Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

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Ann Coulter

Nothing constructive for WP —PaleoNeonate – 10:32, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ann Coulter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Discussion about how to handle articles about intelligent design fans. Should it be called a pseudoscience or not? --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2021 (UTC) This seems more like a MOS type question. I don't think anyone in that discussion is questioning that ID is supported by any type of science. I think all would agree that it's often an attempt to rectify religion to the evidence of evolution. Part of the dispute at that article can be generalized as should we point out as much every time the topic is mentioned in any article where it is even briefly mentioned. That seems to the be crux of the dispute. For example, if Mr Smith's article says, "Smith is a believer in astrology[source]" should we instead say "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience [source]" or "Smith is a believer in astrology, a pseudoscience that claims X [source]". Would the answer change depending on the [source]? For example, if the source specifically says astrology is a psuedoscience vs if it only says he believes in it? Springee (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC) The Nancy Reagan page has about a dozen references to astrology and how it ran the US White House, but none of them contain any additional word like "pseudoscience". Nancy is dead and there is no political value in trashing her, but Coulter is involved in contentious current politics so she gets the shaft at multiple points in her article. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC) Agree with Springee, it is not about the FRINGE or pseudoscience status of intelligent design, which everyone currently involved in that discussion seems to agree on. Other than some stuff that is specific to Coulter, the discussion is about whether references to FRINGE material require mandatory warning labels --- as the initiator of the discussion I argued that this practice is gratuitous, patronizing to the reader, and in Coulter's case, politicized. These are MOS or NPOV issues, FRINGE does not come into play since the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented, only the fact of Coulter having some connection to it. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2021 (UTC) The people here know how to handle articles that are related to fringe subjects. Now they already know about the subject, so it is pointless to try to keep it from them by claiming it is not related to FRINGE. Whether the particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented is one of the questions here, not a fact. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC) What does try to keep it from them mean? Keep what from whom?? Does writing the words "X advocates intelligent design", with the link, as the sole description of X's connection to ID, constitute a presentation of the fringe viewpoint? Nobody at the Coulter talk discussion has claimed that, but if that's part of what you think is being debated, please say so. In the generality that you have framed this ("intelligent design fans"), we aren't just talking about the Coulter article specifically, where there is some (unrebutted) presentation of her closely related views on evolution, and what is said about ID immediately after could be seen as part of that. The more general framing seems to be (the ID special case of) the same question I raised, about negative labels on references to fringe material. Sesquivalent (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC) WP:FRINGE covers all treatments of fringe topics on Wikipedia, not just those that go into detail. Indeed, a significant part of that guideline is advice on when and how to go into detail. So, it doesn't matter if particulars of the fringe viewpoint are not being presented. XOR'easter (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC) Which passage of FRINGE applies to this case? I share TFD's concern that the disparaging tone isn't helpful. It also, importantly, isn't encyclopedic. If simply calling it ID isn't sufficient perhaps calling it the creationist belief of intelligent design. That description makes it clear this is a subset of creationism while avoiding beating the reader over the head with the fact that it doesn't pass the scientific sniff test.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Springee (talk • contribs) 02:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC) You've assumed the conclusion, that merely mentioning Mr X subscribes to fringe thingy Y requires an attached denunciation of Y (or X, which is often what it amounts to either way). As pointed out at the Coulter article talk page, this is not the case for Y = astrology, Nazism, John Birch Society (re conspiracy theories). Other examples are anti-Semitism and scientific racism; generally when they appear as part of someone's bio we do not attach descriptors like "the discredited 19th century ideology". Maybe some of these things are considered well known enough to be out-of-mainstream that it's de minimis but this "denounce on sight" rule seems not even to be applied for cold fusion. Like Springee, I did not see any such principle in the FRINGE guideline, which I have read many times by now. Can you point to some particular part of the text?Sesquivalent (talk) 08:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC) I would leave it out. It sounds overly disparaging and as jargon we would have to explain it. Disparaging writing actually creates doubt in readers' minds. They say, "This article is obviously intended to disparage Coulter, so why should I believe anything it says?" TFD (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC) I rather suspect that people who are eager to leap to that conclusion will do so regardless of whether we include a few particular words or not. XOR'easter (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC) +1 to this. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. We should not be tiptoeing around the subject of fringe in order to cater to the potential pearl clutching of partisan readers. If they don't like what reliable sources say about the subject, they have safe spaces on the internet they can go to such as Conservapedia. Generalrelative (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC) While that may be what you suspect, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. People don't like to be told what to think. That's one of the reasons the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the U.S. is so low. Of course it's easier to blame listeners for not being persuaded. TFD (talk) 01:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC) No one is blaming listeners for not being persuaded. And yes, lecturing and patronizing people often turns them off. Generalrelative (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Yes, few people like the feeling of being lectured at. But Coulter's fans will regard Wikipedia as a hotbed of cultural Marxism, critical race theory, and general leftist moral degeneracy no matter what adjectives we insert or remove. (Which is pretty funny, because our gold standard for news sourcing is The New York Times, a publication whose editorial practices please roughly zero leftists. But I digress.) There's no pleasing the mentality that regards the tamest, purely factional description as a slanderous subversion of real American values. There's such a thing as spending too much time trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable. I think Generalrelative's suggested phrasing below does a good job of being clear and direct without coming across as overly forceful. XOR'easter (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC) Presumably at least some readers come to the article because they want to know about the topic and aren't confirmed fans. Consider a reasonable person who has seen her once or twice on a couple of topics. If it is clear to them that the authors of her Wikipedia article dislike her then they will question the accuracy of the article. Ironically, the article reads like something Ann Coulter would write. TFD (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC) A good rule of thumb in these scenarios is, does it help to explain the prose? Good to look at what we're actually considering here. As of this timestamp, prose reads as follows: “ In Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Coulter characterized the theory of evolution as bogus science, and contrasted her beliefs to what she called the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death". Coulter advocates intelligent design, a pseudoscientific antievolution ideology. ” So, does the word "pseudoscientific" add to the prose here? I think it does, but I can see why others might think it is brow-beating. I find it a bit weirder that the text avoids the obvious reference to creationist here which is the umbrella term that, granted, a lot of ID proponents balk at due to believing in their own sophistication but was identified in the most famous court case on the subject to be just that. Well, that's maybe beside the point. The fact that Coulter advocates for intelligent design means that she positions herself in opposition to mainstream science. That is pretty remarkable for any pundit. How we indicate this is a good question, but I do think it reasonable to say we should try to do more than just assume that the reader will click on the relevant wikilink and that we should shrinkwrap our sentence to something like "Coulter advocates intelligent design. End paragraph." jps (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Other pages use phrasings like "the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design" (here) or "the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design" (here) or "a pseudoscientific creationist argument" (here). The phrasing in the Ann Coulter article is in line with community practice in this regard, though doubtless it could be tweaked. XOR'easter (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC) I prefer "the pseudoscience called intelligent design". Use of adjectives (like "pseudoscientific") give the impression of being inherently POV. It's a noun: pseudoscience. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC) (ec) I agree with you both. The current language needs tweaking. How about: "Coulter advocates for creationism, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, contrasted her beliefs to what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death."? Generalrelative (talk) 00:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Not bad. XOR'easter (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Thanks. I was actually about to go back and change out creationism for intelligent design since the latter is actually what Coulter seems to be arguing for and is more unambiguously associated with pseudoscience. So my suggested text would now be: Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is bogus science. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC) The word "bogus" sounds a little informal. Maybe just "bad science"? I'd be happy enough with your suggested sentences, though. XOR'easter (talk) 01:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Good point. We could even go so far as to say the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is unsupported by or at variance with existing evidence. Generalrelative (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC) I like that a little more. But perhaps "unsupported by or at variance with" is a more elaborate construction than we need. What about just "disproved by"? XOR'easter (talk) 02:43, 17 September 2021 (UTC) That phrasing is much better in terms of using impartial language but wouldn't it be better to say a bit more about what it is vs isn't? To be honest I confused Theistic Evolution with ID. I guess as someone who has spent most of my life avoiding religion it's easy to confuse various religious based beliefs. Still, based on these descriptions I'm not sure how I would see ID as different from Theistic Evolution or simply creationism. I guess creationism is meant to be accepted purely on faith while ID tries to rationalize. Would "a rationalized version of creationism" be just as informative. I would hope any reader who sees "creationism" would understand that is a religious based explanation vs one based on science. Springee (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC) @Springee: I agree, it's a bit tricky to unpack. I wasn't at all clear on the distinction until reading the articles Creationism and Intelligent design in response to this discussion. This board in particular is such a great place to come to be challenged to learn more. Generalrelative (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC) @XOR'easter: That would work. Or perhaps just "incompatible with"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Generalrelative (talk • contribs) 03:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC) "Disproven" and derivatives of the word "proof" are words to avoid, in my book, when talking about science just from the epistemology of the subject. If this were pseudomathematics instead of pseudoscince, then maybe "disproven" is okay, but the formal term for proof confuses people into not understanding the way in which pseudoscience is at odds with science in the proper context. Better to get across the idea of "lacks empirical evidence" or "at variance with known scientific facts" and simple, clear alternatives to that. In terms of the confusion of ID with evolutionary creationism, theistic evolution, and so forth, this is (excuse the pun) by design. The group of people in the mid-nineties who put their heads together to think about what could be done about Edwards v. Aguillard thought that because there is difficulty in solving the demarcation problem as it pertains to anti-evolutionism and people's personal beliefs, they could come up with a vaguely named concept like "intelligent design" which would capture the confusion and predilections of many religious believers with respect to the subject while maintaining some sort of plausible deniability as to the identity of any "designer". The problem, of course, was that the arguments themselves were all just repackaged from the creation science of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s with, perhaps, a few of the more ludicrous proposals quietly abandoned (ID proponents rarely argue that the Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale for the Sun is evidence of a "young Earth", for example). The fact that you confused ID with TE is exactly what this Center for Science and Culture group was hoping would happen, so this explains a bit why being a little clearer about what Coulter is specifically aligning herself with is so important. The task is not easy, so it's good to think carefully about the best wording granting that there actually may not be a "best wording" owing to this political and rhetorical mess created, again, by design. jps (talk) 12:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC) For those arguing that calling pseudoscience what it is disparages or patronizes, the WP:PSCI policy says that it must clearly be described as such. The reason why ID is pseudoscientific, while also creationism and religious apologetics, is that it attempts to pass as science. A history of it is outside the scope of this discussion, but in brief, it's an adaptation of Creation Science with the name of denomiations and deities gradually removed with more pseudoscientific arguments added that attempt to discredit important findings of science including discoveries and conclusions in geology and biology supported by overwhelming evidence. A main goal was to insert it in classrooms in the US as an alternative to standard biology curricula with the excuse that "students need to be informed and make their own decision". It's textbook pseudoscience and described as such by most reliable independent sources that discuss it. A valid policy-based argument in this case could be WP:SYNTH if the sources that talk about Coulter don't mention that it's not science but attempts to pass as such (or is pseudoscientific). Some current sources appear to be close and a minimum of synthesis may be acceptable for facts like that the sky is blue (and that ID is pseudoscientific)... Pseudoscience is not just a label but an accurate and useful description. —PaleoNeonate – 20:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Are there objections to my proposed language? Coulter advocates for intelligent design, the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she contrasted her beliefs with what she described as the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death." Generalrelative (talk) 16:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC) I'd be happy with that. XOR'easter (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC) Generalrelative, that really is an improvement. One of my original concerns was the article simply said ID is pseudoscience but really nothing more. I suspect that is why a number of us felt it was a dismissive label rather than actually telling the reader what we are dealing with. Your revised sentence is both more informative and impartial. It doesn't read as if we are applying a dismissive label but are afraid to explain the details. Instead it say, it hits a critical point, these people think the theory of evolution doesn't fit the evidence. They might be wrong but it's hardly the same thing as claiming the whole thing came from an Arkleseizure. It also provides some context for why she brings this up and why it's relevant to the article by putting the ID before the mention of evolution etc, vs after where it seems like it was mentioned as an after thought. Springee (talk) 03:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC) I've been following the discussion but haven't weighed in. This wording looks good to me as well. –dlthewave ☎ 04:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC) I do have some comments (or objections if you must). 1. I wish that edit suggestions for this one article would go in that article's Talk page, and more general FRINGE matters here, so we don't have two edit discussions in two places at once and double the size of this here thread. 