' both on project and off is that someone has a degree, a credential, a license, or some other recognized accomplishment in a particular field that signifies specialized knowledge or skills. There is not even a legitimate field here ('quackbusting' is only a legitimate field of investigation in your mind), and there is no reason whatsoever to suggest that Barrett is an 'expert' at it. Now, if you you really want to keep up this line, then yes, let's go ask for clarification on this issue at ArbCom under the pseudoscience ruling. do you want to open the case or shall I? --Ludwigs2 15:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What makes one an expert is their publication record and acknowledgment of other experts. That's what Wikipedia says in SPS and that's what I go by. Arbcom is not going to take this on. I suggest going to the talkpage of WP:SPS to get consensus to clarify the policy. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Where is the third party verification of his expertise then, and in what field is this expertise in? There is no "field of debunking" as you claim just below. You have listed two peer reviewed publications of his earlier on the page, but that does not make him an expert in a non-existent field. The third source you listed was published by Prometheus books, which is a well known publishing arm of a skeptical society. Doesn't exactly count towards mainstream acceptance as an expert in a non-existent field. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I've already shown you the places Barrett has been published, and the positive reviews he's received are documented on our Quackwatch page pretty clearly. The "field" is not "non-existent": it's just specialized. If you think that the mainstream distrusts "skeptical societies", I'd like you to show this. Maligning a source as "skeptical" is like maligning a source for being "evidence-based" as far as I'm concerned and it is a criticism that is not only hollow but utterly silly. Skeptics are great sources for describing what they describe. We use them all the time to great effect. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I think ArbCom will take this on, since this is clearly an extension of the pseudoscience decision. We can discuss this at SPS if you like, but neither of us shows any particular inclination to change our point of view, and all an additional forum is going to accomplish is to attract more users who are making a point of not listening to the same reasons that have already been presented. ArbCom request for clarification will save us the trouble of talking past each other for a few more weeks. --Ludwigs2 16:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is in ArbCom's remit. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Uh, obviously it is. At any rate, it can't hurt to ask. since you seem reticent I'll start the process myself as I get a chance. --Ludwigs2 18:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett is not an expert in nutrition or the associated research. When has conduct any, and produced a scientific report on it? It's already been proven that Price was an accepted expert in his field by his colleagues. Barrett can make all the quackbusting on the Price Foundation he wants, but he can't say diddly about Price. He can't even address his research in the context of the known science at the time. If he did, he would have to agree with him. Price had detailed data and analyses, Barrett doesn't. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 21:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Price was incorrect in many if not most of his conclusions. Barrett explained why and is a verified expert in the field of debunking. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

To excise or not to excise

The real reason we need to excise Barrett is that the exception described in the following passage from WP:SPS does not apply when Barrett speaks about Price: "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." Hans Adler 18:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett, I would argue, is an established expert in the relevant field of quackbusting and we have many third-party sources which have identified him as a reliable debunker of health frauds. This is not to say that Price is a health fraud, but in the same way I think it would be dishonest for us not to include mention of the eponymous foundation in Price's biography, it would be dishonest for us to excise sources who have commented on this foundation. Barrett is a self-published recognized expert here in the same way that Phil Plait is when he discusses Moon hoaxers for the biography of Alexander Popov, or Bob Park is when he discusses cold fusion for the biography of Stanley Pons. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

SA: First off, 'quackbusting' is not a 'field' (any more than the MythBusters are a center for academic research). being a debunker is not being a scientist, it's being a social activist for science. I do think we need to include modern outgrowths of price's work (such as the foundation), and I'm not averse to using Barrett's critique as a critique of those modern outgrowths, but Barrett's critique of Price himself strikes me as an unreliable (primary source) opinion, not the product of a reasoned (secondary source) analysis. Barrett is only critiquing Price because Barrett wants leverage against the modern foundations - the technique is akin to critiquing modern American democracy by pointing out that Ben Franklin liked to sleep with 12 year olds. is that really the kind of argument style we want to use on project? --Ludwigs2 18:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows for broad definitions of "fields". The semantics of such are not really relevant. What does matter is that Barrett is recognized by a wide range of reliable sources as being a good resource for what I colloquially term "quackbusting". You seem to acknowledge that yourself, so I'll let the matter drop. As far as your distrust of Barrett's critique of "Price himself", I'm not convinced that you're doing anything more than exhibiting prejudice. Barrett's three paragraphs on "Price himself" simply indicate to me that certain aspects of Price's ideas do not hold up when subject to scientific scrutiny; a relatively common type of criticism that is leveled against not just Price, but also a wide range of his more accomplished contemporaries (Tesla and Pauling to name a few). There's no problem with acknowledging this facet of Price's legacy. In addition, you make a bold and unsubstantiated claim about Barrett's motivations for writing the three paragraphs in question, that he is doing so because he wants leverage against the modern Price Foundation. This claim of yours is simply not something we can verify. What it looks to me like you are doing is setting up a tenuous strawman: Barrett is unreliable because he is not setting out to write a fair biography of Price. Even if we could verify that as being true, it's actually irrelevant because we only require that reliable sources like Stephen Barrett writing about health frauds and their histories present usable material. We, as editors, can work on how best to use the source, but it's simply not okay to argue that we should ignore or excise every statement in Price's biography sourced to Barrett on the basis of polemics against Quackwatch. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

ScienceApologist: Please don't ignore the issue. I thought it's enough to simply get to the core of WP:SPS, but you have chosen not to reply to that. So let's start from the beginning: Is Stephen Barrett writing in Quackwatch a self-published-source, yes or no? Keep in mind that you have to defend your answer, and that you probably don't want Dana Ullman's website to become a reliable source. Hans Adler 20:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm arguing that the exception you outline in your previous post does apply with regards to Barrett's article about Weston Price. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ooops! Sorry, I don't know what happened to my reading comprehension. OK. So Barrett is an expert in the field of quackbusting. To what extent is Weston Price an article on quackbusting? I vaguely remember something about WP:UNDUE, plants and homeopathic remedies, so I am a bit puzzled. Hans Adler 21:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

To the extent that Weston Price's legacy is largely controlled in the popular media by advocates of a particular brand of alternative medicine. I wrote a sample sentence above to illustrate. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

SA- point about semantics taken. so long as we're careful not to elevate quackbusting to a full-scale academic pursuit, I'm satisfied. With respect to your other points, however, I don't quite see how you get to 'prejudice' from what I wrote. My two points were as follows:

1. Barrett does not seem to be doing what reliable secondary sources would do - gathering material from an assortment of different sources in order to present a neutral and comprehensive overview of Price's work. He seems to be presenting a version of Price's legacy geared toward making an argument that Price was a pseudoscientist. That would be primary source material, and as a primary source Barrett is questionable and likely not notable for the topic (which I think goes to Hans' SPS issue)
2. Barrett is primarily concerned with the modern outgrowths of Price's work, not Price himself. QuackWatch explicitly deals with practices that are (potentially) dangerous to public, and Price (having been dead for a good long while now, and therefore prima facia not dangerous) is only relevant to the extent that his theories are carried on in some form by others. If Barrett showed any real proclivity for examining scientific history as an independent subject I might reconsider, but his primary interest is clearly generating public information about current practices. The only reason to discuss Price is to use the discussion of price to gain leverage in a discussion of other, more current practices.

And please don't accuse me of using a strawman argument right before you pull out a strawman argument of your own (reverse double-strawman submission technique is disallowed under MMA debating style rules). I never argued "that we should ignore or excise every statement in Price's biography sourced to Barrett". This is a matter for discussion, not a call to action.

