Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by User:Enric Naval

Avoidance of issues gets worse (Dana)

Dana using socks as excuse to ignore arguments by real editors [1], and my answer[2].

Disrupting of an otherwise calm talk page (Dana)

Notice all discussions everything below Talk:Potassium_dichromate#COPD are just arguing about the same study, no advancements are made and no consensus is reached, unlike previous discussions on the same page. Dana's pushing of CHEST study is a clear show of how disruptive he can be.

wikilawyering (Dana)

Asking for secondary sources published on peer-reviewed journals a claim can be done by simple math[3], and Homeopathy at that time had the "olympic pool" calculation for it[4].

WP:TEND

From WP:TEND "You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.".

WP:SOAPBOX, weasel wording, changing meanings of former posts, condescendency to other editors

Using wikipedia to shake foundations of conventional medicine:[5], contradicts his acceptance of skeptic evidence here.

Notice:

• condescendent edit summaries "Good humble pie" and "Humble pie, yum". (and Dana is not humble himself, see "shaking foundations").

• never says "yes, I was wrong", unfollowed by conditionals that imply he was actually right but misinterpreted.

• downplays the capacity of other editors and "the majority of physicians/scientists".

Never answering when his arguments are called for, instead trying to re-direct the discussion in a different direction (Dana)

No mention of sources given by Scientsizzle, WP:UNDUE acussations, etc[6].

Assuming bad faith (Dana)

[7]

Implying that other editors are not prepared to edit an article (Dana)

[8], I give evidence of non-newbieness[9], Dana changes the meaning of newbie and gives non-valid reasons for non-editing [10]

I have reminded Dana of WP:PILLARS a pair of times.

Use of "Reduction ad absurdum" (Dana and Arion 3x3)

I accusse Dana of WP:COI [11], Shoemakers adds more problems[12]. Arion says "beyond the bound of human logic" and misrepresents [13]. I re-explain [14]. Arion: "ridiculous", misrepresents again [15]. Dana: "Wow...based on Enric's logic, no MD can and should edit any medical or even scientific article due to COI. "[16].

None of the other proofs of COI were ever addressed dy Dana or Arion.

Another reductio ad absurdum by Dana[17].

Picking on the weakest link of a series of arguments and never addressing the strong ones (Dana and Arion 3x3)

Above section, a dozen evidences of WP:COI go un-addressed.

Also, never answered[18].

Brunton points that there is clear evidence of Dana promoting another book on other places and more COI problems[19].

Arion keeps harping on minor points[20], but he didn't discuss the COI even after correcting that minor point[21]. Arion also harps on the minor point of never saying the exact word "conspiracy".

Insistance that wikipedia is biased against his POV (Arion 3x3, Anthon01)

Arion 3x3: desmesurated statement, given the context[22].

Anthon01:[23] (please take into account that he had just been banned and was upset)

Perceived lack of action by admins (everyone)

[24]

Keeps resorting to any ridiculous argument that would support his position when all good arguments were shot down (Dana)

"super-psychic" mouses, for a well-known bias [25].

[26], and my analysis [27].

NTSAAS: Not The Same Argument Again Syndrome (Jim Butler)

Jim claims now that to identify homeopathy as pseudoscience only "one scientific-consensus source" was used[28], however the real argument was[29], and he already accepted that source as good[30] and defended it[31][32][33] and also[34].

Notice Jim makes uses appeal to authority fallacy: the fact that User:Art_Carlson is a physics PhD is irrelevant for determining if a topic meets WP:PSCI.

Not understanding that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof (Dana)

Wants to include a study with "surprising results" that is waiting for other studies to confirm [35], see WP:REDFLAG

Still not getting it [36] after explanations [37][38]

Overplaying contributions to wikipedia (Dana)

Dana's claims on his evidence that CHEST study is notable for Potassium dichromate. Talk page is full of editors against, claiming Dana is pushing. Finally shown as non-notable[39]. 4 months later Dana insists and uses socks as an excuse to ignore other editors[40], see answers[41][42], Dana stills claims no consensus to discard study[43].

I assert that Dana's most notable contribution is massive disruption by pushing studies, and that useful contributions are very small in comparison.

Canvassing to pro-homeopathy editors to continue a lost discussion (Dana)

[44]

civilly worded strong accusations of bad faith that are never punished (Dana)

AGF breach wrapped in civil words [45], to avoid sanctions.

Dana: blocking "potentially useful information" from people suffering from a mortal pulmonary disease

Scientizzle asks Dana to reconsider, Dana sees nothing wrong with his post, Scientizzle analyses Dana's post

civil retractal of bad faith accussations when challenged (Dana)

note, not a textual quote: "oh, I didn't mean you, you are a wonderful person, I'll just pretend that I never implied that they are purposefully refusing to help people that suffers from a serious ailment that is the #4 reason that people in the US die, all for bad faith POV reasons, and I'll never say sorry for that or recognize that I did something wrong, with a cherry on top" [46]

always placing the burden of proof on the other side for negative statements on their POV (many editors)

Asking for proof of Water memory as pseudoscience[47], but there is easy-to-find evidence[48].

Jim misuses WP:BURDEN by removing[49] before giving time to editors to provide evidence or searching consensus on talk page (probation violation). Posts on talk page[50], but only after being reverted[51].

Jim links to Wikipedia:PSCI#Pseudoscience with no reasoning, fails to notice that this falls clearly under "Generally considered pseudoscience". Jim still misinterprets WP:BURDEN and downplays statements by Nature's editor for 22 years [52]. Jim didn't read policies properly before linking them, this sort of behaviour is usual for POV-pushers.

On Homeopathy, Jim claims for removal of pseudoscience category. He makes a very restrictive interpretation of WP:PSCI and WP:BURDEN that allows him to dismiss lots of statements from national associations and groups of scientists by saying they are not "statements from major scientific bodies" while providing absolutely no sources that homeopathy is being considered a serious science by anybody, thus rejecting indirectly the use of common sense. The category had been uncontested on the article for a long time.

Jim's evidence refers to old version, where full evidence for claims can be found.

moving goalposts for interpretations of WP:PSCI (Jim)

Saying that a "Pseudoscience" infobox needs more evidence than a "Pseudoscience" category and that we need "community agreement (or an ArbCom decision)" to decide if WP:PSCI applies on infoboxes[53]. See my answer on consensus[54]. I later notice that he has moved the goalposts since 3 months ago and still doubts a clear source[55][56].

Jim's evidence refers to this old version.

continuously appealing to policies after it's been made clear that they don't apply (several editors)

Similar to Dana's claims to follow WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPOV and constructive collaboration, Arion's claims of breaching of WP:NPOV[57], Anthon01's call to consensus, WP:RS and "moving on"[58][59], etc.

See my exasperated answer to Jim[60] to his post[61]

victimism (Jim Butler, Anthon01, and many editors)

Similar Arion_3x3's claims of a conspiracy against homeopathy supporters

Jim claims that Art_Carlson's ban was because he "dared to ask the same kinds of questions I did"[62], but look at Jehochman's reasons[63], ban is lifted later "because it's no longer needed"[64].

Jim is misrepresenting the ban's reason against evidence to paint himself a victim of bias and claim that he has non-disruptive behaviour[65], and avoid sanctions for misusing policies and behaviour bordering POV pushing.

User:Anthon01 also misrepresents the reasons for his topic ban, complains that no diffs were provided, wants the diffs to be given by East718, still believes that the diffs show nothing[66]. Anthon01's evidence refers to this old version where extensive proof for this claim can be found.

Jim, Anthon01, Dana and other editors really believe that they are innocent victims of bias and I think that they are not lying consciounsly. They actually believe that they are not misrepresenting anything, even when pointed at solid evidence, as a result they never acknowledge breaching a policy even in the most obvious of cases.

They also honestly believe in the existance of a WP:CABAL, see evidence presented by them on this page, specially Peter Morrell's. (I'm explicitely excluding Jim, his evidence never mentions anything about cabals. I thought that this would be clear for readers but it seems I was wrong. Apologies to Jim for the confusion)

misrepresents support by other editors, several times (Dana)

See Scientizzle's evidence. My old version is here

Evidence presented by PhilKnight (formerly Addhoc)

Wikilawyering by DanaUllman

• this statement in the article should be deleted. References to disprove it are secondary because there is no substantiation for it in the first place. (February 25, 2008)

In this quote, Dana justifies making an edit to the homeopathy article that was obviously going to be immediately reverted. The justification appears to be wikilawyering, or at the very least indicates a highly unusual interpretation of the verifiability policy. It was following this comment that I warned DanaUllman, and informed LaraLove, who following discussion with him, ended the mentoring arrangement.

Disruptive editing by DanaUllman

• edit to Homeopathy 19:46, 11 March 2008

In this edit, DanaUllman makes significant changes to the homeopathy article that are obviously going to be immediately reverted. Following this edit, he is warned by Jehochman, who indicates that next time a topic ban could be applied.

Edit warring by DanaUllman

On the Arsenicum album DanaUllman engages in an edit war, against Baegis and OffTheFence. Baegis issues a standard warning, and Dana responds by admitting going up to 3RR.

Assumption of bad faith by DanaUllman

• As for Baegis, he has been following me around, even though he probably knows that wiki-stalking is not allowed or encouraged.

In this comment, DanaUllman doesn't extend good faith in regard to Baegis. Following all of the above, I gave DanaUllman a 1 week topic ban.

Misunderstanding of policy by DanaUllman

• ArtCarlson has raised the important issue on which of the almost 400 reviews and meta-analyses should we use...I suggest that we use 3-5 that are the best that show positive effects from homeopathy and the same number that show negative results. That is what a good encyclopedia would do. (April 4, 2008)

In this comment, DanaUllman appears to confuse equal presentation of positive and negative information with NPOV policy.

Recent disruptive editing by DanaUllman

• edit to Arsenicum album 00:24, 17 April 2008

• edit to Arsenicum album 00:26, 17 April 2008

• edit to Arsenicum album 00:29, 17 April 2008

DanaUllman's article edits are nearly always made without establishing consensus, and usually move the balance of the article towards a pro-homeopathy perspective. In all honesty, I think it should be obvious that such edits are going to be immediately reverted. However, this doesn't appear to deter him from continuing this disruptive pattern, despite a 1 week ban in March.

Recent assumptions by DanaUllman

• It is safe to assume that all of the other editors who have committed here believe the same as Moreschi (April 22, 2008)

DanaUllman makes sweeping assumptions about other editors.

DanaUllman's involvement has achieved very little, despite a significant drain on resources

• edit count for DanaUllman

The edit count shows DanaUllman has made a significant proportion of his article and talk edits to homeopathy, and talk:homeopathy respectively. However, evidence presented by DanaUllman accurately shows that his most useful contribution to the article is adding external links, which demonstrates that his involvement has achieved very little, despite a significant drain on resources.

Evidence presented by Shoemaker's Holiday (talk)

Arion 3x3 has caused problems on most or all non-homeopathic articles he has substantially contributed to

I'll deal with Arion first, as, frankly, I don't have as much to say about him.Some of these are links at the moment, I'll fix that at some point. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have checked Arion's contributions, and discovered something interesting: It seems that no matter where he goes on Wikipedia, he causes problems. For instance, Talk:Intelligent design: He pushes for inclusion of a huge section on Theosophy, based on Blavatsky having once or twice used the words together, though never as a name for a viewpoint. Arion 3x3 constantly insists throughout that discussion, that it is a major theosophanic belief, known widely by that name to thousands of people... then can't provide a lick of evidence for that.

On Talk:Francis Bacon, I found:

“ In reference to the other issue, by Arion's own admission above, he felt free to change one heading (that he didn't add) to a different one. Then he changed his mind and changed that again. In other words, ARion is free to edit in any fashion he sees fit - but no one else is. So - in the spirit of compromise I offer what I thought that Sage had offered - lose the new headings, but keep the addition. Then everyone take a breather. Smatprt (talk) 05:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC) ”

I'm sure further investigation would find more examples from there.

[Small section snipped: Included non-identifying name that user would prefer not to appear]

I'm sure others will document his homeopahic behaviour, but I think that if we are to believe that people against him are displaying strong anti-homeopathic bias, as Arion 3x3 is claiming, then we must also believe that he has been the cruel victim of bias on pretty much every other article he's contributed to.

Dana Ullman

This section is quite long, as the issues are kind of complex. I was told when I first was compiling evidence about him for the Homeopathic probation page that admins were having trouble following the evidence, as some of it is a bit complex. As it is long, though, I've provided summaries at the start of each section.

Section 0 - Events at Potassium dichromate

I'm moving this to the start, because, in the middle of this arbitration case, Ullman did something there that's so... over the top, that I think it provides some of the best evidence of his tendentious editing.

Summary: On Talk:Potassium dichromate, Ullman really wants to include a study that seems to support his views. After reopening the discussion, making the same points three times in the last three months, he finally moves into outright bizarre behaviour, arguing with User:Scientizzle to the effect that Scientizzle actually supports him, and that Scientizzle denying this was stonewalling?!

Yes, really.

Background

For obvious reasons, I'm going to quickly race over the previous events, so that we can get to the bizarre events of the last couple days.

We start at 15 January of this year,[67] in which Ullman is complaining that he was reverted. He claims the resons are unknown, but his edit [68] not only adds the study, but changes wording to add a strong homeopathic bias to the descriptions more favourable to homeopathy, and removes all critical content, claiming it is not specific enough to the particular homeopathic remedy.(See edit summary here).

He edit wars over its inclusion for a while: [69] [70] [71] [72] Arion 3x3 joins in the edit-warring fun: [73] Then the page is protected: [74]

Between the 15th and 26th or so of January, large sections of the talk page are spent discussing this. On 30 January, Ullman repeats his points, and insists it be included. [75] and is again shot down.

No further discussion on the talk page occurs between February 3 and 19 April. At which point... Ullman brings up the study YET AGAIN, claiming that a few socks that were active at the time meant all previous discussion should be ignored. [76]

He is short down again, by several people.e.g

21st April, he makes the same points again: [77]

He claims previous discussion is "inadequate" and that:

“ Based on my summary of the RS and notability of this study (and its substantial results), I think that you are stonewalling...and you are giving the Arb Committee good evidence that you will not accept any positive evidence on homeopathy. I would think that you would want to show good faith now. Let's work towards consensus on what should be said about this important study. ”

Consensus again goes against him, so he claims that the five or six other editors are "stonewalling"

Baegis eventually archives the discussion, using Template:hat to avoid further disruption.