2. I obtained a copy of Coulter's book and read the last three chapters, which are the part about evolution. (I think many things in this book would interest you, given your interests in articles on scientific racism and fascism -- she provides some information and references not currently in Wikipedia). Although she cribs anti-evolution arguments from IDers, and a few of her every-fourth-sentence snarky comments are about evolution comparing unfavorably to intelligent design in some way, it turns out that she is not arguing for ID in the book, or even that evolution must be wrong (though she vituperates it at great length). The first sentence about this in the current article, that she argues against evolution, is a better summary than the above, and having read the thing I would leave out any claim that the book argues for ID. 3. If there is to be any use of "pseudo" it should not be implied that Coulter herself is engaging in pseudoscience, i.e., non-science presented as science. She does not claim to be a scientist, to be publishing a work of science, and nearly all her sources are from popular books and articles, not scientific papers (even ones from intelligent design journals). She does not cite most of these things as works of science, but as case studies in how evolution is presented, used politically and so on. The criticisms of evolution are ammunition in the overall argument of the book (which is not about evolution) and her thesis does not stand or fall on whether Darwinian evolution is totally wrong, totally correct, or anything in between. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Problem: ID is not the pseudoscientific belief that the theory of evolution is incompatible with existing evidence. Creationists of all stripes believe that, not only ID proponents. We don't even know if those people really believe that, we only know that they write that it is so. And I am not sure a belief can be pseudoscientific: it is just the motivation behind pseudoscience and its result. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel for this one article? Our Intelligent design article says it is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God. We can use that, and the reader who wants to know more can look up the details in the ID article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Sesquivalent, do you think your review of the primary source aligns with this source [1]? If so it would suggest that RSs disagree if coulter actually supports/advocates ID. As such we shouldn't claim she believes/advocates for it in the wiki article. That of course is independent of how we describe ID in the article. If sources disagree then I would suggest just removing the single mention of ID since it's a minor part of the whole article even if all sources agreed. Springee (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC) I have to agree with Springee on this. For all that she is a controversial figure, Coulter is not primarily known as a proponent of ID. The entire mention strikes me as UNDUE. I would just omit the entire thing. Blueboar (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Well, she's written 12 books and the text about ID is relevant to one in particular. Now, if all her books should be weighted the same in her bio (not sure that's true, but let's start there), I guess I would say no one book should take up more than ~10% of the text on her literary career. I count prose about Godless: The Church of Liberalism as taking up about 20% of the discussion (of which about 1/3 is devoted to anti-evolution arguments), so, maybe you could argue it's overweighted. (It's not particularly surprising because the book was well-timed to poke the bear of New Atheists who were somewhat ascendent back in 2006 and fairly active at this website trying to fix coverage of ID. Maybe that's the holdover, I'm not sure.) But I don't think excising discussion of her attachment to this ideology and tutelage by DI mucky-mucks entirely is necessarily justified. Perhaps someone can think more carefully about how to summarize the text about the book and see if ID makes the cut that way. jps (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Exact proportionality by word count seems a not-so-illuminating standard, in my view. She's also written other things attacking evolution (I linked a few below that turned up in an easy search), so it wasn't just a tirade confined to one book. I'd say that given the length of the article, a line or two would be due weight, but I wouldn't spend more time on it than that. The suggestion by Generalrelative was on the upper edge of what I think would be worthwhile. XOR'easter (talk) 23:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC) That source looks like a parody of the evolution sections of Coulter's book. It is saying, for example, that she is hypercritical on evolution but gullible toward ID. Which is true but beside the point she is arguing. The book is not in any direct way, an argument for belief in God, the existence of God, creationism, Christianity or ID. It is certainly saying that a Godless society with a secularized pseudo- or anti-Christianity (liberal Satanism as it were, though she doesn't use that idea) is prone to following bad paths, which is an indirect form of classical religious apologetics. But the book is exactly what it pretends to be: an analysis and indictment of American liberalism as secularized atheistic small-c christian theocracy. A Taliban without a God (or more precisely, with a number of secular not-supernatural but equally mysterious functional god-equivalents) Sesquivalent (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC) The LiveScience.com blog post is an obvious joke, saying that Coulter's book is satire because it's too absurd to be taken seriously. Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly. [2][3][4][5]. XOR'easter (talk) 23:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Agreed. This is obvious satire. The author is going along with the premises that Coulter is "an intelligent and well-educated person" and that the right is characterized by "normally rational standards" and reading the book through that lens, concluding that it must be a Sokal-like hoax. It's actually a pretty brilliant piece. Generalrelative (talk) 23:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC) "Her own writings promote creationism unambiguously and unabashedly" is not what a reading of her words shows. She is unambiguously and unabashedly an evolution critic, who uses ID tropes and (as I wrote above) makes favorable comparisons here and there of ID to evolution -- one line from the column you linked. The other link is her praising Gelertner who likewise attacks evolution but says he cannot swallow ID. It does not appear that she has undertaken to argue for ID, creationism, or God as propositions in themselves, other than announcing constantly that she happens to hold certain Christian beliefs. Just arguments against evolution, logrolling toward IDers (Behe, Dembski, Berlinski) and other antievolutionists (Gelernter), and certainly being friendly toward the idea and conclusions. But not actually arguing for them as such. To repeat from the Coulter talk page thread, her relationship to ID is a couple of step removed from being a literal IDer, and is more like "promotes the legitimacy of ID proponents". Sesquivalent (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2021 (UTC) This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. Generalrelative (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2021 (UTC) Since various comments above, including yours, are premised on their being some difference between anti-evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, it makes sense to actually be specific about it. If one form puts words in her mouth and the other accurately describes her position why not use the correct one? Since you take the distinction of ID, promoting ID, and promoting ID's proponents to be inconsequential, why would it matter to you which such phrase is used? We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2021 (UTC) We can easily please everyone by doing it right. Lol, I see. If only I'd realized that the solution was to do it right. Sarcasm aside, the reason we don't fill our encyclopedia with meaningless distinctions is that it gets in the way of parsimony and ultimately serves to obscure what could easily be stated clearly. Generalrelative (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC) Some of us think "not putting words in subject's mouth" is distinctly more important than "use marginally shorter description". The difference between saying that Coulter (e.g.) writes approvingly of intelligent design and the same with ID proponents is one word, 10 letters, 3 syllables, and it also allows the possibility of listing some of those people by name, which could be useful. Most long BLP's, this one included, can be edited to be substantially shorter with no loss of encyclopedia value. Sentences about FRINGE in BLPs are probably the last place one would want to economize on words at the expense of accuracy, since that can effectively imply that someone is a kook, or more of a kook than the record warrants. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC) That's the thing about a distinction without a difference: one does not sacrifice accuracy by leaving it out. And nobody here has suggested putting words in anyone's mouth. So at least we agree on that. Generalrelative (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC) There are at least two big differences involved. One is that we have no direct objective way, by reading her words, to conclude that she argues for an Intelligent Designer, which would seem to be the sine qua non of promoting the "fringe theory of ID" (note the word theory, i.e., the ideas, not the enterprise, movement, people, and institutions). The other is that in the absence of decisive evidence, everyone here who insists on tying her to ID is doing it by SYNTH that combines other facts about her, speculations about her degree of connection to institutional IDers, interpretation of her jokes, and general patterns about other people (creationists). Sources, including Coulter herself, are unanimous that she opposes evolution, but only some associate her arguments with ID at all. I haven't attempted an enumeration to judge whether it's a large or small proportion of sources, but given the other problems with this inference, it is probably best to either call her an evolution opponent only, or someone who attacks evolution using arguments much the same as intelligent design (but no explicit argument for a Designer, creation, or God)". Sesquivalent (talk) 08:12, 25 September 2021 (UTC) Arguing for an "intelligent designer" is not the sine qua non of ID advocacy. It is often the unspoken insinuation and with intentionally prevaricating winks and nods about religions beliefs (or lack thereof). But what makes intelligent design fringe theory an argument is a (re)packaging of neocreationism along the lines of Paley's watchmaker argument (without necessarily reproducing the entire claim). Coulter aligns herself with that rhetoric completely. jps (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2021 (UTC) By the way, speaking of parsimony and readability, the clunkiness of multi-word denunciations about ID being pseudoscientific, rather than just saying "intelligent design" (resp. anti-evolution), was one of the reasons this now incredibly long discussion came up in the first place. Is there any passage in FRINGE that actually requires this kind of language whenever any reference to such topic appears, e.g., "Mr X has been known to rely on astrologers"? This has been asked repeatedly above. Sesquivalent (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC) My understanding was that there is rough consensus on the need to provide some kind of explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of intelligent design. My proposed language and that of others above are attempts to work out the most accurate and parsimonious way to provide that. There is apparently a longstanding consensus to describe intelligent design as pseudoscience (see Talk:Intelligent design/FAQ if you haven't already). Whether it is best to include that term in this instance is up for debate, which is precisely the point of this noticeboard and the conversation we are currently having. But I'm unaware of any definitive, policy-based rationale either for including or excluding it here. That said, I really don't see why we wouldn't. Generalrelative (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC) Before we discuss “the need to provide an explanatory gloss after stating that Coulter is a proponent of Intelligent Design”, we need to discuss whether Coulter actually IS a proponent - and whether there is a need to mention it. After all, If you don’t mention ID in the first place then there is no need to explain what it is. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC) She adopts ID arguments and was tutored by ID proponents whom she defends at length while attacking those scientists who spend their time carefully laying out the empirical evidence for evolution. She unapologetically uses the term "Intelligent Designer" in arguing that there is evidence for such while also adopting the argument that such evidence (specifically, the arguments of famed IDer Behe) is being ignored by scientists: [6] I have a hard time accepting that after all this she really isn't a proponent of ID. jps (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC) There's no other way to slice it: she is a proponent of ID. She said over and over again that ID arguments are good and evolution is bad. There's not even a hair to split here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC) No. ID is (1) anti-evolution arguments + (2) a plausibility argument that, if evolution doesn't work, some Designer must have done it. Behe and IDers use "irreducible complexity" for both purposes, Coulter only endorses it as (together with all the other anti-evolution arguments) a disproof of evolution. The whole point of the "irreducible complex" blahblah is to suggest that something must have been designed, as it's a complex watch- or eye-like mechanism, etc. Other than ambiguous and plausibly-deniable snark and jokes here and there, Coulter sidesteps this, the defining feature of ID, entirely. What she does directly say is how great the ID people are and so forth -- approval of the proponents rather than the theory. So one could say that Coulter "uses arguments from" intelligent design to attack evolution but it is a misrepresentation, or at best SYNTH, to say that she is a proponent of ID-as-a-theory when she fails to endorse or seriously comment on its central argument. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC) Whaaaat? This is an interpretation that requires mental gymnastics of which I am not capable. How can someone support the people, the arguments, and oppose the opponents but not support "the theory"? I think this is bending over backwards for no good reason except for editorial reticence. jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC) No gymnastics needed. Once she is, for whatever reasons and based on whatever arguments, positioned against evolution, IDers are her allies and ID opponents her enemies, whether or not she goes as far as ID does in her public statements. She does not "support ... the arguments" in toto, at least not in print; that is precisely the point. The gymnastics I don't understand are how to define someone who does not argue for an intelligent designer as a purveyor of ID. Again, merely making moves that are favorable to ID in the political battle-space can make one an ally of the IDers, but being a warm friend and ally of something does not necessarily mean espousing that thing. Speculative SYNTH on this is both forbidden in the article and somewhat pointless, as the evidence is ambiguous. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC) I cannot even begin to understand the hairs you are splitting here. She does not "support ... the arguments" in toto, at least not in print I have yet to see any evidence of that. What, do you need some sort of banner waving statement of the sort, "I SUPPORT IN TOTO THE ARGUMENTS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN". I feel a bit like I'm arguing with someone who has a complete inability to concede the point. She has argued in favor of intelligent design. I cannot see how any other conclusion is possible on the basis of our sources including her own writing. jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC) Now we are getting somewhere. What do you need (to classify an antievolutionist as also an IDer) is precisely the question. Assuming it is done on the basis of clear statements and not parsing their jokes, the bare minimum would seem to be an assertion that if Bayesian confidence in evolution goes down, confidence in design or a designer must go up. What else could it possibly mean to argue ID? Since this discussion has gone fractal, and this is no longer a question of Coulter but about how to draw the boundary, it could make sense as a new and more focused thread. Sesquivalent (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC) If you wish for no parsing of "jokes", Coulter is impenetrable. That's the only way she engages. jps (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2021 (UTC) Well, if the jokes are clear then parse away. Hers are strategically ambiguous, as we saw above. I think that the high IQ, high status, cosmopolitan friends of ID like Coulter and Gelertner know that logically proving a God exists is not only impossible but so well known to be impossible as to be declasse in their social circles, thus a morass they make a point of avoiding. Sniping at evolution (or particular presentations of evolution) is safer. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:41, 14 October 2021 (UTC) The point really is that it is the very same kind of strategic ambiguity that is a hallmark of ID arguments. jps (talk) 11:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC) "Strategic" is mindreading, on my part and yours; that it's ID related strategery is additional mindreading, and "hallmark of ID" is (as previously stated) replacing consideration of what the subject herself says and does with pattern matching to conduct by others, to impute the missing data. But those others are already identified by additional unambiguous signals, so it's begging the question to invoke them as the pattern! Categorization by contagion, where clear cases infect the adjacent who (by mindreading and inference) infect the indirectly adjacent is no longer an application of fringe to theories, it is half baked social network analysis even if the conclusions feel right to people on high alert for such signals. Imagine doing this analysis in a BLP to deduce that a lawyer who works gay rights cases, lobbies for the cause in newspaper articles, lives with a longtime same sex roomate (etc), is closeted based on the signals being a "hallmark of homosexuality". Declaring someone a stage 2 kook rather than stage 1 should have the same sort of precautions. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC) It's not mind-reading, it's duck-identifying. On the basis of looking, walking, and quacking checks. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:06, 27 October 2021 (UTC) Giving folksy names to mindreading (however plausible) does not remove it from the category of mindreading. Stage 1 vs 2 kook identification in BLP needs a bright line standard or the nearest equivalent, which is the opposite of a ducktest, the latter being an abbreviation for "it's personally obvious to me". I proposed a clear definition above of what it means to argue ID. Sesquivalent (talk) 11:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC) I don't see how application of the experience of discussing ID proponents is any worse than your WP:SYNTH clear definition above. Usually, we say that someone is an ID proponent if we have secondary source saying exactly that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2021 (UTC) I too read a claim of synthesis and editorializing above, but that's not even the case, since independent sources stress the link. I suggest to drop the stick... —PaleoNeonate – 22:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC) Any talk page analysis of DUE weight (in this case the weight of the subset of sources tying her to ID versus the 100 percent calling her antievolution) involves SYNTHesis, but that is not WP:SYNTH (forbidden synthesis of article contents). My proposal is to apply a clear definition of ID to what the BLP subject observably says or does. Yours is not definable or algorithmic but based on personal "I know it when I see it" feelz, mindreading and pattern matching to third parties. This is fringe by iterated association (and feelz) but to state some specific level of fringe achievement in Wikivoice would seem to require direct evidence. Sesquivalent (talk) 23:25, 10 November 2021 (UTC) Not at all, have you read Godless: The Church of Liberalism and its sources? —PaleoNeonate – 23:56, 10 November 2021 (UTC) Reading the evolution chapters of Godless was what changed my mind about (my) article edit calling her an ID advocate. I have mentioned that a few times here. She is even further from the usual religious context of ID if you also consider the role of those chapters in the overall argument of the book, which does not depend on evolution being correct or not, or there being a God/creator. Her book is a secular political polemic (by an avowed Christian, which makes it easily confused with a religious polemic) whose point is that liberal leftism is warmed over theocratic Christianity denuded of a God, with specific analogies in the rituals, saints, origin stories (evolution) etc. Sesquivalent (talk) 00:20, 11 November 2021 (UTC) I missed this comment from a while back, but I think that it is a tortured claim. If I understand it correctly you are saying that because Coulter is arguing that leftism is a reactionary anti-Christian religion that her argument is a null-hypothesis upon leftism which ostensibly exalts evolutionary thinking to a kind of deity in her vision. But this argument is very much part-and-parcel to ID as well. That is, in fact, the Wedge document's primary conceit. ID is weird. It is intentionally a polemic against the hegemonic academic authority in biological science. If you adopt this line, and Coulter does, that makes you a proponent of ID. At least, that's how I've seen it identified in all the sources I've seen. jps (talk) 04:54, 20 November 2021 (UTC) To complement Jps's comment, Christian fundamentalism was a reactionary response to, among other things, the discovery of facts about the natural world (the creed called to limit education and discoveries, including replacing scientific disciplines by pseudoscientific narrative-based ones and the affirmation of dogmas, a tradition that continued with Creation Science, Intelligent Design and the current political activism to bias or limit education in certain states). WP is not in the business of Russian-style uncertainty or divisive propaganda or to promote apologetics of the style teach the controversy... —PaleoNeonate – 10:32, 20 November 2021 (UTC) FRINGE applies to theories, ideas. Accordingly we judge Coulter's position on the science/pseudoscience spectrum based on what she says rather than how she is situated in the creation/evolution political battle-space. With what she says (and in this case, does not say) about the science carrying more weight than what she says in relation to the battle-space. That her book must have made IDers happy, a battle-space outcome, does not mean her book is a work of ID, i.e., argues for an intelligent designer. "Tutored" makes her sound like a protege, for which there is no evidence, rather than the more mundane relationship of a writer who picked up the phone to get advice from someone with a massive incentive to give it. She "unapologetically uses the term Intelligent Designer" ... as part of a joke. If there are un-ironic uses of Designer, God etc that would be more to the point. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC) Huh? Ann Coulter herself says she was tutored by Behe, Berlinski, and Dembski: [7]. The substance of the joke requires that you accept that "Intelligent Designer" is the thing that must exist. Coulter's style is dripping sarcasm and snark, but the joke is not to pretend that *wink, wink* this idea is not one I endorse. Quite the opposite. If I stretch my WP:AGF chops as far as I can here, I would say you just haven't researched this closely enough. jps (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC) I am well aware that Coulter was in frequent contact with the IDers when writing her book --- I had specifically checked the Acknowledgements section of the book, which is where that quotation comes from, in order to confirm the presumption that this was the case. I did not remember that she used the word "tutored" for this, which explains your phrasing, but I also don't see how that contradicts or responds to my point. In saying she was tutored, Coulter did not apparently imply that she was a protege or puppet of the IDers, or anything beyond my description of how a professor would react when a famous author consults them about having their work appear in an upcoming bestseller (hint: it would involve tutoring to whatever extent needed). People are describing her as a stalking horse for them, based on all kinds of assumptions about her religious position, the meaning of her ambiguous jokes and the general sociology of the anti-evolution space. My understanding of FRINGE is that we give primacy to what people actually say and do without too much reading of other stuff into it, even if the Bayesian likelihood seems high, especially in a BLP. Her actions are simply "used ID's arguments to argue against evolution (but not for an intelligent designer)". The latter part seems to in and of itself disqualify her from being called an IDer even if, e.g., she would be totally happy to see ID replace evolution in schools. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC) By the way, if we are parsing her word choices, notice that she describes the tutoring as being about evolution, not intelligent design. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:53, 23 September 2021 (UTC) Why do you think she doesn't argue for an intelligent designer? Is there some sort of quote that indicates that? jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC) A few nights ago I searched for sources and various about the Godless book mention Dembski and Irreducible Complexity arguments, which is part of ID, at least... The DI website also has a rant about "Coulterian Contempt". —PaleoNeonate – 04:47, 29 September 2021 (UTC) The lack of clear statements saying that a designer must exist (given the arguments against evolution) or that if you don't believe evolution could have done it, design is the only alternative. The sources people are citing don't contain that and are a mixed bag as to whether they claim she is ID or only (what they all assert) antievolution. In the absence of consensus in the source, to classify her as an IDer we would need to find things she does say, not infer it from pattern matching a resemblance to some things that other people who are undoubtably creationist also say in this arena. Who her friends and enemies are on the political battlefield does not substitute for what she herself says and does (or doesn't). Sesquivalent (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2021 (UTC) How is this kind of circumlocution different than any other intelligent design proponent? They all quibble whenever asked directly about the identity of an intelligent designer or whether one exists at all. That's the entire point. We have plenty of sources which identify her as adopting ID as an ideology. That's more than enough for our purposes. jps (talk) 12:28, 9 October 2021 (UTC) @Sesquivalent: I note a comment you made on the talkpge: Whether she was making the stronger assertion, that these are winning arguments against evolution or a proof that an intelligent creator must exist --- or something weaker like "evolution is far from proven scientifically but is nonetheless used as a religious dogma by the Left" --- isn't clear without looking at the book again more closely. which to me indicates that you think it is possible to adhere to a position that "evolution is far from proven scientifically" independent of adherence to/advocacy of creationism in these contexts. This was an argument that Ben Stein made on his tour junket for the "documentary" he produced as was all the rage when ID was having its moment in the sun right before it all came crashing down in the Dover trial. I just want to clarify that this is actually your contention. Because, if so, I think you definitely need to do some research about this subject more broadly. Briefly, there are absolutely no critiques of evolutionary synthesis in this fashion which are not ideologically creationist and pseudoscientific. jps (talk) 14:01, 21 September 2021 (UTC) With a good starting point evidence of common descent and its sources, —PaleoNeonate – 14:41, 21 September 2021 (UTC) If Stein, Gelertner and Coulter all use ID arguments to dispute evolution but decline to use it to argue ID (or a Creator, God, etc) itself, that would suggest that this position is not an impossibility; that there exists a slightly different, more modest and less assailable species of argument than ID, that recurs in this arena. If you mean that there are no known atheists who make this ID-adjacent argument, that may well be true, but I could certainly imagine that the wide circulation of these polemics has convinced some people who have no particular interest in religion and a resistance to supernatural explanations, that there are gaps in the standard evolutionary account, which could presumably be filled by some means other than God (new discoveries or whatever). In fact, there are gaps in the usual account, i.e., the narrative typically told in schools, and the God-less way to fill them in is to give a better account of the same material. The evidence of common descent page doesn't quite do this --- even the lede has cringe-worthy material touting the supposed predictive triumphs of evolution, that is susceptible to the (largely correct) argument, which Coulter gives at length, that "prediction" has been redefined so that the house always wins. This gap in explanation can be overcome, the problem is expository not scientific, but it does not serve the Cause of Science to paper over that by tossing around the word pseudoscience like candy and dismissing the critics as deluded fundie idiots. To avoid some likely misunderstandings about this: all I'm saying here about the science is that this is one of many cases of "theory and evidence correct, exposition flawed". IDers are kept in business by this discrepancy, as they can (basically correctly) attack flaws in the exposition and then (incorrectly) claim to have demolished the theory. It doesn't help that the expositions retain misleading phrases like "the theory of" evolution that enable this confusion. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC) Nothing much wrong with "exposition" either. "Theory of evolution" is fine, and Stephen Jay Gould explained why in his essay Evolution as fact and theory. Science is difficult, and creationists of all stripes will always find ways to misunderstand it no matter how it presented. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2021 (UTC) This is getting off topic, but the typical exposition is wrong to use "prediction" to mean "unfalsifiable, house-always-wins prediction" (while using vocabulary like "testable" implying the ordinary falsifiable sort of prediction), and evolution is not a theory. It is a constraint on the allowed theories, just as Lorentz invariance and locality are constraints on what we consider as usable theories in fundamental physics. The "theory" in evolution is whatever the current account is of how the tree of life is connected and came to be, and the principle of evolution plays a big role in that but isn't the "theory" that is the thing supportable or refutable by evidence. We simply choose, based on thought experiments and observation, to make it basic to the narrative; it is not the theory itself. So the creationists have it backwards when they insist evolution is "just a theory". Sesquivalent (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC) The "typical exposition" does not do that. Creationists just claim that it does. Maybe you should have a look at the talk.origins archive and its list of hundreds of creationist arguments with refutations. Been there, done that for about thirty years now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC) The claim that lack of evidence is what keeps creationist apologetics in business is misleading (vs motivated reasoning, ignorance and confusion because of misleading literature, etc). Predictive power is also indeed important for scientific theories, in the case of evolution an example is evaluating where more transitional fossils would be found despite their rarity, etc. Eventually DNA was discovered and this has confirmed and corrected what was already known, at the same time opening more related fields of knowledge and investigation (then there is consilience, the evidence is supported by a number of scientific disciplines). While this noticeboard is more open to discussion than article talk pages, I think that all this argumentation is excessive... I also see arguments that we should present the material as directly interpreted by the author, when by policy we should instead present the evaluation and conclusions of independent sources. —PaleoNeonate – 21:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC) To say I'm gobsmacked here would be an understatement. Others have done justice to this, but apologias for creationism like this are things I haven't seen on Wikipedia for nearly a decade. Suffice to say, we don't suffer this kind of circumlocutions of rhetoric kindly here. This is all reminiscent of old timey Evolution is just a theory-type arguments. Here endeth the lesson. jps (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC) I've humored your postings above (stretching the AGF chops, as you put it) and this is not the place to debate the science, but apologias for creationism got my attention. I suggest you run my statement about Lorentz invariance by a theoretical physicist or two, and then figure out that it's exactly the same with evolution, i.e., neither one is (in effect) "the theory" within the scientific framework where it appears, even if textbooks happen to lazily use that term. That does not imply any denial of relativity or evolution. If your position is that not only the science of evolution is correct (we agree on that) but that the exposition is incontestible and logically gapless, you must not have seen a textbook in the past few decades. Certainly a number of Wikipedia pages on this have the problems I described. If you have further complaints please post them at a more relevant talk page. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC) Your problem is that you sound like a creationist sometimes, even if you aren't one. For example, dismissing the critics as deluded fundie idiots is not a real thing. There are no such "critics". The ones who are dismissed in that way are either really deluded fundie idiots or they just repeat what they heard somewhere without checking it. A real critic, someone who knows what he is talking about, someone who points at flawed reasoning, like Stephen Jay Gould has always done, will be taken seriously. (Most of the time. Scientists are humans.) Yes, displaying the horse ancestors in a straight line and omitting the side branches gives a false picture, for instance. But when something like that happens, the thing to do is replacing the picture by a better one, not making a lot of noise pointing out scientists are DOING IT RONG. The creationist clowns have taken that horse picture thing, rolled it around in brain rot and half-truths until the fact that it is a minor correction gets lost, and presented it as an example of how evolutionists are faking it all. Those who have fought that off for decades, which included most of the people you are talking to in this section, are familiar with lots of red flags. "Lack of transitional fossils" is one of them, "redefining prediction" is another, "just a theory" is a third. Each of them is just another hoof in the Gish gallop. Each of them is a false rumor spread by creationists, and echoing them is indeed an "apologia for creationism". Do Not Believe Anything Creationists Write. It Is Tainted. It Is Based On Out-Of-Context Quotes, Bad Logic And Cherry Picking. Always. If May Sound Plausible To You, But That Is Because It Was Manufactured To Sound Plausible To People Who Do Not Check The Original Source. Do not repeat creationist propaganda here. We already know it. And the refutations to it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:06, 29 September 2021 (UTC) I have to agree with Hob here. Whether you intend to or not, your rhetoric is plainly falling in the universe of a Teach the controversy style of argument. I understand that the toxic nature of the subject causes problems for discourse at the level of philosophy, for example, but we aren't here to fix that. What you have essentially done here is moved to accommodate creationism in a way that has been carefully and exhaustively identified as a problematic conceit in sources published by groups such as NCSE. And whether you intended it or not, your suggestion that I should "run my statement about Lorentz invariance by a theoretical physicist or two" is borderline insulting. jps (talk) 13:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC) I also see the standard "there are unresolved details so maybe alternative explanations are right" kind of narrative above, however this is ridiculous considering how other models fail to provide better explanations or to correspond to what was discovered about the natural world. As I previously noted, if the goal is to get lost in extreme relativism with metaphysical philosophical arguments, it's not productive to improve the encyclopedia, since its contents must take in consideration the descriptions of the real world as reported by reputable sources (admitedly a type of appeal to authority, but there's no other method to get somewhere efficiently in a collaborative encyclopedia)... —PaleoNeonate – 22:38, 29 September 2021 (UTC) Maybe a last word from me: if the argument is exclusion of the fact from the BLP, I think it's DUE, considering that a book from Coulter that was apparently a best-seller was mostly on this topic. As for belief vs promotion, it's always difficult to know what someone really believes, but I've seen at least one source where she was asked if she really believed it, and claimed to. It may not be that relevant. —PaleoNeonate – 23:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC) References

