Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

"WP:FTN" redirects here. For nominations of featured topics, see Wikipedia:Featured topic candidates.

Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
Before posting, make sure you understand this short summary of relevant policies and advice and particularly the guideline on treating fringe theories. Also, check the archives for similar discussions. We can help determine whether the topic is fringe and if so, whether it is treated accurately and impartially. Our purpose is not to remove any mention of fringe theories, but to describe them properly. Never present fringe theories as fact. If you mention specific editors, you should notify them. You may use {{subst:ftn-notice}} to do so.
Search this noticeboard & archives Lowercase sigmabot III will archive sections older than 20 days Additional notes: Discussion of fringe theories will only depend on coverage in reliable sources. Medicine-related claims must comply with more stringent sourcing requirements, but we also generally prefer academic sources. We are not a forum to discuss fringe theories as such. Our goal is to improve articles about them, or create new ones if needed. For concerns about neutrality in articles not about fringe theories, use the neutral point of view noticeboard. Report article content that appears to violate the no original research rule at this noticeboard. Paste {{Resolved|Your reason here ~~~~}} at the top of the section when your concern was addressed. Deploy {{talk fringe|the fringe theory name}} to articles' talkpages under discussion.
To start a new request, enter the name of the relevant article below:

Article alerts

Did you know

• 26 Apr 2024 – The Skeptical Environmentalist (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Arcahaeoindris (t · c); see discussion

Categories for discussion

• 09 May 2024 – Category:Conspiracist media (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Coddlebean (t · c); see discussion

Redirects for discussion

• 18 Apr 2024 – Mental gymnastics (talk · edit · hist) →Cognitive dissonance was RfDed by Utopes (t · c); see discussion

Good article nominees

• 10 Mar 2024 – Roswell incident (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Feoffer (t · c); start discussion

Requests for comments

• 05 Apr 2024 – Havana syndrome (talk · edit · hist) has an RfC by Noleander (t · c); see discussion

Peer reviews

• 25 Apr 2024 – Ethics (talk · edit · hist) has been put up for PR by Phlsph7 (t · c); see discussion

Requested moves

• 02 May 2024 – Epstein didn't kill himself (talk · edit · hist) move request to Conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein's death by SilviaASH (t · c) was not moved; see discussion

Articles to be merged

• 03 Mar 2024 – Superstitions in Muslim societies (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Islam and magic by VenusFeuerFalle (t · c); see discussion
• 27 Jan 2024 – Barber and Calverley (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Theodore X. Barber by Animalparty (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be split

• 30 Dec 2023 – Scholarly approaches to mysticism (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Skyerise (t · c); see discussion
• 23 Sep 2023 – Witchcraft (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Skyerise (t · c); see discussion

Gareth Knight and Fraternity of the Inner Light

Fringe articles that could use some work. Doug Weller talk 14:13, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Would probably be the weekend at earliest before I get to it (if I can), but J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (probably the tertiary source we should be using to outline these articles) have entries on both (although the Fraternity entry points to the entry on the Society of Inner Light). Peter B. Clarke's Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements and James R. Lewis (scholar)'s (terribly titled) Satanism Today have relevant entries on the Inner Light group as well. Between that and King's Modern Ritual Magic, there's definitely enough on the Inner Light group to have a proper article. Aside from the Melton reference, the only references I'm seeing for Knight are works by associates, passing mentions, or the occasional citation in a fringe work (even the Melton entry is more of a secondary source, since it's pretty much "this guy was involved in these groups and has a website"). The Knight article doesn't even really contain any particular assertions of notability, just inherited notability. Looks like the related Servants of the Light could use a little work, too; though thankfully not as much because it's going to be hell wading through all the crappy fantasy and "inspirational" books. I'm seeing a passing mention of both groups in Nevill Drury's Stealing Fire from Heaven, though short enough that I don't expect it to be much more than the other sources. John Michael Greer's New Encyclopedia of the Occult has entries on both groups but I remember that work being a bit more emic than I'm comfortable using as a source on here (and I say that after bringing up Drury!). At any rate, I must get ready to spend several hours teaching Japanese toddlers the word "NO". Ian.thomson (talk) 22:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Ian.thomson and Doug Weller, This article has recently been deleted via WP:PROD. --- FULBERT (talk) 17:26, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Skeptics versus deniers

Judith Curry (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Oh gee. Guess where I've seen this argument before?

[1]

Can someone else clarify whether skeptics and deniers are the same thing when it comes to climate change?

jps (talk) 12:18, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned no A sceptic is a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions. A denier is a person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence. The difference is that a sceptic does not ignore evidence, a denier does.Slatersteven (talk) 12:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a matter of sources. I won't bother you with the voluminous discussions we've had on this matter but you can see where climate change skepticism redirects to. jps (talk) 12:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion on that redirect target was interesting with the closer noting I also find consensus in this discussion to redirect, while noting that skepticism ≠ denial per the opposing comments.[2] PackMecEng (talk) 14:38, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

That skepticism ≠ denial is one thing. That climate change skepticism = climate change denial is quite another. jps (talk) 16:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

That closing statement was talking about climate change skepticism ≠ climate change denial. That is why it was the closing statement on climate change skepticism redirecting to climate change denial. PackMecEng (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

That you are misinterpreting this and using the word "cereal" [3] makes me understand that you should be topic banned from climate change articles writ large. Begone denier. jps (talk) 01:24, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Ha! Kids these days. Grow up. PackMecEng (talk) 01:37, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you upset that your cover was blown? Or do you just revel in your pseudoscientific ignorance? WP:CIR, after all. jps (talk) 01:44, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

List take me to ANI or quit whining. I could not care less which way you go but this is the last reply for me to you on this subject. PackMecEng (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, climate change deniers brand themselves as "skeptics". This is pseudoskepticism. We do not use euphemisms. Guy (help!) 22:49, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

You asked "whether skeptics and deniers are the same thing when it comes to climate change" I provided a definition of the two based upon what the words mean (an then an interpretation). To answer your question more directly then. It is not true that skeptics and deniers are the same thing when it comes to climate change (after all the source appears to be something of a sceptic), however (to complicate matters) many who are deniers (that is they deny the truth of climate science) use the sceptic label as it makes them sound more reasonable and neutral. So we have to answer this question on a case by case basis.Slatersteven (talk) 08:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, I think that may have been true ten years ago but is no longer true now. There is virtually no informed dissent from the consensus view that the climate is changeing due to global warming caused by human activity. There is some debate over the exact degree of warming, precise projections etc., but the last literature review I saw found no actively publishing climate scientists finding anything else (though to be fair this only looked at the professional literature so would have excluded the professional climate deniers funded by right-wing think tanks, as they have acute difficulty getting published). Guy (help!) 08:27, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

And that is where the problem comes in, and why we must be careful. There is (as you say) "some debate over the exact degree of warming, precise projections etc", so a "sceptic" will be part of that debate, they may not agree with the exact figures but agree with the overall trend. Whereas a denier will question the general trend, the problem comes in when the deniers use the language of genuine scepticism as a cover for what is in realty denialism. Thus we have to exercise caution and operate on a case by case basis.Slatersteven (talk) 10:25, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

People who are part of the conversation in climate science are generally not referred to as "skeptics" anymore because of how these labels have been politicized. In discussion, I suppose we can refer to some legit climate scientist who disagree with some colleague or another as "skeptics" if we like, but we basically cannot use the term in Wikipedia's climate change article-space without causing confusion. jps (talk) 16:14, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, pretty much everyone who calls themselves a "skeptic" is pushing predictions outside the 95%CI of aggregates of other models. One tell is that they critique "alarmists". Another is that they publish outside the climate literature. And a third is that they are funded by dark money. Guy (help!) 16:40, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

This might be a little off topic, but don't you call yourself a skeptic? PackMecEng (talk) 16:46, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

The specific question was to distinguish between on the one hand

Curry is known both for her emphasis on scientific outreach in general and for her willingness to communicate with climate change deniers in particular.

References

and

Curry is known both for her emphasis on scientific outreach in general and for her willingness to communicate with climate change skeptics in particular.

References

with me preferring the follow the source more closely and jps arguing to change the wording from that in the source. But this has now apparently been resolved by using different words and sources so the question seems moot. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this is about the wider issue of how we generally deal with this issue.Slatersteven (talk) 14:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

My own view is that it's not possible to give a hard and fast rule on this question (note also the comment by PackMecEng above) which is why I prefer to follow the sources in each case. Of course there's another argument about which sources should be used, but when a single source is under discussion then we should just do what it does or not use that source at all. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that all the styled "climate change skeptics" are climate change deniers is not really up for debate. jps (talk) 16:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

But that is not the case, so yes, it is up for debate. Are we being cereal right now? PackMecEng (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

You do not decide whether that is the case or not. Reliable sources decide that. Read our article Climate change denial to find out what they say.

Climate change skeptics have died out decades ago; only deniers are left. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I tend to go by sources, heck one is listed above. To say there are no skeptics left only deniers is flat out ridiculous. PackMecEng (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, no, it's true. But journalistic sources are more deferential to the both sides" bullshit. Guy (help!) 22:51, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Ah so sources recognize skeptic is not the same as denial but we know the Truth™. Got it! PackMecEng (talk) 22:53, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, not as such, no. Our article titles reflect the scientific consensus. Journalists... not so much. Guy (help!) 22:58, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Jonathan A Jones, deniers is the more accurate here. You'll note that climate change skepticism is a redirect. Guy (help!) 22:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

A reasonable approach for the example at the top of this section would be to go with what the AP style guide says to do: "To describe those who don’t accept climate science or dispute the world is warming from man-made forces, use climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science. Avoid use of skeptics or deniers." source Obviously still pipe the link to Climate change denial.

Before	After
Curry is known both for her emphasis on scientific outreach in general and for her willingness to communicate with climate change deniers in particular.	Curry is known both for her general emphasis on scientific outreach and for her willingness to communicate with people who reject climate science.

~Awilley (talk) 03:55, 5 April 2020 (UTC) Note: edited to remove the word "mainstream" from "mainstream climate science" for brevity ~Awilley (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not part of Associated Press, Wikipedia is not part of the press in general, and we do not use journalist false balance here.

Instead, we go to scientific sources when scientific sources are available. See WP:SOURCE.

In this case, scientific sources are available, and therefore we use those. The scientific sources say it is "denial", and the journalistic sources can go fuck themselves. End of story. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Awilley: Charming right? PackMecEng (talk) 04:39, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: Sorry, you lost me at "false balance". Are you saying that people who reject climate science ≠ climate change deniers? Would the phrase people who reject the scientific consensus on climate change resolve your concerns? We have our own Manual of Style and it favors clear direct descriptions over contentious labels. Labeling someone a "denier" might feel satisfying, but it might be more helpful to readers to use straightforward language that describes what the deniers are actually doing (i.e. rejecting science). ~Awilley (talk) 17:08, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Not "≠". But it is too long and not the common term used in science. There is a reason you had to write [[climate change denial|who reject mainstream climate science]]: the article is called that because the phenomenon is called that.

People who reject Second World War history, people who reject biological science and people who reject orthodox geography, we call Holocaust deniers, Creationists and Flat Earthers. Those are the common terms. Actually, you will find users in the archives of Talk:Holocaust denial who have exactly the same problem with the term "Holocaust denial" as you people have with "climate change denial" - they think it is a contentious label. But we use the common term.

And you do not need to convince just me, but practically everybody who is familiar with the subject. And that includes the people who write the reliable sources our articles are based on. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:09, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

If length is an issue it can be shortened, for instance, by removing the word "mainstream". I'd note that the article is titled "Climate change denial" (which is undoubtedly the correct title) not "Climate change deniers" (a label for people who engage in the denial). And with the other examples you gave, when you're writing about actual people it is also more encyclopedic to write straightforward prose rather than slap a label on someone.

Label	Description
"So-and-so is a Flat Earther"	"So-and-so promotes flat earth conspiracy theories"
"So-and-so was put on administrative leave because he was a Holocaust denier	So-and-so was put on administrative leave for teaching Holocaust denial.

~Awilley (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

In general, this is how we handle a lot of the text in Wikipedia articles including the one that started this ludicrous discussion. The problem is we have users who absolutely refuse to let the term climate change denial in any declension show up in articles. Almost as if they take personal offense. jps (talk) 23:49, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Nothing is as black and white as you describe. Deniers are always skeptics but skeptics are not always deniers. PackMecEng (talk) 18:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@PackMecEng:, I don't think that is true. A lot of deniers are well aware that the science contradicts their position. If you look at the documentation from some industry archives, you will find people who have been entirely cynical in promoting denialism purely to protect profits. Some deniers are also pseudoskeptics, pretending to be skeptical but in fact merely promoting a precocnived view - rather like vaccine "skeptics". Guy (help!) 08:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I can see where you are coming from that it is more nuanced. Going more into the reasons and motivations more than a yes or no aspect. In broad strokes I do not think it is far off though. The question seems to be what kind of denier or skeptic and why they hold that position. I moved your comment up to get the indents back in order, I hope you do not mind PackMecEng (talk) 13:59, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Go tell that to Naomi Oreskes and her colleagues. They will doubtless be impressed with your reasoning, and they will immediately change their writings accordingly. Wikipedia will soon follow because WP:SOURCE. Until then, bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I take that to mean you have no actual argument? Fair enough. Toodles! PackMecEng (talk) 18:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I used that actual argument several times now. You just did not listen. The argument is WP:SOURCE. Wikipedia follows the sources.

But if you want an outside-of-Wikipedia reason: here goes.