Ullman objects to this, and tries to pull other editors in to continue to beat the dead horse.[78]

Insistence that Scientizzle supports him, despite Scientizzle's objections

We now get to the really bizarre behaviour on Dana's part. He says there was consensus for its inclusion in the past:

“ As for "pushing" this study, consensus was reached to include it in the past, and it was a part of this article for several weeks ”

However, as far as I can tell, the only time that it was ever in the article was when Ullman was editwarring for its inclusion between January 15-19, 2008. Ullman goes on to claim Scientizzle supports him:

“ Just in the past week or so, Scientizzle recommended that we reference it. ”

Scientizzle responds:

“ Wow. Just in the past week or so, Scientizzle recommended that we reference it. Here are all the diffs from my particpation on this talk page since the discussion renewed in April: [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84]. Please do indicate in which of these edits I recommended referencing Frass et al. If you're saying that my statement,

"Even at List of homeopathic preparations, I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms.^ref"

is a recommendation to reference it, you have wrongly interpretated my non-glowing evaluation of this source's utility. — Scientizzle 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC) ”

Ullman continues to say that Scientizzle supports him, despite his objections.

“ I thought that editors would reconsider this study now that several socks were muted, and I was right! Scientizzle voiced support for including reference to this,[85]. And yet, despite several protests against archiving an ACTIVE discussion, Baegis disregarded these concerns. ”

Scientizzle sees this, and asks:

“ Dana, did you miss my comment above? — Scientizzle 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC) ”

Ullman responds... by arguing with Scientizzle that he, in fact, supports him.

“ Scientizzle, no, not at all. Did you see your words: "I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic.... I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms. " [86] It is interesting how you chose to not give the entire quote from your posting at that same time. You clearly say that you're NOT against inclusion...this strongly suggests that the conversation is open. I hope that you will stop stonewalling. You did recommend providing reference to this study in at least a minimalistic way. Therefore, I continue to assert that the archiving of the active conversation is part of a bullying behavior conducted without consensus, in a WP:TE manner with the audacity to inaccurately blame me for TE. DanaUllman^Talk 05:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC) ”

Note: Ullman's link to Scientizzle's comment is wrong, it should be [87]

We've gone beyond parody into full scale trolling here. Ullman:

• Argues with Scientizzle that Scientizzle actually supports him.

• Claims that Scientizzle did not provide a complete quote, while using elipsis to change the meaning of Scientizzle's quote:

Ullman says Scientizzle says:

“ I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic.... I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms. ”

However, What Scientizzle actually say, in full, is:

“ I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic. (Even at List of homeopathic preparations, I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms.^[ref]" statement). — Scientizzle 22:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC) ”

Note that Ullman removes some crucial words that COMPLETELY CHANGE the meaning of Scientizzle's remark away from being about inclusion of this study at Potassium dichromate.

At this point, Ullman has gone beyond simple tendentious editing into trolling, and should be promptly blocked. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Section I - The Cazin study and Linde metaanalysis

Summary: One of Ullman's main problems is that he hypes studies that he likes the findings of to the moon, claiming that they are hugely important, published in major journals, etc. In this section, we'll look at two studies [sections 1a and 1b] that he endlessly promoted over several weeks on Talk:Arsenicum album. Ullman's foundation for his claims of the notability of these and the journal they're publishesd in are particularly easy to show to be shaky: He demonstrates a complete inability to accurately give the journal's current name. 1d provides further evidence of misrepresentation, analysing the other claims Ullman makes about Cazin in more detail, and making conclusions.

Section 1c expands our focus out a bit, looking at a few other aspects: Linde retracted some of his previous findings in 1999, when further investigation showed evidence of strong bias in homeopathic studies in general. At this point, Ullman posted [On the article probation page where this originally appeared] an attack on my evidence. This attack is left in place, then analysed in section 1c part ii, and shown to be groundless. 1c part ii(a) and (b) are particularly interesting, as they document Ullman's statements about Assume Good Faith, which were discussed briefly in my initial statement on this case.

1a. "Published in one of the leading journals of toxicology"

Summary

Although Mr. Ullman claims that J.C. Cazin et al.. "A Study of the Effect of Decimal and Centesimal Dilution of Arsenic on Retention and Mobilization of Arsenic in the Rat," Human Toxicology, July 1987 was published in a "leading" "major" and "highly-respected" journal, he changes his mind repeatedly on the title of the journal, jumps at a suggestion by Hesperian of a title that it might be, and uses it to justify his claims, saying that Hesperian's suggestion was correct. Research, however, shows that it was not, and that the journal is, in fact, a minor, low-impact journal with a section devoted to non-mainstream reports. These inflated claims will be shown to be typical as this report continues to other studies he refers to.

Detailed analysis in support

On "Human Toxicology" and the Cazin study, he writes:

“ The below statement was deleted without comment. This is a RS (the journal is now called "Human Toxicology" and is highly respected in the field):
Another animal study testing various homeopathic doses of arsenic on mice was published in a leading toxicology journal and showed statistically significant effects. J.C. Cazin et al.. "A Study of the Effect of Decimal and Centesimal Dilution of Arsenic on Retention and Mobilization of Arsenic in the Rat," Human Toxicology, July 1987 ”

and

“ ...it was published in one of the leading journals in toxicology.... ”

We'll deal with the rest of that last quote at a slightly later point. Let's move on for the moment...

Although Mr. Ullman repeatedly claims that Human Toxicology is a highly-respected leading journal, he soon demonstrate he has no actual knowledge about it:

“ The "new" name of this journal is "Human and Veterinary Toxicology" ”

But when Hesperian points out that "Thomson Scientific's Journal Citation Reports lists 76 journals in the "toxicology" category. It doesn't list journals entitled "Human Toxicology", nor "Human and Veterinary Toxicology", but it does list a journal named "Veterinary and Human Toxicology". When listed in order of impact factor, H&VT ranks 68th out of 76 journals." he immediately changes his tune:

“ It is not mysterious at all. The correct name is Veterinary and Human Toxicology. I'm glad that you've confirmed that it is a recognized peer-review journal in toxicology. ”

And, before all this, he had added the following to the article:

“ Human and Experimental Toxicology (today, this journal is simply called Human Toxicology). ”

In fact, all of these are wrong. The journal was originally Human Toxicology, and changed its name to Human and Experimental Toxicology, a name it retains to this day [88]. This means that he was making claims about the importance of a journal that he could not even get the name of correct. But he still claimed himself and himself alone as a sufficient authority to assert it was a highly-respected, leading journal. It is actually a low impact journal (Journal eigenfactor: 0.0028658. Article Influence: 0.24856). In short, he appears to have had no idea what he was talking about, but this did not stop him constantly making grand assertions, and flailing about in an attempt to leap on anything that would give the temporary appearance of supporting his arguments, true or not, nonetheless.

Finally, according to the editors, Human [and Experimental] toxicology's scope is:

All aspects of experimental and clinical studies of functional, biochemical and structural disorder, their causes and antidotes and other therapies using animal and human tissue, in vitro systems and medical and veterinary patients.

Toxicology Elsewhere - This section of the journal highlights areas outside mainstream toxicology, dealing with research interest and reviews of published articles peripheral, yet supportive to toxicology. The international flavour of the journal makes it the ideal way to stay current with the fast-moving field of toxicology.

In other words, they have a special section DEVOTED TO SPECULATIVE OR NON-MAINSTREAM REPORTS. I presume this is where the Cazin article appeared. Do I need to say why this is a problem to his assertion that Human Toxicology's reputation (such as it is) proves that the Cazin article is a reliable source?

Ib Notability of the Linde 1994 metaanalysis

Summary

Ullman makes similar - even, perhaps, extreme claims for the importance of the Linde 1994 metaanalysis (Linde K, et al, Critical review and meta-analysis of serial agitated dilutions in experimental toxicology, Human and experimental toxicology, 1994). He claims that it is a "major" meta-analysis, published in a major journal on numerous occasions. However, the journal is the same one as the Cazin study; the article is only cited by two (TWO) other studies in all of Pubmed [89]. Places you would expect to find a major metaanalysis do not include it, and it is not generally available, with even companies making volumes of Human and Experimental Toxicology available not offering issues back that far.

Detailed analysis

Ullman makes similar claims for the Linde 1994 metaanalysis as the Cazin study:

“ ...Please note that Linde, et al (1994) is an important meta-analysis... ”

and

“ The meta-analysis to which I referenced here was published in a major toxicology journal. If you think that I'm wrong (though I'm not), please provide verification. ”

He is, in fact, wrong. As shown in section 1a, he appears to have no to little knowledge of the journal, as it's the same one as the Cazin study was published in, (Not that he knows that, or he wouldn't say that the Cazin journal was Human and Veterinary Toxicology, or did he mean Veterinary and Human Toxicology... well, they're all major journals if they publish something hie likes, as will be shown throughout this report). Also as shown in 1a, the journal has both a low article impact and eigenfactor. It is not a major toxicology journal, as Mr. Ullman would even [finally] admit later:

“ ...We can strike the word "leading," but it is still a NPOV source... ”

Only two other articles reference it in all of the pubmed database: [90]

The study does not appear places you would expect it to if it were a "major" metaanalysis. For instance, the NCCAM page on Homeopathy is generally supportive of homeopathy, but does not list this study in the table of metaanalyses. Linde himself does not cite it in his list of systematic reviews of homeopathy.

Dana Ullman aso has some confusion as to what year it was published, calling it a 1995 study, until corrected. This is typical of his sloppy work.

Finally, Ingentia only makes Human and experimental toxicology available back to mid 2000, Sage publications back to 1998, meaning the article is not generally available.

Despite the problems demonstrated above: that it has only two references to it in all of Pubmed, is generally unavailable, and is not even discussed in Linde's own discussion of systematic reviews of homeopathy, DanaUllman claims repeatedly that the non-notable Linde 1994 study is itself sufficient to make the Cazin study count as notable, as shown in section 1d.

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

1c: Ignoring Linde's retraction, and Linde 1997. Ullman as a tendentious editor; Ullman insists others AGF while refusing to hold the same courtesy to others.

Summary

Linde retracted several conclusions of his previous work in 1999, and this was pointed out to Ullman at the start of the discussion. (part i) Nonetheless, Ullman continues to use the retracted conclusions. (part iii) Ullman insists that we should AGF on his behalf, but does not apply the policy to other editors, and is a textbook tendentious editor (part ii).

1c: Part i

Summary: One of the studies that Ullman pushes for [Linde 1997, see part iii for evidence of his abuse] has had findings explicitly retracted by its authors, and this was pointed out to Ullman. This retraction, in the eyes of a reasonable person, would also apply to the much more minor 1994.

Detailed analysis

In 1999, Linde retracted much of his previous work:

“ "The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis [7]. Since we completed our literature search in 1995, a considerable number of new homeopathy trials have been published. The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials (e.g. [14,15]) have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most “original” subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy [16]), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis [7] at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments."

Linde et al, Impact of Study Quality on Outcome in Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homeopathy, J Clin Epidemiol Vol. 52, No. 7, pp. 631–636, 1999, doi:10.1016/S0895-4356(99)00048-7

”

Link [7] refers to the Linde's 1997 metanalysis; however, as shown in 1b, the 1994 study by Linde is incredibly minor, and so it is not, perhaps, surprising that Linde does not explicitly mention it.

This was pointed out to Mr. Ullman at the start of the thread that kicked off the discussions referred to in 1a and 1b. [91]

Either your bias is blinding you or you are not reading or understanding previous discussions. First, I realize that Linde said that his previous meta-analysis "at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments." However, of the 89 trials evaluated, there was a 2.45 (!) odds ratio favoring homeopathy, and when reviewing only the high quality studies, it was something like 1.78 (that's still significant). Although some studies after the 1997 had negative results, Linde never asserted that these new studies took away significance from the body of research nor did he say or imply that there was "no" evidence for homeopathy...he simply said the evidence was reduced. And Linde's 1997 work would NOT reference his 1994 work because the 1994 work was a review of laboratory studies in environmental toxicology, while his 1997 work only reviewed clinical trials. Once again, I want to warn you to AGF, avoid showing bad faith (as you have done on numerous occasions), read past Talk section more carefully, and consider re-reading my post above about recent meta-analyses in which I specifically make reference to Linde's more updated comments. Finally, it seems that I need to remind you again that ALL high quality clinical research has lower positive results (this observation is not simply true in homeopathic trials). DanaUllman^Talk 05:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

1c - part ii

Summary: Ullman's quotes of statistics from Linde 1997 are misleading, and Ullman insists that we should WP:AGF, at the same time as he attacks other editors with impunity, and ignores that AGF specifically says "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary." and seems ignorant of WP:TEND "Tendentious editing is editing which is partisan, biased, skewed—in other words, it does not conform to the neutral point of view. On Wikipedia, the term also carries the connotation of repetitive attempts to insert or delete content which is resisted by multiple other editors." Several examples of Ullman failing to assume good faith, and attacking others without assuming good faith are summarised.

Detailed analysis

This section discusses the Linde 1997 metaanalysis (Linde, et al, 1997 Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials, Lancet, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(97)02293-9.

“ First, I realize that Linde said that his previous meta-analysis "at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments." However, of the 89 trials evaluated, there was a 2.45 (!) odds ratio favoring homeopathy, and when reviewing only the high quality studies, it was something like 1.78 (that's still significant). ”

Ullman is incorrect in multiple ways.

In a discussion of the effects of publication bias changing the results of the 1997 Linde study, Ullman quotes the combined results for the 1997 trial as uncorrected for publication bias. In the 1997 trial itself, Linde writes: "The overall estimate of the odds ratio corrected for publication bias was 1·78 (1·03 to 3·10, z=2·09). Thus correction for publication bias decreases the odds ratio by about 27%; however, it remained substantial and statistically significant."

The results for the quality trials are 1.66, not 1.78 as Dana claims. Linde et al do not correct the quality trials for publication bias.

“ Although some studies after the 1997 had negative results, Linde never asserted that these new studies took away significance from the body of research... ”

WRONG!!!! WRONG ON EVERY COUNT!!! What part of "The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis." does Mr. Ullman not understand? What part of "The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials (e.g. [14,15]) have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most “original” subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy [16]), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis [7] at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments." does not imply that the results of these new studies reduce Linde's findings on the body of research?

As this section of Linde 1999 was quoted above, and Ullman was explicitly responding to the quote, Ullman's reading comprehension must be cast into extreme doubt. Ullman's statement above "Either your bias is blinding you or you are not reading or understanding previous discussions." would appear to be a textbook example of projection. Which leads to the next point:

“ Once again, I want to warn you to AGF ”

This is typical of Ullman's use of AGF as a sledgehammer to try and attack others who disagree with him into silence. Mr. Ullman, is mistaken on the details of the AGF policy. Assuming Good Faith does not mean assuming that you are right. "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary." You are clearly a tendentious editor: "Tendentious editing is editing which is partisan, biased, skewed—in other words, it does not conform to the neutral point of view. On Wikipedia, the term also carries the connotation of repetitive attempts to insert or delete content which is resisted by multiple other editors." Assuming

good faith does not mean assuming you are right. It means assuming the best interpretation to your actions, e.g. that you are incompetent, rather than intentionally deceitful.