"Mainstream Science on Intelligence"

In response to points raised by Sesquivalent, I've tried to improve the lead of the article "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which describes a 1994 letter published in the Wall Street Journal defending the controversial book The Bell Curve. More eyes on this would perhaps be helpful. Generalrelative (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Why not post a link to the actual points raised?

The more eyes the better, but I am curious what the relevance of FTN is here. On the one hand that page is already extensively monitored by race and intelligence guardsmen familiar with the whole story and context of the Gottfredson letter and associated sources. On the other, the letter itself has never had the odor of fringe (in 2009 Steven Pinker called it literally "the mainstream" in the New York Times) and it seems that all your edits are trying to tar it as fringe-by-iterated-association with a liberal dose of SYNTH. That's far beyond any Wikipedia RfC's, however those may be interpreted. Sesquivalent (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

This is an article about a controversial letter published in support of a well known WP:PROFRINGE book, so its relevance to this noticeboard should be clear. You are of course free to cite Pinker in the "Response and criticism" section, and to point out any instances of WP:SYNTH that you've found. But characterizing what you believe my edits are trying to do will get you nowhere. Just imagine if the same standard were applied to you. Generalrelative (talk) 19:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, we can all discuss particular edits over at the article Talk page, regardless of whether or not this is FTN related. However, "defending ... The Bell Curve" and "in support of PROFRINGE" (and thus a link to FTN) are assumptions, or SYNTH. It's a not-uncommon claim, but the letter and Gottfredson's article on this say different, and (even excluding all 20 Pioneer Fund affiliates) the lion's share of respondents who expressed an opinion on the content of the letter agreed with it, which seems hard to arrange for a fringe position. There is at least as much evidence that the motivation for the author and most of those who agreed with her had to do not with embracing Murray and Herrnstein but frantically separating psychometrics and its funding from the scourge of public association with that one famous sentence in the Bell Curve. Much like the population geneticists after Nicholas Wade's book. (Pinker reference is https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/review/Letters-t-LETSGOTOTHET_LETTERS.html ) Sesquivalent (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

"defending ... The Bell Curve" and "in support of PROFRINGE" (and thus a link to FTN) are assumptions, or SYNTH. Goodness no. I've even supplied a couple of sources to support the existing language in the article's first paragraph, which state explicitly that the letter in question was a defense of The Bell Curve. One is a scientific journal: [8]. And please note that SYNTH is something we're not permitted to do in article text. Of course we're meant to use our capacity for putting 2 and 2 together when discussing what belongs in articles and how to apply guidelines like WP:FRINGE. I hope that clears things up.

And thanks by the way for the link to the exchange between Gladwell and Pinker. I'm not a huge Gladwell fan but it was fun to see him get the better of a Harvard prof, whom he clearly caught out relying on garbage sources. It should be abundantly clear, however, that that passing and rhetorical mention doesn't count for much as far as sourcing goes. Especially when compared with the litany of criticism discussed in the "Response and criticism" section of the article. Generalrelative (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, SYNTH is fine on talk pages -- I've posted the same remark myself several times recently. I was using the Wikipedia term of art in a less formal sense to mean that the idea Gottfredson and supporters (again, excluding the 20 Pioneers) were defending the Bell Curve, rather than trying to avoid fallout from it, is something for which there is as much negative as positive evidence, and AFAIK no direct evidence to contradict Gottfredson's account, so is being constructed from speculation at various points. I cannot access the JSTOR link at the moment but (as I said) the existence of sources that merely call the letter a defense of the Bell Curve is not in question. The issue is whether that is likely to actually have been the reason. [Update: no, that journal article does not say the letter is a defense of the Bell Curve. Not literally, not in substance, no indication whether the author thinks so. Merely "supportive" if all commentaries are dichotomized into supportive or critical.]

The Pinker link, which comes from his bio page here, is provided for local comic relief. I haven't thought about it in connection with the article proper. Their exchange immortalized the unfortunate term "Igon Value" in online STEM and quant circles. Sesquivalent (talk) 23:28, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

no, that journal article does not say the letter is a defense of the Bell Curve. What?? Just like in the above discussion of Ann Coulter, you are advancing a distinction without a difference. The McInerney article is very clear about what is meant by "commentaries that are supportive". No one who has read the article could possibly interpret it otherwise. Saying no indication whether the author thinks so. Merely "supportive" if all commentaries are dichotomized into supportive or critical is utterly baffling since the author explicitly discusses Gottfredson's letter as a defense of both the The Bell Curve's evidentiary basis (p.85) and its pretension to inform public policy (p.91), and in the latter discussion holds it up as a paradigmatic example. But in any case, it's immaterial whether you agree on this since you've conceded that there are numerous other sources we can use which say the same thing. So let's both move on to other things now. You can go on doubting whether Gottfredson and her co-signers meant to defend The Bell Curve, and we will continue to abide by what reliable secondary sources say. Generalrelative (talk) 00:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Telling people what they can go do, and speaking in the majestic plural --- are those recommendations from MOS or something? I must have forgotten.

Searching the paper for all appearances of "Gottfredson", "Mainstream" and "1994b" gives an exhaustive idea of what the McInerney article says about this, which does not much resemble what you are saying. I am sure Murray was happy to read the Wall Street Journal the day the letter appeared but that is neither here nor there. (Come to think of it, even that might not be true. The letter could be seen as hanging him out to dry on the critical point of genetic differences, by showing that even right-wing psychologists were not willing to go as far as he and Herrnstein did.) You seem to have deduced some of this yourself though a few hours too late to modulate your tone above. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence&type=revision&diff=1047303881&oldid=1047302591 ).

In any case, you sent out the bat signal here and the effect over there was an edit ever so slightly in the direction I suggested on the talk page re Campbell. All good! Sesquivalent (talk) 02:28, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Just imagine if the same standard were applied to you. Using Steven Pinker as a touchstone is prima facie evidence of an ideological WP:POVPUSH in my opinion. jps (talk) 22:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Pinker is the quintessential example of an academic who is very careful to maintain his cultural and intellectual standing, and thus the last person to say something in the New York Times that would mark him as an outlier or give his enemies ammunition. So if he quotes from the Gottfredson letter that's a pretty good sign he sees no risk in treating it as mainstream or at least as a serious document. How does my thinking this and citing Pinker establish an ideology?

As to the standard, a well known guy around these parts cited NOFUCKINGNAZIS and threatened to have his admin friends eject me from the site (spoiler: that's not how the movie ended), GeneralRelative has at least twice vaguely hinted that I should be banned (spoiler: nobody took up the cause), and a certain Talk page buddy of his and yours has poured lots of similar passive-aggressive speculation and insinuations in my direction. So I don't have to imagine what it would be like, it's been a parade of vitriol from the day I posted on a talk page about their pet issues. Sesquivalent (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

If you think that because Pinker is IDW that's why he should be trusted, I think we're done here. Crow all you want. Accounts that adopt the self-satisfied and cynical right-wing rhetorical arguments of which you are fond do not last. jps (talk) 01:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

IDW?? Trusting Pinker??? Who mentioned that? I only think what I stated, that because Pinker is embedded in some very sweet high status gigs that he likes to keep, and because I have some other reasons to be confident in my suspicion that he works hard to stay respectable, him citing something isn't an indicator it's correct, but it is a great indicator that it's not fringe. All the more so when he riffs on it calling itself "the mainstream". Shoot First, Read Later doesn't work well online --- at least those IDW dorks preach epistemic humility. Sesquivalent (talk) 01:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

That's some pretty strong contortionist logic there. It is, at least, consistent with the alternative fact that Pinker or other "IDW dorks" are humble. jps (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Counterpoint: “Rationality is uncool,” he laments. It isn’t seen as “dope, phat, chill, fly, sick or da bomb.” As evidence for its diminished status, he quotes celebrations of nonsense by the Talking Heads and Zorba the Greek. (Pinker is also vexed by the line “Let’s go crazy,” which he says was “adjured” by “the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”) [9]

In any case, the relevance of FTN is pretty obvious; editors familiar with racist pseudoscience and its history on Wikipedia hang out here, so this is a better place than most to solicit informed opinions. XOR'easter (talk) 02:47, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how much you follow the Racist Pseudoscience topics here, but the editors concerned with fighting that battle are already patrolling and in some cases strictly OWNing a large group of articles including the one in question. If you think of those articles as topically organized in concentric circles (like Dante's Hell) centered on race and intelligence, the difficulty of making an edit without approval from this group is inversely proportional to distance from the center. The same editors summon each other on their user talk pages and posting here looked (to me) like the same sort of bat signal. The effect of posting at FTN in such cases seems to be a few fresh eyes from the FTN crowd that might edit independently of the collective, but also a signal to the latter that enforcement is desired. Both happened here as far as I can tell. Either way I don't think the question was an empty one considering all this. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I've followed those topics for a good long while, and I don't think your assessment is accurate. Also, WP:AGF. XOR'easter (talk) 03:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I hope you're right, but: when I detailed the OWNership situation of R&I on its talk page in a discussion with the alleged OWNer and her supporters, nobody disputed it, including the 850 talk page watchers, and the only meek response was 3 of her talk page friends saying that (be the OWNership as it may) they like the resulting edits. One of those friends posted this thread and shortly afterward the alleged R&I OWNer went over to argue at the very article talk page discussion it points to. So I'm not exactly seeing the error of a model in which a clique of like-minded editors control edits on a large number of interrelated pages. And R&I isn't even the page where ownership is most apparent.

I do AGF and the comment on the effect of an FTN posting does not require any assumption about the motive for the post. Sesquivalent (talk) 05:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Pinker has his share of interesting work and controversial claims. Evolutionary psychology is not an easy field and some hypotheses are useful, others very tentative or contested. In any case, he's notable and because of that, secondary sources will often report about his ideas or positions. When so, it may be DUE on a case by case basis. Then on fringe topics there's WP:PARITY, where a lower standard is acceptable when it's to cite someone who reminds of the scientific consensus, or that a particular idea is either nonsense or has not gained traction... Then there's CONSENSUS. But how is it possible to really understand what the exact request is, when instead of concise suggestions what we read are confused rants? Why not attempt WP:BOLD and WP:BRD? —PaleoNeonate – 06:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:BRD is broken on the patrolled pages. "R" is almost guaranteed for edits toward neutrality, so changes have to start from "D" at the talk page. Talk page discussions of such edits or proposed edits lead to a lot of... talk... but no change to the article, for the same reason BOLD editing does not work. The upshot is that not only does the process have to start from a talk page but the "D"iscussion needs to be structured as some sort of legal brief.

The thread at Talk:Mainstream Science on Intelligence that led to this FTN notice is one example, another is my recent post at Talk:Noah Carl. They don't look like "confused rants" to me, and caused a lot of edits on the articles, generally in the direction if not the extent that I suggested. Does that mean the system is working? Not exactly: for every slanted source or statement removed, several new ones are added on the occasion. The overall trend is therefore to skew the articles further, with the BRD and Talk pages serving as "fight harder" instructions to the POVFIGHTERS. Sesquivalent (talk) 13:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

"R" is almost guaranteed for edits toward neutrality This assumes that the "B" was "toward neutrality", which begs the question. Whether the changes were neutral is exactly what is to be discussed during the "D" part. It seems you want to skip the "R" and "D" parts because you already know which "D" result you would like. That is exactly the reason why we have BRD. It is not "broken". --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

"Neutrality" was correct. Like its sketchy cousin "consensus", NPOV is a relatively objective assessment of other people's expressed opinions and can be assessed independent of one's own views. Nor do the edit histories follow a Neutrality or a Consensus Maintenance pattern. Under either of those (in, e.g., the very commonly occurring case of a subject where views tend to fall along a left/right spectrum) there would be many successful edits that make small movements in both directions, that on the whole tend to cancel each other out POVwise, or maybe a slow drift over a period of years (Wikipedia swims slowly, but it only swims left), with the (N)POV enforced by a broad set of contributors. Under an OWNership and takeover model, one sees instead: a relatively fast phase transition in the article's POV within weeks when the group or individual takes over; motion almost exclusively in one direction, with exceptions of the "one step back, 3 steps forward" variety; a high proportion of reversions on edits in the other direction, always by the same watcher or two or three.

And while neutrality is in fact the right concept, if you replace "edits toward neutrality" by "edits directionally against the POV of the OWNers" then it is not subject to your objection and amounts to the same thing as a breakdown of WP:BRD. Maybe in some lucky cases the group controlling the page has a near neutral POV but that's not something to rely on and not what can be observed. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:24, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:NPOV includes WP:GEVAL warning against there would be many successful edits that make small movements in both directions, that on the whole tend to cancel each other out POVwise [...] —PaleoNeonate – 19:31, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

GEVAL would be one of the mechanisms enforcing, not preventing, the maintenance pattern (of an NPOV or CONSENSUS equilibrium) that I described. But we don't see the pattern, we see forced drift. If you look at the recent ANI on the OP of this thread, and material linked and related to that, people are proudly and openly saying that they patrol not only the political content of Wikipedia pages but based on their perception of other users' politics, essentially assigning themselves the role of an immune system to surround and neutralize any rightward drift. No such welcome wagon in the other direction, which happens several multiples more often. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:21, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

As I said, you want to skip the "R" and "D" parts because you already know which "D" result you would like. You have already determined that the "B" changes were "toward neutrality", because you assessed it in a relatively objective way, and therefore the "R" and "D" parts are unnecessary. In other word, other editors should not revert or contradict you because you know what you are doing, because you are the arbiter of neutrality. But they do revert you, and they do contradict you, and they do not accept that you are arbiter, therefore the system is broken.