Climate change deniers are market fundamentalists: they believe that the free market will always do the right thing. This ideology is conclusively refuted by the fact of anthropogenic climate change: the market failed to do the right thing in a really bad way. Since they are fundamentalists, they cannot accept the demise of their dogma, so they have to deny the fact. And indeed: follow the denialist reasoning to its source, and it will always be a free-market think tank such as Competitive Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, or another inhabitant of Category:Libertarian think tanks. Add the Koch brothers, the fossil fuel industry, and other similar money sources for whom deceiving the public is a profitable investment, add Fox and a few bloggers and other mouthpieces, add the GOP and other henchmen, add Trump and other conspiracy theorists, add all those homo oeconomicus wannabes who are interested in their own short-term-profits and not in future generations, add a few market fundamentalists who happen to have science degrees, to lend the whole thing an academic facade, if not much actual understanding, and you get the denial industry. They have the motive, they have the opportunity, and they left their fingerprints everywhere.

Science does not come into it, science is their enemy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The image and personal commentary aren't helpful here. ~Awilley (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Do go on about the giant conspiracy. PackMecEng (talk) 19:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC) PackMecEng says, "tu quoque". User:ජපස (talkcontribs - 14:05, April 6, 2020 ]] This is not a conspiracy theory. First, it is not a conspiracy between all these people, they just all suffer from the same ignorance-selfconfidence-ideology combination and spread the same false rumors they copy from each other (echo chamber). Second, there is actual evidence for who spreads which lies, which you would know if you were familiar with the subject. Read Merchants of Doubt before mouthing off about subjects you do not understand. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:57, 6 April 2020 (UTC) before mouthing off about subjects you do not understand Says the ranting conspiracy theorist. I cannot tell if you are serious or trolling. Either way I think we are done here with your nonsense. PackMecEng (talk) 13:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC) Stuck comment. PackMecEng (talk) 02:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC) Hob Gadling has been very clear in his explanation of the WP:MAINSTREAM understanding of this subject. That you disagree with him and call him a conspiracy theorist looks like classic projection to me. jps (talk) 14:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC) Yes, that is how it is, obviously. Obviously, to every single one of the regulars here, the deniers are the tinfoil hat wearers, not the scientists. See, for example, Global warming conspiracy theory. The connection between market fundamentalism and climate change denial is a well established fact, not a conspiracy theory. But the problem is that anti-science users like PackMecEng have a far higher opinion of their own opinion than of reliable sources, and this one, like many other pro-lunacy editors, has consistently ignored every single link to articles where he could have learned something. This is the Fringe theories noticeboard, and pretty much everybody here knows more about loons and their tricks, about conspiracy theories, and about denialism than you, profringe editor, ever will. You are not fooling anyone, profringe editor. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@PackMecEng: You said above, "Deniers are always skeptics but skeptics are not always deniers." I think that lacks nuance. Deniers are not always skeptics in the context of scientific skepticism. I think the quote from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry sums it up better. "Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics." ~Awilley (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I see so instead of Deniers are always skeptics but skeptics are not always deniers you would go with Deniers are not always skeptics and skeptics are not always deniers? PackMecEng (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

That's technically true but not very helpful here. I think the quote in my previous comment is more relevant. So given the binary choice in this section header of "denier" vs. "skeptic", "denier" is probably the better word because it's less misleading. But the point I'm trying to make above is that it doesn't need to be binary. ~Awilley (talk) 00:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, it is never an always X kind of thing which I was trying to illustrate. PackMecEng (talk) 01:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Your philosophizing is worthless and meaningless. Again: We use reliable sources. You are just two random guys on the internet, and you can publish your opinions wherever you want. But! Not! On! Wikipedia! Because! Wikipedia! Uses! Reliable! Sources!

Why don't you understand that simple concept? Is it because, as I said above, "Since they are fundamentalists, they cannot accept the demise of their dogma"? --Hob Gadling (talk)

Hob Gadling, maybe take it down a notch. You make it sound like anyone who disagrees with you is stupid or evil. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 14:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich I think by only identifying one person here you are missing the problematic WP:POVPUSH that PackMecEng is encouraging. Does that not bother you at all? jps (talk) 16:10, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I already took it down two notches from my original wording idea, and the result is "profringe editor". I am being very generous here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Another thing: Read WP:PROFRINGE. The vast majority of profringe editors is neither stupid nor evil, and WP:PROFRINGE does not say they are. They are just people who hold positions contradicted by science, and they think that their opinion is better supported by facts than the scientists, which just takes stubbornness and ignorance. I never thought that "profringe editor" was an insult, just a description of specific behaviour.

Climate change denial is a subject which has been thoroughly promoted by the denial industry, and as a result, it is very popular in the general public - but not in the climatology community because they recognize bad reasoning within their own expertise. Therefore, climate change denial is one of those cases for which WP:SOURCE was made: a case where journalistic sources have, in average, much lower quality than scientific sources, because the people who wrote the former are part of a population that has been misinformed, and the people who wrote the latter are part of a population that has not. So, those users who claim that the existence of climate change, human-made climate change or a scientific consensus about both, is an open question and that people can stand on any of the sides in that "controversy" and still be reasonable and knowledgeable, and want that opinion in Wikipedia articles are profringe editors, although they do not know it. Astrologers and flat-earthers know that science is not on their side, but thanks to the denialist echo chamber, those people do not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:12, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Skeptic = heretic, denier = infidel. Blueboar (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• I see what you did there, you heathen! PackMecEng (talk) 19:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not care about HIM!, SHE! or THEY! If you do take it their talk page.Slatersteven (talk) 14:08, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

convenience break

PackMecEng, Think of the bell curve. Virtually all current scientists with relevant expertise lie within the 95% confidence interval. Reviews of recently published papers have found, essentially, nothing currently being publsihed in the professional literature that falls outside a pretty tight range of agreement. Those predicting the lowest values withint hat group are nto skeptics and do not describe themselves as such; those who predict near the top are not alarmists, Those who describe themselves as skeptics are - with, as far as I can tell, no well-known exceptions - (a) not professionals in the field; (b) not publishing in the professional literature, or (c) funded by the fossil fuel lobby (or in some cases more than one of these).

I have yet to see a case of anyone who has gone into the science with an open mind and decided the predictions are wrong (which is what skepticism means). Virtually all of them have philosophical or financial reasons for not wanting the science to be true, and have worked from there. Guy (help!) 17:09, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

See I think that is where we differ. To me a denier is someone who says nope its not happening in the face of all reason and evidence. That it is a hoax and whatnot. A skeptic is more a long the lines of someone that, within the bell curve as you put it, can disagree with what actions to take, what the effects will be, and what will happen as a result. (You still have no said if you call yourself a skeptic) PackMecEng (talk) 18:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure this really is what skepticism actually means. In my view, skeptics hold that the case has not yet been proven to be true, whereas deniers hold that the case has been proven to not be true. Skeptics are still open to possible future data tilting the balance either way, but deniers are adamant that the case is closed. I don't know who Curry is willing to engage with, but probably she is engaging with some of each? Possibly her objective is to engage with everyone, irrespective of where they fall based on the above definitions? Open-mindedness is a big part of science, so where should the cut-off line be drawn?

Curry is a decorated scientist, and the article already states that she does not herself deny anthropogenic global warming, but is opposed to the "tribal nature" of the current debate. We seem to be seeing some of that tribalism here too. Perhaps Wikipedia should be extra careful about neutral tone here, and maybe change the sentence to read: "although 95% of recently published scientific papers hold that climate change is both man-made and a looming crisis, Curry is willing to engage with climate change skeptics." My $0.02. Wdford (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Wdford, no, she's willing to pander to deniers. She's not engaging in the scientific debate, she's publishing outside of scientific discourse, and in doing so, giving aid and succour tothe last gasp of fossil fuel funded dneialism. Guy (help!) 20:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

"Pandering" is a very loaded word. Furthermore, Curry does not seem to be denying global warming per se, but she is seemingly contesting the projections etc. Projections can never be certain, so this is hardly pseudoskepticism. The distinction between skepticism and pseudoskepticism is one of intention, which can be difficult for external parties to identify objectively. Wdford (talk) 20:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

So she believes in microevolution but not macroevolution. Because of gaps in the fossil record. You can never be certain that species evolve from other species. Etc. Etc. jps (talk) 14:41, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this has to do with climate change? Please lets also remember WP:BLP. Wdford (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

The analogy seems clear to me. Pseudoscience is as pseudoscience does. Anyone else confused? jps (talk) 13:55, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, denialism is a form of motivated reasoning, and that is exactly what is going on here. Skepticism is the default in the scientific method: the burden of proof lies with the person making a claim. But every competent professional has, by now, acknowledged that this burden has been met. All that's left is pseudoskepticism. Guy (help!) 20:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

That does not really address what I was saying. There is no firm agreement on the examples I brought up, just that it is happening and something needs to be done. To what extent and what should be done are still under discussion. PackMecEng (talk) 22:34, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, sure, but climate change "skeptics" are not saying that, or at least are not within the realm of the consensus position (in that "nothing" is clearly not an acceptable answer to what should be done), and the evidence strongly suggests that few, if any, are arguing in good faith. Guy (help!) 17:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

If that can be proven that moves them to denier. Though that is hard to prove. PackMecEng (talk) 17:08, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, actually it's very easy. If they have taken money from any conservative think tank or made money appearing in the conservative media bubble, they are a denier. If they restrict their activities to the professional literature, they are a skeptic. Guy (help!) 20:39, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng I'm sorry, by what standard are you making these demarcations? A citation would be nice. jps (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Skepticism and denial are two different English words, with different accepted definitions. If scientists have started using them to mean the same thing, then you will need to provide reliable sources to that effect please. Wdford (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

The sources are clear. Climate change skepticism, you will see, redirects to climate change denial. They are synonyms. jps (talk) 13:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

That argument is debunked above. The discussion that lead to that redirect specifically denied that it meant skepticism = denial.[4] PackMecEng (talk) 14:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Awilley can you come get your climate change denier here? jps (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Wdford: See what happens when you call them on repeatedly misrepresenting the facts? Like I said this has been discussed by many people many times and all found the same result. PackMecEng (talk) 14:22, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

You had JzG explain to you the problem and yet you don't seem to have learned the lesson. I encourage you to take several seats. jps (talk) 14:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Again misrepresenting what happened. Me and Guy were talking about the concepts. What you were falsely presenting as facts is past community concensus. There is of course a difference. Also really, have a seat? What does that even mean? PackMecEng (talk) 14:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

ජපස, no need to rope me into this, I think, PackMecEng and I are converging on common ground. Guy (help!) 20:42, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad you think so, but it does not appear that way from the discussions below. The problem is that at the rhetorical level there is a difference between "denial" and "skepticism" as concepts/words, but when we talk about the subjects of climate change skepticism and climate change denial, as they are seen in our world, there does not appear to be a single "climate change skeptic" who is not a denier. The best you can do is point to people like Richard Lindzen who steadfastly maintain that they are not "skeptics" and that instead they explicitly deny that the scientific consensus on climate change is correct. So there are are deniers who reject the skeptic label. I have asked for an example of one person who embraces the "climate change skeptic" label who is not part of this denial machine. No one has been able to point to such a person. jps (talk) 20:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

That you continue to double down on your propagandistic WP:ADVOCACY is appalling. We have showed you sources. We have pointed out the specific problems with your rhetoric. And still you seem to think that there is some sort of demarcation between climate change skeptics and climate change deniers based on, what exactly? I assume it is your own fantasies at this point. jps (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Please accept community concensus. PackMecEng (talk) 14:45, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

What?! The community consensus is clear. Climate change skepticism redirects to climate change denial. It's as simple as that. jps (talk) 14:53, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

This is getting to ididnthearthat territory. Read the closing statement for that discussion that created that redirect. I even quoted it to you above. PackMecEng (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I already explained to you that in spite of two words being different, you cannot use Awilley's off-handed comment about two words being different to declare that climate change skepticism is different from climate change denial when we have the preponderance of sources saying they are the same thing. It's as clear as that and there is nothing more to be said. WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT indeed! jps (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Listen, if you want to have a discussion on the overall meaning of the two and all that, fine. If you want to say the result of this discussion means community consensus is skepticism = denial even though the closing statement says the opposite then you are wrong. PackMecEng (talk) 15:19, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

You've already been shown to be wrong, so we're done here. If you continue to push this view in article space, I will ask for a topic ban at WP:AE. jps (talk) 16:14, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Venn diagram. Left: People who identify as "climate change skeptics" Right: People engaging in climate change denial

@PackMecEng: The community consensus that matters here is a clear community consensus that the term climate change denial is preferred over climate change skepticism. There is evidence of that consensus both here and in the redirect discussion for climate change skepticism → climate change denial. Of course the words denial and skepticism don't mean the same thing. They're different words. And although the full terms also technically have different meanings, the term skeptic is usually misapplied as many have pointed out. A majority of the people who call themselves "climate change skeptics" are misusing the word because climate change skepticism implies scientific skepticism and that is not what is going on. The Venn diagram to the right allows for a sliver of people who are genuinely skeptical but who aren't engaging in denial. Or maybe it's not a sliver...maybe the true "climate change skeptics" are the "climate change scientists" because a good scientist is always skeptical. That this reversal works further illustrates why the term climate change skepticism should be avoided. I can sympathize with your distaste for what might feel like a rabid push to brand anybody who has ever expressed any doubt about any aspect of climate change as a "denier", but I don't think continuing this discussion the way you are is helpful.