1c, part ii (a) - Evidence of Ullman trying to claim Good faith as synonymous for "assume I'm right".

1

“ Can you show good faith by inserting this statement (it seems that some editors delete my contributions). ”

2

“ My previous writing in this article provided this summary, but it has been deleted several times. I am concerned that Hesparian chose to truncate the quote above. I will assume good faith, and you can show good faith by you summarizing this body of information for this article. Is that reasonable? Let's be reasonable. ”

Brief analysis

Ullman and Arion 3x3 were editwarring (Ullman: [92] [93] Arion: [94] [95] [96] [97]) for addition of a new section that he wrote that made a purely biased use of the 1997 study to claim that there is strong evidence that Homeopathy works, and elimination of a discussion of problems with homeopathic research. Hesperian's quote of Linde's finding that "The number of methodologically sound, independently reproduced studies is too small to make any definitive conclusions regarding the effect of SAD preparations in toxicology" was quite sufficient to rebut the additions to the article that Ullman was editwarring for the inclusion of. Ullman nontheless attacks Hesperian for quoting a section that shows that Linde's conclusions were not the 100% pure proof of homeopathy that Ullman claimed, acting as if it was a huge attempt to deceive, but that he was graciously assuming good faith. Oh, and it also provides yet another bit of confusion about Human Toxicology (claims that Human and Experimental Toxicology became Human Toxicology, rather than the other way around. [see 1a])

3

“ Baegis, please know that other editors have access to the journals that I've cited above. Because you don't, please do your best to watch the dialogue. I assume that you know that wikipedia has rules against stonewalling. If I provide verification that is notable and/or from a reliable source, it is your job to prove me wrong or right or get out of the way. Ignorance is not always bliss. As for my credibility, I am a widely published author, including 3 chapters in medical textbooks. Please AGF, as will I. ”

(adding note)Dana already got later involved on a different edit war, he got warned for it, then accused of bad faith assumption by two editors and then banned 7 days from editing homeopathy articles for the edit warring. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

4

“ Either you're stonewall or pretending to have a bad memory. Despite this, I will AGF if you can agree that Cazin's work deserves to remain in the article. ”

5

“ I sincerely hope that you show good faith and finally admit that this information is notable and worthy of reference in the article. ”

Followed, naturally, by this

{{Dana, the assertion that I have not been showing "good faith" by failing to "finally admit that this information is notable and worthy of reference in the article" is completely inappropriate. — Scientizzle 18:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Scientizzle, first, I didn't mention you as having bad faith. In fact, YOU have been open to including it (thank you). Previously, you wrote that you wanted to include reference to this trial but didn't want to include any description of the results of the study. Please clarify your objection to including these results. Please note that some editors have described this study as "small," and yet, I have shown that this study was not "small" for a trial on patients with COPD (as is evidenced by the two follow-up studies having similar numbers). Also, can you express your reasons why you think that this study is notable? Perhaps, some of the other editors can hear you better than they hear me. DanaUllman^Talk 19:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)}}

1c, part ii (b) - Miscellanious failure to assume good faith

0 (added to the start as it's such a good example)

“ Antelan, an admin advised me to not respond to bad faith accusations (which I consider the above, due to the fact that the two people who are making these accusations, Enric and Shoemaker, are newbies who clearly have content dispute issues with me). ”

1

“ I wish to assume good faith, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that some (maybe many) of the above editors are neither subscribers or readers of this journal... ”

Attacking all your critics because they are not subscribers of a journal that you are trying to hype is not assuming good faith. The rest of the quote deals with the journal Homeopathy, which is best dealt with in another section.

2

“ This article is another piece of evidence that many of the anti-homeopathy editors assert that there is "no scientific research" on this or that subject within homeopathy, and yet, either these editors are purposefully ignoring the body of basic science evidence and clinical research or they are choosing to not look and simply asserting that there is no research (when you don't look for something, it is indeed hard to find it). What is also so interesting is the degree of self-justification that goes on in the homeopathy-bashing and the unapologetic tendencies for either ignoring or attacking homeopathic research. "How convenient" is all I have to say about the lack of references to the scientific literature at this article, especially when there is a reasonable body of basic science work (testing homeopathic doses of this medicine) and clinical trials too. ”

3

(On an admin's talk page)

“ Enric has asserted, "my patience with this editor is exhausted." Hmmm. This editor has only participated in the homeopathy articles for a bit over a month. He has also expressed his strong belief that homeopathic medicines are placeboes, while I provide reference to research that suggests otherwise. Clearly, this is a content dispute, and Enric may be gaming the system by over-exaggerating his experience with me. He still doesn't seem to get it, despite your warning. I have had to deal with many socks and many anti-homeopathy editors who are ganging up on me. I'm proud that I've kept my cool and continue to provide RS information with an effort to achieve consensus ”

More could be provided in this section with ease, but I think the point is made.

1c, part iii - Linde 1997

[TBC] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shoemaker's Holiday (talk • contribs) 11:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

1d: Conclusions of Section 1

Summary: One of Dana's longer posts on Cazin is analysed in detail, and almost everything in it is shown to be false or misleading. In a more recent post, Ullman makes such grandiose claims for his source that he actually ends up claiming that a 1994 study will serve as a secondary source to prove the notability of sources from 2003 and 2005.

Detailed analysis:

We may now return to the earlier quote I said we'd come back to.

“ The reasons that the Cazin (1987) study is notable is that it was published in one of the leading journals in toxicology. It was conducted at a major French university and department of pharmacology. It showed a statistically significant result. It was referenced by a major meta-analysis (Linde, et al 1994) and described as a "high quality trial." It has had several replications that have confirms its results. It has V, RS, and 3rd party confirmation...it has them all. At this point, it is your responsibility to assert why it should not be in there. ”

Almost every word in that is wrong, except, perhaps, Ullman's praise of what appears (these articles are not generally availble, as I said, which makes it difficult to check, but this is my best guess) to be the Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille which, as far as I know, is an excellent university. However, it appears (see below) that the university were not the only people involved.

• It was NOT published in a leading journal of Toxicology (section 1a): Human Toxicology is not even generally available, and has relatively low stats.

• That it was conducted by people affiliated with a large university is not in itself demonstration of notability. However, that would not appear to be the only people involved. Boiron J is Jean Boiron, founder of Boiron, a major homeopathic medicines company. Co-author Belon, P is Phillipe Belon who also works for Boiron.

• It did show a statistically significant result. However, according to a seminal paper by John P. A. Ioannidis "a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance." Likewise, several studies point out that homeopathic studies are usually of low quality, e.g. Linde et al, Impact of Study Quality on Outcome in Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homeopathy, J Clin Epidemiol Vol. 52, No. 7, pp. 631–636, 1999, doi:10.1016/S0895-4356(99)00048-7}}. Dana says that Linde classified Cazin as relatively high-quality (for a homeopathic trial), but the discussion at Talk:Arsenicum_album#Cazin_.281987.29 indicates that this is an assumption on Dana's part, and, in any case, it appears from the abstract and such that high-quality is only intended to mean "relatively high."

• The replications that supposedly confirm its results are not listed by Ullman, but we can presume he means the other studies briefly mentioned in the article, a set of low-quality unblinded studies by Khuda-Bukhsh et al. The problems with them have been discussed extensively on the talk page, and will be dealt with in a later section (if needed). Suffice to say that one of the studies did not even have a control group.

• "It has V, RS, 3rd party confirmation" ...I think this is supposed to be a reference to the poor-quality indian studies, which are not Reliable sources. It might be to Linde, though. Personally, I think Dana's just randomly parroting Wikipedia abbreviations to try and win an argument.

That's from February. However, Mr. Ullman tends to repeat himself a lot, and he has continued to make similar claims, despite months of discussion, even to nearly the present day. Consider this quote from 29 March, which ignores all that came before and simply asserts:

“ First, virtually all of the studies mentioned here have secondary RS, and that is the Linde 1994 meta-analysis... ”

As I pointed out at the time, there were about three studies Ullman was pushing at the time, and the 2003 and 2005 cannot possibly be referenced in a 1994 meta-analysis. Virtually all, my hairy arse.

Section 2: Additional studies

2a: Trying to use very small studies, while insisting that large studies that evaluate homeopathy as a whole can't be used

N.B. This section is just a dumping ground at the moment. Skip over it to Section 3

He reverted the removal with this edit summary: My NPOV reference is to a study of this substance! Shang review has nothing to do with this specific chemical.

In Section 3, it will be shown that Ullman regularly claims that large-scale analyses of homeopathy in major journals should not be used in articles on specific homeopathic substances, in favour of small, fringe studies that give results he prefers. As that section isn't done yet - one quick quote:

“ I deleted the reference to the Shang review because it didn't have any direct research on Arsenicum album (remember: THIS is the subject of this article). ”

To be continued.

====Section 2b: Rejecting large-scale studies of homeo

Section 3: Rejection of well-respected journals and mainstream science in favour of more minor journals and fringe science that support his views

[Forthcoming. Quick samples follow] Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

“ ...As for the mechanism of action, it wasn't until somewhat recently that we began to understand how aspirin works...and this didn't influence its acceptability. The reference to the "mechanism of action" has no place here. This article should emphasize what is known, not necessarily what is unknown (if we were to say what we don't know about something, then most of each article would discuss the various things we don't know. Further, this is an article about Arsenicum album, not the entire field of homeopathy. The reference #3, #6, and #7 and the partial sentence connected to it have no place here.

Here's what is presently written with my recommended changes (I suggest that we add the above study after reference #5): Some small, preliminary studies claim an effect for arsenicum album;[4][5] however, these are not widely accepted within the scientific community, as there is no known mechanism by which such highly-diluted substances could work, and large scale scientific studies say that any perceived medicinal effects of homeopathy are almost certainly due to the placebo effect.[3][6][7]

”

Here we see Ullman cavalierly saying we should delete the mainstream view of homeopathy in favour of small, preliminary studies that support his views.

3a: The Shang Metaanalysis

Summary: Two discussions on Talk:Arsenicum album are analysed. Although the Shang metaanalysis is published in The Lancet, and comes complete with a glowing editorial by the Lancet's editors, unlike the studies that Ullman likes, where journals and importance are talked up to the skies, in this case, a widely-respected article in a top-tier journal is viciously attacked, using minor, fringe alternative medicine journals.

Discussion I

A quick note - One gets the feeling that Ullman is responding to something else in his first post, which starts off this thread, as it otherwise comes out of nowhere, and seems to have no relationship to the article in question. However, this is the first post in the thread, so... don't look at me.

“ [98] ”

[TBC - need food]

Discussion II

“ ...[Linde provides much much more damaging analysis of the Shang (2005) review of research (which he and others blow out of the water as unscientific and unethical...yeah, that bad). ”

The Shang metaanalysis is a highly-respected one published in the journal Lancet, considered one of the top four medical journals. The Lancet editorial published with it attacked homeopathy repeatedly. Let's look at the letter from Linde that Dana says shows that the Shang metaanalysis is "unscientific and unethical". Here's the opening paragraph.

“ We congratulate Aijing Shang and colleagues1 on their meta-analysis examining the clinical effects of homoeopathy. Their methods largely reproduce those of our meta-analysis on the same topic published in The Lancet 8 years ago.2 We agree that homoeopathy is highly implausible and that the evidence from placebo-controlled trials is not robust. However, there are major problems with the way Shang and colleagues present and discuss their results, as well as how The Lancet reviewed and interpreted this study. We will point out two. ”

Shang replies to both points in {{doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67881-6}} - they're fairly minor procedural aspects, basically, they didn't follow a guideline that Linde thought they should have, and Linde thought they and the Lancet should have been a bit more temperate in their conclusions. More importantly, Linde NOWHERE says that they were unethical, as DanaUllman claims. The discussion peters out at this point, with a reference to the previous one. Once again, Ullman's claims about sources do not match the source itself.

Section 4: Conclusions: Is Dana Ullman intentionally misleading us?

Summary: While there is strong evidence of Ullman making systematic errors and grandiose claims, I do not believe that Ullman's behaviour is evidence of intent to deceive. There is quite a bit of evidence to show that Ullman is simply very sloppy,[Section 1a, etc, as well as little things like mistaking "Little Red Riding Hood" for "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and has an inflated opinion of his own abilities, which combined with the significant investment he's made by having spent his entire adult life advocating for homeopathy, causes him to rate things that support his views much higher than he should [Section 1], while rejecting anything that does not support his views as unimportant or insignificant. [Section 3] While this does mean that he probably genuinely believes what he says at the time, unfortunately, this causes him to be an unreliable source [1a, etc], make it extremely unlikely that he could change his ways, and make him very disruptive to our purpose of making a respectable, mainstream encyclopaedia.

Discussion:

Per WP:REDFLAG: "Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim... [including] claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and BLPs. Be particularly careful when proponents of such claims say there is a conspiracy to silence them... Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources; if such sources are not available, the material should not be included."

Ullman has demonstrated himself prone to inflating the importance of sources he likes the conclusions of, [Section 1 a, b, c-ii] and seems to confuse disagreeing with his conclusions as a violation of good faith [Section 1c pt. ii appendix a], while denegrating respected studies he dislikes the findings of [Section 3]

This puts him in near-constant violation of WP:REDFLAG. He attacks other people that attempt to examine his sources, despite homeopathy "significantly altering mainstream assumptions... in science", particularly at dilutions higher than the Avorogado limit.[See Note 1, below] His habit of claiming, through his over-inflated statements on the importance of the minor studies he quotes [Section 1 a, b, and d], that he, in fact has sufficient evidence, his abuse of WP:RS to claim that it must be included [This will be covered in Section 2], and he also implies, if more weakly than some, that there is a conspiracy to silence him, or at least claims that anyone who disagrees with him is wrong: [99][100] [See also Section 1c, Part ii(a and b).]

Ullman is a tendentious editor [1c-ii] and is prone to confabulation, creating false information that sounds like it might be true but evaporates when investigated [1a]. He has undergone mentorship with LaraLove, but does not seem to have changed the core nature of the problems that make him so difficult to work with on Wikipedia; nor does he seem to have a very high proportion of useful edits to rejected edits and tendentious arguments. Due to Ullman's heavy investment into homeopathy, having dedicated his life to promoting it, it is, perhaps, understandable that he is unwilling to change his views, and will resist any challenges to it. However, even if his behaviour is understandable, that does not make it suitable for Wikipedia: I think it highly unlikely that he is or will be capable of working effectively with others to build a neutral, NPOV (See WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience) encyclopaedia; nor do I think him likely to ever be able to accurately apply guidelines such as WP:FRINGE which insist on identifying and emphasising mainstream views at the expense of his strongly-held fringe views; nor do I think he will stop being a tendentious editor and turn into a useful contributor. Let's face it, in the end, he is Dana Ullman, a leading proselytizer of homeopathy. His entire livelihood and career spins around his unwavering belief in and promotion of homeopathy, and emphasising and hyping whatever could possibly be interpreted as positive to homeopathy and denigrating and trying to dismiss anything negative is part and parcel of that. We cannot expect him to change these inherent aspects of his character just because Wikipedia asks him to nicely.