At least that is how you sound. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

This is not about my edits being reverted. I don't edit the patrolled/broken articles much and when I do it's usually either bulletproof or starts on the Talk page (which currently requires the absurd legal briefs), so not much reversion. If you dispute that people are competent to assess Neutrality or Consensus independently of their own position I can only wonder what you make of RfC closures, and as I said you can just look at the pattern of left/right motion or use "POV of the OWNers" instead of neutrality/consensus and get the same result without any such competence assumption. During the same time as this FTN thread similar concerns have been raised at the Village Pump and ARCA, of far too strong POVFIGHTER tendencies related to fringe, politics, racism etc which is often where and why the BRD tends to get broken. This isn't the place for behavioral evidence on particular tagteams but there's also that if needed. Dismissing it out of hand as a person or two not liking the current ideological stance of various pages is not plausible, there's a large gap between BRD as described and how these pages work. Sesquivalent (talk) 23:54, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I do not "dispute that people are competent to assess Neutrality", I am saying that "I am competent to assess Neutrality, therefore I am right and you are wrong, and if a guideline leads to me losing a discussion, then the guideline is broken" is begging the question. Your reasoning is devoid of meaning. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:13, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, i think that is the wrong part of WP:PARITY you are looking at, and should focus on the first paragraph. The last thing the topic area needs is a lower standard of sourcing. Consider this discussion. Trying to use a minor paper from Warne spirals into this. What a waste of time. A minor paper criticizing something that is widely used within introductory textbooks? WP:PARITY certainly applies, but you are highlighting the wrong side i think. Since that fringe RfC there have been many arguments to redefine "reliable" based on POV. Redefining in the way WP:MEDRS does, might provide a more streamlined and longer lasting improvement. fiveby(zero) 15:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

You're right, my comment was more intended as a summary and not to suggest that this was a particular case, thanks for noticing. —PaleoNeonate – 01:15, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Wang Sichao

Wang Sichao (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Whaddya think about that last section?

jps (talk) 17:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it was sourced by the CCP's media outlet and poorly written. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure how to handle this. Is someone else up for the task? jps (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

OK, so...The People's Daily is a suspect source for pretty much anything, the subject's UFO claims have not received any attention in actual, reliable, secondary sources, and I'm far from certain the subject is sufficiently notable to merit their own article. At a minimum, WP:UNDUE applies, so I will try to edit the section accordingly. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 23:25, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Notability is also a concern of mine that I expressed at its talk page. —PaleoNeonate – 23:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

AfD started here. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The article is now uncritically declaring that most of the world agrees 5% of UFOs are not "human-originated" (But since there are four types of UFO ids: natural phenomena, human technology, delusions, and hoaxes... I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean). jps (talk) 23:31, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

@Jps: Yup, that source is WP:PROFRINGE beyond a doubt. Removing statement. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:18, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Somatology

• Somatology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

In case someone would like to work on this obscure article. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 23:44, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Some other related:

• Deviance (sociology) § Biological theories of deviance
• William Herbert Sheldon
• Somatotype and constitutional psychology

—PaleoNeonate – 07:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

So it's an archaic term that would now be called Physical Anthropology? Could it just redirect to Biological Anthropology? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pyrrho the Skeptic:  Done. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:57, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Pumapunku, again

Hello all, eyes would be again appreciated on this article, especially with regard to the 'liquid stone' section; anyone with particular knowledge of material sciences or geology would be especially welcome. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Fucks sake, this shit again? Where have these claims got any critical secondary coverage? WP:GEVAL is dead. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I feel very much the same way, but have perhaps too acute a sense of my own limitations. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:45, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Left a statement at Talk:Pumapunku#How old is this ?.--JonskiC (talk) 23:15, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Same old same old

• Forrest Mims (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

[10] ID not pseudoscience! News at eleven! --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

The article seems rather promotional, and similar to his biographies at the two ID institute pages (currently references 6 and 7), as though written by one publicist.

The statement in the lede that he is "an advocate for intelligent design" is not specifically supported. What's known is that he is/was listed as a fellow of the ID houses, which is obviously closely related but not quite the same thing. There is also no indication of this connection having been mentioned anywhere outside Wikipedia or the institutes themselves. Despite this, Mims is placed in 4 categories on ID and creationism, against WP:DEFINE and WP:COPDEF. Sesquivalent (talk) 19:00, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

It's possible that it's slightly promotional. Definitely notable for his popular electronics introduction/experiment booklets (I'm a fan, yet interestingly when I reread some a few years back I noticed a mix of good basic practical science and opinions questioning more complex science)... As for "pseudoscientific", same old indeed... I'd argue that "Intelligent Design creationism" would also be acceptable (with the link). —PaleoNeonate – 22:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I replaced some of the unsourced material on being an "advocate" of ID with the known fact of being a member of the creationist institutes. It's not clear why these affiliations belong at all in the article, since no secondary source appears to discuss this aspect of Mims' life. Wikipedia is not a kook documentation database and it is not incumbent on us (if anything, the opposite) to highlight connections to ID etc where others do not. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:42, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Adding in case anyone wants to work on this: I left a note at that article's talk page before about the extensive CV-like material citing primary sources. —PaleoNeonate – 21:33, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Fringe, Anti-fringe, and Turning Wikipedia's Values Upside-down

Most here have probably seen DGG's ARCA request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Amendment request: Fringe science which is still open but you may not have seen this. Doug Weller talk 11:50, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

In the arbitration case, we have three separate questions:

1. Is a certain viewpoint actually being taken seriously by experts, by those who know what they are talking about?
2. Is that viewpoint being propagated by popular media and portrayed as actually being taken seriously by experts?
3. Did Wikipedia users, by consuming those popular media, arrive at the belief that the viewpoint is actually being taken seriously by experts?

I get the impression that regarding the race-intelligence question, as well as regarding COVID outsider ideas, the answers are no, yes, yes. The #3 yes" leads to sentences like this:

The problem is adequately discussed in the case statements, and epitomized by Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, but I can summarize them as Consensus has changed and what was originally a far fringe theory from sources associated with conspiracy theories, became one seriously considered by both the medical establishment, and the most reliable possible news sources (WSJ, NYT--in a series of major articles).

Lacking direct access to the scientific consensus, users apply instead the trickled-down out-of-context information framed by those media they happen to read. It's the availability bias in action. And they think this is somehow better than the real, original sources, because, heck, the result agrees with their own impression. This is a concrete attempt at making Wikipedia more fringe-friendly.

The village pump thread looks much more vague, like "there are anti-fringe users, I won't say who exactly, who do bad things, I won't say what exactly. I disagree with them. Who is with me?" The bad things consist of one hypothetical example which, if addressed by pointing at policies, would be resolved quickly in a satisfying manner - the hypothetical anti-fringe users would lose. It sounds as if that solution would not work in the actual cases that inspired the thread (because they are different; the hypothetical example is an exaggerated one), which is why the actual cases are kept under the hat. Since those bad things the anti-fringe users are doing are not against policy, a mob of "pro-fringe" and "meh-everything but strongly anti-anti-anything" users is gathered first. But they will not be able to do anything because all they have is hot air. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

This reminds me of another different discussion currently going on, but going nowhere. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 13:12, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

• It's usual in this cases that an editor with a certain axe to grind dresses it up as some kind of righteous general policy stand. If there are editors mis-applying fringe, this is the noticeboard for discussing the content in question (it happens quite a lot). Persistent offenders get sanctioned. There's no big mystery to it. Alexbrn (talk) 14:02, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, do you have an example of someone mis-applying fringe, coming here, and being told so? I would interested in seeing that. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:11, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes.[11] Alexbrn (talk) 17:21, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about anti-fringey editors misapplying fringe. This seems more like the usual pro-fringey ones misapplying it. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:32, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Not sure what you imagine to be "anti-fringey editors" or "the usual pro-fringey ones"; WP:FRINGE is a guideline for everybody. Sometimes, though, editors think something WP:FRINGE when it ain't (or vice verse). Even I've done that. Occasionally this noticeboard gets misused by editors who think they can easily bring down the Wrath of Fringe on something they don't like just by bringing it here. It doesn't work like that. Alexbrn (talk) 17:48, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

For everybody, exactly, in theory there are no "anti-fringe editors", we instead have a non-pro-fringe encyclopedia, —PaleoNeonate – 20:58, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pyrrho the Skeptic: Another example: A few months ago I brought concerns about the article Psychedelic therapy here to FTN ([12]). In a brief discussion other editors convinced me that it wasn't a fringe issue, and I shouldn't have brought it here. So the discussion moved to a more appropriate venue. NightHeron (talk) 18:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I never understood that "shouldn't have brought it here" reasoning. Since it made you wonder if those articles are WP:PROFRINGE, yes, you were right in bringing it here and learning that it was not fringe. If someone wonders if something is fringe, this is the place to find out. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

You're right, it happened to me as well, in an area I lacked experience with, that used outdated but historically-relevant terminology I also wasn't familiar with. —PaleoNeonate – 06:00, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 81#Transubstantiation - does sacramental bread transform into the body of Christ? is another example I remember of. —PaleoNeonate – 20:54, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Which, incidentally, was initiated by the OP of the Village Pump thread. If I didn't know better I might suspect some kind of WP:POINTy game playing. Alexbrn (talk) 09:35, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, —PaleoNeonate – 16:37, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

How about Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_77#Putin's Palace or Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_78#Are all Jews to be called "Middle Eastern" ? or Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_79#Sex Redefined (note added in post: I see Alexbrn mentioned this last one above already)? jps (talk) 13:50, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Health Freedom Idaho

• Health Freedom Idaho (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'm concerned about this new page which seems to give free advertising to an Idaho anti-vax group under the guise of alternative medicine. The page is only mildly promotional in tone but seems to have been written by connected individuals. It's possible there's sufficient local coverage to indicate meeting GNG, but I'm concerned Wikipedia's voice is being used to legitimize an organization dedicated to misinformation about vaccinations of all types. BusterD (talk) 06:02, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

BusterD, the earliest history of the article as written by its creator states in Wikipedia's voice that at least one of their claims is "false", so I am unsure where the free advertising claim comes from. Someone writing advertising for Coca-Cola or Facebook would be fired immediately if they called those company's assertions "false" in an advertisement. Would "connected individuals" call the group's claims false? Please explain how the article legitimizes this group. I am just not seeing that. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:59, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Cullen328—presumably BusterD is referring to the 03:54, 30 October 2021 (UTC) version of the article, edited by HFITruthBeTold. Kleinpecan (talk) 13:13, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes... there was a concerted attempt by a SPA to make the article promotional. I took care of that and had a temp lock added to the page. RobP (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I noticed the article when watching RfPP and after edits by User:HFITruthBeTold I saw the page protected by an admin. I failed to investigate the page history more thoroughly before I posted here. The page appears to be a good faith effort to accurately portray the group and User:Cullen328 is quite correct the earliest versions are relatively neutral; the current version also seems fine. Sorry for not providing better documentation when I OPed, and thanks to all those who have responded here. BusterD (talk) 00:40, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Havana syndrome

• Havana syndrome (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Just stumbled across this after noticing an RfC. Definitely in the WP:FRINGE space and based largely on non-WP:MEDRS sources for biomedical claims. Could uses eyes from fringe-savvy editors. (Also note drama at ANI) Alexbrn (talk) 06:18, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

The ANI drama you started. Geogene (talk) 06:21, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

It is the correct venue for what's been raised. See WP:ANI#Havana syndrome and guerilla skeptics. Alexbrn (talk) 06:27, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

And I thought you were just complaining about the ultimatum you left on my talk page being ignored. Geogene (talk) 06:29, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Related. A newbie tagging Susan Gerbic. Sheesh. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 08:18, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm quite enjoying the conversations. It's not my first rodeo. Sgerbic (talk) 18:16, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Tricky, clearly a notable topic based on news coverage, but no really good sources that can adequately evaluate the medical aspects. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

There does seem to be a report from the CDC which sums it up (with a kind of shrug). I suspect most of the primary sources/buzzfeed etc can be swept away leaving that. Alexbrn (talk) 08:27, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

As long as the mass psychogenic illness discussion is in the lede we are on the right track. As the experts start publishing and their voices get louder then it will become clear that the brief mention in the lede of PI will need to grow. This is how it is done on Wikipedia. If it goes the other way and countries start zapping people's brains like in Mars Attacks! then we can include that in the lede, that is IF Wikipedia and the Internet still exist. The Wikipedia page needs to reflect the growing consensus of experts, and not holding onto outdated theories just because that was current back in 2017. Sgerbic (talk) 18:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

It's been months, but from what I remember the independent sources that reported that some considered the microwave brain injury plausible were also full of caveats (I commented before on the talk page about the misrepresentation of a specific one)... —PaleoNeonate – 19:09, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Havana syndrome/Archive2021/August#December 2020 for more information. If that is true, that the "attack" terminology was no longer used, the new article should likely also reflect this... Moreover, it's understood today that traumatizing anxiety can lead to observable neurological damage, as can be seen with MCS or PTSD (unsure if some sources do mention this IRT this topic). And it's not even conclusive that there was any damage in this case... —PaleoNeonate – 00:05, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

This is a VERY interesting case to me. It's an odd case of what should be fringe masquerading as mainstream, and those that believe the mass psychogenic illness hypothesis of the psychology experts (and other mass psychogenic illness experts) are called fringe. As been said in various Talk venues regarding this topic: Skeptics are "part of a skeptic religion" and should just "shut up about medical matters" and "stick to debunking UFOs and Bigfoot." In truth, the only things pointing to the "attacks" causing the reported symptoms as being real are (poorly done) studies starting with the Trump administration, with the goal of finding things that could be attributed to enemy attacks and backing-up the administrations early position, taken before any evidence was in. When you look for things to prove what you're looking for, instead of investigating IF the hypothesis is true at all, you find "evidence" you want. This is why homeopathic doctors and Reiki masters think what they do is real. And admitting you were wrong is near impossible for people, organizations, and esp. governments. So the attack claims have spread in the years I've been following this (When the page was named Sonic attacks in Cuba) from just being in Cuba to happening pretty much everyplace, including folks walking their dog on the mall in DC, and even to embassies and hotels in US allied countries. (Yet oddly sparing nearby people of any issues - people who were not pre-warned about getting attacked don't seem to get symptoms of the attacks. These must be amazingly focused energy weapons.) All this has the signs of BS spreading as BS does. And the gov't and media are (mainly) still assuming its all true, with the US gov't even passing a bill to pay for medical treatments. For the media, it's a more interesting (click-baity) story if they keep reporting we are under attack everywhere than reporting that nothing nefarious is going on anywhere. And experts on the skeptical side, pointing out all the flaws and red flags in the mainstream story, barely get heard. Because they are not medical experts. Of course the issue there is pre-assuming whatever medical problems are found are due to attacks. And then, because the skeptical view is underrepresented in the media, and seen as fringe even when it is mentioned, the WP article reflects this situation. A damned shame I say. Seems to be slowly changing, but not fast enough for me. This has been a travesty of the truth, and luckily a war hasn't started (yet) over the unsubstantiated claims of these unproven "attacks". RobP (talk) 22:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