@ජපස: In fairness I should point out that it is a flawed argument that the existence of the climate change skepticism → climate change denial redirect proves that the terms mean the same thing. There are a plethora of counterexamples for that...Arsenic mining is clearly not the same thing as Arsenic the element, yet the redirect Arsenic mining → Arsenic exists. ~Awilley (talk) 16:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I was just pointing out it was a wrong argument not based on facts that a redirect means anything, especially given the discussion that was had at the time. So we agree it sounds like. I appreciate your personal drawing though, its cute. PackMecEng (talk) 16:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Citation needed, Awilley. Is this original research? All the sources I've seen indicate that there really aren't any self-styled "climate change skeptics" who are not in the "denial" category (in other words, I cannot think of a single person in the blue sliver on your diagram). What sources do you have which indicate that your Venn diagram is correct? jps (talk) 17:06, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@ජපස: The Venn diagram reflects this quote from Climate_change_denial#Terminology In December 2014, an open letter from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry called on the media to stop using the term "skepticism" when referring to climate change denial. They contrasted scientific skepticism—which is "foundational to the scientific method"—with denial—"the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration"—and the behavior of those involved in political attempts to undermine climate science. They said "Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. The bolded part directly supports the Venn diagram. (Although admittedly the diagram would be more accurate if the circles were closer to the same size to reflect the "virtually all" bit.) ~Awilley (talk) 18:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've read that six-year-old piece. If I knew of one person to whom that description applied, I would be happy to entertain this as an option. As far as I know, there is none who do, to the point that reliable sources that lovingly detail so-called "climate skepticism" only discuss denialist talking points. We have had this discussion a lot: there is no one in that little blue sliver. jps (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• Awilley At this point I think this discussion has reached its useful end. Shall we close this now? PackMecEng (talk) 17:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Either admit the blue sliver is a null set or identify a single person who occupies that space. Then we can close. jps (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd offer up Judith Curry, but I already know what the response will be - in classic No True Scotsman fashion she will promptly be labeled a "denier" by you, as will any other name that I or Awilley or PackMecEng will propose. There no arguing with a True Beleiver. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Or, you know, we might look at what reliable sources say about Curry's denial? The fact is that these two ideas have been synonymous for sometime or, at the very least, the "self-styled skeptics" are all part of the denial-sphere. Curry denies basic facts about climate change up to the point that she no longer even engages in peer review. She fell down the rabbit hole, and we have the sources that show it. What do you have, speaking of "true believers"? jps (talk) 17:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

You didn't actually read that article, did you? Let me highlight for you the parts you missed: "Curry (2014), a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, does not dispute climate change " But like I said, No True Scotsman etc... JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

And you didn't read climate change denial, did you? Not all deniers deny that the climate is changing. They just deny aspects of the scientific consensus on climate change. Try to keep up. jps (talk) 17:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Circular reasoning - climate change denial was written by you and people like you, to reflect the above view point. But let's try to put the shoe the other foot, shall we? I think we can agree that at a purely logical theoretical level, since skepticism is not the same as denial , there could be some people in the silver-blue area. What, according to you, would be the defining characteristics of someone in that sector? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Lol! By claiming that Wikipedia's article is wrong, you have completely umasked yourself as an WP:ACTIVIST. The issue we have here is that climate change skepticism has simply been co-opted by ideologues as a term. They are part of the denialist machine. Wikipedia has recognized this status quo for years now. jps (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not an activist, and don't need to be unmasked, and if we're descending to that level , the same can be said of you. But I asked you a question, and would like an answer: What, according to you, would be the defining characteristics of someone in that blue-silver set? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 20:47, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Your edit history speaks for itself. I honestly do not think there is anyone in that blue sliver. What would their defining characteristic be? Well, they would call themselves "skeptics" but not deny the fundamental points that are included in scientific consensus on climate change. I don't know anyone who fits that definition. If we were having this discussion years ago, Richard Muller might have fit that description, but no longer. He doesn't meaningfully object to any of the consensus points. jps (talk) 20:57, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

As does your edit history speak for itself with regard to your status as an WP:ACTIVIST who is unmasked - I suggest you drop the name calling and labeling, as stick to arguments. So you don't think there could be anyone in the blue silver set (not is, could be)? What aspect of current consensus could one legitimately question or challenge without being a denier, in your view? It seems to me that your view is that the moment you challenge anything which is in current consensus, regardless of the merits of your challenge, you are automatically a a "denier". JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 21:08, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not interested in hypotheticals. If someone can point to one example of someone who is in that sliver, I would be fine with this. In spite of the the claims of the right wing, there are plenty of skeptical disagreements within the climate change literature. The arguments happen all the time. They are not outside the bounds of our article on scientific consensus on climate change, crucially, and because of the politicization of the term, not a one of those scientists would call themselves "climate change skeptics". Like it or lump it, the denial machine has simply engulfed this term and co-opted it to the point that it is a poison pill. You can wail and gnash teeth as much as you want about this, but that's the situation. We aren't here to right great wrongs. Go to Conservapedia if that's what you want to do. jps (talk) 21:12, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, tobacco industry playbook. Deny there's a problem, then, when the problem becomes undeniable, deny the scale and consequences. Guy (help!) 20:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

If you have no substantial reply, kindly stay out of this. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 20:47, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, so are you denying that the oil industry uses the tobacco playbook? Before you go there, check out the history of professional denialists like Fred Singer. Guy (help!) 14:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that regardless of what oil industry is doing, that comment is unresponsive to my question, a Red Herring intended to divert and hijack the discussion. Either answer my question, or stay out of it. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

• The Conversation (website), which is listed green at WP:RSP, published "Climate sceptic or climate denier? It’s not that simple and here’s why" in 2019 (links in the original):

  Several papers with reliable methodology unchallenged in the literature show an enormous majority of climate scientists agree that the planet is warming and humans are largely responsible.

  But contrary positions are not unknown. Some questions regarding the credibility of some aspects of climate models, for example, exist for some working academics.

  While these scientists do not necessarily doubt all aspects of climate science, issues of reliability of methodology and validity of conclusions in some areas remain, for them, alive.

  Whether they are correct or not (and many have been responded to in the literature), they are at least working within the broad norms of academia. We might call these people “climate sceptics”.

  * * *

  In summary, three categories of climate science disbelief are: sceptic, agnostic and denier. Three subdivisions of deniers are: naive, conspiracists and opportunists.

  Granted that's just one source, but it's reliable. – Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:15, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  The Conversation is only as reliable as the author. This author is not a scientist and it shows. The so-called "skeptic" that he refers to in this dubious article is Nicola Scafetta. Scafetta is consistently and without shame a member of the denialist machine: [5] jps (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  Levivich, As noted above, Scafetta is a perfect example of a denialist. He is publishing outside his sphere of expertise (which is engineering), and doing so for money. Guy (help!) 20:41, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  The Conversation article I linked/quote isn't written by Scafetta, it's written by Peter Ellerton, who is not publishing outside his area of expertise (critical thinking)

  Richard A. Muller: I draw a distinction between sceptics and deniers. The sceptics are people I respect – they have raised legitimate issues and, from my experience, are open minded. The deniers are people who start with a conclusion and only pay attention to the data that support it. I do think that our results could change the minds of some sceptics about the reality of global warming. [6].

  David Brin: Not every person who expresses doubt or criticism toward some part of this complex issue is openly wedded to the shrill anti-intellectualism of Fox News ... What traits distinguish a rational, pro-science "skeptic" — who has honest questions about the AGW consensus — from members of a Denier Movement that portrays all members of a scientific community as either fools or conspirators? After extensive discussions with many AGW doubters, I believe I have found a set of distinct characteristics that separate the two groups. [7]

  The point is: there are non-woo academics who believe the blue sliver in that venn diagram exists. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  Ellerton is publishing outside his expertise. He is citing Scafetta as an example of a skeptic who isn't a denier. That's ludicrous. I am aware of Muller's distinctions, and largely think the world has moved way past this. As for Brin's distinctions, I have no idea who he is talking about. Do you know who he is talking about? He kinda claims that he is a climate change skeptic, but as far as I can tell that means that while he admits all the science is on the side that humans are causing global warming, he still doesn't think humans are causing global warming(?) which strikes me as straight-up denial. Am I missing something at the end of that piece? jps (talk) 21:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  Levivich, What jps just said. A genuine skeptic is one who is publishing in the professional literature, and is not funded by the fossil fuel industry. Curry is publishing outside the professional literature and boosting those who are both publishing outside the literature and on the payroll of big oil. Guy (help!) 14:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

  She's published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in relevant academic outlets, and is not on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

  She admits to getting money from the fossil fuel industry: [8]. jps (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

  What that source says :

  '“I do receive some funding from the fossil fuel industry. My company…does [short-term] hurricane forecasting…for an oil company, since 2007. During this period I have been both a strong advocate for the IPCC, and more recently a critic of the IPCC, there is no correlation of this funding with my public statements.”"

  .

  Care to answer my question now, which I have asked 3 times now - What aspect of current consensus could one legitimately question or challenge without being a denier, in your view? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 21:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Let me try to be as clear as possible: It does not matter what I think is legitimate or illegitimate. The problem is that there aren't people who question the scientific consensus on climate change who reliable sources don't put in the category of global warming denial. Crucially, in spite of what it may feel like when we state the simple fact about the world as it is, I am not making any value judgement about the situation by stating this. The fact that, to a person, those who object to the consensus are all part of the climate change denial apparatus is just what we've got. jps (talk) 02:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

A few final observations:

• Using phrases like "climate change denial apparatus" sounds like you are ranting about an apocalyptic conspiracy. I'm sure Wikipedia can find better wording.

• We aren't in article space here. Sorry that this upsets you so much. jps (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• DeSmogBlog is run by a PR company, and they openly brag about their POV, so they are hardly a reliable source.

• Did you find any mistakes in their list? jps (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• Do you have actual citations for the claim that everyone who does not adhere to the consensus is branded by every reliable source as a denier rather than a skeptic?

• Already provided. jps (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm sure that WP:BLP is relevant here too.

• And WP:CRYBLP. jps (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Wdford (talk) 15:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, no. WP:BLP is policy, that applies everywhere (talk pages included). WP:CRYBLP is someone's personal musings. It does not apply here, or anywhere except the author's page. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 01:05, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It applies here, puppet. jps (talk) 01:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't, young grasshopper, but thanks for playing. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 03:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that climate change deniers in the past have used BLP as a cover to claim that we couldn't identify deniers like Curry in discussion is well-trodden ground. We can and will identify deniers like Curry in discussion. What we do in articlespace (and how) is another matter. This is why WP:CRYBLP exists. jps (talk) 11:33, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Remember that WP:CRYBLP is an WP:ESSAY. By constrast the need to avoid WP:SYN is a WP:POLICY. Please do not make statements about named individuals which are not backed up by explicit sourcing which does not require synthesis to reach the conclusions you are trying to support. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:53, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Pretending that we haven't provided sources that explicitly label Curry as part of the denialist machine is either WP:IDHT or it is WP:POVPUSH. Either way, not becoming. jps (talk) 19:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Our own article on Judith Curry shows it and we have plenty of sources which identify climate denial machine. I think we're fine here. jps (talk) 14:05, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

That article contains some very carefully chosen phrases, which were chosen explicitly to be well referenced and avoid WP:SYN. She isn't called a "denier" there, despite the wishes of some of the more enthusiastic and less thoughtful editors, precisely because there weren't reliable sources supporting that specific characterisation. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

No, she's not "called" a "denier" there because it's not necessary for the text. The text makes it clear that she's a denier. If you don't think it does, I think it's just your own comprehension issues. jps (talk) 15:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• The usual wording is "climate change denial industry". You should really read the literature, starting with "Merchants of Doubt", before taking sides here. And yes: accepting denialists as "skeptics" is taking their side, because that is all they want: making the facts seem less factual by pretending there are still disagreements within science about the basic questions of "is climate change happening" and "is is caused by us".
• "Their POV" is identical with the scientific consensus. It is like "bragging about" having the POV that the Shroud of Turin is fake - the situation is pretty much the same: The facts are clear, it's just that some people will not accept them. You, Wdford, know that the Shroud is fake and that all objections can easily be proved wrong because you have looked at the data. Other people here know the same about climate change because they have looked at those data.
• This is not about "every reliable source". It is about scientific reliable sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Struck comments by JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, a blocked and banned sockpuppet. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NoCal100/Archive § 06 May 2020 and Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/NoCal100 for details. — Newslinger talk 19:28, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion is continuing at [9]

Curry again

You really got my hopes up with the section title –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos)

Judith Curry (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article is becoming fringier and fringier. Now it reads as if all climatologists except Curry are incompetent. They do not know what they are doing, they are caught in groupthink, they do not know the very basics (handling uncertainty is one of the things you have to learn when you are a student), all their "models are wrong". As opposed to the "skeptics", who "bring up valid points" which are not named, and who are called "skeptics" in Wikipedia's voice. And her position has been "much criticised by some scientists", with a little of a lot of much some weaseling, plus a bland "neo-somethingism" label, but without any details.

Also, the discussion has a "poisonous nature", and therefore Curry thinks that scientist should "be more accommodating of" those who poisoned it with their lies and misrepresentations. Law of similars anyone? --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Hob, this article is about Curry, not global warming, or climate change, or climate denialism. Those topics have their own articles already, where the science is thrashed out. People will come to this article (if they come at all) to learn about Curry, so this article must therefore describe Curry's views and positions, right or wrong. It is important to mention that most scientists disagree with her on some specifics, but this article is not an additional opportunity to bang the general anti-denialist drum, or to smear the individual - especially considering WP:BLP. In the article on the Shroud of Turin, we state the science as per the evidence. However if we had an article on e.g. Ray Rogers or Walter McCrone etc, we should focus on describing their work and their views - with only a mention of the conflicting consensus, and links and citations where readers can go to obtain the full picture on that larger issue if that is what they are actually interested in. Wdford (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It's core policy that if a fringe view is aired it needs to be clearly identified as such and the contextualizing mainstream view needs to be prominently included. Alexbrn (talk) 17:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Which policy are you referring to? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:NPOV, specifically WP:PSCI, the basis of WP:FRINGE. Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

You are misreading that policy, or at best, stretching it. WP:PSCI requires that when discussing the topic of climate change, we present the scientific mainstream view as such, with contrarian views presented as minority (if at all). But that policy does not mean that when we are discussing a person and their views, we need to say (in Wikipedia's voice) that these views are fringe. At most, if there are notable critics of that specific person's views , we can include them, and attribute those criticisms to them. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:09, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The policy is clear. WP:PSCI makes no mention of climate change specifically, but applies to all fringe subjects. This is further explained in WP:GEVAL:

Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.