Note 1: Sources for this are numerous, a few taken from the Homeopathy article include Teixeira J (2007). "Can water possibly have a memory? A sceptical view". Homeopathy : the journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy 96 (3): 158-162. doi:10.1016/j.homp.2007.05.001, [101], and Whorton, James C. (2004). Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. Oxford University Press. Or perhaps This article in Time, which contains quotes such as "'It is just the reverse of everything we believe according to the basic principles of physiology,' declares Professor Varro Tyler of Purdue University, an expert on herbal remedies. 'We believe that the greater the dose, the greater the physiological response. They believe that even after there is no drug left, you still get a response.'" and "Advocates claim that evidence of homeopathy's efficacy is emerging, citing a list of scientific papers published in recent years in such reputable journals as Pediatrics, the British Medical Journal, Lancet and Nature. But there is only a handful of these reports, and they are far from definitive. The ultimate test of scientific validity is whether the results can be duplicated, and so far they have not been." and "Belief is the entire process, contend scientists."

Evidence presented by Baegis

WP:COI

Dana has been nationally recognized as a homeopathy spokesman and is in fact a practicing homeopath who also teaches in the field. He has also been featured or mentioned in a wide variety of programs, most notably 20/20 (all of this from his WP bio). Suffice to say, he is an editor that could bring a wealth of knowledge from this field and apply it to building the encyclopedia. However, since he is in fact recognized as a spokesman in this field, which has been termed pseudoscience by a number of other commentators, he must be mindful of WP:COI when he edits. In the course of his editing, he acknowledged the difficulties in editing his own biography, in accordance with WP:COI. However, his edits to other articles do not seem to be as mindful of the policies, notably the one about the fact that he does derive financial benefit from the promotion of homeopathy. As seen from his edits that were detailed by Shoemaker's Holiday, he chooses to advance sources that promote the notion that homeopathy or homeopathic remedies work, even in light of other editors expressing their concerns and misgivings about using the particular sources due to their (the sources, all primary & studies) inevitable shortcomings. Though Dana is an expert in the field, his inability to distinguish between neutrally building an encyclopedia and promoting his life's work has become problematic. He runs a company in which he sells a variety of homeopathic materials and remedies. His website gives much more detail about the products offered, but he does have a large conflict of interest when it comes to editing these areas.

Spreading Homeopathy in violation of WP:UNDUE

Dana has spread homeopathy to areas in which it's treatment should be minimal if noted at all. In the Beethoven article, he inserted a long passage about Beethoven's use of homeopathic remedies for his illnesses. It was reverted by another editor on WP:UNDUE grounds. On the talk page, a wide range of editors weighed in on the issue of placing undue weight on the use of homeopathic remedies with Dana insisting on inclusion [102] [103], while attacking a few of the editors, [104] . The most succinct answer was provided by Moreschi.

The same problem arose on the Charles Darwin article, when Dana tried to include an undue amount of detail about the treatment Darwin received for his illnesses, most notably of the homeopathic variety. He again argued for inclusion on the talk page, but was again rebuffed because of the placing of undue weight on the issue, from Dave Souza, Old Moonraker, and Tmol42, among others. Some good did come of the article, as the wikilink to Darwin's doctor was established. Dana was directed, as he was on the Beethoven article, to edit the articles associated with each historic figure's illnesses. This advocating for homeopathy needs to qualified with the knowledge that Dana authored and is selling a book that details famous people who used homeopathy. This is a blatant violation of WP:COI, as mentioned above with the financial aspect. Brunton gives further details about Dana's behavior regarding the book.

On a non biography note, the Arsenic trioxide article, Dana added a long passage dealing with it's use in homeopathy which was removed due to excessive treatment on the homeopathic issue. It is important to note that even though the homeopathic version of this substance, dubbed Arsenicum album already had an article, Dana still added a long (in comparison to the rest of the article) piece about homeopathy.

Sockpuppet Comments and Accusations

Dana has been victim of a fairly determined sockmaster (SM), who at last count had over a dozen socks. The SM followed Dana to a large number of articles, usually contesting changes Dana was advocating. However, even though this SM was breaking the rules and punished for that, he was not the only editor who raised questions for Dana's advocating for heavy handed inclusion of homeopathy in articles. In all of the evidence presented by Shoemaker over a wide range of topics, this SM popped up to voice his concern with Dana's edits, but these concerns were always supported by other editors on the talk page. This does not make what the SM did any less forgivable, but it is important to see that the problems with Dana's editing were shared by others. When it was finally revealed that these accounts were socks, Dana took it upon himself to attack these editors and claim that any of their contributions can be ignored, aka he won the argument. I reminded him that this is not how things work around here and reiterated the point that the concerns raised by the SM were echoed by other editors. On a user's talk page, Dana made the same general statement about ignoring the SM's contributions. This happened for a third time on another article and I again reminded Dana that the concerns were raised by other editors. As recently as the day before this case opened, Dana was at it again in attacking this editor, with a different editor coming in and advocating that the SM's comments (again shared by others) were to be ignored and Dana's arguments for inclusion were deemed correct. Again, I had to remind Dana and, this time, Arion that the problems brought up were not addressed.

Not only has Dana been a bit over zealous to ignore other's thoughts because a single SM was arguing against him, he also has thrown around the sockpuppet accusation quite a few times. Here, he accuses Shoemaker's Holiday of being a sock but is quickly told otherwise, by Jehochman. Another editor had to address similar accusations from Dana (though I can't find the exact accusation, this is the response).

While I emphasize with Dana for dealing with this SM, he has been repeatedly shown to use the fact that he was a victim to his advantage in his goals for articles. He has also shown bad faith by making spurious sock claims against editors in good standing.

Canvassing

Though this issue needs much more detail, there are three issues regarding canvassing from Dana.

Dana has visited user's who previously edited the water memory article and put a long post on their talk pages regarding his perceived problems with the 20/20 study and included a link to his own website as backing for his claims. This happened to two different users, Otheus and Maury Markowitz. Neither seemed to terribly mind the intrusion, but Dana's inclusion of his own findings and problems on this cross post is problematic.

Off-wiki, Dana has called for other editors to watch over his bio and, one could assume, other homeopathic articles. This did occur prior to his mentoring.

Dana espoused the teachings of one Martin Chaplin (MC) on his talk page numerous times upon his return from his block, always in discussion with other editors. Quick, relevant summarization: MC is a professor at London South Bank University and has done research on homeopathy. He was the editor on an issue of the journal Homeopathy that explored water memory in greater detail. Here he leaves a smarmy remark to other editors while pushing for MC. Again here, under the guise of a good resource. He directs Fyslee to the site again. He again pushes for MC, this time on an article talk page and as a reliable source. Again, he calls MC's work "very important". He claims MC's site qualifies as an RS, but his reasoning only shows a misapplication of RS policy. After much discussion by Dana about how wonderful this man's work and claims are, an editor going by the name of Martin Chaplin created an account and began to edit articles. It is more than safe to assume that this was actually the real Martin Chaplin. This editor has sinse exercised his right to vanish but several editors have expressed concern that MC has returned as a new account, as Rlevse mentions in the preparation of the Unprovoked sock case but no clear link was established. While I cannot definitively conclude that Dana asked Martin to participate (ie canvassed for his support) it is suspicious that MC's account was created on February 2, 2008, which is after much of Dana's publicizing of his work and website, as shown from the above diff's.

Dana has ignored advice from others

In addition to the advice and comments from editors regarding studies, which is detailed above in Shoemaker's evidence, Dana has also ignored other good faith advice from other editors regarding his behavior on Wikipedia. His mentor, LaraLove posted this restriction on Dana's editing during his mentorship. Most notable is point #3 which explicitly details not pushing questionable sources. She again warned him due to another edit he made to a homeopathic article. Throughout the course of Dana's mentoring period, he was given a variety of assignments in order to verse him in WP policies. I even contacted LaraLove on one occasion to suggest some more assignments for Dana and I believe she used a few of my suggestions. Lara extended a phenomenal amount of good faith in taking a difficult situation and trying to make the best of it. However, when everything boils down, she could only go so far in giving Dana advice and giving him pointers on policy. He had to actually take the advice to heart, which it appears that he had difficulty doing.

LaraLove is not the only person who has given Dana tips on how to improve his editing. During his 7 day topic ban from homeopathy articles, I attempted to extend an olive branch of sorts to Dana with regards to working together. This was in spite of his accusing me of wiki-stalking and subsequent denial of any sort of personal attack, even though accusing someone of stalking you is certainly an attack. In my posting, I tried to urge him to find other ways to participate that would be much more amendable to all editors involved. Granted, my idea was not the greatest, but it was an idea none the less. However, he made it clear that he was only here "...to provide more information to people so that they can make up their own minds....(regarding the question of homeopathy working) some high quality clinical and basic science research suggests otherwise. An encyclopedia should discuss such high quality investigations." It is clear from this statement that he was not going to amend his ways.

One of the admins, Jehochman, who was overseeing the article probation, gave Dana a hint that he should take a break from editing these articles. Dana then turns this advice around and questions why his "accusers" were not advised to take a vacation from the articles. Another editor also advised that Dana take a vacation from the articles. Dana chose to ignore this advice as well, as he claims to be in a content dispute with that editor.

Dana has expressed a clear disdain for taking advice from other editors on the project who do not share he views on homeopathy. He has continually ignored the calls for him to reevaluate his participation on the project. He has made it quite clear that he is only here to serve as an SPA to advocate homeopathy and its many remedies. His continued presence on the project will be a hindrance to collaborating and building quality homeopathy related articles.

Evidence presented by Moreschi

Homeopathy

I don't think it can be seriously disputed that homeopathy is quackery/pseudoscience. Research has shown, time and time over, that homeopathic remedies are completely useless except as a placebo (not that the placebo effect isn't a powerful thing, of course). Unless virtually every current mainstream model of science is totally wrong, of course.

Any claims to the contrary are fringe theories and need to be treated as such. "Ideas that have been rejected, are widely considered to be absurd or pseudoscientific, only of historical interest, or primarily the realm of science fiction, should be documented as such, using reliable sources." This is a case of Number 46: there is no genuine dispute to have over homeopathy, because the scientific evidence is very clearcut. Ergo, tolerance for tendentious pro-homeopathy advocates really should be a lot lower than it is.

Dana Ullman

Back in November I blocked Dana indefinitely (ANI thread here). Since unblocking, I don't think he has really done anything useful, other than waste everyone's time with homeopathy advocacy (per everyone else's evidence). This a pity, because there's no doubt he's an intelligent chap who just happens to be wrong about one thing and could doubtless be a great contributor as regards the rest of the flaming encyclopaedia.

Beethoven

Dana's approach to the Beethoven article sums it all up nicely. He tries to insert some blatantly undue weight material, reverts to keep it there, and then wastes everyone's time with talk page tendentiousness. The fact that he did not (as far as I am aware) then go ahead to write the article that I suggested he write (Beethoven's medical history), shows that he wasn't especially interested in Beethoven and is really all about promoting homeopathy. Which would be great- it's just a pity Wikipedia isn't a vehicle for advocacy.

Others

There exists a small but tenacious crowd of pro-homeopathy editors, who all back each other up at RFCs, RFARs, and ANI/AN. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Whig 2 and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Whig 3 for examples of this. There's enough of them to revert in tandem so that they don't all get blocked again and again for 3RR. They, in turn, may also be backed up by editors who go for other fringe science viewpoints. See also here. Sanctions applied to Dana Ullman need to have the option so that if these people continue with Dana's crusade, the same sanctions get applied to them. Moreschi2 (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Arion 3x3

The problem is not Dana Ullman. The problem is that there are editors who are determined not to allow any research that is positive to homeopathy - in violation of Wikipedia NPOV policy.

The problem is not Dana Ullman

This is clear case of a content dispute that has been exacerbated by these anti-homeopathy editors. Dana Ullman is very knowledgable in the field of homeopathy, having written a number of books on the subject. There appears to have been frustration by the other side of the controversy that Ullman is not conceding points on the discussion pages. I suggest that Shoemaker and several others learn that to win a debate, you should not seek to eliminate the other side of the debate, but you should seek to come up with more convincing evidence and logic.

He has been outnumbered by a number of very determined anti-homeopathy editors who, in my opinion, see no problem with leaving homeopathy related articles biased against homeopathy. Their view of NPOV is to forcefully state that homeopathy is not supported by scientific research and results are consistant with placebo effect. When scientific research is pointed out that does support biological effects (even at 200C potency) and scientific research that does show significant clinical benefits, then every effort is made to engage in argumentation as to "notability" and "reliable sources" in order to keep mention of that positive research out of the homeopathy article. Is that fair? Is that proper conduct for a general reference encyclopedia?

Remember, the homeopathy article is intended to be an article about homeopathy, not propaganda for or against it.

Opponents of Dana use every tactic to dismiss important research

Biased arguments are continually used against Ullman. Here is an example from Shoemaker's Holiday as he tries to dismiss important research on the biological effect of 200C Arsenicum album by not stating the facts accurately. He quotes that Human and Experimental Toxicology has this section in their journal:

"Toxicology Elsewhere - This section of the journal highlights areas outside mainstream toxicology, dealing with research interest and reviews of published articles peripheral, yet supportive to toxicology. The international flavour of the journal makes it the ideal way to stay current with the fast-moving field of toxicology."

He then interprets this as: "In other words, they have a special section DEVOTED TO SPECULATIVE OR NON-MAINSTREAM REPORTS. I presume this is where the Cazin article appeared." It is not an accurate description of that section to call it "speculative", but obviously the intent is to discredit this important research on Arsenicum album.

The Lancet letter has been used against Dana and homeopathy

There has been a selective quoting of sources by the anti-homeopathy editors in order to present the impression that serious scientists are uniformly against homeopathy. An example of this is the letter that appeared in The Lancet that has been quoted to show a criticism of homeopaths trying to use research studies to say that homeopathy has been "proven". The implication one could wrongly infer is that this letter is from the anti-homeopathic camp of scientists and that this was all the letter was about. That is not what the letter's main point was. After strong words directed against the anti-homeopathy editor of The Lancet, the letter clearly stated:

"The conclusion that physicians should tell their patients that “homoeopathy has no benefit” and that “the time has passed for further investment in research” is not backed at all by the data."

