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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Emily Goldstein (talk | contribs) at 07:22, 16 December 2016 (→Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing

AfDs for this article:
Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Fails WP:NJournals and, surprisingly, the Wikipedians commenting the last time claimed otherwise even though it clearly does not. The three criteria are:

  • Criterion 1: The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
    • This is not true. The journal is panned by those who have evaluated it.
  • Criterion 2: The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
    • This is not true. The journal is basically never cited.
  • Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.
    • This is not true. The journal is of zero historical significance.

It is also clearly serving as a coatracking promotion of the fringe theories. jps (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (Note that I created this article.) How is the article acting as a WP:COATRACK? There is very little promotion, or even discussion at all, of any alternative medicine/paranormal/other pseudoscientific topics in this article. Also, jps would do well to look more closely at the NJOURNALS criteria, specifically the part that says: "For the purpose of C1 [criterion 1], having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." This journal does have such an impact factor: 1.012. [1] Everymorning (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is a coatrack because it is trying to pretend that there is academic legitimacy to this pseudoscience. Elsevier is an umbrella group that gives full editorial control to its editors and only cares about subscriptions not content. Thus, using Elsevier as a shield to claim, "Look, we have legitimacy" is what is going on here. It's fringe alt med and paranomral enthusiasts pushing their ideas into Wikipedia. Very bad. jps (talk) 16:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the OP means that the journal is a coatrack, not that the Wikipedia article is. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's coverage of this obscure, non-notable journal is a coatrack for the idea that the ideas contained in this journal are mainstream. jps (talk) 16:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you mean. However the article creator seems a reasonable character who in fact merely bought into the argument that if it's in the medical databases then it must be allowed here. But it is clear that GNG trumps that anyway. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify in the light of the following discussion, this is not true. The journal meets WP:JOURNALCRIT #1. StAnselm (talk) 18:46, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Rubbish. Where is the evidence? Alexbrn (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps if you had bothered to look for this evidence, you would have seen it in this very same discussion. Let me repeat: "For the purpose of C1, having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." Everymorning (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this will help:
Major premise: "For the purpose of C1, having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." (WP:JOURNALCRIT)
Minor premise: "According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.012." (referenced in the article)
Conclusion: The journal qualifies under C1 of WP:JOURNALCRIT.
You're welcome. StAnselm (talk) 18:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Except that's on old version of WP:JOURNALCRIT, and is not "C1". We need evidence of notability as defined by policy, not by circular argument in a weak essay. Alexbrn (talk) 20:47, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • My goal is to keep Wikipedia clear of bullshit like this. There seems to have been pushes trying to skew Wikipedia towards accepting pseudoscientific claptrap as legitimate research. I am unapologetic about pushing these problems out of here. jps (talk) 18:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the AfD on this article one month ago. Per WP:DPAFD "users should allow a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again". No specific amount of time is stated, but I'm pretty sure one month is not reasonable. Unless new information has since come to light that should have changed the previous discussion, let's avoid relitigating previous consensus so soon. Ajpolino (talk) 19:06, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • New information has come to light. The people who argued for keep did so for very problematic reasons. Such as the existence of an impact factor or the fact that the journal was indexed. Did you read the discussion above? jps (talk) 19:48, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment can those bashing us over the head with WP:NJOURNALS and its section WP:JOURNALCRIT please note that it is an opinion essay - not even a guideline, never mind actual policy. It is worthless in the face of WP:GNG. And here, the existence of a few database entries and an impact factor does not provide RS for a significant level of citation and/or wider discussion. Given the lack of wider discussion and the pathetic level of citation, affirmed by the equally pathetic impact factor, no way can these toys establish notability of this journal. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:48, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is just indicative of the larger problem here at Wikipedia where someone writes an essay, the teeming minions treat it as gospel, then they establish some "consensus" which is totally at odds with the way the world actually works. They then proceed to complain about "process" and "consensus" and "too soon" issues. C'mon, people. We're here to curate an encyclopedia, not to invent a WP:BURO. I hope the realpolitickers (i.e., sycophants) commenting here to the tune of "keep -- consensus" know that I am watching and will be interested in opposing their attempts to climb the power ladder at this website. jps (talk) 19:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I clicked on it and again found nothing but passing mentions in reference lists. No significant coverage to support more information than a one-lined permastub. --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:28, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The journal has an impact factor and is indexed in Scopus, thus meets notability criteria of WP:NJOURNALS, our de facto guideline at AfD. In short, nothing has changed since the last nomination. --Mark viking (talk) 22:37, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    No, as has already been pointed out, WP:NJOURNALS is not a guideline, it is an essay and as such stands only as an opinion piece which we are free to disagree with. This, along with the very low impact rating, are both new information to the discussion and therefore this AfD is not merely a repeat of the same old same old. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep, and WP:GNG is only a guideline and not policy. We can go on like this all day long. People refer to essays all the time, it's a kind of shorthand so that they don't have to repeat the same arguments over and over again (especially to people that have decided they don't want to hear them whatever be the case). --Randykitty (talk) 11:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, as has been pointed out many times at other journal AfDs, WP:NJOURNALS has been used as a de facto guideline for at least the four years I have been an editor. While WP policy has ossified to the point that it is difficult to get people to agree to creating new guidelines, in this case, precedent has been established. --Mark viking (talk) 12:50, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Mark viking. StAnselm (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There are no reliable sources to confer notability. The impact factor is indeed low. Include in a list of Elsevier publications by all means, but I see nothing to indicate that a useful article can emerge from the present dismal stub. Mcewan (talk) 00:40, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, as appears to fail Wikipedia:Notability due to not having much discussion from other independent sources of any depth. Sagecandor (talk) 11:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I don't think merely having an impact factor indexed by SCOPUS meets the "is frequently cited" of criterion 2 at the essay WP:NJOURNALS. Anyway, it seems likely that the correct guideline is not one about academic journals, but one about peddling in pseudoscience, WP:NFRINGE, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". There is at least one independent secondary source that mentions this journal in passing referred to in the article as known for publishing pseudoscience. (It gives the example of a study of whether it is possible to embed "intent" into chocolate.) It discusses this journal along with two others, and concludes that "these three journals are shams masquerading as real scientific journals" (emphasis mine). This strongly urges us to apply NFRINGE in our assessment of the journal, and if there are more such secondary sources, I think this article could be kept under that guideline. Otherwise, I do not think it meets that guideline, and therefore should be deleted. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    BTW, the "secondary source" Slawomir is referring to is this blog post on Science-Based Medicine. Everymorning (talk) 14:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, I had not realized that it was a blog post. Better sources are required, even under WP:FRINGE. So, I'm going to go with delete, for lack of independent sources, unless that changes. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to add to my last, since some editors here have raised the point that the NJOURNALS essay has created a de facto standard, I would like to rebut this. Although the essay has provided useful guidelines in assessing journals for their mainstream scholarly impact, it is singularly unsuited to dealing with journals on the fringes, which do require independent secondary sources in order to satisfy WP:NPOV policy, and (secondarily) our usual notability guidelines (which are actual, as opposed to imagined, guidelines). This essentially echoes Guy's comment below, which I think is the strongest policy-based argument in this discussion. Edges cases like this are one of the specific reasons that the essay [[W[:NJOURNALS]] failed to become a guideline in the first place. See the discussion. In any event, since I think this discussion would benefit from the insight of a library professional, I am pinging @DGG:. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Adding further, following Jytdog's comment below: "If there were strong sources discussing how garbagey it is, I would probably be !voting keep, but it is not even notable enough to have mainstream people discuss how bad it is." This is exactly the point. Notability is about whether a topic has been noted in reliable sources. Impact factor is just a rule of thumb used by WP:JOURNALS as a proxy for notability. In this case, however, notability fails rather directly because of a lack of sources. This also feeds into the issue of whether it is possible to write a neutral article based on existing sources (a blog post that says the journal is a sham masquerading as a real scientific journal. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:24, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, the journal has an impact factor, and is indexed in several selective databases, making it a clear pass of WP:NJOURNALS. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, NJOURNALS is an essay. Second, if simply having an impact factor is a "clear pass" then it is rather obviously the result of a group of editors who want as many articles on journals as possible, agreeing among themselves with absolutely no outside input or reality check at all. I've found impact factors as low as 0.15, which means probably well over 90% of everything published in the journal is never cited at all. 0.33 or less is common, which means that on average only one in three papers gets cited (and probably much less as it only takes a handful that are cited multiple times). Having an impact fator is a great criterion for a directory, but we are not a directory. Guy (Help!) 20:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that's not what these IFs mean. 0.33 means that on average, one third of all articles have received a single citation in the first two years after the article was published. Not: "ever". In fields like mathematics, citations generally come much later than the first two years. In fields like systematic botany, they sometimes start coming in after decades and works that are a century or more old can still be cited with a certain regularity today. --Randykitty (talk) 20:27, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And we most certainly do not want to have articles on "as many journals as possible". Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:08, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, because there are insufficient reliable independent sources to write a verifiably WP:NPOV article. This is important because Explore, probably more than any other journal published by a mainstream company, is a platform for abject nonsense. A journal that can publish a paper on the medicinal efficacy of chocolate imbued with "intent" has completely lost any connection to the scientific method, and indeed the editor has described the teaching of science as tantamount to child abuse. He repudiates the scientific method., Thus, we can't have an article based solely on the self-description provided by the publisher, we absolutely must have solid reliable and above all independent sources. Most of the reality-based world imply ignores this journal. You won't find editorials in the NEJM saying that despite the latest paper in Explore, distant healing is still bullshit. Psychologists have come to the conclusion that Emotional Freedom Techniques is nonsense, the fact that advocates publish favourable papers in Explore won't change that and they won't comment on the journal that publishes those favourable results because it's ignorable. I have only found one source to date that comes anywhere close to WP:RS that actually talks about this journal, rather than one of its editors. Guy (Help!) 18:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most (but to be fair, not all) of your comment is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The fact that the journal publishes abject nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with whether it deserves an article. StAnselm (talk) 19:06, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I !voted "Keep" at the first AfD with the edit summary reluctant keep - it may be a junk journal, but with an IF the criteria are met because there are established standards that have been applied relating to journals. They may need changing, but trying to change them during an AfD is unwise, not least because any local consensus formed will not stand up against a broader, pre-existing consensus. As I explained to JzG, Changing that practice is a different discussion, but I anticipate the standard approach will be applied [in that AfD]. I'm not saying the practice is a good one, nor that the journal is worth the electrons inconvenienced to display its website, I'm just saying that it is standard and applied dispassionately that means keep is the appropriate outcome. I strongly object to this post from jps which has a clear implication of intimidation and implies that those who disagree with him (the "teeming minions") are servile / unimportant underlings [3] [4] [5] of (presumably) Randykitty. Well, I've disagreed with Randykitty at times, and certainly would not automatically agree with anything s/he might say. I opposed deletion the first time this journal was nominated as the process being used is inappropriate to changing consensus, and the attempt to delete the WP:NJournals essay is an even more objectionable way to try to "win" an argument by avoiding having a rational discussion. As I noted in that MfD, we need a discussion of the essay and its content at its talk page. However, despite all the above, I am not yet !voting on this AfD because I think that a reasonable first step might be to change the rigid rule that IF = notable to (say) that having an IF gives a rebuttable presumption of notability, because setting an IF cut-off is nearly impossible due to differences in publishing practices in different academic disciplines – I know journals with an IF of 1 which are highly respected in their field. So, for me the question becomes whether there are grounds to rebut a presumption of notability in the case of the Explore journal based on it being a purveyor of FRINGE nonsense and PSEUDOSCIENCE. I would find an AfD premised on evidence (rather than assertion / opinion) in those areas much more persuasive – though even then, a list of such journals might be a useful resource for our readers, but not an article which gives the impression of it as a legitimate academic publication. EdChem (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It meets the usual standards. It's included in JCR and that is the basis for notability of journals, because it's what the entire academic world accepts.We do regard it as a clear pass, just as we regard evidence of someone playing in the 1908 Olympics a clear pass, even if nothing else is known about them, and even if they came in last. WP:N is a guideline, and says right out it does not always apply.