I know nothing of Curry's views in detail, but if they are fringe it is essential that they are contextualized by a clear & prominent statement of the mainstream position. Alexbrn (talk) 18:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It applies to all subjects, but not to describing people's views on those subject, in their BLPs. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Where does it say that? Ideas are ideas, and people are people. While some WP:PROFRINGE editors have in the past tried to WP:CRYBLP and extend biographical protection to the ideas people espouse, it hasn't worked because the policy is clear as is: we must "include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world". This is core policy, and this is area under discretionary sanctions so editors ignoring it can expect to get sanctioned. Alexbrn (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Describing "these ideas in their proper context" is exactly what I wrote above- when discussing the idea - in its article - the proper context is to present mainstream views vs. fringe views. In the context of a BLP, we don't have license to add editorial comment, in Wikipedia's voice, that evaluate the views, unless reliable sources do so - for that person, specifically. For example, David Icke's article contains a very lengthy section about his "Reptilian" theories, but we don't add a paragraph there that says "this theory is of course nonsense" in Wikipedia's voice.JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk)

David Icke's article does not describe policy. I have quoted policy, and it is clear. For an example of an article that has been raised here before where fringe ideas have needed to be qualified, see G. Edward Griffin. Bottom line, fringe ideas must never get an unqualified airing on Wikipedia. Alexbrn (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

David Icke's article is an example of how Wikipedia policy is applied, which is contrary to your interpretation of policy. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Icke is a bad example because almost everybody can see that what he says is absurd, but still: We do not describe his ideas as if they were a reasonable position within science, without adding any substantial contradiction from mainstream scientists, beyond the milquetoast "has been criticized" and "other scientists disagree", as we currently do in the Curry article. We say he has "conspiracy theories about public figures being reptilian humanoids and paedophiles". We do not say "Icke calls for better understanding of the danger the reptilians pose".

A better example is Kary Mullis#Personal views, where we just say what he believes. We do not give lengthy quotes of him justifying why he believes that HIV does not cause AIDS, because Wikipedia is not a propaganda platform for fringe views. Instead, we quote what mainstream scientists say about his opinions. In Linus Pauling#Medical research and vitamin C advocacy, we do not give quotes by Pauling arguing for his hypervitamin ideas. In Brian Josephson#Parapsychology we do not quote Josephson reasoning for psi.

Those three are Nobelists, and, as scientists, obviously better models for the Curry article than Icke. This is how it is done. The current Curry article is how it is not done. If someone wants to read justifications for climate change denial, Wikipedia should not be a source for that. When I read "Curry believes natural forces also play a large role", and that "climate models [..] don't do a very good job of [testing sensitivity to CO2]" I want to know what they responded to that. Did they? If not, why do we quote claims that have not received any reception? --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

"Icke is a bad example because almost everybody can see that what he says is absurd" - that illustrates perfectly why we can't do what you are proposing - in Curry's case, it is not the case that "everybody can see that what [s]he says is absurd" (because it's not), and you are trying to substitute your personal opinion to force people to see it the way you want. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

This is bullshit. I am not trying to substitut "my personal oponion", I am trying to follow the rules by balancing fringe positions with quotes that show how mainstream scientists respond to Curry's reasoning. What Curry says is an extreme minority position in climate science. So, if we leave it in the article, uncommented, we mislead those who are looking for information on the subject by pretending it is just one normal scientific opinion among several, subject to disagreements but still legitimate science, probably based of actual studies - which is not true; it is just her personal opinion. In the Icke article, that danger does not exist. According to WP:FRINGE,

"Fringe views of those better known for other achievements or incidents should not be given undue prominence"

If we allow Curry's fringe opinions without also including the response from the mainstream, we give them undue prominence. And in the cases where there is no response from the mainstream to specific claims she made, these claims are not notable and should be deleted.

If, as you say, "we can't do what [I am] proposing", that would mean that the three Nobelist articles need to be changed. We have to include quotes by those three people where they defend their positions, as well as delete the responses from the mainstream. And we must also delete the few weasely sentences in the Curry article about "other scientists" and "some scientists" who think differently.

If your position is generally applied, Wikipedia will turn into a hotbed of woo where every crazy idea gets explained without any chance of contradiction. But I do not think that will happen because we have done it the way applied in the Nobelist articles, the way I am trying to explain to you, for many years now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:12, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

((od)) For those who don't know Curry's views in detail, after 2009 she became a "contrarian [scientist] who is frequently invited by Republicans to testify before US Congress",[10] "as she will reliably state that the uncertainties in climate science are much larger than her fellow scientists will acknowledge, although she doesn't identify any sources of uncertainty that aren't already factored in."[11] . . . dave souza, talk 10:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@ Wdford and JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, you must also comply with WP:WEIGHT policy:
In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained.
Curry's views need that context, yet even sources used in the article are misrepresented to exclude critical majority views, and tucked away at the foot of a section in contravention of WP:STRUCTURE policy. . . dave souza, talk 21:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

"In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint" - yes. But this is not such an article, this is a biography. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 21:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Obviously every article must comply with the WP:WEIGHT policy. What specific extra sentences would you like to add - please suggest the wording here or on the talk page? Wdford (talk) 21:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

For every instance where we include Curry's reasoning or opinion about a specific item, if that opinion is a minority opinion, it either must be balanced by mainstream responses to Curry, or deleted. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• It's a pity to see this matter resurfacing after an apparently stable solution had been reached. Can I just remind all editors that whatever conclusion is eventually reached, this does not grant any license to indulge in WP:SYN. As stated there

Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources.

Whatever we end up saying must be explicitly sourced without improperly combining multiple sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:02, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"Stability" is not the foremost goal of Wikipedia articles. If you just want stability, you can simply block all articles. That "apparently stable solution" violates WP:FRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

An apparently stable version was reached with this version which resolved long contention over how to describe her controversial views post 2009, by well sourced description of her own views as contrarian and her blog as part of the climate change denial blogosphere. On the talk page at 04:38 on 22 April this comment made the false claim that Curry's name wasn't mentioned in one of the sources, and disparaged the sources. Following a day of discussion, a proposed revert to an earlier version was carried out at 00:32 on 23 April 2020 with the edit comment "see the talkpage discussion, and start an RfC if you want to include this contested material. This is a BLP." Which looks chilling and WP:BATTLEGROUNDy, the editor concerned had already been notified re discretionary sanctions. This edit reintroduced the contested term climate skeptic, which is a redirect to climate change denial that avoids misleading ambiguity and so is used by those clarifying the mainstream view, including the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the National Center for Science Education and historian Spencer R. Weart. It has of course met opposition, as shown by those opposing its use in WP biographies. . . dave souza, talk 10:33, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

That was indeed the "stable" version I was referring to, thanks. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Dave souza, yes. This is a case of WP:CRYBLP being used to obscure the fact that Curry is a key figure in the denialist movement. The revision as of 2020-04-10T18:19:35 is solid. I am not wholly convinced that the arguments for change are always being made in good faith: some Wikipedia editors involved here have climate change denialist talking points on their user pages. Guy (help!) 12:04, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

While it's correct that articles about someone can include information about their notable views (subject to WP:WEIGHT), BLP articles should not be used to promote those ideas. They should primarily be covered using independent sources (WP:FRIND), with self-published and author primary sources mostly usable for non-controversial information (WP:SPS, WP:ABOUTSELF, WP:PRIMARY) and third party unreliable sources avoided. —PaleoNeonate – 06:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, indeed. And while we're about it, the fact that one or more editors don't like the fact that climate change skeptic is a synonym for climate change denier, that doesn't make it any less a fact, and when a source says she engages with climate change "skeptics" we can indeed say deniers because that's how we refer to climate change deniers. It's also extremely easy to identify the "skeptics" she's been engaging with, and as other sources in the article note, they are indeed deniers. Guy (help!) 18:55, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Struck comments by JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, a blocked and banned sockpuppet. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NoCal100/Archive § 06 May 2020 and Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/NoCal100 for details. — Newslinger talk 19:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents

USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Another edit war about whether or not the last line from an article written in Space.com should be attributed to Space.com. I question whether it should be in the lede at all.

jps (talk) 13:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems there have been efforts to give undue weight to credulous views and hype the idea that these UFO sightings are officially “unexplainable”. This is part of an ongoing pattern of dedicated and persistent WP:ADVOCACY across many UFO-related articles. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:17, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that there are two ways to value-laden "unexplainable" or "mysterious". One is that there are no explanations so wild speculation needs to be entertained. The other is that there are no explanations so it should be carefully considered whether the evidence is well-posed. The latter point gets extremely short-shrift in the UFO community and, unfortunately, the members of that advocacy group carry on so loudly and at such lengths that they seem to get the ear of some of the less-than-extremely-meticulous journalists. jps (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on sources. Not personal opinions and WP:OR. Provide WP:RS supporting the statements you wish to include in the articles and I will gladly insert them for you. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 15:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The sources have already been provided. That you don't care for them or understand them is the problem. jps (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

::I became mostly involved. When Gtoffoletto put sources on the ufology page, they said somebody's edit, did not match with the source so I checked and they were right. For Bob Lazars pageLive Science is used and they also use the same article, that is written by space.com. we never quoted the credentials of that person who's saying Bob Lazar is lying? I know he is a conspiracy theorist and never went to the school he said he did. https://www.livescience.com/ufos-videos-declassified-navy-release.html https://www.livescience.com/23514-area-51.htmlDriverofknowledge (talk) 15:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Driverofknowledge: Thank you for verifying the edits and the sources. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 15:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

You have made this claim a number of times, but I don't know to what it refers. It would be good if you would be explicit about which source does not match which edit rather than being vague. jps (talk) 15:48, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Using a random story on Live Science (which is where Space.com recycled it from) as the punchline of the lede gives it undue weight, I think. The claim is taken almost verbatim from the last sentence of the story, There is as yet no explanation or identification — official or not — for the mysterious aircraft that the pilots recorded. First of all, the line in the current version of our article (there is currently no explanation or identification for the incidents, official or not) is a copyvio, and that's bad. Second, Live Science is of dubious reliability, and even if they are generally OK, we have no grounds to treat them as definitive here. Third, the claim is factually wrong. Perhaps nobody "official" has offered an explanation, but plenty of subject-matter experts have proposed them. There are mundane explanations — IR overexposure, etc. — though in the absence of more data, there's only so much one can say. XOR'easter (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I would agree its undue for the lead.Slatersteven (talk) 15:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Unsensationalized non-credulous explanations like this from Tom Avril, and this from Mick West do exist, and could be used per WP:PARITY and WP:FRINGE. Sadly, the trend in these articles recently has been to emphasize the sensational stuff and enhance the credibility of UFOlogy spokesmen and organizations, often one in particular. There has even been lobbying at MDPI, which I can only assume is to pave the way for use of fringe papers as a citation to justify of "otherworldly UFO" interpretations. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. That paper seems to be part of a set of conference proceedings, which in physics often means a lower standard of review. Basically, conferences are where preliminary work gets reported, and so papers in conference proceedings are often about partial results or early stages of research — even when they're legit, they're on a bit of a lower tier. And so, the people in charge set a lower standard, and junk gets through, even with better publishers than MDPI. Nor would I really expect peer review by physicists or computer scientists to be all that helpful here. As Carl Sagan once wrote, "The magician Uri Geller is happy to warp keys and cutlery in the vicinity of scientists—who, in their confrontations with nature, are used to an adversary who fights fair; but is greatly affronted at the idea of performances before an audience of skeptical magicians—who, understanding human limitations, are themselves able to perform similar effects by sleight of hand." I doubt a conference on statistical inference and machine learning has the right kind of reviewers on call. XOR'easter (talk) 17:21, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Those are two interesting sources. The first one seems ready to be included in the article as is. Regarding Mick West's analysis has it been picked up by any reputable source that we may cite? Or can we link to https://www.metabunk.org/ directly? Seems a bit borderline to call it a WP:RS though... -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 22:48, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The MDPI source is by no means ready to include as is. It hasn't gained any more notice outside of it's fringe bubble since the first time you lobbied to include it, so WP:EXTRAORDINARY still applies. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:53, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

mmm I'm talking about [12] and Mick West's videos... you like fighting don't you? -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 22:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

p.s. regarding Mick West's analysis and just for the fun of it. F/A-18E's are equipped with state of the art beyond-visual-range radars: the AN/APG-79. Are we saying they wouldn't pick up an airliner that is close enough to be detected by I/R? That's nuts right? This would be a colossal radar detection failure. The FLIR video clearly shows there is no radar lock as range is not estimated. Chad Underwood, who filmed this, also made the following statement: [13]"The radar was in a standard search mode (RWS/ 80NM/ 4bar/ intr) and the FLIR was in L+S slave (the FLIR would point in direction of a radar L+S track). There was no radio or communication interference and they had entry into the Link-16 network, Initial awareness of an object came via the radar. According to the radar display, the initial tracks were at approximately 30-40 nm to the south of the aircraft. Lt._________was controlling the radar and FLIR and attempted multiple times to transition the radar to Single Target Track (STT) mode on the object. The radar could not take a lock, the b-sweep would raster around the hit, build an initial aspect vector (which never stabilized) and then would drop and continue normal RWS b-sweep. When asked, LT.__________ stated that there were no jamming cues (strobe, champagne bubbles, “any normal EA indications”). It “just appeared as if the radar couldn’t hack it.” The radar couldn’t receive enough information to create a single target track file. The FLIR, in L+S slave, pointed in direction of the initial track flies as the radar attempted lock. The FLIR showed an object at 0 ATA and approximately -5deg elevation (Figure 2). According to LT.__________ “the target was best guess co- altitude or a few thousand feet below,” estimating the object to be between 15-20 thousand feet. The object, according to the FLIR, appeared stationary (Figure 3). There was no discernable movement from the object with the only closure being a result of the aircraft’s movement. As LT.__________ watched the object it began to move out of FLIR field of view to the left. LT.__________ made no attempt to slew the FUR and subsequently lost situational awareness to the object. The Flight continued with training mission with no further contact with object."