"Given these limitations, Shang and colleagues' conclusion that their findings “provide support to the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects” is a significant overstatement." [105]

Anti-homeopathy advocacy tone

"Dicklyon" and "Slim Virgin" are just 2 of a number of uninvolved editors who have noted over the last several months the biased "anti-homeopathy" advocacy tone of this article.

If anyone has any doubt, just peruse the archives of the homeopathy article. The demand to keep the homeopathy article biased against homeopathy is blatant and obvious to any objective observer. The insistance that "NPOV" means that criticism of homeopathy permeate the article is unacceptable. Being involved in professional editing for reference works, I would have been dismissed immediately if the kind of personal POV bias against a subject was allowed to creep into my work.

Clear example of the problem - and its not Dana

A clear example of the problem generated by the anti-homeopathy editors is the following statement by OffTheFence:

"What you perceive to be a lack of balance results from the fact that homeopathy is wrong and being wrong is not a balanced position. Why can you not accept that this is a done deal? Homeopathy cannot produce effects that survive examination under properly controlled conditions and the literature fairly reflects this. It's a done deal. Time to move on." [106]

You have just read a succinct summary of the problem with the homeopathy article(s). As I said earlier, the problem is not Dana Ullman. The problem is just this kind of biased statement by one of the editors who are determined not to allow any research that is positive to homeopathy. He expresses what so many others have been expressing. The readers of Wikipedia are not interested in the personal opinions (or in this case mind-sets) of any of the editors. The readers want a factually accurate and NPOV article on homeopathy. As Peter Morrell put it, here is "what this article principally requires: some RS cites to show that there do exist in this world positive studies of homeopathy."

Misrepresentation of the facts by Enric Naval

(1) On this page, Enric Naval objects to my estimation of his COI claim against Dana Ullman as being "ridiculous". But he never reveals that I was specifically pointing out the lack of logic in his claim that Dana was pushing a particular study in order to make his book more famous.

• On 3 April 2008 Enric Naval accused Dana of WP:COI stating "He also has *huge* WP:COI because he appears to have written a book where he defended Ennis' study . . . " [107]

• After I pointed out how illogical it was to claim it was a conflict of interest (WP:COI) simply because Dana positively reviewed someone else's study in his book and was now seeking consensus to include mention of in Wikipedia - Enric Naval furthur wrote: "Now, see, if the study gets recognized, his book gets reivindicated. If the study gets desacreditated, so does the book. If the study gets famous, the book gets more famous." [108]

• I responded: "The argument that because Dana reviewed a study in his book makes that somehow a conflict of interest in being an editor on homeopathic artices on Wikipedia is ridiculous. The statement "If the study gets famous, the book gets more famous." also does not logically follow." [109] I stand by my analysis and continue to reject Enric Naval's claim that Dana was seeking inclusion of reference to a research study in order to make his own book famous.

(2) On this page, Enric Naval misrepresented my position as an "Insistance that wikipedia is biased against his POV". I have also never made any "claims of a conspiracy against homeopathy supporters".

• Wikipedia is not an entity. It is the product of many individual editors, so I would never say "wikipedia is biased"

• My insistance is that all articles in Wikipedia follow NPOV policy, and to not let the bias or POV of any editor slip into the text of the article, and I have always been clear about my commitment to this policy.

• My observation about a certain number of editors - who have shown by their actions and their written words that they are determined to keep out of the homeopathy article(s) any research that might be positive towards homeopathy - is not a figment of my imagination. You all know that this is what has been happening. It's about time for a change. Arion 3x3 (talk) 23:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Misrepresentation by Shoemakers Holiday

I suspected someone might try to attack me if I spoke out about the problems with the homeopathy article. But I have to admit, I never expected what Shoemakers Holiday alleged about me: "It seems that no matter where he goes on Wikipedia, he causes problems."

I have 229 articles on my watchlist. Shoemakers Holiday took matters out of context from out of the 1,889 edits over 18 months that I have contributed to Wikipedia, trying to discredit me - and therefore my testimony in this ARBCOM case. I have sacrificed tremendous amounts of time to Wikipedia, and I do not find his comments helpful.

I first created a Wikipedia account on 27 October 2006. Shoemakers Holiday went on a fishing expedition right to my beginning edits to try to find something.

• I was primarily engaged in one contentious article those first couple weeks. I made mistakes regarding the 3RR rule, and was cleared of the accusation of having "sock-puppets". When editing on that first article became difficult, a Mediation was suggested, to which I responded on 10 November 2006: "I have agreed to Mediation, and welcome this opportunity to restore a neutral, academic and informative atmosphere to the article page" [110] The other 5 editors also agreed to participate, but after I was the only one to submit any input to the Mediator, the Mediation had to be cancelled.

• As for the Francis Bacon article, on 19 June 2007 qp10qp wrote to me "I admire you for keeping your nerve there even when being outnumbered and insulted." [111] On 22 June 2007 Stephen Burnett wrote: "Although I am not in any way competent to participate in it, I felt that I must compliment you on your unfailing courtesy and objectivity in the face of what, I have to say, can only be regarded as a virulent personal attack. Personally I would not have had your forbearance - well done." [112]

• As for the claim that I advocated the "inclusion of a huge section" into the Intelligent Design article, there actually were only 4 sentences that I suggested for inclusion in the historical "Origins of the concept" section.[113] Since only one other editor expressed any interest in pursuing this, I dropped my suggestion. Arion 3x3 (talk) 22:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Brunton

Allegations of quote-mining

As the editor who made the quotation of the Lancet letter that Arion 3x3 is objecting to as "selective" under the heading The Lancet letter has been used against Dana and homeopathy, I would like to respond to this point. I quoted the letter in this section of the Homeopathy talk page, in which Dana Ullman had suggested inclusion of a paragraph discussing a number of papers, two of which were papers authored by Linde and others in 1997 and 1999. I was making a particular point about these two papers, the earlier of which is certainly frequently cited by proponents of homoeopathy. I quoted the sentence of the letter which related to the 1997 paper, and linked to the full text of the letter. The statements that Arion 3x3 has complained I omitted were not about the Linde papers, but were about the 2005 paper by Shang et al and the accompanying Lancet editorial. Neither this paper nor the editorial were being discussed at that point. While the quotation was indeed selective, it was not inappropriately so as the omitted passages were not relevant to any of the papers being discussed.

Addendum: Dana has also jumped on this bandwagon, and is making accusations of quote-mining: violation of AGF.

Further evidence of off-wiki canvassing

As well as this[114] and an email mentioned by other editors, there are also at least two other forum posts in which Dana canvasses for pro-homeopathy editors.[115][116] There is also this article[117], which includes, in the part written by Dana, "In either case, people should be warned that quackbusters have taken control of certain articles on Wikipedia, and the best solution here is if a growing number of people who advocate for some of these integrative therapies take a more active role in correcting the misinformation." See also the editorial comment at the end of the article which, while not necessarily Dana's responsibility, does put his comments in context.

Further failure to AGF/misleading "evidence"

Only a few hours ago, Dana made an accusation of selective quotation, and an accusation of stonewalling based on an apparent misreading of what another editor has posted.[118] It is also a good example of Dana "providing evidence" (see Dana's edit summary) in a misleading manner. As the comments by Shoemaker's Holiday replying to Dana's edit on the talk page make clear, the passage by Scientizzle that Dana quoted did not, when read in full, say what Dana claimed it did.

Attempt to circumvent current topic ban

While under a topic ban from homoeopathy related articles[119], and despite earlier warnings and clarifications[120][121] (see also this comment[122] on another user's page, which was brought to Dana's attention[123] on his talk page, and which he acknowledged[124]), Dana has continued to use user pages to attempt to circumvent this ban, this time by advocating the publication of a page in a users sandbox, to which he himself had added references to homoeopathy[125][126].

Evidence presented by Infophile

Dissatisfaction with probation

It should go without saying that imposing probation on homeopathy-related articles has failed to solve the problems here (this very case is evidence to that). The problem seems to be a reluctance by admins to become involved and issue blocks, or even to comment on behavior. Even when action is taken, very few editors respond to it well and acknowledge their mistakes. (Yes, there are a few cases where the probation has helped, but all in all it still hasn't succeeded at its goal.)

Expressed dissatisfaction

Editors expressing concerns with how well the probation is working. A number of these are from statements on this case, but I feel it would help to sort them out here.

• Filll (correctly) predicts that the probation will do nothing to solve disputes about NPOV, and will only affect civility issues

• Filll points out that the probation has led to tendentious claims of incivility

• TheBainer notes dissatisfaction in accepting this case

• ScienceApologist believes it has failed

• Skinwalker mentions the "apparent failure" of the probation

• Jim Butler says it's "not working very well"

Failure to use probation to act on clear cases

Instances when the fact of the probation fails to facilitate any remedies, or even comments that concerns are unfounded. (In these case, I'll be linking to the full sections, as it's important to see the lack of a response here, which can't be encompassed by diffs.)

• Whig and Area69 - This is a key one. The concerns against Whig were first brought up here, under the probation. Early on, Jehochman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) requested diffs to provide a pattern of bad behavior. After they were provided, nothing happened there. However, when this was brought up on the admin's noticeboard, support was quickly and unanimously (among admins) established to ban Whig. Point to be taken: The probation did nothing to solve this problem, as clear as it was.

• Extensive report on DanaUllman by Shoemaker's Holiday - Very detailed report on the problems with Dana. When no response was forthcoming on the probation page (and a related section on WP:ANI), this directly led to this RFAr case.

• Minor example of a report that went without comment (go to the bottom of this section) - In this case, Jehochman specifically requested 3-5 diffs to show the best examples of abuse. I then did so (in a separate section) to show that DanaUllman was stonewalling. No response was forthcoming, even when I asked Jehochman about it on his talk page.

• Happening (talk · contribs) - Possible sockpuppet of Dr.Jhingaadey (will wait on Checkuser to see for sure. Seems most likely to me actually a meatpuppet and a patient of Dr.Jhingaadey). Note that despite behavior that could obviously lead to problems ([127] [128]), no one even bothered to notify Happening about the probation on his talk page.

Admins who try to mediate are attacked

One factor which I believe discourages action is that admins who take action often get attacked for it. Often it's simply saying that they shouldn't be doing this because they're involved. See Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents#Uninvolved_administrator.3F, where both Addhoc (PhilKnight now) and Jehochman are accused of being involved. (I'm linking the section rather than individual diffs as it's all worth reading through.)

DanaUllman

(This section is currently incomplete. I'm working on the other one right now, and just adding things I come across here so I don't forget about them.)

Dana is held to a lower standard of behavior than other editors

A sarcastic comment by Dana is defended by his mentor (LaraLove (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)), while at around the same time, I received a one-day ban for similar sarcasm (similar in the sense that we were both trying to make points with it). (It is worth noting that there were a few confounding factors here, primarily that we're comparing two different admins.)

Evidence presented by Martinphi

This is from memory. I don't have time to get all the diffs. I'm sorry, I'm just too swamped in real life. But this ArbCom is important, and I hope this will contribute context.

I gave up trying to get Homeopathy NPOV. But here is why: I went and read 3 of the sources. They were the website of the National Institutes of Health (complimentary medicine section), the American Medical Association, and American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.

These sources: [129][130][131]

I suggested on the talk page that people should follow both the tone and content of these sources. They were attacked on the talk page as not scientific enough, and someone said that government stuff is likely to be POV (remember this is memory). But they were attacked for not being "scientific."

I went to the RS talk page, and editing as an IP in order not to bias the responses or get responses from the people who stalk me, I asked whether the said sources were good ones. I was told yes, "especially to find out the scientific consensus."

End of story. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Dana Ullman

The problems with the homeopathy article began way before I began editing it. In fact, for many years in which I was simply using wikipedia and not editing it, it seemed that the information in this article was held in "total dispute" or simply lacking neutrality for a long time.

The fact of the matter is that these editors have content disputes with me, and the fact that I am civil and that I try hard to provide verifiable, reliable sources, and notable information seems to be particularly problematic to some editors.

Raul654 has developed a wise list of wiki laws of wikipedia. I particularly appreciate his "Raul's Razor": "An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie. An article is not neutral if, after reading it, you can tell where the author's sympathies lie." [132] I would love it if the homeopathy article could strive towards that sharpness.

I am working towards this ideal, though it is obvious that the article on homeopathy is clearly written by people who are antagonistic to it. What is more disconcerting is that the anti-homeopathy editors have sought to silence me and who have already silenced others.

I would like to summarize a large part of my short experience on wikipedia, primarily since last November 2007, as such: I have not sought to "promote" homeopathy here, but I have sought to offer (not push...because I rarely have engaged in "edit wars") historical information, basic science studies, clinical research, and various RS, N, with secondary sources. I serve on editorial boards of various academic journals and I respect peer-review (giving and getting). I have to admit to being shocked that editors here want to silence the important voice that I bring to this table. To mute an expert and someone who has published academically in medical textbooks, medical and scientific journals, seems so counter-productive for creating a dynamic encyclopedia.

The Issue is Really a Content Dispute Issue

Moreschi is blunt in his assertion, “I don't think it can be seriously disputed that homeopathy is quackery/pseudoscience.” It is safe to assume that all of the other editors who have committed here believe the same as Moreschi. As yet, not any of those editors issuing charges against me have voiced otherwise. This fact speaks loudly.

Moreschi go even further, “Research has shown, time and time over, that homeopathic remedies are completely useless except as a placebo.” The bottomline here is that Moreschi and other editors are showing their extremely strong POV by making this statement. More significantly, he is choosing to ignore a large body of clinical and basic science evidence in order to fit his worldview.

OffTheFence goes yet further in asserting that pro-homeopathy editors are "lunatics,"[133] and no one (yet) has deemed this uncivil. What would have happened if I called the anti-homeopathic editors this?

I recently made references to several meta-analyses that have been published in leading RS journals [134]. Efforts to include reference to this body of evidence have been blocked by the slew of anti-homeopathy editors.

Although many people (and editors here) refer to homeopathy as “implausible,” this word can mean either “unlikely” or “dubious” (there is a big difference between these two definitions). Only relatively recently did we understand how aspirin works, and yet, few physicians called the previous various theories to be “implausible.”

Some authors show how homeopathic medicines fit within modern pharmaceutical knowledge. Some researchers claim that homeopathic medicines represent the cutting edge of pharmaceutic thinking and practice, asserting that the unique process of serial dilution using double-distilled water in glass bottles is based on sound pharmacy and science.

Avoidance of Edit Warring and Maintaining Civility

I have engaged much more in Talk pages than in Article pages, and I have been quite successful in getting consensus towards the inclusion of many changes in articles.