The reason for deleting "because it contains nonsense" is a total and unambiguous repudiation of our basic principle of NPOV. We contain articles on nonsense using the same standard that we do for anything else. We make clear what it does contain, of course, like we do for anything else. There are various methods of doing so, appropriate for this or any controversial publication--for example, indicating who edits and contributes to it, and where it is cited. The very fact that this was raised as an argument would greatly influence my view about whether we should keep it. I'm a scientist by training and profession, and I have a very strong personal bias for the Scientific Point of View. Therefore I try especially hard to keep articles on the things which have an unambiguously anti-scientific point of view. Just the same as I try to keep articles on political views I think are utterly wrong and even dangerous. WP is not an instrument of propaganda. Even for the things which I think merit persuasion and advocacy, it belongs off wiki. DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not a rationale for deleting. The rationale for deleting is that it is well known to publish nonsense, but we cannot source that properly because the sources accepted as proof of notability are not independent (so don't mention the fact) and the sources which do mention the fact tend to be informal, of the kind we might accept when discussing a pseudoscientific topic but not generally accepted for journals. A cleft stick.
And why do we accept participation in the Olympics as automatic notability? How can we verify that the article is neutral if literally all we have is a scorecard? This is a bit personal for me since one of my boyhood heroes was my swimming teacher, an irascible Scouser called Bill Thornton, who was a multiple medallist (Gold, Silver and Bronze) in several swimming events and also basketball between 1960 and 1968, and I cannot source an article on him because this was paralympics. Guy (Help!) 00:55, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think you may have misunderstood me. Of course we cannot say this directly. It is nonetheless possible to indicate the content of a journal in many ways. The one I like best is to list the 5 most cited articles. This usually provides enough information for people to draw their own conclusions. This is applicable generally to pseudoscience --we do not have to say that something is bogus, we give the factual information from which a sensible reader will realize it by themselves. DGG ( talk ) 00:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! Nice. Sadly the most ridiculous ones are never cited. The ones advocating water memory, distant healing, "intent" and the panoply of mind-body woo that the editors love, are simply ignored. Guy (Help!) 01:04, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record, the most highly cited paper in the journal seems to be this, which has 190 cites on Google Scholar. Everymorning (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And its lead author, Eric Garland, is definitely not a crank judging from his publication list. According to Google Scholar, this review has been cited 373 times, from a journal with IF = 5.88. Co-author on this 2011 paper in a journal with an IF = 10.38 (2015), and 189 GScholar cites. 185 cites, IF = 3.69 (2014), 174 cites, IF = 1.18 (2012), Scopus says h-index = 21. EdChem (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It publishes claptrap and nonsense, but is nonetheless notable for doing so. It has a healthy impact factor and (checks) 401 citations since 2006 in Web of Science. Seriously, there are many perfectly good scientific journals that have a lower impact factor than that. It has many more citations on the more promiscuous Google Scholar. Famousdog (c) 11:50, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"nonetheless notable for doing so": is it notable for publishing nonsense? The only secondary source is a rather weak one. If more such sources exist, this argument might carry more weight. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. Clearly this passes WP:NJOURNALS, but of course that is an essay rather than a guideline. My general feeling is that NJOURNALS is an attempt to find an objective way to distinguish reputable from disreputable journals, and that it mostly succeeds in that purpose, but that in the case of this particular journal it has failed to do so. So, although I would usually follow NJOURNALS (as a convenient shortcut for straightforward cases), in this case I think we should fall back to our actual guidelines, which for this case are WP:GNG and WP:FRINGE (as alternative medicine is mostly a fringe topic). On the side of GNG we have that it is listed by various reliably published indexes, and that those indices' coverage of it is arguably in-depth. The Journal Citation Reports page for it, for instance, includes data for a dozen different summary statistics for the journal, broken down for each year over a roughly ten-year period, as well as its overall ranking and impact factor. So I think it is a pass, just as I think that the "included in multiple indexes" clause of NJOURNALS is a shorthand for the fact that the coverage in these indices will always provide a pass of GNG. On the side of FRINGE we need mainstream sources that assess the content of this journal from the mainstream science point of view, so that we can provide an appropriately neutral description of the subject. Here we fall down. We have only a single source with a single line, the source of the "truly ridiculous studies" quote, but no detail on what makes these studies ridiculous. Without more depth to this quote, it just comes off as an unbased attack, but without this quote we inappropriately legitimize this journal. Rather than fall into this dilemma I think it would be best avoided by not trying to have an article on the journal. But, as in most past instances where I have argued for deleting problematic but GNG-passing subjects, I expect the discussion here to go against me.