This is the kind of ranty editor opinion/POV crap that that talk page has been filling up with for years instead of just following what reliable sources say about it. Geogene (talk) 22:42, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes it was ranty... Here I can rant...As for articles, yes, WP:reliable sources rule apply. The problem is that in the RS sphere things are often gray and some editors (you know who you are) are leaning way too far in one direction IMHO trusting only JAMA conclusions (and the like), downplaying other commentary and subject matter expert opinion when they don't agree with JAMA. RobP (talk) 05:49, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

The trouble with the article is the crap sourcing. The JAMA source is unreliable; Buzfeed and podcasts are unreliable. One decent source (CDC report) seems to be saying, in effect, we don't know that anything caused anything, and if it did, we don't know what it is. That seems to be pretty much the state of "accepted knowledge" on this topic and what Wikipedia should be reflecting, so far as the science goes right now. Of course there's a shedload of politics on top of that which should also be covered. Alexbrn (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

So it is my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong. A podcast can't be used if it is two (or one) podcaster(s) talking about a subject if they are just non-notable podcasters. But if it is an interview with a notable expert on a subject discussing their expertise on the subject then that is fine. If it is two notable experts discussing the subject then it is even more relevant. The recording over a podcast or video isn't relevant, it's just the vehicle in which the content is being listened to. What we are trying to avoid are non-notable people talking about a subject they are not known experts on. Sgerbic (talk) 09:00, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

It depends, expert sources can be useful even if self-published - especially in WP:FRINGE areas where decent sourcing is otherwise thin. But putting such sources up against the CDC is a no-no. If we did that, imagine where we'd be with COVID-19, where a number of highly-credentialed, respected, and eminent scientists took to social media to show they were in fact blowhards who would say anything for attention. Alexbrn (talk) 09:06, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I personally have concerns about this trend of quoting experts in our articles. If a field has enough experts, some are likely to have minority or fringe beliefs, and can be cherry picked. And I find it harder to evaluate an expert's credentials than I do to just apply WP:RSPSOURCES or WP:MEDRS. Experts speaking directly also shortcut other processes, such as academic paper peer review, or a newspaper or book's editorial process. At its core, it really feels like WP:SELFPUBLISH to me, and a way for POV to creep into the encyclopedia. Plus don't get me started on quotations, which have their own problems. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:28, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, and for biomedical content we should stick to WP:MEDRS. That Havana syndrome article is full of content in that realm which is not WP:MEDRS sourced. Alexbrn (talk) 15:37, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

According to Susan Gerbic "I love quotes in Wikipedia, seeing their own words written out as they were said makes the page more interesting to read and engaging". Gerbic later stated that she knows that the subject of quoting in Wikipedia articles is off topic for this specific discussion, so please go easy on her, she just woke up. Sgerbic (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks no doubt to nefarious Google tracking cookie monsters, I was spoonfed this old-news NYTimes op-piece with my morning coffee. Thanks for nothing, sheeple. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/havana-syndrome-disorder.html jps (talk) 23:26, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Although an op-ed, thanks, this includes links to other sources. —PaleoNeonate – 00:38, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Tall el-Hammam, Creationist sources

Too many of the sources are Creationists Steven Collins and Joseph Holden. Doug Weller talk 19:21, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

I removed the Holden one as redundant. However, the only recent excavation research (since 2005) has been done by Trinity Southwest University and Veritas International University College of Archaeology & Biblical History headed by Collins, so it would make sense that the publications about it would have Collins as an author. Reviewing who the publishers are and what the sources actually say (Collins may actually be doing legitimate archaeology) would determine whether they need to be kept. My concern is that removing them also removes about 2/3 of the article content. If the sources simply present what was discovered without leaping to faith-based conclusions, they may be OK.

I looked at a couple of them and they seem to be focused on actual archaeology as opposed to proselytizing. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:33, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

There has been considerable controversy over the last published paper in Scientific Reports. Check the last archive. I tried and failed to come up with a workable solution for how Wikipedia can explain this situation. jps (talk) 12:49, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

I looked at the sources on the site when the meteor stuff struck, but didn't get around to doing much to improve the article unfortunately.

Collins et al. try hard to make what they're doing look like archaeology, but it isn't. They have no idea what they're doing and that comes through very clearly in their publications, which are almost always from TSU-affiliated vanity presses. Somehow they managed to get one excavation report through a university press, but the reviews are politely excoriating and consensus on the talk page is that that can't be considered a reliable source either.

They also try hard to make it appear is if they were the first to properly work on the site, but Prag's surveys and excavations in the 90s are actually quite detailed and well-published. I think between them and discussions of textual identifications in reliable sources (there seems to be a decent chunk of literature on the geography of Livias) we can have a decent article without reference to Collins et al. – Joe (talk) 15:53, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately I couldn't relocate it, but I remember of a source expressing concern that this may also affect the site negatively for future research by less ideology-motivated groups, —PaleoNeonate – 22:51, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

• Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

The WP:WEASEL is strong with this one. Nine times "some". The medical types can handle this better than I would. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Hard to know how much their COVID model was WP:FRINGE vs "just wrong" - but the prediction of zero COVID deaths by July 2020 certainly raised eyebrows at the time.[13] From the present article, you wouldn't get much of an inkling there had been this controversy. Alexbrn (talk) 07:59, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Some new leak-oriented pages to watchlist

• Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Draft:Criticism of the World Health Organization (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

For archives and as an invitation for editors to patrol or merge as needed (some redirects were also created for these pages), it seems that the intention was to create a WP:POVFORK of the Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 article, rather than needing to expand its own section because it's too long (WP:SPINOFF). One of the stated goals being to promote standard arguments like presenting a false balance between Adhanom's opinions and the WHO's official report (or as I observed at the other article, between Alina Chan and the WHO), etc. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 08:40, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

POVFORKS upon POVFORKS then! Alexbrn (talk) 08:54, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Merger discussion at The Bell Curve

Your participation is welcome in the discussion at Talk:The Bell Curve#Merger proposal concerning merging the article Cognitive elite into The Bell Curve. NightHeron (talk) 22:13, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Steven E. Koonin‎

• Steven E. Koonin‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Persistent IP tries to turn the evidence for man-made climate change on its head quoting Wall Street Journal. I reverted twice, but that probably won't be the end of it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:41, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

List of scientific misconduct incidents

• List of scientific misconduct incidents (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

While tracking some paranormal activity I recently reverted an edit there (I didn't take the time to see if it was legitimate but this criticism exceeded what was at the actual BLP article and was added by an obvious sock, so removed per WP:BE). But this also made me realize how this type of article is problematic. Since it concerns a topic that's important in science I thought I'd notify FTN rather than BLPN. My impression is that we'd generally prefer a main article like scientific misconduct where the most notorious cases can be mentioned, rather than an always-growing list article (that also has potential BLP implications, other than constant issues with inclusion criteria and patrol). I didn't take the time to really check but there's no AfD template at the talk page, it possibly never was discussed yet by the community. Input welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 23:46, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

• I immediately searched for Tuskegee Syphilis Study and, on not finding it, think that the article is far from comprehensive and worryingly, perhaps some sort of WP:POVFORK at best. jps (talk) 23:58, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

  Which made me think of Josef Mengele, who is also not mentioned. Actually letting people die or killing them in exchange for knowledge is obviously a blind spot of the people who wrote that. Well, it is an order of magnitude worse. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:33, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

  Probably because (rightly) its concerned with the ethics of conducting research and publishing, falsification of data etc, not the ethics of "Should this research have been done in the first place?" which would be variable given the time and place it is conducted. This does mean that Mengele slips through (although I agree it misconduct should cover obviously unhumanitarian abuses), but equally if it passed moral judgments, how much stem cell research would be labelled 'misconduct'?

  I did a spot check of about 10 random people on that list. The sourcing is all sufficient to justify the *science* was misconducted, eg data falsification/manipulation or plagiarism followed by retractions or sanctions. Its probably worth someone doing the entire list to check however. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:49, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

  The title of the list does not lead me to understand that this would be a list of academic scientists who have been accused of research misconduct since 1970, for example. jps (talk) 12:38, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

  Agree that "this research prompted new ethical rules that didn't exist when performed" would make the already arguably unmaintainable list even harder to draw the line. I feel like this is probably better as a category for existing articles, with the notable misconduct already taking up the bulk of said articles about people (ex: Cyril Burt, Joachim Boldt, John Darsee) and particular treatments (ex: High-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant). But many of the incidents either don't have their own article or reference an otherwise non-notable scientist, including the very first entry, which feels like a weak case for WP:LISTCRITERIA. Sure, scientific fraud is a notable topic, but do we really need a collection of every time a kid cheats in the local science fair? If it isn't notable enough for another article, it probably isn't notable enough for an unmaintained list. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:53, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

  Then there's always the issue that categories in relation to BLPs are constanly challenged even when well sourced (all excuses are good), with the technical issue that when linking them there's no associated slot to tie a source to (only the article itself and its sources to verify)... —PaleoNeonate – 16:44, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: While I agree that would trim the list further, I'm not convinced it's necessarily a bad thing. The instances most worth putting in a category seem relatively unambiguous, including direct references to their misconduct. It's not a case like "conspiracy theorists" categories that have WP:COATRACK fights, as in most cases we can point to authoritative decisions made regarding the misconduct. And, per the sample I looked at, either they aren't notable enough for an article, shouldn't be in the category because it's a WP:COATRACK (the Richard Eastell article and his entry in the list both note he was negligent but didn't engage in actual scientific misconduct, so I removed it), the article already is primarily about the misconduct (Joachim Boldt, Steven A. Leadon), or there's even a section on the topic (John Darsee#Wider misconduct, Andrew Wakefield#Fraud and conflict of interest allegations). I'd rather see maintenance fall on the individual scientist articles themselves, than have things fall through the cracks of a massive list. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:16, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the article can meet with broader community approval by restricting inclusion to people with an existing BLP article on enWiki? That would certainly cut down its size and limit the rate of future expansion, and I am willing to begin that editing process. Lastly, although I understand where you are coming from, Bakkster Man, with the "kid cheats in the local science fair" comment, AFAIK all of the misconduct documented in that article is supported by RS, and a great majority of the listed people in that article attached their misconduct directly to research projects/grants totaling millions of dollars. That is of course nothing compared to the crimes of Mengele, but it ain't no children's science fair, either. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

@JoJo Anthrax: I'm of course being extreme, but being reliably sourced doesn't necessarily mean notable. And it's not unreasonable to suggest that a science fair project could produce reliable reporting about misconduct, as in this case.[14][15][16] I think we agree that inclusions should be notable enough for their own article (this instance in the list without an article didn't even get barred from grant money). But I also think changing from a list article to a category not only makes enforcing such a restriction easier, but also reduces the possibility of the list being a WP:POVFORK with limited visibility by keeping the discussion of the misconduct on the article about the topic. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Did the Nuclear Boy Scout commit scientific misconduct to earn his Atomic Energy merit badge? What about the professor in Japan who recently published a proof of the ABC conjecture, or the machinations in the Manifold Destiny controversy? As a crimelike designation it should have a certificate, similar to being convicted of a crime, in order to assign someone to the list or category (i.e., in Wikivoice). Retractions are not enough as they frequently result from error not misconduct. Sesquivalent (talk) 14:43, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

We don't always agree, but I concur here, that a retraction doesn't always mean misconduct, we could expect sources to mention misconduct, like we'd expect them to mention a conviction in the case of a crime. —PaleoNeonate – 16:49, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with all that you wrote in the initial post and consider having almost any variant of this list to be inherently problematic. In addition to the already discussed reasons, misconduct and related allegations are subjective whereas retractions, dismissals, admissions of fraud, and legal proceedings are objective events. So if this type of list or category is to survive I would prefer to organize it around objective indicators, such as "academic firings in the 2010's" rather than some Index Of Wrongdoing. Even that would be hard to do without appearing to imply misconduct in cases that generated the indicators for other reasons (such as error or political pressure). Sesquivalent (talk) 05:54, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Is there a difference between "Scientific Misconduct" and "Misconduct by Scientists"?

My understanding, and the definition in the Scientific misconduct, is that scientific misconduct is specifically misconduct with the actual handling of scientific data. (Fabrication, Plagiarism, influencing peer review, etc.)