@ Hans: I believe SA is saying that Price is an expert in the field of 'quacking', to which the field of 'quackbusting' is intimately related. However, I'm not sure about the sourcing on that. --Ludwigs2 21:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I agree with your point two. Point one I agree with except for the first sentence. I don't think we make demands on what we want reliable sources "to do". I think we make demands on how reliable sources are evaluated. WP:SPS, for example, explains how we determine when someone is an "expert". I also disagree with your last sentence. Barrett is a WP:SPS, but we make an exception for him because of the advocacy of the Price Foundation with respect to the legacy of Weston Price. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

ScienceApologist, is that really your position (Ludwigs2 said it, not you): Is the Price article a quacking article? My problem here is that I don't want to open our article Quantum physics to, not just a short discussion of quantum nonsense, but to the use of quantum nonsense literature as supposedly adequate reliable sources. Setting up the historical person Price as a punching doll and proxy for the modern fringe that abuses his writings doesn't strike me as the kind of noble cause that would justify a dilution of WP:ONEWAY. What happened to Price can happen to basically every scientist. I think Scientology or some similar group used to advertise with Albert Einstein's photo and a bizarre claim about using only half the brain. Hans Adler 22:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think quantum physics is a good analogy. Tesla and Pauling are closer analogies, but still not quite good enough. What we have is a researcher whose work lives on primarily as a vehicle for the promotion of fringe ideology. I don't know if that makes the article "quacking", but it certainly makes critiques of the fringe ideology relevant because the biography should not be kept insulated from the legacy. Another example might be Carl Jung. It's well known that the family really dislikes a lot of current-day Jungians and dispute much of the claims that those groups make to Jung's legacy. Nonetheless, it is our responsibility as broad-based encyclopedia editors to let the reader know about the Jungian legacy in Jung's biography -- even if it may not necessarily be most of the article. I hope you understand what I'm getting at. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I think so. If Weston Price were notable only for his posthumous reception we would have a problem. But that's not the case. So all we need to do is find decent sources for a correct biography that ignores all the trash, add a little section about his reception and, if we can source it, about what is wrong about his reception – and we are done. No big issues with fringe in the article. Of course for a section on the fringe aspects, we can use Barrett. Taking care only to use plausible things he says. Hans Adler 16:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with ignoring trash. Just be aware that there seems to be trash and treasure mixed up here, probably in no small part due to Price's popularity with the alt med crowd set. I'm happy you don't want to excise Barrett completely, so I think the rest is just theoretical details. I imagine that an actual collaboration and attempt to properly discuss the subject will find us more-or-less on the same page. I just wish people would quit with the insinuations that there are aspects of Barrett's three paragraphs that aren't "plausible". That, to me, is unnecessarily argumentative. Anyway, let's bring on the practical implementation rather than arguing over the theoretical implementation. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

SA: Without disagreeing with what you say entirely - and without spoiling the comment you made in the section below, which I think is getting close to a decent solution to this particular question - let me point out that your logic here (in part, at least) leads in some problematic directions. there are two things that I object to:

• You seem to make no distinction between early work that was (in its time) perfectly valid theoretically and methodologically, and later work based on that early work that has questionable elements to it. We cannot criticize Price for not being aware of scientific conclusions that hadn't yet been reached in his time, or for the actions of organizations that did not exist while he was alive. I understand the motivation here, I think - you want to say that the idea itself is somehow inherently fringe, and as such must always have been fringe even if it wasn't recognized as such - but that is misguided. Merely being wrong is not being fringe: many, many perfectly reasonable scientists have been wrong about many issues. Fringe implies an obtuse refusal to accept scientific conclusions that goes well beyond the normal activity of researching, presenting and defending an untested scientific theory, and trying to extend the 'fringe' idea backwards to cover scientific innovations that didn't pan out is actually a snub to scientific methodology (which needs people to take risks with untested ideas just to see if anything can be made of them).
• You seem to be confounding levels of analysis. The fact that Jung's descendants dislike what some people have done with Jungian psychology is an interesting bit of information, but it is not useful for establishing that the modern incarnations of Jung are fringe. I'm not sure what that factoid establishes, actually. New age Jungianism might be labeled as fringe because it (again, obtusely) disregards some established psychological principles or because it cannot otherwise establish itself in scholarly circles - and yeah, from what I know of Jungian psychology, therapists and theorists in that vein would scoff at the assumptions of the New Agers - but we don't want to confound lay critique (prejudicial statements based in a perception of wrongdoing) with scholarly rejection (refusal to accept a position due to analytical concerns). This is actually an extensive problem on wikipedia: many editors seem to feel that 'fringe' necessarily implies corruption, misconduct, or other forms of iniquity. sometimes it does, obviously, but sometimes it doesn't, and lumping everything into the worst-case scenario introduces a bias. --Ludwigs2 16:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

1. I wouldn't be comfortable "criticizing" Price (or Tesla or Pauling) for ideas that they proposed that later turned out to be wrong. Nor is there anything prima facie "fringe" about any idea ever. WP:FRINGE is quite clear on that. However, pointing out when ideas that certain historical researchers had that did turn out to be wrong is not a criticism nor does it qualify as a categorical assault on the subject. Wrong ideas are an important part of the scientific method, for example. It can upset people who believe in the idea to have these problems pointed out, but that's really not supposed to be our worry.
2. I wasn't arguing that fringe is about corruption, misconduct, or iniquity. I'm not sure why you think that. Some fringe ideas are hurt by the unethical or intellectually dishonest conduct on the part of their proponents, and maybe (I'm not sure about this, though) there is more dishonesty in fringe work than in mainstream work, but that's not of interest to Wikipedia. The issue for Wikipedia is that we need to cover all of our bases, as it were. The problem with fringe fields is that oftentimes they are obscure (by definition) and it makes "covering the bases" difficult. That's the point of WP:FRINGE in my mind. YMMV. Apart from this, I think that the Jungian parallel is pretty good here. There is an advocacy (whether right or wrong) that is pushing certain interpretations of Price into an alternative medicine idealization. We need to be careful on two fronts: 1) that we don't mistake advocacy or response to this advocacy for authoritative biographies, and 2) that we don't dismiss advocacy or the response to this advocacy on the basis that it isn't an authoritative biography.

ScienceApologist (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't express myself properly. I wasn't particularly accusing you of this; I was pointing out the dangers of the logic. there are others in this discussion (and discussions like it) who happily go to the extremes that I'm worried about, and once they've gotten there it's incredibly difficult to bring them back to a sane perspective. I hope you can understand that I'm not disagreeing with you that much, I just want to be (somewhat obsessively) clear about the issue on the near side (because not being obsessively clear on the near side usually means I need to be obsessively pug-nosed about it later on, and that gets tiresome). --Ludwigs2 18:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Convenience break for clarity

Well a secondary source establishing a historical narrative of the reception of Price's theories during his life and after it is valuable. I have no particular interest in making Price look more mainstream than he actually was and welcome information of that nature. Barrett, does not present historical information, however, simply contemporary opinion. I'm inclined to see that is less valuable, even if the reliability issues are misplaced.Griswaldo (talk) 17:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I think that Barrett's three paragraphs are not as valuable as the essay of the PhD candidate I list above. However, it may be more valuable than the single sentence in The Black Stork. But this is entirely due to the fact that one sentence is paltry compared to three paragraphs which is in turn paltry compared to an eight-page essay. Scaling to our biography, I'd expect to see a similar sort of weighting being affected with regards our article: do it by length and ignore these peculiar protestations that Barrett is somehow "wrong" because in 1924 Price wrote a sentence on infant mortality. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that the reason that the Weston Price Foundation was used was because more reliable source are so blasted hard to get a hold of in terms of internet accessablity ie you have to a university library and hope they have the needed materials.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem with what Barrett and QuackWatch do (and with skepticism as a rule, IMO), is that it's far, far closer to informed social commentary than to science, but they don't seem to realize or acknowledge the distinction. QuackWatch's raison d'etre is to inform people about potentially dangerous/unreliable procedures and practices, but he's more concerned with the opinion-mongering side of that equation (the 'informing people' bit) than he is with the actual analytic process of distinguishing good practices from bad. Basically, QW is a skeptics' clearing-house: It will pick up on anything that sounds suspicious, problematic or unlikely, and get information about it out there long before there's any significant research that confirms the suspicions. As a public service that has some good points - sometimes it takes proper science a long time to catch up with dangerous techniques, and people should have fair warning even of rumors that some practice might be bad - but the people inclined to do that kind of thing (Barrett being no exception) have a horrible tendency to overindulge in questionable critiques. Barrett isn't qualified to act as a scientific source on most of the things that appear on QW. He does work as a journalistic source in a number of cases, but he swings between Walter Cronkite moments and Glenn Beck moments, so you usually have to dig a bit deeper to see whether what he's said is at all credible in any particular case.

