Talk:Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

TL:DR

I just reverted[1] the edit discussed in the above overly-long section. (Free clue: if you are unable to write a concise talk page entry making your case briefly and clearly, this is often a sign that you have no compelling argument) I also placed the following notice[2] on User talk:109.64.183.116 using Template:uw-fringe1:

" Welcome to Wikipedia. I notice that you added some content to Committee for Skeptical Inquiry that appears to be a minority or fringe viewpoint. Unfortunately, this edit appears to give undue weight to this minority viewpoint, and has been reverted. To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. Feel free to use the article's talk page to discuss this, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia.

You need to reach a consensus (WP:CONSENSUS) before making a controversial change. In other words, you have to convince other editors, which you have failed to do. Furthermore, your edit summary ("added criticism mention in the lead as per WP:LEAD . Reliability and notability have been thoroughly presented in the talk page") misstates Wikipedia policy. First, you have to reach a consensus. Merely "presenting" an argument without convincing anyone is not enough. Second, WP:LEAD is from Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which is a style guide. WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV are part of Wikipedia:Five pillars, which are the fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates."

--Guy Macon (talk) 14:18, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

---You are misrepresenting WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. Both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the American Society for Psychical Research are dealing with fringe Science. the first maintains that its inquiry has found nothing and the other just the opposite. ---Both are leading forces of the opposite side. The controversy is real and meaningful and certainly should be mentioned in the lead as to invite further reading of the article. To suggest SCI is without problems is in direct conflict with WP:NPOV ---WP:lead "The lead should establish significance, include mention of consequential or significant criticism or controversies, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more" .

---The establishment of notability has been thoroughly presented by Dave3457 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Committee_for_Skeptical_Inquiry/Archive_5#Disagreement_regarding_the_claim_of_pseudoskepticism_being_in_the_lead. I have read the groundless dismissive tone of SCI supporters to it. The adding of the paragraph should not be controversial to anybody not biased in favor of CSI79.179.176.148 (talk) 21:04, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, notability is the guideline for the existence of articles, not the mentioning of material in articles. Secondly, on wikipedia we don't aim for balance, we aim for due WP:WEIGHT (see WP:FRINGE); a fringe organization's criticisms sourced to their own publication just don't have much due weight. Thirdly, Dave didn't demonstrate much since he pasted a wall of text rather than making a good argument. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Standards of evidence

This section should have an addition because:

Sagan’s phrase is meaningless nonsense. Mere populist jargon - it sounds good but is completely devoid of meaning. The veracity of any claim must be tested against all the available evidence. Big, little, red, blue, wet, dry, spikey, smooth, for or against - all the evidence, without fear or favour, must be assessed. There is no such thing as “extraordinary” evidence and there is no such thing as limiting the evidence for any claim to a particular type of evidence that doesn’t exist anyway. Sagan’s claim is in fact an extraordinary requirement that can never be met. It represents antiscience at it worst. If the standards of evidence of CSI rest on Sagan’s nonsense, then they truly are a pseudoscientific organisation.

But of course I would not expect Wikipedia to promote science above pseudoscience. The latter seems to be their forte.

And while we are on the matter of pseudoscience, CSI and their cohort have proved themselves again and again to be advocates of pseudoscience as long as they have been around [Hatzopoulos, D. (2012) Skeptics, pelicanists and Prozac explanations].

As long as Wikipedia allow the pseudoscientists to create their agenda, so will science, democracy and the people be the losers. Discuss. Theatozofeverything (talk) 04:33, 21 February 2015 (UTC)