Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of non-mainstream theories

List of non-mainstream theories

This page was redirected to List of pseudoscientific theories But, of course, non mainstream theories are not pseudoscientific at all. It is just an attempt by some supporters of certain pseudoscientific theories to argue that pseudoscience is just non-mainstream science. I therefore vote to delete this article. Count Iblis 20:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Per above. JoshuaZ 20:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• delete as above William M. Connolley 20:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per the above. Byrgenwulf 22:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I agree that the title is somewhat biased (that's why it's a redirect rather than the title of the actual article), but to delete it might be an overreaction. Isn't it a fairly likely search term for someone who doesn't know the word "pseudoscientific"? Also, the guidelines at Wikipedia:Fringe theories do refer to "non-mainstream theories", apparently as a neutral, all-encompassing term. --Grace 01:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Non-mainstream theories can be respectable theories, they certainly don't belong by definition to the pseudoscience category. So, a redirect to the pseudoscience list would not be appropriate. A list of theories that can be considered to be non-mainstream is very problematic. Of all the scientific theories that exist a certain percentage is non-mainstream, in the sense that most other people working in the field don't buy it but as a theory it is not obviously wrong. But you can't make a rule to demark the boundary between mainstream and non-mainstream. In case of pseudoscience there are reasonable criteria, but even in that case you can expect some borderline cases. So, this is a recipe for POV disputes. Count Iblis 01:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for non-mainstream are about as easy or difficult as for pseudoscience, and it's certainly less a recipe for POV disputes. Harald88 07:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. There are clear criteria for pseudoscience. The only POV disputes you can get is whether or not a particular theory satisfy these criterea. Of course, you can expect the supporters of such theories to resist their theory being classified as pseudoscience, because it isn't a label they like to see attached to their theory.

In case of non-mainstream theories there don't exist unambiguous criterea at all. Supporter of a theories listed as "non-mainstream" may not object as often compared to their pseudoscience collegues, but in case a dispute does arise, there is no way to resolve it using objective criteria. Count Iblis 14:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There are also clear criteria for non-mainstream: just consult textbooks. In practice the criteria are similar to those that now are used for the psuedoscience list: non-mainstream is what mainstream rejects as "wrong". And indeed, Wikipedia is in principle against pejorative labeling of ideas held by certain groups. Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That's utter nonsense. You make an excelent argument why this list should be deleted; the aim is clearly to try to get pseudoscientific theories such as creationism into the same category as non-mainstream theories such as, say, Modified Newtonian dynamics and oppose any kind of lists to which you can only add theories like creationism but not Modified Newtonian dynamics. For the record, mainstream scientists may not believe that Modified Newtonian dynamics is correct, most don't work on it (if they do they try to disprove it). But they don't label it as nonsense. Articles written on such theories are not rejected out of hand. So, clearly there is a huge difference between pseudoscientific theories and theories one could label as non-mainstream.

The labeling "pseudoscientific" for creationism may be pejorative for the creationists, but to put creationism and similar nonsensical theories in the same list as some non-mainstream theories is pejorative for scientists. Just imagine that you work on Modified Newtonian dynamics and that your neighbor does a google search to find out more about what you work on. He will find this theory listed alongside all sorts of nonsensical theories. Count Iblis 20:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

While I think it goes too far to call many of the topics listed in pseudoscience "nonsense" (many of them have a high level of internal consistency) what Iblis says is essentially correct. To use a related but more direct example- only a small fraction of biologists still think that birds are not descended from dinosaurs, but the opinion is very much not pseudoscience. However, denying common descent is. It would be terribly offensive and unencyclopedic to categorize them in the same way at all. JoshuaZ 20:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Too vague (potential for overpopulation) and shouldn't redirect. List of pseudoscientific theories has potential if it's adequately sourced (which of now it isn't) and annotated. thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 05:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep and expand - already a pointer List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories erroneously points to List of pseudoscientific theories! As long as there are lists like list of pseudoscientific theories (which title I propose to change because it implies an NPOV violation) and the one in Superseded scientific theory, we need more category lists to correctly categorize theories that are in disgrace. But at the same time, either such categories should be deleted or the corresponding lists (merge). Harald88 07:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. wikipediatrix 13:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and maintain as the list page. Much more neutral and accurate than List of pseudoscientific theories. Some of the non-mainstream theories listed on that page do not purport to be scientific theories, so listing them as "pseudoscience" is inaccurate, perjorative and a little silly. DrL 14:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Commnet Whether or not the list there needs to have better and more NPOV criteria for inclusion is not relevant to whether or not we should let this POV fork/redirect stand. JoshuaZ 14:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That's right except for one thing: it's certainly not a POV fork, but a (rather misdirected) attempt to neutralise an unmistakable POV title. Because of that as well as being a POV fork of Category:Pseudoscience (see recent Talk!), I have in mind to propose either the cat or the List of pseudoscientific theories for deletion. Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Page was created in a campaign of POV-pushing by Arturo 7 when he moved List of pseudoscientific theories here. Leaving it up would be giving in to his efforts. ---DrLeebot 14:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

In fact that's erroneous, as I made clear above: originally the "pseudoscience"list was called different names, a true consensus was never reached, and the change of name to List of pseudoscientific theories has caused a mispointing of List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories to that list instead of this proposed list. As this title is NPOV, it may more rightly be claimed that deleting this proposed list "would be giving in to the efforts of POV pushers". Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Why was this brought here rather than Redirects for deletion? The page has no content and no history, being merely the resulting redirect from a failed page move. -- nae'blis 16:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Good point (I also didn't know the existence of it!). Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, which is to say I support the deletion, whatever the correct forum for this is (I din't know there were special debates for redirects either). In any case non-mainstream =/= peudoscience, and we should aviod confusion here. -MrFizyx 23:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, should be at RFD anyway but while we're here might as well get rid of it, as pseudoscientific and non-mainstream are not the same thing at all. Things which are pseudoscientific are almost always currently non-mainstream, but may have once been mainstream, and things which are not mainstream are not necessarily pseudoscientific (some are just wrong, for example, and some are just unpopular). They are very different designations (one is sociological, the other is epistemological). --Fastfission 23:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 11:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)