He does have a following on wikipedia, which makes things difficult, but I don't suppose there's anything new or unique about that. --Ludwigs2 23:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

P.s.: Ronz - discussion Barrett's use as a source is not a BPL issue. Everything that we might consider about him as a source is already placed in the public domain, by Barrett himself. --Ludwigs2 23:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussions about Barrett are BLP issues.

"He does have a following on wikipedia, which makes things difficult" Please follow WP:TALK. --Ronz (talk) 00:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

That is not a shield from scrutiny and legimate critique. WP is not about mindlessly applying policy WP:WIARM, it is about sourced information. We are debating a source here. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 10:10, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussions about Barrett as a source on Wikipedia are not BLP issues. Please tell me where WP:BLP says that calling a source unreliable is a BLP concern?Griswaldo (talk) 01:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, WP:BLP, "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." --Ronz (talk) 01:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

He does have a following on wikipedia, and it does make things difficult. But that's true of many topics on wikipedia, so... whatever. It's not a huge issue in my books; is it a huge issue in yours? Beyond that, if you see an actual BLP issue that you think needs to be discussed as we go along we can address it. Trust me, I will be sure to 'take particular care'. Otherwise I'll take your comment as a friendly but overly-generic reminder of common sense principles and treat it accordingly. Now, can we get back to business? --Ludwigs2 01:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like hogwash. If it's not a huge issue, don't bring it up. I'll list the specific BLP problems on your talk page. --Ronz (talk) 01:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've responded there. now, hogwash or not, can we get on with it? --Ludwigs2 01:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible conclusion?

Have read all the above with great interest. Further to my early, quite non-committal comment, I would like to say that again the crucial issue seems to be what field of enquiry the article belongs to. And I think that is history of science, sub-field history of dentistry. That's why Barrett is not, in this case, an ideal source. I, personally, would be interested in reading more about the eugenics connections, even if they are in some way par for the course when considering ideas of this vintage. Science explores, it speculates, it comes to conclusions, it questions, it moves on. Barrett has promoted debunking of crackpot ideas in the cause of science, and built a website to counter misinformation on the web, but his usefulness in these more complex questions is limited. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If you had a website called QuackWatch, isn't there an implication that all your subjects are quacks? How could you possibly be consider objective? --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 02:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett wrote three paragraphs on Price. I think that if we take all the non-Price Foundation sources on Price we'll find that Barrett's contribution is likely to be minimal in amount. However, as an effective counter to the Price Foundation's promulgations, Barrett has a place, methinks. It would be weird if you thought that the Price Foundation didn't belong mentioned in the article on the man, and I think [{WP:PARITY]] is a pretty good argument for why Barrett would also belong. Also, it's pretty clear to me that Barrett is probably more mainstream than the Price Foundation, so... equal weight between Barrett's ideas about Price and the Price Foundation's ideas about Price may be warranted. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately there has been parallel discussion at two noticeboards. I guess you missed the discussion over at WP:RS/N#Is a paper (possible blog) by a psychiatrist valid regarding old claims regarding dentistry?. I proposed there to mention the Price Foundation in a "Legacy" section. (In the meantime, having looked for book about Price and only found the modern fringe stuff, I guess it's notable enough.) It should be properly contextualised of course, so as not to give the fringe validity, and for that Barrett is an adequate source. But not for the biography proper. Hans Adler 22:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hans, I agree with that. It's essentially what I've been arguing all along. However, it may not be completely necessary to segregate the legacy into a separate section. It's similar to the style of "criticism" sections. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. As long as we don't allow any sources which are fringe-promotional to be used in the "biography proper", I think this may work. But I actually think there may be some biographical material that can be gleaned from Price Foundation stuff. In that case, I think it irresponsible to say that somehow we can glean from the Price Foundation but not from Barrett, if you see what I mean. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As I have pointed out on the Talk:Weston Price page Price's work must be evaluated in the context of the time it was written rather than present day. Back then few if any processed foods were revitaminized (ie had vitamins added to restore what had been lost in processing) and in the case of canned goods you had another issue: lead solder (banned in the US in 1994). These two factors alone mean you have to adjust what Price found to fit to the modern day--something that most people who use his research don't do.

Conversely you don't do what Barrett does which is attack Price's work with easily disproved claims and outdated references regarding focal infection theory because once you do that the issue of 'well he was wrong on that so what else is he wrong on' comes up. There were so many other better ways to refute the use (or more accurately misuse) of Price but to put it bluntly Barrett basically blew it and undermined the credibility of the entire article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Just because you disagree with Barrett doesn't make him wrong and doesn't mean he "blew it". Your attempt to impeach him as a source left me unimpressed. It seemed to wow others, but that's not really the way to approach such things here at Wikipedia since our opinions of whether you've shown someone to be incorrect cannot be verified without conducting original research. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Further search shows that even within the time period of the two articles Barrett cites (1951-1982) shows that even his claim of "This "focal infection" theory led to needless extraction of millions of endodontically treated teeth until well-designed studies, conducted during the 1930s, demonstrated that the theory was not valid" is on shaky ground.

"Much of the clinical evidence supporting the focal infection theory is of the cass-report type." (Burket, Lester William (1971) "Oral medicine; diagnosis and treatment")

Dental infections: treatment and prophylaxis E.R. Squibb & Sons (1956) Page 46 gives a far different picture: "Grossman believes that foci of infection, where in the mouth or elsewhere, should be removed (...) Elimination of such foci does not, however, necessarily mean surgical removal since infection may also be eliminated by destruction with antiseptics or antibiotics"

"The allergic condition called angioneurotic edema may be related to food allergy, hypersensitivity, local or focal infection, and endocrine or emotional disturbances." (United States. Dept. of the Army (1971) Dental specialist: Sept. 20, 1971: Part 1 - Page 5-14)

The fact that the United States. Dept. of the Army in 1971 still considered focal infection a viable cause of a condition totally disproves Barrett's claim.