Nobody doubts that the Tuskegee experiments were a horrible form of misconduct, but do they fit that narrow definition of "Scientific Misconduct"? ApLundell (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

It's a magnet for problems. As one omnibus article for all branches of science it would have to be overly long or extremely selective (currently the latter). Even if split into multiple articles there is a demarcation problem. In psychology for example it excludes Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck, and Marc Hauser, all of whom were credibly accused of misconduct, but includes Philippe Rushton who was accused of many other things but not scientific misconduct in the normal use of that term. And are accusations enough? For the dead they tend to be controversial and unresolvable, for the living there are BLP restrictions. Without a clear and definite criterion for inclusion it becomes a political battleground of who is and is not included. [Correction: Burt and Hauser are in the list, but under Biomedical Science rather than social science/psychology] Sesquivalent (talk) 10:16, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

(Rushton) Apart from manipulating his students into taking part in his research under the threat of additional work. Thats misconduct by any standard. But lets be fair, there is plenty of criticism specifically about his research and methodology as well as his data analysis. The problem with highly intelligent people is that you can never really credibly claim they didnt know what they were doing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:31, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Using students in a class for research is par for the course in psychology, and whether he violated any policy depends on whether the research or the use of students is viewed as illegitimate (Rushton obviously didn't think so). Scientific misconduct refers to falsification of data or fraud, as opposed to sloppiness, writing shoddy but honest papers, unprofessional conduct toward students or other failings other that are (1) relatively common, and (2) concern the quality but not the honesty of the work. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:55, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

p.s., a relatively objective indicator that whatever Rushton's sins, they were not considered (scientific) misconduct is that his university never was able to dismiss him. Research malfeasance is always sufficient for that, and in Rushton's case there was outrage and protests at all levels from students to faculty to the provincial governor denouncing him as a racist. Yet he kept his position. Sesquivalent (talk) 12:23, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with those identifying the page as a problem magnet. I also agree a good first step is to remove entries that aren't associated with a Wikipedia article. If the people aren't notable, listing misconduct or allegations thereof is a BLP vio. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I have started that process. I do not believe the page has been a "magnet for problems," or if it has its H-field is quite weak, but BLP issues are certainly paramount. When that weeding process is complete I will review the remaining entries and remove any for which actual misconduct is not explicitly cited/mentioned in the sources (as opposed to, for example, retractions arising from honest errors). Having previously worked on this page I do not anticipate finding many, if any, such entries, but you never know. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Came upon this by semi-coincidence (I'm a frequent reader of the article for new-article ideas and have written articles from it in the past). I respect this is certainly a complex article from a BLP perspective. I have concerns about the height of the threshold being used for omission, and particularly its disparate impact in terms of what topics enwiki does and doesn't cover. A disproportionate number of the removals have been of subjects from non-English-speaking backgrounds/regions, which are notoriously underrepresented on the project as a whole; as this is a list where not-yet-bluelinked subjects often do have sufficient coverage to be notable, this risks having broader knock-on effects on the erasure of notable non-Anglosphere/non-Western subjects. "No enwiki article" is an understandable threshold, but it's both stricter than WP:LISTCRIT necessarily recommends for a list of this limited scope, and one that risks playing into the biases of when subjects do and don't have enwiki articles and stymying their creation. Vaticidalprophet 02:38, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Restricting diversity is not the goal, of course, and one could argue that adding entries in this list for people who don't yet have an article is not a service to them, considering that this is about misconduct of usually living people... I understand the concern about having a list of people to write about though, certainly an effort could produce and maintain such a list, like as part of a wikiproject (it may exist perhaps? It does for Women in Red for instance and a countering systemic bias WP also exists). —PaleoNeonate – 07:23, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree that this list has limited scope, as it's going to be very difficult to ensure 'completeness' as suggested in the third WP:CSC. I'd also argue that we'd be making the "not enough coverage of non-English language topics" problem worse by expanding notability for "non-English speakers behaving badly". Making the limited coverage more biased is worse than having a smaller amount of balanced coverage. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:28, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Realm of Sweden

Is this a thing? Not reading Swedish I can't tell whether hits like this are using the term "Svenska väldet" in a technical sense or as a generic term for territories controlled by Swedish kings. This has been entirely unsourced since it was created in 2003 and has no corresponding page in svwiki, so I feel reasonably comfortable saying that this is not, in fact, a thing. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:52, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings:, this looks like a fork of Swedish Empire and probably should be merged and redirected, don't you think? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 14:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Eggishorn, I'm not super opposed to that. Yet the phrase "realm of Sweden" does not appear in Swedish Empire and I'm not clear whether "realm of Sweden" has ever been attested in English in a technical sense as "a term that historically was used to comprise all the territories under the control of the Swedish monarchs" (as asserted in realm of Sweden). My sense is that the name of the article is one editor's translation of "Svenska väldet"—a term that (a) does not appear in sv:Stormaktstiden (although it does appear in sv:Kurland); and (b), while it is used in some sources, does not clearly refer to a defined period in Swedish political history. So I wouldn't mind redirecting but I also wouldn't mind nominating this at AfD. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The article is essentially an extremely obscure povfork, not having received only 50 edits since 2004. I'd recommend a bold redirect to Swedish Empire. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:04, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I've had a quick look and only found Swedish sources like yours, where it's "svenska väldet i [...]" (i.e. "Swedish dominion in [...]"), not used as a standalone concept or to refer to a defined period in Swedish history. The article itself has barely changed since it was first written in 2003/2004 so it could well just be one editor's misunderstanding or mistranslation. I think we can ahead and redirect it to Swedish Empire. – Joe (talk) 17:27, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done. Interested to see if anyone reverts with sources, tbh. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:55, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

It is probably just a translation of Konungariket Sverige, i.e. 'The Kingdom of Sweden'.--Berig (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Unidentified flying object

• Unidentified flying object (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

At the moment, disproportionally influenced by the opinion of recent gullible journalist Gideon Lewis-Kraus. This idea has been out there for many decades, and there is no reason to replace what has been learned during that time by one guy's collection of ignorance from this year. See WP:RECENT. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

That's for damn sure. I have been trying to whip this article into shape for the better part of a decade, but it is a painful slog. jps (talk) 13:04, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I think the current problems arose from this section being introduced, which I will assume was a good faith effort to note the WP:RECENT increased attention on UFOs by the US government and the media, which has been interpreted by some to indicate a dramatic paradigm shift, i.e. all things UFO are now to be taken seriously. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:08, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Robert Hare (chemist)

• Robert Hare (chemist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Robert Hare is a chemist who died in 1858, but is remembered in certain circles today for his efforts to validate mediumship and spiritualism. An IP editor apparently does not like that our article on them includes criticism of those experiments, and has vowed to edit war 'forever' to keep it out. More eyes on the situation would be appreciated. - MrOllie (talk) 12:29, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I semi-protected it for a month to start with. If they continue after that, I guess we'll have to protect it "forever" too. – Joe (talk) 13:08, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Lawrence A. Tabak

I just corrected some cite errors at Lawrence A. Tabak. They were caused by an addition related to COVID and gain of function, so I thought it would be good if someone with relevant knowledge could caste their eye over it. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 19:28, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I reverted as a WP:COATRACK addition that is more suitable to COVID origins articles. And that's before getting into the potential selective citing (like the Yahoo News repost of a National Review link) and potential misinterpreted by those members of Congress to play politics (seems to have been a private letter, and I didn't find a source where Tabak addressed it publicly). Bakkster Man (talk) 20:49, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll also note, there's a few more COVID-adjacent edits by the user that could use a second set of eyes. I've reverted another using the same potentially-unreliable sources as the first one, but the chemistry related antiviral edits I'm unsure if they're trying to make unsubstantiated claims.[17][18] Bakkster Man (talk) 20:54, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

QAnon expecting JFK to be resurrected, won't leave Dallas

"Why hundreds of QAnon supporters showed up in Dallas, expecting JFK Jr.’s return""QAnon followers who went to Dallas to look for JFK Jr are refusing to leave". Lots of other sources. And how about this Protzman guy mentioned in the Independent article and elsewhere?[19] We don't seem to have anything on this weird fringe stuff. Doug Weller talk 11:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Why Dealey Plaza in Dallas? He did not even die there, his father did. Don't they know the first thing about how ghosts operate? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:06, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

They aren't interested in the first thing, since it is clearly faked by the people behind the thirty-seventh thing... AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:18, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

You may have something there Hob Gadling. Where should they have gone? Has that been faked yet? ϢereSpielChequers 12:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm wrong anyway, it is in the QAnon article. But Protzman isn't. And it belongs at John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories I'd think as it's arguing for a conspiracy that he's still alive. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

They think that JFK (b. 1917) is still alive as well as JFK Jr? jps (talk) 12:45, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure they think either are still alive. From your second source: "Others believed that John F Kennedy would also return along with his son..." I think that means that they believe there will be a resurrection, but that they really did die. jps (talk) 12:48, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

It’s Elvis that’s still alive, surely? Brunton (talk) 15:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

It's JFK Jr some think is still alive "Will Sommer, author of the upcoming book Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Reshaped America and a longtime observer of the conspiracy theory, estimates that about 20 per cent of Q followers believe in JFK Jr’s re-emergence, but that those who do, “100 per cent believe”."[20] See John F. Kennedy Jr.#Conspiracy theories. Doug Weller talk 15:47, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Should we have a section in John F. Kennedy Jr.'s article on conspiracy theories? That seems... inappropriate. jps (talk) 16:56, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

It would be. If this lunacy belongs anywhere, it belongs in the QAnon article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:19, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, definitely the best place for any of that... It's quite incredible, I can imagine a type of opportunist variety show (by them or by third parties, to parody or exploit them) with a bunch of lookalikes... —PaleoNeonate – 22:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Weil

• Andrew Weil (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Proponent of various WP:FRINGE altmed ideas. Possible NPOV problems with this article. Alexbrn (talk) 18:52, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

It seems that there was obvious COI editing but it's been a while ago. I've seen a few recent improvements, thanks for working on this, —PaleoNeonate – 23:07, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

CfI @ RSN

• WP:RSN § Center for Inquiry sources on CFI-related articles

A discussion that may be of interest to readers of this noticeboard, —PaleoNeonate – 05:01, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Arkana Publishing

This is an imprint of Penguin Books that publishes on the occult. I can't tell whether I should trust books they publish to be out-of-universe, or whether it's a case-by-case thing. Any thoughts? Reason I'm here is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gandanta; there's a brief discussion of gandanta here. It seems in-universe-y, but then again discussions of mythical things often adopt an in-universe style because it's easier than constantly saying "as believers in this thing believe …" AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:47, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

On the list of books they've published, the ones that look respectable seem to be reprints. Atlantis: Myth or Reality by Murry Hope, Mysticism and the New Physics by quantum-woo peddler Michael Talbot... I'd regard them as "in-universe" until proven otherwise. In the specific case of the book mentioned, Light on Life, the authors call themselves the only Westerner ever to become a licensed Ayurvedic physician and someone who has been studying and practising Vedic astrology since 1968. It's very definitely in-universe, not a view from outside. XOR'easter (talk) 00:06, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Usenet newsgroup sci.archaeology - anyone remember it?

Just wondering. I used it when it was on bulletin boards. Then came the Internet. And then modems that I didn't need to stick my phone into! Doug Weller talk 16:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Usenet was on the internet, but you may mean the web... I do remember reading usenet via a Fidonet gateway before internet was mainstream, so likely in the early 90s. I also used it a bit later occasionally and ran a small NNTP server (these were an alternative to email lists and predecessor to web forums so various organizations used private NNTP networks). It still exists but NNTP access is rare today (almost every internet provider used to provide a link), most people access it via web gateways including Google Groups. At the time, I was unfortunately also reading a lot of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and esoteric material, including on BBSes, Fidonet and Usenet. On the other hand it gives me a perspective on those topics today... —PaleoNeonate – 23:47, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I remember it. I still remember the endless discussion and debates between Andrew M. and Ed Conrad about Ed's claims that Carboniferous (siderite?) concretions are fossil human bones and miscellaneous other pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. That I think is where I became acquainted with Doug. Paul H. (talk) 02:51, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I certainly remember it! I usually posted as Aelfric back in those days. I do recall feeling like there was quite a bit of woo involved; and in those blessed times I thought such beliefs were inconsequential and only held by a small fringe. How innocent I used to be. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:40, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Remember Yuri anyone? Or Inger? @PaleoNeonate: Bulletin board systems seems to suggest BBS was pre Internet. Fascinating that you ran an NNTP server. Ed Conrad drove me nuts. Doug Weller talk 17:26, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes most BBS were indeed pre-internet. Then some were connected to it, or indirectly could serve as gateways to usenet as well (just like some FidoNet nodes also provided usenet to their points). The concept mostly moved to web forums later on, although some more traditional text BBS still exist that accept telnet or SSH connections. I'm not sure about those names off memory alone though, but I worked on software projects with people that I remembered from usenet CS groups back then, it was good shared memories. —PaleoNeonate – 03:49, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Since this is mostly a forum thread already, Noah's Ark found drifting around in Vancouver BC! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6w6Vnp8hs ^[Humor] —PaleoNeonate – 09:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Kerfuffle about Joy of Satan Ministries

WP:ANI#Edit conflict at Joy of Satan Ministries. Doug Weller talk 17:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Now it's at WP:RSN. Doug Weller talk 17:27, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Race and intelligence again at Talk:The Bell Curve

As usual, more grown-ups in the room would be helpful. Generalrelative (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm too far out of the loop nowadays, its been a decade and a half since I read Bell Curve and Mismeasure of Man. Do we have any applicable consensus (RFC, or otherwise) on the topics at hand, namely the relation of IQ to intelligence/'cognitive ability' and race to genetics? I've got my own perspective on the matter, but what matters is scientific consensus (with WP following from that).

But yeah, comments like "The fact is that, as measured by IQ, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites" throw up a ton of red flags for me. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I've kept out of this subject area by and large but haven't we reached the point where a few WP:PROFRINGE editors are causing disproportionate drama? Probably best to WP:DENY them and revert any bad edits rather than indulge their evident desire for ballooning talkpage threads that go nowhere. Alexbrn (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Part of my comment above is determining if we have an unambiguous consensus that "IQ is an absolute measure of intelligence" or "some races are less intelligent, because that's what IQ tests say" are fringe views, rather than mainstream. The less ambiguity, the easier to address the topic as a whole. Wishful thinking, I'm sure...

Arguably, in some cases "intelligence" and "cognitive ability" are MOS:WTW, having been defined by different people in different ways. For instance, when IQ is tautologically defined as intelligence (or vice versa), or cognitive ability is used in place of intelligence to try and hide meaning ("this race isn't less intelligent, they just have reduced cognitive ability"). Bakkster Man (talk) 17:37, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The issue of whether IQ can be used as a valid proxy for intelligence is discussed at Intelligence quotient#Validity as a measure of intelligence. I'm not aware of any past RfCs on the matter but the section has been largely stable since I created it back in June of 2020. Two top-quality sources there make clear the mainstream view on the matter:

• IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable.[21]
• and to base a concept of intelligence on test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.[22]

The latter of these is Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, a comprehensive review published by the APA specifically in response to The Bell Curve.

If there is a need to establish a more robust consensus on the matter, I would happily engage in that here so that hopefully the pro-fringe editors over at Talk:The Bell Curve can be safely denied, and we can definitively reject the WP:RACISTBELIEFS being trotted out there. But without some kind of additional support, these very committed POV-pushers are not likely to give up their efforts to state in Wikivoice that black people are intellectually inferior to white people anytime soon. Generalrelative (talk) 18:17, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The first source is a book used in high school intro classes, written by a nonexpert.