So the options appear to be:

• the NAVY's radars don't work (possible as I think they were brand new at the time)
• Mick West's explanation doesn't explain it
• The NAVY/witnesses is/are lying

-- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 00:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

This is also interesting speculation: [14] Maybe Fravor saw a blimp that terminated it's flight and deflated away quickly? Was this a submarine doing a covert mission/test and getting "caught"? Obviously the Navy has the best info to investigate this. But they say it is unexplained... In any case none of this has been picked up by any WP:RS as far as I can tell. We have the two recent MDPI papers but they have been disputed as sources despite the peer review. Let's hope that, with the recent publicity of those events, someone will publish some reply of some sort. Maybe Mick himself? Metabunk seems the best source for informed speculation on this. Everything else I've read is woefully ignorant of the facts. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 00:45, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• Since there's debate on the sources and the wording drawn from them, I recommend the BBC's treatment of the subject, |"Pentagon releases UFO videos for the record", which I don't see cited in the article yet. GPinkerton (talk) 17:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

:The Page not available it did not come up.Driverofknowledge (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@Driverofknowledge: Cover-up! It should work now, but on second thoughts I think I've mixed up the aircraft carriers and this is about Nimitz. GPinkerton (talk) 00:31, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I've struck through edits by Driverofknowledge that had replies and deleted the last two. See w:en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jack90s15. Doug Weller talk 13:29, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Judy Mikovits

Judy Mikovits (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is likely to become a hotspot very soon. Might benefit from some editors here watching it. So far, looks like the problems are pretty much under control, but we know how quickly that can change.

jps (talk) 14:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Wow, that's an active talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I lost interest in her after she was fired. I had no idea that she'd gone so far to the darkside until a couple of days ago. -Roxy the effin dog . wooF 16:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

The Dark Side is powerful and seductive. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Plandemic

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

A new article. I'm sure you're all thrilled that this exists.

jps (talk) 12:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

That's actually a very good and useful article, now JzG has filled it out! - David Gerard (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree, it's just sad that it has to be made in the sense that it would be better if this thing did not exist. :( jps (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Catchy title, I like it. PackMecEng (talk) 15:25, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Has anyone made a response like, Screw Loose Change? StrayBolt (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is a Google doc Debunking “Plandemic” refuting much of the movie, with references. StrayBolt (talk) 17:38, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

This article may still need watchers, as it was soon being whitewashed as semi-protection expired. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 00:27, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

• I trust people saw this article this morning. Alexbrn (talk) 18:28, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The coordinated campaign has been pretty-well established at this point. We might want to recategorize as a one-offf "viral video". Odd that Wikipedia doesn't yet have a category/infobox for that sort of thing. Charlie Bit My Finger, Gangnam Style, Leave Brittney Spears Alone, etc. jps (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Grover Furr

Grover Furr (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Not a historian, pretends to be one, but is a "revisionist", not a pseudohistorian. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:36, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he's not actually notable, and put this up for AFD a few years ago. What he does have is a huge following amongst his fellow Stalinists. So expect mountains of special pleading and personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 19:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Can't stop reading this as Grover Hfuhruhurr . Guy (help!) 22:08, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's how "Furr" is pronounced. By some. From now on. --Hob Gadling (talk) 02:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest doing another notability check, and checking every single reference, and AFD if warranted - David Gerard (talk) 22:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I put him in Category:Historical revisionism, and put that category in Category:Pseudohistory (before, it was the other way around), so the categorization is OK now. People who look for pseudohistorians can find him. --Hob Gadling (talk) 02:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Isn't that confusing Historical revisionism with Historical negationism? Grover Furr aside, revisionism isn't necessarily pseudohistory _signed, Rosguill ^talk 02:07, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It seemed right to me at the time. Are there any historians here who know the right relation between those terms? Is historical negationism a subset of historical revisionism? --Hob Gadling (talk) 03:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The first line of Historical negationism says Historical negationism, also called denialism, is a distortion of the historical record. It is often imprecisely referred to as historical revisionism, but that term also applies to legitimate academic reinterpretations of the historical record that diverge from previously accepted views. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 03:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Furr's a Holodomor denialist, so definitely belongs in some combination of both of these if he's to be in Wikipedia at all - David Gerard (talk) 11:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"Holodomor denialist" is not what Furr is, he simply denies it was genocide. This is a very common opinion among historians as there is no historical consensus on the matter.Jorge1777 (talk) 14:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC) strike sock-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Minimisation - which he does, hard - counts as denial. Compare holocaust minimisation as a variety of holocaust denial, to which holodomor denial is very closely analogous. Furr's track record on this score is extensive. He's well into the fringe - David Gerard (talk) 14:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Use whatever word you want but the pertinent point is that you're either not very familiar with Soviet historiography, not familiar with Furr's work or a combination of both. All Furr has actually done is deny that the famine was intentional which is a widely accepted and mainstream historical opinion.Jorge1777 (talk) 15:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)strike sock-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

[15] The “Holodomor” is a myth. Never happened. But if you don't want to believe Furr's own statements of his own views, there you go - David Gerard (talk) 22:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Being unfamiliar with the literature you are confusing 'Ukrainian famine' with 'Holodomor'. The etymology of the term 'Holodomor' suggests the famine was intentional (it means to kill by starvation) so when Furr calls it a myth he's simply saying it was not intentional.Jorge1777 (talk) 23:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)strike sock-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Right now those two categories are a mess; at a glance, few if any of the articles listed in Category:Historical revisionism are not examples of Category:Historical negationism. I feel a bit out of my depth trying to fix up categories as I've done very little work in this area, but part of me wonders whether we even need a separate category for Historical revisionism––anecdotally, academics who do productive revisionist work are just known as historians, not "revisionist historians" or "historical revisionists". It could be that the only articles that truly belong in that category are Historical revisionism and Historical negationism. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Blond

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

Wiki users like Queenplz, Hapa9100 and myself want to remove what is blantant FRINGE THEORIES edits in the blond article page, we have expressed our opinion on talk page aswell. A user named Hunan201p edited many controversial ethnic groups and mythical historical figures as blond. The most controversial is the inclusion of Huangdi, the mainstream concensus is that he is considered as a mythical figure by the vast majority of scholars and historian, but Hunan201p edited him like he was a real life person. The same goes for claiming Bodonchar Munkhag being blond which also has no mainstream concesus view, the blond hair claims of Bodonchar Mukhag was actually based on the mythical legends of Alan Gua. Is it correct to remove those figures that were never confirmed to be blond ? Please let me know.Shinoshijak (talk)

It would be helpful for the uninitiated if you could give examples of sources used in the article that you consider to be supporting a WP:FRINGE theory. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Like Huangdi for example. In the blond section of Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond#Asia" , the last paragraph says

"Some scholars have suggested that the word "yellow" in Huangdi is more accurately rendered as "blond", referring to the color of Huangdi's hair.[65][66] The sinologist Tsung-Tung Chang said that the epithet "Huang-ti" can be etymologically interpreted as "blond heavenly God". He suggests that Huangdi was related to Indo-European migrations to China.[67] "

It's extremely misleading. Only one sinologist suggested he was related to indo-european and the vast majority does not consider him blond. The way Hunan201p edited it would make people think that he was really blond.

In the Historicity section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Emperor#Origin_of_the_myth most scholars agree that the yellow emperor is a god.

" Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who was later represented as a historical person. K.C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were "euhemerized" in the late Warring States and Han periods. Historian of ancient China Mark Edward Lewis speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god", whereas Roel Sterckx, a professor at University of Cambridge, calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero". ".

Since most shcolars claim he as God than it makes no sense for Huangdi to mentioned as blond god. Like Queenplz had said, there's even cultural perception section for mythical and historical figures that have some concensus mainstream view of being blond. Huangdi has no mainstream concensus of being blond, there's not even a scholarly debate because the claims of him being blond is almost non-existant.Shinoshijak (talk) 20:01, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment I agree; determining what hair colour the Yellow Emperor had is like trying to find out Romulus's shoe size. In any case, "Indo-Europeans" are speakers of vast language family not a synonym for "blond people". GPinkerton (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment I agree as well; for me it reeks of an incorrect accuracy with an agenda; to suggest Huangdi was a blond haired man when none of the Chinese historical records and text had ever recorded it, is pretty disingenuous indeed. Considering the fact that Indo-European; the biggest Indo-European populations in the world are India, Pakistan and Iran, 90+% of which have black hair, proves my point.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:55c0:c680:8077:bdda:e5e5:6e12 (talk) 13:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Numerous people is agreeing to remove Huangdi from the blond article. Another wiki user have also recently responded in the blond talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blond#Hunan201p_edits_in_the_blond_and_red_hair_section I see nobody opposing the removal of Huangdi or even Alan Gua. I decided to at least remove Huangdi.Shinoshijak (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment: No valid reason has been presented for removing the statements describing Huangdi as blond to the article, which are backed by high-quality references, and were defended by admins at the Yellow Emperor article. Multiple gods and goddesses, such as Sif and Jarl are already mentioned at blond. The statements in the article do not link blond hair to modern Indo European speakers, but rather to Huangdi to ancient Indo-Europeans (such as Andronovo and Sintashta, advocated by philologists such as Christopher Beckwith and Victor Mair as an ancestral source of the Indo Europeans in ancient north China. Several fossils from archaeological digs like Sintashta had blond hair.

Also, Shinishijak has not provided a single reference to support his claim that the "majority of historians do not consider Huangdi as blond", and I guarantee you he can never provide such a reference. On the other hand, multiple scholars support the theory, and it is highly regarded by independent scholars. - Hunan201p (talk) 01:28, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Note: the creator of this noticeboard discussion failed to notify me of it. I did not find it until the creator mentioned it five days after it was started in a recent edit summary from May 13. Failing to notify mentioned parties is extremely seedy. - Hunan201p (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Hunan201p, the admins didn't defend you against the other editors. He locked the page up and told you guys to sort out the concent dispute in the talk page, the admin replied back to Hapa9100, this is a matter of "concensus". Just You claimed wikipedia admin Ymblanter supported you against me and the others on Genghis Khan page but this what he said in :15:48, 1 May 2020 "I do not think I supported anybody on this page. I just said that admins do not resolve content disputes..... ". Stop claiming you're supported by admin because you were almost banned by admin Steve Quin because of your consistent edit warring. Queenplz (talk) 07:18, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

"Hunan201p, the admins didn't defend you against the other editors. He locked the page up and told you guys to sort out the concent dispute in the talk page"

Wrong. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yellow_Emperor&diff=954249928&oldid=954249635

^ Above edit was made 1 day before the page was locked, and another admin had also reversed the deleterious edit of one of your comrades named "Hapa":

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yellow_Emperor&diff=954185580&oldid=954184157

Do you ever get tired of lying (and subsequently failing to get what you want)? - Hunan201p (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Comment: I also agree with the removal of Huangdi being blong and Indo-European. There is every valid reason to remove it. Indeed this theory has no consensus from scholars, so little is not even worth debated on. It has never grabbed the attention of mainstream scholars and historian, because it's based on pseudo-science and FRINGE theory of a tiny minoriy few.

Christopher Beckwith makes no mention of Huangdi being related with Indo-Europeans. Victor Mair only uses Taiwanese Tsung-tung Chang to try to indo-Europeanize, " it says the paper by Tsung - tung Chang ( 1988 ) , used by Victor Mair as authority for Indo - Europeanizing interpretations" . There's not a single piece of evidence that Huangdi ever existed, one sinonologist attempting to connect Huangdi with Indo-European, just shows how weak this theory is. Andronovo existed only in 2000–900 BC in western Siberia and the central Eurasian Steppe. The Sintashta culture stretches from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, dated to the period 2200–1800 BCE, obviously unrelated and had no presense in historical Chinese territories. Huangi existed in 2600-2700BC which predated any existence of Chinese civilization, predated the existence of those indo-european culture long before it even expanded to Asia.

I've helped Hapa9100 with his references There's a obviously a huge general concesus that Huangdi is a mythical god and not a real person.

K.C. Chang, Chinese/Taiwanese-American archaeologist and sinologist. Sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were "euhemerized" in the late Warring States and Han periods.

Mark Edward Lewis, American sinologist and historian of ancient China. Speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god". American scholar Mark Edward Lewis says "modern scholars of myth generally agree that the sage kings [including Huangdi] were partially humanized transformations of earlier, supernatural beings who figured in shamanistic rituals, cosmogonic myths or tales of the origins of tribes and clans.

Roel Sterckx, a professor at University of Cambridge, calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero"

Henri Maspero French sinologist and Marcel Granet French sociologist, ethnologist. Published critical studies of China's accounts of high antiquity for example, Granet argued that these tales were "historicized legends" that said more about the time when they were written than about the time they purported to describe

Sarah Allan, In the late Warring States period, the Yellow Emperor was integrated into the cosmological scheme of the Five Phases, in which the color yellow represents the earth phase.

Lothar von Falkenhausen that Huangdi was invented as an ancestral figure as part of a strategy to claim that all ruling clans in the "Zhou dynasty culture sphere" shared common ancestry.Given that the earliest extant mention of the Yellow Emperor was on a fourth-century BCE Chinese bronze inscription claiming that he was the ancestor of the royal house of the state of Qi, Lothar von Falkenhausen speculates that Huangdi was invented as an ancestral figure as part of a strategy to claim that all ruling clans in the " Zhou dynasty culture sphere" shared common ancestry.