Despite the many content disputes, the number of "edit wars" in which I have engaged have been very limited. Shoemaker's Dream notes two such edit wars. Ironically, both of these "edit wars" were with editors who were later found to be socks (actually, multiple socks) [135] [136]

POV-Pushing is not just Committed by Advocates but by Anyone

I hope that the Arb Committee realizes that POV-pushing is not just someone who is advocating for a specific position, but it is also engaged in by editors who work against the insertion of verifiable information from reliable and notable sources.

My efforts to include references to meta-analyses are a good example in which other editors do not allow potentially positive results from meta-analyses to be placed in articles. It is useful to see the dialogue and the resistance to studies that happen to have a positive result for homeopathy [137]. Homeopathy includes numerous Cochrane Reports that had ‘negative” results towards homeopathy, though the one report with a positive result is mysteriously missing.

My efforts to include reference to a basic science study that was replicated at three university labs has also not been included in any article.[138]. At present, only one of several multi-center studies is referenced, with the most recent version ignored, along with the New Scientist article about it also ignored (as well as mentioning the lead researchers former (!) skepticism. [139]

When I gave the New Scientist as a secondary source for this study, one editor (Baegis) compared the New Scientist with the National Enquirer [140], though he later gave an apology where he said that he didn't mean "that" National Enquirer. Shoemaker arbitrarily asserted that discussion of research after 2002 didn't have a place here.[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWater_memory&diff=204751066&oldid=204641972] Despite feeling that I was wronged (again), I didn't engage in edit warring.

In other places, these editors stonewall high quality research published in major RS by asserting that it is only a single study, even though it is common place for articles to provide reference to single studies from RS.[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3APotassium_dichromate&diff=207290774&oldid=207229636]

Enric Naval has complained that I have engaged in "disruptive editing," and he has cited my reference to a COPD study published in "Chest". I encourage admins to visit the Talk pages HERE [141]. Enric Naval accuses me of "wikilawyering" when I simply ask him to give proper references. [142] However, if I do not follow wiki-policies, I am reminded of such and my work is deleted, and I am criticized for even mentioning it.

Shoemaker's Holiday makes various claims about my reporting on the Cazin arsenic study, and despite the fact that I have responded to the vast majority of his charges, he still repeats them as though he hasn't learned anything [143]. He wonders why Linde didn't make reference to the 1994 meta-analysis in his 1997 meta-analysis, but he (again) ignores the fact that the 1997 article was a review of CLINICAL research on humans, while the 1994 article was a review of environmental toxicology in animal trials.

Ironically, he still (!) refers to Linde as having "retracted" his meta-analysis when he has been informed several times that Linde NEVER used the word "retracted" and that Shoemaker or any other editor's use of it is simply OR. Shoemaker has assumed that Linde's word "weakened" is the same as "retraction." In fact, Linde’s most recent writing on the subject provided a very sharp critique of the much-criticized Shang (2005) review of research, where Linde said, "The conclusion that physicians should tell their patients that homoeopathy has no benefit and that the time has passed for further investment in research is not backed at all by the data." (Instead of making reference to THIS quote, Shoemaker's Holiday cherry-picked another quote from this letter. In fact, Shoemaker wonders if I am purposefully misleading people, but he then asserts that I am not doing so. However, in THIS instance, it seems that Shoemaker is purposefully misleading the Arb Committee because he has given us the impression that Linde was supportive of the Shang review of research, when, in fact, he has totally ignored the primary message of Linde's letter was a powerful critique of the Shang research.

Shoemaker's Holiday asserted I claimed that Linde's 1994 conclusions were "100% pure proof of homeopathy", and yet, despite Shoemaker's multiple references, he doesn't link to this statement.

Beethoven

Baegis and Moreschi note that I sought to include reference to homeopathy in the article on Beethoven, which Moreschi considered "bizarre." In the light of a new book written by a professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and published by McGill University, I found that Beethoven dedicated two of his canons to Dr. Anton Braunhofer, a professor at the University of Vienna who prescribed homeopathic medicines to Beethoven. Because Beethoven had a history of disliking various doctors, I thought that it was notable that he liked Braunhofer. I did not engage in any edit warring, but instead, we had a healthy conversation at the Talk pages [144]. I was not disruptive or uncivil. I am not clear what "problem" I created. This is one more example of some editors with whom I have a content dispute exaggerate problems.

I wrote about this in my defense when the proposal to bring me to the Arbitration Committee first appeared, and yet, Moreschi feels again compelled to restate his exasperation at my editing to this august body as though he didn’t learn anything from my previous statement. [145] And such are the problems that I have commonly experienced with editors who have a strong anti-homeopathy POV.

Moreschi tells us that he encouraged me to create a new article on Beethoven’s Medical History. While I certainly appreciated his suggestion, I didn’t feel qualified to do so, and therefore, I chose not to do so.

Moreschi said, “Dana's approach to the Beethoven article sums it all up nicely.” Here is where I agree with him. I showed good faith in making what I considered verified and notable information drawn from a very reliable source (I sourced a new book by a professor of psychiatry at a major university AND I referenced a recently translated volume of Beethoven’s Conversation Books). However, shortly after I made my edit in this article, one of the many socks who followed me around (and who were the real disruptive editors!) made a comment to seek to others to delete my edit.

Canvassing

It is somewhat laughable that anyone would assert that I am actively “canvassing” because when you look at the articles that I edit, I am in the extreme minority. It is much more probable that the anti-homeopathic group is alerting each other of where to edit.

Yes, I did write to two editors who had participated in the memory of water dialogue because they seemed to be neutral editors and because I thought that NPOV should be encouraged. Sadly, one of the many socks strongly discouraged one of these editors from participating and was successful in doing keeping him uninvolved [146]

Dana Ullman’s Significant Contributions to Wikipedia

I provide some expertise to the articles in which I participate, and one would think that other editors would appreciate this expertise. Despite working with many editors who are very antagonistic to homeopathy, I have been able to improve the quality of many articles in which I have participated. I have developed consensus in a harsh environment many times. Due to my expertise in research (clinical and basic science work) as well as in medical history, my potential contributions to wikipedia are significant. However, it is because of this potential that some editors want me muted.

1) Arsenicum album: When I first began editing this article, there were no studies of a positive nature that showed benefits from homeopathic doses of arsenic. In fact, my first comments on the Talk page expressed my concern that the editors here had purposefully ignored several studies.[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arsenicum_album#This_article_seems_to_be_full_of_POV-pushers] Today, there are three studies that are a part of the article which I brought to other editors’ attention. That said, I am concerned that the anti-homeopathic editors have deleted out of the article two other studies that are worthy.

2) Homeopathy At the time I began editing this article, there were no external links to a single homeopathic organization. At the time, there were only external links to organizations or websites that maintained an antagonistic attitude towards the subject. The lone exception was a single book on homeopathic history that was written over 100 years ago.

3) James Manby Gully I provided reference to Dr. Gully’s membership in the British Homeopathic Society. Because some editors insisted that Gully was not a homeopath, my evidence was critical in proving otherwise. [147] I also helped provide some of the detail about Charles Darwin’s experiences with Dr. Gully, and to show my NPOV, I fully acknowledged Darwin’s skepticism of homeopathy, though I also noted the significant benefits from Darwin acknowledged that he received from Dr. Gully [148]. I purposefully did not write that homeopathy helped Darwin. Instead, I simply discussed and referenced the treatments that Gully provided to Darwin (water-cure and homeopathy) and discussed and referenced what Darwin wrote about his health.

4) Royal Copeland I was the first to provide an important reference in this article that has now become the leading reference to it. Although some other editors initially sought to delete it several times, I was again successful in getting consensus.

5) Federal Food Drug and Cosmetics Act I was successful in adding an important fact about the sponsor of this bill who was the U.S. Senator from New York and who also was a homeopathic physician. Although there was initially some resistence to including this fact, consensus was relatively rapid because the fact provided important context for why this senator considered drug regulation to be so important.

6) Potassium dichromate I was initially successful in getting consensus for the inclusion of an important study on the use of homeopathic doses of potassium dichromate [149]. The study that I sought to include was the use of homeopathic doses of this chemical in the treatment of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital, and it was published in the journal, CHEST, (the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians!). This study is so notable that two other universities are presently planning to replicate it. More recently, one of the more vocal skeptics, Scientizzle, agreed to include reference to this study [150], though when he chose to actually edit the article, he didn't add the information that he wrote was reasonable. Instead of adding reference to this randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study, he included information about a homeopathic product called "HeadOn", a product that is advertised on television. I noted that there was no consensus (or even recent discussion) about this product.

Despite the various notable issues connected to this study, the anti-homeopathic cadre of editors have kept this information out of this article. One anonymous editor wrote that he didn’t know anyone using this medicine in a hospital and because there were seemingly minimal references to this study in other medical publications (there were 8 listed). [ScienceApologist] deleted the reference to this study and to ALL references to the use of this drug as a homeopathic medicine. Scientizzle questioned the "medical relevance" of this medicine. I'm not clear what he meant by that, though one would assume that a 45% reduction in hospital stays has some degree of medical relevance.

I certainly admit to being out-voted on my recommendation to include what I consider to be an important study published in an agreed upon RS conducted at a major university in the treatment of patients with a condition (COPD) which is the #4 reason that people in the US die. However, I think that this Talk provides evidence for how a group of editors work together to stonewall V, RS, and Notable information about a subject to which they have a strong POV.

Enric Naval above shows either confusion or bad faith for misrepresenting what I wrote, despite his accurate diff [151]. I was simply claiming that Baegis chose to archive the recent discussion, even though he was choosing to archive discussion from that very day. He chose to do this rather than archive earlier inactive discussions, and he chose to archive this material without any agreement from anyone.[152] I consider Baegis' actions to be bullying and to be typical of his tendency to not assume good faith.

In Summary

I have edited in a "harsh" environment but have maintained civility. I have worked towards and achieve consensus despite this harsh environment. POV-pushing should swing both ways, and wikipedia has to be careful that its editors avoid stonewalling verified, notable information from reliable sources. The fact that many editors have already recommended specific punishments against me even before reading my above statement suggests that strong prejudice against homeopathy and my contributions exist. I can and will respond to whatever specific concerns that the Arb Committee considers important and for which I have not responded yet.

I sincerely hope that wikipedia encourages experts to participate. I am NOT interested in "advocacy" as much as I interested in accuracy and in maintaining "Raul's Razor."

Evidence presented by Jim Butler

Please note that I've substantially pruned my evidence, since it was too long and over-concerned with peripheral issues.

Above, Enric Naval cites my request for a source:

Asking for proof of Water memory as pseudoscience[153], but there is easy-to-find evidence[154].

The "easy-to-find" evidence to which Enric points (in the second diff) includes several sources, only one of which can reliably be taken as indicating scientific consensus. Here, and elsewhere above, Enric apparently disagrees with, or does not understand, the argument about sourcing claims of consensus that I have made on this case's talk page.

That's the central issue regarding my edits, and I don't have anything else to add, apart from some general comments on the evidence talk page. regards, Jim Butler (t) 23:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by OffTheFence

Dana Ullman Canvasses

Wikipedia has rules about canvassing. I am not sure whether they are reasonable or even that I grasp their intent- encouraging people to participate seems like a good thing to do, but here it can be called canvassing and break the rules. However, User:DanaUllman may not have been entirely forthcoming in his description [155] of the degree to which he has canvassed others to participate here. Below I have been copied an e-mail. I cannot know that it is genuinely from the Dana Ullman we are discussing here. Perhaps User:DanaUllman can confirm whether he wrote it. I make no judgement on its content. I don't see its content as being necessarily bad things to say, but it does suggest a wider effort to garner support than we might have been led to believe.

Email redacted, please get permission from the sender to post private correspondence. Thatcher 18:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is Broken in Handling Marginal Scientific Papers

This is an arbitration on Homeopathy not just user Dana Ullman. I support Shoemaker Holiday's analysis of DU's contributions but would like to add my own analysis of the general problem. My perspective is that of one not fully versed in the minutiae of Wikipedia's rules and their applications, but the fact that there is a problem with them is obvious- why else would the current situation have arisen?

It seems self- evident that Wikipedia has a structural problem with scientific information that is politically contentious even if it is scientifically uncontentious. This is because it aims to make no judgement about truth only verifiability of sources. Having said that, policies such as WP:Undue are intended to anchor what appears here in some objective reality that might even be called truth. The problem with homeopathy at Wikipedia is that proper application of WP:Undue would mean that homeopathy could only be described from an outsider's perspective as an aberrant medical therapy unsupported by evidence. I am pleased that Arion took my comments to heart. [156] Homeopathy's problem is that the jury is no longer out, homeopathy is a placebo. This is not scientifically contentious, but it remains a live political issue only because its believers refuse to accept the evidence. Peter Morrell's remark quoted by Arion is particularly revealing. Yes, there is superficially positive evidence for homeopathy but it cannot withstand scrutiny. The papers that claim to show that homeopathy works are of uniformly bad quality. Good quality papers give no evidence that it is anything other than placebo. So, if you want Wikipedia to demonstrate some naive form of "balance" it means citing bad papers for homeopathy and good papers against it which implies a false equality and suggests the existence of a live controversy where no such controversy exists. If you hold the bar high enough to only admit high-quality evidence then only evidence against homeopathy is admissible.

As a side issue, where a topic is of no wider scientific importance, i.e. the whole topic is of low WP:Notability, there may only exist low-quality non-notable papers because the whole field is ignored my mainstream science. Thus Dana Ullman is given the opportunity to keep pushing a small set of poor and unrepresentative papers with nothing available to counterbalance them. Cazin, Linde and Frass's papers are rightly ignored by the wider world because they deserve to be ignored, but in the context of Wikipedia they risk becoming citable because there is nothing citable to say they are wrong. It took an inordinate amount of effort to gain the acceptance of the advocates of homeopathy that the Cazin and Linde papers were flawed. That was effort entirely disproportionate to the substance at issue and I should not have been required to put that much work [157] in to persuade a recalcitrant editor of the weakness of his sources. The current problem lies in Dana Ullman's persistence in demanding these papers be considered. (No, I stand corrected. I have just read above from Dana Ullman "That said, I am concerned that the anti-homeopathic editors have deleted out of the article two other studies that are worthy." He still thinks those studies were "worthy". Good grief!!) There should be a mechanism to squash material like that permanently so future editors would not keep having to play more rounds of whack-a-mole with a particularly stubborn adversary.

Strict enforcement of WP:Undue and WP:Fringe would help. Homeopathy should get excluded from all locations where it has no right to be. A perfectly sensible page on the chemistry of potassium dichromate should not cite examples of the use of sugar that once had contact with water that once had contact with some potassium dichromate. The pages related to homeopathy itself should give a proper NPOV account of the evidence and, as I have said elsewhere, this should not be from an "in universe" perspective any more than it should be in other areas where the subject is a work of fiction no matter how culturally important it is.