—David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My view has always been that WP should go out of its way to find reasons for covering fringe topics, rather than reasons for not covering them. We are especially well equipped to provide neutral presentations of them, and have learned how to prevent their advocates from taking over the articles (tho it's been a hard-fought battle at times), All we need do is give the titles of articles. NBTW, many of the most cited articles are the ones that come nearest to mainstream, at least if omindfullness is considered mainstream. The most cited ones, though, are the reports of Robert G. Jahn's well-known and much hyped experiments. [6] Our job is not to legitimize anything, but to provide information, whether what we are providing information about is sensible or absurd. But an objective article on the jpournal Jahn publishjed them in will indicate the real situation. DGG ( talk ) 02:07, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete I have been watching all this. Here is my take. yes the journal has an impact factor, but it is pretty low and probably a lot of the "impact" is people saying that article X is ridiculous. This is a journal that publishes bad stuff, and to address DGG's remarks above, the way we are dealing with that now is by citing (with some attribution) the usual skeptics (Gorski and somebody from the Skepitcal Enquirer) who do their blasting away. This is not really great. The best thing to do would be to say nothing about this journal. If there were strong sources discussing how garbagey it is, I would probably be !voting keep, but it is not even notable enough to have mainstream people discuss how bad it is. This is an instance where people trying to apply the "Impact factor rule" should take a breath and remember how unusual it is that WP:Journals even has a "rule" like this - rules are not something WP does much. And instances like this, are a reason why. Jytdog (talk) 05:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As it stands there seems to be nothing in the article, at all. It certainly does not seem worth keeping, but people are saying material was removed, I shall have to have a deeper look, but right now I am leaning towards delete (some RS establishing notability might help).Slatersteven (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well I have tried to find this fantastic article we used to have, and am not seeing much mroe then we have (beyond a bit more about how rubbish the magazine is (really is that what it is notable for being a bit crap?).Slatersteven (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

really briefly, there are many WikiProjects in WP, and many of them have developed notability criteria for their subject matter. The Journals WikiProject has an essay with notability criteria for journals (WP:NJOURNALS that they have used for like 7 years now (a long time!) and has apparently served them well. if you read votes above, you will find that this essay contains a "rule" that says if a journal has been given an impact factor then it is "automatically" notable. They are frustrated that even though this article is clearly notable to them, other people are trying fiercely to delete it. People who don't regularly edit journals or deal with that essay and its criteria but who regularly deal with FRINGE-y content in WP have tried to delete this article because the journal is so flaky, and some of them have gotten really angry and behaved badly in face of the "rule" being deployed, and others are just being very determined to get this article deleted. So there is a big ruckus right now as the people in the journals Wikiproject and the Skeptics (all of whom are generally great Wikipedians) struggle over this culture clash. It is a hard issue. Jytdog (talk) 23:42, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I read it C2 is the only one that might apply. The problem is that "impact factor" is not what is said, "The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources." is what is said, and impact factor alone does not establish that. In fact reading the impact factor article makes it clear that it is not a good way to determine how often an given publication is cited in RS (and in fact the system can be gamed, oddly the example given an similar impact factor similar to the one so prominently mentioned in this article).Slatersteven (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This ruckus has started a discussion of the essay and will probably lead to ~some~ changes to it and to how it is used (which is just as important). In the meantime, as a community we need to decide whether to keep or delete this article using the standards that are in place today. Jytdog (talk) 00:03, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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