Michael Puett, historian and Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology at Harvard University writes that the Qi bronze inscription was one of several references to the Yellow Emperor in the fourth and third centuries BCE within accounts of the creation of the state.

Yang Kuan, a member of the same current of historiography, noted that only in the Warring States period had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China. Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a later transformation of Shangdi, the supreme god of the Shang dynasty'

Shiji, The figure of Huangdi had appeared sporadically in Warring States texts. Sima Qian's Shiji (or Records of the Grand Historian, completed around 94 BCE) was the first work to turn these fragments of myths into a systematic and consistent narrative of the Yellow Emperor's "career".

Charles Leblanc, Chinese language researcher,Jan Yun-hua was a Chinese language researcher and Anna Seidel; Explicit accounts of the Yellow Emperor started to appear in Chinese texts the Warring States period. "The most ancient extant reference" to Huangdi is an inscription on a bronze vessel made during the first half of the fourth century BCE by the royal family (surnamed Tian 田) of the state of Qi, a powerful eastern state.

There is no concesus that Huangdi is blond or even Indo-European and that. If there was than Hunan201p would have shown a significant number supporting this obviously Fringe theories of Huangdi Queenplz (talk) 21:59, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

comment I also agree...absolutely agree with the removal of Huangdi from blond (including yellow emperor) wikipedian front pages. It reeks of so much eurocentric bias, it's really no different to psesudoscience afroncentrism theories of Black athena, black egyptians which is at least far more credible, because at least it had been debated by mainstream scholars and historians but even they get removed in wikipedia. Why does Hunan201p thik it's okay to claim Huangdi being blond and indo-european when is not even worth debating in the mainstream circle. Every evidence points him as a mythical figure, a god. There was no record of his existence of his reign for 2600-2700 years. His first mention was in the warring states around (375 BC) while his mythical reign date back in 2500-2600 BC.Hapa9100 (talk) 01:47, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

References

USS Nimitz UFO incident

USS Nimitz UFO incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

THERE ARE NO EXPLANATIONS and we can't let Wikipedia include text that says that the explanations are likely to be mundane.

Can someone else figure out what to do here?

jps (talk) 23:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

:Source 14 was from Skeptical Inquirer from the source. Joe Nickell, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and “Investigative Files” Columnist for Skeptical Inquirer. The other source did not say,the sightings likely have mundane explanations such as equipment malfunction or human errorDriverofknowledge (talk) 23:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Is this a WP:SKYISBLUE issue? Geogene (talk) 02:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• The whole ufology edit war and general warfare, including the USS Nimitz UFO incident, is now at ANI.[16] Bishonen | tålk 21:23, 10 May 2020 (UTC).

Maybe add context?[17][18] Elizondo should take a bow. fiveby(zero) 02:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• I've proposed a merge and rewrite at Talk:USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents#Combine and rewrite to avoid fringe. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:40, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Merge both into To the Stars (company), Acts I & II. fiveby(zero) 16:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Kshara and Sutshekhar Ras

Kind of your classic under-sourced alt-med articles, in this case, Ayurveda. 86.167.240.48 (talk) 12:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

While we're at it, behold the majesty of Medohar Vidangadi Lauh! 86.167.240.48 (talk) 20:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Medohar Vidangadi Lauh is currently at AFD, Kshara was boldy redirected to Ayurveda like previous Ksharsutra and Kshar-Sutra. —PaleoNeonate – 18:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Bicameralism (psychology)

Just a notice of a discussion started at WT:PSYCHOLOGY § Bicameralism (psychology) that may also concern this noticeboard and WP:SKEPTIC. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 05:58, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I’m certainly no expert in psychology but that article seems entirely too credulous. The only reason I had ever heard of Bicameralism was due to Westworld, a science fiction show. The basic hypothesis doesn’t seem to comport with the last couple decades of neurology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, archeology, etc. Just a quick look at the APA.org dictionary notes that it has not received significant attention. Capeo (talk) 22:32, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Indeed and so far the other WikiProject notice seems to have gathered no attention. —PaleoNeonate – 18:13, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Planet of the Humans

At Planet of the Humans, Kire1975 (talk · contribs) has decided that climate change experts are part of an "industry" and therefore have a "conflict of interest" in criticizing the film. It seems he's unclear on the notions generally, given his posting at the COI noticeboard.

Someone may wish to go over to Talk:Planet of the Humans and check. --Calton | Talk 12:12, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Even though I was not notified of this discussion according to the large red instructions up top, thank you for allowing me to respond: Removing the word "widely" from a sentence because it is presumptuous per MOS:NOTE and inserting a citation needed template where citations are needed is not a "fringe theory". Kire1975 (talk) 06:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I think that some progress was made at that article since, —PaleoNeonate – 18:11, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Piers Robinson

Piers Robinson (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Talks nonsense, gets called a conspiracy theorist, threatens to sue Wikipedia, gets banned. So far, so good. See Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Piers_Robinson

But the result is: Wikipedia spreads his disinformation for him. His article contains his disinformation and no refutation, although it does have a See also link leading to an article that refutes it. I think that is not how it is done. Opinions? --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:11, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Is The Jewish Chronicle and The Times and The Times again and The Times again and good enough for the "conspiracy theorist" label? There's also: "Also closely associated with Beeley is academic Piers Robinson and former UK ambassador to Syria Peter Ford. Ford, who routinely appears on British media defending the Assad regime line on Syria, should be more accurately referred to as director of the pro-Assad lobby group, the British Syrian Society, founded by Bashar al-Assad’s father-in-law Fawaz Akhras." from New Statesman. Not to mention the numerous HuffPost articles over the years..

Also instructive that googling him produces a lot of screengrabs with the Russia Today banner and a favourable write-up in The Canary ("top academic ..."). GPinkerton (talk) 17:52, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

lets not leave out the Huffpost [[19]] and snoopes [[20]].Slatersteven (talk) 18:11, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Apparently, this article does not identify Robinson as a member of a panel of conspiracy theorists because it is included as a subheadline. I am amazed. jps (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@ජපස: But wait, isn't the cancellation of the (ultimately non-)event at Liverpool University itself notable? GPinkerton (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I would think so. But apparently there is a pretty big group that just doesn't want to include anything like that in the article. jps (talk) 20:03, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The fact that the Union of Jewish Students criticized Robinson and encouraged the University to take "all actions necessary" seems notable, but where in the article would it go? Seems impossible to get any information in or out of the article in its current state due to debates and edit warring anyway. Nanophosis (talk) 02:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Postmodernism

Postmodernism (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Some editors experienced with highbrow science denial should take a look at the Overview section of this article, especially with the very recent editing in it, and maybe keep an eye on it. It has significantly changed how postmodernism is defined and removed or replaced several sources. Whether the changes are more or less neutral and accurate, or a mixed bag, is not clear to me. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

This article has a long-term problem with attempting to describe postmodernism in its own terms instead of providing an external objective analysis. Some of the themes include a lack of precise language (the same type of issue often observed in postmodernist writing) and the use of terminology and framing in a way that implies or assumes that the viewpoints of postmodernism are correct. Sunrise (talk) 18:19, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Some comments on that section:

Postmodern scientists are concerned with socially-constructed fact rather than metaphysical truth claims. I think I can tell what this is trying to say, but not because it is doing a good job of saying it.

Conservatives Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss considered postmodernism to be an abandonment of the rationalist project which many conservatives consider the most important cultural product of humans. I don't know what "conservative" is supposed to mean there — that's lifting a description from American politics and presuming that it is meaningful in a broader context. Who are these "many conservatives"? What is this "rationalist project" — can the entirety of intellectual effort since Newton or Bacon or Copernicus or whoever be called a single "project", regardless of the ideological divisions within it? Is it just Oakeshott and Strauss deciding that it's all one "project" and declaring that their friends consider it important? Peculiarly, the only people whose politics are identified are these "conservatives"; there is no mention of Sokal being an "unabashed Old Leftist", or that he saw himself following in the footsteps of Levitt, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Overall, this looks like an attempt to paint "conservatives" as the ones having good sense, but the writing is so unclear that the POV-pushing is an inept faceplant.

Others have claimed that persons who are knowledgeable about postmodernism have difficulty distinguishing nonsensical postmodernist artifacts from those that are nominally genuine. This sounds like an attempt to be clever ("artifacts", "nominally"), but it's ultimately just opaque. Moreover, it makes a poor summary for what Sokal and Bricmont's book was actually about. Sokal himself said, From the mere fact of publication of my parody I think that not much can be deduced. It doesn't prove that the whole field of cultural studies, or cultural studies of science -- much less sociology of science -- is nonsense. Nor does it prove that the intellectual standards in these fields are generally lax. (This might be the case, but it would have to be established on other grounds.) It proves only that the editors of one rather marginal journal were derelict in their intellectual duty, by publishing an article on quantum physics that they admit they could not understand, without bothering to get an opinion from anyone knowledgeable in quantum physics [21]. He's been quite insistent on this over the years; for example, in 2019, someone wrote an article saying that Sokal concluded "cultural studies as a field lacked rigour and quality control", and Sokal demanded a correction: In fact, I don't know anywhere in my writings where you could find a quotation asserting what you have written, because it is not at all my view. Indeed, I have many times explicitly written the exact opposite! So, in addition to being unclear, the "Overview" in Postmodernism is also unfortunately superficial. XOR'easter (talk) 19:07, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Postmodern scientists are concerned with socially-constructed fact rather than metaphysical truth claims. I think I can tell what this is trying to say, but not because it is doing a good job of saying it. Well, I can't tell what it's trying to say and I'm partial to postmodernism as well as being a scientist. I went to see if I had the book in my library's e-reserve and we did. The book does not say this or anything close to this. Nevertheless, we are required to keep this nonsense sentence in the article, apparently. [22]. jps (talk) 02:41, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

this looks like an attempt to paint "conservatives" as the ones having good sense It's the other way around: As Sokal, Levitt and others repeatedly pointed out, postmodernists attempt to paint the ones having good sense as "conservatives". --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:22, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Breaching experiments really shouldn't be done like this from an ethical standpoint. We don't actually know whether Sokal was abusing the good faith of the editors who were just excited to get a physicist submitting to their journal or whether they were really taken in by his blather. Regardless, it says more about the relationship within academia than really anything about postmodernism as a critique or movement. The whole thing is pretty old by now too, we've basically all moved on. Science and technology studies is an extremely valuable academic approach to questions related to how science works functionally. They explicitly make no attempts to evaluate the actual empirical or theoretical claims being developed in the scientific community. I think there were lazy theorists who may have gotten some attention from about the 1970s to 1990s who did, but such approaches are essentially marginalized in that field. Anyway.... jps (talk) 12:41, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

If they were not taken in, they should not have published it, from an ethical standpoint and from a professional one. But it does not matter whether they acted in good faith or bad faith: Sokal proved that worthless bullshit could easily be published in that journal, putting it in the same category as predatory journals or publications by Young-Earth Creationists, climate change deniers, and alt-med gurus. And with his and Bricmont's book "Intellectual Impostures", he showed that large amounts of worthless bullshit had already been published by big names in postmodernism.

If the field got its shit together afterwards, good for them. But I see no evidence for that. First, they would need to acknowledge that large parts of postmodernism had been on the wrong track before. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair critique. Hopefully in the aftermath there is more nonsense rejected than before. jps (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Ghost stories courtesy of the NY Times

Not sure if this is going to end up being cited in articles but FWIW the Times has posted a story on all the people who have suddenly discovered during lockdown that their domicile is haunted.[23] And if that's not enough there are more than 200 comments, mostly from people relating their own stories. At least they posted a one sentence disclaimer... "There is no scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts..." immediately watered down with "a fact that has little bearing on our collective enthusiasm for them." That said, some of the stories in the article and the comments are amusing. Enjoy. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:02, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

You get cooped up for a few months, you start going batty. I imagine the New York Times is no different. If you want some other sad times, look up their articles on UFOs and astrology. I don't know who the editors who are greenlighting these sensationalized public interest stories are (the authors and the times ignore my tweets), but I'd love to be able to corner them to know exactly what they think about empirical reality -- likely it has "little bearing on [their] collective enthusiasm" for woo. jps (talk) 02:07, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah, Molly Fitzpatrick. She's a freelancer who specializes in these kinds of stories: [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]. Who knew the old paranormal cash cow still had some blood left in it? - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:57, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Hm, maybe it falls under Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:09, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to flip if someone creates Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supernatural. Natureium (talk)!