So on nearly every point regarding Price, Barrett is at best in error if not flat out wrong.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? You think because Barrett lost suits in which he was the plaintiff, that impugns his credibility as an expert in quackbusting? You've got another thing coming. Expertise is not demonstrated through the number of lawsuits you file and win. As for the rest of this, I think Griswaldo below shows that there are conflations possible here. Barrett is correct that Price's focal infection ideas that have spread to the Foundations ideations criticizing mainstream denistry are far off the mark. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

SA, I think yes and no here. From the sources I've found it doesn't seem likely that the old focal infection theory was being considered in 1971, however both of the sources I found review the history of the old theory, in light of recent developments in oral focal infection research. There is an idea of continuity here in the general principles of the theory, and not the unscientific claims of the early 20th century, which btw, were so mainstream for a couple of decades that they were also held by Charles Mayo. I think Bruce is correct to point out that focal infection theories have persisted, and that the basic underlying notion is not all that wacky. What I found interesting, and I noted below, is that not only was the theory mainstream but neither source mentions Price as a particularly notable proponent of it.Griswaldo (talk) 14:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty clear to me that dentistry has moved on from this particular sort of focal infection theory. The two sources Barret cites: Easlick K. An evaluation of the effect of dental foci of infection on health. Journal of the American Dental Association 42:615-97, 1951. and Grossman L. Pulpless teeth and focal infection. Journal of Endodontics 8:S18-S24, 1982. seem to align fairly well with his blanket assessment. Barrett acknowledges that many people believed this idea leading to "millions" of teeth extractions. I just glanced at the two sources he cites and they do seem to conclusively come down on the side of criticizing the major thrust of kind of theorizing Price was advocating. Do you disagree? ScienceApologist (talk) 16:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem wasn't the basic notion of focal infection, but the specific idea that oral infections were related to various systemic diseases. Clearly I agree that millions of teeth were extracted because of the specific focal infection theories going around, or else would not have written that into the new entry Focal infection theory. Of course in doing the research for that article I found out that it was the accepted belief at the time and that no one writing about it today appears to think Price was a notable proponent or "theorizer" of it. He accepted a theory that other people had come up with and that the medical establishment at the time was promoting. Did you miss the part about Charles Mayo? That's not a quack I hear, that's the sound of the medical establishment off in a horribly misguided direction. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we're talking cross-purposes. I do not read Barrett as claiming that Price was the sole cause of focal infection paranoia. Rather, I think he's criticizing the utilization of Price because Price had ideas which, when applied by others (not necessarily because of Price), led to bad things happening. I think you are, again, reading malice into Barrett's writing where I just see criticism of an idea. To put it another way, I see Barrett as saying: "Price advocated focal infection theories. Such ideas were held by others and led to some bad practices made in the name of dental health." ScienceApologist (talk) 17:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

SA, lets be completely clear here because clarity is needed. Such ideas were held by "the medical establishment". "Others" obfuscates here. When someone advocates what the medical establishment is advocating at the time there is nothing notable about stating this -- ever. If this person was seminal in advancing the theory in question then it would be notable, but that seems unlikely with Price given that my sources don't mention Price once. Barrett's own writings of course obfuscate even more than that. He writes:

• "Price also performed poorly designed studies that led him to conclude that teeth treated with root canal therapy leaked bacteria or bacterial toxins into the body, causing arthritis and many other diseases. This "focal infection" theory led to needless extraction of millions of endodontically treated teeth until well-designed studies, conducted during the 1930s, demonstrated that the theory was not valid."

He states that Price performed studies and concluded X and then follows that with "this" theory. If he didn't mean to equate "Price's conclusions" with "this theory" then he has used such poor grammar that he has conveyed a meaning that he did not intend to convey. The use of "this" is unmistakable here in other words. Had he said "the focal infection theory", or otherwise actually referred to the same "ideas were held by others" (which he clearly doesn't), one might say that I misread him. I'm a native reader of English and I know that what you are claiming he meant is not what is conveyed by those words. Not even remotely.Griswaldo (talk) 17:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Barret is not arguing that Price's ideas weren't in the "medical establishment". That's your strawman, or at minimum, your particular spin on his writing. What Barrett wrote is correct. I'm not sure how you can say otherwise. Are you saying that Barrett is writing/implying that Price was the forerunner and only promulgator of focal infection theory? To my reading, the quote you give is not properly interpreted in this way. I can understand that someone might take Barrett to mean this if they thought, for example, that Barrett was writing an authoritative biography on Weston Price, but I don't think that's what Barrett's doing. Is he conflating "images" of Price with Price himself? Perhaps, but that's something we can tease out using other sources. A plain reading of the text is correct. It's only these secondary implications that you're seeing that are problematic, but I'm telling you, truthfully, that I do not interpret the text to imply those secondary implications at all. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It is not my strawman because I'm not claiming that Barrett has made any direct argument about the mainstream in either direction. I'm pointing out that since the theory was mainstream (you know as a historical fact) it becomes rather dubious to discuss someone's connection to it in a way that might imply something else or might leave the reader in the dark to think something else. Regarding the rest you are simply flat out wrong. That is not how the English language works. Barrett has supplied no other referent for the "this" in the second sentence other than Price's specific research. Without another referent it is the correct reading of that sentence to conflate Price's conclusions with the "this focal infection theory". If you asked anyone to read that blind that is exactly what they would do. The claims about what Barrett actually meant are complete hearsay. We have no evidence whatsoever that he meant anything else. The idea that we need to "tease out" what Barrett meant is also troubling, because it sounds like a nice way to say that we need to do our own research to understand that the primary meaning of what Barrett has written is in fact wrong. I'm done with this SA, because it is clear to me now it doesn't matter how wrong Barrett might be, this defense is going to continue endlessly. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 11:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I think trying to protect against possible misinterpretations by excising a reliable source is a bad move. We just need to write the article to avoid such problems. We can still use the source. As far as the rest goes, you seem to think that because Barrett said, A used B, B resulted in C he's implying A cause C. I don't think that's true. I'm not arguing for Barrett apologetics. I'm just saying that your interpretation is not the only one possible and, indeed, is not even close to my interpretation. The facts that Barrett elucidates, to me at least, seem fairly solid. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:03, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Our focal infection entry is pretty horrendous. I've started improvements based upon two dental journal articles that are available online. Of note is the fact that neither article mentions Price at all, though the more thorough of the two mentions several other doctors and dentists who were important proponents of the theory.Griswaldo (talk) 12:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

OK so I probably blundered into this the wrong way (by moving an entry instead of creating a new one initially) but I think the outcome is correct. We now have a stub on Focal infection, since this is clearly a recognized medical term today for various infections that are capable of spreading, and a longer article that I have been improving on Focal infection theory.Griswaldo (talk) 13:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The 2009 Textbook of Endodontology by Gunnar Bergenholtz, Preben Hørsted-Bindslev, Claes Reit putlich by Wiley page 135-136 gives a slightly different view: "...in spite of lack of scientific evidence the dental focal infection theory never died (40, 42). The references are O'Reilly (2000) "A history of Oral sepsis as a cause of disease" Periodentel 2000 23:13-18 and Pallashe TJ (2000) "The focal infection theory: appraisal and reappraisal" California Dental Association Journal 28: 194-200

Saraf (2006) Textbook of Oral Pathology Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers pg 188 goes even further: "It is becoming more validated that the oral cavity can act as the site of origin for spread of pathogenic organisms to organisms to distance body areas,..."