Supporters of homeopathy only maintain their faith by denial of objective facts and evidence. Wikipedia always risks permitting, through its dependence on WP:RS as its primary filter for content, material that is objectively wrong provided that erroneous material is sourced according to its rules with their reliance on peer-review.

And we must not forget the problem of peer-review. We must always ask, who are the peers? When the peers are as useless as the material they permit to be published then peer-review fails as a guide to reliability. The British Homeopathic Journal is peer-reviewed and that, of course, is its main problem.

I think Wikipedia needs to rethink how it handles scientific papers. WP:RS explains the issues perfectly well. The failure comes in forcing compliance with those principles.

The problem is that if Wikipedia allows free-participation then these problems remain. Tighter central control can be exercised[158], but if that control includes homeopaths then junk science will get a free ride. If it excludes homeopaths then they will never be happy. I note that Dana Ullman is an editor at Citizendium. Does that add or detract from the validity of the use of 'experts' in creating a collaborative encyclopaedia?

44elise has exemplified the problem very well. [[159]] A statement from NCCAM is quite possible WP:RS, but the idea that it is neutral or contributes to neutrality is fatuous. OffTheFence (talk) 18:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a solution, I'm afraid. My personal solution is to give up editing in this area, which may come as a relief to some.

The lunatics want to take over the asylum: Compare and Contrast

Here are a couple of perfectly acceptable articles concerning outmoded medical notions- Four_humors Bloodletting They have exactly the same quality of theoretical base as homeopathy. The only difference, and the problem we are faced with, is that we still have adamant homeopathists insisting on the efficacy of their sugar pills, whereas there is not an equivalent coterie of Tetrahumorists and Phlebotomists demanding that we take them seriously. So, the Four Humors and Bloodletting can be described sensibly with NPOV and placed in a proper social and historical context, but we are stuck with dealing with homeopathy as if its supporters have a rational case to advance and have a voice that should be heard in defiance of the evidence. Even the Astrology page manages to do the job better despite the existence of millions of ardent fans of astrology and a number of advocate editors. Homeopathy seems to pose a peculiarly resistant for presentation in a manner based rationally on the available evidence. OffTheFence (talk) 18:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy's Canards Swim Into View

I have been watching the accumulation of material on this page and I feel I should comment that even here, where evidence is meant to be collated, we see an example of one of the carefully crafted distortions which abound in presentations favourable to homeopathy. User:Peter Morrell said [160] "The chief target of their ire is the small doses that homeopathy uses and the apparent lack of any known scientific mechanism for their action." The vital phrase to note is small doses. It is amazing to see how frequently this little canard is pushed to the front by homeopaths. One of the principle objections to homeopathy is not its 'small doses' but its zero doses. This little semantic game is played so that homeopathy is made to appear as a reasonable extension of pharmacology down to extreme dilutions, but most of homeopathy is practised with materials where the original active ingredient is not really diluted but is replaced by solvent. This is rinsing not dilution. Google on "Korsakoff method", read what you find [161]. If their methods of remedy preparation really made biologically active material then the washing of laboratory glassware would destroy all future experiments done in those vessels. If the doses were merely 'small' then rational objections would focus on the lack of logical base and evidence for the principle of 'like cures like', but it is with these content-free remedies that homeopathy has become identified and it is their credibility that the homeopaths must protect. Ironically, even in their own terms, the phrase 'small doses' is misleading. Most homeopaths are happy to accept the idea that by the standards of normal chemistry their remedies contain nothing but solvent, instead their remedies are meant to be infused by powerful energies so strong that a sugar tablet weighing a few mg or a droplet of a few tens of microlitres can affect a body weighing many kilogrammes. There is nothing small about that. But, homeopaths are careful to tune their message to their audience. Here they need scientific plausibility so 'small doses' it is. When science can be damned and they just need to impress themselves and their customers then the talk is all of subtle and powerful energies.

Why make a big deal over what may seem a small point? Because it perfectly encapsulates the problem Wikipedia has with homeopathy. Homeopaths use a special coded language to conceal the more egregious stupidity of their ideas and unless great vigilance is exercised it is that coded language that provides the backbone of any discussion not the facts behind that language.

To return to the "ire" that User:Peter Morrell correctly detects, it is not as if this ire is groundless, but it is directed not at some abstruse theory but specifically at therapists who fancy themselves able to treat cancer and AIDS or prevent malaria using sugar and water, and that furthermore, when confronted with counter-evidence and argument they retreat into obfuscation and evasion rather than accept that they are wrong and have misled themselves and sick people possibly for their whole working lives. There is no interest quite as vested as one in which a someone's definition of themselves and their financial security are bound tightly together.

Banning DanaUllman would be unfortunate where the problems of this area lie not with a single user but with the whole topic. Once again we return to the need to apply WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE consistently and vigorously to squeeze out the little lies and half-truths that make up so much of the public face of homeopathy. OffTheFence (talk) 12:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Colonel Warden

I dabble with the Homeopathy article in a small way from a truly sceptical POV - I mistrust both the homeopaths and those who condemn them in an absolutist way. From what I've seen, the critics are too severe and so the proponents like Dana are more sinned against than sinning. The result is that, when we compare our article with similar articles in encyclopedias in Britannica and Encarta, our article seems to be overly hostile and negative.

As an example, my recent edits to the Homeopathy article which were intended to improve balance and NPOV have been obstructed by editors who seem quite unwilling to allow any credence to the subject. I cited a source which they used themselves and quoted it directly and extensively to ensure the context was fair. I consider the actions of these editors to be disruptive and unhelpful since they failed to respond to the talk page section in which I explained what I was doing. They would, for example, just revert with an uncivil edit summary like "POV-pushing". I can well understand that Dana would have difficulty working with such obstructive editors. The proposal that he should be banned rather than engaging with his views seems outrageous.

As for the actual truth of the matter, my position is that the theory of homeopathy is weak but its practise is strong - you will find homeopathic remedies in every high street here in the UK and it is used by the great and the good. Modern medicine does not have a good understanding of the placebo effect, as our article explains, and yet it routinely assumes its truth in analysing clinical trials. Homeopathy may be right for the wrong reasons and so, since the science is not cut and dried, we should keep an open mind. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {The Tutor}

Editors bullying and team tactics

I am briefly contributing here as an editor (who believes himself to be knowledgeable) being bullied off WP. My experience has colored my view of WP and my willingness to contribute further under the present conditions.

My editing has been followed around by a team of 'anti'-homeopathy editors who have occasionally ganged up to revert any edits I make or views I express or to try to 'out' my identity, as they also ganged up on User:Whig when he supported me in the face of these attacks. Please note that I am a 'neutral' scientist and do not have any links with Homeopathy or Homeopathic practice. I do read related literature. I believe that I was perceived to be 'pro-homeopathy' due to my more neutral stance.

Since User:Whig has been removed from science editing, I have noticed a concerted, continuous and continuing attack on User:DanaUllman, which he has dealt with in an exemplary civil manner.

Only some of many examples of the bullying behavior is shown in the following diffs.

References to the complete ‘Homeopathy’ journal issue on the 'Memory of Water' was placed in Water Memory by one of its editors (for that special issue of the journal 'Homeopathy') User:Martin Chaplin on 8 Feb. after Talk:Water memory discussion [162]

ScienceApologist removed it on 2 April (without any Talk discussion)

[163]

immediately after I corrected a reference link from that of a Homeopathy company to the correct non-homeopathy-linked publisher.

[164] . I got no joy concerning the lack of consensus for this major change from Jehochman [165]

who replied [166]

Reverting my edits had become a habit [167]

for a number of ‘anti’-homeopathy editors and their supporting socks, see [168]

on a far distant page but immediately reverted by ScienceApologist at [169]

even though I had simply corrected a spelling error.

Revisions were often made anonymously, but by apparently experienced editors, My complaints on the Talk:Water memory discussion [170]

were immediately attacked by known editors [171]

When it seemed clear that only some of the ‘memory of water’ science was to be included on that page, I wrote that the paragraph concerning OH bond memory should be removed [172] and

[173]

but was told that “For the purposes of this article, "Water memory is a scientifically unsupported theory which holds that water is capable of retaining a memory of particles once dissolved in it, even after being diluted so much that the chance of even one molecule remaining in the quantity being used is minuscule” and “only material materially related to whether or not "water is capable of retaining a memory of particles once dissolved in it" should be included in this article.” [174]

The paper at issue and kept on the page as “demonstrating the implausibility of the effect”, however, although having absolutely nothing to do with the proposed effect or above-stated rationale for inclusion on this page. Through such machinations have the present biases in these articles become established.

Evidence presented by {44elise}

Introduction.

This is very interesting dialogue. It shows what the real issue is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Docboat#NPOV_and_LEAD

Homeopathy and Dana Ullman

Some editors want the article to state that homeopathy is ineffective. They are convinced that this is a Neutral position and it is justified by their reading of the scientific data.

Dana and other editors try to argue that major reliable sources don't support the statement that homeopathy is totally ineffective but they are mixed studies: negatives, positives [175] [176]

and inconclusive which should be included in the lead with its appropriate criticism from other already cited major sources in the article. Actually there is a major controversy on the reading of the data as everyone could realize looking different major sources.

Many editors don't want to accept that there is a dispute about neutrality in the Homeopathy article and try to block or ban the editors who disagree. Most of the editors don’t really know about homeopathy, they have not really read the sources and they enter to the process believing that homeopathy must be debunked disregarding all the supportive data.

During this content dispute I think that Dana Ullman sincerely tries to comply with every Wikipedia policy in good faith.

Examples of unacceptable editing - in my opinion:

An administrator wrote that there is the following rule in Wikipedia.

1.Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Categories that are not self-evident, or are shown through reliable sources to be controversial, should not be included on the article; a list might be a better option.

From what I saw the majority of the editors the last months removed the word controversial from the article so it can be categorized as pseudo-science. The editors seriously want the readers to believe that there is no controversy on Homeopathy disregarding many major reliable sources they already use describe homeopathy as such.

[177]

[178]

Questions and Answers About Homeopathy [NCCAM Research Report]

9. Are there scientific controversies associated with homeopathy?

Yes. Homeopathy is an area of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)A group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine, and alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine. that has seen high levels of controversy and debate,....

2. The lead of the article reads:

Homeopathy is scientifically implausible[14][15] and "is diametrically opposed to modern pharmaceutical knowledge. The last quoted sentence is taken from a reliable source and it is used here as a negative statement about Homeopathy.

Later in the article when an editor inserts a positive quote about homeopathy from the same paper

Pharmacists should also be aware that the data assessing the efficacy of homeopathy are mixed—there are rigorous, reproducible studies that show homeopathy is effective,39,42-44 and equally scientifically sound studies that show it is not, or another one :However, this last study has been criticised[129] "for being methodologically flawed on many levels."[130][unreliable source?] "

then the reliability of the source is questioned. The editors of the article use only the first quote stating that homeopathy "is diametrically opposed to modern pharmaceutical knowledge and refuse to accept the validity of the other sentences.

Look at the article. It has been tagged as unreliable only when it is used to report statements, which are not critical to homeopathy. Johnson T, Boon H (2007)."Where does homeopathy fit in pharmacy practice?". American journal of pharmaceutical education 71 (1): 7. PMID 17429507.

[179]

[180]

3. This is a PhilKnight (formerly Addhoc) edit which is in violation of WIKI policy. He claims to be an univolved administrator to supervise the discussion about the article which is in probation.

[181]

The authors concluded that the results of the available randomized trials suggest that individualized homeopathy has an effect over placebo. The evidence, however, is not convincing because of methodological shortcomings and inconsistencies. Future research should focus on replication of existing promising studies.

He decides to edit out the quote, which he does not agree with. Future research should focus on replication of existing promising studies.

I assume he does not want any positive info about homeopathy in the article.

Homeopathy and reliable sources

There are quotes from major reliable sources (already cited in the article), which could be used in order to give to the article more neutral tone - for example.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) [182]

8. What has scientific research found out about whether homeopathy works?

The results of individual, controlled clinical trials of homeopathy have been contradictory. In some trials, homeopathy appeared to be no more helpful than a placebo; in other studies, some benefits were seen that the researchers believed were greater than one would expect from a placebo.'

The Report 12 of the Council on Scientific Affairs  : [183]

Johnson T, Boon H (2007).

Some think it a placebo effect, augmented by the concern expressed by the healer; others propose new theories based on quantum mechanics and electromagnetic energy.

"Where does homeopathy fit in pharmacy practice?". American journal of pharmaceutical education 71 (1): 7. PMID 17429507.

Pharmacists should also be aware that the data assessing the efficacy of homeopathy are mixed—there are rigorous, reproducible studies that show homeopathy is effective,39,42-44 and equally scientifically sound studies that show it is not.

Do the above quotes from reliable sources accepted and thus cited in the article support the statement?

“Homeopathy can be uncontroversially described as pseudoscience according to academic consensus. Scientific research has repeatedly shown that homeopathic remedies are effective purely as placebos, and are useless in themselves)”

I leave it to arbitrators to decide.

--44Elise (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Anthon01

Response to Eric Naval's Modified Comments - Version three

This is my response to Eric Naval's third attempt to support his argument. In spite of his good intentions, I consider his presentation in my regard, a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. I was the first editor blocked after the topic ban. I still consider that decision unjustified.

---

I will provide diffs here in a moment that illustrate the series of events that lead to the block. Anthon01 (talk) 11:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Here are the series of events that IMO, lead to the topic ban.

Quick Summary:

February 1st, 2008 - Many homeopaths advise against standard medical procedures such as vaccination. I challenge that the text is not supported by the citations. The citation is a survey showing the opinion of 16 out of 23 homeopaths. I argued that 23 homeopaths can't speak for the tens of thousands of homeopaths in the world.

February 2, 2008 - Next day I receive a 1 week topic ban.

February 15, 2008 - After ban ended, with collaboration of a well regarded editor, I modified the text to Several surveys demonstrate that some (particularly non-physician) homeopaths advise their patients against immunisation. My initial concerns about the text are confirmed by the process of collaboration.

---

Now the Details with diffs.

On February 1, 2008, the Homeopathy article stated "Many homeopaths advise against standard medical procedures such as vaccination."

I challenging the accuacy of that quote.

17:09, February 1, 2008 - My challenge[184] later seperated into a new section -[185]

17:42, February 1, 2008 - Additional comments -

[186]

[187]

[188]

This section prompted vanished admin Vanished user to complain to East718. Admin Vanished user, had been stripted of his ability to block, so he went block shopping.