Anyway, both quotations are about IQ measures for individuals, and are not nearly as applicable to the present discussion of group differences. Yes, IQ differences between individuals, unless large and repeatable, don't necessarily mean very much, don't encompass all that is meant by intelligence, and the SKYISBLUE. But a 10 or 15 point IQ difference on average between large groups is very meaningful -- Palo Alto versus Podunk.

Additional dimensions of intelligence are nice but don't change anything unless there is some reason to suppose they could wipe out or reverse the difference if included (with appropriate weight according to their importance or predictive power). Since the more influential factors tend to be discovered first, the natural expectation is for new dimensions to have lower weight, which would require very large differences, such as 20 or 30 points or much more, in the opposite direction to fully compensate the differences on the currently utilized dimensions that make up IQ and g. In other words, there would need to be measures that don't correlate with IQ test batteries, do contain strong predictive information, and show a gigantic reversal of the original group difference. If there is no reason to suspect such a thing, such as amazing specialized mental skills found in the lower scoring group at which they consistently dominate others (the intellectual equivalent of Kenyan marathoners or Nepalese sherpas), the uncertainties you are trying to support with the quotations are wishful thinking rather than "the mainstream view". Sesquivalent (talk) 13:17, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• At this point I highly recommend leaving a brief message at WP:ANI. This is disruptive WP:CPUSH. ––FormalDude ^talk 01:30, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

  I appreciate the suggestion. Pretty sure there would be a greater chance of remedy if someone less involved than myself were to take up the task (for anyone not following the ongoing drama at ArbCom, I'm currently being accused of conspiracy or something over there by members of this group). Generalrelative (talk) 03:48, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

You were accused of tag team editing, which is also in the purview of ANI. Sesquivalent (talk) 12:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The issues there are being misrepresented here. Wikipedia RfCs decree that genetic race differences in intelligence are to be treated as fringe and that such is supposedly the scientific consensus. The point that has now come up at the Bell Curve talk page in connection with the lede of the article is a similar sounding claim that is an entirely different kettle of fish in its level of acceptance; it is the standard mainstream view, not fringe. Namely, the claim that there are differences in intelligence (irrespective of whether or not they have to do with genetics) between groups when there are large gaps in IQ and g scores between them. On that there is near unanimity among experts, i.e., that the score differences reflect real group differences, in the same way that differences in numerical concepts like total assets or years of schooling reflect, on average, real differences in fuzzier concepts like "wealth" and "education", provided the differences on the numeric indicator are large. This is not a controversial point at all in psychometrics, though it may have been one several decades ago, and it refers to observed ability at the time of testing, not innate potential or genetics which are the subject of controversy and WP:FRINGE determinations. Some of the editors who consider themselves anti fringe crusaders in this space are having a violent reaction to this information or maybe just the wording of it by some of the commenters. But as information, it is what it is. Sesquivalent (talk) 12:01, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

That is not what the issue is at Talk:The Bell Curve. The issue is whether to keep the word purported in the phrase purported connections between race and intelligence. The word purported does not imply that what follows is necessarily fringe, but it implies that it's opinion rather than fact. In this case there's no clear definition of the vague terms connection (can mean either correlation, causal connection, or something else), race (a social construct, according to RS), or intelligence (also a contested term). Claims of a connection between race and intelligence, whatever the speaker means by it, are usually made for the purpose of promoting one race and disparaging another one. It all depends on what you want to look at. Racial hereditarians love IQ tests. But someone could plausibly claim that the proportion of anti-vaxx covidiots in a population group is a good measure of group intelligence (or rather lack thereof). By that measure Blacks in the US are more intelligent than whites, and especially white Republicans. NightHeron (talk) 13:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

We are not talking here at FTN because of the word "purported". We are here because in the course of discussing that word, a user or two discussed group IQ differences as differences in intelligence (the real thing, not IQ), another user or two became hostile, at which point the psychometric facts of life were explained to the crusaders. Those facts and whether they can be talked about are the issue here and now. Personally, as I wrote at the Talk page thread, I am against rubbing the reader's nose in this stuff in articles when it can be reasonably avoided. But I do not at all support this current posting spree (though canvassing at NONAZIS was epic) calling for crackdowns both on particular individuals and allowed content on talk pages. Sesquivalent (talk) 14:05, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• Since one of the WP:CPUSH gang has arrived to WP:BLUDGEON this discussion, I'm going to WP:DENY from here on out per Alexbrn's suggestion. If anyone would like to take up FormalDude's recommendation I would of course support that. Generalrelative (talk) 16:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Dennis Prager

• Dennis Prager (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A reliable source is not sufficiently denialist to copy Prager's anti-science propaganda word by word, therefore it is not reliable and cannot be used. Discussion on Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Race and crime

The Race and crime article has long been problematic, and has been discussed on this noticeboard several times before. A fundamental issue, beyond the obvious one of attracting proponents of fringe perspectives, is that it doesn't cover the supposed subject matter from any sort of global perspective. As has been noted on numerous occasions, in practice it only discusses the supposed relationship between 'race' and crime the United States in any detail at all, while managing to imply that it is giving some sort of broader perspective. This is of course entirely misleading, and contrary to Wikipedia policy, given that the article Race and crime in the United States already exists: it is either redundant, or a POV fork. I'd appreciate WP:FTN regulars taking a look, to se if anything merits merging elsewhere, because beyond that, it is an obvious candidate for deletion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:30, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

This arguably because "Race" is primarily an American construct that doesn't really apply elsewhere, with "race" often being a euphemism used for black people. I'd recommend a redirect to Race and crime in the United States. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:36, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

The supposed relationship between arbitrary 'race'-based social constructs and crime has certainly been discussed beyond the United States. Not that it really matters though when discussing the content in question, since it doesn't actually cover any broader studies. Which of course couldn't be discussed without pointing out just how arbitrary it all is anyway. Quite likely explains why the POV-fork doesn't do that... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:54, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think a redirect to race and crime in the US is appropriate. Race is absolutely not a US concept, it's just that race means a different thing to each culture and so there is a US "version" of race. The US is also not the only country that has a race disparity in crime. That all being said, this article is 100% a fork. But we should get WikiProjects Discrimination (and probably BLM) to help decide what to do about it. --Xurizuri (talk) 07:24, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Nominate it for deletion or redirect to R&C in the US. The alternative is actually edit the article to a point where it reflects the varying situations worldwide rather than the current US-centric construct. Since no one has seemed interested in doing that (probably because it would be a mountain of work) the first two seem more appropriate. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:46, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

• I definitely agree with the WP:POVFORK concerns. I've started a proposal to redirect the article. Pinging those involved in the discussion: Only in death, Hemiauchenia, AndyTheGrump. ––FormalDude ^talk 11:06, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Numerology

• Numerology (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This article could stand a little attention. It's rather drastically under-sourced and sports an "in popular culture" junk drawer. XOR'easter (talk) 01:04, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted the 'popular culture' section as WP:OR. As for the remainder of the article, it could certainly do with scrutiny. Even ignoring the lack of sources, it is an inconsistent decontextualised mess. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:18, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

US vaccine mandates and the Third Reich?

• Vinay Prasad (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Some interesting recent edits on how to deal with a celebrity doctor's view on all this, a WP:FRINGE connection I'd say. Note potential BLP and COI considerations may apply. Alexbrn (talk) 17:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

My initial thoughts… we are giving the entire incident (both the initial blog post and the various reactions to it) too much weight, and should not mention it AT ALL. It was a blog post, not something published in a reliable source. Blueboar (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

The fact that it got picked up by The Cancer Letter lends a certain amount of weight, no? Alexbrn (talk) 20:56, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

He's a signer of the Great Barrington Declaration and involved with a dubious new think tank.[23] The Cancer Letter article is here also here. He's recently been accused of anti-semitism and racism by Arthur Caplan reported here. Doug Weller talk 11:09, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The irony is that the Third Reich was against vaccine mandates, as were their core supporters. TFD (talk) 15:12, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Yep, trying not to let people die, it's not a million miles from what Hitler was doing.Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Claim that an anti-Islam professor has proved statistically that a large part of Islam is political, not relgious

This is Bill Warner (writer) (a pen name}} where someone has added the statement " Warner with the help of statistical methods proves that a substantive part of the Islamic doctrine is not religious but falls within the domain of politics." There are three sources for this - all are the subject himself. I think that the use of mathematics to define a religion is fringe. Doug Weller talk 09:48, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the article for a long time. This diff maybe a better one to see the changes made.[24] Doug Weller talk 09:53, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

"I think that the use of mathematics to define a religion is fringe". Stupid would be a better term, I think. Does Wikipedia need a stupid theories noticeboard? As for the article, recent edits certainly haven't improved it. Given the subject matter though, I suspect that might be a losing battle. Just how notable is this guy and his ' Center for the Study of Political Islam' anyway? AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:09, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Its incredibly bad wording they have shoved in the article but its not actually a stupid idea to statistically model what is political and what is religious in a given text - thats actually used in a number of places on historical documents to analyse what the motivations behind a document are. (eg X % devoted to human rights vs much bigger % devoted to commerical concerns would indicate money was more important than people to the writers). The 'proves that' part is publisher hyperbole however. Its what you read on a dustjacket. What Warner did was show with statistical methods how much of the Koran is concerned with certain topics. The conclusions however are the fringe bit. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:01, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Bullshit with added numbers is still bullshit. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:34, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

(ec)The idea that religion and politics are closely intertwined is about as surprising as the idea that water is wet. Both are systems of social organisation. Start reading at Divine right of kings... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:07, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dodger67: of course they are closely intertwined. But trying to apply statistics to what must be subjective interpretations - GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Doug Weller talk 16:51, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Warner has committed violation #1 of "doing bad science" which is that he started with a pre-determined conclusion (that Islam is a political, and not religious system) then generated a set of data that "confirms" what he already believed was true. This is bullshit, and if it is to be mentioned, should not be presented as though he "proved" anything; at best we can say he "claims" that he showed it. But it is bullshit, plain and simple. --Jayron32 13:04, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The article is even worse now, using Warner as a source far too often. Doug Weller talk 16:51, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Trimmed, but I expect that'll be edit-warred over, because that's how these things go. XOR'easter (talk) 18:27, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• Just trying to understand: In a biography article persons' own opinions whether those are right or wrong, mainstream or fringe can not be quoted or how it is? Idk if I have misunderstood the issue here.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 17:21, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

These opinions certainly can be quoted, but not stated in Wikivoice as happened here[25]. –Austronesier (talk) 21:06, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Further, in general Wikipedia does not use the article's subject as a source for themselves. The only exception is that when a secondary source has commented in a noteworthy manner on the beliefs of a person, it is legitimate to clarify with their own words (because it is not uncommon for critiques to mischaracterize a target's beliefs). This is entirely driven by the coverage given and any quoting should not be disproportionate to the original claim - one should not give an elaborate explication just to clarify an off-handed comment that may not merit mention at all. Wikipedia should not be used as a platform to propagate/proselytize beliefs the person happens to hold that have not drawn particular notice in independent secondary sources - not every opinion a notable person holds is inherently a noteworthy aspect of their biography. Agricolae (talk) 22:11, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Per Agricolae, if a secondary, independent source notes that Warner holds a particular opinion or has published a particular bit of bullshit he calls science, it would be appropriate to cite the original bullshit as a source alongside the secondary source, since it is likely that a person may want to read such a thing. What is not appropriate is using the original bullshit to write its claims into Wikipedia's voice uncritically or to make those views more prominent than should be. If Warner is a noted critic of Islam, and that is a key part of his notability, then perhaps mentioning his bullshit calculations would be appropriate. However, unconnected to any discussion of such in a secondary source, then it also isn't appropriate in Wikipedia. That Warner did such <fingerquotes>"research"</fingerquotes> is only worth mentioning in the article if other sources have also mentioned it.--Jayron32 18:03, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Astrology AfD's

Possibly of interest to the community here:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angle (astrology)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Descendant (astrology)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Derivative house

Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 20:36, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I did not nominate this one, but on reflection I think it suffers from the same problem: Midheaven. Salimfadhley (talk) 01:30, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

That one's at least fleshed out. IMO the issue is acting like it's a standard term that astrologers also use, rather than a wholly astrological terminology. I made some quick edits to clarify that. But really, most of these articles could just be redirected to Horoscope#Angles, with any notable details placed there. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:17, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Does anybody else feel creeped out by all this interconnected nonsense. We cover worthless stuff in this project, lots and lots of it, but this stuff ranks up there with Merkian Professional Wrestling in its absurdity, and frankly, meaninglessness. Aargh. -Roxy the dog. wooF 15:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Compared to COVID origins and treatment, or race and intelligence, this is refreshingly straightforward. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:01, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I am concerned that proponents seem to be suggesting that fringe sources should be permitted in order to show that these subjects are notable. Salimfadhley (talk) 16:45, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like WP:NFRINGE may be pertinent, in that case. Alexbrn (talk) 16:52, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• I see only one user making the "astrologers exist, therefor notable" argument, and each place they made it another user brought up WP:NFRINGE. Then there's this comment on the Angle (astrology) AfD that gives multiple independent sources (some stronger than others) in their suggestion to keep.

I think it's completely reasonable to say that the topic of astrology (and its major concepts, like the signs and angles) should be covered as a notable topic. It's just making sure it's coverage of pseudoscience as a pseudoscience, rather than a credulous WP:NOTHOWTO guide or with entire unmaintained articles about the minutiae. Of note: WP:WikiProject Astrology has over 200 low importance start/stub articles, which I expect will include a number of other articles with similar issues (no citations, stub length, could be rolled into a larger existing article), such as Diurnal sign. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• In general, these are better as merge/redirect than delete. The terms are likely link targets or search terms, and while they cannot support a stand alone target, an article on astrology (or one of the sub-articles thereof) would likely touch on these concepts, therefore we don't need to remove the content or delete the article. There are many ways to deal with non-notable sub-sub-topics like this, and AFD isn't always the best tool for the job. Not every problem is a nail, and you don't always need to use the biggest hammer. --Jayron32 17:58, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Astrology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Slightly different subject, but related. Profringe editors teaming up on the Talk page, untoward consequences expected. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2021 (UTC)