"This is why the dental and medical communities are cautiously reconsidering the biological plausibility of the 'focal infection' theory." Henderson, Brian; Michael Curtis, Robert Seymour (2009) "Periodontal Medicine and Systems Biology", Wiley; Page 33

These articles all by reliable sources show that focal infection theory fell out of favor as a main cause of disease but that parts of it survived.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Where we get personal

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Bruce, your comments more and more are looking like a bald POV-push about biologic dentistry: a fringe alternative medicine that does not have evidence basis. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC) SA, sounds to me like you're throwing out bold accusation with zero sourcing to back it up. At least Bruce tries to discuss this in a reasoned manner. If you don't intend to add value, why are are you here? --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE GOOD WORKS 12:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC) I've provided plenty of sourcing and I don't think I've been unreasonable. If you have a problem with me, escalate up the dispute resolution ladder. Let me know when you actually want to have a conversation. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC) I guess I must have missed the point where you actually provided that. can you point me to a diff? --Ludwigs2 19:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Yes, I can. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:16, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Very clever. This thread stopped going anywhere a long time ago. We have other things to do. Heim theory, below, for example, if anyone here has a physics background. I think someone does. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC) OK then please do or else strike your accusation against Bruce. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Can you be a little more specific? Additionally, I didn't make an accusation against Bruce. I made an observation and offered my opinion of his comments. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC) It is clear from the requests above that people would like to see evidence of this: "your comments more and more are looking like a bald POV-push about biologic dentistry." You claim that this comment isn't an "accusation" but merely an "observation". Let's not mince words here because it doesn't particularly matter if you outright accuse someone of POV pushing when you poison the well like this. Suggesting bad faith through an "observation" is the same thing as actually accusing someone of it. It just requires a bit less backbone.Griswaldo (talk) 15:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I'm responding above to a comment by BruceGrubb which, to me, reads like a bald POV-push about biologic dentistry, or at the very least a push for orthomolecular medicine acceptance. See a similar type of argument at the end of this SDMB thread where the same to sources are listed together with a source from orthomolecular medicine. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Wow, guilt by an association two times removed. How ridiculous. IMJ is correct, there are better things to do here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:12, 25 October 2010 (UTC) See WP:DUCK. I'm just calling it like I see it. I might be wrong, but I've never seen an instance where anti-Barrett fever hasn't been at least inspired by incipient fringe promotion. I'd rather nip that in the bud. If you don't want to end up in barrel of bad apples, make sure you're an orange! ScienceApologist (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC) SA, you are violating talk page principles: comment on edits, not on editors. If you cannot find a decent reason to claim that bruce is wrong based on policy, then you don't get to assert that he's wrong because of some (imagined) personal characteristic. --Ludwigs2 21:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I commented on what BruceGrubb's comments looked like to me. The reasons I outlined are decent. He's not wrong because of a personal characteristic. He's wrong because he's adopting an argument that has historically been advocacy-based. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC) In that case, your language choice was tremendously poor. saying his comments are "looking like a bald POV-push about biologic dentistry" is both substantively incorrect (he is not advocating for biologic dentistry but rather questioning the reliability of a critique of biologic dentistry), and likely to be misconstrued as a claim that bruce himself is POV pushing. If in fact you were only making a comment about a vague similarity to some (undisclosed or imagined) event of bald-faced POV pushing, and had no intention whatsoever of accusing bruce of so doing, please make that explicit so that we can all laugh over a silly misunderstanding and move on with the discussion. --Ludwigs2 22:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC) My comments were not substantively incorrect. It is impossible for me to know whether Bruce was POV-pushing or not. I assume he wasn't, but his comments look like the many other comments I've seen where alternative medicine proponents have cried wolf with respect to Barrett's reliability. Are you laughing? ScienceApologist (talk) 22:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Why would I laugh? It's not like I haven't seen this reasoning before, and I find it disheartening more than funny. Your basic assumption here is that anyone who question's Barrett's credentials to critique fringe theories is ipso facto a fringe pov-pusher who should be dismissed out of hand. I can't understand why you would believe it is impossible for an editor to (in good faith) question Barrett's qualifications, particularly given how controversial he is as a figure. Every source on wikipedia is subject to verification, can have its reliability examined, and should be used under the principles of NPOV, and Barrett is no exception. You're correct that it's impossible to know what's going on in Bruce's mind. You are incorrect and operating against wp:AGF to make the worst-case assumption about him. You are way off base to assume that people are 'crying wolf' about Barrett when there are some reasonable arguments being made that he is being over-valued on project. Frankly, if the best argument you can come up with in support of Barrett amounts to ad hominems against the people who criticize him, then that in itself is a pretty good indication that Barrett is a crappy source. Find a better argument, or give it up. --Ludwigs2 23:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I am assuming good faith. You can either believe me or call me a liar, but I don't know how you can know that I'm lying without being telepathic. The best argument I have to support Barrett is that he is an expert source according to WP:SPS. Additionally, your absolutist rhetoric and dismissive tone does not do your cause any good. That's normally what happens in these discussion between us, anyway. Thankfully, in practice, you seem to realize this and don't apply absolutist anti-skeptical rhetoric to actual editing of Wikipedia (or, at least, you've been wildly unsuccessful if that was your goal -- which I sometimes doubt in spite of what you wrote at the Request for Clarification). ScienceApologist (talk) 15:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Mid-point break

SA, here's something from your source that I found interesting:

"What I found in the course of my research on Price, somewhat to my surprise, was that

his nutritionally centered perspective on preventing dental and physical degeneration was hardly idiosyncratic at the time. There was a diverse transnational network of respected researchers whose work was akin to, and roughly contemporaneous with, that of Price. They presented a viewpoint that was paradoxically gaining in scientific rigor and comprehensiveness even as it was being professionally marginalized and, at times, lumped in with “food faddism.” Particularly from the postwar years onward, and for reasons that had more to do with larger economic, political, and cultural trends than purely scientific merit, the disciplines that these figures saw as necessarily interconnected developed into institutionally discrete vocations with more technically centered approaches. By way of a brief explanation for why this happened, it is worth noting that implicit in the kind of argument put forth by Price was the hope that the dental and medical professions would become almost unnecessary with greater understanding of nutrition, food, and agronomic science. He was, in other words, telling his fellow dentists in the 1930s and ‘40s that the growth and respectability of their profession was merely the symptom of a dysfunctional industrial food system, and that someone truly concerned with dental health would become in essence a home economist or dietician. (The gender implications, at that time,

of such an argument could have played a substantial part in Price’s fall into obscurity.)"

I think this sinks the USS Fringe. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 02:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

We've already dealt with this. What the source does is establish that pseudoscientific nutritionism was not as maligned in Price's day as it is today. Trying to claim this somehow makes Price's ideas (or, more properly, the legacy of his ideas) immune from WP:FRINGE is really stretching it. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you brought in the source, don't complain if it doesn't do what you want it to. Price's work was not fringe. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 10:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The source does exactly what I want it to do. It dovetails well with Barrett, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