[Since this admin, Vanished user is vanished, I will post his comments here and provide diffs upon request, where necessary]

21:49, February 1, 2008 - Vanished user requests intervention from East718. [diff upon request]

Here is the text of that diff. Under a new section titled == Anthon01 == on East718 (the blocking admin's) talk page Vanished user stated

“ I think this section is way out of line, and in violation of article probation. It may have blown over by the time you see this, but that talk page is a sea of tendentious quibbling by pro-homeopathic editors right now. ”

21:56, February 1, 2008 - Vanished user posts comment on Talk:Homeopathy page. [189]

22:04, February 1, 2008 - East718's first post, 8 minutes later, after Vanished user's request for intervention.[190]

16:54, February 2, 2008 - 1 week topic ban.[191]

09:37, February 3, 2008 - The next day, with me out of the way, Vanished user modified Homeopathy with "... Surveys have shown that homeopathic practitioners often advise their patients against receiving immunization for diseases."[192]

16:54, February 9, 2008 - My topic ban ends.

00:30, February 15, 2008 - Initiated by me, with the collaboration of respected editors, the text is modified by me to, Several surveys demonstrate that some (particularly non-physician) homeopaths advise their patients against immunisation. [193]

As of the morning of April 26th, 2008 - The text remains the same.
Anthon01 (talk) 13:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Now a response to Eric Naval's specific points.

Eric Naval states, On the same section User:Anthon01 tells Jim that he was topic banned for saying that the category should be removed, however, east718 claimed stonewalling, Anthon01 says it's not valid because no diff was provided, and complains on ANI again on ANI. Jehochaman finally tells him that all his contributions fit the pattern, and that east718 can provide diffs

Jehochaman provided no diffs. The banning admin, East718 provided no diffs even though I asked him repeatedly.[194][195][196][197]

Others editors agree that I should get diffs[198], that the ban was unjustified.[199]

Another says, "... where are the diffs that show his actions? ... To single out one editor, without actually saying specifically what he did to deserve being singled out, seems arbitrary..."[200] [201]

Wjhonson says Consensus doesn't exist, because consensus doesn't exist. I'm not going to ignore the attempts to process the critics into silence ...[202] and that This situation is disturbing. Anthon01 did the right thing taking the specific concern over whether or not a particular position paper can be used as a reliable source to include the PseudoScience cat on the homeopathy page.[203] Taking this to RS is I repeat, the correct procedure. The long discussion there was no consensus over the particular issue as anyone willing to review it can plainly see ... [204][205]

Random832 notes that East718 refusal to provide diffs is perhaps "stonewalling."[206]

EN continues, Jehochman comments on not addressing east718 directly, are without merit as I had repeatedly asked East718 directly, but he completely ignored me.

EN continues "SA finally provides diffs." Scientific Apologist is an very involved editor and not an editor in good standing. He is not the banning admin. The diffs he provided do not support the claim. Anthon01 (talk) 02:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Vassyana

DanaUllman placed under topic ban

Due to persistent disruption, I placed DanaUllman (talk · contribs) under a three month ban from all homeopathy-related topics (broadly construed).[207]

DanaUllman requested that I reconsider the topic ban I implemented. After reconsideration, I declined to undo my actions. Dana was informed of this decision and encouraged to reconsider his approach.[208]

Baegis warned about incivility

Baegis (talk · contribs) has been warned for incivility.[209]

Evidence presented by MaxPont

I am fairly new to this topic. Even though I am irritated by the way DanaUllman pushes his references I think that he has a lot of knowledge that could be useful for WP if he could comply with WP consensus. Other editors have shown the diffs, I don’t need to repeat that. Maybe he could be restricted to the Talk Pages. But maybe I am naïve.

I believe this dispute could be resolved if we had a better understanding of actual scientific practice, and in particular the models developed within Philosopher of Science by Imre Lakatos.

What Lakatos pointed out was that all scientific theories are falsified all the time. Just because some fringe observations and evidence contradict a well established scientific theory does not mean that the established theory has to be rejected.

If we include a short NPOV review of the studies that indicate an effect of homeopathy does not mean that we have overthrown everything we know about nature and the universe. The pro-homeo studies can be summarised and followed by a strong disclaimer that would explain the context to the reader (e.g. if homeopathy works as it is claimed by the homeopaths themselves the fundamental laws of nature that we have taken for granted for over a century and which have explained everything from astronomy to mobile phones and DNA sequencing are flawed and would have to be rewritten). It might also be possible to resolve other WP conflicts about fringe theories with this approach.

Another way to resolve the controversy might be to view the homeopathy article, not as a scientific article, but as an article about a social phenomena and remove the article from the Natural sciences good articles list. The article already has a lot of content that is clearly not what you would find in a science article. (Including an ongoing debate where one editor wants to show that homeopathy resembles a religion.)

Articles about social phenomena are always to some extent written with an In Universe perspective. The best analogy would probably be with articles about political ideologies and political parties. We could use this approach here. MaxPont (talk) 07:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Peter morrell

I have not had time at my disposal to give a detailed account with diffs, so what follows are the various impressions I have formed while editing and watching this article for the past 2 years, since May 2006. Anyone reading this arbcom material who is familiar with the homeopathy article and Dana Ullman's edits cannot fail to get the impression that this is a nasty, petty, vindictive and utterly unnecessary process. Indeed it is an abuse of any wiki process imaginable; he has done nothing wrong and the so-called 'charges' he is levelled with flow from some deranged form of punishment, backed by by the usual tribe of anti-homeopathy editors (plus a few vociferous newbies) who have dogged every attempt over the last 2 years or so to render the article even remotely NPOV. The article has become a weird mosaic of anti material or 'hatchet job' precisely because this cadre of zealots own and control it every single day. They never tire of whining and nit-picking on the talk page, usually at great length, and they revert every change made to the article that in their view gives even the slightest positive tone about the subject. In this way they seek to prevent the article becoming a truly neutral and unbiased information source about the subject. This article has become a war-zone precisely because of these bullying anti-homeopathy editors who seem to see it as their sole purpose in life to remove homeopathy from wikipedia and this is their mission, their crusade, their jihad. With seemingly too much time on their hands, they dominate this subject on wikipedia and have been deliberately interfering with sound informative edits to Homeopathy, Arsenicum album, Potassium dichromate and other related articles for many months.

Precisely why homeopathy elicits such astonishing venom in these people is hard to see. Presumably it somehow offends the rigid dogmas of their belief in scientific materialism. The chief target of their ire is the small doses that homeopathy uses and the apparent lack of any known scientific mechanism for their action. They always attack these points as well as nitpicking endlessly over which trials show what. Numerous positive trials of homeopathy have been purged from the article over the last 2 years because they somehow fail to meet the stringent requirements of these bullying anti homeopathy editors. No matter how well-devised, they would always find some fault with any trial ever done. They refuse to accept that there is any positive evidence for homeopathic efficacy and so always intervene whenever some unsuspecting neutral or pro editor adds something innocently thinking that it is an improvement to the article.

Though Dana Ullman is a good expert on homeopathy, having been studying and using it for at least 40 years, he gets zero respect from the bullying editors most of whom have never tried it and who show from their comments scant knowledge of the subject. It is hard to imagine across wiki a situation where the less informed and malign editors are allowed by admins on a daily basis free reign to so ferociously edit a subject they know so little about, while the well-informed experts in the field are attacked and pushed out at every turn. The specific reason why Dana has been placed 'in the dock' is because unlike most previous pro homeopathy editors, Dana has proved confident, durable and extremely civil in his stalwart efforts to insert into these articles some citations to the positive studies that do exist. His only 'crime' is that he has persisted tenaciously in this endeavour where most other editors have long given up, lapsed into incivility due to repeated attacks and/or left the project (or the topic) because they couldn't stand the hassle they received from the regular bullying editors who unfairly always seem to garner swift admin backup for their edits. Numerically they are superior and they work against a small number of pro editors with a pack mentality, backing each other up in edits and in arguments on the talk page.

These editors have content disputes with all neutral and pro editors. Numerous good edits have been obstructed and they seem most unwilling to allow any credence to the subject. They revert using uncivil edit summaries like "POV-pushing" when in fact they are the POV pushers. This cabal of anti-homeopathic editors have kept sound information out of this article. They are very antagonistic to homeopathy & don’t want potentially positive information in wikipedia on homeopathy. They are bullying and show a tendency to not assume good faith. They have a strong prejudice against homeopathy; such critics are way too severe, making the article blatantly hostile and negative. This team of 'anti'-homeopathy editors gang up to revert any edits perceived to be 'pro-homeopathy.' Such nefarious machinations have incorporated longstanding and entrenched biases into the article.

Most of these editors don’t really know much about homeopathy, they have not really read the sources, and they try to block or ban any editors who disagree with them. These editors are determined not to allow any research that is positive to homeopathy; everyone else is outnumbered by these very determined anti-homeopathy editors who keep the homeopathy article firmly biased against homeopathy. These editors want the article to state clearly in every paragraph that homeopathy is ineffective. They are convinced that this is a Neutral position and feel it is justified by their reading of the scientific data. Any other view is tagged as unreliable only when it is used to report statements, which are not critical to homeopathy. The actual data assessing the efficacy of homeopathy are mixed—-there are rigorous, reproducible studies that show homeopathy is effective, and equally sound showing it is not. Although clinical trials of homeopathy have been contradictory, such obstructive editors do not want any positive info about homeopathy placed into the article. This is why they so detest Dana.

Dana Ullman sincerely tries to comply with every Wikipedia policy in good faith. Dana is a good faith editor who has made numerous useful additions to wikipedia fleshing out old thin articles with much useful new info. This applies to James Manby Gully and also to Arsenicum album. Banning him would hand triumph to these bigots and give a green light for yet further attacks on neutral and pro homeopathy editors; it would hand this article over to the dogs. Many decent people would then seriously consider leaving this topic and this project. If that is what is proposed then so be it and the reputation of wikipedia as a useful source of unbiased information would be seriously downgraded even further.

Evidence presented by Scientizzle

Since Dana insists on continually mischaracterizing his recent interactions with me and others at Talk:Potassium dichromate, I feel it is necessary that I present a clear representation of what went on...much of what is found below was also noted in the recent ANI thread that resulted in Dana's current 3-month topic ban.

Background

Dana's first edit to Potassium dichromate occurred on January 15, 2008. He removed a statement and source critical of homeopathy, then added a glowing description of the mentioned study (Frass et al). It was removed[210][211][212][213][214][215] and re-added (by Dana[216][217][218][219] & Arion[220]) several times over the next 4 days. Ultimately, the article was fully protected on January 19 (on the version w/o Frass et al). The homeopathy section was removed wholesale on Jan 28.

Of note: it's apparent from the above information that Frass et al was only up on the page for a grand total of several hours (rather than the "several weeks" as asserted by Dana on this page).

January discussion regarding Frass et al

The "consensus" in mid-January to which Dana seemingly refers was rapidly overturned. On the 15th, after Dana added the study, I and David D. (talk · contribs) were not convinced of its appropriateness and worked to at least decrease the blatant peacockery whilst engaging Dana on the talk page about the study (discussion here). Simultaneously, discussion at Talk:Homeopathy (found here) received wider input and came down more convincingly against inclusion of Frass et al. Talk:Potassium dichromate#Notability of COPD shows this, too, as the study had been removed, then re-added, and further arguments came down more clearly against inclusion. Discussion here, here, here, and here (and a tangential discussion regarding the broad phenomenon of non-homeopathy articles having substantial pro-homeopathy information added to them) served to solidify the consensus that inclusion of the Frass et al study was not appropriate. At the end of January, after all this, the article looked like this, with no reference to any homeopathy (remaining so until I recently added some back).

April discussion regarding Frass et al

Talk:Potassium dichromate#Frass/CHEST paper notability (2)...Dana restarted discussion on April 19 with the valid complaint that there had been sockpuppeting on the anti-inclusion side. It was quickly clear, however, that even a newly re-evaluated consensus was clearly against inclusion. I became re-involved on the 21st, making my position clear as well. It was at this point that Dana really dug in his heels. Even though he and Arion were the only two that favored inclusion, and 4-5 times as many editors opposed, each providing various arguments based on Wikipedia policies/guidelines and editorial discretion, he continued to insist on arguing...

When it was clear that consensus was against inclusion, Dana began to make remarks about how the some opposition editors "stonewall information". I couldn't help but criticize Dana's repeated hyperbolic overselling of the study and the journal in which it was published, and the hypocrisy of complaining about "stonewalling" when he was obviously ignoring consensus (comment here). After a few rounds of back-and-forth, where nothing changed in Dana's behavior even though I attempted to offer reasonable middle ground, and yet another editor chimed in against inclusion, things degraded rapidly. At one point Dana stated,

I sincerely hope that you show good faith and finally admit that this information is notable and worthy of reference in the article, an explicit claim that disagreeing with him was tantamount to failing WP:AGF. This statement exhausted all patience I had for working with Dana, and I called him on it. Rather than admitting to making an attack and offering any apologies, Dana became defensive (annoyingly requesting that I "clarify [my] objection to including these results" despite ample prior explanations--here's my response), then became openly hostile towards me (i.e., "Without an adequate explanation, I will assume that you're making a mountain out of a non-hill to try to embarrass me") and others[221][222].

ANI thread

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive409#Dana Ullman and the Homeopathy probation

This was begun after Dana edit warred over the archiving of the long-past-useful/clear-as-a-bell-consensus Frass et al discussion, and attempted to justify the point by (apparently deliberately) misinterpreting my statements as actually in support of his position. I won't re-hash the ANI thread here--it's all pretty clear there.

My conclusions

Prior to these events, Dana had demonstrated weaker versions of the same conduct over the course of my 6-7 months as an active participant at Talk:Homeopathy. There were occasions in which he provided useful input. However, his activity has done much to degrade the discourse on that page as he has continually, in my opinion, shown a disregard for Wikipedia's editing policies and guidelines, seemingly in an effort to promote homeopathy; he has displayed all the characteristics of a tendentious editor. He is incorrect in his assertion that he had established anything close to a real consensus for inclusion, and demonstrably wrong when he asserts that his efforts resulted in anything that "lasted for several weeks" on that page. The fact that he repeats his claim that I "agreed to include reference to [Frass et al]" is astonishing when you consider that it's a blatant mischaracterization of my position that has been corrected over and over, and is ultimately a large reason why he's currently under his topic ban.

As I indicated in my statement, I'm not sold that an outright ban of Dana is actually what's best for Wikipedia, and I do detect far too much vindictiveness here...but Dana's efforts, particularly recently, present a tidy example of how difficult it is to deal with editors that aren't obviously disruptive, but manage to undermine the efforts to maintain a collaborative environment. At the very least, his current three-month topic ban seems entirely appropriate, and an extension of that ban would not, in my opinion, be unwarranted.

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