Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories

Arbitration ruling on "pseudoscience" The Arbitration Committee issued several rulings in 2006 on guidelines for the presentation of material that might be labeled "pseudoscience": Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience. Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work. Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more. Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience. Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized. Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

Booth Escaped

(discussion moved to Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Booth_Escaped

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-09-12/Bigfoot

This involved editors who have rarely edited the two articles in question, which I find a bit odd. Dougweller (talk) 05:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Incipient edit-war

This change appears to be controversial, but thus far I can't really understand exactly what the dispute is about, because it's a bit hard to follow through edit summaries alone. Could one of the parties who feels strongly enough to reinsert/revert this material open a thread here expressing their concerns? MastCell ^Talk 17:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Short version:

SV (and Elen of the Roads too I think) has a long standing belief that, as they currently stand, this page and some other policy pages (e.g. WP:UNDUE, WP:IRS) promotes what she calls the 'scientific point of view', as opposed to the neutral point of view. SV has written an essay about this, but I can't find it right now. (SV, I'm sure you'll correct me if I've mis-stated your position)

I, and most other editors here, believe that this page and the lead are largely fine as they are, and that WP:NPOV demands that weight given in articles be proportioned by Reliable Sources, which means that fringe views are marginalized, and some are excluded completely. We believe that Wikipedia as an encyclopedia should first and foremost describe mainstream academic thought, and that WP:NPOV is designed to promote that. This is in line with Arbcom rulings (see [1] and [2]), and is the practice of all other respected encyclopedias.

LK (talk) 04:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Lawrence: it's probably best not to speak for other editors (be that making claims about what SV or Elen think, or even about what 'most' editors believe). I'm not sure about what Elen and SV think, and I suspect you're wrong about what 'most' editors think, so we might as well just make our own arguments for ourselves and leave it at that.

I will say that (speaking historically) this guideline has frequently been used to promote a radical skeptic position (which is itself a form of pseudoscience that masquerades as scientific opinion). There is in fact a distinct scholarly viewpoint that needs to be respected on wikipedia - to my mind the purpose of FRINGE is to distinguish properly between scholarly viewpoints that are accepted in mainstream scholarship and other viewpoints that are mostly notable because they have have a following or have created some conflict in the mass public. But not even scholarly viewpoints can be promoted to the exclusion of other notable viewpoints without violating NPOV. A serious encyclopedia should be just as serious about non-scholarly topics as it is about scholarly ones; it just needs to keep them in proper perspective.

However, I don't really think that's what SV was doing with her edits. I've been holding off wading into it myself until I can get a better sense of what's going on; we'll see what happens. --Ludwigs2 06:12, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to understand the claim that the material SV tried to revert was "trying to introduce spov" (SV's edit notation of 16:17, 14 September 2010). Are phrases like "scholarship in its field", "mainstream idea", "field of study" too suggestive of mainstream scholarship in the sciences? The section on pseudoscience obviously is not relevant to non-science subjects (Led Zeppelin, say, or Leona Helmsley, or philately) except where some aspect of the subject notably has called for scientific investigation. Certainly, reliable sources for many subjects are non-scholarly and are not understood to be organized in or representative of a field or discipline—but even if there is a field of "Helmsley studies", say (I've been surprised before!), it's not a field of science.

I wonder if a clearer separation would help, treating fringe science separately from other ideas that are neither science nor pseudoscience, they're just notions about something that aren't broadly accepted or matters of consensus among folks whose publications deal with that something. Some of you folks have been assessing such stuff here for years. Is that a sensible approach? Bn (talk) 23:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The governing factors would still be NPOV, UNDUE, and (supporting these) RS, but the applications of these for the two kinds of subject matter are naturally discussed in somewhat different terms. My suggestion is that separation might be less confusing for editors seeking guidance—and also for editors seeking consensus here. Bn (talk) 23:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a psychological truism that people generally debate with their internal representation of others, not with others directly. It takes a distinct effort of will (and a lot of practice) to ignore what you believe someone is saying and look at what they are actually saying. That goes trebly on the internet. I've always found SV's edits to be reasonable and well-considered (not that I always agree with him, mind you), so I'm not sure what Lawrence is saying.

I actually believe that what this guideline needs is more generalization, not separation. it's worth reading though the original proposal for this guideline - january 2006 revision - to see how things have shifted. The emphasis on science was picked up at a later date; the original thought was to distinguish mainstream ideas from non-mainstream ideas, so that Wikipedia itself doesn't turn into a validating source for non-mainstream ideas. Note how debunking and disparaging references are used in the proposal not to debunk or disparage but to establish the notability for the non-mainstream theory. I think it would be best to get away from this whole peculiar emphasis on pseudoscience and back to a broader discussion of mainstream and non-mainstream ideas.

I'll give people another day or so to see if anyone want to comment on this, and if not I'll try some rewrites. I just ran across this the other day: I may try to incorporate some of it here, since I think it applies. --Ludwigs2 16:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I could see that working. Accordingly, the differences in how policies are applied to science and how they are applied to other fields are wrong-headed and should go away.