SA, it does not "dovetail well with Barrett". Barrett does not contextualize anything historically. There is no sense in Barrett of whether or not the critiques he levies are ones that were levied against Price at the time, or if Price's various mistakes are mistakes that he, as a dental researcher of his time, should not have made. In fact at worst Barrett implies the opposite. What this other piece does is to show exactly how historically situated Barrett's own critique is, in ways that, once again, Barrett does not himself make even moderately obvious. Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by "dovetail well" but I just don't see it.Griswaldo (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The two sources are doing different things. Barrett is not trying to contextualize anything historically, he's just explaining the history and antecedents of holistic or biologic dentistry. Renner is not trying to explain the history and antecedents of holistic or biologic dentistry, he's just providing a historical context for Price. That is what I mean by "dovetail": the two sources are addressing the same material from different analytical perspectives. Protrusions of one source fit in the gaps of the other source and vice versa thereby giving a better picture of what's going on. The argument is NOT that Barrett is documenting the contemporaneous critiques of Price. That's not the point of Barrett. The argument is NOT that Renner is showing how one might evaluate certain interpretations of Price's conclusions today. That's not the point of Renner. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well I see where the problem is here then. I take dovetail to imply the creation of a "continuous", organic whole (as does the OED) when you seem to think it is appropriate to describe a contiguous, synthetic whole. Look, I don't want to quibble over words like dovetail but Renner's biographical narrative helps to situate Barrett's to the reader in a manner that Barrett should be doing himself but does not. Barrett's narrative adds nothing to Renner's however. You seem to be coming from the same assumption that both Barrett and the Weston A Price Foundation are coming from, that it is appropriate to situate Price's theories in a modern context. For the purposes of the encyclopedia entry on Price it is not. The briefest of mentions of those who do so, if they are notable, is appropriate in Price's entry but that is it. All the modern quibbling between fringe promoters and their detractors belongs in the entries about those contemporary entities. The cramming of his theories into the modern context, either positively or negatively does not dovetail with the sound historical narrative, it is simply separate from it.Griswaldo (talk) 18:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I take my cues from carpentry. We should not be in the business of trying to decide what Barrett "should" be doing with his writing. We can only control what Wikipedia should be doing. I flatly disagree that "Barrett's narrative adds nothing to Renner's" Barrett, in fact, explains how the legacy of Price has been used to promote snake oil. I do not care whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to evaluate Price's claims in a modern context. I only care that it is verifiable that such has occurred, and to that end, inclusion of the fact that this has occurred should be accompanied by an appropriate analysis of what this means in the current-day context. See Hans Adler's point about a "legacy" section. Since Price is known primarily through the "cramming of his theories into the modern context" it is appropriate that we deal with this (perhaps regrettable?) situation in his biography. Barrett helps us do that. Inasmuch as there might be plain facts about what Price did and how he did it explicated by Barrett, we can use Barrett for that too as we might use sources from the Price Foundation -- in the sense of "gleaning" that I discuss above. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett's presentation is basically the other side of the Foundations. Neither provide a well rounded picture of Price, or his theories. Both focus on aspects of them to prove a point, the one in reaction to the other. My opinion, and I guess I don't need to state it over and over, is that neither should be used to source anything in the Price entry. Barrett's usefulness comes in at the Foundation's entry, or a more general entry on holistic dentistry, as a critique of the contemporary misappropriation of Price (and others?). I do not believe that it is of encyclopedic value to dwell on these issues in the Price entry. I guess that's all I'm saying here. I'll stop being a broken record now.Griswaldo (talk) 18:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess, to summarize our disagreement then, it is to say how much Price's legacy inasmuch it is controlled by agenda-driven foundations should be discussed in our biographical article on Price. On one extreme we might say that we shouldn't include anything about his legacy or the foundation. On the other, we might say that his legacy is so important to modern conceptualizations that to ignore it is impossible. I think we can find middle ground. Better to do it in actually editing, IMHO. Case closed? ScienceApologist (talk) 19:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I feel like I wasted way too much of your and my own time on this.  :). Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

BLP/N

Due to Ronz concerns of BLP violations I have started a thread -- Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Noticeboards.2C_source_criticism_and_claims_of_BLP_issues. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom request for clarification

I've gone ahead and requested a clarification from ArbCom under the Pseudoscience decision. you can see the request and add comments [[30]]. I've only listed myself and SA as participants, since the main discussion was between he and I, but you can feel free to cast yourself as a participant or not as you choose. --Ludwigs2 22:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Stuck

I've removed my {{stuck}} tag, struckout the resolved tag, and added another stuck tag with a more neutral summary. I'm fine with no summary at all. --Ronz (talk) 15:09, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Stop adding these tags. It is disruptive. There is a consensus among editors other than yourself and ScienceApologist that Barrett does not qualify for an exception to WP:SPS in this instance. The fact that you both stubbornly fail to see the consensus is not an argument against its existence.Griswaldo (talk) 15:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Hans said that we could use him for a "legacy" section. I commented that segregation might not always be the best idea. So, in some sense, others are arguing he can be used for an exception to SPS if we are talking about the Weston Price legacy. This issue does not lend itself to pithy summary, nor does it lend itself to attempts at marginalization or factionalization. Let's not do that, okay? I have always agreed that better sources than Barrett's three paragraphs are available and can be used. I reject the snide insinuations that there is nothing of value that Barrett adds to a possible list of sources, and also think that proper context, which Barrett himself provides, is necessary for appropriate discussion in the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:43, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Trying to resolve a dispute in good faith is the opposite of disruptive.

Whatever consensus editors claim to see needs to be summarized with diffs or datestamps identifying the actual comments used for the summary. --Ronz (talk) 15:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Hans' argument is that he can be used for information concerning the Weston A. Price Foundation and it's activities in the legacy section. Hans had previously argued, rather strongly that he is not a reliable source on Weston A. Price however, and others appear to agree with this pretty much in entirety (once again except for you and Ronz). Whether or not a legacy section should be included is a separate content discussion. If it is, the idea of not segregating the legacy section is pretty much out of the question based upon the consensus about Barrett in regards to Price. It has to be completely clear that he is not a reliable source on Price, and honestly that's very difficult given that he does not provide the "proper context" at all in his essay. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Griswaldo here. Also, I don't see any "segregation" problem in having a Legacy section. It is a logical way to divide up the article. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Criticism sections. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"Legacy" =/ to "criticism". Your point would be apt at the Weston A. Price Foundation entry where Barrett would be used as "criticism" of the subject matter, but the foundation is not the subject matter of the entry on Price. Why are you conflating the two? That's exactly what everyone else agrees that we should not be doing here.Griswaldo (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Conflation is not the only issue when a legacy has been co-opted. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this as well. I think even SA would agree to having a legacy section that includes Barrett would be acceptable. that just leaves Ronz - what do you say, Ronz? --Ludwigs2 16:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to see some consensus-making. Can someone clearly summarize as I've requested? --Ronz (talk) 17:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

AGREE - I concur with the argument that Barrett is not a reliable source on Weston Price. If someone wants to use Barrett in the Foundation article, they are welcome to try. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 17:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Summary -- 1) Stephen Barrett is not a reliable source on the historical figure Weston A. Price or the historical context in which Price worked, and is therefore not an expert exception to WP:SPS on the subject of Weston Price. 2) Stephen Barrett is recognized as a notable critic of contemporary fringe medical/health theories and may be used for critical commentary on such theories. 3) Pertaining to the entry on Weston Price, Barrett's use is limited to critiquing contemporary holistic medical/health practices that claim to be based on Weston Price's theories, but not to critiquing Price's theories in the proper historical context in which they are presented.Griswaldo (talk) 17:09, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not RSN. I'm unaware of any consensus on WP:RS or WP:SPS claims.

2 and 3 seem pretty good. Is there consensus for, "but not to critiquing Price's theories in the proper historical context in which they are presented?" --Ronz (talk) 17:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your objections, see every response here from anyone other than yourself or ScienceApologist, and see the very response I wrote that IMJ and others just now said they agreed with. Are you serious?Griswaldo (talk) 17:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not, 1) The three paragraphs on the historical figure Weston A. Price found on Quackwatch are meant to be critiques of the legacy of Weston A. Price and ideologies that are similar to those advocated by the Weston A. Price foundation. Other more comprehensive sources exist that describe Weston Price's historical context. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not? Because you're leaving out more clear directives on how to utilize Barrett in this situation. Why? The consensus among everyone but you and Ronz is that Barrett is not reliable on Price, and not simply that better sources exist.Griswaldo (talk) 17:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Imposing directives like this is silly and unnecessary. If tomorrow Barrett wrote a book on Price we would evaluate that book on its own merits. Trying to make unilateral and overly broad generalizations is inflammatory, unnecessary, and only breeds conflict. You can try to blame the other side as much as you want and try to marginalize us, but that's not going to move us forward. We agree on points 2 and 3. If you cannot sit down and try to work out wording that is to everyone's liking on point 1, then you are being obstructionist. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

AGREE - I concur with Griswaldo's summary. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 18:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Can we push forward for the moment and try to state where we do agree? Does anyone object to (17:42, 26 Oct)? --Ronz (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Here's where I think we agree:

1. Barrett is (in general) a notable proponent of skepticism, and can be used to critique the Price Foundation.
2. To the extent that the Price Foundation is is presented as part of Price's legacy, Barrett can be included as a skeptical voice about the Foundation's merits and purpose.
3. Barrett is not a historian of science or a dentist, nor does he have any other qualification that entitles him to render a critique of Price or Price's work himself. To the extent that he does render a critique of Price, his opinion is non-notable. therefore Barrett cannot be used to critique Price directly.