I'd prefer Supernatural responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

That's entertaining. Possibly related, other than enhanced anxieties and concerns about the recently deseased, may be the increased animal activity in recently more quiet cities... —PaleoNeonate – 16:54, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Thomas Henry Moray needs some sources

About a fringe inventor who claimed to produce electricity with no energy input. No sources. Doug Weller talk 10:28, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a 5 part series in The Arizona Republic March 5-9, 1978, lot of "according to Moray" but probably usable. Gary L. Johnson was published by IEEE, not very trustworthy. fiveby(zero) 16:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure notability is met if sources are lacking. I've not tried to find them yet though, —PaleoNeonate – 16:46, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Some Congressional Testimony around the Rural Electrification Act concerning Moray, probably more newspaper sources, looks like a lot of primary sources and published "free energy" advocates. By the way, the Republic piece has a local engineering firm saying he was probably just picking up a strong local radio station and storing enegy in a capacitor. fiveby(zero) 16:50, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

AFD?Slatersteven (talk) 17:05, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Plenty of free energy Tesla conspiracy books and websites lionize him, but I can't find any WP:FRIND secondary sources for this fellow or his ideas, which indicates he's not notable enough for a stand alone biography article on Wikipedia. There is that record of a hearing held by a Congressional subcommittee in the 1940s which is an amusing read [29], however this single WP:PRIMARY source isn't enough to justify a bio of the guy. Looks like there is secondary coverage of that Congressional hearing by Arizona Republic [30], but I'm still not convinced Moray meets WP:ANYBIO. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:56, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

(ec)There are news sources also, but they aren't going to be very critical, at least what i've seen. Like Georges Lakhovsky only fringe proponents care to write about and publish. You can create an article, pick thru the primary sources and fringe works for what is usable but that's really just original research and a lot of work for a not very good article. On the other hand delete and WP has no article for someone with a bunch of search hits where it's reasonable to expect some neutral information here. Move to draft and see if anyone cares enough to work on it? If there are no sources can anyone just draftify without an Afd? fiveby(zero) 18:30, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The topic of free energy lives under the umbrella of perpetual motion on Wikipedia. There may be enough sourcing to justify a few sentences about Moray and his ideas at History_of_perpetual_motion_machines#Modern_era. I don't think anyone would object to that. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:02, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Not a lot about him in this Oxford University Press book [31], but may help. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Arthur Laffer: COVID-19 bs

Arthur Laffer advises the Trump administration on the reopening of the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. He has suggested that the coronavirus death toll was inflated, claiming that doctors attributed deaths to the coronavirus regardless of whether the coronavirus caused the death: "When you attribute a death to the coronavirus today, what that means is that the guy had the coronavirus and died. It doesn’t matter if he got hit by a car and died, and he would still be categorized as a coronavirus death." Are we allowed to state in Wiki-voice that the claim that doctors are claiming car crash victims as COVID-19 victims is "false"? The cited source[32] cites a doctor who says that Laffer's claim is BS. An editor on the Laffer page is however arguing that we cant say it's a false claim. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:TENYEARTEST, none of that paragraph should be in the article at all. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:32, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

You don't think advising a presidential administration during an unprecedented crisis merits mention? That's a ridiculous take. It's hard to think of anything that more clearly meets WP:TENYEARTEST than directly influencing a presidential administration. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing in that section that indicates that anything he said had any influence whatsoever, so no, I don't think it should be in there. Moreover, even if he had exerted any influence, the quote that's there serves no purpose other than to be inflammatory; it was obviously offered hyperbolically, and presenting it matter-of-factly is a silly thing to do. Moremoreover, the stuff you were specifically asking about is a non sequitir: if he advised the administration on how to reopen, then okay...why is it then necessary to add his claims (however false they may be) about doctors misattributing deaths to COVID? Or maybe is it teensy bit likely that you're once again using Wikipedia as a propaganda tool? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

That the man advising the administration on when and how to re-open the economy believes that COVID-19 deaths and cases are inflated is directly related to his role. Does this actually have to be spelled out for you?: the economy will be re-opened when COVID-19 deaths and cases decline. They are intrinsically related. Just to summarize your views because it's astonishing that anyone would actually write this down: (i) you seriously think that being a White House advisor in an unprecedented crisis has no long-term encyclopedic significance (because who among us hasn't advised a presidential administration about life-and-death matters), and (ii) you seriously think that BSing about how COVID-19 death counts are fraudulent has nothing to do with determining when it's safe to re-open the economy. And then you whine about how it's all propaganda. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that talk about this? Otherwise, see WP:SYNTH. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes a single source says that a single line uttered once by Art Laffer is refuted by a single doctor. This is not a Fringe theory, this is something that should have been trivially handled on the talk page. Deacon Vorbis is right, none of this information should be in the article at all. Bonewah (talk) 12:59, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Have to agree with above, especially with Deacon Vorbis and citing WP:TENYEARTEST. Most COVID-19 related topics are relevant, but there's so little coverage on this that it's borderline trivia. Give it a little time, until then, I don't think it's important enough for the general Laffer bio. Nanophosis (talk) 02:43, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

The media phenomenon of soliciting comments from random known people dovetails nicely with those peoples' need for attention, but really a decent encyclopedia is going to ignore all this, even in the person's own article, unless it escalates into something that doesn't just fade away (e.g. Jim Bakker's coronavirus treatment scam). Laffer got laffed off the policy stage a long time ago, and there's every reason for us not to help him back on by making a big thing out of his cry for attention, given that it largely went unheard in the long run. Mangoe (talk) 14:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Falun Gong, The Epoch Times, and Shen Yun

A Wikipedia editor (@TheBlueCanoe:) is removing mention of The Epoch Times and Shen Yun from the lead of the Falun Gong article, as well as the phrase new religious movement.

Readers will notice that the article mostly reads as a fantasy-world puff peace promoting the organization as a peaceful, apolitical, ancient religious group—the reality is far different, as source after source outlines, with the group, via its media extension, spending tremendous amounts of money on promoting, for example, Donald Trump and extreme-right wing politics in Germany, alongside promoting conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and vaccinations. Deep fringe stuff. And while the Falun Gong would certainly approve, these extensions of the new religious movement are by far the most visible aspects of the new religious movement and a key means of drawing support and funds into the organization (cf. [33], [34], [35])

The whole article could use a thorough review and far more eyes. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

You appear to be shopping for a sympathetic audience. You are disruptively editing a page that is under active discretionary sanctions. I have explained that, and why, you contributions are incompatible with WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. If you disagree, there is an ongoing talk page discussion that you can contribute to.TheBlueCanoe 21:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the fringe noticeboard, where we discuss fringe topics, such as those promoted by The Epoch Times, Shen Yun, and and their parent organization, Falun Gong. I'm also using the talk page, and I especially invite editors who regularly work with fringe material to contribute there. A look at your edit history shows intense lobbying for favorable coverage of the group, which probably explains the promotional state the article is in. Are you a member of this organization, by chance? :bloodofox: (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

The user is now scrubbing numerous high-quality sources from the article, evidently in an attempt to bury the common classification of the group as a new religious movement. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

@TheBlueCanoe: Did you know that Wikipedia is not censored? Ian.thomson (talk) 22:48, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

• Notified them of DS regarding fringe science and reminded them of the DS for Falun Gong. @Bloodofox: It may be worthwhile to go to the relevant board for that and ask for their removal there before we fix the article (...or we may need to attempt to fix the article, get into a dragged out conflict with them, and then use that as evidence). Unfortunately, I've got to go teach Japanese toddlers the word "no" for several hours and can't find the board or build the case (...Oh yeah, there was something else here I was supposed to do, too), and will only have enough energy when I get home to reheat vindaloo. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:48, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good, Ian—I'm not sure where to start, though. Where do you recommend? I wasn't involved with any of the discussion surrounding these topics prior to recently, having stumbled on to the state of these articles after getting hit with concurrent Shen Yun and Epoch Times ads—both while in the US and online. The Epoch Times in particular is, of course, currently an extremely hot topic given the conspiracy theories the organization is promoting and their recent political involvement. Given the profile, it seems to me that the avoidance of those topics on English Wikipedia's Falun Gong article can only indicate some level of lobbying and censorship. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:03, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

bloodofox, did you add this content or was it something you were restoring from a revert? Neither source supports a performing arts company that promotes anti-evolution and anti-LGBTQ messaging, and certainly doesn't merit labeling as such in a mere passing mention. This looks something more suited to the NPOV noticeboard. fiveby(zero) 22:41, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I added it. The New Yorker article discusses Shen Yun's anti-LGBTQ messaging (search "Atheism and evolution are deadly ideas. Modern trends destroy what makes us human", he sang.), as well as its broader context as an extension of Falun Gong. Looking at the article, the anti-LGBTQ stance should be clarified (the author states "Aside from the organ harvesting, the homophobia, the anti-evolution ballad, and the Karl Marx apparition, the thing I found most odd about my Shen Yun experience in Houston was the hosts’ explanation of Chinese classical dance", but it needs more explication). Currently the Falun Gong article is scrubbed of the organization's political involvement via its extensions, such as Shen Yun and The Epoch Times, and avoids statements around these topics made by the new religious group's leader. I agree that this needs more development and discussion in the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:49, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I've added more sources to that section, but it needs thorough discussion in the body. Right now these topics are surgically avoided in the article beyond the section I've added, and, of course, the lead should really be a summary of the article's contents. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Some of the beliefs here are straight up unabashed fringe pseudoscience and should neither be promoted nor whitewashed but accurately described. An evolution denial dance troupe is surely a novelty and no doubt some influence of Falun Gong, but the sourcing seems weak and doesn't look neutral to lead with in the face of the well supported and more pertinent propaganda and rhetoric against the Chinese government. fiveby(zero) 04:37, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

If you have access (it may be available via Google Books), check out, for example the following source:

• Junker, Andrew. 2019. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora, cf. p. 99. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108655897.

Junker discusses these connections, and how the organization is entirely operated by and funded by Falun Gong members, as well as the fact that Shen Yun is based by the Falun Gong headquarters, which also happens to include an office for The Epoch Times. There's a lot of secondary literature about this stuff currenly being essentially removed from the Falun Gong article by individuals who appear to be adherents. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:54, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

No doubt some content needed, also New Tang Dynasty Television. Looking but everything i have full access to is pretty dated. fiveby(zero) 06:02, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm taking ndtv.com to RSN - we shouldn't be using it or at least certainly not for certain subjects.[36]Doug Weller talk 08:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Bloodofox has been taken to WP:AE mainly for editing this area. Doug Weller talk 19:12, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Adherents crawling out of the woodwork

After adding a dozen academic sources on the article, it appears that adherents are crawling out of the woodwork to revert the article to a Falun Gong-approved version. We now have a pro-Epoch Times (ahem) editor reverting many academic soures I've added to the article that discuss that the Falun Gong is a new religous movement ([37] — @Clara Branch:). The editor claims we must first request permission to add these sources after another Falun Gong-talking-point-promoting editor hit the 3RR after attempting to scrub the article of any discussion of the phrase "new religious movement", as discussed above (what a coincidence, right?). There are red names all over this and related articles, including on The Epoch Times talk page —these articles really need more eyes. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:46, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

In April I indeffed for undisclosed paid editing an editor editing the Society of Classic Poetry Society but didn't look carefully at the article. It looked fairly harmless, but yesterday I took another look, seehere. Doug Weller talk 08:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Teachings of Falun Gong needs attention. The lead is terribly pov, although I have restored a bit of some deleted material that wasn't praising or describing it. Doug Weller talk 09:30, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The article on its founder, Li Hongzhi, has little but praise for Falin Gon. Doug Weller talk 19:02, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• I applied ECP to Falun Gong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as a WP:AE matter. We should have a pretty low bar to extending this, and applying topic bans, as the arbitration cases note a tendency for True Believers to engage in non-neutral edits. Guy (help!) 12:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Larry Vardiman

Larry Vardiman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominated for deletion by yours truly.

jps (talk) 22:02, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

While we're at it: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RATE project. jps (talk) 00:12, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

John J. Davis (theologian)

• John J. Davis (theologian) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I see "archaeologist" but actually see pseudoscience related topics in listed publications. More eyes welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 07:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Rupert Sheldrake

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

The usual RfCs asking for the usual changes for the usual effect of pretending that Sheldrake engages in legitimate scholarship. Guy (help!) 11:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Ancient city walls around the City of David‎

Ancient city walls around the City of David‎ could do with some eyes with more access to relevant sources than me.Slatersteven (talk) 14:27, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Vile vortex

Well, it's certainly vile. The article I mean. Doug Weller talk 15:13, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I noticed that it's now a redirect. No material seemed to be merged so I checked the sources. Only two seemed to be independent enough, yet they were only about the Bermuda Triangle, without more information on Sanderson's claims. One had him in their citations list but I couldn't find where and searching for "vile vortex" or "triacontahedron" in that book failed. I concluded that nothing may be worth merging, afterall, at least with the sources the subarticle currently used... —PaleoNeonate – 16:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Category:Climate change denial - subcats

A user has made a denialists category, then added subcats for countries, then noticed that this may be contentious: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 May 22#Category:Climate change denialists

Opinions about that? --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Didn't we already have this discussion for Category:Climate change deniers? Is there a categorical benefit to identifying specific people as deniers in this fashion? jps (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

A few times apparently. It was deleted here and then a RFC here just 9 months ago reaffirmed it. PackMecEng (talk) 19:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

This is about subdividing the denial cat into countries or not. Sorry I didn't make that clearer. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:19, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The Deniers

The Deniers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) For seven years, this soapbox of an article has been tagged as unbalanced and I agree. Does it pass WP:BK?

What I see is basically a lot of pushing by the denialist press when the book came out and essentially only passing notice by the WP:MAINSTREAM. Since then the book has not aged well. I don't see any lasting value in this article.

Redirect to the author? Stubbify with WP:TNT? What to do?

jps (talk) 14:13, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

does seem to overly rely on primary sources, I suggest redirect to Lawrence Solomon.Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Along the same lines, can people find some better sources for Lawrence Solomon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? I noticed many(!) of the sources for his actual biographical material were primary sources. jps (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I find a few "Lawrence Solomon" mentions in newspaper articles but I have the impression that they're other people. —PaleoNeonate – 20:40, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• It's never a good sign when the only sources cited are right-wing think tankers and the Washington Times. I went looking for actual critical reviews and found none. It seems that nobody outside the denyosphere took this remotely seriously. Guy (help!) 00:01, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Ivan T. Sanderson and the concept of the "vile vortex"

Recently a well-meaning editor (@Timtempleton:) added this material about the concept of the "vile vortex" on the Ivan T. Sanderson article. Sanderson is best known as a founding figure of the cryptozoology subculture and pseudoscience, but also wrote about other topics. Does anyone know of any WP:RS-compliant discussion about this that we could add to the article? I'm not seeing, say, any summaries about what this is all about from academic source so far, but it seems to involve pseudoscientific stuff in connection with, say, notions about ley lines and related topics. I went ahead and just removed the material ([38]) as the references appear to be straightforward WP:RS, WP:PROFRINGE fails (cf. this publisher), but if we have some appropriate sources discussing it in context, we should add a section about it. (Pinging @Psychologist Guy:, who brought this to my attention). :bloodofox: (talk) 00:38, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have much to say about this topic in particular, other than that your revert was good, but on seeing the highly entertaining website of that publisher, I thought I'd check to see how many articles on Wikipedia use their name, generally because they use a source stated to be from them. There are 123 such articles. Anyone itching to use their wiki-sledgehammer? I see no reason to use their books as a source on any article.