Here are two very big changes I see since the original proposal:

These guidelines refer specifically to the creation of entire articles about said topics, not to the inclusion of alternative points of view in individual articles. These guidelines do not speak to the content of the articles, which are still completely subject to WP:NPOV and other policies.

In its present form this is an editing guideline which is about the content and (in contrast to e.g. WP:NOTE) is not about the existence of articles; and it is also about the inclusion of "fringe" ideas in non-"fringe" articles. The fact that WP:NOTE does not apply to the inclusion of "fringe" ideas in non-"fringe" articles, and that WP:RS in such cases specifically requires sources that affirm the association of the two ideas, has not always been clear. Bn (talk) 02:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Also from the original proposal, an illustration of the difference between WP:NOTE for an article vs. WP:RS for a passing mention:

The theory [probably] does not ... deserve its own Wikipedia article, as there is no mainstream reference to it whatsoever, but could easily have a small mentioning of it in the main Port Chicago article since its internet presence is very large[ly] due to the aforementioned fringe websites.

A source for subject-matter X must be considered reliable or representing consensus by those knowledgeable about subject-matter X, and the fact that experts in a perhaps more general or more generally accepted subject-matter Y that X intrudes on believe that subject-matter X is entirely a bunch of hooie is irrelevant to that very narrow pertinence. Bn (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

While you're looking at this, the section on pseudoscience begins with "When discussing topics that reliable sources say are pseudoscientific...", but after that subordinate mention of reliable sources the ensuing treatment can easily be read as giving guidance for making an independent judgement of whether or not something is pseudoscience. For example in the lead-in "Things which generally should be classified as pseudoscience—for instance, for categorization purposes—include ..." followed by a list of types and examples. Something may be classified as pseudoscience if reliable sources say it is pseudoscience. If the typology of pseudoscience provides guidance to editors then we should be more clear just what guidance it provides. Does it give guidance when to suspect pseudoscience and look for confirmation in reliable sources? Kind of slippery ground. Bn (talk) 04:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Not all fields are academic

Slight revision proposed for this passage in the section "Identifying fringe theories":

We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study.

Not all areas of expertise are enumerated in the referenced [field of study] article. If there's no objection, I'll move that reference to the footnote (with appropriate context) and simplify to say "in its particular field". Bn (talk) 20:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Length of fringe articles

I've seen this type of discussion for example at Talk:The_Gene_Illusion#Drastically_cut_down_the_page ([3] vs [4]) Alas, there's nothing specific here about the length of articles about fringe topics. I suggest that something along the lines of: on a fringe topic the exposé of the topic itself should not exceed that granted in mainstream critiques of it. This should prevent obscure fringe topics from having giant articles with only a line or two of criticism at the end. (I was particularly impressed how even that sliver of criticism was considered non-neutral in the tag on top of the giant version!) Tijfo098 (talk) 05:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Pardon me for putting it this way, but that's silly. The length of an article on a fringe topic is dictated by the material needed to describe it correctly. Excessive length usually indicates advocacy (someone trying to argue out some point of the fringe topic in detail) and that can chopped at will, but we're not going to leave important parts of the description of a fringe theory out because there aren't enough critiques, or pad fringe articles with redundant or excessive critiques just to add more lines of opposing text.

You should think of a fringe theory article as a "gorilla cage" article. the theory itself should be described in its natural setting with enough detail to give the right idea, and criticisms or mainstream views should be included with enough prominence to be sure that the gorilla can't get out of the cage, but not so much that they get in the way of people observing the gorilla. People want to see a gorilla in a natural habitat; they don't want to see a whipped looking thing cowering in bricked-over corner. Same thing goes for fringe theories: describe them as they are, add just enough critique to make sure everyone understands the theory's (lack of) place in the scientific world, and let it go. --Ludwigs2 05:35, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Is it so unreasonable to assume that orthodox critiques of a fringe work will summarize and address its main claims while glossing over elaborate details that can obscure what the fringe stuff is all about? Tijfo098 (talk) 07:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Unreasonable? well, it's not impossible, but it's a bit unlikely, and I see no reason to make over-generalized assumptions of that sort whatsoever. The problem is that 'critiques' of fringe views are most likely to come from two types of sources:

1. scientific research that disproves a particular concrete claim of a fringe view without discussing the view itself in any particular depth (except through the lens of mainstream viewpoints.
2. skeptical opinions, which intentionally deal with the fringe topic is a prejudicial manner (for the purposes of debunking) and rarely give an unbiased assessment of the principles of the theory.

Neither of these sources is generally adequate for giving an effective description of what the theory says. Better would be to use reliable non-scientific journalistic sources, if available (journalists will generally describe the theory reasonably well, both giving it its due and explaining why it doesn't work).

Keep in mind that these are articles on fringe topics, not articles against fringe topics. Again, if you go to the gorilla cage, you don't want to see tons of signs informing you how stupid the gorilla is when compared to humans. you just want to see the gorilla, with the understanding that it's in the cage for a reason. --Ludwigs2 15:19, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Fringe

{{Fringe}} has been requested to be renamed, see template talk:Fringe. 65.95.14.34 (talk) 12:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)