Are there any disagreements with this? --Ludwigs2 19:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems like your #3 is even more far-reaching than that by Griswaldo. I don't see any quick consensus on this, but let's see what others say. --Ronz (talk) 19:48, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Good summary. I would just word the first one "Barrett is (in general) a respected researcher into pseudoscientific medical practices, and can be used to...". If he were just notable as a proponent of a skeptical POV then we wouldn't use him as a ref at all. But the Quackwatch website has been praised in various quarters and is often cited, which lends support to its reliability, e.g. in relation to homeopathy or chelation therapy. I endorse the second and third points. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with Ludwigs2's summary and with IMJ's suggested change.Griswaldo (talk) 20:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

well, it's not at all clear to me that Barrett has done anything remotely resembling actual research (at least not in the medical sense of the term). At his best he does a mixed bag of synthesis from other people's research. I'd tend to place him as a respected commentator on... rather than as a respected researcher into.... and yes, even if we went with my original wording we would still use him, because the skeptical point of view is certainly a valid POV that needs to be considered on fringe articles. At any rate, I'm certainly not interested in excluding Barrett from anything, I just want to get the balance right, so that he's neither marginalized nor promoted beyond credibility. placing him as a well-informed commentator or journalist strikes me as about right, since it lets him air that particular POV without giving him undue weight as some kind of scientific wunderkind. would that language work for you all? --Ludwigs2 22:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Barrett is a consumer advocate. He is not a researcher in the strictest sense of the word. Nevertheless, I think this business has been thoroughly discussed, and the consensus is that Barrett is an inapppropriate source for the Weston Price article, but may be a source for the Weston Price Foundation article. That is all. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 00:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

How about an amalgam? (I agree with Ronz that Ludwigs2's third point has some structural deficiencies compared to Griswaldo's third point).

1. Barrett is a respected researcher into pseudoscientific medical practices, and can be used to critique the Price Foundation.
2. To the extent that the Price Foundation is is presented as part of Price's legacy, Barrett can be included as a skeptical voice about the Foundation's merits and purpose.
3. Pertaining to the entry on Weston Price, Barrett's use is limited to critiquing contemporary holistic medical/health practices that claim to be based on Weston Price's theories, but not to critiquing Price's theories in their historical context.

I could easily agree to the above.

ScienceApologist (talk) 12:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Your third point basically nullifiies our whole argument about Barrett. It allows Barrett to critique Price directly. I don't support this. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 12:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty much the same thing as Griswaldo's point 3 above. Did you miss that? ScienceApologist (talk) 12:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes but when I wrote my points, a different #1 was included -- Stephen Barrett is not a reliable source on the historical figure Weston A. Price or the historical context in which Price worked, and is therefore not an expert exception to WP:SPS on the subject of Weston Price. If you are willing to state this as well I'm happy.Griswaldo (talk) 12:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

How about, Stephen Barrett is not a historian and was not writing historical analysis of Weston Price when he penned the three paragraphs of interest posted about Price on Quackwatch. Therefore, we should not rely on Barrett as the sole source for historical analysis on Weston A. Price. I certainly agree with that. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Mid-point break(2)

Let's not revisit the argument above. I liked Ludwigs 1 and 2. I liked your 2 and 3. Is there no way we can reach consensus or are we going to remain sticks in the mud? I'm trying to be as open as possible, but it seems like you just want to shut down all discussion. Zero sum games are not very productive. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. I am trying to shut down diversions that make what the rest of us think is clear cut into something more ambiguous and amorphous. I get it. You don't want it agreed upon anywhere that the great Stephen Barrett is a poor source for something he wrote directly about. There is really no point in discussing this with you if you have no desire to let go of that position. You'll just continually obfuscate so that we don't agree on this fact. Let it go. He's not an expert in the relevant areas to make critiques of Weston Price. Accept this, as everyone else has, or stop wasting everyone's time. If you want to go on the record as objecting to this then that is fine too, but we're not going to acquiesce to your attempts of revisionism. Sorry.Griswaldo (talk) 13:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Look, we know what this is about. Barrett supporters want to reserve the right to have Barrett criticize Price's research. Barrett's gripe should be with the Price Foundation, but guess what? They are a living and breathing entity that could file a law suit, which Dr Price can't do. Barrett can criticize the foundation all he wants and take his chances, but he's no source on Price's research....in any manner. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 13:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

bit 'o calm, please.

Alright, here's what I'm pretty sure we agree on (trying to keep it close to policy):

1. Barrett is a respected <something> who critiques alternative and pseudoscientific medical practices, and generally qualifies as a RS on such issues
   • that 'something' varies from 'researcher' to 'commentator' to 'skeptical proponent' to 'consumer advocate' - need to work this out
2. Barrett has critiqued the WP Foundation, and his critique of the Foundation is a viewpoint which does not fail the requirements of wp:RS and wp:UNDUE
3. Barrett does fail wp:RS and/or wp:UNDUE as a critic of Price himself, because
   • Price's work in his time was reasonably mainstream, if ultimately unsuccessful
   • Barrett's comments on Price are (thus) a primary source, self-published opinion on a topic for which Barrett has no particular expertise

I think 1, 2, and 3a we all agree on (with the quibble of what to call Barrett in 1); 3b will probably cause some friction, but I can't see how that conclusion can be avoided. That still leaves open the debate of whether or not Barrett should be included on Price's biog, but I think this narrows the options to an acceptable range: if Barrett is used on the Price article, he would only be used with respect to the Foundation, and his opinions on Price himself would be excluded. --Ludwigs2 14:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

As before, Ludwigs, I agree with 1 and 2. I do not agree with the phrasing of 3 at all, though there might be a kernel of agreement we can find there. I don't think it's a matter of RS or UNDUE. I think it is a matter of scope and editorial direction. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

looking at what you offered (following Griswaldo) for #3 above, I think the main difference between that and this is (in fact) a matter of scope. You seem to want to restrict this to the particular instance of Price, whereas I want to state something more general about Barrett and the way he's used on wikipedia. The result is absolutely the same with respect to the Price article (that much we agree on), the difference is whether it gets extended to a more general principle.

My reasoning for wanting it to be a more general principle is that this kind of dispute about Barrett happens all the time, and I think it's better to hash out the dispute in a general way now rather than forcing disputants to reinvent the wheel every time it crops up. That will improve consistency across article on the way Barrett is used, and obviate a whole lot of duplicate debate. I'm more than willing to work out something that is fair and balanced, but I do think we ought to work out something in a general sense rather than leave people to fight it out anew every time. --Ludwigs2 15:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is a matter of scope, but I also think that there is no way around this dispute. Blanket statements, in my opinion, are not going to help matters and will need wider community input. The Request for Clarification was not proper, but we should note that in order to make a unilateral source designation like this a broader query should be made open to the community. Only a select group of people have commented on these issues and I believe that we need to have a more open forum to really address this completely. I actually don't think it is a problem to discuss these issues on a case-by-case basis. I think that's how it should be handled. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I do find that a bit frustrating. there is just simply no structure on wikipedia to address multi-page sourcing issues. I suppose for the time being I'll have to accept a more restrictive language (though yours might be a little overly-restrictive). So, if we keep points 1 and 2, and make some minor rewording of your or Griswaldo's point 3, I'll be satisfied, and we can move on to actual editing. what do the rest of you think? --Ludwigs2 05:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Can we state where we agree at this point?