Anyway, sorry to hijack your thread. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:43, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Great catch—I hadn't looked. I definitely recommend pulling all of these, [[David_Hatcher_Childress#Reception|especially after seeing coverage like this. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:52, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Here [39] is a mention that might be used as an RS to attribute the concept to Sandserson. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:39, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I added a few references. There's a useful chapter on Sanderson, it's in Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend (from page 90) but I don't have full access to that. I don't usually edit this subject so I don't think I will add anymore now but the article could be greatly improved. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:33, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads, you recently removed one of David Hatcher Childress's works that was cited in The Adventure Girls, linking to this discussion (thanks for pointing to the relevant place). This is, I think, one of the rare cases where it is appropriate to cite a fringe source: when it is being cited in the context of a discussion about it being a fringe work. There, the sentence reads "The story started a second life, as fodder for government conspiracy theories, after David Hatcher Childress included it in his 1992 book, Lost Cities of North and Central America." The cite thus doesn't support any of the facts in the sentence, but instead directs the reader to the bibliographic details of the work being discussed. An apt comparison, I think, would be a sentence saying "Conspiracy theories about x happened after the Daily Mail published an article," that included (along with another cite) a cite to the Daily Mail piece under discussion. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I didn't see it as necessary as it is a WP:Primary source, and we have a secondary source there also, but the way it is used there is not a big deal, so I won't press the matter. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. My general preference is to include that sort of "informative" cite when possible, but I see your point that, strictly speaking, it's not needed. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:53, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Update on Adventures Unlimited Press, and problematic articles found

The number of articles with the string "Adventures Unlimited Press" is so far down to 100 from 123. Someone else had removed a few of them as well. Some articles, of course, will always mention them, like David Hatcher Childress and List of group-0 ISBN publisher codes. Most references to them have been pretty trivial and easy to remove, but along the way, I've found a few articles that seemed like they should have wider attention at FTN:

• Patterson–Gimlin film - famous film allegedly of Bigfoot. It includes sources like bigfootencounters.com, bigfoot-lives.com, the TV shows American Paranormal and MonsterQuest, something from a publisher called "Crypto-Logos", and self-published books; it even calls many of these scientific.
• Elizabeth Klarer - woman who claimed to have had sex with aliens. Tagged with serious issues since 2013. Uses some ufology and YouTube sources.
• Moon landing conspiracy theories - this one didn't badly stand out as unbalanced, but I was unable to extricate the fringe source as the article is set up in such a way that much of it sets up and then debunks the claims. I am all for debunking, but some more eyes looking over it for any portions of undue weight would be good.

Bloodofox - pinging you so you definitely see this (especially the Bigfoot one). Crossroads ^-talk- 07:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Moon landing conspiracy theories has been on my watchlist for years. The current version is basically the compromise between "we can't ignore these/how do we explain they're crap?". Fresh eyes would certainly be welcome, but that article has actually been quiet for a long time. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Bates method

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

Past discussions on Bates method:

• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_4#Bates_method
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_6#Bates_method
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_8#Bates_method_sources
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_12#Bates_method_/_Meir_Schneider
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_15#Sungazing
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_36#Bates_Method
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_45#Fringe_eye_treatments

I believe Wikipedia and Belteshazzar (talk · contribs) would be better off if Belteshazzar were banned from the topic. I wanted to some eyes on the article and other viewpoints on Belteshazzar's behavior before going to ArbEnf.

Belteshazzar started a discussion here, Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_69#Bates_method_sources.

@Jmc: has attempted to get Belteshazzar to discuss edits before making changes, to little or no effect.

My recent attempts to work with Belteshazzar (User_talk:Belteshazzar#May_2020, User_talk:Belteshazzar#Edit-warring, and the current article talk page) have left me with the conclusion that Belteshazzar is unable to work cooperatively with others on this subject. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 20:25, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The current issue concerns listing well-known (enough to have their own biographical articles on Wikipedia) proponents of the Bates method in the Infobox's list of proponents. Seems pretty obvious that they should be listed there, unless it's someone like Daniel A. Poling, whose public support was perhaps fleeting. Belteshazzar (talk) 20:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

E/C I saw IRWolfie on that trip down memory lane. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 20:58, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: previously commentd [40]Belteshazzar, the primary issue is your tendentious editing at the Bates Method article. I am minded to topic-ban or partial block here. What do others think? --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 21:50, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

• Blocked 31h for edit warring, and I am up for a topic ban if that has general support. Guy (help!) 22:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
• In 18.5 years of WP editing, I have never before encountered such an obsessively single-minded editor. Belteshazzar does not play well with others. A topic ban would be to everyone's benefit. -- Jmc (talk) 09:40, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

My biggest shortcoming involved the article's first sentence. "The Bates method is an ineffective alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight" seemed not to quite reflect decent sources which indicate that such training does sometimes result in measurable improvement, albeit which is usually temporary and not due to any change in refraction. For example, [41] by Elwin Marg, and [42] from The College of Optometrists. I tried several different alternatives, first changing "ineffective" and then qualifying it somewhat. I now see that I went on too long with that, and the opening sentence is not likely to change.

Other than that, I think my contributions to the article have been positive. I have fixed some disjointedness, and removed redundancy and excess verbiage. I think the section on "Possible reasons for claimed improvements" has now been trimmed too thin and neglects the biggest reasons for claimed improvements, but if consensus disagrees, that is that.

The most recent issue concerns the proponents listed in the Infobox. If an author or practitioner has strongly supported the Bates method and is notable enough to have a biographical article in Wikipedia, that person would seem to belong on any list of proponents. I tried to discuss this, and got no clear explanation for the removal. My last edit was probably too quick, but at least provided an explanation in the edit summary after my previous lack of an edit summary was noted. Belteshazzar (talk) 06:42, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I believe the Infobox proponents list issue has been resolved. It turns out that many instances of that template don't include subsequent or even any proponents. Perhaps this could be prominently noted in the template somehow to save others the trouble. Belteshazzar (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that Eliot source contradicts the idea that the Bates method is "ineffective". It attributes the alleged improvement to placebo effect and "blur adaptation".

Improvements from placebo effect don't count as an effective treatment, and, as I understand it, "blur adaptation" is not actually a result of the Bates method, it's simply a thing that happens if you don't wear your glasses.

(I guess you could argue that "don't wear your glasses" is part of the Bates method, but if that's the only part of the method that provides a benefit, it's a real stretch to say the Bates Method is an effective innovation.) ApLundell (talk) 16:28, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

And just so we're clear, The "benefit" we're talking about is this : Your vision will still be blurry, but you'll kinda get used to functioning with blurry vision.

Stripped of its quackery, that's all that's left of the Bates Method.

"Ineffective" is being kind. Changing that to "Ineffective, discredited, and dangerous" would be an improvement to the lead.

ApLundell (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

While we're at it, the article William_Bates_(physician) is also rather kind, saying only that "efficacy of the method is questionable".

ApLundell (talk) 17:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I acknowledged that the first sentence of Bates method likely won't change and I went on too long with that. But since you made these points, let me point to the other source I mentioned, by Elwin Marg. Some people will attack the date, but if "flashes of clear vision" happened then, presumably they can still happen now. Marg indicated that these flashes did not simply happen randomly, and were in fact associated with Bates training. Discussion of such flashes has been removed from the "Possible reasons for claimed improvements" section, wrongly in my opinion. Belteshazzar (talk) 17:56, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

A seventy year old monograph relaying a handful of anecdotes and lamenting that they couldn't be properly studied is perhaps not a rock solid source.

I mean, if the Bates Method had been definitively proven back in 1952, the age of the studies wouldn't be an issue. People knew eyeballs back then. But the conclusion of this monograph is simply that the method "can not be dismissed entirely". That'd be too weak to use as a source in a medical article if it was published last month, and the fact that it's the most flattering thing published about the Bates Method in the last seventy years is a lot more damning than you seem to understand. ApLundell (talk) 19:56, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

It was not merely anecdotes, as pages 11-15 indicate that subjects were actually observed while having such flashes. I was simply saying that this merits some mention in Bates method#Possible reasons for claimed improvements. It could also be argued that "ineffective" should be changed or qualified in part because of this, but that is clearly not going to happen. Belteshazzar (talk) 20:36, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

If "observing subjects" is all you do, that is called a case report, a type of anecdotal evidence. So, yes, "a handful of anecdotes" is right. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Nevertheless, this phenomenon pretty clearly is a big reason for claimed improvements. Belteshazzar (talk) 09:27, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

There no way any of these transient side effects can be labelled "improvements". Alexbrn (talk) 10:48, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I said claimed improvements. There is a section of the article titled "Possible reasons for claimed improvements" which the aforementioned phenomenon is currently excluded from. Belteshazzar (talk) 10:56, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) A new editor (actually registered in 2014 I think but has <1000 edits and made almost no edits in the last couple of years) has been working on a total rewrite of the CFS article from the "myalgic encephalomyelitis" POV. This has looked like activist editing fomr the outset but yesterday he posted a loooooooong screed that makes it plain that yes, he is here to WP:RGW. Given the WP:OWNership of the content, his status as a WP:SPA, and his citing of activist groups like Action For ME as authorities, I suspect a topic ban may be necessary, but regardless, this is one persistent CPUSH and needs more eyes. Guy (help!) 10:11, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Sophia Mirza ‎

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

Sophia Mirza was the first of a tiny number of people in the UK to have CFS listed as a cause of death. The article was largely written from affiliated and activist sources; when those are removed there are only a couple of RS left. The text claimed that she was acutely sensitive to electromagnetic radiation and chemicals (massive red flags) and that relatives believed her mother was contributing to her condition - although this is claimed as final clinching proof that "ME" is a physical illness, this one case looks overwhelmingly psychological, but I can't find any dispassionate analysis that reviews the story in its entirety, only the couple of news items around the inquest finding.

Which leads me to ponder: is this actually a notable case? Guy (help!) 12:59, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Well there seem to be a least three RS, so yes it seems just about notable. Its rather complicated by there being (at least) 2 Sophia Mirza's.Slatersteven (talk) 13:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: There is also the pathologist's comment that she had ganglionitis that probably affected her spine. Not proof ME killed her, but something quite a lot more neurological than "overwhelmingly psychological". I had thought chronic fatigue syndrome was well accepted (if poorly understood) as physiological complaint - is this not so? GPinkerton (talk) 01:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

American Association of Nutritional Consultants

Should this have a DS alert on its talk page? There's also a cn tag. Doug Weller talk 14:31, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Bejan Daruwalla

Bejan Daruwalla (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Indian astrologer, died recently, of COVID-19 or something else (the IP jury is still out). I just had to delete a list of his right guesses again, but it will probably grow back. I am not sure if he is even notable - notability is not my field. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:04, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

New editor at Daniel Estulin

Goharrison (talk · contribs) has made 2 edits, increasingly NPOV (see [43]). I've reverted the first. Doug Weller talk 10:38, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Odd as in fact they have has an account for 10 years, just not active.Slatersteven (talk) 10:42, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Abhigya Anand

Abhigya Anand (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch knew it all last year, say sources from this year. I guess this sort of thing happens a lot now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:26, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources seem unusually credulous. Claims that someone used psychic powers to predict the current pandemic would fall under WP:EXTRAORDINARY. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:11, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

In all fairness they are not all that credulous a few just say he predicted some event. The real problem it seems to me is the puffery in the article. But I do wonder at how many of them are RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I actually created this article after seeing one of his YouTube video which was dated back in 2019 where he predicted some of the things but he didn't mention exactly the term coronavirus. I believe I maintained WP:NPOV and I never used terms with the intention of praising the child for his predictions in the article. I agree some sources raise potential doubts of whether they are abide by WP:RS. Abishe (talk) 17:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I thought it was standard in these types of articles to at least mention the entire topic is fringe? Are there any sources reporting on this that address the fact that astrology is hogwash? Also I am intrigued by the concept of "Ayurvedic microbiology"... JoelleJay (talk) 18:13, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

And there is the problem, he did not mention what is was (just some vague event), and gave a fairly big date range.Slatersteven (talk) 18:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Sigh... And here I had hoped earlier this year that we weren't going to need to discuss whether we need a WP:PRODIGY guideline. Should we start an RfC about those draft rules? I think they may have helped in this scenario. WP:SENSATION seems at work here as well. jps (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia

Article.[44] I enter information from book "Neighbors at War: Anthropological Perspectives on Yugoslav Ethnicity" from 2008 editet by Joel M. Halpern, David A. Kideckel and published by Pennsylvania State University Press. The editors wanted someone neutral on the issue and selected two American scholar which are Elinor Despalatovic and Andrei Simić. My edit is information from this source I quote: "According to the latest demographic studies and Elinor Despalatovic number of Serbs killed in the NDH is about 100,000 while according to Andrei Simić number is between 800,000 and one milion."

• Deletion of this information by one editor is marked as (WP:FRINGE) and second reason is ("Figures are not supported by serious scholars and the general consensus. One is ridiculously low, the other ridiculously high."). My answer was ("number of 800,000 and one milion in the book has been proven with four sources of historian mentioned by Andrei Simić and clame that many others prove this(see Balen 1952; Martin 1946: 47-67; Paris 1961; Pridonoff 1955: 79, among many others, It is RS, they are not all together fringe sources ").
• My opinion is that it is not (WP:FRINGE), Elinor Despalatovic claims that this number is from "latest demographic studies". Both two scholars have their claims in this RS and as additional information on the number of victims I think they should find their place in the article. Please tell me if this informations are Fringe theories or not. Thanks.Mikola22 (talk) 07:04, 1 June 2020 (UTC)