I think the discussion is drifting again. While it may need to do so, I'd like to see us continue to work to some basic agreement. We're very, very close thanks to (17:09, 26 Oct) (17:42, 26 Oct) and (19:37, 26 Oct). --Ronz (talk) 00:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Without reading a good chunk of the repetitive arguementation, I suggest that what is agreed is: there is an article on Price that should exist, there is commentary/criticism on Price from Barrett on Quackwatch. Other than that, I havn't seen much agreement. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

British Israelism‎

There's an IP there trying to push a POV on a line in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle copied from Bede, where historians agree that the scribe, probably because the name Armenia was just a few lines above, wrote that the British came from Armenia rather than what Bede wrote, Armorica. His latest edit (his first was arguing that the mention of Armenia confirms the Declaration of Arbroath adds the word 'critics' to suggest that only critics think this. I've edited there twice in the last 24 hours, so... Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

That whole section should go unless it's actually summarising the views of early BI theorists.which it does not appear to be doing. In any case, the Declaration of Arbroath does not seem to refer to Israelite tribes at all, except to date the migrations of the Scots. It never claims that the Scots are descended from Israelites. [31] Paul B (talk) 09:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I've edited the article a bit today, not specifically on that issue though. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Rosicrucianism

I removed mention of Rosicrucianism from 1313. It is "regarded as their founding date", but since it is an esoteric movement there is no real reason why the date should be regarded as historic in any way. It is a legendary founding date. All the articles about Rosicrucianism seem to be beset with in-universe speculation. It needs close attention because this is a notable part of early Enlightenment thought. In regard to the Rosicrucian Manifestos I would like to know: were they written in Latin, German or bits of both? Are the original texts online at reliable hosting sites? Dab, if you could have a look I know you could distinguish fact from fiction in this area. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Heim theory

An editor insists that this is an "emerging" physics theory. A previous version of the article called it "non-mainstream". There may be other issues too. Eyes on this article would be appreciated. Cardamon (talk) 05:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

That same editor Terra Novus (talk · contribs) has been adding unsourced statements to the lede, as well as a template ("beyond the standard model", which I removed as inappropriate), that continue to give the reader the impression that this theory has been accepted in mainstream physics. As many users have indicated on the article talk page, this does not seem to be the case. In addition Terra Novus has added Heim theory to that template. [32] I have provisionally removed it. Terra Novus has been reported multiple times at ANI for these kinds of contentious edits; each time he replies that he will reform and then four of five days later continues with similarly problematic edits. Mathsci (talk) 07:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

MathSci, can you do anything more to clean up the article? I don't expect to understand physics articles, but I do expect them to let me know where theories stand in relation to the mainstream. Does the article perhaps need stubbing right down? Or merging with the article on Heim? Itsmejudith (talk) 08:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That is a completely separate problem and not one I'll tangle with. The stub ECE theory was not dissimilar; however, it was easy to write because of peer-reviewed criticisms and the public editorial in a journal by the Nobel laureate 't Hooft. In this case, there has been almost no reaction in the scientific literature to Heim's theories since their inception. Speaking off the record, I believe that the unpublished criticisms of Bruhn on difference operators are probably correct; and up till now there has been no account in print of a consistent and rigorous theory of difference operators on an arbitrary manifold. It is not a case of the jury being out on Heim theory: here it seems there's nobody on the jury! Mathsci (talk) 09:35, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I tagged it for an expert in Physics but am not holding my breath because Theory of everything has been so tagged since 2008. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Terra Novus has perhaps broken one promise to many, looking at his talk page he's still adding YEC viewpoints to articles. Dougweller (talk) 16:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Electrotrichogenesis

This article is very peculiar: it starts out with a medical study, but then has a bit criticizing the methodology and implying if not stating that the thing is quackery. I'm not sure whether this is a spammish article or not. Anyway, people with experience evaluating this sort of thing should take a look. Mangoe (talk) 13:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Needs some medical people on the case. I share your concerns. There's a reference to a paper in a bona fide journal but it is a) old and b) a small sample. Then someone has added their concerns not on the talk page but as text in the article. Who's around and knows about biology/medicine? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a tricky one. There are moderately decent primary sources from the 1990s, but the method has received very little attention from MEDRS-quality review articles, and the couple that mention it don't make anything approaching a definitive statement. The tone of the existing article is definitely overstated in that there is no MEDRS source stating that the method is effective; however there is also no source stating that it is snake oil. Looie496 (talk) 17:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I've sent this over to the dermatology task force for some expert opinion. Mangoe (talk) 16:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

List of conspiracy theories

• List of conspiracy theories (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

This is a landing page for several conspiracy theory searches (most notably, Jewish conspiracy), but the state of sourcing is very dire. I think a concerted effort to improve the sourcing for this wouldn't be too hard; as it serves the purpose of an index, we can use citations from other articles. In addition, we could include brief summaries of conspiracy theories we've just linked to in a bulletted list. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

WorldCat shows three encyclopedias of conspiracy theories here and at least two of them look to probably qualify as reliable sources as per RS. They would probably be a good start for referencing, if anyone has access to them. John Carter (talk) 20:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I own the third one on that list - Conspiracy encyclopedia : the encyclopedia of conspiracy theories. It's very long. Hipocrite (talk) 20:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

And almost entirely avail on google books at http://books.google.com/books?id=4QBjaEMELSsC&pg=PA92&dq=Conspiracy+encyclopedia+:+the+encyclopedia+of+conspiracy+theories&hl=en&ei=pTPHTMaJKsT6lwfkuMTrAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Conspiracy%20encyclopedia%20%3A%20the%20encyclopedia%20of%20conspiracy%20theories&f=false Hipocrite (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Serpent (symbolism)

Repeated edition of stuff about Tiamat contradicted by the main article and not properly sourced. Dougweller (talk) 20:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The article is our generic "proto-article" of random material heaped up waiting to be turned into an actual article. --dab (𒁳) 05:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Religion of Ancient Israel

New article which I'm not sure is fringe or just weird/bad. If you look at the history or the talk page, it's about the "Religion of Moses and Israel " which seems to be something distinct from Judaism. Dougweller (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

This article is original research. The original title was "Religion of Moses and Israel", which may have biblical roots but I know this phrase from Jewish wedding ceremonies, where I take it to mean simply the Jewish religion, or Judaism. The author of the entry in question also refers to the subject matter as "Moseic religion". This phrase is probably a misspelling of "Mosaic religion" which is just a very outdated synonym for Judaism, once again. There is nothing of worth covered in the entry that can't be covered in Judaism. I say blank and redirect it.Griswaldo (talk) 04:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

redirected. we'll see if it lasts. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 04:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the initiative.Griswaldo (talk) 04:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

"Religion of Ancient Israel" would be about the pre-exilic, pre-monotheistic religion and as such a sub-topic of Ancient Semitic religions. But this would generate needless controversy. It is probably best to redirect to Jewish_history#Ancient_Israelites. --dab (𒁳) 05:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good.Griswaldo (talk) 05:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The original author[33] complained that already the move to "Religion of Ancient Israel" was a mistake, and I agree. What he was trying to create was an article on the term "Mosaic religion", which is indeed a synonym of Judaism, but which as a term does not seem to be addressed anywhere yet. --dab (𒁳) 06:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Raëlism

I haven't yet found out how many related articles there are, but there's even one on Raëlian Church membership estimates (s that really a notable topic?). Probably a bit of a walled garden. Dougweller (talk) 12:07, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Inconsequential trivia. I think AfD is the answer. We allow too many lists of trivia here all around.Griswaldo (talk) 12:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Free space

See [34] Dougweller (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)